On his blog, Rick Warren started one post by saying, “All life is sacred. It is the mentality of, ‘some lives matter more than others’ that caused the Holocaust. That was the mentality of Hitler: ‘Some people are more important than others. So we’ll just wipe out the weak, the infirmed, the aged, or people we disagree with.‘ Today we even see it in young couples that are expecting and hear, ‘We hate to tell you this, but your baby may have a birth defect.’ And the couple starts considering abortion.”
Although David and Dana Nesmith have not read that blog, they understand this pressure very well. Her pregnancy was deemed a “high-risk” pregnancy long before Owen Nesmith was ever born. Owen’s mom and dad decided that every life matters and went against the constant pressure of the doctor to terminate the pregnancy. They were told that Owen had liver, heart, and brain problems. They finally found another doctor who would help them find solutions rather than constantly pressure them to end the pregnancy.
However, this story starts long before these moments. David and Dana met through the Sagemont Singles Sunday School class and married in 2001. As with many young couples, they wanted to start a family. Nathan was their firstborn son and was born August 29, 2002, five weeks early. Every parent’s worst fears were realized as they learned that he was born with a birth defect. Nathan’s lungs weren’t fully developed and he had Hyaline membrane disease, a condition in newborn babies in which the lungs are deficient in surfactant, preventing their proper expansion and causing the formation of hyaline material in the lung spaces. He needed to be on a ventilator, which caused him to develop a pneumothorax, a hole in his lung. The doctors had a very hard time repairing this condition, which caused his blood gasses to rise to a very dangerous level. When Nathan was five days old the doctors were preparing David and Dana for the worst. Dana said, “My first baby, the baby I haven’t even been able to hold was about to go to Jesus and I was not prepared to give him back. David tried to talk to me about God’s will and ultimate plan, but I was hoping that the power of prayer would pull him through.
Strangers would come to Nathan’s private room within the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) and pray with David and Dana, and pray over their sweet baby boy. Dana reflects, “I do not know how someone without faith could go through such a traumatic event.” Our gracious God heard and answered the love and prayers of so many. They were able to bring Nathan home when he was one month old. God healed him and he is now a 13-years-old. He is an amazing big brother, he loves sports, is in all honors classes, but best of all, he has a heart for Christ.
They said, “Spending so much time in the hospital, you see so many tragedies and families that have gone through such hardships. We are constantly reminded how blessed we are to be where we are today.” David and Dana believe that part of the reason God spared Nathan’s life was that he was soon going to be an amazing brother to a little guy with special needs. Nathan’s little brother, Owen, was born 14 months later. Owen was born at 31 weeks, two months premature.
Before his birth, their high-risk doctor told David and Dana that Owen had problems with his liver and brain. They also diagnosed him with Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a birth defect that affects normal blood flow through the heart. As the baby develops during pregnancy, the left side of the heart does not form correctly. The doctor told them Owen would need immediate surgery when he was born. They had this diagnosis confirmed by a second doctor. The doctor constantly asked them to consider terminating the pregnancy, stating that life would be very difficult both for them and for baby Owen. However, they were not willing to consider abortion as an alternative and began searching for a doctor who would help them through these uncertain times rather than suggest terminating the pregnancy.
At 24 weeks of pregnancy, Dana began hemorrhaging and was placed in the hospital on bed rest for what the doctors called “complete placenta previa.” She was in the hospital for six weeks. After she experienced several hemorrhages, the doctor decided to perform an emergency Caesarean section because the situation was not looking good for baby Owen. The doctor had the cardiac team on standby for the emergency heart surgery he would need. However, when Owen was delivered and the heart team did their assessments, they could find no heart issues at all. The doctor admitted that there is no explanation for it, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with his heart. They knew immediately that they were experiencing a miracle. They had to keep him in the hospital for just over two months to get him to his original due date and so that he could get stronger.
Things seemed to be going OK for the family until Owen had his first seizure at the age of three. The first one happened while Nathan and Owen were staying with Dana’s mother, Deirdre’ Hedrick a.k.a Mimi. She remembers going upstairs to check in on the boys and saw Owen having a seizure. She prayed over him while waiting for the ambulance. Over the next two years, the doctors tried several medications, some making his seizures worse. When Owen was five, he started having multiple seizures daily. They then went to Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital where he was given the diagnosis of Status Epilepticus, a condition in which the brain is in a constant state of seizing. He was admitted to the hospital immediately where doctors tried to control his seizures, but they were not successful. Because he would not stop seizing, they had to perform an emergency surgery to separate the right and the left hemispheres of his brain. The purpose of this surgery was to determine where the problem lay within the brain. When a brain is in that active state, the thought is that if communication is disabled between the two hemispheres, doctors will be able to figure out where the problem lies. The surgery successfully stopped the constant seizing. Although the seizing stopped, other issues presented. Owen’s face became paralyzed on one side due to a problem with the back of the brain at the top of the spinal cord known as Chiari Malformation. By the time Owen was six years old, he underwent another brain surgery to fix this problem.
A year later, his brain started seizing again on the left side. In September 2009 the doctors informed the Nesmiths that the seizures were uncontrollable with his medications and that if they could find the source of the problem, they would be able to extract the part of the brain that was causing all of the seizures. They cut open the left side of his skull and placed electrodes directly on his brain to “map” his brain so that they could pinpoint the exact area where the seizures started. The doctors were satisfied with the data they collected and they determined that they needed to go in and take out a part of Owen’s brain that was about the size of a walnut.
When Owen woke up from the surgery, he was paralyzed on his right side. Four days after surgery, he went to the children’s rehab hospital to learn how to walk again and to use his left hand since his right hand was so weak. After two weeks in the children’s rehab Hospital, Owen was able to run out of the hospital. Their amazing Sagemont Church family along with the knowledge that they witnessed a true miracle from God constantly amaze Dana and David.
Dana noted,
Through our struggles in the hospital with both Nathan and with Owen, we have felt the love of our precious Father from so many people at Sagemont Church. We were visited by so many. I remember when Laura and Raymond McGee came to visit at the hospital, they were Owen’s Sunday School teachers, and they blessed us beyond words when they gave of their time and cash gifts to help with our parking expenses. The countless meals and special prayers from our Sunday School class kept our spirits up. We were thankful to enjoy the sweet blessings from Hiram Woolsey and Rex Forsyth on a regular basis. We certainly would not have made it through these difficult times without my mother and grandmother, Gloria Kennerty, who gave of themselves so unselfishly when we needed them the most. There are so many more that touched our lives during these difficult times, and we couldn’t be more thankful.
Owen enjoyed all of his visitors, and was especially happy to see the football team and cheerleaders from Deer Park High School. They came to visit and brought gifts and played Wii with Owen. Another favorite visitor was Allie Otto the Great Dane service dog and Ms. Lisa.
Once Owen had healed from his brain surgeries and his seizures stopped, they were able to focus on his scoliosis. He had been diagnosed when he was seven years old and his back progressively got worse. He has two curves and both were at or above 50 degrees. David and Dana took Owen to the Shriners’ Hospital in Houston. They referred Owen to the Philadelphia location and the Nesmiths began going back and forth to Philadelphia for Owen’s spinal surgeries. Although his back is not straight, the surgeries and treatments were helpful. At this time, his curves are not progressing.
What amazes the family and all who know Owen is his sweet spirit. Grandmother Deirdre’ remembers, “He never cried before the surgeries or after them. He just did what he needed to do.” She also says, “Many people in many churches have prayed for Owen over the years and he has been an inspiration to so many.”
Owen loves baseball and once he learned to walk and run again, he went back to baseball. He missed one season with his brain surgery and one season due to his spine surgery but was determined to get back. To come back, he had to relearn how to play ball left-handed. Two years later, he is still learning how to work around having a weak right hand, but he is out on the fields every season and gives his all.
Although the family has gone through many milestones with Owen, Dana and David said the best day with Owen happened in March 2013. Dana said, “I was driving him to baseball practice when he asked me to lead him in a prayer to ask Jesus into his heart.” Dana said, “Being Owen’s parents isn’t without its challenges, surgeries, seizures, back braces, medicines, medical bills, but the rewards of being his parents are far greater than any challenge!”
Throughout all they have been through, the doctor who tried many times to convince them to terminate the baby, the surgeries, the number of times they have prayed for him, and the times they still pray for him, the miracles of God and his amazing grace are evident. Owen just recently turned 12 and is now making straight A’s in Junior High.