I was scared when I first found out I was pregnant. It was not the best timing. My husband Bill and I were living in Hiroshima, Japan. I was teaching in an academic high school that was difficult under the best of circumstances. I got excited at the prospect after that initial jolt of fear that I think every parent gets, and called the head office of the program I worked for. The office in Tokyo assured me that every thing was fine and I was not the first foreign teacher to have a baby in Japan.

I excitedly called my supervisor and she agreed to take me to the hospital the next day. The doctor confirmed that I was five weeks pregnant. My supervisor took me back to the school and we notified the head teacher of the English Language department. Nothing had prepared me for what he said next. He wished me congratulations and said he would be sorry to see me leave. I was absolutely horrified. I had just signed my re-contract for a second year and had no idea why he thought I would go home. I also felt a wave of guilt because of the rush of resentment that my child might cost me a career I had worked so hard for.

Being early in the pregnancy and rather emotional I said tearfully “Why, do I have to leave?”

The head teacher looked at me seriously puzzled, in Japan women do not normally work while pregnant. “Don’t you want your baby to be healthy?”

This upset me even more. I responded with words that would haunt me long after. “Women have babies all the time. In America we don’t stop working, what possibly could happen.”

The school and the board of education reluctantly agreed that they could not make me leave my position. I was shocked as this had not been the initial impression I had been given about response for my pregnancy. Bill and I decided to make the best of it, and look forward to our new arrival though my work was clearly unhappy.

I found a small clinic where the doctor understood some English and his daughter who had lived in America could translate. I would learn later he was one of the best doctors in the area. He had a warm comforting manner and had no problem dealing with my school.

Bill and I were getting more and more excited. The baby’s due date was in December. We both prayed for a girl. I wanted a little girl to do all the things I had never had the opportunity to do with my mother.

Each month we went to the doctor he did an ultrasound. This is routine procedure in Japan. I thought it was a wonderful idea because it meant I got to see my baby. Each time I went I asked if the doctor if he could tell if it was a boy or a girl. He responded he couldn’t tell.

I had hit the twenty-week mark and for me I had flown full force into looking forward to the baby. I received an email each week about the baby’s development. I got books on babies and was trying to learn to knit so I could make a blanket. The week before my friend who had a car took my husband and me shopping and we bought a yellow bed set and a stroller. A used crib already sat in our hallway. I proudly put the stroller together dreaming of the walks I could take with the baby and all the things we would do together. I begged my husband to put up the crib though he claimed we had plenty of time.

I went in for my twenty week visit sure that the doctor would confirm the baby was a girl. I just knew it was going to be a girl with a mother’s sense. I couldn’t wait to go home and tell my husband, who was at work that day and couldn’t come. The doctor took the ultrasound and I asked him, "Can you see?" The doctor said he couldn’t tell from the picture. He handed me a video with the baby’s picture and heartbeat but I had a bad feeling something was wrong. He told me he wanted me to go to a hospital in the city. There was not enough fluid around the baby. That was why he couldn’t see if it was a boy or a girl. He pointed to the ultrasound and a small circle of black spots saying he thought the baby might have a tumor.

I started shaking and crying, I told the doctor I would do anything to help my baby. The doctor informed me I needed to go to this hospital and have them take a look. I left the office and quickly called my husband. He told me to calm down and try not to get too scared. We would know more on Monday.

The next Monday we took the letter I had been given by my doctor to the hospital in the city. They took an ultrasound with three doctors looking at the screen and discussing what they saw in Japanese.

My husband who does not understand any Japanese asked me if I understood what they were saying. “A little,” I replied, “There is something wrong on the right side in the stomach area”

We walked into the office area. There were no doors just curtains. The nurse quickly shut it behind us as we sat down.

“I am sorry,” the doctor said in English, "But your baby is very sick the baby’s kidneys do not work.”

My husband and I were stunned. “Is my baby going to die?” I asked.

“Yes,” was the quiet reply.

I went into complete hysterics. Japanese people do not generally show emotion. However, I was not Japanese, and this doctor just told me that the baby I was dreaming about was going to die. I couldn’t believe it. Everything had been going so well. Women had babies all the time.

My husband calmly asked the doctor, “How long?”

The doctor responded, “We don’t know, but there is less than a 1% chance the baby will live.”

The nurse was frantically trying to console me. My husband still relatively calm asked the doctor what to do. The doctor responded that they would terminate the pregnancy. I started shrieking. I begged the doctor to do whatever they could but I could not kill my child. I could feel the baby move and hear the heartbeat and as far as I was concerned there was a chance.

The doctor was reluctant, however, it was agreed they would try to insert some fluid into the womb to see if it would help the baby grow. I would have to stay in the hospital. For me there was no question, I would do it.

I called my school and explained the situation. They were sympathetic but did not know how to handle the situation. It was asked if I could return to America but the doctors stated that flying would kill the baby. I was admitted into the hospital the next day. I asked them if they could tell the sex of the child and they responded that it was a girl. Bill and I had decided if it were a girl we would give her a Japanese name. We decided to call her Ayame, which means "iris" in Japanese. From that day forward we referred to her by her name.

The doctors did what was called an amniotic infusion. They put saline solution in my abdomen the help the baby grow and see her clearer. The fluid around a baby is mainly composed of their urine. If the kidneys do not work then there is no fluid. If there is no fluid the child couldn’t grow and the lungs could not develop. The procedure is not normally done in America. It had never been done in that hospital in Japan. I didn’t care though, I was willing to take any chance to save Ayame.

After two weeks the doctors told me they felt it was hopeless. I was twenty-two weeks. They predicted my pregnancy would not last to twenty-eight weeks. They told us the disease was possibly a genetic kidney disease called Polycystic Kidney Disease or PKD for short. If this was the case then there was a chance every pregnancy I had could end up the same way. They recommended I go home and enjoy the time I had with my daughter. By law in Japan it was too late for them to terminate and they could do nothing else.

I refused to give up. Bill told me to do what I thought was best because it was my body. I responded it was his daughter too. We were together every step of the way. We agreed if there was a small chance we would do whatever was necessary. We asked the doctors to continue to do the infusions. The doctors asked if we hoped for a miracle of some sort. We answered yes we would hope for anything.

We prayed for a miracle. We wanted time with our baby. We wanted to see her and hold her. We wanted the dreams we had been dreaming to come true. We talked to her and prayed that she would get stronger. We read her stories so she would hear our voices. We told her how much we loved her.

I knitted to pass the time in the hospital. I made a cream-colored baby dress that I decorated with pink ribbons and buttons, and green and cream colored blanket. My husband emailed a picture to our family and friends. He asked them to pray. Email was my contact to the outside world. I was able to receive emails in my cell phone. I received emails of support from my friends and people all over the world who told me they were praying for Ayame.

Once a week we had an infusion done. The doctors measured the fluid around her every several days via ultrasound. They gave us pictures and one day my husband proudly brought a present into my hospital room for Ayame. It was a photo album with a bunny rabbit on the cover. We put the dozens of ultrasound pictures in the book.

Since we saw her so often we quickly realized she had certain habits. She liked to wiggle her fingers like her dad did when his got stiff from typing or writing. She slept with her hands behind her right ear like I did when I went to sleep.

She had a special green bunny rabbit that was always there when there was an infusion. A raccoon puppet purchased by her daddy would quickly join it. Bill got the puppet to cheer me up. I had seen it once before I went into the hospital and thought it was cute. He went back and bought it after I was admitted. We quickly dubbed the puppet with the name Rascal. When Bill read to Ayame he used the puppet to tell the story.

Twenty-eight weeks passed and Ayame still lived. The doctors were astounded. They told me she was sure she wouldn’t make it for thirty. Two days she stopped moving and the doctors predicted I would go into labor or the heart would stop. Bill and I continued to pray we refused to give up hope. Then after two days of stillness she started to move again. Bill and I were so proud of her. Ayame had proved the doctors wrong again.

After she stopped moving though the doctors told us if we kept doing the infusions it might kill her. We didn’t want to cause her pain so we agreed to go home. The doctors said if she could make it to thirty-four weeks they would do a c-section. We knew Ayame would not survive a normal childbirth. I was thirty weeks pregnant and had only four weeks to go.

Four weeks went by. I was glad; Ayame had proved them wrong again. Now they would do the c-section. It was our biggest hope. We were so proud she had come so far.

The doctor however, felt there was no hope. He refused to do the c-section. He said there was no hope the baby would live so he would not do it. I was devastated. I had come so far. I didn’t care about the small risk to me but if we didn’t do the c-section she would die! Bill was also very upset. He encouraged me to see if I could get a second opinion, a western opinion.

After talking to the American Consulate I was able to get the phone numbers for two foreign doctors living in Japan. I spoke to them over the phone and they explained to me that if the doctor didn’t think it would help it was his right to refuse treatment in Japan. They asked me if I had thought about returning to America. I told them we had asked in the beginning but they told us it would kill her. They told it should be fine but if I left it would need to be as soon as possible.

I decided to take the risk. If I didn’t leave it was certain she would die. We borrowed the money from family to fly me home. Bill stayed in Japan to work because my job was already not paying me after two months out of work. We could not afford him to leave.

It was the longest flight I ever had though I had flown to and from Japan before. I prayed the entire flight I wouldn’t go into labor or that Ayame would die. When we finally arrived back in America Bill’s parents picked me up at the airport. I was having contractions so they drove me to the closest hospital, which also happened to be one of the top hospitals in America.

We were very fortunate I saw the head of the maternal fetal medicine department that night and he scheduled an ultrasound for the next morning. I remember how proud I was of Ayame during the ultrasound. She was practicing breathing so much that the technician was having difficulties getting pictures. After an hour long ultra-sound the doctor came in the room to speak with Bill’s parents and me. She was a calm and gentle person and she explained that the prognosis was still the same. There was one major difference. Ayame didn’t have PKD. She thought she had multicystic dysplastic kidney disease. It was very similar but it was not genetic. It was more like a lighting strike. There was very small chance it would ever happen again. Unfortunately when it affected both kidneys like Ayame’s it was usually considered fatal. She told me they couldn’t promise me anything. They couldn’t do a c-section until the baby was term of thirty-seven because they didn’t want to add any more difficulties to her life. They would do what they could but they stressed that my husband should come back to America as soon as possible.

I was heart broken but at least this hospital would try. At least Ayame was fighting. As long as she fought I couldn’t give up either. I called Bill and after borrowing more money he flew back to America three days later.

I was now thirty-six weeks. I still felt Ayame’s gentle kicks and hiccups. We prayed for her to be strong, for her lungs to be strong. We told her she was almost there and we were proud of her. We also told her no matter what happened we loved her.

One evening I brought Ayame’s storybook to Bill and asked him to read to her. He took the book with a rather sad expression on his face. It was getting harder when we knew there was so little chance. This was our time though. We knew she could hear us and we wanted her to know us. It was the last time.

That night I started to have terrible back labor. By the time we made it to the hospital her heart had stopped. It was November and she was thirty-six weeks. Thirty-six weeks when they didn’t think she would make it twenty-eight. We had gotten our miracle, we had gotten time.

Ayame taught us to treasure the time we had. Though she never took a breath of air in this life, for us she lived as much as she would have if she had been born and lived thirty-six weeks. In the end she lived up to her name. The iris blossom is a beautiful and delicate flower that blooms in the spring for a short time. It is a flower that symbolizes hope. Its color is also purple a color for grief. For us our blossom could not live through the winter.

We never went back to Japan. I had lost my job and for a while we lived with Bill’s parents. We were able to bury Ayame here though in the dress I made, and remember her. We recovered knowing we had made the choices we thought were best by not giving up hope. We got new jobs and started life over but remembering the lesson Ayame had taught us.

Now we tell our son Liam about his older sister. We tell him that she is his guardian angel watching over him. We read him stories with the puppet raccoon that told stories to his sister. When Bill comes home he asks how his son is. I tell him that he has been playing all day long. Bill asks me to bring him so that he can play with him. I walk over to him and Bill talks to my tummy full in the third trimester of my pregnancy. He taps my tummy talking to Liam and letting him know how much we are looking forward to seeing him. He tells him about his day and asks if he is kicking and playing a lot inside mommy.

Liam is strong and healthy. Two ultrasounds have shown no sign of any problems with the kidneys or anything else. We look forward to his arrival in the spring. However, for Bill and me, he is already with us. We learned time is a miracle.