The Courageous Fight for Our Children

By Kate Battistelli

God's Brave Women - Kate's Story

It was probably something I ate. At seven months pregnant the pain in my abdomen doubled me over and all I could imagine was a monstrous, horrible gas attack. But after a few hours and no relief, my nervous husband Mike called our midwife and she ordered us to meet her at the hospital.

We were terrified.

This is back in 1985 and we were baby Christians, having been saved a little more than a year. We didn't have a strong foundation of faith yet and we had no idea what was happening to us and our baby so we did the only thing we knew. We called the woman who had led us to the Lord and she got her church praying for us.

Since I was a little girl, my goal had always been to become a mother and have at least five kids. In fact, Mike and I planned on a messy, noisy houseful of children, but God had a different plan. A second pregnancy turned ectopic (tubal) and we lost the baby and all future fertility. Four failed adoption attempts later we got the memo. It took a while to accept we would have only one child but eventually we saw God's hand and will in what seemed to be the death of our dreams. But that's a whole other story.

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"It took a while to accept we would have only one child but eventually we saw God's hand and will in what seemed to be the death of our dreams."

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Anyway, back to the hospital. No one had a clue what was wrong with me. Appendicitis? Premature labor? Indigestion? Virus?

I was having some contractions so they hooked me up to the monitor. Doctors came in and out, poking and prodding and examining me. Fear was palpable in that hospital room. We didn't know if our baby was a boy or a girl (this was thirty-six years ago), but that terrifying night in the hospital, when we didn't k