Contractions

On the afternoon of February 27, 2007 Terry started having mild contractions (she thought they were mild). By the time I got home from work around 6:30 PM Terry was having the contractions fairly often and they were pretty strong.

We called the perinatologist and he said sometimes women have pre-term false labor (although this never happened with our other two children) when it gets dark. He said that if this was the case, things would normalize after T. laid down. Well, she got in bed and remained there for a few hours and the contractions slowed down a little. Meanwhile I packed an overnight bag for the two of us. Around 10 PM Terry had gotten up to use the rest room and the contractions hit hard. She was having them 5 minutes apart and lasting 1 minute each.

We called the nurse midwife (her OB was out of town) and she said we better head to the hospital so they could check Terry out and give her medication to slow down the contractions. We left the house after midnight on the 28th and arrived around 1:00 AM at the hospital.

When we arrived the contractions were now hitting each minute and were very strong. When the nurse checked Terry out, she was 6 CM dilated and effaced. We were told we were having a baby that night via emergency c-section. That is not what we were expecting.

We immediately called a dear friend Kristi who said she wanted to be there when the baby was born. Kristi had been led by the Lord to ask a family member to stay at their house that night in case Terry went into labor so that someone could watch her children in case she needed to go to the hospital (keep in mind this was almost 3 weeks before the scheduled delivery date).

I went to the parking deck to get some stuff out of our car and had my first screaming match with the Lord. I called out at the top of my lungs “Abba please protect my wife…I am not ready to lose her…please dont take my sould mate”. I cried like a baby and shook from the fear of losing my wife. The words came to me “Do you trust me?”. I do trust you Lord but I can't lose my wife…”Do you trust me?”.

Terry was being prepped for surgery as I returned to the bedside. I was putting on my surgery protective garments when Kristi showed up and began to pray in earnest for Terry, the baby and me. I am sure she was praying ALL the way down there as well.

This was the beginning of something very special.