Around four years ago, the video of Dana Griffin-Graves’ announcement of her pregnancy to her husband Arkell went viral in social media. The couple had been trying to have a child for 17-years with zero results. Dana managed to conceive once but the baby was stillborn upon delivery. Added to this, she suffered four miscarriages. At one point, the Graves had given up and left everything in the hands of God.
Dana surprised her husband by putting buns in the over beside the sonogram photos of their child. She casually told Arkell to get the buns in the over. It was nothing but raw emotions of love, gratitude, and excitement from the moment the father-to-be saw the photo.
At the time of her revelation, the 41-year old Dana was already 19-weeks pregnant. The YouTube video showing the moment of Dana’s revelation and her husband’s emotional reaction garnered 10 millions of views. Hundreds of thousands followed the Graves in their Facebook page. Major new outlets and TV shows featured the plight and triumph of the Grave’s couple. The couple considered the conception as a miracle since they have given up after many years of disappointment.
“Baby Bun” Kaleb was born on October 20, 2015, several weeks before his due date. He was delivered via C-section, a procedure that placed Dana in a precarious situation. Her pregnancy resulted to high blood pressure and a prolonged conception put her life at risk. Right after giving birth, Dana was in critical condition just like her newborn son. The team of physicians had to resuscitate Kaleb immediately after birth.
Coming back from the delivery room, the doctor pulled out his iPhone.
“Your son,” said the physician, “is no longer than this.”
Kaleb underwent two heart surgeries to patch a hole in his heart. Furthermore, doctors had to treat the baby’s hypertension and drain fluid from his brain. Kaleb had to be incubated due chronic lung disease.
https://www.facebook.com/DanaArkell/videos/2017421091852272/
“I know that the scripture says that God will never put more on us than we can bear,” Dana posted on the Arkell & Dana’s Baby Bun Facebook fan page. “We have heard since our journey began in the NICU six months ago that this would be a “roller coaster…No more medication can help and there is no surgery that can fix the issues. So we are truly depending on God to be the Healer that we know Him to be. Arkell and I are very tired, scared, and hurting, but we still have our faith.”
In Arkell and Dana’s Baby Bun Facebook post last June 9, 2019, the Graves couple wrote: “I read something this week that really resonated with me, ‘Sometimes we feel we are hanging by a thread, Just make sure it is by the Hem of His Garment. We have to remember regardless of what’s going on, regardless how things look, God’s got you!”
References
Arkell & Dana’s Baby Bun. Videos and FB Posts. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/DanaArkell/
VCU Health Health. Bye, bye baby: After 356 days at VCU Medical Center, premature baby Kaleb Graves gets to go home. Retrieved from https://www.vcuhealth.org/services/health-services
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