Arnold - 37 seconds: dying revealed heavens help--a mothers journey

To my children, Valentina, Adina, and Jacob.

Thank you for loving me with the purest, strongest, and

most sensitive of hearts. Everything I do, I do for you.

To the love of my life. I will never forget the pain

we endured or the strength it took to get to the other side.

I love you, sweetheart, in this lifetime and the next.

The first time is a charm: Jonathan and I during our first pregnancy together, which now strikes us as amazingly uneventful.

LORI ALLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

I VE ALWAYS KNOWN YOU TO BE A FIGHTER. It was a pep talk just like the ones he had given me many times before. Ive always known you to survive, my Uncle Marvin said, trying to comfort me. I started to sob uncontrollably. And then I realized he was trying to distract me from turning around. Suddenly, a sharp pain shot down my throat and my stomach felt like it was being ripped open. I turned around and watched in horror as a scalpel dug deep into the sternum of someone on an operating table, slicing all the way down the center of the persons stomach. When one of the doctors moved to the side, I saw that the someone was me.

Can I come out? I gasped. I wanted out of hypnosis. I think Im going to throw up.

Im going to count... one, two, three, four, five. Take another deep breath, youre coming back. Its all okay, Linda, my therapist, softly said. Tears were streaming down my face.

Did I just see what I thought I saw? Was I actually witnessing doctors trying to bring me back to life? I was in shock. For months people had been asking me what I could remember about the moment I died on the operating table, but I couldnt remember a thing. Now, during a regression therapy session, I was watching and feeling every painful detail. Did it really happen that way? Was I looking through a window into the past? Or was this a recalled episode of Greys Anatomy left in my subconscious? I couldnt get my head around it.

Eight months before, I died after giving birth to our son, Jacob. I flatlined for 37 seconds. What happened to me was medically unpredictable, but my doctors will tell you that I survived because I predicted it. I had experienced detailed premonitions for months beforehand that I would die the same day my son was born, and manyincluding my doctorsbelieve those visions saved my life.

A few months after Jacobs birthafter I had recovered from not just childbirth but trauma and deathI realized I needed help processing the entire experience. The realization that I had seen my own death ahead of time was too much to handle on my own. My doctors couldnt give me any direction, religious leaders were sure that G-d (which is how many of us in the Jewish community spell the term in order not to inadvertently take the name in vain) had played a hand in it, and my husband was happy that I was alive but, as a left-brain thinker, couldnt even begin to fathom how I could have seen my own death. I needed more help than my doctors and rabbis could offer. So, I turned to regression therapy.

No one prepared me for the pain I was about to endure by going back into the past or for what I was about to see.

And if it was possible to go back into the past, then was it possible that I actually had a conversation with my uncle? After all, he had been dead for more than 20 years.

I would soon discover, as amazing as this is going to sound, that the details I saw by looking into the past were as accurate as my premonitions had been. These experiences ultimately opened up doors to a world I never knew existed and certainly never thought I would someday see. This is my story, as it happened to me and through the eyes of everyone else who witnessed it.

S HE READS STAINS. Coffee stains at the bottom of a very strong cup of Turkish coffee. I hate coffee, but I guess my curiosity got the best of me, so when I was 19 years old I went to see this psychic and drink from the cup. I wanted to see what the future would bring. Was it a boatload of riches, a handsome man, or a job that made me a great success? I never expected to hear what she told me. She said I would die at an early age. I know, right? They never tell you bad news, but there it was. No wealth. No man. No, I was going to die at an early age.

Of course, back then I passed off that prediction as maybe just a psychics ploy to get more money out of me by forcing me to ask how and when. I didnt bite. Maybe I should have.

I started thinking about that reading as I was recovering from dying.

Twenty-two years after the coffee lady allegedly saw those fatal stains, I died at the age of 41 for 37 seconds. Did the psychic really see something back then, or was it just coincidence? Ill never know. But I have come to believe that I cant discount the possibility of being able to see into the future, because months before I was to give birth to our second child, I had visions that I was going to die. They were scary and detailed. At the time I couldnt have told you why or how these visions happened, but they would ultimately save my life. In the aftermath, as I relived my deathonly this time as an observerI came to understand who had sent me those warnings.

It was May 30, 2013, one week shy of my scheduled C-section, and I woke up with a craving for a cigarette. I dont smoke. Never have. But throughout my pregnancy, I had craved them constantly. It was weird. I certainly wasnt going to pick up a smoke, but I had found myself purposely walking close to smokers just to get a whiff. Strange, I know.

I shook off the craving and headed to the kitchen to start the day. I was giving my daughter, Adina, breakfast, and I felt off. All of a sudden I felt a strange cramp, looked into my underwear, and saw blood. It wasnt a few droplets but a full rush of blood that quickly soaked my nightgown and puddled at my feet. Adina stood there staring at me with fear in her eyes. The mommy in me went into high gearas I tried to clean up. The only thing I could think to do was to keep smiling, be positive, and tell her she was going to meet her brother today. I didnt want her to be scared, even if I was.

The truth is, I was terrified. I wasnt in pain, just in shock. And from the look on my daughters face, she felt the same way. So I put a smile on my face and got excited, and she was distracted enough not to focus on the fact that I was, in her words, peeing red.

I calmly called Tessie to come upstairs. She was Adinas night nurse when she was born. Tessie was also a close family friend, and she had told my husband that she wouldnt leave me alone while he was out of town, given the pregnancy complications I was having. I am so grateful she was there that morning.

I knew I needed help right away, so I prepared to head to the hospital. As we got Adina strapped into the car, a million things were going through my mind.

I had to call my husband, Jonathan, who was in a meeting in New York. I could have walked to the hospital located directly behind our house in Chicago to get immediate medical attention, but I wanted to be with my doctors, who knew my medical history. So I knew I had to drive. Tessie went to get into the drivers seat, but I snapped at her and told her to get out of the way. I knew she would be nervous and wouldnt know where to go. Giving her directions and telling her to run yellow lights would only make her panic, so I told her to get into the backseat. I was still bleeding, but I figured I could get to the hospital in 15 minutes flat. I felt I had enough time. Okay, maybe it wasnt the smartest move Ive ever made, and yes, I know what could have happened. Still, Id had many fears and premonitions leading up to that day, but dying in a car accident wasnt one of them.