broken

We are living in the dark. It is all very, very surreal. And I keep waiting to wake up.

Combined with my blood test results, our risk assessment shows that our youngest child is at very, very high risk for a chromosomal disorder. My doctor told us that these are the highest numbers that she has seen yet: our baby almost certainly has either Downs or Edward's Syndrome. 95% of babies with Edwards (it is also known as Trisomy 18) will die in utero. On average, babies who are born alive will live for 5 to 15 days.

I have cried many tears and I have many angry conversations with God. There is so much that I do not understand. We were not even looking to get pregnant, and then to get this diagnosis... And I do not even know what to pray for. Do I audaciously pray for a miracle, for the baby, against all the odds, to be born healthy? Do I ask that the baby has just Downs, only it is not "just" Downs, it is a lifetime of struggling with health and developmental issues? Do I ask that the baby has Trisomy 18, so that baby will go home to Jesus, even if that means we bear the loss?

We are walking through such dark, dark days.

We have an amniocentesis scheduled for next month. We will probably go for it, mainly because if it is Trisomy 18, we will want to move to KK hospital: their neonatal intensive care unit is probably best equipped to deal with what we have to deal with.

Now K and I are living our days in suspension. We cannot stop to mourn fully because we have three other kids who need us. Yet we are so heavily burdened with grief for our fourth child, that nothing, no moment in our day, feels normal at all.

We are going through the motions because we know we have to. Yesterday we went to church, and shared our grief. I hadn't even wanted to be there, because everything felt so fresh, so sharp. Afterwards though, I knew it was the right thing for us. The ladies who put their arms around me, who said no words but who cried along with me - they brought me the most comfort in the past three days. The burden and the pain and the grief are all still there, but I felt comforted that they bore my sorrow for me too.

I have felt so far from God throughout all this. It has been so dark, that I have found it hard to see His light, even though I know in my head that it must be there. It was only late yesterday night as I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come, that I realised something. Those ladies who put their arms around me, who cried tears of sorrow with me, those ladies were the arms of Jesus. It doesn't make everything right, but that time in church brought the realisation that Jesus, through the body is Christ, bears my sorrow with me.

Maybe there is just a little bit of light in this darkness.