Miracles For Our Bébé

03/10/2026

❤️😭🥰💉Update on Us 3/8/26-3/10/26

I’m writing this in the middle of the night from the CCU. The room is kind of dim except for the glow of monitors, and my baby is finally resting. My mind isn’t quiet and I know and feel that I do need sleep, but instead I’m watching my baby and the numbers on the screen, watching his breathing. That’s where my heart is right now,my focus. Our heart baby is back in the CCU.
Sunday night we went to my parents’ for dinner. It’s a short drive and one we’ve made so many times, but in that tiny stretch of road, everything shifted. By the time we pulled in, I could feel the heat off of Teaks. I had already given him Motrin earlier because something in me knew he wasn’t himself. That mama sense never lies.
The moment we walked in, my parents did what they always do: they loved us hard. They love our boys like they’re extensions of their own hearts. We are their world, and they are ours. Nobody has to ask for help because everyone just steps in naturally, the way true love and care is.
Dad took Teaks gently, held him close, and “walkie-walkied” him around the house the way only Paw-Paw can. He talked to him softly, rubbed his head, and we put a cool rag on him. He eventually fell asleep in Dad’s arms, but his breathing was heavier than it should be.
And our sweet Olen… our boy is connected to his Teakie in a way that feels heaven-made. Every time Teaks cried, Olen ran over with his whole little heart, whispering “it’s okay bruddhhhaa” in the softest voice, kissing his cheek with a “mmwah.” He watches over him like a tiny guardian. Their bond is something I thank God for every day-I prayed really hard to see it.
We ate Gee-Gee’s dinner and yummy…the kind that tastes like comfort and we soaked in the love that always fills their home. Then we headed back to our house. Zach took Teaks straight to bed, and Olen and I stayed up to play like we do. He needs his mama time too and same for me my Olen, and I treasure those moments.
Monday morning came early. Zach got Teaks up before work and said he seemed a little better. I put him in his high chair with Mrs. Rachel on, started his tube feed to get fluids and meds in him, and for a moment things seemed ok with Teaks.
Then near the end of the feed, he started crying harder. I stopped the feed, but he kept crying and getting hotter. I got him out, tried to calm him, hold him so close, and then he threw up everywhere…on himself, on me, on the floor. He looked up at me crying loudly with those eyes that say, “Mama, help me,” and I felt that ache only a mother knows.
Meanwhile my Olen was still soundly asleep, I had to get Olen to school, I had a 10am appointment, Zach was on call… and it was one of those days where life has many moving parts and you just breathe and move through each one.
I called my mama. She was in the shower but said she’d meet me at the school. She answers and beyond. She even brought me Starbucks, my exact what I get order (she just knows it), and a tumbler covered in hearts-the only one they had. It felt like a little sign meant for our heart family. She rode with me and Teaks to my appointment, and thankfully they still saw me.
We got a pediatrician appointment for 2:45PM for Teaks. With time in between, Mama took us to P.F. Chang’s because she knows Chinese food is my favorite and hers a good bit too. And in true Teaks fashion, his first fortune cookie said, “Your optimism will bring comfort to others.” That’s him because even sick, he carries light.
At the pediatrician, things changed fast. His fever was 103.7. His sats were dropping into the 70s and then the 60s. They swabbed him and sadly positive for rhinovirus. Every time he’s had this, he’s been hospitalized. I knew what was coming but still held hope for him to get away from the hospital.
They called Children’s for a direct admit, but we still had to go through the ER. They let me drive him, but made sure I knew they were concerned-his sats, the virus, and that they think this is likely just the beginning.
And here’s where the moving parts really began. We were an hour from home. Me and mama had one car. Zach was on call and at work. Dad was in Decatur. Olen was still at school. And Mama was with me.
Not a burden AND a lot to coordinate very quickly, a lot of love moving in different directions at once. Mama drove me and Teaks to Children’s ER so I could focus on Teaks-we can’t wait around in low sats, and then she turned right back around to get Olen. I called Olen’s school and they are truly family to us and they prayed over us and kept Olen safe through a tornado watch until Gee-Gee got there. Everyone doing their part, everyone loving our boys. In the ER, they had to stick him multiple times for labs and fluids. He hated it and me too. They put him on wall oxygen, which helped his sats, but his fever spiked again. He was admitted to the CCU. His fever has since broken, but he still needs oxygen. For a room-air baby like Teaks, needing oxygen tells you he is sick and needs help to breathe. Zach drove down after work, even though he’s on call. His coworkers offered to help cover him were grateful. He brought me a bag, a pillow, blankets, clothes for Teaks. He fell asleep on the couch in his work clothes. I showered around 1am here at the hospital. He woke up at 2:30amish to drive home so he could leave for work by 7:20AM.
Olen is with my parents. I didn’t get to see him…and that’s the part that tugs at me. He FaceTimed me, carrying the phone around saying “where are you mama? Mama sit,” then set the phone down so I could “play” with him. He loves his Gee-Gee and Paw-Paw, and they had dinner ready for him and Zach before Zach left. They always take care of us. We’re tired, but semi/trying our best to hold steady. We’re grateful always and not complaining. We’re doing what needs to be done for both our boys. Children’s is an hour away, and coordinating everything with one car (mine has to have maintenance) and two little ones was not simple, but we’re here, and we’re doing it.
And here’s the truth-we know this hospital well I’m gonna say our family here. We know these halls, these rooms, these machines. I know the way the monitors sound when they’re “happy” and when they’re not. I know how to read his sats before the numbers even change. I know how to advocate, how to comfort, how to hold him through things no baby should have to endure. I could be a nurse with everything I’ve learned maybe but I’m not. I’m his nurse, in the way only a mama can be. Not taking anything from the title of those of you who truly are and work damn hard for it, just honoring the way motherhood teaches you things you never expected to know.
Pray that Teaks holds his sats, that he doesn’t get worse, and that we can bring him home fast-the hospital can also give him other germs too. He’s a fighter, and he’s resting now with his oxygen.
It’s after 3am as I write this. My mind is loud, but my babies are resting, and that’s enough for this moment.
Thank you for standing with us. We love you all.

02/18/2026

Children's of Alabama is the best place to be! We are so grateful for the Hearts at Home program when Teaks was in his interstage period from Norwood to Glenn. They care so much and we had quick access to his team. 🤍 Thank you!!!!

https://buff.ly/s70iJBJ

02/16/2026

Please always keep the CVICU and CCU and all the bebes and families and hospital heroes in your prayers! Battles are being fought every second and we absolutely know prayer works.

02/16/2026

We love all of you with all of our heart ❤️ thank you for saving our baby Teaks! We love our CVICU and CCU family!

Congenital heart defects are the most common type of birth defects and can affect the structure of a baby’s heart and how it functions. In the United States, nearly 40,000 babies are born each year with a heart defect. ❤️‍🩹

The Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center of Alabama at Children’s of Alabama is a comprehensive cardiac center with more than 300 staff members specially trained to care for patients with congenital heart defects and other acquired cardiac conditions. The team physicians, including cardiologists, intensivists, surgeons and anesthesiologists, as well as nurses, respiratory therapists, perfusionists and numerous multi-disciplinary allied health professionals are dedicated to patient and family--centered care.

Some highlights of the center are:
-A 16-bed CCU (Cardiac Care Unit)
-A 20-room CVICU (Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit), including four ECMO suites
-Two dedicated cardiac operating rooms
-Three heart catheterization laboratories

02/16/2026

Mama & Dada

These pictures hold two people who have lived more life, more fear, more hope, and more heartbreak than most marriages ever touch…

two people who became parents through our miracle named Olen, who learned grief through a baby boy we never got to hold, and who watched Teaks fight his way back into this world more than once. Teaks heart stopped twice, and somehow he came back-
and we know Teaks is a miracle child who shocks people just by existing, a living reminder that impossible things sometimes choose us.
But in all that hospital living, all that trauma and waiting and praying, we felt a split we never wanted a distance from our Olen that tore at us in ways we still don’t have words for. Loving one child from a hospital bed while missing another from miles away is a kind of ache that rearranges you. And somehow, through all that breaking, our love didn’t soften
it hardened,
sharpened, came out stronger and more stubborn than before.
We’ve cried in the same corners,
fought in the same storms,
and held on to each other even when our hands were shaking.
Some days we pass each other like shadows in the chaos the mess,
the beauty,
the exhaustion,
the trying.
Some days I see you clearly,
and some days we miss each other completely
even while standing inches apart.
But we’re still here.
Still choosing.
Still staying.
Not leaving.
We started with distance
Texas and Alabama,
FaceTime calls that made my cheeks ache from smiling,
and a honeymoon full of your clumsy dance moves
that were somehow both ridiculous and attractive.
Back then, life felt light.
And then everything cracked open my PTSD hit hard,
and you were left holding a sadness you didn’t understand,
a heaviness you didn’t know how to carry
but somehow did anyway,
even when it bent you in ways no one else saw.
I look at these pictures and I see the wrinkles, the wear,
the way life has carved itself into us.
But I also see the faint outline of who we were,
and the stubborn, imperfect love of who we are now.
I love you, and I’m angry with you,
and I’m annoyed by you,
and I’m grateful for you
all at once, all the time.
Love can be beautiful, but it can be really ugly too,
and we’ve lived both sides without walking away.
This isn’t tempting anything
it’s just the truth of us.
Rare and wild things have always found us,
and somehow we’re still standing,
still choosing each other in the middle of it all.
We stay.
We aren’t leaving.
And that has to mean something.
Because through every storm, every miracle, every loss,
every moment we thought we couldn’t take one more breath,
I know this with a kind of certainty life can’t shake out of me:
I don’t just have someone with me
I have you.
The one person shaped by the same fires,
marked by the same miracles,
carrying the same impossible story in your bones.
What we have isn’t perfect,
but it’s rare, and it’s real,
and it’s ours
the kind of love that doesn’t just survive the unthinkable,
it understands it in a way no one else ever could.
And hey,
I wrote all this,
and yes, the eye rolls are still here,
and the love is still here too.
Both of them, right in the middle of all of this
which feels like us.
Love you babe.

02/14/2026

❤️February is Heart Month, and today had that bright, happy glow that makes this time of year feel extra special. So much love, so many sweet moments, and just an overall good‑vibe kind of day. It’s the kind of energy that reminds me why we show up and celebrate this month with our whole hearts.
It is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, my mind naturally goes to all our heart families. The ones walking this road right alongside us — the warriors, the parents, the siblings, the whole crew who understands this life in a way only they can. We’re sending love, strength, and a big virtual squeeze to every single one of you.
And of course, our hospital teams and heroes are always on our minds too. The nurses, doctors, techs, and staff who pour so much heart into caring for our bebes — you’re part of our story forever. We carry your kindness with us every day.
One of my favorite things about Heart Month is getting to look at each other outside hospital walls. Sunshine instead of beeping monitors. Real-life laughter instead of waiting-room pacing. Just us, living life and soaking in the moments we once wished for. Those simple things feel extra sweet.
To everyone who sent goodies, messages, and extra love today — thank you! You made the day brighter and remind us how supported we are on this journey .
And to our heart families: keep going! Keep celebrating the wins, big and small. Keep giving yourself grace. You’re doing amazing, even on the days you feel stretched thin.
Our hearts are full tonight — full of gratitude, full of love, full of the good stuff.

❤️What was your favorite part of today? What is your definition of love? Drop it in the comments and let’s keep the good vibes flowing.

02/04/2026

So incredibly thankful for all of our CVICU and CCU family. Saved my Teakie and so many.

01/30/2026

Big Brother Olen Saulahver

Sharing a picture of me and my Olen eating pizza — a moment my husband captured, and I love that he did, because he saw something enormous happening between us. This isn’t small. This isn’t ordinary. This is life‑giving. This is the kind of moment that rebuilds a person.
Olen… he is the greatest. Truly. He is beyond amazing in ways I will spend my whole life trying to describe. He shows me all miracles — every single one. Miracles that change you. The ones hidden in ordinary days. The ones you only notice when someone teaches you how to look.
He shows me the deepest joy I have ever known. A joy that doesn’t depend on anything going right. A joy that exists simply because he exists. A joy that reaches places inside me I once thought were gone.
He didn’t just make me a mama — he made me stay. He made me choose life when I didn’t know how to choose it for myself. He saved me simply by being who he is. His love is easy, genuine, grounding. It’s the kind of love that steadies you when the world feels too big or too frightening. It’s the kind of love that reminds you that even when life is scary, we can cling to each other and be okay.
He is curious, brilliant, gentle, wild, honest — all at once. He notices everything. He teaches me to slow down, to breathe, to see the world the way he does: full of wonder, full of magic, full of meaning. When he runs to me, when he holds me like I’m his whole world, something inside me settles. He thinks I’m the greatest person alive, but he is the one who made me someone worth becoming, he is the greatest.
Sharing pizza with him. Being with him. That’s where I want to be. I’ll capture every moment, hold every memory, and never apologize for how deeply I’m attached to him.
Share your pizza with me, bud. Tell me your dreams. Crawl all over me. Follow me from room to room. Show me what matters to you. Show me the way your mind works — the brilliance, the innocence, the truth.
And for anyone who thinks this is just a mom and her son eating pizza, here’s what they’re missing:
This isn’t about pizza. This is about a child whose love was strong enough to pull his mama back into her own life. This is about the greatest little person I’ve ever known — the one who shows me miracles, who shows me the deepest joy, who shows me that the world is still good, and who reminds me that even when life is scary, we can cling to each other and make it through.

01/25/2026

This video is from last year, and it still hits me in a place I can barely put into words. My baby died twice. He went through a Norwood open‑heart surgery. He was fighting for his life with more support than any mother should ever have to see. His 1st open-heart surgery was January 8th, and then came the long days… the kind that crush your chest and steal your breath. The kind where you pray harder than you ever have in your life and still feel like you’re breaking. It would be 16 days before I finally got to hold him in my arms again.
Those were long, heart‑shattering days of fear. Days of watching machines breathe for him. Days of not knowing if I would ever hold him again while he was still alive. Days where all I could do was hand everything over to God because I had nothing left but faith.
And God showed up. God kept him here. God let me hold my son again.
Yesterday, I held him tighter and tighter. And January 24th will never be ‘just a day’ to me. It’s the day that reminds me that God is always — always — a miracle worker. It’s the day that reminds me how deep a mother’s love runs, how it survives even the moments that try to destroy you.
I’m crying as I write this because this memory lives deep in my soul. It changed me forever. Hold and squeeze your babies — cherish EVERYTHING, every moment, every inch of them.

01/11/2026

Just in case you need to be reminded that miracles do happen. ❤️

12/25/2025

I open up Facebook and it asks what’s on my mind…so much this Christmas. Christmas Eve is my Teakie’s 1st birthday-he made it, quite literally mean that. He survived. I can’t help but be so emotional in the most joyful and grateful way. Thank you to everyone that wished him the bestest birthday and spoke of the value of his life. Him and Olen will always be the best gifts to me, from Our God who we celebrate so fervently. I sit in miracles. Looking at him and Olen together, being home this Christmas I don’t take any of it for granted. You can’t explain living in a hospital and the difference a year can make and the gravity of what our God can do and has done. On this 23rd of December I got to return to Children's of Alabama with my thriving boy Teakie; returned there with him alive and out of the CVICU. It’s a moment I dreamt of coming to fruition. This time I came with him to deliver cards that Olen and his classmates specifically and so sweetly made for the CVICU. I have to be honest, while there I was not going to go into the unit with Teaks, I was going to stay in the heart lobby and pass the cards along to those as they came through and my sweet friend, family, our Auntie Stephanie McBride Jacobs encouraged me to go press that button and go into the CVICU with Teakie in his well state to rewalk those halls with him and love on our family in there with him laughing rather than fighting for his life; I felt fear going back in-the floor brought so much trauma, so much joy, but so much flashback to hopelessness and helplessness, exhaustion, sobbing. This time in there it was joy over and over non stop, he did it, God did it, standing in completely different place in our souls. I can’t explain it. I needed to rewalk those halls with him and receive the hugs and love that he survived. I can’t explain the greatfulness I feel. I haven’t had my phone much today to intentionally soak everything in. I’m so glad God let me keep Teaks. I’m so glad God blessed me and chose me to be Olen and Teaks mama. I’m so glad our Savior came into this earth to save us. This Christmas truly is magical. I can’t even tell how much God is in the works heavily in these moments. We started off Teaks birthday at Waffle House in Oneonta. He ate the best he ever has sitting up in the high chair for the whole meal and one of his waiters was a sweet young lady who also is a fellow heart warrior and recently had an ASD repair. So many fighters in the path and all around us. So many beautiful and messy roads. The Waffle House staff in Oneonta asked to take our picture and thanked us tearfully for allowing them to witness a Christmas miracle. Miracles. So many miracles. Pray continually. Without ceasing. Praise continually. Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus, Happy Birthday Teaks, and the deepest gratitude of being with my Olen and Teaks.

12/21/2025

If Taylor Swift ever sees this, I want to thank her, and her to know she was my Teaks’ very first concert! And that moment meant more than anyone could possibly imagine. We watched from home, him curled into me the way only he can, while I sang, we swayed, and he let out those soft little giggles that feel like pure grace.
I held him and felt that overwhelming, soul‑deep gratitude that only comes from knowing how close we came to losing him. My little heart warrior has spent over half his life in the CVICU. Months of surgeries, setbacks, miracles, and nights where all I could do was pray over his tiny body. He has fought for every heartbeat, every breath, every moment he gets on this earth.
So tonight just music, love, and my Teakie safe in my arms, and this is not just sweet. It is sacred. A moment I once feared I’d never get.
Every second with him is significant. Every second is a gift I will never take for granted. Go hug your babies and spend the most time wrapping them in your arms.