Ebenezer Stones

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.”

1 Samuel 7:12

This is a photograph of my brother in Christ, Brian, holding my daughter Eisley after Lord's day service. The photo means a lot to me because Brian was with me at the hospital when Eisley was born. For those of you who know the events surrounding my daughter's delivery, you will know that it was the single scariest day of my life thus far. For those of you who don't I will try to provide a short (as short as I can) summary of that day's events - Eisley was born 2 months premature by means of an Emergency C-Section that was needed due to my wife contracting a serious infection that caused her body to go into septic shock. But praise God,the Lord delivered my wife and daughter and brought safely through! Here is my account on what happened that day which ultimately displayed God's goodness, deliverance, and grace.

I had taken Kristen to the emergency room earlier that morning, but wasn't too worried because it was already our third trip to the ER for this pregnancy alone. Kristen was carrying our third child, so since I had our two boys with me and because children weren't allowed in the Triage waiting area, I took Ezra and Noah home. I told Kristen to just call me once she was discharged because that was the way we ran it for our previous check-ins to the ER. I figured it would go the same way.

Well this visit didn't go that way to say the least. I was starting to feel a little unsettled when I realized how late in the day it was getting and I had still not received a call from my wife. When my phone finally did ring, it wasn't my wife that was calling but the OB Triage staff requesting that I come back to the hospital. They told me that my wife was feeling uncomfortable. When I asked them if I should be worried, they answered that I should just come in as soon as possible because Kristen was having trouble breathing. Now I didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but I did know that I was definitely speeding on my way back to the hospital.

On the way over, I called my friend from church in the photograph above, Brian, because he worked at the same hospital and told me to reach out to him if I needed anything. He had actually watched my sons earlier during his lunch break when I was checking Kristen in earlier that day; Brian took the boys to the playground they have on the hospital premises while Kristen and I were filling out all the necessary paperwork for the check in. Upon arriving back at the hospital, I asked Brian if he could accompany me to help me with the boys. The staff at the OB Triage desk informed me that my wife had been moved to the 4th floor of the South tower. Now of course that meant nothing to me at that moment, but once I started reading the signs on the way to where they directed us to go, I realized that the signs indicated that my wife was in the Trauma Intensive Care Unit.

Brian took the boys into the waiting area once we arrived and told me that he would watch them while I went in to see my wife. Upon entering the Trauma ICU, I saw that the room my wife's assigned room had multiple doctors and nurses coming in and out. There were a lot of monitors and alarms that were beeping. Even from my non-medical point of view I could tell that the situation was far more serious than I had initially envisioned. My wife was unconscious on a fentanyl drip (for sedation) and she had been intubated, which I later learned meant that she had a breathing tube inserted because she was unable to breathe once her body was going into septic shock. Even after almost ten months later, typing this paragraph to describe seeing my wife at that moment is causing my eyes to water.

Once the doctors knew I was the husband of their patient, they recommended that an emergency C-section was the best course of action. They told me that because my wife was unconscious, the decision for proceeding with surgery fell to me. I specifically remember asking the OB a question to this effect:

"Are you recommending a C-section because you're not sure my wife or baby is going to make it? Basically, are we looking at an either/or situation? Are we going to get one but not both?"

Stuttering and through that inquiry was, to this day, the most scared I have ever been in my life.

The OB then looked me in the eye and answered:

"We're going to get them both. We just need to act quickly."

After that I signed all the consent forms and we headed to the OR so that my wife's body would be able to fight the sepsis without having to worry about the baby inside.

By God's grace, Kristen is sitting on the couch while I'm writing this blog post and Eisley is in the middle of her mid-day nap. God brought my wife and my daughter safely through. Indeed, the Lord's mercies are new every morning!

So to conclude this blog post, when I briefly took this photograph after our church service, all the memories of that day came rushing upon me. Here was Brian holding my daughter, my daughter who weighed 4 pounds at her birth, my daughter who spent 53 days in the NICU. This chunky little baby in Brian's arms was just a testament to God's deliverance, so I took a quick photograph to capture that moment. I'm so thankful that Brian was there with me that day. I'm so thankful the Lord provided a a brother for me on a day that I had so much fear. I'm so thankful that my brother in Christ was with me that day tangibly exhibiting the love of Christ through his support and prayer. How truly good our God is!

It's photographs like these that to me serve almost like little Ebeneezer stones (1 Samuel 7:12). These photographs, these little vignettes, are like little reminders that tell us - "Till now the Lord has helped us."

~ Soli Deo Gloria ~