Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen...

On Wednesday Obe and I went to the Children's National Heart Institute in DC for our Fetal Echocardiogram. On our way there we decided to saturate and arm ourselves with God's Truth and Promises.
I read Hebrews 11 out loud. The chapter starts off with these words:
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible...without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him..."

The chapter goes on to talk about men and women that stood up against insurmountable odds, they had every strike against them in the natural world and to those that didn't, like Moses, they refused entitlement and wealth for the sake of Greater Riches and promises from God.
As I read this chapter I was filled with great humility and faith rose up within me that this same God that caused men to "conquer kingdoms, perform acts of righteousness, obtain promises, shut the mouths of lions, escape the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, parted the Red Sea"...this same God was now walking with us and girding us up to face whatever giant we were now up against.

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.

Four words that break my heart and make very little sense to me right now....

What Doctors say:
After 5 hours of indepth heart sonogramming and deliberations we found out that the pediatric cardiology specialists believe with "100%" certainty that our son has a rare congenital heart defect called, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Basically, this means that sometime between now and when he's born they believe that the left ventricle in his heart will stop functioning and he will be born with half a heart. These babies have at most 48 hours (that's what they told us with our son's condition) after birth to receive open heart surgery because their heart is incapable of pumping oxygen rich blood to the body on its own. This procedure on avg has a 50-85% success rate (meaning the baby's life is sustained). However, there are many other complications due to the intense toll these complicated surgeries have on their newborn bodies. For example, brain damage, slowed speech, collapsed lungs, acid reflux, contamination, the list can go on and on..life is taken one day at a time and they have to undergo a series of open-heart surgeries by the time their 18 months old. They told us everything and gave us all our options. We sat there listening to what they projected his life to look like from now until he's at least 20, since their oldest survivors of HLHS are now only in their early 20's.
Even though they can offer much hope there are still so many risks and unknowns. If you want to find out more about this syndrome this site is good because its a testimonial of a beautiful little girl named, Grace with HLHS: http://www.heartofgrace.net/WhatIsHLHS.html.

Many of you have sent us messages and emails asking us how things are going...it's been a tough and confusing week...we thank you again and again for your prayers and concerns for us! We have been wrestling with this diagnosis all week, crying out to God, seeking His face and making preparations for the potential challenging journey ahead of us. So thank you for your patience.

What we say:
We feel very fortunate to have such an amazing, world-class team of pediatric heart surgeons on Judah's side but right now we do not see Judah as a "HLHS" baby (despite what the doctors say). We believe that God is not done with him yet and who but God truly knows the heart of man, He is still perfecting him and safely knitting him in my womb and He alone ultimately has the final Word.
We are asking God for a Creative miracle in his life and for His kingdom to come, His will to be done. We praise God for our son. He already is such a gift to us...we are completely in love! We know that God has a plan and a purpose in all of this and we are still holding on to dear life to the promises He has, the ones not seen, as well as the ones that are for today. No matter what the outcome, we are committed to Praising the King through little Judah's life.

Will you please continue to stand with us for our son, Judah Aslan?

We are not ready to relinquish him into the miracles of modern medicine. Our prayer is for God to be victorious in this situation and continue the work of Master Creator, Great Physician, making his heart wholly His for His mighty purposes. We are also praying that He would uphold us during this time, give us strength when we're weary, fill us with Faith and Hope and that fear would not cloud His purposes in our lives. He's put a new song in my heart each morning and I can say with all my heart that "His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in my weakness, so I will gladly boast in my weakness so His power may rest on me." (2cor.12:9)

We feel like we're in for the fight of our lives.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2cor4:19)

What God's Word says:
"For I know the Plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future, then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your heart." (jer.29:11)

we are His masterpiece

Tomorrow (Wednesday, 16th) we have our Fetal Echo Cardiogram at the Children's Hospital in DC. Naturally, we are nervously anticipating this appointment because they should be able to tell us exactly what's going on with Judah's heart and how/where the blood is being distributed.

Please pray for peace of mind and strength for Obe and I as we find out more and also for a GOOD report! We are still holding on to His Word and the many words of encouragement, prayers and faith that been poured out on us.
Thank you so much again for the emails, phone calls, prayer chains, texts and love and support... we stand in awe of God's mercies that are new each day and His great big beautiful family that we are apart of.

Just wanted to share this song/painting that has especially comforted me over the past several days. I have felt God's healing balm over mine and Judah's heart while listening to it. His love and care for His creation is breathtakingly beautiful to me. Be blessed by it!

I don't even know how to begin this...but I know that no one but God knows how this will end...

Many of you have been asking about our baby and we so appreciate your prayers and concerns. For the sake of having to update everyone one by one on what's happening I'm writing down what we know:

Last Friday we had the priviledge of having our first ultrasound and found out much to our surprise, and joy, that we are having a baby BOY! We left feeling that this news would be the biggest surprise we would have about this new life growing inside of me. Soon after, we got a call from my midwife saying that there were some "abnormalities" in our son's heart and that they wanted us to go to a heart specialist as soon as possible and get a Fetal Echo cardiagram done. They said nothing else. Over the weekend I browsed through the internet (not always a good idea) and looked up heart conditions in baby's and found that most baby's with "abnormalities" in the heart are at risk of having Down's syndrome or worse. It was a long weekend of waiting, praying and crying out to God.

Fortunately, we were able to get in Tuesday morning with the pediatric doctors for another indepth sonogram. After a couple of hours of a team of doctors meticulously looking at our baby they told us that there was indeed abnormalities in our baby's heart and that they looked severe. At this point from what they can make out (at 17 weeks) he seems to have a hole in his heart and his AV (atrium ventricle) missing. His condition does not really fall into any heart defect "category" as of yet. He's high risk for Down's Syndrome but even more serious than that they think he will need heart surgery after birth and from what they can see may not be able to live a "normal" life. They give us this news with the invitation of an Amnio (to see if he's Down's), this procedure has a 1 in 200 risk of miscarriage (we decline much to their dissaproval), and they mention the option of abortion.
It all came like a flood. Everything stopped. We were devastated. I felt this overwhelming weight on me like I couldn't breathe, trying to process what seemed like a nightmare that I should be waking up from. It's amazing how in one moment to the next everything can change, your plans, your future, your family...nothing is really ever guarenteed.

So, here we are. I feel utterly ill-equipped to handle this situation. But here IS where we are. And although we have no idea where we are going and what will happen next, there is this deep abiding knowledge at the core of my very being that God knows exactly where we are, that He has a plan and that He is 100,000% able to get us through this. No matter what the outcome is.

Would you please pray for our son, Judah Aslan that's due on Valentine's Day?
We are believing that God will do a miracle in His life, or ours, because either way we need Him to bring His kingdom into this situation. We know that God has purposed his life. A month before I got pregnant God gave me the name, Judah Aslan, which means Lion of Judah. Judah means "praised" and Aslan is the turkish name for Lion, it also means, "Praise" the "King". Our prayer is that God would glorify Himself through Judah's life and that He will heal his heart and make him whole continuing the work of Master Creator forming His insides and all it's intricacies bit by bit. We are holding on for dear life to the promises of God...we know that He gives GOOD gifts, that He promises hope for our future, He promises to never leave us nor forsake us, to be gracious and compassionate, to be ever-present in times of trouble, to comfort those who weep, to heal the lame, and broken-hearted and to make all the detours of adversity in life into highways of destiny. We will praise Him no matter what.
For now we will wait, not just on the dozens of doctors appts, but on God who answers and rescues us in times of trouble.

Already we feel the prayers of so many contending for Judah! Your prayers for our son and our family are more precious to us than anything else we could ask. Our times with Jesus have been sweet, He is comforting us, building our faith and hope is rising within us.

We'll keep this updated.

Psalm 139: 13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.

Psalm 116
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Becuse he turned his ear to me, i will call on him as long as i live.
The cords of death entangled me , the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: "O Lord, Save me!"
The Lord is gracious and righteous, our God is full of compssion. The Lord protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me. Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.
For you, O Lord, have delieverd my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed; therefore I said, ...How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord...2And I will praise you all the days of my life.







These pictures were taken right before my ultrasound on Friday. The girls are kissing and hugging "their baby". They love to take turns kissing my belly and talking to their baby brother.