[To catch up with the story, you can read Part 1 and Part 2.]

My husband and I returned home after our doctors’ appointments knowing we had difficult phone calls to make.  I don’t remember much about those couple of hours.  I had even forgotten that it was actually my husband who called my parents first to tell them the news, though my mom and my husband remember that.  He also called his parents and the administrator of the school where he was the elementary principal. 

We decided to go out for a quick supper – and we had a surprise waiting for us when we returned.  We walked back in the door an hour or so later and found luggage in our house.  Yes, we had company.  My husband’s best friend from high school, along with his wife, had stopped by to spend the night on their way up the coast.  They had a key to our house, so when they arrived and found we weren’t home, they had dropped off their stuff and gone to get supper themselves.  (Obviously this was in the days before cell phones were common!)  We had their visit scheduled for the next weekend, not this one. Although it was a minor detail at this point, the house was not clean, so I dashed around trying to tidy up before they got back.

Though I may not have seen it in that moment, I believe this was another gift from God.  Having them there for a day or two was a distraction during those first hours of dealing with our news.

Once I took all this in, I noticed that we had a message on our answering machine.  My doctor had called and left a message, checking to make sure that we were okay.  This wonderful man did so many thoughtful things for us in the coming months.

That night, while talking to my parents, the tears finally came in full force.  I remember sitting on our bed and thinking I could never cry enough to fully vent all my feelings of loss.

We didn’t go to church on Sunday.  I knew that our Pastor would let people know about our baby and I didn’t want to be there.  I hadn’t yet figured out how to respond to the sympathy, and I’m not sure I ever learned.  Our church family would come to be a huge blessing and support, but I wasn’t sure that I could emotionally handle being around when they first found out.

On Monday, my husband and I decided to spend another day together, so I called in to work.  I remember talking to Sharron, a fellow employee, telling her I was taking the day off and why.  She was very kind and I know she smoothed the way for me when I went back the next day.

From the moment they found out, many people began praying for us.  From the church we attended, to my home church where my dad is still the pastor, to my husband’s church, along with friends and family, we had so many people praying for us.  There was one gentleman from my home church that I know prayed for us daily – and I know that he, along with many others, were asking for God’s healing for this baby.  My maternal grandmother was another of our faithful prayer warriors.  She sent cards and notes to us throughout the pregnancy, letting us know that we were in her thoughts and prayers.

I can truthfully say that I never felt that our baby would be healed.  Once we had the ultrasound and heard the diagnosis, I just seemed to know that things would go exactly as the doctors said.  Was this a lack of faith?  A dose of realism?  An acceptance of this as God’s will?  I don’t know.  Maybe I was afraid of false hope, but for whatever reason, I just never thought this baby would be born whole

On Tuesday it was time to face the music, to begin dealing with the reactions of people I knew, as well as strangers who would innocently comment on my growing belly.

To be continued next Monday….

[Read Part One of our story here.]

My husband and I walked into the doctor’s office for our 18-week ultrasound on a Friday afternoon in August.  The ultrasound tech, Debbie, prepared me for the ultrasound as the three of us talked. She put our blank video in the machine so she could record the ultrasound for us to show to our families.

Debbie began working, describing what she was doing and what we were seeing on the screen.  It was so neat to see our baby’s heartbeat and precious little body.  Everything was fine at first; then Debbie got very quiet.  She was concentrating on the same area, going over it slowly again and again.  The phrase “deafening silence” was exactly what we were experiencing and I began to sense that something was wrong.

It really hadn’t entered my mind that there might be a problem with our baby.  Everything had seemed so fine and normal with my pregnancy thus far.  But the way Debbie’s face changed told me that something was wrong.  She finally laid down the instrument and said that she was going to get my doctor.  My husband and I talked quietly, wondering what she wasn’t telling us.

My doctor came in and took over the ultrasound.  Then, very gently, he told us that he thought our baby had a neural tube defect, but he wanted to send us to a nearby medical university facility that had a better ultrasound machine to confirm the diagnosis.  I am confident that the Lord intervened in allowing us to get in to the medical university on a late Friday afternoon.  Already it was a sign of His goodness, as I can’t imagine having had to wait over the weekend to find out the condition of our baby.

During that fifteen minute drive, I remember staring out the car window and trying to absorb what was happening.  What did this mean for the baby we’d been hoping and praying for the last couple of years?  We didn’t talk a lot, not sure what to say.

No one was in the waiting room as we came in and filled out a brief amount of paperwork.  I got ready for another ultrasound.  I remember sitting close to my husband and him shedding a few tears as we considered that our dream of having a child might be ending differently than we had expected.

This high tech ultrasound confirmed my doctor’s suspicion; our baby had anencephaly.  The woman explained that the neural tube is like a zipper.  In spina bifida, the zipper doesn’t close in the middle, leaving the spine exposed.  In anencephaly, the end of the zipper doesn’t close, leaving the brain exposed.  A baby with anenecephaly can live in the mother’s womb, attached to the umbilical cord; but for all those months, the brain is exposed to amniotic fluid and begins to deteriorate.  Gently but firmly, we were told that there was no way our baby would live outside the womb.

I was simply numb.  I got dressed, then we had to meet with a genetic counselor.  While there’s not a strong genetic link for anencephaly, she had questions she wanted us to answer.  She was the first one to offer the option of an abortion.  My husband and I didn’t have to think about that for a second.  There was no danger to my physical health by carrying this baby and, though we already knew the outcome of this pregnancy, we would not end this baby’s life.

I cannot put into words how much those couple of hours forever changed our lives.  Never again would I enter a pregnancy with only hope and excitement.  No ultrasound would ever seem routine, no prenatal doctor’s visit just a normal occurrence.  And never again would I look at my husband the same, for we became partners in a new way, walking through this tragedy together.

And yes, my relationship with God would change as well.  I didn’t feel anger or bitterness as we left the doctor’s office for the drive home, still only numbness.  There weren’t even tears at this point…my eyes were dry, I felt like I couldn’t cry.  I could only think and think and think about what all this would mean.

And little did I know what the coming months would hold.

To be continued next Monday…

When you were a child, did you ever plan out how your life would be?

I did.

I’d go to college, get married, teach school for a couple of years, then be a stay-at-home mom to three kids, two boys with a girl in the middle.

That’s exactly how it all unfolded….at first.

I married my husband the summer after college graduation and we both started teaching in a Christian school.  Four years into our marriage, we decided it was time to start a family.

[Isn’t that cute??!  We decided.  Yes, in our naiveté, we just assumed it would happen.  Only it didn’t.]

After a year of not getting pregnant, I went to see my doctor.  He asked that we wait a bit longer before doing any testing.   When we approached the two-year mark with no child on the way, he agreed to run a test, which showed that everything seemed normal.  He prescribed a medication that he thought might help things along.  I was supposed to start taking the medication the following month, but before I did, I found out that we were expecting a baby.

By this time, most of the couples our age already had babies.  We were thrilled to be on the road to joining them!  We were so excited – as was our family, especially since this would be the first grandchild on my side.  It was fun to finally start looking at baby things – thinking about how I’d decorate the nursery, which brand of stroller we should buy, what name we should choose.

All of this happened in the spring of 1997, so I let our school administrator know that I wouldn’t be coming back to teach in the fall.  Since the beginning of our marriage, we had planned and saved so that I would be able to stay at home with our children. 

While teaching, I had always gotten office work through a temporary employment agency during the summers.  I did the same this year, intending to keep the temporary job until the baby came.  I got a wonderful assignment working in the administrative offices of a hospital.

As the weeks progressed, I was healthy and felt relatively good.  All of my prenatal visits went well.  We had decided not to find out the gender of the baby, but were still very excited about my 18-week ultrasound appointment.  The doctor’s office said we could bring along a video (yes, this was in the old days!) to record the ultrasound and show it to our family later.

Our appointment was on a hot Friday afternoon in mid-August.  We walked in to the office, so excited about “seeing” our baby for the first time.

To be continued next Monday…

We all have a story.

If you’ve lived for very long, you’ve experienced laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, moments that sear your soul.

Every one’s story is different, each plot with its own twists and turns.  Always, God is at work, and often we have no clue in the present what He is unfolding for our future.

For the next several Mondays, beginning September 2, I’m going to share part of my story.  I want to record the memories for our daughters, to give them all there is to know about their older sister.

The theme of this story is God’s grace.  While sadness is interwoven through its pages, these posts won’t be written for tears.  They’ll be written to tell how God’s grace is evident in every trial  – how the people He places in our lives and the circumstances He surrounds us with can always work to His glory.

Other women have carried anencephalic babies.  We’ve all made difficult choices as we walked the road given to us.  What I’ll share are the choices my husband and I made, the experiences we encountered, and the lessons God taught us on our journey.

Wherever you are in your story, may you embrace it today and seek God’s power and strength to glorify Him in its pages.

Updated:  Here are the seven posts that I wrote in this series. 

Part 1:  My Plans

Part 2:  The Diagnosis

Part 3:  Sharing Our Grief

Part 4:  Life Goes On

Part 5:  It’s Time

Part 6:  Angel

Part 7:  The Conclusion

I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although
they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took
my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I
who robbed.  ~Matthew Henry

In Matthew Henry’s quote we find I Thessalonians 5:18 in action.  “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  He took circumstances that we would all consider to be negative and found a way to be thankful in spite of them.

His fourth item of gratitude really speaks to me.  How often I fail to be grateful for the grace that brought salvation and leads me to walk in right paths.

After reading Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, I decided to begin my own list of gifts for 2013.  Each day I write down at least five things for which I’m thankful.  I know this will be a blessing for me to look back over in the coming years.  It’s almost a journal of what’s going on in our lives as it includes everything from small, routine moments to specifically answered prayers.

I am deciding how to incorporate this idea into our daughters’ lives.  I’d like to have a daily time when each girl can share at least one thing for which she’s thankful.  Doing this at one of our mealtimes may be a natural choice.

I hope that this exercise will cultivate a gratefulness in our family that will stand strong no matter the circumstances!

“Who can find a virtuous woman?  for her price is far above rubies.”  ~Proverbs 31:10

The e-book I’ve been working on for years (literally) and that I’m now in the process of editing is based on the series of posts I wrote regarding the Proverbs 31 woman.  There’s new material as well as application questions at the end of each section.

As I was seeking a title for the book, I did some research about rubies and discovered that they are one of the rarest and most expensive jewels. My heart was moved as I meditated on that fact.

As God inspired the writer of Proverbs, He purposely had him use the word “rubies.”  Just as with all of God’s Word, it wasn’t a random selection, but a specific word that was chosen.  God wanted us to understand just how valuable a virtuous woman is.  She’s not just an amethyst, certainly beautiful in its own right, but a ruby.  A man who has a virtuous woman for his wife – and children who have one for a mother – possess something unbelievably valuable, worth an extravagant sum.

No matter how you or I feel about ourselves today, when we seek to be virtuous women, God sees us as a priceless treasure!  As we go about our tasks for the day, may that encourage and inspire us when consider our worth in His eyes.

Impatience.

Do you ever battle that giant?  I do, often I’m afraid.

It usually arises when I’m in the middle of a project and a child that I thought would be busy with schoolwork for awhile interrupts me and asks for help.  Maybe it comes to call when I’m in a hurry and can’t get other family members to move at my speed.  Other times it’s when I feel that the cashier at the grocery store is spending too much time talking to the customers when she needs to be swiping the groceries.

Lately I’ve recognized how often I’m impatient and I want to find a way to fight against it.  In Colossians 1:10-11, I found the following words: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing…strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;”

This passage helps me in several ways.

• It reminds me that my impatience is not pleasing to the Lord.  After all, longsuffering is listed as a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. If I’m not producing that fruit, I’m displaying the fruit of the flesh.
• It is His power that allows me to win the battle over impatience.  I know all too well that I can’t overcome impatience in my own flesh; my selfishness is a natural reaction.
• My attitude counts.  I need to not only overcome my impatient reaction, but also respond with joy.   Sometimes I can control my outward response, but inwardly I’m still frustrated.  How wonderful it would be if I could truly be patient on the inside when interruptions or delays arise.

You don’t usually notice them. 

At the church potluck, they’re the ones who make sure everyone else has been served before they sit down. 

They volunteer for the jobs that no one else wants, like cleaning the bathrooms.

Sometimes they spend days preparing for an event that lasts a few hours, and then, while everyone else heads home, they clean up. 

They say, “I’ve been praying for you,” and you know they mean it. 

They arrive unannounced with a pick-up-truck-load of food. 

They take care of things you didn’t even realize needed to be done. 

They’re always behind the scenes, never pushing their way to the front, avoiding public praise or recognition. 

Over the past week, our family has been privileged to be served in many of these ways.  With the passing of my father-in-law and the celebration of my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, we have received love and generosity from many of these precious servants.

They make me want to be one of them – to serve with an unselfish spirit, expecting nothing in return, wanting only to be a blessing to others. 

These servant-hearted men and women are my heroes.

Yesterday I had the privilege of talking with an experienced homeschool mom.  She has already graduated two sons and her daughter is finishing the tenth grade.

Since this is our first year of homeschooling, I like to”pick the brain” of those who have walked this road before me.  Both Kathy and I are former teachers, so I enjoyed hearing what she’s done along the way – especially her curriculum choices and how she’s synchronized those with her children’s learning styles and personal interests.

I don’t know how long our family is called to homeschool.  This year has been a wonderful experience, and we do plan to homeschool again next year.  After that, it’s unclear.  But I thought the advice Kathy gave me was great for all of us, no matter how we are choosing to educate our children or where we are in the journey – just take it one year at a time. 

I’ve been reading passages in the Bible lately where faith and trust are the theme.  While I like to plan ahead and see the future laid out neatly before me, that’s not always what’s best for me.  Being open to change, as God leads, is a good thing.  In life, situations arise that may cause us to take things not just a year, but a month – or even a day – at a time. 

How thankful I am that, as I walk close to the Lord and listen to His voice, He will guide me, day by day, in the right way.