Infertility. Not something easily talked about, but maybe it should be easier. I wanted so badly to be a mother. I wanted to be pregnant, to grow life inside me. I wanted to be able to hold my baby, to rock it to sleep, to feed it, to love it. It didn’t matter if we had a girl or a boy, we just wanted to be parents.
After three years of trying, testing, and treatments, we finally became pregnant. We found out we were having a boy and we decided to name him Jethro, which means “abundance.” What an abundance of love, joy, and life he would be! We just knew it.
Then we found out we had a complication. He had an airway obstruction. He might not live to be born and, if he did make it to delivery, then he certainly wouldn’t live, because he wouldn’t be able to breathe, unless he had an artificial airway put in. More testing, more procedures, more fear… and also more hope. Through all the fear there was always hope, in fact there was an “abundance” of it. His name was already fitting him to a tee.
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is probably also the favorite of many other people. Jeremiah 29:11, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'” I have clung to this verse many times in my life, many other stories for other times. This time in particular, I recited this verse over and over throughout the remainder of my pregnancy. I so wanted to believe that everything would be ok, that Jethro would survive, that we would be able to hold him and love him and see him grow up.
I hoped against hope. This verse gave me strength, it gave me persistence, it gave me everything I needed in all the moments and days that followed. From 21 weeks to 36 weeks of pregnancy, through all the remaining ultrasounds, MRIs, non-stress tests. Through the delivery, NICU stay, and coming home to care for Jethro with a tracheostomy tube.
He is the bravest little boy I know. He has had multiple bronchoscopies/laryngoscopies, from the age of three months until three years, when he had major airway reconstructive surgery and was in the hospital for three weeks. He still has follow up appointments with the doctor, checking his airway every few months; he has to endure a camera down his nose to look at his airway. My heart hurts to see him go through so much, but Jeremiah 29:11 reminds me, still today, that God has a plan for Jethro.
Jethro is almost six years old now. In a few months he will have spent as much of his life without his tracheostomy tube as he spent with it. He is indeed an abundance. He is an abundance of laughter, energy, love, compassion, and all the things that we had “hoped” for.
God’s word is life. It has given me hope time and again, and I know I can trust that it always will.
Jenn Quach is a daughter, nurse, wife, and mother. She loves her two boys to infinity and is so grateful for the gift of motherhood.