Blah(g) Blah(g) Blah(g)

So I am sitting here on my day off wondering why Kaylan is not growing.  Wondering how God could allow us to blessed with conceiving twins, and then allowing the possibility of one of them to not make it.  On the surface, it just doesn't seem to make sense.  Doesn't God say that he loves the children?  What if she doesn't start growing and pull through?  Did he not want us to have her anymore?   Did he change His mind about blessing us with two babies?

And as I sit here asking God some real difficult raw questions, I start to think of the last 3 weeks of my life.  I think about how this child, although unborn, has changed our entire lives.  I went into the doctor's office at week 20 taking the babies health for granted.  (We had never even heard of IUGR -{ Interutarine Growth Restriciton.})  I went in to the visit thinking of these babies as nothing more than a "neat idea" that would not have any affect on my routine until July or August.  I came out with an appreciation and an incredible love for these babies.

And our friends and family?  They have been amazing!  Supportive would be an understatement.  Friends tell us how they are praying for these babies (Kaylan especially) on daily basis.  We get calls or emails or texts about the health of the babies every day.  Our relationships have strengthened.  Our friendships have been more open.  Our marriage has grown stronger.  Our walk with God has been the closest it has ever been.  Our prayer life is as deeper and stronger than ever.  And this is just a few things that have changed over the last 3 weeks.

So I don't know how the situation with Kaylan will end.  I suppose only God does.  We are going to continue to pray for nothing short of miraculous healing and full health of both babies.  But if I take a step back and see how God has worked in our lives over the past 3 weeks, I would not trade this unfortunate circumstance for anything.  I would not wish that anybody ever have to go through this type of situation, but from where I sit right now, I am blown away by God's incredible grace in such a difficult time.

(This Rob Bell video just reminds me of where God is and how he is working in the midst of a tough time. It has blessed me, so I figured I would share it.)

Landon

The sweetest sounds....

Today I went in for a routine check up with my OB....blood pressure, weight, and heart beat check.

Kaylan's heartbeat was 160 and Dylan's was 154. Thank you Jesus for keeping their hearts beating! It's the most precious sound to me these days.

My blood pressure was very good today too.

Praise God for small weekly milestones. :)

Back next week for the Glucose test. Yucky yucks. Prayers please for no Gestational Diabetes.

What's in a name?

Thought'd I'd give an explanation on how and why we decided on the names we did.

Kaylan Grace - My middle name is Kay + Lan from Landon = Kaylan. Grace has always been on the table as a middle name...but is even more important to her name right now. We need all of God's grace and healing to make her grow, grow, grow!

Dylan Cash - Those of you who know Landon know what a HUGE Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash fan he is...hence Dylan Cash. Yes, it's true. We are willing this child to be a future great musician! ;)

I can't believe we're starting a blog...blog

Here we go....we're starting a blog. How do you do this? I've seen and read tons of blogs. I just never thought I'd have one of my own. However, in light of recent life events, I've (we've), been encouraged to start one. I think the purpose of this blog will be two-fold. 1) It will be somewhat therapeutic to get down thoughts and feelings we're having and 2) It gives people who are interested a glimpse into our lives to learn about the latest status of this journey we're on.

So here goes...

Blog Name:

Saving Grace - couple of reasons for this...

1) Grace is the middle name of our baby girl on the way

2) Saving Grace is the name of a Bob Dylan song...see our baby names below.... ;-)

Two reasons why we're doing this:

1) Dylan Cash

2) Kaylan Grace

These are our babies. Well, our babies that haven't been born yet. I'm currently 23 weeks pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. We went through a lot to get here, but here we are, over half way through the pregnancy.

About 4 weeks ago, my biggest obstacle in life was deciding what kind of crib would look best in the nursery and what color I should paint the walls. My how things change. At our 20 week visit with our Perintologist, it was discovered that Kaylan was not growing normally. Structurally and chromosomally, she was fine. But, she was incredibly small and it appeared she hadn't grown in a few weeks. The doctor was very concerned and scared the living bejesus (that's a word, right), out of us about her survival. He said that if she didn't start growing, that she might not make it and there was just nothing they could do about it. Not the thing you want to hear from your doctor. That was on April 8th. We had to wait an incredibly LONG and GRUELING 2 1/2 weeks until our next appt to see if she had made any progress. By the way, Dylan is growing and is right on track. Praise God for that!

Fast forward to April 26th for the follow up. Kaylan was still very small and still very far behind. She was only 8 oz and Dylan was measuring 1 lb and 3 oz. On the previous visit, she was 6 oz, so she had grown, but only 2 more oz. So, Dylan is twice as big as her. Things were not looking good. The follow up visit was a very rough visit. We did NOT get any sort of glimmer of hope or encouragement or compassion from our doctor. He was highly insensitive and made us feel like we needed to go ahead and start the grieving process. He basically rushed us out of the room while I was standing there in tears in my husband's arms. Bad. Doctor. Never to see him again.

Thanks to the nudging of Landon and my mom, I made some calls to get a second opinion and start seeing another Perintologist. Whether the bad doctor's diagnosis was right or not, I was not about to be treated like this from him anymore. So, by the grace of God, another recommended doctor had an appointment opening the next day at 10 a.m. at Plano Presby Hospital. Wow, what a difference a doctor makes!

With the new doctor, the diagnosis was basically the same - things don't look great...she's very small and that's a big concern. BUT, there's no reason to give up hope until there's no hope to be had. I also communicated to this doctor our expectation of him as far as the way he relayed information to us. I told him that she may just be a fetus to him, but she's our daughter. She has a first name and a last name and we do NOT want him to talk to us like she's already dead. I also told him that I expected him to talk to me like I was his wife or his daughter and to speak with compassion and sensitivity. A dear friend gave me that advice and I'm so glad we communicated that to him upfront.(Thanks Megan). It made all the difference in the world when he was speaking with us.

At the end of the day, we still have to wait and see if she continues to grow. Hopefully she will. Obviously, the longer I can carry her and the bigger she gets, the better chance she has for survival outside of the womb.

I'm not on doctor ordered bed rest or anything but when I'm at home, I'm supposed to be resting and taking it easy. I have THE BEST husband in the world and he takes care of my every need....dinner, groceries...laundry...you name it...he's on it. Such a sweet blessing to have him in my life.

I need to also acknowledge our AMAZING friends and family who have so diligently and faithfully lifted us up in prayer over the last few weeks. We have been bathed in encouraging letters, phone calls, texts, emails, cards, visits, etc. It's been a very special time for us even in spite of the difficult circumstances. In fact, there's been several people that we don't even know that have heard about what's going on (through friends, or family and what not) and have sent hopeful messages and encouraging notes as well. We've really seen Jesus in people lately :) Thank you to everyone who has, and continues to lift up our babies to the Lord. We'll take all the prayers we can get!

Our next appt is May 12th. So until then...prayers for GROWTH!!!