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<\/p>\n\u201c\u2018He\u2019s a sick guy.\u2019 The pediatric cardiologist affirmed with an almost flippancy\u2014like, you know, yeah he\u2019s dying but like\u2014he\u2019s sick. Of course he\u2019s dying. He\u2019s a sick guy.<\/p>\n
As if he were an old man who\u2019d chosen to smoke and degrade his body all life long\u2014of course death would follow suit. Duh.<\/p>\n
At least, that\u2019s the tone with which my mama bear ears heard these extremely unhelpful words as my innocent, 10-week-old baby who\u2019d endured 5 surgeries and countless procedures lied dying in his hospital bed. Come to think of it, it reminded me a bit of my obstetrician from the year prior\u2019s feeble attempts to comfort me post-miscarriage of identical twins: \u2018Miscarriages are so common. They occur in 25% of all pregnancies.\u2019 As if, you know, I\u2019d signed up for this, obviously\u2014I mean, with how common miscarriage is\u2014with twins no less\u2014why the long face? Didn\u2019t I know to expect this?<\/p>\n
When my high school sweetheart and I decided to grow our family after 5 years of marriage, we had no clue the battles we\u2019d face along the way. We\u2019d had fairly smooth, straightforward lives up to this point, living life in as typical a way as a couple of 20-somethings could. After my missed miscarriage of identical twins, I thought for sure we\u2019d paid our dues\u2014our life\u2019s suffering was now complete. Sure, we\u2019d have more bumps along the way, such is life\u2014but as far as real, deep-seated grief? Nothing would top losing 2 babies at once before ever having gotten to know them. When I got another positive pregnancy test after my D&C, we were overjoyed\u2014new life was coming! But our 20-week anatomy scan told us this new life would come with trials unlike anything we could have ever been prepared for. Major heart defects, including a missing chamber, faulty valves, and the aorta being split into 2 pieces, would require immediate, complex surgery\u2014so much so that our local, much-respected children\u2019s hospital wouldn\u2019t be able to serve the needs of our rainbow baby.<\/p>\n
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We were instructed to relocate\u2014to move out-of-state to a very specialized children\u2019s hospital for our baby to be born and operated on. We set up the nursery at home, packed up our things, and drove my swollen belly all the way from Norfolk, Virginia, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where our Benjamin would soon be born, and undergo not 1, but 2, open heart surgeries, along with a tracheotomy, a G tube surgery, and an emergency stomach repair when his G tube tore and leaking abdominal contents nearly killed him before his own heart did.<\/p>\n
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Because Benjamin didn\u2019t only have heart problems\u2014he had CHARGE Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder which meant he would potentially be born both blind AND deaf\u2014and that detail was tacked on after a whole host of other things gone-wrong with our precious firstborn son, like a bilateral cleft lip and palate. Still, doctors were hopeful, and talks of home were on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Until they weren\u2019t any longer.<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019s a sick guy.\u2019<\/p>\n
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We packed up our things, checked out of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, and drove our swollen eyes all the way back home to Norfolk where we\u2019d go on to bury sweet Benjamin.<\/p>\n
Grief is a strange monster\u2014for me, as a Christ-follower, grief can take the shape of a friend, linking me to Jesus, Man of Many Sorrows, whose Father God knows what it\u2019s like to lose an innocent Son. At the same time, for me, as a mama bear, grief can make every cell of my person swell up with rage, anger, bitterness as I think of my own child\u2019s lifeless body lying just down the road from me in a grave\u2014is he cold when it snows? Does he get lonely? But\u2014no! He\u2019s not there, I furiously remind myself with relief. He\u2019s redeemed, restored, remade in heaven and because of Christ, I\u2019ll get to be reunited with him\u2014and not only him, but Christ our redeemer\u2014when my time comes. But my goodness, is it hard for me to always feel that emotionally when I would have given my life 10 times over for my son to have had one good day in the CICU. And thus the grace of God is there\u2014that in our weakness, He is strong. That I don\u2019t have to\u2014I can\u2019t\u2014always get there emotionally, to always convince myself that my baby is taken care of. That whether or not I feel that from an emotional standpoint, the truth remains: He has gone to prepare a place for us in His Father\u2019s house. Oh, do I long to share heavenly dwellings with my son and our Creator!<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve since gone on to deliver 2 more babies\u2014twins, again. Fraternal, this time. Almost 2 and a half, they are, as we approach their big brother\u2019s 4th birthday this spring. My mothering journey continued in a tumultuous way, with a challenging twins delivery, a darling pair of colicky babies, and a generous dose of postpartum anxiety. The Lord seems to be bent on keeping me in need of Him, on keeping me dependent on what only He can provide\u2014the grace and strength for one day at a time.<\/p>\n
My toddler twins have The Lord\u2019s Prayer memorized at this point, as we model the prayer for daily bread. Life after loss isn\u2019t easy, but my goodness is it rich\u2014linked in such a way to eternal restoration that would never be possible if not for the bitter fruit of suffering. All glory to God, who takes what the enemy means for evil and uses it for our good and His glory. Whether miscarriage, child loss, or postpartum anxiety, we serve a high priest who empathizes with us in our weakness.<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019s a sick guy.\u2019 The good news of the Gospel is that Christ did not come for the healthy, but the sick. Should we remain in a place of constant neediness for the Gospel, we can be assured that He will meet us there with grace one day at a time, until we meet in heavenly restoration and are made fully healthy and new, once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201c\u2018He\u2019s a sick guy.\u2019 The pediatric cardiologist affirmed with an almost flippancy\u2014like, you know, yeah he\u2019s dying but like\u2014he\u2019s sick. Of course he\u2019s dying. He\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9047,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039\/revisions\/9047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}