Do you have an event in your life that split your life into two parts–your life before that event happened and your life after that event happened?
It could be the death of a loved one, a diagnosis you received, or any other event that drastically altered your life. If you have an event like that, you now see your life divided into everything that happened before that event and everything that has happened since then.
The one event that definitively split my life into a “before” and an “after” was when my first daughter Hannah Grace was diagnosed with a fatal neural tube defect on September 30, 2016.
Before she was diagnosed, I was over-the-moon excited to be pregnant after four years of infertility. I really worried about miscarrying especially since I was at a higher risk because of my PCOS. But as we neared the end of my first trimester, my fears had finally started to ease up. At all of my ultrasounds, Hannah had looked very healthy and was developing beautifully.
At 11 weeks, 6 days we went in for a routine ultrasound. We hadn’t seen our little peanut in a few weeks since our last appointment with my fertility doctor. Since we had “graduated” from our fertility specialist, we were coming in for a scan at my OB’s office.
Before my scan, I got some bloodwork done and excitedly chatted with the phlebotomist about what gender I thought our little one was. I giggled as she told me that the ultrasound tech might even be able to tell during our scan. What a wonderful surprise that would be to find out today! I thought.
After my bloodwork, the ultrasound tech called us back to his exam room. I lied down, and Mace held my hand as the tech put the cold jelly on my belly and started moving around the transducer. I was about to burst with joy as the tech stopped the transducer, and I saw a head, a body, and ligaments. He paused, zoomed in, and said quietly, “5 fingers on each hand and 5 toes on each foot. Good.”
Looking back, I now know that he had already diagnosed Hannah, but my husband and I had no idea that anything was wrong.
He didn’t say much else as he moved the transducer around and captured a few more images of our baby. He then printed off a couple of pictures and wrote something on them. Mace and I were still beaming ear to ear with excitement after seeing our long-awaited baby on the screen. We had waited four long years to get pregnant, and it was finally happening. We were finally going to have a baby!
The ultrasound tech then asked us to come outside of the ultrasound room and have a seat while we waited to speak with my doctor. “That’s strange,” I anxiously thought. “We shouldn’t need to see the doctor. This was just an ultrasound visit.” We were trying to stay positive, but my anxiety level kept rising. “All of our ultrasounds at the infertility doctor up to this point have checked out great,” I tried to reassure myself, “I’m sure everything is fine.” But I knew something was wrong. We were then called back to a room by a nurse and waited for even longer.
Less than an hour after our ultrasound, our tears of excitement and joy turned to heavy tears of grief and sorrow as we listened to my doctor tell us that our baby had acrania, an abnormality when the skull does not develop correctly to cover the brain. She showed us the ultrasound print-out where the ultrasound tech had written “Acrania” between the two pictures of our beautiful baby girl. She told us that this type of defect is fatal and that our baby was incompatible with life.
My doctor explained that I may miscarry, deliver early, or possibly make it full-term. Regardless, our little miracle baby would either not survive delivery or live long outside the womb.
Mace and I sat in shock as she said, “I’m sorry” and left the room. We were completely devastated.
After the doctor left the room, we embraced each other and sobbed. The walls felt like they were going to cave in, and I felt completely disconnected from the world. Before the full ramifications of everything she just told us hit us, Mace and I held each other while he prayed through hot tears, “Lord, we don’t understand this, but we just ask that in some way you would be glorified through our baby’s life.”
Please join me next week on my blog as I share about how God so beautifully answered that prayer by Mace through Hannah’s life and now legacy. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and I will be posting more about how God has used Hannah’s diagnosis for his glory, including encouragement for others who have experienced pregnancy or infant loss.
A life need not be long to bring glory to God.
Pressing on in faith,
Jennifer