Joseph Courtney (Part 2)

/ faithbuildingexperiences / 4 Comments

Part 1        Part 2        Part 3        Part 4        Part 5        Part 6 Conclusion

Doctor Hurst (to the best of my recollection), “I’m not sure exactly what is wrong here.  I do know that the baby’s head is measuring about four weeks larger than it should.  That can indicate some form of Hydrocephalus which is fluid built up on the brain.  But, I just can’t be sure.  They can sometimes treat Hydrocephalus by placing a shunt to drain the fluid.  There are some other oddities.  I would like to send you over to the hospital for some more tests.

The rest of my memories come in bits and pieces.  Many years later after Dr. Hurst had delivered all four of my now grown children, four girls, I sat at the same doctor’s office, different office, same doctor and two of the same nurses, Ann and Rita, that had apparently worked for him for thirty years now.  I was at his office again.  But, I sat in a chair next to my youngest daughter Jory.  Jory was seventeen.  Jory was pregnant.  Jory was having her first ultrasound.  Did we want to know what the sex of the baby was?  Yes, a girl, another girl in the family.  Both of us seem nervous.  Both of us keep asking questions.  “Does everything look okay?”  Jory wants to know.  “I’m sorry”,  I say, “I was in your office a very long time ago.  There was something wrong with my baby.  I was seventeen.  Doctor Hurst was the doctor and it was during my first ultrasound that he discovered something was wrong.  We are both just a little nervous”.  The nurse, Ann, looks stunned, “That was you?  I remember that…  I was the nurse.  I remember that so well because that was my first situation where something was seriously wrong.  I was the one that called the hospital.  It was late in the afternoon, about 4:30 pm right?  I called the hospital to get you in.  They weren’t going to take you that afternoon because it was so late and I told them, ‘You have to take her.  She is so young.  She needs some answers.  We can’t leave her like this.'”  Our eyes are both watering up.  I thank her.  We both express gratitude for being able to share the experience and she gets back into the moment with Jory and my first granddaughter in the oven!

It’s been thirty-five years now since Ann walked with me across the street to the hospital for more tests.  There was more wrong with my son Joseph Courtney.

The next test Doctor Hurst wanted performed was an amniocentesis, which currently was only performed down at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  An amniocentesis is a medical procedure used in the diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities.  During that procedure I remember lying on the table surrounded by people with lab coats.  After a local anesthetic, and with the aid of an ultrasound, a large needle was inserted through my abdominal wall, then through the uterine wall, which is thicker and you could tell they had to use more force,  I felt it, and finally through the amniotic sac.  Amniotic fluid is then extracted and fetal cells are separated.  I was told the fetal cells would need to be grown in a culture and then they would be able to examine them for chromosomal abnormalities.   This would show exactly what was wrong.

I went back to the University a few weeks later for the results of the amniocentesis.  Again, it’s hard to say if Jay was there.  I’m sure he was.  But, my memory is so focused on the doctor, his office and his WORDS that anything peripheral in my mind became non-existent.  As I remember, his said something like this, “The results of the amniocentesis are not good.  The baby’s chromosomes are entirely messed up.  If I could, I would tell you that absolutely there is a 100% chance this baby will not survive.  But, legally I cannot tell you that.  So, I will tell you that there is 99.9% chance that your baby will die before you reach full term.  If for some unknown reason the baby did survive until you were full term, there is no way that you would ever be able to care for the baby.  It would need to live in an institution for as long as it survived…  Blah, Blah, Blah…  We could go in and drain the water on the baby’s brain, which would terminate the baby’s life.  You do not need to make any such decision today.  You can safely go until 32 week of pregnancy (about 7 1/2 months along).  The baby will either die on his own before that time or at that time YOU WILL HAVE TO MAKE THE DECISION.

(Read Part 3)

Joseph Courtney (Part 1)

/ faithbuildingexperiences / 4 Comments

Part 1        Part 2        Part 3        Part 4        Part 5        Part 6 Conclusion

742524-R1-74-75Story One… Joseph Courtney

I was seventeen when I met Javon (Jay).  He was so cute!  Ripped haha.  I was tall and thin, dark hair, and pretty.  I was one of those teenagers that had to learn by experience, insecure most of my teenage years, with amazing potential I just didn’t understand.  At fourteen, my mom was embarrassed because I wasn’t hanging around with the kids going to church and announced one day, I’m sure with good intentions, “Since you’re going to hang around that crowd then you aren’t going to church anymore”.  It didn’t seem like a punishment to me.  What my mother may not have understood was that I was having so much trouble trying to fit in somewhere.  I tried hanging around with a couple of cool girls in the neighborhood.  They were mean girls.  I tried hanging around the good girls in the ward.  Why did they seem boring?  But, there were a couple of girls who were nice to me and fun.  Why did they always have to get me in trouble?

Eventually, I stopped feeling out of place with a group of kids skipping school.  Unfortunately, I started doing all the things those kids were doing trying to fill up our day without school.  I remember being sent to the counselor’s office numerous times to help solve the issue of why I was skipping school.

Oh ya… the love of my seventeen year old life haha.  Jay’s family wasn’t LDS.  His family was so accepting of me and all my non-LDS habits.  I’d sit at the table and talk with his mom, his sisters and even his little brother.  It felt like home.  Secure, a place where no one judged me, they loved me.  Let’s move to the part where I get pregnant haha.  That’s it, I end up pregnant.  I was working at Coryelle Answering Service in Ogden at the time.  I remember going to work and shoving my growing belly into the same pants day after day.  It was getting harder.  One of my co-workers made a funny comment one day that my baby was going to be born with a zipper mark on it’s forehead.

I could NEVER tell my parents.  They would disown me.  I know this seems ridiculous to you mothers as it does to me now.  But I really thought I could NEVER tell my mother.  I WOULD NEVER tell my mother.  I  believed she would never want anything to do with me again.  I didn’t have any other plan, no thought for the future, just today, or ever, I could not tell my mother.  God knew my heart.  He knew of my true resolve to not tell my mother and he knew I would need her help.  He knew what lay ahead of me and what my pregnancy was going to be like.  One day, when I was about four and a half months pregnant, my mother came to me…  She said, “I had a dream that you were pregnant” and I started crying.

My parents did NOT respond how I had expected them to.  They responded with love.  It wasn’t a wonderful amazing adventure.  It’s not by any means a recommendation to get pregnant haha.  But, it is a recommendation to trust that your parents love you and that they will no matter what mistakes you make.  They may not respond in the best way immediately.  But, time helps and you are loved and life continues and your trials can bring experiences that will change you for the better forever if you look up to heaven and trust the most high parent whose love is greater than we understand.

My mom scheduled an appointment for me to see a doctor, Dr. Craig Hurst.  He was young and I remember he wore Jordache jeans 8).  I’m not sure if Jay was at my first doctor appointment.  I think he was.  But, mostly I remember the ultrasound screen.  The black screen with the grey/white outline.  The wand running across my belly and the screen dancing around on the baby’s outline.  I remember him saying, “Do you want to know what you’re having?”  I said “Yes” and he said with a smile, “It’s a boy”.  A flash of content and then the doctor’s face.  He was concentrating now…  Driving the wand back and forth, snapping measurements.  He didn’t need to speak.  I didn’t want him to speak.  My eyes were locked on his face.  His face locked on the screen.

(Read Part 2

Why Faith?

/ faithbuildingexperiences / Leave a comment

Why doesn’t God just show himself to all those on earth.  This is a question I have heard my husband ask.  Does he really want to know or is this an excuse to not believe.  Perhaps faith like love is not a thing that we have or we don’t have.  Perhaps it is a state of being, a verb, something that we can demonstrate more at one time and not so much at another.  I agree with idea that we cannot learn things of a spiritual nature with our natural mind.  There is a spiritual side to us that I am sometimes more in tune with than other times.  I feel it more in quiet humble contemplation.  This spiritual side takes practice.  It takes faith.  In order to grow spiritually, I believe I need to ponder spiritual questions and ask in faith.  As the answers come (through spiritual channels of communication) I grow in a knowledge of this spiritual side of life, until someday, may my faith be perfected unto a perfect knowledge of the way that my creator works.

Does our Father in Heaven care about our temporal needs.  He must.  He brought us here to experience joy.  Last year through my hectic  life (as I am sure you relate) I experienced some small Faith Building Experiences in the form of a very temporal nature.  Many times throughout the year I would misplace my keys.  One day after searching for my keys and feeling desperate to arrive on time to my intended destination, I decided to make an effort to grow and test my previous childlike faith.  After what I felt was a good effort to search and being nearly out of time, I decided to tell my Heavenly Father of my need to get to where I had to go, my faith that I knew he knew where my keys were and that I knew he loved me and cared about me as I was attending to the temporal needs of myself and my family.  I then asked him to help me find my keys.  In a matter of seconds I found my keys.

I know, I know, this could have been a coincidence.  But, Heavenly Father was the only one that I spoke to about this and he was the only one that knew of my “effort to grow and test my previous childlike faith”.  I believe he was willing to answer me in a more sure way.  Not too long after this experience, I lost my keys again.  I searched, I prayed and within seconds the experience was repeated.  “Okay”, I thought, “WOW, I have a direct line to Heavenly Father and he cares about me even looking for my keys… or am I being ridiculous?”  Not too long after the second experience, I lost my keys again and YES my experience was repeated a third time.  As if to drive the experience home and through my heart to my amazement I continued to misplace my keys and the experience was repeated several more times.  I wasn’t counting, but they were in succession and enough that I had to acknowledge to him (the only one that knew) of his hand in my life and his love for me as I traversed this mortal life.

Losing my keys wasn’t something that happened this often to me.  Sure it happened from time to time.  But, never as much as during that Faith Building Experience.  Gradually, things returned to normal and I stopped losing my keys so much and I stopped having to ask for his help in that regard.

Can I hold on to that experience in times of real despair and trouble?  I will have to try to exercise faith when that time comes.  Remember, faith isn’t a thing that you get once and BAM you’ve got it.  Is this an example of spiritual growth that we can go through?  I believe so.  Will he always tell me where my keys are?  I don’t think so.  Can I still trust that he is there if that same pray or another is not answered immediately or how I want?  This is why we must continue to pray for Faith Building Experiences so that we can have more and more of them, in the way the Lord chooses to pass them out, so that we eventually grow spiritually stronger until we have a knowledge he is there in all of our trials.

He is there in our joy and in our sadness.  He loves us eternally and will not leave us. All things will work for our good if we have faith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where to start?

/ faithbuildingexperiences / Leave a comment

I was taught to pray.  I remember each night kneeling in a circle around my parents bed holding hands, bowing our heads and praying before we each went off to bed.

I still try to pray everyday. Those night time prayers my family had together set a habit within me for a life time. Thank you Mom and Dad. Night time prayers are the easiest. Morning prayers make my day go better and praying throughout the day helps keep me in touch with my Father in Heaven

I believe in God.

/ faithbuildingexperiences / Leave a comment

I believe in God.  I happen to believe he is our loving spiritual Father.  I believe we lived with him before we came to this earth and may live with him again.  Please don’t stop reading if we don’t happen to share the same faith or religion.  I know that we have  different circumstances and pasts.  I believe we have much in common.  My goal is to be able to inspire, to teach, to learn, to love and to persuade others to open their heart and mind to feel the love God has for each of us.

“For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and to the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be Saved” – 1 Nephi 6:4