Deliverance 11/7/09

The night before we left for Boston.

Right before surgery.

                                                             The day before Delivery.

So many people have emailed me sharing their dissappointment and heartbreak over Judah's death...they prayed, along with us, for God's healing and intervention for our son. Hundreds of people believed that God was going to gloryify Himself through Judah's life, and all the promises, visions, and specific words during prayer seemed to reinforce this resolve. We know that God could've easily saved him, but He didn't. I remember the moments as we watched his heart slowly stop beating, we cried out to God that He "HAD" to save him...that He promised us He would...and that we knew that He could...it would be nothing for Him in His power to do so. As we continued to watch in disbelief there was something in me that thought, "God, what about all those people that are believing for a miracle...don't You want to show Yourself?! There was just mind-numbing silence and a painful feeling deep within me that He was Glorifying Himself, just not how we had expected.

Delivery Day.
I've decided to share this painful part of our journey because it's still an important part of Judah's life and our God story.

Obe bought two lions for the girls to represent Judah

It's amazing how fast life moves us at times from one thing to the next. There's little preparation when you are living life moment to moment, in faith, especially when the unexpected happens. With that said, I honestly never prepared myself for an early Delivery. I don't think we left ourselves any reserve after Boston. We were utterly depleted both physically and emotionally. In a daze we decided to give ourselves one day at home to "recover" for induction.
Saturday morning I woke up feeling totally drained, defeated and violated. By this time it had been 3 days since Judah's death. The stitches from my belly were starting to ooze and stretch and my body felt like it had been hit by a truck. literally. The purpose that had been driving me was gone and for the first time, maybe in my life, I felt like I couldn't physically face my day.

We got to the hospital at 8 am and they tried to prep us for what to expect: First they would start me off with an aggressive pill that would soften my cervix and cause contractions (since my cervix was totally closed), every 4 hours I would receive one of these pills and with each dose labor would get more intense. They told me it would take anywhere from 12 hours to 3 days for delivery. My heart sank. I just wanted them to put me to sleep and wake me up when it was all over.

Then the words came.

"...who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."    ~Hebrews 12:2

At first I pushed this away, thinking, "what JOY is there in this situation?"...as I pondered that statement I realized that Jesus died for Judah, He died for me, He died for the world and He died for all the pain of this world. For the first time in my life I felt like I was able to understand the sufferings of the cross. I knew that I didn't "deserve" this pain, this suffering, that even though I thought I had nothing left to give I saw that Jesus must've felt the same way, but He depended totally on the Father. 'He is not a God that can not identify with our weakness', His death was the most unjust...He was shamed, violated, abandoned and beaten beyond our human grasp or comprehension. In those moments everything changed. I asked God for Christ's strength to finish well, to give my son the delivery that I gave my daughters, to labor in joy and with honor. I realized that it's easy to "pick up your cross" and follow Jesus when there's still hope but to do so when you know you are laboring for death ... maybe this is what Jesus was talking about.

After I had this change of heart God's provision came quickly. Two of my dear, sweet friends came to visit me while Obe was busy running errands in preparation for delivery. They brightened my day as they listened, laughed and cried with me, they walked the halls with me and helped the time pass by.

At around 6:30 my midwife broke my water and after that everything moved quickly. I was so proud of Obe, he remained so focused and strong for me, comforting and encouraging me through labor. I played all the same music from intervention day, it was beautiful and really helped remind me what this day was all about. Labor was every bit as intense and painful as with Ezra and my first pregnancy (with Mia i had an epidural and never felt a thing), with each painful contraction I literally felt purpose and replenishment...I wasn't trying to be a hero but I needed to feel the pain to bring completeness to his death. After an hour and a half I could tell I was close but was starting to feel sick to my stomach and was afraid I would start throwing up so I asked for an ITN (spinal block), within minutes it was ready and the shot helped me get through the last two contractions and then it was time -- with one push he was out. I will never forget that moment. I felt all the emotional anguish leave me as he was expelled from my body. I was able to cry from a place so deep that it literally washed away all my "why" questions . I knew that God had everything in His hands and that I could choose to rest in that.

Judah Aslan Schroeder was delivered at 8:57 pm, weighing 2 lbs, 11oz and was 13.8 inches long. Our midwife (the same one who delivered Ezzie) was so kind and wonderful to us. It was not his day to be at the hospital but he came and waited all day just for us. We asked for time alone with Judah. That time felt so holy. We cried, prayed and marvelled at every perfect little detail of his body. He had my feet and toes and big muscular legs and Obe's forehead with the "Jorandby" nose. After awhile the rest of our familys' came up to see him. It meant a lot to us to have them come and validate his place in the family.
Judah stayed in the room with us that night, I'm so glad we had that time together, especially for Obe, he moreso than me needed to touch, talk to, and hold him since he was physically removed throughout the pregnancy. I'm so thankful that he did. Judah never got to know how incredibly lucky he was to have such an amazing earthly father.

As I reread the verse, from Hebrews 12,  I realized that the verse right before that one talks about the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, as we, His Body run the race with endurance...
This is what God was asking of us from the beginning: to run the race with faith all the way, receiving the encouragement from the "great cloud of witnesses" (our amazing brothers and sisters who were cheering us on) and to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Judah has taught me to keep my eyes fixed on my King, the Author and Perfector of my Faith. He's also taught me to find joy and draw love from a source that can't be obtained on this earth and when the going gets tough: Run the race and finish well; peace, provision and healing will come in the midst of it.

Judah's earthly body has been sent to Boston for further research and understanding on his rare heart defect. Afterwards, his heart will go into a Heart museum there. Again, we are happy to honor his life this way and help other babies with critical heart defects a chance at life.

"Judah" lion cubs.
 The lions have helped with talking to our girls about Judah's death. Mia asks tons of questions about him and has come up with several wonderful ways to keep our memories alive. I've been both surprised and delighted at her understanding and sensitivity. She especially likes the idea of Judah dancing in heaven with Jesus and keeping it "crazy" for Him up there, her words, not mine. :) Ezra used to love to kiss my belly and now when she goes to kiss my belly she says, "Judah's bye bye?" and then I tell her she can kiss her lion instead and she totally does!

Memorial/Worship service this Saturday, November 14th @2 pm at Vineyard Community Church.

All are welcome.

255 Najoles Dr

Millersville, Md 21108

http://sweetheartmaddox.blogspot.com/. 

This blog is about the 9th baby to receive the same intervention Judah did. He is one of the two babies that have survived. His name is "miracle" Maddox and at 3 weeks old he's still fighting for his life; he's truly a miracle. You can follow their story and pray for him and his family

Praise the King!

On behalf of our family we want to thank everyone again for giving so much of yourselves in standing with us for our son. We are overwhelmed with the love that has been poured out on us and of course are forever grateful for your prayers and support for our sweet, precious, perfect, baby Judah.


Although, we are suffering for the life we wanted to share with him, we have such peace and confidence in knowing where he is and that he is no longer struggling, there is no more pain... he is truly made new and perfect and whole. Thank you Jesus.

I'm so thankful that we can say with full assurance that we fought the good fight and have finished the course and have kept the faith...we gave Judah everything we had to give and we would've gladly given him more but God in His mercy and sovereignty knows all things and is above all things and we continue to Hope in Him and look forward to the day when we meet Judah Aslan in Glory.
His life has profoundly impacted ours and we will always "Praise our King" for entrusting us with such a uniquely precious gift. He will remain in our hearts forever.

"For you formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, 
and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me,
when as yet there was not one of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would out number the sand, when I awake, I am still with You."
                                                                                                   ~psalm 139

Praise the Lord! Praise our Maker! Sing songs of Praise and thanksgiving to our King for He is dealt kindly with us and nothing is ever really lost when we commit our lives to Jesus.
We are so grateful that we were with Judah as his heart rate lowered and that we were able to tell him that we loved him as he was slipping away from us, he knew we pleaded for his life and that we fought for him with all our strength, and in the end we committed him into the Everlasting arms of his Creator.

Thank you again, our dear wonderful friends!
We also want to thank the incredible people at Boston's Children's Hospital for the care and ongoing work they are doing in Fetal interventions; offering hope and life to families with congenital heart defects. We absolutely believe in the extraordinary, life-saving work they are performing. They have asked us to offer Judah's body for continued research in this area, as they do not know what exactly caused his death.
We are honored to do so and hope that his life would not be in vain but that in some ways the world would be a better place because of him and that his story would continue to heal many more hearts...

*my girls and I have played this song probably a hundred times and each time it would come on they would stop whatever they were doing and squeal with shouts of joy and excitement, "It's Judah's SONG!!!"  and would lift their hands up to heaven and dance before God as they proclaimed Judah's wholeness. This song/painting is very special to us:

Intervention Day

Today is the day that the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Judah and I will be in surgery from 11:30-1:30 (approx. 2 hours).
We are standing up against insurmountable odds, since he is the 10th baby to receive this intervention (with 2 survivors leading the way) and with quite possibly the most severe heart defect (at this stage in pregnancy) that they have operated on in-utero. Lucky for us, we serve a God that does not shrink back in opposition but goes forward victoriously and specializes in the "impossible" and extraordinary. We feel like the luckiest most blessed parents in the world (as bizarre as that may sound right now) to be receiving this intervention and be where we are right now: in the love, care and grace of the Best hands in the world (literally and figuratively).

There's a song I've been listening to in preparation for our fetal intervention today. It's by Watermark called "Mended":

You repair all that we have torn apart and
You unveil a new beginning in our hearts and
We stand grateful for all that has been left behind and
All that goes before us


Chorus:
You've got all things suspended
All things connected
Nothing was forgotten
'Cause your love is perfect
You are our healer
And you know what's broken
And we're not a mystery to you
(to you, oh Lord, to you)


We will dance 'cause you restore the wasted years and
You will sing over all our coming fears and
We'll stand grateful for all that has been left behind and all that goes before us


-Chorus-
Bridge:


Lord, you mend the breech
And you break every fetter
You give us your best, but what we thought was better
And you are to be praised


You are to be praised (4x)


-Chorus-
(to you, oh Lord, mender of the broken)

Through this entire journey it's been the songs and praises of the Lord that have been my weapons of warfare and brought me to quiet still waters, refreshing my soul. God has put a new song in my heart and it's a song of thanksgiving and praise. My faith has been fortified through worship and praise and I love my King and will indeed praise Him all the days of my life. To God be the glory forever and ever!

Dear Judah, my sweet precious baby Your deliverer is coming...we love you so much! Continue to be the strong, feisty little lion that we know you are but also please cooperate with the doctors today they know what's best for you. :)
Jesus, continue to hold our baby close and protect him, strengthen him, let their be no pain, we commit him to you, now and always.