Madelyn Grace

It is with broken hearts that Mike and I share the news of our daughter's premature birth. Madelyn Grace was born at 7:41pm on Thursday, April 16th, one week ago today. She weighed 1.8 oz and was 6 inches long. We were blessed to have her be a part of our hopes & dreams for 15 1/2 weeks. After her birth we were able to hold her and spend as much time as we needed with her. Although it was hard, we are so glad we did. She was our daughter.

This picture gives a bit of perspective on just how small she was. Way too small to be in this world with us.

Volunteers at the hospital make little gowns, hats, and blankets for the stillborn babies. We did not initially know if our baby was a boy or girl. Our nurse dressed her in white which we felt was fitting.

Her loss came as a complete surprise to us. We discovered we had lost her when Lisa went in for a regular check-up on Wednesday and they could not detect a heartbeat. An ultrasound indicated she had passed on within the last day or two. It's was God's grace that allowed us to find out so quickly and not suffer the fear that would have come with early signs of miscarriage. The suddenness of it was harsh and yet a long, drawn out suffering would only have been worse. We take comfort in knowing that our angel is in heaven comforted in the arms of Jesus. We also take comfort in knowing that he cradles us in those very same arms. He knows our sorrow and feels our pain. Our wonderful pastors came to the hospital Friday morning and helped us commit our baby to the Lord. Their prayers and words of reassurance from the Bible are precious and dear to us. We could not get through this without the tremendous support we have felt from our family, friends, church family, coworkers, and the incredible hospital staff. We know we are truly blessed to have such support.

Check Me Out

Yesterday I took Jake to get his new "two-year old" haircut. We tried out a new place called Snip-Its. I've never had Jake (or any other child of ours) do so well for a haircut. These people knew what they were doing!

Jake's 2nd Birthday

This is what a birthday party should look like...


Jake opens his gifts with Daddy's help.


Jake's cake - we had a Wall-E Theme, complete with life-size Wall-E!

Unfortunately for Jake, his second birthday was not an event anyone will want to remember. Although his party on Sunday was nice, it was overshadowed by other more signficant events that weekend! Our family spent Jake's 2nd birthday suffering with the stomach flu! It all started on Sat. when Jake got sick. We thought is was something he ate! Little did we know! Here he is, cute as can be, cuddled up on the couch. This was just the start to some unbelievable illness!


By Sunday night, Lisa, Mike, and Annika had also come down with the flu! It started with Lisa at 10:40 Sunday night. Mike followed at 11:30 and at 2:00 Annika was joining the fun. Mike and Annika slept downstairs in an attempt for at least one person to get some sleep. The theory was good... the reality was that none of us really slept that night. This is Annika asleep on the sofa Monday morning. Sleep was basically all Mike, Annika, or I did for that whole day!


Mom and Dad Dekker kindly took Abby, and Jake (who we thought was better) for the day so we could try to recover. They had a lovely morning at Mejier Gardens and then returned home so Jake could nap. It turns out Jake was still sick. He shared his germs with Grandma and Grandpa (we won't go into details) and they ended up getting sick by the end of the week! Oops! That wasn't supposed to happen! Sorry Mom and Dad!

Hopefully Jake's 3rd birthday will be a much happier (and healthier) occassion!