Free A Treasury of Miracles for Women by Karen Kingsbury

emergency.
    “No.” Laura was firm. “You'll be home at the end of the week anyway. If anything goes wrong, they'll call you. And in the meantime, I'm in good hands here at the university hospital. Don't worry.”
    “I
am
worried,” Jake said, frustrated that he was so far away. “I wish I were with you.”
    “Really, Jake. I'll be fine.” She paused for a moment. “But please pray for the baby. He's too little to be born yet.”
    Jake felt tears well up in his eyes, and he swallowed hard. “I'll be praying, sweetheart. Hang in there until I get home.”
    For two weeks doctors monitored Laura's condition, checking often to see if her body was handling the prob lems with the placenta.
    Then, on June 25, Laura began to hemorrhage. Imme diately doctors rushed her into surgery and performed a ce sarean section to remove the baby.
    “It's a boy and he's alive,” one of the doctors an nounced as others worked frantically about the room preparing for the surgery that would come now that the baby had been delivered. The infant was handed to neona tal specialists, cleaned, and rushed into an incubator where he was hooked up to a respirator. He weighed one pound, fourteen ounces.
    For Laura, everything had become a blur the moment they rushed her into surgery. She knew there was a problem and that doctors were about to do a cesarean section. But because she was bleeding so badly, they could not do a spinal block. Instead they administered a general anes thetic, and minutes before the baby was born Laura could feel herself losing consciousness.
    “She's bleeding badly,” she heard someone say. “Looks like DIC.” Another voice filled the room, then another, and all of it blended into a distant humming.
    At that instant Laura felt a tremendous shock of pain searing through her insides as the baby was removed before the painkiller had time to take effect. She tried to talk, but her body would not respond. Instead, Laura felt herself falling, slipping further and further from consciousness. She wanted desperately to ask someone the only question that really mattered.
    “Is my baby alive?” She struggled to say the words, to find the answer from one of the doctors in the room. But her lips remained motionless, and then, before she could learn the answer to her question, everything went black.
    It was pitch dark—a moonless night in Paris—and Jake West was sleeping soundly when the phone rang.
    Groggy and unsteady, he automatically flipped on the light and grabbed the receiver. It was Laura's doctor.
    “I've got some bad news for you.” Suddenly Jake was wide awake. “Is it Laura?”
    The doctor sighed. “She began hemorrhaging and we performed an emergency C-section. Your baby boy is just under two pounds. He's not going to make it.”
    Jake's shoulders slouched forward as he took the blow. “How's Laura?”
    “Not good, Mr. West. She's bleeding uncontrollably. We have her in surgery right now trying to find a way to stop it. It doesn't look good for either of them. We think you should get here as soon as possible.”
    Jake was stunned. He stared at the hotel wall, knowing that the first flight out of Paris wouldn't leave for ten hours. Suddenly, in the terrifying quiet that surrounded him, he remembered the way he'd once prayed and loved God. He had been a youth leader at his church for three years before joining the military. Now, although he had remained morally strong, he had become distant from God.
    While Laura and the boys attended church every week, he was more of a visitor, making an appearance on occa sional Sundays. There was always a good excuse why he didn't go. Pilots led a busy life with a particularly demanding schedule. Many Sundays there were things he felt ob ligated to put before church.
    He was still considering these things when the phone rang again. It was the hospital chaplain, this time with ominous news.
    “They can't stop her bleeding, Mr. West,” the chaplain said. “She's back in