Life vs plans....

Sometimes in life things don’t go the way you planned. I like to tell myself that ‘maturity’ is accepting this fact and not letting it stop you. Every female has perceptions about how her first pregnancy would go, I was no exception, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that my fantasies and perceptions were going to be different from my reality.

I always thought the first thing I’d do would be to acquire an uber-chick pregnancy wardrobe from the maternity stores in the mall. Instead I found myself only buying what was needed- stretchy pants and sticking to increasing the sizes of regular looking  clothes so that I was not quite ‘ flaunting my bump’. Most people at work later told me they didn’t realize that I was pregnant till about my 8^th month, which was fine by me…

I thought I was going to gain tons of weight and almost as soon as I discovered I was pregnant I rushed out and ordered multiple prenatal videos ready to stay fit and minimize the weight gain. I ended up not using them, because with all that was going on I actually found myself losing weight, and combined with the fatigue and preterm contractions I ended up barely taking them out of their cases.

Other things were different, we had stopped telling people about the pregnancy so there was really no reason to sign up for a gift registry, the only baby showers were the ones at my work and my husband’s work place since most of the people we worked with knew about the pregnancy early. We ended up signing up for a small registry for family that asked us to, but still didn’t tell people about it.

Yet, despite all these differences, this pregnancy taught us that sometimes all that stuff isn’t important, what’s really important is the miracle of conception and what God plans to do and that's what we had to focus on. We focused not on buying color coordinated car seats and cribs and organizing a customized nursery, but on praying and waiting on God and believing Him for our child. Not knowing whether your child will survive the first days of his life, and realizing that if he does it would be still the beginning of a long road, really does change your perspective on life.

Tick tock...

The clock is ticking.



Some months ago I couldn’t envision myself this far down the road, at least not without heavy sedation. I didn’t think I was emotionally or mentally capable to get this far. But here we are 7 months down the road, without medication or some sort of major intervention other than the sheer Grace of God.


I have seen so many doctors, clinics and hospitals that I look back on the days when I didn’t need medical attention of any sort with great fondness. The last few weeks have been whirlwind of meetings with specialists and NICU tours in preparation for the baby’s birth. We have been fortunate for the most part to be surrounded by empathetic medical professionals who have been honest in telling us what they do and do not know. They tell us how we will only know more when the baby is born and how we must be prepared to ‘make some decisions’ as soon as that happens. The OB team hovers around making sure that the pregnancy is progressing well and monitoring me carefully, I’ve been going in twice a month since this all started and I suspect that will be the case till the end.


The fact that I have the energy to pray for my doctors and all my caregivers is a testimony that God heals. I still wake up at night anxious and wondering, I still have days when I can barely muster a smile and my heart is heavy. But now I have days when I do smile, laugh and sing, and can pray for wisdom for all involved in our care. Over the years I have learnt that science, medicine in particular, is not black and white as we would like it to be, there are so many shades of grey , and so now we pray that when our physicians see those grey areas approaching God gives them the wisdom and judgment to make the best decisions.


The clock is ticking…and God is working.

And now we wait....

Having made our decision, now we wait.



I have a new found respect for women everywhere especially mothers who have made decisions such as ours and for others who made other decisions. Regardless of what you decide, it’s a heart wrenching choice, and one that will live with you forever.


As my husband put it, we’ve spent all this time telling others and telling ourselves that we are Christians and we ‘trust God for everything’ and now it was time to live that out. As we told our physicians our choice to continue with the pregnancy we felt nothing but support from all of them and for that we were so grateful, no one second –guessed us, no pitying looks, just compassion and support, this was such a blessing.


And so now we wait, we pray and we wait, we call out to God and ask that His will be done and we wait, we still cry from time to time, especially after a doctor’s visit where you are glaringly reminded of what the reality is, but still…still… we wait….

Family and Friends...

In times of distress the loving shoulders and welcoming arms of family and friends are a great refuge. In our time of need we called and were comforted by the words of prayer and support....But soon the confusion set in.



As we struggled with our decision and waited to hear from God; the 'symphony' of voices from our loved ones seemed to turn into a ‘cacophony’; we were bombarded by so many differing opinions on what we should do. The more we discussed the situation the more depressed we became; each new conversation brought more doubt and distress. Some responses shocked us; some gave us glimmers of hope. It soon became clear that whatever decision we took we would always have someone who disagreed with us, some more convincingly and emphatically than others. A few told us “whatever you decide, we support you…” and refused to give us an answer. As I look back I realize those are the ones I am most grateful to.


I’m still learning from this situation, but a lesson I’m still teasing out in my mind is what role do family and close friends play, in this kind of situation? I suspect that if I had to do it again I would tell … less people, perhaps even nobody…till the decision was made. And maybe then will it be easier for us to hear from God who happens to be the only one with the right answer.

Hope Deferred.....

The Bible tells us that ‘hope deferred makes the heart sick’… (Prov 13:12)



Over my lifetime I have had ‘crises’ or what I thought were ‘crises’…events that made me cry alone at night or during the day or on the phone or with friends and family, including the loss of one of my parents. But I realized quickly that all those issues paled in comparison to this situation. I’ve cried so hard my heart literally hurt…I’ve cried in church while others stood around me singing, cried at home as I watched TV or prepared for bed, or pretended to ‘live life’, cried in my car as I drove around, even cried at work (with my door shut and my bottle of Visine to make sure I could avoid the questions and concerned looks). I would wake up in the morning thinking it was all a bad dream and it would hit me that it wasn’t, and then I would cry some more…


How…I wondered did we go from so much hope and joy and anticipation to this…fear, dread, doubt and sadness. What did we do wrong? Who did we offend? Why was it ‘different for us’?


The Bible also tells us that God ‘does not give us more than we can bear’, and as I cried I asked God how... and if... He really thought we could bear this. Over time my tears eventually stopped gushing but still remain welled up behind my eyes waiting for the chance to well over. These days it doesn’t take much..


As the flurry of medical testing died down and it became clear that the problems were ‘real and present’ then the physicians turned to us- with the questions- What next? What would you like us to do? We walked away from a meeting with the specialists with a list of ‘termination clinics’. My husband and I prayed and fasted and asked God to speak to us…what were we to do? We were faced with a decision no one should be ever asked to face and we realized that ‘termination’ was just a fancy word for ‘abortion’, a word so much uglier and raw in its meaning and premise.


With our hearts so heavy we wrestled – if we said ‘Yes, terminate’ had we crossed the line- grieved God, shed blood, and ended an innocent life. If we said ‘No’ were we being selfish –insisting on bringing this child into the world despite what the science said about his life, forcing him to live whether he would be able to appreciate it or not. Now was the test of our faith, the years of Christianity and worshipping God had all boiled down to this decision.


One day as we sat on our couch, my husband turned to me and said (with such pain in his eyes) “Whatever we decide, our lives have been changed forever…we’ll never be the same”

The day I knew....

The ultrasound technician paused, put down her probe, took a deep breath then turned to me and said "I have to tell you... there's something wrong with the baby's head...is there anyone with you?” At that point the world as I knew it began to spin and hasn't stopped....


It had been a journey for my husband and me to that room. After two years of marriage we decided it was time to have children, we had an early miscarriage but forged bravely ahead, praying and letting God know what we desired. We were overjoyed with this pregnancy, but the bumps in the road came quickly.

At the 13 week scan the technician had concerns about the baby's head and facial profile but the doctors assured us that it was 'too early to tell anything.." and so we prayed hard that all would be well, and soon we were back to rejoicing about the pregnancy.


The morning of the 20 week scan, my husband and I had an 'unnecessary fight' he had forgotten about the scan and would not be able to make it. I had not reminded him and he didn't realize he really needed to be there. I stormed off to the hospital in tears. He called and tried to get me to change the time so he could still come but I told him I just wanted to get over with it and went in for the scan.

When the specialist came into the room, the words from her mouth washed over my numb body...I caught phrases like..."severe hydrocephalus", "cannot visualize portions of the brain", "further testing needed: MRI, Amniocentesis". I asked questions got answers, "outcome not usually good”, "unlikely to resolve". When all was said and done, I stumbled from the room dry-eyed, dazed; as I walked down the hallway I dropped the pictures the technician had given me and later had to be called back to the check-in desk when someone picked them up and turned them in. I stood in the lobby and called my husband, as pregnant women with their toddlers and strollers swirled around me.

And then it hit me...my life...our lives... had been changed forever.