December 27th is a day I will remember forever. Going to the cardiologist to follow up with what looked like “calcification” on our baby’s heart. Looking back, I remember how quiet the tech was as he was doing the echo & how casual my husband and I were about the appointment. No one expects bad news, and we definitely did not. We expected this to be an appointment where the doctors rule out anything bad. We didn’t even make arrangements for someone to watch our daughter. Not even 2 years old, I remember how she sat quietly on my husband’s lap as the tech scanned my belly for probably 30 minutes. She also sat quietly on my lap when we got the news from the doctor. Holding my completely healthy baby girl, I was told that our new sweet baby had Hypoplastic Left Heart, and that the left side of the heart would likely not develop. She calmly sat on my lap as we asked the doctor a lot of questions, and then as we cried together.

The rest of my pregnancy was full of questions for God, a lot of fear and anxiety. Majority of people I came across during my days didn’t know anything about the news I had just received. That’s the thing about a pregnant women… you see her belly and it’s obvious she is pregnant, but there’s so much more to her story that we don’t know. Was this a wanted pregnancy? Is she doing this alone? Or in my situation, are there health complications?

During this challenging season of being pregnant, many people would ask me the gender of our baby. We didn’t know the gender of either one of our kids, which I loved. When I would reply that “I don’t know,” the response of many people proved to be the same: “well, as long as they’re healthy.” My heart would break every time. What seemed like such a normal phrase stung so badly. This person I was talking to didn’t know that my baby wasn’t completely healthy. My baby would need surgery within the first week in order to live.

I don’t mean to make anyone feel badly for saying this phrase, I think it is just something that comes out naturally. But what does this “phrase” really mean? It isn’t a complete sentence. “As long as they’re healthy, life will be easy?” “As long as they’re healthy you will be happy?” “As long as they’re healthy you will keep the baby?”

I can say with confidence that because my baby wasn’t born with a “whole heart,” Jesus has been able to show HIS heart. Jesus has a heart for the people who are hurting, He has a heart for the children who suffer, He has a heart for injustice, He has a heart for people.