Inconclusive...

That was the word that I most feared... inconclusive.

I finally mustered up the strength and courage to call my Dr.'s office and follow up on the genetic/chromosomal analysis that was done on Eli's body. They told us that they would have results in 4 weeks and since it's been almost 6, I decided to call... and wait over 3 long hours to have my call returned. Good right? Wrong. The tissue is forever listed as "failure to grow".

When I first discovered that my baby had in fact died, I was told that it looked like there was a mass on the brain. That, I had no trouble accepting. The next day I was told that it was likely a chromosomal issue. That was a slightly harder pill to swallow knowing that I would have to wait even longer but I was assured that they could run several types of tests. And now, now, I have zero answers.

There are a number of reasons as to why this could be but it doesn't really matter WHAT the reason is. I will never, ever, ever know why Eli's heart stopped beating. I will not know if it was genetic or chromosomal, if it was something that he inherited from us or a "fluke" of nature. I will not know if it was caused by a problem in my body. I will not know if any future pregnancies could be impacted the same way. It could have been collected wrong, stored wrong, tested wrong, he could have been gone too long - but I know I delivered about 46 hours after he died.

I know that there is a fine line between getting to spend time with him, after delivery, and the sacrificing of a "fresh specimen." It's kind of a yucky thing but the fact of the matter is, the longer his tiny body was at room temperature, the quicker the cells died and started decomposing. His body was not placed in the "cooler" when I was sent for emergency surgery, his body wasn't rushed away from me at any point. That's all part of the grieving process that the hospital allowed us to go through. It would have been a trade off - memories, foot prints, holding him, photos or maybe knowing his genetic make up and maybe knowing why his heart stopped and... maybe not. I am glad that we have the memories that we do. I would hate to forget what his fingers, feet or face looked like, but I'm honestly torn just a little bit. I guess a part of me feels like I was selfish about the time that we were given and that we took. However, the other part of me knows that it's selfish to also want to know what happened. Ugh... I can't have it both ways. That would have been too perfect if there could have been anything "perfect" about this situation. I just find it so crazy that they had my baby's entire body and yet, they can't tell me what happened. However, science can tell us why or how someone died 100 years ago. Frustrating.

I'm sad and frustrated and disappointed that we will never know. I was hoping that this would be the last chapter of this book but it just feels very unfinished right now. We struggled with even deciding for sure to go ahead with the analysis beyond the basic autopsy, which came out clean, and now I'm kind of regretting doing it. There is a tiny part of me that is kind of freaking out about the fact that in spending so much time - if 4 hours can be considered "so much time" - that could be the reason the specimen failed to grow. Ugh, such a place to be right now.

I know ultimately that it was and is all in God's hands. I am working on the peace that's going to be necessary to get over this hurdle but God has a history of turning impossible situations into new beginnings - "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."