Ruptured Aneurysm Leaves Pregnant Wife's Life on the Line

“I could see immediately that something wasn’t right.”

Nate and his wife Anna were getting ready to go for a bike ride one Saturday morning when she got what they thought was another migraine.

“She had had headaches quite a bit in the past,” Nate recalls. “So I got her some Tylenol and thought we’d manage the headache.”

Anna started throwing up and having stomach cramps.  Now Nate felt a wave of panic; Anna was 26 weeks pregnant.  Moments later, she collapsed.  

“I called 911 right away, explained what was going on,” Nate remembers. “And they had me ask her to lift both of her arms above her head. And her right arm went right up and her left arm didn’t move at all.”

Anna was rushed to the ER, where a cat scan showed a ruptured brain aneurysm. Nate could lose his wife and his baby.

“I didn’t know if I was going to get my wife back how she was before, or if she’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life or if she’d pass away,” says Nate.

Nate immediately sent out a call to prayer.

“I wanted to get the word out there. I knew it was serious and I knew that the more prayer we had, the more people we had interceding on our behalf, the better the outcome would be.”

Neurosurgeon Dr. Justin Singer said that to save both mother and baby, Anna would need a dangerous surgery to clip the aneurysm

“Oftentimes, it’s fatal early on when the aneurysm ruptures,” says Dr. Singer. “Of all the people who survive, about 70% of them have some sort of neurologic impairment following the brain hemorrhage.”

The surgery was successful, but a few days later, Anna developed a vasospasm – a constricting of the blood vessels–which reduced blood flow in her brain.  The pressure in her brain was rising.

“She’s also at a risk of having strokes from that vasospasm, which is really one of the main things that causes people to have permanent neurologic disability afterwards,” Dr. Singer says.

Doctors inserted a drain to relieve the pressure and treat the vasospasms.  Meanwhile, as family and friends continued to pray, Nate says God gave him a sign of encouragement.

“I came home, and we had a piece of mail there was a large hand on it, like a daddy’s hand and then a little baby’s hand just holding on. Just a little child grasping at their…at their daddy’s hand and that’s just exactly how I felt through the entire event. There was a Bible verse on it about not fearing and God’s got you taken care of. God just said, ‘Hey, I’m here with you.”’

The vasospasms subsided after a week, but Anna’s brain pressure had become critical.

“Normally the pressure in our brain at any given time is between a 10 and a 15,” Nate explains. “They said that number’s been elevated between a 16 and a 20.
I spent some time in prayer. Praying in the name of Jesus, the name that’s –the name that’s above every other name out there. Just praying that God would heal my wife fully and completely, and I said, ‘If you’re going to heal her completely, I want to see a number twelve on that screen.’”

Seconds later…

“It dropped down to a twelve long enough for me to take a picture with my phone and then it went back up to between sixteen and eighteen. Words can’t describe, you know, the feeling that I had after that. Just knowing that the creator of the universe that literally holds the matter of the universe together, this huge powerful God, was right there in that room with me.”

Over the next few days, Anna’s brain pressure stabilized, and she was released from the hospital within the week. Then on December 30th, just thirteen weeks later, Anna delivered Hudson, a healthy, baby boy.

“He came out at ten pounds, two ounces,” says Anna. ‘“So he was just a big boy. And even that, I think that’s just God’s way of saying like, ‘I got this.’
During the actual brain surgery, they were monitoring Hudson and at one point they thought they lost his heartbeat. So they rushed in an ultrasound machine. And they found that the reason they couldn’t hear his heartbeat was because it was perfectly in sync with mine. And I just think that’s so cool.’”

Nate and Anna are grateful for the life they have. They know that God has been with them through the journey and that Anna’s survival--and Hudson’s-- are a direct result of the power of prayer.

“For her and the baby to appear as it nothing has happened at all, is pretty miraculous,” says Dr. Singer.

Anna agrees. “Prayer truly does work. I don’t doubt at all that everyone’s prayers had a direct impact on how I turned out and how completely healed I am. Just knowing that he hears and he’s listening and he’s always right by us is so comforting.”