These past few days have been extremely difficult. A little background: my wife and I have been married for nearly eight years. We currently have two little boys, and it was extremely difficult to get them here.
It took us four years to get pregnant with our first child, and my wife had Hyperemesis Gravidarum (high risk) with both pregnancies. The second pregnancy in particular nearly killed my wife. So, just over a year ago we came to terms with our situation and decided to try the adoption route. A friend of the family had gotten pregnant, an unmarried teenager. We felt strongly to approach her about adoption, and to our astonishment she accepted us!
There were some complications with the father wanting to keep the child, however one day we were shocked to learn that one night he unexpectedly passed away in his sleep. It was a freak accident with no explainable cause. The mother of the child then decided that since the baby was the only thing she had left of the father, then she was going to keep the baby after all. We were upset, but understood her decision.
About a month later she reached out to us again and advised that she was considering adoption again. We assured her that she would remain an active part of the child's life, and we would remain in close contact. She again chose us to adopt her baby. We were very excited, contacted an attorney, purchased baby clothes, etc. She was two months away from giving birth, when she approached us again about a week before Christmas. She proceeded to explain that she had been browsing on a website called adoption.com, and chose a different family (who had more money).
My wife and I were devastated. We couldn't understand why God told us to talk to her about adoption and get all of our hopes up, just to get let down in the end.
Nearly a year has passed, and the pain still hasn't fully healed. Even though my wife was hospitalized and had to get a PICC line to her heart to administer steroids to keep her alive during our last pregnancy, we agreed that it would be much better to go through those trials again and know for a fact that we would get our baby in the end. Pardon my french, but no selfish slut could take our baby away.
That leads me up to the past couple of months. Feeling strongly that we were supposed to try for a baby again, we moved to a smaller home that was closer to work and closer to family. We knew that if my wife got pregnant again, we were going to need all the help and support we could get. I'll never forget the squeal from the bathroom and the tears of joy in my wife's eyes when she held up the barely-positive pregnancy test with shaking hands.
"Can you see a line?" She begged.
To be honest, I couldn't. Twelve tests later and finally an electronic test confirmed her suspicions. Yes, we were pregnant. And we hadn't even been trying yet!
Excitement was in the air. From many dreams and promptings we had had in the past, there was no doubt in our minds that our little girl Marli was finally on her way to join our family!
Over the next several weeks, we referred to her as our little miracle baby. We told our four-year-old, and he was ecstatic. In nearly every prayer he said from that day, he prayed for our baby to be healthy and safe.
And then it all came crashing down.
Last week my wife's HCG levels stopped doubling, and then started dropping. When we went in for my wife's scheduled ultrasound, her OB/GYN gave us the bad news and handed my wife a pamphlet about miscarriages.
I was still in denial for days, praying for a miracle. But then the blood came. When we broke the news to our son, his innocent little response was, "But I said a prayer..."
For the past few days I've been breaking down with intermittent episodes of tears. I just don't understand any of this. Why would God tell us our baby girl was finally coming, and then take her away from us?
