Bria B.

Having a sick baby in the NICU almost made me stop believing in God.

When he was born, I prayed for my son constantly & I found scriptures that I leaned on to help supplement my faith.

I read about how if you had faith you could move mountains (Matt 17:20)

I read about how a woman who had been sick her whole life touched Jesus, she was healed by faith (Matt 9:20-12)

I read about how a man who was even healed by his friends faith (Mark 2:1-12)

So I just knew all I had to do was have faith and my baby would be healed …. So when the doctors came in our room one day and said “Your son is really sick, we’ve tried a bunch of different things and nothing is working….”

I was like wait.

Why is this happening? I thought I just had to have faith? I pray constantly. Why is he so sick? Is faith not enough? Does God even hear me? Is any of what I’ve been reading even real?

I thought about what would happen if I just gave up and stopped believing in God. I could either have faith or not. I could either choose to have hope or be hopeless.

So I decided to believe despite everything around me telling me that maybe I shouldn’t.

This journey has taught me I need to stop trying to control my life and my son’s life by trying to “earn” healing. 100 prayers a day wasn’t going to result in a prize.

I am learning EVERYTHING is out of my control EXCEPT a positive perspective & a loving presence.

So instead of questioning the past & why I ended up in this place & instead of anxiously awaiting the future and preparing for what’s to come…

I learned to take it day by day.

TODAY my baby is alive

TODAY I believe that he will be healed

TODAY I’m trusting that he will have a good day.

And the days have compounded. In the 135 days we’ve spent in the hospital, we have had far more good days than bad ones.

I still believe that God is healing by baby and keeping him and protecting him. His is testimony is already my favorite!

Having a baby in the NICU for almost 5 months has been emotionally, mentally, and physically difficult. My husband and I go to the hospital every single day to spend hours at his bedside. At times, the hospital staff wouldn’t allow us to hold him so all we could do was watch through the incubator windows.

The hardest part is feeling so helpless as our baby gets poked and prodded every day - getting blood transfusions, surgeries, and being pumped with medications to help him live. I am grateful to God that modern medicine has allowed babies to have the support they need after being born so early, but all he really needed was more time inside me and all of this pain would have been avoided.

So as parents we do the only thing we know to do: show up for him every day and pray without ceasing.

“Babies born at 23 weeks have about 30-40% survival rate” is what the doctors kept telling me.

Going into my c section, I was trying to prepare myself that anything could happen. I was praying “God please help me out of here. Please save me”

I felt them tugging on my insides and after a while they raised a tiny baby in the air so that I could see. They said “here is your baby!” and I heard the faintest cry scurry from his lips.

In that moment, a feeling I’ve never felt flooded my entire body. I felt like my heart might explode & I started to sob uncontrollably.

My prayer shifted from “God please save me” to “God, PLEASE save my baby.”

They intubated him immediately so he could breathe - since his lungs weren’t mature enough to do it on their own - and they whisked him away to the NICU.

He was born at just 1 pound 3 ounces - living proof of what the mercy of God can do. Three days later, I got to hold him for the first time ❤️

Everything happened so fast. Exactly 7 days after I “randomly” went to the hospital, I had to decide if I wanted to give my baby a better chance at survival by keeping him in, or give myself the best chance at survival by getting him out

In just 7 days I:
- gained 20 pounds
- saw an even higher increase in blood pressure
- was losing kidney function
- had elevated liver enzymes
- developed HELLP syndrome

The only way to stop this aggressive deterioration of my organs, was to give birth. The only problem was at just 23 weeks, my baby only had a 30-40% survival rate.

I hate that I ever had to be put in a position to have to make a decision like this. My husband said, we’re going to have this C Section and this baby is going to have to fight.

I look back at this video and just shake my head…. If only I had known.

I had every textbook preelampsia symptom & still didn’t believe my body was in distress. I’m just laughing and giggling while I struggled with extremely high blood pressure, headache, chest pain, shortness of breath, swollen feet, and a swollen face.

I didn’t want to believe it because:
- I have always been healthy.
- I was only 22 weeks.
- I had never had high blood pressure
- I thought you just had these symptoms as a pregnant person
- This stuff happens to other people, not me.

Y’all I didnt even want to go to the doctor because I thought my husband, line sister and GOOGLE were being dramatic! You know what’s more dramatic? The doctors coming in my room only SIX DAYS later saying “if you don’t have this baby today, neither one of you may make it out alive”

I was so excited to be pregnant. I had waited so long to see myself with a big beautiful belly but after 22 weeks, all my excitement ended abruptly. Up until that point I had been having the most normal, uneventful pregnancy. I have always been healthy. In fact I was the most healthy I had ever been. My labs didn’t indicate that anything was wrong. I had never had any health complications before.

I didn’t expect this. I wasn’t prepared for this. I thought I did everything right? Why did this happen to me?

My gender reveal was the only “normal” celebration I got to have while pregnant.
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When found out I was pregnant, it took me a while to really come to terms with what was happening… I was actually having a whole baby!

I was feeling kicks every now and then and I got glimpses of facial features in the 1 or 2 ultrasounds you’re allowed to have in the first trimester but I was still left wondering who was this person growing in my belly.

After my gender reveal, I felt that much closer to my baby, and I knew I was meant for this bond.

The only reason why I haven’t tried to have a baby up until this point is because I’ve been TERRIFIED. Terrified of what could happen… terrified about what I would be giving up…

My mom told me something one day that changed my perspective immediately. She told me I need to stop thinking about motherhood in terms of what I would be lose, and start thinking about what beautiful experiences I would gain BECAUSE of the life I would bring into this world.

Chile I past me was PREACHING to future me in this video. I have to keep telling myself I was made for this journey and God isn’t giving me anything that I’m not equipped to handle.

June 8th, 2026 was supposed to be my due date. Boy oh boy, do I have a story time for y’all.