“Hi Abby, this is Becky from Dr. Melamed’s office. I am just
calling to let you know that we got the results of your MRI and everything was
completely normal.
If you could just call me back and let
me know that you got this message that would be great.
Thank you so much! Bye bye!”
That lady’s sweet southern voice handed me some of the most
welcome, relieving news. Fabulous! So my “weirdness”, as we had come to
call it, wasn’t stemming from my brain, after all. I still didn’t know why I had been having shooting pains in my arms and legs, numbness, and tingling
skin, but at least it’s not a brain tumor. So on that Monday morning we tried to put some pieces
together – “Why have I had a migraine for five days – so bad I can’t lay my
head on a pillow without squirming in pain? Why have I been throwing up for a
week straight? Why did I almost pass out?
Why is my heart racing?”
So we took the test. And it said “pregnant”. And I sat
there, utterly shocked.
Because we hadn't figured out my “weirdness” yet, this is exactly what we were
trying to avoid! "I still don’t know what's causing all these weird problems
with my body, and now I’m pregnant?
Are you kidding?!" I laughed that “total disbelief” kind of laugh. I stared blankly for a few minutes,
shaking my head every now and then.
But then, the smiles came. The excitement swelled. We were having a fourth! A fourth! God is
nuts! And awesome. And generous.
We recorded it on my phone when we told the boys. *gasp* “I hope it’s a girl! I really want it to be a girl,” Judah shouted
while he danced on the bed. “A
baby?” asked Desh, totally confused.
“A new baby? Not Jordan any
more?” “A whole new one!” I
said. Oh, our family was
overwhelmed with this totally unexpected joy.
For the next four weeks I threw up more times and in more places than I have in the
rest of my life combined. I had
headaches and nausea all through our move to a new house. Nate took care of his sick wife while
finishing up his PhD work for the semester and the school year at work. It was crazy. And we were thrilled…
--------------------------------
“What was the date
of your last period?” she asked me again. I told her, again. She studied the screen. She was quiet. And I knew. “Well,” she finally said, “the date
you’re telling me isn’t lining up with what I’m seeing here.” Either I was
wrong on the date or this “isn’t going to be a successful pregnancy,” as she
put it.
Not a “successful pregnancy” – i.e. my child, whom God had
formed in my womb; whom, from the moment of conception, had all the DNA it
would ever have; whose 6.5-week-old body was just beginning to develop a nose,
ears, and mouth... My child had died.
My husband and I firmly believe that life begins at
conception. The fact that it died
before it even took a breath does not change the fact that it was a
person. This was not “tissue” that
needed to be removed, this was a human life, made in the image of God, and it
was our fourth child.
It’s hard to explain to a 3 and 5-year-old that something is
now dead that they never saw alive.
And do they really know what “dead” means? All they know about death is that bugs can still twitch
after they die and animated monsters and cheetahs die in movies. They’ve never witnessed the loss of
human life. But Nate and I felt
the sharp pain of loss. We grieved
our child like we would our others.
Was it our fourth son, or our first daughter?
We miss our baby whose toes we’ll never tickle, nose we’ll
never wipe, voice we’ll never hear make a ridiculous knock knock joke. We’ll never watch him or her cry over
hurt feelings, we’ll never witness a graduation or a basketball game, we’ll
never dance all crazy to Disney songs or slowly at a wedding. We will never
even see our baby with our eyes…not here, anyway. Our child was only alive on this earth for 32 days or so,
but we know that “a person’s a person no matter how small,” and we loved that
person with all our hearts.
So we named our sweet little precious one. Our fourth beloved child is called
Micah: “Who is like God?”
It was not our plan to get pregnant when we did. It was not our plan for our baby to die
after just 32 days of life. It’s
never our plan to lose something precious and to experience the grief that
follows. But in this life we will
lose many things that are precious, and we will break over it. We will cry and we will mourn and we
will feel the pangs of death because this world has been so broken. And we will likely never understand why
a good God would create a life and allow it only 32 days. But God is good. Always, He is
good. Nothing is beyond His control. His hands hold the entire world, and at the same time they catch
our tears. He is near to the
brokenhearted, and He is so, so faithful.
Who is like God?
Oh, the depth of the
riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable His
judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind
of the Lord?
Or who has been His
counselor?
Who has ever given to
God, that God should repay him?
For from Him and
through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory
forever! Amen.
~Romans 11:33-36
We love you, Micah baby. Mommy and Daddy and your brothers can’t wait to hold you! Someday.
