carrying her home...

It is 3:15 in the morning. Conor and I are watching Copeland struggle for each breath as we lay side by side in bed, hoping that the Lord will intervene and give us all some rest. I confess to you that our prayer - right now - is that He will embrace us in His arms and take Copeland home to be whole, complete and healed. The last few hours have been agonizing.

After the last post, we asked a friend who's also a pediatrician to come by and listen to Copeland's heartrate. As I suspected, it was low. Even as she listened, the rate itself fluctuated several times, but ultimately kept returning to about 60 beats a minute, which, for Copeland, is much lower than the 150 we had left the hospital at just yesterday afternoon. In the time our friend stayed with us, it seemed our precious angel would continue to go downhill.

At about 2:00, her breathing slowed to the point that she stopped it altogether for about a minute at a time. Her coloring was so altered that I brought her into our bedroom and Conor and I lay on either side of her, wept over her, and prayed Jesus would come and take her. He still hasn't.

An hour later, we appear to still be in the "stages of death" that our neonatologist at the hospital described to us. We know that Copeland is not in pain, but it's the most difficult thing I've ever wtinessed in my entire life. We have talked for so long with Sellers about Copeland going to heaven, and while I do believe even now the Father can heal her, we are walking with hope in the Lord that He will reveal Himself to us in a fresh and mighty way tonight - not that she will defy science or statistics, but that she will be free in Him... and that Conor and I, in the Lord's perfect provision, will perhaps defy what the world says two young parents holding their dying child can never be counted on to do: sing His praises.

Blessings...