A rough start to the new year...

It's with great saddness that we share our most recent family news with you. On January 3rd when we went to my doctor for my (nearly) 3-month pregnancy check-up (I was at 11 weeks), the doctor discovered that we had lost our baby. From the ultrasound the size of the fetus showed that it stopped developing somewhere around it's 6th or 7th week...somewhere around the 1st week of December. For some reason, my body hadn't given me any indication that the baby wasn't alive & I still very much felt as if I were pregnant.

Because of that, the news came as quite a shock to us. We spent the next few days reeling & processing with family over skype. Telling Ieva was difficult - probably one of the most difficult, yet tender moments we've had together in our small family. Since her favorite line to proclaim to everyone has been "Ieva's a big sister!!" we explained that the baby in mama's tummy isn't there anymore, but instead is in heaven with Jesus. She looked into our tear-filled eyes & asked sincerely "Ieva big sister??" "No..." we told her. "Not now. But you will be later." In the days to follow her new line has become: "Mama & Daddy so sad...baby in heaven with Jesus...Ieva big sister later." It's pretty precious what our two-year old is able to come up with, and this loss makes us love & appreciate her all the more.

This past Tuesday we went to Vilnius so I could have the D&C procedure done at the Baltic American Clinic. We continue to be extremely impressed with the care & skill used there, which is what keeps us driving the 3.5 hours when we have major medical needs. The same doctor who delivered Ieva did my procedure & was very caring during the entire experience. She gave me a good report after it was all done & we were on our way 5 hours after coming in! I was pretty nervous about my recovery...how painful it all might be, how long it would take to feel normal again, how I might feel emotionally...but it really has gone amazingly well!

We've received loads of encouraging emails & phone calls from friends & family, all ensuring us that they have been & continue to pray for us. And we are convinced that it's only through those faithful prayers that my recovery has gone so smoothly. Physically I feel pretty good & emotionally I am in much better shape than I anticipated being (and than I was last week). Truly, we praise the Lord for this!! He has shown Himself faithful to us once again through this difficult process and is even beginining to open my eyes to some of the reasons why He may have allowed us to experience this loss.

So for now, we will continue to covet your prayers as we readjust our plans for the future and settle back into a new semester of work at LCC. If you could also add the loss of our nanny to your prayers, we'd be thankful. I'm currently writing on Friday evening & we're scheduled to both be at work full-time starting Monday and don't have a replacement nanny lined up yet. We've got a few phone calls to make over the weekend & are trusting that God will continue to show us His faithfulness to our family has He has so many times before. Thanks for joining us in praying for this crucial need.

And thanks again family, friends & faithful blog-readers, for supporting our life & ministry here in Lithuania is so many ways!! We truly could not be here, doing what we're doing, without you. Labai Ačiu.