Growing up with Grady: 2013

*Our church regularly does a series called "My Most Important Question." This year I was asked to speak and so talked about our experience with Grady's surgery. This talk was a few days before Grady's second surgery in July.*

Pregnant women have a lot of questions. Especially first-time moms. And while I talked a big game about not wanting to be high-maintenance and overthink things too much with our baby, I probably did exactly the opposite. What schedule were we going to follow? What would labor feel like? How little would we REALLY sleep when the baby arrived?

But when I was pregnant, there was one question that nagged at me – “Was it my fault?”

I didn’t smoke, I didn’t have a family history. I didn’t eat sushi or soft cheeses. But from the moment we learned about Grady’s cleft lip, I carried the guilt on my shoulders, wondering what I could have done differently. There were many things I thought I knew could go wrong with a pregnancy. But this wasn’t one of the ones I was concerned about - until the day of our big ultrasound. Starting in the sonogram room, I began a thorough search to learn what I could about parenting a kid with a cleft.

Thankfully, in the searching - pictures of redemption began to show up in reading stories of other families who had experienced the same thing. The story that really changed my thinking was an article I found in the New York Times about another family in Brookline whose son was going in for surgery with the same doctor we’d be working with.

“I think the most shocking thing to both of us is how bittersweet it feels to have Elan’s lip fixed. To us, his face doesn’t need any fixing. His smile is so sweet and part of what makes it so cute is its imperfection. His cleft feels like a part of who he is, and yet if Dr. Mulliken does his job right, Elan will grow up and never feel like his cleft defines him, and that’s the way it should be. But for now we feel sad to be saying goodbye to this wide smile that we have loved so much these last six months.”

Now I tear up every time I read that, because today I feel the exact. same. way. We are going to miss his wide smile like crazy. And many others that know Grady have said similar things to us in recent weeks. But reading that as a pregnant mom struggling with the news that her baby was “imperfect” was like a lightning bolt that I really needed to hear. “His face didn’t need any fixing.” At that moment, I began to imagine our baby in a new way, becoming more and more excited to meet him, and trusting that we would fall in love with his face, no matter how crazy it looked. My husband Brett was a huge encouragement in this process, quickly coming to peace with the situation and helping me along that journey. Thankfully, God calmed our hearts and gave us the strength we needed to just move forward in faith, knowing he would plan to take care of us and Grady. He equipped us to take it in stride. And in a way, we started to feel almost grateful. First, that God would trust us with this little one - he might need more work than other kids, but God felt like we could handle the challenge. Cool. Second, we had the gift of learning VERY early on that some things will just be out of our control as parents. We can’t protect this little guy completely from the world. I think having that experience before his birth prepared us for a slightly more relaxed approach to parenting than we would have otherwise. Of course, I still have to check that he’s breathing before I go to sleep every night, so you may want to verify that point with Brett.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we aren’t perfect. We secretly hoped his cleft would magically go away. And we even talked about thinking that maybe our baby would be the one the doctors got wrong – that he would be healed before he was born. A miracle.

But as it turned out, he WAS a miracle. And utterly perfect to us.

Our close friends will know that Brett and I both have some big hopes and dreams when it comes to our careers and what our future will look like. We are constantly looking/hoping/dreaming about what the next thing will be….sometimes at the expense of fully living our lives here. That process could be another “my most important question” talk! Part of that dreaming is considering looking elsewhere for work, and had the right opportunity presented itself (which it nearly seemed to a number of times) – we could have moved out of the area. But then we wouldn’t have had an incredible surgeon for Grady as our doctor at a hospital we can quite literally walk to for our appointments. Dr. Mulliken actually has a medical “method” for repairing clefts named after him. And we wouldn’t have had the gift of living in Boston when my parents decided to come to the city for the year for an academic program from Ohio. And we wouldn’t have had the support of our close friends and the Reunion community to surround us with love and prayer through the entire process. So, while we are still excited about what the next chapter holds for us, and yes, do get antsy at times…God is making it clear to us that he has a plan that is way more well-thought-out than any we could have made for ourselves.

And when I face other challenges, other questions...I want to remember this experience and truly hope that it does nothing but increase my trust in God. “Remember when something happened that you thought was 'ruined?' And I made it more perfect than you ever could have asked or imagined?”

Yep.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

[Psalm 139: 13-16]

When Grady was born, I learned the real answer to my question. “Was it my fault?” “It doesn’t matter.”

Grady’s lip is one part of who is, but I would never wish it away. It has made some things harder, yes. It has made me wonder what people think whey then look at my baby and then turn around for a second look. It has made me feel like I need to make excuses or explain. But I don’t. To us, he is perfect as he is, and God most certainly did not make a mistake. Maybe I did without even knowing, but thankfully we serve a gracious God who “works for the good of those who love him, whohave been called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28)

As we send our little boy into a day of surgery this week, we certainly covet your prayers. While we want prayers for a steady hand for the surgeon, no issues with anesthesia, and a quick recovery, I think just as important, maybe more, are prayers that as parents, we continue learning how to trust God with our child. For us, the real lesson in this process has been experiencing God’s faithfulness to us when we consciously decide to trust him and give him control over our lives and our fears.

Grady is ours, yes. You can’t look at him and not see that. But he’s God’s even more. And I think the best thing we can do as parents is truly trust God to take care of Grady as only He can.