Do THEY count?

In light of the fact that October is Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Month, I decided to write about something I struggled through. Perhaps, I am completely alone in this struggle…perhaps I am the only one who has ever had these thoughts and struggles…but I want to venture out onto a limb and say that I highly doubt it! I am certain there are others out there, just like me, maybe a bit different of circumstances, but still struggling and wrestling with this very dark and fear filled agony of the question “did he/she count?”

So with that I begin. There I was lying once again on a hospital bed, shirt up over my belly getting an ultrasound of our latest gift from God Himself. My two girls and husband sat closely by. As soon as the little one’s tiny 9 week old body showed up onto the screen my two year old pipes up “baby! It’s a baby!” Quickly followed by a “get it out!”

To which we all laughed, even the ultrasound tech! I told Miriam that this little one was not quite ready to join us outside of my tummy, but that he/she was very small and needed time to grow. In her two year old mind that evidently meant nothing, she still kept saying “get it out!”

My attention was quickly turned away from her to the ultrasound tech as she began asking me the questions and explaining to me how far along the ultra-sound thought I was and gave me a due date. One of the questions she came to, stopped me up a bit short. “Did you have any miscarriages?”

NOT the thing you want to be asked on a day that is normally a joyous day. The day you first get to see your little one on screen and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see it’s heart beating. I swallowed hard. I don’t really talk a lot about the miscarriage. It happened two years ago. “Yes. I did. Between this one (pointing to my eldest) and this one (pointing to my youngest).” She began typing and I wanted to fill the silence so I followed up with “It was very quick though. I got a positive pregnancy test and started bleeding like a day or two later (the memory is getting fuzzier and fuzzier).”

She stopped typing and turned to me “Do they (meaning the doctors) count that?”

I stammered a bit…it would have hurt less if she had just slapped me. In my head I knew she was just probably asking this because in the Medical field they usually do not see babies at that gestation as…well...babies. But in my heart it hurt and stung because to be honest that very question was the one Satan and my sinful flesh had been wrestling through. Thankfully the room was dark…she couldn’t see my cheeks flush pink in shame that I, like the secular medical field had fallen prey to the lie that babies at that gestation didn’t count.

I answered her “Well, I think they counted it…at least in Des Moines I think they did, that is where I used to go before we moved here to Western Iowa.”

She went back to typing and probably thought nothing again of that little exchange…but OH HOW I HAVE!

Her question “did they (doctors) count that?” mirrored my own heart for the longest time. Even, shamefully I was still asking that question when I went in for that appointment. But I am SO thankful she asked that! Because God really used that to settle in my mind what I now know and hold to as true!

Here I am going to get super real with you about what was going through my thoughts and it may be hard to swallow and a little too personal, if this offends I sincerely apologize. That is far from my intent. I just want to be real and honest.

It is so easy to just know that if you lost your baby at 9 or 10  weeks gestation even later on up to having a child born still, that they counted. That they were a “BABY”.  They have formed and sometimes you can even tell the gender so you can give them a proper name, and not some gender neutral name like “S.J” (what we named ours. Simeon if it was a boy, Jubilee if it was a girl)  because you didn’t even know what it was.

Sometimes you get to deliver them and hold them…take pictures of tiny feet, as in the case of my little brother Joshua, whom God called to heaven when he was at just 16 weeks gestation. Of course THEY count!

But what about ones that are lost at 4 …or even 5 weeks? I was told by my doctor who gave me the results that I had miscarried that this happens all the time and most women don’t even know it. So if this happens all the time…what about those babies…do they count? Especially the ones whose moms (innocently) didn’t even know or notice?

What about them? Do they count?

  Because I got pregnant with this our fourth baby (see I eventually did work past all this questioning...bear with me and I will show you how God brought me here!)…anyways, because I got pregnant with our fourth baby so quickly after our third my doctor scheduled a SUPER early ultrasound…like I am talking just days after my positive pregnancy test. She wanted to get an idea of where I was at. We went in and come to find out little baby number 4 was just 4 almost 5 weeks! Around the age of S.J when he/she went home to heaven.

As we looked at this tiny speck that was honestly just a blob against a little black spot, the tech turned to me and said “it is only about the size of a grain of rice!”

A grain of RICE! TINY!! So that was the size that S.J. was (maybe even smaller) when he/she went home.

When I was really struggling, I was wrestling a lot with the resurrection of the dead. How in the WORLD would you first of all locate a grain of rice…and then resurrect that? And would you turn it into a normal life sized version of what it would have been? I mean who wants to go through eternity the size of a grain of rice???

I hate to think that my mind had to think through that…and I am ashamed of it…but I want to be real and honest and that is the truth about my thoughts.

But what God through His Spirit lead me through… it was much like what God did with Job…God asked Job questions, Job didn’t  know the answer to. God did the same with me.

Questions flooded my head:

*How did your Savior walk on water? I mean really? Scientifically how do I explain that?

*How was the Red Sea parted? Scientifically how do I explain that?

*How did Sarah bear Isaac in old age when way past child bearing? Medically how do I explain that?
*How did a virgin get pregnant? Medically how do I explain that?

My answer??? I DO NOT KNOW! I cannot explain any of that other than GOD DID IT!

And if He can walk on water…part water and cause His people to walk through it on dry land…if He can cause an old woman to get pregnant and a virgin to get pregnant…all for HIS PURPOSE…HIS GLORY, then HE CAN RESSURECT a grain of sand  for His glory!!!

And all that aside, God used that miscarriage…He took S.J. and it woke me up. Woke me up to some serious sin that still held fast a hold on me. Because of that I am more free today than I ever have been. I am so shamed and saddened that it took taking a child from me…but I wouldn’t trade what God did in my heart and life to set me free. I wish that He could have done it another way…but so too Jesus wished that He could’ve saved us another way “take this cup from me” But He willingly did what the Father required.

So my answer to “do they (babies lost super early…before you can even see them on a screen…before you get that first ultra sound picture…before you can really start to feel sick even…before you can hold them…touch them…find out the gender etc.) Do these count? YES!

While at family camp 1, the evening speaker spoke on heaven. He brought us to a passage in Revelation that reads:   “ After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;”

The speaker, Curt Degraaf (I think that is how you spell that? Please correct me if I am wrong. He is the counseling Pastor at Saylorville church). He said this “multitudes?? How could there be multitudes of saved people (thus the white robes). So many that no one can even number them…how can this be when “straight is the way, and narrow the gate and FEW there be that find it” (Matthew 7:14).

And sitting there I was like…”yeah how in the world??”

His answer shocked me. But since I have adopted the same theory he holds to. He said “I believe these are aborted babies!!”

Jaw dropping moment!! Talk about an ah-hah moment! But then the Spirit took me a bit further…miscarried babies! I believe that great host will have them there too!

And maybe Curt and I are totally off…but how else would you explain that?

All I know is, God loves children! He heard the voice of one, that wasn’t even a chosen child of his. He heard his voice crying out in the wilderness and He helped his mother and him. Why? He loves children! Ishmael was that boy’s name! I know Jesus loves children! He said “Let the little children come unto me!”

He loves S.J. He loves ______ (fill in the blank of one you lost or one you know who was lost). He loves them no matter how old they are! He loves them no matter what SIZE they are! They matter…they count! That is why we must be against abortion! Never in my life had my mind really wrestled through so deeply the question of “when does a baby become a baby” then when I lost one. It helped me to settle in my mind the truth that life truly does start at conception! It showed my true colors and it helped me to become even more settled in that belief and TRUTH!

Life starts at conception! THEY ALL COUNT!!!