A Chance to Fight
I went to see my hair stylist today. Love her. She has curly hair (just like mine) so she can tell me first hand what works (and what can make your fro…grow a fro) as far as hair products are concerned. She asks me “how I’m doing” and she’s ready for whatever I say. She really wants to know. Owen’s not an awkward topic in her presence. That’s wonderful….because Owen will never be an awkward topic with me.
It wasn’t long into our conversation that she began to share her heart. The heart of a concerned friend. One of her best friends has been having a difficult pregnancy. I could tell she wouldn’t normally share this information with just anyone. But, unfortunately, I’ve been there. It wasn’t inappropriate at all that she was sharing this with me. No more than it was for me to share Owen with her.
Her friend…which breaks my heart to even type this…is carrying her baby girl knowing she could die any day. Any day, the fluid on her brain could become too great to sustain her little life. This precious little one, battling other major health concerns as well, is now around 30 weeks old. As we talked about doctor visits and all the terminology involved with trying to make a firm diagnosis in situations like these, she posed a question. A question that I couldn’t ignore. “We all can’t help but wonder, if they knew this diagnosis was going to end this way…why didn’t they give my friend the ‘options’ sooner?” I knew what she meant about options. I was faced with those options.
I could shout from the mountaintops that I am pro-life. I could walk the streets carrying a sign. But what good would that do? To project my beliefs AT people? All I have is my story. Owen’s story. All I could do in that salon today was share my experience. Share my heart. A first-hand account of someone who lived out a decision to let her baby have a chance at life.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Yet, I couldn’t tell her what her friend should do. All I could do was tell her what I DID…
I never ever in a million years thought I would find myself in a situation where I would ACTUALLY have to WILLINGLY make that choice. To, in so many words, have to tell a doctor that “no matter what he found on today’s ultrasound, we were having that baby. No matter what.”
I was faced with those “options.” I made that choice. When Owen was 20 weeks old, we got the news that, “We think he has something called Pulmonary Atresia… but he’s turned too much so I can’t see as much of his heart as I’d like.” After hearing the doctor say he couldn’t see enough to give us a firm diagnosis, he asked, “Do you NEED a diagnosis before you leave today…?” Our cardiologist JUST told me he didn’t have enough evidence to put a diagnosis in writing, but he still had to ask “the question.”
I read between the lines. I knew what he was asking me and I didn’t hesitate,”You mean do we want to still have this baby if you find something seriously wrong? Absolutely.” I was heartbroken as I thought about other parents out there. Fearful parents. I slumped in my chair as reality hit me hard, some parents don’t wait long enough for the diagnosis...
But you see, I had already felt Owen move. I had, long before even feeling that movement, fallen in love. For me, there was no other option. I wasn’t about to call it quits. Not when there was the potential for a miracle.
Shortly after this appointment we got the big blow. The diagnosis. A diagnosis so rare we couldn’t even look it up online. So rare, because babies don’t make it out of the womb. In a way, I WAS her friend. I carried around a baby that had a better chance of winning the lottery MULTIPLE TIMES than having this condition. Statistically, he should have died in the womb.
But he didn’t. That in itself, was a miracle. I’m realizing that more and more now. He was born. He was blue, and highly skilled teams at the Cleveland Clinic had to perform CPR on him for minutes to resuscitate him. But he made it. THAT was a miracle.
The fact that Owen lived for weeks outside of the womb continued the miracle. We got to KNOW him. LOVE him. KISS him. CELEBRATE him. Sing to him. Hold his hand. Stroke his hair. Laugh at his quirks and expressions. Fall even deeper in love with him.
We could have easily made a different choice. A chance to start over. Erase. Have a re-do. Before we got too attached. Before it became too painful. Before we all got in too deep. But, we wouldn’t have had Owen. I can’t even BEGIN to imagine my life without him. I would gladly dive head first into the most painful time of my life all over again, knowing that I was giving my “young fighter”the greatest gift I could ever give him. A chance to FIGHT.
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Click here for the very beginning of our 8 year journey through life, loss and our unexpected struggle with secondary infertility. Starting with what we shared at our 3-week-old son’s funeral.