My Baby's Story

It's been a while since I've written.  My world has been turned upside down. Sometimes life is swimming at the pool and eating ice cream cones and shooting fireworks.  But sometimes life veers into depths beyond the beautiful day to day routines to a place that is real and raw.  I'm about to tread on sacred ground.

Sometimes we have plans. 

Actually, if we're talking about me, I always have plans. Type A over-controlling personalities tend to be planners.

The past few months, I have been doing some hefty planning.  Exciting planning. Planning that has a purpose and a wonderful result.

Plans like having a huge baby bump at Christmastime and hauling up the infant car seat from the basement and rearranging the nursery to make room for another crib. Big, fun, beautiful plans.

But sometimes our plans are not God's plans, and things change.

God is always good, and always right, and His plans take precedent over our own because He sees more than we see, and knows more than we know, and loves more than we love.  And so, with Christ by my side, I willingly accept a change in my plans for His own because I want so desperately to follow where He leads, no matter the pain.  No matter the wounds, the hurt, the sacrifice that sometimes come with such devotion.

My plans have changed.


Tuesday evening my husband and my mom sat in a small room in the ER with me while a doctor stood at the end of the slender gurney I was lying on.  His lips were moving and he held is hands out in front of him like he was trying to catch the right words to say.  I felt sorry for him. His palms were not catching the right words. The medical field has a horrific set of vocabulary.  He was trapped into telling me what was going on using only the insufficient terms and explanations he learned in med school.  He wasn't explaining God's plans.  He was sharing the world's explanation for a change in my plans.  And it was the most hopeless and horrible explanation I'd ever heard.  The world doesn't know what to do with a change in plans; the world says that a change in plans is where the story ends.

I stared at him motionless while he stuck horrendous words into the air, words that should never, ever be said about a sweet little baby.  Words that don't make sense when you're talking about a tiny person who has been tucked safely away in his mother's womb for two and half months.  My mind was numb as I looked across the room at him, and I slowly nodded to make him feel like he was doing a good job, to rescue him from the horror of telling a young mother that this was the end for her baby and her plans. 

His words bounced off my forehead and hung in the room; I didn't need to take them in, because I knew he was only telling me what I had felt in my heart- what had brought me to the ER that night in the first place.  Except he was saying it all wrong.  He had my story and my baby's story, so, so wrong.  He kept pinning words in the air that meant it was all over, painful words that would have stung if I had any feeling to receive them. 

I didn't cry.  I left my tears at home where I had told my mom and my husband that I needed to go to the hospital because something was very wrong, and I left my tears in the ultra sound room upstairs where I saw my baby for the first time and knew she wasn't there anymore because her sweet, tiny little self had fallen so very, very still.

I didn't move.  You can't move when you know your baby isn't with you anymore.  Everything in you becomes still.

I just stared at the doctor and calmly, politely pretended to listen.

While the doctor told me my baby was dead, that this was the end, a brilliant light fell between me and the doctor's voice, shielding me from the sting and bitter finality he tried to express with his empty words.  And as I sat there, rejecting the pain and sting of the awful words he was using to describe my daughter, the Lord broke through my mind- my numbness- in the most powerful whisper I have ever heard. It was pure and strong and it held my mind captive, blocking out anything else. The whisper thawed my numbness, and warmed me with truth and promise and words that were words fitting for such a time as this- not painful and detached, like the words still awkwardly stumbling out of the doctor's mouth at the foot of my bed.  Jesus, in a strong, powerful whisper broke through and said:

 This is not the end.  Beloved, your baby's story does not end here.  I've taken your baby home with me.  She is safe, Beloved.  Safe and loved and held close and warm and cared for- just as you wish for her to be.  And I love her, so, so much.  She is safe with me.  And you will see her again- she is still your sweet baby, and always will be.  Your plans for motherhood do not end here, Dear One.  This is not the end of your baby's story.

That is when the tears fell silently down my cheeks.  That is when I nodded at the doctor and thanked him and told him I was at peace and I understood what he was telling me.  That's when the doctor left and took his words with him and when my mom and my husband and I slowly made our way back to the car in the early morning hours.  And that's when I looked at my mom and my husband and said, "It's okay." 

And it is okay. Because this is not where my baby's story ends.  There are tears and sorrow and aching arms that long to hold and snuggle and rock my sweet child.  But the Lord's whisper left beauty tucked away in my heart.  He shared the most beautiful truth with me, too special for words- so much like a secret because it came in a whisper that the emergency room didn't hear.

But I want you to know the secret the world missed that night: Friends, my plans have changed, but this is not where my baby's story ends. 

Tonight Jesus holds my baby, and her story has only just begun.  My little one will never know brokenness or hurt or pain.  What a privilege as a parent to know my child is in the arms of the One who loves the most.  And what a gift my husband and I have in the anticipation of meeting our little baby for the first time when we walk through the gates of Heaven.  What a push to know and follow all the harder and more fervently after Christ. Never have I longed to be home with Jesus more than I do now.  I cannot wait to see my daughter.  I cannot wait to hold and kiss and snuggle her.  We'll never forget her, she'll always be a part of us.  And Newbie will always know he is a big brother to a sweet little sister who went to Heaven before we had a chance to meet her.  But he will also know that his little sister will be waiting for him when he gets there himself some day.  This baby has a story, and her story is a part of us, and always, always will be. I am overjoyed in the truth that I will see her again and that we have a God who loves us enough to offer us eternal life through the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

Don't miss the secret, Friends.  This is not where my baby's story ends.

And that is the glory of the Lord: His love endures forever, and His story does not end.