Nancy’s story
In April 2014, I surprised my husband with a positive pregnancy test. We were joyous and told the girls of the big news. Everyone had been praying for us to have more children. I went ahead and scheduled my first appointment the following weeks.
On May 29, 2014, we entered the OB-GYN ultrasound room with all the excitement of new parents. Our girls were waiting for us outside. When the technician came and did the ultrasound, she found a beautiful baby but she didn’t seem happy for us. We asked: “what’s wrong?” she said: “The doctor will give you the results”. I felt she was rude to say the least but had never crossed my mind a problem. When the doctor saw us she said: “Congratulations! You have a baby, we want to do additional tests, we couldn’t find a heartbeat but it's usually 6-8 weeks you can miss it”. My husband didn’t worry but I felt something was not right. We did the additional test and waited for the call.
The call came during my library time with my children and I took the call in front of them thinking there was nothing wrong. The lady said the tests confirmed the pregnancy was not going to continue and asked what date I wanted to come in and do a surgery to remove the baby. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that this baby I have been praying for and dreaming will be so shortly with us.
I asked her if there was anything I could do to keep the baby and she said no. I said to her that we will see our doctor and speak to her about the pregnancy and declined the surgery option. I knew from the prolife movement that a D&C uses a vacuum and a scrape to remove the baby and I wanted to honor his life in a different way. Also, I knew that medical professionals can make mistakes and I wanted to make sure that if our baby was not going to make it, then nature should take its course. I knew a friend who was 10 weeks pregnant and they could not see a heartbeat. They told her to schedule a D&C but she refused and the baby was born 30 weeks later. So I scheduled an appointment to see the doctor on 6/09/14, the nurse said I should see symptoms of miscarriage soon. I hung up the phone and called my husband who was out of town during that week. I related to him the terrible news and what he said surprised me even more. He said: “We must do as Esther did in the Bible, when a threat was imminent to the people of God. Pray and fast! Stop all homeschooling and start praying”. And so we did. We went to the Church and started to pray. We told the girls that their baby brother was not doing well and that we must pray and do sacrifice for him to be saved.
The next few days we prayed, and fasted and prayed literally all day. We did so many novenas especially what would be the most amazing journey to accompany us THE DIVINE CHILD JESUS Novena. Our Little Divine Child Jesus, carried us through the whole journey. We learned the many times the Divine Child had helped Fr. Juan Rizzo in Colombia to provide for the needs of the people. We did the Novena and I felt amazingly good. So much peace that I could see life with trusting eyes in God. The Divine Child Jesus had promised to ask in His name through the merits of His infancy to His Father and nothing will be denied. He said: “If you want to please Me, trust in Me. If you want to please Me more, trust in Me more. If you want to please Me immensely, trust immensely in Me”. The more I read about the Divine Child Jesus, the more I fell in love with Him. His arms opened like a little child wanting for you to take him with you. Fr Juan Rizzo, a Salesian priest, spread the devotion of the Divine Child Jesus throughout all Bogota, Colombia. He said the Baby Jesus never fails. It was not a coincidence my Sarah, our youngest daughter, was feeling heart issues and my mother-in-law wanted me to pray to Him. I took the novena booklet but left it unopened until the “tempest” came and God inspired me to open that booklet I had received one week prior.
God called me to His Divine Child. We had 3 intentions for our Baby Samuel as follows: Jesus you have said: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you”. Through the intercession of Mary, Your Holy Mother, I knock, I seek and I ask that my prayer be granted that the life and health of Baby Samuel be restored completely and that Nancy’s womb be a safe haven for him. Jesus you have said: “All that you ask of the Father in My Name, He will grant you”. Through the intercession of Mary,Your Holy Mother, I humbly and urgently ask Your Father in Your Name that my prayer be granted, that Baby Samuel’s health be restored to his fullness and to be safely born in December and be safely placed in his mother’s arms.
Jesus you have said: “Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass”.Through the intercession of Mary, Your Holy Mother, I feel confident that my prayer will be granted, that Baby Samuel may receive the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and be reborn in Jesus Christ and be anointed as Priest, Prophet and King.
We prayed as St. Padre Pio said “As if everything depended on God”. We did Rosaries, all 4 mysteries. We continually did the Divine Mercy Chaplet. We did all the Litanies we could find. The Litany of the Precious Blood of Jesus, Litany of The Holy Name of Jesus, Litany of Loreto Blessed Virgin Mary, Litany of St. Joseph, the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Chaplet of St. Michael the Archangel. I felt so good in body and spirit after this that all symptoms of the miscarriage stopped and I had my victories day by day.
My daughters were such an encouragement to my daily battles. I pretty much stayed on bed rest all those days. We meditated in Jesus Crucified and thanks to our homeschooling were able to stay together in this special time of our lives. We talked and prayed and my young daughters and wonderful husband did much sacrifice through food/penance. They gave up a lot of things in those 2 weeks and we were all exhausted. I remember losing heart as the days would pass and symptoms would come and stop and come and stop. I started to doubt that Jesus was listening to us and would grant my petition. I needed all the help of my family and all heavenly beings to continue helping me carry this cross. My husband would tell me to "Trust in the Lord" even if things don’t make sense because the ways of God surpass our understanding. The day before we lost our Samuel, I saw my husband pray in such urgency for he saw me weakened and weakened in spirit and body. I told my husband: “I don’t even know what to pray anymore.”
Then it came to my mind the Divine Office. It was then that God spoke to us. The Word of God came through Baruch 4:28 “As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God, turn now ten times the more to seek Him, for he who has brought disaster upon you will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy”. At that moment, I felt convicted that the Holy Spirit was showing me the state of my soul and I needed to come back with ten times more fervor.
We went to St. Patrick Cathedral for the noon Mass and after it, I told my husband the story of Fr. John Riccardo, who he had anointed a lady 33 weeks pregnant whose baby had no heartbeat. Later, before the surgery, the baby’s life was restored. I told my husband I wanted the priest to give me the sacrament of anointing of the sick. We went to the sacristy and explained to the priest what was going on. He gave me the sacrament and told me that his sister-inlaw had a similar diagnosis but the baby was born healthy, to have faith and go in peace.
During this time my mother had come to stay with us and so did one of our nieces. They supported us in prayer and little drawings of Our Lord Jesus and posted them in my room to see and trust in Him who can do all things. I thanked the Lord for my wonderful family and relatives.
From June 2 , to the day we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Trinity, June 15 , we had prayed without ceasing and did sacrifice. I felt during the course of the days that things were getting better, but on that Sunday after 5pm Mass, I started to have strong contractions. I told my husband to rush to the house for I was not feeling well. I remembered that the priest had said in his homily: “It is a Mystery that there are Three Persons but One God and my only explanation of the Holy Trinity I could give is that there are Three Persons loving you at this moment, caring for you, not just one.” Those words comforted me for we have done everything possible to petition, hope and trust in God, in our Lord Jesus that His Word was good. We gathered in my room and the contractions started getting stronger and stronger. I knew at the moment that labor had started. My husbandand the girls were by my side and we were still praying for Baby Samuel’s life. We implored the intercession for Fr. Juan Rizzo to come to our aid. But I knew that the threat was imminent and what was coming would require a miracle to stop it. I remembered imploring God to take this chalice from me but I exclaimed in a loud voice: “Thou Will be done!”
At that moment, I told my husband to get the girls out of the room and to prepare for the delivery of our baby. The baby we had so much prayed for, so much hoped for, was not going to make it as we had hoped and prayed for. All that consoled me were two things: 1) “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away blessed be the name of the Lord”. 2) My baby was going to be born. I was delivering our precious baby just like with all my daughters. My husband was my companion and only he knew how difficult all this was, but he made it so much more bearable.
During the night around 9:47pm on June 15 , we thought Samuel had been born. Inexperience in miscarriage, we didn’t notice how much blood I had lost that after receiving what we thought was our baby, I started to feel dizzy and hot and all of a sudden I started to see black coming to my sight and I told my husband I was not going to make it. He immediately called 911 and told me: “Call on Jesus. Call on His Mercy''. So I did and I said: “Jesus, have mercy on me”, “Jesus, have mercy on me”, Jesus, have mercy on me”. All of a sudden I came back, felt this strength and didn’t lose consciousness. When I got up to get ready for the paramedics I saw myself in the mirror, I was white. Jesus, My Lord and My God had pity and mercy on me. I sat on a chair with my daughters who my husband had called and sustained me by praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet and Rosary as the paramedics arrived at our home. During this time sitting and hearing my daughters praying, I looked over at the Divine Mercy image of our Lord and I started to question - Is this real? Heaven? God? Mary? But thanks to the Lord’s grace, we didn’t lose our Faith.
In the course of the ride to the hospital, one of the paramedics asked me: “Are you feeling dizzy or faint symptoms, can you see me?” I said: “No, I feel okay. I can see you.” She said she had lost a baby herself a few years ago and that everything would be fine. My husband accompanied me in his car and we all stayed in the hospital for most of the night until I was released. During the examination, they still saw our baby Samuel and told me to go home and see my OB- GYN doctor in the morning.
We talked to the doctor the next day and she said the contents we had gathered were not the baby as the ultrasound confirmed and that another event like last night would happen. At this time, I still had the same option to do a D&C and get it over with or to wait and deliver at home.
We went home and prepared more readily with some preventive measures for a more successful delivery. We delivered our baby the following afternoon on June 16, 2014, we named him Samuel Joaquin Rodriguez. I was ten weeks. The ultrasound confirmed the baby was no longer within me and we had a choice to make, either wait another day of miscarriage or do the D&C surgery. At this time, knowing our baby was home, we opted for the surgery which was performed the afternoon on June 17, 2014. We requested all the material of the pregnancy to be held for the funeral home to pick up so we could have the complete remains. The doctor agreed.
After the surgery, I woke up and immediately started crying. I sobbed and sobbed because I was at the hospital but with no baby in my arms. After discharge, the nurse took me down the hall to the entrance of the hospital for my husband to meet me. In this hall there was a sign of "Labor and Delivery," as I passed it I sobbed more and more, the nurse pushing the wheelchair said she was sorry and touched my shoulder in comfort.
During all the emergency rooms and doctor visits, we had our Divine Child Jesus sacramental statute with us, to accompany us. We had told Him we didn’t want to lose our baby and be trashed as medical waste in a hospital. After these hard days, two friends came and visited us at home, brought flowers and food for us to have during the following days.
In the days to follow, we said we would offer Masses for him and said we would do so for his soul until God showed us otherwise. On June 21, 2014, we woke up and prayed our Morning Prayer from the Divine Office app. I must’ve pressed the wrong office prayer of the day for as we prayed the psalms, then something unexpected happened. The following passage was not from the Gospel as it usually follows but from a reading titled Letter to his Mother. And it said the following:
May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours forever, most honored lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad, then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him.
The divine goodness, most honored lady, is a fathomless and shoreless ocean, and I confess that when I plunge my mind into thought of this it is carried away by the immensity and feels quite lost and bewildered there. In return for my short and feeble labors, God is calling me to eternal rest; his voice from heaven invites me to the infinite bliss I have sought so languidly, and promises me this reward for the tears I have so seldom shed.
Take care above all things, most honored lady, not to insult God’s boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Saviour; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies forever, and enjoy eternal happiness. When he takes away what he once lent us, his purpose is to store our treasure elsewhere more safely and bestow on us those very blessings that we ourselves would most choose to have.
I write all this with the one desire that you and all my family may consider my departure a joy and favor and that you especially may speed with a mother’s blessing my passage across the waters till I reach the shore to which all hopes belong. I write the more willingly because I have no clearer way of expressing the love and respect I owe you as your son.
During the Divine Office prayer, I saw a little boy about 7 years old turning back in front of a river dressed in baptismal garments. He waited for me to give him his blessing and as I did, he walked away. That is the last time I saw my son. I cannot describe the consolation I received that day from God. We never imagined our son Samuel would bring us together in such a way that our faith would be tested as never before and that our trust in Our Lord Jesus would be strengthened in such a way. It was the Feast of St. Aloyisus Gonzaga.
During the next few weeks, we had our second trial, making the arrangements for the funeral and burial. We told our family and relatives that we would do a funeral. They were all shocked. “Do a funeral for a tiny person?,” they wondered. We contacted a funeral home to pick up the remains of my D&C but we knew our baby was at home so we had to compile all the remains and decided that cremation would be the only possibility so we could put our son in the Columbarium of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. We completed all the process, which was not easy, for many people involved in this opposed and made obstacles, but the Lord’s will was done. We picked up a beautiful blue heart holding the remains of our son and prepared the funeral mass readings and hymns to be sung with our daughters. We invited all the homeschool community and the Knights of Columbus. As God would have it, one of the members was a prolife advocate and he invited the prolife community to the funeral Mass as well. Many people were there, the Church was not empty. His life was greatly honored.
After the Mass, Fr. Dennis invited the community to walk with us to the Colombarium to put our Baby Samuel in his resting place. Many came and honored us with their presence and we felt immensely comforted. Afterwards, we had a little gathering in our home, food was served and ready for all to come and be with us. It was a joyous occasion that day of Samuel’s funeral. Although exhausted from going through so much n the past month, we closed that day with a triumph for we had honored God and His creation, our son Samuel Joaquin Rodriguez.
