Giving It All to God (even when it isn't easy)

I should be over 13 weeks pregnant today, but going by my measurements I'm barely 12.  We learned that things weren't right from the beginning because at my 6 week ultrasound the baby was measuring too small.  Actually, at that point there wasn't even a baby visible; there was only an empty sac, which was an indicator that things just weren't developing as they should.  Since then it has been a complete roller coaster.  We saw a heartbeat, and we thought we may be out of the woods.  Shortly after that, I had another ultrasound that showed our baby may only have one leg and a possible omphicole (the bowel growing into the umbilical cord).  Then this past week things were a little more conclusive.

We had an ultrasound yesterday that showed the baby's left leg was missing, and the right one is also abnormal.  The doctor also believes that the organs may be developing incorrectly.  As of today, we have no idea what is wrong with our baby, and we don't know if the baby will be viable outside of the womb.

(We don't know the sex of our baby, but I'm going to refer to this child as "he" from now on instead of him or her).

Having a disabled child is more difficult than I can imagine, but having a child, no matter what his physical and mental struggles are, is something that I am honored to do.  A child is a child.  A child is a blessing, and a "fetus" is a baby, a human being.  As we watched the baby wriggle around on the ultrasound screen I was struck by the tragedy of the millions and millions of women who have been in my same situation and turned to their doctors and said, "Get rid of it."  I watched that sweet, active little 2" baby and was just amazed.  This baby is not developing like a healthy child, but that doesn't make him any less of a person.  I just can't understand how anyone could decide that their baby doesn't deserve a chance.  It isn't my choice...or my desire.

My hope is that this baby survives, that I meet this little one and raise him to know that he is perfect and whole just the way God made him.  My hope is for a miracle, that even now God might be healing this little one's body.  But I have an even greater hope, and it has taken me 28 long years to finally get here.

My greatest hope is that God would be honored and glorified in this situation.  I want to have more children.  Anyone who has been reading this blog has to know that by now.  It is one of my strongest desires, and at one point it became my sole desire.  That was so wrong.  Over the last year God has been loosening my grip on this desire that slowly and quietly developed into a NEED.  My desire for more children is still there, and it is still strong.  But my greatest need is for Christ and His purposes.  I have found that the more God loosens my grip on the things that I want, the more He becomes what I want and what I need.  I have also found that true satisfaction, fulfillment and joy only comes when He is in the center of it all.  

I hope this doesn't sound flippant.  I love this child.  I take time every single day to put my hands on my tummy and pray for this baby.  I want this child, but what I want more is for God to make the decision how long his life span will be.  My reasoning for this is that I know - I'm 100% certain that whatever God decides for my baby is what is best and right for him.  Is there any greater comfort?  I am so grateful that He is in charge because HE IS GOD.  He created us and gives us every breath we take.  There are no better hands, not even mine, for this little one's life to be in.  

I have the privilege of being the vessel that God has chosen my baby to live in and grow inside of.  As my best friend Danielle so (as usual) perfectly phrased it, "God chose ME for this."  It is all providence, and it is all part of his perfect plan.  I trust Him.  This was no accident.  

I don't know what tomorrow will bring, and I have absolutely no idea what the future holds.  But His grace is sufficient for me.

Be Killing Sin

I held off on writing about this for weeks.  I was anxious from the beginning and thinking "If I'm going to miscarry I want to do it privately."  Is that hopeless or what?  I'm not going to sugar coat it.  The way I was thinking was just plain prideful.  I didn't want people to feel sorry for me, but worse than that I didn't want to feel the shame publicly of losing another child.

I bet this doesn't make sense to most people.  I can't speak for all women who have been through a miscarriage, and also let me preface this by saying I realize how completely irrational this is but... for me, miscarrying was shameful.  I felt guilty and embarrassed.  I felt that I had somehow failed to protect my child, like it was something I could have controlled.  I thought "I should have been able to carry this baby to term." As I said before, and I think this is worse than feeling guilty, I was embarrassed.  There was something about losing my baby, and having everyone know about it that made me feel like a loser.  I'm going to cut to the chase.  It was pride.  It was a fear that people would look down at me.

This summer I was struck with my lack of humility.  I felt very convicted in many ways of this sin; in the way that I spoke to people (or spoke too much), the way that I listened (or more often the lack thereof), and in the way that I thought of myself.  I wrestled, and still do, with this terribly.  I was determined to kill this sin, so I prayed and studied the subject (there are some great resources out there).  As time went by and I became pregnant, I realized how connected these two sins are with each other and just how deeply I struggle with both.  Pride is a feeling of self-respect or self-worth, and a lack of humility pretty much happens when our pride is in overdrive.  In not wanting others to know that I was pregnant and that I was told I would likely miscarry, I was acting proudly, refusing an opportunity to be humble and losing out on the prayers and encouragement of my Christian brothers and sisters.

I know that part of the battle is being able to recognize our sins, but that is just the beginning.  I'm not going to lie.  It is still an uphill battle, but my hope is that in writing this and sharing it with those who love me, I will have to be accountable.  When we struggle in secret and hide our ugly sinful nature we are only hurting ourselves and stunting our own growth.  And my goal is still to be more like Jesus.  I don't want to do anything that is going to prevent me from growing in Christ.  So here it is.  I'm laying it bare.

Not Time to Mourn

I was going to try to write about this in order from the earliest events to the most recent, but because so much time has passed I'm going to just jump around.  So here it is...

I'm 12 weeks pregnant.  Praise God we had no difficulty in conceiving.  My surgery was a success, and my fertility was in no way adversely affected.  After the events of the last year, my doctor had me go in for an early ultrasound at  6 weeks to make sure the pregnancy was not ectopic (that it was in my uterus).  As it turned out the pregnancy was in my uterus, but the baby was developing too slowly.  We met with my doctor, and he informed us that we should prepare for a miscarriage.  We waited a week, had another ultrasound, and saw again that the baby was measuring a week behind.  I saw a very slow heartbeat (also an indicator of a likely miscarriage).  I spoke to the doctor, and he said he still was not convinced it would be a viable pregnancy, but that he also wasn't ruling out that it might be.  I appreciated his hesitation to give me a miscarriage diagnosis, as I've heard about so many other women in this situation whose doctors told them their baby was not viable.  They went on to wait a couple weeks, and sure enough their baby was fine.  I waited one more week, had another ultrasound and saw a great heartbeat (140 bpm) and a baby that was measuring over a week behind but still appeared to be doing well.

At this point I was over 8 weeks pregnant.  I'd love to be able to say I was just over joyed, but I'm going to be honest.  I was terribly faithless and had been since my first ultrasound.  Wouldn't you think that after everything this past year, I would have learned to be hopeful?  To be trusting my Father?  To behave and think like a real Christian?  I am so ashamed to say I did not.  In fact, I left that ultrasound so struck my by sin and how poorly I'd responded to this trial in the past few weeks.  Here I was pregnant this whole time, not rejoicing in it, but having completely given up.  I had already been mourning the loss of my child, while all along this little one was continuing to grow inside me.  Just typing the words and reading them is difficult.

Let me go a step further.  That week I left for Florida for my sister's wedding.  Within a couple days of being there I noticed that all of my pregnancy symptoms became non-existent.  No nausea, no more headaches, very little exhaustion and no more indigestion.  I should probably mention that I also had the slightest bit of bleeding.  I called the after hours doctor who was on call and described my symptoms.  He said that I may be having a miscarriage.  Yet again, I gave up all hope.  In fact, I was CERTAIN the baby had died.  I got home and the following Monday had an ultrasound to confirm my suspicion and was shocked to see a very active baby with a strong heartbeat.  At this point, the heart rate had made it all the way up to 171 bpm.  I was completely astonished.  It didn't make sense to me.  I didn't feel pregnant anymore, but indeed I was.  Again, I realized how faithless I was.  This time, I made a conscious effort to have a positive, hopeful attitude....but a few days later some more bleeding came and along with it so did the doubts....

The Green Light

I've been saying for the last couple of months that I'm going to get back to blogging, but truth be told, I think I've just been too lazy to do it.

I don't think I've updated since my last post about my AVM symptoms returning.  Apparently, I don't know my own body at all and God is very VERY gracious.  My doctor sent me for a second scan since my surgery, and the AVM is virtually non-existent.  I went to see the high risk OBGYN in New York recommended to me by Dr. Rosen, and he did a saline ultrasound to see how much scar tissue I had left over from the surgery.  The assumption was that in order for us to get the "green light" to go ahead and get pregnant, he would see how much scar tissue there was and remove whatever he could.  (If there is too much scar tissue, it would put me at a greater risk of having a postpartum hemorrhage at the time I deliver our next baby).  Well, yet again, in God's providence there wasn't even any scar tissue to be removed!  The doctor said, "If you hadn't told me you had ever even had an AVM I wouldn't have known it was there." There wasn't even a remnant of anything left.

We went home with a tremendous gift that day.  We were allowed to go ahead and "be fruitful and multiply."