Growing Faith

Just shy of two years after my husband and I were married, we welcomed our first son into our family.  He was born at Swedish Hospital in Downtown Seattle.    The same hospital my husband grandmother had worked at as a nurse for many years.  He was late, big, and breech, and had to be taken by C-Section.

We had moved from renting an apartment in West Seattle, to manage an apartment a little further south (White Center), so we could afford to have me quit work and be home with the baby.

James worked full time and was taking classes at South Seattle Community College trying to complete his associate’s degree.  He had completed one year before we were married, and it had taken some time for us to get established with work and supporting ourselves in Seattle, before he was able to get back to school.
   
His dad, an instructor at a community college, was a big proponent of getting your associates at a community college, and said it transferred into any university in Washington state with a guaranteed two years applied towards your degree, at a great deal less expense.

It didn’t prove to be true, but that is the path we were on.  Full time work and school were tough!  Even with James being the smartest, most energetic guy I knew (and I’m serious about that!).  It wore on him.

In searching for ways to realistically be able to complete college, with a family, and let me stay at home with the little one, he enlisted in the Navy.  His test scores were stellar, and he was admitted to the Nuclear Program.

He was told that if he was in the top one percent of his Nuclear Power School Class, that he would get picked up for the Nuclear Enlisted Commissioning Program.  Then he would be sent to a college of his choice, his school would be paid for, and he would continue to receive a Navy paycheck.

We made big lists of pros and cons.  We talked to both of our families.  His dad said he didn’t think the military was the right thing for him.  I don’t remember what my parents said.  We prayed about it, felt good about it being the way for him to be able to complete college, and signed enlistment papers.

He headed to basic training in Orlando Florida, and I headed to my parents with a 10-month-old baby.  We were told that the Navy would not pay to move us down to Florida.  We sold enough stuff to get down to 1500 pounds of household goods.  My brother-in-law, who owned a moving company, was kind enough to give us a great deal, and add our things to a long haul he was already taking to the Orlando area.

James missed Nathan’s first birthday, and we didn’t get to attend his graduation from boot camp.  We occasionally got to talk on the phone.   His voice was always hoarse while he was in basic training.  Then he moved on to a Navy technical school in Orlando.
 
I took an English class at the community college.  Nathan developed croup a couple of times that winter.  I spent two particularly bad nights in the Emergency room with him, and a number of nights up with him struggling significantly to breathe.  It was recurrent.  It terrified me.
 
The doctor said to use a humidifier.  It seemed to make his breathing worse.  They said leave a window open to the cold air.  I made a special heavy quilted sleeper suit to put over his jammies to try and keep him warm with the window open in the winter.  It still didn’t seem to help.

I’ve had friends say that with their kids, taking them out in the cold air with croup, calmed their breathing right down.  But it didn’t for Nathan.  However, he did seem to do some better if we drove in the car.  Being upright, seemed to help some.
  
After James graduated from boot camp, and had secured an apartment, we flew down to Orlando to join him.  I had worked hard in the months he was in basic training to lose the baby weight that I had gained during pregnancy, to surprise him.  He met us at the airport in Navy dungarees, with a buzz cut.  It was wonderful to have our family together again.

We lived in an upstairs, two-bedroom apartment, in Winter Park Florida, not too far off base.  James had made a friend that had a wife and a baby about the same age, who lived in the same apartment complex.  Chris, Katie and Nicholas Kaiser from Pennsylvania.

I got good at ironing perfect creases in uniforms and sewing on insignia patches.  James rode a bike to the base for Nuclear Power School.  I rode a bike, with Nathan strapped in a baby seat on the back, to the grocery store. (We had sold our cars, and other belongings, to help pay for the move).   I could only handle a few bags on the bike handlebars and still be able to steer.  A kind young couple picked us up for church on Sundays.

I discovered that our area was not very bike friendly.  There were no sidewalks between our apartment complex and a close grocery store (or much of anything close).  The road was busy and not very bike safe, and the grass on the side of the road was tough to ride on.

Several months later, I rode that bike, what seemed like a long way, to my first OB/GYN appointment there.  We were expecting again.
 
Soon thereafter, we bought an old yellow Chevy Citation on a credit card for $1500.  It was a huge relief to have easier transportation.  Over the years, family named it “the banana car”.  It was a lemon.   I think James replaced most things twice on that car to keep it running.  It was his bane through those early years.  But it got us around and he faithfully kept fixing it.  Thank heavens his grandpa taught him how to work on cars and he had a knack for it.

Someone at church said they were giving away food storage wheat in buckets.  We took it.  Our mattress sat up on food storage buckets.  I ground the wheat and made bread.  It made funny, kind of tough bread.  It didn’t seem to raise right.

Growing up, we had eaten cooked whole wheat for breakfast sometimes.  I tried soaking and cooking it.  It had odd things in it when it was soaked.  I didn’t try soaking it again.  It looked entirely normal when dry.
 
I was proud of myself for making our own bread for free.  Money was tight.  At times, Katie Kaiser and I would pack lunches, pack up the babies, and go meet the guys for lunch.  I’d pack sandwiches made on that homemade bread.  We’d eat at a picnic table by the lake on base.
 
James took his goal to be in the top 1% of his Nuclear Power School Class Seriously.  Sometimes he’d study until midnight.  Often he’d come home late, after studying, with a big stack of note cards.  He’d have me drill him on the information on the cards until he went to sleep.  He didn’t feel like he could even take much time to chat and catch up or visit.  He was always preparing for the next quiz or test.
 
It was a shared goal though, getting the into the NECP program so he could finish school.  It was for all of us.  I was supportive.  In the middle of the night sometimes, he’d sit straight up in bed from a dead sleep and be mumbling facts I’d been quizzing him on for the upcoming test.  I’d try talking to him, but learned he wasn’t really awake.  I prayed hard for him that he’d be in the top one percent of his class and get picked up for the college program.

During this time, Nathan was often sick.  First it was struggles with multiple ear infections with high fevers.  Then added breathing problems, especially any time he was ill.  It wasn’t diagnosed as asthma until he was three, but I remember clearly, him laying limp, skin sucking in around his ribs, and pulling into a hollow in the middle of his chest, every time he tried to breath, as a one year old.  It would last for several days at a time and then slowly clear up.
 
I thought maybe one of the reasons the Lord had guided us to the Navy was so that we would have the medical care needed during these years.  So many trips to the pediatrician with yet another high fever, ear infection, and breathing problems.  The lines were long at the Naval Hospital pharmacy, but needed medications were free.
 
We had a scare in the second trimester of the pregnancy.  I had the alpha-fetoprotein test taken at a regular well baby check appointment to check for chromosomal abnormalities.  They said they’d call if there was a problem with it.
 
At my next appointment a month later, the doctor came in said (as if I knew already), so your test results were high for the AFP test.  We should talk about the possibility of an abortion.  I was horrified!  Abortion was not an option for me!  I already cherished this life that was coming to our family whether it was perfect or not.

They tried sending me for a repeat test to confirm the results, but they had waited too long.  It was past the point that a result would be accurate.

It took me two days of voluminous crying with worry for this new little one, to come to peace with the idea that this baby was absolutely wanted and treasured, regardless of whether it had chromosomal abnormalities or not.
 
It’s not that I would have considered an abortion for even a second.  It just took me a little time to wrap my mind around the idea that this little one might have a lifetime of greater difficulty ahead of it than I previously had anticipated.  I worried about whether I’d be up to the challenges too.

I came out of those days with a very firm resolve.  I felt like I was standing tall, had my shoulders back and my chin stuck out in defiance, and was marching forward.  I was ready to fight for this baby and do whatever was needed.  He was part of our family already.  I was offended by a world that would value a human being less because it wasn’t perfect.

I bought a double stroller and tucked it, folded, under Nathan’s crib.  Somehow it gave me a concrete seat for this coming baby and demonstrated my desire for this little one to be in our family, exactly as it was.  Then I started praying hard for the baby.

We were able to have an ultrasound in the third trimester that indicated normal limb growth and length which we were told meant increased chances of a healthy baby so that eased fears some.

Since we lived 3000 miles from home, I was really worried about who I would have to watch Nathan when it was time for the baby to come.  I never have been one that could just drop my kids with anyone.  It’s an anxiety issue for me.  I need to KNOW….and I mean really know…..they are well cared for.
 
As it got closer to time, James’s mom wanted to buy airplane tickets ahead of time to come when he was born.   She needed to work around her work schedule.  Nathan had been born late.  I knew that she might not even hit the right window for when he came with having to just pick dates ahead.

I prayed hard, that the timing would work out.  I had been praying about it for months.  That I would have someone I was comfortable with be able to watch Nathan.
   
After she bought tickets, I prayed that the baby would come while she was there, and that she would be there to watch Nathan while I was in the hospital, and that she would also get to spend time with the new baby.  I knew that James would not get any time off.

I went into labor in the afternoon, walking through k-mart, two days before James’s mom was due to arrive.  We went into the hospital the night before she came, but things were not progressing quickly.  I was sent back home.
 
It was a miserable night and next day.  The contractions were strong and kept coming.  I might doze between contractions but couldn’t get comfortable.  A friend in the apartment complex offered to watch Nathan until James’s mom got in.
   
James’s mom was due in late at the airport.  James got home from studying about 10pm.  Then he went directly to the airport to pick her up.

While they were gone, I was having terrible back pain.  The only way I could get any comfort was to get into a warm shower, with the hot water on my back, or heat an O-Henry in the microwave and put that on my back.

They got home from the airport about 11:30 PM and we went straight to Naval Hospital Orlando.  Things went very quickly from there.  There wasn’t even time to have the anesthesiologist come in, so it was an “au natural” delivery whether I wanted it or not.

Having a normal delivery was a blessing in and of itself.  Nathan had been born c-section.  There were risks to trying for a normal delivery after a c-section.  That was one more thing I had prayed hard for.  I didn’t want my number of children to be limited because of having to have all c-sections.  It was important to me to have this baby normally if it could be safely done.  Another prayer answered.

We had a beautiful new 6 lb., 10 oz baby boy!  His first Apgar score was a 9.  He was perfect!  He was handed off to a medical corpsman to clean him up.  After several minutes of working on me, the doctor glanced over at the corpsman.  She said with panic in her voice, “Corpsman, why is that baby blue?”  Then she rushed over to try to revive our now unresponsive baby boy.
 
In the sleepy Navy hospital, they had to call “code blue” multiple times over the hospital loudspeaker system and had to add “this is not a drill!  Repeat, this is not a drill!” as well, before they were able to get an emergency team on their way.
 
This was so much different than Swedish Hospital had been with our first son.  They had to put a tube in to get him breathing, but they were all set up and ready for it.  They made it look easy.  It was done so quickly; it was almost as if there was no problem.  I was told by the nurses though, that we were very lucky to have been in that hospital, with the doctor we had, for the very quick and accurate response.

Not so with the Navy Hospital.  They had a tough time getting an emergency response team there to help, and our new baby boy revived, but they did it.  The incident seemed to rattle them seriously.  I was asked all kinds of questions.  They didn’t understand what had gone wrong.
 
All I could tell them is that Nathan had had a thick mucus plug that required a tube to be inserted for him to start breathing.  This new little one had been breathing well.  I had no idea if it was something similar or not.

The baby was whisked off to the nursery to be watched carefully.  I was pushed off to the side behind a curtain.  James was in his final weeks of power school.  The big final test was almost upon him.  He was headed back to school by shortly after 5:00 AM.  He didn’t have a choice.  He was required to be in classes that day.

It seemed like forever before they let me hold our new baby.  I believe it was after noon.  I would ask anytime someone would peek in.  They would say they would check.  And nothing would happen.  It was a relief when I finally got that baby in my arms!  It was also a relief to see that he seemed healthy!

Grandma Hanna took good care of Nathan while we were in the hospital, which was a such a blessing to me!  She had gotten there in time.  In fact, could Heavenly Father have answered my prayers with any more perfect timing?  I knew he had heard me!  I was so grateful!

James would stop by the hospital late at night, when he was done studying for the day.  He would leave lists of possible names that he liked at the nurse’s station.  They all sounded like New York Bankers to me.  Winston Bartholomew…. things like that.  I didn’t get to see him again during the few days we were in the hospital since I was sleeping when he was able to come by late at night.
 
At one point, I called his Power School advisor and told him I really needed to talk to my husband so we could pick a name for the new baby.  I didn’t want to do it without his input.  His advisor let me speak to him.  We named him Jonathan Kendrick.  Jonathan meant gift of God and Kendrick meant son of Henry.  James’s middle name was Henry.

James graduated Power school number one in his class.  He shouldn’t have had a problem getting picked up for the NECP college program.  However, when it came time to apply, they found that he was two months beyond the cut off age for the program.  His advisor even double checked to make sure they weren’t getting it wrong and confirmed he couldn’t even apply for the program.

We were devastated.  The Nuclear program carried a six-year service commitment with it.  We had been sacrificing and working so hard, to give him an opportunity to finish college that was financially feasible with a family.  Now it looked like he was locked in to complete his commitment and wouldn’t be able to make any progress on college for six years.

I’m embarrassed about it now, but I remember passing a young officer in uniform in the commissary, and thinking to myself, that I KNEW he wasn’t smarter than James!  It felt like the universe was conspiring against us being able to complete this goal of his graduation from college.
  
We discovered there was one possibility that might allow him to attend college before finishing his six-year commitment.  It would be to apply for a NROTC (Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps) scholarship.  If he were to receive it, he would have permission to put a hold on his six years of service while he attended college.
 
It would offer a small scholarship amount but would not cover all school expenses and would not give us any money to live on.  It turns out he could have applied for this without even joining the Navy.  Since it was the only open possibility for attending school at this point, he applied.

In the meantime, we headed off to Navy Prototype training in Idaho in January with a two-month-old baby and a two year old.  Shifting from Seventy-Five degree days in Orlando, to a week of below zero temperatures our first week in Idaho.
 
We had to get a block heater for the “Banana Car” so it would start in the cold temperatures.  Our housing allowance covered a single wide trailer in a reasonably nice trailer park.  I was thrilled that it had a small square of lawn to the side, and a shared playground in the middle of the trailer park.

James went to work on getting qualified.  He would stay out at the site (an hour out into the desert) for several days at a time, working on getting his qualifications.  He often slept in a bunk room out there, to save commute time.  He would come home when he ran out of food.

I would make big batches of food and put it in single serving size containers in the freezer.  He would come home, sleep for several hours, fill his sea bag up with frozen food, and catch the bus back out to work again.  He qualified first in his class.

We had gotten rid of the food storage wheat.  It really hadn’t seemed right.  I couldn’t rid myself of the fear that the weird things I saw in it when I soaked it were bug eggs.  Money was still very tight.  I read that beans and grain together make a complete protein.  Meat is expensive.  I made lots of bean dishes and homemade breads (relieved to be using better flours).  James carried sweet and sour beans in containers out to work with him.  I did in home daycare to stretch pennies as well.

He was notified that he received an NROTC scholarship and he was also admitted to the University of Washington for the coming fall.  We had no idea how we were possibly going to make this work.  We kept taking steps forward that were open to us.  I was praying my heart out that by some miracle he’d be able to successfully attend, and complete college and our family would be sustained as well.
 
We packed up our things into storage, went home to my parent’s house and James started completing the things he needed to begin school at the University of Washington in the fall.  The first big revelation was that the second year of his associate’s degree, that he had fought so hard for, was not going to do him any good.  It didn’t fulfill any of the requirements for a mechanical engineering degree at the UW.  It was going to take him three years to complete.

We didn’t have any idea where we would live, how we would afford to live, the stress at this point was almost overwhelming.  I just kept praying for a miracle and trying to turn away fear (not always successfully).
 
One day I received a call at my parent’s house from a friend that had been in a ward (church) with us when we had previously lived in Seattle.  They had had their first son shortly after we had Nathan, and a daughter shortly after we had Jon.  We had kept in touch, and they had come down to visit us in Orlando while we were there, to see Disney World, Epcot, and Seaworld.

Doug and Heather Kersh are two amazing people!  Heather told me that they had just bought a home in Kent.  She had felt impressed to call me.  They invited us to live in their basement, which consisted of a very large family room, a large bathroom and a bedroom.

We spent a year living in the Kersh’s basement.  They didn’t charge us rent.  We helped a bit with utilities.  I still can’t believe their kindness to us!  Once again, Heavenly Father had provided a way.

Jonathan Kersh and Nathan played “Hot Lava” and “aigators” together, jumping from couch to couch to stay safe.  Kara Kersh and Jon (he became “Jon” so as to avoid confusion with Jonathan Kersh) stole each other’s cheerios and played in the same spaces together.  They weren’t old enough to really care about playing with each other yet.

James commuted by city bus from Kent to the University of Washington and took a part time job at UPS while going to school full time.

Jon had his first birthday and Nathan his third while we lived in the Kersh’s basement.  Jon’s first birthday present was a scrubbed up, blown up, used tire tube I had gotten free from a tire store.  He loved climbing through and over it.

We had no money to speak of.  We had to buy books for James for his classes, bus fares, and of course groceries.  Bean loaf was a frequent favorite born during this time.  It was actually pretty good.  We laugh about that now.

I remember telling myself during this time, “the decision is simple.  You can’t afford it.  Period.”  I remember dressing the kids in new clothes at JC Penny (tuckin in the tags), getting their picture taken, then hanging the clothing back on the rack.  I’d had a great coupon deal for the JC Penny photo studio.  As I look back now, I wonder that I even thought it was OK to spend money on pictures, even with a coupon.  Or to use the clothes for a few minutes without purchasing them for that matter.
 
By the end of fall semester, we were in dire straits financially, even with the Kersh’s amazing kindness in offering us a place to live.  My parents once met us at the top of Snoqualmie pass and brought us a bunch of their garden bounty.  We ate a lot of sautéed zucchini and tomatoes over rice.  Honestly, it was delicious.

Christmas brought great kindness from others.  The young women from church brought us a Christmas tree and decorated it with homemade ornaments.  It made me cry.
 
An anonymous person sent an envelope with $50 in it for us.  That seemed like great bounty!  We were able to get a small bike with training wheels for Nathan and something small for Jon.  I don’t remember what.  At his age, he didn’t really care.

The new year brought the decision that we could not afford to continue the path we were on.  James told his advisor that he was going to have to drop out of the NROTC program.

His advisor asked him to apply for a hardship Enlisted Commissioning Program.  He did and was accepted.  This program offered him his enlisted pay, while going to school.  It covered his tuition.  We still had to pay for his books.  It also allowed him two more full years to complete his degree.  (which he needed in order to complete his mechanical engineering requirements).

What an amazing blessing!  We had no idea such a program even existed!  It put us in a better position than the NECP program would have for completing his degree because it gave us two more full years.

Once again, I was overwhelmed with feeling the love and care of my Heavenly Father.  I knew he had heard my prayers.  He knew about things we did not and had blessed us with a way that in the end, worked better than the one we had been praying for.

The path was hard.  It required us taking multiple steps out into the dark without know how things could possibly work out.  But he had been with us each step of the way.  He had made things possible!