Abigail Grace Slade

It's been almost 3 months since my last blog post. For starters, I'm just not very good at this whole blog thing, but we have had a lot going on in the past 2 months. Here is just a small glimpse of that. In my last post I wrote about the exciting news of the Lord opening my womb and being pregnant. What a miracle that was and how excited we were. Another thing that I did not include in that post was that we had put our house on the market (to free ourselves up somewhat for the arrival of the baby in October) and to our shock we had a contract on it within 3 weeks. In addition to that, my cousin and his wife had offered to let us borrow their 7 seater vehicle while they were in Hawaii (he is in the military and getting transferred there). It seemed as though everything was working out as we anticipated the arrival of the baby in October. Then, after an ultrasound at one of my doctor's appointments, they sent me to get a high level ultrasound to check my placenta and possibly some fluid on the baby's abdomen. We went for the ultrasound and that is when we got the news that we had never expected. Our baby had a cystic hygroma and hydrops (fluid on the heart, abdomen, lungs, and skull) and was not expected to live. The doctor told us that she probably had Turner's syndrome and with all the complications she would not live to term. They anticipated she would die in the next 4-6 weeks. WOW! That is pretty shocking news that is very hard to hear. We told our families and friends and then tried to process everything. Many things were a blur for a while. I remember trying to make a conscious effort to continue to give our boys as much time and energy as I could muster up. We had to continue living our lives . . . only now we continued with the knowledge that our little girl was very sick. I am grateful for God's grace! Not that a minute of what we were going through was easy, but throughout every moment He sustained us. We KNEW that God was sovereign, that He had ordained all of it. Now we continued to hope that the Lord would heal our daughter - we certainly knew that He could. However, we also knew that He might not. We had said from day one that we would give God all honor and praise . . . in the good and in the bad. We had said it, now we had to live it. Not of our own accord, but through Christ. The days to follow were hard. We had frequent dr appointments and I continued to grow (actually quite fast at this point!) There was no question that I was pregnant. Strangers frequently commented on my pregnant belly, often asking when I was due and if I knew what I was having. Usually I would just answer complete strangers as though everything was normal. Sometimes I did go into more of the details, often I did not. We went to the doctor weekly in hopes to hear our daughter's heartbeat. The day came when we went in and did not hear that heartbeat that we had grown to love. Our daughter had passed away in my womb. I was far enough along that I would go through labor and deliver our daughter. A couple of days later we checked into the hospital to have labor induced. After a rough 22 hours our little girl was born. Abigail Grace Slade. 1 lb 12 oz. She was tiny. Her body was filled with fluid, but she was perfect . . . she was exactly how the Lord had created her. I am beyond grateful and cherish the short time that Todd and I got to hold her on this earth. One of the hardest things I have ever done is watch the nurses take her from the room. At that point we knew that we would never see our daughter on earth again. BUT, we are confident that she is in heaven with the Father now. In a perfect body, never knowing pain or suffering, and worshipping the Father. For her, it could be no better. For us, we will grieve, but we will grieve with a peace knowing that God is still good. I still have days that are hard .. . and I'm sure that I will have many more. We could ask, "why?" We will probably never have a definite answer to that question. What we do know is that the Lord will use this to continue to make us more like Him. To grow our faith, increase our dependence on Him, and ensure that He gets the glory. The gospel has already been shared multiple times because of our Abigail. It may sound as though I don't struggle very much . . . I do. I do not always feel like these things are true. But I praise the Father that His promises and His Word are not based on my feelings. His promises and His Word are true. And the Lord gives grace and sustains. That is what I will cling to. I pray that the Lord will continue to use Abigail, a little girl who never saw daylight, to further the gospel and transform lives. "And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21