The Only Way Out is to See it Through

I found myself unable to pray for a miracle. I couldn’t expect God to pull us out of the muck again, brush us off, and send us on our way. It felt too insensitive to those who’ve been on the other end of our situations – to those who are also asking the question, “Why me?” So instead of a miracle, I prayed for something manageable. I didn’t need things to be easy, I just needed the strength to manage whatever was to come.

6.9.19

“Lots of tears these past few days. We’re a little bit mad, a little bit sad, a lot scared and just so, so confused. Why? Why do we have to worry our way through a pregnancy again? It feels like there’s a target on our backs. It has me questioning so much…”

On June 9 of 2017, I found myself asking the big questions when things continued to spiral out of control in our first pregnancy. I wondered if we were missing what God was saying to us. I wondered if we weren’t supposed to be parents of biological children. I couldn’t fathom such a rocky pregnancy leading to a healthy baby for no good reason.

On June 9 of 2019, days after the diagnosis of baby boy’s echogenic bowel, it felt like I’d landed right back in that dark place. Maybe God had, indeed, been trying to tell us something with that first pregnancy when he took us to the very border of death before bringing us all the way back to a healthy family of three. 

“Today, we’re proceeding as if this is all going to smooth over. But the reality is that it might not. We might not have a “normal” child. We might not have a healthy child. We might not have a child… is it too much to ask God to spare the life of yet another child for me?” 

I felt as though God had given me a life’s allotment of miracles back in 2017 when he saved my daughter from “the sickest of the sick”, when he brought her back from the border of death, breathing life into the lungs that weren’t ready for life and growing her 2lb 12oz body into a healthy baby. It felt foolish in 2019 to hope that things might just clear up again, that we might walk away from an abnormality, unscathed, as a family of four. Why should I deserve another miracle? 

Our love for our growing baby didn’t waver once from the moment we found out he may have some health issues. But what we saw immediately was a different future for our family. We wondered how much of our boy’s first few years would be consumed with doctor’s appointments. We wondered if he would ever be independent. We wondered if this would prematurely take his life. 

I found myself unable to pray for a miracle. I couldn’t expect God to pull us out of the muck again, brush us off, and send us on our way. It felt too insensitive to those who’ve been on the other end of our situations – to those who are also asking the question, “Why me?” So instead of a miracle, I prayed for something manageable. I didn’t need things to be easy, I just needed the strength to manage whatever was to come.

“We will play the cards we’re dealt, but please, PLEASE, let this be a manageable hand.”

We entered into yet another season of heightened worry. On the outside, we were brave. On the inside, we were broken hearted. But the only way out was to see it through.

In the stats: 
Gestational Age: 21 weeks, 6 days
Doctor’s Appointments: 6
Ultrasounds: 3
Makena Injections: 5