Nora’s Story

By Naomi Parke

​The first time my daughter ever rode in a vehicle, she was in an ambulance. Her first hours earth-side were spent surrounded by a NICU team struggling to figure out why a seemingly healthy baby had low oxygen levels. My first hours as a mother were a blur. I don’t remember enough. I remember too much. My first days as a parent were the hardest thing I’ve ever walked through.

My daughter, Eleanor Grace, was born at 11:30pm on February 12th, 2026. Her birth was beautiful and perfect. Thankfully, the natural water birth I had planned at the hospital with my midwife and husband was all I hoped it would be. Our girl we spent years praying for was here, and life as we knew it would never be the same.
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Mere hours after delivery, our baby was taken straight to the NICU after showing signs of concerning low oxygen. My rational brain told me this was all just a mistake; she’d perk up in an hour, and we could spend the rest of the day recovering together. Soon enough we’d be home and settling into life as a family of three.

My pregnancy with Nora was low-risk and perfectly healthy. She passed her anatomy scan with flying colors and measured exactly on time at every visit. Her heartbeat was always strong on the doppler. As for me, I had a lot of anxiety while pregnant. Every day was an act of surrender. I would often hear God say, “Do you trust me?” He was actually preparing me for the most life-altering moment of my life, right there in a NICU room with my baby in a hospital bed.
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Test after test came back clear. No sign of infection, no significant amount of fluid in her lungs. The doctor then wanted to do an in-depth look at her heart through ultrasound. I remember asking him if he really thought something could be wrong with her heart. “Honestly? I don’t,” he said. “That’s pretty rare.”

​Once the test was completed, we received the answer no one was expecting: Eleanor was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect called Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return (TAPVR). The NICU doctor promptly informed us that an ambulance was on its way to take us to Children’s Hospital, where our daughter would need open-heart surgery. On her second day of life, she would undergo one of the most invasive surgeries that can be performed.

I remember feeling like I was underwater. I blinked; everything was blurry. Muffled voices everywhere, none of it making sense. Maybe I was having the worst nightmare of my life I just couldn’t wake up from. I begged God to let this all be a dream. “Please, let me wake up and start this day over.” Maybe if I try hard enough, we can go back to the beginning. Hadn’t I just birthed a perfectly healthy baby? This couldn’t be happening.
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Our surgeon met my husband in our hospital room where we’d essentially be living for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, I was still at the other hospital waiting to be discharged. He pulled my husband aside and asked him where I was. When he learned I was still at the other hospital, he offered to drive both of them together in his own vehicle to where I was. “I want to find your wife and let her know everything will be okay. She needs to know her baby isn’t going to die.”

Garrett and I moved to Omaha almost 3 years ago. We grew up in the beautiful state of Idaho, in a suburb just outside the capital city. A lot was changing in our hometown, and we were itching for a fresh start. Essentially, we could go anywhere. We nailed down the fact that the Midwest seemed like a good fit for our lifestyle and his upcoming career change. As we crossed potential cities off the list, it was between 2 places: Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Omaha, Nebraska.
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For whatever reason, Omaha just seemed to be the place that felt right. My parents had spent some time here for work and raved about potential life in Nebraska. We had an undeniable pull to risk it all and move to a city where we didn’t know a soul. We thought we were making the move for us, but as God would have it, we know now that we moved here so our daughter could have a fighting chance. Eleanor was always going to be our girl, and she was always going to be born with TAPVR. That’s something only God knew when we decided on Omaha.

Eleanor’s heart surgery was successful, and we were now on the road to recovery. Living at the hospital is unlike any experience I’ve ever had. Hours go by, but they all feel the same. Day shift and night shift. Nothing ever stops moving. Constant monitoring, adjusting, and watching. Unfamiliar sounds that eventually lull you to sleep when you can manage to get any.
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As we settled into our unfamiliar new reality, anything to bring normalcy into our day was life-changing. Every single day we had people from our church show up with meals. Our pastor prayed with us the morning of her surgery. We had gifts and check-ins. Millions of prayers for our precious baby. There was truly never a moment we were without support. 

Nora receiving an echocardiogram post-surgery

Second hospital stay

Our gratitude can never ever be expressed adequately to the members of our church family at Crosspoint Bible Church. I attribute so much of our daughter’s rapid recovery to the people who showed up, day in and day out for us.

In the beginning, we were trying to hold up a ceiling that was falling. Cracking. Breaking. The weight of it crushing. One by one, people came and lifted their hands to that ceiling. The unbearable weight of it lessened.

Most nights, I still go to bed wondering why I have to endure this trial. Most of the time, it’s still a heavy weight. The beauty of it all is found years back, when God put it on our hearts to leave our hometown. When we decided to move to Omaha, Nebraska, for our daughter that only God knew about. Even when God feels distant, He’s always working behind the scenes.

I’ll leave you with our daughter’s life verse:
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“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
1 Peter 5:10 ESV
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Indeed He has.
Indeed He will.

Please pray for Nora as she grows in wisdom and stature — and for Naomi and Garrett, as they raise her to know Him.​

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