The Beginning of it All
May 4, 2017
This last week, my husband and I were given the worst news about our sweet baby. After our 20 week anatomy scan, it was discovered that our baby had no noticeable kidneys, a spinal issue and what looked like a heart defect. Without kidneys, the baby cannot produce urine which is what makes the amniotic fluid. With no fluid, the baby can’t practice swallowing and its lungs cannot fully develop. “This is not a viable pregnancy” are the words the doctors keep telling us.
It’s now been 4 days since we learned this news and I am still learning to cope with it. How was it that just last week, I was furiously pinning baby clothes to my Pinterest and giddily choosing bottles to put on my registry? I went into baby stores and felt all the blankets and talked with the clerks about the things I wanted to buy. I spent each day daydreaming about this baby and our lives together and now I’m being told that will never happen. Instead I am told, “Your baby will die in the womb, or you will deliver a baby who cannot breathe.” How is this happening?
I wake up to the baby squirming against my hand and can only think, “How much longer do I get to have you?” It is suffocating. I take a walk and see only babies and strollers and happy families. I log in to instagram and see my beautiful friends with healthy pregnancies and it’s so surreal that, days ago, I was that happy at the prospect of new life. There is a new weight I carry everywhere with me. I want to go back and somehow fix this, even though I know there’s nothing I could have done differently.
I think about the fact that my stomach will continue to grow and people will see me and see a normal, healthy pregnant woman, but I am not. I am frightened to deliver a child who is dead without ever getting to say hello. I fear delivering my child alive, and falling in love and then having to say goodbye. I fear the pain of childbirth with no hope of a loud cry at the end. These different scenarios play in my head and each one leads me to a wall, a dead end, and empty arms.
The “advice” we keep being given is to terminate the pregnancy. “It will be easier for Katherine and the sooner we do it the better,” are the words the doctor told my husband over the phone. And all the while my baby keeps kicking my belly and saying, “I’m here and I’m alive.” I want to scream at these doctors, “Not a viable pregnancy?! It’s alive! Isn’t it your job to fight for life and not demand death?” We have decided to continue with this pregnancy and give this baby every chance it deserves. We are its parents and we will celebrate each day we get to spend with this baby even if we only get to know it while it’s inside of me.
It is not up to Man to determine the amount of days we are each given. We are trusting the Lord in each step. He is the great Physician and healer. What are missing kidneys to the maker of the universe? Our God has the power to mend this child. A good friend of Nathan’s wrote to us and said, “He is not done knitting this baby together.” And I found so much peace in that. We are going to give this baby as much time as we can to grow as strong as he or she was created to be.
We are choosing to see hope where the doctors see none. They believe in numbers, evidence, odds and science, while we believe in the One who created those things in the first place. After all, the odds have to be against you before you can beat the odds and the outlook must be hopeless before you can experience the miraculous.
And while we pray for healing, we also know that that may not be the plan for this child. We are spending each day in prayer, knowing that Christ is the only one who can bring us peace and comfort throughout this time. My husband prays for us every morning and night, and we pray for the baby, that regardless of what happens, that this child will make known the glory of God.
I struggle daily with the horror of our new reality, but I also know that I am not alone. I am angry and scared, but I love the Lord and I know that He will be with me whatever happens. He is not punishing me and he did not do this to my child. We live in a broken world filled with disease and death, but someday, the King of kings will mend all of these things. We may not get to know our child on earth, but we will get to know them in heaven. We will continue to pray for a miracle and we will continue to accept God’s will as it unravels. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us.” — Romans 8:18
