My Hero

Back in the early winter of 1986 there was a great tragedy in my life. I was eight months pregnant with my third child. The day after Thanksgiving I was told by my doctor that she did not have a brain. She was suffering from Ansaphaila and I from an infection in my womb that could kill me...the following Monday they induced my labor. From there I proceeded to endure a labor that endured for thirty-six hours. Around 9 p.m. my little girl, Krista Mae was borne into this world and passed from it within fifteen minutes or so.

Needless to say the following years were hard, but I had my two older children and my life went on. Until in the late fall of 1988 when I discovered that I was again pregnant. I was devastated and terrified...I just knew the same thing would happen to me again. The doctors told me after I had lost Krista Mae that it was not genetic, but a result of environmental toxins in my drinking water. They also told me the chances of it happening again were very slim, only 2%...as if that would matter in resolving the fears that I had. I even discussed terminating the pregnancy, but I did not. I went on and the winter was a hard one and I developed walking pneumonia in the last two months of my pregnancy and I was in constant pain all the time. I did not have any idea that I was in labor until I coughed and I thought my water broke, but it had only been a leak. I did not know. It never broke with the others and it never leaked either. By the time I got to the hospital I was dilated to nine...

They got me into a birthing room and broke my water and I was told that my baby had had a bowel movement inutero due to the stress from the walking pneumonia and that the Marconium, as they had called it may be in his lungs. My doctor would give me no anaesthetic, nor would he tell me why. I felt like I was between the main attraction at a tractor pull and I was being pulled apart. I kept asking my doctor why he would not give me any anaesthetic and he would just tell me he could not right from the get go. I got very angry and I gathered that shortened my labor greatly. Within three hours of arriving at the hospital I gave birth to another child, a little boy.

His little face was blue when they laid him onto my belly for only seconds before the neo-natal nurses yanked him away and began saving his life, taking him to the neo-natal ICU and away from me. Four or so hours later I got to go see this little boy. He was beautiful, of course he was, he was my son and despite the fact he was covered in tubes and monitors and IV’s attached allover him...in his little head, hands and feet, even in his little belly button. There was a great deal of concern in me. A few hours after that they wrapped him up and allowed me to hold him, to give him his first “feeding.” As I held him, tubes and all, I was giving him his bottle and looking into his tiny little face. In an instant all of my fears of what was and what was to be had vanished.

There in that tiny little face was hope. The hope of new life. That is the moment that tiny little boy gave me something I thought I had lost. He gave me hope. He is just about a man now, getting ready to graduate high school and go on to college. I love him as I do all my children with all my heart, but that particular little boy will always be my hero. Every time I’m down all it takes is to think of him and his wonderful quiet way and my heart overflows...I love you, Thomas...you will always be my hero...you saved my life...