About a month ago, we had our routine 20 week ultrasound for our third child. Of course every parent wants to find out the gender, while also almost taking for granted that most likely the baby will be healthy. After all, only 3% of babies are born with birth defects. After our ultrasound, we were excited to announce that we were having another baby boy! The next week I received a phone call that felt like a punch to my gut.
The ultrasound tech had told me over the phone that it appeared that our child had cysts instead of one kidney and they needed some better pictures of the heart and stomach. Not too scary, but enough to make me extremely concerned. When we went in to get another ultrasound he then told me that our child was not only missing his kidney on his left side but his left arm was also missing and something looked wrong with his heart.
It’s hard to describe what a parent goes through getting this sort of news. It took weeks for me to deal with the shock and wrap my mind around it. I think the hardest part though is living in the uncertainty of it all. The doctor left a big question mark as to what this could be, what causes this and what future problems might develop as the pregnancy develops. Everything is stable as of now, but we could discover more problems as the pregnancy progresses or once he’s born, or no more at all. It’s all uncertain and most humans don’t do well with uncertainty, although how odd is that? We go through life almost confident we will see our loved ones the next day or still being healthy while in a split second any of our lives could change and never be the same.

As I sat in Christmas Eve service last night, I was praising God for the peace He has given my husband and I in such a stage of waiting and uncertainty. My husband has been optimistic from the start and excited for our son. I pray all the time that our child will be born in just the way that will bring God the most glory. I love our precious son already and I can’t wait to meet him. I’m excited to learn from him because as of now, he will live life differently than I had to, then his siblings will have to. However, if we never had to learn to do things in a different way, how much would our world be lacking? How much invention has been discovered and engineered because humans had to figure out a different way? How much inspiration is generated because someone has learned how to adapt and overcome living life differently? How much stronger do we become when we learn to overcome adversity and trust God that every part of our suffering, of our lives will be used for His good? And when my baby is born, I will still look at him and say, he’s perfect, because he is fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

John 9:3 ” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. This is my prayer for my son and for my other two children as well. Praise God for His Son and the hope that we have in Him. Merry Christmas!