Second Chances

This is the third part of my testimony as to the ways in which the Lord has made Himself evident in my life. I hope I’m not boring people with this and anyone is free to scroll on and ignore it. If it helps just one person to feel closer to the Lord or strengthens their faith, then that will make it worth the effort to tell. I’m going to call this part, “Second Chances”.

In my last post I talked about the loss of my first child, Beth, and the miraculous adoption of my second child, Amy. This post details the events surrounding the birth of my third child, Sara, who was never supposed to have been born.

As I mentioned in the former post, I am a DES daughter. That means I was exposed to a medication inutero that was supposed to help my mother not have a miscarriage, as she’d had three already. Unfortunately, much like the thalidomide debacle, DES turned out to be a dangerous medication that not only poisoned the women who were given it and raised their cancer risks considerably, it also caused abnormalities in the babies exposed to it. In my case it caused precancerous lesions in my female organs and an abnormally formed cervix. This caused me to go into premature labor every time I got past the 12^th week of pregnancy, causing more than one miscarriage and the eventual premature birth and death of my first child, Beth.

Knowing that we’d very probably never be able to have a biological child who survived, my now ex-husband and I decided to stop attempting to have children after we lost Beth. I went on birth control, and we talked about my getting a tubal. However, at the time very few doctors would do such a surgery on a woman in her early 20’s, as they feared I would regret it later. So, instead, we were very careful to make sure that we were using the best birth control available.

Fast forward to 10 months after we adopted our second child, Amy. I had been feeling ill for a few days and assumed I had a stomach bug. Finally, not feeling better, I went to the doctor, and he ran a few tests, gave me a medication for nausea and sent me home. The next day, while playing with Amy, I received a phone call from the doctor I’d seen. I’ll never forget the mix of surprise and confusion I felt when he announced, “Congratulations, you’re going to have a baby!”. I do remember replying, “I already have a baby” as I stood there holding Amy in my arms.

While I very much wanted more children, the revelation absolutely terrified me. After the loss of Beth, the idea of going through yet another failed pregnancy and possibly being faced with burying yet another child made my heart feel as though it would stop.

Now, for a little history that’s necessary to make this story make sense. This was the early ‘80’s and for those not as old as I am, it was right after the Islamist revolution in Iran. During the revolution the Shah of Iran (basically their King) was forced out, having to run for his life as his country was taken over by Muslim Islamist extremists. The Shah was one of the last old-time leaders of the Middle East. He lived as his predecessors had done, including having more than one wife and several concubines with which he had children. His entire family, along with his closest advisors, friends and other supporters also had to run for their lives, leaving everything behind. This included the physician whose job it had been to attend to all the Shah’s wives and concubines during their pregnancies and deliveries. This physician, a man named Ali Rahimian, gathered his family and escaped to America. This is how the preeminent obstetrician of the entire country of Iran ended up in a small town doctor’s office in Clarksburg, WV, seeing to the needs of that town’s pregnant population and, eventually, me.

 

When I first went to Dr. Rahimian, I felt reassured. He seemed quite self-confident and calm while talking of my situation. He assured me that, together, we would manage to see to it that I carried my baby to term. I realize now that he was simply trying to assuage my fears and that he was no surer of his ability to save my baby than any other doctor. However, his upbringing as the strong all-knowing Muslim man gave him at least the bravado of confidence. Whatever it was, though, I came away from our first meeting and exam with a renewed hope.

However, it was NOT going to be an easy pregnancy. Dr. Rahimian immediately scheduled me for surgery. At 12 weeks of pregnancy, I underwent a procedure called a cerclage. This involved putting in stitches in my cervix, like the drawstring of a pouch or purse, which were then drawn up tight, to hold the cervix shut and prevent it from opening prematurely. I then had to go on strict bed rest, only being allowed up to use the bathroom and shower once a week and go for weekly checkups. Thankfully, my mother was able to come to West Virginia from Wyoming and stay with us, taking over most of my duties as wife and mother to Amy, who was much confused by the changes. Suddenly, Mommy could no longer pick her up or carry her around and we started spending a lot of time cuddling, playing and reading books on my bed. Still, getting lots of love from Grandma helped her handle the transition well.

Hard as it was to go from being a very active 22-year-old to being bedbound, I did my best to follow Dr. Rahimian’s instructions and rested. Praying constantly, I begged the Lord not to take this baby from me. Even so, I repeatedly went into early labor. I spent the next three months going back and forth from the hospital, having to take the medications that stopped my early labor pains and lying still, flat on my back, bed tilted so that my head was lower and the weight of the baby was shifted upward and off of my cervix. Then I would go home to more bed rest for a few days, repeating this pattern over and over, living in constant terror that I was going to lose another child.

At six months, during yet another hospitalization for early labor, Dr. Rahimian informed my husband and I that the stitches that had been put in during the cerclage surgery were tearing out and would soon give way, allowing the cervix to open. I felt my heart thumping in my chest, my head spinning, my ears ringing. All I could think of was that I was at the same point in this pregnancy as I had been when Beth was born. My sweet Beth, too tiny to survive, had died in my arms. Was I going to watch this child die, as well? “Why God, why?” I silently screamed as I sat facing Dr. Rahimian. Why would He put us through this again?

Dr. Rahimian came into my room the next day. He called my husband to my room, and we waited to hear what he had to say. In his typically self-confident tone, Dr. Rahimian told us that he planned to do a second cerclage surgery, to stitch the cervix shut yet again, with a different technique. He assured me that it would be fine, that we weren’t going to lose this baby. Holding my husband’s hand like a lifeline in a stormy sea, I agreed and took a deep breath. It was going to be okay. My baby was going to live. Dr. Rahimian set up the surgery for the next day.

When time for surgery came, I remember looking up from the gurney as they wheeled me into the operating room. I was surprised to see a five foot stepladder in the middle of the room. Above the operating table was a strange harness made of webbing and straps. Looking at it, I asked Dr. Rahimian what it was for. He told me it was so that they could suspend my hips in the air, shifting the baby’s weight upwards, allowing him to be able to put in the new stitches. I realized then that the stepladder was for Dr. Rahimian to stand on while he performed the surgery. My body would be suspended nearly upside down, only my head and shoulders staying on the table. I remember counting backwards from 10 as they administered the anesthesia and thinking how incredibly embarrassed, I would normally feel in such a situation. However, if it would save my baby, I would have stood on my head and sang opera if it had been called for!

I woke up in recovery, a smiling Dr. Rahimian and my husband looking down on me, assuring me that all had gone well. While I did continue to go into premature labor several times over the next six weeks, the stitches held. Finally, however, there came a time at 7 ½ months when the drugs wouldn’t work, and they couldn’t get the contractions to stop. Dr. Rahimian told me that it was time to take out the stitches so that my contractions didn’t tear them out. He assured me that my baby had a good chance of survival at that point and, tearfully, I agreed to allow him to remove them.

To everyone’s shock, I didn’t immediately deliver! The contractions stopped and I went home for a few days. After about four days, however, daughter number three decided she was ready to make her entrance into the world. Sara was six weeks premature but strong and healthy, breathing well enough to not need any kind of assistance. She was a strong-willed bundle of energy even then which, no doubt, was part of the reason she came out of the gate running, not letting prematurity slow her down a beat.

The day after I delivered, Dr. Rahimian came into my room. Sara lay in the little bassinet next to my bed. Dr. Rahimian, who had always been quite formal in his interactions with me, surprised me by sitting on the edge of my bed. He reached out with one hand and put it on Sara. He covered my hand with his other hand and breathed a big sigh. “Well, we did it, didn’t we, Mama?” he asked me. I smiled and said, yes, proudly looking at Sara. He then told me that the procedure he’d done at six months had never been done before. He explained that he’d come up with the idea and designed and made the harness he'd used to suspend me upside down. He told me he didn’t want to frighten me, so he never told me it was an untried idea and that he had been very afraid it wouldn’t work. I remember sitting there, shocked. He had projected such an air of quiet confidence at the time, and afterward, that I had never even imagined the truth! We talked a couple more minutes and I thanked him for helping me save my beautiful little girl. I also asked him to make sure that one of the nurses took a picture of him holding Sara before we left the hospital, so that I would have it to remember him and all he’d done for us. Eventually he wrote up the case for one of the medical journals and second trimester cerclages are now done routinely when needed.

Three days later we carried our third daughter into the house and introduced her to her big sister. I knew how blessed I had been. That we had the incredible luck of having one of the best obstetricians in the world available to see us through that long and difficult pregnancy was amazing. Even more unbelievable was the turn of events that found all of us in that little West Virginia mountain town, where we not only were gifted with our second daughter through adoption, but were blessed to have our third daughter’s arrival overseen by Dr. Rahimian, who quite possibly was the only reason she survived at all. I knew, deep inside, that it wasn’t all just a bunch of random coincidences. The Lord had been working behind the scenes, sending all of us to that place at that time, so that the blessings He had for us could occur. Dr. Rahimian and his family had found a new life and safety and my husband and I had been blessed with a family after a devastating loss. I knew it was much more than just luck that had placed those two precious babies in my arms.