Losing Our First Baby

We slowly walked through the grave yard, reading some of the names on gravestones along the way.

Our four-year-old son, Jamie was carrying flowers that we were planning to put by the graves of his two brothers.

Memories of the events that took place with our precious babies, came flooding back,  but it seemed so peaceful at that moment as we were looking at their gravestones.

We placed the flowers by each of their stones, took our son’s hand, and began walking back to our car.

Suddenly Jamie pulls back anxiously as he tells us, “Wait, I want to stay! I’m going to wait for God to come and get the flowers for my brothers!” I looked at him in amazement and could suddenly picture God coming to get those flowers and putting them in just the right place in heaven.

Perhaps that day gave me a good glimpse of the hope God wants to place in our hearts. The previous five years we had been very blind to that hope and our faith was shaken after losing our babies. I had done a lot of praying and knew I needed God, but still had often felt depressed.

(going back)

When we found out we were going to have our first we were very excited. Everything went well with the pregnancy. I had all my prenatal appointments, three ultrasounds, took my vitamins, ate well, and didn’t do anything that could be harmful to our unborn child.

The time came on June 22, 1996, for me to have our baby one week before I was due. We drove to the hospital through a severe thunderstorm.

I couldn’t believe that I was about to be a mom!

The  excitement didn’t last as the labour progressed. It began to seem as though there wouldn’t be anything normal in my journey to becoming a mom as we waited for baby to come.

By the time baby AJ was born, I could feel more bad news was about to come our way. Our baby was very briefly placed on me, but taken away before I could even see whom he looked like. Something wasn’t right!

My husband and I both sat there speechless, not knowing what was going on. All they told us was to wait for them to bring our baby back.

Finally a doctor came back to talk to us, but still no baby. He told us our baby had what was called Opitz-Limli-Syndrome (a severe case of it) and they didn’t know how long he would live. We were in shock!

For the next few days I felt myself going with the flow, feeling numb, holding baby, going through the motions but it was like I wasn’t there.

Nurses took pictures for us and were so kind and loving, but I had little to say. Forty-nine hours after his birth, our baby who had never cried, never ate, never moved a muscle passed away in my arms.

I looked at his face and thought

Here is my son, which God has brought

In my arms he laid

Feeling so weak, ready to fade

I touched his cheek, stroked his hair

a tear rolled down, it didn`t seem fair

My feelings and all felt so mixed

This was something I could not fix

He opened his eyes and looked at me

Oh Dear Lord, How could this be

I saw much peace deep in his eyes

In that moment we said our goodbyes

I looked at his face feeling forsaken

Here is my son which God has taken

  As funeral arrangements were made it all felt very unreal. The day of the funeral is when it all hit me hard and reality really sunk in. We were actually going to our own baby`s funeral.  My heart felt very empty.

 Something I never would have guessed would happen to us had happened. The storms that were ahead of us yet to come would continue to take us by surprise.

©Nancy Wall

God First

One lesson we often learn the hard way,  is to put God first in our lives.  We see this problem throughout all of history.

Adam and Eve got themselves into trouble by wanting something other than God.

The Israelites fell into sin, and even worshipped a false god, after God, their Creator had miraculously rescued them from the Egyptians.

Over and over we can read stories in he Bible about people turning away from our Heavenly Father.

We see the same thing happening today.

I recently heard a message (preached in a church) by a man, claiming to be a Christian. A message which shocked me!  He was preaching, being gay is not a sin, because God does not want us to be lonely. The things we could all do, in the name of loneliness!

I can look back at my own life and see that I have not always been faithful in living for God.  I accepted Jesus as Saviour when I  was twelve, but that is not all there is to our walk with God. Our walk with Him needs to continue and we need to grow.

I was later told that I was wrong about accepting Jesus that way and we cannot know we are saved. We can only try our best and then hope God has some mercy on us and will let us into heaven one day. I began to feel confused about my decision. I  put it on the back burner most days until I forgot about that day altogether.

This left me feeling lonely. I knew I needed Jesus but couldn't seem to reach Him enough to fill that empty spot anymore.

Since we moved so much, it was hard to make and keep friends. Every school I went to was different than the one before. I lived in a few different worlds. Sometimes, we lived in the  Mennonite culture of Mexico for a while, which you can read more about  here .  Other times in various places in  Canada.

I tried hard to make friends by trying to fit in where we lived. In the name of "loneliness" I fell into sin by going along with what others were doing,  joining in on sin. The lonely feeling remained.

When I was 15, I met my husband. For the first time in years I felt like I could just be myself. I thought this was the answer and I would never feel alone again.

We both decided to get baptized a few years later, as was tradition in our culture before marriage. During my baptism, I began to feel very convicted about how I had been living my life without Jesus.  I still wasn't sure how I would fix that, but I prayed, "God, show me what is missing, what I am not seeing. "

Life continued on as planned. We got married at a very young age. I had assumed a married couple could never feel lonely and we could now just live "happily ever after."  I now don't believe that is the case, no matter how good your marriage is. God has to come first.

We were not ready for marriage and we were not putting God first.

I wanted to have a baby right away. That would bring completion to my heart's desire and would fix everything, I thought. I was very excited at the thought of holding my very own baby.

Nine and a half months later, I very briefly held my own baby, before he was rushed away for medical treatment. He was a very sick little boy. He lived for 49 hours,  before passing away in my arms.

I won't share the details about all of this today, but I will tell you.. all that was left was Jesus! I began to do a lot of praying. I began to see only God could help me get through life.

This wasn't the end of that story, but was also the beginning of a new one. I will share more details next time.

For today, I just want to say... we need Jesus. He is our Comforter, our Helper. He is the one that will always be there, if we let Him! (The book of John in the Bible is a great place to start reading about him.)

We cannot depend on any human being to fill the place  Jesus  should have. Not our friends, not our spouse and not  even a baby can take his place.

©Nancy Wall