I sat by my wife’s bed in the Duke University Medical Center ICU, staring intently at Becky’s closed eyelids for the slightest sign of movement.
“Can you hear me?” I asked, squeezing her feverish arm. “Our baby is out of the hospital. Olivia went home with your sister on Christmas Day. The doctor says she’s fine now. The boys are doing well too. They’re with your family. We’ll go home and all be together again…soon…”
I looked at the blown-up pictures of our daughter, now two weeks old, that I had just about wallpapered the hospital room with. I wanted Becky to see our baby’s face the moment she woke from the coma she had slipped into after her emergency cesarean on December 22.
Olivia was our miracle baby, conceived after years of infertility. She’d had some respiratory distress at birth, but she’d recovered quickly. It was Becky who had suffered a massive systemic infection and lay near death. It was Becky whom I’d been praying over almost nonstop for the last two weeks.
“Lord, I praise you,” I said aloud, my voice catching in my throat. “But you promised to never forsake us. Surely, after all the years we waited, you didn’t give us a baby only for things to turn out like this.”
Days had never felt so long. How many hours had I kept this vigil, hoping and praying to see my wife’s eyes open and for her to be healed? I barely ate. Slept for maybe an hour or two each night. I had never prayed this long or hard. I tried not to think about being a single dad to our nine-year-old adopted twin boys, Adam and Andrew, and to baby Olivia. But how could I not? How long could I go on like this?
A nurse came to the door. “It’s 9 p.m.,” she said. “I’m sorry, but you have to go. Your wife needs rest and so do you. We’ll take good care of her and we’ll see you again tomorrow.”
This was the absolute worst part. At the first two hospitals that had treated Becky I’d been able to stay by her side. But here at Duke I was only allowed in her room during visiting hours. “Your wife is very sick,” the nurse had explained four nights ago when we first arrived, rushed by air ambulance the 120 miles from Lynchburg, Virginia. “She needs quiet time without any stimulation.”
I dreaded going back to my hotel room. There the fear and loneliness couldn’t be kept at bay. I walked through the hospital to my car and slowly drove out of the parking lot. We’d been through so much. It seemed like a lifetime ago when it had all started…
We had been all set for Christmas, only four days away. It was going to be the best one ever. I remembered coming home from work, turning on the outside lights before going in the house. Becky had just finished wrapping the boys’ presents.
She looked beautiful by the tree, its branches heavy with ornaments we’d collected in 14 years of marriage. I could just picture her unwrapping the hand-painted mother-and-child figurine I’d gotten her. The whole season of Advent, of waiting for the birth of Christ, that sense of expectation, was even more meaningful as we waited for the birth of our own baby, a child we thought we could never have.
That night Becky was nauseated. She started having contractions. It was close to her due date, December 28. “Time to go to the hospital,” I said. Becky didn’t argue. She was doubled over in bed.
I did everything just as we had rehearsed. Called her father to take the boys. Made sure the dogs had extra food and water. Unplugged the tree and outdoor lights. When her dad arrived, we rushed out of the house together. My heart was pounding. It was really happening! I took one last look at the tree in our living room and imagined the five of us there Christmas morning. We couldn’t get to the hospital fast enough.
But at Virginia Baptist there was no flurry of activity. A nurse calmly took Becky to a bed for observation, hooked wires up to monitors. Becky felt worse with each passing hour, the nausea and cramps giving way to excruciating pain. The doctor suspected a stomach virus. “Your contractions aren’t consistent enough for you to be going into labor,” she said.
Becky’s sister, Beth Ann, along with some lifelong friends, came to the hospital and started a prayer chain. Neither painkillers, muscle relaxants nor whirlpool baths brought relief. The last option, the doctor said, was a morphine drip. She showed me how to press the button to release the narcotic. By late evening Becky was screaming in agony within minutes of each dose.
Those first 24 hours were awful. I felt completely helpless. But I kept telling myself, Once Becky has her baby she’ll be fine.
Then her heart rate skyrocketed and the baby’s plummeted. I yelled for a nurse. It was as if someone had pushed a fast-forward button. The nurse ran into the room, then a doctor. Becky was rushed into the O.R. for the C-section. A nurse escorted me to the intensive-care nursery. There I saw Olivia for the first time. Even with a breathing mask, she looked perfect! Thank God! But another nurse pulled me into the hallway. The doctor, grim faced, was there with Beth Ann.
“Your wife is in a coma,” the doctor said. “When we opened her up everything around the placenta was riddled with infection. We’re transferring her immediately to Lynchburg General across town for surgery.”
I left Beth Ann with my newborn and raced to be with Becky. A Lynchburg General surgeon met me outside the O.R. there with a form consenting to the operation, a look of urgency on his face. I signed the form, sank down into a chair in the waiting room and immediately dropped my head in prayer. Jesus, please save my wife, the mother of my children.
In that moment life froze. Christmas came and went. None of the joy was there. I spent every possible moment by Becky’s side, praying for her to wake up, reading to her, talking to her. Hundreds of people visited, friends, family, people we knew from church. At times they lined the hall. I knew they meant well, but I couldn’t help thinking it looked like a funeral calling.
On January 3, still unconscious, her fever raging, Becky was flown to Duke University. They put another drain in her abdomen and switched antibiotics. She still didn’t wake up. All I could do was sit by her and pray until they told me to leave.
Now in my hotel room I lay in bed, tormented with worry. How long would it be before Becky came back to me? Would she ever? Even the doctors said there was no way to know. It could be weeks, months, longer. How could I raise three children on my own?
Already I felt more separated from them each day. The boys were back in school. I talked to them daily. But our daughter, our miracle baby, I’d only been able to hold her a few times. My thoughts were in a jumble. At some point I was going to have to make some decisions, plan for the future even though I had no idea what it held. I buried my head in my pillow, but it was impossible to relax. I felt so alone, so lost.
But as I lay there, I became aware of a presence in the room. At first it was barely perceptible, but there was no mistaking it, like someone wrapping his arms tightly around me. “Do not be afraid. I am with you,” I heard a voice say. “I have never forsaken you. Look how long you waited for this child. Your prayers were answered. They will be answered again.”
I could feel the tension releasing, first in my shoulders and neck and then my whole body. Nothing had been revealed to me. The future was as uncertain as ever. Yet my worries were gone. My eyes closed and I fell asleep, the comfort that surrounded me never fading.
The next morning I awoke more refreshed than I had been in days. I hurried to the hospital. When I got to the room, there was Becky, her eyes wide open. “Where have you been?” she asked.
I was so astonished it took a few seconds for me to find the words. “You have no idea,” I said. “But first let me introduce you to our daughter.” I pointed to the photos I’d put up, told her about Olivia and how the boys were doing. Then I paused. For days all I had thought about was what was to come and the uncertainty of life; now I wanted only to savor this moment, this miracle. “You need to rest,” I said. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”
Little did I know. It was another two weeks before the infection subsided and Becky’s fever broke. On January 25, she was finally released.
That evening we gathered around the tree in our home, the five of us together as a family, just as I’d imagined. The living room glowed from the light of candles. Becky beamed at Olivia snug in her arms. I didn’t think she would ever put her down.
The boys and I played with their new LEGO sets. I gave Becky her gift and watched as she unwrapped the figurine of a mother and child. Christmas, in all of its glory, had come at last.
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