A Love Story continued ...

After several months we began to reevaluate our decision about sitting out of school. So we … began to realize that our plan to receive state benefits for me to finish college was not all that we had been led to believe. We started exploring other options which led us to move to community in which my Dad and Mom were pastoring. This was not where I had grown up as they moved to this state and city shortly after I started college. I had lived there the summer after my freshman year.
Another issue at this point was that Jody was expecting our first child. So we loaded up a small trailer and headed east. Some friends from the new area came and helped us load things and he towed the trailer. Jody was about 7 months pregnant by this time. The plan was to enroll in a state school for a lot less money and finish my degree.

I got a job with a Lutheran organization that did a lot of social work in the city. My role was to recruit, train, and organize people to visit the many nursing homes and similar facilities in the county. I was also to visit with people in the homes as much as possible. I really enjoyed the job and the people I worked with in this organization. I learned a lot in my visiting of some very special people. I am smiling as I remember some of those people.

Our son was born less than 3 months after we made the move. It was exciting and scary. We did not have health insurance so we tried to save a little and even arranged a personal loan to cover the costs ahead of time. Then the unexpected happened. Jody’s 15 hour labor turned into an emergency c-section. He had the umbilical cord wrapped around his shoulder and kept clamping down on it with his arm. That messed with his heart rate and some other stuff. After several of these incidents the doctor said they needed to get the baby out quick before something bad happened.

I was scared as this was being described to me. I remember the pressure I felt as we had to make a decision. I remember signing the permission for surgery literally over Jody, as the doctor was on one side of the bed and I was on the other. 15 hours earlier Jody woke me up yelling “I think my water broke!” (Sometime I will describe that scene and the next few minutes. Good thing there was no video of us.) Now I am being told that my wife and baby are in trouble and I am signing permission for a surgery while being told all of the possible complications.

A funny moment was when Jody asked the doctor …