Sometimes God very clearly prompts me to write a specific blog post and doesn’t allow me to put on the back burner of my mind. Admittedly, I am a very private person and so sharing vulnerably is far from a strength of mine; but this blog post, while vulnerable, is not about me. It is all about Jesus and pointing to Him.
My husband and I learned in January that we are expecting a baby. We are excited and well into the process of getting the nursery set up, with the help of family members, but it has been an emotional roller coaster to get to this point. Honestly, most people have no idea of these events my husband and I have walked through, including family members. I tend to want to shelter and protect those I love, and so we made the decision not to bring others on this emotional roller coaster with us, but rather wait to share anything until we had definitive answers. But allow me to start at the beginning…
My husband and I, both being over forty, decided that we would not try to have children. We resolved that this probably wasn’t the time in our lives to have a baby, but always said that if God had another plan, then the baby would be a blessing. I had struggled for years, in my thirties, with the fact that it appeared God’s plan for me was to remain single and not have children, until I finally surrendered those dreams to Him and had peace about it. When it became clear that God had brought my husband and I together, I continued to wholeheartedly believe that His plan was not for me to have children. So, when I nonchalantly took a pregnancy test in January, fully expecting a negative result, I was shocked by the very faint second line. In less than a week, we would be on a plane to Oaxaca, Mexico on a mission trip. It seems naïve now that I was in such shock, but I was so sure that God’s plan for me did not include having a child. I had surrendered that dream and had received peace about not ever having children. I didn’t meet my husband until I was thirty-nine and was almost forty-one when we got married; in my mind, it was obvious that having a child was still not part of His plan.
A few days later I sat in the Ob-gyn’s office explaining that I had taken almost a dozen tests since that initial test, and in some cases, they seemed to be getting lighter each time. Of course, they ask if you were planning or trying to become pregnant, and I answered honestly- no. She immediately explained that the line was very faint, and they wanted to test my hCG levels, but that it was very likely that at my age this was a chemical pregnancy, and I would miscarry within the next few days. I explained that I was leaving for Mexico that Friday, and so the provider put in an order for another hCG test for Thursday in case there had been no sign of miscarriage yet. Hours later the results were in, and my hCG level was much lower than they were estimating it should be; so, once again, there was the explanation that I would have a miscarriage. I was still in shock about being pregnant, but now it seemed I was right that it was not God’s plan. On Thursday morning, with still no sign of miscarriage, I headed to the lab before work for the next hCG test. It was going to be a busy day at the office, as I would be away the following week and had a lot to get done before I could completely step away and focus on the mission trip. By mid-morning I received a call that my hCG levels were still too low, but that because they had gone up they were now concerned about an ectopic pregnancy. I was informed that they absolutely needed me to be in the office by 1:30pm that afternoon to do an ultrasound, in order that they would have time to intervene before I got on a plane to Mexico. And so, without being able to offer any explanation and visibly stressed, I apologized to our staff that I needed to leave early and would have to finish things up at home later that day.
I sat in the ultrasound room waiting for the provider and next steps, as they reviewed the images the technician had taken. When she arrived, I was relieved that it was the same provider I had seen for my initial appointment. She had been very compassionate in her delivery and explanation that I should expect to have a miscarriage; and once again she very compassionately explained that they had ruled out an ectopic pregnancy, but that they were not able to see what they would expect to see at my estimated three weeks gestation so I should expect to have a miscarriage while in Mexico. She strongly conveyed that I needed to go to the hospital in the event of certain symptoms, even though I would be in Mexico, which was followed by “And if you still have not miscarried when you return, then we can talk about your options”. I immediately realized that was probably standard for anyone that had answered that they were not planning or trying to become pregnant, and so I just stated, “Oh, we don’t believe in abortion”. I am still kicking myself, that amid still being in shock and numb, that was my response; because as the director of a pregnancy center, I could have answered in a way that would plant a seed of truth. It was a missed opportunity, mainly because I was too caught up in my head still spinning. She clearly didn’t like my response, and it very clearly changed our conversation from a patient and provider exchange; as her body language became defensive and she said, “well, that is really easy to say until you’re sitting in that chair”. Honestly, it wasn’t even until I began processing it all, while driving home, that it even occurred to me to be upset at her response or my missed opportunity to plant a seed for life. I arrived home, broke down in tears as I explained it all to my husband, and then moved on to finishing up work at home so that I could finish packing for the mission trip.
My husband and I made the decision to put all of this out of our minds, as much as possible, so that we could focus on the mission trip and what Christ had for us to accomplish there. The exception was, if I saw signs of miscarriage, I would let him know. I remember praying for God to please just orchestrate the timing to be while we were offsite and to not require emergency medical attention, but in my mind the miscarriage was certain. I can only describe it as being emotionally numb. What had started out as shock, had very quickly turned into being numb after being told by several medical providers that all signs pointed to chemical pregnancy and miscarriage; so, it really wasn’t hard to just focus on the mission trip.
Upon returning home, with never having experienced miscarriage symptoms, I knew there was another lab order for an hCG test waiting for me and so, after a few days, I went to the lab. My husband and were in the car when I received the phone notification of the lab results, and I quickly clicked through to view them. The hCG level had now spiked compared to where it had been, and I just turned the phone to show my husband the number. I think we both knew in that moment, and our mindset shifted from ‘miscarriage watch’ to ‘we are expecting a baby’. Due to never moving past the initial shock, but rather being emotionally numb as we expectantly waited for a miscarriage, I returned to being in shock and needing to process. I received a call from the provider’s office to say that the lab results showed that we now needed to shift to prenatal care and we scheduled an intake. In God’s providence, our ultrasound appointment to date the pregnancy was with a different provider, one that was upbeat, encouraging, and shared that her mother was in her forties when she was born (and that back then that was far more controversial/risky). She almost laughed, in a sweetly excited way, as she explained that I was not nine weeks along as estimated, but rather I was seven weeks; which meant that we found out I was pregnant at one week gestation, and that was why my hCG levels were so low initially. She turned the machine toward us, and my husband and I saw our baby on the screen for the first time and heard the heartbeat. I am confident that it was the sight of our baby and the sound of the heartbeat that snapped me out of being in shock.
With our mental and emotional shift to ‘we’re expecting a baby’, we began to talk about telling our family in a few weeks, as well as talking about a nursery and items for the baby. Two weeks later we were at our next prenatal appointment, which again included an ultrasound, and we watched as our baby was moving around so much that the doctor could not measure the heart rate. We took comfort in the comment that “only happy, healthy babies are this active”. I am a planner, and I can be impatient, so when the conversation turned to the fact that we could now find out our baby’s gender with a blood test, I was all for it. We knew the test screened for chromosomal abnormalities, but we were not focused on that, or even considering the possibility. The blood test was sent off, and we made the announcement to family and friends.
It was Maundy Thursday and I arrived at the office. I had barely put my phone on my desk when it began to ring with the doctor’s office on the caller ID. I excitedly answered knowing that it meant that the results were back, and we could find out whether we were having a boy or girl. I wasn’t met with the same excitement on the other side. Rather, in a somber tone, the explanation was given that our results had arrived, and our baby screened positive for trisomy 13 or 18. I was told that they did not have results yet on gender. They explained that I would be hearing from a genetics counselor, and I thanked them and hung up. I knew exactly what this diagnosis would mean. My husband and I, as well as our bible study, had just spent months praying for a local couple whose baby had received a trisomy 13 diagnosis and only had a couple of months with their baby. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and made the decision not to tell my husband until that evening, knowing that he had a lot of work to do that day. Right or wrong, I was trying to protect him as long as possible. I also knew that I had to compartmentalize, not only to be productive myself, but because one of our volunteers was returning from some time off and I would need to share the news of my pregnancy as I had with everyone else at the office. God granted my prayer for strength; and I was able to have that conversation of sharing the exciting news and her being excited for us, without anyone picking up on anything going on.
By mid-afternoon, my husband had picked up on the fact that something was wrong when he checked in to see how I was feeling. I was able to hold off the conversation until after we got home, but needless to say he walked through the door and wanted to immediately hear what was going on. I shared exactly what the doctor had said, including that we would be hearing from a genetics counselor to discuss diagnostic testing, and he asked what this all meant. Since we had been praying for the local couple and their baby, I just said “this is a baby J scenario”. I can tell you that I do not want to see that same look on my husband’s face ever again. It broke my heart. I still, to this day, cannot reflect on that moment and not be in tears. We researched how often the screen is positive and the diagnostic testing comes back negative: 1 in 16,000. We talked about how God is a God of miracles, and maybe that was His plan; but that if there is no miracle, He is still good. We talked about the truth that He is God and we are not, and we do not have to understand what He is doing in order to trust Him. We talked about the possibility that His plan was for us to walk through this diagnosis well, trusting Him and testifying to His goodness, in order to reach others for whom we pray.
Good Friday. I’ve had a tradition for several years now, of listening to Its Friday…But Sunday’s Coming. I couldn’t bring myself to do it this year, knowing how powerfully it impacts me, but throughout the day those words kept being impressed on my heart. Its Friday…but Sunday’s coming. Somehow, I had once again just believed what we had been told, and this message in my mind was that walking through this diagnosis was Friday, but that Sunday is coming as one day we would see our baby in Heaven. I had peace about that, and the truths of God’s character that we had focused on the evening before, but every time my husband came in the room I would just start crying. He didn’t even have to say a word, just seeing him placed me right back in the moment of seeing his face upon hearing the news. We decided not to go to our church’s Good Friday service as planned, because it is hard to keep it together at that service any year, but I knew I couldn’t this year. We discussed how to handle Easter with family, as surely the baby would be excitedly discussed. It was then that we decided to keep the news to ourselves until we knew more information, to protect them from being on this emotional roller coaster. I’ll admit, I don’t know now if that was the right decision. It may not have even been what God wanted us to do. But the decision was made out of love and with protective intentions. There were several friends that, once they learned in time, pointed out that as a church family they would have loved to be able to walk through this with us and support us. Our decision possibly robbed them of that blessing, but that was surely not our intention, which is why at a certain point we started sharing what we had been walking through.
Easter Sunday. God just makes me smile, even in difficult times, as He shows His love for us and that He is a personal God. The women of our church family had schemed to buy our husbands the same shirt for Easter, so that they would show up to church and realize many of the other men were in the same shirt; which went exactly according to plan, as about seventy-five men came to Easter Sunday dressed in the same shirt, including our Pastor. It brought about a lot of joyful laughter. While I am sure God used that in many ways, I know that it helped me laugh that morning and choose joy. Again, God granted me the strength to be able to talk about the baby with family and others without any indication that something was going on. And, while I traditionally listen to That’s My King on Easter but had forgotten, our church service began with the recording, which felt like a hug from God.
The genetics counseling office began trying to schedule our appointment that Monday, and it became apparent that they were pushing to have it happen as soon as possible, even explaining that it was over Zoom so that I didn’t have to leave the office. I had to make it clear that I was unwilling to have this conversation while I was at the office, so it would have to be sometime that Friday, at the earliest. While at first it sounded like they couldn’t do that, later in the week there was an available time on Friday. This also meant that my husband could attend, as he could work from home that day to be involved. God had worked it all out, it just took me some time to realize how and why it all lined up.
I have a standing Friday morning call with a couple of friends, sisters really, and I contemplated bowing out of it that day. We had made the decision to keep this to ourselves, and I knew they would pick up on something, but I also knew that we needed their warrior-like prayers. My husband and I discussed it and reached the decision that I would share with them what was going on, knowing that they would be praying afterwards as we met with the genetics counselor. I needed their faith-filled prayers full of hope, because I had accepted the information we had been given as truth and was not in that same place to be able to pray for a different outcome. They held us up in prayer when I couldn’t and didn’t even realize that I couldn’t.
We joined the genetics counseling appointment virtually and went through introductions. She asked me to share what information we knew; so, I explained that we knew that our baby had screened positive for trisomy 13 or 18 and we knew that either one of those diagnoses meant that our baby would be expected to be stillborn or only survive hours or weeks. She looked confused and said, “you were told your baby screened positive?” I confirmed. Once again, this time with frustration in her voice, she said “you were told your baby screened positive!?” Once again, I confirmed, now confused myself. She went on to apologize and explain that she could not believe that we had gone an entire week with incorrect information. Now we truly were confused and asked what she meant, as she went on to explain that our screen was not processed due to low fetal fraction. Basically, there was not enough fetal material in the blood sample to even complete the screen, which was also why I was told they did not have the gender results at the same time. She went on to explain the handful of possible causes of low fetal fraction, which includes trisomy 13 or 18, but also includes if the mother is overweight. She explained that the lab does return a low fetal fraction result with the explanation that a possible cause is trisomy 13 or 18, which was likely why we were told what we had been; but that the lab being unable to complete the screen due to low fetal fraction is very different than a completed screen with a high risk result. We made the decision to complete a second screening, this one through a different lab that we were told never returns a low fetal fraction result. We talked through diagnostic testing options, so that we could decide if we wanted to do any of them. Honestly, in that moment and after all the emotion, I wanted to know for sure so that we could be mentally and emotionally prepared. When she asked what would change if there were a trisomy 13 or 18 diagnosis, I explained that we wouldn’t want to put our family and friends through a baby shower or have them give the baby items that they will never use. It wasn’t until she said “I understand. We will just need to get you scheduled for diagnostic testing because we are on a tight timeline” that I realized she thought I was indirectly saying that I would have an abortion; so, I clarified, “no, nothing will change about the pregnancy, we will just literally not have a baby shower or have family and friends give the baby items that they will never need”. Then she truly understood.
We completed the second screen and awaited the results. Somewhere along the line, we realized that our mindset had shifted back to preparing for the baby and believed that the low fetal fraction result was due to my being overweight. Once again, I arrived at work one morning and my phone rang shortly after with the provider on the caller ID. Unlike last time, I didn’t answer excitedly, but the voice on the other end was excited. She shared that the screen was in fact completed this time, and that it returned a low risk result for trisomy 13 and 18 (it only returns with either a high risk or low risk result). Tears of relief just came, despite my attempts to stop them. She confirmed that they also received the gender result, and that she would put the results in an envelope for us to pick up so that we could open them together. This time I immediately texted my husband the results; and once I heard back from him, also sent updates to several others that we had told over the weekend and knew had joined in praying. Since then, we have shared with others as it has come up appropriately.
We decided that evening to cancel the diagnostic testing that we had scheduled. We discussed the fact that if we had received the low risk result after the first screen, we never would have considered diagnostic testing; because that wasn’t even our focus in completing the screen, we just wanted to find out the gender. We felt that we needed to just trust God, rather than pursue medical confirmations of the results.
Here’s what I know:
God is good and we can trust Him to work all things out for good. I don’t say this because of the encouraging results of the second screen, because I know that we were focused on this truth when we couldn’t see past the heart-wrenching information we were first given. No matter the outcome, God is good.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
God is faithful and draws near to us when we draw near to Him. Both my husband and I had peace in the midst of wholeheartedly believing that we would not have much time with our baby. We both felt like God was speaking to our hearts that everything was going to be okay, but we were confident that was going to look very different than it does now. We are far from leaning into Him perfectly, but we were in a place of recognizing that we had absolutely no control and relying on His sovereignty.
“But He gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” James 4:6-8a
God’s plan is always better than ours. We don’t pretend to know all that ways that God is using all of this for good, but we know that He has.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” Isaiah 55:8
Our spiritual enemy hates life. I am still surprised and frustrated that the spiritual warfare within all of this caught me by surprise. I am involved in the spiritual battle for life every single day. I know that he fights hard and fights dirty, and yet I did not expect it nor was I watching for it.
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:8-10
While I tend to try to shelter and protect others, or avoid being vulnerable, I need to remember that sometimes God is glorified more amid the hurt and allowing others in to walk through the process with us, than just the testimony after. While I may want to shelter and protect those I love deeply, instead I need to remember that the loving thing is to give them a front row seat to what God is doing- no matter the outcome. I never want to be a barrier to someone seeing God, His sovereignty, His goodness, His love, His grace, His faithfulness, or any of His amazing attributes.
I don’t know all of the reasons why God prompted me to share this testimony of Him, but I do know that He has used the reflection and writing to bring some healing. My hope and my prayer is that He is glorified through it and that it encourages others by pointing them to Him.