I am not a writer.

I am not a writer. Starting a blog actually kinda gives me anxiety. It’s not because the content is so personal and raw, but because I don’t want you judging my lack of writing ability. Yet, here I am.

I guess I’ll start off with a quote from Robert J. Morgan who wrote The Red Sea Rules, a book that Evan and I desperately clung to after our son was born nearly 4 months early.

“God allows our faith to be tried, and He permits troubles to crowd into our lives. Sometimes they seem more than we can bear, but Christ can bear them. The first step toward ‘parted waters’ is to frequently remind ourselves that the Lord has either put us in this difficult place or has allowed us to be there for reasons perhaps only He knows.”

Our beautiful son was born on June 22, 2017 at 9:40 am, 122 days before his due date. Paxton Keith Spence was born at 22 weeks and 5 days gestation, weighing in at a whopping 1lb 6oz and measuring 12 ½ inches in length. He is the most beautiful thing we have ever seen, truly a miracle.

The morning of June 20^th is extremely hard to reflect on. This is a fair warning that I’m gonna be real here. I woke up at 3:00 am. I thought I wet myself, so I went to the bathroom to clean up. I noticed almost immediately that it was dark. I switched the lights on and it was blood. A massive amount of blood. I yelled for Evan, hysterical. The next 20 minutes were filled with sobbing as we got ready to go to the ER. It was supposed to be my first day at my new job, but I was headed to the hospital for a very different reason.

Evan and I experienced a whirlwind of emotions. Waking up, we believed our son was gone. When we got to the hospital, they found his heartbeat and it was strong. We soon realized that we could lose Paxton at any moment. The doctors and nurses told us we needed to keep Paxton in there until at least 23 weeks. Twenty three weeks was viability. Any earlier than that and they would not attempt to resuscitate our baby boy.

On Wednesday evening (June 21^st), I started to have excruciating back pain. It was rhythmic, every 5 to 10 minutes. No one thought it was contractions. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. In the morning, my OB assessed me and I was already 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced. Paxton was not waiting until Saturday. We begged for the neonatologist to assess Paxton when he was born to see if he was big enough to intubate. Paxton came. He was so strong. He looked like he was trying to cry. That itself is a miracle for a 22 week 5 day gestation baby. His skin was more mature than expected and Paxton was stabilized. I got to see my beautiful baby boy live that day. It was the best day of my life.