Amazing Grace

An update on our Snowflakes adoption story….

We had another ultrasound this week, and our baby’s condition has not changed since the diagnosis of acrania. We’re still holding out for our miracle, through the prayerful intercession of Pope John Paul II, because nothing is impossible with God. And what our baby needs is the impossible. Bone where there is no bone; a total and complete healing.

We did receive a tremendous blessing, though, in coming to discover the baby’s sex. So we welcome to the world, though still hidden in the womb, our little girl, Grace Elizabeth.

And she is a dancer. In our 22nd week, the images seem so clear. She came waltzing out of the murky shadows of the ultrasound screen, in a dimly lit room at the perinatal testing center. We could see her hands waving, the bones of her tiny fingers, her heart pounding strong and fast. When the technician, Janene, said “It’s a girl,” I felt such a swell of emotion. Coming to know someone’s name has a power in it. It’s a privilege actually. And now it strikes me as so much more personal than before… We have a little girl… and we will always have a little girl. Sixteen years from now, come what may, we’ll be celebrating her birthday. We’ll speak of her, dream of her, talk to her, and if the miracle doesn’t come (though in a certain sense it is here already) we’ll ask her to wait for us in Heaven. And we’ll all look forward to meeting her in that Perfect Place where everything is whole and every tear is wiped away.

But here below, this new knowledge is a two-edged sword; even as it helps us cut through a section of the sadness by our naming and knowing our little girl, it tears at us because we must consider all ends; we might have to say goodbye just as we say hello. I know it’s not by coincidence that we found this all out on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Feasts of Mary and the saints have been curiously aligned with our visits and appointments throughout the past couple of years. A comfort on this way of the Cross.

Grace Elizabeth…. be strong, be whole, be healed. We love and wait for you. Keep dancing in your watery world as we treasure every second of this journey.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

10,000 Years

When we’ve been here ten thousand years Bright shining as the sun. We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’ve first begun. – Amazing Grace

When I was in college seminary, our rector gave a homily that I’ve never forgotten. Well, at least the line I’ll quote today. I remember it so well because I thought it was goofy when I first heard it. Really goofy. And I think he said the line three times.

We all thought it was goofy, and had a good laugh afterwards (wasn’t that very Christian of us?), thinking it was one of those “how not to preach” moments to keep in mind, should we be called all the way to ordination. But now, years later, having left those studies and discerned this beautiful vocation to marriage, having experienced so many joys and sorrows already that Life has spilled out before us, watching five fast years unfold like delicate wrapping paper from each “present” moment, the phrase from that homily has come back to me.

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

That was it. Want to hear it again? OK. “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” You can sort of put your inflection anywhere, which is fun. For example, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Though, personally, I think I like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” This sentence, of course, begs the question: What is the “main thing”?

Right now, it’s easier for me to see than ever. In the midst of the fires of our sorrow, of possibly losing our unborn child, all the plans, desires, dreams, worries and wants of a lifetime just melt away, like paper tossed onto a burning wood. What matters most? The main thing is life with God in it; with God all around it, surrounding it… because this life and this suffering make no sense without Him. Honestly, this suffering makes no sense with Him.

I think suffering falls sometimes without rhyme or reason; it can be random and reckless. Sometimes we bring it on ourselves, it’s the friction caused by the scraping of sin in the world against God’s original dream for us. But mostly I think it’s the fallout or aftershock of that rebellion, sending rippling waves throughout the universe. “Thorns and thistles grew,” nature rocks and rolls and reeks havoc, from the macro to the micro, the physical and the spiritual, and even into the tiny cells of a little baby that should be healthy and whole.

I don’t know what it is keeping me afloat. I’m not angry at the world or God. I’m just in a white-hot furnace of sorrow. Barring a miracle, our baby will die. This is insane and this is burning us. I’m not carrying the baby, but I’m doing my best to carry Rebecca and the baby. I don’t know what to say. But I know God isn’t doing it to us. It’s not His fault. It’s not our fault.

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.
– John 9

The main thing, it seems to me, is a life with God in it. The kind of God Who Himself entered into this mess, bore suffering to the extreme, and redeemed it. He tells us to carry on, the way He did unto the Cross itself. The main thing is for us to know we need God. We pray that this suffering might end in a miraculous healing so that the works of God might be made visible through our baby. We are fervently praying for this. But in it all, I remember the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Love is here, burning us in sorrow. But in 10,000 years this sorrow will have passed, have been redeemed, transformed. In eternity we pray that we will be surrounded by the beautiful little ones we’ve adopted and lost. And the destiny of our 13th little child, who soon will be given a name, we don’t yet know. We live in hope for life here and now, to have the grace to walk a little life through the beauty and the brokenness of this world, and we hope for life in its fullness in the world to come for all of us.

I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Pope John Paul II, intercede for us.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

"Embracing" Suffering?

I watch the movie The Passion of the Christ about six times a year; five times with the five sections of freshmen I teach at Malvern Prep, and usually once at home with Rebecca during Holy Week. Needless to say, the powerful images, encounters, music, and ancient languages in this film are deeply ingrained in me the way few things are.

One of those images occurs as Jesus is pushed by the people outside of the walls of Jerusalem (and this image alone speaks volumes) and encounters his cross for the first time. One of other condemned criminals watches the Christ kneel and take hold of this tool of torture and press his face against it, almost lovingly.

“Fool! Look how he embraces his cross!”

I’ve been thinking about that line these days, now two weeks into our own way of the cross. When I was a kid, fresh from my own “awakening” to the reality of God and the call to a relationship with Him, I used to be perplexed by the whole “embrace your cross” mentality. I was reading about it in the lives of the saints, and over and over again I could hear in their voices such a passion for the Passion, a real love for suffering. I struggled with my own attitude towards the cross. I thought… “Well, these guys are saints, I should feel this way too, but this sounds nuts.” It was very unsettling, almost morbid, I thought. “Is this what God wants of me? Doesn’t He want me to be happy? Am I missing something here?”

Suffering is a funny thing. It surrounds us all like air, it trembles beneath nearly every step we take, and sorrow echoes in so many of our conversations every day, but we rarely look it in the eye. Our right to the “pursuit of happiness” as Americans has become an all out mad dash, an arms flailing race towards almost any door that will get us out. Anything but that narrow, cross-shaped Door that seems to lead only to pain.

But here’s the truth we’re coming to see, and strangely it was quoted to me in a movie back in 1986 that seems totally random right now, but perfect. The Man in Black says to the Princess Bride… “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.”

Well, there it is.

Ever since the Fall there has been conflict, pain, death, and war; inside and outside our hearts. So what do we do with it? Most people want to run from it (hedonists), some people pretend it doesn’t exist (Buddhists), a few take a morbid pleasure in it (masochists), and a few, a select few, have come to peace with it by allowing themselves to be nailed to it, trusting in a greater plan.

So the saints weren’t nuts, though some may have been slightly off balance in the penance department. Really they were just…. realists. Just like the One Who came in a body to take on Death like a hero. And He destroyed it. He really did.

So all of this is to say that I think I’m going to pray harder every day facing not fleeing from this cross that Rebecca and I have been allowed to carry. Maybe some will say “Fools! Look how they embrace their cross!” (We’ve already gotten that from the eyes of one of our doctors).

Good Friday has come early again. But we hope it leads to a miraculous Easter Sunday, and we’re imploring the prayers of a man who bore his cross heroically, Pope John Paul II. We don’t know how long this via dolorosa will twist and bend, but I want to feel the wood, let the weight of it sink in. I was encouraged by a good friend to swim into this dark abyss, and keep swimming into Rebecca’s pain as a mother, to swim and not to give up. He said that at a certain moment, if I hold fast like an Olympian, then I’ll make a quick turn, like Michael Phelps, and we can rise again into golden light. I’m banking on that!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Covered in Grace

AN UPDATE:
We’ve prayed about sharing so much of a very private matter in such a public forum. Rebecca and I have come to an awareness, though, that this is part of the mission of being “Snowflakes” parents (see previous post, and visit www.snowflakes.org). I believe that to get to the “heart of things” – of God and Life and everything – you have to take a path that leads to a kind of vulnerability; an openness that is painful but purifying too. The prayers and thoughts and stories of others who have heard our story has been so comforting and so beautiful, and we feel covered in Grace. In this open wound of suffering, these prayers are a powerful balm. So thank you to anyone who has whispered a simple “please God” on our behalf.

This Wednesday’s level two ultrasound confirmed the worst for the life of our little one, now over 17 weeks in the womb. There are three abnormalities, but the one that is life threatening is called “acrania.” For some reason, the baby’s skull has not fully developed and offers no protection for the brain as it grows. Babies with this rare condition do not often make it to full term, and the trauma of birth (both vaginal and c-section) would certainly end the baby’s
life. The high risk pregnancy doctor told us that survival outside of the womb is virtually impossible.We have a month until our next ultrasound. In these four weeks we are storming Heaven with prayer, pleading to the God of Life for a miracle, and asking in particular for the intercession of Pope John Paul II.We want to thank everyone who has so beautifully responded to this plea for prayer on our behalf. That response has been amazing, and with such heartfelt sincerity and emotion. We are so grateful.When we were told this news I just looked at Rebecca and was overwhelmed at the path ahead. She offered to do anything so that this little one might live even for just a few moments. We are completely in God’s hands and riding on the waters of prayer. Thank you.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

A Sorrowful Mystery

Rebecca and I believe babies are a gift and meant to be the fruit of a covenant of love. They come tumbling into the world and into a couple’s lives reckless, utterly dependent, and babbling that
inarticulate speech of the heart that only the Spirit can understand. A baby pulls two people in love into a deeper love, a love, they say, that seems scandalously deeper than even the love they have for each other. “Three is the magic number” – reflecting the Life and Love that is God. I think this is how God tries to make us holy, and whole, and unselfish by allowing us to cooperate with Love in making another self. There we get a taste of His Fatherly care.

Rebecca and I know this, believe this, and since our wedding day five years ago this August, we’ve thirsted for this new life. A life wherein the word of our love becomes flesh. But the sorrowful mystery in our life’s rosary is that we cannot have our own biological children. We knew babies were gifts never to be grasped. For us, the process of In Vitro Fertilization seemed to be tampering with those sacred powers that Psalm 131 says are “too great for us” and beyond our reach. Our faith informs us as well that IVF would pull our biology from our theology, creating life outside of the expression of our love. So we mourned the loss of little ones and wept like Hannah, praying for a miracle and preparing our hearts for the call of adoption.

Then we found both in Snowflakes, an organization that seeks to heal the wound caused by aggressive reproductive technologies like IVF. It’s little known, but when a couple have their sperm and eggs meet in a glass dish (in vitro), science assists in the hopes of making more “viable” embryos for implantation; sometimes up to dozens of little souls. When an IVF couple achieves a desired pregnancy, those remaining little ones are cryo-preserved (frozen) sometimes for years and years, awaiting the warmth of a mother’s womb and a chance for life. Across the country, there are over 400,000 of these frozen embryos. Science has rushed into a mystery “too great for us” and the question now is, what do we do with these embryos? Destruction is an assault on their dignity, as is embryonic stem cell research.

This is where the Snowflakes program (which sees every embryo as a unique and individual life) offers a beautiful and life-affirming answer: Adoption. It is without a doubt a challenging call, and a journey laden with heartache. Rebecca and I see this call as an answer to our prayers for a family, and a witness to the dignity of these little “snowflakes” who are already in the world, waiting for a warm heart to grow beneath. To date we have loved and lost twelve tiny souls through the transfer of these embryos and their two resulting pregnancies. And now our thirteenth is growing within Rebecca. But the sorrow continues. An abnormality has been found in the baby’s brain and we need a second ultrasound to determine what’s happening. We ask for your prayers as we walk this sorrowful way. The ultrasound is today at 1:30 followed by a consultation with a high risk pregnancy doctor.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Three is the Magic Number…

Who knew back in grammar school, while munching down on me Lucky Charms cereal, waiting to make that hike into Alexander Denbo Elementary School (I was a “walker” not a bus kid), that there was a deep theological mystery being piped through the TV on that awesome cartoon between the cartoons – “Schoolhouse Rock“?

I don’t know who wrote this song, but it gave me a glimmer of the truth about God and ourselves…. in a Saturday morning cartoon! Just look at these lyrics…

Three is a magic number,
Yes it is, it’s a magic number.
Somewhere in the ancient, mystic Trinity
You get three as a magic number.

The past and the present and the future.
Faith and Hope and Charity,
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three as a magic number….

A man and a woman had a little baby,
Yes, they did. They had three in the family,
And that’s a magic number.
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So often we hear people say “Things happen in threes.” Perhaps it’s because Three is the watermark behind everything, for the Trinity is the Truth behind all of creation! That Ancient Mystic Trinity is the ceaseless whirlwind of Self-giving love that is the interpersonal relationship of the very life of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! God is not a solitude, said Pope John Paul II, but a family!

It’s deep, it’s mysterious, but it has it’s echo in every family…. and the reality that a “man and a woman had a little baby” is a little glimmer, a little icon of this great mystery of God. That He should will that His Life be reflected in human love, in its giving and receiving of love between persons which “makes love” and brings life into the world is…. well, magic!

And all of this is a build up to a very real and personal experience of mine…. or should I say… ours.

A man and a woman had a little baby,
Yes, they did. They had three in the family,
And that’s a magic number.

Coming January 20! Baby Donaghy….
Wooohooooooooooo! (to be continued 😉

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

I Would Die For That

I put up a Facebook page this summer (thanks Fr. Roderick, neat idea!) and in seeing some of the entries there from friends, I stumbled onto this video. It’s instantly become the heart-song for Rebecca and I as we continue to carry this cross of infertility and daily feel the pangs of hunger for little ones to share this life with. So here’s Kellie Coffey, and her very moving song “I Would Die for That.” We don’t necessarily agree with all of the means by which some of the couples in the video go about beginning a family, but without a doubt we feel their pain. God bless all who struggle to begin a family, longing for the day when our arms are full of His Treasured Gifts.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Sorrow Wide and Deep

I’ve been consistently silent about what I’m ready to share today. It’s kind of ironic that this blog, this year of sharing thoughts and experiences on the web, has been called the Heart of Things, and yet all the while something at the very heart of our life has been hushed over. It’s a source of suffering that I think, in retrospect, has fueled all of these reflections on God, life and everything in between.

This weekend, I was reading in Pope Benedict’s book, Jesus of Nazareth, about God’s great kenosis, or self-emptying. The Pope talks about how God has been pouring Himself out in super-abundance for us since the beginning, even before Jesus. Our God Who is Love has always made this move, this condescension; to get down to our level, to speak our language, to give us His hand as a Father coming down to caress his child’s face. All of this simply so that we could know and love Him, see Him for Who He is.

Pope Benedict said that each descent of God (into the Garden of Eden at the breezy time of the day, the Burning Bush before Moses, the mouths of the prophets, and especially and definitively in Jesus Himself) was a movement that left God…. vulnerable.

By giving us His Name, there was the risk of us misusing it. By becoming man there was the risk of men ignoring Him. By becoming our very food in the Eucharist, there was the risk that we would rather taste something else, some fruit that might even be poison for us. But in all of this, God took the risk anyway; He became little so that we might become big in the best sense of the word.

In the lonely hollow of our hearts, there is an infinite amount of space. It’s here where Love seeks to find a home. So each of us has this capacity, this dwelling place for love. Many of us have this space occupied and expanded by the love of friends, then a spouse, and finally in the blessing of children. Entering into each of these loves makes us vulnerable. We have to take a leap of faith and trust that love will be returned, or that we in turn will give real love, give of ourselves.

Four years ago, my wife and I took that leap into marriage. It’s elated and expanded our hearts, and I believe we are bigger and better for the love we’ve found in each other. But in these years, a cross has come and set itself up, looming right in the very center of our life together. It’s the cross of infertility.

Now if the cross means contradiction, than I can’t think of a more custom fit cross than this one. Rebecca has dreamed of motherhood since she was seven years old. I mourn the loss of little ones who will have her eyes, my height, her heart, my humor (?)… We long for children. When we were first married, we volunteered to live as house parents at a wonderful home for crisis pregnancies. My wife, me, and up to twelve pregnant ladies! It was a treasure to watch the little lives grow, and the women who might have chosen abortion found a safe haven where they could fall in love with their squirming little bundles of joy. But in the midst of this nearly two year mission, we discovered we were incapable of having a baby ourselves. To add to this irony, Rebecca was working during the day with pregnant women in a PPD program.

It seems, after surgeries, doctors, consultations and counselors, that having our own children would be nothing short of a miracle (and we’re still counting on Pope John Paul II for that one). Since we’ve moved on from Mother’s Home, we’ve continued seeing doctors and seeking answers on the quest to have a family. We’ve met with the adoption branch of Catholic Social Services, we’ve sought advice from our priest friends, Catholic bioethicists, physicians, etc. It’s been a real emotional roller coaster, and there’s so much more to share.

For now, I just wanted to open this door that I’ve been keeping neatly shut. This is my little kenosis. It’s not easy sharing this cross. It glares up at us from the over 19 cribs of friends who’ve just had babies, and from the 9 new sets of beautiful eyes of nieces and nephews just born in the last four years in our own families. But it’s time to open the wound. I’m not sure where this will go, but I will from time to time share more of our story.

In the words of a famous Catholic blogger and author, Amy Welborn, whose blog is called “Open Book,” a blog is just that, an open book for others to read and share thoughts on. I think it makes us more vulnerable, but that also makes it the front porch to communion.

A new tag on my blog site listed as “infertility” and “The Struggle” will be the quickest way to find more of our sharing on this. Everyone has their cross. I ask for your prayers that we get the grace to keep carrying ours, and we’ll pray for your daily walk as well. God is good and God is with us all. This I know!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org