When I first entered the program of the 12 steps I found my faith again, it’s human nature to cry out to God when we hit our true bottom, almost everyone at some point in life will cry out to God in desperation.

My girlfriend of nearly ten years always knew I had a complicated history with my faith but no matter how disconnected I felt, I could never bring myself to walk away fully and denounce my identity in faith.

I had previously written in my post titled the “heart of the matter”, that a former partner and I had no choice but to terminate during pregnancy due to a rare chromosomal condition.

What I neglected to mention was the most bizarre sequence of events that led to that painful experience.

During the week leading up to the 20 week scan if I remember rightly, I caught on that I was just a donor in this relationship, it felt like life was all of a sudden out of my hands but I made the best of the situation that I could.

I spent the evening alone and late at night I scrolled through all the tv channels and happened upon this video on God TV.

I teared up and called my sister who was my font of knowledge on all things parenting, I sent her the link to the video. I remember feeling amazed at the parent’s lack of resentment towards God for their loss and pain. I remember the words clearly. “I don’t know how I would cope if that was me”

Trisomy 18 or Edwards Syndrome occurs as infrequently as 1 in 10,000 pregnancies. As I read up on it, little did I know just how significant this insight would be.

We were called in after our scan to provide blood as the doctors were concerned about a halo effect on the baby scan, we were told it was an indicator of a few conditions and our bloods would help offer some clarity.

I said I know this might sound weird but could it be Edwards Syndrome? I will never forget the look of disgust at the mere question and the bewilderment on the consultant’s face and my girlfriend and her parents as I enquired.

A week or so later not only was the diagnosis of Trisomy 18 / Edwards Syndrome confirmed but the focus shifted towards the fact my blood carried the cause, it seemed that my Chromosomes carry a glitchy 13th and 18th pair of chromosomes. I have what is called a reciprocal translocation.

I had passed on an imbalance of the 18th chromosome which led in turn to the trisomic pregnancy. Naturally, I blamed myself and my already estranged girlfriend blamed me too for killing our baby. The prospects of carrying to term were unlikely at best and with that, my then partner decided to terminate the pregnancy. I respected her decision but I didn’t share her view.

I had felt like God had given me some sort of forewarning but instead of the miraculous I had to endure great sorrow. I was hurt but I was wholeheartedly convinced that there was something bigger than me and I couldn’t just chalk this up to coincidence.

Recently I watched the episode of The Chosen where Simon Peter walks out on the water briefly to meet Jesus in the waves. In the storyline the writers weaved in a loss of a pregnancy for Simon and his wife. His pain was that here he was suffering the pain of loss and Jesus didn’t seem to do anything to prevent it. The plot landed very close to my heart based on my own experience.

My real moment of reconciliation with the author of my faith didn’t take place on the waves but in the rooms of recovery when I found Jesus sitting in a church room with red plastic chairs and addicts committed to living healthier lives.

Only all these years later do I feel able to talk about it and reflect on the experience, that pain and trauma enforced a lot of things I did in my attempts to run from it.