By crisis, I mean:
- That my ex-husband was doing drugs when I got pregnant.
- That he got arrested for possession when I was pregnant.
- That I left my marriage of ten years and eventually filed for divorce.
- That I had no money. None. Not even the several hundred dollars we had in rolled change. Every bit of it, including the pennies had been ransacked and used by my ex-husband who was undoubtedly looking for a way to finance his next fix.
- That my stress level was extremely high while I racked my brain trying to make sense of the senseless.
- That I had been out of the work force for four or five years by then and had no way of becoming gainfully employed with three kids under the age of four and one on the way.
During this time, I moved back home and in with my Mom. This arrangement would last for almost three years. In the meantime, I had to figure out a way to feed my kids and get them health insurance. C had an atrial septal defect and some mysterious metabolic disorder that doctors at Shands in Gainesville had never fully diagnosed. At the time of our move back North, she was still not walking even though she was 14 months old. R and K were ok, but kids need insurance. You never know what's going to happen next!
My brother-in-law told me I needed to go to Job and Family Services and get food stamps and medicaid for the kids. Really? I had a college degree for Pete's sake! How did my life get so insane? I knew he was right about it, but I was less than thrilled with the idea. However, we needed to eat and I had no means of providing that for them at the time. So, with a heavy heart, I found myself waiting to meet with the nice JFS people who would be able to help me.
During this meeting, the JFS lady that I talked to was very condescending. She made me feel quite small and even ashamed of myself when she asked, "Do ALL of these kids have the same father?" I rather sarcastically said, "Yes, after all I have been married for nearly ten years." Disdainfully, she said, "That just goes to prove you can never really know someone. Did you PLAN to have this MANY kids?" As my anger mounted, I told her I thought it was irrelevant whether or not they were planned since they were already here, it wasn't their fault we were in this situation and they needed to eat. I asked her whether or not JFS would be able to help and if not, then I needed to stop wasting my time there. Unwilling to let the conversation go, she said the following, "You know, if you don't think you can handle ALL of these kids by yourself, it isn't too late, to, well, there are other...things you can.......do." The implication was loud and clear as her voice trailed off; probably in response to my incredulous stare. Make no mistake that what she was telling me was that I could get an abortion and make it easier on myself, the kid's Dad and the state.
As I said, B was my crisis pregnancy. The baby that the nice lady from JFS thought I could possibly, maybe, sort of decide....to do something........else with other than what God intended which was obviously that He wanted me to have her.
At times I was terrified by the thought of losing the baby because of all of the stress I was under. Eventually, I learned to give all of that to God and when I was able to do that, I was able to enjoy the last few weeks of her pregnancy.
B turned nine years old about a month ago and I am still stunned when I remember this conversation. I look at her and the laughter and challenges she presents me with almost every single day, and I cannot imagine what my life would be like without her. She was born with a soft palate cleft. Because of this, she was given multiple hearing tests and she failed every single one of them. At the tender age of ten weeks I was told that she had a nerve hearing loss, that it would remain unclear how much (if anything) she could hear until she was a little older. In the meantime, she was fitted for hearing aids which she began wearing at slightly less than three months of age and I started preparing the older kids for life with a hearing impaired sibling. At one year, the surgeon repaired her soft palate cleft and she has not really had any problems with it since then. She went through some speech therapy at one point and may need to have braces, but other than that, you would not know how her life started out.
At 11 weeks, B developed chronic ear infections due to the cleft. As soon as she would go off the antibiotics she would be right back at the pediatrician's office within a day or two for another round. One day while we were there, I said, "No more. I have had it with this and I want tube surgery now. What good does it do to continuously treat these infections while refusing to treat the source of them? What happens when she starts to become resistant to the antibiotics? She is not waiting until the cleft repair to get tubes." The pediatrician, bound by insurance regulations to document a certain number of infections in order to precipitate the surgery, agreed to call the ENT and see what could be done. Thankfully, he agreed that the requirement of documentation was ridiculous in this case and within two weeks, I had an appointment for surgery.
Just in case you don't think God's hand was on my crisis baby's life, I will never forget the following conversation in the surgical waiting room. The ENT came out to tell me all had gone well, hearing test was normal, tubes were in, B was in recovery, here's some drops...wait a minute, back up, hold your horses. What? Her hearing test was what? The surgeon repeated that B's hearing test came back normal. After the fluid had been drained and the tubes were placed, they conducted another test that showed absolutely no hearing loss of any kind.
Did God heal B of a nerve hearing loss or was it misdiagnosed? Does it matter? God knows. That's all that matters to me. Sometimes He chooses to reveal the end result to us and reserves the details for later; He lets us know what we need to know when we need to know it. That's just how God works. In this case, all He needed me to do was to entrust the life of my baby to Him. I tend to believe B got a miracle that day. Regardless, the preacher from my church was with me as was another friend from church. Scott jumped up from his chair and said, "Praise the Lord!" Loud. And it was still pretty early in the morning. A few people looked at us. I sat in stunned silence. I had purchased a teddy bear for B that played "Jesus Loves Me". I am convinced that she never really heard that bear until I went back to see her in recovery and played it for her and sang a very tearful rendition of that song. Praise the Lord indeed.
Today, B is a challenge sometimes. It takes her forever to get ready in the morning. She moves at one pace; hers. She loves to read, she loves to sing and she loves Jesus. She is not content to hear about Moses, Noah or the miracles Jesus performed. She wants to see them in the Bible and read them for herself. She knows where to look in the Bible to find her name and she thinks that is funny. She loves animals of all kinds and insects of most kinds and flowers and books and sunsets and music. She writes me letters and poems and draws pictures of all kinds which she gives to me on at least a daily basis. She is messy but somehow knows where the items are that she needs in her mess. She is very sensitive and is easily hurt by other kids teasing her. She loves to help people. She looks for the loner on the playground so that child can have a friend. She is good at finding people that others don't notice. She likes to tease adults and makes outrageous faces at people to see what their reaction will be. She has definite ideas about things and I am hard pressed to get her to change her mind. She is definitely a leader, not a follower. I have often said that this child does not march to the beat of her own drum; she has an entire band at her disposal.
B summed up what is important to her like this: "Mom! On Sunday we get to go to church in the morning AND at night. On Monday we get to go to BSF which is sort of like church since we learn about God and the Bible. Then we have to wait until Wednesday until we can go to church again. After that we have to go through Thursday, Friday and Saturday until we can go to church again on Sunday."
I wasn't sure what I was going to name Bethany but in the end Richard helped me to decide. He told me he liked Bethany the best out of the two names I had narrowed it down to. After he picked the name, I told him Bethany was the name of the place where Jesus' friends lived and that I thought it would be cool if Jesus' would someday be her friend too. My little sister picked out her middle name: Rae. I always tell B that she is my little ray of sunshine. Sometimes it's a little ray because she's clouding up the skies with her attitude. And sometimes, it's because I can truly see Jesus in the face of this child, my crisis pregnancy, the child that I was advised to seek "alternatives" for. Perhaps.
All kids are miracles, blessings, gifts from God. However, I also believe that every now and then one of them stands out because of their circumstances and shows us just how amazing God really is. When I look at B and remember, I KNOW God's hand was and will continue to be in it all. Pretty cool!
Psalm 139:13-17 For thou didst form my inward parts: Thou didst cover me in my mother's womb.
14 I will give thanks unto thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Wonderful are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well.
15 My frame was not hidden from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end.
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