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Your generous giving allows Abel Speaks to support families like ours. Thank you for your partnership as we seek to ensure that every family will cherish their child’s life and have hope in the midst of sorrow!

My wife Sheree and I always talked about and planned towards having 3 children – Evelyn, our oldest, plus 2 more (good Lord willing). In 2022, we were blessed with our daughter Piper June, who has been a true joy to us. We always liked the idea of having 2 children close in age, so we knew we wanted to try again quickly. Our next attempt didn’t go as smoothly, and we lost the baby shortly after a positive test at about 6 weeks. This was our first experience in any difficulty with having a successful pregnancy, so it caused some sadness and anxiety, but overall, we were not discouraged and tried again once we were able. Finding out Sheree was pregnant again in August of 2023 was very exciting to us, and we were praying for everything to go smoothly and to have a healthy baby.

One of the early milestones we looked forward to with anticipation was the 10-week mark, which meant we would be able to have a genetic screening done to determine the sex of the baby! .. among other things. That’s the way I thought of it anyway. I knew the screening was to make sure the baby was healthy and had no major issues, but I took for granted that it wasn’t a guarantee that portions of the test came back without issues. We completed the test right at 10-weeks and waited with anticipation to get the results. Sheree was checking the charts daily to see if anything had been posted.

I remember Sheree calling me while I was at work and when she first said hello, I could tell she had been crying. “Are you crying?!” I asked all while a million thoughts were racing through my head about what could have happened. I expected bad news regarding a family member or friend. She said she had been crying and that we got the genetic testing back and we are having a girl but… “But” is not the word you want to hear there and my heart sank. She said that our baby girl was at high risk for Trisomy-18 and briefly explained the little bit that she knew of it from a quick Google search. It sounded really bad. I raced home from work to meet her. We scheduled a call with her Doctor early that afternoon and waited again in anticipation to see what she would tell us.

We took the call with her Doctor from Sheree’s car while we waited outside of a restaurant where we planned to attempt to eat something for lunch. The doctor explained to us that the condition is considered fatal, and that considering Sheree’s age, the screen carried an 89% accuracy. She said that more tests would be required to know more, but that our next steps were meeting with a Genetic Counselor as soon as possible and scheduling a 12-week ultrasound to see if we could learn more as she had grown. At this point, we were shocked. This had very quickly become the worst day of our lives, and it felt like we were living in a nightmare. The only thing we could do was “Hope” that the test was wrong, and that this was all just some sick misunderstanding. To us, 89% accuracy meant that there was an 11% chance that the test was wrong, and that our daughter was perfectly fine. Hope seemed like a very fitting name for our daughter, so we decided on that.

We prayed very hard for God to make Hope healthy and had faith that it would be so. Church and prayer feel a lot different when you really need a miracle. The weeks that followed feel like a blur and a dream, but also feel like they lasted a lifetime. We had a ton of support and people praying for us. We had faith that the Lord would make her whole and healthy and that everything would be fine.

We called and set up the Genetic Counseling appointment for the following Monday, which was scheduled to be held via Zoom. We didn’t know what to expect going into the meeting, so we tried to have an open mind to see what they said and how they could help. The Counselor was actually training an intern that day, and they explained that it was going to be her first time leading one of these calls… This didn’t help our anxiety over the whole situation. We answered a series of stock questions about how we were feeling and dealing with the news, and then the direction of the call shifted to services they could offer – more tests or sending us to another state to have an abortion. An abortion was never an option to us, and the tests seemed pointless considering we planned to carry our daughter regardless, so we declined all of that, and that was basically the last we ever heard from them. The call wasn’t what we wanted or needed to hear left a bad taste in our mouth because of their strong push for us to consider aborting.

That Friday, we went to our 12-week ultrasound, where we knew there were some key indicators that they would check for to see if there were any early signs of Trisomy-18. The tech was quiet during the process, and we watched the screen to see if we could make sense of what she was seeing. We could see a heartbeat and a baby, but it didn’t look the same as Piper. After she was done, we waited for the Doctor to come see us to explain what they saw. As soon as the doctor walked in, you could feel that she wasn’t going to be giving us good news. She very matter of factly let us know that she was “definitely seeing signs consistent with Trisomy-18” and that it was actually the worst case she had ever seen. We broke down. Once Sheree’s crying controlled some, the doctor explained to us the different signs that she was seeing, and that she expected the baby to pass due to complications, but it was just a matter of when. The entire conversation felt so surreal – like an out of body experience. It felt like I was watching this happen to someone else in a movie. This was the worst day of our lives.

We left broken. It was suddenly so hard to have hope or faith. We didn’t even know what to hope for. Was it better to have her pass as soon as possible, so she wouldn’t have to suffer, or was it better for her to make it to birth, so her mom could hold and love her? Both options carried a very heavy other side of the coin, and we didn’t know what to do besides pray for a miracle.

Sheree had an at home heart beat monitor, so she would check Hope’s heart beat every day. We would sometimes listen together and appreciate being able to hear her and feel so close to her. It was ultimately a blessing and a curse, since we were essentially waiting for the day when we wouldn’t be able to find a heartbeat.

Pretty soon after that, the day came. It was a Saturday November 4th 2023, and we had plans to visit the zoo for a family day with the company I work for. Sheree was checking the heartbeat that morning and was struggling to find anything. What she could find was very abnormal. It wasn’t unusual to have a little trouble finding the right spot or holding it right to get a good reading, but something about this morning was different. We decided to continue our plans of going to the zoo, with the thought that if it did turn out to be Hope’s last day, we would rather spend it together as a family trying to have fun instead of sitting in a hospital. We had a great day at the zoo, and that night when we got home, Sheree was no longer able to find any heart beat. We called the doctor immediately and they scheduled us for an ultrasound at their soonest available appointment on Monday. We Hoped that the at home monitor was wrong.

That Monday morning, we went in for the ultrasound that will be burned into our minds forever. An ultrasound checking for a heartbeat on a potentially dying baby feels so much more wrong than the ones we had previously experienced where you get to see the progress your growing baby has made. This time watching the screen, it was very obvious what we were looking for, and we didn’t see it. We could tell the tech didn’t see it either. We knew that it was over and that Hope had gone to Heaven to be with the Lord. It felt like the air was sucked out of the room. This was another surreal / hyperreal experience that didn’t feel like it should be happening. I watched my wife’s heart completely shatter once again right in front of my eyes. We were broken. This was the worst day of our lives.

Wednesday night, we went into the hospital for delivery – the same hospital and wing where we had been a little over a year before with Piper. It felt so wrong walking in at 15 weeks pregnant to deliver a baby that you know has already gone to be with the Lord. Hope was delivered at 1:30am on Thursday November 8, 2023. We were finally able to see and hold our baby girl, just not the way we had hoped or imagined. I think it brought us some peace and closure being able to spend that time with her.

We were discharged from the hospital later that afternoon and had to drive home without our daughter, which felt so wrong. The whole thing was very heartbreaking and confusing for us. We were in shock over what had happened over the past few weeks. It all happened so fast, but each day was burned into us as our hearts were broken over and over. We felt hopeless. We had lost faith. We struggled to see how anything good could come of this. We were now the ones wondering why God would let something so bad happen to us or people in general. These were things we had thought of before, but it was now so personal. We knew our lives were changed forever, and that we would never be the same.

Our friends, family, and church community stepped up in a major way for us. We had meal trains, people visiting and praying for us, and people offering to help us with whatever we needed. We were very blessed to have so many great people to help support us when we needed it the most. We needed encouragement. We needed to learn how grief and Hope could co-exist, which hasn’t been easy.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. I do not know why this happened to our daughter, and I have accepted that I may never know that on this side of Heaven. I have felt his presence in my brokenness when I am alone and crying out to Him. I can feel Him with me, and am reminded that he never left our side. Even though he “allows” bad things to happen to us, he walks with us through the struggle.

I am having to change my perspective on what it means to have faith. Before, I thought that would mean having faith that God can and will heal our Hope, but now I am learning that having faith is believing deeply in God’s greater plan, even when we don’t understand it. It is trusting Him, regardless of circumstances.

When I was young, we had a picture on our bathroom wall with the classic poem about footprints in the sand. The moral was that during the tough times, when there was only one set of footprints in the sand, God was carrying the hurt, lonely, grieving. I have definitely felt that throughout this process.

Today, I find every opportunity I can to tell Hope’s story. I pray that God uses her story to help guide others or give them peace. I pray that God shapes my perspective in a way that benefits others. I pray that Hope’s story gives others peace and comfort knowing that God is good, even in adversity.

Abel Speaks is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and all donations are tax-deductible.

2001 W Plano Pkwy, Suite 3405 Plano, TX 75075

(972) 688-6405