Happy Friday everyone!
Prepare yourself for a very long post.
Today we are headed out to Bear Lake with my family and I can't wait.
It is with out a doubt one of my most favorite places to go to.
Well today I thought I should share a little story with you all.
We spoke in sacrament meeting last Sunday on hope and I thought it would be fun to share my talk with you all.
Now keep in mind that this is a very revised version from the one I gave in sacrament meeting, I have added a lot of things and taken some things out.
I left out most of the intro, but thought it would be fun if you knew a little background about us so there is a little in there too.
So here is the story of Kale's birth, enjoy!
Me and Jonathan went to the same pre-school together, here in Bountiful and we lived just down the street from him and his family. My family then moved to Kaysville for a while and then moved back to Bountiful when I was in the middle of first grade and I have been here ever since. Jon and I went to Adelaide Elementary, South Davis Junior High, and Woods Cross High all together.
We started dating in 9th grade and stuck together pretty much all through High school. We were married on October 2, 2008 at Eldridge Manor. We were then sealed in the Bountiful temple on October 2, 2009 for time and all eternity along with our sweet little boy Kale.
The topic we have been given today is hope. The first thing that came to mind when I thought about this topic is having hope and faith in the Lord. I came across a scripture seemed to sum it up pretty well. It is in Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 7 and it reads:
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.
In other words if we trust and have hope in the Lord we will be blessed, pretty easy and self explanatory right?
Well then I got thinking to myself, so why do we ever doubt the Lord, and lose hope and faith in Him? Why is it so easy to fall away?
Shortly after me and Jon were married we were trying to figure out what to do for insurance for when Kale was born. We couldn’t get on any regular insurance plan because I was already pregnant and my pregnancy wouldn’t be covered because it’s considered a pre-existing condition. We were trying to get any financial aid that we could and nothing was working out. We were told to apply for medicaid, so we did, and we were denied. At the time that we applied for medicaid we were not paying our tithing for one reason or another. Being newlyweds we found it extremely difficult to pay or tithing.
We had no clue what to, we had come to the conclusion that we were just going to have to pay completely out of pocket for everything.
I was 32 weeks along and went in to the doctor to have one of my regular check ups. My doctor came in and said that my blood pressure was pretty high. She then went on to ask if I had been having any symptoms such as headaches, a pain in my right ribs, weird things with my vision and being very light headed.
And me being the nonchalant happy little pregnant girl I didn’t think twice about it an replied nope!
She told me about a condition called preeclampsia that is common in teenage pregnancies, again I didn’t think twice about it.
We got out of the doctors appointment and Jon turned to me and said Emily why did you say no to all of those questions she asked you? You have been complaining non-stop about every single one of those things.
It took me a sec and then went huh... I guess I have haven’t I. So I didn’t let it bother me too much, and headed back to work. Very shortly after I got back, I got another one of those dizzy light headed spells where I saw weird flashing lights.
I got on the internet and looked up preeclampsia and found this:
Preeclampsia is a complex disorder that affects about 5 percent of pregnant women. You're diagnosed with preeclampsia if you have high blood pressure and protein in your urine after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The condition most commonly shows up after you've reached 37 weeks, but it can develop any time in the second half of pregnancy, including during labor or even after delivery (usually in the first 48 hours)
Preeclampsia can range from mild to severe, and it can progress slowly or rapidly. The only way to get better is to deliver your baby.
Reading this and after my little episode I was totally freaked out so I called my doctor back and had to explain to her that I was an idiot I really had been having all of those symptoms she explained to me earlier. She said to come back in and we would do a simple blood test to see what it came up with.
Back to the hospital we went, I got the blood test, and we headed back home. On our way home my doctor called me and said your blood tests came back abnormal pack your bags and check into labor and delivery, don’t be too alarmed, we just need to run more tests, it’s probably nothing.
Well, that was a fun ride home, me balling my eyes out because I’m terrified and Jon in shock not really knowing what to think. Like I said I was 32 weeks along, I still had 8 weeks (two months) of pregnancy to go. I remember kneeling down with Jon and having a prayer that everything would be ok... having hope that everything would be ok.
We got home, hurried and packed the essentials, took our dog up to my parents house and now for the third time that day headed out to Murray to go to the hospital.
They checked me in and said that they wouldn’t know if I had preeclampsia for sure for a while and that it is hard to actually diagnose preeclampsia. We were at the hospital for over a day and a half before they confirmed that it was preeclampsia and that it was advanced enough that they had to induce me.
They gave me shots of corticosteroids to develop Kale’s lungs and they started me on a drug called magnesium which is to prevent seizures because with preeclampsia and having such high blood pressure you are very likely to have seizures. Let me tell ya magnesium is evil stuff, it makes you feel absolutely awful every sickness you can think of, it makes you feel that way. I have never felt that way in my entire life. The worst part of the magnesium is, is because of it I don't remember a lot of this experience.
I remember we were both so stressed out about what we were going to do about insurance because the hospital told us that Kale would be going to the NICU being so premature which is unbelievably expensive, not to mention my five day stay in the hospital.
There were definitely times where I thought why me, why us? Why should this happen to us when we are so unprepared, so young, I didn’t know what to do. It is amazing how satan can make us think why me, why now and loose all our hope and faith in the Lord.
Well Kale was born February 13th after four days of being in the hospital. He weighed in at 4lbs 11oz which was surprisingly big for how premature he was (they predicted he would weigh around three pounds) and he was pretty healthy, he didn’t even have to be on oxygen which was a feat in itself, it amazed all the nurses and doctors.
About a day before Kale was born a lady from the hospitals accounting department came in and said why don’t you try applying for medicaid? We told her that we already had and that we were denied. She said to try applying again, we didn’t know why she wanted us to when we had already been denied once but we did as she said and applied again.
Kale was in the NICU for exactly one month. That one month was with out a doubt the most difficult of our lives, having a precious little boy that we had to leave every single day. Not knowing if he would be ok, not knowing if something was going to happen while we weren't there. It was awful. It had plenty of ups and downs.
And throughout all of it the thought of how are we going to pay for this? What are we going to do? Was looming in the back of our minds.
Kale was doing relatively well for about 2 weeks then they found out that Kale had NEC. Nec is short for necrotizing enterocolitis which is an infection of the intestines that premature babies can get. It can lead to major surgery and often death, not to mention he couldn’t eat for a week...Can you imagine a newborn that can’t eat for a week? I can tell you it is not fun. Again, our hope and faith was tested.
I remember I was alone at the hospital when they found this out, Jon was at work. And I hadn’t really cried through this whole experience but when they told me this I broke down. I left and went into a private room and just cried to myself. I had to leave anyways because the doctors were putting in a picc line. A pic line is just like an iv except for it starts in the right bicep area and they run the picc all the way up the arm, across the chest and into the opening of the heart. ( I hope all my medical terminology is correct here)
The reason for doing this is because Kale's veins were so small and fragile that they kept collapsing so they couldn't get the needed medication into him.
They had basically used every sing vein they could in his little body (even his forehead) and nothing worked.
It just so happened that right when he needed a picc line he got diagnosed with NEC as well.
While I was crying to myself in the pumping room (yes I was in the pumping room) I just kept asking why? Why does this have happen to him when he has been through so much already, it just isn’t fair to him. Why can’t it just be easy for him?
That night, Jon’s dad came and gave Kale a blessing that everything would be ok and that he would grow strong and would be able to come home soon. I remember feeling so at peace and I just knew that everything would be ok. I got a little hope back.
Kale came home a few weeks later, after being in the NICU for exactly one month, the day he came home he weighed exactly five pounds.
Another blessing that brought back hope, we found out shortly after that that we had been approved for medicaid. We were baffled to say the least. Nothing had changed so why now were blessed with this? Then we realized, it’s because we we had started paying our tithing. That is the only reason that we got approved, we DID NOT QUALIFY but yet we still got it. Needless to say that when all of our bills came and were all counted up the grand total was WELL OVER 100 thousand dollars.
And there are plenty of friends who have seen the bills who can vouch that it is true :)
Kale is now an extremely healthy and crazy two year old. He has more energy than he knows what to do with but he is the sweetest little man I’ve ever met.
I know with all my heart that the reason why Kale got better and strong so quickly, and the only reason why we got insurance was all because of the Lord. I know that He has a hand in everything and that if we have hope in Him everything will turn out ok.
I remember turning often during this experience to a scripture that I was given back in Young Womens. It is from Isaiah 41: verses 10 and 13
Fear not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
Well there you have it, Kale man's story in a nutshell.
If you made it this far congratulations,
You deserve a cookie.
And hopefully this may strengthen your testimony of tithing, hope and faith a little bit and if not, hopefully you just enjoyed it.
I sure know that even though this was with out a doubt the biggest trial in my life so far it also strengthened my testimony more than anything ever has. And I am grateful for it.
I am so grateful for a healthy little boy, the best husband I could ever ask for, and knowing that no matter what the Lord is on my side.
It took us just a couple of tries to get this down, it's super fun.
