Escape

by Carolyn Jessop

  Twenty-four weeks into my pregnancy I started to have complications. I started to bleed from placenta previa. At first the bleeding was manageable, but it increased as the pregnancy progressed, and I knew it could be life-threatening if the cervix dilated enough to rip the placenta apart. I could bleed to death in a matter of minutes.

  Audrey’s husband agreed to let her help me as much as she could during the day. I had to rest as much as possible. Cathleen helped with my other children when she was home by doing laundry and helping me keep their bedrooms clean. I managed to make it through another four weeks until I was finally hospitalized during my twenty-eighth week. When I stabilized, I was sent to Jubilee House, across the street from the hospital. It was a home for cancer patients who needed daily outpatient therapy but lived out of town. It wasn’t routinely used for high-risk pregnancy patients, but my obstetrician wanted me near the hospital so I could be closely monitored and whisked into the ER at the first sign of an emergency.

  I’d stayed at Jubilee House once before and was able to go back again.

  I concentrated on trying to have a healthy baby. It was the best thing I could do for all of us. A severely premature infant would need constant care and run the risk of having disabilities. I couldn’t care for two compromised children on my own.

  I was given two shots of medication to help the baby’s lungs develop. The rest was welcome. I had not had a night of uninterrupted sleep for over a year. I had plenty of food and fluids in the hospital and could feel myself becoming stronger. But it was hard to maintain because I was hemorrhaging more frequently and I lost more blood each time. Sometimes I passed huge blood clots. I would hemorrhage about every three days, and that made me feel weaker and weaker even with the food and rest.

  Audrey brought Harrison to see me along with several of my other children, which made me so happy. Harrison was doing better. Audrey’s devotion to him was absolute. My other children snuggled in bed with me. It was so sweet, but I was so scared. I didn’t know when I could really mother them again because I felt so overwhelmed by the thought of caring for a new baby and Harrison. I felt unstable emotionally because I was so depleted from all the blood loss. Most of time I just wanted to cry.

  The three weeks I spent in St. George seemed like an eternity. It was such a dramatic shift for me to be bedridden. Harrison’s care had consumed my days and nights for so long. I was too weak even to read, and I slept most of the time. I could not watch more than forty minutes of television before I had to turn it off because the noise was too tiring. I had been quilting some baby blankets before I came to the hospital, but I was too weak to move my fingers enough to sew. Severe headaches—probably from all the blood loss—were a daily problem.

  One morning my phone rang. It was Cathleen. “Have you heard the news?” I told her I’d been sound asleep. “Turn on the TV. We’ve just been attacked. They hit the World Trade Center in New York.”

  “Who hit the Trade Center?” I asked.

  “No one knows yet. All we know is that the towers came down and thousands of people were killed.” I don’t think she’d seen pictures; no one in Colorado City had a television. Cathleen had heard about it at work from people who listened to the radio. Warren Jeffs’ followers were some of the few people in the world who never saw coverage of the 9/11 attacks.

  I turned on the television and saw the replay of the towers collapsing. It was beyond comprehension. The images were sickening. It was hard to watch, harder not to watch. The pictures burned through to my soul. I, like so many others, had thought America was invulnerable.

  It was upsetting to me to see Arabs dancing in the streets because of the 9/11 attacks. I had a hard time watching people rejoice over killing and death even though I knew they hated us.

  What was worse was the reaction from people in Colorado City. Tammy came to visit me with several of Merril’s daughters in the aftermath of 9/11. She couldn’t stop talking about how she and all the righteous people she knew saw the hand of God in the attacks. The Lord’s people had finally proven worthy enough for God to answer their prophet’s prayers. The destruction of the towers was just the beginning. Warren Jeffs had been preaching that the entire earth would soon be at war and all the worthy among the chosen would be lifted from the earth and protected, while God destroyed the wicked.

  Tammy’s fanaticism was as idiotic to me as the Islamic extremism of the men who’d flown the planes into the twin towers. I had been taught as a child that only the wicked would be destroyed before the beginning of the thousand years of peace. Thousands of ordinary citizens had been murdered on 9/11, and it was impossible for me to see how anyone—even Warren Jeffs—could spin this as an act of God.

  Uncle Rulon had encouraged us to pray for the destruction of the wicked. I never could pray for harm to come to anyone else. Watching the smoldering ruins at Ground Zero and listening to the final, frantic cell phone calls of those trapped in the towers made me know in the deepest part of my being that only the wicked could rejoice in a tragedy like this—which didn’t say much for my own community.

  My doctor was pleased when I made it to thirty-one weeks—nine weeks short of a normal pregnancy. He thought the baby was doing well and said that he’d do a C-section when the placenta finally tore and I started to hemorrhage. Every day that my pregnancy continued made my baby healthier and stronger.

  Merril came frequently to St. George. He was thrilled to have finally gotten one of his wives pregnant again. He drove up to Jubilee House several times a week and took me out for a steak dinner and was planning to stay with me overnight, but once when Barbara called, in tears, he turned around and drove back.

  I was so frightened being alone when I was sick that it was a relief to have Merril there. He came just as I was beginning my thirty-first week. I awoke during the night in labor. I could feel the contractions beginning to come. I stayed still, thinking that maybe I could will them to stop. But two hours later, I was hemorrhaging massive amounts of blood. Blood pooled around me. Merril called the ER and told them to send an ambulance.

  One of the EMTs was a woman. When she saw the amount of blood around me she started shouting orders. “I have to get a line into her while I still can!” In minutes she had two IVs in each of my arms. She didn’t start them on a drip, she just opened them up. I sensed how frantic she was beneath her professional calm. She called the hospital and said she was taking me directly to the OR.

  I was so dizzy that I felt like I was going to pass out. It was hard to breathe. The last thing I remember was a doctor in the ER trying to keep an oxygen mask over my face. Each time the mask was put over my face I panicked and tried to push it off.

  I did not wake up again until I was in the recovery room. I asked a nurse if my baby was okay. She said he had stabilized. I was relieved.

  I’d had two previous C-sections, but never before had I been in such penetrating pain. I asked the nurse for more medication. She told me she’d given me as much as she could and that I shouldn’t be in pain.

  But I was. I was in too much pain for everything to be all right. Merril came in and was extremely happy because our baby was tiny and cute. I told Merril something was wrong. I was in too much pain. He wasn’t concerned. When he left the room I lost consciousness.

  The nurse tried to take my blood pressure and couldn’t find one. I came to and remember my bed being pushed down the hall and people running on both sides of it. An ICU doctor running beside me was trying to put a central line in my neck and had the line placed before the brakes were locked on the bed. I still had two IVs in each arm. The door flew open to the ICU and the room was flooded with people. A bag of blood was being connected to the central line.

  A doctor was yelling orders and people were moving fast. I had never been in so much pain. It felt like every cell in my body was screaming for oxygen. I felt such thirst, no amount of water would have quenched it. If the worst pain I’d ever had during childbirth had been a 10, the pain I felt now was at 100.
The pain, noise, and chaos were too much.

  I decided to let go.

  I could hear the doctor’s voice in the distance saying, “We’re losing her, we’re losing her!”

  I was slipping under the waves of pain and chaos.

  The doctor’s voice sounded farther and farther away.

  Then it got louder.

  “Carolyn! We know you have eight kids! We are not going to let you die. You are not going to die on us!”

  At that moment I started fighting to come back.

  It felt like sledgehammers were hitting me on all sides. My thirst was unbearable. I started begging for water. I was told I couldn’t have any because I was going back into surgery.

  When I awoke again I could see the colors of a brilliant sunset through a window in the ICU. I took a deep breath. The sun was setting and I was still alive.

  The pain was almost gone now. I still had four IVs and was receiving blood through a central line. My entire body was swollen. I felt like a beached whale.

  An ICU doctor came and talked to me. He said they’d almost lost me. A nurse came in with more blood, and I asked her how many pints I’d received. She checked. Sixteen.

  The surgeon came in the next morning and told me what had gone wrong. When he took out the baby he’d noticed that the placenta had grown through the scar tissue of a previous C-section. He’d cut around the scar and then tried to repair the uterus. He hadn’t done a hysterectomy because he knew about our religious beliefs. He was confident he’d repaired the uterus. But apparently the placenta had grown beyond the scar tissue and into the uterus. When the placenta was delivered, I bled out, and the doctor did an emergency hysterectomy to save my life.

  I couldn’t believe that after four high-risk pregnancies the reason I’d almost died was because the doctor was trying to preserve my uterus! I was glad it was gone!

  A nurse asked me if I wanted to speak with a grief counselor after my hysterectomy. I looked at her as if she were crazy. I loved every one of my children and would never give up a single one. But my hysterectomy felt like a get-out-of-jail-free card. I smiled at her and shook my head. “Eight is enough. Believe me, there’s no grief.”

  Bryson was three pounds ten ounces and doing really well. He needed to be in the hospital for a few weeks, but the pediatrician didn’t think he’d have any problems.

  Before Bryson was born, the challenges of caring for Harrison had made me think my life couldn’t get any worse. After my near-death experience, I knew it could. The nurse brought Bryson from the ICU so I could hold him. He was the tiniest human being I had ever seen. Completely perfect, but on a miniature scale—and born into a world I was determined to escape.

  I kept thinking of what I needed to do before we fled. Harrison was in the hospital nearly every month, and Bryson would need a lot of care. I had to get both boys strong. Then I would take my children and run for my life.

  My religion had always felt like an unsinkable ship. But Warren Jeffs and his extremism loomed large, like the iceberg that could smash everything apart.

  I left the hospital after five days and moved back into Jubilee House so I could be close to Bryson. We didn’t go home for two more weeks. I missed Harrison so much. He was my buddy. I was desperate to get back to him. I’d been away from my children for five weeks.

  Bryson weighed four pounds when we finally came home and he was a feisty baby. He nursed easily, but at first I was allowed to breast-feed him only once a day. Breast-feeding is a lot of work for a preemie. A bottle is easier. I expressed my breast milk so he could be bottle-fed. I marveled at my exhausted and depleted body’s ability to create food for this tiny boy. It took me months to feel that I was regaining strength.

  I now had two more strikes against me in Merril’s family. My hysterectomy and near-death experience were further proof to Merril’s other wives that God was still condemning me for my rebellious ways. I was thirty-three and unable to bear any more children. For me that felt like a divine blessing rather than proof of a curse.

  I would sometimes hear the other wives talking about me. They wondered why I refused to get in harmony with my husband. I should know, they said, that it didn’t matter how many times I took Harrison to the hospital. As long as I was in rebellion he would only get worse until he finally died. I had nearly lost my life but still refused to repent. What more would God have to do to make me wake up?

  What they did not realize was that I was already wide awake, building my strength, and plotting my strategy.

  Cathleen was still my only friend among Merril’s seven wives. She welcomed me home from the hospital, helped me with my laundry, and continued to have coffee with me every morning. She bought a few items that I needed for Bryson and Harrison because when I first came home from the hospital I was completely confined to my bedroom.

  The other wives treated Cathleen like she was radioactive and shunned her.

  Audrey came by almost every day to check on Harrison’s and Bryson’s vital signs, which was very reassuring for me. If anything shifted, we could respond immediately.

  Audrey also faithfully went to church every Sunday. She was as frightened as I by Warren’s extremism.

  Harrison’s New Port

  Despite his nearly two years of IV treatment, Harrison still went into daily spasms. There came a point in late 2001 when Dr. Smith ordered that a new port be put in because all of his veins had been blown. I was apprehensive. Every time Harrison had had surgery there was a major complication, but I knew we were out of options. The surgery was done the week before Christmas in St. George and went well. But within days, Harrison’s fever spiked to 104 degrees—he had a staph infection. When I couldn’t get his fever down, Dr. Smith said to bring him back to the hospital. I called an ambulance and we were on our way. Ambulances were becoming routine.

  But it wasn’t only Harrison. Bryson was just three months old and still underweight. He came with me wherever I went because he was on a strict feeding schedule. I now nursed him every two hours. While we were in St. George Bryson picked up an infection that developed into pneumonia. So when we finally came home, I was caring for two sick children.

  Bryson needed to be on nebulizer therapy to help his breathing. Harrison needed to be on oxygen also because he was having a hard time keeping stable levels in his body.

  After I got home and had the two boys settled, I went looking for my other children to make sure they were all okay. Betty was missing. No one in the family would tell me where she was. I’d ask a question and be completely ignored.

  The next afternoon she arrived home. I learned she had been staying at Warren Jeffs’ house.

  It had become common practice for Merril’s unmarried daughters to stay at Warren’s house for sleepovers on a regular basis. These were wildly popular and like big slumber parties. No sex was involved, but Warren got a chance to interact with these young adolescent girls and think about those he might want to marry when they were a few years older.

  Betty was only twelve years old. I couldn’t imagine one of my daughters getting married. But I had to ask myself how much longer she would be safe. She was Merril’s favorite daughter, and he would be only too pleased to have her marry Warren Jeffs.

  Warren’s hold over the FLDS kept increasing as his father continued to decline. Uncle Rulon was rarely seen in public anymore, and no one was ever allowed to have an appointment with him. Merril’s daughters said that none of his wives was allowed to see him unless Warren gave them permission. The girls also circulated stories that said Uncle Rulon complained that Warren had taken his job away and that he wanted it back. On the rare occasions when Uncle Rulon appeared in public, no one was allowed to talk to him and only a few of the chosen were allowed to shake his hand.

  One of the most noticeable changes was that girls were being assigned in marriages at younger and younger ages. When Uncle Rulon first came to power, girls didn’t marry until they were over twenty. After his first stroke, the age dropped into t
he late teens. The sicker he got, the younger the brides in the community became. I remember when Uncle Rulon married a fourteen-year-old girl to her stepfather. Warren had taken the girl’s biological father away from her mother and excommunicated him. Then he assigned her mother to another man. Several months later, the fourteen-year-old girl was married to the same man as her mother.

  I was determined to protect Betty. But I also knew I couldn’t do it and stay in the community. Harrison was still too sick to attempt an escape. Bryson was fragile, but gaining strength. Making them stable and strong was my priority. All our lives depended on it.

  Harrison’s infection cleared, but a week later he developed another. This went on for months. He would be admitted to the hospital, be discharged, but yo-yo back in a week or two. Dr. Smith thought Harrison would need to have the port out because it was causing his infections. The surgeon felt that we should give it a little more time and see if the condition could resolve itself.

  Then Luke had his accident.

  Luke was Merril and Ruth’s seventeen-year-old son. He was working construction in Page and had a dirt bike—something usually frowned upon in our culture because they’re unsafe. Boys who ride them are considered rebellious. So no one in the rest of the family knew about it.

  A police officer found Luke unconscious by the side of the road. A life flight took him from the local hospital in Page to the one in St. George. Merril’s office was notified that a parent needed to be there soon after Luke’s flight arrived to sign papers in case he needed emergency surgery. Luke was in critical condition. His spleen was bleeding and surgery might be the only way it could be stopped.

  Merril and Barbara were on their way to his motel in Caliente when the news reached them. Merril didn’t want to drive all the way back to St. George, so he called his son Leroy and told him to go to the hospital, check on Luke, and call him back.