Our Miracle Baby Born July 4, 1988

We know about those miracle babies who are born prematurely or with drastic health problems but survive through God’s intervention and the advances of medicine. Their survival is a true miracle. But there’s another kind of miracle baby – the kind that in spite of all kinds of threats to their survival are born at the right time, whole and healthy. My daughter is one of those miracle babies.

The first threat to her survival came early. In 1987 I had my first two miscarriages, one in April and one in August, both at 10 weeks gestation. My doctor at the time was our family practitioner, and his advice was straightforward and simple: “We usually don’t investigate for causes to miscarriages until there have been three in a row. So go ahead and try again.”

We found out a few years later (after two more miscarriages) that I have a condition called “luteal phase defect”. In other words, most months my body doesn’t produce enough progesterone to sustain a baby’s life until the placenta is mature enough to stimulate the production of progesterone. The levels of progesterone fluctuate from month to month – only God knows which months I would be able to conceive and carry a baby past 10 weeks. Going ahead and trying again – as my doctor advised – was basically a death sentence to any babies we would conceive…unless God intervened.

But we didn’t know that back in 1987, so we tried again. In November I went to the doctor for a pregnancy test, and it was positive. I had wanted another child so badly, but when I heard the news I could only cry. We had already lost two of our babies, and I felt like we were sacrificing the life of this one just so that we might have another baby sometime in the future.

The 10 week point for this pregnancy was the week between Christmas and New Year’s. We cancelled a trip east to spend Christmas with our families. I didn’t want to have another miscarriage away from home, and didn’t want my mood to put a damper on everyone else's holidays. Christmas was quiet, with just our 3 year old son, my dear husband and me. Each day during that week passed with me constantly watching for signs of an impending miscarriage. The first week of January came, I went back to work, and we began to hope that maybe this pregnancy would be successful, with a due date of July 21.

By the middle of January we had passed the milestone of the first trimester and we began to plan for our new baby. I grew larger and larger with each passing week and my doctor’s examinations gave me a clean bill of health. The spring months passed slowly (as they always do when you’re pregnant), and in May we planned a birthday party for our son who would be 4 on May 28.

Then came the second major threat to our baby’s survival. May 27 was a Friday and I was at week 32 in my pregnancy. After work I picked up our son at daycare and then ran a couple errands before going home. After supper I was finishing up the plans for the birthday party the next day. Suddenly, blood started pouring down my legs. By the time my husband had called the doctor, someone to take care of our son, and we were ready to go to the hospital – a space of about five minutes – I had lost so much blood that I couldn’t walk to the car. My husband somehow half carried me there, and we rushed to the hospital.

Once I had been stabilized in the emergency room, an ultrasound was done and we found out that I had a condition known as placenta previa – meaning that the placenta was completely covering the opening of my uterus, and if I continued in labor the placenta would be delivered first and our baby would not survive. We discussed transferring us to another hospital equipped with a neo-natal intensive care nursery for an emergency caesarean. Then the contractions stopped, the bleeding was under control, and we stayed where we were.

I stayed in the hospital for a week. The doctor said I could go home to wait for the caesarean we had planned for July 12, but only if I had someone with me who could drive me to the hospital in case of an emergency. We ended up hiring a 14 year old girl to stay with me during the day for a few weeks (in Kansas, 14 year olds can have a provisional license to drive to and from work and school), and my dad took a couple weeks of his vacation to stay with me (spending some of that time working from our home), and we waited. I was on bed rest – I could take a shower, eat at the table for one meal, and use the bathroom - but other than that I was on the couch or in bed. I was also taking drugs to speed up the development of the baby’s lungs and to prevent me from having any contractions. Time passed very, very slowly.

Early in the morning of July 4 I got up to use the bathroom and felt a “pop”. I knew something bad had happened. Within a minute or two I was in the car, but I don’t remember much past that point. I was losing blood so quickly that I had mostly lost consciousness by the time we reached the hospital – less than 5 minutes away. I do remember the anesthetist putting me under, and an emergency caesarean was done. At 3:00 our daughter was born.

I found out later how much blood I had lost, how much time it took to stitch me up again, and how my husband was able to hold his new daughter for hours and just rock her and talk to her. She was healthy, over 8 pounds, and beautiful. She had been carried through two threats to her life – she is truly God’s miracle gift to us.