Isaac & Samuel

Dear friends and family,
As most of you know, after years of infertility and an early miscarriage in June, the Nguyen family was blessed with the conception of twins in August. The pregnancy was riddled with illness and bedrest from the beginning, but our joy was never subdued! Sadly, on November 22 at 16 weeks pregnant, we experienced preterm premature rupture of membranes (pPROM) with our little Baby A. During the ER and specialist visits, we learned that our babies were little boys and that hope for their survival was slim. On bedrest, we prayed and researched and prayed some more. On Wednesday, November 24, labor began and we made a sad journey to the hospital. By Wednesday evening, Baby A had delivered and passed away. His brother held on a few more hours, but by Thanksgiving morning, Baby B, too, was gone.
The past couple of months were incredibly difficult. We have been unsure how to navigate through our grief, how to hang on to our marriage, how to continue teaching young people, how to delight in other people’s children, and how to still love a God that chose to not sustain life. Wanting to still love God does not come from us being super-spiritual beings with some incredible faith; it’s that we know the alternative is unbearable. We have both had previous tragedy in our life that we experienced apart from God and we know the jaded, hardened hearts that grow from that. Besides that, we wanted to learn from our sons’ short lives that their death would not be in vain.
And, God has been faithful. He has sent His children to love us and care for us much the same as He sent the ravens to feed Elijah. The Holy Spirit Himself has filled us with His peace and done the impossible of soaking up our hurt each time it surfaces. To be sure, Satan has been around, too. He has used others to hurt us through insensitivity and outlandish statements. He has whispered the seductive lies of “what if” about medical things. He has brought to mind the vivid physical memory of delivery over and over. He has tried to drive a wedge in our marriage over our differences in grieving and processing. He has tried to plant lies about God failing us.
One of the big ways that Satan showed up was in the idea of naming our sons. Our hearts were pulled to the idea of naming them because we felt like we needed to validate their existence – a lie! And, sending the two boy names we’ve had for years to the grave pulled us far away from God into the muck and the mire. We also know that our sons already have their eternal names from God Himself. So, we resisted. And Satan attacked more. We approached the Lord and asked Him to intervene, to show us what He would have us do. He has. After much thought and prayer, we have decided to name our sons. However, we wanted to use names that pointed not to our sadness, but to the living hope we have in our God. Thwarting Satan’s plan of pulling us down with choosing names that point up is one of our greatest spiritual victories! Our sons, Isaac and Samuel Nguyen, are certainly some of the most loved and prayed for babies in all of history, and we want to share with you why we chose their particular names.
May their story impact you to consider your own relationship with the Lord.



Isaac Nguyen Samuel Nguyen
24 November 2010 25 November 2010





Isaac
In the Old Testament, Isaac was the son of Abraham. Abraham and his wife Sarah could not conceive a child for many, many years. God kept promising offspring to them, but they just couldn’t see how it would happen. At one point, they became impatient and Abraham lay with his wife’s maidservant and produced Ishmael…but that was not the offspring God had spoken of; that was not the fulfillment of God’s promise! He continued to share His promise with the couple, even sending angels to tell them. Sarah laughed as an old woman when they told Abraham that she would have a child within the year. How impossible and ridiculous for an old, barren woman to conceive and birth a child! Yet, the point here is not the physical ability of Sarah and Abraham, but the power, authority, faithfulness, and love of God! Sure enough, within the year, Isaac was born to an aged, barren couple! This is significant to us for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we prayed and prayed to know if God wanted us to have children. We asked Him to fan the flame or take away the desire in our hearts so that we would know His will. Every time we prayed – for over a year – the Lord would answer, strongly convicting us to pursue children. Every time we would ask if He intended for us to be parents, the desire in our hearts would grow stronger and deeper. Many places in our journals we can point to specific times we knew God was telling us that He would satisfy our desire for children: a desire born of Him. In the months of considering IVF/ICSI, there was debate in our marriage over what God would have us do. Would He have us wait for a miracle to a genetic issue? That would surely be our Isaac. Or, if we pursued fertility treatments, would we be surpassing God’s intentions and creating an Ishmael? After lengthy prayer, counsel, and study in the Bible, God was very clear what His intentions were for us: the point, once again, was not physical condition; rather it was the fact that God is the Creator of all life, regardless of the mechanism He chooses to employ. Walking in His will and waiting on Him to fulfill His promise would always bring an Isaac. Immediately, you can see one reason we chose Isaac: we share Abraham and Sarah’s longing, the promise they had from God, and God’s faithfulness to provide a child.
When Isaac was a boy, God commanded Abraham to take him up the mountain and offer him as a sacrifice. As astounding as this is to readers, we cannot imagine the sheer terror Abraham felt at this command! How would he ever be able to sacrifice the object of such affection and the fulfillment of decades of desire? Yet, this was the Lord’s point: who, Abraham, do you love most? What, Abraham, are you willing to let go of to serve your God? While we certainly did not make a choice to give up our sons physically, we most definitely have had – and continue – to make a choice to give him up emotionally. Cocooning inside our hurt and grief over losing our sons is appealing, comforting in a way. We have the choice to hang on to it, to nurse it, to let Satan inflate it. And, sometimes, we want to cling to that so fiercely! Yet, that is not who we commit to be in this life, nor do we truly want to live in that pit of despair forever. We long ago committed to be followers of Christ, willing to give up everything to do His will and to relate to Him intimately. If we keep this grief and this hurt, we are refusing God’s command to give Him everything. We are allowing a barrier between us and our Lord. And, we do not obey to be pious or good or rewarded. We obey because we so love our God that we want nothing between us and Him. We know that through obedience, He refines us, makes us righteous and holy, and turns our grief into joy. Therefore, just as Abraham obeyed his Father, so do we. Again, our experiential understanding of Abraham makes Isaac a fitting choice for our son.
The final reason we chose Isaac is because of his stress. When Abraham took Isaac up on the mountain, Isaac asked his father where the sacrifice would come from. He knew something was off. Though the Bible doesn’t tell us of Isaac’s reaction to Abraham binding him to the altar or holding a knife over him, we can only imagine that Isaac must have felt some distress. And so did our son Isaac. On Monday, Isaac’s protective membrane was lost. He was still in my womb, but no longer protected from bumps and bruises or infection. He was no longer able to develop or be sustained by me. Our little boy was in distress for two and a half days before his misery ended with a tumultuous delivery. While we begged for God to wrestle for our Isaac’s life as he did with Abraham, that was not to be.
We do not have an answer for our son’s suffering. We do not have an answer for why this evil was allowed. But we do know that our God promises to turn it into good. We do know that He is using it to refine us. We do trust in God’s eternal plan and we cannot wait for redemption when it is our turn to skip through death. Just as Abraham’s Isaac went on to be used by the Lord in many ways, we pray that our little Isaac would prick your heart for eternity. We do know that eternity with God is at the heart of His plan and pray that you will be there with us and Isaac.
Samuel
Again in the Old Testament, God had a wonderful servant called Hannah. Hannah loved her husband so and desperately wanted a child. To make matters worse, she was ridiculed by others that she had no children. Her own husband was confounded by her longing, wishing that he was enough for her, for he also loved her deeply. A time came when Hannah was so overcome with her grief of empty arms that she cried out to the Lord with a massive display of emotion, weeping bitterly and publicly. During this anguish, Hannah told the Lord that if He would only give her a child, she would turn the child over to Him for the priesthood. The priest Eli thought she was drunk and rebuked her for such behavior! When Hannah shared that she was not drunk, but a woman deeply troubled, Eli blessed her and asked that her desire be granted. The Lord heard Hannah’s plea and Samuel was born. True to her word, when Samuel was merely weaned, Hannah handed him over to Eli to be raised in the priesthood. Clearly, we relate to the anguish Hannah had in her heart over wanting a child. And, any of you that remotely know us, know that we have already committed to raising our children for the Lord. We view ourselves much like Hannah – a caregiver and steward of God’s creation as He works His own plans with each child. One of our favorite parts of Samuel’s life happens when he is a boy living with Eli:
1 The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions. 2 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the LORD, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the LORD called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down. 6 Again the LORD called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 8 A third time the LORD called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. 9 So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 10 The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Our Samuel is Baby B. While Isaac suffered in distress for days, Samuel did not. From the time my water broke with Samuel to his homecoming was a mere hour. He did not suffer from infection, bumps and bruises, or lack of development and sustenance. It was as if our son heard God calling him and knew immediately to respond, “Speak, for your servant is listening!” The Lord called our son Samuel home, and Samuel wasted no time in obeying His creator. Though we are sad at the abbreviated nature of time with our son, our joy in God’s faithfulness echoes Hannah’s proclamation of the truthfulness of God’s word. It is to this we cling:
“My heart rejoices in the LORD;
in the LORD my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
for I delight in your deliverance.
2 “There is no one holy like the LORD;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
3 “Do not keep talking so proudly
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the LORD is a God who knows,
and by him deeds are weighed.
4 “The bows of the warriors are broken,
but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
but she who has had many sons pines away.

6 “The LORD brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.
7 The LORD sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.
8 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.
“For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s;
on them he has set the world.
9 He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.
“It is not by strength that one prevails;
10 those who oppose the LORD will be broken.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
the LORD will judge the ends of the earth.
“He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

Hannah’s Samuel became a great prophet of the Lord. God used him with His people over and over again, proving that God’s word is true and will never fail. We pray that our Samuel can have just as mighty of an impact on your hearts, highlighting the truth of God’s word that you see in our lives through his short time here. For our God is faithful, His word stands and will never perish. He is trustworthy and worthy of our praise, even in our darkest moments. It is the God of Hannah and Samuel that takes our grief and changes our mourning into dancing. And because of our little Samuel’s place in eternity right now, the music already plays in our hearts. If you ask God, He will let you hear the music and set you dancing, too.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a part of God’s plan for us. Your prayers, cards, phone calls, emails, meals, books, hugs, listening, crying, and gracious allowances are the net our Father wove to keep us from falling. Losing our long-awaited children was totally beyond our comprehension, but God is proving faithful that His blessings are, too! Our trust and love for God has never been so strong. Our marriage is more intimate and united than we ever dreamed any marriage could be. We are growing leaps and bounds in our obedience. Our compassion has increased tenfold. God is changing our hearts to love others beyond the capacity we thought possible. It is our sincerest desire to serve God, sharing His Truth, and letting Him work through us to change people’s eternities. We ask for your continued prayer that He would not give up on us, that He would refine us further, that He would use us mightily in our community, that He would give us clear direction in how to follow Him, and…that He would still bring us children to raise for His glory. How great is our God that He ordained all of us being here together and intersecting at this event to comfort one another and glorify Him? Praise be to the Lord our God forever and ever!
Some resources that have helped us in our grieving:
• 1 Peter & The Pentatauch – shows us God’s purpose for our suffering, how He can refine us, and gives an intimate picture of who He is and how He loves us.

• The Blessings of Brokenness by Charles F. Stanley – offers an eternal perspective on suffering that helps train your eyes to be peeled for God’s hand

• I Will Carry You by Angie Smith – the journey of Todd & Angie Smith carrying their little girl Audrey who they were told would die immediately at birth. They had two blessed hours with her before she passed and a lifetime of wisdom and encouragement to share with others.

• Grieving the Child I Never Knew by Kathe Wunnenberg – a devotional/journal highlighting specific encounters with grief that help pull out and process the hidden pain and hand it off to the Lord

• Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby by Deborah L. Davis – mostly helpful in a medical sense and a comfort of other women’s actual statements concerning neonatal loss. There is addressing of grief, but as it is not a wholly Christian perspective, we found that part to be of a somewhat limited use for us.

• Strong and Tender: A Guide for the Father Whose Baby Has Died by Pat Schwiebert – validates the forgotten father and offers insights into men dealing with grief while still wanting to be the strong husband.

• How to Listen to God by Charles F. Stanley – illustrates how to draw close to the Lord, removing obstacles and increasing intimacy.
For you to consider medically…
Cervical Insufficiency (CI) is considered a silent killer. The cervix is what closes during pregnancy and opens during labor to deliver the baby. In some women, there may be anatomical abnormalities or damage from previous surgeries (including D&Cs).
When CI occurs, doctors may recommend a type of vaginal stitch called a transvaginal cerclage (TVC). The intent is to sew closed the bottom of the cervix, disallowing delivery. The TVC may be placed prophylactically (as prevention) or as a salvage (rescue) stitch and will then be removed to allow a vaginal delivery. Unfortunately, the TVCs have a high risk of infection, generally require bedrest (sometimes in an upside down position!), do not disallow funneling (which can cause pPROM) and FAIL 25% of the time. In the 75% of the time that they are successful, 40% of those babies are born prematurely.
Another option that is not widely discussed is a transabdominal cerclage (TAC). This also closes the cervix shut, but does so at the top of the organ. This can be placed pre- or post-conception. However, this stitch requires abdominal surgery and is permanent. Women with a TAC must always deliver via c-section. The TAC does not require bedrest to combat CI, will not wick up infection, disallows funneling and has a success rate of >97% for delivering TERM babies.
Most doctors will not recommend a TAC until there is proven clinical evidence of CI – generally gleaned from multiple 2nd trimester losses. However, there is a growing cohort of doctors who understand and are experienced in dealing with the TAC, and they are willing to discuss this option. Specifically, seek out Dr. Haney in Chicago and Dr. Davis in New Jersey.
Check out www.abbyloopers.org (and http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Abbyloopers/) for more information...follow all the links. Check out http://www.kanalen.org/prom/. Find the group Transabdominal Cerclage on FB. Check out the blogs "A Heart in the Clouds" and http://tacbaby.blogspot.com/. Read up on Dr. Haney at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Insist on your ob referring you to a maternal-fetal monitoring (MFM) doctor to discuss this if you are at risk.
We truly hope that our own loss will bring light to a little-known procedure and your family will be untouched by this particular grief. Please pass on this info to any couple you think may need it!

Let It Count…
All of our sorrow and all of our joy would be for nothing if it didn’t go to Eternity. You know that we are Christians. This does not mean that we just go to a social place once a week or follow a strict set of rules. Being a Christian means that we follow Christ. We seek for Him to highlight our imperfections (sin) and then we allow Him to change us. Being a Christian also means that we allow God to use us as His vessel – to work through us to touch the lives of others. We pray that the transparency of our struggle and the joy of our sons will touch you in a way that makes you pause and consider your own relationship with God.
Perhaps some of you are also believers, but you have strayed from God. Or, maybe you have come to a saving faith, but not yet submitted to God as Lord over your life. We urge you to turn away from your sin, confess your inadequacies to the Lord, and ask Him to change you. When life seems peachy, you are still missing out on His glory. And, of course, when life turns sour, you will need an intimate relationship with the Lord to be carried through. We highly recommend a little book called How On Earth Can I Be Spiritual by Dr. Sumner Wemp. You can find used copies on amazon, buy a new one from sumnerwemp.com, or contact us and we will be happy to send you one.
Some of you are not yet believers, and we pray desperately for this to be the beginning of a whole new eternity for you. The bottom line is that there is a God. One God. The God of the Bible. He created you for one purpose: to have a loving relationship with Him. He created you with free will so that you can CHOOSE to love him. Sadly, all of us fall short of this and choose to be less than perfect. There is not one among us who is without sin.
Think for a moment about any of the ten commandments. Take the commandment about not stealing. Be completely truthful here. Have you ever stolen anything? Even the smallest little thing? Or how about bearing false witness against our neighbor? Ever tell a fib against a childhood friend? This means you have broken the law. You are a sinner according to God’s standards. As such, you are imperfect and cannot be in the presence of a perfect God. (And who would want a God that is NOT perfect!?!) You cannot be in His presence now to relate to Him, nor can you be in His presence in eternity. Sadly, eternity is the final deal and all of us who are imperfect will spend an eternity apart from God in Hell. That is a rather undesirable place to spend forever.
But God is all-knowing and all-loving. He knew that we would be an imperfect people. And, He made a way for us to relate to Him even in the face of sin. That way is Jesus Christ. God came to the earth, took on a human form, lived a perfect life, and was crucified for the purpose of taking on all sin – past, present, and future – and obliterating it. He paid the ransom for the sin with His (temporary) death. Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, thus proving He really is God.
To take away the blockade sin causes in relating to God, you must only ask the Lord to let His payment count for you. Tell Him sincerely in your heart that you understand you are imperfect, that He is perfect and paid the price, and will He please forgive you personally and make you into a new creature who can relate to Him. That’s it. There is absolutely no work for you to do, no payment for you to make – you couldn’t give enough of it anyway. The only requirement for God’s grace and love is that you want it and you ask Him for it. He gives it not on the basis of who you are or what you’ve done, but on the basis of who He is and what He has done.
Your eternity will be totally different, as will your life, if you make this move. You will still be a sinner until death, but you will get to relate intimately to a Father who loves you until He finally perfects you at death. It is a difficult moment to see the truth of who we are, but oh, how the rewards of having a loving God reside in your heart trumps all of that moment forever and ever.
While this is a simple sharing of a very simple message, we realize many of you have some specific hang-ups on buying into this idea of God. We urge you to pray the same prayer we did in college: “God, if you are real, show me. Show me who you are and why you matter.” That was the beginning of the end for both of us! We can also recommend many books for you to look at. Immediately, we would point you to The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. And, if the potential cost is your eternity, isn’t it worth checking out a book or two?
Please, please consider our lives, Isaac’s life, Samuel’s life, and then your own. What do you want it to be about? What will you let it count for?
Prayerful that you can dance with our family in Heaven,
Nam & Katie