On Wednesday, August 31st, Steph and I traveled to Children’s Hospital in Columbus to have an Echo performed on Noah’s heart to make sure everything was developing properly. It was a great visit. The ultrasound technician had no issues getting the images she needed and the doctor came back with positive news about the condition of Noah’s heart. He said it was growing and developing at a normal rate for his gestational age. That visit, coupled with our previous visit to Steph’s OB/GYN left us pretty joyful and optimistic. 

Today we had another appointment at St. Ann’s with a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist to see how Noah’s long bones are developing. It’s been a rough few days emotionally leading up to this appointment. After receive good news after good news and all the encouragement and prayer from so many awesome people, we wanted so badly to hear more good news and see answers to prayer. 

Unfortunately that’s not what happened.

It was an emotional roller coaster today. Sitting in the ultrasound room, I watched the technician run the transducer (the ultrasound wand) over Steph’s stomach and saw the outline of our son appear in black and white on a TV monitor. 

I put my hand on Steph’s shoulder and began to pray that God, in His sovereignty, would heal our son. That He would hear the prayers of all the people who have committed to pray for us. That He would choose to reveal His glory through the healing of our son. 

All of a sudden, I saw something I had never seen before. A 3D image of Noah’s face appeared on the screen. It felt like the first time I watched the Wizard of Oz and the picture changed from the dull black and white of Kansas to the beautiful technicolor of Oz. My heart melted.

Even though his face was pressed up against Steph’s placenta (as if he was snuggling with her) we could still see some amazing features. It was evident right away that he has her nose and her mouth. He was even yawning and sticking out his tongue. But it was evident he has my personality because he was being very stubborn and would not cooperate with the technician. 

After several attempts to get a clear picture of his face the technician finally gave up. Even though they were a little distorted because of his positioning, we were so thankful for what we saw. 

A few minutes later the specialist came in. It was a different doctor than we had seen before (which is normal because they all rotate). He told us that Noah had grown some since our last appointment, but he was still very concerned. A few of his bones did look bent or fractured, and some of them had signs of Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease). 

It felt like someone put the cinder block back on my chest.

He went on to tell us that his long bones were still very short and his rib development was still a serious concern. They showed us on the ultrasound how his heart, which is normal size, was taking up a lot of space within his chest because the ribs are small. This means there is even less room for his lungs to develop. 

We were so excited about seeing him in 3D and so crushed by the doctors report.

When we got in our car to head home and we could feel the weight of this pulling us down into the storm again. We were starting to take our eyes off of Jesus and back onto the waves that were looming over us. As the tears began to roll down our cheeks, I felt the Spirit of God preach to my soul, 

“It isn’t over till Jesus says it’s over.” 
“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” – Revelation 1:17-18