About a year a half ago, I was reconnected with a college
friend who almost immediately asked me to pray for her good friend, Sarah, who
had just had a full term, stillborn baby boy.
My heart broke for this young woman and her husband. And as I read her blog entries and prayed for
her, I felt like God was calling me to do more; to reach out to her on a
personal level. So I did. I wrote her an email, I mailed a card and I
friended her on facebook. We actually
became great friends. We have still
never actually met, since she lives in Texas, but we email, text and facebook
each other often.
Naturally, Sarah began finding other young ladies who have
gone through similar situations as hers and built a strong support community
for herself. She would tell me some of
their stories and I would pray for them.
I would follow their blogs and watch the amazing things God was doing in
their lives. With two of the women, I
felt the same calling to reach out to them again. So I did.
And over the next year or so, God was randomly placing women in my life
who have experienced a miscarriage, a stillbirth, or infant loss. My heart broke for them and I felt I needed
to do more. One of these other women I
had reached out to, Erin, was starting an organization called Hope
Mommies. It is a support system for
mothers who trust God with their babies: Born out of hope, prayed for in hope,
taken to Christ in Hope. Erin emailed
me about beginning this organization and asked if I would be willing to be a
prayer warrior. I was super excited and
honored to be asked. So every week, she
would send me (and other prayer warriors) an email with our assigned women to
pray for with a bit of background and their story of each woman. We would also get to email and send cards on
the anniversary of their baby’s birthday each month with encouraging words and
scripture verses.
August of last year, my husband, Shawn, and I decided to
have another child. We were going to
hopefully get pregnant in March, as we wanted a December baby. We ended up getting pregnant in
September. Our due date was set for July
4th. In November, I started
feeling like God was pointing out all the blessings in my life. For the last year, He had been surrounding me
with moms who have medical issues with their babies, or their babies have
passed away, or their children were always sick, or always had an ear infection
and had to have tubes put in. It was
quite overwhelming and I would go to God in prayer with confusion as to why I
have never had to deal with any of this, but it seemed as though everyone else
was suffering with something regarding their kids. My kids were perfect. (Health-wise that is…! Haha) They have never
been to the doctor for anything but their regular checkups, they have never been
sick other than the common cold a few times, they have never had an ear
infection, or a hospital stay or ANYthing!
I felt so blessed; I was confused and a bit angry at God for that. That is when I overheard someone else’s
conversation one day. They were talking
about something similar and the one lady said to the other, “It’s the calm
before the storm”. Then it hit me like a
pile of bricks being dropped on me. OF
COURSE that’s what it is! I thought to
myself, “Well, this must be some storm coming, because I have super blessed for
a long time now!”
For the next 2 and half months, this was always at the
fore-front of my mind. And I just had
this gut feeling that this baby I was caring was going to be troublesome. Something was going to be wrong. I had all kinds of thoughts go through my
head. Born prematurely, NICU stays,
heart defect, a medical disability, the list was endless. I expressed this concern with certain people
in my life, but they of course thought I was just a worried pregnant lady who
couldn’t be more pessimistic. As I told
these feeling to others, stillbirth or my baby dying in some fashion was always
in the back of my mind, but I never wanted to say those words out loud. Surely that wasn’t God’s plan. I have been praying for so many Hope Mommies
and following their journeys of healing and grief, surely He would not thank me
by allowing the same thing to happen to me.
Oh, how selfish I was.
I gave my unborn baby over to the Lord and would tell God, whatever His
plans were; I could learn how to handle.
If it was a disability, I would do my research and I would excel at
parenting a disabled child. But I never
handed over the thought of death. That’s
wasn’t in God’s plans.
On January 19th this year, I woke up in the middle
of the night in a puddle of blood. I
knew in an instant the baby was gone. I
was 16 weeks pregnant. We went to the ER
and I was told the baby was no longer alive, and in fact had not been alive for
the last week, maybe even two. My heart
sank. The doctors were not able to
retrieve the baby so I had to have surgery.
Before the surgery, the first thing I did (besides update my mom), was
text Sarah to ask her to pray.
Because I was not at least 20 weeks along, I was not allowed
to see the baby. I did not get footprints
or handprints of the baby. The baby does
not get a headstone, rather a communal burial and a generalized memorial
stone. I am labeled as a “miscarriage”
instead of a “stillbirth”. All of my
medical paperwork is calling it an “incomplete abortion”. The OB doctor on call that did the D&C procedure
told us that he was not able to tell the sex of the baby. This was super frustrating to me because I
had known and read of many women who know by 16 weeks. I felt defeated that I couldn’t even know
this information.
We decided to name the baby anyway, and thought for a couple
days for the perfect name that is also a neutral name. The name we decided on was Jordan
Trinity. Jordan means free flowing, like
the Jordan River that Jesus was baptized in, and Trinity, meaning, of course,
the triad, whom Jordan now resides: The Father, The Son, and the Holy
Spirit.
The blessing came a couple days after we named Jordan. The OB doctor called at about 9:30 one night
saying the pathology report was back and he was able to tell the sex of the
baby! Baby Jordan was a boy! This was a huge blessing and a huge weight
lifted off my shoulders. The first
blessing to come of many.
Through this experience, we have been able to hold on to the
blessings we have even more and be so much more thankful for them. I have met even more amazing women who have
endured this experience. I have been
blessed to be able to have a blog where I can write freely my thoughts and
feelings. Though I write my blog mostly
for myself, I have received countless emails and messages about how someone has
been moved by my story and how it has given them hope and an outlook on their
own blessings that they didn’t have before.
People I don’t know and people I haven’t talked to in years apparently
follow my blog.
Another blessing that we have received so quickly is to be
pregnant again. We got pregnant again in
March, the month we were originally planning to get pregnant in. Maybe this WAS the month we were supposed to
get pregnant.
I have learned how extend grace to others, just has God has
and does give overflowing grace to me. I
have learned that everything is the Lord’s, even our children. I have learned how to pray, not for what I
want, but for God’s will to be done. I
have learned that grief never ends, it just changes over time. I have learned humility. I have learned how to love better, with a
Godly perspective. I have learned the
true meaning of HOPE. Hope that I will
see my son again. HOPE that this WAS the
most perfect plan God could have for us.
One thing I do know for sure is that Jordan is in
Heaven. How can I be upset for my loss
when He is in the most perfect place EVER!
With the most perfect Father loving Him in a way even bigger than I
could ever dream of. A place with no
pain or hurts. I may not have gotten the
chance to see my son, nor he see me, but knowing that the first time he opened
his eyes, He saw Jesus always sets my heart at peace. And I WILL see my son someday. I just have to wait a bit longer than most
moms.
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