Amanda’s Story

Three years ago this week we had an ultrasound scheduled to find out the gender of our second child. March 16th started like any other day, rushing around to get everyone dressed and ready so we were not late! We expected to leave the doctor’s office with happy news of a boy or girl. We didn’t have a preference either way. The most tragic thing we thought could happen was that they wouldn’t be able to tell us because the baby wouldn’t cooperate.

Instead we left the doctor’s office in a whirl wind of confusion. Though at that time we didn’t realize how serious things were. We were told something was most likely wrong with the baby’s kidneys. You will need to see a specialist to confirm. There was no amniotic fluid and very difficult to get a good picture of what was going on.

The appointment for the specialist was set up for March 19, 2004. For the next two days I drank more water than I thought humanly possible praying that the problems were as simple as being dehydrated. I was on self-imposed bed rest with the hopes that when we got to the specialist that she would say everything looked fine.

March 19th came and I truly don’t remember anything before the ultrasound. I am sure I was nervous but I didn’t know what to expect. I knew kidney problems could be serious but I wasn’t willing to think about that. When the doctor told us that our baby was missing one kidney and there was no blood flow to the remaining kidney. We were thrown into a world of questions with very few answers.

We were given two options

1. Continue the pregnancy and the baby will most likely die before born. If the baby survives the pregnancy he/she will die shortly after birth.

2. End pregnancy now.

Neither option was an acceptable one to me! I could not imagine spending the next 5 months carrying a child that was going to die. Nor could I even consider being the one to decide when this child would die. I wanted a 3rd option but there was none.

We spent the next few days talking, crying and praying! We had a follow up ultrasound on March 26th. Though our prayers were for the first ultrasound to be wrong and everything would be alright. Either way we had made our decision. We would carry the baby as long as God would allow. If this meant I would miscarry in the next few weeks or that we would carry the baby to term, we knew we would give this child the chance at life he/she deserved.

Kim

Edited to Add:

I remember that day well. On that day our courage was tested, our marriage was tested, and our faith was tested. On that day when so much could have suddenly gone *wrong* in our life, so much was solidly *right* with our life.

I believe that God knows our name before we are even conceived. Sometimes the name our parents give us is not the same name as God’s name for us. In our case, I believe God made His name for our child known to us. Amanda means love, worthy of love, and precious.

On that day our life could have unraveled. On that day God weaved a new thread into our life that made our family stronger. And that thread had a name.

Tony