Our Little Miracle . . .

"I'll be right back," he said, gently placing the transducer back in its holster and removing his gloves.  We figured he might be going to update the medical charts or something.  Whatever it was, something had caused him to abruptly stop the sonogram, which had been ordered by Amy's regular doctor after several episodes of abnormal bleeding.  We really didn't think much of it.  In fact, Amy grabbed a towel and started wiping the blue gel off her stomach and I began putting on my jacket and stocking cap, thinking that everything must have been normal and a nurse would be coming back in at any time to tell us we were free to go.

About that time the door opened and the doctor returned with two more doctors from the practice.  He removed the transducer from the holster, asked Amy to lay back again, and reapplied the blue gel.  Now I don't know much about the way things work in a medical practice, but when one doctor rounds up the rest of the doctors in the practice to come look at something, there must really be something to see.  

"Whoa," said one of the other doctors.  

Now I don't know much about the way things work in a medical practice, but when a doctor says "whoa," while looking at images of the inside of my wife early in her third trimester, you know there really must be something to see.  What they saw on that screen apparently was the largest of its kind that any of them had ever witnessed.  Located right up next to the placenta was a softball-sized blood clot.  

"You're staying," the doctor said.  

"By 'staying' you mean, like overnight, right?" I asked.

"Nope.  You're staying until the baby's born."

So began our journey.  Amy was immediately checked into the room at Overland Park Regional Hospital, which would become her home for the next six weeks.  It was ordered that she remain in her bed for the majority of the time and could only leave the room in a wheelchair.  

Doctors feared that her body, at some point, would mistake the mass for the baby and go into premature labor in order to get rid of the clot.  To be honest, I'm not sure at the time we truly realized the magnitude of the risk to both mom and baby.  Amy went through several blood transfusions just to try to keep up with the amount of blood she was losing on a regular basis.  We lived on edge most of the time, but all along had faith that God would see us through and that we would have a healthy baby when it was all said and done.  

In the meantime, I was caring for our three older kids at home during those six weeks.  I'll be honest, when it really hit me that Amy would be in the hospital for an extended period of time, I was terrified.  It was enough work raising our 6, 4, and 2-year old with both of us.  But now here I was, thrust into the role of doing everything at home, while also constantly having Amy and our unborn baby on my mind.  

I had prayed the day before this all took place that God would show me how to be a better dad.  This is definitely not what I had in mind.  

Six weeks later, Amy was rushed into surgery after it became apparent that our baby was in serious distress.  On March 3, 2011, my super-hero wife gave birth to Thomas John Giffin.  He was 3 lbs 11oz, and I could fit my wedding ring over his foot and around his ankle, with room to spare.  Aside from a serious case of Jaundice and low oxygen levels, we had a healthy baby boy.  Because he was only 32 weeks in the womb he remained in the NICU at Overland Park Regional for 6 weeks while he grew bigger and stronger.  He remained on oxygen for the duration, and even for the first month he was home with us.  However, after that first month he was just like any other little baby.  He was healthy, happy, and continued to grow.

As I reflect back on those 12 weeks I can see so many ways that God brought us through it.  It was during that time I first realized how much love and support we had from our family, church family, and friends.  It was also during that time that God's faithfulness, strength, and abiding peace became more real to us than they ever had before.  He had worked a miracle in our lives.  The fog had set in and we learned that relying on our low beams and that white line on the outside of the lane really did get us somewhere.  We learned that having the patience to take each step and each moment one at a time would eventually lead us to where HE wanted us to be.  We learned that the One who painted that white line really could be trusted.  

God worked a miracle in our lives and in the life of our precious Thomas.  We just knew that God had an incredible plan for his life.  There had to be a reason he chose to work that miracle.  

So after seeing us through all of that . . . Why?