3rd of July 2015 – The birthday that never was

I have only ever been sick to the point of believing that I may die twice that I remember. The first was in December of 2009. I was living in London at the time and caught an incredibly bad strain of the flu. Being asthmatic, my lungs got really bad. I remember twice thinking “Ok, this is it.”

The other time was in October of 2014. I was pregnant. As I write that, I feel a physical reaction of pain in my heart.

Those who know me, know that I have always (ALWAYS) wanted four children. Since I was a child, I knew four was my number. Through various circumstances, the time has just never been right since we had our third, but not once did the desire leave my heart. So when I found out I had a 4^th on the way, I was beyond excited. I decided not to tell anyone until I had passed the 12 week mark so it was a happy secret I was holding with me.

At about 5 weeks, I went to a Ladies prayer meeting where a good friend of mine spoke. When she had finished speaking, she said “I just feel I need to ask all the pregnant women to come up for prayer. If you are pregnant, please come up.” I had a moment of panic. I was comfortable in my decision not to tell anyone, but this was a prayer meeting. You can’t lie at a prayer meeting. So I stepped out. Nobody knew and there was a lovely reaction of love and prayer from the ladies. Looking back, the fact that I was forced to reveal my pregnancy to a bunch of Christian friends was an act of mercy by my God. He wanted people to know so they could walk the road with me.

A while after that, my lungs started getting bad. I had changed my asthma medicine, so I thought that was the cause. Then it just got out of control. My obstetrician was out of town so I couldn’t ask her what meds I could take. After 4 nights of sitting up straight in my bed every night, and nebulising every 2 hours just to get some air in, I decided I couldn’t wait for my OBG to get back and got hold of a lung doctor. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed saying to his receptionist “Please, he has to fit me in. I am pregnant and my lungs have never been this bad. Will he know what to give me that won’t affect the baby? I don’t want him to give me anything that could have an effect. I am in my first trimester.” She went quiet. And then said awkwardly “The doctor will look after you first, and only if possible, think about the effect on the baby.” My heart sunk. She was right I know. But it was not what I wanted to hear. I put down the phone. Desperate now. Exhausted. Scared. I called the elders in to pray for me, and carried on with the nebulizer. Twice, I had to go to the ER for monitoring and oxygen during that time. The fear of putting any medication in my body during my first trimester drove me to the brink and I pushed it to the last second not taking anything.

When my OBG came back, we did a sputum test and it showed the highest level of infection it can show. She said “You are going on the strongest antibiotic I can give you. With the results of these tests, you cannot say no. You’re in real trouble here and we have left it far too long.”

So I took the meds. In retrospect, I should’ve acted much earlier. The course of antibiotics took me out of the panic zone, although it would take me months to fully recover from the damage my lungs suffered during that time.

A week after that, I went for my first scan. Baby was nearly 8 weeks and I was on the cusp of being able to tell everyone. I was very excited and nervous because I knew what my body had just been through.

As the doctor started the scan, she looked and said “There’s the baby. Looking good. In the right place. Only one…”  I breathed a sigh of relief. Then she went quiet – “How far along did you say you are?” I told her nearly 8 weeks. More silence. Then she said softly “This baby is the size of a 6 week old.”  My head started to spin while she looked some more at the screen: “And I can’t pick up a heartbeat.”

I asked her if she could be wrong, and she said “I don’t think so, but let’s do a blood test today and another one tomorrow and see what your HCG levels are doing. If they are coming down, then there has been a demise of the baby.” Demise. I remember thinking what a strange word that was.

“Do you think I was too sick? Do you think it was because of the meds? Do you think maybe lack of oxygen?” I asked her. She said “No-one knows why these things happen but the miscarriage rate is 1 in 5 so it is not unusual.”  I said “When do you think the baby died? About 2 weeks ago?” She nodded. Right in the middle of my sickness, but before I took antibiotics. So it wasn’t the antibiotics.

As I prepared to leave to go for my blood test, she held my shoulder and said “I am sorry. This is my third miscarriage this week. I usually don’t see that many in a week. I hope you are ok.” Miscarriage. I remember the words having such an impact on me as reality slammed into me like a truck. 

I had the blood test and went to the car. As I climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door, I just broke down over the steering wheel. I wept from the pit of my stomach. As the crying subsided and I got ready to turn the key to leave, the phone rang “Hi Ms Venter, I am phoning from the lung doctors rooms. We can see you tomorrow. Do you still want the appointment?” I decided not to tell them what had just happened and simply declined the appointment.

From then on, I ended up having about 5 blood tests. My HCG went up and down for days confusing me, giving me hope and then bringing me down again. After one spike in the HCG, I thought there had been a miracle and rushed back to my OBG only to find the baby was still the same size, and had not grown at all - floating gently in the amniotic fluid, but not alive.

The doctor told me to wait for the miscarriage. I said “Will it be sore? Will there be lots of blood? Will I be able to identify which part is the baby?” I really didn’t know anything and just spent day after day waiting for this event. I was like a zombie during the weeks that followed. In fact, I had been that way from when I got sick right at the beginning. Absent-minded at home, inside of my own head, and just trying to stay above water emotionally. Nick was basically a single parent for the entire time. I don’t think he fully understood what I was going through but he held the fort.

3 weeks later, the miscarriage still hadn’t come and the doctor was now saying “We have to get this baby out. We can’t wait any longer because there is a risk of infection for you.” So I booked for a D&E operation. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been under general anaesthetic and I was anxious about that, especially since my lungs were still struggling, but I didn’t really have an option. The chapter had to end, and it looked like it wasn’t going to end on its own. So I went in for the op. It went well. As well as one can expect such an emotionally traumatic operation to go. And that was that.

During the following week, it seemed to me like everyone on my facebook feed was announcing a pregnancy. Sonar pictures everywhere. And every photo stung me. I knew most of these babies would be born around the same time that mine was supposed to.3 July 2015. And I was genuinely wounded.

Yet looking back, God was not silent.

Right after I found out I was pregnant, my middle daughter said to me out of nowhere “Mom, there is a baby in your tummy.” In telling me something that I knew to be accurate, God confirmed for me the accuracy of what she was going to say next and the fact that the next word was also from Him.

A few days after that, she said “Mom, I had a dream that you had a baby in your tummy. And do you know that thing that hangs at the back of your throat? I dreamt that the baby sucked on that like it was a dummy and then it got washed away down the plug.” I said to her “Did Mommy also die in your dream?” She said “No, just the baby.” I pushed it out of my mind at the time, but it came back to me later. It brought comfort to me knowing that what had happened was not random to God.  He knew, and He was in control.

To this day, I don’t know why this happened. But when I sent out the whats app message on our  chatline, my words were: “Baby didn’t make it. But God is good. He knows what He is doing.” And that is what I stand on. As Will Marais says “When you are confused by the unknown, go back to what is known! GOD IS GOOD. GOD IS LOVE. GOD IS SOVEREIGN. GOD WILL WORK ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR THE GOOD OF THOSE WHO LOVE HIM AND ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE!” That’s the known. And I kept coming back to it during that time.

I decided to share this personal experience only because I came to realize that this is so common. There are many families that go quiet every year on the date of a birthday that never was - thinking about the invisible person in the room. The one that was meant to be there, but isn’t. Be it from a miscarriage or even from abortion, I believe the pain for the woman is the same when all is said and done. It’s a little person that we won’t meet until we get to heaven.

I remember watching the true story “Heaven is for Real” about a little boy that dies and goes to heaven and then comes back again. He recounts things that he couldn’t have known about, baffling those around him. And then one of the things he says is “Mom, I met my sister while I was in heaven.” The little boy had no idea that his mom had had a miscarriage, and his mom started to cry.

So this goes out to those who have their own 3^rd of July. My heart feels your pain. Remember God says “My grace is sufficient for you, because my strength is made perfect in weakness.” It is when we are weak, that He is most strong in us.