The longest hours of our lives...

sweet gowns donated by threads of love....

  * Once again, I want to let you know, I understand if you can't read any further.  Some of the details are disturbing and heart breaking.

   Doctor G. had finally arrived after what felt like hours.  I remember asking over and over if I was going to be okay as I felt the blood pooling around me in the bed.  The nurses tried to keep me still, in order to keep me from losing too much blood, which would result in me having surgery.  Doctor G. kept encouraging Trent and I, and telling me that we would be just fine.  The hardest part had yet to come.  I'll never forget Doctor G. telling me, "It’s time to push".  When a woman hears these words, it's usually when she is about to give birth to a healthy, breathing baby.  This was not our situation.  Trent and I both knew without asking, that our children wouldn't live.  We knew they weighed right at a pound, but were still four weeks away from viability.  This began the worst hour of my life.  I didn't mention before that I thought I had Easton in the toilet.  I knew when my water broke that I sat back down and heard a large thud, but couldn't bring myself to look.  So, when the time came to push, I had no idea that both babies were still in my tummy.  It took, maybe ten or so minutes to have Easton, and I will never forget Doctor G's. words,  "Here comes baby "A".  My sweet Easton.  I longed to hear a cry, but he was silent.  I knew he was gone.  Then it was Parker's turn but, he wouldn't be born as quickly, or as easily as Easton.  Thank goodness I was in shock at this point because Trent said he will never forget hearing Doctor G. tell one of the nurses that she needed the forceps.  I could only hear them telling me to push and counting to ten over and over again.  Doctor G. told me, that this was when I needed to push as hard as I could.  Within minutes, I heard the dreaded words "here is baby "B", Parker.  At this point I thought the pain was over and we were finished.  Little did I know the placenta would not detach.  After at least twenty minutes of six nurses pushing on my stomach, I was now officially done giving birth.  No babies and nothing left of my pregnancy except my belly and a bruised stomach.  After having the babies I was given medication that literally made me nuts.  I couldn't talk or answer any of the nurse’s questions.  I remember my brain being able to understand but my mouth couldn't say the words.  Doctor G. then climbed up beside me in the bed and began to cry.  She was truly devastated and hurt by what had happened.  She felt so bad and I knew, she had done everything she could have.  This wasn't her fault, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't any one’s fault.  God just needed my boys more than I did.  They were His before they were mine and Trent's.  God knew we would only carry them for five months and that they would forever live in our hearts.
   Now, it was time to call our parents and I was not coherent enough to do so.  This meant that Trent had to call my mom and step-dad, my dad and step-mom and mother and father-in-law.  I can't imagine how hard this was for him.  We knew it would take our parents right at four hours to get to us, which meant we were all alone.  As Trent made the calls, Doctor G. sat with me.  I remember telling Trent after he had called our parents, that I wanted him to call them back and tell them that I didn't want any crying or acting like a fool.  Remember I was slightly out of it and although our mother's have never acted like fools in public, I couldn't handle the crying at the time.  Being that Trent was so worried; he called them and relayed my message.  I think they may have been slightly offended but I couldn't handle any more at this point.  Maybe twenty or so minutes after having the boy's and talking to our parents, the social worker came to talk to us.  Let me tell you, this pushed us over the edge.  I had just given birth to my children who were not alive and she began asking us questions about cremation and funerals.  Trent had to ask her to leave because we couldn't handle talk of cremating our babies, which was never an option!  She then had Trent sign papers, stating that we needed the hospital to hold our babies until further arrangements were made.  Then she asked another question that we were not prepared for.  "Do you want to see your boys?"  No, we said immediately because at this point we couldn't imagine.  She said she would give us another chance if we chose to next day, and with that she left.  It was after twelve by now and we knew our parents wouldn't get to the hospital until at least 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. We now sat and waited and I tried to answer questions that the nurses asked me over and over which I couldn't answer.  Simple things, like what is your address? And what is your name?  I remember looking at them like they were nuts and saying, "I don't know, ask him" referring to Trent.  We were finally left alone, to wait for our family.  Around 2:30 a.m. a nurse knocked on the door and told us we had company.  I knew our family couldn't have made it by now, so who was here?  One of our good friends from high school's parents called one of their friend's from Lake Charles and told him what happened and that we were alone.  This nice man then, got out of bed at 2:00 a.m. and headed to the hospital.  Neither Trent nor I had ever met him, but we were so touched to have him there with us. I was still out of it and am quite sure I embarrassed Trent and this nice gentleman.  As this man wearing a cowboy hat entered my room I said to him "Who sent you?"  "I don't know you? And  "Did my step-dad send you?"  I have no idea why I thought Mike sent him but that goes to say I was quite loopy.  Trent tried to hush me by saying "it's ok baby, he's just hear to check on us, and Mr. Buckshot sent him.  I then kept saying "are you sure Mike didn't send you?"  After I finally quit questioning this poor man he asked if he could pray with us and told us who he was.  I was instructed to keep quiet, so I did.  I never meant to be rude but just couldn't comprehend what was going on.  After twenty minutes or so we were alone again and I was now confused on when it got dark.  I wondered why no one had fed me lunch and why the sun wasn't shining.  Needless to say, I will never willingly take that medicine again, even though I didn't even know I was given it this time due to being in shock.  Poor Trent said that he had to tell me every few minutes that it was not lunch time and that it had been dark for a while.  The nurses decided to get me a sandwich tray since I was so insistent on eating "lunch" at what was now 3:30 in the morning.  Before letting me eat, I was transferred to post-partum getting my blood checked.  I was then fed and offered more medicine, which I declined.  I didn't want to be medicated because I wanted to be able to talk and know what was going on.  After lying silently for a while our parents arrived.  In their defense, they didn't act like fools or even really cry in front of me for that matter.  When they thought they couldn't hold it together any more they would go out in the hall and compose themselves.  After about an hour or so they left to go stay at mine and Trent's house and get a few hours of sleep.  Trent and I thought we should try to rest also.  Around 8:00 a.m. our parents came back and sat with us until I was discharged.  At 12:00, like she said she would, the social worker showed back up.  We now had to decide if we wanted to see our boys or not and made the arrangements to have the boys sent back to Winnsboro, where we would then make funeral arrangements.  We both at first said no we would not like to see them.  After all, that was our decision the night before.  That was when I began to change my mind.  The social worker told us how beautiful our babies were and she suggested that we see them.  Doctor G. then made her rounds again and we asked her what her opinion was.  She said the same thing.  We should see them because if we didn't, we may always have regrets.  No one ever regretted seeing their baby's she said.  We then made the decision; we would see them.  After waiting another hour or so, I'll never forget the knock on the door, to let us know that the time had come to see our sweet boy's.  As they were rolled in our room, we thought we may pass out. Trent was still unsure if he wanted to hold them because this would be the hardest thing we would ever have to do, but after seeing their sweet faces he melted.  We were told from the beginning that the boy's would look so much alike that we wouldn't be able to tell them apart.  This wasn't the case.  They looked nothing alike, and were both absolutely beautiful.  They were ours, and they were perfect....

“For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds,” says the Lord.  Jeremiah 30:17

* I will try to finish in the next few days, but this is as far as I can make myself go today.  I can't wait to tell you about what Easton and Parker look like and how they took our breathe away but that will be another day.  Thanks so much for reading.  I am so glad to get to share our babies with you.