good things that have happened lately

this past summer i had the opportunity to hear rob bell (one of my favorite authors/speakers) at a club in mira mesa. although the club had a goofy name (the epicentre) the night was amazing. one of the many things i took away from the evening was the idea that we often find what we look for. as cool as it would have been, he was not talking about pirate treasure, but rather reasons for hope or despair. if we look for reasons to despair, we will find plenty: war, poverty, ty pennington getting a dui, there seems to be no end. but if we look for reasons to hope, in the goodness of God and of the world we live in, we will find plenty of those as well. i wanted to share with you some of the good things that have happened in our life/pregnancy lately, things we rejoice in, reasons we hope.

1. a couple weeks ago annie's mom was hanging out with a group of her girlfriends at a cabin near lake arrowhead. she was telling them about isaac's cleft, and a friend of hers, debbie cahill, asked, "jan, do you know what i do?" "yeah, you work at children's hospital, right?" "actually, i work at the cleft clinic at children's hospital. it is my job to teach families how to care for their kids with clefts. i want to make it my gift to you to do that for your family." this reason to hope is pretty self explanatory.
2. last week we met with marilyn jones. she coordinates a group of doctors (surgeons, dentists, ear/nose/throat specialists) that work with families of kids who have clefts. two great things about this meeting:
1. i was able to resist the temptation to run around the office shouting "dr. jones! dr. jones!" in my best asian accent. (for those of you who have not seen indiana jones: temple of doom this will not make sense. if this is you, you should be ashamed of yourself, and should go rent the movie tonight.)
2. she helped dispel a lot of myth we had gathered surrounding our son's condition. she walked us through the whole process, giving us a time line, and freeing us up not to worry about the stuff we shouldn't worry about. turns out, most of it is stuff we shouldn't worry about. it is much easier to go about doing something, when you know what needs to be done. annie has done an amazing job of making the contacts and setting up the appointments. all i have to do is show up. for some reason it reminds me of our wedding...
3. yesterday we went in for a fetal heart echo, which is a fancy way of saying another sonogram which is more focused on the condition of his little ticker. this is to further rule out the possibility of those chromosomal abnormalities that are sometimes associated with clefting. the pediatric cardiologist spent about 20 minutes looking at things, then let us know that his heart looks great. they have a checklist of about 15 things they need to inspect, and isaac passed all of them with flying colors. he was flipping all over the place (annie wondered out loud this morning if he has adhd) but he gave us very clear pictures of what the doctor needed to look at.

add these to the countless phone calls, emails, meals, etc. that we have received from family and friends and you have a pretty good list of reasons to believe in the goodness of our situation. we continue to hope, and continue to celebrate. thank you for being a part of that.