 Daddy, daddy, daddy, oh, it's so pretty. As soon as Mario handed Braley to me, I knew that it didn't matter how long it took. I wasn't leaving her. I didn't care if it took days. I wasn't leaving my baby. I'm like, chill. I'm good. My name is Mario. I'm good. First, I have to get the posture, then you have to go. No, like, this isn't the posture, like, hmm. Babe, no. I'm not going to stay that way. You start there, and then you let it go. You drop your shoulders, buddy. Oh, you're not tatted. We met through a mutual friend in Columbus, Ohio. This friend said, hey, I think I have somebody that you ought to meet. And so I said, I don't know. I don't know. I just came out of a relationship. Not sure how that was going to go. We lived in Columbus, Ohio at the time. So when I moved out to Maryland, she helped me move out and sacrificed a lot. She even gave me money, like, to help me move out here. When I was out here, there are a lot of individuals that I could have decided to start dating and just kind of let that this relationship go. But I found myself continually just thinking about her. And she was 400 miles away. So, oh, yeah. And I woke up one morning and I was like, no, I think this is it. I remember after we had, when we first met, or, you know, when we first hung out and when we ate, we ate at my apartment. Remember, I think we went to get food and we brought it back to my apartment. I remember him taking my hand and praying before we ate the food. And I was like, is this it? And then so I kept praying about him. And then I remember I was walking out of some store and I remember God telling me that he was my husband. And I was like, oh, OK. But I wanted to wait because, you know, it had to be his idea. So I had to wait for God to tell him. I didn't want to make him run away. Like, hey, you're my husband. Come on. So I just waited for God to tell him and for him to propose. Which wasn't that long because a couple months later. Oh, you just got it like that. Yep. So I feel like it's almost automatically the question from everyone when you see newlyweds. It's like, OK, so when are you having kids? And it's like, can I enjoy my marriage just a little bit? But you think that it's like you can turn that on and off. And it's like, hey, I want a kid. So I'm going to have a kid. And it's just going to happen. But that's not what happened for us. It took us eight months. But eight months feels long when you're trying to have a child. And you see some people, a lot of people make it seem like you know, you try one time and there you go and you have like triplets. You know what I mean? So eight months felt like a long time for us. Definitely amazing. He has split down the middle, Natasha and me, like from his looks even to his temperament. I'm very outgoing between us two. She's more introverted. And he shows both of those sides at any given time. He's very bright. He is very bright. Yeah. He, you know, I wish that I could always see the world in Declan's eyes. Because he's just so loving and kind and looks for the good in everything. And I love how he expresses himself to the little things. Such as, I think I set out a pair of socks for him earlier. Mommy, thank you so much for putting these socks out for me, you know? OK, you're welcome. But it's like he's so, he loves people. He loves love. And I just, if I could see the world like that all the time, I think if we all could, this world would be an amazing place. I love you. Yes, I do. For sentimental reason. Yes, I do. I hope that you believe me. They've given you my heart. They love you. I love you. So when he was around six months, we were like, let's do this again. Prayed about it and, you know, started the process. And it turned into a closer three year. Two and a half years. Yeah, two and a half year wait that we were not expecting. At that point, you just get discouraged. And I literally had my mindset that we were only going to have one child. At that point, I said, OK, so Declan's our child. And that's how we're going to live life. And that's our reality. We went to a fertility specialist. And that's when, you know, the harsh reality for me, not that I would want it for either one of us. But I was told that I had a genetic mutation, so to speak. And we were told that even there was less than a 5% chance that we could have a child. And if we did, that that child would have some type of developmental disability. And so we looked at her like, well, what do you say about Declan? She was like, basically, he was, you got lucky. Because Declan's fine. That's when we stormed out. Well, I stormed out. I said, we believe in God. There's no luck. My baby's not a luck. You know, he didn't just happen. He's just not here because through thin air. You know what I mean? So I was not happy with that response from her. And then we said, you know what, God? It's been this long. And if it's supposed to happen, it's going to happen. So we'll just wait on you. But my mind did change and say, I guess it's just going to be one child. I got a call to go and do some ministry out in Trinidad and Tobago. And they agreed to allow me to take my whole family. So we come back home after 10 days out in Trinidad and Tobago. And Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day. We found out. I come home from work again. And she's got a card from Declan that he had made. And at the back of the card, it says, I'm going to have. I'm going to be a big brother. I'm going to be a big brother. And once again, I cried right at the table. Egg just elated that we have this another chance. I was hoping for a girl. We find out that it is a girl. And I'm like, I wanted my daughter to know her daddy. And I wasn't out to spoil her. But she was certainly going to know she was loved. She'll be spoiled with hugs and kisses. We're big on meanings. Like Declan means man of prayer. So we were looking for a name that meant something very strong. Braley, that's what we had decided to name her. Braley Amora Broussard, which means ray of hope. And Amora means love. So it's ray of hope and love. Whatever we name her is what we want her to become in life. And ray of hope and love, that's what we want her to be able to spread to anyone that she met. Yeah. I really want, man, I really want Mario to have that. To have that, because girls can really be daddy's girls. This pregnancy was a 180 from what it was with Declan. It was horrible. She was healthy the entire time. But me, I was sick every day. It really put a strain on our marriage. Really put a strain on our marriage because at that time I didn't know how to express myself properly when I wasn't feeling well and I would take it out on my husband. Then I got something called cholestasis. And my skin itched horribly, especially at night. I mean, it was so bad. I don't even know what to compare it to. I guess a rash, but I didn't have a rash. And you can't scratch it. Like it won't be fixed even when you're trying to scratch your skin. And it was just bad. And I felt so horrible because we couldn't enjoy that pregnancy. But like I said, Braley was healthy, completely healthy the entire time. I was the one who was going through so much during that time. So because I had cholestasis, they had to take Braley at 37 weeks as soon as she hit 37 weeks. 37 weeks, so I had to have a cesarean. And I had a cesarean with Declan and it went very smoothly. And so I was thinking that this one would as well, that everything would go fine, especially since she'd been healthy the entire time and things of that nature. And just really nervous, I was really nervous while I got in the little robe, like the hospital robe and everything. And then it kind of just turned. They turned to me and they said, listen, you're going to have to make the decision. Do we put her under anesthesia or do we continue the way it is? And in my head, I just couldn't fathom if I was under and I was not able to talk but I was feeling it, that I would want something to be different. So not knowing everything, I just said, go ahead. And from what I see, go ahead and put her under anesthesia. And I'll step out of the room. And so I go back to the room and I'm waiting and I'm praying. And I wasn't very nervous but concerned. And I was just praying and just like, God, come on, let's get this baby out, let mommy baby be OK. And we can go on happily ever after. I hear back from them and after probably 20 or 30 minutes, it wasn't long. And they said, hey, baby's out, mommy's OK. But baby, she's not breathing well on her own but this is something that we could probably fix. We just kind of got to get her going a little bit. And so I said, OK. More concerned but still trying to remain calm and not too long afterwards, they willed Natasha into the room that I was in where we first started. And we were both then waiting to see Braley. Yeah, because I was just kind of coming out of everything. I was foggy. I didn't know what was going on. I did not know she was having issues breathing. I didn't know any of that because I was just coming. I was just waking. And the next thing I knew, they wheeled Braley in. And I'm hearing, hey, we have to lifelight her to Georgetown. And I was still not even fully aware. I didn't understand what was going on. Had no background of what happened, anything. And at that point, you just have to trust the doctors that they know what's going on and kind of go with that because I just didn't understand what was happening. And that's what's crazy. We hadn't even held her at this point. We were looking at her through a glass that they wheeled her in, which brings me to another aspect of her strength. That here she is post-op for a C-section and she's trying to talk to the doctor about when she can get up to go see the baby at Georgetown. And essentially, they were like, hey, you're supposed to be here two, three days post-op. But if you could manage to show us that you know how to walk and that everything is healed just enough for you to be able to get up there and walk and show us that you could do that, then I would imagine we could let you go. That day on, she's practicing walking from day one, trying to get to her child. By the time we get to night two after the baby had been born, she's up pacing and practicing her walking every hour and walking by the nurse's station so that they can see that she's walking. So that by the time the next morning comes, they discharge her so that she could go to Georgetown and see her child. It's just that encompasses my wife. That's who she is. She approaches everything in life just like that. But I love her for that. It's incredible. It's incredible. And so we're watching Braley fighting. That's where we really saw she had a serious fight in her like her mama. And essentially what we were told was that Braley never really made the transition from how you're supposed to breathe in the womb and how you're supposed to breathe outside of the womb. So they were trying to help her make that transition and so I would say two days into it, they decided to do with a procedure, an invasive procedure up near the carotid artery called ECMO. Prior to that, they had said she had pulmonary hypertension. Yeah. And so she was having these issues also with her heart. Yeah. She was jaundice, so her liver wasn't performing. Now this is new news to us because the entire pregnancy, although Natasha was going through it, every checkup, the baby was healthy, sound, heartbeat, everything's fine. And now she's having all of these issues. And even when I would go and see her, she looked fine. She was hooked up to a lot of tubes and things but she looked fine and it just didn't make much sense as to why these things were happening. So now that's night two, she's on ECMO, night three and maybe four, she's doing better. Well, we're told that she's doing better. She was in there. And so night three, four, we're told, hey, she's doing so well that she's gonna get off of ECMO, which there was a baby right next to her that was on ECMO for two weeks, at least. And she had only been on for two days and they were telling us she was coming off it. So we're like prayers are being answered. We, you know, this is just a bumpy, a bump in the road. So, you know, maybe God is turning the corner. Braley's turning the corner and God's really performing a miracle here. And then night five, I believe we get a call. Yeah, we got a call from Georgetown and they told us that they needed to take her to Children's Hospital because she had massive blood clots. And they were seeing blood clots everywhere. It just happened so fast. Yeah. They attribute some of those things, the blood clots to ECMO. I think that's supposedly one of the side effects for some people that are on it. But they were so bad that they actually thought that she might have had a genetic disorder, that there was something genetically that caused the blood clots to occur so fast. However, she, they ran like a genetic test and there weren't any genetic issues concerning blood clots. They drove her to Children's Hospital and to the cardiac unit. And, you know, we were told there when we got there the next day that, you know, the doctor actually said, we don't lose patients here, but your daughter's very sick. And they said, a small blood clot, it would take, it takes weeks to dissolve a small blood clot, but they were finding numerous blood clots in her body. And they just couldn't promise us anything. And this was still, she was what, four days old. We still had not held her. Yeah. We never heard her cry because she was always, had to be so sedated. At most I might, we've touched her. She always grabbed our hands. She grabbed our fingers. She knew who we were. She wouldn't respond. Her brain was fine. She responded every time we came. Yeah. And so, of this seven day process, day five through seven was spent at Children's Hospital. And it just seemed like at every turn, there was something else going on that was bad. I'll never forget the RN that was there the first day we got there, because as soon as I told her that I had not held my baby yet, she took everything off braily, except for of course, her oxygen and what she needed, as far as as much as she could take off her so that I could hold my child. Yeah, that was awesome. She was in disbelief that no one had done that prior to that. They actually started seeing air pockets when they looked, when they did an X-ray. They saw air pockets near her organs and they said, we shouldn't be seeing these, so we need to do a surgery. And basically that's when they saddened them and they said, we are more certain than not that she's not gonna make it through this surgery. And it never crossed my mind that my child wasn't gonna make it. I never even thought that was on the radar. Yeah. So we started praying, called pastors, called people, praying and this was just an exploratory surgery. So it was to see what was going on, but they felt she was so sick and so weak that she may not make it. So here we are now, she's going through the surgery, we get a call, we're in the hospital, we get a call, come down, see her, she made it through. But the doctor pulls us into a room and says, we thought that there were air pockets, but when we opened her up, she no longer has an intestines. Because basically what was happening was the blood clots were so bad, nothing was getting through to her intestines to keep them functioning. No blood. No blood was getting through. No oxygen. And so it's cut off, it had cut off her circulation, her supply to all her major organs, and especially the intestines were the first ones, they had just started deteriorating. To the point to where they couldn't even bring some another intestines in to attach it. And this all happened supposedly within two days, two to three days from being on ECMO, we were essentially told that there was nothing they could do. And all I could remember. And that was when the doctor said, you know, we could just, oh, it was when they were going to do the surgery. She said, you know, we could just take her off and let her pass peacefully. And that's when I felt smacked in the face, like, what do you mean? You're telling me my child's gonna die, what are you talking about? Like that was the first time anyone ever told us that that was, could happen. And I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it at all. And that's why we said, you know, we want you to try the surgery. And she made it through that surgery. Yeah. And this whole time we're talking to individuals in our community on social media and so forth. Family, Braley made it through the surgery. But we have very unfortunate news. We're sitting here in the hospital where her little body is, she's alive. They found that her intestines are dead. And the blood clots are so big throughout her body that it have actually blocked the bio and things from her dead intestines from reaching her heart and her lungs. It explains so much why she has in part been so strong. Her name was Braley, Ray of Hope. And that's what we were clinging to, that every turn with every procedure, with every surgery, with every setback, that we have this sliver of this ray of hope that something's gonna work out on her behalf. I mean, thousands of people praying for her. We got messages from China, India, throughout the United States. Hey, just came across your Facebook Live post about your child and wanted to let you know that we're praying for you all in this ray of hope. And we actually just had this desire. Social media has such a plastic feel to it at times. We update people when the best things are happening and we are quiet when the worst things happen oftentimes. But here, I just felt led, we felt led by God to let them know the process. So we were kind of vlogging that process with updates and at every turn we're celebrating when we celebrate and we're mourning when we're mourning together and we come to day six. Just wanted to say if you do us one favor, one last favor, let the legacy of this little girl and the impact of her life remain in your hearts forever. She brought thousands of people together under the banner of Jesus Christ in faith and somebody may think I'm a fool for believing in a God I can't see, especially a God that would allow a six day old baby to pass. But I think that I would be a fool to not be able to see that God and choose not to believe in him. And then one day he cracks the sky and explains it all to me. And so that's where we're gonna leave it. I think that's what it is, it's faith. And we're gonna take this little braily, this little ray of hope with us wherever we go. Love you guys. Thank you so much, love you. I prayed for one last miracle and we sat down together in that morning and decided that we were going to pull the plug. And it took probably four or five hours for them to prep everything to do that. And so we're sitting there, we're waiting. And we watched a nurse come in and a nurse came in and she just quietly, didn't say anything to us, quietly began prepping braily. She started brushing her hair. Brushing her hair. And putting a band on her head and getting her wrapped in a swaddling her. We didn't want to be in there when they actually took her off of the oxygen. Yeah, everything, everything that they were taking her off of. But we came back in after that. And they handed braily to Mario first so that he could hold her. I had already made my peace with it, if that's possible. And I didn't know how long she was gonna stay alive after being on life support, being taken off of life support. So for me it was just like, I just gotta get her to her mom while she's breathing. I just gotta get her to her mom. So I handed her to Natasha. Natasha sat down in a chair and I sat across from her. I just felt that Natasha needed some time to herself with her. So I just walked out and stayed out for about another 15 to 20 minutes. Yeah, I think it's interesting because we talked about it the night prior about how this process might look taking her off of life support and not knowing how long the doctors were like, you know, we don't know how long it will take. And as soon as Mario handed braily to me, I knew that it didn't matter how long it took. I wasn't leaving her. I didn't care if it took days. I wasn't leaving my baby. And she was, it was very, very peaceful. She passed away very, very peaceful with a little smile on her face. When you're a parent, you just wanna help your child. You wanna be able to do something and I feel like I only got to feel like a real mom for 45 minutes in her life because it was the only time that I could actually hug her and hold her close and let her know I was there. But she was a fighter the entire time. Even how she, even how braily left this world in a regard was just smooth. It was almost like it was on her own terms because here she is for 45 minutes functioning without an intestines, blood clots throughout her body, her livers dissipating. And she was just slightly swollen, but she had her own little smirk on her face and it's almost like I'm leaving when I feel like leaving, you know. And I'm gonna do it with grace and poise and she did and I guess that's why you can't, that's why she's our ray of hope in that regard. It's just like she did so much to impact individuals' lives in seven days, never getting off of her hospital bed than some people spend a lifetime doing in terms of impact. And that was just powerful to watch. Here's where her room was. Everything in here was new and we put it together with Natasha and... Your mom. We put it together. No, but... We really were focusing a lot on just positivity for her being a girl and just certain things. She was clothed in strength and dignity and she lasts without fear of the future. Proverbs 31, 25. Just a lot of just positive quotes trying to just help her be able to look around and feel like she can conquer the world. So I was really, we were really excited about her having these two dolls because they are Rosa Parks and Catherine Johnson, who recently passed away from... She's from... NASA. Yeah. What was the movie, though? Hidden Figures. Hidden Figures, yep. And Rosa Parks. So we were excited about her having that. And then we're just going to kind of go here. This is her closet. And she was getting ready to be decked out. Everything was ready for her to be here. So, yeah. Down there, that bag is full of just like cards that we received from people after she passed away. Wow. I didn't realize. There was so many. Man. Wow. Lots of love. Lots of love. Because we have just her footprint in here. The cap from when she was born as well as this is the band from when she passed. And just little things in here to remember her by are some significant letters to us from people. Another footprint of hers. And one of the wristbands that we wore in the hospital. So... It's been 139 days since our baby girl's death. Four and a half months. That's nothing. Like it just happened yesterday. On February 14th of 2019, we found out we were pregnant with Braley. And now, a year later, we are in mourning from her death. Such a beautiful piece of me is gone forever. I was reading through some of her medical records and it just breaks my heart that 1,700 pieces of paper is the most I will ever know about my baby girl. Making memories was stripped from us. Being a mom of two was stripped from me. It's like losing your dream job that you were made to do. It hurts. It's heartbreaking and it's life-shattering. Today is our eight-year anniversary and thinking on love, I think of my sweet Braley Amora. And that was our next obstacle, was Declan. Because when after we had had Braley, you know, our friends had been watching Declan and I remember them dropping him off. She was still at the hospital and he ran the house saying, where's my baby sister? And we were like, ah, she's still at the hospital. And so what we ended up doing was getting him. Actually, we had already gotten a gift from Braley to Declan and from Declan to Braley that we were going to have exchanged when we brought Braley home. And we told him the medicine didn't work anymore. The medicine could not help her the way we wanted it to. And he cried. He cried. He was sad. But then we said, hey, Braley actually got you a gift before she passed away. And it was like a Spider-Man action figure and a Ninja Turtle. It was like his first action figure. Yeah, he had never had one. And so she wanted you to have this. And he took it and he looked at it and he said, my baby sister wanted me to have this. And we were like, yeah. And he goes, but she died. And we said, yeah. And he cried and he hugged Natasha. And then he looked at the gift again and he said it again. My baby sister's dead. And then he hugged me and cried. And then he took the gifts and walked away. Braley's excited to show the gifts to the family. It was like a proud moment for him. Like, I heard you. I heard that she passed. But look what she did. She thought of me before she passed. And that, I feel like that helped him transition and have something softer to think about and not distract him because he still thinks on it. But really helped kind of soften the situation itself. We are not the only ones who have lost a child. And yet you treated us as if we were. And it means so much. And we don't have the words to tell you what that means to us during this time. And I know that God is going to speed up our healing process. He's already doing it. Because he, this is an opportunity for him to get the glory. I'm not just spitting out religious rhetoric. I'm not quoting from my Sabbath school years or from my Christian education. I know that my savior lives. And he swooped in at the moment that the physician told us that they couldn't do anything else. And he swooped in the moment we decided to take her off of life support. And he swooped in the 45 minutes as my wife held her in her arms, bravely in her arms, and she took her last breath. He interceded so that we wouldn't lose our minds. Because he says, perfect peace, I will keep you in perfect peace. If your minds are stayed on me. And I don't confess to always have my mind on God. In his grace and mercy, he swooped in. And we're able to celebrate today and not just to Lord. Can I say something about something you asked earlier? You asked about a couple in our situation that went through the same thing or grieving and things. One thing I think that really helped, at least me, was to stop trying to find the why. Because the truth about it is, no matter what God would have told me, it wouldn't have been good enough. But she had her own little smirk on her face. And it's almost like I'm leaving when I feel like leaving. And I'm going to do it with grace and poise. And she did. And that's why she's our ray of hope. I think just on behalf of both of us, we just want to say thank you to the community that walked with us on this journey. There were entire schools who made cards for us. There were individuals around the world who sent notes, letters, comments on social media. There are individuals who had murals painted, pictures painted depicting our family. There's all kinds of love and support. And we just want to say thank you because we leaned on you. We vented this thing. And what many might have seen as just a heroic act was really our therapy. We were getting it out. And you listened. And you responded. And we thank you so much for the love.