We got the first phone call just after 11 a.m. on Sunday, July 2, 2006. My husband Gregg was already home from church, starting Sunday dinner. When I walked in the house, just after noon, he told me, “Andrew’s in the hospital in California. They think he may be having a stroke.”

[caption id="attachment_1206" align="aligncenter" width="509"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrewnewborn2.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1206" title="Andrewnewborn2" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrewnewborn2.jpg" alt="" width="509" height="585" /></a> Andrew as a newborn[/caption]

But, at that point, Andrew’s friend and YWAM boss, Lisa, was telling us that Andrew was conscious and doctors were hopeful.  We began to discuss which one of us would fly out to California to be with Andrew and which would stay home and drive our youngest son Jonathan to Camp Glisson.

[caption id="attachment_1204" align="aligncenter" width="580"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/GD-A15months.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1204" title="GD&amp; A15months" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/GD-A15months-726x1024.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="818" /></a> Gregg and me, with Andrew when he was 15 months old[/caption]
<p style="text-align: left;">And we called friends and asked for prayer. And those friends called other friends.</p>
Lisa called again with a report, and then again a little later. Each call painted a grimmer picture of what was happening with our oldest son. He’d lost consciousness. . . . They’d had to intubate him to keep him breathing. . . . An MRI showed a bleeding brainstem stroke. . . . People rarely survive a brainstem stroke.

[caption id="attachment_1207" align="aligncenter" width="580"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrewkindergarten.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1207" title="Andrewkindergarten" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrewkindergarten-745x1024.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="797" /></a> Andrew in kindergarten[/caption]

Our friends Amanda and Greg called and offered to take Jonathan to Glisson. Our friend Wynn called and offered us his Delta frequent flyer miles and then called Delta and got us both on a plane non-stop to L. A.. My brother-in-law Jim called and told us that he and my sister Joan would drive us to the airport.

When Wynn called with our flight info, we had ten minutes to pack and leave the house. We walked back to our room, grabbed suitcases, threw things in them. Somehow we managed to climb in the car with Jim and Joan ten minutes after Wynn’s phone call. I packed a book on American Sign Language, but forgot to take a nightgown.

I will always associate the clothes I tossed in the suitcase that day with the events of the following 7 weeks.

[caption id="attachment_1208" align="aligncenter" width="600"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrewbaseball.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1208" title="Andrewbaseball" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrewbaseball.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="841" /></a> Andrew playing baseball at age 6[/caption]

Still in shock, we just chatted with Joan and Jim on the way to the airport. On the plane we were not seated together. We each sat alone in a jam-packed plane and wondered if our Andrew would still be alive when we arrived.

A friend of Andrew’s - neither of us remember who - drove us straight from the L.A. airport to Olive View Medical Center, a UCLA teaching hospital on the edge of the San Gabriel mountains.

I have no visual memory of walking in and seeing Andrew attached to all the tubes and machines. Shock can be a blessing that way.

[caption id="attachment_1127" align="aligncenter" width="580"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Andrew6mofingers.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1127" title="Andrew6mofingers" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Andrew6mofingers-717x1024.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="828" /></a> Andrew at 6 months old[/caption]

The first couple of days, Andrew’s life hung in the balance. We prayed. We cried. His YWAM friends came, hugged us and prayed with us over Andrew. And I sang.

Andrew was hooked up to a machine that took his blood pressure every 10 minutes. We watched the machine as his blood pressure zoomed up and down. Listened as the nurses urgently discussed what to do when the readings hit dangerous, stroke-level highs. Heard the panic in their voices as they called doctors and pharmacists and asked if there was <em>anything</em> else they could possibly try.

At one such panicky moment, in the first 24 hours we were there, the doctors and nurses had done all they knew to do to bring Andrew’s blood pressure back down, and nothing was helping. All signs indicated an emminent, almost-certainly fatal, second stroke.

[caption id="attachment_1167" align="aligncenter" width="480"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/AwithGGrandpaLewisGra.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-1167 " title="AwithGGrandpaLewisGra" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/AwithGGrandpaLewisGra.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="337" /></a> Andrew with his Dad, his Grandpa and his great-grandpa Lewis[/caption]

Not knowing what else to do, but wanting to do SOMETHING for my 26 year old baby, I started to sing to him. As I had done when he was little and needed to calm down enough to sleep. I’ve always believed the idea was inspired by God.

I sang Isaiah 43: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And the waves they will not overcome you. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are Mine. I am the Lord your God. I am the Holy One, of Israel, your Savior. Do not fear. Do not fear. I am the Lord.

And I sang: Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not. Thy compassions they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be. . . Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hast provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

[caption id="attachment_1209" align="aligncenter" width="580"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrew-grad.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-1209" title="Andrew grad" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrew-grad-776x1024.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="765" /></a> Andrew's high school senior photo[/caption]

And I sang Isaiah 40: Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, Creator of all the earth, never grows weary. He never gets tired. His understanding is beyong compare. And He will lift you up on eagle’s wings. He will give you strength. He will lift you up on eagle’s wings. Those who wait for Him.

And when I sang, Andrew calmed down. Just like he had as an active baby. And his blood pressure inched back down to safer levels.

[caption id="attachment_1205" align="aligncenter" width="479"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrew2010.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-1205 " title="Andrew2010" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Andrew2010.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="518" /></a> Andrew in 2010, watching his youngest brother film a baseball game[/caption]

More later about those seven weeks of our lives, and the way God’s hand moved in the life of our precious son.