My 1st Blog!!

O.K., so here I go. After having dinner and a few drinks with friends last night, it was suggested that i start a blog. I have wanted to write a book for some time now but can't seem to get my thoughts together. I'm hopeing that this will serve as a way to express my thoughts as well as help other people going through the same thing as our family.
Let me just jump right in and fill you in on whats been going on in our lives the last 6 years. Summer of '02 my daughter Ellie was 3 and my son Andrew was 5 months when we discovered I was pregnant once again. A little surprised? Yes but very happy none the less. At 16 weeks we went to have an ultrasound to find the sex of the baby. The technician performed the ultrasound and quickly sent us upstairs to see our doctor. I knew this wasn't normal protocal b/c I had 2 other children. We did what she said and went to see Dr. Nelson. His nurse was waiting for us with arms stretched out to hug us. What's going on, I thought...? As Doctor came in he proceeded to tell us that our baby has what is called an encephalocele and his brain was growing partially outside his head. Wow!!! That's a lot to take. They immediately performed an amnio to find out if the baby had any genetic disorders as well. The results would take a week or so and we were leaving for Kansas City at 6am the next morning for Christmas. My family lives in K.C. and was very anxious to find out whether we were having a boy or girl. Our doctor told us the grim statistics that i would most likely miscarry and if the baby did make it full term he could be still born. Only a very few % make it and out of that percent only about 2% live past 2 days. The chance of any quality of life was very slim. These children that survive can be severely retarded, have feeding tubes and so many more issues. We were asked to make the decision of continuing the pregnancy or not...We had 2 weeks to let him know our answer. we went home to pick up our kids from The O'Shaughnessy's house ( our good friends and neighbors ) late that evening. We dreaded going in there because we had to tell everyone of the news. After a lot of crying and hugs we gathered up our kids and headed home. In the meantime, our friends had called our Pastor and his wife Peggy to give them the news. When we got home Pastor Ted and Peggy were at our house with big hugs waiting for us. See their daughter Abby was born with downs syndrome a few years earlier and had gone through a lot of similar feelings as us. It was comforting to have that connection with someone that understood what we were feeling. I recall the best advice they gave us that night was for my husband Randy and I to never turn on each other and turn TO each other. They said you will have ups and downs and it will be very easy to blame one another but your other kids need you both!!