Ginny’s Story

My story began with a long bout of infertility. Infertility is such a lonely and dark journey, especially when you see many of your family members and friends getting to celebrate the joys of having a baby. Social media only adds to the sting of not being able to conceive with posts of gender reveals, baby bumps and ultrasound pictures. I felt as though I was wishing weeks of my life away as I counted down the days until I could take a pregnancy test to see if it would come up positive. I’ve never wanted something so badly in my life. The pull to become a Mom is strong, and it’s even stronger when it doesn’t come easy. I longed for the days to hear a child call me Mommy, and this longing kept me up most nights. It was the first thing I thought of when I woke up and the last thing I thought of when I went to bed at night.

My husband and I prayerfully began an arduous journey to try and have the baby we both longed for. Then, my life began to evolve around getting one phone call. Anyone who has struggled with infertility knows the phone call I’m speaking of. It’s “the call” from the nurse to tell you whether or not your pregnancy test came back positive. My heart raced as the phone rang and I saw that it was my doctor’s office.

After a few moments of small talk, she said those unforgettable words I had prayed so long to hear. “You’re pregnant.”

I could not wait to hang up the phone to call my husband and let him know he was going to be a father. Little did we know that this was the first day of a new journey that God was going to lead us on.

I was out of town visiting my parents, during my 20^th week of pregnancy, and only a few days after we learned that we were having a boy, my water suddenly broke. At the moment it happened, I was blissfully unaware of what had actually taken place. After a quick call to my doctor, he told me to come by his office so he could check to see what was going on. You see … I didn’t know my water had broken. I drove the hour and a half back home believing that everything was fine with my baby boy. I had no idea my world was about to change forever.

My husband met me at the hospital and we were wheeled to an ultrasound room. The nurse quickly found Hayes’ heartbeat and a big smile swept across my face. The sound of your baby’s heart beating is the most beautiful sound in the world. However, the nurse never smiled and said she needed to grab the doctor. The doctor came in and I recall making a joke about just seeing him a few days before, but when he didn’t smile, I knew something was wrong.

I heard him whisper to the nurse, “There’s nothing there.”

I remember saying, “What? What do you mean nothing is there? I just heard my baby’s heartbeat.”

I was so confused. The doctor clarified his comments by explaining that Hayes was there but my amniotic fluid was not.  It was gone. My water had indeed broken and I was immediately admitted to the hospital.

As we got settled into our room, my husband asked the nurse what was happening with our son. She said that since my water broke, I would probably go into labor at any moment. At only 20 weeks pregnant, my son wouldn’t have a chance to survive because his lungs were not fully developed. That’s when it hit. That is when reality finally sunk in. I had woken up that morning happily pregnant, and now, here I was not even ten hours later, being told that my baby wasn’t going to make it through the night.

We immediately started praying. This was no longer in our hands, or the doctor’s hands. It was in God’s hands. Our Hayes was in God’s hands now and that small hospital room was not where God wanted our story to end. He was creating our testimony. After being told that I would go into labor at any moment, I began my stay on bedrest. In two different hospitals, for the next 44 days.

On August 8, at 2:53pm, Hayes decided he was ready to conquer this world. After an emergency C-section, Hayes was whisked off to the NICU, weighing only 2lbs 6oz. The silence in the cold operating room after Hayes was born confirmed to us that his lungs hadn’t developed and we were about to embark on an uphill battle. We knew that God had not left our side, and we remembered how He is a God whose character is to fight for His people according to His will (2 Chronicles 32:7). Around 10:00 that night, a nurse came in to my recovery room and told us that Hayes was struggling to breathe and that we needed to get to the NICU as soon as possible. My husband quickly wheeled me down the hallway and into a room full of incubators with babies fighting to survive just like Hayes. When we got to our son, his tiny body was shaking from all of the equipment that they had connected to him which was supposed to help his little lungs work properly. We weren’t allowed to touch him, and in that moment, that is all I wanted to do. A mom is supposed to hold her children when they are hurting and the sheer fact that I couldn’t do anything to comfort my baby was crushing my soul. The nurses and doctor crowded around us as we began crying over the magnitude of the situation. Was my baby going to make it? How could this be happening? I wanted my baby so badly, so why would God take him from me now? I prayed for this child for years and You had chosen Hayes for us. “For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to Him” (1 Samuel 1:27).

My husband turned to the doctor and asked if Hayes was in pain, and when the doctor bowed his head and said yes, we had to make the hardest decision of our lives. Do we keep Hayes on life support hoping for a miracle to rain down, or let Jesus carry Him home? The brokenness I saw wash over my husband was almost too much to bear as we chose to remove Hayes from the machines and stop all medications so he would no longer hurt. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ Also He said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’” (Revelation 21:4-5)

Having to say hello and goodbye to our son, in what seemed like the same moment, was the hardest experience of my life. Hayes fought until 2:04 in the morning, and as I was holding him in my arms, he fell asleep peacefully and went home to be held by Jesus. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28).

Looking back on our journey with Hayes, I can honestly say that my husband and I were blessed to be able to spend 44 days in isolation with God. We experienced a raw dependence unlike any other time in our lives. He gave us all of Him–one day at a time. We didn’t recognize it at the time, but God was bringing us to a new place in our spiritual walk. He was developing a faith in both of us without borders. I was given the privilege of 44 days to fight alongside Hayes. To know that I was lying in a bed fighting for him, and with him, was and will always be an honor. I recall thinking about Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”  Being still and praying for Hayes was my only option. It was Hayes and me fighting together for 44 days—and Jesus was strongly with us. Throughout our first five years of marriage, we had never been as close to Jesus in our walk together—and those 44 days got both of us there, hand in hand with Jesus. We believed together that God was going to work our loss into something good like He promises in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” We held strong to the hope that God would “give [us] a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning,” (Isaiah 61:3) if we allowed Him to enter and mend our shattered hearts.

44 days. Jesus knew we needed that long. We were under construction and being chiseled into something new. We could now see that God’s goodness and grace would follow us all of our days (Psalm 23:6) after our loss. If it would have been one day, seven days, or 21 days, I’m not sure we would be where we are today. I’m not sure we would have had the strength or courage to try for more children—or to accept if we don’t have more children. I’m uncertain of who I would be as a person or as a Christian if we weren’t given those 44 beautiful days. Jesus knew we needed those days. I cherish those 44 days with Hayes.

We were under construction and being chiseled into something new. We could now see that God’s goodness and grace would follow us all of our days after we lost our Hayes.

 

 

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We would be honored to share your story as a Hope Mom on our blog. Every Saturday we feature a Hope Mom’s story in order to showcase God’s faithfulness even in the midst of such deep sorrow. If you would like to have your story shared on our blog for this purpose, learn more and submit here.

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