The Power of Friendship

" A friend loves at all times." Proverbs 17:17

Years ago, when I was battling infertility, my doctor sent me to have a $2,000 full blood workup at a local lab. I was living in Indianapolis at the time.

Within a week, my doctor called me with the news. The results came back to show that everything was fine, except for one small thing… a single gene mutation of a blood clotting disorder known as MTHFR. 

(If you find the acronym somewhat humorous, you’re not alone.)

MTHFR can lead to several scary, and even deadly problems concerning pregnancies. But in my case of only having a single gene mutation, I was given a simple antidote...
I only have to take one baby aspirin per day to keep my blood from clotting.

That’s it.
No medical surgeries.
No incurable situations.
A simple treatment.

Instead of being relieved that there were no major problems the overly expensive blood work indicated, I started freaking out inside my head. Sheer panic seeped in. As soon as I hung up the phone, I fell to the floor. Horrible flashbacks of me holding my beautiful deceased daughter, Hadassah, crept into my mind.

Hadassah was my first born child. Her death forever changed me.

You see, two years before Jacob was born, I had carried a beautiful little girl full term. She was my first child, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I had always wanted a little dark-headed girl, and finally had my wish. She was my dream come true in every way. Two days before my 37-Weeks-Along date, I was at a routine doctor visit when she stopped moving. The doctors couldn’t detect a heartbeat, and announced that she had passed away.

They induced me, and I delivered her that night. It was the most horrific feeling in the world, and one that still haunts me to this day. To try to figure out what had gone wrong, the doctors did blood work on her. They didn’t find a single thing wrong with her. She was absolutely perfect, with the exception of a small observation…

At one point in the umbilical cord, there was a “thinning” of sorts.
NOT A KNOT.
NOT a cord accident.
But the umbilical cord was just a tad bit thinner on one small section.

The doctors don’t think that caused it. But, when you’re a mom looking for answers, and feeling that you need a “why”, you’ll obsessively cling to every little detail you can gather, and ponder it for years to come.

*******

Now, flash forward to me, hunched​ over on the cold floor of my Indianapolis apartment, in a puddle of salty tears and snot, convulsively gasping for breath.  I had to get out of the apartment. But, where to go?

I grabbed my keys, jumped in my car, and fled down the road.
I knew that in my mental state of panic and heartache, I shouldn’t have been driving. But I didn’t care. 

I made it five miles down the road, turned into a friend’s driveway, and ran up to her house.  She was juggling her (at the time) four young kids. Opening the door in merriment, she greeted me, only to find a red-faced, sobbing mess. Before she could even ask what was wrong, I blurted the words, “I killed my daughter!”

"I killed my daughter!" I blurted.

Before I could say anything else, she magically had tea brewing on the stove, water in front of me, her kids playing out back, and a tissue box in front of my face.

I repeated, “It’s all my fault my daughter is dead! It’s my blood clots!” I bawled.

Hadassah was everything I had wanted.

I proceeded to tell my friend my theory of Hadassah's death – that me having MTHFR causes blood clots, and that a blood clot must have somehow cut off my daughter’s lifeline from me where the umbilical cord thinned. I went on and on, as though it were truth.

Instead of telling me that I was crazy and overreacting, or that I needed to just “get over it and move on already”, (Yes, I actually had someone say that to me.), my friend just embraced me and didn’t let go. She reminded me that God loved me, and that I did NOT contribute to my daughter's death, that it was in NO WAY my fault Hadassah passed away. 

My friend complimented my parenting, telling me that I was a textbook go-by-the-book mom who gave Hadassah a perfect life while she was alive inside me. She encouraged me, and reassured me again and again for what seemed like hours.

She let me cry. 💜
She let me talk. 💛

She hugged me and listened. 💙

She validated me.💚
In that moment, she did everything perfectly.💗

She neither scolded me for popping in as an unannounced mess, nor downplayed my grief, nor gossiped about me later. 

She was (and still is) an amazing friend. 

While I still think that MTHFR has something to do with Hadassah’s death (even though it cannot be proven), I no longer blame myself. But looking back on that critical, defining moment in my life, I realize how blessed I am to be in fellowship with the ladies I love. I relish in the friendships I have with them.

I’m very picky about who I let into my life and my “inner circle”. I don’t have room for judgmental advice or negative comparison parenting. In friendship, I value authenticity, acceptance, and love. 

I reflect on the people that I enjoy ‘doing life with’ and smile. When I think of them, I breathe in the goodness of what God has blessed me with – true friendship. Through all my journeys, no matter where life has taken me, I will forever be thankful for the incredible women that I can call “friend”.