A Heart Beating with the Father

There are a great many things that make Glory Reborn what it is. It’s the smiles of the staff, it’s the prayer and sharing at each prenatal, it’s the personal home visit that every mommy in our program receives, it’s the thorough explanations and education that comes with each step of pregnancy and new motherhood, it’s being part of the journey with each patient through the joys and through the sorrows.

I realized today just how very important journeying with our patients is. In a day we may scan numerous mommies tummies checking in on little lives growing in the womb. We see happy smiles from moms seeing their babies for the first time, watching a beating heart on the screen or feeling the kicking and twirling of a tiny baby dancing in the womb. These are the joyous occasions in the journey.

Then there are the times where the journey takes us down that valley of grief and loss. For all the “normal” check-ups there is always one, or two, or even three in a week that require us to go a bit deeper, a bit further in the journey. For some women, Glory Reborn is the first place that they find out they are truly pregnant.

As much as we hope to hear the steady heartbeat of life pounding through the doppler, there are moments of loss, moments of heart-ache, and tears and grief that must also be part of the journey. This was the case for one of our moms last week. She was so excited to have her positive pregnancy test and eager to come in for a check up. As I tried to find the heart beat of her baby, the silence grew more and more intense. Listening and looking revealed that the tiny baby was no longer alive in this world. The silence broke into tears and grief of a once very excited mother-to-be was now mourning the loss of the tiny life that she had known for only a few months.

After praying with her and comforting her, our staff was able to appropriately referred her for further care. A few days later I saw her back in the waiting area at Glory Reborn. I approached her and she smiled back at me. I asked her how everything went at the hospital and she said it all went well. She had come back now to thank everyone for the love and support she received and wanted to enroll for family planning options.

It was wonderful to see her back! After just one visit she had felt the love and hope of Jesus through our staff enough to want to come back again. We are so thankful for our staff and for the journey they share with each of our patients. Through the joys and the sorrows, the journey with Jesus and with our patients continues each and every day. We are delighted that we get to share in both.

Through the joys and sorrows…