"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:28-31
We recently "disappeared" for a while and I know some of you who were following my blog have no idea why. I would love to share with you what God has been doing in our life...
Augustus Rapha Tannehill was born on July 19th, 2011 at 33 weeks and 6 days gestation. For two months prior to his birth I had become quite ill with what is called pre-eclampsia. Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy induced condition defined by Pregnancy induced hypertension (High blood Pressure), and protein in your urine, amongst other ailments. I spent the last two months of my pregnancy in and out of the hospital and becoming increasingly ill as the pregnancy proceeded. On July 19th I awoke at 2:00 AM and nearly collapsed on my way to the restroom as I started to hemorrhage profusely. We lived out on a rural farm, so Luke got me in our van, called our dear neighbor to come be with our children until our niece, Ashley, could get there, and called 911 to meet us half way. It took an hour to get to the hospital and consequently I was vomiting and loosing consciousness by the time we arrived. I was going into shock and time was not something we had much of. From the moment we arrived at the hospital everything moved very quickly. The doctor came in with an ultrasound machine which showed no activity and "cloudy" water. We now know that that the "cloudiness" was blood. I was rushed to the operating room where I was put under general anesthesia. The last thing I remember was my doctor saying that there was no time and they have to start now. I have been asked many a times if that was "scary". All I can say is that when you have 5 children, a husband that you love dearly, and you are being rushed to sleep knowing you may never wake, and it may be your time to go and be with your Savior, scary doesn't quite capture the emotion. Desperation is more of what was overtaking me. The next few days are more of a blur than anything, but it was the beginning of what God had planned for this new chapter in our life...We decided on the middle name "Rapha" in honor of one of the many Names of our Great and Mighty God, Jehovah Rapha, translated as "LORD Who heals" in Hebrew.
Augustus was born still with no breath and no heart beat. Miraculously after much effort from the staff performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation his heart slowly started to beat. He did not take any spontaneous breathes for over an hour but they were able to get him intubated and on a ventilator at 17minutes. Augustus was in very critical condition and after I was stabilized and awoke we were told the grim news. Our son's chance of survival was very low. He was being life flighted to Seattle Children's Hospital. In desperation we called out to anyone and everyone who would listen and pleaded with everyone to fall before God and beg for His mercy and healing. There was an out pour of love and compassion unlike anything I had ever witnessed. We started to receive words of encouragement and prayers from all across the world. There were many people that I know who either have not prayed in a very long time or do not ever pray, who got on their knees before God and prayed. I wish there were words to express how much this means to me and much it helped me in that moment.
That night we got the call from Seattle that we prayed would not come; Augustus had no brain activity and they would keep him "alive" until we arrived so we could say our goodbyes. At that point I can not even say the word "desperation" does the job to describe what we were feeling. I was still quite ill but we asked for my release and the doctors reluctantly agreed. I am grateful for their compassion. My dear husband worked tirelessly to care for me and get us to Seattle to see our son....
We started to see the Hand of God moving in a way more powerful than could be described with words. Can I tell you that I considered myself a strong believer before, but was absolutely blown away by the evidence of God's Hand moving! I was continually reminded of words I heard while watching "The Truth Project"; "Do you really believe what you believe is really real?". As much as I believed before, I was still in shock that God's Hand would move so powerfully! It was unexplainable. God was moving! He orchestrated every single detail into place. It was as if it were a puzzle, EVERY. SINGLE. PIECE. fit.
We praise God for all of the prayers that have and will be said on behalf of our family. Our love for the Body of Christ has grown exponentially so!
Living In His Mercy,
The Tannehill's
