ty pennington is overrated

mother teresa has been quoted as saying, "i know that God will not give me anything i can't handle, i just wish he didn't trust me so much." all obvious comparisons between the montgomery's and mother teresa aside, the last couple weeks have been a strange and sometimes horrible blessing, knowing that God is intimately involved in our pregnancy, yet at times wishing he didn't trust us so much.

about two and a half weeks after our sonogram in which we found out that isaac most likely has a cleft lip, we went in for another, more complete sonogram. we felt like we were doing pretty well with the whole situation, and embraced the opportunity to see more 3-d pictures of our little thug. after the nurse/sonogram tech was done looking around and mostly importantly confirming he was still a boy, the doctor came in to see if he could get a better idea for whether or not the palate was involved as well.

as we sat down in his office to debrief with him, he told us that although he is unsure, he believes the palate is also involved. he covered the usual questions about our genetic history and then asked if we were familiar with down syndrome. a little surprised by his inquiry, we told him we are b/c i have a cousin who has downs. (one of my many highlights of our wedding day was watching her live it up on the dance floor.) he went on to explain that downs is caused by a third 21st chromosome, and that clefting can sometimes be associated with a similar sort of condition, where there is a third 13th or 18th chromosome. unlike downs, however, trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 are often fatal chromosomal abnormalities.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
it took about three seconds for his calmly delivered words to catch up with the sudden clutch in my throat. i absently reached out my left hand for my wife, and the immediate tears in her eyes confirmed for me that he in fact did just say fatal. in a heartbeat, we had gone from a son with a scar to a son who might not live. honestly, i am sure it is hard being a doctor, probably having to deliver medical news like this more often than you care to, but they really should be made to take a class on manners or something so as to not cause the parents to die when you deliver potentially life shattering news.

thing is, with trisomy 13 and trisomy 18, you usually will see other sorts of problems with the heart, the spine, clubbing of the feet or hands, and that sort of thing. the fact that all of these other features look normal (one of the best words in the medical field) makes the chance that isaac has one of these conditions very low. as far as i am concerned, he should have led with that, but what do i know; i mean, i have sloppy handwriting and all, but i am no doctor.

what i do know, however, is that you should not follow up a statement like that by asking if termination is an option for the pregnancy. he probably has to ask things like that, but if we are sure of one thing, it is that this kid is a fighter, surviving two car accidents, two bouts of bronchitis (yes, two, annie just got over another round), and we don't feel like we reserve the right to take that from him. therefore we decided to forgo the amniocentesis, which would tell us for sure about these possibilities, but involves risks of its own, and would only be useful in helping us decide whether or not to end the pregnancy.

after scheduling another sonogram at the end of may to check on his progress, we were pulled aside by another of the sonogram techs, whose two year old son was born with a cleft lip and palate. her name, oddly enough, is also ann. she comforted us with pictures of her son on her phone, gave us resources such as bottle brands and websites, and the proceeded to give us her email address, as well as her cell phone number. did i mention that we had just met this woman about 10 minutes before?

this is just one of the many incarnations we have witnessed in our lives over the past few weeks of another mother teresa quote that i love: "we can do no great things, just small things with great love. it is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it." i feel like all the small things that we have been given over the past couple weeks have brought me a small understanding of what i imagine it would be like to be on extreme home makeover. it is absolutely humiliating to receive so much, so aware that we don't deserve it, and knowing we can barely whisper "thank you".

and yet, there are still days when i forget. i find myself wondering if God's provision will run out before all isaac's surgeries are complete. worst case scenarios occasionally haunt, even though we have decided to parent by faith and not by fear. it is hard to stay in the moment, to feel up for the journey, to trust in dessert, and to accept God's trust in us.