For those who asked...

I am starting this blog as an my outlet to share our story and also for those of you who want to stay updated you can. Let me just start by saying, God's Grace is sufficent and I love that we can Trust Fully and Hope Always in His great ways. Today I am gonna start with where we are at currently and will share the story of our past experience with our first son Evan later.



Currently, I am living in San Antonio, Mike joined the Army National Guard 4 months ago and just finished boot camp in Georgia and will continue on with 6mo. -12mo. of training in San Antonio, Tx. where he will be accomplishing a degree in Radiology, which has been a desire of his for some time know. God opened every door for this oppurtunity and though it has been full of trial, we are still confident in His awesome plan, and have eyes to see the end is not that far off. I moved here knowing that I would be living in a 2 bedroom apartment about 10 minutes from base and Mike has to live on base for at least the first few months, it is a weird transition and all that God is doing in our lives is challenging.



Five days before Mike left for boot camp, we had a routine ultrasound to hopefully find out the sex of the baby before he left. Because I am high risk I frequently have ultrasounds, we lost our first son to a neural tube defect called Anecephaly and my risk for carrying babies with this and other neural tube defects greatly increased after one child.



As our beloved Dr. Beatse was doing the ultrasound I knew something was wrong, as this is our third pregnancy with him and we have a really strong relationship with him. He told us that what he saw looked like Spina Bifida on the lower spine of the baby, but wanted to send us to the specialist to confirm this. He apologized profusely and was so sad at the diagnosis. Mike and I of course went into our modes, Mike always feels it right away emotionally and I always go into emergency contact mode, I call all our close friends and leaders to tell them all the details and ask for pray and support. The reality hits me about 24 or more hours later and at that point Mike has adjusted and is an amazing support to me, I love the way God designed us to carry and strengthen one another.



That day we had an appointment with a specialist in Milwaukee, we dropped Rowan off at my in-laws and drove to the hospital in shock. We would be working with the same specialist that worked with us with our son Evan and he remembered us and was saddened also by the pure fact that we were with him again. The ultrasound tech did her thing, she was kind and showed us some of the features of the baby that were healthy. After the ultrasound, Dr. Shohan was convinced that this was Spina Bifida and that it was not fatal, they however can not tell you the degree of until the baby is born and at that point they will operate.

This was an obvious blow and we felt a wide range of emotions, but mainly we felt honored and thankful that we were still gonna get a baby to keep, healthy enough to live a high qualitied life. So we continued forward with Mike leaving as we felt assured that God foresaw this diagnosis and had still opened all the doors and ordained this as his timing. In both our hearts we anticipated this "season of seperation" as one of clinging and growing strong in God. We had no idea what was to come.

My care was to continue on with both my regular OB and the specialist, I would see the specialist every 2-3 wks and Dr. Beatse my OB every 4 wks. So at my next scheduled appointment with the specialist I was 18 weeks and anticipating the big reveal, since at our last appointment there was no certainity of the sex. Dana, one of my dearest friends journeyed with me. Now, going to a specialist is full of uncertainity and honestly can be so hard on your mind, emotions and heart, seriously breaks your Faith down. There job is to give you all the news, good and bad, usually it is not good, but bleak and unhopeful. So needless to say I was prepared in my heart and mind for the news and to hear God in it all, desperately wanting to see his hand.

Both Mike and I's Faith was different this time around, with Evan we felt so confident that all God was promising us was that we could put all our hope in him and that no matter what the plan for Evan's life, there would be great PEACE and that was exactly as it was. With Phoenix, which is the name we have chosen for this baby, we both felt that God had spoken a promise of Healing and Restoration in this child. Now, we both know and have been so aware of this one constant in our lives, GOD's ways are not ours and His thoughts so much higher. So we put no expectation on what Healing and Restoration look like, we just are fully confident that His Grace is sufficent and that Phoenix' life, whatever the quality of it in our eyes, is God's perfect will. None of these thoughts are said lightly as it has taken much heartache and Trust to come to these places in our Faith and we know God is great always.

Back to the specialist appointment, it was increasingly worse news... Dr. Shohan began by showing us the Spine and saying that he can say with all certainity that this is not Spina Bifida but rather a much more severe case that he couldn't even name, because he had never seen anything like it. Both the spine and cord are largely exposed and the degree at which the spine formed outwardly was so severe that he was "baffled" as he continued to state. He went on to tell us that the baby seemed to display a bowel issue and signs of a heart condition that is fatal. Also that both of the babies feet are club foot. Both Dana and I burst into sporadic bouts of tears as this was something we couldn't have been prepared for. He pushed for me to get an Amniocentesis to help him narrow down the diagnosis to something more specific and I continued to say no at this point for many reasons. But I did agree to an MRI as this would give them a more in depth view of the babies spine. The MRI only confirmed the news we already knew, the degree of curvature of the spine was so severe that they really did not know what to tell us the road ahead looked like. Outside of a miracle ( which is what we are believing for) this baby will be severely handicapped and forego many surgeries in his short life.

Now, Mike is at boot camp and we are unable to talk at this point, so I have to call the emergency contact line to get a hold of him. This was a frustratingly hard conversation to have over the phone in 15 minutes, with his drill sergeant breathing down his neck. What a challenging time for both of us and our hearts. We continued to cling to God and fight for the Truth.

Let's fast forward to today.... The great news is that Phoenix "once existent heart condition is gone". The hard news is... Mike and I are daily battling many, many trials of all kinds, we are standing and believing in for the best and are asking all those who are reading this to FIGHT with us. These are times that produce great strength in our relationship with God if we so allow them to, we need one another and God is listening to the cries of our hearts, he wants to answer and we believe he wants to change all of us. Those who've known us for a short or long time, those who fell upon this story, we believe that the stirring of your heart is there because God is calling to you and we are asking that you respond on yours and our behalf.

Thank you for reading I will write more as we get a new specialist here in San Antonio and as we see what the road ahead looks like and as I have a need.