The Original Announcement

Many of my friends who I have spoken to know the full story, but for those of you following here, I feel it's necessary to share the time leading up to our diagnosis as a way of putting this whole journey in context.

Jeff and I were done having children after our second. But Jeff wouldn’t get a vasectomy.   He went for the pre-op but never went for surgery. This led to the birth of Abigail, a special and dearly loved gift from God.  After that I was open to having a fourth (all the wise people in my life say even numbers are better) but Jeff was done.  Again Jeff went for a pre-op appointment but didn’t follow up with surgery leading to this pregnancy.  However, before I even knew for sure that we were pregnant I informed Jeff that at the end of the month, if I wasn't pregnant I was going to begin the process of tubal ligation.  Jeff booked an appointment that week, that he intended to follow through on. 

I found out I was pregnant Easter Sunday.

Knowing that this would be our last pregnancy was extremely satisfying.  For me, being pregnant is like a long road trip.  I know the destination will be worth it, but I whine the entire time about how uncomfortable I am.  Anyway, every day that passed I could not shake the feeling that things were not necessarily right with this child growing inside of me.  I shared this with two or three close friends over the course of the first few months.  And I specifically asked Jeff, "If something happens to this baby, are we good?" meaning, if we lose the baby are we still okay with going through with the vasectomy?  We both agreed that this was all in God's hands and that we were confident God's perfect plan would work itself out no matter the outcome.  So we sealed the deal.  This is our last pregnancy.

Meanwhile, we were doing a Bible Study called "Breaking Free" by Beth Moore in my small group.  I had done this study before and found a few things in my life that were really tripping me up that I had to deal with.  So I was looking forward to going through it again and learning more about myself and the things that God still wanted to work out in me. I had been going through it for 6 weeks and was still not sure what I was supposed to be focusing on.  We finally got to the week that talks about "generational sin," which is another way of saying dysfunctional familial patterns that you've unintentionally embraced. 

I had called my Mom and shared with her that I was really struggling with fear this pregnancy more than I had with any of my other pregnancies and I wasn't sure why.  My mom said (not knowing what I had been studying), "Fear is a generational sin that I passed down to you that my mom passed down to me and it's not what God wants for you.  He wants your complete trust in Him."  We never use the phrase “generational sin” in conversation.   God was definitely speaking to me through Mom. She then walked me through some things that the Lord had showed her about how to deal with a sin she had struggled with for a long time.  In those moments I knew that 10 weeks of Beth Moore's Bible Study wasn't going to help me as much as what the Lord had taught my mother.

The next morning I agreed with God that fear was not his plan for me and that I didn't want it to have any part in this pregnancy or my life any more.  I committed to not allowing myself to continue down the road of fear but would trust Him if he brought to mind when I was experiencing it.  And He responded. 

He reassured me that the child growing inside of me was His and He would take care of us. Sure enough, it was never a struggle after that.  From that moment on, I believed with my whole heart that this baby was God's child that He crated according to His perfect plans and that He had good things in store.  Not a single part of me felt reassured that the baby was healthy and perfectly formed.  In fact, I wondered if we would have special needs child born to us.  But I felt complete confidence that I was living out a perfect plan and no matter what I was going to be okay, and so was my child—even if he or she was delivered to heaven.

Three weeks later we got our diagnosis.   I wasn't scared when we got it.  Nothing can mute the shock.  It was still shocking and unexpected to see my baby's deformities and struggles in an ultrasound.  It's actually quite awful.  And there's nothing more eerie than having an expert in his field tell you that it makes the most sense to end your baby's life yet know you have no intention of following his medical advice—not because you don't respect it or feel cared for—but because you know you've been told by a Greater Expert that He's got things under control.

After the diagnosis, for the first two weeks fear crept back in, but only when I allowed my mind to go down the hundreds of different roads toward the tomorrows that mostly would never come.  Unfortunately I allowed this to happen a lot.  I felt fear when I wondered what holding a deformed baby would feel like.  I feared I would not have the courage every mother "should" have, to be able to do it.  I felt fear when I wondered whether my marriage could withstand raising a special needs child for the rest of our lives if that's what God chose.  I wondered if my faith could take the trying and exhausting days of caring for a child with severe disabilities.  I prayed He would let that cup pass.  I worried about whether I could make it through healing from a C-section, burying our child,  and healing from the loss of a child at the same time without falling into a deep depression.  I worried about how it was going to feel for my last pregnancy to be this stinkin' sad.   I worried about the thousands of different endings this journey could take us, until I realized that this is why God's word says don't worry about tomorrow.  Because he promises enough strength for today.  And tomorrow, when His mercies are all new, He will give me enough strength for that today, too.

This is another lesson that I hope stays with me for the rest of my life.  Just as I am overjoyed by the knowledge I now have that my faith is real, and gives me life, I now know that fear and anxiety come when the strength that was given to me only for today's trials is being tied up trying to solve the problems of tomorrow and months down the road.  Somehow for a few weeks now God has given me the strength to shut the doors on tomorrow and to live out today with thanksgiving.  Because when I just look at today, I have a great deal to be thankful for and in which to find rest.

This is one of the ways I was referring to in the first when I said, God has prepared us for this journey in so many ways.  He had been working on me with my fear before we ever even got the diagnosis.  Only God can so gently and perfectly prepare you and walk you through a trial like this.  And this is also one of the reasons I cry just as much for those who endure a trial like this and have no knowledge of a Father in heaven who loves them dearly. I have no idea how you go through something like this without the Knowledge of God and the ever present Holy Spirit.