Elam's Birthday

Elam's first birthday was a couple weeks ago. Along with a few friends and family, we went to the grave site, out to eat for dinner, and back home for some birthday cake. We put new flowers at his grave and gave him a little stuffed frog for his birthday. We miss him, but we enjoyed celebrating and remembering him with our family and friends.

Some photos from the grave site:

New flowers and a little frog

Elam's sweet cousin, Kinsey, adding some flowers of her own

A little more backstory... and a lesson I learned in hope and faith

For the past month or two, I've been going through a study on the book of Daniel, along with some of the women in our church. I've enjoyed the study, and it has recently reminded me of something I learned when Elam was diagnosed. I realized that I hadn't really shared it with many people, so I thought it may be helpful to some if I write it here...

When we arrived for our 20-week ultrasound on November 6, 2008, (I can't believe that that was almost one year ago already!) we were thrilled at the thought of learning our precious baby's gender. The suspense was killing us! Soon, our excitement turned to bewilderment and fear as we learned that something was very likely wrong with our little one. After a painful amniocentesis and lots of blood work, we went home (Why did the doctors let us drive ourselves home?!) to wait for the results, knowing that it could take up to two weeks to hear any news. We went home and just cried and prayed for our little one. Surely, we thought, nothing is wrong!

God was very merciful to allow us to get the results the next day. Ben was at work when the doctor called me. She told me that we should both be there to hear the news. I knew this meant that the news was bad. Luckily, my sister-in-law drove us this time-- we learned our lesson yesterday about driving when getting terrible news! The doctor told us about the baby's disorder, 69-XXY triploidy, and that there was absolutely no chance of the baby surviving. In fact, it was very rare for a baby to live as long as mine had (so we should expect the baby to die very soon). Amidst the bad news, I remember thinking, "It's a boy!", but this wasn't nearly as exciting as I had thought it would be a few days ago. She told us that most women with this diagnosis choose to terminate the pregnancy. She encouraged us to also choose termination because it is often too unbearable for most women to walk around with a baby who you know will die at any moment. I remember just trying to focus and process all of the medical information she was giving-- my biology degree came in very handy! But as I was just trying so hard to focus and think amidst the terrible news, I actually found myself considering the termination. In those moments, I was giving up on my baby, accepting the news as best I could at the time. It was like the baby wasn't a baby anymore, just a problem, a medical condition. In my right mind, I would never consider abortion, but I remember in that moment it seemed to make some sense. Thank God that Ben was there, in a slightly better frame of mind than me, to say that we would not choose "termination". We discussed what to expect with regards to going into labor, and then headed home. What a terrible rest of the day! We had prayed that this would turn out to be nothing-- and it turned out to be lethal!

That evening was a miserable one. I basically decided that I would try to no longer think about my baby. I would try to forget that I was pregnant. Yesterday, I was sad that my belly was so small-- it was proof that my baby was too small and possibly sick. Today, I thought my belly looked too big-- a reminder that I was pregnant. I felt like a ticking time bomb. I could go into labor at any moment, and expected it to happen very soon. I just wanted it to all be over. Forget it. "I take it back, God, I don't want to be pregnant anymore!" I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone reading this, but that's the best way I can think of to describe it.

God was again very merciful to give us sleep that night. The next morning, we woke up rested, and sat on the couch to eat our breakfast. Ben checked his email and saw that we had received a long email from a good friend of ours. Our friend told us of how he and his wife were praying for us, and he reminded us to not lose hope that God could heal our baby:

I am not so bold as to say that I know that the Lord wants to heal your son. But I am so bold as to say that He can, and that He just might. He takes pleasure in using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. He laughs at the wisdom of the world because it is as foolishness to Him. He knows how to give good gifts to His children. And He demonstrates his divine nature and His eternal power so clearly through all of His creation that all men are without excuse. In light of knowing this, I stand as Mordecai did with Esther saying, "who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

He also encouraged us to have the elders of our church anoint me and pray over our little one. I hadn't even considered that!! At this point, I had given up hope. I had taken the doctor's words about our baby as the definite truth-- he will die, and he will die very soon. But God is the one with the final word. How did I forget?? It's amazing how you can sort of lose your mind in crazy circumstances. The words of our friend really shook me. But I wasn't sure what God actually wanted for our baby. I knew that God was totally capable of healing him, but I didn't know if that was actually His will. I wondered, if I pray for healing without totally expecting God to heal my baby completely, am I lacking faith? After failing to drive a demon out of a boy, Jesus' disciples asked Jesus, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" Jesus replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to here," and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you," (Matt. 17:19-20). Would God heal him if I didn't pray absolutely expecting healing? Would He refuse to heal my baby if I thought that his disorder might still take his life? What do faith and hope look like in this situation??

We talked to another good friend about these questions later that day. I told him that I knew that God was able, but I didn't know if He was willing to heal my baby. And I told him that that scared me-- that it would be my fault if my baby died because of my lack of faith. He assured us that that is faith-- knowing that God can do it. We don't have to know if He will, just that He can. Our friend told us to give ourselves room to feel what we feel. If I felt one day like I just wanted this all to be over, that's ok. And if I felt another day that I desperately wanted my baby to be healed and survive (as scary as waiting for that without knowing would be), that's ok, too. I didn't need to worry so much about how I was feeling. I also didn't need to worry about how I prayed. I just needed to pray.

I felt relief. I could feel however I needed to. I could take a deep breath, and let God be God. He wasn't going to trick me, or wait for me to not have "enough" faith so He could take my baby. He was actually trustworthy. I was aware that I was totally out of control, and He was totally in control. From then on I prayed like crazy! I prayed all the time for healing. And Ben and I decided that we would do whatever we could to enjoy our little one while we still had him. (Little did we know that against the odds, we would still have him for 16 and a half more weeks!) We named him and I decided to continue talking to him, reading the Bible to him, and enjoy feeling every one of his movements. We prepared our home for him just in case he would survive, even if we would only survive for just a few hours or days.

The funny thing was, throughout the rest of my pregnancy, I never again wanted it all to be over. I wanted Elam to make it as long as possible. I hoped that I would go well past my due date. But even if I did have days feeling hopeless, that would have been ok.

So, how does any of this relate to the book of Daniel? In chapter 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are standing before King Nebuchadnezzar, facing a horrible death because they are refusing to worship the idol he has set up. Verses 17 and 18 say, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up" (emphasis mine). Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had faith in God-- not because they knew God would save them from the furnace. Instead, they knew that God was able to save them from it, and that faith was enough. They chose to trust and follow Him even through their scary, uncertain future, knowing that He may allow them to die a terrible death in a huge, roaring fire. But He is still good, and we can still trust him even as we walk into a fiery furnace, knowing that either he will deliver us from it, through it, or by it into His arms.

We can't force God to do what we want by having the "faith" or expectation that He will do what we want. It's easy to misinterpret James 5:14 - 15, thinking that all we have to do is pray by "faith" (we absolutely expect healing) and God will save the sick. That leaves it up to us, like we're the ones in control. There's no formula. God has a plan that's better than what we can imagine. Sometimes that includes some pain and suffering. And that pain and suffering will be redeemed to be something far greater than we could ever plan or imagine. For whatever reason, God decided to take Elam rather than healing him. And losing Elam will be redeemed for something indescribably good. We couldn't force God to heal him by praying just right. Learning that was very freeing for me.

Settling into a New Normal, Planning for the Future

Over the last month, Ben and I have been getting more and more settled into our (new) normal way of living. My body is continuing to heal physically from giving birth back in March. The steroid shots did not seem to help speed my healing, but I am seeing improvement after just giving myself more time to heal. I'm working on getting back into shape. I'm exercising 4-5 days a week and eating more healthy foods. I'm enjoying my daily activities-- exercising, gardening, spending time with people, working on a scrapbook for Elam, etc. Ben is continuing working as an electrical engineer. He enjoys his work, and he's looking to take on some side work to help us in our finances, hopefully allowing us to pay off our car. Also, we are both enjoying pouring ourselves into the church small group we lead. So overall, we are enjoying life and glad to be getting back into the groove of things.

It has been almost 5 months since Elam was born. For the past couple months, we've been thinking more and more about our next pregnancy. But because this blog is for Elam, and for what we've learned from being his parents, we decided to create a new blog where we will talk about our experiences in having more children (and about our experiences in life in general). We still plan to continue updating this blog with things we are still learning from our experiences with Elam.

As you can see in my post yesterday, the funeral home finally received and installed Elam's marker. We visit his grave every now and then. We dearly miss our little one every day, but we're glad to know that God is taking good care of him.

One small prayer request: You know how you can have dreams about something emotional, and when you wake up you still have those emotions, even when you know it was only a dream and that your emotions are totally irrational? Occasionally, I have dreams about Elam. Sometimes, I dream that he lived for a while after his birth, and my dream involves taking care of him. Sometimes, I dream about giving birth and discovering that he has died. After I wake up from one of these dreams, it usually colors the rest of my morning (and perhaps the whole day). It's like the dreams open up an old wound, if only ever so slightly. I had one of these dreams last night, and unfortunately, even though I haven't been consciously thinking about my dream, I have carried the sadness from that dream with me throughout my day so far. I know this is a small thing, but if you think to pray that I wouldn't have these dreams anymore, I would appreciate it. I'm sure that having dreams like these after a traumatic event is pretty common, and, who knows, maybe they're even part of the healing process, but it would be nice to have fewer of them if they're not totally necessary. Thanks for your prayers.

Steroid Shot

My doctor's nurse called me back the day after I talked to her about ordering the steroid shot. They were actually able to get the steroids in much quicker, so I was able to get the shot last Monday. Very painful! It turned out to be three shots. The pain from the injection wore off after a couple days. I'm not sure the steroids are helping me any. As far as I can tell, my symptoms have not improved. I guess I'll just have to wait and see!

Slow Recovery

I talked to my doctor about a week ago about my very slow physical recovery. She consulted the other doctors in the practice and they think that I likely have an allergy to the sutures they used for my episiotomy. They believe that that is what is causing my recovery to be so slow. At this point, she said, I should be totally back to normal, but because of the allergy I'm not back to normal. She said that she can give me a steroid injection at my episiotomy, which should help speed my healing. I have decided to get the shot. My appointment is in three weeks. (They have to order the steroids because they don't normally have them.) I'm really hoping that the steroids will help me finish healing soon. It is nice to know what is probably causing my slow healing. And it's good to know that I'm allergic to those sutures in case I ever need sutures again!

Ben and I are continuing to heal emotionally. I feel like I'm really enjoying life right now. I still have my moments, but overall it's been good. I mentioned in my last post that I have been having a hard time being around or talking to pregnant women or new moms. At the advice of a friend, I have been praying regularly about it and when I'm around those women, I am making it my practice to just pray for them and their babies. It seems so simple, but I've found that very helpful over time. It's not like I felt better right away, but over time it's been helping me to "rejoice with those who rejoice" even as I mourn over my little one. There have been a few times lately where I've realized that being around them hardly phased me at all. I hardly thought about it, and I actually found myself being happy for them. God has really been answering my prayers and gradually healing our hearts! I've still got a way to go, but it's so nice to see God working me through this process.

Update

It's been a little over 9 weeks since Elam's birth. My physical healing is going very slowly. I may have to go back to the doctor next week if my symptoms haven't significantly improved. Soon after Elam's birth, I got three different infections, which could be what has caused my healing to be so slow.

Emotionally, I think I'm having more good days than bad. I'm having a hard time being around all the pregnant women and new moms-- there's so many of them in our church right now! I want to be happy for people and not upset or envious, but I'm having a hard time. But I do feel like God has been speaking into that in the last day or so, and for that I am so grateful. I'm reading a few books on miscarriage/stillbirth/infant death, and they have been helpful. One in particular, called, Losing You Too Soon by Bernadette Keaggy, has been really helpful in seeing how a Christian woman has grown and dealt with life after losing 5 babies. Journaling has also been very helpful for me. I actually wish I had started journaling right after Elam was born, instead of waiting a few weeks.

I know I mentioned this once before on our blog, but it's been a long time so I just want to remind everyone that we are fine to talk about Elam and everything that's been going on. I know people often don't feel like they know what to say or are afraid to bring it up, thinking it will suddenly bring up sad memories. But it won't suddenly bring up sad memories-- I'm probably already thinking about it anyway! And I actually like to talk about it! It's helpful for me. There's no pressure either way-- no one needs to feel like they have to talk about Elam with us, but also no one needs to feel like they need to avoid the subject either.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support!