Friday, December 30, 2016

you already have community

Dear Little One,


Yesterday, less than twelve hours after being told you have a condition called fetal anencephaly, we called and emailed family and friends about the news. We went to sleep, and overnight our inbox received email after encouraging email from people telling us they were praying for us and crying with us. In the weeks that followed we got phone calls, text messages, chat messages and cards in our mailbox from friends all over the world. All because the doctor said you're in trouble, Little One! See how they love you?

I was a bit fearful of having a baby here in Germany, in a new city where we know so few people. But when we told some people here in our new city about the doctor's diagnosis, they responded so kindly. They cried with us and brought us cards. They came to our house to visit us and pray for us. They gave us truth to hold on to. One man who doesn't feel confident in English came to our house and read a long passage from Romans 8 to us in English, just because he thought we'd prefer to hear it in our mother tongue. His wife made herself available to attend appointments, give advice, or just have coffee with me and talk and pray. They saw that you need community, and that we need community, and they offered to stand in the gap. Can you feel their love, Little One?

These people have never met you, Little One, but many of them are praying for you every single day. You already have more genuine community than many people would have in a whole lifetime. You're already blessed more than you know.

Mom and Dad

Monday, December 19, 2016

abortion was never an option

Dear Little One,


On the day when the shocked doctor told me the news and his assistants clumsily instructed me, they gave me the feeling that the responsible thing to do would be to end your life. But even in those first moments at his desk after receiving the news, I told the doctor that having an Abtreibung was not an option. I had to say it again in the lobby, to an assistant who was giving me a discouraging look: "There will be no abortion." And we had to say it again to a few more people over the next few weeks: "Abortion was never an option."

Suddenly I could better relate to the difficult decisions that women throughout the ages have faced while pregnant—and I hope I will be slower to judge them than I would have been before, having felt the complex emotions of this season myself. I was glad that I didn't have to make that decision in the doctor's office or at the next ultrasound or in our living room. This was something we decided long before December 13, 2016. My social worker said she sees many clients who are agonizing over whether or not to kill the babies in their wombs, but she could see that our situation was different. She knew that we knew you're alive—whether or not you're healthy—and that it is not our right to end your life any more than it is our right to end anyone else's.

I saw a statistic, that 95% of mothers in our situation opt for an abortion. That puts us in a minority again, a 5% group. But I want you to know that we didn't not abort you because somehow we are better people than other people. Actually, there was even a sliver of me that thought, "If only abortion really was a solution. If only there really was a way to erase this heavy weight...." But abortion simply trades one set of problems for another. It wagers that the guilt of killing your own child will be less painful than suffering through a difficult pregnancy ending in a miscarriage or stillbirth. It's not a wager I would be willing to make. We don't go chasing after heartache, but when it happens to us, we know it's not so unexpected. You might as well know this now too: in this world you will have trouble.

We didn't abort you simply because we come from a long line of people who have chosen the fear of God above the fear of man...including doctors with "the best ultrasound machines in the city". We're usually a minority. We fear the same God as the midwives in Egypt who "feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the...children live." If the midwives could risk their own lives to disobey a tyrannical king, we can also risk appearing foolish before 95% of the population and preserving your life as long as you live.

The social worker told me that you're lucky you got us as your parents, because we're giving you the chance to live as long as you can. I don't think luck has anything to do with it, and I would never have chosen this challenge for myself. But I want you to know this, Little One: abortion was never an option. We couldn't both fear God and play God by choosing to end your life. Some things are best decided long before one faces that particular situation.

To life,

Mom and Dad



Tuesday, December 13, 2016

a time for weeping

Dear Little One,


Today was a day we will remember for the rest of our lives. Today was not the day we wanted it to be. I hope today will fade in our memories as time goes by, so covered by days of rejoicing that we can hardly remember the weeping that took place on December 13, 2016.

I wanted to look nice when I went to the doctor's office for the second appointment of my pregnancy. It had been one month since I had seen you growing in my womb and I looked forward to seeing you again, to hearing your heartbeat a second time at twelve weeks. The early months of pregnancy have felt so surreal, knowing that you're in there—but seeing so little evidence of you. As I got ready for the day, I mentioned off-hand to your Dad: "You know, a tiny part of me realizes that these appointments do not always show good news." But I was 99.9% sure that our news would be good news.

The doctor asked if we should talk English or German, and I chose German, because I need the practice. He had me spread the cold jelly on my tummy and then he began the scan so that we could see you. He pressed, looked at the screen, pressed again, and looked at the screen again. I saw you, my baby: fearfully and wonderfully made. You were just as cute as I remembered you. Then the doctor said those words that I suppose I knew could come, but I never expected would come: "Please come over to my desk. We need to talk about something. There's a problem." I clumsily buttoned up my pants and joined him at his desk.

It turns out, despite my optimism that we were the 99.9%, we were actually the 0.1%. Fetal anencephaly affects approximately 1 in 1000 babies in the womb. He told me that you are one of those babies. He told me that your skull has not formed. That your brain and your head are damaged. He told me he is certain that only one thing lies ahead for you: death. Death inside of me, or death shortly after birth. It was insinuated that your life has no value anymore, that you are as good as dead.

Even as I sat in that doctor's office, Little One, this was on my mind: the doctor knows a lot, but he does not know all things. As he sat there and predicted your future and assessed your value, I knew that was ultimately not his job. He doesn't give life and he shouldn't take it away. He did not play your heartbeat for me, but you still have a heartbeat, Little One.

Whether his prediction turns out to be true or not, I wept because it might be true. I wept in the doctor's office and then in his lobby. I came home and wept on the sofa, wept in your Dad's arms, and wept on my bed. I wept for all the tomorrows we might not have with you. I wept for the loss of our dreams for you. I wept selfishly, too, for the loss of something I wanted: a "normal" pregnancy. A "normal" baby. A "normal" life.

But I want you to know, Little One, that even though we were weeping, we did not feel angry at the God who made you. We just felt profoundly sad. We believe that God shares our sadness too, as He sees this broken world, where what should be a time of joy is turned into a time of weeping. And He longs to end not just our weeping, but all weeping, and to wipe away all tears.

It's often rainy here in our German city. Maybe that's God's way of weeping with us.

Mom and Dad

Monday, December 5, 2016

a big day for dad

Dear Little One,


Today was a big day for your Dad! Today he finally defended his doctoral thesis. He spoke for half an hour about things I could not really understand, and then the professors questioned him for one hour. There were cheers and claps when the professors returned to the hall after their deliberations and announced that your Dad is now a "Dr. Ing." You were there in the audience on the day your dad became a doctor!

You can be proud to be your father's child, Little One. There is no one whom I would rather have as your father. He's intelligent but humble, has good things to say but still listens more than he talks. He isn't one to tell other people that he has a title; it's the last thing on his mind to announce about himself. What's more impressive about him than his education is his heart.

After Dad became Dr. Dad, he made one more announcement to the friends and coworkers gathered in the room: that soon we would be welcoming our firstborn. That's you, Little One. And so as people made their rounds to congratulate your dad, they also came to congratulate me on...you. It was so fun for us to pile good news upon good news, and to spend hours laughing and smiling with our old friends in the university town.

This was a big day for our family, but a bigger day for our family will be when you arrive.

We look forward to meeting you,

Mom and Dad

Monday, November 28, 2016

an act of faith

Dear Little One,


I want you to know that as much as we wanted you and planned for you and asked God for you, choosing to pursue parenthood was also an act of faith. An act of faith based on God's promises that children are a reward, a heritage and a good gift. Not an expensive nuisance or a biologically-related embarrassment, like some people say.

It wasn't that we didn't want to be parents; we certainly did. But I know that being a parent will turn my life upside down. I know children don't always turn out the way we expect or want. I know children have their own wills and while they can choose right, they can also choose wrong. I know the world is full not only of sunshine and rainbows but also of dangers and snares. And I know that although we might think our job is to protect you from the world "out there", you need protection even from us—from our shortcomings and failures.

Somehow opening ourselves to the good gift of children felt to me like a leap of faith, of setting aside insecurities and judging Him who promised to be faithful. This adventure of parenthood will be an adventure of faith, from first to last. But isn't all of life?

In good faith,

Mom and Dad

Friday, October 21, 2016

already known, already loved

Dear Little One,


Did you know that Dad and I dreamed about you long before we knew anything about you? Even when I wasn't much more than a baby myself, I thought about baby names that I liked. Before I knew your dad, I prayed for the children I might someday have. Before we got married, we talked about ideas about children and how to raise them, and after we were married we started a list of baby names on each of our phones.

This year seemed like the ideal one for you to come along: we moved into an apartment with a second bedroom, Dad started his first job outside of the university, and I studied German 20 hours per week so I could integrate better here in Germany.

When I first told Dad I thought you existed, he was pleased but skeptical. The two lines on the home pregnancy test, or talk of a weird feeling in my back or stomach weren't enough to convince him. When I finally came home from the doctor's office with your eight-week sonogram and told him I had heard your heartbeat, he was convinced. How we treasure that first picture of you! The doctor said you looked like an Erdnuss Flip or a gummi bear (very German analogies) and that made us laugh.

We loved you from the beginning, Little One. Even from before the beginning, before you existed. We loved even the thought of you. It makes me wonder how much more love God must have for you, because He knew everything about you before we knew anything. He loved you before there was time.

You are already known, and already loved.

Mom and Dad