Friends and Family,
Me and my family are in desperate need of your prayers. As most of you know I am 19 weeks and 3 days pregnant and today we were scheduled for our 'big' ultrasound. With sad hearts I wanted to let everyone know what we found out in hopes of your prayers and guidance. Our baby is a sweet baby boy and his name is Joshua Lawrence Smoter. He is alive however he has a lot of problems. Due to chromosome abnormalities he has multiple issues he is faced with. To name a few he is missing a valve in his heart, is missing part of his brain or there is a cyst on his brain and there are only two instead of three vesicles in the umbilical cord. The radiologist said he is probably not viable for life outside of me. Everyone we spoke to today recommended termination. Termination is not an option so we aren't sure what our next few months will look like. We meet with a specialist tomorrow and after that we may know more however most likely we will have to wait until birth to determine what is in store for Joshua. If born alive Joshua will first need heart surgery and then down the list. God is good and we praise him for letting our child be a fighter this long so now we can know him by name. Please pray for us but mostly for Joshua. His body may not be perfect but his soul is perfect and we love him very much. If anyone has been through a similar situation I would love to speak with you. All the doctors keep telling us how hard it will be to carry our child to term only to loose him. I know God can do miraculous things and there is a reason he has survived this long. ( the doctor said usually with this many anomalies a woman would have normally had miscarriage in the beginning) thank you for your prayers and support.
Love,
Sarah Beth, Nathan, James, John Patrick, and Joshua
Every promise has been fulfilled for you, with not one single exception. Joshua 23:14
You are SO right girl! God is the one who created him and God knows the number of hairs on his head and the number of days in his life. Sorry that all the "sound medical advice" was termination...that can be so frustrating to hear! I love you and miss you like crazy. I will be praying for you sweet friend! Thanks for updating us!
ReplyDeleteDear Sara,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Diana Hayes and I received an e-mail from my friend, Janet Hafernik today. Janet was letting me know of your baby. Almost 12 years ago, my husband and I lived through what you and your husband are living through today. During our 17th week of pregnancy, we found out that our third child could live while in my body but would not live long out of my body, due to a fatal birth defect. I would love to talk to you, if that would help you in any way. If you are from Christ the Redeemer parish (which the email I saw leads me to believe) then Fr. Sean Horrigan is your pastor. Fr. Sean is a lifelong friend of mine. We met in 2nd grade. When my husband and I delivered our child that died, Fr. Sean was in the delivery room with us. He baptized our son and a few days later, he laid him to rest after a most beautiful funeral.
Anyway, if you would like to talk, please email me at diana.w.hayes@gmail.com and I will send you my phone number, or you can send me yours and I would be happy to call you. You are in my prayers. What I would want you to know more than anything else in the world is that our son, now in heaven, changed our lives profoundly. We waited for over 9 and 1/2 months to meet him (he was a late arrival) and the 7 hours we were able to spend with him were the greatest gift in our lives. He remains with our family in a profound way.
God bless,
Diana Hayes