The Hardest Video We've Ever Made

let me just first say that um we could never say thank you enough for all of the support that we have received throughout this nightmare I didn't in my wildest dreams they that we would have so much support the way that we have this is a video that we don't want to do a video that we never thought that we would have to do and I'm gonna try really hard not to cry throughout this entire video so that you guys can understand what I'm saying if you're not following us on Instagram um then you may not know but on on Christmas Day on Christmas Day in the evening we went over to my grandma's house and I laid crews down for a nap it was later in the evening closer to like his bedtime and when I went back to check on him he wasn't breathing and so you know we're kind of all in the dining room area her grandma was you know like handing out presents and stuff so we're kind of all collected out there and I just remember her running out saying that yeah that he's not breathing and it was just chaos from that point um you know so trying to like people yelling to call 9-1-1 and started CPR and anyways I don't like this point that point is like the hardest for me to go back to and think about and I don't I don't really remember that point it was all really just a blur to me I was kneeling on the ground and a family member took over CPR on him until the firetruck in the ambulance him and they all arrived very very quickly once he was at the hospital they were able to start his heart however I knew from a medical background as a nurse that there is a good chance that he had been without oxygen for a little while and I know what that can do to the brain so from there once his heart started he was terrified at two Methodist Children's Hospital he was in the best hands possible the staff there was outstanding when we got there you know I with crew so I was kind of waiting on her and you know they got him into the room and then you know they kind of told us next step so the doctor came in and said they were going to do a CT scan and kind of told us that you know there's three things that can happen one it looks really good and we can be encouraged it looks really bad and or it's inconclusive and at that point it's not enough information for them to kind of make a decision either way but that was kind of like the first moment we kind of would know where he was and she came back later in the evening and said that it was I mean it was really bad when we say evening it was probably midnight at this point I really don't know um I was in complete shock he had he rode and in the air life only one parent could go and and I just felt like he would be better suited to fly and so my parents drove me and I just sat in silence the entire way I mean what what could I say what could I do everything what's going through my mind and not only that I was thinking why Christmas Day um so while we were in the hospital I'm they also did another MRI and at this point he was attached to all kinds of tubes he was ventilated I was breathing for him an MRI showed that he did not have any brain function and after that legally they are required to do two more brain death tests where they do all these tests to see if you react if your brain is functioning even in the slightest bit it will react in certain ways and you can Google brain death test will tell you all the things that they do but essentially they're testing for any kind of brain function and it is legally required to do - and he showed no signs of brain function in either one we were hoping that there would be some signs I not having any type of medical background was just thinking like if it's hard to beating then his brain is functioning because how could your heart beat if your brains not telling it to be and you know so that was like me thinking like optimistically there was something very good heart your heart can beat without your brain telling it your brain is not in charge of your heart beating so that's so during this point I assumed that he would that eventually we would have to remove of the ventilator and that I would we would be able to hold him as he passed however this is something I always thought about in terms of myself if something ever happened to me I wouldn't want my organs donated but it's never a thing that you think about what we want to think about with your own children and I think it would be easy for a lot of people to say of course I would donate my child organs if it came to that but we had a meeting with in the end who came in and and spoke with us about organ donation and I was just before he talked about it I was like on board it sounded great and then he told us kind of what happened and that I would essentially have to say goodbye outside of a large doors and I just I couldn't have them about being the last goodbye to my child so we told him that we would think about it yeah this is this is like on the second day that we're there they come in kind of like just pull him in Italy talk us through the option I don't remember so it's the second day or that I don't even remember how many days we were in there but it was once they knew they there was he was not going to be coming home with us they do send a person in there to talk about organ donation with you yeah and then so we thought about it like you know it wasn't something we came to like a quick decision what if we talked about it and prayed a lot and you know just said like we're not gonna rush and make this decision they were very good at the hospital by telling us like I know as much time as you need as much people you need to talk to as much questions that you have please like voice those to us and they made it clear like there is no wrong and right decision it's whatever decision you fill a piece with we've never felt pressured in any way to do either decision so I remember Jeff was snapping I think the next morning you were napping it was early early in the morning and Jeff and I stayed at the hospital the entire time I slept in a chair and he slept on the floor one night um they they finally brought in another chair for him but I was laying in bed with crew and I would turn on Christian music that's just kind of I would lay there with him and he likes to listen to lullabies and stuff and I just have like this overwhelming like peace about the decision that I knew that we had to make like I knew what we had to do for the first time something felt very clear to me and so I went over and I woke him up and I said I know what we have to do and I said wait we need to donate his organs and so that day we called the organ donation the guy who kind of comes around talks to you and we made that decision there's a lot of Education I think that people need to know about organ donation because we had no idea how it worked really essentially after that second brain death exam the organ donation people once we sign the papers I mean the staff we are in Texas so it's Tosa it's the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance they were amazing absolutely wonderful they answered any questions we had made it so comfortable and it was really hard to watch the different tests that they had to do on him there's nothing really invasive or at least too invasive there was some test but it was very hard to watch your child all of a sudden become like a I just I told them I felt like he was just a specimen or a vessel for somebody else and it was really hard to watch that but we also had moments in the hospital where we thought somebody somewhere in the United States they were receiving the best news of their life as they were we were getting the worst of ours and when they came in and they started telling us that they'd you know they found a match and that the matches were like on and critical like these that were good now it's it's basically last hope for those families all I can think about was like a dad like myself just not knowing what the future held and in the hope that that we could the crew could help and and you know that a part of him could you know live on in somebody else so you don't know exactly which organs there are going to use until they get into the operating room they will have an idea because they from the test to see how each organ is functioning insert surgery was scheduled for noon on the 29th or the 30th of December 8 I don't 30th okay so what they do at this point is they would do an honor walk for him and all the staff the hospital is available lines the hallways as they push him to the operating room and I was allowed to write on the bed with him as they pushed him through the hallway so I just laid there with him and Jeff walk next to us and him to stop lighting the hallway I made their tributes to him they pushed us all the way to the Oh hard ORS and we've sat outside the Lord we said her goodbye it says the hospital or the operating team kind of stood around us there's nothing in life thank you for married for a moment like that and I told him goodbye and I loved him and I was so proud of him and he was a hero and I kissed him and I left him in the surgeons hands and they took him in well he was on the bed but I mean I left him in the surgical teams hands and they they told us they would take good care of him they they play a set list of songs while they do burnout which I thought was great he asked me which thoughts that I wanted to play for him while he was no large and so I wrote down an entire list of songs for them to play for him the Tosa the people from organ donation stay with him the entire time when he's with the surgeons you know he his heart was his heart was donated because of the sensitivity of you know the transfer of organs they have to have the other patient there which we didn't see but just thinking about of the other the other baby or the other child in there just prayed that that it goes okay and that the other child's you know that the organ is a good match and that you know that the surgery goes well and is really all you could think about that moving forward and then they walked us out for the flag-raising ceremony once they are once the organs are matched they fly in the search team of that child and then like he said the heart recipient was actually there to have the surgery done at the same time and so a few weeks later we got the call that his heart had been donated to a 7 month old boy and his liver was donated to a 1 year old boy we hope and we pray that one day we will be able to meet these two little boys I would love nothing more than to just hug that little boy that has the heart that we made inside of him you know during the time after you know got a lot of messages our mentions on social media from families you know from recipients of organs for moms and dads who have a healthy child because of a baseball coach I would get a lot of like this is my son he plays college baseball and he received a heart donation he was 2 years old and you know like dojo semester just means so much to us because it it helps us to know that we made the right decision somehow and for some reason our story kind of blew up and I don't want to say the worst of ways but it's been really hard it's been it's been really scary when she told me like you know Good Morning America you know posted the article I pulled up this was several days two or three days later this was after we'd already left the hospital I opened up yahoo and her picture was on the front page of Yahoo and it's really scary to see where this goes because you just you don't always know what's being said who's saying it how things can get spun it was just a very scary a few days afterwards when national media picked up the story I just I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy um not only have we were we and we still are dealing with the loss of our child but on top of that we're dealing with stories and media and just a lot of articles were like YouTube stars you know like that's how it was titled and I think when you title an article YouTube star xxx automatically the connotation is that you know like people want to look for flaws in celebrity and by the title the article saying YouTube star loses child people automatically almost started to look for negativity in it rather just saying you know YouTube I don't know personality no he needs retired youtuber just in general 90,000 subscribers it was just a way to blow up the story essentially for any criticism of posting pictures and you know going to social media during that time you know for it felt like the only the only thing they could have saved him was a miracle and it just felt like you know I kept a hearing like prayer warriors like you know we've got we've got a group of prayer warriors praying for you it was more or less just like trying to get help and I didn't really know how to get help and we've been so open with our lives in all times I mean you know almost 400 YouTube videos and we're both pretty heavy and unsocial it just felt natural to update people that supported us to tell them like pray for us please pray for our family like I shared my life with those of those people who had watched us prior to this most of the negative and rude and snark comments come from people who have never watched our family before and in fact I'm pretty sure anybody who did watch our family or was a subscriber or follower in the past they're not making those comments because you you watched me the day that I found out I was pregnant with Cru you watched me look at the pregnancy test you watched me tell Jeff that we were having a baby you watched me deliver him and in some way I hope that you feel connected to our family so it only felt right for me to update on Instagram how things were going that first post was so hard for me to make because I didn't know what to say I didn't know if I wanted to share it all and I knew that the only way that a miracle would happen is if everyone just prayed for us because we do believe in the power of prayer and we felt and continue to still feel those prayers that you guys have been praying for us but they'd only felt natural for me to post on Instagram and then I would have people asking for updates and I've seen a lot of comments of just things like how could you possibly be updating on social media how could you be taking pictures at a time like this and to be honest I would probably think the same thing if I had never been through this myself you wonder how would you act in a certain situation or how would you feel and you know we had a we spent days in the hospital just sitting there I could only look at my son hooked up to those machines for so long just his lifeless body there it's not like he was awake sometimes I couldn't bear to just sit there with him while I knew he wasn't there it really hurt and so being able to have the support from so many people who have followed our family for so long was very helpful for me and so I want to say thank you to you guys who have been there for us and for our family the negative remarks do not matter however they have made it more difficult for me to grieve there's just no right way to act you don't you don't know that this is gonna happen you don't know how you're gonna react to it in a lot of ways you feel in the days when I first got out of the that first day when we left the hospital it felt and I that I posted this the world was the same but it felt completely different and it was really scary and we both didn't know instill it's us in some respects don't know like what's ahead for us and everything has changed everything my day-to-day life and you know my job has been youtube for a while now and now I don't know what the intentions are of people who are watching my channel and comments will probably be turned off for this video if you have gotten this far and you realize there are no comments on this video but it's because I cannot bear to look at any negative comments anymore we want to thank you know the both people at Guadalupe Medical Center for I would have thanked up for bringing him back you know they worked on him for so long just to get his heart going before they flew him out and the ability to stay with him and say my good-byes over the next few days in the hospital was really important at her blood drive one of the first responders was there and I was able to thank him for bringing for bringing him back it just gives me more time and a little bit of hope everyone at Methodist Hospital our nurses Laura Jessica Logan and Pauline from Tosa Pauline from Tosa Ishmael Holly Holly was amazing there was so many angels here on earth that we encountered along the way and we could have had a you know different experience had the nurses and doctors often different and so just thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the first responders the nurses the doctors every single person that we came contact with throughout the entire thing it's it's all a lot of it's a blur to me you did really well remembering all those names cuz I only remembered just maybe like three or four but Boston prayers gets a lot of criticism just you know the the my thoughts and prayers go out to whomever after something tragic happens but it really was thoughts and prayers that meant the most to us like just you saying that you prayed for my family is really impactful for us and we're really thankful for that you know we didn't set up the phones and people started donating and it was kind of crazy and fun right we didn't we didn't set up the phones and furthermore you know like it wasn't anything that we were thinking about at the time and you know thank you if you did donate to it we don't know financially how this all impacts our lives and that's not something that you think about at the time you just simply want them to take the very best care of your loved one as they possibly can everything just comes very fast as soon as your child it's gone you have to pay for all the expenses that come with it you pay for funeral and you pay for a burial site pay for the headstone which is you paid for all their bills his bills have already started coming in it was really hard for for people to start making accusations as if we are trying to profit or exploit our son's death nothing throughout this entire thing has made me more upset than that I would give anything I would give if every cent to my name which is not very much I would give it all just to have my baby back moving forward we are just doing the best that we can to make his life known to make good come out of it and so far we have organized a or we already did organize and have a blood drive in his name and we were able to help impact over 600 lives in our community just by having people come out and donate blood and on earth crew and this kind of became a worldwide thing where I had people tagging me in South Africa that we're donating blood so all around the world we had people donating blood and crews name and that was really important to me and and touching that so many people across the world truly care I guess just our mission going forward will be to honor crew in any way that we can going forward from this and I don't know what God's plan is for our life or where we kind of pick up and go from here just know that we're going to do our best to continue to move forward the only and the best way that we know how I do plan on continuing with YouTube I don't know when I will start rolling out normal videos but I knew that I had to make this one I had a lot of anxiety about making this video so being able to sit down is very therapeutic for me so my may not word everything correctly or say everything correctly just know that these are just our fresh emotions tomorrow will have been one month on the 25th since we really last saw crew and his true self so just being gentle and kind we just want to make known before we in this video just how truly thankful we are for the support this entire thing that's completely restored my faith in humanity in general the way that so many people came together to take care of a family that you've never probably even met the most of you have never met our family but yet you feel like you know us and I am just so thankful for that and your support and prayers have really helped us I'm gonna continue to help us get through this and move forward and I just I could never say thank you enough my words could just never convey how thankful we are for you guys if you send a message major donation send us a gift anything that came for us anything there's there's no chance that we could personally thank everyone for all that they've done for us but I just want you to know that we're so incredibly grateful for it thank you so much and God bless you

Channel: Brittani Boren Leach

Views: 1,836,845

Keywords: brittani boren leach

Id: NHlEjIgfhsw

Length: 31min 8sec (1868 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020