Shortly after my daughter, Julie Raby, faced her second miscarriage in two years, the doctor’s office called on a Friday afternoon on a mid-July day. Julie was told that her physician wanted to see her as soon as possible. An appointment was made for Monday morning.
Julie was born into a pastor’s home. All my wife, Jackie, and I ever wanted to do was to serve God. Julie was our third of three children. Like her sister and brother, she accepted Christ at an early age and grew up in the Baptist faith.
When Julie married Brad Raby, she knew Brad was going to be a preacher. They married in 2004 and began immediately serving in churches.
The year 2007 had already been a rough one for Brad and Julie. The previous summer Brad lost his job as a youth pastor through no fault of his own. When the church finances were cut back, Brad was the first to go, as he was the most recent pastoral staff member hired. Then without Brad’s job, he and Julie lost their first home. They had been so excited to buy their first house, expecting to start a family soon. But the joy of pregnancy quickly turned to sorrow as Julie had her first miscarriage.
And now a year later, Julie had again miscarried. When she continued to struggle physically with sickness, she called her mother. My wife insisted that Julie see her physician again. After an examination and blood-work, the doctor’s nurse called and instructed Julie to come in on Monday.
It was a long weekend. Julie tried to keep her mind off matters by boating and tubing on a lake and enjoying the weekend with her husband and friends. My wife, Jackie, and I could not help but worry. Why had Julie lost two babies in a row through miscarriage? Why did the doctor want to see her right away?
The Monday morning appointment could not come fast enough. Brad and Julie live in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area. We live in Orlando, Florida. As a pastor, I take Mondays off. On Monday, Julie was on my mind all day, as we awaited the phone call.
My wife wondered if it were possible that Julie was pregnant. After all, she had heard once of someone who suffered a miscarriage while carrying fraternal twins – she lost one but the other was born healthy. When I heard that, hope quickly sprang to life, but I just as quickly dismissed it. No way, I thought – that would be too good to be true. It’s not that I do not have faith in God. It’s just that we need to be realistic and face the fact there is a problem here.
But hope is a funny thing. Once it surfaces, it is hard to suppress.
So, we waited for the phone call. With hope.
As soon as Julie entered the doctor’s office, her nurse said, “I can tell you why you have been getting sick. You are carrying a baby!” Dumbfounded, Julie could only think to ask incredulously, “A live one?!” The nurse said, “Very much alive.” The doctor walked in and confirmed it. “You have just missed your first trimester [of pregnancy],” he assured her.
How was that possible? The doctor explained that the only possible explanation was that she had been pregnant with fraternal twins. She had miscarried one. The other was just fine.
The first thing Julie thought of was that she would not have been on a boat tubing, nor would she have been drinking caffeinated drinks (coffee, Coke) freely if she had known she was pregnant.
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