Jireh Oliver-Wylder Vazquez

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to read this amazing testimony that is still being written. God has been so amazing in this journey so far, and we are confident that HE will continue to stamp His goodness in this season.

To begin, I must first tell you that we are the Vazquez family, and there are NOW 6 of us in this little tribe. But to help you understand the “now,” I have to first explain the “before.”

In September of 2019, there were only 5 of us. Paul my amazing husband, Angelina my 11-year-old daughter, William my 8-year-old at the time, and Uriah my 1-year-old son, and lastly me. I had just found out I was pregnant, and this little family of 5 was super excited. Fast forward to November, and that’s when it happened… we were told that our 12-week-old baby did not have a heartbeat anymore. We were devastated yet faithful, and God really mended our broken hearts during such a sad time in our lives.

Little did we know that in January 2021, our little family of 5 found out that we were adding a new member to our tribe. Our rainbow baby was due October 1st, 2021. We were so ecstatic and overwhelmed with joy and fear all at the same time. Around this time, Maverick City & Elevation released a song called “Jireh” that really soothed my spirit during this time. My husband and I loved it so much, and I will never forget sitting in the car after a church service and realizing that was the name for our son. God provided us with our rainbow baby, and the name matched perfectly with this bundle of joy coming our way – Jehovah Jireh means “God provides.”

The next few months of pregnancy was great and never had anything happen abnormally. In August, I was 34 weeks along and could see the end of my pregnancy. On August 25th, I woke up to contractions at 3am, followed by heavy bleeding a few hours later. By 9am the doctor told me to go to the emergency room to be monitored. By 11:30am, it was determined that I had a placenta abruption and Jireh had to be delivered immediately. Paul rushed to the hospital and Jireh Oliver-Wylder Vazquez was born at 12:45pm that day.

He had the softest little cry. It happened slowly and then all at once. I was again falling in love with God’s precious miracle, but this day has become very traumatic for me. It’s hard for me to recall because even though a C-section can be beautiful, it can still be a traumatic experience when it becomes an emergency. Jireh was instantly taken away because of his oxygen levels. They inserted a cannula, and he was gone.

The next few hours were probably the hardest of my life. I never got to see Jireh during that time. He never got to be held or have skin to skin with me or Paul. At 5pm on the day I had my C-section, I got up from my bed and begged to see him. Paul had run out to get our things and put the car seat in the car and get our essentials to bring Jireh home. By 6pm the doctor came in to give us the news, and my heart broke. He said that Jireh needed to be transported as soon as possible to Birmingham Children’s NICU because they found out that his esophagus was not connected to his stomach. That was just the first of many things that started to trickle down on us. I had to be given pain killers and still begged to go see Jireh. I wish I would have skipped that meds because honestly, I don’t remember what he felt like in my arms. We saw him and then he left the hospital. The next day I asked to leave the hospital because by then we had been told that there were things at this point now wrong with his heart as well. Thursday night we find out that he would indeed need to have quite a few procedures.

Friday morning, we got to Birmingham and were informed of all the following from the team of doctors. Jireh has a VSD (small hole on his heart) & a coarctation of the vessel that’s pumping blood into the heart. These 2 conditions will both require surgery. The cardiologist is trying to figure out the best way to handle these and whether they could just go in and do both at one time and do them separately. They are leaning towards doing both at the same time which means Jireh will require open heart surgery.

The next thing they informed us is that his tummy is not connected to the esophagus and that instead he has a fistula (connection) from his trachea to his stomach instead. So essentially when he breathes, he is sending lots of air to his stomach, and there is risk of his stomach bursting.

There are as of right now a total of 3 surgeries, and he has already undergone 1. We have 2 more ahead, and they are the most important ones.

Friends & family, I more than anything I need you all to come in agreement in prayer for Jireh and that God’s hand will intervene. Secondly, this is going to be a long road ahead for our family. While I stay at the hospital with Jireh, Paul is back home taking care of our 3 kids and working full time as a firefighter. We have an army of family and friends helping since Paul works, but we are going be needing financial help. We are looking at a lot of back and forth between home and hospital, including food, gas, and stay expenses, especially when Paul comes up for me to see the rest of our kids. We are looking at looming medical bills that we know will come after all of this.

We ask for your prayers more than anything, and we are so thankful for them. Secondly, we ask that if you can give anything little thing monetarily to help with this new journey and the new “real” that has become our life. We know God is going to move and we know he has placed some amazing prayer warriors already in our corner. We are hoping to continue to keep y’all updated on Jireh’s condition. God bless you!

-Sherley