046 -Perspective Is Everything When Facing the Unexpected (with Rebekkah Manning)

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SHOW NOTES:

Going into your first pregnancy, you make a plan, you have a vision, you have a prayer…but then what do you do when it all comes crashing down? At 34 weeks pregnant, Rebekkah’s world changed forever. She went from having a routine ultrasound appointment to having a C-section in less than 12 hours, as her life depended on it. What came afterward was an extended NICU stay for her son, during part of which she was restricted from seeing him, and later on, some undiagnosed delays he was experiencing. Once she had some time and space to reflect on everything, she realized she had indeed been through quite a traumatic experience, and has since had to take it all to the Lord, day by day and moment by moment. 

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, and welcome to another episode of Surrendered Birth Stories.

Birth Stories, Birth Education, and the Pursuit of Surrendering It All to God.

Let's get started.

Hey, everyone.

Happy July.

It is hot, at least where we are, down here in North Carolina.

It has been extra warm in the 90s, super humid.

But that's why they call it summer, I guess.

We are home again.

We went out of town last week to go visit my grandparents, had a great trip, it was wonderful.

Now we are back, but surprise, our big kids are not with us.

So our two oldest are actually spending the week with their grandparents in Ohio.

And we have two less kids this week.

So it's actually been kind of strange.

I've had a little less help around the house and with the kids, but there's also been less messes and less fighting going on.

So that's been nice.

My husband and I actually got to have a state night, which is a stay at home date night.

We did not order takeout.

So we usually do takeout for that, but I haven't really wanted to take out in a really long time.

So I made a dinner here at the house, and we waited to eat until after the little kids were in bed, which they go to bed earlier than our big kids.

So that was nice.

We got to have an uninterrupted conversation during dinner, which was quite lovely and a rarity in these parts.

So it was nice.

We made homemade bruschetta on sourdough, which was great because when we got back from our trip, we had lots of ripe tomatoes in the garden and basil.

So it was lovely, quite lovely.

If you have not left a review for this show yet, what are you waiting for?

It really does help this show get in front of more people, and then more parents can hear more stories of faith and birth.

So if you could please leave a review, hopefully a five-star review for this show, that would be very helpful.

All right, now let's jump into this week's episode.

Going into your first pregnancy, you make a plan, you have a vision, you have a prayer.

But then what do you do when it all comes crashing down?

At 34 weeks pregnant, Rebekkah's world changed forever.

She went from having a routine ultrasound appointment to having a C-section in less than 12 hours, as her life depended on it.

What came afterward was an extended NICU stay for her son, during part of which she was restricted from seeing him, and later on, some undiagnosed delays he was experiencing.

Once she had some time and space to reflect on everything, she realized she had indeed been through quite a traumatic experience, and has since had to take it all to the Lord, day by day and moment by moment.

Welcome to another episode of Surrendered Birth Stories.

I am your host, Kayla Heater, and I have Rebekkah with me today.

Would you mind introducing yourself, telling us a little bit about you and who you are and what your life is like?

Thank you so much for having me today.

I'm so excited to talk to your audience, and I've just became a listener too.

So I'm excited to be a part of this community.

I appreciate it so much.

My name is Rebekkah Manning, and I am in North Carolina.

I live in Alamance County, and I was a teacher for a little while when I graduated college, and then I changed careers, went to grad school, became a journalist and producer, and had an 11-year career at the Christian Broadcasting Network as a producer there for the 700 Club, Interactive, and other CBN shows.

During COVID, everything went remote, and I was able to work from home, which allowed me to move back to my hometown, Burlington.

And we've been here for two years, and so thankful for it.

Things are changing for us job-wise.

Now I'm a stay-at-home mom, which I'm still getting used to, which is wonderful, but has it just takes a little while to get used to.

It's nice to not have to spend the bandwidth on a full-time job right now.

But so, yeah, people ask me what I do and I'm still getting used to saying, I'm a stay-at-home mom, which is wonderful.

So you have one child, correct?

Yes, we do.

So Patrick and I got married during COVID.

We were engaged for one week because we knew that everything was going to stay closed, even though everyone was saying two more weeks, two more weeks.

We knew it wasn't going to open back up.

So we had an elegant elopement, my family calls it.

We got married on my parents' dock.

We had a big party a year later, which was really fun.

And then a year after that, we welcomed the birth of our only son, Henry.

And that's what I'm here to talk about.

Great.

Well, let's talk about it then.

So you've been married for a year, it sounds like.

Two years, yeah.

Oh, two years.

Okay, because the one year was the big party.

Right, okay.

Okay, so was this a pregnancy we were planning and looking forward to?

Okay, so just tell us about that.

Tell us about how you got pregnant and how all that went down.

Yes, absolutely looking forward to becoming parents.

We are a little bit older, so it was just a blessing to know that everything was good and we were able to get pregnant.

And I think it was two months after trying.

I got the good news.

He was at work and it was right after Father's Day.

So I went out and got a card for him.

And when he got home from work, I gave him the card and I said, this is a Father's Day card and I'm giving it to you late because I am late and it took him a second.

And he said, what?

And it was great.

The morning sickness is actually what clued me into the fact that I probably was pregnant because I was getting car sick while I was driving, which had never happened before.

And then at stoplights, I'd be fine.

And then it started up again when I was driving and I was like, this is not normal.

So I figured it out, took a test and there we go.

And we were living in Virginia Beach at the time because that's where my work was.

So we found a provider there.

I asked around to some of my friends who they go to and we went in to see someone pretty early on because I was considered a geriatric pregnancy, which I know is so fun to hear.

Well, how old were you?

I was 35, yeah.

Geriatric.

I turned 36 two days after he was born.

So yeah.

You're young and spry, my friend.

Young, I hope, spry, I don't know about that.

Yeah, we were so excited.

We have a bunch of nieces and nephews and children are a blessing.

We love kids, we love, we're kind of youthful.

We were just thrilled.

And I'd always wanted to be a mother.

And it was like, finally, this is happening.

We're just thrilled.

It was harder being far away from family because both of our families are in North Carolina.

But we managed to celebrate through Zoom calls to announce his gender and had everyone voting through the Zoom.

You know, it was really fun.

But it wasn't exactly what I'd always pictured, but it was still ideal, I think.

During my pregnancy, we get offered to take the DNA tests to check chromosomes and other abnormalities.

And we opted to do that just because we wanted to know if there was anything we could be prepared.

It wasn't going to change our decision to have a child.

We're very much, life begins at conception and pro-life.

But we still wanted to be prepared if anything was going to happen.

And it came back inconclusive.

So we went to research school to do another ultrasound that was more in-depth.

So it took longer, checked everything.

Like, literally, it was like, oh, there's his right hand, there's his left hand, there's his right.

Like, every single little part of him was looked at.

How far along were you?

I don't remember.

It was still...

They were pushing for me to get it done quickly because it was still early on.

It's your first trimester.

I think it might have still been the first trimester.

I don't think it was second yet.

And they were pushing for it to be first trimester because even though you tell them that you're going to have a baby, no matter what, they still want to push you in certain ways.

And we did get pushed a little bit because that one also came back a little bit inconclusive.

And they were like, well, let's run some more tests.

Let's do some more things.

And I asked some specific questions.

I said, you know, do we know if we're dealing with some of the big things?

Do we know what we're dealing with?

No, is there any way we're going to find out?

Well, we're not sure.

So we opted out of further investigation at that point because it's not promising anything.

And the reason they're telling us to do it, like we've seen almost every body part that he has and it's all there.

So we're just kind of keep moving forward and trust the Lord.

And so the first trimester had that little bit of a bump in it that was a little bit nerve wracking.

We were okay, but everything from the outside in seemed stressful.

Like because of my geriatric age, they just seem to be intense anytime they talk to us about stuff.

But we were good.

I mean, things went along, and I didn't want to get any immunizations during my pregnancy.

And so every time I went in, my OBGYN, she was absolutely incredible.

I loved her.

But every time I went in, she was offering me immunization for COVID, and I just didn't want to do it because I wasn't, because of our own opinions on it.

And we knew a lot of moms who were doing it.

So I would just listen and then politely decline, and she never pushed further than that.

It was just like, you know, each time I went in, I had to listen to that and then kind of...

Declined again.

And then the one thing that happened during the pregnancy that was frustrating and a little bit out of my control was when I went in to take a glucose test.

I wasn't really aware that there were alternatives.

I didn't know like you could maybe bring in your own or you could maybe opt out or whatever.

I just kind of was going through it.

I didn't have a birthing coach at this point.

I didn't have...

I mean, I had a lot of friends talking about things.

But anyway, looking back, I really wish I had done something different.

But I went in that day, took the glucose test, and it's also when they give the Tdap immunization.

They do those at the same time.

But the glucose test kind of blurs your thinking.

So if anyone's listening, just be prepared if you do this.

Be ready to just feel weird after you take it because it's just it really messes.

It's a lot of sugar all at once, and I don't do tons of sugar like that, and it really messes me up.

And while I'm dealing with all of this going on in my body, the nurse preps my arm for something.

I thought it had to do.

I was so unprepared, I actually thought it had to do with the glucose test.

And then she poked my arm with something and I still thought it had something to do with the glucose test, like she was drawing blood to check something or whatever.

And I was like, okay, this is really weird.

But then we go back into the room and she's like, here, sign this paperwork.

And so I was like, well, let me read it.

And I'm having trouble reading it because of the blood, like the sugar.

I'm just all the words are, I don't know how to explain it.

It was like highlighted.

It was very difficult for me to focus in on it.

So it was kind of reading out loud and it said like, have you ever had these immunizations?

Have you ever had this?

Have you ever had that?

And I was like, oh, I don't know if I've had this or if I've had that.

Can I take this paperwork home with me?

Look at my, look at my file, like my health file, and we can do this another time.

Because it said this is like information for the Tdap immunization.

Just fill this out.

She goes, oh, no, you can just sign at the bottom.

And I looked at the bottom and it said like signature after receiving the vaccination.

And I realized that the poke had nothing to do with my glucose test.

She had actually given me a Tdap.

Yes.

And I looked at her and I said, oh, you already did this, didn't you?

And it was very apparent at that point that she had made an assumption, therefore had made a mistake.

And my OBGYN pulled me into her office and she sat me down and she's like, this is very unprofessional.

That's like, this doesn't happen.

Like we had this whole conversation.

And I didn't push at that point for any, I was like, well, what's done is done.

I'm going to have to trust the Lord of this.

And I decided to not pursue anything with that, you know, not, I don't know what kind of repercussions there could have been.

I have no idea.

But for me, for me, I decided to not panic, which, you know, in my nature, I think I would have, I'd have been like, what's in me?

What's going on?

And I want to get it out.

But I decided, you know what, for some reason, this was allowed to happen and I can't just like go in and take it out.

My body belongs to the Lord and we're good, like we're going to continue on.

So that was a little bump in the like, what, second trimester, I think, is when that happened.

So the first trimester had one, second trimester had a bump.

And then the third trimester was not a whole trimester.

Henry was born a month and a half early, and that is a whole story there.

My third trimester started in January of 2022, and he was due the end of March of 2022.

We had a baby shower on February, like eighth or something.

We had a baby shower.

The baby shower was out of state.

And then we went back to Virginia Beach.

And as we're getting into the driveway, we're just feeling terrible.

Like Patrick is feeling just sick to his stomach.

He goes in, he's exhausted.

He's like, I'm going to unload everything because we had our car was full of gifts.

Our nursery was not done.

We still have two months until the baby is born.

You know, we're like, we're good.

We go in, and that week, we dealt with COVID.

We both got it.

Patrick was...

We both lost our sense of taste.

Patrick had a fever for three days, I was congested.

And I started having some intense pain in like my upper back area around my midsection and upper back.

This is my first pregnancy, and I'm sick, so I'm not really thinking quite straight.

And I'm thinking, maybe this is normal.

Maybe this is...

I've heard of gallbladder issues for pregnant mothers.

Maybe it's that.

But we're basically on lockdown at the house because we have COVID and you can't do anything or go anywhere, whatever.

So at this point, I did have a doula.

And so I was talking to her, getting advice from her, and she was offering ideas of what it could be.

And I still don't know what it was, but it would wake me up in the middle of the night and I'd have to get up out of bed and sit on my exercise ball with my arms on the bed.

And I just felt like a corset was wrapped around my midsection and squeezing really, really tight.

And so now looking back on it, I've heard some symptoms of heart issues that women have experienced and like those are a lot of the symptoms that I had.

I don't know what was wrong with me.

I don't know.

It wasn't gallbladder issues.

So it was it was some kind of complication with COVID was happening.

But it wasn't like you weren't having contractions.

No, no, no, no pain, Henry was still moving somewhat, but he did.

One thing about Henry was he didn't move a lot in utero anyway.

He was a very chill baby.

So I didn't know any different.

I didn't know that was abnormal.

So we have COVID for a week, Sunday rolls around, and I'm supposed to have an ultrasound the next day just to check in.

In the last trimester, they have you come in every few weeks to just check in on things.

And I go in and the nurse checks my blood pressure.

And every time I had gone in, my blood pressure had been perfect.

She would say practically perfect, always perfect, which she was always surprised by because again, geriatric pregnancy, she was always expecting a little bit of changes, but I was always really good.

Well, she checks it twice on one arm, then she switches to the other arm, checks it twice again and she asks me, are you feeling okay?

And I said, well, I'm not feeling great.

I feel like I've been having maybe some gallbladder issues or maybe I'm just very uncomfortable.

My head hurts.

And she's like, well, your blood pressure is sky high.

We need to get the doctor in here.

So the doctor comes in and we're talking to her.

Patrick happened to be with me because it was an ultrasound appointment.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have even been there because they weren't letting the second parent to come in.

Because of COVID regulations.

Again, there was a resurgence of COVID stuff like right before.

So everything was kind of locking back down again.

But if you were getting an ultrasound, they would let the other parent come in with you.

So he happened to be there and he's in there with me.

And they said, we want to run some tests.

We're going to have you go to the hospital, which was right there on the same campus.

We're going to have you go over to the hospital.

We're going to run some tests.

Okay, so we go over to the hospital.

Again, we're coming off of a week of COVID.

We have rolled ourselves in to the OB-GYN for this.

We have nothing and they're running tests and all of a sudden there's just chaos in the room.

There's people coming in, coming out, coming in, coming out.

They hook me up to the IV.

It's like the IV that stays in your arm and then they kind of like hook into it, whatever they need to.

What's that called?

The head block.

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

So they put that in and it hurt so bad because of my blood pressure issue.

It felt like a stick going into my arm and it hurt for like 20 minutes.

And I was sobbing and shaking, which I had a pretty high pain tolerance.

So I was kind of embarrassed that I was hurting so much, but they were like, okay.

All right.

So finally, we get some answers.

Our OBGYN sent over the midwife and she's sitting with me and she says, all right, you have something called, well, first of all, you have preeclampsia, which was kind of a given, but you also have something called help syndrome.

And the only cure for this, so to speak, is delivery.

So automatically, I'm thinking, okay, they're going to put me on bed rest.

They're going to have me here in the hospital for a month, because Henry's not due for a month and a half, like six weeks at least, if they got my due date correct.

And she says this phrase, she says, so if you're still pregnant tomorrow, blah, like fade out.

I have no idea what she said after that, because all I heard was, if you're still pregnant tomorrow.

And I just looked at her and I said, oh, we're having what?

We're having a baby?

She goes, oh, yes, you're having baby today or soon.

And I just look at Patrick and like, he automatically stands up out of his chair.

We're just looking at each other like, this is crazy.

What is happening?

Why died?

And then as soon as that shock wears off, we both kind of buckled down, like, what do we have to do?

My first thought is, we don't even have the car seat in the car.

We have the nurse who's not done nothing.

I'm still thinking normal, big picture babies coming just first baby bliss, right?

That's still where my head is at.

I have no idea that death is, like, at my door and how close I got to making my husband a widower.

And I didn't realize how intense that was until much later.

So go into the room, they ask us all this stuff.

So now we reveal we had COVID last week, but we have been symptom-free for, like, four days, you know, at this point.

And so they find out we had had COVID the week before, and now everything changes again.

There are protocols, they follow.

We went into a room, and at that point, Patrick was not allowed to leave the room.

And if he left the room, he wouldn't be allowed to come back in.

He had to stay with me in the room at all times.

We were not allowed to have visitors.

We were not allowed to nothing.

It was just the two of us in this room.

And it was a beautiful labor delivery.

It was swanky.

I mean, that was a plus.

And we've got doctors coming in, nurses coming in, everybody coming in, checking things.

They put me on magnesium.

So now I'm progressively getting sicker and sicker.

They had given me two shots, one to help Henry's lungs develop, because they were still underdeveloped.

Well, they weren't underdeveloped.

They were normal for his gestation.

But now that he's going to be coming in the next 24 hours, they were concerned.

So they gave me a shot for that.

Then they gave me Pitocin.

Were they trying to induce you?

Yes, they were trying to induce me.

So again, I'm still clinging to my birth plan that I had made with my doula that we had worked on and we were so excited about.

And then at the bottom of that birth plan is this little asterisk of what to do in an emergency.

And it's like an afterthought.

Right.

And I'm not even it's like C-section death, you know, emergency, whatever.

But I was not even thinking that the doctors were so kind to me at this point, they once they knew I was no longer in danger.

My life was not in danger anymore.

They kind of calmed down a little bit and they were letting me well, they made it seem like they were letting me make decisions, but I think they knew what was going to end up happening.

So she asked me if I still wanted to naturally and vaginally deliver and I said, yes, I would like to but then after a few hours with this magnesium in me, I'm throwing up, I can't even walk.

I'm like, how am I supposed to I cannot deliver a baby when I can't even sit up without throwing up like or stand or walk, I can't even eat ice chips without throwing them up.

That morning, I'd had my morning protein bar and a couple crackers for my morning sickness and that was it.

Like I'd had, there was nothing in me, you know, I was just, I was like, this isn't going to work.

I'm going to have to do a c-section.

And so she comes back in a few hours after letting me think it over for a couple hours.

And she says, so what are you thinking?

I said, yeah, I think we're going to have to do a c-section.

And she said, I think you're thinking you're making the right choice.

This is what I would have done.

This is what I would advise my sisters to do if this was them.

So we're going to get you on for like 8.15.

So at this point, it was like, I don't know, 5 p.m.

We had been in the hospital since 11.

My ultrasound had been at 9, so this had been all day.

So Patrick's making the phone calls, calling all of our family, my mom, and my in-laws drive to Virginia Beach to just be there thinking that they were going to be able to like visit or just be there, you know?

And so they just are waiting at our house together, waiting for news.

We go into the C-section.

C-sections are so fast.

I don't know if people who haven't had them understand like how fast they are.

A couple of things about that, Patrick watched the whole thing, and the doctors were like, are you going to need to sit down and he was like, no, I'm good.

So he watched the whole thing.

I opted for the little veil like screen that you can't see there because I did not want to see anything.

I really want to be clear about what a C-section is like because some people just don't know as I did not know.

And so they wheel you out of the room.

You go down to the OR and they start telling you how they're going to give you your epidural and you sit on this in this cold OR.

Everything is bright.

Everything is sterile.

The doctors were very kind and very efficient and very nice, but it wasn't the perfect birthing room that I had envisioned.

So I'm sitting on this very thin table and bent over, they give me this injection in my back for the epidural.

And it takes effect almost immediately, like I immediately laid down and they're like poking at me to check things and I can't feel hardly.

I can't feel anything.

And then after a while, I'm completely numb.

And I'm laying on this table and my arms are out on the table, like in a cross.

And I just remember feeling, so I did, I felt so close to the Lord in that position.

And it was so nice because things had been so manic the whole day, just rush, rush, rush, chaos, chaos, chaos.

And our God is not a God of chaos.

He is the God of peace.

And so in this moment, I'm in the position of our Savior.

And for a split second, I think, Jesus, thank you for just being here.

This isn't what I pictured.

This isn't what we pictured.

I'm holding Patrick's hand and I just start praying as I'm being moved around and stuff is being shifted out of me.

And I remember thinking, man, they really are moving me around a lot.

I wonder when they're actually going to start the C-section and they were already like halfway through it.

I just couldn't feel a thing.

So it was very efficient.

It took about 15 minutes from start to finish and they got him out.

I remember just praying once I knew he was out.

I didn't hear anything.

And so I just began praying.

I was like, let's, I don't, it's a cry.

I need to hear something.

I couldn't see.

I didn't know where he was.

I didn't know, you know, I think they kind of wiped them down.

And then I hear this whimper and then this cry.

And then as soon as they knew he was crying and his lungs were working, they bring him around and they put him right on my skin.

They did it as soon as they felt like they could.

It wasn't an immediate out of the womb, onto my chest, the way that I had always wanted it to be.

But it still was very quick.

And as soon as he got on me, he starts trying to look up at me, which was very comforting to actually see him for the first time.

And Patrick was right beside me and we're both looking at him and he's kind of looking at us.

And it was truly a moment of beauty and bliss in the OR.

I'm so glad.

I think I sent you a picture of it because the anesthesiologist, the one that administered that, she at that point, her job was done, so she was taking all these photos for us.

She was so nice.

She was like, you can take your masks down if you want to.

So we took some without our masks on.

A lot of the mask stuff was just for show.

They didn't really care, but I guess they had these rules that they had to follow.

And then she's like, you can take your mask down.

And so I took my mask on and I was just kissing Oliver Henry and holding him as best I could.

Then they took him, put him in, I think Patrick at this point is carrying him with the nurses and they had the bassinet and then they're wheeling me separately back to the room.

So we all three go back to the room.

Henry latched immediately, which was absolutely incredible feeling.

And he was itty bitty.

He was four pounds, 15 ounces, so tiny.

And he latched and a little bit of the, oh my gosh, colostrum, colostrum, yes, a little bit of that started coming out and my supply started and I was just so thankful for that.

So he kind of nursed twice.

He struggled a little bit because he was so tiny, but he still knew instinctually what to do, which was a huge answer to prayer for me.

So yeah, at this point, we're back in the room, Henry is starting to nurse.

The lactation nurse was the funniest person I'd ever met, like she was not afraid of anything.

She was moving my stuff around and she was pushing Henry up on me.

And when one position wasn't working too well, she switched him around and I learned the football hold and I learned, I mean, she was just aggressive and nice and it just put me at ease.

It did make me wish that my mother was there with us.

And I know we also wanted my mother-in-law, Patrick's mom, and any family member, but I really at that point was like, I really wish my mom could have been here.

And under normal circumstances, I think if I had not had COVID, she would have been allowed.

But at this point, I technically don't have it anymore.

But anyway, whatever.

So I, at this point, start zoning out.

I am very happy to have my child with me now, but I am exhausted.

And when I say exhausted, I mean, I'm not in control of anything.

I start falling asleep, waking in 2 seconds, I'd be asleep.

And then back awake, and the nurses are coming in to check on everything and all that.

So Henry was born at 8:14 p.m.

At about 12.30, one of the checkups, they say, we're not really happy with how his breathing is going.

Like we need to check him in the NICU.

So they were looking at him in the NICU of this hospital.

But they said, we don't have what he needs.

He needs more than what we can give him.

So we're going to send him to a hospital nearby.

It's one of the best hospitals.

Really on the East Coast is the CHKD in Norfolk, Virginia, which stands for the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters.

They've got just an amazing staff there.

And one of the highest levels of NICU that there is, they can handle the extra preemies.

So they transferred Henry there.

And Patrick and I FaceTimed the team with him.

And Patrick was really conflicted about what to do because he wanted to go with him.

But he also was concerned for me because technically, I'm still, they're still worried over me and stuff.

So Patrick decided to stay with me for the night.

And then he was planning to go before I was discharged.

He was gonna go be with Henry.

So we were really sad for him to go, but we didn't really know what was gonna happen and what we were actually getting into.

So we kind of thought, this is temporary.

We can let him go.

This is what he needs.

He needs help.

Woke up the next morning, and I still remember this.

The bassinet was still in the room.

And I woke up looking at this empty bassinet and immediately had this like instinct.

Everything started making sense of how bad it all was and like how not ideal the whole situation had been and how wrong, like my mama bear instinct was like, where is my child?

And how dare someone not realize that an empty bassinet in a room is heartbreaking.

So I started, we immediately called the CHKD.

We FaceTimed with Henry.

We talked to, you know, we talked as much as we could.

Now the drugs are clearing out of my system and I'm starting to think a little bit straighter, but I am still recovering from surgery.

And I'm still, I'm thinking, all right, I probably need to stay today in the hospital and recover from, because I'm at this point, I'm not even 12 hours out from my surgery.

And I probably need to stay one day, maybe one more night.

And then tomorrow, so I called CHKD, I said, well, I can come, we can come tomorrow.

And they said, you can't come for 10 days, because it's 10 days out from your COVID test.

And my jaw dropped to the ground, and I'm still kind of drugged up, like the drugs are leaving my system, but I'm still not thinking completely quickly and straight and all that.

Like, I'm like, this isn't normal.

What's going on?

10 days, like what?

I said, from our last COVID test, I said, well, what happens if we took at-home tests?

And they said, well, we'll count that.

And I wish that I, to this day, I wish that I had been quick to think and just lie about when we took it, because I feel like I don't care.

I want to be with my son.

And I said, well, and I actually said the day we took the test, and it was the Tuesday prior, so it had only been five days.

And she said, well, you can come Saturday morning.

And this is Tuesday morning.

She said, well, the earliest you can now come, we'll count that.

But now the earliest is Saturday.

And I said, okay, is there anything we can do?

Like, we haven't had symptoms for several, like I counted back.

I think we had not had symptoms since Thursday, like Thursday for me, or for Patrick Friday for me.

So it had been like four or five days at this point that we had not had any symptoms.

And she's like, no, it doesn't matter.

Now, who I am now, and who I know Henry to be, my son and Patrick, like now, I would have probably gotten a lawyer on the phone, probably like been raising Kane.

But at this point, again, first time parent, not really knowing, we don't have any advocates in the room with us because no one's allowed in the room.

It's just the two of us, and we're completely unprepared for this.

And we just go, okay.

So, we do a lot of FaceTimes with him, and we're just trusting he's getting the care he needs.

We know that we miss him, but we don't feel that like, like if this happened to me now, five days without my son now, I would be an absolute wreck, and I would probably be like tearing down the door of the hospital to get to my son.

But that just hadn't kicked in yet.

We were so trusting.

I was so like, this is the way it has to be.

This is what's best for him, which they did give him very, very good care.

You know, all of this is very terrible to hear.

It's awful to hear about a separation.

But at the same time, it's, you know, he was getting what he needed for his lungs because his lungs were under, they had not finished developing.

So his breathing, he was having trouble breathing.

And then once he got in there, after a few days, they said, well, his breathing is starting to look good.

He still has a little ways to go.

But now we're also concerned about his blood sugar.

Meanwhile, I'm pumping, like every three hours, I'm pumping, Patrick's helping me.

We're getting things going, I'm storing everything.

And my mother-in-law and my mom started transporting my colostrum to the NICU that Henry was in.

And we were just hoping, like I asked the nurses there on the phone, like, can you give this to him?

I really, really, really want him to have this.

And we were trusting that they were giving it to him.

And we worked really hard to get it to them.

So I was sort of surprised to be hearing that he was having blood sugar problems as well.

So also, side note, we had planned to take my placenta home with us.

And because of the chaos of it, I didn't have a cooler.

This hospital required you to bring your own cooler and to bring things to transport it.

That did not end up happening.

So my placenta stayed with the hospital.

I don't know what happened to it.

It just disappeared in the vacuum of the chaos.

Again, if my doula had been able to be present or actually be FaceTiming more because of the distance, you know, it just in the COVID regulations, we, you know, this is not blaming her at all.

This is not blaming anybody else.

This is just saying we did not have anybody helping us.

There was no advocate with thinking through things and being like, by the way, she wants to keep her placenta, and I'm drugged, completely drugged.

So that was a loss.

But anyway, get back to the situation at hand.

Now it starts sinking in that this sucks.

This is not good.

I don't like this at all.

We get through Tuesday, we get through Wednesday.

Wednesday is my birthday.

Patrick tries to throw me a little birthday party in the room.

I turned 36.

And I get discharged.

My insurance allowed me another day for C-section.

And because we couldn't go to Henry and be with him, I'm like, I don't want to go home yet.

And I probably could have left on Wednesday.

And I would have left early Wednesday morning if I could have gone to my son.

But leaving the hospital and not being able to go to him was too much for me to bear.

So I stayed in until Thursday.

We left Thursday morning.

And I'm like, basically white knuckling it for a day and a half, just trying to get through Thursday and Friday, like FaceTiming them multiple times a day trying to see him, which was always hit or miss.

Sometimes I would try to FaceTime and nobody would be available.

So it wasn't a guarantee every time I called that I would actually get to see him.

So Saturday morning, first thing, we're ready to go.

I'm still recovering from the C-section, but I'm like walking as much as I can because I'm like, we got to go.

So we drive 30 minutes to the NICU, walk in, and he's there.

He's in.

We walk in, get registered first.

Also, my son couldn't have any visitors except for us.

They were only allowing two people per child into the NICU.

So if my mom or Patrick's mom had gone or, you know, any of our friends or family had gone to visit Henry, they would have taken the spot, and we wouldn't have been able to go.

So if my mom had gone, then Patrick wouldn't have been able to go.

So Henry has had no family, no visitors, not that he knows, but only nurses and doctors for five days.

So we get there, and he's in the incubator, and he's hooked up to all these machines.

They're beeping every 30 seconds, there's a beep, maybe even less.

It's just beeping everywhere, machines hooked up.

And I reach my hand, and he's crying.

He's just crying.

And I'm like, my gosh.

So I reach my hand into it, I put my hand on him and calm him as best I can.

But I'm covered, and they made us wear these head-to-toe little garments over our clothes.

COVID regulation, we were in a special bay and a special pod.

He had his own pod because of the COVID stuff.

So every time we went into his room, his little pod, we had to put on fresh gloves, fresh masks, fresh stuff over our clothes.

It was so weird.

So we spent the whole day with him, and we're sneaking skin to skin.

We're pulling down our masks when no one's looking.

We're trying to hold him with all these cords around him, and the nurses were really great.

These nurses were just stellar.

They did everything to push skin to skin with us, and they would let me try to breastfeed him.

He had a G-tube, like he had the feeding tube down his nose, and so he had the feeding tube for a week.

He pulled that out himself after a week and a half.

He pulled it out, and they just didn't put it back in.

They were like, well, let's just try the bottle, and he accepted the bottle.

And speaking of that, they had all of my supply that I had delivered, and they had been mixing it with formula to give to him, which was not something that they asked us about.

It wasn't something we wanted, but because of his weight, they made the decision that the best way for him to gain weight was with formula, fortified formula, I should say, because it was fortified with my breast milk.

And I did not fight that, and I would now.

I don't know if I would fight to the point of telling them they can't do it.

I would just fight to the point of, I need to know exactly why and what nutrients from this are helping what part of him, like justify it and not just accept it, you know?

Because I had a great supply.

I had so much, I had an oversupply, because I was pumping every three hours, which was really hard the first five days because I didn't even have him.

Patrick had taken a video of Henry, and I just watched the video and it helped my supply come in.

And I just would watch that and pump every three hours, just crying and missing him, you know?

And then when I finally got him, you know, it was good.

I was able to feed him with a shield every now and then, but he was still so small that it was a lot of work.

We worked really, really hard on the breastfeeding journey.

And I don't think it would have happened without Patrick because every time I pumped, I would just go back to sleep or like lay back down, and he would wash everything, process everything, label everything.

And it was kind of the way we were feeling close to Henry while we weren't with him.

And like every, when I say every three hours, I mean, like in the middle of the night, we would wake up and do this, like no exceptions.

Like it happened the whole time.

So Henry was in the NICU for a little over three weeks.

He got out March 17th.

Again, he was due the end of March.

So he got out before his due date.

His breathing regulated.

His blood sugar regulated.

We had a couple MRIs while we were there that were inconclusive.

The doctor just said, keep an eye on this.

And we heard them, but then we kind of like, the point of the NICU for us was just to get home.

We were like, we're ready to get home.

Once we get home, if we can just get home, home felt like the goal.

If we can just go there, everything will be normal.

And that ended up not being the case, but we didn't know any better.

We got home and it was newborn bliss for a while, finally.

We were really enjoying the first few months, and Henry was so itty-bitty.

We had to work so hard to feed him.

We were up.

I mean, he was up all the time because his stomach was so tiny.

I mean, he was very, very small.

And then within 24 hours of getting home, we stopped doing the formula.

We just did the breast milk, even though we were sent home with instructions to do a fortified formula, we decided not to.

And he had these jitters and stuff that he would get kind of jittery.

And then once he was full on with the breast milk, he wasn't jittery anymore.

So we'll just do this for a while, see, and he was growing fine.

He grew great.

And again, I had to use the shield for a while and a nipple shield for a while.

And that helped a lot.

And then things just kind of processed out.

So we moved when he was three months old.

We moved back to North Carolina because I had been, at this point, I had been remote for two years.

And so I asked my boss, I was like, I've been remote for two years.

Is there any reason for me to stay in this location?

She said, no, you can move as long as you're, you know, available to work.

And if you need to come back here, you can.

I'm like, I'm only moving four hours away.

I can come back any time.

So we moved home, we got to be around family.

And now we have not just newborn Bliss, but like family just everywhere.

And it was just great.

Everyone loving on him and just being able to be around him.

And we started noticing that he had, like at three or four months old, just wasn't showing certain signs the same way that typically developing babies should be at this point.

And we had to have been around so many babies, even I was seeing some differences.

But I also thought, well, for the first year, you don't go off of his actual age, you go off his due date.

So even though he was four months old, he was two months old.

But he had been out of the womb for four months, but his growth was the typical two months.

So we were kind of being patient with that, but we did get another MRI and it showed that we got the news that he had PVL, has PVL, which is periventricular lupomalacia, is a big word for brain damage to the parts of the ventricles of the brain.

And a lot of preenies have this, and it's very broad.

There's no way to know how much it will affect the baby for their, you know, some have sight problems, hearing problems, speech delays, or learning disabilities, or the list is kind of endless.

So we, at this point, are now like hit with this boom.

Okay, now what?

And we're trying to research it.

And I was extremely optimistic about him being like a mild case or whatever.

And my husband is a very practical prepares for everything, and he was kind of a realist.

So for him, I would say for him, this was devastating news.

For me, I was in denial, I think, or just trying to be optimistic.

And then his first year of life from zero to one was really hard because he basically was like a newborn the whole year.

Like it just, we were up every two hours.

He wasn't sleeping good.

He had eating issues.

I mean, there was no food happening.

It was only breast milk.

So I was like pumping all the time.

I'm trying to work full time, trying to do this.

I'm trying to breastfeed him when I'm around him and then pump when I'm not.

So he has something when I'm not there and does it.

It was just like very, very hard year.

And we weren't in our home because we were renovating.

So we were living with my parents, which was good in a lot of ways.

And then Henry, at one, we're starting to see, like we threw him a first birthday and he doesn't do the smash cake thing.

Like he's not reaching for it.

He's not doing it.

He's not.

And it was like, oh, and like I couldn't be in denial anymore.

I had to accept like, we don't know what's coming, but it's becoming apparent that this is bigger than we understand.

The bigger he gets because, and this is what the neurologist said was it won't get anywhere.

It won't get any worse, but it won't get any better.

In his words, he said, but you will notice more, the more he grows because you're expecting more of him.

So it will become apparent, his limitations.

That was a really, really hard appointment.

So I was just going to ask a question because you mentioned during the pregnancy, you had those tests done and those scans done, and they all came back in conclusive.

So what he has isn't have anything to do with those scans.

It was because he was born prematurely.

I don't know.

They asked us if we wanted to investigate where this could have come from.

And the reason, oh, I should have said that PBL happens because of either a brain bleed or a lack of oxygen, one or the other.

And they asked us if we wanted to investigate because sometimes parents will decide, well, what happened?

Did someone drop him in the OR or did something happen during transport?

And so they will pursue.

We decided not to pursue an investigation because of all of the stuff going on.

We didn't want to be put through that when we were already living with no sleep.

Everything was just amplified and we had no extra bandwidth to run an investigation.

Against a huge entity of a hospital that had everything to protect itself.

And we also we didn't really think that anything they had done anything.

You know, we didn't we didn't think it would come back with anything unless there was like some smoking gun of a video of some kind that we we just didn't think that, you know, it was very likely that it was, you know, lack of oxygen because of his lungs and we started piecing some things together.

We started we thought about the first trimester and we thought, well, maybe there was indications of some kind and that's why they couldn't they knew something was up, but they couldn't figure out what so maybe there was this was the way it always was going to be.

He didn't move a lot in utero.

Maybe this is who he was going to be all along.

Or maybe it's because of the premature birth.

And we just know that the birth was kind of traumatic and kind of, you know, but we didn't know how much until later we started processing.

And the reason I'm including some information about his first year of life was it was what helped us unfold what had happened during his birth week.

We were like, you know, that really was traumatic.

And why are we crying?

Why is this triggering?

You know, it took, I think, my mom getting in my face and be like, Rebekkah, you went through a trauma.

Like, that word is used so often now.

And I had never really used it for my own life in any situation.

And when she said that, I just started sobbing.

I was like, oh, my gosh, we went through a trauma.

And the things that we thought were going to give us comfort and kind of fix the problem didn't.

We got home.

And now we're dealing with issues with feeding and not sleeping.

And then we move to be closer to family.

And then we get this bad MRI.

And so then it's like every step of the way, oh, nothing that we're going to or no checkpoint or finish line is going to fix this.

We have to live this.

And we have to live this with the grace of God, because I tell you what, I, the Lord and I have had some tough conversations.

And it has been I think we're willing to go through a lot in our own lives because maybe we think we deserve it or maybe we think we just do.

For whatever reason, it's OK.

It's like we're suffering and it's bringing us closer to the Lord.

And we see what God is doing in our own lives with our suffering or whatever.

But when it's our child, it's like a whole different ballgame.

I have had some very, very open and honest conversations with Jesus by myself and then with trusted people, including Patrick and a couple of close friends and family.

Just this is hard.

This doesn't make sense.

How could you know Henry doesn't deserve this and all this stuff?

But he is two years old now and he's making wonderful strides in his own way.

He is not typically developing.

He has cerebral palsy and he does not sit on his own or crawl or walk.

He has speech delays and the eating, feeding delays.

He struggles with some vision stuff, but he is precious and beautiful and a joy.

And he's here.

I'm here.

Something that has brought specifically my mother comfort is that she said when she was praying about all this and kind of on her knees with the Lord about it because she was doing the same thing that I was doing, questioning, like, God, why, how could you, blah, blah, blah, blah, and she felt like the Lord told her, yes, but you could have lost him.

You could have lost her.

Like this, they are here today.

Patrick is not a childless widower.

You know, he still has his wife.

He still has his child.

We, this is very difficult.

And I think the reason for me, 0 to 1 wasn't as hard as 1 to 2.

Like his 1 to 2 year was when my denial melted away and my acceptance realized and it was kind of like anger, a lot of anger.

But then trying to accept like, all right, this Lord, what are you going to do?

What are you going to do here with this?

How are you going to use this to refine us?

And how can we have somewhat of what we envisioned, but also with the limitations and our world is just different than we pictured?

And that, I think, is a probably a conversation for another podcast interview about being a parent to special needs, because that's there's just too much there to cover here.

We're talking about a birth story.

So, yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm open and willing and happy to have you back on for that, because I know you're not the only mom dealing with that.

Yeah, I'd be happy to, you know, if you're ever if you're doing another series.

I think it's a very lonely place.

The NICU is a lonely place to be.

And then it kind of is just a hint at what's to come in a lot of ways.

So it just feels dark and hopeless sometimes.

But the joy of the Lord is there.

And people, there's a lot of people giving their time.

They volunteered to hold the babies, and they volunteered to help with the parents.

And when I was there in the NICU, again, I said I worked for the Christian Broadcasting Network, which is a Christian TV network, and my show was The 700 Club Interactive.

And it happened to be on...

While we were there, it was on in the parent lounge.

And my friend was hosting, and she was just talking about, like, do you feel like right now you're just hidden, and like, God can't reach you, and you're just, like, you're alone.

Like, basically speaking to people in the NICU, she was like, no, God sees you.

Turn, look at Him.

He is there with you.

And I was like, this is awesome, because the gospel is reaching these dark places that no one really likes to talk about.

And as soon as you're out, like, you don't want to talk about your experience, because it's hard to remember it, and you don't ever want to go back.

It's just a dark area, you know?

But Jesus is there, and the babies are so sweet there.

And it's really weird when machines are keeping your baby alive, and all you want to do is, like, unhook them from all the machines and just hold them.

But you, like, have to go against your instincts and let the beeping continue and all the things keeping your child alive, the artificial things that man has created to help people live.

It's just a blessing, you know?

It's hard, but, you know, it helped Henry survive, and I'm just glad he doesn't have to deal with that anymore.

So where would you say you are now with God?

Are you still having the really hard conversations?

Are you still asking Him why and throwing your hands up?

Or do you feel like you've come to some sort of, I don't want to say resolution necessarily, but to another place?

Or are we still there in the battle?

Yes.

Yes and yes to all of the above.

It really is every day, you know, if you're going to surrender something to the Lord, something like this, it's not the one and done thing.

It's every day.

Sometimes it's every hour, every moment.

Sometimes it's a lot.

Some days seem to start out good, and then they end hard, or something might happen that throws off the day.

And the God is the God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Like, He knows everything.

And so I go to the Lord sometimes in anger, sometimes in sadness, oftentimes in sadness, sometimes frustration, and then sometimes just feeling like weakness.

Like, I can't do this, I need extra, you know.

But I go to Him because He's good.

I know that He's good.

I know that He's loving.

I know that He loves Henry more than I do, which is unbelievable, but it's true.

And I go to Him because even if I don't completely understand, and if I'm still not possibly completely resolved with all this yet, it's still working itself out.

I know that it would be worse without the Lord and the grace of God.

As angry as I am if I pull away from Him, it doesn't hurt God.

It hurts me, and it hurts Henry.

So sometimes I feel like I'm going to God to gripe and complain about God.

Lord, I very much understand David and his Psalms and the griping.

But it does conclude each session of frustration, does have some sort of conclusion, whether it be sleep, just falling asleep and starting anew the next day, or whether it be a genuine revelation of the goodness of the Lord or sometimes it's Henry doing something he hasn't done yet and just showing me hope.

Sometimes it's just the comforting arms of my husband encouraging me and walking.

We're walking in it together.

It's not really one thing that causes the sadness, and it's not really one thing that fixes it.

It's just life and living it for the Lord, even when it's not something you prepared for or expected.

But he knew.

He knew this was what was going to happen.

If there's any advice you have for moms out there, maybe moms of NICU babies, or maybe moms of nothing turned out how I thought it would, what would you say?

On that topic, I don't have as much advice as I have comfort.

Like, oh, mother, you are precious.

Your child is precious.

The Lord sees you.

And, you know, look for him.

Look for the light.

Look for him.

There is hope.

Don't give up the hope.

Life is gritty and difficult sometimes, and this is part of it.

But advice-wise for that, I don't have much other than, hey, you're not alone in it.

There's another mom like me.

There's other moms out there dealing with that kind of thing.

So if you can find someone to talk to, my sister-in-law has a special needs child, and she has been incredibly encouraging.

And I can just text her anytime, anyplace, and sometimes that can be as thorough or as not thorough as I need, and she kind of can read between the lines, and she knows because she's been there.

So find yourself your person, you know, who it's okay when your kids are together because you're not going to compare your kids to typically developing children.

You know, you're just kind of on your own.

That's been difficult.

But one piece of advice that I'll offer overall, like any kind of mother or parent preparing, is get an advocate of some kind, whether it be a doula or a family number or someone who will have their right mind and be able to think straight when you're either drugged up or adrenaline is rushing through your body and making things feel different.

Like, make sure you have someone who can be there with you, who is clear-headed.

I agree.

I've been in many a delivery room where things get chaotic quickly, and then it's good to have somebody assigned to be the one keeping on top of things.

Well, Rebekkah, I can't tell you how wonderful this has been, and I can't thank you enough for sharing your heart and your story, and it's been an absolute joy to listen to.

Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it so much.

Your blessing, your podcast is a blessing, and I just pray for everyone listening that they will feel closer to the Lord now than when they started listening.

Thanks again for joining us today.

You can reach me at Surrendered Birth Services on Instagram, or email me at contact at surrenderedbirthservices.com.

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