(c) Mary TV 2013
Sherry Wilcoxson tells her story on "Fruit of Medjugorje"
April 17, 2013
Dear Family of Mary!
"...God has sent me among you so that I may help you. If you so wish, grasp for the Rosary. Even the Rosary alone can work miracles in the world and in your lives."(January 25, 1991)
Today, I want to share the transcript from the testimony of Ron and Sherry Wilcoxson, episode 62 of "Fruit of Medjugorje". (You can watch the show, here is the link:http://www.marytv.tv/fruit-of-
This story of love and faith somehow conveys the sheer power of the Rosary. I feel that we all need to increase our faith in the power of the Rosary, and this story will help us to do just that. Here is Part One - Ron and Sherry Wilcoxson:
Well our journey all along has been one of faith, hope and love since the very beginning. We were married and we brought three sons with us to our marriage, and then years and years later we so hoped to have a child together. It wasn't possible at the time but Ron decided it was something he wanted to do and so he had surgery to make it possible, but we never had a whole lot of hope that it would happen. So we prayed and prayed, and finally one day I found myself not feeling very well. And it was sort of reminiscent of when I was expecting my son, but still didn't dare hope because it would be such a miracle that we could have a baby in the first place. So we went to the drugstore and we bought one of those little kits, which were not available when my son was born, which shows you my age. We went home and we were hesitant but we did it, and a beautiful little pink line appeared. We knew then we were going to be parents again. We were absolutely thrilled. I was 36 at the time, Ron was 42.
We should probably have waited to tell people. But we couldn't, we immediately told everyone we knew that we were expecting. We were overjoyed!! The first time we went to the doctor they treated us like the elderly parents they thought we were. The brought us into the room and because I was 36 they gave me a brochure telling me I needed an amniocentesis. When they discussed it, I was concerned because they told me the risk at my age of having a baby with genetic problems was about 1 in 200. But the risk of the amniocentesis killing our baby was also 1 in 200. So we decided that this baby was a miracle, and we were not going to take any chances with our baby. God blessed us with this baby and we would accept this baby no matter what.
We went home and were overjoyed, and then at 12 weeks we went to the doctors to have our first ultrasound. They put my on the ultrasound table and we saw her for the first time. And at 12 weeks she was perfectly formed, fingers and toes, sucking her little thumb...we heard her heart beat, and she was doing her little dramatic poses! At that moment I thought this was what a little girl would do, but we didn't dare hope, since we had had 3 boys!
So the pregnancy went on, and as it did I noticed that something wasn't right. I wasn't feeling quite right. I had felt her move, but she moved very, very seldom. I was concerned. We decided to have another ultrasound to see if it was a boy or girl. It was to be the day after Mother's Day. On Mother's Day we went out to eat with my mother, and we were picking out names. We went to the doctor's office the next day and the doctor turned on the machine and began the ultrasound and then he turned the machine off, and he said, "I am very sorry to tell you, but there is something terribly wrong with your baby. We did not expect this, and went from joy to tragedy and pain in seconds. Everything went black. I thought I would pass out. The staff knew us, from our visits, and they came in and cried with us. And the doctor mentioned to us that he believed in miracles. He said, "There is always a miracle, always a miracle..." We clung to that.
He thought the problem with the baby was that she had an irreversible heart condition, because the heart looked to him not normal. He suggested we go to IU and have some testing there. We had to wait for three days. It was brutal. But if I take a step back, months before, I have a dear friend who was making a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. I always wanted to go there, and I have followed the events there. It is fascinating. And she came home and brought me a little wooden rosary back from Medjugorje. At the time I put the rosary away in a drawer. That rosary would come to mean so much to us in the months to follow.
We went home after the devastating news at the doctor's office. And I remember going into the bathroom and feeling the tragedy that I had already lost this precious, precious baby. And I remember kneeling down on the bathroom floor and just collapsing and heaving in tears. And at that moment, no matter how much I wanted this baby in our life, I said to the Lord, "God, if you want to take her from me before I ever get a chance to hold her in my arms then your will be done." I had to reach deep for that. As a mom you don't even want to think about that. You don't want to think about anything happening to your child, but I told God whatever is Your will, let it be done. And I will accept it. And at that moment, the thought of the Rosary came into my mind. And I went to the drawer and I pulled out this beautiful little wooden rosary. And as a Catholic I am ashamed to say that I didn't know how to pray it correctly. And so we went to a religious bookstore, and we got a little book and we learned how to pray the rosary. And for the three days that we waited to go down to IU we prayed the rosary and prayed the rosary.
During that time the baby didn't move and I didn't know if we had lost her yet, as the doctor said her heart could stop beating at any time. So I didn't know that she was alive. We took the rosary with us down to Indiana University, And I'll never forget that as we were driving, we prayed and prayed, and I touched the Rosary to my stomach and she moved! So we prayed some more and touched the Rosary to my stomach, and she moved. It was almost as if it was giving her the same kind of strength it was giving us. Prayer meant everything to us! At that moment, we prayed to the Blessed Mother, "Please, please, please show us the way. Please, please, please pray to your Son. We love this baby so much."
We went to IU and the Ultrasound technician did the test and she asked us what we had been told in South Bend, that the doctor suspected an irreversible heart condition. And she said, 'I think that is what it is too, I only see two heart chambers when to live you need four. And she said, "I can see the sex of your baby, do you want to know?" And we thought we were not going to have her, so we said of course we want to know. And she said, "It's a little girl." This was the little girl we had always dreamed of having, and now we knew we wouldn't. She left her little face on the ultrasound machine while she went to get the doctor, and we just looked at her and we held the Rosary in our hands together and we just prayed for her.
The doctor came in and said it didn't look good. She said, "I think your baby has a condition in which she has less than 1 percent chance of survival." I think she gave us that, only because she could see how much we loved her. The doctor did tests and blood work, and called in a pediatric cardiologist. He came in with his assistant, and Ron and I had been holding the rosary between us, tight, I am sure the marks were in our hands. And that is when the miracle began. The Pediatric cardiologist came in and looked it seemed for ever at the ultrasound and then he said "It's not the heart." We asked him to repeat that. He said, "It's not the heart. I don't know what it is tht is causing all this fluid to build up around her heart. Her heart is having trouble beating, and could stop at any time, but it is not her heart. Her heart looks strong for a baby of her age."
This gave us so much hope. He said "We need to send you home, and then bring you back, and we will figure out what this is." In the mean time we had been talking with some friends, physicians, who suggested that we abort the baby. They said we needed to start over, we were young, we could begin again. What they didn't understand was that we really loved this baby, this was our baby, our gift from God and we were not going to give her back until He decided He wanted her back.
So we went home and the blood test came back, and what they found was that she had a human parvo virus, which they called fifths disease (Hand, fist and mouth disease). It is very common in children who are born, and they are usually fine, but it is deadly for unborn children. Anna had caught fifths disease, and it was slowly taking her life....(To be continued)
Ron and Sherry learned to grasp the Rosary, and pray, pray, pray for their little one. Their great love for their baby taught them to pray. Grasping Our Lady's hand, they walked through this difficult and dark night of uncertainty. That same hand is extended to each of us, through the Rosary and the presence of Our Lady in Medjugorje.
More tomorrow!
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2013
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