And I turned over and like started to fall asleep,
and the next thing I knew,
they're coming in and like stabbing me in the thighs.
And I started shaking
from the medicine that they were giving me.
Please just save my baby, please just save my baby.
Boom, I was out.
My grandparents are Holocaust survivors from Germany.
My grandfather was a survivor and he was also a liberator.
He liberated Dachau, seeking justice for Nazi war crimes.
I grew up in a Messianic Jewish home.
For me, it was always very important to be Jewish,
it was always very important to follow Jesus,
I mean we called him Yeshua when I was growing up.
Being a good Jew is you follow the Messiah of Israel
and you do what he says you're supposed to do.
The thing that's always struck me about Jesus
is like how down in the dirt he was in his life.
You think about a Messiah who comes,
and we expect him to be this like big political figure
and he's gonna you know, defeat our enemies
and he's gonna bring peace,
and instead what the Messiah does
is like get down in the dirt
and heal people's broken bodies.
He was always concerned like fundamentally
with people who had no money and no power,
and I was always inspired by his example.
I was also interested in pursuing justice,
I was also interested in going after big bullies.
As a lawyer, by practicing law
on behalf of people who have no money, who have no power,
who are in situations where they're being abused,
that's what I can do.
I went to Thailand and got drawn to an organization
that was working on the human trafficking issue.
So, I was working with these social workers
and investigators who were looking into
cases of human trafficking.
So, what I ended up doing for months and months
was sitting in a dark room,
looking at this revolting footage
of children being sold for sex in brothels,
to bring some measure of justice to the situation.
I was just amazed to find that
this was something that I had a capacity for
and it was something that would
get me out of bed in the morning,
and it was something meaningful.
When your life is going really well
and you're making lots of money
and your career is flying high
and you're in a great relationship
and you know, everything's good, you don't need God,
what do you need to God for?
Like, oh, I did all that.
I'm so smart and special, I did it.
That's kind of the attitude that I had developed.
I was so excited to be a mom
and I hated being pregnant and I wanted him out of me.
Got to the hospital, everything seemed to be going fine,
and I turned over and started to fall asleep,
and the next thing I knew,
the room was filling up with nurses.
They're coming in and like stabbing me in the thighs
and trying to get my son's heart rate back up
because his heart had stopped.
And I started shaking from the medicine
that they were giving me and they're taking apart the bed
and they're shoving me down the hall.
Within like 15 seconds, somebody hit a button on the wall,
and I heard on the intercom, code C.
What just happened?
Looking up at the technician
who had put this mask on my face, and I said,
please just save my baby, please just save my baby.
Boom, I was out.
And then the next moment I wake up
and they're like, "Congratulations, you're a mom."
I see his little hands, you know reaching out
of the little plastic crib,
and I didn't even see his face and I fell in love with him.
And then immediately they start telling me
everything that's wrong with him.
Someone said the word, genetic disorder.
And so, the next week, recovering from a C-section,
separated from my baby, wondering if he was gonna be okay,
feeling just completely useless.
And a nurse came in, probably two days after he was born
and she was just coming in to
take my temperature and blood pressure,
and she's like, "How are you?"
And I just burst into tears.
She said, "It's gonna be okay."
I said, I don't think it's gonna be okay.
I think something's really wrong with him.
And I felt
I was at one of the darkest moments of my life,
I felt so helpless, and I cried out to God.
And I was like, God, what are you doing?
Why did this happen to me?
Where are you?
I just had the feeling of almost like
someone putting their hand on my shoulder.
Just like this comforting like, "I'm here, like this sucks
"and it hurts, and I'm here."
I remember going to see him in the NICU
and he's in this little incubator
and he had all these like wires and sensors
and he had an IV in his arm,
and he was like tiny and gray and shriveled.
He was looked like a wrinkly old man, and he was having...
Like seeing him breathe, I could see his chest move,
and I felt so helpless.
Before I had my son, I kind of thought of myself
as like a Wonder Woman.
Like, oh, there's nothing I can't do, women rock,
like everything is just a challenge,
an obstacle to be overcome.
And when I had my son, I realized I'm not in control,
I'm not in control of my body,
I'm not in control of what's happening with my child.
This is all an illusion,
that I have control over really, like anything.
Like fundamentally, like I'm gonna have to depend on God.
I literally like, God gave me this child
and he came out of me and I had to give him right back,
and be like, here you go,
keep them alive because I can't.
You realize like, I literally can't even
get it from one minute to the next without God's help.
Five days later I got to leave the hospital
with him in my arms,
and put this tiny little person in the car seat and go home.
Thank God everything actually turned out to be okay.
Every little issue that my son had, it all cleared up,
you know, in the space of that week.
I have felt, in times of immense
sorrow and struggle and suffering, God was there.
When people are going through
the most horrific trauma in their lives, God is there.