the beginning part one

Our journey started when I was 18 weeks pregnant. Josh and I were Sunbeam teachers and one of our little guys had a rough morning and kicked me in the tummy. To be safe, my doctors had me come in to listen to his heart. At the last minute, the nurse decided to do an ultrasound. Well, she took ALOT of pictures and didn't say much at all. We found out that we were having a boy. :) She said she was going to get the doctor and would be back. I felt really uneasy about it all. Dr J. came in and sat down. He asked me what the nurse had said. I said, well, that it was a boy. He then put his hand on my leg and told me about Nevets birth defect. There was the encephalocele with a consider amount of brain tissue. An encephalocele is "a neural tube defect characterized by sac-like protrusions of the brain and the membranes that cover it through openings in the skull." Our little man's 'cele was located at the base of his skull and basically was full of spinal fluid and his brain was "leaking" into the 'cele. The technical term for his 'cele is "encephalomeningocele" because of the presence of brain tissue. I was devistated. Dr J explained our options. He suggested terminating the pregnancy. If the baby survived in utero he would most likely die during delivery or live for a few hours. If they there able to correct an of the 'cele then he would most likely be severely handicapped and require help to do everything including breathing. He said that we could force labor, then i could hold him for a bit and say our goodbyes. If we chose to continue, we would monitor us closely and if the baby's head got to big or if he was a danger to my health they would taken him. The whole time, Dr J is assuring me that this was not my fault. I sure as heck felt like it was my fault. So, I left in tears. I called Josh and told him he needed to meet me at home. I told Josh everything and told him that we need to make a decision. There was lots of crying and holding. We called my parents. They told us that whatever we decided, they would support us. My step mom told me that God only sends this special children to special people. That really struck me. She's not religious at all. We went to my sister in law's and told her and her husband. Then we called my husband parents and told them. They also said they would support us either way. In our minds, there was never really a decision to make. Our baby deserved a fighting chance. We went to the Temple to confirm our decision. For informaiton regarding LDS Temples and our beliefs, please click on the link over there -->>

We sat in the Celestial room for quit sometime. In our hearts, we knew that we were keeping the baby. No matter what happened, he was part of our eternal family.