Another baby… another (scary) adventure.

“This Woman’s Work” by Maxwell

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.” 
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

 How strange pregnancy is.  It is a miracle for sure… but for my wife and I, it has created way more mystery than predictability.  

We had trouble getting pregnant but were blessed to be able to get pregnant with Graham and Savannah after some intervention.  But then, inexplicably, our world came crashing down after 20 weeks when we were told my wife’s cervix was dilated and she was basically going into labor.  I had no idea this was even a possibility.  Because something like this had never impacted me directly, I just could not grasp what was happening.  How sad is that?  How sad that as humans we cannot fully grasp the pain and tragedy of life’s misfortunes until they hit us directly between the eyes.  

Come to think of it… thank God for that.  If we all walked around knowing and feeling the pain that my wife and I felt and SO MANY others feel every day with the struggles they endure, we would never survive.  

Back to my point… so here we are in March of 2019 being told that my wife’s cervix is not capable of staying closed.  She needs to go directly to hospital and lay on her back and pray to God that these babies stay inside a little longer.  

They would stay 10 more days and not survive.  My wife would deliver them both, 5 hours apart.  We held them for a moment.  Spent the day with them.  And then said goodbye, knowing we would not see them again until the next life.  

Because for no medically explainable reason, my wife’s cervix began to dilate.  

We never healed from that loss but we knew that giving Graham and Savannah a brother or sister was something we desperately wanted.  We tried again and were fortunate enough to get pregnant with Thea.  

My wife’s water broke at home and contractions came quickly.  We rushed her to hospital and within just a few short hours, Thea was born.  Fun fact: that is not the order things typically happen in.  Only in movies is it always the water breaking first then the trip to the hospital.  Usually its contractions that increase in frequency and severity that prompt trip to hospital.  Or so we have been told. 

Thea, like her brother and sister, did not want to make things easy either.  She came out “like a linebacker” according to the doctor and between that and some medical issues, there was A LOT of blood.  This caused concern and my wife had to be closely monitored.  To make matters worse, when they finally did clear my wife to be moved to postpartum, I had to leave due to COVID restrictions.  Separated from my wife and my baby on our first night as a family.  

And now again, we find ourselves on another pregnancy adventure.  At an appointment before reaching 38 weeks, the doctors said our daughter was not measuring where they expected and was showing some other signs of poor development.  Not a crisis situation like it was with the twins, but they wanted to induce my wife and get her to hospital right away.  I was at work and immediately flew home to get our stuff together and kiss and love our daughter before leaving.  At 20 months old I was nervous but confident Thea could watch herself…. 

… KIDDING of course.  My mother in law was there.  

We get to the hospital and its a roller coaster right off the bat.  She is having contractions but not feeling them.  Ok maybe this baby will be coming sooner than later.  

Check the cervix.  Nope.  Nothing going on down there.  In fact, there is some scar tissue from the cerclage making it even tougher to open up.  

Hours go by.  Meds are administered to help the process along.  Another check.  Still nothing.  

So let me get this straight: for no reason that any medical professional can tell me, my wife’s cervix decided to open up wide and thus causing a premature birth our twins could not survive.  Now that SAME cervix, even with meds working on it and doctors manually “massaging” it to get it to open, will not budge a single centimeter?  

Well that makes sense.  

All the while my wife… my amazing wife just endures it all.  The doctors marvel at how she handles everything and so do I.  The physical pain she KNOWS she will go through … and I am not talking about the typical pain associated with birthing a child.  All the extra crap she has had to deal with… man, what her body has been through is incredible enough.  The fact that she faces it without batting an eye because she will do anything for her children is the most inspiring thing I have ever witnessed.  

For now, we sit and we wait… our baby they tell us looks great and everything is good.  

Three years ago we waited and prayed and prayed to be able to wait for a few more weeks longer to give Graham and Savannah a chance at survival.  

That didnt happen.  

Now we just pray our child survives, and mom and her are healthy through it all.  Let it happen when it happens.