A Safe Delivery
The doctors told Monica that she could never have children. With no children, she and her husband Eric couldn’t face living in Israel anymore. So they went to Toronto…
So, you want to have children – do you trust in G-d or in the Doctors?
After years of unsuccessful attempts to have children, major decisions had to be made. We would never do IVF again, which we were told meant we would never have children. Without children we didn’t want to live in Israel anymore, for everything is child-oriented here. We decided to go to Canada to my husband’s family and close to my brother and sister who live in New York. Hashem, if we aren’t going to have children, what do You want us to do? I wonder. The bureaucracy for my immigration papers took a long time, but within a year we moved to Toronto. My paperwork still hadn’t come through so I landed as a tourist.
Even though we weren’t very observant at the time, after a couple of weeks in Canada, I realized that we need to be part of a Jewish community. We tried a few different places until we found AISH HaTorah, a lovely warm community of Baale Teshuva. Nobody judges, everyone is friendly. We started attending Shul on a regular basis and for the first time in our lives started to learn “why be Jewish”. Slowly, all the rules that I had been taught as a child as “good for learning self-discipline” started to have real meaning.
My sister came to visit from UK and later my parents. We rushed around showing them the sights, and when they left I was totally exhausted. I remained exhausted for 3 days! Joking with my husband, I said “if this was a movie, everyone would know she was pregnant except the couple.” I did a pregnancy test just for kicks – IT WAS POSITIVE.
Of course, we were ecstatic. All kinds of thoughts ran through our minds: “but the doctors said I couldn’t get pregnant”, “Where will I find a doctor?”, “How will we pay for this, I am a tourist and I’m not covered for pregnancy”, “Hashem promised everything will be alright – so, Everything Will be Alright”, “Hashem doesn’t give trials that are too hard to bear”.
We found a doctor at one of the best high risk hospitals in Toronto. He was a nice straight forward person. He said: “Don’t worry about the fees, we will bill OHIP (Toronto health care) once it comes through.” We discussed everything that we have been through and what we are going to need for the pregnancy. They didn’t really agree with the doctors in Israel. We had learned not to trust doctors too much, so we keep a vigilant eye on what they were doing. Every night I pray to God, more or less the same prayer “Thank you, God, for making me pregnant. You know I didn’t ask You to this time, this is from You totally. I know You won’t do something that is more than I could bear. I could not bear it if this pregnancy were to go wrong. I have learned that You should be specific in your prayers. God, this is what I ask for. A healthy baby, that grows up healthy, that loves me and that I can love. That grows up to love Torah and Mitzvot and You. I will do everything in my power not to hold him back.“
From the 14th week they placed me on bed rest, which meant I could get up in the morning, move to the sofa, spend the day lying on the sofa and go back to bed at night. Apart from bathroom breaks, I was not allowed to walk around. Every day my husband prepared a cooler with my food for the day. My days alternated between reading and awful TV (at the end of the pregnancy we got rid of cable totally, I couldn’t bear to watch TV any more).
Towards the end of week 28 I started to have contractions and was admitted to the hospital. They managed to halt the birth for over a week, but by week 30 it 
couldn’t be pushed off any more. Our beautiful baby boy was born, by c-section. Thank God, he was very large for a 30 week old baby. He didn’t need any intervention, after 10 days observation he was transferred out of the intensive unit of the high risk hospital to the nursery of our local hospital. At first I was concerned, but very fast I realized it was the best possible outcome. They taught us to take care of the baby ourselves (whereas in the first hospital everything was done by the nurses.) By week 35 our son was sent home, healthy, nursing, and raring to go. Every night I thank God for my wonderful husband and beautiful son, and reiterate my requests for his future.
couldn’t be pushed off any more. Our beautiful baby boy was born, by c-section. Thank God, he was very large for a 30 week old baby. He didn’t need any intervention, after 10 days observation he was transferred out of the intensive unit of the high risk hospital to the nursery of our local hospital. At first I was concerned, but very fast I realized it was the best possible outcome. They taught us to take care of the baby ourselves (whereas in the first hospital everything was done by the nurses.) By week 35 our son was sent home, healthy, nursing, and raring to go. Every night I thank God for my wonderful husband and beautiful son, and reiterate my requests for his future.We were extremely happy with our son who is a total miracle; we didn’t even imagine that we could have another child. But then, after a little over a year, another miracle, I was pregnant again. Thank You, Hashem. We could hardly believe it. Again I was on bed rest. By this time we had been members of AISH for a couple of years. Instead of TV, I listened to CDs from Rabbi Weinberg – a much better use of time! Our son started going to a private Israeli daycare in the next street. Everyone was wonderful. My husband of course kept everything together, his mother made food, and his sister looked after our son on the days that my husband was home late. Even his step-mother took me to the monthly hospital appointments.
After 30 weeks they noticed that the amount of amniotic fluid was low and decided to monitor it weekly. By 32 weeks it was critically low so they admitted me while they decided whether to remove the baby early. I wasn’t really sure what was going on, but I knew God was taking care of me so I wasn’t really worried. Suddenly the phone by my bed rang; it was one of my friends from shul. “What are you doing in hospital?” she asks, I tell her. She replies, “I want to call my rabbi for a blessing”. “OK” I said, wondering what she was talking about, how she knew I was in hospital and how she got my number – I hadn’t told anyone except my husband that I was there. Within 10 minutes she calls again, “I managed to get my Rabbi in Israel straight away, he did a yeshua for you, he says everything is going to be fine.” “Thank you“, I say. I am totally confused, what is she talking about? What is a yeshua? How did she know I was in the hospital in the first place?
The next morning I had an ultrasound. If the amniotic fluid had reduced at all the baby would be in danger and would have to be removed. The technician called in a doctor and then a second doctor, no one could believe what they saw – the amniotic fluid had returned to normal, healthy levels. They looked at tapes of my previous US from the previous 2 weeks – it was very low, now it’s normal. THIS JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN, they insisted. Then I understood what a yeshua was. (But, to this day I don’t know how my friend knew to call. . .) In the end, everybody shrugged and they sent me home! My beautiful healthy baby girl was born at 37 weeks. Thank You, Hashem.
Baruch Hashem, both children have grown up healthy and happy, getting on very well with each other. Soon after our son’s 3rd birthday, his ganenet (daycare teacher) taught them about Hanukkah. Our son was enthralled; he even learnt the end of the story by heart. The Jews get back the Temple in Jerusalem. All the Jews are in Jerusalem. Jews are happy in Jerusalem… Mummy, I’m Jewish; when will I go to Jerusalem? Every day, he repeated all the above sentences, all through Hanukkah, and afterwards. We hadn’t really thought of going to Israel. It was far and expensive and we had our new life in Canada. Why go to Israel?
Our son carried on his daily campaign. Day after day the same sentences, always ending in I am Jewish, when will I go to Jerusalem? At the end of April I broke down,”All right, in the summer we will go to Jerusalem“. We couldn’t afford it at all, I asked God to take care of it.
We arrived in Israel that summer. We totally reconnected to the land and the people. Thank You, Hashem and thank you, our son, for being the shaliah. We promised ourselves that we wouldn’t stay away so long again. True to our word, a couple of years later we made Aliya to Israel.
The one lesson I learned from all this was, if you want children or anything else, ask Hashem – He can “deliver” in every sense of the word.
6/30/2010
baruch hashem thank you for the hope!
6/30/2010
thank you for the hope!
1/25/2010
gratitude mazal tov to monica fuchs on her miracles. what i don’t understand is: why does she not write her gratitude to her medical caretakers? did they do nothing to help her and make her prayers be actualized?