The Making of Our Family - Part V and a Half

At 3:43 pm on Friday, January 26, 2007 Zoe entered our lives.  It was 7.5 minutes after we discovered her heartbeat had dropped and Nurse Becky sprang to action.

It was 30 seconds after I felt like a mom.

It was 120 minutes after N began to freak out. 

He paced the waiting room.  He called my mother on her cell phone.  She was en route to Puyallup to spend the weekend with me, unaware that her desire to spend the first bed-rest weekend with her daughter would actually be the weekend of her granddaughter's birth.  God had placed on her heart the need to visit.  He knew she would need to be there.  For me.  For N.  For Zoe.

N learned that Zoe weighed 2 pounds, 10 ounces at birth and was 14.75 inches long.  Her APGAR scores were that of a normal, full-term baby.  Because of her prematurity, she was rushed to the NICU.  All the hopes of holding her when she came into the world and celebrating with me were gone.  Survival became the priority.  Survival for him to get through the unknown.  Survival for Zoe through prematurity.  Survival for me through this medical emergency.

It would be 2 hours before he learned the problem:  rapid on-set HELLP syndrome.  Blood had pooled quickly in my liver, causing it to expand and rupture.  While that was happening, my platelet count dropped.  My body had no clotting mechanism.  They didn't discover this under after my emergency c-section.  They spent almost 3 hours trying to get my blood to clot and repair the damage caused by the HELLP.  I had no prior warnings.  Two days prior, when I was discharged from the hospital, my blood work showed everything to be normal.  I had gone from normal to fatal in a mere 15 hours.

Our family came from all over to be with us.  N and my mom took turns beside my bed in ICU.  N took turns going between me in the ICU and his daughter in the NICU. 

Her chance of survival was 25%.  My chance of survival was 10%.

For the first time in our marriage, he fell to his knees before God, begging for a chance to be the family we hadn't been.

For the first time, N put God in the center of our marriage.  We were broken.  Completely broken.  Spiritually, emotionally and physically broken.  Only He could heal us.