I’ve made quite a few new online friends recently, and I realized most probably didn’t follow my Carepage story and really have no idea who I am or what my journey has looked like for the past few years. Here’s the first part of the story and I’ll add to it in the coming days. Honest, real, gritty, joyfully painful life began for me in 2004. My late husband and I were excited to announce that we were expecting our second child, we were building our dream house, he had just taken a huge leap of faith and started his own gym, and I was a stay at home mom to two year old Caleb. Our life was about as close to perfect as you could get. We loved God, thought we had our faith pretty much down to a science and God was obviously very pleased with our coasting through the American dream because we hadn’t had any problems. We were a blessed family… or so we thought before our lives, our hopes, and our dreams all came to a crashing halt the first week of May. I went to what I thought would be my three month routine ultrasound checkup only to discover every mother’s worst nightmare. I was informed that my baby had suffered a stroke in utero and was now showing the signs of severe hydrocephalus, and then I was advised to immediately abort the pregnancy and start trying again for a healthy child. I was told repeatedly by some of our area’s finest doctors that this baby would certainly not make it to birth alive and if he or she did manage to somehow be born, it would probably die almost immediately or on the operating table due to all of the complications it was sure to have. This began my intense search for life, life for the baby, life for my family, life for me, life that Christ talks about when he said, “ I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly” John 10:10. It became a three month search for healing for this child through what the Bible had to say about it, speaking and believing, growing faith to move a mountain, literally getting rid of everything and anything that could potentially stand in the way of my faith being productive to bring about a miracle for my unborn baby. I entered the throne room of Almighty God for hours every day to beg, plead, believe, and pray for healing for this baby. On August 12, 2004, one month early, I gave birth to Lucas, my beautiful, miracle baby. The only visible thing wrong with him was the extreme buildup of cerebrospinal fluid on his brain which caused him to have two year old’s head at birth. For two weeks I waited on pins and needles as I hardly hoped for the miracle I believed in my heart but while also trying to prepare for the worst as every doctor had predicted. Finally, on August 26 2004, the last tubes were released from his fragile body and he was declared healthy enough to come home.