Yesterday was when Emery should have been 5 months. As the beginning of our 5th month since he was born starts I am starting to write a paper on fatal birth defects and on carrying to term. I was so blessed to have someone mail me some books that I had wanted to read that would assist me in my paper. I picked up a book last night and started reading. This book was called I Will Carry You. It is a book written by the family of a singer of the group Selah. This band had a song, named the same of the book that helped carry my through the toughest days of my pregnancy. As I started reading the book, not very far into it was "diagnoses day" As she started to describe what it felt like to be sitting in that room, to hear the words "your baby cannot survive". I was done. What a total fail in making any progress researching my paper.
I read her story and was remembering my own diagnoses day. I know the date, I know the time, coming up on almost a year after I can tell you exactly how each minute progressed. It is a moment in time burned into my brain, the feeling of knowing that you are helpless at saving your childs life. It is a time when you are presented with an overwhelming decision. Do you let your childs life play out day by day until whenever their time runs out? Or do you take the doctors advice and either induce or terminate now. Knowing that it doesn't matter anyway. When faced with the decision, some people know from the minute they are asked what there decision will be. For others though this is a tremendous decision, one that cannot be walked into lightly since the wrong one could be filled with a lifetime of regret. For us when we heard the news my head began spinning. In a way I felt like I failed. I have never been one to handle failure well and when I felt like I had failed my child I wanted to run away and never return. Problem was, how do I run away when what I would be running from was still growing inside me. He went with me, every direction I turned he was there. The other side of me was already completely attached, knowing he was my first son. How could I end his life? How could this decision be up to me?? As time inched on and our families all left, Randall and I had time to sit and talk about it, weigh the options. Very quickly it became apparent that terminating had far less benefits then to letting the pregnancy play out. As far as we could tell benefits to terminating were to end this tragedy much faster, and to not have to go through a pregnancy where the happy questions you get asked (when are you due? what are you having?...) are ended with a sad reply. As we looked at what termination meant, it was a very selfish option. It had nothing beneficial for our child, it was all about us. Carrying to term on the other had benefited us both. I wont lie and say that it was an easy road to travel, and maybe it isn't for everyone. But I know I made the best decision, one I will never grow to regret. If we continued the pregnancy we got to hold our son, to see his face and take pictures. We would be able to meet him, set our minds at ease about who our son was. We would learn of his personality while I was pregnant, deciphering kicks and punches into opinions. We could make his entire lifetime one filled with incredible love and strength, we could give our son a birthday.
I know now looking back on it that I would have regretted every day after terminating. Holding my son gave me peace, gave me closure. Though sometimes I look at our days and think about the things we "should" be doing right now. I can say without a doubt I am proud of everything we did for HIM and so very proud of the fighter we were given.
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