Of course life and circumstances never turn out exactly how you have envisioned them in your mind do they? So when the doctor was taking what felt like an extra long time to get the images of Karis' heart, I knew we weren't about to be released from her care. I had been here before, the dark room, looking up at the screen as my husband sat to the side and the doctor moved the wand around on my belly over and over again. I knew long meant things weren't as they should be and the doctor was being extra careful to try and get the images she needed. I sat for awhile and then I asked; so her right atrium still looks enlarged doesn't it? Sweet Dr. Bleich sighed and said, yes it does. She brought up images on the screen and explained what she was looking for. She told us she suspected Coarctation of the Aorta. Amos shifted in his seat and I started blurting out a thousand questions. Dr. Bleich was sweet and patient, answering my questions and telling me what to expect next. She reassured us that this diagnosis, if indeed it is confirmed, is not as severe as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. She also reminded us we need to remember this baby, sweet Karis, is not our Koralyn and we would not be experiencing the same thing with her. She told us her office would schedule with the pediatric cardiologist and let us know of our appointment time. She hugged me sweetly and let us go.
The tears didn't come until Amos and I sat down in the all too familiar hospital cafeteria for lunch. I was feeling a range of emotions but was too proud to cry while in line for my pasta dish. I stood waiting for my turn, feeling like the room was spinning, like we had been here before and it was not somewhere we ever wanted to be again. I felt physically numb and detached from the noise and people around me. I felt as if I was floating above the scene, like this couldn't actually be my life, I was just watching it play out. Emotionally distraught. Confusion, anger, fear, all swirling in my head at once as I tried to stand still and not pass out with the weight of it all. How could we be here again, in this awful space where they tell you something might be wrong with your precious baby growing in your womb. The baby you have prayed for long before even becoming pregnant. How could we be expected to calmly make our way to the elevator and then down the hall for a bite to eat before we headed back to reality. It all felt surreal. I remember after getting Koralyn's initial diagnosis Amos and I left the hospital in Mansfield and did the only thing we could do I suppose. We went about our day as if we hadn't just been run over by a Mack truck. We mindlessly drove to get a burger, ordered and sat down and just like now, the tears came with our food. Everything felt numb and surreal. Like we were moving more slowly then the world around us. Our plans had suddenly been derailed and yet the world just kept moving like nothing was different, like we didn't just receive a gut punch that knocked us into oblivion. Now here we were 3 years later doing it all over again. I wanted to stand up in that room full of people and yell loud how unfair this all was! Not again, not more hard, not one more thing to try and survive. How could this be happening.
Immediately the anger came. I sat and wondered out loud to my husband why us. All we wanted and hoped and prayed for was a daughter. A healthy, whole, daughter to love and bring home and raise. People had babies all the time, perfect healthy babies, boys and girls. People had big families all the time, five or six kids and all were healthy. So why was it too much to ask for us to get one more chance at having a daughter? We do our best, we are raising our boys the best we know how and loving them as much as any parent could love their kids. I try to be so careful during all my pregnancies, going so far as to cut out caffeine and lunch meat and all the things the experts tell you to avoid. Trying to rest and be gentle with my body so my baby can have the best chance at developing well. I sat and wondered how some moms drink and smoke and abuse themselves while pregnant and their babies come out whole and healthy. I sat and thought of all the babies that were normal and healthy and the mom chose to abort them for whatever reason. I thought about all the babies who are born and then are abused and neglected and unloved. Discarded, as if they don't matter. I sat and thought on all these things and stewed in my anger and confusion. Did I do something to deserve this? Did I eat something or expose myself to something to cause this again? Am I paying for past sins? Should we not have been greedy in wanting just one more child when we have three healthy boys to love and raise? Am I not good enough? Oh the questions that flood your mind when bad things happen. Like a confused child, I want a reason and an answer and I want it now! It better make sense and calm all these crazy emotions running through my veins. Inside I stomp my feet and lay down on the floor in a heap demanding an explanation like a toddler.
My anger never lasts long. Always my next instinct is to run into the arms of God. Like that same tantrum throwing toddler. Now suddenly embarrassed at my outburst, red faced and running for reassurance that He still loves me. He does of course. He knows I am human and weak. Confused and prideful in my indignation. I wasn't always comfortable in that. I grew up thinking you were never allowed to question God. Never allowed to feel negative or confused towards Him. I am so glad I have come to know Him better. Know Him as my Father, who knows my weaknesses and loves me anyway. How silly it was of me to think that as long as I didn't ever say it out loud or do my best to stifle those feelings I would be okay. He knows me better then I know myself. I believe He knew exactly how I would feel and react to this news about Karis. He isn't waiting for me to fail so He can strike me down and declare me useless. He is waiting for me to surrender and come to Him in my failures knowing He will carry me, ESPECIALLY in my weakness. He is my Father after all. Like any good Father He wants what is best for me and I believe He knows better then I do exactly what that looks like.
I need to remember in my moments of fear and doubt that there is a bigger picture here then what I can see. I am trying, but I am human too. I was reading an article yesterday about a young couple who had lost both of their sons in a horrible car accident. Tiny, precious boys with their lives stretched before them, taken in an instant. They told the reporter that they don't want this tragedy to be wasted or in vain. They believe God has a bigger purpose in this awful situation. They believe that they remain here without their sons for His reasons and they don't want to waste their pain by shutting down and becoming bitter. They want God to use this for His glory. I think this sums it up for any true believer who goes through tragedy. They come to a point where they realize they have a choice, to become bitter or to become better. Amos and I have tried since day one with Koralyn to become better. Don't get me wrong, I have my bitter days. I can throw one mean pity party for myself on occasion. Overall though, even in the midst of our pain we have tried hard to take our tragedy and allow God to use it. We pray He turns our ashes into beauty and our mourning into dancing. We want to be used and have purpose out of our pain, that has been our prayer since losing our sweet Koralyn, much like the beautiful couple in the article. Purpose in the pain, because either you let God give it purpose or you let the pain overtake your life. Better or bitter. We try each day to choose better, and the only reason we can do that is because of our hope in Christ.
So it will be in this also. I will choose to believe that if Karis does indeed have a congenital heart defect like myself, and Koralyn, that God has a purpose for it. It isn't just cruel fate or bad luck as some would say. It is part of a divine plan. I know there are critics and non-believers who will scoff and say, how could you believe such a thing? That the same God who supposedly loves you has brought on a cruel and painful defect in your daughter's heart? Not once but twice now. To them I would say that I wrestle with these questions as much as anyone. My faith doesn't immediately give me all the answers I want. What it does give me is rest in knowing that I am just one humble being. That I don't need all the answers. I rest in the sovereignty of God others seem to fight against. It gives me hope that I am not in charge and that what I think is the best plan for my life may not actually be the best plan. It gives me comfort as well, to think of God giving up his Son for me. The pain in that. Knowing that He knows exactly what this pain feels like is comforting to me. Since Koralyn died, I often think of Jesus on the cross in the moment when he cries out "My God, My God why have you forsaken me!" (Matthew 27:46) As hurting humans we often feel forsaken in our darkest moments. To think that Jesus actually took that on himself is so humbling and comforting to me. There is nothing that I can feel, not even in my worst moments that He hasn't already felt and experienced. Far worse indeed then anything I can experience. He knows. He knows and my heart finds rest in that.
Now one of my biggest struggles is feeling like I have to explain myself. Not to God of course, or those that love and support me, but to the critics. The people who wonder why Amos and I would choose to get pregnant again after Koralyn. Why after the birth of our precious healthy Abram would we keep going? How could we possibly be so foolish and greedy to want another? How could we chance putting our children through more trauma again? Why couldn't we just be satisfied with what we have? I know, I know, I shouldn't listen or care about any of the critics, yet it is human nature to want to defend yourself. To want to prove and justify yourself. I am not sure we are born knowing there are critics, I think we learn about the critics along the way. You learn that people are judging you. Looking at you and judging your choices, your words and actions. Then one day you wake up and you realize you care so much about those critics. You aren't sure why, but you want and need their approval it seems. It is impossible to get really, because no matter how many people are on your team and judge you approved there will always, always be a critic. You can choose to focus on your teammates or on the critics. Choosing the critics is never a good idea and only leads to defeat. Yet I am human, and tend to focus on the one negative, despite however many positives there are. I am that little girl still fighting for approval from the critics and a lot of the critics are just me, myself, and I.
So here I am feeling like I need a good defense and explanation for all the critics. Feeling judged and defective myself. I sat in the specialist's office and immediately told her I felt stupid. Stupid for wanting just one more baby, stupid for trying again, when I have a heart defect and now have had one daughter die of her's. She gently reminded me that we sought advice from the experts, we didn't jump blindly into this. All those experts told us our odds were pretty good to have another healthy baby. About 95% good, according to all the data and the numbers. They also reminded us that we already beat the 5% odds of having a baby with a congenital heart defect three times with our boys. So we weighed the odds among other things, mainly our faith. We prayed and thought, talked and decided that we did indeed feel like we were not done growing our family and we wanted to try for just one more baby. So that is what we did. As Christians we believe that God is the Author and Giver of life and that if He did not plan for us to have another child we wouldn't. We believe, as it says in the Bible, that "children are a gift of the Lord." (Psalm 127:3) It does not say, only perfect, healthy, and whole children, it only says children. We have first hand experience that what the world tells us to discard as imperfect and a burden to our family, God calls precious and beautiful. He uses the weak and broken things for His glory and to bring us closer to Him. I know without a doubt that sweet Karis is a gift, just like Koralyn was a gift to our family.
Next Tuesday, when we visit the pediatric cardiologist, we have no idea what we will be told. We don't know if we will be given the all clear, or another CHD diagnosis. Of course we are praying and hoping for good news and release from the specialists. We know it can go either way at this point, and Karis being our fifth child, we know what both ways feel like. One is a mountain top moment, and one is a deep, deep valley. We rest in the fact that God has already met us in both places and we know He will be right there again, wherever it is we end up.
