Miracles and Loses

Ask most any parent of a child with Down Syndrome, and they will tell you their Down's child is the most amazing person they have ever met. Tara and I are among that group.

To put it simply, the past 13 months with Laura have been amazing. I cannot remember a more fun, exciting, scary time in my life. If I had it to do over again I would never change a single thing in a million years.

If someone approached me today and said, "The medical field has the ability to make your daughter 'normal', are you interested?" I would throw that person off of the the nearest tall building I could find. I would pray the person comes to a saving love of God on their way down. Laura is truly one of God's miracles.

As some of you know, Laura has been looking forward to being a big sister. By our calculations, Tara was a little over 9 weeks along and was due on February 25th. We had an obgyn appointment to day to confirm the pregnancy, and the due date.

While sitting in the the exam room, Tara looked at a chart on the wall, and figured the baby would be about 1 inch long. When the doctor came in, we answered the standard questions. Yes, Tara took 2 pregnancy tests and they were both positive (strangely, the one I took was negative). Yes, this event last happened on this and such date. Yes, our internal medicine doctor confirmed the pregnancy test with a urine test. The doctor agreed that all indications are that Tara was pregnant.

So he started the physical exam. The ultra sound found the placental sack right away. It was right where the doctor expected it to be. He kept changing the angle like he was looking for something.

After a couple of minutes he told us he was not happy about what he was seeing. More specifically, what he was not happy with what he was not seeing. He could not find any indication of the baby in the sack. That means there was no viable fetal tissue. He then showed us an example of how big the baby should be on the screen.

Next he measured the placental sack. Its size was more consistent with a baby that was about 6 1/2 weeks along. But again he could not find any tissue that would indicate a baby. His speculation is that about 4 to 5 weeks ago the pregnancy failed, and Tara's body just has not gone through the miscarriage procedure yet.

This occurance is called a missed miscarriage. It is extremely rare.

He told us there were 2 options. The first was to let Tara's body abort the pregnancy on it own (let Tara eventualy have a miscarriage). There is no telling when this will happen.

The second is to schedule a simple out patient procedure that will remove the pregnancy tissue, and allow Tara's body to heal much more quickly. This is not an abortion since there is no baby.

I am not sure how I feel about this second procedure. On the one hand, there is a part of me that wants this child, and keeps wondering if there is a baby, and it is just not far enough along to be seen on an ultrasound. But if there is a baby, then we would have had multiple positive pregnancy tests weeks before we were pregnant. That would be rather rare to say the least. I am not saying that God cannot do that, I just cannot imagine why.

On the other hand, I want my wife to be better and suffer as little as possible, so the second option is best. I am just not ready to say it out loud yet.

This baby has been a part of our lives for over a month now. I know I am not ready to say good bye to him or her yet. Do not misunderstand me, I am not in denial. I am just not ready to let him or her go yet.

In the end, I know that all of this serves God's purpose. Right now I am leaning on that bit of knowledge more than anything else. I just wish His purpose did not hurt so much.

We know that God has this baby's very short life in His hands. We know that He will not put us through anything we cannot handle. We know that He knows our hearts and our minds better that we do. We also know that when His people pray, He hears it. That is why we are asking for all of you to pray. Pray for Tara and I as we are on an emotional roller coaster right now. Please pray that He surrounds all tree of us and wraps us in His love, comfort and support. Most importantly, please pray a prayer of thanks that He has called this little child home, to keep him or her safe from this world.