Guest post by Kelly Gerken
We prayed for a miracle while planning a funeral, fifteen years ago, while carrying our son Thomas, diagnosed with a fatal condition called Potter’s Syndrome. The absence of kidneys in his condition led to low amniotic fluid, which in turn stunts lung development. The doctor used the words “incompatible with life” to describe the situation, and we were initiated into what it means to pray for a miracle and plan for a goodbye.
Another goodbye.
You see, we had already stood by a tiny grave once, after we lost our twin daughters, Faith and Grace, to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome at 26 weeks. We had already prayed for a miracle and stood by a tiny grave instead.
I had four months to search my soul, to pray my prayers, to feel the ache of longing in my heart. Four months after his diagnosis in mid pregnancy to carry my sweet boy to term. I researched his condition as much as I could. It was 1998, and I didn’t own a computer, had never visited any type of forum, and hadn’t heard of a blog. I went to the library to search the internet. I printed my findings and implored more than one doctor to try for the earthly miracle. We drove to specialists to get a second opinion.
Alas, a baby with Potter’s Syndrome had never survived more than a couple days. There was nothing they could do.
It was my welcome into a world where I cringed at the testimony of miracles. I remember sitting in the waiting room at the maternal fetal medicine office, reading about the parents of the quintuplets who accredited their babies’ miraculous survival to their strong faith. I winced.
What did that say about the strength of my faith?
That’s a whole other subject. I learned a great deal about believing without seeing and what faith really looks like on my journey with our son Thomas, who lived for six amazing hours. His life taught me about miracles. They don’t always come in the shapes and sizes we expect. Thousands of mothers have asked why. Why didn’t we get the miracle? And, my answer is that sometimes God’s miracles happen in physical form, the kind we can see, the kind when doctors are confounded and have to notice that something divine intervened. And, sometimes, He heals in the heavenly realm. Eternity in heaven is certainly still a miracle. A soul saved, a marriage healed, a heart changed. The lives of those left behind touched deeply by babies who barely breathed breath on this earth…that is a miracle.
I have done well with the truth of those sentiments for many years.
And, today, I am wrestling again to stand strong on that truth. Today, I read something that shook me. Fifteen years later.
Senator Jaime Beutler from Washington State gave birth to her daughter, Abigail after praying for that same miracle. Her daughter was diagnosed in the womb with Potter’s Syndrome. She was told the same thing that every other parent is told. She prayed for the same miracle. And, today, I read an article that after much persistence, doctors were convinced to try the procedures that were once thought to be impossible. Her baby girl is alive and breathing on her own. She has lived for two weeks and defied the odds. She is the first baby to survive this condition.
While I rejoice with this mother, and for the beautiful miracle of this life, the hard questions weigh on my mama heart all these years later. The goodbye stings fresh. The longing. The questions. I asked why they couldn’t just put some fluid in there. I asked why they couldn’t just get my boy a kidney. I asked. And, there were no answers for me this side of heaven. Nor, for the thousands of other parents who asked those questions. They said there was nothing they could do.
They were wrong.
And, while I am so grateful for the life of this baby, and possibly for many more who will be saved from this day forth because of these doctors, who were willing to try and these brave parents who persisted, my heart aches anew for the boy I still long for and the countless prayers that were lifted on his behalf, those answered differently than we hoped.
I don’t have an answer for the myriad of emotions evoked by the senator’s miracle. But, I do know this.
My children, each one of them, are miracles. Their lives have purpose and value not determined by length of their days nor the breaths taken, but by the lives they touched because they lived. My oldest and youngest sons who walk the earth and my two daughters and son who live in heaven…they are all miracles.
My children, and yours. Miraculous gifts. No matter how long they were here.
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