Just before Thanksgiving that year, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was carrying another life inside.

Was more than a few days late with my monthly flow. Was tender in places and queasy in others.  Knew what it all likely meant, having been down this road four times previously now.

But for the first time in my life, I dreaded taking that test.  Because we {mostly he} had decided we were done, were trying to prevent another wee one from entering our lives.

So I purposefully took the test when Nathan was gone, in Lincoln for state band convention over a long weekend.  Thought that it might be easier somehow, that I might have some time then to process, to try to understand, to find the right words to explain.  Sure enough – right away, those two pink lines bled out strong at the end of the white stick.  No mistake about it.

I thought I could keep the news quiet then, at least for those three or four days until he came home.  But no.  Changed my mind.  Decided I couldn’t wait.  But would text him yet that night, late.  Typed the words slowly, and paused for more than a few minutes before hitting ‘send’ – praying over this message, his heart, this little one within, already beloved by me.

‘I’m pregnant.’

And his text back, ‘You’re kidding?’

And me, ‘No.’

And then the phone ringing almost immediately and him on the other end.

It wasn’t an easy conversation.  Mostly bewilderment and disbelief and the trying to wrap our brains around this new reality.

I remember being sad though, when we hung up, knowing that for the first time, we had conceived a child that wasn’t truly desired, tried for, sought after.  A child that wouldn’t enter this world in a spirit of true joy and excitement, but one of reserved, reluctant acceptance.

I was still living in this state of grief a week later when I first noticed the blood.  There wasn’t much, but enough to put me on guard.  And then the cramping began a few days later, gentle and mild at first.  I knew right away that this baby was leaving me, leaving us.  And I felt such guilt – like maybe he knew that he was unwanted, like maybe he sensed the turmoil his very presence was causing somehow and he was doing the sacrificial thing and choosing to end his own life in an effort to simplify things here.

We’d lost two babies before – our firstborn, Silas, who I’d delivered at 24 weeks after 24 hours of laboring, held his small frame in my arms and laid his body in the ground.  And our baby Job, who died in my womb at 13 weeks and had to be taken from me on the operating table with big lights and metal tools, me rubbing my womb in a circular motion before they put the mask on my nose and mouth, speaking to him aloud, ‘Mama loves you, baby.  It’s going to be ok.  All is well.’  So I knew this kind of loss already.  Knew what it was to say goodbye, knew well the ache of never knowing who this child might have become, grown up to be.  But I’d never known loss this way – with the bleeding and the cramping, the physical pain.  Maybe that’s why I waited so long to go in.

It was a Sunday and I’d been bleeding and cramping off and on for a couple of weeks.  And the pain was getting worse.

I made it through church that morning, gritting my teeth and trying to get my mind off of myself, onto others there and their sufferings.  But when we made it home after the service, the pain was so great that I literally crawled up the stairs to our bathroom and lay on the floor there most of the afternoon.

By the grace of God, my mom had been planning to come and visit that day for quite some time, had planned to go to our church’s Christmas ballroom dance that afternoon in fact.  Bless her heart, she spent many hours that day trying to convince me I needed medical attention, but I refused until dark had fallen that night.  I thought to lay down on the couch in our family room, intending to try and get some sleep, but as I slowly lowered myself from sitting to lying down there, it became impossible for me to breathe.  Wasn’t strong enough to sit up.  Couldn’t catch my breath.  Began to panic.  Felt my eyes go wild and heard horrifying sounds coming from somewhere deep within.  Mom, nearby, ran to me and pulled me to sitting.  And she told me {yelled at me, really} – no more asking – that she was driving me to the E.R.  Now.

So in we went.  Sitting there by ourselves in those tan, waiting room chairs.  Waiting to be called back.  Looked over by the doc on call that night who seemed relatively unconcerned until he had me try lying down there on his sterile, silver table.  And the gasping, the inability to take in air, the panic – it all set in again, like it had at home.  After which he left quickly from the room, leaving the words trailing behind, that he would call my OB in for emergency surgery.

It was an ectopic pregnancy.  And my right fallopian tube had burst, causing blood to slowly fill my abdominal cavity, pressing now upon my lungs and other organs, the intense pain my body’s protest.

I knew our little one was gone, had known it really, in my heart of hearts, with that very first appearance of blood.

But when I woke from surgery, I was in for another bit of loss.  Still groggy and slow, the recovery room and my whole world spinning some, the doc pulled up next to my bed on her stool on wheels and leaned toward me.  And I heard her gentle voice, wanting me to know, to understand as soon as possible.  ‘Julie, there’s something you need to know.  We were able to get the bleeding stopped, so that’s the good news.  But while we were inside, we saw that it wasn’t just your right ovary and fallopian tube that were damaged.  Your left tube had also been hurt, likely at a previous time.  And we were unable to save it.’  And me, taking this news in, to the best of my ability in my current half-awake state.  It dawned on me slowly, ‘So I can’t have any more children then?’  And her, quickly, with a false bravado in her voice, ‘Well, nowdays there are a lot of options with IVF and things, and you do still have one ovary, so that could be a real possibility for you…’ and her voice droning on, me tuning her completely out now, stuck in my own head, trying to process this truth.

Friends came to visit the next day.  Held my hand.  Prayed with me as I ached, still in a daze really.  The only words that would come, these, of an old hymn I’d grown up hearing: ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.’

We named our little one Solomon Matthew.  Solomon, derived from the Hebrew word ‘shalom,’ meaning Peace, Wholeness, the taking of all that is wrong and making it Right.  And Matthew, meaning ‘gift of God.’

And I went home from the hospital then, leaving, not only without our baby, but without the pieces of myself that could produce life within me.  My body, what had once housed and grown and born human beings in love, was empty now.  That’s the feeling of barrenness, I think – nothing left, but a void.  No more life or breath or warmth.  Only coldness and darkness and death.

And I did the only thing I knew how to do then.  I went to the Word.  I read and read and read.

Mostly from Isaiah 35.  Over and over and over again.

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.  The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.  They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.  He will come and save you.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.  For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it.  It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.  And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

It was 3 years ago today, that our Solomon came.  The beginning of December, the season of Advent – a time of expectation and awe and child-like wonder, us remembering with holy reverence the first coming of our Savior as a wee, helpless babe.  And a time too of looking forward to His Second Coming, when He will return as Victorious King, Deliverer and Restorer and Prince of Peace.

And when He comes streams of water will break forth in the desert, the burning sand will become a pool, the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the tears of His people will cease.  And from the dead and barren womb, Life.

 

 

 

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