Daughters of Promise September/October 2014 | Page 9

MY LABOR BEGAN LATE IN THE EVENING of the first day of spring.

Nine long months of pregnancy, many of them bed-ridden with acute
morning sickness, had finally turned into the countdown we’d been waiting
for. I was one week overdue. My husband was so excited to be a daddy; I
was so excited to meet the cherished little person who had been forming
inside my body for nearly a year, and our families were excitedly waiting
by their phones for the announcement. After being awake all night with
contractions, the sun finally rose on Friday, March 21. We put the finishing
touches on our hospital bags, took a long walk, and headed for our midwife’s
office.
The contractions were five minutes apart when we found out our baby no
longer had a heartbeat.
I gave birth one day and the next I watched my husband shovel dirt onto a
tiny grave. I went from the heights of expecting a perfectly healthy baby to
the depths of shock, grief, and the unimaginable pain of never seeing my
firstborn son take a breath.
I cannot describe the sorrow but I can describe the faithfulness of God in
the midst of it. From the moment the ultrasound confirmed the silent heart
and the doctor’s words of “your baby’s not alive”, a grace and peace were
poured into my husband and me that is unexplainable apart from Jesus
Christ. We would need this supernatural strength in the days and weeks and
months to come. The scriptures I had meditated on, read aloud over my baby
in my womb, and taped up in various places around my home to prepare
for labor and delivery became alive and precious like never before. God
had done so much in preparing my heart, removing my fears for childbirth,
and strengthening me with His promises. Although the outcome turned out
to be completely different than I ever dreamed, His Word never lied and His
promises never failed.
by Ervina Yoder
Photography by Kristi Smucker

-9-