Truly-- Part 6

    
I'll let Stephen tell the next part of the story since I was unconscious for 3 days....


   Truly Hope was born soon after that, Jennifer resting in the arms of our Lord, and in the care of a small army of great doctors. For the next two hours I sat there alone crouched on the floor listening to the commotion just on the other side of a seemingly thin wall. Tears flowing down my cheeks I was begging God for His help. The Lord has never placed me in a situation that He hasn’t given me the grace or strength to withstand. All alone in a long delivery room waiting, hoping, praying. The occasional nurse would stick her head in the door while passing to ask if I was alright. I would just shrug my shoulders as though I was ok. In reality, I didn’t know how I was doing, it felt as though my heart was in the next room. I had been with Jennifer on each of the visits to Iowa City & knew the major concerns. Soon after they had taken her away there was a man that ran past with a large duffel bag with a red cross on it. Ten minutes later he ran past again still carrying the bag. Sitting there not knowing what was going on wondering, worrying, I thought I had cried out all of my tears until the man ran by the third time, bag on his arm. The Lord must have known it was all that I could handle because within minutes Truly’s doctor (Dr. Segar) came in the room with a smile on his face.
     He knelt down beside me, put his arm on my shoulder and said "both are doing as well as can be expected". He quickly told that Truly’s heart & lungs were far stronger than they had originally anticipated them being. This gave a glimmer of Hope. He then began to tell that Jennifer had lost a tremendous amount of blood and that while stable she wouldn’t be out of the woods until they were able to get the bleeding stopped. He told me that they were trying to do so without a hysterectomy but at that time nothing else seemed to be stopping it. He assured me that their best doctors were doing everything they could and that she was in good hands. We then both stood he patted me on the shoulder and walked out of the room. The good hands that she was in could not even be seen.
     My mom called me soon after and said they were just pulling in and asked where to find me. About an hour after they were there Dr. Segar came in and gave an update. He told us that they had ended up doing a partial hysterectomy but they had gotten the bleeding stopped. They had given her 31 units of blood, 10 units of platelets, & 10 units of plasma. She seemed to be doing fine and they were just finishing up the surgery. She had been in for just over five hours but it seemed like an eternity. He told that Jenn would be in ICU for the next few days, and that they would begin running tests on Truly the next morning.

     We found our way to the ICU waiting room where the Lord had a small corner open for the three of us. The next morning Jenn’s parents came down to be with us. Throughout the day we were able to go in and see Jenn for short visits even though she was still unconscious. She had a tube down her throat, hoses coming out everywhere, IV’s in both hands, her neck was bruised and swollen from the transfusions. After seeing Jenn, we were able to go and see Truly for the first time. I got in trouble for taking a picture with my cell phone. The nurse chewed me out because the cell phone can interfere with the respirator. The doctors in the NICU were still optimistic, but were waiting for results on some of the tests. All we could do was wait and pray.