Episode 24: The Minyan of My Children | With Sarahla Deus

00:03 Speaker 1 How do we turn our lives into lives of shlichus, full of meaning? This is Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In this podcast, we’ll meet women who have brought their shlichus into a variety of fields. Through their stories, they’ll help each of us find and refine our own shlichus in the world. Because living the life we were created to live is the best there is. Shlichus as a way of life. Let’s begin. Dear Saraleh Daos, give us a quick introduction to yourself.

00:39 Speaker 2 I’m Saraleh Daos. I grew up here in Nachlas Har Chabad. I’m the daughter of... my parents, may they be well, may they be well. My father, Rabbi Amora [unclear] Saadia, and my mother, Ahuva, may she live a long life. I’m one of ten siblings. I grew up here in Nachlas Har Chabad and got married at nineteen and a half. Like everyone, I wanted to bring children into the world.

01:16 Speaker 1 Sarah, take us back for a moment to that dream you had as a young woman who had just gotten married. How many of you are there in your family, the family you grew up in?

01:26 Speaker 2 There are ten of us in my family, six girls and four boys.

01:31 Speaker 1 And what did you imagine? What would your own family look like?

01:34 Speaker 2 I imagined I’d have a big family like my parents did. I always pictured myself sitting at the head of the table, with my husband at the head of the table, surrounded by lots of children—just like at my parents’ home, where the family was close, warm, and supportive. I always wanted a big family.

01:57 Speaker 1 So you get married. A month passes, then two. How does that dream start to come true?

02:03 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem, I became pregnant with my son very quickly and gave birth less than a year after the wedding. Then I gave birth to Yahel.

02:18 Speaker 1 And then you have two children at home, and you’re ready to keep going.

02:23 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:24 Speaker 1 Like everyone else.

02:25 Speaker 2 Yes. I didn’t see myself stopping. I knew I was healthy, mentally and physically, and I wanted to keep having children.

02:37 Speaker 1 At this point, you’re pregnant. There’s already a baby girl in your womb, kicking.

02:45 Speaker 2 Yes. At that point I was pregnant, and I had a detailed ultrasound. They saw that the baby had abnormalities—very, very severe ones. They recommended that I have an abortion, but I didn’t want to, because we believed that, with Hashem’s help, a healthy girl would be born.

03:16 Speaker 1 And what happened in the end?

03:18 Speaker 2 In the end, I gave birth to her at thirty-nine weeks, by C-section, and she really was born with very, very severe abnormalities. I want to emphasize that my case is extremely rare.

03:33 Speaker 1 So no one should be frightened.

03:34 Speaker 2 Yes. It’s a very rare case—the fourth in the world. So my case is... yes, I know.

03:43 Speaker 1 Just as an aside, yes.

03:44 Speaker 2 Yes.

03:47 Speaker 1 So there are abnormalities. They take your daughter to intensive care, and you’re in the hospital with her for a while.

03:54 Speaker 2 Yes. They took her to intensive care immediately after she was born. Of course, I couldn’t hold her. I only saw her the next day. I remember noticing then that she wasn’t really making eye contact with me. She wasn’t looking at me. So I asked the doctor if he could check her vision—why wasn’t she looking at me? He said he would check. A couple of days later, when I came back, I asked him about the test. I was standing there by the counter, and the doctor said to me, “She definitely can’t see.” I was so angry. How can you tell me something like that? I’m standing by the counter—at least let me sit down. Tell me when I’m sitting. You don’t say something like that to someone while they’re standing there. He said, “You’re right.” Then they took my husband and me into a room, and the room was full of doctors and social workers and all sorts of people bringing bad news. They laid out all the abnormalities our daughter had and told us what was wrong with her. Then they asked us, “What do you want us to do with her? Should we resuscitate her, or let her...”

05:26 Speaker 3 Go.

05:26 Speaker 2 Yes. I remember looking around. I was only twenty-three. I looked at my husband, and suddenly he seemed to shrink into his chair. He didn’t say anything. I found myself facing everyone, and they were all waiting for me to speak. I didn’t have—I mean, I know Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave me the strength. I just gathered my courage and said to him, “Doctor, your job is to heal. You do what you need to do, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu will do what He needs to do. What’s meant to happen will happen.”

06:07 Speaker 3 A twenty-three-year-old young woman.

06:09 Speaker 2 Twenty-three.

06:10 Speaker 3 Unbelievable. During that period, you also have to start thinking about what comes next. You’re a fertile woman.

06:24 Speaker 2 Yes.

06:25 Speaker 3 How can you even imagine what comes next after a birth like that?

06:30 Speaker 2 Knowing myself, I knew that, boruch Hashem, I was fertile and became pregnant very quickly. I was terribly afraid of becoming pregnant right away, because I had a sick daughter in the hospital and I needed to care for her. Deep down, I was scared. I was scared of how I could manage all of it while also caring for her. I didn’t know if I could do it. I remember talking to my husband and saying, “Maybe we should take a break? Use contraception.” At first, my husband was a little shocked. It upset him, because he said, “If Hakadosh Boruch Hu has given us this, it means He’s given us the strength for it.” But it was very hard for me. I was staying with my mother after the birth, here in Nachlas Har Chabad, so I went to Rebbetzin Yaroslavsky. I remember going into the room and explaining to her what I was going through and all the difficulties surrounding it. The Rebbetzin went to the rabbi and asked him on my behalf whether I could prevent a pregnancy. Rebbetzin, do you remember that? I remember the rabbi standing there and saying, “Tell her to tell her husband that the rabbi has ruled.” I went home and told my husband: the rabbi has ruled. So if the rabbi had ruled, we would prevent a pregnancy. And that’s what we did. Three months later, our Tamar passed away. I remember that during the shiva, I kept thinking about how the doctors had told us all along that this could happen. We still didn’t really know exactly what had happened here. They always told us it could happen—that things like this can happen. So I said to myself: if it can happen, that doesn’t mean it has to happen again. It can happen.

08:35 Speaker 4 And you have two healthy children at home.

08:37 Speaker 2 I had two healthy children at home. Mendy was already three, and Yahel was about a year and eight months old, something like that. I wanted to continue. But I had permission from the rabbi to prevent a pregnancy, and he had ruled on it, so I couldn’t just do what I wanted. I needed to ask his permission. I remember talking to my husband during the shiva and saying that we weren’t giving up; we would try. I also wanted to prove to myself that I could do it—that, with Hashem’s help, I would have a healthy child. There was no reason I wouldn’t. I already had two healthy children. So I called the Rebbetzin again and asked her to ask the rabbi on my behalf if I could start trying again.

09:29 Speaker 4 Permission to set aside the permission.

09:30 Speaker 2 Exactly. I remember the Rebbetzin turning to the rabbi, and I could hear him over the phone blessing me. Then the Rebbetzin blessed me too, and boruch Hashem, I became pregnant.

09:43 Speaker 4 Did you feel you had the emotional and physical strength for it?

09:47 Speaker 2 Yes. I also felt it would heal me. I wanted something that would heal me.

09:53 Speaker 4 You needed it.

09:53 Speaker 2 I had to have it.

09:54 Speaker 4 It’s important to point out that when someone is struggling emotionally, there is room to ask. The Rebbe himself said to go to a rabbi, consult him, and ask. So you become pregnant again. Is this your second pregnancy? Your fifth.

10:05 Speaker 2 Fifth. Yes, I got pregnant again, and this time, because I knew it could happen, I didn’t want to have tests. I decided that in this pregnancy I’d only check for a heartbeat—to make sure everything was all right, there was a heartbeat, everything was fine. And until the eighth month, I really only had heartbeat checks, you know, blood tests, things like that. In the eighth month, the doctor asked to check the baby’s size because they thought my belly was small, and they wanted to know how much the baby weighed. So I went to the hospital, and they checked the weight—or that was supposedly what they were meant to do. But they discovered that the baby also had very, very severe abnormalities, and I was already in my eighth month. There was nothing I could do. So I put my trust in Hakadosh Boruch Hu and gave birth to him. I gave birth to Neriah, Neriah Chaim. I think I gave birth to him at forty weeks, and it was a vaginal delivery. The doctors insisted I have a C-section, but I didn’t want to, because I knew I wanted to have more children, and if I had a second C-section, then—

11:37 Speaker 4 Do you realize who’s sitting here? I don’t. An extraordinary woman.

11:42 Speaker 2 Thank you.

11:46 Speaker 4 So Neriah was born in a natural birth.

11:48 Speaker 2 Yes.

11:49 Speaker 4 And it turned out he had abnormalities like Tamar Chaya had?

11:53 Speaker 2 Almost. He was a little better off. There were abnormalities that could be corrected.

12:00 Speaker 4 You had more hope.

12:01 Speaker 2 Exactly. I knew things could work out. This could be fixed, that could be fixed. With medicine today, you can fix everything.

12:10 Speaker 4 And after three months, it just—

12:13 Speaker 2 After three months, Neriah passed away too. Yes.

12:22 Speaker 4 And you’re twenty-four, sitting shiva again.

12:26 Speaker 2 Yes.

12:27 Speaker 4 At that point, you realize something is going on.

12:31 Speaker 2 Yes. At that point, we understood this wasn’t just something that happens. Something wasn’t right. They took the findings and all the test results to see how they could help me with future pregnancies. I want to say that when Neriah was born, the doctors wanted to take samples from him so the genetics specialists could see whether they might be able to help me in the future. I asked the Puah Institute in Jerusalem for permission for that too, because I couldn’t agree to tests, or do anything to the baby, or take part of the placenta without asking a rabbi.

13:16 Speaker 4 So throughout the whole process, you asked a rabbi about every single step.

13:20 Speaker 2 Every single step. We asked a rabbi. I didn’t do anything on my own initiative, nothing.

13:26 Speaker 4 And the findings said that—

13:29 Speaker 2 The findings said that our case was very, very rare. We were the fourth case in the world, and we had a high chance of having children with health problems.

13:42 Speaker 4 But there was also some chance—

13:44 Speaker 2 There were those few important percentage points. And the children wanted siblings too.

13:49 Speaker 4 And there are two children at home, and this lady isn’t stopping.

13:53 Speaker 2 Yes.

13:54 Speaker 4 Basically, you’re saying, “I’ll do what’s in my hands.”

13:57 Speaker 2 Yes, I will. I always knew my purpose was to bring children into the world. Between us, if we don’t have them, our husbands won’t. So that’s our role, and I do what I can.

14:14 Speaker 4 So at this stage, now that you know about the problem, you understand that you’ll get pregnant, but you’ll need to have tests.

14:21 Speaker 2 Yes.

14:22 Speaker 4 And there’s a certain chance that the pregnancy will have to be ended, with the help of... Tell us a little about the ordeal you had to go through in the next pregnancy. And not just the next one—I’ll reveal this now: three pregnancies like that, one after another.

14:36 Speaker 2 Yes. With our condition, I couldn’t know whether the baby was healthy or not until the detailed ultrasound scan. Again, I’m talking about our particular case. In many cases, you can know earlier. That was how it was for us at the time; things may be different today. So I would reach week twenty-two or twenty-four, when they do the detailed scan, and go in for the test. They would discover that, again, the baby had abnormalities. What was I supposed to do now? I had two healthy children at home and two children we had buried, and it was very hard to deal with that in front of the children. Physically, I knew that if I continued the pregnancy, I would give birth, please G-d, but the child wouldn’t survive. It affected us emotionally, and it affected the children too. So again, we had the Puah Institute in Jerusalem. Rabbi Yaroslavsky had referred us there. I would bring the findings to the Puah Institute in Jerusalem. The rabbis there understand medicine, and they would examine the findings. They would even call the genetics department at Schneider to find out what could be done and whether the baby really had a chance of surviving. Once I got the rabbis’ answer, I would go back to the hospital, where I had to go before a medical committee. You can’t just have an abortion; you have to go before a medical committee.

16:27 Speaker 4 And you had to wait a few weeks for that too.

16:29 Speaker 2 I had to wait for that too. Each time, I’d wait until the week of my detailed scan appointment, then wait for the rabbis to get back to me with an answer, and then wait for the committee. Meanwhile, my belly was growing. People could see I was pregnant.

16:47 Speaker 4 You could feel movement.

16:48 Speaker 2 I could feel the baby moving. I felt everything. And the procedure itself was a birth in every sense.

16:55 Speaker 4 And by then you were around week—

16:57 Speaker 2 It could be week twenty-four, twenty-six. Once it was even week twenty-eight.

17:02 Speaker 4 Wow. And you went through that whole ordeal three more times.

17:06 Speaker 2 Yes.

17:07 Speaker 4 One of the times you went before the committee for ending a pregnancy, who was sitting there waiting with you?

17:13 Speaker 2 One time when we came to the committee, there were three other women sitting there with me. One was very young, one was hard of hearing, and one was in her seventh month. They were all pregnant, and I was the only one who had come with her husband. They were there without their husbands. My husband and I were sitting there, and we heard that the young woman didn’t want the baby; it didn’t suit her. The second woman was hard of hearing, and she’d forgotten a few birth-control pills and gotten pregnant, and it didn’t suit her. The third was in her seventh month. She’d had some kind of argument with her husband, something like that. She’d come all the way from the north and decided she wanted to end the pregnancy. She didn’t want the baby because she didn’t want to stay with her husband. My husband and I sat there looking at these three women and thinking: We’re here not because we want to be, but because our baby has abnormalities. Their babies are healthy. Give me the baby. Why are you ending the pregnancy? Especially the woman in her seventh month—it was simply horrifying. Give me the baby. The baby is already a person. How could you? It was very, very shocking. I remember we came home deeply shaken by that meeting.

18:39 Speaker 4 How much we need to appreciate every healthy pregnancy. It’s just—

18:42 Speaker 2 Yes, absolutely.

18:43 Speaker 4 Tell me, you go through all this three times. You have a visible belly, and then it disappears. Then you have a visible belly again, and it disappears. How did the people around you respond to all this, and what support did you have along the way?

18:56 Speaker 2 I had very warm support from my family and friends. I wouldn’t have survived without them. But yes, there were a lot of people who were critical. I remember one time, when I was working as an assistant in a kindergarten, I’d just come back after a procedure, and the teacher asked me, “Tell me, is it true you went through something?” I said, “You know, everyone goes through things,” and so on. I was trying to avoid the question so she wouldn’t pry too much. Everyone has their own struggles. I remember going home afterward, calling my father and crying to him. I said, “Look, if I’d given birth to this child, people would have criticized me: ‘You know the baby has abnormalities. You know the baby won’t survive. How can you bring the baby into the world?’ But on the other hand: ‘How can you do this? How can you end the pregnancy?’ As though anyone is happy to do that. No one knows what we’re going through, what upheavals we face, or that I’m going here and there and not making any decision on my own.” I remember my father telling me, “You haven’t stolen, murdered or robbed anyone. You did what you had to do. Understand, this is the way of the world. This Shabbos, people will be talking about you at the Shabbos tables of any number of families. Next week, it’ll be someone else. That’s how the world works. But you should know that you did what you had to do.” And that’s what gave me strength.

20:38 Speaker 5 It’s amazing how important this is. The Rebbe also said, when speaking about a woman who has given birth, that she shouldn’t worry about what the neighbor thinks. In this area, you really shouldn’t answer to anyone. And on the other hand, how important it is not to judge, not to wonder what my friend is going through, what she’s doing, and why she’s making that decision. Every woman has her own story. Really, don’t answer to anyone, and don’t judge anyone else. And Sarah’le, you were living in Elad then, right? Throughout that time, there wasn’t a Chabad mikveh in Elad.

21:16 Speaker 2 Right. We didn’t have a Chabad mikveh for many years. We would travel either to Kfar Chabad, Neve Monosson, or Shoham, and I always insisted on immersing only in a Chabad mikveh. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu really took care of me: it never fell on Shabbos. It was always on a weekday, and I always immersed in a Chabad mikveh. I insisted on it.

21:43 Speaker 5 That took real mesirus nefesh, to do it with the highest level of holiness. And today, as someone who does— We haven’t reached the end. Wait, there’s more. As someone who does gel nails, with the whole issue of having to remove them before going to the mikveh, I understand you’re very particular about it. She has a stamp of kashrus on her—

22:07 Speaker 2 Yes. I have a pedicure and manicure clinic at home, and I’ve really taken it on as a shlichus to remove gel polish properly, so it’s acceptable for the mikveh. Baruch Hashem, I try to do it faithfully. So perhaps I can just ask people not to be afraid of it. If you need it removed, come. But do try not to come at the last minute, because sometimes I don’t have time. I have clients.

22:45 Speaker 5 She’ll take you, but just—

22:46 Speaker 2 I can’t say no, but sometimes...

22:48 Speaker 5 Exactly. Tell me, Sarah’le, going through all this again and again and again—where did you find the strength?

22:59 Speaker 2 As I said, I grew up in a home with very strong faith, a lot of joy, and a lot of encouragement. I always knew this was my purpose. This was what I wanted, and this was what would be. I wanted a full home. I wanted a happy home. The faith, the support around me, and the strength I received from those around me gave me the strength to continue.

23:26 Speaker 5 That’s just amazing. You told yourself, “I can do this,” and kept going.

23:30 Speaker 2 Yes. I always told myself that if I was physically healthy and emotionally healthy, I would do it.

23:37 Speaker 5 Everything that was up to you.

23:38 Speaker 2 Yes.

23:39 Speaker 5 Wow! Applause, applause. That applause isn’t for nothing—every clap counts. So after the passing of two children and three more stillbirths, you reached your ninth pregnancy? Your ninth, and you went for an anatomy scan.

23:59 Speaker 2 Yes. By that point, medicine had advanced, and I no longer needed to wait until week twenty-two or twenty-four for an anatomy scan. I could have an expanded early scan at week fifteen. I remember that during this pregnancy, I pushed it out of my mind. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me about the pregnancy. My husband would talk to me about it, and I wouldn’t listen. Don’t talk to me. We’re not talking about this at all. My parents, of course, didn’t know, and I was dealing with it alone. I would come home from the kindergarten, get into bed, and, as they say, see nothing and hear nothing. At week fifteen, I had the expanded early anatomy scan. I remember it was a Tuesday. They scheduled us for eight in the morning, and I remember sitting on the bed, unable to get up. My legs were simply locked; my knees were locked. I couldn’t stand. Somehow, leaning on my husband, I managed to get to Schneider. We arrived at the hospital, and there was a long, long, long line of women having anatomy scans, alpha-fetoprotein tests, amniocentesis—each with her own test. I had been scheduled for eight in the morning. I thought they’d call me in any minute. But no. They only saw us at twelve o’clock, when there was no one left in the department. Just my husband and me.

25:36 Speaker 6 They cleared out a place of honor for you.

25:37 Speaker 2 Exactly. And the moment we walked in, I remember the doctor saying, “Guys, the Daoses are here. The Daoses are here.” That meant another five or six doctors came into the room with us. By then, I couldn’t see anything. They did the expanded early anatomy scan. The room was dark, and there were these tall, stern-looking doctors. I remember saying to the doctor, “Talk. Say what you know out loud so I can hear it, even if I don’t understand. Talk, and I’ll understand. I just want to hear something,” because their silence was frightening. Now, that expanded early scan is like 3D. My husband says—I didn’t see it, but he says it looked as though you could reach out, take the fetus in your hands, and pull it out of the screen. The image was that vivid. The doctor did the scan, checking everything. He saw legs and counted five toes on each foot. He checked the hands and counted five fingers on each. He saw two chambers of the heart, kidneys, lungs—he simply saw a healthy fetus. Then he looked at us and said, “Daos, we did it.” Baruch Hashem. Thank you. And then our Shir Hallel was born. There’s a reason we named her Shir Hallel.

27:18 Speaker 6 Do you realize you went through this again and again and again, and then you got your happy ending? It was worth it. It finally came.

27:26 Speaker 2 I didn’t fight for nothing.

27:28 Speaker 6 Exactly.

27:28 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem.

27:30 Speaker 6 Wow. After that, you had another pregnancy that ended like the earlier ones, in a stillbirth. So altogether, you went through ten pregnancies. Yes, ten pregnancies.

27:43 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem.

27:45 Speaker 6 A minyan.

27:46 Speaker 2 A minyan. Baruch Hashem. I know I truly did everything I could to bring children into the world. I made every effort, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu showed me great kindness. There are two great kindnesses I really hold on to. One is the fact that, baruch Hashem, I had two healthy children at home, and only afterward did this whole ordeal with the children who weren’t healthy begin. That was an enormous kindness, because I came home to my children. Coming home to an empty house would have been very, very hard. That’s a kindness—I mean, I’ve been shown many kindnesses, but these two stand out. The second is that, despite all the difficulty and pain, I look at the half of the glass that’s full. My children aren’t alive, but I am. If they had lived, I wouldn’t really have been able to live and function, because they would have needed very, very intensive care. So that, too, was a kindness Hakadosh Boruch Hu showed me.

28:54 Speaker 7 What did that rabbi from the Puah Institute tell you?

28:58 Speaker 2 Yes. I remember one of the times we asked what to do—whether to terminate the pregnancy or not—one of the rabbis told me, “The souls you brought into the world will come to greet you after your hundred and twenty years. They count as your children. Every pregnancy you terminated or miscarried—those children count as yours. After your hundred and twenty years, they’ll come to greet you.” And baruch Hashem, I’ll have an escort.

29:34 Speaker 7 As the Rebbe said, ten children—you have your own minyan. And truly, Sarah’le, the strength you’ve had to go through this again and again and again is beyond comprehension, and in the end, to sing a song of praise. So, Daos, we did it.

29:53 Speaker 2 Thank you so much. We really did it. Thank you.