A Story For You To Think About

This is not a political blog.  This is not an "issues" blog.  This is just MY blog.  There is a blog I follow entitled "I Write What I Like."  I like that!  I write what I like, as well!

Today, I am going to share two true stories.  I am not going to tell you what to think about these stories.  That's up to you.  I just spent an hour trying to teach high school biology students how to think for themselves and not just regurgitate facts.  I'm assuming that my blog readers are at least as capable as my high school science students in this matter.

The first story begins a little over eighteen years ago....

I was married and had a two year old son.  We wanted to have a second child.  I became pregnant in June, 1995 but suffered a miscarriage seven weeks into the pregnancy.  Another pregnancy followed that fall, but it quickly ended in miscarriage, as well.  We were grief stricken.  Would we ever be able to carry another child to term?  We just didn't know.  The doctors, though compassionate, were unable to give an answer to the "whys" or "what ifs" beyond giving us statistical data. 

We started talking about adoption.  It had always been our plan to adopt, but we thought we would have our biological kids first and then adopt. Still hoping for a successful pregnancy, we didn't start the adoption process.

In January, 1996, I found myself pregnant yet again.  I was scared spitless!  I went in to my doctor's appointment at nine weeks gestation and held my breath while they tried to find the baby's heartbeat....there it was!  The beating of a little heart. That heartbeat brought my chance of miscarriage down significantly.  I was due in September.

Three weeks later, I went in for an ultrasound, which my doctor agreed to do to calm my nerves about the pregnancy.  As I lay there on the table, the nurse looked and looked for that heartbeat, but it wasn't there.  Sometime between nine weeks and twelve weeks my baby had died.  I declined the offer to do a D & C, and opted to let my body take care of "getting rid of the baby" on its own.

This is when I was given a most wonderful gift from my heavenly Father.

About a week or two later, I finally miscarried my baby.  Only this wasn't a "normal" miscarriage in one sense.  Although the baby had been dead for a time before it came out, the amniotic sac had remained intact.  Because of this, my baby had not started to deteriorate, but remained intact as well.  My miscarriage began with my "water breaking" and I "delivered" a very teeny, tiny baby.  God allowed me to hold my little, itty bitty baby in the palm of my hand and marvel at the little arms and legs.  It clearly was a little baby - maybe an inch long.

That's my story.

Unbeknownst to me, another story was happening at the same time as mine. It also involved a pregnancy.  A young, single woman found out she was pregnant.  She made the brave, gut-wrenching decision to carry her baby to term and place it up for adoption.  Her situation was definitely not ideal.  Her baby was born seven weeks premature in September of 1996, the same month my baby had been due.  She followed through with her adoption plan, and we were blessed with our first daughter.