Before I begin, let me provide you with a little picture of the twins. I thought after you have all been praying for us that you should at least see what the twins look like. 
They were born, as Shane announced, on July 26th, 2009. Dayn Sawyer weighed 5 lbs 8 oz while Lyan Jasper weighed 4 lbs 3 oz. I had gone for a routine ultrasound, like I had done every week, to check on the progress of the twins. Lyan was always smaller and so they were monitoring their progress to make sure he didn’t fall behind. During this routine ultrasound, Lyan’s heartrate dropped. I didn’t like what I saw and heard and neither did the doctor doing my ultrasound, however he tried to reassure me by saying that he probably applied to much pressure on the cord. Knowing how much pressure he had applied in the past, that was nothing and I would put more pressure on my stomach by bending over to put on my shoes (as much as a pregnant woman with twins can bend over). After my ultrasound I went for my fetal monitoring appointment, which was also routine. This time, the ultrasound doctor asked that the nurses doing the monitoring go over the results with him before I left. Seemed like a good precaution. It checks on the heart rates of the twins during movement which tells them about the babies’ wellbeing, such as their heartrate will help them figure out if they are getting enough oxygen through moving around. After the appointment, the nurses asked me to wait in the waiting area while they went over the results with the doctor like he had asked. They all came out to see me, the doctor put his hand on my shoulder and informed me that it was time for the twins to come out and that he didn’t want to wait for after the weekend. And so began the process of calling Shane at work and him finding people to watch the boys at home while I remained at the hospital waiting to find out when and where the twins were going to arrive.
The staff talked about delivering in the States or Alberta due to the lack of beds in BC. Everywhere was full and if they had a bed for me, their nurseries were full and so if the twins needed some care after they were born (like Lyan needed), they wouldn’t have a place to treat them. They admitted me at the hospital so I had a place while they waited for a bed and monitored the babies every 6 hours. It was very stressful to be in the room and not know what was going to happen. I was worried about the twins and how they were doing in there while as worrying about the boys back home and how we were going to get people to watch them should we be sent out of province or out of the country for delivery. I didn’t want to spend my whole time worrying and so I tried to make the most of it. I was chatting it up with the nurses when they came in and was friendly with the housekeeping staff who would come to clean the room. While I was there, I might as well make friends and trust that God would take care of all the details surrounding the delivery of the twins.
The next day, one of the nurses came into the room and started talking to us about getting transferred to another hospital. She then transitioned into asking what kind of help we would have back home after the twins were born. It was easy to tell the nursing staff how people at our church have brought us meals, prior to the twins arriving and that if we have a need, we can count on them being there. Her response caught me a little by surprise when she said, “Ah, I knew there was something different about you two. I could tell when I walked into this room. There was a sense of calm.” Really? Calm was far from how I felt but I wasn’t stressed out like I was before. We (Shane, the nurse and I) got into a conversation about churches and she told us how she is looking for a church to go to after being in a Catholic church for years but didn’t feel it was the place for her. We gave her information about Community of Hope, however, she didn’t live in the city and commuted quite a distance to the hospital. We encouraged her to find a church home and just continued to have good conversations with her whenever she would stop by our room. She was not assigned to my room either which made our interactions even more special.
We were transferred to BC Women’s Hospital which is attached to BC Children’s Hospital later that day and we began the process of getting labor going around 3pm that afternoon. I am not going to go into the whole birth story here. This was the first delivery where it was just Shane and I there but it felt like others were there, probably because I knew people were praying for us. The two nurses that were a part of our labor experience reminded me of two gals from church. I would turn to Shane when the nurses would leave and say “Doesn’t she remind you of…” and he’d agree. They didn’t look anything like them but their mannerisms were the same. And then there were hospital products that had the last name of two families from church as their brand names. These little things gave me a chuckle and helped to remind me that God was taking care of me and my family.
When the twins were born, Dayn and Lyan both had low blood sugars. Dayn’s sugars bounced back immediately while Lyan’s fluctuated for two weeks and he remained in the hospital. Dayn was only in the nursery for a couple of days. It was difficult to come upstairs and listen to all these other babies with their moms and mine were down in the nursery. I had no timeline as to when they would be with me as the staff would say “He [baby] will decide.” I needed more info than that. Again, I made the best of my situation by chatting with nurses, the housekeeping staff and the ladies who would bring my meals. There was one woman from housekeeping who would stand and talk in my doorway for quite a while. I decided to talk to those who were probably overlooked in the hospital. I chatted with the cashier at the cafeteria, the volunteers at the gift shop, the guy transporting the linen from one area of the hospital to the next, the porters who would escort me and Dayn from the ward down to the nursery and back….etc etc etc. I found people doing odd jobs and would try to find something encouraging to say about how awesome of a job they were doing or just comment about the weather or business of the hospital. I found that as I walked through the hallways every day I saw more people I recognized from previous interactions and they all had smiles on their faces when they spotted me.
I wasn’t always happy and spreading joy though. There were days when things were rough for me. I found it challenging to have Dayn upstairs while knowing that Lyan was downstairs having his heels poked every few hours to check his blood sugar. I was torn between staying at the hospital and going home to be with my other boys. Every time a nurse brought up the idea of discharging me from the ward, I cried. I prayed repeatedly throughout the day for Lyan’s blood sugars to stabilize and that we could all go home sooner than later. Then God put in the room next to me a young couple who’s baby had two cardiac arrests immediately following delivery and their baby was down in the ICU nursery (ours were in the intermediate nursery for babies who don’t need that much assistance). I talked with the father and his mother in the hallway, offering what encouragement I could. When I went back to my room, I felt compelled to pray for them. While praying, I realized that I was praying for Lyan all this time when he is in a room with other babies who also need prayer and the ICU nursery was next door and those babies also needed prayer. I said to God that he has heard my prayers about Lyan and I trust Him to answer those prayers in His time but now I was praying for the other babies in the nursery and their families.
I went down the next day to see Lyan and discovered that his blood sugars had stabilized overnight. While sitting beside him in his little incubator I decided to start praying for the nurses in the nursery and the parents in the room. With that, conversations began to happen. Nurses would talk to me about our church plant. A mother in the room told me about how she had left church at a young age, wanted her daughters to go to church but didn’t want them to experience the same hurts she had. I was able to share my testimony with her. While sharing my testimony, the room was uncharacteristically quiet. No babies were crying. No alarms went off on the monitors. Nurses weren’t having conversations while caring for babies. The only voice in the room was mine and I wasn’t whispering.
The nurses and parents got to see me at my best (cheerful and kind) and at my worst (crying my eyes out hearing once again that we weren’t being transferred to a closer hospital). They were able to see that I was human. During one of my bad days, I tried once again to put another family before myself and celebrated as a father was taking his child from the nursery to be with the mother upstairs. We had a very brief conversation as he waited for the nurses to prepare everything. It was one of those interactions where I thought nothing more would come of it. The next day, the father was in the hallway on his way to the cafeteria when he waved to me and as I approached he said, “I have to ask. Are you a Christian?” I told him I was and he replied, “I thought so.” He then went on that it was my attitude and the shirt I wore that day that gave it away. I was wearing our church’s shirts that we had made for our community service week. I didn’t think anyone would have noticed but he did. He went on to say, “Isn’t it great to know that we have God on our side?” This interaction was meaningful to me after being at the hospital for a week and half. I had very little contact with people I knew and felt alone. I felt energized from this point on and was thankful for all the ups and downs because God had a bigger plan. I wouldn’t have been able to interact with the staff like I was had I only been at the hospital for a day or two. I wouldn’t have been able to build the relationships I had with people in the nursery with a short stay. I also would never have been able to share my testimony like I was.
I have continued to stay in touch with the mother at the hospital. We hope to get our kids together for a play date in the future.
Anyways, I will remember this event in my life as the time it was reinforced that people are always watching and your actions are a big testimony to others. I will, hopefully, now see every situation I am in as an opportunity to show God’s love to others.
I hope this has made some sense. I am typing this as fast as I can while babies are sleeping and before I feel like I need sleep as well.
