Today, we have a guest post from Martha Ray. How does one explain such profound loss which words can’t describe? One doesn’t even attempt to. Instead, Martha has recounted the experiences themselves, and left inadequate descriptions of the accompanying emotions largely unsaid.
Martha and her husband, Isaac, live in Minnesota with their three living children, Joseph (5), Dominic (4) and Margaret (1). Martha has a weakness for puzzles and ice cream.  She is also currently 12 weeks into her seventh pregnancy.  
Rainbow Babies
Renaldo Christopher. Gabriel Thomas. Eli Maximilian. Three babies in heaven. Each unique with different circumstances and heartache. But they also have brought healing and growing.
When I realized that Renaldo had not been moving when I was 29 weeks along, I was devastated. I felt scared and very alone. My husband was at class and unreachable so I called my mom who drove the 2.5 hours to where I was.  His funeral was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  The next day, I dropped my husband off at the Trooper Academy for 12 weeks. My husband and I shed many tears during that time, yet we were able to hold on to each other and our faith and we grew closer. Then, the day before graduation, I gave him a gift of a positive pregnancy test. (He had been home on weekends). 🙂
I worried during the whole next pregnancy, that there was something wrong with me and that I might lose this baby too.  We had done testing after losing Renaldo, thinking that there was a possibility that my blood had a clotting factor in it — but it showed up negative.  I took shots daily anyway, just to be safe.  Joseph Scott was born four weeks early, but healthy. He did end up going to the NICU for a week and we struggled with breastfeeding for the first seven weeks, but healing came. I was relieved to know that I was able to carry a baby to term.
Dominic Francis was born 20 months later, following a healthy pregnancy, yet still with daily shots, just in case.  The two boys kept us busy yet we were excited to learn that we were expecting yet again when our other two were just one-and two-years-old. After two healthy children, I began to calm my anxiety during pregnancy and began to think that Renaldo’s hematoma was just a fluke.  When I went to my routine 17 week appointment (by myself) and they could not find a heartbeat, I was heartbroken yet again.  We were fortunate to have a fantastic pro-life doctor and came back in the following day to be induced, and I delivered Gabriel Thomas on September 7, 2012. I held him in my hand and the funeral home worked with us so we were able to bury him right above his brother, Renaldo.  We didn’t do an autopsy this time.
Less than a year later, Eli Maximillian was born on July 22, 2013.  He was beautiful, healthy, and perfect.  As we prepared to leave the hospital, the nurses took him for his hearing test, but he never came back to our room.  Instead, he was airlifted to Children’s Hospital and we began a whirlwind of tests and saw many doctors to diagnose him. He came home for a week when he was seemingly better, after having surgery to place a feeding tube, but soon after I needed to bring him back to the ER, which resulted in us traveling by ambulance back to the University for another week of tests. When we finally got an answer, it was not the one we wanted.  Pyruvate Carboxylase Deficiency was the diagnosis — a rare metabolic disorder without a cure or treatment.  We were very blessed that we were able to care for Eli according to our religious beliefs by having him Baptized, Confirmed, and having him receive his First Holy Communion before we stopped treatment, took out all his cords, and spent our last 24 hours together. It was heartbreaking, yet strangely healing to do our grieving together, while our baby was still living.
After losing Eli we learned that each pregnancy carried with it a 25% chance of our baby dying. With this knowledge we had a difficult time even being open to the possibility of having more children, which in our case also meant being open to pain and loss. “Could we handle anymore? What more could God ask of us?” I thought. While we were in the hospital with Eli, Laura Story’s song, Blessings, became my theme song.  “‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?/ What if Your healing comes through tears?/ What if a thousand sleepless nights/ Are what it takes to know You’re near?/  What if trials of this life/ Are Your mercies in disguise?”
We chose to be open. During this pregnancy, our doctor was fantastic, reminding us that a 25% chance of death, meant also a 75% chance of life. We clung to that hope and did an amniocentesis at 34 weeks to check for two particular genes. We found that Margaret was just a carrier and we were elated.  Born in September, two years and some days after her brother Gabriel, Margaret has been such a joy and blessing to our family.
The knowledge and diagnosis has brought a strange sense of peace, knowing that we are not in control. Although I will not see my other babies in this life, I hope to one day meet them in the next. Until then, we ask them to pray for us and we talk about them because they are still a part of our family. We will never forget them and our living children are lucky to have family in Heaven watching over us. God knows we need it.
photo credit: rainbow via photopin (license)