Our precious little granddaughter, Nadia Joy, went home to be with Jesus this week. The following was written by our daughter. Grab a kleenex.
Saturday, April 25, 9:49 p.m.
Our girl's gone home.
If you didn't know I was pregnant, I'm sorry you're just learning now. For the rest of you, I want to share the amazing events of the past couple of days...
First, I want to say thank you to all of you who have been supporting us, either through prayer or with your presence. I can't thank you enough. There really are no words.
This, like many pregnancies, came with it's own set of trials. Early on, I had been spotting and we thought we might lose our baby then. With lots of prayer we got our miracle, and by 20 weeks our precious little girl was perfect and perfectly healthy. We were looking forward to another 20 weeks of a healthy pregnancy. I had to have another ultrasound at 24 weeks because she wouldn't show her face, and the doctor needed to see it to know if she had any special needs that might come up at birth. So all was normal and fine until then.
At the 24 week visit, her heartbeat had slowed dangerously low. It hovered between 60and 70 beats per minute, when it should have been twice that. It also stopped at one point during the ultrasound. There were many things that could be wrong, but we needed to do some blood work on me and see a specialist in the morning. I went home with the knowledge that our best bet was to make it another week at least until she was just old enough to live outside the womb. She needed to make it to 25 weeks to even have a chance of living. There was a lot of prayer for healing, and preparing for the worst.
When we got to the specialist's on the morning of the 24th, they started another ultrasound. Having had five with this pregnancy, I've gotten pretty good at knowing what to look for. There was no heartbeat. The tech was silent, and I did have to ask to make sure, but our sweet little girl was gone. Justin and I both had a chance to cry and absorb the initial shock. Justin's parents had come, as had my mom, who had been with me the previous day. They came back and we all sat and cried while we waited for the doctor to come in. We talked about our options, and I decided that I didn't want to wait to have my labor induced.
I went to the hospital and was admitted around 10:45 a.m. They started the induction at 11:45 a.m. They had no idea how long it would take before she was born, but it could be later that night, or as late as Sunday. Only time would tell. We were gearing up for a long, grief-filled process.
At 1:12 a.m. our precious Nadia Joy was born. She had already been home with the Lord for probably a day. She was perfectly formed. She even had lines in her footprints already! She had blond hair that you couldn't really see, but it was there. She even had eyelashes! She was 1 lb, 4 oz, and 12 inches long. We had family and close friends there with us to meet Nadia and hold her. We were very fortunate to get to hold her and see her so perfect.
Ok, so those are the facts.
The rest of the story is the spiritual one. We are so blessed. We had so many people praying for us and with us. As hard as this is, God has given both Justin and me so much peace. I know that's what many of you were praying for, and God truly does answer prayers. For me personally, this whole thing has been such a blessing. I got pregnant when the doctors thought I couldn't. We had a pregnancy that lasted longer than we thought it was going to at first. I got the experience of feeling my baby move and react to sounds, I've now been through labor, though I'm sure it will be different next time around, and I got to hold my little girl. Justin got to see her grow in me, he got to feel her kick, and he got to hold his daughter. Both Justin and I are definitely grieving, and there are times that will be harder than others, but we both have peace that only God can give. We don't have any anger about the situation, just frustration about not understanding. I can speak for both of us when I say that we don't understand God's will and His choices, but we accept it fully. I can't even begin to express all of the peace and understanding and faith that I have seen in the past 36 hours. We now have an amazing testimony to the power of God's peace and the ways that he uses us. We have already seen some of the ripples and changes that have been made in attitudes and actions because of this. I'm sure God will use this to change many lives that I won't ever know about. I have complete confidence and trust in my Lord and what He does, regardless of my understanding or lack thereof.
One thing I realized this morning after coming home without our girl was something about how God must feel about His children. I was crying, and telling Justin that I just didn't understand how I could love someone so much in so short a time, and know so much about them without them knowing me. I realized that God feels that way about us. He makes us His perfect creation, designed to love Him and have a relationship with Him. He waits expectantly for us to know Him, to be born again, and for us to spend our whole lives learning about Him and who He is as our Father. When we refuse to have that relationship with Him, and refuse Him in our lives, it's like the stillborn child. Perfect in every way, created to love and be loved, and to spend a lifetime getting to know the ones who bore us. They just never make it that far. They are still loved, still wanted, and there are still hopes and dreams that we have for our children and that God has for us, but they will never have the chance to be fulfilled.
I am so grateful to have such a wonderful family and such wonderful friends who have stood with us through this, and will continue to. I am also so thankful for our family who understands that this is the loss of a child, not a pregnancy. She has a name, a birthdate, she is an individual. She is still one of the grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, the others will just never have the opportunity to play with her. She will always be our firstborn, and she will always have a place in the family. I'm so grateful that the family shares this idea with us, and that they were there with us to hold her and mourn with us. It's an experience that has touched so many lives already, and I'm sure it will touch more. My prayer now is that God will use me to further His kingdom by my being able to point to all that He's done though me.
I am so blessed to be thought of highly enough by my Lord to be used by Him to carry His little girl, that though I may not have had her for long, He let us share in a life that was too special for this realm. I'm so thankful that my girl didn't have pain, and that she didn't have to ever experience the pain of this world. I know I will see her when I go Home, and until then she is well. As a friend's child said, "Oh good! God loves playing with babies!" God loves playing with babies, and who could take better care of mine than the one who created her.
(photo courtesy of Anne Nunn Photography, see http://annenunnphotographyblog.com/ A Beautiful Life: Nadia Joy)
