Memories in the Making...: December 2009

The following are pictures from the past couple of weeks festivities...

Making snowman cookies

Finished Project...

Children's Christmas Play at Church...

Jess singing his solo

Christmas with Nana and Papaw...

Tucker shooting his new pellet gun. He also got a new Nerf sword and a Nintendo D.S. game. I hope Santa brings him a D.S.

Rylee Kate got a new baby doll, cash register and a cd player.

Brooke and Bailey loved their new Wii game Nana and Papaw got them. We got them new satin pillow cases with their name embroidered on them. I wish we would have got a picture of them with their new pillow cases...

Tucker's Party and gift exchange at Pre-school. He enjoyed a day of fun, eating, opening presents and PLAYING!!!

This is what Tucker got his teachers!

Tucker just blew his gift...

The GIFT exchange...

Santa's lil Helper...

Tucker even let his sister stay and celebrate with him..

Nannie's 80th Birthday

Rylee Kate getting some "Nellie" lovin

Our family with the most amazing and fun grandmother in the world!!!

Loudon Christmas Parade

Gramps and Tucker

Tucker and Rylee waiting on the parade...

Uncle Kent and Rylee Kate

Jess and Tucker

Grammy and Rylee

I can hardly believe that 3 years ago today I was fixing to experience the most scariest yet life changing adventure of my life. Tonight, around 7pm will mark the three year anniversary of the beginning of my 42 night hospital stay before bringing home a baby girl. I look at this little girl now and see the same determination and head strongness that her mommy had during this whole ordeal. I pray often that somehow and someway my testimony of faith will reach out to someone who is going through a storm in their life just as I did three short years ago.
I will post my testimony of faith below:

I was diagnosed with marginal placenta previa somewhere along my 18th week of pregnancy. I had no idea what that was and still did not understand it after they explained it to me. They did tell me I was very common for women to get this but there was a 95% chance that it would correct itself before 32 weeks. They did keep a close eye on me and I had to get an ultrasound every 2 weeks. At every ultrasound they would tell me not yet but reassured me that it would move up. However, on November 20th (about 28 weeks) It had still not resolved. My doctor got very serious with me. She sat me down and told me that it was probably not going to resolve and that I needed to be on bed rest only getting up to go to the restroom. Explain how I was going to do that with a 1 year old at home??? Not only was I going to be at home but Thanksgiving was in 3 days and then Christmas was just around the corner. Needless to say I was devastated! She also shared with me all the dangers that this condition may cause. Now I am terrified! She told me that usually the first bleed is not too bad, but that the 2nd one is worse. She said worse case scenario you would have 7 minutes to get to the hospital. The last words she said to me were, “Emily, call an ambulance at the first sight of blood.” She also told mom I was to never be left alone for a minute. As you an imagine Satan started working. I held it together until mom and I got to the L.C. exit and I lost it! That was the scariest thing I had ever been told. I stayed at home on bed rest for close to 3 weeks, bored to death! On December 9th, my family had walked Tucker down to watch the Christmas Parade. Since I was not to be left alone for a minute dad stayed with me. Boy, I bet he wished he could have changed his mind. I started spotting! We called everyone’s cell phone (that they never leave) and all their phones were ringing in my house. We couldn’t get anyone. So dad knew he was not suppose to leave me but however, they would panic if the ambulance just pulled up in front of our house. As he went to get Jeremy and everyone I called the ambulance. The ambulance had to take an emergency exit out of the parade to get to me. We also had to get at the end of the parade to get to the hospital. Boy, will I have a story to tell Rylee Kate when she gets older. I was admitted to Park West Hospital on December 9th, sometime around 7pm. I stayed there 2 nights and was planning to be discharged Monday morning. My nurse came in Monday morning and wanted to monitor me and the baby one more time. Here is where it all began. I started having contractions every 2 minutes and they began to get a little worried. They said they were calling my doctor. She advised them to give me a series of 3 shots if needed and to call her back. Needless to say an hour later Dr. Evitt came in my room to talk to me. She said, “she just didn’t feel comfortable leaving me at Parkwest. She said I could take care of you but just in case Rylee needed special attention that Children’s would be right beside Fort Sanders Regional.” I agreed. She said the nurses were going to start me on some stronger meds to stop my contractions. The nurse said now this medicine may make you feel like you are dying but your not. I immediately prayed that I would not have any side effects. I lost it again, I was so scared! I took another ambulance ride but to a different hospital. I was admitted to Fort Sanders Regional on December 11th around 6pm. Praise the Lord the medicine did not affect me the way they thought it would. By the next morning everything had settled down. I got to meet my new doctors, they were WONDERFUL! They discussed with me the plans of keeping me here until 36 weeks and then taking Rylee via c-section at that time. In the mean time he discussed the possible need of a blood transfusion, and how at anytime they may have to take the baby. He also told me that the worse case bleed could mean me losing 2 liters of blood in 4 minutes. Here is when I began begging for a LONG TERM HOSPITAL ROOM. You cannot even imagine what began running through my mind. I know now it was all from Satan. I would lay in bed day in and day out for about a week and didn’t have much to say. Exactly, a week I had been in the hospital I had a bad bleed about 5 in the morning. I was VERY nervous and very sick. I actually thought I was dying. If the phone rang I would jump, if my door opened it would scare me. I just wanted peace. The devil would tell me things like, “Jeremy is going to have to raise those kids by himself, there’s no way you will make it through this, Tucker is not going to have Christmas, Jeremy is going to be so lonely by himself, Tucker and Rylee is going to have to grow up without a mommy, how is your mom and dad going to make it without you, he even put visions of my funeral in my head.” It was so terrible! I knew from these few days that I could not make it like this. They also warned me of how hard this was going to be on Tucker. Yes, I would pray and read my Bible but it didn’t seem to help. I now know that I was just not turning the situation completely over to God, I was trying to carry some of the burden. Bud came by to pray, another pastor came and prayed with us, mom and dad’s pastor came and prayed with us and with each prayer it did get a little better but not completely. Chris and Lindsey came up to visit us one Sunday evening. Before he left he asked if he could pray with me alone. He said the sweetest prayer, from that moment I was at PEACE. I told Jeremy that I felt so good after he left. I also read in the Bible that the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up. I just cannot explain how different I felt from this moment on. I also received a book called The Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer. It was such a blessing to read each day. I don’t really care much about reading but I didn’t want to put this book down. I always wanted to tell Jeremy what I read about that day. I know this book was sent from God. It reminded me that Satan loves to get you while you are down. I knew he did but I had gotten to experience first hand. After reading this book I tried to only let positive thoughts and words come from my mouth. Sometimes it was hard but boy I didn’t want to give Satan any room to work on me again.I am down to my last week and I cannot even explain how thankful I am that I have had this experience. I know it was Satan who put me through this but I am rejoicing with the Lord that he did. My time in the hospital with Jeremy has been irreplaceable. We have become so close. It is like our marriage has been renewed. We have got to read our Bibles together, we have spent hours just talking, and we even started having “movie night” once a week. It was so good for us. It has just made me realize to love him for who he is because that’s how he loves me. It has made me realize how blessed I am to have a loving and Godly husband and daddy for our 2 children. You know those are hard to come by these days. I am also so thankful for my family, Jeremy’s family, friends, church family, and those I consider family. They have called, sent cards, given us money, but most of all prayed for us continuously. I have been so blessed and I think I took that for granted until this. Last and most importantly, my relationship with God has grown more in the past 6 weeks than it has since my salvation. I have always been one who stands on faith, but the faith I have had and shared with EVERYONE at the hospital has been unreal. I have had the opportunity to share my faith in the Lord with so many people including my nurses, doctors, and other patients. I am just so excited that our little, healthy girl will be with us in a few short days. Rylee Kate is going to be one special girl with a very special big brother. I just can’t wait to be at home with my family.