A New Prayer

Well, yesterday kind of took us by surprise. We had been told that Mattie was scheduled for a repeat brain ultra sound because she had a Grade 1 bleed just like her sister had last week. Sophie's had completely gone away by the repeat ultrasound and we expected Mattie's to do the same. After the ultra sound we went in to find out about the results. Since the doctors had not read them yet or come to talk to us about it, I asked the nurse, who was new to us that day, what they looked like "unofficially." I don't think that was fair for me to do. Looking back, I think she probably balked a little before saying it looked like a Grade 1 bleed still. Grade 1 is very normal and doesn't really mean anything as far as damage goes.

Needless to say, when we came in yesterday and asked about the official results and the nurse called the Doctor in to explain them to us, our stomachs sank. I can't begin to explain exactly what it is, because I don't recognize most of the words that we heard and read. Put simply, it's not one of the "graded" things which is what we expected because that implies bleeding. Mattie's ultrasound showed spots in the front and back of her brain near where the spinal column attaches where there was a lack of blood and oxygen at some point. Periventricular Leukomalacia, I think is the diagnosis. They will do another routine ultra sound when the girls are 30 days old that will show even clearer how much damage was done. We've been told and we've read that this type of "insult" results in a 60-100% chance of cerebral palsy in some form.

Yesterday, we tried to absorb the shock. Amber wanted me to say that since Twin-Twin Transfusion, and having twins, and not knowing about the Twin-Twin Transfusion until so late, among other things were all very rare, low percentage types of occurences, and we got all of them, then maybe we just like hanging out on the low percentage side of things and there won't be any problems at all:)

If any of you went to CYC then you saw the second speaker on Saturday give maybe the most touching lesson of the weekend. He has cerebral palsy. I took a picture of him on my phone and last week some time I put that as my backdrop on my phone. I won't ask you to pray that Mattie won't be handicapped, because I'm not sure how praying in the will of God is supposed to work. Maybe this is God's will. My prayer is that God will keep them safe physically. Amber's prayer is that Mattie will be able to feed normally (not being able to suck and swallow is one of the dangers of PVL). Both of our prayers are that God will prepare us to be the parents that we need to be to our girls no matter which class they are in at school (or as one of the neonatologists joked 3 weeks ago, if they will ride the long bus or short bus). We would ask that you would pray for whatever God leads you to pray.

To the person who commented a while back on our faith and referenced the passage about the father of the demon-possessed boy crying out, "I do believe, help my unbelief!" I want you to know that we do not have great faith. We are struggling like that dad. I guess I'm believing that God can work whatever miracle he decides to work, whether that's no CP or just keeping us sane throughout, whether we have the faith that can move mountains or not.