My Scar

Seeing my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I glanced at the scar on my belly. It was a tiny cross above my belly button and I've never really liked it. Sometimes I'd wished they gone through my belly button for that surgery, but it was there and it didn't bother me too much. But today when I saw it, I loved it. I love my scar, love what it means. My eyes filled with tears and there in the bathroom I praised God for the tiny little boy and girl growing inside me....wow, who would have thought? Lord, You are amazing.

(twenty-four weeks)

September 10th, 2006 - Mark and I were dating and I was over at his parents house that Sunday. That afternoon I started to not feel so good so I went to his sister's bedroom to lay down. The pain got worse and I found myself tossing and turning. Eventually I was doubled over on the floor crying it hurt so bad. This wasn't right, this pain was too much. Then after a few hours it started to subside and was bearable. I went home that night and crawled into my own bed....in the middle of the night I called my mom to my room. This was too intense, something was wrong. We headed for the ER.

They put me in one of those tiny rooms with a stretcher and little curtain. I curled up on the stretcher and they soon had an IV started and morphine in me for pain relief. They ran several tests, including 2 cat scans, only to find nothing. The pain was still so intense that even with the morphine on board I could not stand up straight and had to have Mom to hold on to when I walked to the bathroom. "We can't even see your appendix so we don't know what is wrong," the doctor told us. "I recommend an exploratory laproscopic surgery to find out what's happening. We'll make three tiny incisions. One above your belly button and two down low on your abdomen."

It was Monday afternoon now and Mark held my hand as they rolled my stretcher onto the elevator and headed for the OR. I'd never "gone under" before and was definitely nervous. I'd seen several surgeries in nursing school and wasn't looking forward to being the patient.....things got blurry and my eyes closed.

When I woke up I was in the recovery room and Mark and my mom were by my bed. After becoming more conscious they took off the oxygen and rolled me up to a room to stay the night. They told me it was a tiny cyst on my ovary that had burst and I was bleeding internally causing the horrible pain. It had stopped bleeding on its own and everything was fine. They'd taken my appendix out for good measure. It wasn't long before I recovered and was back to normal.

April 19th, 2007 - Mark proposed to me on a boat in the middle of the lake and of course I said YES! We set our wedding date for August 18th, since my last semester of nursing school started the end of August. We were SO EXCITED and rushed around preparing for the wedding and working on fixing up the house Mark had bought.

July 16th, 2007 - I went in for my yearly appointment with my OB/GYN. It hadn't quite been a year but I wanted to just do it before I got married next month. Dr. Kolar did my check up and told me that she'd like me to have a sonogram before I left that day. I didn't think anything of it and after waiting several hours (they are always so busy) they finally got me in for a sono. Looking over at the screen I saw something huge and black. I knew there was no way I could be pregnant and I knew what I saw on that screen wasn't right. The sonographer couldn't tell me anything so after she was done I waited near a little desk in the back for Dr. Kolar to come by. She walked up with my chart and showed me the photos. "I can't tell you exactly what this is because I don't know, but you have two masses inside of you and we are going to need to do surgery." I tried to be calm but my eyes filled with tears. I was getting married next month. "I think they may be cysts attached to your ovaries but I'm not sure." The back pain I'd been having off and on started to make sense. I called Mark first thing and he prayed with me...we then told our parents. Surgery was set for Wednesday.

July 18th, 2007 - exactly one month before our wedding day and here I was again, just 10 months after my first surgery, checking into the hospital, putting on a gown, getting on a stretcher, and being wheeled into the OR. Dr. Kolar said she would do the best she possibly could but that she couldn't promise anything. She didn't know what she might have to take out. I nodded and pleaded with God to please let enough be ok for me to have kids one day.

When I woke up I remember being weak and tired. I'd been under longer than I had that first surgery and I could tell the difference. They told me the surgery had gone well but was more difficult than they had planned. There was a cyst in my ovary and it had grown to the size of a canteloupe. Another cyst next to it was the size of a grapefruit. Dr. Kolar had spent 2 1/2 hours getting the cysts out little by little and was able to save both my ovaries. She said she couldn't promise anything but that I should be able to get pregnant one day. I was thrilled and was so grateful to her for taking the time in surgery, since I knew that most drs would have just taken out an ovary saying it wouldn't make much of a difference since I had two. We were praising God that everything went well!

August 18th, 2007, 8pm - Mark and I became husband and wife and had one of the most beautiful, perfect outdoor weddings. Hurricanes were in the gulf and the weather was cool for August. A perfect and amazing sunset was behind us as we took our vows. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

August 18th, 2008 - Mark and I had been married for a year. I had graduated nursing school and was working at Harris Downtown Hospital in Antepartum (high risk pregnancies) and he had graduated from the Fort Worth Fire Academy and was working at different fire stations in Fort Worth. We loved being married and growing/learning together. We had discussed having kids but decided I would work at least a year at my job and we also had a goal of doing an Ironman.

June 21st, 2009 - After a year of training we both finished our first Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho with both sets of parents cheering us on!

We also toured Yellowstone National Park!

August 18th, 2009 - We'd been married two years now and started talking more seriously about a family.

December 2009 - We decided to set a date to start "trying." February 1st. I was so excited and so nervous all at the same time. I'd had sonograms every 3 months the first year after my last surgery to make sure nothing was going wrong. I'd recently had another check up and sonogram. Everything looked good, but still we didn't know if I would even be able to get pregnant.

January 2009 - Mark called me from the fire station one night before bed like he normally does, but this time he had something he was really excited about. A friend at the station told him about the Air Force Special Operations group called Pararescue. They are the most highly trained combat search and rescue experts in US Special Operations. The training sounded amazing, just the kind of stuff I could see Mark doing. But it was the military, it was dangerous, it meant lots of changes....and what about kids? I didn't bring up Pararescue when he came home, thinking maybe he wasn't that excited about it. But of course it came up again and after talking about it and praying about it he started looking into the qualifications. Since we didn't know when the training would start, where all he would be, and when he could be home, the February 1st date came and went. I was disappointed and cried more than once, but knew Mark was pursuing what God wanted him to do and that I could trust God on his timing. He'd taught me that through many other circumstances. I started getting excited with Mark about the possibility of Pararescue!

Finally, we knew a little more about Mark's training. Mark had passed all his try outs and made it through the horrific paperwork process. He'd be starting Air Force Basic Training on June 22nd. We had two months to get pregnant. Most people don't get pregnant that fast....I tried not to wonder or worry but just trust that God knew the best timing. And if He asked us to wait, then we'd wait.

That first month I felt different right away....was I just making it up in my head maybe because I wanted to be pregnant so bad?? We waited until I would be 4 weeks along and took a pregnancy test. Several days before, I'd purchased the clear blue "Pregnant" or "Not pregnant." I didn't want to have to figure out what lines meant what! That day we both were off work. I cleaned the whole house and we both got dressed to go out for dinner. I figured if we were pregnant then it'd be a celebration dinner and if not, that we could make it a special date. Either way I didn't want to sit around at home that night.

I took the test and set it in our bedroom. Sitting on the couch next to Mark we waited and I was shaking....getting so excited but not wanting to be disappointed either. I couldn't look so Mark walked back there to see....it took him forever! Maybe it says not pregnant and he is trying to think of how best to tell me? Then he came around the corner of the hallway smiling really big and I knew :) I jumped up and down and hugged him and ran and looked to see for myself. Then I took another one just to watch the "Pregnant" pop up on the little screen! We took pictures and headed out for our date.

We planned special family dinners at our house and had each family over to tell them the exciting news! They were thrilled for us! We were so grateful for God's amazing and obvious blessing, but little did we know He had another surprise for us.

June 17th, 2010 - Mark was leaving on the 22nd and I'd have next to no communication with him for 8 1/2 weeks. We'd planned a special overnight date at the Omni Hotel downtown and had just arrived back home. I'd volunteered at Pregnancy Lifeline doing sonograms for the last year or so and Kathy (another volunteer there and who also works on my floor at the hospital) offered to do a sonogram for me. Mark would be leaving the 22nd so I loved the idea of him being apart of something before I left. He wasn't super thrilled about seeing a little dot on a screen, but agreed to go with me and be apart. We arrived at Pregnancy Lifeline that afternoon and I got situated on the table with Mark sitting next to me in a chair. Kathy put the transducer on my belly and I looked at the screen wondering why it was fuzzy and what exactly I was seeing. I'd seen hundreds of sonograms, but I just wasn't making sense of my own until Kathy (realizing I wasn't getting it!) said, "Do twins run in your family?" Complete shock. I looked at her then looked again at the screen. It was clear as anything. My whole body started shaking, tears ran down my face, and I reached over to grab Mark's hand. He had the biggest smile I'd ever seen. It was the most amazing moment....we'll never forget it!

Not only has God blessed us with being able to get pregnant, He blessed us that first try and He blessed us with TWINS! Isn't that just like God?? Now our precious baby boy and baby girl are growing and moving around in my belly and it is the most amazing miracle I could ever imagine.

So when I look at the tiny cross, a permanent scar on my belly, right above where my precious babies are growing, I thank God. I love that scar. It means more to me than a surgery. It means a process of faith in God, of seeing Him work, of being blessed by His grace, mercy, love, faithfulness.

"Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" 

Exodus 15:11

"Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds." 

Psalm 36:5