Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 12, 2021 | Expresso - Vickie Meck

Transcript

October 12, 2021 | Expresso - Vickie Meck · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a lot of you know me, but it's an honor to be here this evening.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And my prayer tonight is that everyone in this room walks away knowing that God loves you and cares for you in every aspect of your life here on earth.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um that each one of you is a daughter to our precious Heavenly Father, and that he formed us in the womb, knowing us before we were ever, you know, coming to be.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um I'm a daughter and I'm a granddaughter and I'm a sister, I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a grandma, and my three-year-old grandson has decided that I'm gaga.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I keep trying to teach him grandma because I'm not sure about this gaga thing.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, anyway, he wasn't very happy because he was at my house when I left, and it was like, no go, Gaga.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, Gaga has to go.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, um, I was raised by a very godly woman.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had godly, my dad's mom was a godly woman.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: She was at this church.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she was at this church um when my mom and dad um met.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: My mom attended TBC from sixth grade.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, her best friend was Shirley Schimmel, which I know a lot of you know, which was Shirley Schimmel, Shirley Maynard, uh Shirley Jackson now.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, Ken Mayner, I grew up with him.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Our families were very, very close.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: My parents and his parents had a double wedding.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: For 25 years, they went on their anniversaries together every year.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um we were very involved in that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I grew up at TBC.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the move from sixth and polk to here.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Bible school here, and I don't remember a whole lot of activities there, but I do remember the move.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um a lot of the ladies in the church had a were mentors for me, um, Joyce Keys and the memorization of the Bible verses.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I'm not sure who was in charge of the program, but I was telling Connie, I didn't have that conversion from, you know, I don't know what it was, I don't know when I accepted Christ because I don't know when I didn't know him.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't have that, but um TBC had a bus, and they went around and picked up kids at their homes or at corners, and at that time we lived at 1800, 1821, Massachusetts.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you got points for verses that you memorized, you got points for bringing friends on the bus.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: My parents came to church every Sunday.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: We came to Sunday school.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We I didn't need a ride to church, but I gathered all my friends of the at the corner of 18th and Massachusetts, and we rode the bus.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's telling you how competitive I am.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I got lots of rewards for whatever that program was because um I had I know I had certificates that I went to the Bible store that was at the corner of 10th and Kansas, 10th and Kansas, and Bible supply, and I spent all my money there, all my tickets there for whatever I was buying because I had lots of points for riding the bus and stuff.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: But um one woman that it was a very strong mentor in my life was um Mildred Carroll.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um we've been remodeling our house for 11 years, 12 years, something.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I still have the towel that she gave all of us that got married.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: She crocheted a basket onto it, she crocheted the basket, sewed it onto a towel, crocheted around the edges of a wash rag, and every one of the girls that graduated from her, I think it must have been sixth grade class of, or maybe it was eighth grade class of Sunday school, got one of those for a wedding gift when they got married.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I still have it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I keep thinking, maybe I'll put it in the middle of a quilt sometime.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it's in a box somewhere because of the remodeling.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's kind of my background at TBC.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was always involved in the youth group and stuff, although I had two or three, I don't know exactly how many, rebellious years in high school, beginning of college.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so luckily at the end of that um rebellious stage is when I met my husband.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Connie enjoyed that story because she hadn't heard that.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little, it's it's a little bit different.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I have to tell you, it was in my rebellious stage that I did meet him, and it was a blind date.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was called by a friend to meet at her apartment.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: They were having to get together.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: His friend from the sheriff's department, but I didn't know that at the time, I don't think, called him and said, I got somebody I want you to meet.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we both meet at this house, and neither one of us really know who it is we're gonna meet.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so all of a sudden people start getting up and leaving, and the only guy that's left, besides my friend's um date, is this guy that I leaned over and I said, You're dead.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I am not interested.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um she knew who he was, you know.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So he had his hair down past his shoulders.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: He has very fine, thin hair, so it was real straggly.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: He had the straggly beard.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to find the picture, and it's packed somewhere with the remodeling stuff.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was bad.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: He looked like he was homeless, he was not clean, you know.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um his he was coming to meet somebody for a drug deal because it was a sheriff's officer that had him come.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't tell him why he was coming, just I got somebody I want you to meet.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: My husband at that time, or he was an undercover NARC agent in Topeka.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was coming to make a drug bust, and I was not interested.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, in the meantime, I had decided that I was gonna get out on my own, and so I happened to move in with this gal, which I found out two weeks later was not a good idea, but I went back home very quickly.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, but I happened to be there, and this guy goes up and knocks on the door, and I'm kind of looking, going, it kind of looks like Dick, but you know, I wasn't real sure.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um so I was down at the pool sunbathing, and you have to remember I was in my rebellious stage, and I was not the size I am now.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was in a very skimpy bikini, so I had to go get a t-shirt to talk to him.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I asked him, I said, What do you need?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, I'm looking for Vicky's phone number.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I gave him my phone number and told him that I was living there at the time, and he felt really bad because before when he met me, um, I had I had a very long, dark shag, I mean haircut.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in that two-week period, I had cut it off into a Dorothy Hamill haircut, and it was frosted.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so he didn't know who I was.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just told him I'd give her his number.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, so we did not see each other again for for a while.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess I shouldn't say that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: He did, my roommate told him that that was Vicky you just, you know, were talking to.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So he went and bought both of us dinner and brought it back to the apartment to apologize for not recognizing me.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't see each other for another, I think it was we met May 9th, and then we didn't see each other again until July.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I was playing softball.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm in a softball uniform, and of course he recognizes me then because he'd seen me not that long before that, but um, it was my turn not to recognize him.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um he had a was very clean cut, looked very nice and handsome in a police uniform.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Was not sure why he was there because I didn't know who he was, but he was asking for me, and I'm thinking, I really haven't done anything, you know.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, so that's our story.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: We started dating after that because he could meet my dad then, you know, he wouldn't, and I would have never introduced him to my dad before that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that's um kind of how we we got together, and we dated for a year, got married a year later, and uh, of course, the story he likes to tell is she wouldn't date me unless I went to church with her.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how he came to TBC.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um he was he's from Girard, Kansas.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um his mom moved up here, and I guess this is part of the story I forgot to tell you.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: He that night when I didn't really want to know who he was, he told me he was a fireman, he told me he was an embalmer, he told me he was a jailer, he told me, you know, all these things, and I'm thinking, oh yeah, right.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can see you doing those.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he had done them all.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: His mother moved up here from um Girard, Kansas.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: She was totally blind, went through the blind, the Center for the Blind.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: She ran um one of the state stands in the state buildings that were run for the blind by the blind.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um he decided that he was gonna come up and apply for the fire department because he was gonna be a fireman.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was a fireman in Girard, he was the fire truck driver in Girard, he was a jailer in Girard, um, he was an embalmer in Girard.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he was all the things he had told me he was.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just, you know, he didn't look like it at the time.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So um he moved in with his mom to get on the fire department, and fire department said, we got way too many people.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Go try the police department.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think they only have three people on their list, so that's and he was from out of town, so he made the perfect undercover agent.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, but so he was raised by um his mom by himself by herself, and um she was totally blind.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So she was a very godly woman, and some of you I know met her when she was here at the church because she came to this church.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think she moved to Wichita in 1980.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So she was here from 75 to 1980.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So um we have lots of stories how she made it through, but anyway, so before I was married, I really wasn't ever sick.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I remember having my tonsils out when I was in the second grade, but that's the only time I really remember ever um being sick.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: But after I got married, it was a whole different story.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had gotten married in uh June of 78.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I gained 40 pounds really quickly, started lactating, had never been pregnant, um, had lots and lots of doctor's appointments because they didn't have any idea what was wrong with me.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and in August of 79, I had a appendectomy, is what it ended up being, but it started out at exploratory surgery.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I got up and I couldn't stand at all.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was in so much pain.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um I'd been going through all these other doctors' appointments, we didn't know if it was related or not.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the surgeon that saw me at the hospital um wanted to do exploratory surgery.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, most people when they have going for an apodectomy, it's you know, it's an incision like this, mine's like this.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And stay a little closer.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: A little closer.
• 13:31
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:31
  unknown: Okay.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I I keep backing up from that thing in my face.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so anyway, that doctor, that surgeon is the one that said, you know, things just don't look right.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think you might have an ovary getting ready to burst or something.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when they got in there, it was my appendix were almost to burst.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So my surgery was very long because they had to be very careful not to burst my appendix at the time they were trying to take it out.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But um, luckily he had gone through all of my stuff that I'd been seeing the doctors for the year before.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, he said, I think there might be a pituitary tumor.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, We're gonna send you to KUMED.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had my appendectomy in in August, and in October I went to KUMED.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: At that time, I don't know if they still do it the same way, but it was an ex a research thing because they weren't sure what was wrong with me.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent a week in the research section, and um ended up they found the tumor on a CAT scan I had had here in Topeka, and the doctor that had seen me had pretty much told me at that point, this is all in your head, and you need to see a psychiatrist to fix it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, you know, that's where we were.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I am newly married, I and I have a mental issue that's causing all these you know problems.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in October, um they talked to set Dick and Idana and talked to us and said, you're gonna have to probably have this removed.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um we want you to go home, enjoy the holidays, and when you're thinking you're ready to have this in January or February, we'll remove it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I looked at Dick and said, I can't do that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want it out now.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the doctor looked at Dick and said, you know, she may not live through the surgery.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so um Dick was like, well, if she wants, you know, if she's willing to do this now, you know, he said, and then he said, I need to send you home.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: You guys talk about it away from here, and then let us know.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um the doctor I had at KU Med, it was Dr.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Brackett.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Brackett was the doctor that did surgery on my husband's dad for his brain tumor, cancer.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um Dick's mom said, you know what, she can't have a better doctor.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love Dr.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Brackett.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's it's just amazing how God works in all of this.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um the surgery that they were gonna do was one that they cut like from the front of your head all the way around here, and they cut the skull.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Brackett was advanced in his technology at that time of surgery, and he said, I have a new method that I would like to try on you, but you guys have I haven't done very many of these.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: The only scar I have from that surgery is underneath my top lip, right underneath my nose.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they basically just peel your face off and go in through here.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my husband says my nose is a lot cuter now than it was then.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's shaped different.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have no cartilage at the end of my nose.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they seal up the hole in the bone with.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked about it, and I went back in November, did some pre-lab stuff and the pre-surgery stuff, and they did surgery on me December 13th.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I got to come home the 23rd of December.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I couldn't be alone at all.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we were moved in with my mom and dad and uh for a few weeks.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the after Dick stayed with me until he said, you know what, Vicky, I have no vacation left.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he hadn't been on the police department, he had only gotten on the police department in '76.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And here this is December 79, and he's had all these hospital, you know, things for me.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my mom said, I'll stay with her tonight.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can go home, go to work.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: The next day he got a call that they weren't sure I was gonna make it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had a nurse that had been fairly new in that unit and stuff, and I kept telling her how thirsty I was, probably because I had seven yards of gauze in each side of my um nostrils, and um tried to put everything back together, and they leave it there for like a week.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um so I just kept drinking water.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So um at the time they said that I was the first person on that floor that they had had drunk on water.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's the only time I've ever been drunk when the time I was in the hospital.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um anyway, I uh all I remember about that situation is I remember laying in the bed and I heard Dick's voice, and I he's at work, but it was like I was looking through a cloud, and all these heads were just looking through this hole in the cloud.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you who it was, whether it was the doctors, I I I have no idea, but I that is a vivid memory.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can see that still today.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was tied in the bed because apparently I didn't know what I was doing, so I was trying to climb out of the bed and wasn't doing what I was supposed to do.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I made it through and um Dick didn't leave my side after that.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: He just told mom that you can go home, I'll stay with her.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I was there a full a full week, but there's no pain.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, I I'd had my appendix out, man.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was in so much pain I couldn't move.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was no pain with the surgery, and um lots of thirst, but no pain.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so they told me that I could I um probably couldn't get pregnant for a while, and they didn't know how long that would be.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: But after that, I had a 50% chance of ever being pregnant.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: When Dick and I got married, I wanted a big family.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted six children.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: He kept saying, two is enough.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Two is enough.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can do two.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of five, I was one of three.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I kept trying to tell him, you know, four would be good.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can compromise with four.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean holding on to the two, really.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But um, three weeks later, I went for a checkup and they told me I was pregnant.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, you weren't supposed to get pregnant.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, you told me I couldn't.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, um Krista was our first, and she ended up coming six weeks early.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I woke up in the 4 20 in the morning, I believe it was, and my water was broke, and it was like, this is way too early.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: We went to the hospital and we had a little girl at 8 10.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had three contractions that they monitored, and I really wasn't sure they were contractions, they kind of felt like kicks, but you know, there we was born before any doctors got there.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: The nurse delivered her.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um, she was there for 16 days.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't she weighed 4 7?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: She lost down to 3 6 in the hospital, but um, she couldn't keep her body weight up and her.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Temperature up at the same time.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: She was either warm and losing weight, or she was gaining weight and she was cold.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they had to get that monitored.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I stayed that my doctor was really good.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: She let me stay seven days thinking maybe I could take a baby home.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: We made lots of trips to the hospital, and I was I was there most of the time.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dick was there anytime he could.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: We went back for another, I had an MRI for I think 15 years, one a year, because they did leave some satellite sales that they couldn't get to.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And not ever had any problem.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: But went in and they said, if you want to have another one, now's the time.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about three weeks later I found out I was pregnant with Dustin.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't have problems getting pregnant.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was keeping the babies in there, I had a problem with because for every contraction I didn't have with my daughter, I did have with my son.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I went into labor 10 weeks early with contractions.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: I spent usually two or three days at St.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Francis Hospital in labor and delivery, and they'd get them slowed down or think they had them slowed down and they'd send me home, and two or three days later I was back.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: We did that for um a couple weeks.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then we took an ambulance ride.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: My contraction started in December, the middle of December, and um he was due February the 28th.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um we took an ambulance ride January 1st, New Year's Eve, with contractions two minutes apart, all the way to KUMED.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was on the highest legal dose of medication they could give me to stop contractions, and um got to KUMED and they said we're gonna double it.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, wait a minute, I'm on the highest legal dose.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're a research center.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Those numbers don't count for us.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they doubled it and did an amino synthesis, told me that he would be on a respirator for six months if he was born at that time.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I spent a week in labor and delivery with contractions all the time.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: They still didn't stop.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um Dick and I talked about it, and we said, you know, God has this baby.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: He knows, you know, this these contractions can't be good on this baby.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um the doctor told me that I couldn't make that choice because I was making a choice for another life that wasn't mine, and that he would not take me off the medication.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so anyway, we prayed about it, and and he we ended up he had to go to his supervisor to find out that he could not keep me on that medication if I didn't want on it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they took me off the medication, and I they transferred me to labor and delivery.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or I was in labor and delivery.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: They transferred me to the maternity ward where I could hear all the babies cry and then you know all of that stuff.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I was there for a couple weeks, and they finally decided, well, we're gonna send you home.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your contractions aren't that hard, doesn't look like a baby's gonna come right now.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: We made it back to Lawrence before the contraction started.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, did we go back to KUMED?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do we go to St.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Francis?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: We went back to St.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Francis.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: They admitted me, and eventually I went home from there again.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he ended up being um eight weeks um, or he ended up only being, this was eight weeks early when we were doing all that stuff, but he ended up only being four weeks early.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I carried him until he was um only four weeks early.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So January the 21st at 4 20 a.m.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: My water broke.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, why?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: How does this happen the same with these kids?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I barely made it to the hospital.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: My husband had always decided as a police officer he wanted to deliver a baby and it might as well be his own, you know.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but we made it to the hospital.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: They were waiting with the wheelchair right outside the emergency room door.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: They wheeled me upstairs, and um he was born at 5'10 or 5'20.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: He weighed 5'10, or 5' he weighed 5'1.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was born at 5'10.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, um, I think something I forgot to tell you that when I was going through the pituitary thing, I had no fear in any of that.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I knew God was there.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I knew He was taking care of me.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if I went home to be with the Lord, then I was okay with that.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I knew Dick wasn't okay with that, but you know, I knew I just had a feeling and a peace that God was there and I was gonna be okay.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: With all of the stuff with my kids, um, it's all because God was there and He He knew them in the womb.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: He knew the plans he had for them.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Each and every one of us, he has that.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: One year later, I had a hysterectomy, and um so we had our two children.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, all right, oh, and I'm not doing the pictures.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm saying don't forget them.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget them.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and um so anyway, um, I had a hysterectomy.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: When um our son was seven or eight years old, he decided that you always talked about adoption.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted a brother for Christmas.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, come on, can you think of something else?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, he wanted a brother for Christmas.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: We went through the foster care system.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: We um uh adopted, we had 12 foster children over a seven-year period, and um we ended up adopting um three of our twelve children.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: This picture is in January of 1996, three months after we adopted Riley.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Riley's the one in the middle, and then um I'll share the other part of that adoption story later because I'm about out of time.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: But um anyway, um we were part of the proclamation um that was signed by the governor to make the adoption awareness month November.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this picture is taken November 3rd of 1999, and um Shannon is on this side, then Riley, or then Nick, and then Riley, and you can tell they're kind of all the same size, but Riley's 25% height and weight, and the boys were always 95% height and weight, the twins.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they were it was always like having triplets, and these are my guys now.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um Dustin and Krista and their spouses, and Kinsey is um Ryan and Krista's, she turns 13 in November, and Colt will turn uh just turned three, and then Riley, um, he's 29 in November, and the twins were just 27 in October.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so he uh was um instead of one brother, he ended up with three.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um God has has just been good in our life.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our our life has had lots of ups and downs.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um my mother, I just lost her um to death in October of um 2020, and it was not COVID, so that was good.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we kind of lost her four times.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: We lost her to dementia Alzheimer's.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then we lost her to the nursing home, which she spent two and a half years there.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then we lost her to COVID because we couldn't see her from March until we got the call on October 7th that she was dying, and they didn't know if she'd make it 24 hours.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can you and your dad come up?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: So dad and I went up, and God was so good through all of this.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: My sister and her husband came up from Arkansas, and my a couple of my Krista and Dustin both had gotten in to see her, and um then all of a sudden they decided that you can only have two people and you can't be changing back and forth.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my sister says, I didn't come here to not spend this time with my mom.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so um within an hour and a half, I told the nurses we're moving her.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my sister said, Where are we moving her to?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Dad's got two twin beds that he sleeps in as a king together.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll move one of them to the living room, and um, if I can get transportation, we'll move her, and if hospice will be there.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Within an hour and a half, we had hospice lined up to be there at one o'clock, and mom arrived at the house at 12 45, and she was in Oscaloosa in the nursing home, and we got it all coordinated, and that is just God, because there's no other way that happens, and so we were all with her.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: She lived 23 hours after we moved her to dad's house, and dad decided I don't want to sleep in the bedroom with her out in the living room, so we moved the other half of the bed out there, so we had both twin beds there.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing was that dad had to sleep by the wall because hospice had to be able to get to mom.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he didn't like that, but you know, it worked.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I have never been one that I had believed was um held grudges or didn't forgive people, but I started doing a Bible study on um how to forgive what you can't forget.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't believe how many little things are in my heart that I've held for years that I didn't even know it.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so um one of them is we were in the middle of a adoption of a foster child when he was taken from us and given back to a cocaine-addicted parent.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if God wouldn't have moved that child, I would not have had the twins.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was moved August of 1994, and my twins were born October of 1994.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had Riley and Anthony, I had two beds, I had two sets of every clothes from six months to 18 months.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: God has just worked in our lives.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: That little boy I don't have anymore.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: We went to a football game in Dodge City.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Riley when he was 10, I'll just insert this real quick, was asked me why I gave his twin away.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because they were raised together from we had Riley, Anthony when he was 12 weeks, we got Riley when he was six months.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So from six months on, they were raised together.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were brothers.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um in their minds, they were brothers.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um they played football against each other, and we got to meet him.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their sophomore year in college.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: God is very good, and everything we go through is a blessing if we will learn from it.