So, about this band. Read part 1 first, that's the way to do things. This one should cover approximately 2001-2006.

After a while, we decided to be rockstars. It was an easy decision, because we played rock and roll music for high-school students, and also because Delirious was running around in silver tuxedos and paisley leather pants and such, and they were worship leaders. In retrospect, we weren't very good at rockstar. I mean, the music, sure. But nobody should have made Hannah wear red leather pants and platform shoes.

When I last left you on the Clarkives, Toby had been born and there was much rejoicing in the land. A very short 6 months later, we found we were pregnant again. Well, again, it was ME that was pregnant, as men are not capable of pregnancy, regardless of what Hollywood and Arnold might like you to believe. I wish I could blot Junior out of my MIND.

When I felt the first contractions at around 14 weeks, I was devastated. By this point, I was extremely familiar with what labor felt like for me, and these were definitely contractions. We made up a modified bedrest plan…

So, at 17 weeks I went to bed. Richy was working a day job at this point, and couldn’t help during the days, so family members came and took care of R2 and Toby, and I laid in bed and sulked, a lot.

Eventually, my mama pulled another “Snap out of it” and got me started on a quilting project, my first (and last?) quilt. It took me HOURS a day. I dreamed and sewed and listened to music and I got my hopes up. When I found I was having a girl, I was ecstatic. I could not believe it. Finally, after 4 boys. We had chosen the name Brynn for a girl in every pregnancy, so there wasn't much to discuss, she was Brynn. We designed a quilt with pink and black and poodles and man, it was adorable.

Like my Toby pregnancy, we used Terbutaline for a while, and eventually switched to Procardia. I can’t remember if it worked any better than Terb, but it must not have, because we only made it to 29 weeks.

At 29 weeks, when I went to the hospital, I was pretty sure it was over. I had worked so hard at not being hospitalized for 12 weeks, and I was tired. I don’t think I could have fought any harder. Once we knew it was game on, they finally tracked down Dr. Reed, who was at a Steve Miller Band concert. She had to leave early to get to us, and she jokingly griped at us. It’s funny, because 29 weeks is still WAY too early, and we all knew there were no guarantees, but there was such peace in the room. We had the staff totally cracking up in between the stages of labor.

When she was born, they gave her to us to hold, while a nurse stood off to the side holding a bag valve mask over her mouth. It’s pretty blurry, since I ALWAYS take as much labor pain drugs as possible. Richy says she was breathing so well at that time that the nursing staff let him hold her for several minutes.  She stayed in the NICU for 7 weeks, and was pretty much a rockstar the whole time, with very few setbacks. Her NICU stay was the hardest I ever waited through, because the MOG was working a day job and I had 2 toddlers at home, so I was limited in the amount of hours a day I could be up there. NICU life is an agonizing balance. I always felt an unbearable desire to sit and wait by the bedside, at the same time knowing the rest of my family needed me and I needed to do things like eat and sleep.

She finally passed her car-seat test and got to come home in April. And then we were FIVE. 

I never thought about what it would be like, having a daughter. It's such a treasure to have a little woman in my house, being beautiful and passionate and emotional and just what God made her to be. She was so worth the wait. 

I left you, a long time ago, with the story of losing the twins. That post has been getting some new traffic lately as I make new friends, so I thought, hey! I should keep updating the Clarkives and not leave you all in the valley of the shadow and what-not.

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Now I will tell the Story of Toby, in 2 parts.

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*Warning* this is a chapter about getting pregnant and staying pregnant, and as such, will involve conception and cervixes and so on.

A month after the twins died, we went to Colorado for a 50 day prayer initiative. In retrospect, it was a really good way to heal. Richy led worship every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and I went up there once a day and the rest of the time stayed in my little apartment with R2, looking at Pikes Peak and letting myself grieve. One of the things we decided during that season was that we were not through trying to have biological children.

We got pregnant (well, mostly me) in May. I remember looking at the positive test with Richy, and we were like, well, here we go! It’s strange remembering how absolutely full of hope and faith we were- in the aftermath of the last 2 pregnancies- it had to be the grace of God.

I got on the phone as soon as I knew I was pregnant- trying to get in with a dr that was well-known for high-risk successes. They weren’t accepting new patients, so they shut me down right away, but I kept calling back until I got an office manager, who heard the story and asked Dr. Reed to make an exception, and she did. I think she was intrigued by the challenge.

I explained to her early on that I would be going on bedrest at 4 months, which is when I typically start labor. She was skeptical of the effectiveness of “preventative” bedrest, but mostly supportive.

I went to the hospital the first time at 16 weeks for contractions. They monitored me for several hours and then started me on Terbutaline. Terbutaline is a vicious drug. It speeds your heartrate up significantly, and makes you shaky and jittery all the time. It also helps to stop contractions, so I lived with the side effects. In addition to the drugs, I went to bed. The only times I stood up were to walk to the bathroom and to take a shower.

At 19 weeks, the contractions got close together, and I panicked. We went to labor and delivery, but I wasn’t considered viable and they were trying to send me home, but Dr. Reed showed up and barked at enough people to get me upstairs and in a room. I ended up staying the night and getting drugged with some kind of labor-stopper (tocolytic) . She also recommended that I keep doing what I was doing, which was strict bedrest. That night, as Richy prayed, he got some direction from the Lord, that the baby would live, and that his name would mean Peace. (thus the middle name Paxton)

It was a struggle to keep my mind and heart away from fear. Somewhere in there, my contractions got really out of control and I got terribly afraid. Richy went on a fast and prayed, and they stopped completely for several days, which gave me such a faith boost to keep going. Richy decided to cancel his summer tours and stay home with me. In the morning, I would wake up and put on clothes, and then move from the bed to the futon. Richy had his piano set up in there, and all day I would lay on my left side and listen to him play and sing. I learned how to really soak and find peace, and as long as he played, I would have very few contractions.

All through this time, I had been having weekly doctor visits. Every other week I had an ultrasound, and the in between weeks, I would have cervical checks to see if I had started dilating.
I did start dilating at some point, I don’t remember what week, but it added to the strain and the wait.

We stayed the course, me lying on my left side, him playing and singing, and R2 right in the middle of everything.

To be continued…

Warning: this is a very long,  sad story. It's okay if you skip it. I wanted to put it all in one post and be done.

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Pregnant with twins:

I had delivered R2 at 24 weeks, so we were understandably nervous about going into a second pregnancy. Everyone assured us that R2’s early birth was a fluke. I didn’t have an incompetent cervix, and there was no physical, explainable reason for my premature labor. So we set off to have a normal pregnancy.

We had an ultrasound pretty early- about 7 weeks and found out we were having twins. It shouldn’t have been a huge surprise, since my mom and my sister both had fraternal twins, but it was. (some of you are shrieking- and your husband’s a twin! He’s a twin too! And yeah, he is – but he’s an identical twin, which is random and not genetic)

We were blown away, and so excited. I went on the road with the band, and we talked about it at every stop. I had set up my own precautions- not totally taking the doctor’s word for it. I had a bed in the back of the van, and laid down most of the time, except for the concerts. I quit touring at about 14 weeks.

At 20 weeks, the band went to Europe for 2 weeks and I went to my sister’s house. I had had some warning signs, but my doctor was adamant that there was nothing wrong. We had calls in to perinatologists in Houston, but they weren’t getting back to us- so we waited.  I started having lots of contractions, and went to bed. I was with my mom, and she watched R2 and cooked and every day, Richy would call from Switzerland to make sure I was lying down and see how everything was going. It was terrifying. I was doing everything I knew to do and still could not control my body.

The MOG returned to the US and we had an appointment with the high risk doctors finally scheduled for the day after he got back. I knew the amount of contractions I had been having- and I knew they could not be good for my body at such an early stage of pregnancy. I was right. They examined me and I was dilated to 2. They admitted me immediately. I had walked into the clinic, but I was not allowed to walk out. They sent a wheelchair, and I cried across the catwalk to the main hospital. It was the same hospital I had delivered R2 at, and the same gestation, in the SAME WEEK, 5 years later.

Once we were settled in, we decided to make it a long stay. My water was not broken, we figured, and we were in better shape than we had been with R2. So I put myself on strict bedrest, even arguing with nurses who wanted me to get up and walk- by this point I wished I had been following my gut all along and I was not budging.

We made a giant calendar counting to two goals- our “small faith” goal of 32 weeks and our “big faith” goal of all the way. We made the room as cheerful as possible and things improved. I had ultrasounds frequently, and I was kept in wide elastic straps that measured contractions and the babies’ heartbeats, around the clock. I was on heavy doses of magnesium sulfate, which was supposed to work for 48 hours and then they’d have to switch drugs. I also got steroid shots to help the babies’ lungs develop.

I made it 6 days before they were unable to stop labor. It was 2 days after R2’s 5^th birthday, and I was 24 weeks and 0 days. We weighed options, and decided to go with a  c-section, to try to avoid the damage to the blood vessels in the brain R2 had suffered during a natural birth. I knew it was too early- I just hoped and prayed they would be miracles like R2.

I did not get to see them when they were born. They were too sick- they had to get them to the NICU right away. They let R1 hold Evan (the oldest) for a split second and then they were gone. We went to the NICU and met them as soon as they were hooked up, which seems like hours but I don’t know how long it actually was.

Evan Roberts Clark was first, He had a slightly stockier build and a less pointed chin than R2.  They were each 1 lb 8 oz, and again, tiny like little Barbie dolls. Rees Howells Clark was built just like R2 and his daddy, with R2’s chin. They had very distinct personalities, even under the circumstances. We feel like we know them.

Evan was pretty sick, and the doctors were working desperately to try to stabilize him, but babies are not meant to be born 4 months early- and their little bodies can’t keep up. Rees was much stronger. They had him on the most delicate ventilator, and were hopeful that they could wean him to a better one within a day or two. They were born around 8:45 pm on the 7th, and all day on the 8th we would wheel over and see them, then go back to the room and process and cry and pray.

We were back in our room, trying to sleep when they called us around midnight. When I heard the ringing, I knew. I rode down in the wheelchair, and R1 sang over Evan while we said goodbye. I was on a lot of morphine, and my mind was so cloudy. They gave him to me, but he was already gone and I was panicking. I just held him and cried for a minute and then I gave him back. I will regret for the rest of my life letting go so soon.

We went and saw Rees as soon as we left Evan, and he had taken a slight downturn. Someone told us that happens with twins sometimes. We loved on Rees for a while, (from a distance- he was in an incubator) and there was some hope that he would rally and pull through- so we went to sleep. They called me in the middle of the night with an update- he was really heading downhill. That was the darkest moment of my life- when I realized I would be going home with empty arms.

He made it through a lot of the day, but he was fighting so, so hard and we knew something had to give. They called us around 4 in the afternoon to come and say goodbye.  His neonatologist was the same doctor who had helped R2 during his NICU stay, and she was working way past when they would normally give up. We gave them permission to stop, and then we held him and said goodbye. I opened his little blanket and looked at his feet, and recognized them as his daddy’s.

Of course that's not the end of the story, but I don't want to blog the first weeks without them. 

They were born on June 7th and their last day on earth was June 9^th, 2004. Heaven will be such a sweet reunion. 

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There. I told you it was a sad story, but feel free to ask questions.

This is part 5 in an ongoing history of us... Links to the first 4 parts are over on the left sidebar over there.

The History of Radiant Worship by Jessica Clark... Part 1 of a 2 or 3 part series.

(click to enlarge)

The history of the band begins with Net Work Praise Band... but not too long before that, and before he met Jesus, Richy had been one of the frontmen of a band known as the Toxic Crayolas, famous for causing a minor riot and mosh pit at Conroe High School around 1992...

Later, he got saved, and eventually wrote that classic, Under My Feet. UMF was a sort of speed metal high praise song with a rap-influenced bridge. Net Work Praise Band borrowed an ADAT from someone and made a bootleg CD, on cassette only, of Under My Feet and several cover songs. If Dennis Jernigan had been dead, he would have been turning in his grave. It’s highly unlikely he, being alive, was ever made aware of our version of “I belong to Jesus”.
We sold 100 copies of Net Work Bootleg (if you’re the feds, somebody else sold them) for $5 each. I don’t ever remember seeing the money. Hmm.

   

As we got more organized and Richy wrote a few more hits, we dropped the Net Work and became simply, Praise Band. We were experiencing a revival in our youth group, and the songs from that season carried so much breakthrough and passion. We recorded our first CD as Praise Band in 1997, I think. The CD was called “Everything” and it is no longer available. We went on our first tour in 1998, up the West Coast for a 2 week period. I shudder to think of what we looked like, and sounded like, since we can tell from the pictures that we were mega-geeks. Still, everywhere we went, God moved through the music, and people were saved.

Soon, we had evidently reached the degree of fame that we were detected. We were contacted by Maranatha Praise Band and legally ordered to drop the name Praise Band. That’s the bigtime, folks.

Our next band name was Found, despite my objections. We were still leading worship multiple times a week at our home church, both for the youth and the adult services. The band had somehow morphed into a very, very large group of people. Richy was working at the church fulltime at this point, and was having good long devotional times to write songs... so some beautiful stuff, including You Are Holy, came out of this time. We were leading the youth, and we had them leading multiple home groups, really a fruitful season. We recorded Take Me There, live at Christ the King Church.

Somewhere in here, we did a live concert at Houston Baptist University, and my dad made a live bootleg recording (for real, bootleg. We told him not to) and sold them on the side. We never saw that money either. Hmm.

Stay tuned for more wacky adventures with those rascally Radiants!

This is another edition of the Clark archives, you can find older chapters over on the sidebar under "The Story of Us".

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Okay, I'm going to jump around in chronology here, because I'm all sci-fi and I can do that. Last clarkive, I covered R2's birth.

Now we're going backwards to the 2 years prior to that, 1997-98. Richy and I were both working at Hewitt Associates, and doing youth ministry about 3 nights a week and over the weekends. Josh (josharoo) and Richy and I were doing full-time youth pastoring while holding day jobs, and we knew our goal was to be able to just do ministry. Our church was in the process of developing a ministry school, and Pastor Mike asked Richy if he would consider quitting his day job and going to the brand new Joshua School of Ministry.

When Richy asked me about it, I was all for it, with the condition that I could go too. So we began the process of quitting our jobs and moving back in with my parents, which freed our expenses up to be just our car payment and on occasion, even car insurance!

There were 8 of us in that guinea pig edition of Joshua School. We were committed to 4 hours of class a day, 3-4 hours of homework per day, and I forget how many prayer hours, plus the youth services we had already been doing. Basically, we were all suicidal.

We had to find creative ways to live during the 10 month program. For us, it was fairly easy. We lived with my parents and ate their food, plus the church paid us $500 a month to keep up what we were doing with the youth group, and I cleaned the church once a week.

For our friends, it was a bit more of a stretch.

•Ann came from Palestine, Texas and moved in with the Bretts, who already had 4 kids and a dog in a little house.

•John worked full-time overnights and came to class with a psychotic gleam in his eye.
 <--John

•Josh sold knives, and a variety of other work-from home projects. Oh, and he lived in a treehouse. That cut way back on his expenses.

•His brother Jeremy lived in a shed. He had a bed and a desk and he might have had a block to walk to the restroom, I can't remember.

•Joseph and Tabitha came from India and lived with the Reicherts.

It was a hellish, wonderful year of our lives. We began the year with a course called Issues of the Heart, which makes you go deeeep and learn what is hindering you from loving others. It's kind of like a heart transplant without anesthetic. I consider my primary salvation experience as happening in that class.

Then we began the full school program. We were taught for about 4 hours, 5 days a week. Then we’d go home, or to our treehouse, and study and do the homework... things like: 

“Spend 3 hours in worshipful adoration before the Lord. Do not ask for anything. Journal your results.” 

“Go to a public place and share a 1-minute version of your testimony with a stranger.” 

“Find an unbeliever that is willing to go through a 10 week foundational Bible study with you.” 

“Engage in an overnight corporate prayer gathering this week.” 

And we did it. The only way to get your diploma of Ministry was to do 100% of the work. Every one of us graduated. We would have all had perfect attendance, too, but Josh went to jail once. Oh, and John had a nervous break of some kind from working so much and quit school for a few hours. But he came back.


When graduation finally came, everyone was just so relieved that the crazy ride was over, we didn't see what we had really done. But now, with the retrospect of 10 years (hey, we should have a reunion) I know that it was one of the best years of my life, and some amazing exponential growth. It gave us such solid roots and foundation for the course our lives would take.

When Pastor Mike's flight to graduation is late, Richy and Josh and I thoughtfully entertain the crowd.

The continuing historical series about our journey together as a family. The first two archives can be located over on the sidebar, under "The Story of Us".  I am skipping some chronology here, we actually went to Bible school next... but  I haven't finished that one yet. 

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Our plan was to wait 5 years and then decide if we wanted to have kids. We were so happy doing ministry and so very busy with the youth, we really didn’t see how we could give any attention to a child.

Fortunately for us, I was too scatterbrained to remember to take a pill every day. We started suspecting I might be pregnant in January. I failed a home pregnancy test and I was so sad. That was when we knew we wanted to have a baby. Which was a good thing, because I was pregnant. I have learned since then that I don’t get a positive with an HPT until I am further along.

We were giddy. I told my dad, “Daddy, I’m pregnant!” and his response was guarded. “Did you want to be?” I had to reassure him and then he was excited. That night we told the youth group and they celebrated at Taco Bell well into the night. I craved strawberries. I bought a ton of pregnancy books, and a fetal heartbeat monitor. We were giddy.

When I was about 20 weeks, I started noticing a strange cramping feeling. Research in all my books left me unconcerned... I wasn’t having any symptoms of miscarriage. So we went on with our normal lives for another several weeks. We went to the Star Wars prequel opening... and 3 high school graduations.

Yes, we were that cool

On Tuesday, June 1st, my water broke. I was 23 weeks pregnant. We rushed to the ER, where they sent us to Labor and Delivery. Our doctor met us there and told me I was going to have a baby today. I was absolutely in shock. That was the first time I realized my pregnancy was over, but I had no concept of what would happen next.
After a couple of hours, they had me doped up enough that the contractions were pretty stable, and I was transferred to Houston.

I spent 4 days on bedrest there with little amniotic fluid, and then on June 5th I got a fever and went into labor. I was 24 weeks pregnant, just 1 day beyond what the hospital considered a viable baby. In other words, they would not have resuscitated him if he had been born earlier. 

Day 1

He was 1 pound... He was 12 inches long, you really can't imagine how small that is... it's as long as a Barbie doll. He was so skeletal and his skin was really red... his epidermis wasn't very thick yet. The first time I saw him, I panicked. He didn't look human and I was so scared. I had Richy wheel me out into the hallway where I melted down. My mom was waiting out there and gave me a stern talking-to. "That's your baby in there! Now snap out of it and go talk to that baby."

After the infamous "snap out of it" talk

It was good advice. I went back in there and talked to him. Then I sat 

right there by his incubator from about 10 am to 11 pm every day, for 4 

months. I read books, mostly. With all of my babies I haven't had a whole lot to say in their NICU stages, but I felt like my presence was enough, and that I should be right there and hold them as much as possible. Richy was there as much as possible, too, although he had to go back to work 

eventually.

Our first time to get to hold him- 20 days old

I don't know how much to post about his NICU journey. Multiple times, the next thing happened that was supposed to kill him. And it didn't. One night we went back to our hotel and waited for the call to come say goodbye. It never came. He made it through crisis after crisis. He was, and is such a fighter.

We learned quickly not to think too far ahead. We took on that day's crisis, and hoped tomorrow would take care of itself.

After 4 months, we brought him home. He came home on an oxygen cannula and an apnea monitor. His head was huge, swollen from hydrocephalus.
For us, though... he was just our baby. We thought he was cute and sweet... took jillions of pictures and we were so thrilled to finally get to bring him home. I think I'll stop there for now because this is already a very long post.

The NICU journey has TONS more, medical, spiritual, emotional. I'm just condensing for the sake of my readers. If there is something you want me to expound upon, let me know.

Next part here

Part II in a historical series about we the Clarks. You can read Part I here.

We got married in August of 1996. I was 17 and he was 18. My parents went to the courthouse to sign me away, and to the poorhouse to pay for the wedding. Fortunately, they made trips to the poorhouse and back all the time, so within a few months, they were rich again. Until the next round, anyway. RIP Cal Stanley, computer extrordinaire but a little weak on the bookkeeping.

We were doing youth ministry and didn't really have any desire to go to college... to us, it was a stepping stone to a career and we already had the job we wanted, ministering to kids. We have never regretted that decision.

We set off on married life and very quickly landed amazing jobs making lots of money. We were 18 and rich (for teenagers, anyway) and we lived in an apartment by ourselves. We were pretty giddy.

3 months after we got married, we brought home a kitty, and then a 16 year old. Andrew was estranged from his family.. he got invited to our home group (one of our kids invited him to a kegger, little did we know. He said he just kept waiting during the prayer and worship for somebody to break out the beer...) Both Andrew and the kitty (Chopper) lived with us for the next several years. We were working full-time, and doing youth services and home groups and it was crazy and busy but so fun.

We were either the same age or 2-3 years older than the kids we pastored... I got "carded" at more youth pastor functions than I care to remember. The pigtails and knee-high socks probably didn't help with my street cred.

Around this time, kids were just flocking to our youth services. It was a sovereign thing. We did very little promotion and no games. Just worship and preaching... and God showed up week after week and blew us all away. I quickly got an education in dysfunction. These were hurt kids, messed up kids. They were 14, 15 years old and in many ways on their own. My heart expanded and I LOVED them all. Even the ones who only came one time. I would look at them with their smeared eyeliner and scarred arms... and just see hurt little kids. They were beautiful. I miss those kids.

We gave ourselves body and soul to serving those kids for the next 3 years. During that time, Richy started writing songs... we had a hard time finding anything that really expressed our hearts and the movement, so he just started writing. More on that later.

We actually youth-pastored for 7 years, but I will stop here around the 3-year mark, because... 3 years into our 5-year plan, we discovered we were expecting our first mini-Clark!

Part III here

Today I begin a historical series on me and the Mister, and our travels through life. I will publish a chapter every now and then, maybe weekly, maybe not. They will be somewhat chronological, although not religiously.

If I leave a subject under-represented, let me know and maybe I can give you some more info, you Nosy Nellys.

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It all began when I was born.

Okay, I won't really go that far back. I'll start with the story of me and the man of God.

We met in 1994, when he was dating an acquaintance of mine.

Richy had risen to some renown in 9th grade, when he and his brother had led a band through a Metallica medley of sorts in the school talent show. (see: moshing in the bleachers) They (the Toxic Crayolas) were such a smash hit that we continued getting devil horns in public for a good 5 years after we were married. He got saved when he was 14, 15, and 16. It stuck after 16.

I was raised in church and Christian school, and while I may have had a peek or two at objectional words in a dictionary, I was basically pure as the driven snow. Through a series of events probably having to do with being broke, I ended up in public school after 9+years of private. I immediately bonded with the freaks and deviants in the drama department, and for the first time ever, found people who "got" me that didn't live in my house.

We were having revival, or renewal or something at my church, and Richy came to get him some Holy Ghost. We hit it off immediately. I thought he was so cute and bad with his long-ish hair and earring and musical skills. He thought I was smart and funny, although awkward-looking.



I had never met someone so passionate about God. I had also never met someone so messed up. (since then, I have met MANY far more messed up, but I was sheltered) I came to an understanding of pain, and of mercy and hunger for God. Simultaneously, I fell in love.

We started officially dating in November of 1994. I knew by January I would marry him. We went to our junior and senior proms together. We also started leading a youth ministry out of our local church, along with our friend Josh. It was the beginning of an explosive season of God saving young people in our youth group. I was 16, he was 17.

You may recognize Josh and Shannon. This is an entirely different Shannon from the one Josh ended up marrying. Josh also ended up choosing different eyewear, which was a very wise choice.




We got engaged in January of 1996, graduated high school in May, and got married in August. But THAT is another post.

Part II here