Celebrating God's Faithfulness

Diagnosis day. D-day as some of my fellow spina bifida moms call it. On July 17, 2019, Matt and I were at a routine OB appointment (that he initially wasn't going to be able to attend) to have a quick check-up and ultrasound to look at our sweet baby. It was honestly like a date for us because, with small children, any time you get alone together is a date.

We had our ultrasound and met with my OB. He’s a wonderful man who delivered all of our other babies. He loves the Lord and is incredibly kind and thoughtful. He told us that the ultrasound technician had seen some excess fluid on our baby's brain. He wasn't overly concerned as it was possibly just an earlier c-section scar casting a shadow. He asked us to head upstairs to the specialist to have a better look using their ultrasound machine which shows more detail.

Upstairs we went, and I told Matt that I wasn’t concerned at all. The specialist came in and did a very quick ultrasound. This is my fifth baby, so I’ve gotten pretty good at looking at ultrasounds and I couldn’t see a thing. She turned the machine off and said, "Dr. G. was right to send you up here and to be concerned. There is extra fluid on the brain, but that’s not the real issue. Your baby has a neural tube defect."

My mind stopped processing at that moment. I was trying to keep up as she very patiently and thoroughly explained what that meant. My limited knowledge from college courses was telling me: spina bifida. All I could see were the pictures from textbooks I had studied. You’d have to ask Matt what my initial reaction was like because I don’t remember much except her telling us she was going to leave the room and give us a minute. I remember looking into Matt’s eyes and both of us starting to cry. She came into the room a little while later and asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby. Initially, we had wanted to be surprised with this one, but Matt quickly said "yes" because he just couldn’t take any more surprises at this point. We were having a boy!

It was a whirlwind after that. We drove home and attempted to process what little information we had at that point. And we mourned. We mourned for the ideas we had about what this pregnancy would look like. We mourned for the ideas we had about what this baby’s life would be like. We mourned for the hardships our son would likely have to face. We mourned together. And we were not alone. God was so near to me at that time, holding me close and reminding me of the truths of His Word that I knew so well: "I am good. I love you. I love your son more than you do. I have a plan. I won’t leave you."

There are many, many ways in which the Lord provided for us from D-Day until Waylon’s birth. I can share more about that another day, but today I want you to join us in thanking the Lord for keeping His promises to us, as He always does. He IS good. He DOES love us. He DOES love Waylon even more than we do. He DOES have a plan. And He did NOT leave us. I cried tears of joy when his PT told me recently that it won’t be long until he starts crawling. This boy. A diagnosis isn’t everything. The doctors don’t have the last word.

Did you know that around 64 percent of pregnancies with a spina bifida diagnosis end in abortion? To think that we could have missed this. Just look at our sweet, happy, miracle baby. What a blessing and a joy to be his parents. Jesus, you are so good to us.

by Sarah Delp