Life Unexpected- Our Story

I have been told by several people that writing can be therapeutic and knowing that this could be the last documentation of a pregnancy that I get, I figured I better get started.

What a whirlwind. That's really the only word I can find to describe these past 7 weeks of our life. A rollercoaster of emotions that is constantly hitting different ebbs and flows. When we were told at our 20 week appointment that our little boy had Trisomy13 (T13), we were devastated and faced with a decision that took a lot of prayer and soul searching. We laid everything before God and determined that the best thing for our family was to go forth with the pregnancy and get as many possible hours with our son as possible. Hoping for a miracle we prayed that the amniocentisis results would come back negative, we needed a miracle. Getting the phone call that Dalton did not have T13 was possibly the greatest moment of my life, thus far. Our baby was going to live.

At that moment though, something changed within Jonathan and I for the better. We had placed all our anxiety and worry in God's hands and truly given it all to him. We had no where else to turn, for Jonathan and I to be so broken, we were incapable of leaning on one another. We had to lean on the Lord. From that point on, prayer became a daily routine, and not just say your blessing at dinner prayer, I am talking having a real conversation with God. Our dependence was no longer on one another for everything, but on the Father. To the Doctors urging we continued on with the testing to find out if any chromosomal disorders were evident.

For four weeks, we were under the impression that the only 'problem' we would have, was that he had 6 fingers and 6 toes. Minor, in comparison to what we thought he could have. At 24 weeks I got a phone call from one of the many genetic counselors we had met with. Dalton's in depth chromosome tests were back, and they were not good. The counselor told me that Dalton had severe partial Trisomy 13. His life expectancy is unknown and if he does survive past the first years, profound mental retardation is certain. Back on that rollercoaster. Down we fell again, but this time the fall seemed to be more cushioned.

He has a plan. Our baby is an angel and no matter how long we have him we are going to love him to the moon and back. The 'mourning' period for this true diagnosis seems so much shorter and easier than before and I truly believe that the fact that our faith has grown so much has caused this revelation. We vowed to continue to enjoy this pregnancy and all the good and bad that comes with it. I will most likely never be pregnant again because of the genetic disorder that I have and what it will cause to any of my future children. There are plenty of babies out there that need loving parents. So, we will have our big family we always dreamed of, no matter how they come to us. God is continuing to do work in our hearts and we know that he has big plans for us all, including Dalton. We just can't wait to meet our little man and love on him as much as possible.

I am including Dalton's two most recent ultrasounds. The nice thing about seeing a perinatologist is that you get all the cool 4D pictures, so we know exactly what our little babe is going to look like, which is very cool. Enjoy!

                                                                 24 weeks

    I may be a little bias, but this is the sweetest thing ever. He is dreaming!

27 weeks. Hands always up by his nose!