A Miracle Baby

Kings Community Church, Lancaster

Lily is our miracle baby and we thank God every day for her...

When my husband Mat and I decided it was time to start a family and it didn’t happen straight away, my heart began to sink. I had been worried for a while that it would not be possible for me to get pregnant and my fears appeared to be right. I went to the doctor who agreed it may be difficult and took some blood tests to find out more. Meanwhile I asked my friend to pray that all would be well with my body and we would be able to conceive. A week later, while we were on holiday, my doctor rang to say that my results were back and they showed high levels of a hormone which showed that I was pregnant! The doctor was worried that it might be an ectopic pregnancy and urged us to come back from our holiday immediately to have a scan. We returned for the scan to find I was 7 weeks pregnant and it was not ectopic. We were both overjoyed with the news and thanked God that He had heard our prayers. Little did we know that He would be hearing and answering many more for our baby…

The pregnancy seemed to go well and we were very happy, until we went for the routine twenty week scan. At first everything seemed fine. We found out it was a little girl and the lady was quite chatty, then she went quiet and said she was going to ask her colleague to come and have a look at something. Eventually she said she thought the baby’s stomach was a bit higher than normal and she wanted us to return for another scan with a consultant. The next day the consultant took a look and asked us to go to St Mary’s in Manchester so a specialist could have a look. We still had no idea of what was really going on and it seemed a bit like the medical staff didn’t really know either. We were being passed from one to another, each time with no real explanation as to what was going on. When we arrived in Manchester the same process began, with scans and worried faces. By this time we had gathered it must be quite serious. This time, the consultant sat us down and explained everything to us. She told us how the baby had a ‘Diaphragmatic Hernia’ (a hole in the diaphragm) and her stomach was in her chest cavity. She explained that this meant that when the baby began to develop lungs there would not be room for them to grow properly and she may not be able to breathe when she was born. She went on to say that the condition may have developed due to problems with her chromosomes, in which case she may have other complications when she was born and could be mentally and/or physically disabled. At the end of the conversation she told us that 40% of children with this condition survive the birth, 20% make it to an operation to correct the problem and 10% get through the operation. If the child did survive all this, they may have lasting problems. We were offered a termination. The consultant left us alone to decide what we wanted to do. Of course there were lots of tears. I was devastated by the news, it was such a shock to me and I realised I hadn’t really prepared myself for this when I arrived, but Mat was extremely calm that day. He said that God had given him a peace about the whole thing and believed God was telling him to focus on the chances of survival rather than the unsuccessful rate. He was reminded of the promise God had given us about having children and that He had plans to keep His promise. We decided very quickly that we would not consider terminating. God had given us this baby and we would put our trust in Him and not the doctors. In the natural, everything seemed bad and survival looked unlikely, but we remembered the scripture that says ‘with God, all things are possible’ (Matt 19:26). Doctors may be able to do amazing things but God can do even more. He can heal when doctors can’t.

  • This week's word...

  • "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another."

    [John 13:34-35, NIV]

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