Lots to pray about

Yesterday I met with our perinatal doctor to discuss all the tests and imaging they have done over the last three weeks, and to think about what the results mean going forward.

First, the funny news.  Cadence Maria Ramos is actually a little boy who played shy for a few days during the numerous ultrasounds 3 weeks ago.  Had everything been normal, we would have had no further testing or sonograms and have had a fun surprise in October!  (And a son with nothing but pink onesies to wear...)  So, while all the spiritual and emotional meaning behind *his* old name remains true, we will be searching for a more appropriately masculine moniker and probably changing the blog title.

Now for the serious news.  Our son (sounds kind of funny after almost a month of thinking of our daughter!) has a bilateral diaphragmatic hernia, meaning that the diaphragm did not attach on either side.  This is a VERY rare condition (estimates are something like 1 in every 250,000 to 1 in 500,000 births).  Almost no lungs have developed, making surgery after birth unlikely to succeed.  While our God is not bound by statistics, so that you know the seriousness of the situation, the odds of him surviving are less than 1%.

There are some clinical trials where doctors do an in-utero procedure to try to give the lungs room to grow, but since the baby has heart defects in addition to the hernia, he is not a candidate for these.

We will still plan to deliver at a facility that would be able to provide the kind of specialized care he would need if, as our doctor said, he is "the miracle baby".  We anticipate that their staff will give us more specifics as to what we might expect when our son is born and what decisions we need to make before then.

With these defects, there is a higher likelihood that our son will be stillborn or that I will go into preterm labor.  There is also greater chance that the combination of problems he has is caused by something genetic, although scientists have yet to isolate any genes that would allow them to say so definitively. 

The last 3 weeks have been quite a storm of circumstances and emotions, and we know that we have only been able to weather them by God's grace, which He has been so good to supply.  We are so thankful for your prayers on our behalf and on behalf of our child.  Please continue to pray for wisdom for the decisions we need to make on both the big issues and the small details.  Please also pray for our hearts, minds, and souls as we grieve and hope at the same time. 

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;"
~Hebrews 10:23, NAS