I would be remiss if I didn’t begin by thanking so many of you for your faithful prayers on our behalf. Melanie and I have been encouraged and challenged by your faithfulness. Encouraged that we are so graciously remembered before our Father’s throne; challenged as we seek to be faithful in lifting up others we know of with needs.

The biggest news we have on Baby Maxwell’s progress is related to a recent Dr’s appointment. Due to the challenges with Susannah, we were encouraged to have a Level 2 ultra-sound at 18-20 weeks. This happened about a week ago. Let me digress briefly into some information on a Level 2 in case readers aren’t familiar with this. We had a number of Level 2 ultra-sounds (L2 US) with Susannah. An L2 US uses regular US equipment, but the technician spends more time measuring different aspects of the baby, looking at organs, and checking things on the child you didn’t know needed to be checked. A L2 US is also differentiated from a standard one in that a specialist, in our case, a peri-natalogist, reviews the scan pictures and will even operate the US machine himself/herself to check things. A L2 US, last pregnancy, is what found the stomach issue in Susannah. What is grieving to us, is that though they are looking at all things related to the baby, it would be safe to rename the L2 US a “Down Syndrome Screen” as many of the measurements and things they look for are then correlated to Downs markers. These markers are of uncertain accuracy – many children with them don’t have Downs and vice versa. I can only image how many children are matched up against Down’s markers, possibly followed with more testing, and then their lives taken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome#Ethical_Issues). We are committed to loving, raising, and caring for any child God gives us, being special to us regardless of whether others apply the same label.

We would have liked to avoid the entire scan. But not knowing whether this child would need special care later on, we felt it was in his/her best interest to have it done. That would allow us to arrange the care he/she needed ahead of time instead of being in reactionary mode. We were prepared to have all kinds of bad news given to us.

Back to the appointment, we praise the Lord that neither the US technician nor the doctor were able to find anything that concerned them regarding what they saw. Everything looked great they said. This was a huge relief to Melanie and I. We couldn’t believe that they found nothing of concern. This obviously doesn’t mean there will not be challenges later on, but it does allow us to stay out of the “high-risk” category and select our doctor/hospital – something we’re now praying about.

The other big news is that Melanie is feeling baby move.

Thank you for your continued prayers for us as we journey through this pregnancy. We’re excited to be approaching the half-way point.
Nathan