You can’t will a baby to live

In the fall of 2003 we learned that Tami was pregnant once again. At this point in our lives we were living in a pretty nice two story house on a friendly cul-de-sac in Carmel, Indiana. Things were going fairly well at the church and the bigger house was more than enough room for our growing family. Our fourth pregnancy put us well above the national average in terms of family size so, this was the year that people began to question our sanity. At times it seemed our big family was even viewed as un-American. Both friends and complete strangers began to seriously-joke with us, “You do know what causes it don’t you!?” These were the kinds of comments we had to endure when we became pregnant with our 4th so, we wondered what people were going to say now that a 5th was on the way!?

We knew having a fifth child would be challenging. This would make 5 kids 5 and under. I (Tami) have to admit I was extremely overwhelmed. We had just had a garage sale to sell off many of my maternity things and even some of the newborn clothes.  We sold those items because the “world” was telling us we needed to be done!”  We were young and impressionable and had not yet come to see that God was trying to make a bigger and better story than the one we (or others) wanted to write! We never formally made a family size plan and therefore we followed messages we were getting from the world around us.  We were trying to control and keep pregnancy from happening but we became pregnant none-the-less. I was extremely emotional about it all and felt like our friends and family were going to shut us out. But after the initial shock, we accepted the challenge and felt that God must have thought we were up to it.

Todd and I had always enjoyed going to baby appointments together. We especially loved hearing the baby’s heart beat and getting sneak peaks of the baby through ultrasound. Todd rarely ever missed a doctor visit. On November 24th 2003 I was scheduled for my first prenatal checkup. Because we had already asked my parents to watch our kids over the weekend, we chose not to ask them again and decided that Todd would just go to work and I would take the kids with me to the appointment. I was fairly early in the pregnancy, only about 13 weeks and we knew it would be a quick “in-and-out” appointment anyway. Besides that, the next appointment would be more fun because it would include an ultrasound and possibly a chance to determine the gender of the baby.

At the appointment we went through the normal things like checking my height, weight, and blood pressure. The doctor and I laughed for a bit about my girl’s reaction to the news of having another baby and weather we were hoping for a boy this time. I simply said, “We’re ok with whatever God gives us. We’re just hoping for a healthy baby.” And with that the doctor had me lay back  for a quick listen to the baby’s heartbeat. She jellied up my stomach and began pressing the doppler into my abdomen to catch the sound waves.  She pressed in to find the heartbeat, but there was no heart beat to be found. She pushed and poked a moment longer but was unable to detect anything. She quickly reassured me that I was pretty early in the pregnancy and not hearing the heartbeat through the doppler was a common experience. She quickly and positively resolved that we would just need to go and find the heartbeat with an ultrasound down the hallway. I followed her to the ultrasound room with some confidence that all would be well.  After all, this wasn’t my first rodeo.

We entered the dark imaging room and I laid back for a second time hoping to find the baby’s heartbeat, but as we began the ultrasound it was immediately apparent that something was tragically wrong with the baby. The doctor announced with a mix of compassion and resolve, “I’m sorry, your kiddo does not have a heartbeat.” I was sure that she was just missing something but she wasted no time and began to offer an explanation.  Using her pen, she pointed to a grape-like cluster on the ultrasound screen and explained that the baby had died because of a partial molar pregnancy. Her diagnosis included the idea that my loss was from an extremely rare version of a molar pregnancy where twins were conceived and while one embryo begins to develop normally, the other develops abnormally. Because of this, the healthy embryo is very quickly consumed by the abnormal growth.

I immediately started to cry. I couldn’t speak but I was thinking that I was the one that caused this! I had been so overwhelmed and worried about what people would say that I believe I had caused my baby (now babies) to die!  After a few moments of silent sadness my doctor leaned toward me and said with a gentle yet confident voice, “You know Tami, you can’t will a baby to die and you can’t will a baby to live.”

These words stuck with me for quite some time. I felt like it was God once again saying that He was in control. I felt that he was reminding me that He had me and our entire family in the palm of His hand!