Jeremiah Trust

 Two days before Taylor was supposed to start her first chemo treatment, I started having very regular contractions.  The night before I thought I was in labor and almost woke Randy up.  The contractions stopped and I went back to sleep.  That next morning, they started again and didnt stop.  When they were five minutes apart we packed our bags and headed to the hospital.  The contractions were so strong I had to grip the door handle of the car on the way to the hospital.  My sister and mom were meeting us at the hospital, because they were going to watch the birth.  I got all checked in and got a bed in the triage room and kept laboring.  My mom and sister arrived.  The triage room was super tiny for me on the bed, Randy, my mom, and my sister (who was also very pregnant), so my mom and sister decided to go wait in the waiting room.  I kept laboring and my contractions got closer and closer together.  The nurse kept telling me that I was having braxton hicks, because I wasnt dilating past a three.  I told her that with my other 4 kids I would dilate slowly, but within a half hour I could be at a 9.  She still didnt believe me that I was in labor and she wouldnt call a doctor, despite me asking more than once.  So I kept waiting.  I didnt even have an IV placed because she told me "You could end up going home" I was like "Go home and what, have the baby at home?!" this was my fifth baby, I knew the difference between braxton hicks and contractions.  When my contractions were one minute apart I told Randy to go get the nurse and demand she call the doctor.  She came in and in an eye rolling manner said she would check me again.  She did and I had dilated one more centimeter so she said she would call the doctor.  They finally took me to a room.  A different nurse checked me, swore, and then said she felt feet.  All pandemonium broke out.  At that moment I felt the huge urge to push, but it was also with excruciating pain.  It wasn’t the normal urge to push pain.  It was the worst pain I had ever felt.  Im normally a very quiet birther and never scream, but I had a full on scream come out, I remember saying “Ohh my God!” Not sure if it was a prayer or not, but God heard my cry and was giving me strength in that moment.  Randy was trying to help me and comfort me, and I had my arms around his neck. I started pounding him in the back and writhing around on the table.  They told me they were going to have to take me to the OR and do a C-section.  I told them do whatever they need to do, just get the baby out!  They wheeled me back there and didnt allow Randy to come back.  He said he could hear me crying out for a long time and then silence.  Once I was back there the anesthesiologist tried to put an epidural in, but I have a weird curve in my back that makes it hard to get the epi to work.  Normally it partially works, but not fully.  He was very rude to me and told me I wasnt curving my back right.  Now picture this, I have baby feet in my pelvic bone and the rest of the body in my stomach and I’m in full blown labor- with the urge to push.  How in the world did he expect me to do that?!  He told me "Well, if you arent going to curve your back right Im going to have to put you under, and it might kill you and the baby" I was like "I dont even care at this point, please, just make it stop” it was horrific.  I literally felt like I was going to die.  I always wondered if I would be scared to die, whenever the time came.  I remember looking at the light above me as I was falling asleep and thinking "Wow, I dont know if Im going to live, I feel like Im dying.  Im not scared, I might wake up in Heaven” then I was out.

I slowly started to wake up, and instead of the pain being gone, it was pulsating through my body.  I started to panic and say "Why does it still hurt so bad?!  Why does it hurt?" then my moms angelic, sweet face appeared.  She was crying and she said "Im so sorry hunny" I said "Why does it hurt so much, mom?" she told me that the nurse dropped my morphine and I didnt have any pain medication.  It was such an urgent slash and grab that they didnt put any medicine in my IV… and then the nurse dropped my morphine.  I had no pain meds after having a C-section.  I looked at the sink, and it was that same nurse who didnt believe I was in labor.  Standing with her back to me, washing her hands.  I had to wait until more was ordered and brought down, and then get on top of the pain (it took hours to get on top of that pain).  The nurse, the mean anesthesiologist, the doctor who didnt want to be woken up, all went to the end of my bed.  They told me the babys head was stuck in my ribs and his feet were in my pelvic bone.  They had to wrestle him from the womb and he was born in really rough shape.  Randy went with him to the NICU.  The doctor told me it was so fast and urgent and he was so stuck that she had to cut my uterus in a T so any future births would have to be a C-section.  I remember saying "this is one long nightmare from Hell" LOL.  My sister kept saying "this is ridiculous, do you know her daughter just got diagnosed with cancer?! This is stupid" Im SO glad my mom and sister were there.  I dont think I could have stayed under control from the pain if they werent (since Randy had to go with the baby).  They would have probably had to sedate me.  Jeremiah was born in the wee hours of the morning and he arrived officially, the day before Taylor started chemo.  We knew this was Gods timing.  It most certainly wasnt ours!  We named the baby Jeremiah Trust.  Jeremiah was after Jeremiah 33:3.  A friend gave me a bracelet with that reference engraved on it.  "Call to me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty thing, which thou knowest not" I loved it.  Then Trust for his middle name, to remind us where our trust was being placed.  Trust was also part of Taylors bracelets- Trusting God 4 Taylor.  Jeremiah ended up being in the NICU for three weeks.  I checked out of the hospital the next day, so that I could go to Taylors first chemo treatment.  I was in so much pain, but I wanted to be there with her, I needed to be.  That time still makes me choke up when I think about it.  The hormonal emotions, watching chemo drip into my babys veins, recovering from an emergency C-section, and my newborn was in the NICU fighting for his life.  It was hard, so hard that we couldnt make it through...  If not for Gods strength.  Taylor had her first chemo treatment.  The next day she had her next treatment, and so on for 5 days.  It was a really difficult time.  I also chose not to nurse Jeremiah, as there was a huge risk of passing chemo into my milk- that he would drink.  We would also be spending weeks at a time in the hospital, away from him and I would be taking care of a very sick and clingy Taylor.  We decided it was too much.  It was very difficult to come to that decision.  I loved nursing my babies.  It still makes me sad when I think about it.  God was writing our story, and we were definitely being put through the fire.  But I survived the birth, and Jeremiah survived the birth.  Those weeks he was in the NICU gave us time to get used to Taylors chemo and treatments.  We went and visited Jeremiah everyday and also took Taylor to her treatments everyday.  I struggled to heal as I had to pick Taylor up, and carry her to her treatments.  Randy couldnt be there all the time as he had to work, so I had to be the one to take her to her back and forth to the hospital and hold her during her chemo.  More on that in the next post.