Miracles

This is the account of Baby Nicholas as told by his parents Let us start in November 1995.Alex and I were engaged in mid November 1995. I was attending the University of Texas at Austin , and Alex was on Co-Op working at Nortel in Richardson , Texas .Alex was taking the semester off from UT to gain experience in the “Real World” of computer science.

Alex and I loved each other very much, and we often drove back and forth from Austin or Dallas to see each other during the weekends. On November 17, 1995 , Alex was driving to meet me in Austin . I was working at the church day care that evening and was expecting him to arrive late afternoon. However, it was very stormy weather that evening, and I called him at work that morning to remind him to drive safely. That particular weekend, Alex and I were going to look at engagement rings. We were so excited.

However, the rain and traffic in Austin were awful that night, and Alex spun in the rain and collided with a woman in the opposite lanes just outside of Round Rock. Alex was rushed to the hospital. His car was totaled. There was nothing left of the car itself. The officers said that if I had been in the car with him, I would have died instantly and well as Alex. Alex recalls praying to God to save him from the deadly accident, and to his amazement, God did spare Alex’s life. However, Alex suffered a pneumothorax, his lung was basically leaking, and his lung cavity was filling with air. Alex was hospitalized for weeks, and his lungs have still not fully recovered to this day.

God truly saved Alex from a horrible accident. We were married two years later, May 31, 1997.

After a year of marriage, I found out that it would be very difficult to have children.

I suffered from polycystic ovaries. We tried for years to have a child. In the Fall of 2001, I was reading the “Prayer of Jabez”. Our pastor at church had preached a sermon on this book, and I finally took him at his word and read the book. I, too, asked God, like Jabez, to bless me and my family.I prayed to God that he would “bless us and bless us real good”. In addition, I was drawn during my quiet times to women in the Bible that had trouble having children. I specifically was drawn to Sarah, Rebecca, Sampson’s mother, and Samuel’s mother. I read that God had indeed blessed them with great sons. Sons that were very special to God…Sons that became prayer warriors and warriors for God. Two weeks later, Alex and I were pregnant. Alex sat in total shock…of course, we didn’t know what to think. We had tried for years to have a baby, and now, we were having one. We “were blessed” by God.

Because of my past problems and blood pressure, Alex and I were termed “a high risk pregnancy”. I had to visit the doctor every two weeks, take blood pressure medicines, change my diet, and have frequent ultrasounds with a specialist (Dr. Carol Brown-Elliott).

I experienced unusual bleeding during my first trimester. We thought that we were going to lose the baby.

At 22 weeks, we attended our regularly scheduled ultrasound with Dr. Carol Brown-Elliott. She was scared to death, and she told us that we were going to lose the baby. He was too small for his gestational age, and that I was having absent flow from the placenta to him. He was getting oxygen only during my heart beats. She admitted me to the hospital on bed rest. She said that the most that we could hope for was a delivery at 24 weeks, and at that, the baby would have very little hope for surviving.

We made it… 24 weeks! Dr. Carol Brown-Elliott said that it was a miracle, and she admitted to us that she had had little hope that I would have made it to 24 weeks.

We started having daily ultrasounds in order to check the blood flow and stress in the baby. She encouraged us to take the steroid shots for baby lung development…just in case we needed to deliver within the next several days to weeks. Everyday, Dr. Carol Brown-Elliott was surprised to see us return to her office. I was still on bed rest in the hospital. She told us that it was a miracle that the baby was still here. She said that God was providing and that we needed to begin praying for specific requests for the baby. We prayed to make it 28 weeks, we prayed for good lung development, and we prayed for good blood flow. During ultrasound, Dr. Carol Brown-Elliott would comment on how well the baby moved and responded. The baby loved peanut butter and loved to move and groove inside me.

Nicholas Alexander Culp was born, March 5, 2002 at 12:25pm . Dr. Carol Brown-Elliott had seen reverse blood flow between the placenta and the baby…it was his birthday. The doctors were amazed at how well a 14..6oz baby was doing. Nicholas had two good days before the “Black Thursday” . Nicholas’s ductus in his heart did not close, and he was experiencing lung hemorrhages. His doctor, Dr. Amjad, said that it was time to make a decision. “How far do you want us to go” Alex and I were deeply pained. We made the decision that Nicholas was not to suffer. If it was God’s will, we decided to allow him to be with his father in Heaven.

Our entire family was in the waiting room of the hospital along with close friends, church ministers, and church family. We prayed for a miracle. We prayed that God would protect our baby. We prayed that God would save him some how.

Dr. Amjad told us that Nicholas needed his ductus closed by a surgeon. However, Nicholas was so unstable that he would not make it through the surgery, but God provided. God provided us with Dr. Herman. Dr. Herman was convinced that he did not want to do the surgery. He felt, however, that the surgery was the only way to save Nicholas’s life. The doctors prepared him for surgery. Dr. Amjad said that it was likely that Nicholas would not make it through the surgery…he was much too small…he was much too sick…the odds were against him.

Our pastor and children’s minister from church began praying with us. They, too, asked our Father, God to bring miracles to Nicholas and work through Dr. Herman.

Nicholas survived the surgery. Dr. Amjad told us, at a later date, that Nicholas’s odds were 1 to 1,000,000. We know that it wasn’t the odds. It was a miracle from God. God had granted Nicholas a successful surgery. There was not a dry eye in the waiting room. Penny, our children’s minister, lead us in a prayer of GREAT THANKS to our Father.

Nicholas is a fighter. He is a gift from God. He was a promise and blessing to both Alex and myself as well as our family. God has an ultimate plan. I don’t know what is in store for our family or Nicholas. However, I do know that there is a God, there is only one God, and he performed a miracle.

Dr. Herman, last week, confessed that he truly thought that Nicholas would not survive….it was a medical miracle. We know that Nicholas survived that night and each day that he lives because of God. God has a special plan for Nicholas. We personally do not know how long Nicholas will be on this Earth, but we do know that he is a part of God’s plan. We pray that Nicholas’s story can be shared to those that don’t believe so that they may be saved. We pray that Nicholas will serve as part of God’s great Plan. We know that he is a GIFT from Heaven. We look back at the trials that we have fought…no wonder why Nicholas is so special. God is an Awesome God!

Please tell Nicholas’s story to all. We pray that his testimony will find and bring those that are lost to God.