I don’t blog often but Lance and I want this time in our lives to be documented. The past few months for us have been the hardest of our lives; yet we have never been closer or felt so at peace. I’m going to try to tell a story while throwing in our random thoughts that we were having at the time. It may be a jumbled mess but I’m going to give it a shot. Try and stick with me.
A few months ago I was having the best pregnancy with no complications. Not only was my pregnancy going perfectly but so were our lives. We were so excited to be having our first baby and so thankful that the pregnancy was so easy. As far as we knew the baby and I were very healthy and headed to a normal delivery. It was at this time that I got an urge to pray for God to use us. I didn’t necessarily want to pray for this, but I felt led to pray for God to use us to bring Him glory. I knew that this could mean anything but I prayed it anyway. Of course you always want to bring God glory, but I was praying it knowing that it could bring hard times. I hoped it wouldn’t, but I just prayed. Be careful what you pray for…or better yet, don’t.
On October 29th, Lance made a very unhealthy dinner of steak fingers and french fries. I’m a pretty healthy eater but I was eight months pregnant so I ate it. I then ate some cereal and a grilled cheese. Again…eight months pregnant. We went to bed and about 2:00 a.m. I started feeling extremely sick. I figured that I had just eaten way too much. I have a pretty high pain tolerance so I tried unsuccessfully to sleep through it. The next morning I told Lance that I may be going into labor because this was the worst pain I had ever felt so we headed to the doctor. I was only able to see the P.A. and she told me that I just had a virus. I tried to tell her that it couldn’t be that because I don’t get viruses but she didn’t believe me so after arguing with her for almost three hours I gave up and decided to go home and wait it out. I spent the rest of the day in the most pain I have ever felt but there was nothing I could do so I just went on with my day. That night was even worse and I told Lance that I really must be dying because nothing could possibly hurt this badly. If this wasn’t labor, I wasn’t going to be able to handle labor! So as I’m pacing at two o’clock in the morning I’m trying my hardest to figure out if I should go to the emergency room or just suck it up and lay back down but I just was in so much pain. The next morning at about 6:00 I told Lance that he had to take me to the hospital because something was definitely wrong. By this time I decided to take my temperature and it was over 103 degrees so we headed to Austin. I walked in to my doctor’s office and said please check my appendix because this is definitely not a virus. She drew some blood and came to the conclusion that I was “very sick”. That’s all she would tell me. I am immediately sent into surgery. Prior to surgery our friends Jason and Steve came to the hospital to pray with us. Eight months pregnant isn’t the best time to have surgery. We prayed for me but mostly our baby as we were told that this was very likely to bring on labor and it was just too early. During surgery the doctor finds that my appendix had been ruptured for about two days and I had peritonitis which is just a really bad infection due to all of the toxins released when the appendix ruptured. The baby and I get through that fine, thank you, Jesus. Now the goal is to keep me pregnant. Bed rest brought on more complications but walking was sure to bring on labor so we were kind of stuck. My family came and stayed with us during this time and we are so thankful for that because I don’t know what we would have done without them. The doctors were going to keep me in the hospital until I had the baby whether it was one day or two months. I barely remember the week following surgery due to all of the medication but I can say that we had so many people praying for us and just loving us. It was amazing. Now comes the hard part.
Exactly one week following my surgery I went into labor. They told us prior to this that I was far enough along that the baby would be fine; just a little small. However, right before he was born they brought in twenty people that were called the “Code Blue Team”. That wasn’t very comforting at all. But still we prayed and were prayed for. At 11:06 p.m. Cooper Allen Yarbough was born and was healthy, again, thank you, Jesus. He weighed 5 lbs. and 12 oz. (Side note: Appendicitis hurts MUCH worse than labor) Since he was so small they took him to NICU. This was fine with me because I was still in the hospital so I could visit him all day long. He could leave as soon as he got his feeding down. That was his only problem. It never occurred to me that I would be discharged before he was. The hardest thing I have ever had to do was leave my baby. I didn’t expect it all so when I left I just felt lost. Lance and I then began the routine of going to the hospital all day, going home to sleep and doing the same thing the next day. Every day we cried and prayed over our son before we left the hospital. Every night we prayed that he could leave the hospital. Lance prayed for patience. I didn’t want patience, I wanted my baby home. I told him that Cooper had to be home by Friday. I couldn’t do it past Friday; I was just at my limit. I was completely broken at this point and demanded that he stop praying for patience and pray that Cooper could come home on Friday. We recruited our friends and families to pray for the same thing. The doctors kept telling us that Friday was very unlikely. If you’ve ever had a baby in NICU you know that they don’t ever really like to tell you anything. All they would say is that Friday is very unlikely. As much as I knew that I couldn’t do it past Friday I guess God knew it too because Thursday morning we got the report that Cooper all of a sudden had done what he had to do to come home and he could leave in 24 hours if he didn’t have any setbacks. Again I cried but I have never been so happy. So Friday we brought home our baby. He was in NICU for a total of ten days. He recently was readmitted to the hospital for three days with RSV but has recovered quickly, no doubt thanks to the hands laid on him in prayer.
Through this we have learned to depend completely on God. The doctors didn’t know what was happening but God did. He said that following Him was not going to be easy and He kept that promise but He also showed us so much through this. We were able to pray like we’ve never prayed before. We had to. I am so thankful that I serve a faithful God. If everything was easy, how would He receive any glory? Hey, I asked for it! Lance and I feel like we came out the other side closer than ever before.
Lance and I were shown so much love throughout this. During times like these you need your friends and family more than ever. We have the best of both that anyone can ask for and I know now that God strategically placed all of us together for times like these. The problem was that our closest friends were going through their own crises. And we all still prayed for each other and just loved each other. They came to the hospital to see us and we called to check on them every time we weren’t at the hospital. We were all just getting our butts kicked. It was a rough season for this group of friends.
We know that God has received glory through this somehow. We will probably never see the results and we don’t need to. We will trust that He ordained these times for His purpose and we will thankful and humbled that my family was able to be used.
Great is Thy Faithfulness.
