If you know us, you know our personal experience with losing a child to SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.  We did not lose our son due to nutritional deficiencies, as is outlined in this testimony.  This was confirmed via autopsy.  However, the story below is powerful food for thought for all new moms! Please read and consider!  If you have experienced this type of loss or know someone else who has, please leave thoughts and comments. I would love to connect with you!

Even if you have not experienced this type of loss, I would still love to hear from you. Thanks all!

“15 years ago I gave birth to the loveliest little girl. My labor was the very best of all my labors and her Apgars were 9 and five minutes later 10.  Our family was complete. We had our boy and now our precious daughter.  Whitney was so pretty and I was instantly in love.

That long ago, I had to demand “rooming in,” and boy, an I glad I did.  In her first night, I heard “agonal breathing.”  That is a nursing word as I was an ICU nurse.  I was used to hearing this breathing in the last stages before a person died.  I woke up terrified and shook the baby.  She started breathing normally for a few hours, and then we started over.

This scenario went on for 6 month.  She wore an apnea monitor, and if she forgot to breathe for more than 20 seconds, it would alarm.  The first six months of her life the monitor went off so many times of the day I became frantic.

I would rush to the bed and blow in her face or shake her or pick her up (for baby resuscitation all of these are the first treatments to get the babies to breath).  Talk about nerve racking.  What is the balance between shaking the baby to get her to breath and shaking the baby too hard (shaken baby syndrome—you kill your precious child).  I did not know what to do, and it was awful.

One night when she was 4 month old, we had to do this for hours.  The pediatrician said at some point we would become exhausted, and she would go see Jesus.  That is when we prayed and released her to go home.

She made it through the night, and we continued to have our bedside rush to blow, shake or rub her chest for another month.  Then one day, I asked someone in my church if they had anything for stress.  (I had 4 foot long shelf full of vitamins and didn’t believe the Shaklee vitamins could be any different.)  I started with the Vita-Lea Multivitamin and B-Complex.

It took 3 days before my urine turned yellow taking my one B-complex and 2 Vita-Lea.  But 2 days later, my baby over slept.  We didn’t resuscitate her all night.  I was sure the machine was broken, and it was terrifying to walk close to the crib.  She was peaceful and her breathing was perfect.

That morning as I pumped my breast milk, it was a different color.  It looked like it had with my first child—thick and creamy and white.  I had earlier questioned my pediatrician about my milk, and we tested it.  My breast milk was textbook milk, thin and bluish in color.  My baby was thriving weight wise.  She developmentally looked perfect, so why had my milk changed.  My ONLY change was adding Shaklee vitamins.

The story is long but gets better.  I, as a nurse, spent every extra moment trying to disprove Shaklee.  I went to the pharmacy and the health food store and did label checking.  I couldn’t believe that the other brands of vitamins were so bad until 4 months later.

I had bought the big sizes of product for the price guarantee.  We got rid of the apnea monitor because Whitney was fine.  When we ran out of Shaklee, no problem.  Then about 6 weeks to 2 months after we ran out, she started in again.  She was fretful and breathed funny.  I was taking my “prenatals and found one busted open inside its bottle.  I threw it in the toilet and it never dissolved (3 days later it had still never dissolved).

The nurse in me tried other experiments.  We used pure vinegar and the prenatal still never dissolved.  I was so grossed out, so I bought more Shaklee and 3 days later Whitney was healthy again.  What a mind blower! Over the next several months, I began to learn about Shaklee and tried going off the Shaklee vitamins again.   The same exact thing happened to Whitney.  It took the 2 month before she got sick again….That is when I began to think of SIDS.  Could SIDS or a portion of the SIDS deaths be a nutritional deficiency instead of a positioning problem?  Could it be that the babies could sleep on their tummies or backs or sides or whatever and it could be nutrition?

I don’t know.  I now of NO way to test my theory.  With my next 2 children, I used Shaklee as my prenatal and we had no apnea problems.  My kids were healthy.  I did find a great article in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association which stated that 6 out of 9 prenatals never even dissolve (do the others absorb?  It doesn’t say!).

I don’t know if this will help, but my beautiful teenage daughter Whitney is still beautiful and has NO breathing problems at age 15.

Debi Schroeder

Decisions-President

“Better Health IS an Important Daily Decision”

Today we are celebrating Hosea’s fourth Bday! While he was born on Palm Sunday, today is his actual birthday.

In the past few years, it has felt like we braced for impact of the wide range of emotions that the day would hold. I’m sure this is perfectly normal. “Marker days” are tough, no matter how healed  your heart is. These days just seem to remind us even more of how much we miss Hosea.

However, we are trying a little something different this year.  We are going to try to actually celebrate his life and birth. I have not been in a place to celebrate his life until this year. And while celebrating may not be fanfare and blow out parties, I think the Lord has allowed our hearts to heal enough to see that his life is worth celebrating because he is very much alive. God is the God of the living, not the dead. So Hosea is alive today…more alive than you or I even. So today, I will celebrate his life.

It is different when you lose a infant because their birthday is followed so closely by their “Heaven Day.”  It has been a hard thing the past 3 years to try to “celebrate” or remember his birthday without it being quickly over-shadowed by the day he passed away (May 6…exactly 4 weeks after he was born).  Has anyone else lost a child or loved one that has those two days so close together? I’m wondering how others have dealt with this harsh reality–that birth and death days follow so closely behind each other.

Has anyone out there lost a loved one that has any thoughts on how they spend that special “marker day?” I would love to hear your comments and ideas.

I’m not sure what the day will end up looking like, but for right now, we are making pancakes (a tradition on someone’s birthday) and are headed off to the park or Jump Zone (something we do on the kids’ birthdays as well). Hosea, we celebrate you today!

As I write this morning, there is sadness mixed with so much thankfulness at all God has done in Nathan and I over the past 4 years. I’m so thankful that I can be sad, cry, and miss my son without going to the dark depths of depression that I once got sucked into the moment I let myself “go there.” God has redeemed, and is redeeming, all that the enemy has stolen. The fullness of this redemption continues to be unveiled as we choose to live one day at a time, trusting in his faithfulness, goodness, and steadfast love.

Four years ago, on Palm Sunday 2006 (his birthday is actually April 9), Hosea Nathan Oates came into the world at 1:09 am.  Palm Sunday is the day when they said “Hosanna, Hosanna,” i.e. “Come save! Come save!”  Yeshua, or Jesus, means “Salvation” and so does Hosea.

Over the past 2 years especially, God has began to take us on an incredible journey of discovering who He is at a deeper level. This word, “Salvation” has come to mean more then just “Get out of hell free.”  Salvation in Greek is Sozo, which means “Saved, healed, and delivered.”  When Christ died, he purchased so much more than forgiveness of sins for us! The whole package is forgiveness and salvation from our sins, healing for our bodies, and deliverance from evil-”sozo.”

So today, I reflect on all that I receive in my Savior’s salvation and the numerous specific instances where his “sozo” has been so evident, times where I thought I would not make it and could not go on with the pain that was in my heart. He is Savior, Healer, and Deliverer!

I love how God works in seeming paradoxes. While I am not thankful for how the enemy has stolen from us, I am thankful that Hosea’s death has been a catalyst for so much life.  How can this be?  Well, because we do not serve a God who is the God of the dead. He is the God of the living. Matthew 22:32 says, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead.”  God said he was the God of those three men long after the has passed away. And is didn’t say “I WAS there God.” No, he IS there God because they are very much alive, even today. One day we will see them all! So my son is not dead. He is very much alive and always has been. It’s not “I loved my son, but I love my son.”  He is alive!

As a mom and dad, we will always ache for our son–he is a piece of our flesh and blood. I’m reminded daily as I watch my children grow that there is a “gap” between Eden and Asher where Hosea’s little head should be. So I have moments where I cry and let out the sadness, and then I resolve all over again to trust.

And to choose to remember this (and it IS a choice….not easy, but possible by His grace): Easter is all about the resurrection of Jesus. Because of this wonderful gift of resurrection life, we do not mourn as the world mourns. Because He live, Hosea lives. Thank you Lord.