update - 16 weeks

Dear family and friends and prayer warriors we don't even know...

Conor and I are writing to ask for your prayers on two specific dates. In lieu of making this long and drawn-out, I will simply tell you that all is going well with the pregnancy and that the Lord has done TREMENDOUS things through your prayers and words of encouragement... I have felt such deep peace, such overwhelming joy in the anticipation of what is to come, and am believing He has big things in store for us. I know this is due to His faithfulness and to your commitment to pray our
family through this season. Thank you. Having said that...

We are going in Wednesday (6/18) for our 16-week appointment and will find out the sex of the baby! We cannot believe so much time has passed. Though most pregnant patients are required to wait until 20 weeks to find out what they're having, our OB has been very compassionate with us and is allowing us a "sneak peek" a few weeks early. We are truly thrilled. No matter what we find out, our hearts are full in thinking we will finally know a little more about this child. (For the record, Conor thinks it's a girl - I'm convinced it's a boy. So we shall see!)

Our prayer request for Wednesday is simple: that we will see, as much as is possible at this juncture, a thriving,
healthy child with absolutely no signs of deformity, defect or disease.

In another month or so - July 16 - we are headed to the OB's again for the "big" sonogram at 20 weeks. This will be a HUGE day for our family, as I'm sure you can imagine. This is the day the sonographer will check to see that every organ is
functioning correctly, that there are no "markers" for possible chromosomal abnormalities, and that the baby is measuring on schedule. While my heart is truly at peace that we are going to deliver a healthy child, in the last year I have had about five friends go to their 20-week appointments only to find that there were "red flags" that may have indicated possible problems. All five have delivered perfectly healthy babies. We live in an era where medicine has become such a finite science, and yet sometimes, it leads us to places of fear and uncertainty for no reason. My prayer request for our 20-week appointment
is that we would have a totally uneventful, "hitchless" ultrasound, free of any markers or signs of problems - a joyful time, smooth and easy. I know that if there were any indicators of problems - even false indicators - we would probably have to go ahead and have an amnio. I also know Conor and I, despite how well we are doing, are still fragile. So please pray for God's great mercy and tender compassion to fall upon us... pray we will have total victory that day and will beable to walk forward in that victory until this baby is here, in our arms.

Thank you for enduring what i promised wouldn't be a long! We love you all and we are so grateful to call you our brothers and sisters in Christ. We will be posting here again promptly on Wednesday to let you know who the newest addition to our family will be.