The verse of my life that has gotten my through so much fear and pain is
2nd timothy 1:7 – for God has not given me a spirit of fear but of love power and a sound mind.
Wow I have no idea where to start. As so many people read Rebekah’s blog and are touched by her sharing her heart, I am being asked how am I doing through all of this? I am not a writer at all so I am apologizing up front for my mistakes.
From a father and husband
I will start with Sunday night (3-27-11) lying on the couch watching Army wives and crying over the content of the show. It was about a family whose husband and son were deployed in Afghanistan. Now this was already hard for me to watch because of the war scenes it sometimes brings nightmares for me. What came next was more than a nightmare. The father was sitting back from a distance listening to his men advance, and take back an area of the Afghan country and in that mission his sons life was taken. Watching the father get the news was so hard to watch. Man, that guys is a great actor because he put into action the way I felt when I got the NEWS. Now at this point, I look over at Bekah and she says I would not be able to ever handle anything like that. I knew in my heart the truth about how strong she is. I told her you are stronger than you think you are and you also will never know what you can do until you are in those shoes. Even now I feel regret for not hitting the floor and praying protection over my family.
Fast forward to Monday morning Bekah headed out to get a maternity massage (taking kinzley to her moms); I took Braxton to the VA medical center with me. I take an anti anxiety medication and I have been out for a while and I felt the need to go get some that morning (I now know why). After leaving the VA I called bekah and told her I was running to Lowes and then headed home to work on a few projects around the house because I also took off school this next quarter (again now I know why I took time off school) so I had the time. Somehow when I stopped at home to get money I left my phone on the counter and I never seem to leave home without it. So poor Rebekah was calling me and the house phone in a panic for me and as I walk into the house the phone starts ringing and as soon as I pick up she is broken with grief and tears. My first thought is that she was in a car accident. Then she says “Phil can you come over here I need to tell you something” and I hit the ground saying noooooo. Then I screamed FUC*** and before I got out the K Braxton looked at me scared so I stopped and told Bekah I was on my way as fast as I could get there. Now here is a kind of Funny part at least it got me smiling the day of. Braxton was so cute as I was driving he kept saying “FUC daddy what wrong”? over and over again. Now on any other day I would have corrected him or never said it in the first place but unfortunately this was no ordinary day. Again I feel such regret for not going to the routine check up as a husband and father you want to protect your wife and children from pain and if you can’t keep them from pain you want to hold them through it. And I WAS NOT THERE for Bekah or Kinzley in that time of need and I am freaking pissed at myself for that.
As I arrived at the OB’s office with Braxton in my arms I step into the office to see my sweet Kinzley behind the counter teary eyed coloring pictures and she looks up at me and says daddy I am coloring these pictures for mommy so she won’t be sad anymore because she is in the Dr’s room crying. So I give her a kiss and say grandma buckeye is on her way to pick you and your brobro (that is what we call Braxton) up so mommy and daddy can go see a new Dr. at the hospital. Now I feel like an ass for dumping my kids off on my mother in law and not even taking the time to explain anything to them.
Walking down the hall to the room where Bekah was in was a numbing punch in the gut experience. I had no idea what I was feeling, if I was feeling, let alone what the hell was I going to say to Bekah. My beautiful wife was so broken. She fell into my arms as I walked into the room. She just kept saying they could not find a heartbeat. My thoughts as I held her were DO the damn ultrasound again I don’t believe you, or hey machines don’t work all the time and until I see it with my own eyes there is still a chance that this is not happening. So her OB came into the room and let us know the plan from here. I was thinking I like plans at least I can do what the Marines taught me to do Follow a plan. I think I was still numb at this point not feeling and I could see on Bekah’s face that she wanted to know why I was not emoting. I was too occupied with the plan both the Drs and my own and I was doing them both. OB’s plan step one- we needed to head over to St. Anns and check into a triage room on the labor delivery floor. So we did. (oh and if you work at the Ft. desk please read the chart cause when you tell a lady welcome and enjoy your delivery and the info is in her chart you need smacked-I’m just sayin). My plan step one – call family and get prayer started as much as possible, call my two dudes Scott, and James and vomited all my words and thoughts of all the crap that was happening on their voice mails and to please pray.
Sitting in the triage room sucked we both were on our phones more than we talked to each other I think the less we talked about it the less real it was. She cried and I did not so she finally asked without looking me in the eyes how are you doing, and the dreaded why are you not crying? No words. I finally answered and said I am praying for a miracle before the high risk Dr. tells me our baby is gone in my mind she isn’t. She told me she can’t even think about that because she can’t get her hopes up only just to get them crushed again. I understood but I was still holding strong to the slim chance someone was wrong! So we waited for the DR and waited and waited and waited for what seemed like forever. Then in walks this old guy followed by this young girl and the ultrasound machine. They took pictures and talked back and forth and then the old guy started talking. I held my breath for good news but I knew what was coming I could see the baby was not moving. They showed us where the heart was supposed to be and where the blood should be flowing and there was none going through the heart. He kept talking, gave the 20ies something a lesson on the ultrasound machine but I stopped listening. I was numb again. Why is all I could think?
Step two of the OBs plan-I was hoping we would never reach this step but here we are. We were moved to the farthest back corner of the labor and delivery floor. Now in my mind this was because they did not want us to see all the new babies, and also did not want the new moms to see us and get scared. As we “settled” into our room they started laying out the steps of what was going to happen from here. If bekah went with one procedure there was a 60% chance to rupture her uterus and leave her unable to have kids again, or she could be induced into labor and have the baby like “NORMAL”. WTF normal are you kidding me if this was normal we would be home already making lunch and putting Braxton down for a nap, not choosing how to extract our beautiful child from her mother’s womb. Well we chose the second because we want a big family, but even with the thought of more children scared me I don’t know if I am strong enough to do this again. They do what all Drs do they gave us worse case on everything you know CYA. So we expected this whole procedure to take 24-48hs after they started her medicine to get everything going. Now watching your wife go through sucks bad enough when you can’t do anything about it but extra pain cause people are not great at what they should be good at sucks. They tried 6 freaking times to put in the IV by 3 nurses and one dr. before they finally got it in and then they used the wrong size needle so they had to do it again to draw blood. NOT off to a good start but we are here so I guess we stay, right? What choice do we have at this point. Next they ask bekah if she wants the epidural and she says no originally but then the attending comes in and scares the crap out of Rebekah about how bad this is going to hurt, which then wakes me up from my numbness(wait, what? more pain for her oh hell no). Now mind you we have been here since noon and it is now 5ish and they still have not started her medicine but now I say do the epidural cause I don’t want her in any more pain thinking hey I am helping her make a good decision. Well the decision delays the medicine at least another hour and now means she can’t eat till after she has the baby which could be in two days but she does it cause she can see in my eyes I don’t want her in pain. I love that woman. But I am a dumb ass man that lets fear lead my heart sometimes. So I regret having her do the epidural now!
My mom came over to sit with us so as they started the epidural we had to leave the room. Oh well it was a chance to call some more people to pray and to eat I was starving as I am sure Bekah was also. As we got back to the room they changed their strategy while I was gone Bekah’s OB called in to check and see her progress and was upset to find out that the hospital still later into the evening had not started her medicine. So the med that were going to be so painful were now not going to be used. (Screeching halt … in my mind when you change plans I need to know why, so we asked our nurse why are they not using the first meds? She answered I don’t know what those meds even are they must be new. WTH who says that to a patient)? The new meds was inserted in her vaginally and was going to be re inserted every 6 hrs till we have the baby. So it is now 9 pm they get her medicine started. My mother and father in law are just leaving with the kids(they brought them by to say their goodbyes to the baby). It was nice to see how the kids were after being yanked away from us so suddenly earlier in the day at the OB’s office. This is when I started feeling pain was when kinzley asked when did she get to hold and snuggle the baby. That is when the loss started to hit me.
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