Our "Special Angel" Jeri

My happiest times these days are when I can hear the tv in the background as my husband snores and our 2 boys rough house along with the sound of our little girl laughing to herself in her crib. If you'll read my story you'll know without a doubt why these simple sounds are so precious to me.

I'll try to start at the beginning of my tale. we were living in a typical subdivision along with our two sons, John age 5 and Jim aged 3...full of life, bounding energy and all the things that parents love about having little boys. I'd just left my job because I was expecting a baby. I was hoping I'd have a little girl. Guess a lot of women dream of little girls to dress in ruffled dresses and all the other special little girl things.

I had a lot of trouble through the middle part of my pregnancy and my friends & family came to help me all that they could. The doctors didn't think things were going too well and I wasn't gaining enough weight. We had a lot of close calls where we almost lost her but somehow she held on ferociously for her life. When I was about 6 1/2 months into the pregnancy she was born weight only 3 pounds. The doctor that took care of me called in a group of three pediatricians for her care. We named her Jeri Janine Lou Vandiver, we knew she would be the last child..and needed anything extra we could give her..the Lou was after my husbands mother. Even though she was born early...she was so beautiful that our hearts jumped up in our throats as we saw her through the glass in the newborn section...couldn't stop talking about her to anybody that would listen.

Jeri made it pretty well through those first few "danger days" that all preemies have because of their susceptability to lung problems. I went on home without her and we started painting the nursery pink and got little ruffled teddies & dolls for decorations. They said she wouldn't be coming home until she weighed 5 pounds but she was doing well. I remember thinking it would take forever for the couple of months to go by for her to gain that weight. Her brothers couldn't hardly wait to see their little sister. If I would've been able to tell the future I doubt if I would've kept my sanity.

When she was 10 days old one of the pediatricians called and said he had some shocking news for us. He told us that they suspected our baby had spinal meningitis, there was an epidemic backat that time and somehow it had gotten into the neonatal nursery. He said if their suspicions were correct there didn't seem to be much hope for her outside of a "miracle". Their suspicions were confirmed by a spinal tap, it showed upin the spinal fluid. The doctors put her on the strongest antibiotics they dared use on such a small child. My friend and neighbors were all praying for her life and after 2 months there was a change.

Unfortunately the change was for the worst, she had stopped breathing properly and had to be put under constant oxygen in a box..she was already in an isolation incubator but this box was even scarier looking. They took test and found that the spinal fluid wasn't coming down in her spine like it should and a few more tests showed that the fluid was backing up causing pressure on her brain. In olden days they called children with this condition "waterhead" babies because their heads would become so enormous. Everytime we went to the hospital our hearts broke a little more. Without a device called a shunt to pump the fluid from her head into her blood stream...the head would grow, the brain would become more and more compressed and more cells would be lost...at best she would be a vegetable. As long as she had the meningitis they could not operate.

It was weeks before we got our "miracle"...God answered our prayers. The docs tried a new drug that would kill both staph AND strep bacteria..first time they'd tried it ...and it worked.

Now all we had to wait for was a successful operation before it would be too late and too much damage was done. These "shunts" were still in the "experimental" stage so she'd be one of the first they would use it on...one of the top neurosurgeons had agreed to do the surgery. The day of the operation came and we were at the hospital waiting for her to go into surgery. we said our prayers and watched as they took our tiny baby girl into surgery. The operation took about 4 hours and than there was the hours in recovery that seemed like a year...but it was successful.

Our baby, our "special angel" was going to have a chance to live, a chace at some "quality" in life and we were going to have a chance to love her. The doctors all said that there was no doubt it was a "miracle" she'd lived at all...we knew "God works miracles for those who believe".

I've got to say that the faith swayed a little during that 4 or 5 months between her birth and the time we got to take her home. Now you have our story...she smiles like an angel and a little laugh that touches the very soul.

If anybody reading, is going through what seems an almost impossible ordeal...I hope our story will help to strengthen our faith and let you know that God is alive working miracles every day...just believe.

This story was written in October 1969 when Jeri was just 2 years old..."Our Special Angel" and I'm so proud that God has given me the privilege of being mother to her and our two wonderful sons.