The Baby who was Dead and is Alive
Christ for the Nations magazine
When my stepsister, Clarissa Christman, and her husband, Drew, learned they were expecting their first child, they were elated. Together they prayed in their kitchen, telling God, "We offer You our first-born child to be used for Your glory." They did not know then that the prayer they offered in joy and thanksgiving would soon become a source of faith and reassurance, helping to offset the sting of the medical reports.
Six weeks into the pregnancy, Clarissa began to experience severe cramping. A doctor's appointment was made, and the news was tragic. There were no signs of life. However, Dr. Phillips, a Christian doctor, wanted to give the Lord the opportunity to perform a miracle before declaring the pregnancy a miscarriage. He prayed with Clarissa and Drew, ordered hormone level testing for the next week and put Clarissa on bed rest.
Overwhelmed and devastated by the tragic news, the prayer of dedication Clarissa and Drew had prayed over their baby rang loudly in their hearts, sparking faith to ask the Lord to breathe life back into the child. During this time, Clarissa and Drew were amazed by the number of people who joined with them in prayer for a miracle. Family members prayed and requested prayer at their local churches back in Texas. Clarissa and Drew's local church rallied behind them and so did friends from their Montgomery, Alabama community.
"Never in our lives had we walked through such hardship and known the Lord's presence to be so real. ... Through this hardship, my husband and I learned something new about how the Lord receives glory. We had always focused on the Lord receiving glory when Christians praise Him for all the good He has done. Now we learned that God is glorified not just when we praise Him for the good, but when we praise Him in the face of despair and pain. [We learned that] God would still be a good God even if He decided not to give our child back his life," Clarissa said.
The following week was spent making trips to the
doctor every two days to give blood for hormone level testing. On the second day of testing, Clarissa's hormone levels had risen, but were not yet high enough for a healthy pregnancy. On the third day of testing, they had doubled, and by the fourth day of testing, her hormone levels had doubled again - high enough for a healthy pregnancy. Clarissa and Drew knew the Lord was answering their prayers.
"Dr. Phillips was happy about the news, but remained cautiously optimistic until another ultrasound was performed [when] we discovered that the embryo had started developing again, moved back up to the correct location and had a heartbeat! ... Dr. Phillips said that there was no medical or scientific way to explain what happened. God had indeed performed a miracle!" Clarissa stated.
Clarissa and Drew rejoiced in the miracle God had done on their behalf, but the battle was not yet over. Clarissa experienced severe morning sickness which lasted four-and-a-half months. Then, in February 2003, eight-and-a-half months into the pregnancy, Clarissa began to suffer from fatigue. Feeling that something was wrong, she contacted Dr. Phillips who diagnosed her with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Purpura (ITP), a rare blood disorder caused by antibodies attaching themselves to blood platelets rather than viruses and bacteria. Once antibodies attach to viruses and bacteria (or in Clarissa's case, blood platelets, the "minute, disk-shaped components of the blood needed for prevention and control of bleeding"1), they move to the spleen which removes the antibodies and the attached elements from the body. Not long after receiving this news, Clarissa quit her job at Trinity Presbyterian School where she taught ninth grade chemistry, and the two partners at Gidiere, Hinton & Herndon, the law firm where Drew serves as an attorney, told him, "Tend to your family; we will handle everything here."
At the time of the diagnosis, Clarissa's blood platelets were at 35,000. "The normal amount of platelets is usually between 150,000-450,000 cells per microliter of blood." Anything below 50,000 is considered serious. If they fall below 20,000, spontaneous bleeding may occur, usually through the eyes, ears, gums, nose, etc. Within two weeks of the diagnosis, Clarissa's blood platelet levels fell to 7,000 and she started bleeding in her bladder. After urinating blood for almost 12 hours, she had to receive two units of blood.
Again the prayer chain that stretched from Montgomery, Alabama to Dallas, Texas was notified of the critical situation. Freda Lindsay, Guy Peh and the CFNI 9-1-1 Prayer Ministry also engaged in intercession on Clarissa's behalf. She was hospitalized and received large amounts of medication in an effort to raise her platelet count.
"The doctors gave me two types of steroids (prednisone and decadron), Immuno Gamma Globulin (IVIG) which is a pure antibody that is supposed to stop the body from destroying platelets, and chemotherapy (Vincristine). My body did not respond to any of these medications, and I had severe side effects," related Clarissa.
After her fourth day in the hospital, Clarissa was transferred from Baptist Medical Center in Montgomery to the University of Alabama Medical Center in Birmingham. After eight days in the hospital, her platelet count had risen to 11,000 and the hospital released her so they could perform outpatient treatments to increase her platelet counts. The doctor's placed her on house rest, continued her medications, and waited for her to go into labor. Inducing the delivery was not an option at this point because of the fear that if Clarissa did not advance in dilation, as sometimes happens when inducing delivery, that the then-necessary Cesarean section could kill her because her blood platelet count was so low.
For the first time in her Christian walk, Clarissa found that she could not hear God's voice or get anything out of the Word that applied to her situation. She was forced to trust Him despite having no answers. "But amidst this chaos, He gave a peace that never left me. ... We were walking through the valley of the shadow of death and did not fear tragedy," Clarissa testified. Drew found it difficult having the strong instinct to protect Clarissa, and being helpless to do so. "Some of the really hard days were when Clarissa was having side effects to all the medication and had to sleep all day. I would sit in a pitch dark room all day long, listening to her breathe and moan. Other than a few days like that, I mostly enjoyed extraordinary peace," he said.
The Lord built a hedge of protection around Clarissa and Drew, protecting them from the enemy's schemes, mind games and lies. "This struggle really helped to prove the mettle of my faith and trust in the Lord. It seems that only when the bounds of our faith are tested that our faith grows," Drew stated. "It was easy to trust in the Lord because we remembered how He gave [our baby] back his life. ... Drew was such a strong pillar in the Lord during this rime," Clarissa said. "He was the perfect example of a Christian man with strong faith continually leading his family to the Lord. I fell in love with him all over again!"
On March 22, 2003, Clarissa went into labor. At the time, her blood platelets were only at 24,000. She had to receive a transfusion of 100,000 platelets during the delivery, and by the next day, they had dropped to 58,000. Clarissa and Drew's battle of faith was rewarded with a healthy baby boy whom they named Justus Cole Christman. They were truly overjoyed. God had given them a double miracle. Not only had He raised Cole from the dead in the womb, but He protected him from all the powerful medications Clarissa had to take during her battle with ITP.
Three weeks after Cole's birth, the doctors began to see positive signs in Clarissa's blood platelet counts. On April 1, 2003, they were at 31,000. By April 15, 2003, they had reached 149,000. "This two-week period was the only time during this ordeal that I was not on any medicine, so no doctor can take the credit," Clarissa stated.
As of February 2004, Clarissa's blood platelet count has risen to 200,000, and Cole is perfectly healthy, showing no signs of side effects from the ordeal or from the powerful medications prescribed during the pregnancy.
† Rebecca Walker
"He gave a peace that never left me. ... We were walking through the valley of the shadow of death and did not fear tragedy."
RMI