Between Cradle and Grave

In the past when I heard or said these words, it was usually in conjunction to one persons life. The life they live here on earth, between the moment they are placed in a cradle to the last moment when they are placed into their grave.

The inspiration

Lately, this name for a blog post has been heavy on my heart. The first time it was placed there, was about 3 months ago. Right around the time when Jeff’s grandmother, after weeks and weeks of not feeling well finally got a diagnosis, stage IV pancreatic cancer. She was given anywhere between 1-4 months to live.

Even though that news was devastating to hear, she just turned 89 years old and if you asked her she would agree, she has lived a very full life. One of the times we were talking with her, we got into her life story and her experiences with  supernatural healing, I believe I made a comment like ‘it’s almost like she has been living on borrowed time for the last 50 years and God has just been gracious and good in giving her this much’.

When she was a young mom with 2 small children, she was diagnosed with cancer for the first time. Doctors didn’t know what to do. They told her as much and that they didn’t know how much time she would have. After lots of prayers and a week in hospital with test after test, she asked the doctors ‘you keep doing these test, but you never say anything or offer any treatment. What is going on?’

The answer is quite unbelievable ‘well, we can’t find the cancer, you’re healed. You’re free to go home’. As astounding as this is, this is just one of the many stories she could tell you.

All that to say, even though we were incredibly sad to hear this news and also come to the realization that she would probably not meet our son this side of heaven, left me with the title of this blog post.

All the tough questions

What happens when ‘between cradle and grave’ doesn’t just describe a persons life? What if it’s  rather a moment in time that a family or individual literally is in the in between of these polar opposite moments of life? How do you deal with the immense joy of birth and the incredible sadness of death?

The beginning and the end.

Yet, that is were we found ourselves 3 months ago. We made a point to spend more time with them. Make the most beautiful memories, have her be a part of our child’s life even though she may not end up meeting him. In many ways we made our peace with that fairly early on.

After 2.5 months she was looking better than ever, gaining weight, cooking and baking up a storm (I mean I don’t make 200 cinnamon buns just because I felt like it, do you?), sowing and enjoying life. The topic of cradle and grave overlapping moved further and further from our line of thinking.

Until about 8 weeks ago.

An unexpected twist

Jeff’s mom (my mother-in-law) unexpectedly was admitted to the hospital for generalized weakness. No big deal we thought. She probably just had some sort of a cold -like illness that was more persistent, maybe worst case scenario even Covid, but she would be ready to leave hospital within a week or so and life would carry on.

Within 24 – 36 hours however, we would have wished nothing more than for her to ‘just’ have Covid. She got a very different diagnosis, Guillain – Barre Syndrome. A rare autoimmune illness that can hit literally any person. It usually follows a cold or stomach bug (which she had both just prior), however no one really knows what exactly causes it.

This diseases destroys the myelin sheath (the protective covering) of nerves, making them unusable until the sheath is repaired. Meaning total loss of mobility and sensation until the nerves can repair themselves. Plainly said, it’s a gradual loss until total paralysis sets in.

Within the first week we went from, ‘she will need extensive rehabilitation and probably around 6 months to a year to recover from this’ to an MRI showing her breast cancer (that she was diagnosed with 2 years prior) having spread to her bones, making the possibility for rehab a whole lot more difficult.

Over the course of 7 weeks there have been moments of small hope, when it seemed like she is gaining back more functions, such as smiling and the ever so slight nod. Then came the moments of absolute gut punching realizations and finally more openness from the medical team.

The final gut punch

Turns out if it is truly Guillain – Barre Syndrome, it is one of the worst cases the team had ever seen. In her case the disease didn’t just destroy the outside covering of her nerves but also the nerves themselves. With that finding, her chances of recovery plummeted until we all (including her) had to come to the realization that hope, was no more.

As the gravity of that started to sink in, I talked to Jeff about the possibility of getting induced, so our Mom could still meet our son. We came to the decision, if it happened naturally for me to give birth early that would be one thing but we wouldn’t risk anything by getting induced.

A total God – thing

Most of these conversations started happening Saturday, September 26, 2020. The next day, my water broke and labour started (if you would like to read the full story, click here).

Shortly after Luke was born, we started asking the doctors when we would be able to go home. We wanted to make sure, that we managed to bring Luke to the hospital to see mom before we wouldn’t have that chance anymore. She was starting to decline faster and faster.

Because Luke is technically a preemie and also spend some time in NICU, we really didn’t know if we would be able to make it in time. The team in the hospital was all aware of the situation we found ourselves in and were very much trying to move mountains to make it possible for us to go see mom. They even considered transferring us to the hospital that mom was at so we could have a nurse accompany us to see her.

Again, like I said in the heading, it was a total God timing thing. Luke pulled through really quickly and we were actually able to be discharged on the Wednesday. We left the hospital and drove straight to the other hospital.

The one and only meeting

To Mom