Thankful People: Anguish and Hope -- the story of resilient mother Teresa Birk

For whatever reason, Barney just wasn't doing it for Jared that summer Sunday morning in 2009.

The cotton-topped toddler was supposed to be watching the purple-and-green dinosaur as his mom dozed 20 feet away and his dad fiddled on the computer in a nearby room.

Instead, Jared turned from the television and pitter-pattered his way into the family room. The 20-month-old slid on his big brother's size-10 black tennies -- way too big for his feet -- and clomped across the hardwood.

Jared knew he had to have shoes on if he intended to go outside.

And Jared did.

Teresa and Jared Birk's picture appeared on this card, which Teresa used to collect donations for an orphanage in Africa the summer before Jared's death. (Submitted photo)

At some point, he ambled to the back door. The door that opened to a short sidewalk that led to four slight steps. Four steps that led up to a fine, wooden deck that Jared's dad and grandfather had built. A deck that overlooked a serene spot, home to many an outdoor barbecue, family party and countless days of fun with his big brother, Austin.

The deck that also led to the family's above-ground swimming pool.

On many mornings, perhaps even most mornings, Jared would have reached up and found the big brass handle locked. If that had happened, Jared might have gone back into his bedroom to Barney and his mother. His mother would have shaken herself awake eventually, dressed Jared for St. Paul's and off they would have gone to church.

But this story doesn't end that way.

On this particular Sunday morning, the door wasn't locked.

Teresa Birk holds her 2-month-old daughter, Hope, in her Jackson home. (Fred Lynch)

And while his mother slept, Jared pulled the door open and wandered out into the warm August sunshine.

Jared shook off his big brother's shoes and started up the steps.

---

She knows the odds and they aren't good.

Teresa Birk is in her late 30s. After the birth of their baby boy, she had tubal ligation surgery, the formal way of saying she had her tubes tied. Even with a surgery to reverse tubal ligation, the chances of her getting pregnant at her age are less than 60 percent.

Not great.

But her husband, Dale, is still optimistic they can have another child to fill the sad, empty nursery, where the baby boy's pictures still hang on the walls and his books still line the shelves: "Soap Makes Bubbles." "The Sun Rises." "Trees Have Leaves."

A new baby might help them heal. They'd talked about adoption. Teresa had been to Swaziland, Africa, on a mission trip the year before to help work on an orphanage. She feels like she has a heart for Africa.

"Everybody fully expected us to adopt a baby from Africa," Teresa says. "But we wanted to try this first."

But she doesn't want to tell anyone she's pregnant.

Not after the heartbreak last August.

She can't break their hearts again if it doesn't work. There are no guarantees.

Still, Teresa is optimistic.

She knows it's going to work. She knows, somehow, it's going to be a girl. She has faith, despite all that has happened.

I just know it, she tells herself.

Sure enough, a month after the surgery, Teresa is pregnant.

Hope is on the horizon.

---

Teresa Birk was being pulled from sleep.

A voice. Panicked.

Dale?

Her husband's voice.

"Get out here!"

Dale, normally quiet and reflective, is near screaming.

It comes again.

"Teresa, get out here now!"

She got up. She couldn't make out where his voice was coming from.

Where is he?

She looked in the kitchen. No.

The living room. No.

She didn't consider outside. After a few more yells from Dale, she finally figured out he was outside.

And then she sees it. The open door.

Teresa hurried through the back door. Looked up the steps. There was Dale. Soaking wet. Still fully dressed. Kneeling on the deck by the pool.

Dale isn't a swimmer.

Then, Jared.

Oh, no. Jared.

Wet. Soaked. Crumpled at the knees of his father. Eyes closed.

Is he breathing?

Dale was performing CPR.

Teresa pieced it together quickly. Jared had gotten outside, up the steps and had fallen into the pool and its 40 inches of water. She did a quick time calculation. She had turned on Barney at 9 a.m. and dozed back off. It was now 9:23.

How long has Jared been under? Two minutes or 20? She didn't know.

Teresa got to the phone as her husband continued breathing his own air into Jared's lungs. Dale's cell phone was fried from getting wet. Teresa got to a house phone and frantically called 911. She doesn't remember much of what she told the operator.

But she does remember one thing she told the lady on the other end of the line.

"Help me save my baby."

---

Teresa cries when she finds out she's pregnant.

It's all about faith, she thinks. We're going to be OK.

After a year that would have torn many marriages apart, she and Dale have held it together. Have somehow gotten through.

Now, finally, this.

There are many hugs and much laughter.

The first six months of the pregnancy pass without incident. She and Dale transform the nursery that had been the baby boy's into a baby girl's. They leave the baby books in there and the crib. They intend to think of it as "their" room, the girl's and the boy's.

Then, 12 weeks before the baby girl is due, Teresa awakes to a new, yet familiar, nightmare: Teresa is suffering from chest pains. Severe chest pains. She knows her child is in danger.

The chest pains intensify as she's getting ready for work at her job at the Alzheimer's Association. She is organizing the Memory Walk this weekend and she has a radio interview scheduled this morning.

But the pain is great. She calls Dale. She thinks of Jared.

Oh, no. Not another one. Please God, not another one.

---

Teresa didn't count the minutes it took the paramedics to get to her house, but they came fast.

Teresa hadn't dressed yet. She was still in a T-shirt and underwear. As the paramedics placed Jared on a gurney, she hurried inside to get some clothes on. She wanted to be with Jared in the ambulance. She pulled on some shorts and a pair of flip-flops and hurried back outside.

The ambulance had already taken Jared away.

The fire department had blocked their two main cars, so Dale and Teresa hopped into their old '95 Grand Prix, which they really hadn't used in years. The paramedics were taking Jared to Southeast Missouri Hospital, a 20-minute drive they made in 12.

To Teresa, it felt like forever. She was panicked. She knew the reality of what was happening. But she didn't want to believe it. In her heart, she wanted to pretend it wasn't happening and that she was still dozing as Jared watched Barney. Maybe, she thought, she would wake up and he would be clapping his hands or touching Barney on the television.

But she couldn't pretend. The nightmare wouldn't stop.

Once they arrived at the hospital, Dale and Teresa were put in a small family room while doctors worked on Jared. Dale and Teresa worked to contact their then-13-year-old son, Austin, who was camping with friends in Kentucky.

Then, Teresa hit her knees to talk to God.

Save my baby.

---

The news is not good.

Doctors tell the pregnant Teresa Birk that her blood pressure is dangerously high. They guess it is gall bladder or gall stones.

They are wrong, and initially the doctors are puzzled.

"What we do know is you're really sick," one doctor tells her. "We're not sure what to do."

Teresa must be taken to St. Louis for more evaluation. Dale picks up Austin from school and they head to the hospital together.

---

After her fervent prayer, the doctors told the Birks that Jared had been resuscitated, placed on a ventilator. He was breathing. Immediately, Teresa's hopes rose. Jared was flown by emergency helicopter to Children's Hospital in St. Louis.

Teresa dares to hope: He's going to be OK.

Without even grabbing a bag, Teresa and Dale drove to St. Louis to be with their boy. The two-hour drive was quiet. What do you say?

Dale's brother handled getting Austin there. More than 25 friends from the Cape Girardeau area drove to St. Louis as well. The friends took turns going into the room to look at the blue-eyed boy with the tubes in his mouth. Other than the ventilator, Teresa said he looked fine.

Peaceful, perfect. But cold. Why can't they warm him up?

The doctors gathered the friends and family to give them an update.

There was almost a zero percent chance Jared would make it.

Jared was fading. So was hope.

Two tests to determine brain activity, one Monday night and one Tuesday morning, showed that Jared was gone.

Teresa and Dale were in the room for one of the tests. Teresa stood at the foot of his bed, trying to will her life into him.

No response.

Another test.

No response.

That's when Teresa knew her son was no more.

Family and friends lined up to go in and say goodbye to Jared. In pairs, they went into his room.

Some kissed his cherubic face.

Others held his hand.

Almost all prayed.

At 1 p.m., Jared Birk was pronounced dead.

---

With her baby girl still 12 weeks from the due date, doctors send Teresa Birk to St. Louis by helicopter.

St. Louis by helicopter.

Teresa can't help but think of Jared.

This is where Jared was. The last time I went to St. Louis with a child, the child didn't come home.

Teresa is diagnosed at the St. Louis Hospital with HELLP Syndrome, which can be a life-threatening obstetric complication found in pregnant women with elevated liver enzymes and low platelet counts.

Teresa is told she must stay in the hospital to be monitored and treated until the due date. But the next day her liver enzymes skyrocket and her platelet counts drop even further.

Doctors decide to do a C-section.

The first two days are rough. No one knows how everything will turn out. Even Teresa worries at one point that she and her baby girl may soon be joining Jared in the hereafter.

But this story doesn't end that way, either.

---

After one of the brain activity tests on Jared, Dale Birk brought up something that his wife wasn't expecting.

Organ donation.

An organ transplant team was brought in after Jared was pronounced dead; a surgery would harvest his organs. His liver went to a 2-year-old in Tennessee. His kidneys went to a grandmother in St Louis. His heart valves were also donated.

Teresa and a group of Heart for Africa volunteers organized an event called Celebrate HOPE, which raised money for the orphanage in Africa in Jared's memory -- $7,500 in memorials eventually turned into $125,000 that will help pay to build an orphanage. Eighty abandoned African babies younger than 2 will call the house home.

That, coupled with the organ donation, makes Teresa think of Jared as a hero.

"He saved three people's lives with his organs and 80 orphans will have a home because of him," she said. "You can't tell me that God doesn't have a plan."

While all this was going on, Teresa's friends rallied to her side. Today, they marvel at everything she endured.

"She's one of the strongest people I know," said Raelenna Ferguson, who became friends with Teresa on the mission trip to Africa. "She never doubted God's plan. I could never have handled it that way. I have two boys. She is so strong. She handled it better than anybody I have ever met in my life."

David Seabaugh, who Teresa calls her best friend, said it was her huge heart that saved her.

"She has the biggest heart of anyone I know," he said. "She has had so much optimism in her. That family went through so much. She went through a tragedy and today she has such an optimistic outlook on life. She is amazing."

---

Teresa is trying to get baby Hope to smile.

"Come on, Little Bit," Teresa coos. "You can smile for us. Give us a smile."

Teresa is sitting in her living room holding Hope on the couch. Just behind her are pictures of Jared.

In one, he's atop a toy motorcycle. In another, he's sitting in a tiny firetruck.

Meanwhile, the little sister that Jared will never meet this side of heaven is making high-pitched but small noises.

"Hope is a squeaker," Teresa said.

Hope was born 12 weeks premature. She never went on a ventilator. She hasn't had complications yet, but Teresa knows that God hasn't brought them this far to let them face them alone. Teresa says that even if there are complications, her family will cope.

And deal. Just like they always have.

The pictures of Jared still hang on the wall in Hope and Jared's nursery. But the blue walls have become pink. A few new books have been added to the shelves. Still, when a Barney tape is put in the VCR, it's one of Jared's tapes that Hope is watching. She's watching the television that still has Jared's fingerprints on it. Teresa can't bear to wipe them clean.

But the room is Jared and Hope's room, now.

"We'll definitely tell Hope about Jared," Teresa says. "He's very much a part of our lives. This is not the path we would have chosen. I'm not going to lie. Some days it just sucks. It's hard to find the good in those days. But the majority of the time, it's OK. As long as the good days outweigh the bad, we'll be OK."

Jared would have celebrated his third birthday on Wednesday. But today, Thanksgiving, reminds Teresa that she has so much to be thankful for.

"We are just blessed beyond measure," she says, her eyes welling up. "We have so many family and friends. And faith is probably the biggest blessing you can have. I don't know how people survive who don't have it."

As for what's next for the Birks, there's always Hope.

Growing, every day.

smoyers@semissourian.com

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