Miracles

This might be a little unusual, but I think it’s interesting.

My dearest friend and I were discussing a question I had about Saul’s interaction with Jesus.  If you know your bible, this was after Jesus had died and resurrected, and Saul was one of the sects that persecuted him.  He absolutely didn’t believe any of the stories.

That moment that he had literally changed everything in his life, but the details are actually pretty sparse.  I wondered why more wasn’t explained, that maybe it was so overwhelming he couldn’t put it into words.

She asked me about my youngest son’s birth.  Do you think it was a miracle?  I replied, yes, yes I do.  She said the quick story about him was amazing, but was there more?  I thought about it and said yes.  

“Write it down” was her plea.  

That hit me, and I asked her to explain.  She said that at the end of his life, 100 years from now hopefully, it will be a quick story his great-grandchildren might hear.  But they deserved to know all of it.  

This scares me, honestly, but I’m going to write it now.  I do so for my grandkids, my great-grandkids, and all that follow but also that it might inspire you or give you hope. Let me see if I can get through it.

We had been blessed already with a beautiful son, Luke.  He was the light of our lives.  We always wanted more kids, and thankfully my wife conceived again.  There was joy and also a little terror.  

I loved Luke so much, that I was afraid for the next child because I didn’t know if I could love anyone as much as I did him.  I excitedly told my friend Julie that Heather was pregnant, and in what I think was communication directly from God, she grabbed my face and said “Listen to me, I know you’re scared you could never love anyone more than Luke, but I’m telling you now, you will.  Your heart will grow”.  That is exactly how that went.  It gives me chills to tell you that now.

The pregnancy went beautifully, except for one night when my wife was 7 months pregnant, and woke me up in the middle of the night and told me she was at level 10 pain.  I rushed her to the hospital, where they found her ovaries had twisted.  

Forgive me for not knowing the precise medical term for this, but it’s not uncommon.  They performed surgery on her and everything went great, and we carried on with no more issues.  

A couple of months later, she woke me up to tell me it was time to go to the hospital.  Her parents had come out to help since we still had a young child at home.  Her mother and I happily drove to the hospital while Poppa stayed home with Luke.

Everything is going smoothly, we are in the hospital room, happily chatting and so excited to meet our child.  We are kind of old school, we did not find out the sex of the child, and we love surprises.  Or so I thought.

The anesthesiologist comes in and administers the epidural.  The nurse is there, watching all the monitors, everything seems to be copacetic.  The doctor announces “It’s in” whereupon the nurse exclaims “I’m calling it!” and grabs my wife’s bed and rushes out of the room.

Gayla, her mother, and I were left in stunned silence.  

Seven minutes later, I know, cause I was watching the clock, the nurse shouted to me “Mr. Thomas, come here!”  I run, she takes me into a room and tells me to put on scrubs.  Ok, I figure we are going to have an emergency C-section.  As all parents know, the hospitals make you aware this is always a possibility.

I change faster than Clark Kent in a phone booth.  We walk towards the operating room when she suddenly turns to me and says “Do you want to see the baby?”

Wait, what?  It’s been seven minutes!  I clumsily said, “Uh, sure”.  She opens the door and I see another doctor performing chest compressions on this tiny human.  The doctor turns and yells “NO!”.  They push me out and into the operating room.

My wife looks up at me, as stunned as I had been, and says “I had the baby!”  What do you say to that?  I looked at her,  smiled my best smile, and said “Yes you did honey!  How are you?”  I honestly don’t remember much of the conversation after that.

A few minutes later, I’m back in the room with Gayla.  I told her Heather had the baby, but there were some issues and I don’t know much more.  She asked, reasonably, was it a boy or girl?  I bewilderly rescinded with “Uh, I’m not sure”.  I can’t imagine what she was thinking at that point.

This is still a bit of a blur, but please have patience.  They wheel my wife back into the room and a doctor comes in to talk to me.  The baby, a boy, by the way, had gone through a hypoxic event.  Oxygen flow had been disrupted, and there were a lot of complications.  

“We are going to rush the baby to Stanford, they have a new technique we call “The Cooling” where we will lower their body temperature to limit the damage.”   

Do it!  Leave now!  She told me the baby needed a name, and they were going to show us the child before they took him to Stanford.  I tried to argue, no, we don’t need to, take him now, get him help.  She was adamant, the boy needed a name and we needed to see him.

I learned later that they honestly didn’t know if he would survive, and they wanted him to be known and wanted us to see him in case it was the last time. Ok, then.  

My wife tried to convince them she was ok to go see him, she stood up and promptly passed out.  We got her back into bed and I said “I loved my Uncle Jack very much, I’d love to name him Jackson.  What’s your grandfather’s name?  She said, Charles.  Jackson Charles Thomas had a name.

To be honest, I didn’t feel anything when I went and saw him.  I didn’t know him.  I just wanted him to live.  They loaded him in the ambulance and left.  I followed in my car.

It was about an hour before a doctor came and talked to me.  I remember that he told me all the things that could be wrong, including massive brain damage.  I looked him in the eye and said:  I don’t care if he has an IQ of 2 or 200, just save my son.  He said, well if he survives the first 24 hours, I feel confident he will make it.  He’s a full-term baby, and that means a lot.  

Wires were everywhere, and you could only see flashes of his skin.  You couldn’t see his face, his arms, his legs.  There were IVs all over him.  He was in a room with maybe two dozen babies.  I felt the worry, concern, and love from all the parents in that room with me.  As well as the staff.

My family arrived hours later, and of course, my wife wanted to see her son.  I wheeled her to the room, and then turned and told her this:

When you go in, please take a minute to look at all those other kids.  They are fighting just like he is, but you will notice he is huge compared to them.  We have already been blessed so much, you will feel so lucky that he’s made it this far.  He’s in the back of the room, so we have to walk by a lot of them.  Join me in praying for all of them.

We made it through the first 24 hours, and the doctor told us he was out of immediate danger, but he’s still got a long road.  They lowered his body temperature to 86 if I remember right.  They explained that it slows everything down and allows the body to heal itself.  

Stanford is amazing, I hope you never need their services, but if you do, trust me, you are at the best place possible.  The doctors included me when they examined him and told me everything they were doing and hoping for.  My wife laughs because I’m not the most organized person, but for those two weeks, you have never met a more detailed man in your life.  

I would go to her and explain everything, and I mean everything to her in a way that made sense.  It kept her calm and me focused.  Her job became pumping milk for him, and man did she ever.  She produced so much that we were able to donate a lot.  Sometimes Type A personalities are exactly what you need.

Jackson stayed on the cooling for 3 days, and on the fourth day, they would take him off and do a CAT scan for brain damage.  I read to him constantly.  I would go home each evening (they had transferred Heather to Stanford) so I could be with Luke.

I am a man of faith.  I don’t apologize for it.  So I share this with you.  I got in my car on the second day to head up to Palo Alto.  All of a sudden, I felt my mother’s presence.  She had passed in 1996.  I said out loud “Momma, I know you’re here.  I also know Jackson is closer to you right now than he is to me.  Please take care of him and send him back”.  I am crying as I write this because I felt her hug me and tell me ok.

On the fourth day, they took him to the CAT scan.  We were scheduled to meet with the doctor about two hours later.  The nurse practitioner came into our room and said “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I have four children and I know I would want to know as soon as possible.  Your baby has no brain damage.  None.”

My wife and her parents erupted in celebration and I smiled gently.  My wife asked me later why I was so subdued.  I explained to her that I had seen him dead, so my prayers had already been answered, and the fact that there was no brain damage was just icing on a wonderful cake.

He stayed for two weeks.  On the night before we left with him, we were talking about this experience.  She shared how scared she was, and I told her that I wasn’t really scared.  Of course, she asked me why.  I explained that I didn’t know him, but as I tell this story as the years go by I would then be terrified because now I know what I would have lost.

Yes, I’m shaking as I type this because the fear overwhelms me now.

We all love happy endings, and I’m here to tell you this has the happiest of endings.  Jackson Charles is now almost a teenager.  He is fantastically smart, a straight-A student.  He is thoughtful, empathetic, and the funniest member of our family.  

He also has a deep faith, it’s awe-inspiring.  He knows there’s more to life than this because he’s been there.  Thank you, Momma.

Plus, he just came home from school and came into my office to tell me hello.  He may have noticed some tears as I hugged him fiercely.  I explained that I’m ok, in fact I’m deliriously happy.  How’s that for happy ending?

Julie was right, my heart has grown beyond what I thought.  I still love Luke desperately, he fills me with joy and awe.  Watching him and his brother enjoy life together is everything I ever hoped for.  Tiny Tim had it right:  God bless us.  Everyone.