Tuesday

This week I learned that my unborn baby had a fatal birth defect, one that meant I may never meet her alive and if I do, I will likely have anywhere from minutes to hours to spend with her.  The diagnosis is Anencephaly and it's a neural defect that causes the skull and brain to never fully form.  I received this news at my doctors office, after what I thought was a routine ultrasound, while wrestling my tired, crying 1 year old.  I didn't cry, I just stared.  Stared until I was eventually escorted out of the Doctor's office.  I made it to the car and called Matt at work before bursting into inconsolable tears.  

It has been six days since that diagnosis and I have already learned so much about myself, my family, my faith and my priorities.  I wanted to put this experience into words and put it somewhere where others could read it, in hopes that maybe they could take comfort or courage or strength from seeing another work through the extreme difficulties in their life.  And more importantly, I want to tell Everly's story.  At best she get's 9 months on this earth and nearly every moment of those 9 months will be in the womb.  Which is why for Everly, life starts now.  It's up to Matt, Harvey and I to live the life we wished Everly could experience.  So instead of sulking in the dark cloud that is our current reality, we plan to live life and live it so joyfully - for us and for this sweet baby girl.

My pregnancy with Everly has been a trip from the start.  At the time she was conceived I was ready to start *thinking of having a second child but I was no where near ready to actually go through with it.  Matt had been ready for another baby basically since the day we brought Harvey home from the hospital.  Foolishly (very foolishly - I know) I jokingly told Matt he had one shot to make this baby.  Given how many months we had spent trying to get pregnant with Harvey I was 200% positive I couldn't get pregnant off of one try.  Three weeks later the symptoms came and 5 pregnancy tests later, it was confirmed.

I was shocked and terrified.  Then, within 24 hours of finding out I was pregnant, I was told I might have a viral issue that could be effecting the health of my baby.  It turned out to be nothing but at the time I was scared that my baby's life was at risk, so I received a Priesthood Blessing from my dad.  Immediately afterwards he stood back and said "this one's a girl".  If you know my dad, you know he doesn't really go around throwing out these kinds of predictions.  And he was so sure.  As soon as he said it, I knew he was right.  I knew this baby was a girl, that she was special and that our family needed her at this time.  I even put it in my journal because the feeling hit me so powerfully.  Trust me, I know how contrived this sounds.  Everyone wants to feel like there is meaning or purpose behind their suffering, that there are signs from God or the universe that their situation was meant to be.  I'm telling you though, I knew from the start that this girl was special. 

I spent the next couple of months sick from pregnancy and terrified about being a mom to two.  Honestly my fear and excitement were about equal at best.  Lucky for me, Matt had enough excitement for the both of us.  And then came the gender reveal.  Seeing the pink confetti fly from the balloon was one of the sweetest, most surreal experiences of my life.  I think in part due to my excitement about having a girl but also because it confirmed to me the feeling I had back when my dad told me this baby was a girl.  For the next 24 hours we were seriously on a high.  It's the most excited I felt during the entire pregnancy.  I was texting family and friends, shopping for baby girl clothes and dreaming up the new nursery.

And then came Tuesday.  

The doctor gave the diagnosis and then gave two options.  We could still carry the baby to term or we could "terminate the pregnancy early".  She recommended the latter, given how obviously difficult the situation can be and how -at least medically speaking- unpromising the outcome was.  When Matt and I were processing the news of the diagnosis I shared with him the options the doctor presented and we agreed we should go to the temple for guidance and then counsel with the bishop.  We were able to call upon a friend for a last minute favor to have her watch Harvey while we made a quick trip to the temple.  We were also able to arrange a meeting with the bishop for that same night.  The bishop counseled us on the option of abortion and basically left it at, while our baby's condition falls under one of the potential exceptions to the church's policy to abortion, the default is still to keep the baby unless instructed by God to do otherwise.  Which then left us with one of the hugest and unimaginably hard decisions to make.

I know many who would read this and be appalled that this was even a decision for us at all, let alone a difficult one to make.  And as hard as it is for me to talk about this decision, that's exactly why I feel the need to.  My entire life I saw abortion as so black and white, which left me in a position to so easily judge the decisions of others.   And then I learned how incredibly complex the decision actually can be...especially in our situation.  In the beginning, I was not only considering it, I was heavily leaning in that direction and honestly I believe it was for what I consider to be righteous desires.  

At the time I was making the decision I was absolutely crushed.  I spent the entirety of my day hurting worse than I've ever hurt before and the majority of the day crying.  It was all I could do to just smile through my tears when Harvey would smile up at me.  I looked at my situation and I saw two children.  One already born, with a life ahead of them and one in my womb who was sure to die, if not at birth, very shortly after.  And even if she lived for a very short time, she was essentially brain dead.  If I kept this baby in womb I would remain emotionally and mentally broken and unstable for at least the duration of the pregnancy but probably for month/years? after.  This meant that baby number one, sweet Harvey, would receive a fraction of his mother...and a pretty broken fraction at that.  So basically I was in a lose-lose situation.  Either decision I made would mean I couldn't give one of my children everything they needed.

Beyond that, I thought about our future children.  We want to have more children, children we can raise in this life, children Harvey can grow up with.  If - and it's a BIG if - we get pregnant right after having this baby, that would put our kids 3 years apart.  I know to some this seems just right but for Matt that wasn't at all our plan.  And believe me, I know how this sounds and I have since come to feel a little differently, but at the time this was a very real concern for me.  So in my mind, saying goodbye to this baby early would allow our family to start healing and make room in our lives to bring more children into our family.

The last big thing was that in the very church handbook, our situation fell into scenario 3 of the potential exceptions to the church's typically hard and fast rule against abortion.  Even if you technically fall into one of these categories, you still need to counsel with the bishop, which we did and we received permission to make the decision for ourselves (under the direction of the Lord).  If the Lord didn't have a plan for these "exception" babies that were aborted, then why would he even make an exception?  I firmly believed that if the Lord was going to make an exception for anyone that He had a plan B in place for them.  He wouldn't allow us agency over another human's life if He didn't have a way of making things right for them.  I am still very convinced of that.

As I weighed out all these rationals for the ending the pregnancy early, I pleaded with Heavenly Father to let me go through with it.  In the state I was in I wasn't even capable of imagining the scenario where we kept the baby.  It was just too painful.  I didn't want to meet this baby when she was dead.  I wanted to be able to remember her as "the baby that could have been" and quickly start trying again to grow our family.  At one point I actually felt a lot of peace and confidence in this decision.  I went from being totally devastated by our situation to being hopeful and even happy.  I took this to be an answer from God, that he was OK with my decision.  And actually, I still believe that to be an answer from God and that he was OK with my decision.  However the way I see it now is, God could have worked with either scenario.  He gave me permission to end the pregnancy because I was pleading desperately for it and if I went through with it, He knew that both the baby and our family would have been OK.  That doesn't mean it was the right choice, or the choice he wanted us to make, it just means he was giving me my agency to chose my path and accept the consequences because either way there was potential for an eventual happy ending.

Obviously we didn't go through with the abortion and here's where the tables turned.  Matt, thankfully, had a hard time even stomaching the idea of having agency over the life of another human, especially our child.  He wanted to be respectful of the way I felt but we both agreed he needed to come to the same conclusion on his own if we were to go through with it.  It's not a one parent kind of decision.  After what felt like the three longest days of my life, we met with a family from our congregation that had been in a similar position.  A strangely similar position actually.  They had a son and then their second child, a daughter, was diagnosed with anencephaly.  When we met with them they spoke openly about their experience.  Looking back we probably said some pretty insensitive things.  One that comes to mind was when I asked if they were freaked out at all to see their daughter with a part of her head missing.  Keep in mind I was mentally unstable, emotionally a wreck and functioning off VERY little sleep at the time of this meeting, so my tact was at an all time low.  But that's kind of how the meeting went, we asked the as many questions as we could to try and get a grasp of what we'd be in for if we kept this baby.  

The interesting thing is, they didn't really say anything to make the situation seem any easier or more glamorous than I had envisioned.  They didn't sugar coat it and give it a fairy tale ending, which I really appreciated.  But still, speaking with them really opened my mind in a way I had been incapable of up doing until that point.  I guess it was just seeing people who had actually done it...they had kept their baby, lived through the pregnancy and death of their daughter, and they had since continued to build their family and live their lives.  And to their credit, they hadn't just survived the experience, they had taken it all on with an extremely positive attitude.  They saw this child as one that deserved a life, as long as they were capable of living and they were going to savor the moments they got with her, even if that just meant laying in bed and feeling her kick.  So it didn't just show me that it could be done, it showed me it could be done with a good attitude and that life could still be enjoyed, amidst the pain and heartache of the situation.  This family...there is so much I could say about them.  You want to know how we learned about this family's experience?  The husband had given a sermon in church the Sunday before we received Everly's diagnosis.  It was the first time he had shared the experience over the pulpit since it happened eight years ago.  He had two versions of this sermon written - one sharing the experience and one without it.  He decided at the last minute to give the version sharing the experience.  And he gave this sermon just two days before the diagnosis of our baby.  I truly believe that this family was placed in our path by divine intervention.

We met with them Thursday and I laid awake for most of that night, as I had done in the nights prior.  But this time when I thought about the baby, I could only think of the scenario where we kept her, which was a complete 180 of life up until that point.  I tried to go back to those feelings I had previously of confidence in ending the pregnancy but they just weren't there.  As soon as Matt woke up I shared my feelings and you could see the relief just flood his face.  Looking back, I can't believe how incredibly supportive he was as I expressed so much determination to say goodbye to the baby he was so determined to keep.  Anyway, as we lay in bed that morning talking, we mapped out a plan of how we'd be able to make the most of our situation.

By 9am on Friday I was texting family and friends to either give them an update on our decision or break the news for the first time. The outpouring of love and support we received was unbelievable. I also felt an unreal amount of strength coming from Heavenly Father.  I really feel like during the entire time I was in limbo, trying to make a decision that I was handling my feelings basically on my own.  And handling them incredibly poorly, I might add.  Once I made the commitment to bring this baby into the world though, there was a downpour of peace, hope, confidence and strength.  I wasn't the broken, fraction of a human/mother I feared I would remain.  Seeing that contrast was evidence to me that when we face our trails head on and with faith that we truly are strengthened to bear up the burdens that are placed upon us.  And I believe that to the magnitude we are challenged, we are strengthened.  Up until this point I think I've lived a pretty charmed life, so I don't really feel like I've ever required excessive amounts of strength from God.  Probably for that reason, I've maybe sometimes doubted how much strength could actually be felt and wondered how that strength might manifest itself.  Having experienced this though, I cannot doubt the strength that is being given to me, nor the source it is coming from.  

It has been a rough week.  A REALLY rough week.  And it will likely be a pretty rough 7+ months to come.  But as I said, we have been incredibly blessed with strength beyond our own from God and from the support of our loved ones.  We are determined to find joy throughout this experience.  We will love each other more deeply, we will savor the time we get with our loved ones - especially our little Harvey, we will draw closer to God, family and friends and we will live our lives as fully and joyfully as we wished this baby girl could.  

I have found that I sincerely don't want others mourning for us.  I need their joy, strength and positivity so much more than their tears and apologies.  Although well intentioned, those apologies have started to make me cringe.  I am trying so hard to make this a good situation and the apologies only remind me of the things I have to feel sad about.  In contrast, I've really appreciated how awesome some of our family and friends have been about expressing their confidence in us or their love for Everly or helping us stay distracted with conversation and activities.  That is exactly the kind of positivity we need at this point and it means the world to us to have loved ones to offer that.

I think at this point we have good attitudes and great intentions but I also know it's all much easier said than done.  But as our Bishop likes to say "this is where the rubber hits the road."  This is where our character is tested and our souls are forged.  We will survive this, we will rise above this, we will be better for it, we will be a strength to others, and we will live life fully.  For ourselves and for baby Everly.  Nine months.  That's all this girl gets and we will will not spend it sulking.  I don't mean to glamorize this.  It is going to be hard.  So, so hard.  But I'm learning (the hard way) that we can do hard things.  These are the situations that make or break people and we're just not about to be broken.