30 Day Prayer Challenge Day 24 “Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, ‘Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.’ So Mordecai went away and did just as Esther had commanded him.” Esther 4:15-17 April 6, 2008, the people of our church met on a Sunday night to listen to a special guest speak about prayer. He talked to us about creating a room in the church designated for prayer only. A focus on prayer was exactly what our church needed. While waiting for Scott after the Sunday evening gathering, I couldn’t sit still. I was 23 weeks pregnant. A friend told me later that during the meeting, I was in and out about ten times during a very short period of time. All I knew is that I felt extremely restless. Something wasn’t right. I called my midwife. She told me that I might have overdone it that day, and that I should lie down until the next day. Fully expecting this to pass, she asked me to call her in the morning if I wasn’t any better. By the next morning I was worse. She told me to head to her office and that she would check me out when I arrived. Scott and I sat in an exam room waiting, reading every inane chart, pamphlet, and diagram hanging on the walls. The last time he and I were there together was when a midwife told us that Heather had no heartbeat. Her exam revealed that I was leaking amniotic fluid. This wasn’t good. With one flip of a switch, chaos descended. Busyness descended immediately in my appointment. Nurses with needles and clipboards were everywhere. A green gurney materialized instantaneously. It was a flurry, and I literally felt dizzy from it all. A nurse gave me a steroid shot to speed up Esther’s lung development, improving her chance of survival if she were to be born soon. An ambulance was coming to take me to a hospital in Indianapolis. We would be right next to the children’s hospital. I was near passing out, fairly sure that most of the oxygen had gotten sucked out of the room. Everything was happening so quickly. I could hardly catch up to reality. I was disoriented, but I was not afraid. When I arrived at the downtown hospital, the doors of the ambulance were flung open. Cold fresh air poured in, replacing the sick medicinal sourness of the inside of the ambulance. My line of vision in this strapped-down position was only of cold yellow bricks and the rounded glass of a walkway between 2 hospitals—the one I was being wheeled into and one of the best children’s hospitals in the world. Snowflakes were sparsely fluttering down against the gray sky as they rolled me in. Someone was praying for me. I could feel it. I was admitted. Nurses came in with their blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, triplicate forms, and grim looks. A nurse with a clipboard showed up and stood by my bed. Obviously the protocol required her to read all the risks associated with acute premature birth. Nothing further would happen until we signed the forms, and they would not leave it to us to read them on our own. There were approximately 16 serious issues to consider, all lessoning significantly with each week of gestation. If our baby were to be born within 24 hours, Esther had a 50/ 50 chance of surviving. If she were to survive, she had a 75% likelihood of having lung, heart, and intestinal issues along with significant visual impairment including blindness and or deafness. She likely would have brain damage and cerebral palsy and a high likelihood that it would be severe – leaving her with inability to walk or use her limbs at all. Scott and I listened to the list and we signed the papers indicating that we fully understood the graveness of this baby’s condition if she were to be born within the next few days or weeks. After signing the form I asked the nurse, “So. What are the chances of this baby coming out of here without any issues if she’s born soon?” She lowered her clipboard and looked over the top of her bifocals. With a very serious look on her face, she said, “Oh honey, I wouldn’t even hope for that.” After many tests, the doctor went the direction of slowing down labor to the point of stopping it if possible. We were told that the best case scenario would be for Esther to “stay put” until week 28. Magnesium Sulfate was going into my muscles on a schedule at higher and higher increments. It didn’t feel to me like labor was slowing down, though. The specialist didn’t want to be taken by surprise. If they planned it right they’d be able to have the highest level of staff and equipment in place for the delivery process, and most importantly, for the transfer of Esther into the neonatal unit at the nearby children’s hospital. Her final words to us in the darkened hospital room were, “If anything at all happens in the night, we will be taking her.” God left no time for fear and hopelessness to set in. After every seriously grim face left the room, the lights went back up. We weren’t left alone in our thoughts for long before there was a knock at the door. It was three men from our church. They came to the hospital straight from a prayer meeting that was being held for us. They glowed. Their calm, assuring faces were a welcomed sight after a full day of furrowed brows. They came to tell us that God told them Esther would be ok. They told us that the new prayer room was officially up and running and that people would be there to pray every night until Esther was safe and at home. Scripture of the Day: Hebrews 11:1-3 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Song of the Day: Give me Faith, by Royal Tailor youtube/watch?v=z3TQjXqgfvo
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 12:55:53 +0000
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