Final Amnio Results

It is a beautiful day here in Southern Indiana, and as I sit and write on the front porch, the kids are running around in the cul-de-sac. Thank you, Lord, for spring!

We finally have the full amnio results! And they are completely normal! We are praising God for this, and I am very, very thankful that we did not receive bad news so close to Hope's due date. I know, I know, we were the ones who chose to wait until the latest date possible to have the amnio, and I would not change that decision for the world, but as we get closer to Hope's birth, I am thankful for good news in the midst of increasing worry.

While this does not exclude the possibility of some over-arching genetic problem, it excludes a lot of them. After Hope is born, we will meet with a geneticist to determine if she has any other signs of genetic defects, and will go from there if he decides there are.

We are within a week of Hope's birth, which is hard to believe. On Tuesday, David's Mom will fly in to help us with the kids during this week. On Thursday, David and I will head up to Indy for a c-section at 11 am. David will go with Hope from there, as they evaluate her in the NICU and then, later in the day, do an MRI. Sweet Barbara will stay with me (actually, they don't allow doulas into the OR except when you get a nice nurse who lets her slip in--so pray we get one of those on Thursday!). What the days after that look like depend entirely on how Hope is doing. I will have my cell phone (but will not put the number up here--sorry!), and will probably be letting somebody else field the phone calls. We will be putting updates up as often as we can, but I have no idea how often that will be.

We are praying for what the doctors would consider a very unlikely possibility, and we would ask you all to join us in that, especially on Thursday. We are praying specifically that Hope will be healthy, stable, and strong, and that her encephalocele has a good skin covering. We are praying that the neurosurgeon decides to send her home with us to get bigger for a few weeks or months before surgery, and that Hope and I can regain strength at home.

We are thankful to our Lord for many, many things, the biggest and most obvious being the medical technology that we have today. We are thankful for our other children, our family and church family so willing to help and encourage us, and we are thankful for baby Hope, who has already made such an imprint on our lives. We pray that she will have many years here with us.