"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustworthiness, gentleness, self-control." - Galatians 5:22

I didn't have a verse planned for this post, as I did before when verses just came to me. So this was the verse of the day on a Bible app I have. I sit here and process this and it is hitting me that the fruit of the Spirit doesn't happen overnight. It comes slowly as you are changed and healed and renewed. I can say that through the work God has been doing in myself and in Matt, we hopefully are producing fruit in these areas. I think we will always be refined throughout every adventure, obstacle, struggle, joy, and tear that we face. That leads me into this post after a year of not writing anything.

Last time I wrote was when we were still living in Philadelphia after news of no surgery plans for me. Well a lot has happened since then. I am not sure if I ever mentioned this, but Matt and I prayed for a very long time that God would heal my heart. We honestly believed that God was so much bigger than the heart condition I was born with and that He could do anything because He is the ultimate physician and my creator. After the news that nothing could be done, I think we stopped praying that, but God never stopped listening. He never stopped loving. He never forgot.

About a year ago I emailed my original Cardiologists in L.A. that I had gone through all this testing and they told me there was again nothing they could do either. I asked them if they wanted the tests for their records, since I would never see the doctor in Philly again. They said yes and I had them sent. About a month after that I received an email that they would like to take the results and present them to the Cardiology team and the surgeon. I said yes not expecting anything to come of it. Then I got an email a bit after that, that may forever change my life.

I was told that the surgeon who did my update in 2002 had a plan to correct my heart. They didn't know much detail and said it would be a big undertaking, but at some point when I visit California, I should meet with him. Thanks to an amazing friend who encouraged me to go to a conference in California, I had a reason to go and got an appointment with the surgeon. All I can say again is that God never forgot our prayer. This surgeon can whole heartedly repair my heart.

Yes this will be a major surgery. There is a pretty low risk, but a large undertaking. I will have to do some updated pretesting in Texas, then fly to California for the surgery. It may be able to be done all at one time, which is what our prayers are for. If there is any risk, they will split it into two surgeries, about a week or so apart. The healing time could be 1-3 weeks. The surgeon estimates 2 and then I could fly home. Matt would only be able to be there for a few days and that will be rough.

Am I scared? Yes, I would be lying if I said I wasn't. Am I excited? You have no idea. To be completely honest, it is actually hard to believe that the dreams I have of running, climbing mountains, and having children can come true. It is so hard to believe that Jesus loves me so much that He will heal my heart through this gifted surgeon.

So I leave this post with something one of my really amazing friends told me. She said, your baby (the one we lost) saved your life. I sit back and am starting to be grateful for a very painful time in our lives. That without that baby, we would have never gone through the testing and maybe would never have been at the point we are at now. Wow! When I see our baby in heaven one day I will never want to let go for what that baby did for me, did for us. Jesus sacrificed His life for me, our baby sacrifices his/her life for me. I am humbled.

This was a long post, but we ask for prayer. A lot of prayer. Prayer for finances for the surgery, prayers for testing to go smoothly and well, prayers for the travel and the logistics of everything, prayers for being apart, prayers for one surgery and not two, prayers for quick healing, prayers for me not worrying about every detail. I honestly could go on. Prayers for however God leads you to pray. Thank you for reading and loving us through this.

Moving on....and on

"Keep me safe, O God, for I have come to you for refuge" - Psalm 16:1

We have not written in a long time. Months have gone by and a lot has happened. We want to move on and look towards God in hope. We don't want to retrace the hard steps we have had to go through. Life is hard. We realized that we should be on our knees daily asking for guidance from God and not trying to control our lives, or let the words of others control our lives.

This summer we decided to proceed with testing to see if there would be any possibilities for surgery for me to benefit our future. After days of testing and a month of waiting we were told by a woman we have only seen 3 other times that there is nothing they can do now, or maybe ever. She proceeded to give her opinion on how she foresaw my life and my future, and it was horrible. She had just gone to an ethics seminar and felt that as a doctor she should give all information, even if not great or factual. I don't need to go into details becuase it does not matter.

Her words haunt me. Not becuase they are true or factual, but because they are all I have heard recently. They have stripped me of my trust in God. They cause me unneeded stress and nightmares. I know she meant well, but she was only going off what she has seen in her 3-4 years of practice. I have to go back to God. Her words have no value or truth for me becuase God writes my story and not her. There was no factual information that she gave me that would even cause me to need to worry. Why do we let others control us with their words?

I have thought many times about writing her a letter, but I don't need revenge, and I don't need to prove anything. I really just want her to know that her words were harmful.

We want to move on. We want the life back that we had before any of this ever happened. We want to trust God again and be seeking Him daily. November is a bit of a tough month since our baby was meant to be born on November 17th. We want to move on in the hope of having a child some day. We wish we had the money for surrogacy. We wish we were in a stable place to start the adoption process. But we are not there yet and we need to enjoy this next year that is full of a few moves and a lot of adventure.

Writing is very healing for me. I have been doing it my whole life. I am hoping that through writing I will find true healing. I love the verse of the day above. It is so simple, but yet I forget to do it all the time.


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Learning To Move On

Grace by U2

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

She carries a pearl
In perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings

Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace finds goodness
In everything 

It has been a while since we posted anything. One becuase it has been very difficult, and two because there are not words to speak what we truly went through. Last Thursday was more painful physically and emotionally than we ever imagined. We found peace with our decision and really felt like God was confirming our decision, but that never meant we were not going to feel the sting and weight of it. The days that followed we felt a lot of shame, a lot of sorrow, and a lot of sadness in what we had to do. The hardest part was the spiritual attacks that followed. They were in our thoughts and were in our dreams. One night we played Scrabble and half way in the game I just felt really sad. I started to tell Matt how ashamed I was and we just sat and felt the pain again. That night I kept having nightmares of playing Scrabble and the words Abortion and Termination kept going on the board over and over. I was haunted by those words. I hate those words. I hate what they mean.

But something really amazing has come out of all of this. Not only are we stronger in our marriage, and so much closer to God than we ever have been, but we also have experience true Grace and really understand the meaning. I took a couple of verses from the song Grace by U2 that have really spoke to us. This song was playing in our car as we left the hospital last Thursday. The only thing that has gotten us through the pain is the grace of God. We have had grace when we read the Bible, when friends come visit us, when we receive amazing emails and phone calls, when friends bring us food, when family support us with gifts and trips, when people have sent us verses, songs and poems to reflect on, when we have felt so much love and support through all of this, and absolutely no judgement. We understand what Jesus felt on the cross and what He truly bore for us. He carried this weight and He wants us to find freedom and victory that He promised to us.

So each day we move on. Each day we remember our baby that is now with Jesus. We also look forward to what will come of this and what God has planned for our future. We know however it is right for us, we will have a family some day. We hope to keep this blog going to share our lives with you, and one day open it up to those who do not know what we went through. Thank you again for all your love and support!

Let Your Mercies Fall From Heaven

This song is simple, it is powerful, it is very real to me. Here are the Lyrics to Sweet Mercies by David Ruis  

It's our confession Lord, that we are weak 
So very weak, but You are strong 
And though we've nothing Lord, to lay at your feet 
We come to Your feet and say, Help us along. 
A broken heart and a contrite spirit You have yet to deny 
Your heart of mercy beats with love's strong current 
Let the river flow by your Spirit now, Lord we cry 
Let Your mercies fall from heaven 
Sweet mercies flow from heaven 
New mercies for today 
Shower them down Lord as we pray 
Let Your mercies fall from heaven 
Sweet mercies flow from heaven 
New mercies for today 
Shower them down Lord as we pray

We are so weak right now, but The Lord's strength is all that get's us through. We are on our knees every day asking the Lord to guide us, to give us strength and comfort, to make this easier on us. I don't think there is anyway we would be able to be at work without His strength. The Holy Spirit is living in us and guiding us every day. We cannot deny that. I have this image of The Lord's mercies falling from heaven. I have this image that myself and Matt are on a rock in the middle of a raging ocean and the rock is all there is to keep us from drowning. It is sunny and warm and we are just standing there with our arms lifted to the sky praising Jesus for keeping us on His solid rock.

My Cardiologist emailed me today and said she was impressed by my strength. It is not my strength. It is not our strength. We do not have strength. The only strength we have to even wake up each day is from Jesus and no one else. This is the most painful thing we have ever faced. This is the one thing that we do not want anyone we know to ever have to go through. We cannot sit here and ask God why He is allowing this because we truly recognize what an awful, fallen world we live in, and in this world there will be great pain and we will have broken bodies.

But we know that one day we will meet Jesus and have no more pain and meet our baby. We felt that in the resurrection weekend that Jesus truly bore our pain, he endured our burden, and he carried this for us. We also know that He rose again with great victory and that no matter what happens, no matter what we decide, He has won the battle for us. We have seen some amazing things come out of this, whether it is recognized by others or not. We have seen people in our lives come closer to God, we have seen people pray that don't, we have seen people seek God that did not before. And we have never been so close to God before.

So with that we endure and we are grateful. 

Just a Copy of that One Tough Update

Hello all, Hopefully I will be able to do justice in this email to let you know what is happening and what we are currently facing. Thank you for the amazing phone calls, emails, and texts. For those of you that are truly supportive, we really appreciate it. Hopefully I won't get too mumbled in this email, since it is difficult, but we want all of you to know what we are truly going through. We did get to see our baby yesterday. 7.5 weeks old with a heartbeat, which was truly amazing. Then we had to go in for the most difficult, horrible news of our lives. I will start with the baby. There is a great chance this baby will not survive the pregnancy, a great chance. As the baby grows it will be trying to take from my reserves, that will get less and less as time goes on. If the baby does survive, it can be born very, very early causing great complications, be born with very major birth defects, or die at birth. So unfortunately there is no real life for the baby. Then there comes me. What most of you don't understand is that I have a very detailed heart condition, with 3 surgeries through my life to keep me alive. Due to all this I am compensating so much just in my own life that as I go on with the pregnancy my body will begin to try and compensate more. The risk with that is the amount of work that will put on my heart and the chance for heart failure is great. Every week I get more and more into the pregnancy the weaker I will become and the harder my heart will have to work. If I go full term with the baby then the actual birth will take a grave toll on me, which can actually cause damage to my heart, making my survival rate for me after that very slim. So basically if myself and the baby survive I may not get to the baby's 5th birthday, etc.... This is so hard. There is very, very serious risk. All the doctors know our moral and ethical beliefs and they will support this, but they flat out asked me that I understand that this can result in my and the baby's death. Our Cardiologist actually has the same beliefs as us and she even said that she is very torn because she is soooo worried about me. She actually used all her resources to call around and email the best Cardiologists in the world and got no other view. So now we get to the hard part. If we were completely honest with you we can say with no reservation that we wish we were not pregnant. We never knew the risks before. We sit here and know what great danger two lives are in right now. We know that with what we believe we cannot take our baby's life, but we also are sitting here knowing the baby will not have a life here, only with Jesus. We are asking Jesus to take the baby home. Not to make it easier, but selfishly so that we don't have to make a tough decision. I am sitting here feeling that if we do choose abortion that we will be greatly judged by our friends and family. We know deep in our hearts that God already knows what we are thinking. We know we are forgiven, even though we would have to live with that decision the rest of our lives and stand in front of God to account for it. But what is our choice? 1 life or 2? Seriously what would you do? What we don't want right now is judgement. What we want is support. Thank you to our families for their amazing support and prayers right now. We would love to hear your thoughts, your prayers, your feelings, etc. Everyone is BCC'd on this email, so you can just reply all to Matt and I so we can both read it. I don't think there was a way to create any shorter of an email, so thank you for reading. Love, Alli & Matt

Dealing with difficult news

Alli's perspective: I couldn't have asked for a more compassionate, caring, sympathetic Cardiologist to be truly honest with us about this pregnancy and the "medical risks" it includes. I am able to think more clearly today than I could last night. Last night was too difficult for words and I couldn't think or sleep.

The medical reality was given to us. For a fetus to develop doctors look for at the least 92% oxygen saturation. If it goes below that, even by 1% they get very concerned. I can give only 80%. That is all my body offers. Nothing aside from God can be done to increase my saturation. She said she has never heard of a fetus able to survive on that low of oxygen. She said chances are I will not make it through the first trimester. Maybe at the most 20 weeks. If I do make it past that then we will have to talk because I could become very sick. But she wasn't wanting to discuss that now.

I could tell this was so hard for her to tell us. She spent an hour and a half with us after her normal hours asking us how we are feeling. She wanted us to know the reality, but still be able to somehow walk out of there, not give up, still have hope, and enjoy the pregnancy. She knew that would be hard. She let me cry, she let us just talk it out. We told her that we know we are not in control and if God wants this baby to survive then it will. She agreed, which was pretty cool. She said she was going to make some calls after we left and get me into an obgyn next week. She said she will treat us like any other patient and get us the best care and support us through this.

My heart is sad. My mind cannot grasp this, but I am not giving up. God made a virgin women pregnant, a barren woman pregnant, and can do that today. I am going to try my hardest to lay this down at the feet of Jesus every day and trust him. I need strength to not get distracted, hopeless and depressed. I need hope, and grace. I need you to understand how hard this news already is and how crucial it is that no one else knows about this. I couldn't handle that right now. Your prayers are needed daily.

Matt's perspective: Obviously we're a little devastated by this news. It wasn't what we were wanting to hear, but I think we also both knew it was likely news. The past 2 weeks or so have been quite amazing and a blissful blessing. We've been enjoying this pregnancy for what it is without a cloud above us; it has been great and I'm thankful for that. It is difficult to stay positive given the circumstance, but I am still approaching this one day at a time.

I told Alli yesterday, I will not grieve for our living child. This is still a happy time for us and we're approaching it that way. I still pray daily for our baby just as I have been before this news. Yes I'm sad and greatly concerned, but I'm trusting in God. We're still preparing, we're still expecting.

Trusting the Lord - Cardio Appointment Day

 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart  and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight<sup>."  - Proverbs 3:5-6

When I became a Christian I never knew what it meant to have a life verse. At first it made no sense to me and then I started to envy those that had one. The meaning became more evident and real to me and I wanted that. I remember searching for a verse and praying to get one. But God didn't just give one to me in that moment. He waited and let me see it for myself. He planted it everywhere. It was in cards that people would send me, it was in sermons I would hear, and it even was on a sign at a job interview I went on. It is a very simple verse. It is straight to the point, but has more significant and in depth meaning and understanding than a lot of more complex verses. 

This is my life verse. I have been asking myself for years what it means to trust the Lord with ALL of my heart. ALL of my heart. That is every part of me. That is everything that I put my trust into that is now toward the Lord. Can I really do that? I have thought about it and I can truly say that I trust practical things. I trust the chair I sit in, I trust the vitamins I take to protect and help me and the baby, I trust the books I read to make sure I am doing everything right. But at the end of the day these are all things that can change in second, go away very quickly, and won't be there forever. God is constant, never changing, and will never leave our side. How much greater is it to trust in Him? 

Today I trust in Him with my Cardio appointment. This is just step one to see what I am currently able to provide to the baby based on what is going on with my heart, my oxygen supply, and how hard my body is working.  I cannot say I am not nervous. I am always nervous going to the Cardiologist, even though they have always been some of my absolute favorite doctor's. They seem to have power over me. Now it seems even more real becuase now they have the ability to tell me what I am contributing to the life in me. 


So yes I can be nervous, but if I am asking the one true God, the Creator of the Earth, to protect and develop this baby with all that I cannot offer him or her, then how can I not go into this trusting. Matt wrote on the last post that no matter what, the doctor will say what they need to say to be realistic in their sight and always to protect themselves. Not that I am expecting the doctor to say anything negative, but if she does, she is not God. She is not the one who will ultimately give life to our baby. Yes I need to listed to her for advice, suggestions and guidance, but I cannot let her have this power over me that brings me anxiety. It is not worth it. So we go forth to this appointment. We hope this is one of many and the one that leads us to hear our baby's heart beat.


Please pray for wisdom over the echo technician and the doctor. Please pray for peace for us. Please pray that we can truly trust in God with all of our hearts.</sup>