I grew up with a set of rosary beads under my pillow. My mother was a committed member of the Roman Catholic Church while my father was a nominal member of the Church of England. Needless to say, Mum was the one who looked after our spiritual welfare. She took my sisters and I to church regularly and we progressed through all the rites and rituals of the Catholic faith. Looking back, I’m thankful for my upbringing as there was always love in the home and a basic belief in God gave me a sense of comfort and security as a child.
I went to a Catholic boarding school in Toowoomba to complete my Senior education and then on to teacher’s college in Brisbane. With my new-found freedom and independence, I rarely went to church and thought little about spiritual things. I also took up drinking alcohol, to excess, more often than not.
During my second year of teaching, I met my future husband, Rick who was also a teacher. We married and transferred to Ayr in North Queensland. Sometime around then, I became very interested in New Age / Eastern religion. I was fascinated by the TV mini series “Out on a Limb” based on the autobiographical book written by actress Shirley Maclaine who, at the time, was one of the leading gurus of the New Age Movement promoting the idea of reincarnation and the belief that we control our own destiny. The Catholic church had never provided answers to those age old questions of, “Why are we here?” and “What’s our purpose in life?” and I began a kind of personal spiritual quest to find out the meaning of life.
After two years of marriage, I became pregnant with our first child. However, what was a happy, uneventful pregnancy ended in disaster. Our little baby boy, who we named Jamie, was born with multiple abnormalities at the Ayr Hospital. He had a severe cleft lip and palate, hypospadias (eyes spaced a little further apart than normal) and a range of other problems down the mid-line of his body. The most life threatening problems appeared to relate to his heart. As I held this little baby boy, ever so very briefly, in my arms I was struck by his beautiful gentle face in the midst of his disfigurement.
We were both soon transferred to the Mater Hospital in Townsville. Following childbirth, I experienced major haemorrhaging requiring further surgery and several blood transfusions. The doctors in Townsville were certain that Jamie had a chromosomal disorder and that he would not live very long. I was in total shock. It’s amazing how life can be turned upside down within a short space of time. Surprisingly however, the chromosome tests came back normal and plans were put in place to immediately fly us down to the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane to see what could be done to manage Jamie’s heart condition.
Following a heart scan at the Prince Charles it was discovered that Jamie had a narrowing of the aorta as well as several holes in the heart. At 1 week of age, he underwent his first heart operation. A vein was taken from his back and used to widen his narrowed aorta. All went well. At 2 weeks of age he underwent his second operation. This one was a little more tricky. An artificial band was placed around his pulmonary artery to try to regulate the large flow of blood through one of the holes in his heart. The operation itself was successful but during post-operative care, his lungs collapsed requiring full ventilation. Due to all the medical intervention that he had received, there was concern that he hadn’t received proper nutrition. A decision was made to transfer him to the Mater Hospital for possible long-term care and to build up his strength before any further surgery could be considered.
At the Mater hospital, further genetic testing took place. Although the tests came back normal again, the geneticist at the Mater was convinced that Jamie had a rare genetic syndrome called 4P-(basically a small deletion of the fourth chromosome) She felt that the microscopes of the day weren’t powerful enough to pick up this defect in the genes. 4P- was a terminal syndrome and the doctor was only aware of two recorded cases in Australia and only a few more cases world-wide. It was quite daunting to hear these statistics and to try to come to terms with the fact that we had a very sick baby with such a rare medical disorder.
For some time I wallowed in the ”Why me?” syndrome racking my brains to try to come up with some explanation for the 4P- syndrome. If I could find a cause, it might help me to cope a little better with the situation and I might be able to avoid a repeat of Jamie’s condition if there was ever another pregnancy. After much agonising and analysing of every aspect of my diet and lifestyle I finally believed that I had found a cause. I remembered that we had our house sprayed for cockroaches during those very crucial early weeks of pregnancy. Also I discovered that the Burdekin district had a higher than normal incidence of birth defects which many believed was due to the aerial spraying of sugar cane in the area. Either way I felt I had my answer and thus began my aversion to all chemicals and toxic substances and my interest in natural health.
I stayed at the Mater Hospital with Jamie and spent many long weary hours in the Intensive Care Nursery sitting by his cot surrounded by a jungle of tubes , a variety of beeping machines spurting out medical data and a network of doctors and nurses all working, frantically at times, around the clock to try to improve his quality of life. I longed to nurse this little boy but after one attempt I discovered that the logistics of re-arranging the medical apparatus that surrounded him was a nightmare and I was content to let him lie undisturbed and simply watch the rhythm of his breathing. Despite a huge effort on all fronts, Jamie’s condition went from bad to worse. A number of times his colour turned a frightening shade of blue as his breathing tubes became blocked with lung secretions. Over the next few weeks he experienced renal failure and finally an infection developed in his bloodstream which the doctors were unable to combat. Despite his critical state of health, what was most heart-wrenching for me were the myriad of bruises all over his little body from where the various tubes and lines had penetrated his skin.
The year was 1988 and as World Expo fireworks erupted each night over Southbank and music and gaiety filled the air, I knew little Jamie’s life was slipping away and I felt very alone. Finally the moment came when the medical staff declared that there was nothing more that they could do for our precious little baby. It was nothing short of devastating to hear those words and on the 3rd August, we made a decision to withdraw life support and Jamie died soon afterwards at 5 1/2 weeks of age.
There is something very unnerving about a tiny white coffin at the front of a church. It was surely not meant to be . Jamie’s funeral was very surreal and while I struggled for his sake to be strong, I felt very detached from reality- like a character in a movie where life had gone horribly wrong Words cannot express the emotions that I experienced during this period of time. Spiritually speaking, I couldn’t accept that a so called “God of love” would allow a little baby to be born and to suffer so much. A few days after Jamie’s death, the Courier Mail carried the headline: “Baby Abandoned in Bin” which told the story of a mother who had disposed of her newborn baby in a rubbish bin. This newspaper article really affected me and reinforced my growing belief that there was no God. I couldn’t come to terms with the seeming unfairness and injustice of life.
The weeks after Jamie’s death were filled with despair and emptiness. My husband and I were grieving in different ways and were unable to support each other very much. About this time a teacher friend of mine gave me a set of new age tapes which were literally life-changing for me. The one principle that I clearly remember was the idea of loving people unconditionally. I decided to put this principle into action. I was determined to make myself a better person and this would be my way of proving that Jamie’s life had not been in vain. My change of attitude towards other people was a turning point in my life and the results were quite dramatic.
The doctor’s final summing up of our tragedy was ” bad luck”. Rick and I had our chromosomes tested and as all our results were normal, I became pregnant again. New age philosophy still had a firm hold upon my thinking. I was experimenting with some meditation and many times during the day I would repeat the affirmation “I AM GOING TO HAVE A NORMAL HEALTHY BABY”. I was convinced that New Age positive thinking was the answer and I believed I had the power within me to determine the future.
A scan at 20 weeks by a top doctor who specialised in detecting birth defects. was the next step in the journey of this second pregnancy. The period leading up to the specialist appointment, and the moments in his surgery as he scrutinised the shadowy ultrasound images, was a highly anxious time. Finally he stated his belief that I was carrying a normal, healthy fetus. There was great relief mixed with great excitement! I began to have hope in my heart that everything was going to be OK. And it was for a short time, but at 31 weeks of pregnancy, disaster struck. I had been weighing myself for a few days and watching the scales with a slightly uneasy feeling as they recorded that I was gaining several pounds of weight every 24 hours. I woke up on one particular morning and instinctively knew something was wrong. My stomach had swollen to bursting point. The local doctor confirmed my fears. I had a rare case of Polyhydramnios (I learned some big medical words during this time!) This condition is manifested by an excess production of amniotic fluid. Due to the serious nature of this condition I was immediately transferred to the Kirwin Women’s hospital in Townsville.
My emotions were in turmoil! “This can’t be happening again!!” The hours that followed were like a nightmare. I was beginning to experience great discomfort and was actually having trouble walking with any semblance of normality. Scans revealed that a large amount of fluid had pooled in the baby’s body particularly in the lung cavity. The rough game plan was for me to remain in hospital and “buy some time” allowing the baby’s lungs to develop as much as possible before birth. However, the plan didn’t work due to the incredible pressure from the build-up of fluid in the uterus and I went into premature labour. It was quite a difficult birth due to the fact that the excess fluid resulted in very weak contractions but finally our little baby girl was born. We named her TARA ANN. At the time of her birth, another medical team was waiting in the delivery room and Tara was immediately whisked away to Intensive Care to begin the battle for her life. She was fully ventilated and the doctors worked throughout the night, giving her blood transfusions and attempting to drain the excess fluid out of her body. The amniotic fluid had apparently been building up in her body for some weeks putting pressure on her lungs and preventing them from developing to the stage they should have been at by 31 weeks.
It was a long traumatic night but the morning light brought with it no ray of hope or joy. The doctor repeated the shattering words we feared and had heard before. “I’m sorry but there’s nothing more we can do for your baby”. Grappling with shock and disbelief. we went through the motions once again of withdrawing life support and nursing our dying baby girl. She had lived for just 16 hours. It had been such a rapid fire succession of events that I barely had time to process what was happening and my emotions were numb.
Another funeral. Another tiny white coffin. The Catholic priest in his monotone voice stated emphatically that little Tara was in “Paradise” I actually felt quite angry. I didn’t know how he could be so certain and I didn’t know where or what paradise was. I received no comfort whatsoever from the funeral service and the utter despair I felt was even more intense than the first period of grieving. I was desperate to know where my babies were?
In Tara’s case I couldn’t really come up with any explanation for her condition apart from the possible link to chemical fall-out from crop spraying in the area. The fact that I was fanatically careful about everything I ate, everything I did and everywhere I went while I was pregnant and yet still a disaster had occurred, made me throw my hands up in utter perplexity. Also the fact that her condition was totally different from her brothers added to my feelings of helplessness and despair.
I was quite depressed for some weeks following Tara’s death. I didn’t know what I believed anymore. My new age philosophy had taken a battering however there was one little ray of hope. The guidance officer at the local high school where I had been working told me about a spirit medium in Townsville. At some time in her past, she had an abortion and through this spirit medium was able to speak to the spirit of her aborted baby and receive great healing. She felt sure that the spirit medium would be able to help me to communicate with the spirits of my two dead babies. My interest was awakened. I was feeling desperate enough to explore this avenue in order to get answers and I left her office clutching the phone number she had given me.
For a few weeks after Tara’s death, I hadn’t been downtown mainly because I dreaded having to face up to people. One of my favourite shops in Ayr was a health food shop run by a Greek lady and her husband. (There is a strong connection between the New Age Movement and health) Mrs Speros had often talked to me at great length about her favourite topics :Jesus and the bible, but her chattering had gone in one ear and out the other. She would usually begin talking about the “Lord” while I was waiting for a take-away gluten burger and I knew I was trapped. I tried to listen politely and not let my impatience show and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she cooked delicious vegetarian food I wouldn’t have endured the ordeal of the “God talk”.
Shortly after my meeting with the guidance officer, I finally built up the courage to face the outside world and decided to visit Mrs Speros shop to purchase some fruit and vegetables. See Why Vegan? As I walked into her shop, my worst fears were confirmed. She didn’t know about Tara’s death, and seeing my flattened stomach she exclaimed with great Greek joy and enthusiasm, “Oh, you’ve had your baby!!” I burst into tears…
As I blubbered amongst the fruit and vegetables, I will never forget her words. She said, “Don’t forget the Lord and one day He will hand those babies back to you” There was something about those words that seemed infused with truth and sparked a flicker of HOPE in my heart. Mrs Speros was horrified as I shared with her that I was considering consulting a spirit medium. Again with great Greek passion she urged me to stay away and told me what the bible had to say about spiritualism. Again there was something about her sincerity and faith in the bible that made me think twice about delving into the spirit world. She suggested doing some bible studies to which I surprisingly agreed. I had some time on my hands and I was largely ignorant of the scriptures, though raised a Catholic.
Mrs Speros was a Seventh-Day Adventist. She had a huge painting on her shop wall of the second coming of Jesus and she closed her business every Saturday. This all seemed a little weird to me and I wondered what I had got myself into? However, few bible studies with Mrs Speros fuelled my interest in the scriptures and I soon began studying the bible with the local pastor. I was amazed at what I discovered within its pages. Naturally one of the first studies I did was the State of the Dead. From my Catholic influence I had a vague picture of an unidentified part of the body called the “soul” floating blissfully among the clouds of Heaven for eternity. From my new age influence, I had a notion of reincarnation in my head , where the soul moves from one body to another striving for spiritual enlightenment. I found neither of these concepts in the bible but the simple truth that Jesus and many of the other bible writers referred to death as a “sleep”. Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes said “the dead know not anything” So in the bible I saw death clearly presented as an unconscious state (just like sleeping) after the final breath leaves the body. The dead rest in the graves until the resurrection. It was a simple teaching and seemed to make sense to me.
I was still a little wary of this group that I was studying with. I knew all about those “Adventists”. They were the lot that didn’t believe in blood transfusions which had saved my own life following complications after Jamie’s birth. I had practically made up my mind that I could not become involved with a church that would not permit blood transfusions. I finally broached the subject with the pastor one day and discovered that I was wrong and that the Adventist Church runs hospitals all over the world. What a relief! I had them confused with Jehovah’s Witnesses. The rest of the bible studies were like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slowly fitting together and making sense of the world … *Precious promises of comfort and strength, guidelines for living my life, an inspiring health message, prophecies predicted thousands of years ago which have been fulfilled in history, the knowledge that I don’t have to carry the burden of my guilt because God sent His only Son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins – all these combined to give me a whole new outlook on life.
During Tara’s short life, more chromosomal testing was done. All her results were normal. The best that the medical fraternity could come up with was that we had now had two cases of “bad luck” and that both tragedies were unrelated to each other. The decision was soon made. I became pregnant again. Some of my friends and acquaintances thought I was extremely brave but to be honest, “bravery” never came into my head. I was desperate to have a normal healthy baby and I would have tried almost anything to achieve this outcome. I began to claim the promise found in Mark 11:24 “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray , believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them.” From a new age point of view, these words of Jesus reeked of positive thinking but I was trying to place myself in God’s hands and realise that I was helpless to control the future. Although everything I was learning in the bible made sense, my faith was weak and I knew there was a good chance that if this third pregnancy ended in disaster, that would be the end of God and Christianity for me. During the next nine months I wont deny that I had my share of anxiety but I also had the new and precious gift of HOPE in my heart.
On the 13th November, 1990, a beautiful, healthy baby girl was born. We called her CARLA. I had a hard time accepting that this little baby could just lie peacefully in her cot and breathe all by herself without the assistance of tubes and machines and medical personnel. I spent many weepy hours in hospital fixated upon her breathing. I actually felt something was wrong. It seemed strangely abnormal. About two years later, on the 25th October 1992 we were blessed with the birth of another equally beautiful baby girl. We called her AMY. These two girls have always been and will continue to be the joy of my life and a constant reminder of the AMAZING GOODNESS and LOVE of God!
And so…..the period of time that I have shared was really just the beginning of my spiritual journey. I have had my share of trials and troubles since then but I want to give all the praise and glory to God. In retrospect, in spite of this traumatic period in my life, I can see God’s hand of leading and I thank him daily for his blessings in my life. I just want to remind you that whatever you may be going through, God cares. Sometimes we don’t discern His presence through our tears but He is right beside us in our grief and knows how to bring good out of bad, how to bring joy out of disaster. He is the Great Comforter and His mercies are new every morning!
I wrote a very long poem after Jamie died and I will finish with the last two verses (I have also added in Tara’s name):
Finally, as this poem comes to an end,
There’s only one thing that I haven’t said,
It gives me the strength to go on living,
Long after I know that you’re dead.You see Jamie and Tara, I hold in my heart a vision,
Of the ultimate perfect day,
When once again we’ll be united,
And that’s the way we’ll stay.
At the time of writing this poem I had no concept of what the “ultimate perfect day” was but I do now. It’s found in the bible in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 where Paul describes the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
HOPE is powerful!!
I have learned that Heaven is a real place and I believe that on resurrection day (if I am faithful) the Lord will hand my babies back to me, never to be parted.
*In time, I hope to post some of the basic bible truths I have learned that have helped me to make sense of a crazy world which increasingly seems unjust and unfair.