Bryan and I got married on May 25, 2010—my parents’ anniversary—on Saint John, US Virgin Islands, in the funky little town of Cruz Bay that Kenny Chesney sings about. My dad performed the wedding at a tiny old church, which had no air-conditioning, on what turned out to be a scorching hot day. In front of our fifty or so family and close friends, I walked down the aisle with my dad toward Bryan. He had on a full tux I’d made him wear and my first thought was, Is he going to die of heat exhaustion at the altar? I had never seen a man sweat like that before! I probably should have been concerned about his safety, but at the time I was mostly just annoyed that he was going to ruin all of our wedding pictures! The only break from the unbearable heat and humidity that day was a big rainstorm that forced us to abandon our plans to have a seated candlelight dinner in the gorgeous open-air sugar mill ruins at Caneel Bay (one reason I chose to do my wedding in Saint John in the first place) and instead move the dinner and party inside the resort. I wasn’t happy, but everyone else was thrilled to be indoors with air-conditioning. After the party, Bryan and I said good-bye to our family and friends and escaped to our bungalow on the beach and decided to go for a swim. Once we were in the clear Caribbean water under the moonlit sky I remembered why we chose this beautiful destination for the biggest day of our lives. But this moment of romantic bliss was abruptly interrupted when Bryan said, “Um … Sarah … I may have just lost my ring.” He turned and ran back to our bungalow and came back with two flashlights. As we stood there in our bathing suits on our wedding night with flashlights in hand desperately searching for Bryan’s lost ring, our guests descended on the beach for the after-party. Knowing he’d never hear the end of it from his friends, Bryan said, “Sarah, don’t you dare say a word about the ring,” to which I replied, “And what exactly would you like me to say? That we’re just out for a crab hunt on our wedding night?” Within minutes dozens of our wedding guests had joined us in the water with flashlights. The after-party was now a search party. We didn’t find the ring, and the next morning Bryan had to explain to my dad—who had talked at length at our wedding ceremony the night before about the significance of the rings—that he’d already lost his! My mom spent the entire next day in snorkel gear trying to find it but she didn’t have any luck either. So off we went on our honeymoon in Saint Lucia, a ring on my hand and nothing on his, where I had to explain to everyone we met that “Yes, this is my husband. We’re on our honeymoon. Don’t be alarmed he’s not wearing a ring—he lost it on our wedding night.”
After the honeymoon, Bryan and I returned to the States, but to different ones. No, I didn’t divorce him! Bryan went to Alabama where he was the campaign manager, pollster, and media consultant for Robert Bentley, and led Bentley’s campaign to a shocking come-from-behind upset victory to win the governorship. I went back home to Arkansas where I was campaign manager for John Boozman in his race against incumbent Democratic US senator Blanche Lincoln, the chair of the Agriculture Committee. John Boozman was a late entry to the 2010 Senate race—seven other Republican candidates had already announced and been running their campaigns for months. But Boozman was a popular and well-respected congressman from the most Republican part of the state. His family and mine had been close for years and there was no question that we’d be supporting him. Earlier in the year John had asked me to run his campaign and I told him I couldn’t because I was getting married in a few months. In fact if he didn’t get a majority of the vote in the eight-candidate Republican primary, he’d be forced into a runoff and I would have to be gone for nearly two weeks in the middle of it for our wedding and honeymoon. He assured me it would be fine and I agreed, joking that I would only do it if he would work hard enough to avoid a runoff.
We went to work and assembled a great team. One of my best hires was a kid from Texas referred to me by Jim Terry, a seasoned Washington political operative who volunteered on my dad’s presidential campaign and became a friend. We loved Jim. He became such good friends with our crew that he relocated permanently from Washington to Little Rock and ended up being our next-door neighbor. I’ll never forget the first call I had with the kid Jim recommended I hire. He had a big voice and even over the phone you could tell he had a strong presence. He was out working on his family’s farm when he took the call. I could hear goats and cows in the background during our interview. He seemed like a political novice but I liked him and offered him the job right then on the phone without ever meeting him in person. I had a feeling and I was right. From the day Colton Burran showed up he fit right in. He was notoriously cheap and loved taking dares for money—he once let another one of the staffers punch him in the stomach as hard as he could after he drank an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Our office was more Animal House than campaign headquarters, but the team worked as hard as they played so I was okay with it.
John came through on his end of the deal and won his primary outright—no runoff. Bryan and I got married, and I returned to Arkansas to focus on the general election. John Boozman went on to defeat Senator Blanche Lincoln 58 to 37 percent, the largest margin of victory against any US Senate incumbent in decades. A lot of the campaign staff moved to Washington, but Colton stayed in Arkansas. He was far from home and those of us who stayed in Arkansas adopted him into our families like he was a younger brother. One night sitting at home I got the call no one ever wants to receive. Colton had been out four-wheeling in the Ouachita mountains, taken a turn too fast, and hit a tree. Colton was killed instantly. He had been at our house the night before, and was the last to leave. Now he was gone. Colton’s parents asked me to speak at his funeral. It was something I had never done before and I was anxious about it. When we arrived in the small town of Brownfield, Texas, at the Baptist church where Colton and his family were members, there wasn’t an open seat to be found. The entire town showed up, heartbroken. I was nervous that my comments wouldn’t do justice to Colton’s life. But as I sat there thinking about it, I realized I was looking at it all wrong. It wasn’t up to me to give Colton’s life purpose—God had already done that. And by the number of people present that day I knew Colton had fulfilled it. My job was simply to remember the Colton we loved and remind everyone there grieving to live life like he had.
Colton lived his life fun and fast, but he also lived it with purpose. He was an example for all of us about what it means to live out your faith. He may have seemed like a younger brother to us, but it was Colton teaching us something far more important. It was his relationship with our Creator that helped the rest of us find some peace when he died. We knew his life wasn’t over, but just beginning in a much better place.
In 2011, Bryan and I went with his parents to Turkey and Greece. I hadn’t felt great ahead of the trip, so before we left I took a pregnancy test. It was negative, so I didn’t think much more about it. We arrived in Istanbul and spent a few days getting lost in the winding streets of the ancient city, playing backgammon, and drinking tea before we boarded a ship to the Greek isles. Bryan and I love adventure and to get off the beaten path, so at each stop Bryan rented four-wheelers for us to explore little towns and remote beaches. It was beautiful and fun and romantic, but I still wasn’t feeling any better. I figured some of it was jet lag, some of it was probably motion sickness from the ship. One day after Bryan forced me to climb to the top of a mountain, I hit a wall. I was so tired and so sick I couldn’t even get off the ship at the next stop. We arrived in Athens, concluding the trip, and boarded our flight home to Little Rock. I was sure after a day or so I’d be back to full speed, but when I wasn’t I decided to take another pregnancy test just to be certain—and sure enough this one had two faint little lines on it. I was pregnant.
I couldn’t wait to tell Bryan but wanted to do it in a fun way, so I made a little bright yellow sign that said, “Big Brother … Coming Soon” and tied it around our Cavalier King Charles Winston’s collar and sent him into Bryan’s home office. I waited several minutes and nothing happened. Bryan was focused on his work and didn’
t notice Winston. So I yelled for Bryan and asked him to take Winston out. He asked if I could do it. I was getting frustrated. I said, “My hands are full. Take a break and take him out!” I heard him sigh in frustration (this was not going how I wanted) and then heard his desk chair push back. I braced myself in anticipation and he came running around the corner with Winston in his arms and the biggest smile in the world on his face. “Finally!” he said.
We were thrilled. Bryan asked me a million questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. At our first appointment we found out I was already nine weeks pregnant. We also heard the beating of a little heart. We had tears of joy in our eyes as we listened to Dr. Sellers confirm we had a baby on the way. We got in the car and immediately started calling our families. Soon after, we found out we were having a girl. She would be the first granddaughter on my side of the family and the first grandchild on Bryan’s side. She would definitely be spoiled.
During the pregnancy I had trouble sleeping. For Christmas, Bryan bought me one of those gigantic body pillows that are supposed to help pregnant women sleep. I hated the pillow. It didn’t work and I still couldn’t sleep. I asked Bryan to talk to me at night in order to get my mind off all the things we needed to do, hoping it would help. He was running out of things to ramble on about (which I didn’t think was possible) and I asked if he could read to me instead. Bryan had never read the book Gone with the Wind, and I couldn’t believe I was about to have a child with someone who had never read one of the greatest American novels of all time, so it was a perfect fit. He could read the thousand-plus-page book out loud to me every night and I could get some sleep. It worked! And more importantly, we finally settled on a name for our daughter we both liked. After a week or so of reading Gone with the Wind we named our daughter Scarlett. Scarlett O’Hara was not always the best role model, but she was tough, independent, and nobody got in her way. We wanted our daughter to have some (though certainly not all!) of her qualities.
We were growing more in love with Scarlett every day. I was busy buying outfits and monogramming everything I could get my hands on while Bryan was putting together cribs, babyproofing the house, and learning to install the car seat, something that I have still refused to learn how to do. We went to a child birthing class, which to this day still seems so odd to me. We were having our baby in the hospital where we would be surrounded by doctors and nurses, who knew exactly what to do through the labor and delivery process. Yet for some reason the entire class didn’t teach us much of anything about what to do with the baby once we got her home!
Thankfully, my sister-in-law Lauren had just given birth to my nephew Chandler so she answered a lot of my questions. After our car wreck in the Ozark Mountains, Lauren and I should not have been alive, much less bringing new life into the world. Nearly losing my life and later creating and caring for a new one was something that weighed on me. I was glad I had experienced both that fear and joy with Lauren. She and my mom coached me for months, but when the big day came I still didn’t feel prepared. I was definitely ready to not be pregnant anymore, but I wasn’t so sure I was ready to care for a newborn.
Scarlett was already five days late and we went in for our final checkup. Dr. Sellers asked if we wanted to schedule a time for induction the following day. It was May 7 and the plan was to check into the hospital the evening of the eighth and we could expect Scarlett to make her appearance sometime on the ninth. Mother’s Day was on the thirteenth that year and since both of our moms would be in town for the birth of our first child, I figured I would get them Mother’s Day gifts before we checked into the hospital. I was so proud of myself for planning ahead and getting what I considered a very thoughtful gift—engraved frames that read “We love you!—May 9, 2012” for Scarlett’s newborn picture. Before going to the hospital we took our moms to dinner and gave them the engraved frames. They loved them and were so excited to meet their granddaughter.
We checked in and settled into our hospital room. I had several first outfits to choose from and laid them all out, along with my matching robe and gown for postdelivery. I’d also read that the husbands don’t have it great during delivery, so I brought Bryan some of his favorite snacks. Dr. Sellers was the doctor on call so he came by to check on me and start the induction. He told me to expect some discomfort, and instructed me not to eat anything for the next twenty-four hours. The next morning the nurses told me nothing had changed. We had made no progress. I began to question whether naming our daughter after the stubborn Scarlett O’Hara was such a great idea after all. Dr. Sellers tried again to induce and put me on Pitocin. I waited, and as I waited I came to the conclusion that any woman who tells you she enjoys pregnancy and childbirth is lying to you. I was starving, sleep deprived, and totally over it, but kept on. I had agreed to an epidural, but refused any more powerful drugs that might make me forget holding Scarlett for the first time. For a day that was supposed to be one of the greatest joys of my life, I was miserable. May 9 came and went—Scarlett still had not made her appearance and with her birthdate now wrong on the picture frames, I’d have to get the grandmothers new Mother’s Day gifts! I went to sleep for the first and only time in my life hoping Scarlett would wake me up in the middle of the night. Again, nothing.
The following day Dr. Sellers came to check in on me before heading to the clinic and asked me to be patient. I was doing the best I could. Around lunchtime the nurse stopped by and asked if anybody was hungry. I said, “Yes, ma’am. I have not eaten anything but ice chips for thirty-six hours!” She replied, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You still can’t eat, but maybe your husband would like something?” Bryan ordered a cheeseburger and fries, and I lost it. When the food arrived, I said, “If you take one bite of that burger in front of me, Scarlett will be raised by a single mother because I will kill you!” Dr. Sellers came in again and I wasn’t having his typical sunny positive attitude. He asked how I was doing and I fell apart. I said, “You’re out of time. Get this baby out!” Dr. Sellers calmly told me that he wanted to try one more thing and said if it didn’t work, we would have no other choice but to do the C-section. I agreed to his one last step, but had I known what it was I would have said no. The next few hours were too awful to describe in words, a test in patience and perseverance I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Having no other choice, I did it. About an hour later, things started happening—fast. The nurse called Dr. Sellers and three hours later, at 6:03 p.m., a seven-pound-three-ounce perfect miracle entered the world. I couldn’t believe our baby was finally here. The nurse placed Scarlett in my arms and I held her tightly and looked at Bryan. We knew our lives were forever changed.
The nurses gave Scarlett a bath and took all her measurements and brought her back over to me to feed her. They put her in a little white hospital shirt and a pink, blue, and white striped cap. Then we opened the floodgates—our parents and my brother David and Lauren were in the waiting room and Bryan went out to tell them the good news and invite them in. They were enamored with Scarlett, too. We didn’t know it that day, but this was just the beginning of a difficult journey for our little family.
A couple days later Dr. Sellers said it was time for us to take Scarlett home. It was the Saturday before Mother’s Day and there was a baby dedication at our church. Because we had expected Scarlett to show up a week or two sooner, we had signed up to participate. My nephew Chandler would also be dedicated that day and we thought it would be really special to do it all on the same day and have a little party after. We had already sent invitations so I didn’t want to miss it. Also, my dad was doing a Mother’s Day special on his Fox News television show Huckabee that aired on Saturday and Sunday evenings. He wanted to have my mom, grandmother, Lauren, Scarlett, and me on together for a segment honoring mothers. After five long days and sleepless nights at the hospital, I showered, got ready, and went straight to the church, where we used the pastor’s office to tape the segment. It was only fitting that Scarlett made her first appearance on Fox News before sh
e even made it home from the hospital!
Our first night at home with Scarlett was a bit overwhelming. All of the nurses who had helped us and guided us through the first hours of her life were gone and we were now left to care for her on our own. Thankfully my mom stayed with us the first week and my mother-in-law, Julia, was scheduled for the following week. We put Scarlett in her crib and she fell asleep pretty fast. We thought we were doing well until about 1:00 a.m., when Scarlett woke up with a vengeance. Bryan changed her and I fed her, but she just kept screaming. I couldn’t get her to stop. My mom came in and sat with me for hours that night, telling me nothing was wrong with Scarlett, she was just adjusting.
This would be the first of many times I needed her to reassure me I was doing okay as a mom and not to worry. My mom can be a great cheerleader. As a kid when I played sports she came to every single game to cheer me on—loudly. It was embarrassing at the time, but looking back as an adult it’s one of my favorite memories of her. Janet Huckabee is a strong southern woman. She almost died of spinal cancer when she was twenty, just after she and my dad had gotten married. The doctors told her she might not live, and if she did live, she’d never walk again, and if she did walk again, she’d definitely never have kids. Not only did my mom live, and walk again, but she went on to run a marathon; serve on the international board of Habitat for Humanity, building houses all over the world; and have three kids and six grandkids.
Like many moms I struggled in the weeks following Scarlett’s birth. I loved Scarlett deeply and cherished our time together but I didn’t immediately connect with her. I was having difficulty being “happy” as a new mom. I spent much of the day, especially the evenings, crying over the smallest things. I knew I was supposed to be joyful about being a mom, but I felt so isolated. I was always alone somewhere nursing, up at night while the rest of the world slept, and then sleeping during the day when others were out and about. Bryan was great and did all he could to help. He got up every night and changed Scarlett and gave her to me to feed. He watched her during the day so I could sleep, but I felt disconnected and upset that Bryan bonded with Scarlett from the second he held her and I didn’t.
Speaking for Myself Page 6
