Who Would He Have Been?

My fourth child was due in November of 1994, and I had the usual morning sickness. Then one Sunday at church a friend asked me how I felt. I told her the morning sickness had stopped and I felt great. The next day I went to the doctor for my 16-week checkup. When the nurse did the ultrasound, she couldn’t find a heartbeat. She brought in my doctor and he, too, found no heartbeat.

My doctor sent me next door to the hospital for a more thorough intravaginal ultrasound. No heartbeat. I was sent home to wait for a few days and see if I miscarried on my own.

The days passed, but I never went into labor on my own. My doctor scheduled an induction, and I went to the hospital. The nurse came in to give me the medications to start labor. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that my child was dead. I pleaded with her to perform one more ultrasound… just to make sure that the baby was not alive before the procedure started. She kindly understood and immediately brought in the equipment.

I had already given birth to three other children, but I’d never seen a baby as young as sixteen weeks. In a few hours, I gave birth to an ashen-gray baby boy. I was shocked to see that he was larger than I expected – fully formed, just not as chubby as my other babies. An autopsy was done, and no cause could be found. Later, with my subsequent pregnancy, my hormone levels were tested, and results showed I had low progesterone. The doctor prescribed progesterone with my next baby and she was born healthy. She recently graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Georgia and completed her Masters.

After this miscarriage, I was kept overnight in the hospital for monitoring and recovery. I was put into a private room and left largely undisturbed. I had time to pray, read, and reflect on my child… my son, Samuel, who I would never nurse, never sing to, nor see reach adulthood.

If Samuel had made it, he now would be 27 years old. I often wonder what he would look like, what his interests would be. Would he be smart like his siblings? Would he be funny? Would he be a spiritual giant? Would he be quirky and random? Would he be really tall like two of his brothers? Would he be a musician like the siblings on either side of him? What impact for good could he have made on the world?

There is one thing I know… the answer I received in those hours I spent alone in the hospital… is that Samuel was too good for this world. For whatever reason, he did not need the experience of mortality that I or his father or his siblings did.

I don’t know how things work, but I know Samuel was and is a real, distinct human being. And I know that he is in heaven with a loving Father and that one day I will be reunited with him and get to know him.

Nobody can tell me that my son was not my son. He wasn’t a growth, a tumor, an appendage to my own body. He was my child and is my child forever.