"Lord,
help me as I go into this ultrasound. Calm my nerves. Calm my fears. Hold
my hand. I plead with you for a healthy baby with no complications.
You know the season we are in, Lord, you know I can’t handle anything but good
news. Anything beyond that would
be too much, you know that, right?
I know you do. Help me to
trust you no matter what. Help me to really
trust you. Help me to know what that means and looks like."
I remember having a similar
conversation with Him as I drove to the appointment. Kory & I were in a hard season of ministry with lots of
shootings happening around us and lots of our kids affected by loss, hurt, pain, and
fear. Living in the city was not
easy this spring. But I had a
weird feeling there was more to tackle and this appointment was the start of
that. I begged him for my feelings
to be wrong. I begged him for good
news of a healthy baby. I begged
him for peace.
I got to the appointment and
met Kory there. He reassured me
that God was in control and we would be ok. I tried to cling to it. The ultrasound tech came in and showed us into the dim room,
with machines. She was very
friendly and even connected the dots that Avery had many not-so good
ultrasounds here before and that this must be a tender time for us, she was
right on. As I got the warm jelly
squirted on my belly we excitedly told her we didn’t want to know the gender. She got started and immediately it
happened. Stiff, cold silence. My mind started racing, what is she
finding, what is she seeing? I
wanted to ask but I knew better not to.
This was the exact same feeling I had with Avery, knots began to form
that things weren’t right.
After only about 2 minutes
she told us gently the doctor would be coming in to see us. She was nervous, we were nervous. The doctor came in and after only
looking at the screen for a few minutes he said the words I pray don’t haunt me
the rest of my life.
“Unfortunately, this is a very abnormal
ultrasound.” I broke down. I sobbed. I wailed, unashamedly.
I didn’t hear a word he said after that. It was as if my mind couldn’t comprehend or accept the
reality that was placed in front of me.
I kept shaking my head “no” thinking that if I deny what was just said
to me maybe reality would change it’s mind and be different. Kory’s eye were puffy red but he held
it together enough to ask the doctor lots and lots of questions. As I sat in the chair, accepting that
my worst nightmare was becoming my reality, I felt so confused. "God, I thought we had an
understanding? Why are you
allowing this? Why are you handing
my worst fear over to me? I don’t
understand, I don’t want to understand.
Please change this, you can change this, why aren’t you changing
this?" It was then in the still of
my conversation with him that he spoke to me in a profound way I will never
forget. He said “I’m allowing you
to stare your fear in the face and you will experience my peace, presence, and
faithfulness, you will see that this will not kill you. I will be with you, I will not leave you.”
“Yes it will Lord, yes it will”, I respond back out
loud. “I don’t want to experience
your peace or presence if this is what it means, this is too much, this is too much.”
My conversation with God
continued, but I did start to hear the doctor talk of things such as Turner’s
Syndrom, heart defects, chromosomal issues and lots of fluid causing organs not
to develop. It was too much to
take in. But I remember thinking
“Ok, this is our new normal, I don’t know what Turner’s Syndrom is but we will
figure it out, just one step at a time.”
Then the next blow came.
The doctor informed us that this condition is “lethal.”
“What exactly do you mean ‘lethal’?” I asked.
“This baby has 0% chance of survival. At best this baby girl could make
it full term and live
for a few minutes, maybe an hour.”
And this is where the
darkness became unbearable. Kory
and I both sobbed our way through trying to find glimmers of hope in the
doctors' rigid statistics. With our
hopeful questions only continuing to be shot down, the doctors and staff
realized we needed time alone.
They left the room for a few minutes and I sat in Kory’s lap and we both
sobbed. Our world stopped. After that half hour, we would be
forever changed people and we knew that.
Life not only got harder, it got scary and unbearable.
The next hour we met with a
genetic counselor who tried to tell us what science had to say about our daughter's diagnosis. I kept reminding God he could change this, he could fix
this, he could do a miracle, but would he? We got in the car and sat in shock of what we were just told. Kory said some of the most encouraging things to me and to us in that moment. He showed such strength, such faith, and such trust in God. He started naming off things we still had to be thankful for. Our baby girl inside was still alive. We have each other. We have Avery. And we have a God that sees, hears, and provides. We have hope. I was surprisingly encouraged as well.
The hours to follow as we
left the appointment were extremely hard to tell our family and friends the
news. Every time a new family
member was told, it solidified our bleak and what felt like hopeless new
reality. It drove the steak in the
ground that yes, this was happening and I could not deny it. The pain got deeper with each recap of
what doctors said. The tears, the crying, the hurt, the brokenness left us feeling emotionally exhausted. Yet our family and friends that we told felt the pain with us. They were broken with us. And that was comforting to me. We were not alone. We were loved and cared for.
In it all, I could still hear God's
whisper that I was going to experience him like never before. I knew I was “struck down, but not destroyed, hard pressed on
every side, but not crushed, persecuted and hurt but
not abandoned by God” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). I knew that
in my darkest moment, he would somehow see us through and be with
us. That is the only thing that
allowed me to sleep that night. Kory & I fell asleep to this song below that night, and it could not of been more fitting.
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