My sister drove from Florida to Maryland to come rescue us.
We drove back to Florida in record timing, only stopping in South Carolina so we could rest at a rest stop. We pitched our tent in the woods while.my sister spread all out in her car.
TJ had been staying at the Moon Lake house the entire time we were gone. He made himself a room where my brother used to sleep. Camille had moved into the master bedroom and Chris and I turned Camille’s old room into our own.
In October of 2016 I experienced yet another life changing moment. It was maybe a month after arriving in Florida again. I was about a month behind on my period so while at the local Dollar Tree I picked up a pregnancy test.
I peed in a cup, sucked the urine into the syringe tube and dropped a few drops onto the target area on the test. Almost instantly there were two little pink lines and I screamed at the very top of my lungs.
I was pregnant. Chris and I were going to be parents.
Ever since I was a little girl, it was my greatest ambition to be a mother. It was an overwhelming deep necessity within me to bear a child. I took all the classes in high school to make my dreams a reality (parenting, sewing, home economics) any and all courses to make my dreams become reality and further prepare myself to be the best mother I could be.
So, when I saw those two very definite lines show up, the confirmation that I would finally become a mother sent trillions of emotions spreading over me like a waterfall.
Chris, hearing me scream, came running in my sister’s room where I sat clutching the test and my chest simultaneously as if letting go of either one would be the death of me. And as if he had some inside knowledge, he knew as soon as he locked eyes with me. I screamed, “IM PREGNANT!” at him with slight hysterics backing it up.
They say you always get pregnant once you sober up
I was glowing from head to toe, if that’s even a real thing. I was in my happy place. I was able to finally see a glimpse of a better life with Chris and our unborn baby. Together, as parents there would be no room for an ending that wasn’t happy.
I was crazy, hormonal and bitchy though. Chris got a job at Dial America and Camille let me use the spare car to get him to and from work. She moved into Carlton Arms Apartments because my hormones proved too much for her to handle and TJ decided to take his adventures elsewhere and met a guy in the panhandle who had a sailboat that he hired TJ to fix up for him.
We had our own place, a decent little car, we were off drugs and we had little baby Willey on the way.
Everything was going well until Zack Samion came into the picture. We were walking home from the corner store when he comes out of the path riding his bicycle and waving a big ‘ol bag of meth and saying, “Shards for sale!”
That’s how methamphetamine got reintroduced into our lives
Chris would use meth for the duration of my pregnancy, and he’d also buy morphine pills from our neighbor every few days, shooting up the poison on a daily basis. I’d spend most of my time over Ruthie and Eric’s house, they were our neighbors but became more like family to us.
If that addictive behavior with the meth and morphine wasn’t enough Chris met a heroin dealer at work that lived in Spring Hill
morphonemorphine wasn’t enough Chris met
One day Chris was super high and not acting himself, calling me really awful names and just belittling me. I don’t remember exactly what our fight was about but I was 22 weeks pregnant when we started having it out with each other, and it wasn’t settling down. We called each other some pretty awful names and I’m sure it ended with me calling him a junkie. He absolutely hated it when I called him that.
He shoved me, ripped my shirt and scratched my arm as I fell belly first onto the bed. Instead of continuing this futile fight we were having I called up my childhood best friend, Tiffany. She dropped everything, grabbed her best friend Cassie and came to get me.
Bringing me to her mother’s house, I was 5 months pregnant with blood trickling down my arm. I felt like a victim of domestic violence. I felt like I was less than I ever should have felt about myself.
But, I wanted that picture perfect family. I wanted my son to have both his mother and his father together and married and no one was going to get in the way of that. But, after I got home from Brenda and Jerry’s house the next day I started bleeding so I had my sister bring me to the emergency room.
The emergency room checked the baby’s heart rate, which was fine and sent me on my way. The next day the bleeding didn’t stop so I went back to the emergency room. Again, they checked his heartbeat and sent me home. On the 3rd day, the bleeding was becoming worse and clots were coming out so I went to the hospital one last time and demanded they take an ultrasound.
My baby was sitting in his amniotic fluid with a completely busted placenta, his birth bag bulging into my vagina with his foot sticking out. He was going to be born soon.
Camille went and picked up Chris and brought him to the hospital where we were met with a specialist from Bayfront Baby Place and Tampa General Hospital. The specialists for micro premature births gave us the statistics.
Our baby boy had a 7% chance of survival, with a 75% chance of those babies being born with severe cerebral palsy. I was being told that my son would almost definitely not make it through child birth and if he did that his chances at holding down a decent life were slim to none.
I didn’t know what to do with that information. Everyone all around us kept pressuring me to make a decision but the only thing I could do was decide to be Bay flighted to Tampa General Hospital via helicopter so that there would be a well equipped NICU team ready to take care of my baby as soon as he was born. I also opted out of a C-section despite it being recommended. I believed that if my baby were to live that it would be because God intended it to be so, and me getting cut open wouldn’t be much of a difference.
The helicopter ride was nerve wracking, to say the least. The attendant advised me not to move and to stay as relaxed as possible because if my water broke there would be nothing he could do about it in the air.
After arriving, I sat in the hospital for days. Tiffany and Cassie came to visit me once. Camille and Chris came and stayed the night with me and visited every so often. The longer I stayed with child, the more hopeful I became. They had me lying diagonal with my feet up in the air and my head down low and shortly after being admitted my little baby’s foot with his bulging back was sticking right out of me. If I reached down I could feel his little foot kick my fingers.
Then it happened. I got that overwhelming feeling that I had to poop. We all have heard the stories, pregnant women in labor have to poop and BAM! baby is here. But, I knew that was going to happen and felt so much pressure not to because any amount of pushing meant giving birth.
I held it in as long as I could, then I had them wheel over a portable toilet to my bed and with Chris snapping away taking pictures I took a dump. Even though I knew I’d be giving birth any moment later Chris decided it would be best to go home for the night.
The next day, around noon I knew it was time. I made it to 24 weeks on the nose, which meant his survival rate went up a few. I remember arguing with Chris to get into the Uber that Donna had sent for him and him yelling at me that he wasn’t fucking ready yet.
The entire emergency NICU team was setting up in my room. There weren’t any friends or family with me on the scariest days of my life. I remember being so stinking scared. Doctors and nurses were all around me as they prepared me for the birth of my son.
The last thing they told me is they hope he’s born in his birth bag, because chances of his survival would be so much better with that type of cushion.
One big push and out comes my entire embiotic sac with the tiniest fragile lifeless body inside. It was 1:36pm when they cut open the water bag, the amniotic fluid spilling out. They carried his lifeless body onto the small little operation table made specifically for little newborns and they performed CPR, they covered him in an aluminum blanket to preserve his warmth
My heart was at a standstill. It was as if the earth stopped turning, that everything froze except for the room I was in. Everyone is moving fast, moving delicately working hard to save the life of this precious baby boy.
Finally, I snapped out of it and a nurse wheeled Ezekiel over to me so I could have a quick glance at the miracle I just gave birth to. I could breathe again.
Being born in his water bag saved him from having a very serious brain injury, but he was still born with a level 4 brain bleed on the left side of his brain. He was born 1lb 7.3oz and was 11 inches long, which was the length of a barbie doll.
Ezekiel Thelonius Willey, we named him. Ezekiel because it was the name Chris’ father wanted to give him when he was born and Thelonius after the social worker we had in Salisbury that tried to help us get our life on track.
Chris showed up to the hospital a good 20 minutes after my delivery, right after I delivered my abrupted placenta. Both of us are determined to see our son, so I propped myself up against the back of a wheelchair and walked my broken, aching, bleeding body down the hall with the help of Chris and into the NICU.
He was so small. His skin was practically transparent. His tiny little eyes were still fused shut needing a few more weeks until they were mature enough to open. But, he was here! Alive!
Hooked up to all the different machines and wires, everything had a very important job to keep our baby alive.
Alexis, the NICU nurse, was an absolute dream and she very much took a liking to Zeke, requesting him as her patient every shift she took.
They don’t tell you this but after you give birth to your baby, the baby will actually drop in weight after drying out from all the amniotic fluid. So when Zeke’s weight dropped I damn near had a heart attack.
Slowly but surely my little man began gaining weight. He was drinking nothing but the best in donated breast milk until he got strong enough for formula because I wasn’t producing any.
His NICU stay wasn’t easy. The faint of heart may not have been able to make it to the other side. He had multiple surgeries and the doctors called me in to say goodbye on more than one occasion. He had retinopathy of prematurity, he was under the bilirubin lights for his jaundice, he had a hernia and feeding issues from the start. It was a whirlwind of a journey
One night, after coming home from the hospital after seeing Zeke and saying goodbye to him, not thinking he’d make it til the morning. I stripped out of my clothes and God into the shower. I cried out to God with every fiber of my being and begged him to save my son’s life. Begged and promised that if he spared my son’s life that id do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in my power to protect him and give him the life he deserves.
And in that moment, I fell to my knees in the shower. I was struck down with something that I can only describe to you as the Holy Spirit. I burst into tears, yet felt overwhelmed by joy. I knew that day, at that moment that my son was going to be alright.
On September 15, 2017 we were able to bring our baby boy home. He came equipped with oxygen tanks, O2 sensors and a few other little gadgets. I had weeks and weeks of doctors appointments all lined up, relying solely on medical transportation to bring me to them, but I did it.
Allie Willey 