‘A Story Only God Could Write’: Jenny Marrs Shares Twins’ Birth Story
By Movieguide® Contributor
FIXER TO FABULOUS star Jenny Marrs calls her twins’ birth “a story only God could write.”
“When I was twenty-nine weeks pregnant with the twins, I unexpectedly went into pre-term labor and, after twelve hours of medical intervention to prevent a premature delivery, I was airlifted to Little Rock because our local hospital’s NICU wasn’t equipped to care for twenty-nine-week-old preemies at the time,” Jenny wrote in a recent Instagram post.
She explained that she and her husband, Dave, were “given every worst-case scenario” and told that the twins would be born in the next 24 hours.
“We absorbed their words in silence,” Jenny said. “We huddled together on the hospital bed and prayed and cried and begged God for another hour for the boys to grow in utero. And, then, when one hour passed, we exhaled briefly and started praying for another hour. Every single hour that passed was a small miracle.”
She continued, “The boys were born four weeks after that terrifying helicopter ride through the Arkansas night sky. They had an equally terrifying entrance into the world and then were cared for with immense love and compassion for four more weeks by the NICU staff at our local Mercy Hospital.”
“We are forever indebted to the nurses and doctors who cared for our boys in those precious newborn days. The fact that we were able to, 13 years later, stand on a stage and share their story with a couple thousand people is a story only God could write,” Jenny wrote.
She added that she and Dave “will always advocate for the NICU nurses and mommas and babies in their care.”
The couple have five children — twins Nathan and Ben, 12, Sylvie, 11, Charlotte, 9, and Luke, 4.
“We decided to have kids, and it took a while. We had this kind of struggle, like so many people do,” Jenny told Better Homes and Gardens. “I have that type A personality that made it possible for me to do so many things in life. I would think, ‘Why can’t we just do it? Why isn’t it happening on our timeline?’ It was a good lesson, to learn that you don’t have control of every situation.”
That struggle for control over a situation also came into play during the couple’s adoption of Sylvie, something Jenny wrote about in her latest book, “House + Love = Home.”
The couple had to “fight bureaucracy, red tape and political posturing,” Jenny wrote, adding, “During the wait, I spent countless hours sitting on our front porch swing, praying for her health and safety and for the miracle to take place that would finally bring her to us.”
602 days later, Sylvie was home with the Marrs family.
Movieguide® previously reported on Sylvie’s adoption:
Dave and Jenny Marrs recently shared the journey they took to build their family and adopt their daughter Sylvie.
The Marrs’ adopted Sylvie in August of 2013 and were her legal parents, but had to leave her after their first visit to finalize the travel arrangements. A couple of weeks after they left, but before they could bring Sylvie home, the Democratic Republic of Congo prohibited all children from leaving the country, affecting 700 kids in the adoption process at the time, including Sylvie.
As weeks turned into months, Dave and Jenny started to lose hope that they would ever bring Sylvie home.
“We had kinda gotten to the point where we were like, ‘Okay, this is not meant to be. We’ve gotten [Sylvie] into a good foster home, so we just need to talk with Laure, who was her foster mom, about taking over care for her,’” Dave said. “We were just kinda resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to come.”
“We basically just decided, let’s make sure we set a plan up and let’s just surrender control of this,” Jenny added.
A couple of weeks later they got a call that Sylvie was permitted to fly to the U.S. and Dave and Jenny would be able to bring her home. Even then, they didn’t believe it was actually happening until Sylvie was in their arms and their 602 days of waiting were over. Jenny celebrates that day every year, thanking God for bringing home their daughter.
