A Journey of Grace

There are moments in everyone's life that are never forgotten. August 28, 1996 is the very first moment of my life that I have never been able to forget. I was 16 years old, and it was exactly one week before the first day of my senior year of high school. That morning, I was having a very simple day surgery, to have an ovarian cyst removed. The doctor had assured me that it would be a simple procedure, that I would just have to rest for a few days. I would be able to start my last year of school just like everyone else. Even today, I close my eyes, and I am back on that stretcher, being wheeled away from my mom and dad and into the OR. The anesthesiologist is standing above me, telling me to count backward from 100. 100, 99, 98...and the next thing I remember I'm in a different room, with voices everywhere. I can hear my mom asking when I would wake up. I remember wanting to tell her that I WAS awake, but I couldn't seem to form the words. The next words I heard have been etched in my mind for the past 14 years. "The surgery went fine and we got the whole cyst. It was quite a large one. She should recover nicely...however, there is a lot of scar tissue on her ovaries and her uterus is tipped. Babies are not in her future." At 16 years old, I knew the finality of those words. My life's dream was always to be a mommy. Throughout the next 10 years, I had more problems, and many more procedures. Every time, the doctor would always make sure to tell me that my chances of ever bearing children were slim. A hysterectomy was discussed when I was 21 years old. The doctor said that I might as well get it over with then and stop having all of the health problems. His words? "You are never having kids anyway, Michelle. Get over that and get healthy."

The echo of those words haunted me for years. Well before I was ready to have children, I knew I never would. Well before I ever fell in love, I knew that when I did, I would have to break the news that I could not bear children. Then, I met the man who became my husband, and got pregnant RIGHT after we were married!! What a beautiful surprise it was to us. Not even a month later, that baby went on to Heaven. I can still hear the ultrasound technician's voice as she said "I'm really sorry, it looks like a blighted ovum." At that moment, every dream we had seemed to come crashing down around us. I just knew that all of those doctors had been correct over the years. That this pregnancy was just a fluke, and that my body didn't sustain it because it couldn't. I felt bad for myself. I was angry. I was angry at pregnant women, angry at God, angry at myself.

Then, just when I was at one of my lowest times in my Christian life, God gave us another beautiful surprise. It was just about 5 weeks after the miscarriage, and I was feeling lousy. I hadn't read my Bible or prayed for weeks. I was about as far away from God as I possibly could be, my heart was closed off. I thought He had turned His back on me, just when I needed Him most. John had a Friday off from work, and he told me we were just going to go out and have fun. We packed a picnic lunch and headed to a park that we like, about 15 miles away. We sat there on the swings and ate and talked. It was the first time that I let myself open up about how badly I was hurting over the miscarriage. After about three hours, we left the park to go out for ice cream. While we were sitting in the restaurant, I started to feel awful pains in my stomach. By the time we got home an hour later, the pain was absolutely unbearable. Figuring it was a kidney stone, John took me to the ER. After sitting there for what seemed like an eternity, the nurse came in and said she had to send me to ultrasound. We asked why, and she said that I did have a kidney stone, but that I also had a positive pregnancy test! The doctor was actually more concerned about the positive test than anything else, because it had been such a short time since the miscarriage. He was concerned about choriocarcinoma, a type of cancer that only happens during pregnancy. So we went off to ultrasound, hoping to see just a speck. And there it was...a beautiful, tiny yolk sac. A sign of life. I went home that night, with a real smile on my face for the first time in 5 weeks. John and I stayed up late in the night, excited for the pregnancy, but nervous as well. Would I sustain this pregnancy? Would the same thing happen again? We laughed and cried and prayed together. John opened the Bible to read. He was doing a study in Psalms and was on Psalm 82, but he opened to 113. I watched him scan the page and his eyes light up. I opened my Bible to the same Psalm and tried to figure out what he was seeing. Within moments, I knew. Psalm 113:9 says: " He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD." At that moment I knew how wrong I had been. God had never left me. He had been there with me, through my moments of anger, hopelessness, and despair. He had loved me when I had cried in anguish and he had loved me when I cursed His very name. At that moment I knew that we would be just fine. God gave me this verse to remind me of His power and love. No matter how the pregnancy turned out, He had already kept His promise. I would be a mother. I already was.