Our Sweet Boy

Pete and I have had many loops thrown at us over the last few months. First he was going to move to a new position and company in the army, then he would deploy over the summer on his own, to you will be deploying with your current unit in a few months. There is a saying I like to say  about the army "It is was it is." Nothing ever stays the same. I never thought our personal life would be thrown for such a loop. We were so excited when we discovered that we would have a new little addition that would be constant. We prayed for this new little one and asked God to be over its forming and growth. We knew it would be difficult with Pete deploying but God remains faithful and is always with us. So it came time when we would be able to find out the sex of the baby. We could not be more excited to see our little one, it had been twelve weeks since the last look. We received a phone call from the nurse at our OBGYN informing us that one of our tests came back abnormal which meant that our little one could have the mildest of genetic cases to the worst of genetic cases. Our hearts sank and we cried out to God. They did a sonogram and we were devastated to find that our little one has a hole in his upper spine along with not having a formed brain or skull. The prognosis is death. The birth defect is called Anencephaly and it is rare. Our hearts fell but we knew like the psalmist said that God had "Created Shai's most inmost being; He knit him together in my womb. We praise Him because Shai is fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139:13 The doctor informed us that we had two decisions. The first one meant having a needle pierced into Shai's heart and then induce labor or the other one was try to carry to term. Now you might think this is a no thought situation but when you are in the midst of hearing that you will lose your baby within minutes of delivering them ,your mind goes into a million different directions. However we were again reminded of who God is. He is the creator of the universe, he is all knowing and all powerful. He is also right there in the midst of our suffering, weeping beside us. We also know that He has a plan and purpose for Shai no matter how short lived that life might be. Before we even knew Shai was a boy we decided on his name. I loved the name because it meant "Gift of God". Shai is our precious "Gift of God" and we have decided to fully put his life into the hands of the one who created him and knew him before we did.  So we will be updating this blog with all news of Shai. Thank you for prayers and thoughts! Love, the Hathaway's