This time last year...

New Year’s Day 2008 started off in the emergency room of a Guatemalan hospital. What I thought was a reoccurrence of pneumonia turned out to be bronchitis… and Ethan! It was a wonderful way to celebrate the New Year – finding out that a new little life was forming and that we would meet him in September (he surprised us by coming in August).

I look back and can see God’s hand that day already protecting Ethan. The ER doctor wanted to do a lung x-ray and asked if I could be pregnant. I said that I guessed I could be but didn’t know and did not think that I was. He said that it would be too early to tell (only about 2-3 weeks) and the x-ray wouldn’t hurt the baby anyway. My ob-gyn just happened to be on-call that day passed by in the hallway as I was waiting for the x-ray. He came in and told the other doctor that there would be no x-ray until I had a blood test and that we most definitely would be able to tell if I was pregnant. He came back into the room about a half hour later, called down to the lab and when he hung up, said, “Congratulations!” and gave me a hug. Daniel and I just stared at each other. We wanted a child so badly but did not expect to receive that news that day. I kept thinking that maybe the lab got the results wrong and didn’t want to get my hopes up.

Through many, many rounds of illness while in Guatemala and five weeks of bed rest, Ethan proved to be a fighter and I am amazed when I look at him and overwhelmingly thankful. Our God is great!

Happy New Year!!