Heading West

Well..Saturday is the day we head out West for the month. We're going to try and post pictures along the way. We're really looking forward to it...trying to brace ourselves for the transition to the winter weather we'll likely be driving into!

How We're Doing

So many of you have been sweetly asking how we're doing, so I thought I'd post something here. It's hard to answer that question...how we're doing. It really depends on the moment you ask. There have been parts of days that we feel pretty good and feel like we have hope...and can see the positive things in all this. Times that we can look at pictures of Mya and smile, feeling so blessed and overjoyed by being her parents, even though we had such a short time with her. But there are still many moments that I can't get my mind off of everything I wish I could be doing with Mya right now. I wish I could just kiss her and smell her and hold her forever. Take walks with her in the stroller. Be up late at night feeding her. Listen to the funny sounds she makes and watch her try to smile. Buy cute little outfits for her. Cuddle her up and take her outside. Sometimes this sadness turns into frustration and anger that we can't have this, but what are we going to do about it? Nothing will bring her back. That's the hardest part. We were so ready to be parents (as ready as we could be, of course).

This week Dan will start his 5th and last week of work for the Weed Man, aerating lawns. It's been really getting him in shape. He wore a step-counter one day and it said he took 28,000 steps that day (not counting the walking he did after work!). I think the normal amount you're encouraged to walk per day is 10,000 steps.

I've been keeping busy here with my mom. Last week we organized and painted the loft and hallway upstairs. That was a fun project that helped give me some motivation. I've seemed to keep my days pretty busy...visiting people and doing little projects. I decided I'm going to make a scrapbook of Mya. At first it was something I didn't think I wanted to do, but now I've realized it will be good for me, and it will be something to help our future kids know who Mya was. I think it will be a hard project but maybe it will help the healing process. If any of you have any great ideas of what to add in the book...let me know. I plan to include pictures of my pregnancy, ultrasound pictures, baby shower pictures, etc...

We're still waiting to find out what God is going to take us from here. Dan would like to be a youth pastor so he's pursuing that and we're waiting for direction. This is a bit frustrating waiting and waiting, since we've technically been waiting since the end of July, but we're trusting that God knows what's best and His timing is perfect. He's never let us down before. And we've realized that He's never EARLY in letting us know, but never late either.

While we have this in-between time, we're planning to take a trip out West to see a bunch of friends. We're looking forward to that time together...another part of our healing process.

Thank you all for your love and concern and prayer! I don't know how we'd do this without the support we've received. Thank you for being the Body.

Here are some misc pictures from the last few weeks.


If you look closely you can see a bunch of Monarch butterflies in the branch. There were thousands of them in this park in Goderich. They were here for about a week.


These are all Monarchs.


Kassy & I when she was here for Mya's funeral


We got the priveledge to go sailing with my cousin and her husband in Toronto a couple weeks ago...it was great.




Dan getting his tattoo. It's Mya's handprint with her name, birthdate and the infinity symbol around it.




Fall pics

Pictures and Video of Mya

I've posted a bunch of pictures of her on my Facebook. If you don't have Facebook and would like to see them, click here.

Thank you & address correction

Thank you so much to those of you who have left comments on our blog and Facebook...they have been so encouraging and have really made our days a little brighter. We're slowly healing, just trying to get through each hour. We miss Mya so much and we are also grieving our dreams of being parents right now.

Our Princess is with Jesus

On August 16th at 10:15pm we became parents to the most beautiful, precious little girl, Mya Anne. We left for the Sudbury hospital on Thursday afternoon after I had a non-stress test done in Blind River since the baby hadn't been moving like usual. Blind River sent us to go to Sudbury to get them to check things out so we excitedly got everything ready, hoping that we would get induced that night and we would get to finally meet that little one. About an hour after being in Sudbury the doctor decided we needed to do an emergency C-Section to get the baby out because they could see that she was in distress. Dan wasn't able to come into the operating room because they had to put me right to sleep. When Mya was born she wasn't breathing and her heart wasn't beating. It took the doctors 10 minutes to revive her and they weren't sure how long she was without oxygen before she was born. Mya had to be hooked up to a bunch of wires and tubes (as you can see in the first picture)- she couldn't breathe on her own. She wouldn't physically respond to anything - pain, noise, or touch. It was so hard to see her laying there like that. We tried to spread the word to as many people as possible to pray for a miracle for Mya because we know that God could heal her if that was His will. Whenever we heard another newborn baby crying in the ward, we wanted to bad to go tell the parents how lucky they are to hear their baby cry. Let me encourage you if you have a baby to enjoy every sound and movement your baby makes. Even when it drives you crazy. On Saturday after the doctors did some ultrasounds and x-rays, the doctors came into our room with the news that our sweet baby had extensive damage done to her heart, liver, and kidneys due to the lack of oxygen. They also monitored her brain and found that there was no activity on the upper part of her brain which is what makes her function normally. The doctors that were in the room said that the team of them recommended that we remove the ventilator. This broke our hearts and was probably the hardest moment in our lives. How do you let your child go? How can you do that? This was such a hard decision but we knew we had to. We prayed that God's will would be done, whether He would heal her or bring her to Himself. We realized that we need to live the words of the song "Blessed Be Your Name" when it says "He gives and takes away…when the darkness closes in… still I will say, blessed be Your name". With both of our parents at our side, we held Mya as the tubes and wires were removed from her little body. We didn't know if she would be able to take any breaths on her own so we thought those were our last moments with her. She surprised us and was taking little breaths all by herself. The nurses asked if we had an outfit for her and I didn't really understand why we would dress her, but we took an outfit out of the diaper bag we brought for her and they put it on and bundled her up. She was so beautiful. For the next 10 hours, we got to hold her and cuddle her and sing to her and kiss her and smell her and just watch her as she breathed as long as she could. Most of our family was able to be there and hold her and fall in love with her in the time we had which was a huge blessing. We don't know what we would have done without them. We have been so blessed by our little Mya and we feel so thankful that we had that amazing 10 hours to hold her as if she were a normal baby. No, we never got to hear her cry or see her eyes and watch her smile, but we fell so in love with her and she is part of the soul that Dan and I share. When Dan and I are apart we feel like there's a part of our heart that's missing, and I said to Dan yesterday that now we'll always feel that because there's a 3rd person that shares our soul now. Mya will always be our firstborn, our precious daughter. We are so proud of her. We will never forget her and we will talk about her forever. Down the road when we have more children, they will know all about their big sister. Dan has been such a rock through all of this. He is definitely grieving and has moments where he doesn’t think he has any tears left, but God has given him such strength. He’s given me strength too but Dan’s definitely a couple steps ahead. Our love for each other has grown so much. We don’t know why God allowed this to happen but we thank Him anyway because He knows best. We can already see ways that the short life of Mya has impacted lives. We are thankful that Mya is now with Jesus and that she didn’t have to live a life hooked up to tubes and sitting in a wheelchair and in pain. Leaving the hospital today was really hard. It was a safe place away from the reality of the world going on outside. We had the best nurses in the world and they really nurtured us. We miss them and won’t forget them. They talked with us and cried with us and treated us like we were their family. Our plan is to head back to Goderich tomorrow and live with my parents for a few months. Dan will be able to collect EI for a while and I have 15 weeks of maternity leave. We plan to just spend lots of time together healing with our families. We want to do a bit of traveling to see our friends and just pray for God’s leading in what to do next. Our address will be: 36445, RR#5 Goderich ON N7A 3Y2 The celebration of Mya’s life is going to be on Wednesday August 22nd at 1:00pm at the Maitland Cemetery in Goderich beside where Mya’s body will be buried. Please pray for strength for us for this. We know that there are people praying for us all over the world and we thank you so much. Daddy's girl

Weekend with Jay & Deb

On Friday Jay (my brother) and Deb and the kids came for a few days. We all stayed at one of the cottages here at the camp...it was a great time!


On Saturday morning we found this bat on the window (the INSIDE!)...thankfully we got it out of there with an empty Pringles jar.


Boating....




Wolfie tried kayaking for the first time and it turns out he's a natural!


The guys took the kids out in the canoe fishing numerous times throughout the weekend...


...and Sequoiah caught a fish!!


...gutting the fish for supper


Mmmmm...brunch

37 weeks

This is 37 weeks...
I'm still feeling pretty good. I'm definitely more tired these days though, but I'm able to nap when I need to so it's not a big deal. The other day I had some regular contractions but they went away :( We're at the point where we're ready to have the baby any time now, although it still seems VERY unrealistic that within the next 5 weeks at the latest, we're going to be parents!!! Yikes. We can't wait to meet this baby though.

Pop Shoppe

Does this bring back memories for you like it does for me?? Dan and I were on our way back from Sudbury and we found this in a little convenience store. We used to get this as kids...I remember it being such a treat! I haven't seen it in years!!!

Visit with Mom and Karen

Last Sunday Mom, Karen, and the boys came for a visit! It was such a great time. We stayed up late talking and laughing, and spent both afternoons at the beach. It was so refreshing.

Dan took the boys canoeing, which they loved. Sam thought the canoe was going to tip the whole time but he was brave :) Mom and Karen and I hopped in a canoe too...that was a fun experience. I wish we had a picture of that but we were too scared (and smart) to bring a camera with us into the canoe since none of us are experienced canoers.

Dan on the job

So we're here at Galilean Bible Camp. Dan keeps very busy every day as the Program Director. His job is to make sure that all the activities for the day are planned, organized, and happen on time. His day starts at about 7am and he doesn't really stop until 9:30pm.

At this point we're really uncertain what we'll be doing in the fall. We are in process of application with CSSM for Dan to be the full-time Assistant Director here at Galilean, but we're not totally sure that's what God has for us. This is a bit of a scary thought since we have a baby coming in about 5 weeks...but we're trusting that God will reveal His plan to us at just the right time, just like He always does. We'd appreciate your prayers if you think of it!

You could also pray for Dan to be healthy. He hasn't felt 100% since Honduras. While he was in Honduras he got his cluster headaches back - which he's been on some strong meds for - but he still has lingering headaches all the time. He's going to see a doctor about it soon...hopefully everything's okay.