<<Current update: I’m choosing to share these very raw feelings and words I wrote down after we had a second ultrasound a few weeks ago to look at an area of our baby that didn’t seem quite right. There is still the possibility that our baby is completely healthy. Ultrasound technology and what they can see and determine while a baby is in utero has come a long ways, but it isn’t a complete picture. While we don’t have answers, and we may have no answers until this little one is born, the news that there may be something wrong with your baby is always jarring. No matter the severity. No matter the consequence. No matter past experience, modern medicine, and so many other things. I share these thoughts unaltered in their rawest form as a way of helping myself process, seeking prayers and community as there is strength in drawing support from others that we do not walk through this life alone, and in an attempt to be honest about real life. Our real life. Real life isn’t a straight line of perfect sequences after another. I would love for life to be pretty all of the time. But we all know that’s not the case. I started this space as a way of documenting our journey through life. Sharing the things that bring me joy, but also, the flip side of the same coin.

I won’t be sharing exact details of what they were looking at or what could potentially be wrong. We’re working with our doctors and specialists to determine what, if anything, we should do now. At the same time, we are spending time praying that despite all of the doctors’ best efforts to give us a more accurate picture of what is going on, that they truly just don’t know for sure, and there may be nothing wrong at all.>>

I spent yesterday crying. Crying, breaking down, crumbling. I swirled in a sea of google searches trying to make sense of what little they could tell on the ultrasound that something didn’t look quite right with our baby. I didn’t function yesterday. I looked at my two healthy boys and couldn’t push from my mind from that unknown of what was wrong with their younger sibling. And so I laid in bed. And on the bathroom floor. And crumbled. 

I feel like I searched desperately for someone to tell me that what was seen on the ultrasound was potentially nothing. Clinging to a hope that there will be nothing wrong once they can finally examine the baby after delivery. Clinging to potentially a false hope that everything will be fine.

But that’s what we do sometimes to protect our heart. We waffle between trying to make sense and coming to grips of two extremes. Whether nothing will be wrong to potentially a lifelong condition that will change everything we had envisioned as the future of this family. 

I don’t have any answers. No profound wisdom. I feel raw and exposed. Hope cracking. And so I trudge on. Trying to be kind to myself and my mind. Three more months seems infinite to live with unknowns. And yet not long enough to try to enjoy the last of potentially ordinary, easy days. 

I’d appreciate prayers for me and the baby. 

Specifically, for our doctors that are trying to guide us on next steps. 

Please pray that there is nothing wrong. 

For my strength and resilience to keep going for the baby and all of my boys. 

For Nathan as he shoulders the emotional weight of a wife struggling. 

For I the Lord God hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” -Isaiah 41:13