Dear Friends and Family

We write to you with very heavy hearts. At 13 weeks pregnant Jenn had her first OB visit; and because the doctor was not able to detect a heartbeat, an ultrasound was performed. The u/s tech was able to detect a heartbeat, albeit not as strong as it should have been. The u/s tech also saw some things that gave her concern. The OB informed Jenn of the findings. She said that it appeared at this point that the baby is anencephalic . The prognosis is either the baby will naturally miscarry sometime over the next several months, or the baby will be carried to full-term but that the baby would die within hours or days of birth.

We know that God is good. We know that His ways are not our ways. We know that all things work together for good for those who love Him. God in His great mercy has been preparing us for this, though it is certainly nothing that we would choose to go through or wish for anybody else. In some things that we’ve been reading and listening to, we are more and more convinced that God has a greater plan than we could ever imagine. Our job is to let go of our right to ourselves, stop fighting for what we want, what we think should happen. Our job is let God use the path He has chosen to bring us to a deeper and more personal knowledge of Him, and sometimes that can only come through suffering. We choose to stand on Him and His promises. Faith isn’t faith until it is the only thing you’re standing on.

We believe that every life is a precious gift from God. We will try our best to treasure each moment that we have with this little one, from hopeful kicks from inside the womb to whatever amount of time that God allows us to have with our little one once he or she is born. Our prayers right now, among many others that you can imagine we’re praying, is that if God allows us to carry this little one to term that the baby’s organs would be viable and used to help other families whose babies are in desperate need of a transplant. It gives our pain some hope and purpose.

The road before us looks to be a very long and hard road to walk. We invite you to walk it with us. We need you, our family and church family, to surround us with your loving arms, to lift us up in prayer. If you see us at church, at work, at playgroup, or around town, feel free to ask us how we’re doing. But please don’t be offended if we can only give you is a short or pat answer. It is still so raw and we can imagine that it will be for quite sometime, that it will be too hard for us open up with everybody.

We love you.

Tom and Jenn