2025: Hope & Grace: A Radical Embrace

Written by Elisabeth Perryman, 2025 Home School Parent

 

This year has been a doozy, nothing short of a great big miracle. Or, maybe that is stating things too simply. Every day has been miraculous, with the big miracle of little baby Fisher looking at us each morning. Each moment a sacred gift, wrapped in a bow of impossibility.

Last year at this time our family was still dealing with the reality that I, the homeschooling mom, was pregnant in my mid-late forties. 

After our second little boy Blaise was born, we were dealt the blow of secondary infertility. But God had other plans. We conceived a third little boy after Blaise had open-heart surgery. July of 2024 was a time of quiet remembrance as it was the ten-year anniversary of that open-heart surgery which changed our lives. But here we were, pregnant, again, miraculously!

My pregnancies have always been difficult, but being “old,” “elderly,” “high-risk,” and “geriatric” had all new meanings being over 45. Contractions started at 18 weeks, quickly followed by bedrest, all which took a dramatic turn towards scary when we lost electricity after the hurricane in the beginning of July. That was only the beginning of what we thought would be just another short two months of stress. Unfortunately, things were just warming up for this family.

After much prayer and deliberation from my entire medical team, Baby Fisher was born at 35 weeks, a few minutes between the feasts of Monica and Augustine. He was an even six pounds and looked adorable, but breathing at 144 breaths per minute. Our baby couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. Could not breathe.

Breathe. In. Out. Breathe. In. Out. How does a baby not breathe?

Shortly after 11 pm the next day, the neonatologist came in to tell me they were intubating him. I baptized him 24 hours after he was born with the help of his nurse, who happened to be Catholic and happened to have a bottle of Holy Water in her bag. I sat by the incubator and stared. I had no words, just “Jesus. Mary. You know.”

How does a baby not know how to breathe? 

CHILD—Childhood Interstitial Lung Disease. That’s how.

Genetics. That’s why.

Eleven weeks in the NICU. We didn’t even know if he would come home. But God is bigger, BIGGER than anything we can attempt to wrap our minds around. After three doses of surfactant for his lungs, he stalled and was no longer progressing, until our pastor came to give him Anointing of the Sick. There is nothing like the power of the Sacraments and the prayer of His Church! The next day, Fisher did not need as much oxygen. Blowing away the expectations of all the nurses, doctors, and specialists, Fisher did come home, without oxygen.

Although he is on a feeding tube due to not learning the suck-swallow-breathe pattern at birth, three therapy sessions a week are working on the problem. 

Our family consists of four sons, two of whom are medical miracles and require extra needs and special attentions, one family dog, one service dog, and us parents. We are a homeschool family for reasons beyond our control, and we are grateful for it all.

Our homeschool community supported us through it all—the bedrest, the drives to the doctors twice weekly, carpooling our kids when the school year started, the dinners three times a week for five months, the visits to keep me company in the NICU, the phone calls to check on us, and most of all the prayers.

Our family’s homeschool year was broken before it ever began. If one person cried that day, it usually meant that each person would take their turn in tears, struggling with the reality that the last nine months of difficulty might end in never having baby brother home. When the 16 year old broke down in tears 11 days after Fisher was born, we were there to embrace him and encourage him to be patient with his brothers and himself. He was suddenly the man of the house while starting his junior year. This was also a time for him to re-live all that he encountered as a two-year old when Blaise came along. This was a time of waiting, and healing, and understanding.

This is the beauty of homeschooling. In death and in life, we learn to love, we learn to weep with each other and truly celebrate with each other. Sure, our boys could have had these experiences even if they were in a typical school, but there they would be dealing with the stress of peers, teachers, expectations, classes, and likely watching their grades collapse due to the stress at home. Feeling failure on top of everything else is unnecessary. The light and the darkness mingle together in blinding us, each in its turn, in situations like these. How much more beauty is there in life when we are able to embrace it as a family and walk the road together? Sometimes the school of life as a devout Catholic is all the schooling that we need.

As Catholic homeschooling families, we educate not just for the transient, but for the eternal. We want our children to get to Heaven and that is our end goal.

When our mortality becomes a moment to moment, living and struggling for breath person in front of us, educating for the infinite becomes a tangible opportunity. Beautiful handwriting, algebraic equations, chemical compounds, IEW papers, and correctly spelled words all fade into a dark and distant void. The light of His Love and Grace pour forth in abundance and we are left with the tears of mingled joy and sadness which reflect His light, only showing us the next step in the road ahead for which He calls us to as family.

This article is republished from Volume 1 of the Annual Showcase Magazine "An Invitation to Wonder."

2025 Annual Theme | An Invitation to Wonder: A Culture of Learning at Home. Find more details on how to submit in the upcoming annual showcase magazine, more inspiration from the theme, and where to purchase a limited edition print copy of the 2025 magazine.