faith processes

Jamie, thank you for that post. I am so glad you are enjoying that study. Looks like it will be a faith challenging study for you as it was for me too!

Well girls, we have been busy little bees around here! Megumi is doing very well, still loves to eat (except green beans... she actually gags!), and loves to play. She's not yet crawling but I'm VERY ok with this and don't really encourage her to move. I know she will figure it all out on her own, and then i will be chasing her around constantly. I'm just not ready for that yet :)
I'm still working part time for the same company, and have taken on an additional project for Chris' company too. So, when I'm not playing with Meg, doing laundry, or sweeping dog hair from the floors, i'm busy working. My mother in law is a teacher and therefore done with school for the summer. She is helping watch Megumi some days so i can work and we can get caught up on some financial planning. Only one more year until she retires, and i'm as excited as she is i think!
Meg nd I just got back from a week in Texas, where we visited my sister. We had a lot of fun and Meg got to be in a swimming pool for the first time. She liked it, especially when one of the other kids splashed her.
The next bit of information i'm going to share is difficult to share... because there's no easy way to say it, and no way to say it without it being a shock. 3 weeks ago, I had a mis-carriage. I was 5 weeks along. We were "trying" at this point and got pregnant right away again. it just so happened that i was on the worship team that weekend, so was surrounded in prayer. Despite all the sadness we have experienced through this, we have had so much peace... the peace that comes from knowing God is sovereign and His plan is bigger and better for us than we could ever plan or imagine. I actually learned that lesson while i was going through Beth Moore's "Believing God" study, for a purpose that God had already planned out!
We are praising God, because of who He is, and because we are being held in His hands.
Miss you all so much. Megumi sends her love! I'll be posting on our blog soon with some pictures so you will have to check it out! Some people tell me now that she is starting to look a little like me for a change.
Jen

Thanks Jamie

Hey Jamie, thanks for that post. I have not done the Believing God study by Beth Moore yet. I needed to hear that perspective on faith. We've been a bit ( or massively) stressed about something over here lately and needed a reminder that faith without challenges does not grow. I can't really get into exactly what we're dealing with right now as it is pretty confidential for several reasons. But it is a scary time for us and we would love some prayers for peace. I assure you all, my dearest of friends, that we will spill the beans about the situation once it is a bit more resolved. But right now we're kind of keeping it quiet for professional and financial reasons. Please just pray for peace for us and for health for Josh. But again, I needed a reminder that God is God and that we need to excercise our "believing" muscles. =)

On a less somber note... this will make you all laugh hysterically. The other day our group of friends from the residents' wives support group was contacted to choose 4-5 ladies to participate in a new reality tv show called the "The Secret Lives of Doctors Wives." The want 4-5 of us to follow around individually and then as a group from the Columbus area. I won't be able to do it, obviously, since we'll be moving. But it is still pretty hilarious. I hope they choose several of my girlfriends here because I would love to watch that reality show. =) Love you all!

Challenges and Results

Wow...things have been a little rough lately. I started a Bible study last week called Believing God by Beth Moore. It seems very timely with what is going on in our lives. There is a quote from today's lesson that I wanted to share with you. When I read it, I thought of you all and hope it encourages you.

"Faith unchallenged is faith stifled. Believers who know what they want to believe and refuse to be challenged may have a stand of faith but they may not have a walk of faith."

My first response to this was wow and ouch. I want to have a walk of faith but does it have to be so hard? I've really been thinking a lot lately about why I've had to go through miscarriages, and one outcome has been a growth of my faith. Not really the outcome I had expected.

I pray that as you are experiencing your own trials of loss, moving, family life and financial stuff, that your faith will be strengthened. I wish it wasn't so hard.

Over the past few weeks, I have had a picture of what I am experiencing. I seem to be walking through a deep forest valley that is covered in a thunderstorm. It's dark and wet and not fun. But when I realized that my faith was being challenged I noticed that there was a shaft of light and that I wasn't alone. I found that this light, while not huge, was lighting just enough of my path to see the next step. I wish I could see what the entire path looks like. I also realized that I wasn't alone, I had your friendships and the Lord walking with me.

I know I want my faith to be a walk not just a stand and I guess that means I will experience circumstances that appear to be impassable. One of my verses in today's lesson was 2 Cor. 5:7 "We live by faith, not by sight." Beth made me paraphrase this verse with the Greek definitions of live and sight. This is what I came up with: "We make due use of opportunities by faith not by the external or outward appearances." I hope that encourages you to not look at the circumstance but at the opportunity.

Again, I wish it wasn't always so hard and I will be praying for each of you as you are experiencing your own trials. I look forward to the next few months and hope that it produces some break-thoroughs and joys. Love you all so much!!

Arrangements

Ok well, Katelyn passed away Sat morning. It was a long and frustrating week, as the doctors were not willing to let her go, despite her heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver all failing (not to mention having no reflexes and very minimal brain function). We believe the doctor had motives for keeping her alive other than believing she had a chance for a recovery, as his area of interest is in the machines.We don't know yet what exactly happened, but will soon as there will be an autopsy. She definitely had severe breathing issues leading up to this, and we found out the only reason she ended up at the hospital last Fri was because she went to a clinic for an ultrasound for the baby, and the technician noticed her difficult breathing and that her nail beds were blue. It is a bit frustrating that the boyfriend and his family did not take care to get her medical attention sooner (she could not walk around a store without stopping to breathe every couple minutes). But it is all over now, and she made choices as well, so passing blame does no good. It's time to move on now.

There will be a memorial service in Ohio this Wed or Thurs, and a bigger one here on Satuday. I will only go to the Sat one since traveling 5 hours each way in one day isn't easy with Katie. It also frees me up a bit to work on her picture boards and programs this week in prep for Sat. Please just keep the family in prayer. It is just so sad for all of us, my Aunt Marianne especially. We need prayer that the family will be able to move on without passing blame or blaming themselves, and just that they will grieve in a healthy way. Also prayer my for mom and I to help my aunt through this. She truly was Katelyn's mother (Katelyn's bio mom abandoned her at the age of 2 or so when she divorced Katelyn's dad), and I can't even begin to understand how one deals with losing a child. I've been giving my own baby lots of hugs and kisses lately. So we appreciate your prayers right now. Thanks so much!

Sorry for so much sad news. Julie, continuing to pray for baby Eva. Steph, we've been there with the never-ending house issues and just wanting to close, so we understand the frustration. I'll say a prayer for a positive resolution. Just know it'll all be worth it in the end. Post pics when it's over. And Kim, post some pics of your new house as well, and that yard for Violet.

Frustrations

Hi all...seems like there's no really good news to post on here lately! Although, our situation is not life and death, it's not good either. We were supposed to close on our house a couple of days ago, but the underwriter for the loan found a stipulation the day before we were going to close. It says that the sellers must have had the home in their name for at least 90 days before our loan would be approved for it. For some stupid reason, the sellers transferred the deed from their personal name to their company's at some point in April. What this means for us is that the soonest we can close is now the end of July. It also means that we can't lock in our 5% interest rate (now we can get a 5.75 or pay and extra $3100 to buy the point), we have to redo some of our inspections and they have to rerun our credit and all of that again. It's really just a stupid situation, so we're hoping for the best, but we are really frustrated and, quite frankly, a little depressed about the whole biz. We've already been waiting this house for 7 weeks. It really does us no good to look for a different house either.

Anyway, we have a plan to mentally escape this weekend. We may just spend the whole of Saturday in the movie theater watching movies that we've wanted to see but never had the time. :-)

Hope everyone else's situations are getting better. Liz, I have been keeping your cousin in prayer. Send us another update soon, if you can. Julie, I've been thinking about that family with the new baby all of the time! I just went to a funeral today for a man that was my dad's age. He just died while he was mowing the lawn on Monday - completely out of the blue. Needless to say, I may be complaining about our situation, but I am very aware that things could be a whole lot worse thanks to all of these reminders.

Love you girls - talk to you soon.

still more

After a long weekend, the end is still not in sight with Katelyn. Things have gone from bad to worse. It turns out that when she needed CPR, they worked on her for 90 minutes, which is a very long time to be deprived of oxygen. Most likely there has been severe brain damage, and we're not really sure there's any more brain function than just being in a vegetative state. Her kidneys have failed and she's on dialysis, she's bleeding a lot due to the blood thinners, her body is unbelievably swollen (I guess she looks like she could be 300 pounds and she's just a tiny, itty-bitty girl). The baby died and she delivered it. After a very bad day yesterday, the family was prepared to let her go. An EEG was done, and it sounds like there's only minimal brain functions (probably only enough to keep her alive), and there's only a 5% chance of recovery (and we don't really know what "recovery" means...could be any range of things). They were ready to let her go when the medical staff said they want to wait and do more tests. So it's just been a very long road for the family. They are ready for some closure so they can begin grieving. So if you could continue to keep them in your prayers that would be great. We continue to pray that if she is still present (not just a shell of her body, but her spirit and what makes her Katelyn), that God will heal her body. Also praying for a quick resolution to all of this, as it's been so hard on all of the family.

As to what really happened, we still don't really know. It appears to definitely be something induced by the pregnancy. We're hearing terms like Pulmonary Hypertension, and Pulmonary Embolism. Josh, Julie, and her family of doctors have been so awesome about providing us with a wealth of info to navigate all of this. We appreciate all of your prayers right now.

More Details

So we've learned that Katelyn has Cardio Pulmonary Disease, which I think was probably a congenital defect that she had and didn't know about. Most likely the pregnancy exacerbated it and caused this all to be catastrophic. They had her stable last night, but then she went into cardiac arrest, which is why she had to be resuscitated. She had a catheter inserted, which I believe went into her groin area. She is also an Echmo (sp?) Machine, which is a heart-lung bi-pass...so it's doing the work of her heart and breathing for her. She's in a medically induced coma. She's also bleeding from the groin where the catheter is, probably because she's on blood thinners so her blood doesn't clot in the machine. They were trying to get that under control, and she also began to have vaginal bleeding, which likely indicates a miscarriage. Over the past few hours things have gone from bad to worse. It took them a long time to resuscitate her this morning, so they're not concerned about organ and brain damage. Her kidneys are beginning to shut down and they expect her to be on dialysis by tonight. They're also concerned about brain function. So it's just not looking like she'll make it unless there's a miracle.

We've canceled plans for my parents, and are waiting to see if we need to go to Ohio (for support, or a funeral). Please continue to keep the family in prayer. The passing of a grandparent is one thing, but an 18 yr-old with her entire life ahead of her is something else entirely. Thank you everyone for the prayers, support, and thanks Julie for the medical help. Please continue to keep the family in your prayers, especially my Aunt Marianne, who raised her like a daughter. We're still praying for a miracle, but taking things as they come as well. Will post an update when things change.

When it rains, it pours....

So my family apparently can't catch a break these days. My cousin, Katelyn, who is only about 17, is in critical condition right now and needs all the prayers she can get. She has been not feeling well for a few weeks, and my Aunt Marianne (who cared for her as her own daughter...very long story), was worried she had pneumonia, but Katelyn was having difficulty getting her boyfriend's family to take her to urgent care (she lives with them in Ohio). Anyway, somehow she ended up in the hospital yesterday, and we found out last night that there are problems with her heart (don't know specifically what), and she was being helicoptered to another hospital and might need open heart surgery, and was 3 months pregnant and they might need to take the baby to save her life. My Aunt Marianne was leaving this morning to go down there, but at 5am got a call that something happened and they were doing CPR on her, and she might be on or might need to go on life-support (details are very fuzzy due to crazy family and no one knowing what's going on over there). So my aunt left in a rush this morning and is just about there. Currently we know she is more stable, although not nearly out of the woods. They've done something to her heart to help stabilize her (maybe a catheter?), but she is bleeding (don't know where or where from....possible vaginally and miscarrying the baby?), and being moved to another building. So please, please pray for her. She obviously has kind of a screwed up life right now. She's been abandoned by multiple family members in the past, and obviously hasn't been cared for recently. We're just really praying she pulls through this, and that somehow God can take this situation and use it to His glory and maybe bring Katelyn back to Him.

On top of all this, we had a family weekend planned for my parents due to their missing their trip to Europe. My brother and our spouses had arranged for a limo tonight and a night out, as well as a fun day tomorrow. My mom may or may not be needed in Ohio now (long story, but Katelyn's family is not part of our family...Katelyn's not technically my cousin, but has been raised as such). So it's not really appropriate to my mom to be there, but my aunt may need her. So everything is just crazy right now. So we're all pretty upset right now, and would appreciate all prayers for Katelyn, my aunt, and this unborn baby.