This chapter is largely a repeat of a blog I wrote in 2012 about the frustrations of not being able to bear biological children. You might not be in this group of waiters. Staying faithful through bitterness and longing for blessings of this magnitude is something every single one of the waiters understands deeply.
Chapter 5 - Waiting for Babies
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:3-5
My mom raised 7 kids. It's what you do around these parts. I was first. When I was young I tended to look at my endless stream of brothers and sisters as taking me further and further away from my parents. Would I change that now? Never. But as a result, there wasn't a lot of one on one time I got to have with my mom that I remember. But I hung on to the things I had seen my mother do. Actions. Example. I knew how much she was revered by my dad and by everyone that knew her and I figured, if I stayed on that track...I could be as perfect as she was.
I'm not sure if she ever regretted the fact that she didn't finish college, but I know that she considered bringing seven children into the world a very serious contract with the Lord and the world. In fact, in 1942 the First Presidency of the church recognized motherhoods as “the highest, holiest service assumed to mankind.” It was because of her example that I have always wanted to have my own family.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself to be 40 years old and they told me.... everyone told me that if I stayed faithful, I would be given the chance to be a mother.... and at 40 I had not even procured a seed donor.
Ironically, I was raising other people's kids as a public school teacher for 30 years. My husband and I have no children of our own. Instead of making cookies for my own biological children, I send them home on the bus to someone else. I am still listening to them all day, teaching them how to work at something, be self-sufficient, creating a tribe, but at 3:00 every day, they go home to their real parents. Their “real” tribe.
So when do I get to do it for real?
Infertility SUCKS the life out of you. Ha! Quite literally. Too much?
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:3-5
My mom raised 7 kids. It's what you do around these parts. I was first. When I was young I tended to look at my endless stream of brothers and sisters as taking me further and further away from my parents. Would I change that now? Never. But as a result, there wasn't a lot of one on one time I got to have with my mom that I remember. But I hung on to the things I had seen my mother do. Actions. Example. I knew how much she was revered by my dad and by everyone that knew her and I figured, if I stayed on that track...I could be as perfect as she was.
I'm not sure if she ever regretted the fact that she didn't finish college, but I know that she considered bringing seven children into the world a very serious contract with the Lord and the world. In fact, in 1942 the First Presidency of the church recognized motherhoods as “the highest, holiest service assumed to mankind.” It was because of her example that I have always wanted to have my own family.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself to be 40 years old and they told me.... everyone told me that if I stayed faithful, I would be given the chance to be a mother.... and at 40 I had not even procured a seed donor.
Ironically, I was raising other people's kids as a public school teacher for 30 years. My husband and I have no children of our own. Instead of making cookies for my own biological children, I send them home on the bus to someone else. I am still listening to them all day, teaching them how to work at something, be self-sufficient, creating a tribe, but at 3:00 every day, they go home to their real parents. Their “real” tribe.
So when do I get to do it for real?
Infertility SUCKS the life out of you. Ha! Quite literally. Too much?
I was blessed to receive my Patriarchal Blessing 40 years ago when I was just 14. I didn’t appreciate its magnitude, its depth at such a young age. The blessing, on paper, is about two pages long single-spaced. When I had a young brain my mission president suggested that I memorize it. What an amazing thing to have on hand at all times. Have the promises in my blessing come to pass? Oh, yes. But one promise in particular has not been as literal as I would like it to be.
Here’s the passage that haunts me. It reads: “You will be blessed to be a mother in Zion. Your children, and their children, will sit at your feet, and call you blessed for your honesty and your fairness.”
The minute I stood on a college campus I was looking for a husband. I was 18. Every single man I ever dated went through a kind of test in my mind, “would he be a good father?" That's probably my biggest secret. Jan Shelton Hunsaker, career woman, didn't really want to work for anyone but God. Truth.
After we got engaged, Andy and I decided that since I was already in the “at-risk” category for pregnancy, that we would try to get pregnant as soon as we could. I thanked my Heavenly Father five times a day that he had given me someone that was as excited as I was to start a family. So many blessings! It was like I had won the lottery and I just kept winning every day.
I was just a few months from enjoying the life I had always wanted and it felt euphoric every day. Even my doctor said “don’t waste time, but you should be fine.” In the back of my head I knew it would not be easy. I would conquer that challenge just as I did everything that came my way. I had beat my biological clock by a few seconds and I would use every single second I had left to my advantage. Within eight weeks of getting married I was throwing up in the nearest garbage can like a champion. I miscarried that baby at auditions for Little Shop of Horrors the musical and I can’t think of a more appropriate title for the event. I was in the women’s bathroom at Tuacahn (where we were working at the time).
The next pregnancy was idyllic and then on December 22, 2006 around five in the morning I felt some sharp pains in my lower abdomen and I was having a hard time going back to sleep. I was determined to lay in bed though because it was the first day of Christmas break and Andy and I had decided to sleep in for the first time in months. Teachers get to be excited about Christmas break all their life! But I was 6 1/2 months pregnant, I wasn’t feeling very well and there was no position that I could get myself in that was comfortable enough to go back to sleep. Occasionally I would get another sharp pain but they were short and I thought they would eventually go away.
I was officially 27 weeks pregnant. We were having a little boy that we were already calling “Noah Max Hunsaker.” He was a late bloomer and this worried me. Usually, you should feel a baby kick by 20 weeks and by 23 weeks, nothing. Andy was in rehearsal for A Christmas Carol at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I was assisting the director. This night was the first time they had used microphones for one of Andy's characters "Ghost of Christmas Present." The sound guy decided, that night, to add a lot of reverberation to Andy's mic and when he bellowed "are there no workhouses!?" I felt Noah kick for the first time. Then, any time Andy would speak, Noah would kick. After the rehearsal when Andy came down the aisle to go home, Noah kicked again. I knew that he recognized his dad. It made me laugh so much.
At around 7 in the morning on December 22, the pains were pretty fierce and I just couldn’t stand it so I got up. I thought Noah was as excited as we were to have the next two weeks off. I just kept saying “Noah, simmer down now.” Andy, in his wisdom, started timing the pains. At 27 weeks I guess it just didn't occur to me that it would be contractions.
The doctor's office asked two questions, when did they start and how long between intervals. I was having sharp pains that would double me over every five minutes and they lasted about 30 – 45 seconds. They said, “get to the hospital, you are in labor.” The first round of phone calls began “Please start praying, Jan is in labor.”
I hadn’t showered, shaved my legs, packed a bag, had a breathing lesson, nothing. We still had three months for that! This was absolutely wrong. So when we got to the hospital they admitted me, and a perinatal specialist Dr. Robert Fagnant, met us there and did an exam immediately since our regular doctor still had patients to attend to. Dr. F. is one of the best Perio-neonatologists in the United States and everyone told us over and over that, we were in one of the best Neonatal units in the state, if not the United States. Several very acclaimed preemie doctors have taken up residence here. We were very lucky.
Dr. F. told us ALL the news. The good, the bad, the scary and the inevitable, that we were going to deliver a baby that day if not in the next couple of hours. I was freaking out. He told us that 50% of all babies born at 25 weeks turned out perfectly fine if they were big enough, and the other 50% had all kinds of problems including blindness, cerebral palsy, deafness, and a myriad of other problems. Because I wanted to deal with our decisions intelligently I tried desperately to be as unemotional as I could at this time. I listened to the whole story, the positive and the not so positive. But that was the beginning of the nightmare. I went into some kind of deafness myself. I started praying non-stop. I started making promises to Heavenly Father that I would raise this boy in the light and that I would quit working and be the best mom that I could be. I didn’t stop praying for 36 hours.
People were swirling around, it was a beehive of activity. Very small babies were born in that room but none quite as small as Noah would be. Everyone was very concerned, but also, very calm. Dr. F did an ultrasound and tried to guess how much Noah weighed so that preparations in the next room could be readied. They figured that he weighed around 870 grams, just under two pounds and that was "great! He's a giant already!" There was a great chance that he would be completely normal and just need a few months stay in the NICU before we could bring him home. Everyone had a story of a baby that had survived at that age. I was feeling like we might win.
I also wanted to scream. I wanted to do everything I could to make the contractions stop. They tipped the bed upside down and laid a stack of pillows under me to keep Noah upright. They gave me a yellow pill that was supposed to relax the uterus so that it wouldn’t be able to contract. That worked almost immediately and everyone relaxed a little. They wanted me to hold that baby inside as long as I possibly could so that the steroids that they gave me would work through him to help mature his lungs as quickly as possible. They hoped that I could keep him inside 48 hours, but they weren’t very positive that this would happen.
I could feel both sides of the family praying like crazy. I was in a kind of trance of prayer. I was also holding very still. I felt like if I moved, I would tear something loose, or jar Noah or start another contraction. By about 10 that night I was finally able to sleep. I had defied the timeline. Dr. F. had fully expected to have delivered him by then. I knew that people were praying, our families were praying, the nurses and the doctors were all praying. There was a powerful spirit in that room like I had never felt.
A postpartum team was waiting on the other side of the window of the room I was in to take the baby once he was delivered. They sat around and waited, and waited. My sisters, who had been there from the beginning, went home to put their families to bed with the condition that no matter what time of night, we were to call them and they would be there for the birth. The doctors all went home for a few hours and the good nurses, and Andy took care of me.
Andy tried to sleep in a reclining chair next to my bed but it was more like a war between Andy and the chair. It was hilarious (but not to Andy). He didn't even get one day of vacation. He was so exhausted and I felt so bad for him. I could see the worry on his face like I had never seen before. What an incredible blessing to me. Andy did not deserve to have this happen to him. I started to feel so much guilt about being older than him – again – and putting him through this ordeal. I just prayed and prayed that Noah would stay put for another day and that eventually, he would be able to get to know the sweet, faithful, strong, hilarious man I know as his father. I hoped that Noah would pick up those traits from Andy. Just one more day would help so much they kept saying....one more day...even an hour.
But it was not to be. At about four o’clock in the morning on the 23d of December, the nightmare before Christmas began.
Caroline, our nurse, could feel Noah’s head. She ran out of the room flipping the lights on everywhere as she went. Suddenly, everyone that was playing cards or sleeping was wide awake and in “baby” mode. The room came alive. Dr. Eggert, another amazing doctor in charge of the NICU, got his team together in the resuscitation room ready for the pass-off. I was then able to feel the contractions pretty clearly and they had me push right away.
I thought it would be one easy push. A baby that small should just shoot out, right? Let me say a couple of things about pushing. What the…? First of all, I couldn’t tell what was being pushed and what wasn’t. People were giving me all kinds of advice and I was doing everything I could. I asked them to let the epidural wear off so that I could feel what I was doing. I pushed for almost two hours – from 4:00am to 6:00.
Once he was out and they had cut the cord, the good doctor held him up as he crossed the room for me to see but went straight by me and passed him through the window to the waiting team on the other side in the NICU. All I heard them say about him was that he had an obvious cleft lip. I knew that wasn’t terrible and these days, cleft lips can be repaired. So ironic that he was born to two actors. That’s the way it works though, huh? No one would be better equipped to teach him how to speak properly than both of his parents. My mind was reeling. I was praying so hard I thought my heart would explode.
Here’s the passage that haunts me. It reads: “You will be blessed to be a mother in Zion. Your children, and their children, will sit at your feet, and call you blessed for your honesty and your fairness.”
The minute I stood on a college campus I was looking for a husband. I was 18. Every single man I ever dated went through a kind of test in my mind, “would he be a good father?" That's probably my biggest secret. Jan Shelton Hunsaker, career woman, didn't really want to work for anyone but God. Truth.
After we got engaged, Andy and I decided that since I was already in the “at-risk” category for pregnancy, that we would try to get pregnant as soon as we could. I thanked my Heavenly Father five times a day that he had given me someone that was as excited as I was to start a family. So many blessings! It was like I had won the lottery and I just kept winning every day.
I was just a few months from enjoying the life I had always wanted and it felt euphoric every day. Even my doctor said “don’t waste time, but you should be fine.” In the back of my head I knew it would not be easy. I would conquer that challenge just as I did everything that came my way. I had beat my biological clock by a few seconds and I would use every single second I had left to my advantage. Within eight weeks of getting married I was throwing up in the nearest garbage can like a champion. I miscarried that baby at auditions for Little Shop of Horrors the musical and I can’t think of a more appropriate title for the event. I was in the women’s bathroom at Tuacahn (where we were working at the time).
The next pregnancy was idyllic and then on December 22, 2006 around five in the morning I felt some sharp pains in my lower abdomen and I was having a hard time going back to sleep. I was determined to lay in bed though because it was the first day of Christmas break and Andy and I had decided to sleep in for the first time in months. Teachers get to be excited about Christmas break all their life! But I was 6 1/2 months pregnant, I wasn’t feeling very well and there was no position that I could get myself in that was comfortable enough to go back to sleep. Occasionally I would get another sharp pain but they were short and I thought they would eventually go away.
I was officially 27 weeks pregnant. We were having a little boy that we were already calling “Noah Max Hunsaker.” He was a late bloomer and this worried me. Usually, you should feel a baby kick by 20 weeks and by 23 weeks, nothing. Andy was in rehearsal for A Christmas Carol at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I was assisting the director. This night was the first time they had used microphones for one of Andy's characters "Ghost of Christmas Present." The sound guy decided, that night, to add a lot of reverberation to Andy's mic and when he bellowed "are there no workhouses!?" I felt Noah kick for the first time. Then, any time Andy would speak, Noah would kick. After the rehearsal when Andy came down the aisle to go home, Noah kicked again. I knew that he recognized his dad. It made me laugh so much.
At around 7 in the morning on December 22, the pains were pretty fierce and I just couldn’t stand it so I got up. I thought Noah was as excited as we were to have the next two weeks off. I just kept saying “Noah, simmer down now.” Andy, in his wisdom, started timing the pains. At 27 weeks I guess it just didn't occur to me that it would be contractions.
The doctor's office asked two questions, when did they start and how long between intervals. I was having sharp pains that would double me over every five minutes and they lasted about 30 – 45 seconds. They said, “get to the hospital, you are in labor.” The first round of phone calls began “Please start praying, Jan is in labor.”
I hadn’t showered, shaved my legs, packed a bag, had a breathing lesson, nothing. We still had three months for that! This was absolutely wrong. So when we got to the hospital they admitted me, and a perinatal specialist Dr. Robert Fagnant, met us there and did an exam immediately since our regular doctor still had patients to attend to. Dr. F. is one of the best Perio-neonatologists in the United States and everyone told us over and over that, we were in one of the best Neonatal units in the state, if not the United States. Several very acclaimed preemie doctors have taken up residence here. We were very lucky.
Dr. F. told us ALL the news. The good, the bad, the scary and the inevitable, that we were going to deliver a baby that day if not in the next couple of hours. I was freaking out. He told us that 50% of all babies born at 25 weeks turned out perfectly fine if they were big enough, and the other 50% had all kinds of problems including blindness, cerebral palsy, deafness, and a myriad of other problems. Because I wanted to deal with our decisions intelligently I tried desperately to be as unemotional as I could at this time. I listened to the whole story, the positive and the not so positive. But that was the beginning of the nightmare. I went into some kind of deafness myself. I started praying non-stop. I started making promises to Heavenly Father that I would raise this boy in the light and that I would quit working and be the best mom that I could be. I didn’t stop praying for 36 hours.
People were swirling around, it was a beehive of activity. Very small babies were born in that room but none quite as small as Noah would be. Everyone was very concerned, but also, very calm. Dr. F did an ultrasound and tried to guess how much Noah weighed so that preparations in the next room could be readied. They figured that he weighed around 870 grams, just under two pounds and that was "great! He's a giant already!" There was a great chance that he would be completely normal and just need a few months stay in the NICU before we could bring him home. Everyone had a story of a baby that had survived at that age. I was feeling like we might win.
I also wanted to scream. I wanted to do everything I could to make the contractions stop. They tipped the bed upside down and laid a stack of pillows under me to keep Noah upright. They gave me a yellow pill that was supposed to relax the uterus so that it wouldn’t be able to contract. That worked almost immediately and everyone relaxed a little. They wanted me to hold that baby inside as long as I possibly could so that the steroids that they gave me would work through him to help mature his lungs as quickly as possible. They hoped that I could keep him inside 48 hours, but they weren’t very positive that this would happen.
I could feel both sides of the family praying like crazy. I was in a kind of trance of prayer. I was also holding very still. I felt like if I moved, I would tear something loose, or jar Noah or start another contraction. By about 10 that night I was finally able to sleep. I had defied the timeline. Dr. F. had fully expected to have delivered him by then. I knew that people were praying, our families were praying, the nurses and the doctors were all praying. There was a powerful spirit in that room like I had never felt.
A postpartum team was waiting on the other side of the window of the room I was in to take the baby once he was delivered. They sat around and waited, and waited. My sisters, who had been there from the beginning, went home to put their families to bed with the condition that no matter what time of night, we were to call them and they would be there for the birth. The doctors all went home for a few hours and the good nurses, and Andy took care of me.
Andy tried to sleep in a reclining chair next to my bed but it was more like a war between Andy and the chair. It was hilarious (but not to Andy). He didn't even get one day of vacation. He was so exhausted and I felt so bad for him. I could see the worry on his face like I had never seen before. What an incredible blessing to me. Andy did not deserve to have this happen to him. I started to feel so much guilt about being older than him – again – and putting him through this ordeal. I just prayed and prayed that Noah would stay put for another day and that eventually, he would be able to get to know the sweet, faithful, strong, hilarious man I know as his father. I hoped that Noah would pick up those traits from Andy. Just one more day would help so much they kept saying....one more day...even an hour.
But it was not to be. At about four o’clock in the morning on the 23d of December, the nightmare before Christmas began.
Caroline, our nurse, could feel Noah’s head. She ran out of the room flipping the lights on everywhere as she went. Suddenly, everyone that was playing cards or sleeping was wide awake and in “baby” mode. The room came alive. Dr. Eggert, another amazing doctor in charge of the NICU, got his team together in the resuscitation room ready for the pass-off. I was then able to feel the contractions pretty clearly and they had me push right away.
I thought it would be one easy push. A baby that small should just shoot out, right? Let me say a couple of things about pushing. What the…? First of all, I couldn’t tell what was being pushed and what wasn’t. People were giving me all kinds of advice and I was doing everything I could. I asked them to let the epidural wear off so that I could feel what I was doing. I pushed for almost two hours – from 4:00am to 6:00.
Once he was out and they had cut the cord, the good doctor held him up as he crossed the room for me to see but went straight by me and passed him through the window to the waiting team on the other side in the NICU. All I heard them say about him was that he had an obvious cleft lip. I knew that wasn’t terrible and these days, cleft lips can be repaired. So ironic that he was born to two actors. That’s the way it works though, huh? No one would be better equipped to teach him how to speak properly than both of his parents. My mind was reeling. I was praying so hard I thought my heart would explode.
I was shocked at how maternal I felt immediately. I wanted to hold that baby. I knew he needed intensive care, I could see that he was tiny, so tiny and it was shocking. But I ached immediately to have that baby put on my chest like regular moms. Even though they told me that they were going to pass him straight off to another team and that I would not be able to hold him, that was my first self-pity moment. I had spent 6 months with this kid and now they were taking him away. Why couldn't anything just be easy, just “traditional” for me?
Dr. F came back into the room to say that Noah had officially used his lungs and had cried out. I missed it. He had also pooped and pee’d all over everyone and that was a great sign. Glad I missed that. Andy said “that’s my boy,” and everyone laughed. The spirit of the room was getting lighter now that he was born and in safe hands. Looking back over the moment, I wished someone had recorded that little cry, because once they had stuck all those tubes down his throat, he never used his little voice again.
Dr. F came back into the room to say that Noah had officially used his lungs and had cried out. I missed it. He had also pooped and pee’d all over everyone and that was a great sign. Glad I missed that. Andy said “that’s my boy,” and everyone laughed. The spirit of the room was getting lighter now that he was born and in safe hands. Looking back over the moment, I wished someone had recorded that little cry, because once they had stuck all those tubes down his throat, he never used his little voice again.
Noah Max Hunsaker was the smallest baby ever born in that hospital. There is nothing proud about setting that kind of record. Everyone wanted to know how much he weighed and even an hour after he was born they hadn’t weighed him, there were more important things to do. But Dr. E. finally came in and told us that they had gotten him all hooked up and he was breathing about 70% on his own, which was fantastic. He weighed in at a whopping 24 ounces. O.N.E. P.O.U.N.D .A.N.D. A. H.A.L.F. I was expecting a linebacker for the 49ers. He was a full 12 ½ inches long. As long as a school ruler. But they all said that he was much longer than they expected. He WAS a giant.
Two hours later they finally let us in to see him for about 10 minutes. There was still such a whirl of activity going on, we felt so in the way. But as I stood next to that little incubator I was in shock. He was hooked up to everything imaginable, there was no way we would be able to pick him up for months. His chest was pumping up and down with the help of a tiny little breathing machine and he had on a preemie diaper that was drowning him. The nurses had put a crocheted Christmas hat on him and he looked like he was ready for the circus. “Come and see the miniature man – the tiniest human ever born.” I had a hard time even saying his name. I don’t know why. I just choked on it four or five times, but then when I finally was able to get it out, Gilly, his nurse told me to keep talking to him because his blood pressure and heart rate were going down when I did. I’m not sure if she told me that to make me feel better or what, but that did help me want to talk to him.
We left the NICU and got into the elevator and I immediately burst into tears. For the first time in my life, I had to let someone else take complete control of a situation and I could do absolutely nothing. Nothing but pray. I knew there were people in my room and I didn’t want to go back there, I wanted to stay with Andy in the elevator forever. It was all such a bad dream.
But the elevator ride was only one floor. When the doors opened, our good Bishop Brad Anderson, was standing there. I went to my room and Brad took Andy aside and was able to speak to him and help him understand this whole thing in a way that shed a beautiful light on The Plan of Salvation, and God's love for us. He told Andy that God's commandment to multiply and replenish the earth had been fulfilled with Noah and that if we were never able to have more children, it was okay. I will always be so indebted to Bishop Anderson. But, I wish I had heard that advice myself.
Andy decided after 24 hours in the hospital and wrestling with a chair all night, he was going to go home and shower while the doctors were doing all the tests on Noah. Since I hadn’t packed a bag or anything, I gave him a list of things to bring back with him. I stayed in the wheelchair and finally got to meet the postpartum nurses who brought in the dreaded BREAST PUMP.
If there was a moment of comedy to be had throughout the day, it was the "breast pump and cotton pony adventure." It was 11 am when they brought in the pump and showed me how to use it. The nurse said it might not work right off the bat since Noah had come so early, but to pump every three hours for 10 minutes or so. They were expecting to switch Noah over to stored breast milk once he was able to get off the I.V.’s of steroids and antibiotics. Despite the sheer humiliation of the pump – I was determined to do what I had to do for Noah and I knew breast milk would help him. We (my sisters and I) laughed so much though, it wasn’t long before the ten minutes were over. It was a relief to laugh.
Everyone at the hospital was trying so hard to be positive. A funny nurse came in and gave me ten complimentary packages of "cotton ponies." I said "huh?" They looked like regular boxes of maxi-pads to me. She said she called them that because they are about "two feet long and two inches thick, and makes you feel like you're riding a horse." I found out that was true and I've never called them anything else since and neither has Andy.
Almost as if on cue, after I had finished pumping, Dr. E. entered the room with nurse Gilly. I could tell that Gilly had been crying and I decided not to look at her anymore. I was still sitting in the wheelchair and my sisters were in the room with me. Dr. E. asked for Andy. But Andy had gone home to shower. I panicked. He said he had bad news. The tests had come back and Noah was not the healthy little boy with an attitude that they all thought he was. Most of what he said was doctor language and I was hanging on to words like, “heart malfunction,” and “ventricle is only pumping 20% in return,” and most importantly, it appeared as if he had “had several strokes because his brain was flooded with blood and the fontanel was increasing in pressure.” They thought the strokes had happened several days earlier and that might be why he had decided to deliver so early.
Dr. E. shook his head and looked in his lap and said “this is the saddest kind of advice a doctor likes to give because we are programmed to heal people, but Jan, Noah is a very sick little boy and even if we were able to keep him alive and on machines for the rest of his life, he would have such severe brain damage that he would never function as a human should." In addition, he said, they didn’t expect him to live without the aid of every single pump and machine that he was currently hooked up to. One of the ventricles of his heart had fused itself to the front of his lung and there was no way to fix that problem. Dr. E. guessed that if they took him off the machines, he might last a few years, or as little as 15 - 30 minutes on his own. His advice was to spend a couple of hours with him, hold him, talk to him, and then let him go. He said he would wait for Andy to return and for us to make a decision before he did anything, but that they would keep him alive as long as we needed.
As long as we needed him to be alive? I needed him to be alive forever! Was I dreaming this? Was this actually happening? Was I being asked to pull the plug on the baby I had dreamt about, prayed for, for sooooo many years…and now I had to decide to take him off his life support and let him turn right back around and go back to his Heavenly Father. I couldn’t do it. Where was Andy?
At that point, the four of us in the room, my two sisters, the nurse and I burst into tears and I only remember looking at my knees after that.
Andy came immediately back to the hospital and I repeated everything Dr. E. had told us. My sisters left us alone to make a decision that ordinary humans should never be allowed to make. We decided that he didn't deserve to live life in a bed just because we were too attached to him. We would have the doctors take him off the machines. We felt a peace enter the room and I was able to finally stop crying. We asked Dr. E. if we could give him a name and a blessing and could he keep him alive for 4 more hours while our parents drove like maniacs from Northern Utah to participate in that ordinance. Dr. E. agreed. He also told us that Noah had grabbed on to his feeding and breathing tubes and had pulled them out twice. They were going to have to tape them to his very thin skin, which is something they hadn't wanted to do. Were we okay with that? I was affixed to the thought that he was capable of grabbing his tubes and pulling them out, not once, but twice. The decision was easier for me after that. Noah wanted to go home.
At 27 weeks, sometimes a babies eyelids are still sealed shut like a little puppy. I could swear however, that when I was talking to him, at times, he was trying so hard to open his little eyes. I could see his tiny eyeballs rolling around in there and I wished so badly, that I could see his eyes. That night, as I was in my drug-induced coma of sleep, I dreamt that I was holding him and he looked up at me with open eyes. I was so grateful for that dream. He looked like Andy and his brother. I still see his navy blue eyes very clearly and remember the weight of him in my arms like a normal baby. I hope I never forget that dream, it was the greatest Christmas gift I have ever received.
We called our parents and siblings and to no one’s surprise, they all got in their cars and headed down to St. George. It was four hours exactly from the first phone call to the time all those priesthood holders started arriving. During the wait, Gilly let me hold Noah. She laid him directly on my skin over my heart and up near my neck. We stayed in that position for more than three hours. He started breathing more on his own and his blood pressure stabilized during that precious time. I just plead with Heavenly Father to heal him. I begged for help. I begged for a miracle. People told me about their miracles. Weren't there miracles for me? I had waited so long. Eventually, I felt that familiar feeling of the Spirit wrapping his arms around the two of us and giving me the peace that he so often did. I was going to be okay. Andy was going to be okay. Noah was going to be the luckiest of us all. I saw the big picture laid out before me and suddenly I felt ashamed of myself for wanting to keep him and it helped me give him back.\
My brother-in-law, who is from St. George, gave me the most beautiful blessing. It sank deep in my soul. I’ll never forget it. I know he was nervous to give it, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. He said “. . . you will not be able to care for your baby like a normal mother will – you must accept that he will be whisked away from your arms back into the loving arms of his Heavenly Father whose plan for Noah is so great that he must return as quickly as he came…” He blessed me with the power to heal, the power to use this experience to increase my spirituality by always keeping the “big picture” in mind and not my personal pain. I will always be grateful to him for that incredible blessing. I have seen the result of it day by day.
Our other brother-in-law gave Andy a blessing and it was very similar, promising him great peace. I remember one thing that stuck with me in that blessing and that was that Andy would be given “blessings beyond his imagination” for the sacrifice he was making that day. That made me smile, because by then I was looking for any piece of humor in the day and I imagined that Andy would be requesting a house with a pool and front row tickets to a Coldplay concert in heaven.
Andy was really stressed about what to say when he would shortly give Noah his blessing. When my dad arrived, we pulled him out into the hall to ask our senior patriarch what to say. Andy was just shaking. Dad said only one thing. “the Spirit will direct you.” And that's exactly what happened.
It was beautiful to see Noah's two grandma's in the room. I am so eternally grateful that God allowed him to stick around long enough for his grandmas to see him. They tried so hard to "keep it together" for us. I know there were great tears from Andy's mom because this was to be her first grandbaby and she was almost as excited as I was. She had such sad eyes that I had a hard time looking at her. I felt like I had failed her. She said "I'm a grandma!" and I'll never forget that.
Once we had gathered nearly every member of our amazing families, everyone was allowed into the NICU, we stuffed about 20 people into that tiny room and the priesthood holders gathered around and very carefully“laid their hands” on Noah’s tiny head and gave him a name and blessing. Andy thanked him for his short visit and blessed him with all the rights and honors afforded to someone that does not get to fulfill a normal life here on earth. He told him he loved him. How is it possible to love someone so much that you barely know? That you will not get an opportunity to know in this life? My good brother-in-law had the foresight to take a picture of Noah holding my pinky finger with all his might. His inch long fingers, tightly wound around mine. I look at it every day as I say “I love you, Noah,” in my head and I feel like a mom for just a second.
After the blessing, the family moved into a nearby waiting room and Andy and I said goodbye to Noah. Gilly came in and unhooked Noah from all of his tubes and we gave him a bath. Just 30 minutes after that, with his quarter-inch hair all slicked back and ready, he returned to his Heavenly Father. I felt a deep peace come over me as if someone from beyond the veil was saying “thank you.” We carried his little body into the waiting room and both grandma’s got to hold him, finally. It was done. The whole ordeal…from the first time I had thrown up (in the parking lot at Tuacahn) to signing the release papers at the hospital, it was done.
We buried him next to my little sister Katie, in the other half of her plot, since she too, was in an infant when she died. We held a little graveside service on December 29th. My brothers sang "Be Still My Soul." And I needed that.
Be still my soul the Lord is on thy side
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain
Leave to thy God to order and provide
In every change He faithful will remain
Be still my soul thy best, thy heavenly friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end
I had a baby. I didn’t dream it . . .
He was here, he came in just like any other baby, but he left us all too soon. Just twelve hours later. He had feet, eyebrows and a hairline exactly like his dad’s. But that was just about all we could tell – so tiny and coming from such gregarious, giant-like parents.
I waited 41 years to find the right man to marry, though I had other opportunities, I just knew it wasn’t to be. Marrying my best friend at 41, well – finding a single worthy priesthood member at that age was my miracle, let's face it. Andy is the greatest blessing of my life. But by bringing Noah into this life fulfilled the measure of my creation, and as much as I spent 41 years trying to convince myself that I was a “whole” human being, despite being a single one, I now see why my married-with-children siblings were so ecstatic when they found out I was pregnant.
I tried for a long time to understand why I needed that piece of adversity. Why did someone like me, who wants babies so badly, have to go through that?
Apply a hundred scriptures here! Do we really need to be reminded that that which does not kill us makes us stronger? Another cliche born out of truth. Noah’s death and the subsequent 8 miscarriages that followed has turned me into the Hope diamond with a soft marshmallow center born of humility. Nothing could be worse! Every trial I have since gone through pales in comparison and as Satan and his hoard approach me on a daily basis with his plate of pity and bitterness I stand in front of his ghostly desperation with a sword and a suit of armor.
My testimony/perspective is this… Noah is mine forever. I will raise him in the next life and I believe that with all my heart. I have felt his presence and I know that he knows I'm his mom. The lessons I have learned about seeing the bigger picture, put my Heavenly Father’s sacrifice into perspective. If I grieved at the loss of an infant I didn’t know, how much more was the grief of our Heavenly Father at the crucifixion of His Son, also a premature death he could not stop even if he wanted to.
This is my ultimate testimony: that God lives. That He gave His Only Begotten Son back to us for the remission of our sins so that we too, may return to live with our families forever. No amount of miscarriages can take this true knowledge away from me and each one strengthened my resolve to be a better person so that I may earn the rewards that are promised me (that conversation is coming, keep reading!) Infinite are the rewards that await me if I can keep my perspective, hold to the truth that I know and keep my head on straight and my heart in check, as I continue to find out who I am and what God expects me to do. As I continue to learn and apply faith, I feel increasingly indebted to the Savior for His love and intercession on my behalf. How can I not?
But it wasn’t always like that! That was hard-earned and took time.
When we left the hospital with nothing but our bills and free boxes of cotton ponies, it was midnight on Christmas Eve. The streets were silent. All I could think about was that I wished there was some drunk driver out that could hit and kill us. But there was no one. Just my luck. So I started a new prayer, that Jesus Christ would make his second coming sooner than later... and I've been praying for that ever since.
So what about all those fantastic stories that keep us going?
- My doctor's mom had a baby when she was 49 and that baby turned out to be a lawyer.
- There is a 52-year-old mom in Fargo on the verge of delivering her 15th baby today.
- The lady in China...had twins at 62... or was it Korea?
- John Travolta is in 50's and has a new biological baby...with his wife, 47-year-old Kelly Preston.
- There is a blog out there for women over 45 who are pregnant...been there... read it. It has 3000 members.
- Sarah...Elizabeth....old. Their children? Isaac...John for-crying-out-loud-The-Baptist!
- My own mother had a baby when she was 43 and he turned out brilliantly!
And finally the one that truly haunts me to this day....
- I met a woman who had ten miscarriages and on the eleventh pregnancy, she gave birth to a baby boy who grew up to look like Superman and was possibly the nicest teenager I had ever met. This was her humble reply "Oh, we just call him The Miracle."
Where is my miracle?
I’ve had nine miscarriages total and Noah.
We went on crazy diets, took crazy pills...pills that made me crazy, we took every picture of my manufacturing parts that my insurance would allow, autopsies, genetics counseling, allergists, energy healers... I GAVE UP DIET COKE, red meat, sugar, salt, artificial sweeteners, I slept next to a thermometer for months! And still... the verdict was "we don't know why you can't keep those perfect babies."
WHY? I feel you nodding your head and saying - why didn’t you just stop putting yourself through that after the first or second, even the third one?
Combined with the playhouse, my natural desire to teach and being the oldest of eight siblings, I have always had the brightest fire to be a mother. I truly believe that most women are born with a natural instinct to bear and nurture children. I thought, and still do, that having children would make me so happy. Happy is still the goal, right? So my journey has been littered with flashes of hope and buckets of despair.
If there was a child (and maybe two or three) I could have someone to help me roll out the Christmas cookies. I might even have a reason to make cookies more than once a year. If there were children, I would teach them stuff. SO much stuff. They would not escape me telling them every second of the day WHY stuff is stuff and HOW stuff got to be stuff and WHAT stuff is good or bad or WHERE to go to do fun stuff..with me.
There would be a reason to come home from work, a reason to shut the computer off, a reason to buy children's books, a reason to Christmas shop, a reason to watch Disney movies, a reason to have birthday parties, a reason to make a vegetable for dinner, a reason to set the table, a reason to decorate for Halloween, a reason to hide Easter eggs, a reason to have a tree swing, a reason to go to a soccer game, a reason to read to someone, a reason to have "family" prayer, a reason to buy Spiderman bandaids, a reason to get a new family picture taken every year.
A reason to buy baby shoes. Is there anything cuter?
And there would be an endless stream of "ah ha" moments and what teacher doesn't crave that? There would be that feeling you get when your baby falls asleep in your arms. There would be someone to leave my wedding ring when I died. There would be someone to call me "mom."
BUT I WILL HAVE TO WAIT.
So remember that promise from my patriarchal blessing? “...your children, and their children, will sit at your feet, and called you blessed for your honesty and your fairness.”
There was a moment after my last miscarriage when I was wallowing in my depression – I was down in a dark, dank place without a candle – and I went to a rehearsal as usual, and after the rehearsal, I said “carpet up!” as usual – which means “come-sit-at-my-feet-because-I’m-not-leaving-this-chair-and-I-will-give-you-notes-about-your-performance.” Everybody knows that after rehearsal, the director gives acting notes to the cast to fix for next time. They aren’t always positive, but my job as a director is to make them look good, so the notes are always honest. This is the part where I have been known to say “let’s take the suck out of that scene next time.” But over the years I have learned to add a lot of humor so the notes become less chastening and more “you can do it, we’re all in this together!” It was at that moment that I looked around at the setting and remembered my blessing… “your children will sit at your feet…”
And the memories flooded back of kids sobbing in my office, asking my advice, preparing for college auditions, hanging out in my classroom at lunch, saying “we heard you laughing in the audience!” hugging me on closing night. All of those memories are mine! All of those blessings - “my kids” gave me all of those blessings.
And it’s close enough for me...for now. My heart is full.
Recipe for Chapter 5- Spudnuts
My dad is a retired Spanish and history teacher. I remember when he would bring home movies from school. The kind you wind into a machine that sits on a table and shoots the film toward a big sheet that your mom would hang on the paneled wall? My mom would make homemade spudnuts for the entire neighborhood and everyone would come over and squeeze into our family room to watch these movies about American history. Johnny Tremain was my favorite.
Wow! How times have changed! But S.P.U.D.N.U.T.S N.E.V.E.R. W.I.L.L.
A spudnut is a donut with potatoes in it. We have a tradition in the Shelton family that once a year at Halloween, we bring our favorite soup and get together at my mom’s house for Soup and Spudnuts. This recipe makes at least 60 fat and fluffy, fried treats. We dunk them in just about everything. We pass them around to the neighbors. We eat until we can’t walk because after all, we only do it once a year.
One day I will make Spudnuts for my 10 kids. Today I will make 60 spudnuts and eat them all myself.
Spudnuts for a Crowd1 Cup Shortening
4 Cups Milk
2 Cups Finely Mashed Potatoes (any type)
6 Large Eggs
1 Cup Sugar
3 Tablespoons Active Dry Yeast (I just use the regular stuff but you can use the “fast acting”if you want)
1-½ Tsp Salt
12 Cups Flour
I use a Bosch mixer and it makes this very easy. But you can do this with any mixer or without.
Start by putting all your flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in the mixer and mixing them together. Then scald your shortening and milk together so that the shortening is about half melted. Pour that mixture, the eggs and potatoes into the dry ingredients and turn on your mixer for 7 minutes. Don’t scrimp on this time. Once that time is over WALK AWAY and let your dough raise until it has doubled in size. Should take about 30 - 60 minutes depending on the yeast you used. Knead your dough at this point for another 5 - 8 minutes, adding flour as you need it, until it has become stretchy and smooth. This is not a tough dough - it should still be quite soft and tender. Roll it out to a ¾” thickness. Don’t be stingy with the thickness! Cut the spudnuts into a donut shape. I let them sit on my countertop until they are HUGE and puffy (double their size again). Then I fry them in 350 - 375 degree oil until they are on the dark side of golden brown. This recipe makes about 60 BIG spudnuts!
Spudnut Toppings
Start by putting all your flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in the mixer and mixing them together. Then scald your shortening and milk together so that the shortening is about half melted. Pour that mixture, the eggs and potatoes into the dry ingredients and turn on your mixer for 7 minutes. Don’t scrimp on this time. Once that time is over WALK AWAY and let your dough raise until it has doubled in size. Should take about 30 - 60 minutes depending on the yeast you used. Knead your dough at this point for another 5 - 8 minutes, adding flour as you need it, until it has become stretchy and smooth. This is not a tough dough - it should still be quite soft and tender. Roll it out to a ¾” thickness. Don’t be stingy with the thickness! Cut the spudnuts into a donut shape. I let them sit on my countertop until they are HUGE and puffy (double their size again). Then I fry them in 350 - 375 degree oil until they are on the dark side of golden brown. This recipe makes about 60 BIG spudnuts!
Spudnut Toppings
Sprinkles, nuts, coconut, marshmallows, puffed rice cereal, Captain Crunch, mini chocolate chips, etc... let your imagination be your guide.
Chocolate Glaze
2 Cups of Powdered Sugar
2 T Cocoa
½ Cup Melted Butter
1 Tsp Salt
Lemon Glaze
2 Cups of Powdered Sugar
2 T Lemon Juice (or more to taste)
½ Cup Melted Butter
1 Tsp Salt
Cinnamon Sugar in a Bag
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon (or more to taste)
Pour ingredients in a paper bag. As soon as the donuts are out of the oil, drop them in the bag and shake them up until they are coated.
Homework Assignments for Chapter 5 - Waiting for Babies
This one is easy. Just because you don’t have kids doesn’t mean you can’t have traditions or do things that you would normally do if you had kids.
Chocolate Glaze
2 Cups of Powdered Sugar
2 T Cocoa
½ Cup Melted Butter
1 Tsp Salt
Lemon Glaze
2 Cups of Powdered Sugar
2 T Lemon Juice (or more to taste)
½ Cup Melted Butter
1 Tsp Salt
Cinnamon Sugar in a Bag
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon (or more to taste)
Pour ingredients in a paper bag. As soon as the donuts are out of the oil, drop them in the bag and shake them up until they are coated.
Homework Assignments for Chapter 5 - Waiting for Babies
This one is easy. Just because you don’t have kids doesn’t mean you can’t have traditions or do things that you would normally do if you had kids.
- Have a classic movie and spudnut night. Theme it around the movie and invite everyone to wear costumes. Costumes make people vulnerable and create great conversation fodder.
- Just because you don’t have kids doesn’t mean you can’t serve in the Primary, Nursery, Young Men or Young Women. Pray for one of those callings. When I was recently called to the Primary the Bishop told me he had already asked 3 other people who had turned him down. Then pray every day to be able to help that child in a way that their parents can’t. It takes a village.
- Babysit for someone that needs to get out. This will level the playing field for you and help you see that the grass isn’t always greener!
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