Here I Stand, I Can Do No Other.

Note: There is an image of our 12 week little one further down in this post if you are sensitive to such imagery. 

Thursday I had my apt with my OB. If you know me well you know how hard that day was for me. This appointment signaled a last resort. The last leaf left unturned. I don't easily put my care into the hands of another. I am VERY possessive of me. But we are desperate to do everything humanly possible to "help and support our neighbor in every physical need". At first all of these tests were extreme and a burden too great to bear but now it was time. 

photo credit: Me. :)

Before I go any further I would like to share THIS and THIS. 

Friends, family, and strangers. I know sin is always present. And where there is sin, there is death. Period. But 55 MILLION lives viciously murdered from their mother's wombs is a WHOLE. NEW. LOW. 

I am angry. I AM FURIOUS. And this anger has me planted stubbornly in place. 

Feb. 6, 2013:

The jelly felt warm on my tummy. This surprised me. It’s normally so cold. I was about to tell the ultrasound tech this but she was beginning to spread the jelly with the wand and I held my breath. With a simple move she was turned and the screen was coming to life. I was so thankful that she did not turn the screen away from me to start like they normally do. I was already grieving and she knew it...there was nothing that needed to be kept from me. My breath caught in my throat as the most delicate sweet little hand caught my eye. It was reaching up to heaven. In my mind I reached down and held her sweet hand. My thumb rubbed the inside of her palm. I heard the ultrasound tech begin by exclaiming how perfect my baby was, after all her size was right on, and I waited still admiring my baby’s beautiful hand for her to realize what I already knew. No 12 week baby has a hand floating in the water above her head. The u.t. stopped mid sentence. She zoomed in on my baby’s chest. Our eyes met. I smiled weakly at her. “There’s no heartbeat is there?” I turned my eyes back to my baby as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t understand, this baby is so big, I thought...” I saw my baby’s face for the first time. That sweet nose, turned up just the slightest bit. “Sweet baby. My sweet baby. You’re so beautiful.” I reached for the screen and gently touched her. Her little hand was still reaching up to me. “My precious baby.”

I looked at the u.t. “I’m sorry, I’m OK.” She looked at me. “Sweetheart, this baby just died...maybe two days ago. It just doesn’t make sense.” We both looked back to the baby. Time stood still. It was just me and my baby. I don’t remember the screen going dark. I asked her if I could call my husband and she left. My husband’s voice filled my phone, “Hey” I said. “Our baby is gone. Our baby is dead.” I was sobbing. His voice was broken. He was making his way into the hospital. We went back and forth, he tried to offer words of comfort while we both shattered to pieces. I instructed him how to find me and we hung up.

 I began by sending out a text to all my family and friends. “We just found out that our baby has gone home to be with Jesus. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Within seconds my phone was beeping responses and ringing. I spoke to my sister. As I hung up the door opened and the u.t. moved aside for my husband to enter. She left us. I was on my feet and his arms took me in. My weeping made no sound but turned my soul inside out. His arms were strong but weak. It was as if our one flesh was melting together into a pool of wax. Finally he asked if he could pray. I don’t remember the words he prayed. We prayed tears. We prayed brokenness. We cried for sin and its effects. Our one flesh had met face to face the wages of sin, but it’s toll was on our dear child. The u.t came back in the room. She looked at us hugging, cleared her throat and said, “I, um, need to take more pictures.” I thought, “No you don’t , you took 500!” Then her eyes met mine and I silently thanked her. She was trying to give us a gift, a chance to see our baby together and my husband’s first chance. I climbed back on the table and my husband took my hand. I could feel his prayer in his increasing grip on my hand even though his lips weren’t moving. Raise our baby Lord. I let him pray but blocked it from my hearing. Our baby was gone. I looked on the screen to where I would see her floating hand and it met my eyes. “Sweet baby.” I held her hand. We were three silent observers to the tiniest miracle of God. Time stood still as we all sat in awe. 

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Everything about what my husband and I are going through appears as absolute foolishness. Why subject yourself to loss, death, and affliction of your own health over and over? But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. You look at me and you don't understand the fuss. And fine, crazy lady, if you want to keep bringing this on yourself, at least keep it quiet or at least figure out how to not grieve over it.

But as long as the Lord gives, I will receive. As long as my babies fall to their death so young due to sin, I will weep. I will fast. I will pray. I will be broken. Because in my brokenness I make confession of faith, of life, and of truth. God is truth. And He creates, He speaks, and darkness gets broke and there is life where there was none. And every day it will make me angrier towards sin and murder and idolatry. Read the articles above and you will understand my fury.

My babies, these children who do not know that I already have 4 earthly children, are just as fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God as our earthly children and are just as important as if they were my first. And while people rave and weep happy tears over families murdering innocent lives, they can't believe it when a woman will willingly endure month after month of miscarriage seemingly to her own detriment.

Crosses are not chosen. They are given. I have prayed, I have fasted, I have wept until I've thrown up. I have soaked my bed with tears and clung to the Word of God with the only breath I had left. After all, crosses often have the effect of making your idols crash down and shatter all around you, which is always painful to the point of near despair. And still He has not taken this cup from me. And just when I start to feel burdened to the point of surrender to my flesh where I can choose to put an end to increasing my grief and choose instead to just rest, I see another article like the two first posted and my resolve comes back ten fold.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. And thanks be to God alone, so have my husband and I. 

Right now we are wading through the choices of tests that have been ordered for two weeks from now, assuming pregnancy does not occur. In the mean time we are going to be using a high dose of progesterone from ovulation on to support my body and any potential lives. If pregnancy does not occur I will discontinue the progesterone until I ovulate again. The doctor wants us to do all sorts of tests on me but also on my husband's and my genetics. We are praying and talking to decide which of these, if any, we will be able to do. But in the mean time, there is plenty of joy around here too. Plenty of joy, plenty of laughter, and plenty of carefree moments of pure bliss. 

Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.