My Miracle.

The call came 15 minutes after I left Dr. Gruber’s office.

″ You are expected at the Denver Hospital within the next 3 hours. Leah, you need to leave now.”

″ What? Why?”

″ Your test result came back from the bloodwork we did while you were here. The test was to check for birth defects. If the test comes back low your baby has a high risk for down syndrome. If it’s high, there is a chance of brain damage. Your test was high. It was very high. It’s imperative that you get to Denver. Now. They are waiting.”

I hung up the phone and immediately dialed my husband’s work.

″ I need you. Can you get off? It’s important.”

“Yeah. Of course. Give me an hour and I’ll come home.”

“No. I’ll have Annie drop me off at your work. We have to leave for Denver right away.”

“What? Denver? Leah, I can’t..”

“Dr. Gruber said it’s an emergency. They’re waiting for me.”

What? Leah, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Something about a blood test. We’ll be there in 5 minutes.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I’m scared.”

I hung the phone up as Annie pulled her silver Dodge Tiburon into the Pawn Shops parking lot. James was already waiting for me in our black GMC.

“Call me as soon as you can!” Annie yelled from the driver’s side of her car as I wrenched open the passenger door. I jumped out and into the passenger seat of our vehicle. I waved goodbye as James jammed the GMC in reverse. He flipped around and pulled the beast out into traffic towards the first on-ramp heading to Denver he could find.

The drive took an hour and forty-five minutes. I did my best to explain to James what my Dr. said to me. But there was so little to go on. The words brain damage swarmed like hungry locusts hell-bent on devouring my unripened crop. Brain damage. Brain Damage. BrAiN DaMagE. BRAIN DAMAGE. B..RA.I.N DA..M.A.G.E. Our baby has brain damage. It isn’t even fully developed and it already has a defect. A deformity. I try to calm my nerves. I breathe in deeply and count to ten. But my breathing betrays as I try to exhale. I’m shaking. My breath is shuddering. My whole world is trembling. My baby has brain damage.

James held my hand as he flew down the I-40 highway at 90 miles an hour. His foot cement. He couldn’t slow down if his life depended on it. He kept telling me not to worry. To beath. He kept saying everything will be fine. His words turned into butter as they churned in my stomach. I closed my eyes hoping to stop the flow of salty tears but they broke through my eyelids and drew lines down my cheeks landing in big plops as they wet the collar of my winter jacket. March in Cheyenne Wyoming is still cold and snowy. I am dreading what will happen when we get out of the car. My cheeks are going to freeze. I hate it when my cheeks freeze. It makes me cry.

We walked into the Denver Hospital and right into receiving. Dr. Gruber was right. Once my name was typed into the receptionist’s computer an orderly was sent to escort me to radiology. We made small talk on the way up the elevator. Jokes are James and my way of alleviating tension during times of anxiety. So we joked. After all, laughter is the best medicine or so they say. We joked as I put on the hospital frock and we joked as the orderly applied the warm gel to my pelvic area and placed a towel under the elastic to protect my underwear. We laughed with the radiologist as he placed the ultrasound wand on my abdomen. We talked and laughed until the picture of our baby came across the screen in full color.

What a sight it was. I had heard of 3D ultrasounds but had never seen any pictures from one yet. This was as if they had put a camera inside of me. My unborn baby was floating in liquid. It was bright pink and fuzzy. Its hands and eyes had not fully developed as of yet and it looked like a tadpole dipped in brand new human skin.

“That’s our baby,” James whispered.

“Yes, it is Mr. Pryor.” The radiologist replied as he made lines on the screen and jotted down notes.

The ultrasound took less than fifteen minutes. When it was done pictures were printed, my belly wiped off, and the radiologist waited while I got dressed to walk us to the elevator. We said our goodbye and our thank you’s but he insisted on going down with us. I don’t know if it was the euphoria from seeing our unborn baby or if it was deeper. The not wanting to know. We continued to make jokes as we pushed the button that would take us to the lobby, but the radiologist had ceased laughing. His look became solemn. The elevator became cold and unfriendly, and as the elevator began its descent so did the radiologist. With his eyes fixed on my husband he began to speak words. His words formed sentences and his sentences forged a message I will never forget.

“Mr. Pryor, I need you to hear what I am about to say. There is a very large rip in the lining of your wife’s uterus. The placental fluid is leaking. It is a serious threat to the fetus and to your wife. If you choose to have this baby there is the risk it will die before or during childbirth. Right now it looks like the fluid is not affecting the fetus. It is leaking into your wife’s bloodstream. The bottom line is your wife will die if she gives birth to this baby.”

Ding.

“You have to decide Mr. Pryor. Decide between this baby and your wife because you won’t be able to have both. We will see you both back here every two weeks from here on out to monitor the situation but that’s all we can do. Good day, Mr. Pryor. I’ll see you in two weeks. Think about what I said.”

With that, the elevator doors opened and he walked out.

The hustle and bustle of the busy Denver Hospital fell away and the world around us went silent. Nothing was said on the walk to our car. We didn’t have words. The ride home was met with the same icy silence. We sat in that black GMC and moved forward like we were being pulled down the freeway by an invisible thread. One that would end in death. No matter how it went. No matter what turn we took it would end in death. My death or the death of my child. I was numb. The world around me felt smaller than it had that morning.

That morning I had gotten up, woke my son and got him out the door in time for school. I kissed my husband goodbye and got ready for my friend to take me to my Dr.’s. That morning my life was wonderful. I was three months pregnant with a healthy baby growing happily inside me. Now, I was carrying a ticking time bomb and we had to decide what to do about it.

By the time we got back home both of us were emotionally spent. I remember kissing my 6-year-old on the forehead and going upstairs to lay down. I don’t know when James crawled into bed with me. I remember him waking me as he wrapped me in his arms and kissed me tenderly. I must have been crying in my sleep because my face and hair were wet. As I slipped back into sleep warm and comforted by his embrace I let my first words since the hospital slip absently out of my mouth,

“Well, at least it’s not brain damage.”

The next morning was the follow up with Dr. Gruber. She wanted to go over the results from the ultrasound and discuss our options.

“There isn’t an option. I won’t have an abortion.”

“Leah!” James was shocked. We had not talked at all since leaving Denver. I had not asked him how he felt or what he wanted because I knew what I wanted. I wanted our baby to have a chance.

“Think about what you’re saying,” He pleaded.

But I had thought about it. It was all I could think about. We had created a life. It was growing and developing inside me, and we had seen it with our own eyes. We had seen it as it rubbed what would soon be a fully formed hand over its face. As we sat there in that room discussing abortion it was growing ears that would soon hear what we were saying and the last thing I would listen to was talk of abortion.

“I will not kill this baby. If it kills me so be it, I have had a life. I refuse to play God and take this baby’s.”

“Leah, you have to think about yourself right now. It’s you who will die if this baby is born.” Dr. Gruber spoke softly as she held my hand.

The pictures were hanging on the wall. The rip was a long line that ran the length of my amniotic sack. It was impossible to refute. More blood work had been taken that morning and tested. Dr. Gruber warned me the amount of placental fluid in my bloodstream was dangerous. She also assured me that as of now the baby was okay. That was all I needed to know.

“I know what I want.”

“Baby, please. We can always make another baby, but only if you’re here with me. If this baby kills you..” He cut off. The tears rolled uncontrollably down his big brown eyes and I wiped them away as I held his face in my hands.

“Look at me, James God gave us this child to raise, and to love, and to watch grow up. He wouldn’t have given it to us if it weren’t so. If this is God’s will, that I die during childbirth, who are we to change it. Everything happens for a reason.”

Dr. Gruber shook her head in protest. “Well, then might I suggest you prepare your Will and write some letters to your children.”

The month’s drug on. Every other week we took a trip to Denver to have another ultrasound done. Then it was to Dr. Gruber’s office for more blood work and check-ups. Letters were written. A will was made even though I had nothing to leave behind but some furniture and a painting. A huge painting. It was a backdrop to one of my High school plays that I rescued before it was painted over.

But they were in the Will. Left to my son Salem and “Baby” should I die. And should I die, James would adopt Salem? That was all there was. My existence boiled down to some furniture, a High school painting, and my kids.

By the sixth month, we were making weekly trips to Denver. It was well established our baby was safe from harm by this time. The fluid had not bled into the birth sack, its vitals remained strong, and we had gotten the pleasure of watching as it grew from a tiny human tadpole into a tiny human being. A tiny human girl.

“What are we going to name her?” I asked as we admired the ultra-real looking ultrasound of our daughter’s private parts.

“I promised my Grandma on her deathbed if I had a girl I would name her after her,” James said in a matter of fact tone.

“Wasn’t your Grandma’s name Melba?”

“Melba Joyce, but I told her I would name her Joyce. Because Melba is bread.”

“What about Sarah?”

This was not spoken by one of us in the form of a question. No, it was sung out in unison from both of us as a call to arms. Our daughter’s name was Sarah Joyce Pryor. She placed it on our hearts and made it so.

That night before I went to sleep a prayed,

“God, I know this is your child. You gave her to me to mold and create. You named her, and you know her. I accept this. If I have to die please allow me the chance to hold her once before I hand her to you.”

“Do you see that?”

“All that static?”

“That’s not static.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s impossible is what it is.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Where is Sarah? What’s all that stuff?”

We were all looking at the 3D screen on the ultrasound machine and all seeing the same thing.

“That is a miracle, Mrs. Pryor. Your body has healed itself. What you are looking at is scar tissue. I have honestly never seen anything like this in all my time. The amount of scar tissue that has grown around your amniotic sack should have taken years to develop. See how thick it is? This is quite impressive.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means we are done here, Mr. Pryor. Your wife is out of the woods and out of any danger that I can see.”

“Mrs. Pyor, congratulations it looks like your stubbornness has paid off. You’re going to live and watch your baby girl grow up.”

“What?”

“Is this a joke?”

“No. I’m as shocked as you but I’m not making this up. You are healed, Mrs. Pryor.”

A month later Sarah dropped into the birthing canal and the contractions started. It helped to walk through the beginning so I would pace back and forth around the Pawn Shop or I would walk around the neighborhood. For days I kept up the tempo as the contractions intensified. Five days. I was in labor for five days. Sarah was so low I had to squat in order to walk. I held fast. When the contractions began to come every ten minutes we went to the hospital.

At 7:45 pm on October, 10th 2004 I gave birth to Sarah Joyce Pryor. I held her in my arms and I thanked God for his grace, my life, and my baby. I promised him I would hold her tight, and watch her close, and raise her right until I had to hand her to him.

That night another miracle took place. As my husband held his brand new baby girl they watched as the Red Sox who were down 3 games came back to beat the Yankees in the ALCS. It was the first win that would lead to the end of an 86 year losing streak known as the Curse of the Babe. The Sox swept the Cardinals in 4 games thus winning the World Series.