“Who’s picking up the Donuts?!” I wondered as the surgeon’s scalpel freed two 30-week old boys from my uterus. It was August, my best friend was in town for the weekend, and I had pre-ordered donuts from The Ginger Snap, who has since closed up shop and moved to California, to celebrate staying pregnant for four more weeks in the Antepartum wing of Methodist Hospital. I had been blissfully unaware that I would be welcoming my babies into the world instead of having a “girls’ night in” with my bestie.
Amidst shockingly bright lights and crisp blue uniforms, my mind replayed the past three months of my life, in awe that this moment had actually come. For it was three months ago on a Tuesday morning, just hours before moving from Maui to Texas with my husband and one year old daughter, that my ultrasound suggested “problems” with Twin B. As we flew to a city where we had no jobs, no insurance, and no doctors, words like “trisomy 18” and “down’s syndrome” loafed across my heart, leaving behind confusion and disappointment.
This couldn’t be the plan, not with medical school on a five square mile island in the Caribbean looming on the horizon!!!
Once we arrived in Texas, we hit the ground running with lots of appointments, and lots of fear. I couldn’t imagine life getting any harder, and I was beginning to wonder if maybe faith in God was not all it was cracked up to be. Postpartum depression had nearly swallowed me whole. I had barely crawled out of that pit, when this new pregnancy became exceptionally complicated. My faith was on life-support.
But, God’s love is unstoppable.
Through visions, dreams, and prophecies God awakened my soul to His irrevocable plans for both of my boys as well as for me as their mother. He held me and sang over me with all the tenderness I do when my little ones are afraid at night. He showed me how powerful His mothering heart is, and therefore mine. God created this role for a reason. He placed them in MY body so that MY words could shape them.
It was time to partner with Heaven and speak life and destiny into these little kings.
Not an easy path when appointment after appointment gives doorway to doubt. An abrupting placenta, a ruptured sac, and hospitalized bedrest while hemorrhaging for six weeks really makes you question if things are actually ok.
After a particularly “scary” appointment three weeks into my bedrest stay, my heart heaved with burden. No mother should feel pressured to choose the life of one of her babies over the other. If Twin B were to die on the other side of my womb anyways, than delivering early would put Twin A at risk. But God had been telling me over and over that He was perfectly managing their birth, and that Twin B was His perfect mystery to be revealed at the perfect time….was I actually just a fool to believe what God was saying, that God had chosen ME? Was I naïve to believe His voice over the “facts” and concerns of professionals “way more informed” than me?
I thought of the Virgin Mary, and how foolish she must have felt when her child of promise breathed his last, strung up like a criminal. How desperate she must have felt, after all this time, declaring what the angel Gabriel had told her as a teenager, while the world scoffed at her. To everyone else, her story seemed crazy and impossible. I didn’t know if I had the strength left to continue believing God’s word in the face of opposition.
Please God, please be good!!
With anguish streaming down my face, I begged Him not to make me choose. Bethel’s “Have it All” came up on my iPod, and I felt anger rising up to meet the lyrics. What if my “all” is my children? Can I give them to God and still call Him good??! Immediately His warm, powerful voice rushed in like a thousand waves, “Daughter, I AM kind. You will see your sons walk the face of this earth.” There it is: sons. We are ALL making it out of here alive.
Fear, you can go back to hell where you belong.
Four days later, I peacefully began contractions which culminated in a C-section at 12 am, August 21st, 2016. Josiah and Arthur had arrived. At just 3lbs 9 oz. and 2lbs, these mighty little men who were not supposed to breathe on their own, wailed as the nurses examined them. No intubation and high Apgar scores confirmed what I already knew: happy, healthy boys who just needed more time to grow.
After a quick snuggle, they were whisked away for a 5 and 8 week NICU stay.
As I recovered at home, finally reunited with my little girl, I meditated on all the miraculous encounters with God during this unexpected journey: the first time my pastors prayed over me, knowing nothing of my concerns or circumstances, and told me word for word what God had already been telling me in my private times of prayer and journaling. Strangers approaching me during and after church with words of insight and encouragement into my situation that they knew nothing about. Angelic visitations during my hospital stay, assuring me of God’s protection and plans. A group of women from my church in Maui feeling the need to pray specifically for the delivery of the twins at exactly midnight (our time), August 21st, 2016, the hour of my emergency C-section.
I was in awe of the powerful ways God showed up in all of the details big and small, transforming my doubts into seeds of faith. My nationwide army of prayer warriors established God’s kingdom around me day in and day out, strengthening me to believe the unbelievable, just like the Virgin Mary.
Little did I know, this journey of holding on to hope in the face of the world’s fears, was just beginning.
*Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash
Kelsi Folsom 
Beautiful and faithful recollection 💕
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