So for the past 3 months I have been exhausted and I haven’t been able to figure out why. For those of you who do not know my wife and I recently had identical twin daughters but don’t feel bad for me… we have a night nurse that comes in at 9pm and stays until 6am so my sleep is okay. My wife is super mom and take care of all the kids throughout the day so really nothing has changed for me. I go to work, hustle, create, manage, etc… I have been doing that for 10 years and love it. So what changed? Why can’t I wake up in the morning to workout? I used to spring out of bed for crossfit at 4:45am… All of this got me thinking about what it could possibly be.
If I am like everyone else in this world I think I take for granted my significant other and just how significant she is. So let’s back up here a little bit….
My wife and I have been married 8 years. Now have 4 beautiful children, a great life and can do pretty much whatever we want when we want. My wife stays at home with the kids and raises them to be incredible little humans. For the most part everything went great with my wife’s last pregnancy. Twin girls!!! Identical twin girls!!! Holy shit am I in trouble in about 15 years… We went into the hospital to induce her and have the twins (on Kobe Bryant’s birthday FYI but she screwed that up)… I never would have thought that 12+ hours would pass without the twins arriving. Our other two kiddos were born within an hour from the time we got to the hospital so this one was different from the get go.
We had the twins in the OR just in case we had to have an emergency C-section. The other kiddos were born naturally without an epidermal so that was the goal here… Finally we were ready. I was dressed in scrubs head to toe, we strolled into the OR and my wife began pushing and the only concern we had going in was if “Baby B” (Reese) was going to move into position to be born vaginally… Jenny pushes and like a champ BOOM, Charlie is here… Now I don’t do well with blood so my face is in Jenny’s ear coaching here but mostly to stay awake and not pass out from goo and blood. Everything is great with Charlie but now I am reading my Doctors eyes and something isn’t right… a few minutes pass, Dr. talk ensues and then…. “Crash”! The one word I didn’t want to hear. Crash means the baby is in distress and we go emergency C- section and I have to leave the room.
Charlie was born at 2am, I am pacing outside the office with my doula Kym for what seems like an hour but in all reality Reese was born at 2:12am. I begin to follow the nurse over to the NICU while they get Jenny taken care of but then… The nurse tells me that “she hopes my wife can see the girls tonight because she had lost a lot of blood”?!?!?!?!?!? What the F@#K??? So I run back and tell my doula something is wrong. Jenny lost a lot of blood…. A head nurse comes out and I ask her what is going on. She goes into the OR and comes back to tell me “there were some complications and they are still working on Jenny”. Okay so what does that mean??? She checks again, and has the same update but this time I am reading her eyes and it doesn’t look good. We talk about calling Jenny’s mom… I ask the nurse Karen (who had twins herself) “would you want to be called if you were her mom”… She looked at me, dropped her eyes down and just nodded yes. My heart sank because at that moment I KNEW something was really wrong and they were just telling me the bare minimum.
I immediately called her mom and now its about 3am… Her mom hopped in the car and headed down. I called my dad crying, he was at the hospital in 15 minutes. I called my best friend Bobby, just asked if he could come he said “I am on my way” and hung up with no questions. I called my buddy Garrett asked if he could come he said “yessir” hung up and was there in 20 minutes. I received updates every 15 minutes while Jenny was on an operating table for 6+ hours. Medical staff were sprinting the hallway for blood because Jenny was bleeding so bad from her Uterus and Bladder that she was on the verge of dying… As a dad I was torn because I had two beautiful twin girls in the NICU that were supposed to have mom and dad snuggling them but I was so concerned about losing my wife. At one point I was holding Charlie and thought to myself I am going to raise 4 kids on my own. What am I going to do… I gave Charlie to a nurse at that point because I didn’t want that mindset even creeping in. I slept on the floor in the hallway, I didn’t eat, I was trying to take in all the information the Dr.’s were giving me… After hours of trying to repair her uterus they came out and told me there were going to have to do a hysterectomy. I told them I don’t give a shit what you have to do, take out of her, put in her, etc… I want her ALIVE. The thought of having to explain to Peyton and Elliott that mommy didn’t make it was too much. The thought of Charlie and Reese not knowing their mom was too much.
Jenny was fighting for her life on a table and I was praying for her life on my knees. 6 hours felt like 6 months. She never gave up… I was so scared because I had zero control on the outcome of what happened. A lot of people think that Jenny and I have the best life because we have money. That experience only solidified in my mind that money is great but doesn’t (and cant) solve everything. I always tell people more money, more problems and in this particular case I think it drained me. My wife is my better half. We get caught in ruts just like everyone else. She is the most beautiful person inside and out and she is literally my everything. She gave me my children who I love with everything in me. There is so much of her in the kids and for that I am thankful. I feel like I am still recovering from that scenario mentally and emotionally… I think it effected me more than what I even noticed or will ever know. It wasn’t Jenny’s time to go and her mind, body and spirit knew it. Her cheating death gave me everything I need.
I have her, my four kids and our health. We cheated death and gained a life… We now have the opportunity to write our story book ending so stay tuned.
Pey-It-Forward 