The doors crashed open and the bright lights blinded me as the paramedics rolled me into the emergency room. I looked up from the gurney into half-a-dozen strange faces that surrounded me. They were methodically and efficiently hooking me up to various monitors and IV lines. I silently beseeched someone to look me in the eye, to smile encouragingly, but no one did. My tears were dripping into my ears and soaking my neck. An emotional numbness enveloped me. I was in active labor, bleeding heavily, and only 22 weeks pregnant.
As long as I can remember, I've always wanted children. For many years I was unable to conceive, and I had accepted the fact that I was barren. So when my husband Jerry and I discovered that I was pregnant at 32 years of age, we were overjoyed, and considered the child within me a miracle from God.
My pregnancy was idyllic. I was energetic, rarely sick, and continued to work. At 20 weeks an ultrasound revealed that our baby was definitely a boy, and we immediately named him Brian. I don't remember ever feeling happier or more at peace than I did during my pregnancy. I was carrying my son within my womb and all was well with the world.
Monday, December 13, started as any other Monday. I woke up to my alarm and began getting ready for work. About an hour after I arose, I started bleeding heavily. Fear paralyzed me, but somehow Jerry got me to the hospital. An ultrasound showed that I was dilated to 2.5 centimeters and that the membranes (the sac of amniotic fluid surrounding the baby) were bulging from my cervix. I was immediately put in bed. Since I was only 22 weeks and 5 days into my pregnancy, my doctor was going to try everything to stop the progression of my labor.
I called the prayer chain of our church, and from that moment on prayers were being lifted--prayers for God's grace, strength for Jerry and me, prayers for Brian's very life. I could actually feel the countless prayers being offered on our behalf, drawing from them peace, and the knowledge that God was in control of the situation. He would bring us through it, if we would place our complete and unquestioning trust in him.
In the middle of the second night, I was overcome with a feeling that I'll never forget. I had spent endless hours trying to make a deal with God, telling him that I would do this or that if only he would spare my son. I finally realized the futility of trying to strike a bargain with the God of the universe! There was absolutely nothing I could offer him except my faith. At that time I reached the point where I accepted and even welcomed his will to be done, not mine. An indescribable sadness filled me as I consciously and willingly gave Brian over to God. Then, for a single fleeting moment, I felt what I believe God must have experienced when he gave his son over to the world. I've always had the head knowledge of God's pain when he sacrificed his own son for the salvation of mankind, but for the first and only time, I felt his emotion. I had the heart knowledge. I'll never be able to describe the depth of agony and loss that I felt. I knew that God was allowing me a brief glimpse of his sacrifice. The feeling passed quickly and I was left totally drained, completely emptied, and in absolute awe of the love God demonstrated towards us through his son, Jesus Christ.
By the third day my cervix had dilated to 6 centimeters and the membranes had telescoped halfway down my birth canal. Brian was in a double footling breech position, and his feet were pushing against the amniotic sac. I felt hopeless by this time. The labor couldn't be stopped, and Brian was too premature to be able to survive long past birth.
We had talked to my doctor several times about Tacoma General Hospital, another hospital in a larger city 30 miles away which had an excellent Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. She conferred several times with the doctors there. The specialists at the other hospital gave us no hope and discouraged her from transferring me. However, she left us with the ultimate choice and a warning that they wouldn't be able to do much more for us there. She then left Jerry and me alone to make the decision.
I held no hope of Brian's survival, and would have rather stayed in our local hospital where I was at least close to my friends and my church family who would help me work through my grief. As the door closed behind my doctor, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to let my husband make this decision on his own. That was totally out of character for me, as I've always insisted on having a say, especially in matters that directly affect me. Jerry turned to look at me, and I softly told him, "Whatever you want me to do, that's what I'll do." He broke into sobs and leaned over my bed, holding me tightly.
"I want to go to Tacoma," he managed to say. I also began crying and we held each other, drawing courage and strength from one another and from our faith in God. After a few moments, I called my doctor back into the room.
"We want to go to Tacoma General," I told her. "We have to do everything in our power to help Brian, otherwise we'll spend the rest of our lives asking ourselves, `What if?'" Within an hour we were on our way.
Upon our arrival at Tacoma, I was immediately surrounded by a whole team of nurses. The attending high-risk obstetrician entered my room and his first words were, "I know that you're here against your own doctor's advice." My heart dropped, his tone of voice held no hope or encouragement. He examined me, and found that I was dilated to 8 centimeters and he could actually feel Brian's tiny legs and feet within my birth canal. He expressed surprise that my membranes were still intact, and told me that they would do everything they could to hold off Brian's birth as long as possible. An ultrasound estimated Brian's weight at just over 1 pound, still too small to be considered viable.
A little later the attending neonatologist came to see us, and we talked at length with him about Brian's chances. He was brutally honest and gave us no false hopes, telling us that Brian's extreme prematurity would pose many serious problems. Obviously his lungs would need help, he would be on a ventilator for many weeks, and he was at extremely high risk for mental retardation, cerebral palsy, blindness, and a host of other permanent disabilities. Brian's chances of survival were only 50/50. The odds were even greater against his ever being normal.
I felt overwhelmed and discouraged, but told the doctor that we had to do whatever we possibly could. Finally, my husband and I were left alone, and we prayed with everything that was in us that God's will would be done, and that his will would be for Brian to be normal and healthy.
Six more days passed. My membranes miraculously stayed intact, holding Brian in despite my full dilation and regular and increasingly stronger contractions. On December 22, nine days from the start, I was told that Brian was now considered "salvageable," that he was over the magic weight of 650 grams (about one and a half pounds).
My doctor told me that Brian was starting to show some slight distress with each contraction, and that we shouldn't wait any longer. Jerry called our pastor and the prayer chain and told them that this was it, our son was going to be delivered within an hour.
At 9:57 p.m. on December 22, Brian Jacob Graham was delivered by cesarean section. He weighed 1 pound, 12 ounces and was 12 inches long. He was exactly 24 weeks gestational age, 16 weeks premature. He was immediately taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I didn't even get to see him as they whisked him away.
When I finally saw him, I was shocked. He looked like a tiny, wrinkled, and very red little old man. His eyelids were fused shut, and his face was half covered with tape to hold the ventilator in place. His thighs were no bigger around than my little finger. He was furiously kicking his legs and waving his arms, his brow wrinkled up in a ferocious grimace. The neonatologist came and stood next to us. "This one's definitely a fighter," he commented. At that point, I felt that maybe everything was going to turn out fine.
Brian was in the hospital for 17 weeks, and he amazed everyone with his will to survive. The doctors and nurses referred to him as the "Miracle Kid." Incredibly, Brian had not a single lasting ill-effect resulting from his extreme prematurity. One of the neonatologists commented that "God must definitely have a plan for that boy!"
Brian is now a healthy and happy three-and-one-half year old, full of energy and madly in love with his baby sister, Monica. No one would ever know by looking at him that he was born four months prematurely, and given less than a 20 percent chance at ever having a normal life. He is developmentally and physically normal, an incredibly typical three year old.
Hanging in Brian's bedroom is a needlepoint that I had begun only days after finding out that I was pregnant with him. It reads: "For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him; So I have dedicated him to the Lord as long as he liveth" (I Samuel 1:27-28, KJV).
Teresa Graham is a free-lance writer and the editor of the Capital Christian Writers Association newsletter. She lives with her husband and two children in Olympia, Washington.
This article was printed in Good News magazine (July/August 1996).