"Your baby has a lot of problems."

On September 4th we visited Dr. Paula Melone's office (perinatologist) to get our level 2, 20 week ultrasound. We had decided that we were not going to find out the the sex of the baby, although this is the main purpose of that visit ... or so we thought.

As Dr. Melone did the ultrasound, I joked around. Surprise, surprise. And then she stopped me, "Wendy I need to be serious with you right now. Your baby has a lot of problems." Gulp.
She then proceeded to tell us about defect after defect. First the cleft lip and palate. Then the hole in the heart. Then the omphalocele (basically when the intestines are on the oustside of the body - weird, I know). All of these midline defects led her to conclude it had to be Trisomy 13 or Trisomy 18. A rare chromosomal abnormality that happens at conception. A fatal condition. Our baby was going to die, but no one knew when. Man, I can remember the scene so clearly. What the room looked like. Where the phone was in relation to where I was lying because I had to pick it up and call my brother, Kevin. I told him the news and asked him to call my parents.

The irony in all of this is that I was in a spiritual desert, right? I did not feel close to God, right? And I had not really been learning anything despite my attendence of church and Bible Study, right? Ha! What Bible verse do you think immediately came to mind as the doctor was pouring out the bad news. Can I get an "Acts 17:26"?
The next day this is what I journaled:
9/5/03“Certainly it was not the news we expected. However, I think God has been preparing me for this for many months. I have been learning over and over again that he is IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING. And so even as the doctor was telling us this terrible news – I felt peace. I knew that God had chosen us on that day to deal with this baby and her problems. Strangely, I even feel special and honored that in 1 in 7500 chance – God would chose us to take on this challenge and give us the opportunity to glorify him. So, I can even be thankful in this situation.”