The test was scheduled for March 6, 2003. I talked it over with my doctor and with the geneticist in great detail and we were all on the same page, or so I thought. Going into the test I felt very comfortable, but when the time arrived for the procedure, it all fell apart. They brought me back to the room where the test was to be done and it went downhill from there. The doctors didn’t really even know why we were there, which in and of itself was reason enough to be frightened. They didn’t know where the test was to be sent to for results and, worst of all, they didn’t know how to send it. I know this is a rare disorder we are dealing with, but please. After some time of consulting with the doctors, it was determined that we needed to wait at least a week. I didn’t know what was going on. They had also told me that my placenta was not in “the best spot” to have the test done “without higher risk” of miscarriage. I left there that day knowing I couldn’t go through with the test.
After all this happend, I let my doctor know that we were not going to have the test done; so, we proceeded with the cerclage. It was a procedure I had done as part of every pregnancy after the first one, so I knew it would be easy. We had it scheduled for the first of April and everything went fine.
During all this we decided to try to sell our house again. Were we crazy or what? We had just gotten it the way we liked it and were in the process of going through another pregnancy. So I picked up the phone and called our real state agent. I told her this time it would stay on the market until it sold. Wow. Now let me remind you that I was 4½ months pregnant and my husband had a job where he traveled on occasion. So I had a lot to do. I gathered boxes daily, I could tell you when every store in town got their shipments in. Now that’s bad. But it was fun too. Meanwhile, we had found a house we liked in Cookeville. We were four months from delivery and we were moving to a new house in a new city. I was excited.
The process on the house seemed to be going really good. Then, three days before closing, our buyer's buyer backed out. We were totally shocked. H ere we are with our house half-packed, and now with it has to go back on the market! What do we do? We went on our family vacation. I didn’t want to wait and go any later because I would be too “huge.” We had a great time, although I was afraid that someone would confuse me for a beached whale. Anyway, when we got home from our vacation we had another contract on our house. This one looked to be a clean one. No strings attached. Here we go again. Only this time the closing and moving dates would be eight weeks before delivery instead of twelve (if it had sold the first time).
Meanwhile my doctor said everything was still going according to plan. He considered me “normal” as he put it, but encouraged me to take it easy during the move and I did, for the most part. On Saturday July 19, 2003, we moved. Moving day came and went without a hitch. We had several friends from church helping and our parents too. We couldn’t have done it without any of them.
After everyone was gone we start trying to make sense out of the mound of boxes left in our garage and every so often I would have a contraction—nothing major, just your regular Braxton Hicks contractions. So we continued to empty boxes, one at a time, and Danny went back to work on Wednesday. At this point the house was very livable and I just kept going through the boxes that were left. I washed Toby’s clothes (we found out we were having another boy) and tried to get his room ready because we only had seven weeks until he would be joining us. Things were going really well. We got Timmy registered for school, and then the countdown was on.
On July 29 I had a doctor’s appointment in Nashville. My doctor had scheduled my c-section for September 2, the day after Labor Day. With all that taken care of we went on with our day. Timmy and I did some shopping and came home. When I got home I hung border in the main bathroom, put out new towels, and hung the shower curtain—another room ready.
Now there was one more day left before big brother (Timmy) went camp. So on Wednesday I helped him pack, went to Wal-Mart, got some mums to plant, came home and got busy. The whole day was really kind of weird. I was very nauseous all day, but I blamed it on being overly tired and not eating right so I really didn’t think too much of it. And during all of this I was still having contractions throughout the day. When night fell I was ready for bed. I had planned to go to Nashville on Thursday because one of my friends was going to give me a perm (I didn't want to worry with my hair when Toby got here). And then I was going to drop Timmy off at our church for camp. I needed a good nights sleep for my long day.
SURPRISE!!! I woke up at 11:30 p.m. on July 30 to a wet bed—maybe my big boy had kicked my bladder too hard. Or maybe not. I found out when I stood up that my membranes had ruptured. I was not 100% sure though so I waited for a while before waking my husband. Then, when I was sure what it was, I woke him. I was in tears; terrified, I had never experienced this before. This couldn’t be happening. He wasn’t due for seven more weeks and I had my c-section already scheduled. This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen.
We made the phone call to the doctor on call and told him what was going on. He said it sounded like it was my membranes that had ruptured and that I should come on in to the hospital to be checked out. I knew Toby would be okay though, just very little. So we got ready, sort of. I had nothing packed, nothing ready, because I thought I still had seven weeks to do all those things.
Once we were dressed we woke up “big brother” and told him it was time. He thought we were joking because I had been having so many contractions he just wasn’t sure. But we reassured him that this was indeed the real thing and he asked, “Will I still get to go to church camp?” We told him probably, but we weren’t sure at this point. So we hit the road to Baptist Hospital at 12:30 a.m. on July 31, 2003. We were excited; our fourth son would be born today, albeit tiny, he would be with us. On the way to the hospital I started having mild contractions every five minutes. Wow, this was really it.
We arrived at the hospital about 1:45 a.m. The desk clerk got me checked in and took me to my room. Then came all the questions: When? Where? How long ago? Just your basic pre-birth questions. They got me hooked up to the monitors. The anesthesiologist came in, knowing that it would be a c-section, to get his questions answered too. Then in comes the doctor at about 3:10 a.m. He sees that the baby is in distress and calls for an emergency c-section. No time for an epidural, we had to go. I instantly began to panic. I started crying. Since it was an emergency Danny couldn’t go in with me. I wanted him in there so badly. He told me he loved me and they took me away. He began to call our parents and my best friend.
Toby Allen Wilson came into this world on July 31, 2003, at 3:31 a.m. He weighed in at a whopping 4lbs. 3ozs. and was 17½ inches long (good size for being seven weeks early). I started to come to around 5:30 a.m. The first person I saw was my wonderful husband. He was telling me how beautiful our Toby was. I wanted to see him so badly. They told me it would later that morning before I could. He was in the NICU because he was so tiny. They had put him on oxygen to help out his lungs. They were already telling us that he would be there for a while until he got bigger. I began to get scared. While everyone was out checking on him I began to pray. God please let this baby stay with us. I can’t lose another baby. Please God, give us mercy.
When Danny came back into my room he had a picture of our precious Toby. He looked like me!!! It took four tries but I finally got one that looked like me. And what a head full of dark brown hair he had! He was so beautiful. Finally the time came for me to go to my room. I asked the nurse if I could see him before I went to my room for the day because I knew it would be awhile before I would be up and moving, just having a c-section and all. So the doctors and nurses in the NICU cleared out a path for me to go see my sweet Toby. The picture did him no justice. He was absolutely beautiful. I touched his warm legs and then held his tiny hand. He squeezed my finger. He knew his mommy was there for him. After a few minutes with him they took me back to my room. Now I could rest...maybe.
I started calling friends to let them know that Toby had arrived. Although early, he was here. I called my friend that was supposed to do my hair and asked her if it would be too much trouble to give a perm in the hospital. She was surprised, as was everyone I called. My mom told me my sister was on her way in from Ohio. I was happy she could be here to see her new nephew. My friends and family started calling and I knew it would be a busy day. The question everyone had was, is he okay? Meaning, is he going to live? The only answer I knew at that time was yes because I had just seen him and all was well. As the day past people came and went. Timmy gave his brother a kiss and then left for camp.
As night fell, so did my strength but I did want to see my sweet baby before I went to sleep. So my nurse, along with Danny, got me back into the NICU. When I saw him I knew something was wrong. He wasn’t the same little baby I had seen just hours before. He was weak; he was lethargic. He was dying. I knew it in my heart immediately. He had what his two brothers who died had. Without a diagnosis, I knew. I'd seen it twice before and now I was seeing it again—the evil nonketotic hyperglycenemia had struck our family once more.
My heart crumbled. I asked my husband why no one had told me and he said no one had noticed. The doctor from the NICU, the precious one we had dealt with twice before came over to us and once again said she had her concerns for our little Toby. She said that first thing in the morning she would get the test run to confirm what I already knew to be true. I kissed my sweet angel good night and went back to my room. Needless to say we got no sleep that night. Sometime in the night the doctor from the NICU came in and said she had put Toby on the ventilator. She said he was breathing very shallow.
As morning began so did our wait. The test had been done and was sent out for the results. We began to make the dreaded calls to family and friends to let them know about our baby. We called our friends who were helping with church camp and asked them to bring Timmy to the hospital so he could spend time with his brother before he was gone. At about 1:00 p.m. on August 1, it was confirmed: Toby Allen Wilson was dying. We were heartbroken, again.
Not knowing how long we would have with him, we wanted every second to count. Our family and friends were there when we got the dreadful news. We were so confused we didn’t know where to begin. We told everyone that they could go see him again and then we asked that they leave so that we could have time with just our family. After everyone saw him for the final time, or so we thought, they left. At this point the decision was made to take him off of the ventilator. She (the doctor) had told us that he might not take a breath on his own so we thought he would leave this life fairly quick. But as the night came so did more time with Toby. I was very thankful to have this time with him, although it was incredibly draining both emotionally and physically. I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to close my eyes for fear of not hearing his last breath. The seconds turned into minutes and the minutes to hours as we waited for our child to die. What a horrific act for any parent to have to go through even once, heaven-forbid twice, let alone a third time.
As the sun began a new day, so did my hopes for a miracle. He seemed to be doing well. His heart rate hadn't dropped since 2:00 p.m. on Friday so we decided to call family and friends to let them see him once more since there was practically no change. But just about the time everyone started to arrive, he started to go downhill. What an emotional roller coaster. We got pictures with everyone (which are really a treasure to have) and then asked everyone leave again. (We were just as confused as they were, probably more so.) Since we had seen the signs before, we knew the end was near. There are certain things the body does as it is shutting down and we didn’t want anyone to see him that way. We held him, kissed him, and held him some more. We were taking all that we could get. Then a s the sun began to set, so did the life of our son. Toby Allen went to be with the Lord on August 2, 2003 at 6:00 p.m. Another child gone.
It was extremely difficult to leave the hospital empty-handed for the third time. And once again all I had were memories and another quilted bag with the belongings of my precious baby whose life was cut short. But it was now time for us to leave the hospital to head to our new home which at this moment seemed far away. Knowing that Cookeville is where God put us helped ease the pain of the distance, but not the pain in my heart.
The next several days seemed like a total fog. Was this really happening again? On Sunday, August 3, we came back to Nashville to make the funeral arrangements for Toby. This was so hard. I just could not get over the fact that we were doing this again. As we reached the funeral home, it hit me: this is real. Since we had already been here twice before I knew exactly what I wanted for Toby’s final day. I wanted it to be perfect; well, as perfect as an infant funeral could be. I wanted to acknowledge all of our children. Their lives meant something and I wanted to share this with everyone. As we spoke to the directors of the funeral home it became increasingly difficult to maintain my composure. It is very apparent that we need sympathetic Christians in this industry. We were happy (and I use that word very loosely, because “happy” we were not) that there was a space next to his brothers. We got the day and time arranged and then left. Now we had to make those dreaded phone calls.
As I prepared for the funeral I had so many emotions going through my head. I wanted this to be a “special” day to honor the life of our fourth-born son. All I ever wanted was the best for my children, even unto their death. The day of the funeral came and time with our son was coming to a close. We had a beautiful service. Danny, Toby’s daddy, did the service. It was a very hard thing for him to do, but he knew he had to do it. The service honored Toby and, most of all, it honored God. What a blessing it is to know we will see our children again someday. This is a promise from God. That if we love Him with all our hearts, serve Him and keep His commandments, we will reign with Him forever.
"Has it been any easier this time," you ask? No. Grief still hurts." How is your faith so strong," you ask? God is still God and He hasn’t failed me. People sometimes think that just because our faith is strong it might not hurt as much. Well, the truth is that our faith is what is keeping us from being taken over by despair. "Do you ever think God is punishing you," you may ask? I found the following verse while studying one day and it helped answer that question for me:
His disciples asked Him,“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:2-3 NIV).
Have we ever questioned why? Of course; haven’t you? I know that one day I will know why. Why do I think I am going through this suffering? All I can say is that it is helping to mold me into a person who is more like Christ. All the glory goes to Him. I have prayed that, through this journey, God will teach me everything I need to know, and that this incredible pain will not be wasted. God has known this path of my life since I was in my mother’s womb. He knows how bad it hurts. He too had a Son to die. He sent his Son, knowing His fate. He sent His Son to die for our sins so that we might have eternal life.
