Day 6: What is Happening? - by Derrick

This whole day we were in a haze.

The first hour was spent with the technician getting more pictures of the baby, then the doctor came in doing the same. She said very little in the beginning and stared intently at her monitor and pictures of her heart. Maybe there is hope? Maybe she is trying to figure out how to save our baby?

She presses the 3D ultrasound button. This is our first real glimpse of the baby and immediately we gasp. Our baby does not look well. Her hands and feet look normal but the rest of her looks swollen like a balloon. Poor Baby. We weep as we see her, and the doctor finally speaks and says, "I'm so sorry".

She finishes her scan and writes on a paper everything wrong, and says that her swollen body is "100%  lethal". Her broken heart, missing kidneys and everything else do not matter. Then she looks at Janette and says, "I think your life is in danger too and that you are starting to show signs of a rare syndrome where the mother's body mirrors what the baby has." She explained that Janette's body was swelling, and her blood pressure was elevated, and her liver would have issues. The doctor says we have to decide soon how we want to terminate the pregnancy.

Janette and I stare at each other in disbelief. Is this real? We have to decide if we want to medically extract the baby out, or induce her early and have her come out like a "normal" delivery. We are both taken a back at the extraction procedure, but everything is a blur now. 

What is happening? We were preparing for this appointment the past couple of days, and had planned to carry her to term. Now what? What is God doing? 

We talk it over with Janette's Labor and Delivery nurse mom who gives us sound advice. We pray a lot, we sit confused. It feels like we are deciding to kill our baby. How could we do that to her? Why can't we allow God to take her when He decides so? 

Five days ago, we found out our baby is going to die. Today, we have to decide how to end her life tomorrow.

We wrestle with what to do next. It is clear we want to induce the baby, see her, and hold her one last time. But why now? We know that if there was no risk to Janette's health, we would carry her to term. And if Janette was going to die in the next hour, we would take the baby out right away. But what about in between? Janette is not going to die in the next hour, and the doctors were not clear on the exact timeline. Is there value in prolonging the baby's life a few more days or weeks at an unquantifiable risk to Janette's health? Is it unjust to speed up our baby's impending death? I don’t know.

We seek the advice of our pastors. We are thankful for them and pray for them on the way there. We try to explain our situation and what we are thinking. Somehow Janette is more composed than I am; how is she so strong? They affirm that what we are deciding is not unethical. We are comforted by their reminder that there is nothing we can do to outmaneuver God's sovereignty.

We return to Janette's parents' home and see our kids again. The doctor calls with the lab results and they do not look good. It confirms the doctor's diagnosis of Janette, and we need to decide what to do tonight. We discuss what we should do next. We cry and we pray.

We have decided to end the life of our daughter. It sounds so wrong in so many ways. Never would I have imagined in my lifetime to have to make such a decision.

Tomorrow we will see our baby, tomorrow our baby will die.