Support for Baby Holland and the Goodwins

Go fund me for Nicole and Eric Goodwin to help w medical expenses and all of the extra unforeseen circumstances coming up in these next few months. Nicole had emergency surgery last week. Their daughter was delivered due to complications at 24 weeks. Baby Holland remains in the Nicu at University of Washington. Any donations no matter how small are greatly appreciated.

Fr Eric Fb:

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Hey everyone, if you haven’t heard by now, Nicole and I had our daughter a week ago today via emergency C-Section. At only 25 weeks gestational age (i.e., negative 15 weeks old), she’s still alive and breathing as I type this, by the grace and power of God. I figured I’d give a full account of everything that’s happened, both for my sake and for yours, if you care to know it!

On Sunday, May 26th (T-3 days to emergency C-Section), we received a blood pressure monitor in the mail. Nicole had ordered it the day before, since she was noticing that she was feeling dizzy, lightheaded, and had bruising and broken blood vessels across her body. Having a condition called POTS her entire life, she knew what symptoms indicated a high blood pressure. As guessed, her blood pressure was high, not necessarily dangerously high but high enough to be slightly concerning. As you might know, pregnancy comes with lots of intense and unexpected symptoms, and this was mild enough to trick us into thinking it was just that. She continued to monitor her blood pressure for the next couple days, and the reading kept returning consistently high values. On top of that, Nicole felt like our baby wasn’t kicking as much as she normally does. So on Tuesday night, we decided that it was worth a phone call to the doctors the next day.

After Nicole got off the phone with the nurse, she told me that they wanted her to come in for additional tests, not because the doctor was overly worried or anything, but because she said a few keywords that made the staff not want to take any chances. We both decided that I should stay home working, thinking that she was going to get some routine tests and be back home by the time we had our church small group that night. After Nicole had been in the hospital for only 20 minutes, I got a call from her: she needed me to come to the hospital as fast as possible, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.

Once I got there, the doctor explained to us that Nicole most likely has a condition called HELLP Syndrome. Her blood platelet count was at about 10% of what it should be (and dropping), and the baby’s heartbeat was irregular. The only solution was to get the baby out of Nicole’s womb, for both her sake and the baby’s, and it needed to happen fast. To put the situation into context, if Nicole hadn’t come in that day, and waited a day or two, this might be a very different post. The doctor gave us a few options as to how we could get the baby out (no option was a good option, any way we went was either risking the baby or risking Nicole), and then gave us some time to decide what to do.

After crying and praying and letting our family members know what was going on, we called one of our pastors, Jessica Barcelona, who prayed over us and reminded us that God has a good plan for us and our sweet baby girl, and that in spite of how horrible and dire the situation was, it was in His hands and under His control. After that, God gave us the confidence and peace to decide what to do; we decided to get a C-Section.

The operation took about an hour, and for me that was somehow the longest and shortest hour of my life. It felt like an endless blur of confusion, prayer, pacing, and worship music. But eventually, a nurse came in and told me the baby was out, and Nicole was in a good condition. Shortly thereafter, they let me see the baby as they connected life support to her (Nicole was still wrapping up surgery, they wouldn’t let me see her yet), and I think at that point I was in shock and didn’t totally register when they announced her weight (the nurses later told us): 440 grams (15.5 ounces).

When I went back to the room we were first in, it was only about 15 more minutes until I got to see Nicole again. When she was brought in, she was already starting to recover from the anesthesia. They said the surgery went as well as it possibly could’ve, given her condition and lack of blood platelets, with none of the major potential complications that were brought up to us earlier. They had also talked about keeping her intubated post-surgery, but thankfully they saw no need to because of how well everything went. That night we were transferred to the ICU, while our baby was being closely monitored in the NICU.

We had THE BEST nurses and doctors while we were at UW Montlake. I can’t stress enough how well they took care of Nicole, attentive to all her symptoms and vitals. The first night, Nicole had a moment where she struggled to breath, and additional staff was brought in immediately, and thankfully it didn’t need further intervention as all her vitals were good and they were able to help her breath through it (they concluded that most likely layers of stress and anxiety finally caught up to her). Nicole was also showing signs of brain fog and slurred speech (this was well after the anesthesia wore off), most likely due to the HELLP Syndrome. In total, Nicole received 8 blood transfusions, and it was only a matter of time for her body to stop digesting her own blood and start stabilizing.

Over the next few days, Nicole slowly recovered from the surgery, however her recovery from her blood issues was a little slower. We were at the hospital for about 6 days, whereas an average C-Section hospital stay is supposed to be about 3 days. The doctors always prioritized Nicole’s health over rushing things along, and it wasn’t until Nicole’s blood pressure was showing signs of lessening on day 5 that we ourselves started to feel confident about going home as well. Yesterday she was discharged at about 3pm, and last night we got to sleep in our own bed! While we’re SO thankful to be back home, leaving the hospital and our baby behind in the NICU was one of the hardest things of the whole experience. We have full faith that the Holy Spirit is still at UW Montlake, with or without us, and is equipping the staff with everything they need and sustaining our beautiful little girl, and we’ll be figuring out over the next few weeks what our daily rhythm of seeing her will be, but being away for any amount of time is just so hard.

Little baby Holland’s journey has been eventful, to say the least, but the short of it is that she’s hanging in there and in very good hands. For a couple days, we didn’t even have a name for her, so they just called her “Nicole’s Girl”, but once we settled on Holland, the staff has said so many times how much they love that name. We’ve had the pleasure of meeting so many amazing NICU nurses and doctors, and impossibly they somehow care for her as much as we do. As they’ve put it, being in the NICU starting at 24 weeks is like daily taking two steps forward and one step back. We have yet to hold her, and can’t wait until we get to, but for now we get to touch her and see her from outside the incubator. Holland, again by the grace of God, has overcome bleeding in her lungs, a pneumothorax (pocket of air between the lungs and chest), short periods of high respiratory settings, skin issues, necessary blood transfusions, and so much more. She’s our little trooper. And today she’s officially one week old! She’s been able to start digesting Nicole’s breast milk via IV, and the doctors even took Holland’s UAC line out yesterday (used to monitor blood pressure, but can inhibit other treatments that she’s needing and poses a risk of infection). She’s honestly the cutest little thing and we already feel like her personality is shining through: she likes her personal space and is a little feisty, constantly kicking out her feet.

If you haven’t already seen throughout this post, God has been performing miracle after miracle. We have no doubt that He has been sustaining us and Holland, and we have full trust in His plan for her life and know that it’s good, no matter the outcome. We obviously are aware that this isn’t at all what we were expecting, but we’re trusting God along each step and know that surely His goodness and mercy will follow after us.

I don’t think it’s humanly possible to stress how overwhelmed (in a good way) we’ve been with the amount of support, love, and prayers we’ve received. We honestly didn’t even know we knew this many people, or that you all even liked us this much! To have our community surround us in this way has made me burst into tears countless times, really and truly we’ve felt so blessed and known and supported, so thank you to everyone who has been lifting Nicole and Holland and our family up in prayers, everyone who’s reached out to offer encouragement or even just a quick check in, and to everyone who has supported us financially, whether through Venmo or our MealTrain or just bringing us a burger in the hospital. We have no idea what state we’d be in without the support of our friends and family and church. We love you all so much and are so thankful for your presence in our lives.

For more frequent updates, you might want to follow Nicole’s Facebook or Instagram, but like I said, I just wanted to write everything down and get it all out. It’ll be a long journey from here until we get to take Holland home, but we’re believing and praying that Holland doesn’t experience any major complications and God continues to bless her like He’s already being doing. Thank you if you’ve read this far, we love you!

update from Nicole

We got to touch her little arms and feet today and Eric got to change her diaper! Such small acts we never thought we'd be celebrating, but here we are. Crying tears of joy over full diapers. Her vitals remained stable throughout the entire day and she continues to amaze doctors with her resiliency and determination to live and heal and grow. Although going home without her has shredded my heart in ways I didn't know possible, we are still left feeling so encouraged by her progress, and trusting in all of the hands caring for her while we aren't able to.

We got a call last night that she has another perforation in her lung. She'd previously had one on the right side that has healed, but now has one on her left side in an untreatable area, so they are watching for now and we are praying it heals itself. She also has some new skin wounds on her stomach and elbow that have unsure origins. We've been assured this isn't uncommon for premies this young, but still worrisome. So we are praying for a quick recovery from these new wounds and just an all encompassing healing over her little body.

Update 6.7.24

we just got a call from Hollands doctor and they are about to do a biopsy on her arm. Which would usually be a minor procedure but her skin is so thin and sensitive already that there is just a lot of risks with it and long term scarring but it’s what’s best for her right now because they are worried she has a fungal infection which can be really dangerous for premies her age. So if y’all could just be praying for her, they also aren’t able to give her any numbing agents so they’ll only be controlling her pain retroactively with pain meds so we’re just stressing over here and our hearts are hurting that she’ll be hurting. Just praying that we get the answers we need from this biopsy and that it is treated and cleared and healed so so quickly