A tough day

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

I hope this note finds you well. It's 1:20 am Tuesday morning, and I just got off the phone with a doctor in the U.S. about Rachel and Isaac. It's been a tough day.

This morning, during Sonia's daily examination, the attending doctor discovered that little Rachel's hand was now outside of Sonia's cervix. Unfortunately, what this means is that her hand is exposed to all of the bacteria outside of the womb and that the arm may act like a conduit making it easier for bacteria to find their way into the womb.

Sonia has been amazingly strong and calm and trusting in the Lord today - almost as if the Lord told her what to expect ahead of time - while I have to admit that the news has shaken me. Sonia had a check-up on Saturday and everything looked pretty stable. In fact, there was even the contemplation of sending Sonia home for a split second. I haven't been able to concentrate on anything else today.

We did have a wonderful visit from Pastor Dennis, his wife Judy and TBC's church secretary, Shizuka Kaneko. We shared a bit of today's news and prayed together.

This last day before week 22 continued to test us. Sonia's tummy has been a bit tender today and she has started to feel what may be some light contractions. We're praying so hard right now that they contractions go away or at least don't get more serious. At the same time, we're trying our best to prepare ourselves in case things get worse quickly.

I was on the phone trying to speak with a perinatologist in the U.S. who might be able to provide a second opinion on what we could do but I didn't have much luck. I guess I'll try again tomorrow. There seems to be no standard approach to Sonia's condition. In fact, it turns out that doctors in Canada, UK and Australia may be more aggressive than the doctors in the U.S. in these cases.

In any event, it looks like we actually have made it (technically) week 22. We couldn't have dreamt that we would make it so far four weeks ago and we'll keep doing our best to be thankful and hopeful that He will deliver us.

God has continued to give us one day's worth of hope at a time and I think Sonia and I still need to fully accept that He is in control. With each passing day our hopes grow but something tells me that this isn't what He wants for us so perhaps he's still trying to teach us to simply trust Him, period.

God bless,

Jong