Uncharted Waters Part 4: From Summer to Autumn|A Mother’s Journey from Death to Life #PILAM #PregnancyandInfantLossAwareness

FROM SUMMER TO AUTUMN

A new obstetrician, Dr. F, received our MRI results to give us a second opinion. At the appointment, he performed his own ultrasound. Billy stood by, arms folded around his middle, bracing himself for the news.

The doctor sighed and held my arm. “This really sucks, but the prognosis is grave." He pointed at the ultrasound screen. "There are clearly no kidneys here.  Also, the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck. Your amniotic fluid is completely depleted, and the lungs have not been developing. Most likely, your baby will be stillborn or live one or two hours at most.”

I closed my eyes, trying to hold back the tears to no avail. Sobs burst from within, shaking my whole body.

Desperate to hold our baby, I faced the doctor. “Is there some way to have my baby now? Before it dies?”

“Forcing a delivery could only be done by abortion. Do you really want to do that?”

“No.” Abortion was not an option for me.

THE CHOICE OF GRACE

When I was a teenager, my mother told me that when she thought she was pregnant with me, she had been told by her friends to go to an abortion clinic to at least get a free pregnancy test.

She was young and divorced with a four-year-old son at the time. She hoped that maybe, the clinic would offer some help.

While waiting to meet with the doctor, the thought occurred to her that the baby might be a girl, and she always wanted to have a girl. So she left the clinic. That day, my life was spared.

Mom holding me

I could not take this baby’s life, even if it was to be a very short one. I realized that I had to carry our baby for as long as the Lord had planned.

I had to trust He would be right by my side every step of the way.

COVERED IN PRAYER

In our small group at church, we broke the news that unless God intervened, our child would not survive. Our friends cried out to the Lord for us in prayer. I also shared with my women’s Bible study group, and they all placed their hands on my belly and prayed.

What a comfort to know people cared about me, and were seeking God on behalf of my unborn child. Through email, I asked all the Christians I knew to pray for the baby. I even e-mailed the pastors I knew in Ukraine, so people were praying for us globally. A wave of peace washed over me, as I felt covered in prayer.

A miracle was possible. God could heal our child.

When April was a baby, a young woman in our church named Heather, developed liver cancer. She had several rounds of chemotherapy, but her body couldn’t take any more. Her doctor said the cancer was terminal by then, and nothing else could be done.

Our church held a prayer meeting at a friend’s house for Heather. Billy prayed with everyone in the living room. I stayed in the kitchen with April and fed her Cheerios in a highchair, adding my own desperate prayers for Heather.

At Heather’s next doctor appointment, more tests were done.

The cancer had completely vanished.

It was amazing to witness this miracle firsthand. It confirmed to me that God still does the impossible and our prayers matter.

Researching on the Internet, we found websites that helped us understand our baby’s condition. Bilateral renal agenesis is also termed Potter’s Sequence (a video is found here).  I was able to read stories of other women who had babies with Potter’s Syndrome and how they coped with the diagnosis.

I discovered thst babies form kidneys in the first month after conception.  On the mission trip to Ukraine, I was already three months pregnant, so that ruled out the baby somehow acquiring Potter’s Sequence there. There was no known cause for bilateral renal agenesis and no treatment. Nothing could be done.

Billy and I kept hoping and praying that the Lord would completely heal our baby. But, with each ultrasound check-up, the doctor couldn’t find any kidneys, my hope for this miracle waned.

I had entered an autumnal season in my life and this marked by anticipatory grief. I didn't want to be on this journey. I didn't choose it. But apart from a miracle, nothing could change the fact that death awaited us just over the horizon. 

“Yet you, Lord, are our Father. 

We are the clay, you are the Potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

(Isaiah 64:8)

For Part 1, click here.

Next post, Part 5. 

Uncharted Waters Part 3: Paradise| A Mother’s Journey from Death to Life #PILAM #PregnancyandInfantLossAwareness

PARADISE

The day for the MRI appointment came.

Taking a deep breath, I positioned myself on the flat bed before it glided into the darkened tunnel of the MRI machine.

Despite being provided noise-blocking earphones, the clang, clang, clang, clang of the MRI jarred me.  

With each reading, I held my breath until light-headed.

The tunnel looked like a coffin. My heart quickened at the thought. Squinting my eyes shut, my mind wandered to something more wonderful—paradise.

THE GARDEN

Adam and Eve, perfectly made for each other, raced hand-in-hand, through an endless garden bordered by ferns and a myriad of flowers—orchids, hibiscus, lilies, and more. The air was thick with a delicious smell of perfume and sultry earth.

Two silhouettes, outlined by the setting sun, beheld a cliff that overlooked a river. Holding hands, the fearless figures jumped in, creating rippling ringlets of turquoise that faded out into the emerald deep.

Refreshed and glowing in the sunlight, the couple strolled into the middle of the garden—a variable orchard filled with every fruit tree imaginable.

Letting go of Adam’s hand, Eve wandered into the center of a ring of trees. Her hair draped over her body like a queen’s robe.

Barefoot on the soft, damp grass, she padded forward. There was a hush and heaviness to the air.

There, towering over her, was the Tree of Life with nearly ripened fruit. Next to it, stood the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She felt magnetically drawn to its ripe, delectable fruit dangling within arm’s reach.

A hiss tickled the back of her neck. She pivoted to face a vermilion serpent hovering before her. Its body coiled and arched around the lowest branch. “Didn’t God say you must not eat of any fruit in the garden?”

“No, I can eat of any fruit, except this one,” she said, with chin upturned, pointing to the fruit that was suspended in front of her. “God said do not eat or even touch it, lest I die.”

“Are you sure you can trust God?” bid the voice. “Reach up. Grab it. One bite and you will not die. You will become like God, knowing all sorts of things. Why doesn’t He want you to know those things anyway?”

Eve hesitated. But the temptation proved too strong.

With both hands, she plucked the fruit and took a bite, crunching hard until the juice flowed, red as blood, dripping down her chin and through her shaking fingers. Finding Adam, she offered some to him, and he ate it.

BROKEN TRUST

Shame washed over them. They felt helpless, vulnerable. Eve plucked some nearby fig leaves and shared them with Adam in order to cover themselves, but that didn't remove the deep shame they now wore.

“Adam. Where are you?” whispered God.

Both Adam and Eve peeked out from behind a tree. Eve’s whole body burned and shook at the same time.

Adam spoke first. “I don’t want to come out, because I am naked.”

God replied, “Did you eat the fruit I forbade you from eating?”

Adam confessed that he ate the fruit, but blamed it on Eve. Eve blamed it on the serpent. God was grieved and angry, because they had rebelled against him.

Instead of blessing, the earth and its inhabitants received a curse. As a consequence of the first sin, Eve would suffer in childbirth and in relationship with her husband. Adam would suffer frustration and futility in his work.

Though they deserved their punishment, God offered Adam and Eve a glimmer of grace. In His great mercy, He provided a way for all humanity to be saved. He told them He would send one of the woman's offspring, the Messiah, or King, to destroy the devil and conquer sin, shame, suffering, and death forever.

The Lord said to the serpent that when Messiah comes, “He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel (Genesis 3:15).”

Strings of venomous saliva blew in the wind as the snake opened its mouth wide in defiance, revealing its four curved teeth. Four teeth, sharp as nails, destined to wound the One and Only Son of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Genesis 3:1-22). They would pierce His hands and His feet (Psalm 22:16).

Clang, clang, clang, clang.  Then, silence.  I glided out of darkness and into light.  As I rested on the bed, I could breathe again. Holding my protruding belly, I kept thinking about the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, where life began.

A diagnosis of bilateral renal agenesis would mean death for my child.

Would I trust our Creator in life and in death? 

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well…

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

(Psalm 139:13-16)

 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”

 (Jeremiah 1: 5, NKJV)

For Part 1, click here.

Next post, Part 4.

When the Cold Winds Blow: Healing from Pregnancy and Infant Loss

When the autumn winds blow fresh and cool, the maple leaves ambling to the ground, a slow but pervasive sadness creeps up. It doesn’t take long for me to know why.

And in the midst of this ache, a little light trickles in.

An idea. A glimmering grace to hold onto. A comfort to ease the pain.

Gathering leaves, big and small, symmetrical or somewhat askew, I hold them to my heart.

With broken crayons, sheets of blank paper and children needing something to do, I demonstrate. Taking a single leaf, I cover it with paper and rub it over and over again with a red crayon.

As if by magic, the leaf appears. First the stem, the veins and the outline of the leaf’s three points.

My kids are in awe and my heart is at rest. 

To turn death into a learning experience, a thing to grow from, gives me renewed focus and grace...

To look to the One who comforts me and love on the ones I have here.

I have this little blue scrapbook. A book of remembrance. Of a time of waiting for a sweet little baby. A son. His prognosis was grave. I was his life support. When he was born, he would die. Back then, bilateral renal agenesis (BRA) had no treatment and still has no cure. I received the news the beginning of autumn.

December came and he was wrapped up warm and comfortable in my womb while I waited for his birth day. The day I’d have to say goodbye.

Another month before his due date, I spent half that windswept day on a playground with my two-year-old Bright Girl. Pushing her in the swing. Watching her joy as she raced around, her sneakers crunching on the fallen leaves. Not knowing it would be the day before my son’s birth day.

Giving birth to a child born without the capacity to live was incomprehensible. How can you prepare for it?

All I could do was breathe and pray.  

When trying to savor each moment, time slows down. It would be one of the longest days of my life. And, I held my little boy, my Luke, for as long as I could before he passed from here to heaven.

I left the hospital, with empty womb and empty arms.

Trying to find some sort of normalcy, when my strength returned, I took my toddler to the playground. As I pushed her in the swing, a shadow seemed to block the sun. It wasn’t a shadow others could see, but it was felt. And only by me.

I don’t remember how long the shadow lasted, but it came and went like the ebb and flow of the tides.

And it's been like that each and every autumn, when the cold winds begin to blow. For twelve years now. The shadow of grief comes. Sometimes for a day, sometimes a bit longer.

At this point, I don't know if I can call grief a friend, but I now see a pattern for when it settles in.

And, I don't mind it anymore.

Loving and losing someone hurts. The pain means they mattered. And, the latent grief that comes is a reminder to us to think of the ones we miss in heaven. The ones we're waiting to see again.

And when the shadow of grief seems to linger, just remember...

You will bloom again.

Like the sunflowers who turn to face the sun, may we turn to face our Savior and wait for His healing, comfort and grace.

A wise king once said,

“To every thing there is a season…a time to be born and a time to die...a time to weep and a time to laugh…” (Ecclesiastes 3:3-8)

And Jesus said, 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4).”

Death has not won the victory, Christ has. His love is eternal. Death couldn't stop Him. He lives on

 and by grace, our loved ones who are gone, live on.

Faith gives us hope.

Hope helps us bloom. To be open to joy.

Love is the source of that hope—the love of Christ, our gentle Savior who leads us on the path He has laid out for us. 

For some of us, it is the path of grieving in hope. The hope that brings whispers of a joy to come. On falling leaves and in fingers making impressions for little hearts to learn.