This little baby is nothing short of a miracle straight from God! Not convinced? Read on. The reasons are undeniable.
On June 3rd, 2011 we unexpectedly lost our son Duncan at 18 weeks. We were shocked and devastated as we watched our son slip away and listened to the silence left in the wake of his beating heart. We were completely powerless and the doctors and nurses in L&D could do little but offer sympathy and support. Sandra and I were never more aware that the world was and is a broken place than on that dark day.
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,Losing Duncan turned our world completely upside down. We left Ft. Hood at the end of June so I could start graduate school at Duke University. In place of hopes and plans, we took memories and confusion; in place of life, we took ash.
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!
--Robert Burns
Durham is a great city. We have grown to love life here, but as with any other military PCS move we felt very isolated at first. We only knew one other couple when we got to Durham and didn't have the benefit of the normal networking that typically happens on military posts. I also had a very stressful transition back into life as a full time graduate student and Sandra was often alone in our apartment struggling with all the emotions of losing Duncan.
Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me. --DavidI am embarrased to admit that my increased presence at home wouldn't have helped Sandra, it wasn't the heart of our problem. I don't think either of us will ever stop greaving or be completely at peace with what happened. The real issue and my failing as a husband was how I dealt with those emotions and the consequent effects on Sandra.
I'm a pretty typical guy (aside from epic nerdiness that is), but a decade in and around the Army has made me a bit cold and 100% type A. I dealt with losing Duncan by diving full force into the tasks of graduate school, running from my emotions as if they were a lion seeking to devour me. I thought my plan was pretty good at the time and I was humming along fine, until it all came crashing down when grad school got hard, really hard.
You might have already noticed the gaping hole. Namely, the missing part about Sandra, and how I should have been pouring my love into her like Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:25). I was so wrapped up in myself that I entirely failed to consider that Sandra might need to grieve differently. I never took the time to stop and even pray about how I could help her. I just kept pushing and pushing and making her go from one event to the next, when I should have just stopped, listened and let her pour her heart and grief out at home. At one point, I even dragged her on a trip we had planned that included a child's birthday party! Suffice it to say I am grateful for a wife who has been so forgiving of my pushiness and insensitivity.
After my mid-term meltdown in the fall, the rift that had started forming between Sandra and I began to heal, but our hearts were (and are now) still shadowed by the loss of Duncan. My grades turned out much better than I expected, and we got to spend a lot of time with our family over the holidays.
Unfortunately, our heartache wasn't over. I had a full course load again and was having a rough time with my Algorithms class in particular. Sandra and I had also been hoping for another pregnancy with no luck. Our primary doctor referred us to two reproductive specialists and the subsequent test results were devastating. We were told that it would be almost impossible for us to conceive naturally and that we wouldn't even be good candidates for IUI or IVF.
The only good news we received was that I could potentially have surgery to correct part of the problem and improve our chances of conceiving. The problem was that it could take six months for me to heal from the surgery and that Sandra's condition put her at risk for early menopause. We walked in the clinic expecting a simple Clomid prescription. How could we have been emotionally prepared for what we were told, especially when we had just had a baby last summer? All we could do was hope and pray our hearts out!
The miracle is that Sandra was pregnant within a few days of going to the urologist, well before my operation even occurred. At our first Obstetrics appointment last month all the doctor could say was "So much for science..." :)
