It's a boy.......NO! It's A Girl!!!!!

My beautiful wife does not like secrets and when it comes to presents or finding out if she is pregnant or some other possibly good news......she CANNOT wait.  If she ever thought she was pregnant, we would have prego tests laying around like peanuts at a Logan's restaurant.  So she goes to the doctor and has an ultrasound at 10 weeks and the nurse and the doctor think that it is a boy. Well, since we have been 3 for 3 on the boys, we are feeling pretty confident it's a boy as well.  We picked out a name, I'm thinking.... "man, do I know how to make men or what?" (only kidding).  Then she goes back for another follow up appointment 4 weeks later and then the doctor says "uh-oh, I think we might have a girl here". Christi calls me in great excitement/shock and then calls Jennifer Lowery at Sneak A Peak to get another look.  It is confirmed......It's a Girl!!!  I knew only one thing, Christi caught me on a weak day if its a girl (emphasis on spelling and again, I'm kidding...a little). Then on May 19th, at 18 weeks pregnant, Christi has her appointment that morning with the OB and after that an ultrasound.  Normally you have the ultrasound first but with scheduling conflicts the order was reversed.  The family showed up to confirm yet again.....no surprise, its a girl.  The ultrasound took longer than normal and although neither of us mentioned anything until later, we could tell that something was off, something different.  I was concerned but not trying to read into something that was not there and I distinctively remember Christi saying that she was ready to get a call back from the nurse ensuring everything looked great.  She had the same feeling I had. The next day at lunch, I remember Christi listening to the voice mail from Dr. Lebleu to give her a call back.  We both knew that the news could not be good.  It was May 20th when we received the news that Aly had a rare birth defect called an occipital encephalocele.  We were given the diagnosis and were so thankful to get an appointment with a parenatologist the next day at St. Francis Hospital.  Encephaloceles are very rare neural cranium defects with an occurrence rate of 1 to 4 in 10,000 births.  Encephaloceles have roughly a 55% survive-ability rate when at the back of the head (which is what an occipital encephalocele is).  It is a bad bad prognosis to receive.  Since it involves the brain, the bad possible side effects of this defect are seemingly endless: paralysis, mental retardation, learning disabilities, and on and on. Unfortunately, the defect is so rare, we did not get much more information from the parenatologist other than what it basically is and that it will need to be monitored through regular ultrasounds and that our little girl will need surgery soon after birth.  Her long term prognosis is uncertain and there is no way of telling if she will be on the positive end or the negative end with regard to her brain function.  We had known the prognosis before but now it was confirmed.  It was devastating news.  As we drove back from the hospital we both cried.  So much excitement, so much hope, so many dreams, so much bad news.  We both knew deep down in both of our souls this little girl is not ours. She has a Father, who has and is forming her in Christi's womb.  He knows every part of who she is, knows exactly how she is put together and knows exactly what this defect is.  We have been given the blessing to know, to teach, to love this little girl and to be parents here on earth but she is not ours ultimately....she belongs to her Maker.  We both realized that He controls ALL things, that He is Lord over ALL and that He can be trusted with our lives and certainly with our precious little girl that He gave! We cried some more and prayed and told God how thankful we were for giving us this little blessing, Aly, and for giving us our three boys.  We knew that although we were taken by surprise, the One who keeps us was not.  Looking back, even now, how amazing and humbling it is to see how God has orchestrated and brought things and people together and into our lives before we even knew what was going to happen.  People who have brought life to us, people who have encouraged us and stood by us.  He hears our cry, He knows our struggles, He knows our yesterday, He knows our today and He knows our tomorrow.  You sovereign God are the rock that we can stand on....this thought played over and over and over and yes, over again in my mind and heart that day and it still does.