…and the autopsy comes...

We missed some moments while we were busy with the 10 confessions…I’ll try to catch you up on other news.

Autopsy.

Not a word I ever thought I’d be throwing around, but here we are. You watch moments like this on tv, but you can add this to the list of things you never expect to hear with your own ears…about your own child.

“We’d like to do an autopsy on Zoe…to see what exactly went wrong. The things we were watching for and monitoring closely were holding steady. We’d like to know if something else was at play that we didn’t foresee. That knowledge could help other kids in the future.”

So, of course, we consented. Anytime we thought about other families going through what we’d just gone through, we wanted to do anything we could to help them.  But, selfishly, I also hoped to learn why she died, medically speaking. As if that would give any amount of comfort. But in my mind, I held out hope for some mystery component that would explain why the best efforts in the country couldn’t save her life.

We waited a long time…a very long time, it seemed. Zoe died on June 7^th. We received the autopsy results the beginning of September, just before Zane’s 4^th birthday. Great present.

I’m not sure what we were expecting, but what came was a novel…a medical novel…with no ending. Don’t you hate books and movies that end with a cliffhanger?!? I wanted some finality, wrapped up in a pretty package…with a big red bow. That’s what I was looking for. What I got was a bunch of nothing. By that I mean…nothing that mattered or made a difference in any way.

It didn't take a medical degree to understand, "…died of natural causes…" which was hard to swallow given the gigantic tubes coming out of her abdomen at the time of death…along with all the complications she encountered during her hospital stay...especially when you consider how "healthy" she was when we went in for her surgery. What that COD meant was this…her poor, overworked heart just couldn't take any more…it finally just gave out. 

Natural causes. Further translation: no intervention of any kind would've ever worked. 

Nothing. Ever. 

Talk about a sucker punch. There was no shortage of tears, I can promise you that. 

I found myself boldly asking God, "If Your plan was NEVER to heal Zoe physically, WHY IN THE WORLD DID YOU HAVE US DO THIS?" This really was the one and only time I was truly angry. Why go through all this…the adoption, sustaining her life all this time, hope upon hope of successful procedures, dreams of a future…if He never meant for her to live?!? It's so unfair…so unloving…so cruel. 

Until…until I stopped long enough to think about that question I'd been asking. What could be the reason/s for the Father leading us to adopt Zoe if it wasn't for her physical healing? If you take that off the table, what are we left with?  

Oh man. You just don't even have the stamina to endure the answer to that question…not when I really start listing everything. While I'm sure the ultimate purpose in Zoe's death may very well elude me in my lifetime, there is simply a plethora of things that have come as a result of God stretching us in this way. 

But here's the kicker: I had to stop thinking that God dropped the ball with Zoe…and instead start thinking of all the things He did with Zoe in spite of (and even because of) her death. I had to look past my grief to see that God never intended for Zoe to live a long life. He had much different plans…whether I think they were good plans or not. The key for me was to realize this…He didn't screw it up. I just "misunderstood." I got it wrong. He didn't.

I got that all from an autopsy report. Just goes to show…God sure uses some bizarre methods to get our attention. 

What have you been missing simply because you're not asking the right questions? What have you been blaming God for screwing up when you should be asking...

"If not this…then what?"

"If You never intended this to work out the way I thought it should, what do you have for me that's better?" 

"What are You trying to accomplish with this heartache?"

Who knows? Maybe God will send you an autopsy report to clear things up a bit. Worked for me.