I’m sitting here typing this in my van on September 28, 2019 watching my 9 year old son pitch for his little league team.

September 24th passed this year and it was the first time in 10 years my PTSD was not triggered.

September 24, 2009 was not a good day for me or my unborn son.

After struggling with infertility for a couple years I was finally pregnant. I was nauseated 24/7 but I didn’t care, I was so thankful to be carrying that precious life inside of me. I was 7.5 weeks pregnant and visiting my family in Michigan.

I had started to have a pain in my lower left side and when it became bad enough that I couldn’t walk I asked my parents to take me to the hospital. I knew the pregnancy wasn’t ectopic because I’d already had a couple ultrasounds at the fertility specialist’s office to confirm everything was moving along with the pregnancy like it should.

The first hospital I ended up at because it was closest was not able to care for me in my then current condition. I had a corpus luteum cyst that had swollen to the size of a softball and twisted my left ovary. At my insistence I was transferred by ambulance to a better equipped hospital.

(Side note: my son just stole 3rd base.)

My husband Josh was back in the Chicago area and my mom was trying to keep him updated on whether he needed to come or not.

As the early morning hours crept in my condition continued to deteriorate and they couldn’t give me more medicine for the pain because my blood pressure kept bottoming out. A team of obgyn residents started their shift and started accessing my condition in addition to the ER Doctor. They wanted to order more tests, but the head Obgyn came in the room and he JUST looked at me and said “she doesn’t have more time, get her to the OR now”. I questioned if I really needed to have the surgery because I could lose my baby. They explained to me that the baby’s only chance of survival was if I survived and for me to survive this surgery needed to happen immediately.

One of the residents started wheeling me toward the elevator and the ER Doctor was yelling that they couldn’t take his patient. Once we got off the elevator they ran me to the OR.

I remember the anesthesiologist holding my hand and asking me if I understood that once I woke up from the surgery my baby may no longer be here…

Up to that point that was the most difficult, crushing moment of my life.

I couldn’t talk. I nodded my head and started silently talking to God. I told God I needed some sort of peace in order to go through this. I felt God asking me… will you still love me if I take this baby to heaven?

I’m sure in real time it was not that long, but as I pondered this the words to the song “Blessed by Your Name” filled my mind.

“You give and take away
God give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name”

And so as I drifted off into an anesthesia induced sleep I had found my peace.

At the same time hundreds of miles away, Josh was driving to Michigan crying out to God wondering if he would lose both his wife and unborn child and God gave him the words to “Blessed be Your Name” as well.

As I was coming out of anesthesia I was trying to figure out where I was and why I was in so much pain. Gradually I began to put things together. But then I was afraid to ask the nurse in post-op if I was still pregnant. I waited to ask until I felt I could handle either outcome. I called her over to me and whispered am I still pregnant?

She looked at me and smiled and said “yes, the baby is still here”. I had lost my left ovary that day, but not my baby.

From that moment, I decided I was having a baby girl. Before the emergency surgery I was leaning toward thinking I was having a boy. But I felt like I had given my dream of that baby boy to God before I went under anesthesia.

For the next few months I thought I was having a girl. Then around Christmas time we decided to have a secret ultrasound so we could surprise our families with the gender of the baby. As the ultrasound tech moved the Doppler around my abdomen she found the baby’s heartbeat and said “well the heart rate is high like a girls…except… this is definitely not a girl! You are having a boy!”

I was in shock. I was quiet on the drive home and Josh asked me if I was upset we were having a boy. I started crying and told him no, I just had given that baby boy to God and He gave him back to us.

It was a rough pregnancy and we weren’t out of the woods. Gabe’s birth was traumatic and is a story of its own for another time.

But I am so thankful to share this story of God’s goodness and grace with you 10 years later, while I watch my 9 year old son Gabe play baseball.

Blessed be Your Name

#infertility #miracles #baseball #ptsd #grace #blessedbeyourname #adoption #highriskpregnancy