May 18, 2012

Today is a significant day. Today was the day Knox was due. Today is also the day we found out our daughter Lillian Faith has died.
We have been praying for her from before her conception. We prayed fervently for her life, her growth and her soul. This week we were told she had a chromosomal defect called Turner Syndrome, meaning she was missing a sex chromosome. 99% of the babies with Turner syndrome die before they reach term. We were praying our daughter was in the 1% who survive.
We were hopeful because she wasn’t showing signs of distress, such as fluid build up around her organs or in her brain  and she didn’t seem to have heart dysrhythmias. We heard her heartbeat for the last time on Tuesday morning when Kerry and I listened together before he went to work.
I have “had a feeling” the last 2 days that something was amiss, but I dismissed it as paranoia and anxiety because I was approaching the same time in my pregnancy when I lost Knox. My very understanding doctor said I could come in any time to have heart tones checked and check on baby. I went in this morning while Kerry took the boys to the park.
We searched for the heart beat with the doppler initially and when we didn’t find it, we did a sonogram. There was our perfect baby, her only movement was with my pulse and no heart beat. My heart is broken. I feel so numb, so wronged and so empty.
We have elected to have an induction tomorrow morning. I could have surgery instead, but I want the opportunity to hold my daughter. I want the option to look on her face and not just an outline from a sonogram. My heart needs that. We ask for prayers for a quick, safe and uncomplicated birth. My birth with Knox was fraught with complications after he was born and I would like to avoid that again. I am also praying for compassionate nurses.
We don’t know medically why Knox died. We didn’t have chromosome studies (as we already had 4 healthy boys) and there was nothing obviously wrong after he was born. We know medically why Lillian has died, but it doesn’t make it easier. We don’t know why God has taken either of them, why we are walking through such sorrow. We don’t know any of it. But we have to trust that He has a purpose. I may not know it for years, I may never know why. But I believe God has a purpose. I believe that He knew the outcome of this pregnancy from the moment He created it, when He was knitting our daughter together in my womb.
My grief is deep, my pain is intense. I get angry at the injustice of it all. I am jealous of the mothers who will get to hold their babies today, while I will sit with empty arms for a second time in 6 months. It seems unfair, it seems cruel, it seems so very wrong. But we believe that God is faithful, we believe that He loves us and the children He has created. We believe that He will carry us through and give us strength.
I am reminded after Job suffered terrible losses of family and property. Job 1 20-22
²⁰ Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. ²¹ He said,

²² Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.