Ashley's
anencephalic Story

That afternoon we drove home.  We still don’t know what to do?  We decided to do some searching for information on the Internet.  We found lots of information telling us what the conditions of anencephalic babies are and some of the research behind it.  We were trying to find out if there were causes, and other information about it.  Pam was very scared that there was a cause to it and that she had done something wrong.  In all of our research though we couldn’t find a cause.  It was linked to not enough folic acid, but even this was not very conclusive.  At this point in science it seemed to be just a condition that happened.  I believe even to this day though, Pam still blames herself somewhat.  Even with the information that we found, she still has a hard time with it.  We decided to look at it like this.  God is in control, and he knows the end from the beginning.  We don’t.  That is why we have to trust God in his wisdom.  We also figured that there are babies that are born perfectly healthy even though the mother is drunk, hasn’t taken care of herself or smoked.  Was this something that God allowed in our life?

What was most helpful in our search on the internet, were the stories that other people had gone through.  We couldn’t believe it.  We cried and cried over the stories of those who had gone through our situation.  Stories of babies lost and what couples went through when they had a baby like ours were very helpful to us.  There were stories of doctors’ that said that mother’s needed to have an abortion and mother’s refusing to give up their babies.  There were lots of stories where mothers’ were very glad that they had delivered their baby instead of aborting it. There were stories of mothers’ who cradled their babies, read to them, and loved them as long as they were able. There were just a few stories of mothers’ and father’s telling us about how they aborted their baby.  In fact, I think there may have only been one or two of those stories and they were not really stories, they were more that they missed their child.  We cried so much that afternoon.  It was so heartbreaking to feel the agony of mothers without their children. Won’t heaven be wonderful?

One of the main reasons that I am writing out this story is so others can read this story and learn from it.  Lessons that will teach you about how God will take care of you even in the trying times.  Lessons that will teach you about how to treat others who are in this situation.  And most importantly to be able to put yourself in those circumstances and feel the emotions that we felt.
We finally got through that day.  We still didn’t know what we were going to do though.  This decision was like a great burden on our shoulders and we couldn’t get out from under it.  It was like it was too much to handle and we didn’t know what to do.  We had been praying that God would show us what to do.  But we had not come to any conclusion.

Pam decided to call a friend of ours that had just lost a child a little while before to a sudden illness.  Pam began talking to her and asked her what things went through her mind with their child.  They talked for quite some time.  Karen told Pam that God valued every life and that she thought that we needed to do everything that we could possible do to help that life.  God gave us that life for a purpose.  Karen helped Pam understand her basic view of life and how she had dealt with her son’s death.

I just could not handle it anymore and went to find a quiet place to think and to meditate about the decision.  I ended up outside on the far side of the storage shed that we have on the back of our property.  There was no one there and I just sat and picked at the grass for a while.  I laid back on the grass and stared up at the sky watching the clouds go by, wishing life could be that simple.  I sat for quite some time, before Pam came out.  We prayed and talked about it and both of us felt deep down that the right thing to do was to carry our baby until she was born.  We decided that this was what the Lord wanted us to do.
Immediately a peace came over me.  I have tried hard to explain it to others, but it was something that I just can’t explain. It was like our burden was lifted and our worries were taken away.  Maybe it was just the relief of making a decision, but I think it was God letting me know that we had made the correct decision for us and that he was going to be with us through this.

Satan tried to discouraged us at times.  We were certainly not looking forward to the hard delivery of birth.  We knew that it would be a trying time.  But once we had made the decision to delivery our baby, things kind of got back to normal, at least until Ashley was ready to be born.