30 Days of Praise … Day 28 – Saying Goodbye To My Son!

I know I have been a little melancholy this week, well here’s why …
Deep breath … This is a very hard post for me to write. I cannot give all the details for privacy reasons, but I’m sure that will not hinder you from being able to follow along with my experience.

I had been in a hospital in Boston on and off for the previous 3 years. After 15 surgeries for Chronic Ulcerative Colitis/Crohn’s Disease I was told I would never be able to conceive. (I’ve now had 21 surgeries and my diagnosis is still uncertain) I thought my life would never have any meaning. And although I was not healthy enough even if I could conceive, all I prayed for was a child. It was my hope, my dreams, my future. I had to be a mother! It was all I thought about, all I prayed for. I needed a child.

That blessed day finally came, our son was born. He was not our biological son but that didn’t matter at all to us. We loved him more then life itself. He brought a happiness to our lives that we never knew could exist. He was our world. We were able to forget the nightmare we had been living in for the past 3 years, and see the joy there was in living. What millions of people took for granted everyday, we were now privileged to experience. We were finally parents!

I am 6 weeks post-op in this picture.

J.T. was premature and had to remain in the hospital for 8 weeks. We were not allowed to stay in the hospital with him so we drove back and forth, spending nearly 3 hours a day driving. When Dustin couldn’t go my mom went with me. We spent hours in the hospital nurturing him, praying with him, singing to him. His vitals would crash and a nurse would call me to hurry, he was not responding to them. As soon as I got there I would hold him skin to skin and his vitals would spike back up to normal. The nurses couldn’t understand why he did not respond to them the way he did to me, but I knew. I was his mother! He could feel how much I loved him and my prayers were going forth that God would heal him and bless him. I knew every day I went to see him that I was saving his life. It was such a humbling experience to have this little life so reliant on me. But it was also such a joy!

We were blessed to raise J.T. for 10 months and 3 days, every day praying and loving him more and more. He had a lot of similar features to Dustin and people would always comment to us, “there’s no denying who his father is” and we would enjoy a good laugh. We were a family, and strangers even knew we belonged together.

Sadly our joy was much shorter lived then we ever imagined it would be. 9 years ago this month we had to say goodbye to our son and give him back to his birth parents. I remember the day so clearly, every moment, every thought, every breath. How do you say goodbye to your son? How do you pass him in the arms of another and know you will never kiss him again? Never hold him again? Never again tell him how much you love him? How could I go to his room and pack his bags? How could I turn my back and walk away, leaving him behind? I know it was only the strength of God that brought me through that dreadful day, and the many that followed after.

My heart was ripped out of my chest that day. I didn’t know how I would survive. I didn’t know how he would survive. I had to lean on the one stability I had found through the years, my God, my rock.

Knowing that I had placed him safely in the arms of God was the only comfort I had. God would not fail to protect him. God would not fail to keep him safe. God would wrap him in his arms and let him feel loved. God could go where I could not. It was the hardest trust I have ever had to place.

It brakes my heart to know he is out there somewhere and probably doesn’t even know that I exist. That my love for him is still overflowing. But I have to focus on what I know is good and true. I know I gave him 10 months of unconditional love. I may not have given birth to him, but I helped give him life every day in the NICU. I prayed for him and taught him that Jesus loves him. Although he may have been too young to understand, I know that God will bless the time I did have with him and will stir his heart one day to know his heavenly father.