katie shaw ficker

I have a wonderful husband. I have three gorgeous little children. I love Jesus Christ with my whole heart, and I seek to follow the voice of our loving God daily. Two years ago, this same loving God made it evident that my husband and I were to start and lead a school system including a STEM school, Language school, and a university level nursing program where we live here in the rural highlands of Guatemala. God’s hand of provision has been over this in amazing ways since its beginning days, and it has been one of the greatest adventures my husband and I have been able to join in on. But to say that these past couple years have been overwhelming would be a massive understatement.

When we found out we were expecting a fourth baby, I entered into the pregnancy with another set of overwhelmed mixed emotions. I love my children. I strongly believe that children are a blessing from God, and motherhood has been one of the best gifts God has given me. I believe that they are the greatest legacies we will leave behind… and yet, how in the world do I add another legacy and blessing to a plate that is already overflowing with responsibilities I am doing poorly at best?

When we found out a few weeks later that we were having twins, overwhelmed took on a whole new level. One sac didn’t seem to be forming as well as the other, but the little life inside had a strong little heart beat. So, we laid ourselves before the loving Creator of all, and prayed His grace and healing over the life of our little baby. It was with heavy hearts and tear-stained faces that a short week and a half later we said good-bye to this little life here on earth. A week after that, the pain and bleeding started.

Being a nurse, there was a medical side of my brain that was already preparing my heart to not get too attached. While we followed our doctor’s orders to do anything to help this little healthy life along, I know that there are very few things you can do to prevent first and early second trimester miscarriages if they are going to happen. And the bleeding and pain continued, coming every few days/each week in random spurts. I started to lose heart, waiting for the contractions to start consistently and this life to pass on to its heavenly Father’s waiting arms with its precious sibling. But this little baby has held on too.

One evening at a little over 15 weeks, I had a strong right-sided pain and contraction that didn’t let up. With it came the bleeding… which also didn’t let up. As we watched this blood pour out and everywhere for the next few hours, we were all imminently aware of the fact that the nearest hospital in good weather conditions is a 2.5 hour drive to a poorly equipped government facility or at least a 5 hour drive/25 minute flight to a private hospital in Guatemala City. And yet here we were: in a small valley whose tall mountains make flying a challenge in good conditions, in the middle of the night, in the height of this country’s rainy season with rains pouring down around us, a muddy runway, and roads that were currently impassable due to the heavy rains. And so we prayed. And called our doctor. And prayed.

And the rains let up. And mountaintops floated in and out of visibility. And Guatemala City (one of only two lit runways in the entire country – and therefore the only option for a landing once we left our little remote dirt airstrip in the middle of the night) said that they thought the cloud layer was high enough that we could fly down through it and land. And so we took off. On normal flights, I am not the calmest of people, but on a flight that should have been one of the scariest of my life, the presence of God filled every space, and a peace that passes all understanding carried that small plane high over the mountaintops, through the clouds and down into heavily lit Guatemala City where we were able to land in full visibility.

We made it to the hospital, where they were able to stop the bleeding and admitted me for monitoring. The baby looks great, and the doctor was able to determine that it looks like my body is naturally trying to pass the baby that passed away… at risk to the baby that is fighting to stay inside and alive. After a few days, we left the hospital with orders and medication to help keep my body from trying to abort this baby. And lots of prayer. This was two weeks ago. And we are now playing a waiting game, doing what we can, and more than anything praying that God’s hand will remain over this baby and that His will be done in this situation… whatever that is.

I say none of this to be overly dramatic. There are people in much harder situations than this. And I have been very blessed to have an amazing, supportive network of family and friends that have poured into us in a variety of ways at this time. But, I say this simply to say that I know…

I know what it is to feel like a pregnancy came at a very poor timing. I know what it is to pray and cry out to God for the life of my unborn child in one breath… and in the next breath, my strong-willed and yet oh-so-weak, tired, and scared flesh cries out for this to all be over. I know what it is to realize that this would be so much easier if it all just went away… which in our blessed United States, it so easily could… legally, whole-heartedly, and cheaply. I know what it is to be petrified as blood pours out and the most intense physical pain pours down… a type of pain not even felt during three medicated-free natural births… and I know something is not right. I know what it is to look at my husband and other three children and see the confusion in their eyes, see the tears pour down their faces… to realize that they are sacrificing too… that this is hard on them too. And to have my heart ripped out by that fact.  I know what it is to lie awake at night wondering how we will feed another mouth… and now wonder how we will pay for hospital stays and trips in and out of the City with a God-sent, yet quite expensive doctor. I know what it is to wonder if we are fighting and sacrificing and using valuable resources for a life that might not make it anyway… for a life that technically isn’t viable outside of the womb anywhere in the world right now.  I know what it is to feel selfish and guilty that God has provided resources for me to be able to fight for this baby while I am surrounded by people who never would have even made it in to a hospital on a dark stormy September night.

After a life-changing summer in Africa, I changed my college major to nursing, praying that God would use this tool as a way to help end suffering and pain and reach people with His love. Ironically, as a senior university student studying my bachelor’s of science of nursing, I wrote an ethical paper on situations exactly like this. I had no idea what it was to sit in one of these situations myself, but I had experienced the reality of it on the maternity floor I had worked on the summer before and had my heart torn in two as I heard, read and watched the stories of those who had walked through it… the fear as prognoses and statistics are rattled off by specialists, the pain and confusion of the life and death decisions to be made, the form of a too-tiny baby determined to have a deformity that would only cause suffering on earth now lying lifeless on a sterile hospital counter in front of my very eyes…  the tear-stained faces after the agony of a decision to end a life prematurely. And I could not imagine that God Himself would not have stood in the middle of the fear, the agony, the difficult decisions and the obstacles, and in His love not have desired to end that suffering and agony as quickly and easily as possible… especially if the little life might not make it anyway. And once I believed that, it was easy to rationalize this act with other arguments… viability of the baby, value of the mom’s life vs. the baby’s life, fetal deformities, financial deficits to care for the baby/medical bills, etc.

But I have sat in these situations personally now. And I have come to learn that there is a Truth much deeper and stronger than the fear, the agony, and the pain that grips us. That there is a voice – although you have to listen carefully – calling out to us in the midst of all the other voices. That there is a Love and a Hope and a Promise that always gets us through the circumstances… that always wins – even when the answer is a dimly lit, one-small-step-at-a-time kind of a journey in which we don’t know what the end will hold... but we come to intimately know the One who does.

You see, while I now know what it feels like to sit in the fears and emotions of these situations, I also now know some other things as well…

I now know  that God allows times of emotional pain so real that you can physically feel it so that He can pour down His love upon us and draw us in and hold us in His strong yet gentle embrace; so that He can reveal to us a new part of His very self; so that we can stand back in awe once again at His Majesty and Beauty… and yet marvel again at His intimacy.  I now know that just when we think we can’t do this one more day, He pours His healing words of Truth  and Hope over our souls if we seek out His face and His Word. I now know that when it is a dark and stormy night, He opens up holes in clouds and makes the rain stop… that just when we wonder how we will pay for that bill, He sends checks for exact amounts and reminds us that He cares about even the little moments… that when we walk through the waters, our God will be with us… that when we pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over us… that when we walk through the fires, we will not be burned (Isaiah 43).  I now know  that little baby’s feet that never touched this earth here are still dancing before the throne of heaven right now… that even when we face situations where we look death in the eye ourselves, our hope does not ultimately lie in what this earth offers.. that not even death itself can separate us from the love of our Jesus (Romans 8:38-39). I now know  that our God loves life and honors our choices to choose life as well;  I now know that even if He chooses to take this baby (or any one of us) home early, that will be HIS choice, and not mine. And I now know that when we are flat on our faces, too weak to even stand before Him, that when the fear, the agony, the pain, and the obstacles grip us… that in that exact moment, if we will raise our trembling hands in praise, and if we will lift our tear-stained faces in faith, He will meet us right where we are at… that a peace that passes all understanding will carry us… and a love that knows absolutely no walls too high, no boundaries, and no end will flood our hearts.

I do not know how our situation is going to end. It might still end in another death on this side of Heaven…. But I now know that even if it does, death, hurt, pain, agony, confusion… none of these can separate us from the love of Jesus. That it will always reach us right where we are at. That His love has taken care of and will continue to take care of all the details… and that His love even reaches to and beyond and covers and carries even those that I love so dearly… those that I so desperately do not want to see in pain either. I now know that His love will win.

 His Love always wins.