Quick update: Bella’s growing right on schedule. There is no hydrops, and by the doctor’s estimation, there will likely be no hydrops. There’s good lung tissue visible on sonogram. The hole in the heart, while essentially unchanged, causes no immediate danger (cardiologists tell us if you had to pick a heart-defect, you go with this one Bella’s got.) It is all theory at this point whether the heart condition will cause problems at birth since they have never seen these two anomalies in the same child before now. The contractions Christy’s had continue, but without the regularity or duration of previous weeks. Amniotic fluid is still on the abnormally high side, but the doctors are encouraged that her body has tolerated it well so far.

So we’re down to our last several weeks before we get to meet face-to-face our little Bella Hope. There’s a host of variables still to be determined: how Bella’s lungs will do when she takes her first breath; how the hole in her heart will affect her ability to get good flow to her system; how the combination of lung and heart issues will contribute to the oxygenation of her tiny body. The fetal MRI we’ll have the last week of this month may allow us to better predict what might happen on Delivery Day; but, as we’ve said before, the proof will be in the breathing.

Two other variables to speak of: when she’s coming and where she should take her first breath. Originally we thought she’d be a December 26ish baby, ready to celebrate Christmas a bit belatedly–at least by the Gregorian Calendar. But now it’s possible she might be younger than we first imagined and would therefore arrive around January 6th, Christmas according to the Julian Calendar. So the question is: will she observe the Western Church’s Christmas, or the Eastern Church’s Christmas? West or East? Will she prefer to attend services on Oak Lawn at Park Cities Presbyterian Church, or across the street on Throckmorton at St Seraphim’s (Eastern Orthodox church)? (yes, a little levity)

The other, and a little more serious, variable involves where best to deliver: Dallas or Houston? North or South? The round of tests later this month I mentioned will probably give us enough data to make a decision. If the mass is still fairly large and has significantly impinged sufficient lung development, the best place in these parts to remove a CCAM would be Houston. The sooner that bogey gets removed, the better. But if Bella has stared down the mass and made it cower in the corner, a Dallas delivery would be easily managed, with surgery to remove the mass, if necessary, within the several months following delivery.

That’s where we stand–or, in the case of my sweet, unflappable wife, sit. When we reflect on where things could have gone, we’re quieted with thanksgiving. When we compare our journey here with others who have suffered far more and must draw even greater strength from the abundant graces of the Father who gives and takes away–well, the temptation to start feeling put out for the minor adjustments to life we’ve had to make seems awfully juvenile. This paterfamilias is having to learn to recover that perspective more regularly than I’d care to admit.

Your kindnesses to us are incalculable. Your prayers accomplish things we’ll only know fully when we are fully known.

We’ll be in touch.