234 results for tag: Share Your Story
Burying my precious baby was devastating. I had no idea how to cope with his sudden unexpected death. True, Paul had been born with a heart problem, but he had survived the critical surgery at birth and was thriving. He’d come home from the hospital at three weeks old, and after a slow start, began gaining weight.
With his winsome smile, easy disposition, and mop of curly dark hair, he delighted us all. He was healthy and beautiful. Even the physician filling in for Paul’s regular cardiologist was so impressed with his progress that he impulsively eliminated most of his heart medications. Paul didn’t need them anymore. He was fine. ...
"May this be your experience; may you feel that the Hand which inflicts the wound supplies the balm, and that He who has emptied your heart has filled the void with Himself." - Hudson Taylor, missionary to China
If I'd written my own life story a hundred different times in a hundred different ways, I never would have included this chapter: Our Second Miscarriage.
Back in January, Shawn and I were elated to read an instantly positive pregnancy test. Pregnancy symptoms set in quickly and we couldn't wait to hold our third sweet baby in September.
Fast forward a few weeks. ...
In 27 years, I had never been to the emergency room. I had no idea that in the span of three days, I would visit the emergency room on three occasions. In 27 years, I had never lost anyone I loved to death. I had no idea that, in those same three days, the first time I would look death in the face, would be when I lost my baby.
How do you share with people that you miscarried? Do you wait for it to come out in awkward conversation? Do you blurt it out to everyone you know? There is no easy way to share the death of a child. We shared our story with family and friends just four days after we announced to everyone we would be ...
I remember standing at the funeral of a friend’s baby, stillborn at full term, ten years ago, completely inconsolable, sobbing, and unable to pull myself together. Much to my husband’s dismay, I just wouldn’t let him console me. All I could say to him was, ‘I just don’t want to ever have to do this!’ Yet I knew it was very likely I would have to do that exact same thing at some point in my life.
You see, I have always known I have a balanced chromosome translocation. My parents had a stillborn baby, with no warning signs, at 36 weeks. And after that had tests done to see if there was any reasoning behind it. They discovered then that my ...
“Unfortunately, this baby has some things wrong with her.”
Those words will forever echo in my memory.
My husband and I were at the hospital for a routine 20-week ultrasound for our second daughter. She had a strong heartbeat and was very active, but the exam took longer than it should have, and anxiety started to creep in. When the doctor told us that all was not well with our baby, the bottom fell out of my heart.
The doctor went on to explain that our baby had multiple serious physical defects, and more testing was needed to determine the exact nature of her condition.
After answering our questions and going over a number of different ...
In May of 2017 I found out I was pregnant. When I told my husband, we celebrated together, full of joy and excitement. Before we knew if we were having a boy or a girl, we were trying to pick our top names. I thought of Audrey, and instantly fell in love with the name. I knew that if we had a girl that would be her name. The meaning of Audrey is “noble strength.” We wanted to give our child a first name that had a strong meaning, and to me, Audrey was perfect. When I was 20 weeks, we were getting ready to find out the sex of the baby, and were both almost certain that the baby was going to be a boy. But she was a girl! Looking back now, this was ...
Eleanor “Ellie” Love Kropchuk was the most beautiful surprise. In March 2017, my husband, Matthew, and I were so excited to find out she was on the way to join big brother Timothy (three years old) and big sister Caroline (20 months). Since I already have two children, pregnancy was nothing new for me. But Ellie was different. My doctor even commented at one point, as we laughed together about how active Ellie always was, that this pregnancy was just different than the others. Around seven months into my pregnancy, I created a playlist that I would listen to during my birthing time. God often uses music to minster to me in very unique and specific ...
I got into my car, shaking, and responded to my doctor’s voicemail requesting me to call her personal line so that I might talk to her that evening. That Friday evening. A week prior to this, I had chosen to take a voluntary, non-invasive blood test on a whim, and some results were flagged.
My doctor mentioned words I had never heard, and I scrambled to write anything down on the back of the one receipt I found. It was my first brush with such grief.
I had experienced some loss before, and had already had a few rocky appointments with my OB. But five days later, I walked into an ultrasound room, watched my sixteen-week-old baby kick and flip ...
In the emergency room I looked at the sonogram screen and couldn’t really see Adalynn Grace. I just thought the equipment wasn’t the best there since it was the ER. A few hours before I had a gush of fluid and didn’t expect to be told it was my water that had broken at 20 weeks.
Unfortunately, we had trouble with this pregnancy even before it started. My husband and I had prayed for 3 years to add this beautiful life to our family of three. We were over the moon to find out that we had been blessed again with another little girl. My oldest daughter was more than excited to find out she would be a big sister.
At the start of this ...
Seven Years Later
Her heart was aching and lonely, she felt lost and misunderstood. For months, the heart of this carpenter’s wife, who was not yet a mother in the eyes of the world, grieved the loss of child she never got to meet. No physical scar or sign to hold that would indicate to the world the condition of her heart and how it was left in tiny shards of glass. No one seemed to see the disaster that lay before her. Her heart, once perfectly crafted and beautiful and whole like a lovely porcelain vase, now lay on the ground where common people trekked. Often times, she felt like she was kneeling on the ground, overwhelmed at the destruction ...
