Parenting: Travis Montgomery

Join us as First Baptist Church Kearney's Minister of Children, Abraham Leonard, interviews Dr. Travis Montgomery on the topic of parenting. Dr. Montgomery shares his unique story, inspiring the world with his helpful insights.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello, welcome to the Kearney Kids Parenting Show. I am your host, Abraham Leonard, Minister of Children at First Baptist Church Kearney. I am so glad that you have joined us. Welcome to the show, Dr. Travis Montgomery. He is a local, a native here in Kansas City where we are located. How are you doing? I'm doing great, man. How are you, Abraham? I'm doing well. Could you tell us a little bit about your family, your ministry, and just how you're doing?

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

Yeah, absolutely, man. So you mentioned we're native. We've tried really hard to be native. I grew up in Southern Missouri, as you know, same town as you, man, and have been here eight years with my wife, Lauren. And we had our kiddos about four years ago now, twin boys, and then a third who's a year and a half. So we've had our hands full these past eight years. And yeah, I'm here at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I lead our online studies programs. The Global Campus is what we call that. And I teach as assistant professor of Christian Studies, which means kind of very broad Bible, theology, and ministry classes. I absolutely love to do that. I had no idea that I'd be doing this when I moved here eight years ago. I came here to study and to be a better equipped pastor, and the Lord has seen fit to make most of my role here at the seminary where I equip other leaders, but also as a local pastor of a church plant. So Northside Fellowship is a four-year-old church plant and I'm one of four pastors there and just absolutely adore being there and love our team and I'm so grateful for it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58

Well, that's awesome. That's awesome that you're here training pastors and that includes Me at this point, and so hopefully I'll get to have you in class at some point. That would be kind of cool. Nothing stopping you, man. Just look for my name. Yeah, just fine. Travis Montgomery. Well, could you tell us, starting off kind of light, do you have any good parenting memories? Maybe a couple of your favorite parenting memories.

SPEAKER_00: 2:25

Yeah, absolutely, man. And this will lean in a little bit toward some more things I'll share later. But our kids have had a lot of medical challenges. And I'll talk a lot about that. Because it's just so much a part of our story. But so when I think about like typical first time parenting stuff that you have to deal with, what's been really funny has been we've had all of the normal typical first time parenting stuff, but just like turned up to 11 with medical difficulties. So I talked to so many parents who have to figure out when they first bring home their newborn, is this issue, this concern, this discomfort, whatever, like a big deal that we need to go to the hospital for or is it like really not a big deal? And it was just really funny. It's crazy to say it's a good memory, but looking back now, my wife and I, brought home one of our twins who had been hospitalized for eight months in the NICU. And like a week into bringing him home, he was sick, not doing well. And we had to make the call that... every young couple, every couple of newborn, uh, or parents of a newborn have to make, which is, do we take them to the emergency room or not? And it was just kind of funny being there and going, actually, every parent has to do this. Uh, ours is just sort of extreme. And so that was, that was always fun. Besides that, man, there are just so many potty training stories I couldn't even get into. Um, but, but the, like, why did you have to do this three minutes after we tried to go to the bathroom? Why did you have to do it here? Uh, So, like, you know, for instance, taking one of our other boys to a family-friendly party at a church member's house the other day, and we're watching The Sandlot, which is just a fantastic movie that is a little scarier for kids than I remembered it being. But with, like, my four-year-old, it was, like, very heightened awareness. And it was just this cool, magical moment. Like, we had hot dogs. We had s'mores. We were doing that. And just... boy being boy doing his thing and going to the bathroom and realizing that he had not quite made it there and so we're like in the middle of this party trying to figure out okay how do I clean you up and change you in a way that isn't going to be like loud and obnoxious for other people but like I don't get like you know everything everywhere and get you home safe and all those things. That's a recent one I thought of was this magical outing to watch the Sandlot and then this major diaper explosion catastrophe. It was a good time.

SPEAKER_01: 5:04

Yeah, that's been different than some of the other answers that I've got on the show. But that's a good parenting memory. It was a good one. Could you tell us just about some hard times that you've had as a parent and how you've overcame them?

SPEAKER_00: 5:19

Yeah, for sure, man. As I mentioned, our kids were in the NICU for a long time. So my wife and I had waited a while to have kids. We got married very young, 18 and 21. We waited until our mid-20s to try to have children. And I look back with a little regret there, but also just trust in the Lord's timing and providence. Because now that we have kids, I just think, man, wish we'd have started a lot sooner. And I'd give that advice to anybody wondering about that. But there were some good reasons for that. And then as we started trying, it took a couple of years. We had a lot of difficulty with fertility. We were in this stage of trying to figure out diagnostically, like, why are we not able to get Is my wife not able to get pregnant? And we definitely had a hard limit on what we were willing to try, but we wanted to know best we could what was going on and why. And so after about a year and a half or two years maybe of trying and trying to figure that out, my wife was doing some diagnostic stuff, doing some blood work. Some of her blood work came back a little funny. They had some concerns for her health. And so we went in to do an ultrasound and I had just committed, I'm going to be at these appointments because there had been some earlier appointments I didn't go to and I really regretted it. So we're just going to be there. So I took off work and we go to this appointment. And we're at this ultrasound and there's concern, maybe there's some mass or something going on. Well, at this reproductive endocrinologist who's really concerned for our wife's health, where we're trying really hard to figure out how to have kids, all of a sudden they realize, oh, we know what's going on. Those are your sons right there. They were not just maybe there's a baby there, but it was two boys. They could tell they were boys. They guessed that they were 20 weeks along. They were actually 16 weeks. And we had no clue. My wife had not been showing. We had no other real signs. She had had just reproductive issues for a long time. And so we were floored. Like, we're here praying, God, please help us have kids. And for almost four months, she had been pregnant with two, not just one baby, but two babies. That was awesome. Yeah. We had about two weeks of just like we're floating on clouds. This is amazing. And then a lot of issues started exhibiting signs of maybe early labor. There were some things that the doctor tried to do. And so about two weeks of, okay, this is amazing. We're pregnant with twin boys. This is what we always would have dreamed of to a lot of medical emergency, emergency surgery. My wife winds up being hospitalized because one of the baby's water had broken and they wanted to prevent that. That was at 22 weeks. They wanted to prevent him from being born that early, but they also had to monitor for infection. And so she was in a hospital. mostly in a bed for four weeks. And this is the first time we've ever been parents. We don't know what it is to be parents. We're immediately thrust into, we have to protect these children's lives and we have to make really hard decisions. And that is parenting. We didn't get to warm up to it. We didn't have nine months of what will it be like to be parents. We just immediately had to take care of these children because we knew they were our responsibility. We didn't even know them. They barely knew us. We were not ready. We had not prepared. And through a series of events at 26 weeks, our kids were born. And one of our boys had already sustained. We found out later. And through that process, even a birth had sustained multiple brain injuries. His name's Kai is his nickname. And his twin, Ben, were both born very, very early, of course, hospitalized for a really long time. We had to learn all sorts of medical terms, issues, things that we didn't know anything about before, had not had any training on that know what to expect when you're expecting, but could possibly have given us. And man, it was really hard. And about three months later, one of our sons, Ben is his nickname, got to come home and we had to learn, okay, he's got like a monitor and he's got oxygen and praise the Lord, he came off that stuff pretty easily. And he's had some health challenges since then as a result, but has by and large done well. Yeah. His brother Kai, who had those brain injuries, has not done as well. He was transferred to a higher level NICU for several more months. He spent 222 days in the NICU. And so we were managing. We brought home our newborn who has all these needs. We have one still in the hospital. I have a job. There's only two of us trading out who's going to be at the hospital and when. How are we going to take care of them? We had such amazing help from our church. They were so helpful, so generous. But man, it was hard work. And it was our work to do. No one else could do it because we're their only parents. And eventually, praise the Lord, we got to bring Kai home. He has full-time medical assistance. He has permanent disabilities. He won't walk and talk unless the Lord were to perform a miracle. He will always need extensive health therapies and healthcare services. And man, it has just been the defining thing of our lives so far. And we had been through some difficult things with family and health before, but man, it has just been the defining thing of our lives and the defining feature of our parenthood. But praise God, our kids are home and we have a third and things are what we would call Montgomery good. When people ask us how we're doing, like it's its own category of good, but we're Montgomery good right now. And praise God that we've learned how to be Montgomery good and that he's helped us to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 11:06

That's awesome. That's awesome. And it's cool. I like that you mentioned the church, your community of faith being a part of that. And that's awesome how a community of faith is so vital in overcoming any hard times and your hard time as a parent. So thank you for sharing that. Of course. If you were going to go back in time to before you were a dad, before you found out your wife was pregnant, and you were going to give yourself some parenting advice, what would it be? Well, I've

SPEAKER_00: 11:41

already mentioned one would be start sooner. And not everyone can apply that the same way. And there's wisdom here that the Lord gives us. And I wouldn't necessarily say start immediately for everybody, but I'd say start sooner. there's no getting ready for being a parent really. Um, but there is being formed by being a parent, um, God does some amazing work when he brings two people together in marriage that they can't prepare for beforehand. And that will necessarily change them. So while there's good things you should look for in a potential spouse and a sense of godliness and maturity and direction in life, you got to know that that godliness, maturity, and direction are going to change and grow because you got married. Same thing with being a parent. And so, so it's prepare well and get started. That would be one thing. Another thing would just be settle right now that your life is not your own, but you belong body and soul to God as the first answer to the first question the Heidelberg Catechism tells us. That's our only comfort in life and death, that I'm not my own, but belong body and soul to the Lord. And all things, to paraphrase and to riff on Romans 8, must work together for my good because I'm his. Settle right now. that being a parent will absolutely change your life. And it will change your life in ways that are for the better. It'll change your life in ways that seem harder or even could seem worse to you. But none of it is coming from your kids directly. They just need what they need. They need what every kid needs. They might have special needs like our kids do. None of it is coming directly Because you are the way you are, it's coming from the hand of God, your father who loves you. So settle right now that God will give me the children he gives me, when he gives me, with the needs that they have and the personalities that they have, with the means that I have. And my job is to take care of what he has given me to the best of my ability. And it will... Absolutely cost me other things in life. It'll cost me time. It'll cost me flexibility and freedom. That was my idol. And I realized it partly through getting married and definitely through having kids. And especially through having kids with special needs. Your ambition, your aspiration, it will change. You can be you and have a life and even pursue a career. But my fundamental vocation is not seminary professor. It's not even pastor. Before it's either of those things, it is... dad. Now, we have to talk about how husband and dad work together because they do and they're distinct. And of course, Christian is ahead of all those. But the things that I thought define me as a person are a little less important and a little less defining because I have these young people who really, really need me and God has given them to me and me to them. So, settle right now. That would be the advice I'd give. I know that's kind of not very practical. But the advice I would give would just simply be to say, if you think you want to have kids, don't build a future version of your life that doesn't require any sacrifice for those kids. Because I promise you that future version of your life won't exist. You will need to sacrifice for your kids. And praise God, most days you'll want to sacrifice for your kids. So why build some future vision for your life that doesn't include the dedication, the time, the energy, the resources that go into being a parent if you think you want to be a parent?

SPEAKER_01: 15:11

That's really good. That's really good. I think of taking up our cross and following Jesus, and that goes into every aspect of life and even parenting, as you kind of described. I really like that. I want to end maybe on a lighter note. Do you have maybe one or a couple of your favorite funny parenting stories?

SPEAKER_00: 15:37

Yeah, man. Well, I guess I got sort of into that with the– with the the sandlot um i mean kids just say crazy things and sometimes they say to the people they really ought not to say them to um praise god we have generally been able to avoid that um but man our kids i'll kind of bring it back to what i was saying earlier that The problems we have with our kids because of their medical needs are really just normal parent problems turned up to 11, right? So one was figuring out, after we brought Kai home, he has all these medical needs, and he is really upset in the middle of the night. He doesn't quite cry like a normal kid cries. He has what's called dystonia, so he'll tense up really bad. So he wakes up in the middle of the night. He tenses up. His heart rate's getting really high. And we're thinking... man why do they ever entrust this child to us he needs medical attention what do we do we tried everything man we tried like every therapy we knew to try we tried emergency medications that we had been prescribed and sometimes those are the right thing they weren't working we have like what is going on and finally after like maybe half an hour trying to figure this out all these existential concerns of like are we equipped to be this child's parents we realized he had a poopy diaper and he just was uncomfortable and he didn't know how to tell us and so So by that time, though, like think about this, like he had a poopy diaper and he's been raging out for like half an hour. And so the poopy diaper is not stayed in the diaper at this point. So we had to like, like get scissors and cut his onesie off of him. and he went right to sleep we changed his diaper and he went right to sleep and so our stories are a little bit sad and weird they're not sad to us we just think it's funny because this is our lives these are our kids um and so it's a good reminder to us one like next time he's freaking out and we've had to say this for four years hey just check his diaper before you do anything crazy before you like run to the hospital um because he's still a kid And he still just needs stuff that kids need. And he's special and he's got special needs. And we've had to do some crazy things as parents to help him. But sometimes we just have to do the normal stuff. And that's been a good lesson for us. It makes for some great stories. And that's the one I got for you.

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

Well, that's a good, funny story. I found it funny as well. So you're not alone. Yeah. On behalf of all the listeners and myself, I want to thank you for being on the show with me today. Yeah, thanks for having

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

me, Abraham. Appreciate your ministry, brother. And I hope it equips churches to come around parents to help them be not just in the crazy hard times, but just in the everyday difficulty of being a godly parent. I hope it equips and helps parents to take up their task seriously.

SPEAKER_01: 18:27

Amen. Thank you for joining me. I hope this was an encouragement to you. Please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with the people around you.