Mystery Kristen Desmond
It is difficult to explain the emotions we felt in those first few hours holding Mystery. When she burst into our lives after a relatively short labour, she was smaller than our others weighing in at around 3.45 kgs and almost as soon as she arrived she released her voice into the atmosphere, her first declaration of life. As she made her presence heard the blue colour slowly faded from her skin and she turned pink. The midwife wrapped her up and placed her into Debbie’s arms, she opened her eyes briefly and we saw that she had the distinctive features of Down syndrome. Elated at her birth, but fighting back my fears and tears I carried her over to the doctor and said to him “Put me out of my misery and just tell me has she got Down syndrome?” The doctor examined her but was unable to give us a definite answer and advised us to wait for the pediatrician’s diagnosis. The next six hours were undoubtedly the longest of my life as we wavered between hoping against hope and fought against fear and despair. I felt joy, fear, love,shock, compassion, anger, pride, shame, confusion, crash over me in succeeding waves, until I just grew numb and felt unable to think or feel anything. We clutched at hope that what we feared would not be reality even as looking into her tiny face it seemed evident that we had started down a road that we never wanted to travel. In the hospital I mentally rehearsed the road that has brought us here, all the promises, prophesies, and expectations represented by the fragile bundle I held in my arms. Finally, sometime after seven in the morning, the pediatrician came in and with great gentleness, compassion and professionalism confirmed our fears that everything points to the fact that Mystery has Down syndrome. We are waiting for her DNA tests to return but our little girl has all the features of Down syndrome. However not all the news was grim, Mystery is healthy, apart from a small hole in her heart which doctors expect to close very soon she has no other physical problems. She immediately latched on when Debbie fed her and has shown herself to be an excellent drinker(like her parents 🙂 )and sleeper for which we were grateful as it meant that we could take her home later that morning.
Rejoicing as Mystery comes home!
A roar from my lion-hearted daughter!
The Devil doesn’t fight unless God is fighting
Hope will see us through. We will straighten our shoulders
and bare our swords and face it.
God is greater, God is stronger, God is FOREVER. The devil is weaker, he is lesser and he will be defeated!
Despite my family’s courage and the love and support of my fantastic parents I felt like I was drowning. Emotions, fear, despair threatened to completely overwhelm me. I felt like I wasn’t going to make it. As I put Jemima to bed that night I open her “Good night Bible-45 bedtime stories for little ones” Opening at random the book opened to the story ” Jesus stops the storm” part of it reads as follows.
“Then all of a sudden-boom, crash, BOOM!
What a storm!
The rain drummed-ratta-tat-tat!
The wind blew-ooo-ooo-ooo! Water splashed into the boat.
Jesus’ friends were afraid. They woke Jesus.
What if we sink what if we drown?
How can you sleep with the rain pouring down?
What did Jesus do?
Jesus said, Wind, stop! Waves, stop!
But would the wind and the waves obey him?
They Did!
The waves stopped flowing.
The wind stopped blowing.
Everyone was safe. Jesus’ friends asked, “Who is this who can stop a storm?”
Who is this?It’s Jesus!
Jesus keeps us safe so we don’t have to be afraid. Thank you Jesus!
With that simple story from a child’s bible I began to hear the voice of God speaking into my storm. In my next post I will write what God has been saying and speaking to Debbie and I bringing peace to us, joy and expectancy. It is an adventure. For those of you following this; thank you for all your love and messages, please forgive us if blogging seems to be an impersonal way to talk to you all. We love you and we will be back soon, we just need a little space to find our bearings. Check back soon for the next part.
