4

I don't know much about parenting a child at home. Sure, I have read some baby books, but when the rubber hits the road, it's all going to be new to me; but come Thursday, I know I will be getting quite a crash course.

What I do know is that my and Spencer's marriage is foundational to parenting well.

Would you please pray for our marriage? God has been so gracious in truly protecting our marriage through our journey with Isaac. Not that it's a perfect marriage or that we have it all together; but I can truly say that we have a great marriage, and that the Lord has so clearly protected us. As we bring Eliana home, I know that she will require so much of our attention. So please pray for us that God would continue to protect our marriage as He so faithfully has, and that He would give us the grace to bear with one another in love as we navigate this exciting transition; that He would help us to be intentional about our time together as a couple, and as a family; and that He would continue to be the foundation upon which our home is built.

5

I love Saturdays... a great reprieve from the work week!


Today, would you please specifically be praying for Spencer as he leads our family in this next new and exciting chapter? Please pray for his nerves as we head back to the hospital, for patience with me as I learn how to be a mother to a baby at home, for focus the day of Eliana's birth, for his ability to balance finishing up his grad school work while gearing up for Thursday, and for grace as he balances the joy with the missing.

6

Thank you so much for your words of encouragement and for sticking with us in prayer. One thing I did want to mention in regard to my prayer request from yesterday... part of the heartache in moving forward without Isaac here is that we very easily could have him here and be having Eliana. Isaac would have been about ten months old when I found out I was pregnant with Eliana, and so a large part of this aspect of my grief is knowing that they both could be here. So thank you for hearing my heart in that and for praying with us.

Today, would you please pray for the doctors, nurses, and other medical staff that will be caring for us at the hospital? The same two doctors who delivered Isaac will be delivering Eliana. The same two nurses that were tending to our care when Isaac was born, will also be caring for us as Eliana enters the world. All of them have met Isaac and are familiar with his story, and I know that all of him have been impacted by him.

Would you please pray that God would use Eliana's birth as a testament of His goodness and faithfulness in the hearts of all of the hospital staff involved with Eliana's delivery and our care afterwards? Please pray that they would see God's provision for our family... His making of beauty from ashes as He continues to write the next chapter in our family's story... and that they would clearly recognize it as such. Please pray for opportunities for us to share about that with the doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers with whom we come into contact, and that God would continue to use Isaac's life, and this next chapter entitled "Eliana" for His glory.

7

A few nights ago I was explaining to someone that continuing to move forward after losing a child can sometimes be difficult. In response, this person asked, "Well, what do you feel like it is you're moving away from as you move forward?"

After giving it some thought, it's not so much that I feel as though I am moving away from Isaac... it's the fact that he's not here to move forward with us. I wish so much he could be here to also welcome his baby sister.

So with that, today would you please pray for both my and Spencer's hearts as we approach March 4th... balancing such great joy and anticipation in getting ready to meet Eliana, with the reality that we are coming to yet another milestone that we aren't able to share with our son, but deeply wish that we could. Please pray that God would allow us the space and the grace to manage these emotions, to bear with one another in love as we do, and that He would just be especially near to us in the missing.

8

I am not sure it has really hit me that in wrapped up in the process of delivering Eliana is the fact that I will be undergoing a major surgery again. So today, could you please pray for the physical aspects of having another c-section? For my nerves about the surgery (did I tell you I have a seriously hard time with needles??), for my body to handle it well, for there not to be any sort of complications for me or for Eliana. History would tell me that physically, I will do just fine; but I am starting to sense my nervousness about this and know that God alone is the one who can calm those fears.
Thanks for joining us in praying through our countdown... we treasure your prayers immensely.

9

Today I would like to ask for you to pray specifically for Eliana's physical development... that her lungs would be fully developed at the time of delivery, and that everything would continue to be functioning well as each of our ultrasounds up to this point have indicated. Please pray that she continues to develop as a healthy baby, and that God would protect her during these last 9 days that she's still in the womb.

10

I feel like now an "official" countdown can begin.

10 days until Eliana's birthday.

In the spirit of a New Year's Eve type of countdown, each day between now and March 4th I plan on posting a specific way (in addition to praying daily for God's protection of Eliana, along with her safety and health) that you can be praying for our family. More than anything, we really treasure your prayers as we prepare to welcome our daughter!

So today, on day 10... please be praying for restful sleep.

Lately, I have been having difficulty sleeping. Whether it's needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night or my nerves that are keeping me up, I just haven't been feeling well rested in the morning. Spencer also has a lot on his plate with regard to grad school work between now and March 4th, and has a lot in the way of late nights and early mornings ahead of him this week with paper writing.

Please be praying that the sleep each of us gets at night would be solid, restful sleep so that we can go into March 4th feeling recouped, energized, and just feeling good physically.

Thank you for praying...

A Spirit of Generosity

Spencer and I have been the fortunate recipients of two local photographers' extreme generosity. This first, Bill Millios, did our maternity pictures when I was pregnant with Isaac, came to the hospital and beautifully photographed our time with him on his birthday, and put together a beautiful slide show for us to use at Isaac's memorial service. Bill is incredibly talented, extremely generous, and the photographs we have of us with Isaac are something whose value cannot be measured.

The second, Crissie Traugott, contacted me last summer and offered to cover the first annual Isaac Timothy Delisle Memorial Golf Tournament. She did a beautiful job documenting the day! She also graciously offered to do some maternity pictures to capture my pregnancy with Eliana, as well as newborn pictures once Ellie arrives. Just wanted to share a few photos from our time this past Sunday in downtown Frederick. It was freezing, but a lot of fun.

Bill and Crissie, thank you both for your spirit of generosity and the priceless gifts you have given to Spencer and I. We are incredibly grateful.

3 weeks

Still here in the frozen tundra of the mid-Atlantic under a fresh new blanket of snow. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many inches it is with the (not so) old snow underneath and all of the drifting that has occured. What I do know is that I am pretty sure the 10-foot piles of snow all over the place will most likely be here when we, Lord willing, bring Eliana home in a few weeks.

So today marks my 34th week of pregnancy, and 3 weeks until Eliana's birthday. As March 4th has started to draw near, Spencer and I have spent a lot of time talking about our anticipation of what that day will be like... the joy, the sorrow, the excitement, the fear.

This morning I was catching up on some blogs that I follow, and read a post that Molly Piper wrote during her pregnancy with her third child, Morrow. Morrow was conceived just a few months after Molly and Abraham's second child, Felicity, was born still. Though she just recently published this post, the authenticity with which Molly why she didn't blog about her pregnancy with Morrow really hit me, as she articulately explains the complex array of emotions that a mother feels after losing a child, being pregnant again, and ultimately giving birth to another baby. Rather than repeat what she has said, you can click here to read.

Unprecedented

In case you may not have heard, we've been getting a little snow over here in the Mid-Atlantic. And by a little, I mean 20+ inches on December 19-20th, several inches on January 30-31st, several more inches February 2-3rd, 33 inches February 5-6th, and they're calling for 16-20 inches more starting this afternoon into tomorrow evening. It is crazy to me that 1- 16 inches of snow now sounds like "nothing" compared to the incredible 33 inches we just had dumped on us, and 2-local forecasters are using the term "blizzard conditions" twice in one week! This is definitely unprecedented snow for the Baltimore/Washington area.

Here's a look at our neighbors' houses and cars... and the 4 foot snow drift in the middle of the road.




Spencer is working hard shoveling...



A look at our patio area this morning. I have no idea where 16-20 more inches of snow are going to go!

I also have no idea when schools will be back in session and we'll be back to work! This is sheer crazyness... definitely record-breaking snowfall for our area!

Cardboard Testimonies

With having had over 30 inches of snow dropped on us the past two days, I've had a lot of time to catch up on some blog reading. I came across this video that Kelly posted on her blog and was incredibly touched by it. Stories of so many people whose lives have been broken by addiction, loss, a poor diagnosis, or feelings of insignificance...and whom God so faithfully restored.



I think if I were to write mine it might say something like this...

Lost my son Isaac in 2008 shortly after birth... God continues to faithfully meet us in our pain and restore our joy.

What's your cardboard testimony?

1 Month/4 Weeks/28 Days

I can't figure out which title I like better, so I left all three :)

As we ticked days off the calendar in anticipation of Isaac's arrival, I just hated it. As the numbers decreased, I knew my time with Isaac was lessening. It was hard to go from counting the months I had left with him, to the weeks, to the days, and then to the hours. Even then, I was still full of hope with what God could still do; but the reality of what was likely had set in so deeply. It is a heart-wrenching thing to countdown the days you have left with your child.

This time, though, it feels so much different. I am excited to tick days off the calendar, and the fact that in one more calendar flip Eliana will be here just blows my mind. This pregnancy has really flown by.

So from today... it's one month... four weeks... twenty-eight days... until we get to meet our daughter! As I type this she both has the hiccups and is wiggling away; and I can't help but wonder if she will have as many hiccup as much on the outside as she does on the inside!

God has faithfully continued to guard our hearts against too much fear and anxiety, and instead, has been filling us both with great joy. We are grateful...

An Interview

I was contacted by Janelle, the creator of Journey Through Grief.com, about doing an interview for her website. I spent some time on the site looking around, and it is quite a good resource for both people who are grieving, and people who are seeking to support those who are grieving. Just wanted to pass this resource along. Should you desire to read the interview, click here.