Dakota John Wagner was born Feb. 21, 2001 at 10:51 pm by emergency c-section. He weighed in at 6 lbs 14 oz, and was a screamer. Dakota spent his first 18 hours of life in a heated bed with oxygen. When he was about 12 hours old, I was taken into the nursery and put in a rocking chair, and allowed to hold him for the first time. When I did his breathing leveled out and his body temp started going up.
Dakota graduated Kindergarten. He won the class hug award for giving the best hugs, and the class reading award for having the highest scores on reading tests. Dakota was so proud of the fact that he was moving on to the 1st grade and wanted the new school year to start the next day. It was hard to convince him that there would be no school during the summer, he loved it so much. Dakota was given a DVD called Kindergarten Memories, that he watched nearly everyday. He loved his friends.
A puppy was thrown out in Nanny's front yard, and Dakota begged us to let him have it. Dakota named her Harmony, after we convinced him that he could not name her Dakota. Dakota took great care of that puppy in the time that he had her, cried when she got her shots, made sure that she always had food and water, even though the bag of food was almost as big as him.
Our family was having a late 4th of July party, so we were driving out to Nanny's house, and Dakota was cloud watching. He pointed out an angel in the clouds and then began to talk to God and tell him that he loved him.
That night during the fireworks after everyone Dakota would yell, 'Oh that one scared me" and jump into my lap and give me a hug while Dad was lighting the next one. It was late when we headed for home, but all the way there Dakota talked about how much fun he had, and that he couldn't wait to do it again.
Dakota died July 16, 2007 at 12:02 pm. After being found in the pond he was rushed to Mena Medical Center where the Drs worked on him for 1 hour until his heart began to harden, and there was nothing that could be done to restart it. The organs that were viable were donated through Arora so that maybe some other mother will be spared the pain that I am dealing with.
