Axel's Story
Axel, my sweet fourth babe, turned one on Friday.
When I first found out I was pregnant with this little one, I had an overwhelming sense something would go very wrong during this pregnancy; a feeling foreign to this eternal optimist. Just a few weeks after that positive pregnancy test, as I was falling asleep for the night, I heard a voice in my half-asleep state spew out the words, “I’m going to steal this one away from you.” I startled awake and began to pray, fierce and protective over this new, little life.
Weeks later, we were throwing around name ideas while doing errands with the kids. Goofy suggestions began the conversation and then more serious ideas began to emerge. From the back of the van, Jude called out,
“What about Axel George?”
“Hmm, that’s got a nice ring. I wonder what it means?”
A quick google search produced the results, “My Father is peace.”
My breath caught and the incessant knot of fear in my gut, reminding me every day that something was going to go very wrong with this pregnancy, was silenced for a moment. Oh yes, that’s right, my Father IS peace.
This was the name our little one needed, the one I needed.
At 20 weeks, the anatomy ultrasound was followed by a phone call from my doctor. My stomach dropped as soon as I saw his number on my screen - I had never gotten a call back after the anatomy ultrasound.
“There’s a cyst in his brain…most likely won’t be a problem…but it could be a genetic marker for a serious chromosomal condition…let’s do some genetic testing just to be sure.”
“What condition?”
“We’ll talk about that if we get there. Let’s do the testing first. I don’t want to worry you.”
Cue the Google search.
Trisomy 18 was the condition he didn’t want me to worry about yet. A truly terrible diagnosis most likely leading to stillbirth or a brutally painful, short life for our little one.
I wept as I sat in the rocking chair in our nursery with my phone open to all the worst-case scenarios. This is it. This is the horrible thing I just knew was going to happen. The risk was low, sure, but somewhere a family is going to get this diagnosis. Why not our family?
We had just lived through 7 years of hopeful and hope-crushing diagnoses as both my mom and dad walked with cancer. I knew first-hand that it wasn’t always someone else that got the bad news.
Sometimes it was us. So, why couldn’t it be us now?
It was in the throes of this anticipated grief I felt God ask, with His hand reaching out toward me, “Will you trust me? Come, walk it out with me.” And like a song I couldn’t get out of my head, the refrain ‘my Father is peace’, was on repeat.
It took three weeks to complete the testing and get results from my doctor. And in those weeks, every moment I felt fear wash over me like a rogue wave, every time I felt my breath catch in a moment of panic, every time my stomach dropped as I imagined certain pain for our child, my Father reached out His hand in invitation, “Come, walk with me, sit with me.” And I remembered over and over, ‘my Father is peace’. When I am in His presence, I am in the presence of peace.
The results came back negative, but by then I knew the source of my peace was not in test results, it just couldn’t be. My peace came from the One who not only gives peace freely but is peace in His very being - God Himself.
The weeks leading up to Axel’s delivery were filled with blood pressure checks and eventually an early induction as my high blood pressure started to make my organs mad, jeopardizing the health of little Axel and myself. My delivery was complicated by a sudden fever, spiking Axel’s heart rate far too high, far too many times over. For being a fourth baby, this delivery was not the known road I was expecting.
At each turn, I had the image of God the Father, one step ahead of me, turning his head to look back at me as He extended His hand once more, “stay with me?” So, we made each decision in front of us with a heart of surrender, choosing to let go of our expectations, whether good or bad and lean into the presence of our Father, the One who is peace.
As you look around you and feel what you feel inside you, you may be tempted to say, “When this all settles down…if we could just figure this out…when we find out the results…I’ll finally have peace.”
My friend, if our peace is tied to a circumstance, it is shallow peace broken apart too easily by the next hard thing. Peace tied to circumstance will fail you and fall away every time.
God, our good Father, extends HImself to you too. Right now, in fact, He is inviting you, “Walk with me? Stay with me?”. And in His presence, we can find peace because He alone is perfect peace.
