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Our Story of Hope- Hickinbotham Family (Hope)

My husband and I compromised that we would wait a year after our wedding before we started “not-not trying” to have a child. A month after our anniversary I found out I was pregnant! We had our 8 wk ultrasound and began sharing with family and close friends. We took “photos” with these people that were actually videos and told them we were expecting to capture those beautiful moments of sharing our first child with them. Everything was going great. I had an appointment near early 11 wks. Once we hit 13 wks we announced to the world the day after my birthday that we were expecting!  At 14 wks we did a little photo shoot in the backyard. Finally, at this point in the pregnancy I was getting excited. I thought it would take longer to get pregnant. I wasn’t ready. But finally, I had gotten on board. I even designed our baby shower invites!

Two days before we were 16 wks we had another appointment. There was no heartbeat. Our doctor walked us into an ultrasound room. The sonographer just immediately blurted out “Oh this is all wrong. Look at all of this blood in here. I didn’t cry. I focused on the payment plan of all things. That was our first appointment on the pregnancy plan thing and what would that mean now?? Silly thing to worry about right then. My mom was at our house within an hour of being home. We had our close friends come the following evening—they thought we were going to tell them we were having twins. I called a few of my closest friends to tell them. These women were invited on my grief journey; I opened the door to them by reaching out. I expected them to check in and felt safe to share my feelings. I texted most-semi close people that we miscarried and that I didn’t want to talk. As soon as I came to terms with the reality and spoke to everyone we felt should know, my body responded as well and that weekend, the days were fine and the evenings were filled with contractions all night and passing an incredible amount. My husband sat on the floor of the bathroom by me in silence. There was nothing to say. Later there were things to say, like how every time I used that restroom, I relived those evenings. Those things eventually had to be said for the sake of a husband that didn’t fully understand all of thing things I carried with me while I was no longer carrying our child. But I am grateful that he was there, and willing to listen and understand my grief that was in some ways so different than his.

I make videos. Our announcements are videos. Since we had just posted our announcement video 2 wks before we found out about the miscarriage, we made a video explaining where we were and posted that four days after we found out. We weren’t trying to rush, but we are both on staff at our church in a small town we were both born and raised—we just wanted people to know and not have to retell our loss over and over again. It was nice for us to each express where we were with the loss, our hope in Jesus, our boundaries for that time in our life and specific things people could do that would be meaningful for us, like send us cards. We barely had anything physical to commemorate that child and I desperately wanted things to hold that reminded us of the truth that we had a child, it was a part of the world, and people knew it.

Six days after learning about the miscarriage, we had a D & C. Honestly, going into the maternity ward could have been one of the worst things but it was so healing for us. The staff treated us like parents, they were so sympathetic that we lost our first child, and treated us with such dignity and care, it really helped us to feel validated to grieve like parents that lost their child.

Another huge moment for me was when talking to my sister-in-law that lived across the country and to hear her heartbroken and grieving for the child she wouldn’t meet and realizing that I wasn’t the only one that got to love our baby, and that I wouldn’t be the only one carrying on its memory. I think all any mom wants is for their child to experience an incredible love in this life and no pain of this world and that’s what our child had. 

Thankfully the God who created me, knows me. He knows I want to do things on my own. I wouldn’t have wanted to tell anyone of our loss. But I needed our community. And we had an incredible community that never let me miss that God was providing for us every step of the way. He literally carried us for months by His local body and other mother’s that were courageous enough to share about their own stories. As much as I hate how stupid I feel for not knowing I had miscarried. This story wouldn’t be our story. I would not be a woman others feel like they can share with when they don’t tell anyone else. I wouldn’t be the encouragement others found when they needed to express their loss. God has opened so many doors that had I not announced our pregnancy I would never have walked through. I didn’t get to carry our child for long, but now I have the privilege of carrying the memory of so many precious little ones with their mommas.

It was over a year later, on a quiet winter afternoon that I was doing the dishes and thinking of our sweet little one that I finally heard the whisper in my heart that we should name the baby Hope. Up until then—we never knew if it was a boy or a girl and I had always just called it baby Hickum and that was fine for me. And I just say that because it was so long after! But we’re still on the journey. Trying not to rush the process. Trying to be obedient and trusting and patient. And to continue to have hope. And every time we think of that babe we can’t not be thinking of hope! We’re going to meet someday! Super excited for that. And super excited to raise children to know about this child, and about God’s plan and powerful love  in hopes that when they experience loss or know someone that does—that they are a strong, gracious, patient and encouraging friend during that time. That’s Hope’s legacy.

Zara; their precious rainbow baby.

The Hickinbotham Family with their little rainbow baby Zara; Hope’s little sister.

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Our Story of Hope- Moyd Family

I remember the look on the doctor’s face when she told us the news about our first baby. I think it will forever be engraved in my mind. Five doctors. Five different doctors with the same look on their face.

At eight weeks into our first pregnancy, we were planning our announcement photos. Little did we know our announcement photo would soon greatly differ from the cute ones I had pinned on Pinterest.

The diagnosis was not good for me or our precious little baby. I had a rare condition that they call a molar pregnancy. Even more rare was the fact that I had a twin pregnancy where one was a perfectly normal baby, while the other twin never developed and was a fast-growing tumor. We were told by every doctor there was no chance the baby would make it through this. What complicated things even more was that I have a blood clotting disorder where I clot easily. Molar pregnancies greatly decrease your platelet count, increasing the chances of bleeding too much. Because of this, one doctor, who sees hundreds of patients each week and has only recommended terminating a pregnancy one other time, said this was an impossible situation to manage. And, if I chose to continue, there was a 20% chance of this turning into cancer. There was no way I was going to make it through this. Another hospital that does not perform abortions, said they would make an exception for my situation.

I can still see my husband, Dillon, as he sat solomley stunned, eyes locked into nowhere, his mind racing with every word being spoken. These were big emotions we’ve never had to process before. Even though they were saying everything to me, we were experiencing this together. We shared the same thoughts, the same fears, the same emotions. This wasn’t just my body. This was our baby.

Everything medically made sense to follow through with termination. Even the hospital was making an exception on their policies for me. I thought, “if there’s no chance of us both making it, why would I choose to let us both die when I could be a mom to another baby one day?” The doctor stepped out and told us to take as long as we needed to make our decision. Every doctor we spoke with just wanted the best for me. They treated us like family and mourned with us as they had to deliver this terrible news and recommended what they thought was best. I can’t imagine what they must have been feeling as well. But, I couldn’t run from what came next.

I don’t even know how long we just sat there. Praying this wasn’t really happening. Waiting to wake up from this nightmare. We were just putting off the inevitable. We had to make this impossible decision. Dillon broke the silence. “I’ll be with you with whatever you decide.” My survival instincts screamed reasonings in my head. My heart ached. Then, deep in my soul I felt a whisper: “Would I rather meet God slightly further out in the course of eternity knowing what I had done, or would I rather meet him maybe a little sooner, knowing I could stand tall and chose what pleased Him?” Less than two hours before we found out the devastating news, we had seen the ultrasound of the baby moving around. We had heard the heartbeat of our child. Even when we weren’t sure how it would affect my life, we chose to give our child a chance at life. This is in no way valuing my life any less. Would life be worth living if I didn’t live for anything? If I don’t stick to and stand up for my values?

We told the doctors our decision to continue our pregnancy. I could see the concern on their face, but they displayed the utmost respect for our decision and sent us to a new team of doctors they believed could better handle our situations and the risks with which they came. With this new team, we were informed that the risks of cancer would have been the same percentage even if we would have terminated the day we found out. If I would have given into my fears that day, I would have been crushed to find out we chose to stop that beating heart we heard just hours before, and then later find out the risks are still the same to me.

To anyone who has made the decision to end a pregnancy, I want to tell you this does not define you. Just like my decision to continue my pregnancy does not define me. Only Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, defines me. And He can define you too. There is hope and forgiveness in Jesus. If you are holding on to a decision you’ve made in the past, give it to Him. And don’t try to take it back. Getting caught up in guilt delays the redemption and healing. All He wants is for us to follow Him. All He has for us is love. All we have to do is accept it and follow. Let go of any guilt and let Jesus define you.

After telling our family the news, we tried to think about the best way to tell all of our loved ones so they could join us in prayer. We could not carry this burden alone. We found relief in laying it at the feet of our Heavenly Father. He also gave us a community to help us through this storm. We decided the most effective way to reach everyone would be to post an update on Facebook. I must admit, the initial response was so uplifting and encouraging that I found myself starting to shift my reliance to the words on the screen than the God in my heart. We had gone to a movie to escape from the turmoil within for a couple of hours, when I was quickly reminded of why I can only place my contentment in Christ alone. We walked out of the theater to an insurmountable mountain of Facebook notifications. In the matter of two and a half hours, our post had gone viral. People we’ve never even met were commenting words that still loom over me some days. My mind soon was flooded with evil words. I was drowning in discouragement. The words wouldn’t leave my head. They just kept repeating over and over and over. Self-righteous words proclaiming judgement over my husband for not valuing my life. Claims of me just wanting to be a martyr. Accusations of us missing our “boat” of rescue through the five doctors. Yes, the accusations ripped at me, but that wasn’t what the deep ache in my heart was about. They didn’t see it. They didn’t see the reason behind it. The God that had so much glory to show us through it all. Our prayer from the start was that people wouldn’t see our faith as the main thing in this story, but rather what God does through this. Still, the hurt was real. When we got home, I told Dillon I just needed to worship. I couldn’t replace the evil words on my own. So, we sang the songs God has given to others who have gone through hurt. We sang the hope He’s given to people just like us time and time again.

As Dillon strummed and we sang through the tears, it wasn’t too long before the words of praise replaced the gut-wrenching words inside. You know why? Because praise always triumphs over pain. The God we sang to is far mightier than the demons we fought.

The months that followed were tough. I couldn’t stomach any foods or liquids. Dillon would sit with me to make sure I took a sip of Pedialyte every few hours to fight off the dehydration. I couldn’t stand for more than seconds and some days I couldn’t lift my head. We continued to go to weekly doctors appointments. Every visit, we were getting good reports for our baby and worsening reports for me. Still, our baby continued to defy everyone’s expectations. Things were actually looking so well for our baby that they scheduled the next appointment 3 weeks out for our 16 weeks ultrasound. We were looking forward to finding out if we were having a girl or a boy when, two days before our appointment, I knew something was wrong. We went to the ER in the dark of night and learned there was no longer a heartbeat to be found. The tumor had grown too fast for our sweet little fighter. The tests they ran on me revealed my liver, kidneys, and heart were shutting down, my platelets were extremely low, and my blood pressure was frighteningly high. They told my family if we had waited even one or two days, I would have been in critical condition. We had to schedule surgery to get the tumor the size of a football out right away and try to regulate my body. Although this seemed like a defeat, we felt almost an instantaneous peace and even joy in the ER room. We were reminded of a prayer we prayed earlier on in this journey. In seeking His will, we prayed for the miracle of our baby being born, or for the mercy of taking our baby home naturally. We begged God to take us out of making that impossible decision. Instead, He gave us hope in the impossible.

After a week in the hospital, we were back home and regaining strength and it seemed like the storm had passed. Unbeknownst to us that we were just in the eye of the storm. The next storm wall was fast approaching. I soon was informed I was in the 20%. The cancer had moved to my lungs.

Five months of chemo later, I was testing negative and I’m now being monitored for a while.

On a particularly emotionally hard day, I remember opening a book I had lain down a few months prior and never quite got back to. There, awaiting me in it’s pages was a lesson written just for me in that moment. It expounded upon the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. The shortest verse, yet holding so much power. Power to show me a glimpse into the expanse of His love and compassion for me. The scene around this verse is of Mary crying out to Jesus, falling at His feet asking “Why?” Why hadn’t He come to heal her brother Lazarus. She knew He could have. She knew He hadn’t. I was haunted with the eerie resemblance to some one-sided conversations I had had with God at times over the past few months. Yet, Jesus’s response wasn’t rebuke or condemnation. It was compassion. She wept. He wept. He longed for her to see His greater purpose. He was longing for me to stop questioning, and start trusting in His greater purpose. To trust in the greater glory He could get through this plan.

We’ve seen God so much through all of this. Through the love displayed from friends and family, to spiritual growth of self and others, and financial miracles. There’s so many stories

I could tell of when God graced us with unexpected deposits in my account to pay for a little getaway, to rebate checks to pay for groceries we had forgotten to budget for, to two months of meals supplied by our church family after surgery, to countless more. But I want to part with this. I told Dillon a couple weeks after we lost our baby that it broke my heart thinking our baby was up there waiting on a name. It just seemed fitting to name our little one Hope. If we learned anything, it was the importance hope plays into our life. Hope is what keeps us going. If we are hoping in the wrong thing, we are headed toward a path of discontentment and distruction. But, having hope in the one thing that is always constant, always loving, and always IS, leads us to a path of true satisfaction. Hope can seem impossible sometimes, but we are always hoping in something if we really think about it. Placing hope in an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God can seem impossible. But, hope in the impossible is what we need. It’s what our soul longs for. And it’s what each one of us can have. All we have to do is place our hope in Jesus Christ. Trusting that He took on all of our sins and took our place on the cross. Trusting that He rose again and defeated the death that separates us from God. Trusting and hoping in Him for the rest of our lives here, and trusting and hoping for the life we know we can now have with Him for eternity.

We had to lean into this hope during our impossible decision. We cling to this hope every day. Hope in the impossible is what keeps us going. You can choose hope in any impossible place you find yourself in. You can choose to hope in the impossible today.

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (1 Peter 5:10)

“but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

“24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Romans 8:24-25)

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

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Dear Woman Who Has Never Lost a Child,

 

Dear Woman Who Has Never Lost a Child,

I was once in your shoes; with two sons by my side and a daughter in my arms.  When I was pregnant with both of our boys, I was oblivious to that fact that other moms around me were hurting; many in silence.

I didn’t know anyone by name who was living through a miscarriage, the birth of a still born baby, nor a parent who lost a child to SIDS. Our close friends had lost their child to illness as a toddler, and that was a pain I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

Yet, should I have felt guilty that I had a child and others did not? Absolutely not. Should I have not shared the immense joy of our sons’ births publicly? Absolutely not. Guilt is never the answer.

Should I have been more thankful and less quick to complain about pregnancy or motherhood; yes. Yes I should have.

Sometimes I forgot that:

There are many women begging for the aches of pregnancy.

There are many women longing for long nights awake with a fussy baby.

There are many women who long for someone to call them ‘Mom’.

There are many women who feel like God is answering everyone else’s prayers but theirs.

And all those things that we complain about, are exactly the things that someone else is begging for.

Three years after our second son was born, I was pregnant with Zoe, and things were much different. This time, eight of my friends and family lost their precious growing baby through miscarriage during my pregnancy. It was incredibly hard to know what to say or do. I had many conversations with God about ‘Why us?’, “Why did we get to keep our baby?’, and ‘How was I supposed to respond as the only one who was still pregnant?’ I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to celebrate publicly at times, because I didn’t want to hurt them; but I did know the last thing they would want to hear was my complaining.

Yet three months after she was born, our precious baby girl was no longer with us anymore. At three months of age, she closed her eyes for a nap and then opened them again in the arms of her Heavenly Father. She was able to meet many of our friends and family’s little ones before their earthly parents even got to meet them.

All of the sudden, things changed. All of the sudden I became a part of the group of women who HAD lost a child. With feelings and emotions that I’d never experienced before, I began to swim through a rip tide of emotions. However, the best thing I did was to allow myself to feel the bottom of the ocean. As my feet scrapped across the bottom, God gave me the strength to push off, and steadily I began to rise back up eventually above the rip tide. For many years as a teenager and even in college, I had taught this ‘life saving’ technique of pushing off the bottom to my swim students; it was finally time to practice what I had taught.

You see, that is where many of your friends are, they are stuck spinning around day after day in that rip tide of emotions. Therefore, they may be what seems overly emotional at times, extremely sensitive, or downright insensitive to you. But here is the truth, they need you. They also need you to let them feel the bottom, so they are better positioned to push off when they are ready. Extra grace is required. They, deep in their hearts, are happy for your pregnancy. They want to hold your baby; but maybe are too scared to feel the feelings that come with that. They want to come to your baby shower, but aren’t sure if they could emotionally survive. So what do you do? You include, invite, and share with them anyway; you let THEM choose what they are ready for.

Every mom who has lost a child has different needs, however, the thing that fills my heart with constant joy, is to see a mom who has their baby, but is so over the top grateful for all that comes with that- the aches and pains of pregnancy, and exhaustion and the sleepless nights of having a newborn. I don’t believe you have to go through a miscarriage, still birth, or infant loss to have a grateful heart as a mom… rather, it’s about where you choose to focus. Your gratefulness as a mother is a gift to your child, but it is also a gift to those around you.

October 15th is Miscarriage and Infant Loss Awareness Day, another day for you to support your loved ones who have lost a child- Send them a note, share a picture that you have of their child or them during their pregnancy, recognize their child and their pain.