10 Years

10 years ago...March 30th, 1999.
I was teaching 6th grade Language Arts at that time, and this day was our 6th grade field trip to the Fort Worth museum. I was 22 weeks pregnant with our first child, and was on top of the world. I was having a baby girl and had just ordered the fabric for the nursery.
But today,there was a little cloud hovering over my "top of the world" feeling that day, though. I hadn't felt the baby move much and I was starting to get a little nervous. I remember eating chocolate and drinking a coke just before visiting the planetarium - surely that would do the trick.
It didn't.
As soon as I got home from work, I called my OBGyn. I thought for sure she would tell me not to worry, it would be fine.
She didn't.
She asked me to come up to the hospital since she was there anyway.
I waited for Scott to get home from work so we could go to the hospital together. I remember getting more and more scared - just standing outside in our front yard waiting for him. I just stood there, begging God to let our baby be ok. Once we arrived, we were taken into an exam room, where a couple of different nurses tried to find our baby's heartbeat.
They couldn't find it.
"She's just turned funny" - I remember thinking. Get me on a sonogram machine and we'll see that she is fine.
They did.
And she wasn't fine.
The room spun. I felt like I was dreaming - only none of the dreams I had about my baby were anything like this. This was a nightmare that I wanted desperately to wake up from.
I remember Scott laying his head on my pregnant belly, crying.
I remember my parents were there by this time. My mom was crying and my dad was quiet. I remember utter disbelief and shock.
All of the sudden, I was hearing words like "induce labor, potosin, epidural...".
Right now? This could not be happening.
Not to me.
Not to our baby.
We had a plan, and this was NOT it.
We had a crib...and a name.
All of my friends were pregnant at the same time - we were all going to be new moms together. This was not our plan at all.

One of my next memories is waking up in the night with the worst pain I have ever felt. I was only 22 weeks - why did it hurt so badly? Apparently, your body doesn't alter the pain of contractions according to how far along you are! I finally BEGGED for my epidural. And I got it, but I was in so much pain and was so restless, that it took them several tries to get it in. I was so high on Demerol, grief, and pain, that I refused to let anyone check me to see how far along things were progressing. The next thing I knew, I was wide awake and feeling like I needed to push. The nurse came in...
Our baby girl popped right out with a contraction (no pushing needed. Thank you Jesus!).
Although she was tiny, and her skin was thin and taut, she was perfectly formed.
She had eyelashes and fingernails! They wrapped her up and laid her in my arms.
It was the one time I would hold her this side of Heaven. I was keenly aware of this reality. Yet, through the shock and the pain, I remember being completely in awe of the miracle that had been growing inside me. What an intensely divine moment it is to see God's handiwork - the knitting together of a child.
She weighed 12.5 ounces, and she was 11 inches long. We named her Madeline Kate. I will never forget her sweet, peaceful face and the feel of her tiny body in my arms. Her feet were about the size of my thumbprint.

We were whiplashed back to reality as we were asked all kinds of questions about burials, cremation, hospital research, pictures,..... We just couldn't think about any of that. I didn't want to bury my baby in the ground. I wanted to take her home like new moms are supposed to. This wasn't how things are supposed to happen.
I knew, and so did Scott, that that tiny body was not our daughter. Our daughter had already received her new and perfectly healthy body in Heaven. An earthly burial sounded too painful at the time. We opted for the hospital research route. It was the best we could do at the time - anything more just wasn't in us.

The stream of visitors was constant. My parent's friends were the most comforting - people that had lived long enough to endure loss and knew how to act around us were the ones I looked forward to seeing. I love my friends dearly, but their pregnant bellies were more than I could take. For quite awhile, actually.

The next clear memory was my release from the hospital. I was wheeled out of my room, down the maternity hall, past the nursery. I could hear babies crying in the other rooms. I remember a physical ache in my empty arms. I remember waiting for Scott to bring up the car, sitting there with tears flowing silently down my face.
I felt like I could actually feel my heart breaking in two, and I wondered if life would ever be the same. I knew I would never forget that moment for as long as I lived.

When I arrived home, our church life group had been there cooking and cleaning for us. My house was sparkling clean, the fridge was full of food, and the table was full of gifts. It was like coming home to a big hug from God himself...a kindness we will never forget.

The few months that followed are a blur. Lots of sleepless nights. Lots of tears.
One by one, my friends all had their babies. All healthy and perfect. I remember visiting our best friends about a month later. They had a new baby and it was the longest we had been around a baby since we lost Madeline. I couldn't take it anymore when their baby would cry, and I would feel my milk let down. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I didn't feel like I fit anywhere. I had given birth, I was a mom, yet I had no baby.
Would this ever end? Would I ever feel normal?

Slowly, but surely, I began to crawl out of my hole. The Lord started speaking to me through others and his word like I had never experienced. Little, by little, I could feel my heart getting stronger. I felt the presence of the Lord in a way I never knew possible.

A few months later, we got pregnant again. We were thrilled, but very cautious. Grant was born in 2000, full term and healthy! Garrett followed in 2002, not full-term, but still healthy. We were thrilled with our boys and felt so incredibly blessed.
But God wasn't finished. He had a plan to bring good out of the loss of our daughter.
Last year, in my ladies life group, I was put in a small group for prayer time. I didn't know either of the ladies in my group, and they didn't know about our adoption plans. After praying, one of them looked at me and said, "I heard the Lord say that he wants to redeem the month of March for your family and that it will no longer be a time of sorrow, but a time of great joy."
And it was true! Last year, in March, that is exactly what God did for us when we met Halle Grace. God revealed his plan - to bring joy and beauty from our past sorrow and ashes. He used that season of loss to prepare us to be Halle Grace's parents. He took a family who had lost a daughter, and a little girl who had lost her parents, and brought them together from across the world.
His plans are so much better than anything we could come up with on our own.
This is a fallen world, and tragedy happens all the time. But God loves to restore hope, heal wounds, and bring victory no matter how great the loss.

In my prayer time this morning, I thanked the Lord for what he has done in our family. I told him that from now on, March 30th is a day of joy and victory in our family. It feels good to be able to look back on this day, and not feel pain. I'll always miss our daughter, but instead of looking back on the sadness and loss, I look at it as the beginning of an incredible journey on which the Lord led every step.
That day made our family what it is today.
To God be the glory!