Angie released a cry and collapsed in Ben's arms, happy tears filling her eyes.
“Thank God,” Ben muttered as he held his wife and grinned at the doctor.
The doctor hesitated. “There is no medical explanation for what has happened here. I thought you should know that.”
Ben smoothed his hand over Angie's hair and smiled. “Doctor, we've had hundreds of people praying for this little girl. Everyone from a group of grandmothers to our young sons. What has happened is a miracle.”
The doctor shrugged. “Well, we can't really define it that way medically. We can only document her case and state that there is no medical explanation. Those things happen.”
His expression grew more serious. “There is one prob lem,” the doctor interrupted. “She will probably still have Turner's Syndrome as a result of the damage that was done when the sacs were filled with fluid and she will still have to have surgery when she's born. In other words, she will most likely still have mental retardation.”
Angie pulled away from Ben and smiled as she shook her head. “No, Doctor. God doesn't do half a miracle. The baby will be born fine.”
“Don't get your hopes up,” he said. “The damage has already been done, even if the fluid has somehow regressed from the sacs.”
The doctor suggested that Angie have amniocentesis done to determine information about the baby's chromo somes.
“Then we'll know for sure what we're dealing with,” he said.
“There's a risk of miscarriage with that procedure,” Angie said calmly. “Would there be something that could be done to help the baby if the condition is found?”
The doctor shook his head. “No, it would just help you prepare.”
Again Angie smiled. “We'll prepare by praying about it, Doctor. I don't want the test done.”
“Okay, but do this for me. When the baby's born, have her tested and make sure the results are sent to my office.”
When they left the hospital that day, Ben squeezed Angie's hand and grinned. “God heard our prayers. He's going to let me have my little blonde, blue-eyed angel after all.”
“Honey,” Angie teased, her voice filled with mock warning. “Don't get yourself worked up about a blonde, blue-eyed girl. Look in the mirror and ask yourself if your daughter could have anything but your beautiful dark hair and dark eyes.”
“Never mind,” Ben said, teasing in return. “You can be a doubter but I know she's going to be a blonde, blue-eyed little angel.”
Weeks passed and then months. At the end of Angie's eighth month of pregnancy, another ultrasound was per formed and this time the results were perfect.
“There is no difference between your ultrasound and that of a perfectly normal pregnancy,” she was told. “Surgery will not be necessary.”
Angie and Ben were not surprised. The prayers contin ued.
Finally, one morning, a week before Angie's due date, she went into labor. Although the baby seemed normal on the ultrasound tests, Angie had been warned she would probably still have a long, arduous labor. Instead, Maggie was born May 17 at 8:01 A.M.—just forty minutes after ar riving at the hospital. Tests were done immediately and her physical examination proved her to be completely healthy.
Two weeks later the blood work came back. Maggie's chromosomes were completely normal. When the doctor received the results, he held one final meeting with the couple.
He played with Maggie's tiny fingers and tickled her under her chin. Then he turned to Ben and Angie.
“I want you to know,” he said, his eyes misty, “Maggie has changed the way I'll advise patients with this disorder in the future. I agreed with the specialist about aborting the pregnancy. If you'd followed my advice …” His voice trailed off. “I just thank God you didn't.”
As Maggie grew, the only sign that remained of her or deal in the womb was a slight thickening at the base of her neck where the sacs had once grown, filled with fluid that could have choked her to death.
Once, when Maggie was five, Angie was doing up the buttons of the little girl's blouse and she found herself strug gling with the top button. She smiled then and studied Maggie's face.
“You'll always have a hard time with those top buttons because your neck is a little thicker than some,” she said. “That's God's way of reminding you that you were a mira cle.”
Maggie nodded. “God looked after me when I was in your tummy, Mommy,” she said. “Daddy says I'm his mira cle baby.”
Angie pulled her daughter tight and smiled through her tears.
“Yes, honey.” She tugged lightly on the child's blonde ponytail and looked intently in her deep blue eyes. “You're our little blonde, blue-eyed miracle baby.”
Whatever It Takes
On Sunday, July 24, Olivia Riley looked at her wrist watch and saw that it was exactly twelve noon. Time to pray for Laura. She found a quiet place in her house and for the next thirty minutes—sometimes with tears in her eyes—she spoke to God in hushed tones, pleading with him to spare the life of Laura West.
When thirty minutes had passed, Olivia's husband, Brad, began praying. He, too, had committed himself to take a shift praying for Laura.
The hours wore on and the prayers for Laura contin ued.
Sandy Billings: 1:30 P.M. Tricia Rosenblum: 2:00 P.M. Earl Stockton: 2:30 P.M. Rita Hayden: 3:00 P.M.
Sunday evening came, and with it Scott Schwartz and Robert Trenton at 7:00 P.M. Alice Tyson: 7:30 P.M. Ruby Jansen: 8:00 P.M.
Night turned into the wee hours of the morning and still there was constant prayer. Tom Mendoza: 1:30 A.M. Greg Harrison: 2:30 A.M. Jason Waters: 5:00 A.M.
And so the prayer chain for Laura West continued. All across the town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the people of Hope Community Church kept up the chain: twenty-four hours of continuous prayer uttered in thirty-minute segments by forty-eight people who had willingly signed up earlier that morning.
Never had the church prayed so consistently and so fervently for a single life. But this was more than a normal emergency. After delivering a healthy baby boy, Laura West, thirty-eight, was at the University Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, fighting for every breath of life. The night before, doctors had told her husband she was dying.
“There's nothing more we can do,” one of the doctors had said. “It's between her and God now.”
Prayer was the only way Laura's church family knew to help. Not just for Laura, but for her tiny newborn baby as well.
On Monday morning Sheri Robinson picked up the chain at 7:00 A.M. Cindy Cummins: 9:00 A.M. Shana Rus sell: 11:00 A.M.
These were Laura's friends, the people of Hope Com munity. And they knew how badly the Wests had wanted this baby. It shook them to their core to imagine this newborn son never knowing his mommy.
A few years earlier, Laura West's daily prayer had al ways been the same: that her husband, Jake, spend more time at home and that his faith grow stronger.
“He loves God and he loves us,” Laura would tell friends. “But the truth is he loves himself more. A lot more. I keep asking God to reach him. Whatever it takes.”
At that same time, Jake and Laura desperately wanted a third child. They had two beautiful sons, Cody and Carl. But their dreams of raising lots of children dimmed when Laura seemed unable to get pregnant.
Then, three years after Carl was born, Laura finally conceived. But what seemed like an answered prayer be came instead a sorrow-filled time when Laura lost the baby in her fifth month of pregnancy.
Searching for reasons why God would allow the death of their third child, Laura privately wondered if perhaps God was using the pain of losing their baby as a way of get ting Jake's attention. She remembered her prayer: “What ever it takes, God. Get his attention whatever it takes.”
Not long after the miscarriage, Laura and Jake once again began asking God for another child, and in January Laura found out she was pregnant again. From the begin ning, Laura's body did not cooperate. During her sixth week of pregnancy doctors
analyzed the results of an ultra sound test and discovered that she had a problem with her placenta, a condition that typically corrects itself by the fourth month but which can be potentially dangerous.
“I feel great,” Laura assured her husband, Jake. “I'm sure everything will be fine.”
Jake, thirty-eight, needed reassuring because his work took him away from home so often. He was a pilot with a major airlines stationed in Tulsa. His skill was widely known because of his years as a fighter pilot and his routes sometimes included international flights. During those jaunts he might be away from home for five days at a time.
Weeks passed, and Jake was in the middle of a flight to Europe when Laura began bleeding. At first the flow of blood was relatively light, and as she checked herself into the hospital that day, Laura's concern was only for her un born baby. There were still more than three months left until her due date.
Within hours doctors realized that Laura's placenta had not corrected its position. Instead, it had grown through her uterine wall, causing bleeding from her uterus.
“The baby is fine,” the doctor told her. “But we're sending you by ambulance to the hospital in Tulsa. They're better equipped to watch you until they can safely deliver your baby.”
Jake West didn't learn of the troubles with Laura until he landed in France on the afternoon of June 24 and tried to contact Laura. A neighbor friend was watching the chil dren and explained that Laura had been taken to the hos pital in Tulsa. Immediately Jake put a call in to Laura.
“Honey, everything's okay,” she said calmly. “I'm having a little bleeding, that's all. They're going to keep me here just in case there's a problem.”
“Do you want me there?” Jake was ten thousand miles from home, but he could be back in two days if there was an emergency.
“No.” Laura was firm. “You'll be home at the end of the week anyway. If anything goes wrong, they'll call you. And in the meantime, I'm in good hands here at the university hospital. Don't worry.”
“I am worried,” Jake said, frustrated that he was so far away. “I wish I were with you.”
“Really, Jake. I'll be fine.” She paused for a moment. “But please pray for the baby. He's too little to be born yet.”
Jake felt tears well up in his eyes, and he swallowed hard. “I'll be praying, sweetheart. Hang in there until I get home.”
For two weeks doctors monitored Laura's condition, checking often to see if her body was handling the prob lems with the placenta.
Then, on June 25, Laura began to hemorrhage. Imme diately doctors rushed her into surgery and performed a ce sarean section to remove the baby.
“It's a boy and he's alive,” one of the doctors an nounced as others worked frantically about the room preparing for the surgery that would come now that the baby had been delivered. The infant was handed to neona tal specialists, cleaned, and rushed into an incubator where he was hooked up to a respirator. He weighed one pound, fourteen ounces.
For Laura, everything had become a blur the moment they rushed her into surgery. She knew there was a problem and that doctors were about to do a cesarean section. But because she was bleeding so badly, they could not do a spinal block. Instead they administered a general anes thetic, and minutes before the baby was born Laura could feel herself losing consciousness.
“She's bleeding badly,” she heard someone say. “Looks like DIC.” Another voice filled the room, then another, and all of it blended into a distant humming.
At that instant Laura felt a tremendous shock of pain searing through her insides as the baby was removed before the painkiller had time to take effect. She tried to talk, but her body would not respond. Instead, Laura felt herself falling, slipping further and further from consciousness. She wanted desperately to ask someone the only question that really mattered.
“Is my baby alive?” She struggled to say the words, to find the answer from one of the doctors in the room. But her lips remained motionless, and then, before she could learn the answer to her question, everything went black.
It was pitch dark—a moonless night in Paris—and Jake West was sleeping soundly when the phone rang.
Groggy and unsteady, he automatically flipped on the light and grabbed the receiver. It was Laura's doctor.
“I've got some bad news for you.” Suddenly Jake was wide awake. “Is it Laura?”
The doctor sighed. “She began hemorrhaging and we performed an emergency C-section. Your baby boy is just under two pounds. He's not going to make it.”
Jake's shoulders slouched forward as he took the blow. “How's Laura?”
“Not good, Mr. West. She's bleeding uncontrollably. We have her in surgery right now trying to find a way to stop it. It doesn't look good for either of them. We think you should get here as soon as possible.”
Jake was stunned. He stared at the hotel wall, knowing that the first flight out of Paris wouldn't leave for ten hours. Suddenly, in the terrifying quiet that surrounded him, he remembered the way he'd once prayed and loved God. He had been a youth leader at his church for three years before joining the military. Now, although he had remained morally strong, he had become distant from God.
While Laura and the boys attended church every week, he was more of a visitor, making an appearance on occa sional Sundays. There was always a good excuse why he didn't go. Pilots led a busy life with a particularly demanding schedule. Many Sundays there were things he felt ob ligated to put before church.
He was still considering these things when the phone rang again. It was the hospital chaplain, this time with ominous news.
“They can't stop her bleeding, Mr. West,” the chaplain said. “She's back in surgery again. The doctors are doing all they can, but they don't think she's going to make it. You need to hurry.”
Left alone, Jake cried and prayed as he hadn't in a decade. “Lord, take me if you have to take someone,” he railed. “Our boys need Laura. She hasn't even seen her newborn son, Lord. Please, let her live.”
The next morning he told the airlines what had hap pened and was allowed to ride as a passenger on the 10:00 A.M. flight to New York. The entire flight he prayed and wondered whether Laura or their little boy were dying, even at that moment. When he arrived at LaGuardia air port, weather became an issue. He was informed that no flights would be leaving for at least four hours—until the dangerous weather had passed.
Immediately Jake called the hospital for an update.
“She's in surgery again,” he was told by a doctor. “She's still alive but she's bleeding from everywhere in her body. It's a complication of severe shock. Her blood is not clot ting as it should and so she's bleeding from all her major or gans.”
“What does it mean?” Jake was frantic.
“It means you need to hurry.”
Jake hung up the phone, angry and frustrated. There was nothing he could do about the weather, and even if they al lowed flights out in four hours, he wouldn't be at the hospi tal for at least another eight.
A fellow pilot and friend who had flown the plane from Paris found Jake and asked if there was anything he could do to help.
“Yes,” Jake said. His eyes were swollen from crying, his voice dejected. “Is there a prayer room nearby?”
The man nodded. “I think so.”
“Take me there. Please.”
The men walked down the concourse until they found the quiet airport chapel. Inside was a peaceful man who greeted them and explained that he was a pastor. “Flight's de layed,” he said. “Figured I could catch up with God in here.”
Jake's friend excused himself and left alone with the pas tor, Jake explained the situation.
“Just a minute,” the pastor said, picking up his tele phone. “Let me make a few phone calls.”
Within fifteen minutes the pastor had called the elders at his church and asked them to start people praying. When the man hung up, he looked at Jake. “Can I pray with you?”
Jake nodded, feeling numb and panicked. “I … I
haven't been right with God for a while.”
The pastor's eyes were kind. “Maybe it's time to change that.”
“Yes.” Jake nodded, smiling weakly through his tears. He was exhausted from the emotional and physical journey, and still there remained another flight. The two men prayed and talked for several hours until finally Jake was able to board a plane for Tulsa.
On the airplane he sat next to a man who had lost his wife a year earlier in an accident. Jake turned away and stared out the window at the endless blue sky, wondering if he would be in that man's position in a year's time.
“Lord, I can't make it without her,” he prayed silently, fresh tears springing to his eyes. “Please let her live, dear God. Please.”
Every moment for the rest of the flight Jake stayed in constant prayer for Laura and their baby. By the time he arrived at the hospital she was in surgery for a fourth time. Jake had said more prayers in the past twenty-four hours than he had in the past decade.
When he finally arrived at the hospital, Jake saw Pastor Ryan Rowden from Hope Community Church.
“Ryan, how is she?” he asked, hurrying into the waiting room and pulling up a chair.
“She's on a respirator, Jake. We've been praying for her and we've called everyone on the church prayer chain. But it's very, very serious.”
Jake nodded, too choked up to speak. After a while he said, “I'm going to go see her.”
“She doesn't look like herself,” Ryan warned.
Nothing could have prepared Jake for the way Laura looked. She had tubing running in and out of various areas on her face and upper body, and she was bloated from the blood and other fluids being pumped into her. Her skin was gray and lifeless. Jake remained frozen in place, working up the courage to go near her.
“Honey,” he whispered, finally, inching toward her as if she would break if he moved too quickly. “It's me. Every thing's going to be okay. God's going to help you, Laura. We're all praying for you and the baby.”
He stood there a few minutes more, holding her limp hand and begging God to be merciful with her life. Then, when he could not stand another minute, he went searching for his son. Again he was unprepared for what he found.