Latter-day Saint Life

"Please Let Me Keep Him": The Decision an LDS Mother Made After Finding Out Her Unborn Son Had a 15 Percent Chance of Survival

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"I started, it was like routine, 'Please let me be OK no matter what happens,' but I stopped myself, I couldn’t finish it because I didn’t want Braydon to die," Shelley told the Deseret News. "I swallowed my fear of losing him and I just outwardly cried to God and said, ‘Please let me keep him.'"

Nadine Shelley physically could not move. She had just had a cesarean-section delivery and was in the recovery room when she received a phone call from the neonatal intensive care unit.

"Come immediately," she was told. Doctors were unsure if her newborn son was going to make it. Nurses weren't coming fast enough, so Shelley's husband, Garrett, left the room to obtain a wheelchair. As he left, Shelley began to recite the same prayer she had said since complications became apparent earlier in her pregnancy.

"I started, it was like routine, 'Please let me be OK no matter what happens,' but I stopped myself, I couldn’t finish it because I didn’t want Braydon to die," Shelley said. "I swallowed my fear of losing him and I just outwardly cried to God and said, ‘Please let me keep him.'"

Lead image from the Deseret News
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