music

Dear Nahum,

Before we forget, we want to tell you about two special moments in your life involving music, specifically Christian music. In Canada or the USA, it is not so unusual to hear Christian music in a store. But we don't just "randomly" hear Christian music in stores in Germany. Probably there are just fewer Christians and therefore fewer Christian musicians or Christian music buyers.

However, on a grey day back in December, Mom heard Christian music in a German cafe for the first time. It was just a few days after your diagnosis, when we were still a jumble of shock and sadness, and Mom and a new friend went to an appointment with a social worker. Because of a mix-up with the appointment, we had to wait about an hour. We walked across the street to a cafe and drank tea and hot chocolate and waited for our appointment. Shortly after arriving there, Mom realized all the songs that were being played in the cafe were Christian songs in English. One of the songs was All in All, which starts with the words: "You are my strength when I am weak..." To Mom it seemed like God was saying: I see you down there. I know what's going on. 

Then, at our first appointment at our new doctor, Mom and Dad were sitting in the waiting room for what felt like a long time, and feeling a little anxious again about your health and about switching gynos mid-pregnancy. Just then, a Christian song started playing through the speaker in the waiting room. Again, it just felt like God's way of saying: I see you down there. I am with you.

Our pregnancy with you has involved a lot of waiting, but God has surprised us twice now by having Christian music playing in places where we had to wait. When He turns on Christian music for us, it reminds us that He sees us:

Waiting for social workers.
   Anxiously gulping hot chocolate.

Waiting to see doctors.
   Cautiously signing German medical forms.
   (Hoping we understood what we're signing.)

Waiting for you.
   Truly enjoying you every day,

Mom and Dad

to-do lists

Dear Nahum,

Lately when people check on us, we tell them that we're doing OK.  Dad's going to the office as normal and his evenings seem to fill up, too. Mom's not feeling too weepy and has some nice projects to make the days go by. Today, when we look up from our long to-do lists and realize that we're almost at the 2/3 mark of our pregnancy, we can hardly believe it.

But there's one to-do list we're avoiding when possible, and it's the "Nahum to-do list". When we don't think about that list too much we're OK. That list looks something like:

• visit gyno for glucose screening test
• meet midwife at hospital to talk about delivery preferences
• compile a list of numbers to be called in case of emergency 
• plan clothes and memorabilia for Nahum
• get more info from cemeteries / funeral homes.

The first four tasks on the list, while not all fun and games, sound like fairly normal tasks for new parents. But the last one on the list reminds us again that this pregnancy is really different than what we expected. 

Matthew 6 gives us a succinct to-do list for this last 1/3 of our pregnancy with you:

• Do not worry about tomorrow. (You're much better at this than we are.)
• Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

We're doing OK, and we'll always be OK, when we don't worry about tomorrow, and when we keep God's kingdom (not Nahum's kingdom or our little family's kingdom) first on our to-do list. Somehow even the Nahum to-do list will be achievable when we start with the Matthew to-do list.

As for your to-do list, it probably looks something like:

• eat
• kick
• wiggle
• grow.

Have fun in there,

Mom and Dad

a good strange

Dear Nahum,

Today we went to see a doctor who specializes in helping little people like you come out of their mommies' tummies and into the world. We told him your story and then we asked if he would be able to help you come into the world. We heard that both he and his team are kind, and that out of all of the hospitals in our city, this one would likely be the best place to welcome you. The doctor has to tell us his final decision after he talks to some other people, but from our conversation, we think he would like to help you be born.

When the doctor was asking us questions, we couldn't really tell what he thought about our situation. We thought maybe he wondered what kind of strange people your parents must be. He must know better than we do that not very many babies with anencephaly get the chance to live and be loved as long as you. It seemed a bit strange even to us, that somehow we know your diagnosis but (some days) we are still about to talk about your birth matter-of-factly.

There was a sentence on the wall in the entryway to the hospital which explains our strange behaviour. It said in a clear font, "Wir haben einen Gott, der da hilft. Psalm 68/21". (In the English Bible it would be Psalm 68:20). Literally translated from German, that phrase means something like, "We have a God, who there helps". As in, a God who helps us right there...right in the place where we need it.

We can mostly calmly talk about you and your birth because we have a God, who there helps. He's helping you, and He's helping us, right where we need it. Even there, in the delivery wing of the hospital. Especially there.

If we're strange, we hope it's a good kind of strange.

With all our love,

Mom and Dad

PS - We're not sure if you've noticed, but this whole winter has been pretty dreary. That's typical winter weather in our part of Germany, but probably after your diagnosis it felt greyer than it actually was. Yesterday was super windy, and this evening there were strong winds and rain again. But this morning, when we had to ride our bikes to the hospital, it was sunny and calm — the warmest weather we've had since your diagnosis. God gave us a sunny day for a sad task. God helps, even in the small things.

i wanted a baby, not a pregnancy

Dear Nahum,

I have a single friend who says she's "so excited to be pregnant" someday. I had never considered being excited simply about being pregnant. The only reason I would be excited to be pregnant would be because a baby of my own would come from that pregnancy. Pregnancy — with it's sickness and soreness, stretch marks and weight gain, hormonal changes and awkward conversations, and let's not even mention childbirth — was not what appealed to me. You were.

I wanted pregnancy for the joy set before me: you.

When the doctor told me that with you all I will have is pregnancy, and no baby to show for it, the blow felt enormous. Pregnancy...but no baby? I thought of the pregnancy itself as mostly a chore to get through, to get to the goal of having a baby in our family.

But now as my tummy bulges with the wonder of you, I realize that even pregnancy is a gift. Once in a while I think I feel your long legs kicking. They tell me that you're bonding with me already, even from inside, and I am bonding with you, too. When I see you on the ultrasound machine's screen, I'm always reminded that an incredible miracle is happening inside of me — a handsome little boy is being formed out what seemed like just a tiny speck.

I am sorry I thought pregnancy was just a chore to get through, too, because I realize that many women would love to even experience pregnancy and because of their own particular brand of sorrow, they cannot. I am "so excited to be pregnant", Nahum, no matter what comes next.

This is a precious pregnancy,
because you are a precious baby.

Mom

bottled tears

Dear Nahum,

Last night I cried and cried in my bed when I was supposed to be sleeping. I don't know why exactly I was crying. Eventually I remembered that yesterday was exactly two months since we received your diagnosis. Maybe two months of sorrow about your condition was just getting too heavy inside of me and a tear dam burst. I cried so long and so hard that it woke Dad up, and probably woke you up, too.

I needed a happy thought to set my mind on, instead of all the sad ones, so that I could stop crying. Dad spoke of you going to Heaven to be with Jesus, but that didn't make me happy because I wanted you to have more time with us before going to Heaven. Dad spoke of Jesus of loving the little children and gathering them on His lap, but I love you and I wanted to gather you onto my lap. I cried some more.

Then I searched for a verse that has come to mind several times during these two months of tears:
You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.

Maybe by then I was just getting tired of crying, but those were the thoughts that slowed down my tears. Thinking about you going to be with Jesus just makes me cry even more right now. But thinking about how not one of my tears goes unnoticed by God reminded me that God cares for me. He cares for Dad too, and also for you, Nahum.

I don't know how many tears we have shed for you, because they run down my cheeks and into my pillow and I cannot count them. But God knows the exact number. I wonder what He does with those bottles of tears. Do you know? Maybe you'll get to ask Him before I do. Thinking about that makes me get teary again.

Mom

PS: Today I got two unexpected bouquets of flowers — one from each of the ladies I know here in Germany who had babies with conditions just like yours. Neither of them know each other or knew that the other was sending me flowers. After a night so full of tears, I was reminded again that God cares for us.

a house of mourning

Dear Nahum,

Today these words from the ancient Jewish King Solomon crossed my mind as I was putting away the groceries I brought home:

It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting, 
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart.

We still believe God could intervene miraculously and heal you, but we also believe we need to be prepared to make some decisions if He does not. That means that as we enter this second half of our pregnancy with you, we're having more conversations about funerals and burials.

As anyone could guess, we'd much rather be planning a happy baby shower than a tearful baby memorial service. From an earthly perspective, feasting is much more enjoyable; but from an eternal perspective, Solomon says that mourning does us more good. A house of mourning gives everyone a chance to reflect on his or her own death someday, provoking a kind of sober attitude that it is hard to find time for in a world that delights much more in feasting and entertainment than in discussing serious matters.

No matter what happens to you — whether we feast or mourn at your arrival — your little life has already made many people "go to a house of mourning" in their minds; you've helped them to think about things they need to think about. You've helped us to think about things we need to think about, too.

You're doing us a big favour, Little One. Thank you.

Mom and Dad

your name

Dear Little One,

We chose a name for you. Somehow in your situation, we felt we needed an extra-special name. Your name is probably not one that would have been on the top of our list had this pregnancy gone exactly as we had hoped. But in this situation, we think it suits you perfectly.

Your name is Nahum John. 
(Nahum is pronounced NAY-huhm, or we say it more like NAY-um)

And since the doctor says your days will be short, we want to start calling you by your name now. Here are a few of the reasons we chose to call you, our firstborn son, Nahum John.

• Nahum means comfort. It's a shorter form of the name Nehemiah, which means comfort of the LORD. 
• Nahum was a prophet, or a messenger from God, and carried a message that was not necessarily people wanted to hear, but it was what God knew they needed to hear. We know your little life carries a message from God to us and to others, too. 
• The most beautiful verse of Nahum's prophecy speaks to our situation now: "The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him" (Nahum 1:7).
• When the books of the Bible are listed, your name comes right after your Dad's. Micah, and then Nahum. (Don't tell your future siblings, but the next name if we keep going in order would be Habakkuk 🙈).
• John is your maternal grandpa's second name, too, and we wanted to bless him by naming his second grandson after him.
• John means the LORD is gracious. Even in the difficult circumstances surrounding your life, we still know God is gracious and we want to proclaim that.
• John was "the disciple whom Jesus loved" and we know Jesus loves you, too.

In the Bible, people were always given meaningful names. Today people name their babies after their favourite shampoo or their favourite actress, and there's nothing particularly wrong with that. But I have often wondered if God sees the names we give our children as a prayer — a sacred moment when we get to tell God and the world what our prayer for you is. We pray for comfort for you and for us. We proclaim that even if your life is short, we know God is gracious.

You are a prayer for comfort to a gracious God.

We love you more than you know, Nahum John.

Mom and Dad

that's terrible

Dear Little One,

A few weeks ago I told an acquaintance about your condition. She knew there was something in our pregnancy that was troubling us, but she didn't know how serious it was. When she heard she was shocked. She immediately replied, "Oh golly, that's terrible. That's really, really terrible." And she kept repeating herself, "It's really terrible, so terrible that this is happening to you."

I agreed with her because we think so too, Nahum.

We think it's terrible.
We think it's tragic.
We think it's horrible.

That's why we have cried so much.

But (and there is a "but"), we know a God who also had something really, really terrible happen to His own Son. We know a God who can take even the most terrible things—like the death of His own Son—and make the most wonderful things out of them. We know a God so wise, so sovereign, and so all-powerful that He can turn even terrible into wonderful.

We don't have to pretend what the doctor says is happening to you is not terrible. We are free to mourn and to cry. But somehow when all the terrible settles, God is there and He seems closer than ever before. It is well with our souls, even in the midst of the terrible, because we are accompanied through the terrible by Him whose name is Wonderful.

What would be really, really terrible would be to go through this without Him.

Mom and Dad

body and blood

Dear Little One,

As you have probably noticed, we go to church most Sundays. At our church there are two services. They're not really meant to be picked between, they're meant to both be attended because the focus of each one is different. At the first one we spend most of the time focusing on the cornerstone of the Christian faith: Jesus, and particularly His death and resurrection. At the second one, the focus is broader. Of course, we still talk about Jesus, but we might also talk abut other themes, too. The Bible talks about so many topics.

Even though the services aren't meant to be picked between, we don't always go to the first service. Sometimes we're simply lazy, and sometimes we're justifiably tired. No one at the church keeps track of who attends, and no one scolds people who don't attend.

However, this morning I noticed I had a greater desire than usual to get up early and go to the first service. I wondered why. Maybe the main reason is because the theme of the first hour is a broken body and shed blood. I've never felt so close to those topics as I do now, Little One, because suffering has come close to you and me in the last weeks. The ultrasound shows that your body is broken. I know that I will shed blood for you.

As much as I can talk to family or friends about your situation and they can try to share our pain, Jesus best understands our sorrow. When we go to that first service on Sunday, we sing to and about Jesus, read about Jesus, think about Jesus and then take the bread and the wine. In so doing, we find comfort in Him. Jesus' body was broken without His Spirit being broken. His body bled but His spirit lived. When our hearts are broken and bleeding, He is the best person to tell, because He understands.

That first service has become more precious to us because of you. Thank you.

Mom and Dad

time with you

Dear Little One,

The other day I was telling your Dad that I am more fortunate than he is, because I get to spend more time with you than he does. When he's away at work, or even in another room, he can't be with you. But wherever I go, whatever I do, you're there with me. You get up with me. You go to German class with me. You work at design projects with me. You make regular trips to the grocery store with me. You go to bed with me. We do everything together.

But today it occurred to me that there's one thing only Dad can do for you. He's always given me a goodbye kiss before leaving to work, but now he gives you a goodbye kiss too, by kissing my tummy.  That's something I cannot do, because of course I cannot bend over enough to kiss you in my tummy. I pointed that out to him, that only he can kiss you. Dad smiled really wide. It made him feel special, that he gets to do something for you that I can't.

We thank God for every moment we have with you,

Mom and Dad

our little boy

Dear Little One,

Today we found out you're a boy! (We were quite sure of that, somehow, but the ultrasound told us we weren't crazy.) Dad was there to find out at the same moment as I did. He smiled at me and I smiled back. A little boy seems like such a nice way to start a family.

You're sixteen weeks old, a lanky fifteen centimetres long and you weigh 150 grams. The doctor showed us your arm and bent elbow, your leg and your wiggling foot. We got to see your heart pounding and your umbilical cord throbbing. We listened to your heartbeat, and he showed us how he could tell you are a boy. The only thing he didn't want to show us was your head, and we had to ask him, "Please, show us our boy's head."

He did, and we were sorry to see again that your head still looks like it stops above your eyes. That's not the way little boy's heads usually look, Little One. At least not the heads of little boys who can skip and throw balls and play catch and ride bikes. Not the heads of little boys who can bake cookies and run errands and read books and draw pictures. But somehow it's what the head of our favourite little boy looks like.

It was a strange mixture of happy and sad seeing you today, Little One. It should have been a moment of wonder and awe, to see you being formed in that secret place, and it was. But it was also a moment of sorrow and woe, because we kept thinking about what it means when a little boy has no skull.

You're still here, but somehow we already miss you, our little firstborn son.

Mom and Dad

wounds and healing

Dear Little One,

On Sunday we sang these words, "Durch seine Wunden bin ich heil" ("By His wounds I am healed.") Did you hear us? The doctor told us that you are wounded, Little One, and we have prayed for healing, and so those words jump off the page to me right now.

As we have told different people about your situation, I have realized that how people respond to news like we received about you depends a lot on worldview. A Christian's perspective on this is very different than most people's. To many people in this world, wounds are seen as 100% tragedy. But not to us. Why is that? I guess it's because our whole faith is built around the idea that sometimes wounding and death serve a greater purpose than we can see at the moment when they're happening. Christians believe that the very wounds which appeared to have broken Jesus were the wounds that offer us healing.

We grieve about your deformity, Little One, but we know that somehow what is happening to you is not 100% tragedy. Somewhere between the bread and the wine on Sunday, we remembered that we don't look at Wunden in isolation, or else we would despair. We don't pretend the wounds are not there, but we keep our eyes on the future Heilung—not just for your little body, but for this entire suffering and dying world.

With hope,

Mom and Dad

hauptsache gesund?

Dear Little One,

Since coming to Germany, I've realized that overall, Germans are highly concerned with good health. You can see it in the thoroughness and strictness of their socialized healthcare system, in their concern with healthy eating and organic shops, and in their love of being outside and taking walks in the Wald. Not that North Americans aren't concerned with health; some are. But in the land where you will be born, they say "Hauptsache Gesund!" or "The main/most important thing is health."

We like all the healthy options available to us here, and you have already benefited from the good medical care here. We've always been the whole grain, fruit and vegetable types, so Germany suits us. We love being able to move around the city by bike or by foot. Germany gives Dad more weeks of holidays because it's important to them that their workers have time to rejuvenate, and we will never complain about that! But is the most important thing health, as they say here?

In Germany, God used to be worshiped above health, but not anymore. Most of the traditional churches have become more like museums to be visited, or nice place to find silence and take pictures. Surveys say that for most people in Germany, the idea of a personal, living God is passé. But that doesn't mean they don't worship any more. (Societies never eliminate worship completely—they just find another object to worship, usually some created thing instead of the Creator.) Good health is a god to be worshipped in Germany. Maybe the god above all gods.

I'm glad we don't worship at the altar of good health, Little One, because the priest of that god told us that modern medicine has no means to heal you. Which means that if the Hauptsache is that you be Gesund, your life would have no more purpose. Our hope would be extinguished. Exchanging the God of gods for the god of health is a choice a person can make, but an expensive one. Because when your health is taken away from you, you have no hope. And what then? Maybe your good health coverage would cover treatment for the depression that would surely follow?

I'm so glad your value was never tied up in your health.

Hauptsache Gott!

Mom and Dad

you already have community

Dear Little One,

Yesterday, less than twelve hours after being told you have a condition called fetal anencephaly, we called and emailed family and friends about the news. We went to sleep, and overnight our inbox received email after encouraging email from people telling us they were praying for us and crying with us. In the weeks that followed we got phone calls, text messages, chat messages and cards in our mailbox from friends all over the world. All because the doctor said you're in trouble, Little One! See how they love you?

I was a bit fearful of having a baby here in Germany, in a new city where we know so few people. But when we told some people here in our new city about the doctor's diagnosis, they responded so kindly. They cried with us and brought us cards. They came to our house to visit us and pray for us. They gave us truth to hold on to. One man who doesn't feel confident in English came to our house and read a long passage from Romans 8 to us in English, just because he thought we'd prefer to hear it in our mother tongue. His wife made herself available to attend appointments, give advice, or just have coffee with me and talk and pray. They saw that you need community, and that we need community, and they offered to stand in the gap. Can you feel their love, Little One?

These people have never met you, Little One, but many of them are praying for you every single day. You already have more genuine community than many people would have in a whole lifetime. You're already blessed more than you know.

Mom and Dad

abortion was never an option

Dear Little One,

On the day when the shocked doctor told me the news and his assistants clumsily instructed me, they gave me the feeling that the responsible thing to do would be to end your life. But even in those first moments at his desk after receiving the news, I told the doctor that having an Abtreibung was not an option. I had to say it again in the lobby, to an assistant who was giving me a discouraging look: "There will be no abortion." And we had to say it again to a few more people over the next few weeks: "Abortion was never an option."

Suddenly I could better relate to the difficult decisions that women throughout the ages have faced while pregnant—and I hope I will be slower to judge them than I would have been before, having felt the complex emotions of this season myself. I was glad that I didn't have to make that decision in the doctor's office or at the next ultrasound or in our living room. This was something we decided long before December 13, 2016. My social worker said she sees many clients who are agonizing over whether or not to kill the babies in their wombs, but she could see that our situation was different. She knew that we knew you're alive—whether or not you're healthy—and that it is not our right to end your life any more than it is our right to end anyone else's.

I saw a statistic, that 95% of mothers in our situation opt for an abortion. That puts us in a minority again, a 5% group. But I want you to know that we didn't not abort you because somehow we are better people than other people. Actually, there was even a sliver of me that thought, "If only abortion really was a solution. If only there really was a way to erase this heavy weight...." But abortion simply trades one set of problems for another. It wagers that the guilt of killing your own child will be less painful than suffering through a difficult pregnancy ending in a miscarriage or stillbirth. It's not a wager I would be willing to make. We don't go chasing after heartache, but when it happens to us, we know it's not so unexpected. You might as well know this now too: in this world you will have trouble.

We didn't abort you simply because we come from a long line of people who have chosen the fear of God above the fear of man...including doctors with "the best ultrasound machines in the city". We're usually a minority. We fear the same God as the midwives in Egypt who "feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the...children live." If the midwives could risk their own lives to disobey a tyrannical king, we can also risk appearing foolish before 95% of the population and preserving your life as long as you live.

The social worker told me that you're lucky you got us as your parents, because we're giving you the chance to live as long as you can. I don't think luck has anything to do with it, and I would never have chosen this challenge for myself. But I want you to know this, Little One: abortion was never an option. We couldn't both fear God and play God by choosing to end your life. Some things are best decided long before one faces that particular situation.

To life,

Mom and Dad

a time for weeping

Dear Little One,

Today was a day we will remember for the rest of our lives. Today was not the day we wanted it to be. I hope today will fade in our memories as time goes by, so covered by days of rejoicing that we can hardly remember the weeping that took place on December 13, 2016.

I wanted to look nice when I went to the doctor's office for the second appointment of my pregnancy. It had been one month since I had seen you growing in my womb and I looked forward to seeing you again, to hearing your heartbeat a second time at twelve weeks. The early months of pregnancy have felt so surreal, knowing that you're in there—but seeing so little evidence of you. As I got ready for the day, I mentioned off-hand to your Dad: "You know, a tiny part of me realizes that these appointments do not always show good news." But I was 99.9% sure that our news would be good news.

The doctor asked if we should talk English or German, and I chose German, because I need the practice. He had me spread the cold jelly on my tummy and then he began the scan so that we could see you. He pressed, looked at the screen, pressed again, and looked at the screen again. I saw you, my baby: fearfully and wonderfully made. You were just as cute as I remembered you. Then the doctor said those words that I suppose I knew could come, but I never expected would come: "Please come over to my desk. We need to talk about something. There's a problem." I clumsily buttoned up my pants and joined him at his desk.

It turns out, despite my optimism that we were the 99.9%, we were actually the 0.1%. Fetal anencephaly affects approximately 1 in 1000 babies in the womb. He told me that you are one of those babies. He told me that your skull has not formed. That your brain and your head are damaged. He told me he is certain that only one thing lies ahead for you: death. Death inside of me, or death shortly after birth. It was insinuated that your life has no value anymore, that you are as good as dead.

Even as I sat in that doctor's office, Little One, this was on my mind: the doctor knows a lot, but he does not know all things. As he sat there and predicted your future and assessed your value, I knew that was ultimately not his job. He doesn't give life and he shouldn't take it away. He did not play your heartbeat for me, but you still have a heartbeat, Little One.

Whether his prediction turns out to be true or not, I wept because it might be true. I wept in the doctor's office and then in his lobby. I came home and wept on the sofa, wept in your Dad's arms, and wept on my bed. I wept for all the tomorrows we might not have with you. I wept for the loss of our dreams for you. I wept selfishly, too, for the loss of something I wanted: a "normal" pregnancy. A "normal" baby. A "normal" life.

But I want you to know, Little One, that even though we were weeping, we did not feel angry at the God who made you. We just felt profoundly sad. We believe that God shares our sadness too, as He sees this broken world, where what should be a time of joy is turned into a time of weeping. And He longs to end not just our weeping, but all weeping, and to wipe away all tears.

It's often rainy here in our German city. Maybe that's God's way of weeping with us.

Mom and Dad

a big day for dad

Dear Little One,

Today was a big day for your Dad! Today he finally defended his doctoral thesis. He spoke for half an hour about things I could not really understand, and then the professors questioned him for one hour. There were cheers and claps when the professors returned to the hall after their deliberations and announced that your Dad is now a "Dr. Ing." You were there in the audience on the day your dad became a doctor!

You can be proud to be your father's child, Little One. There is no one whom I would rather have as your father. He's intelligent but humble, has good things to say but still listens more than he talks. He isn't one to tell other people that he has a title; it's the last thing on his mind to announce about himself. What's more impressive about him than his education is his heart.

After Dad became Dr. Dad, he made one more announcement to the friends and coworkers gathered in the room: that soon we would be welcoming our firstborn. That's you, Little One. And so as people made their rounds to congratulate your dad, they also came to congratulate me on...you. It was so fun for us to pile good news upon good news, and to spend hours laughing and smiling with our old friends in the university town.

This was a big day for our family, but a bigger day for our family will be when you arrive.

We look forward to meeting you,

Mom and Dad

an act of faith

Dear Little One,

I want you to know that as much as we wanted you and planned for you and asked God for you, choosing to pursue parenthood was also an act of faith. An act of faith based on God's promises that children are a reward, a heritage and a good gift. Not an expensive nuisance or a biologically-related embarrassment, like some people say.

It wasn't that we didn't want to be parents; we certainly did. But I know that being a parent will turn my life upside down. I know children don't always turn out the way we expect or want. I know children have their own wills and while they can choose right, they can also choose wrong. I know the world is full not only of sunshine and rainbows but also of dangers and snares. And I know that although we might think our job is to protect you from the world "out there", you need protection even from us—from our shortcomings and failures.

Somehow opening ourselves to the good gift of children felt to me like a leap of faith, of setting aside insecurities and judging Him who promised to be faithful. This adventure of parenthood will be an adventure of faith, from first to last. But isn't all of life?

In good faith,

Mom and Dad

already known, already loved

Dear Little One,

Did you know that Dad and I dreamed about you long before we knew anything about you? Even when I wasn't much more than a baby myself, I thought about baby names that I liked. Before I knew your dad, I prayed for the children I might someday have. Before we got married, we talked about ideas about children and how to raise them, and after we were married we started a list of baby names on each of our phones.

This year seemed like the ideal one for you to come along: we moved into an apartment with a second bedroom, Dad started his first job outside of the university, and I studied German 20 hours per week so I could integrate better here in Germany.

When I first told Dad I thought you existed, he was pleased but skeptical. The two lines on the home pregnancy test, or talk of a weird feeling in my back or stomach weren't enough to convince him. When I finally came home from the doctor's office with your eight-week sonogram and told him I had heard your heartbeat, he was convinced. How we treasure that first picture of you! The doctor said you looked like an Erdnuss Flip or a gummi bear (very German analogies) and that made us laugh.

We loved you from the beginning, Little One. Even from before the beginning, before you existed. We loved even the thought of you. It makes me wonder how much more love God must have for you, because He knew everything about you before we knew anything. He loved you before there was time.

You are already known, and already loved.

Mom and Dad