Pray for Jessie's health through the pregnancy!

Most of you probably aren't aware that Jessie was put on bed rest for about 3 weeks around week 12 of her pregnancy. This was a bit of a scare, but God's presence and love was felt strongly throughout this time. Before you read on, we want you to know that she is MUCH better now, and the baby seems to be doing just fine!

So, everything seemed to be progressing fine. The first weeks Jessie didn't even notice much change, thankfully she avoided morning sickness, with indigestion actually being her biggest "side effect," and was able to continue to stay active in exercise upon her doctor's allowance. She got a bad cold lasting two weeks around week 10 - which started to slow her down, but we weren't worried.

Toshe has Bible studies at our apartment every Monday night - and even though he has told the guys that our apartment kind of shuts down around 11:30 - they are known to stay til about 12:30 on some occasions because the conversation is just too good to be cut off by things like bed-time! Well, one Monday night Jessie decided to not wait up and just to get ready for bed anyway. This was when she noticed she was bleeding, and experienced it most severly. Toshe gently "kicked the guys out" - and we called the doctor right away. Thankfully we had been to the doctor the day before and saw that our little one was lively and active. I think this helped us not to jump to the worst conclusion right away.

When we called the doctor on call at that time of night, he asked if Jessie was having pains along with the bleeding. Because we communicated to him that she was not, he suggested that we moniter the bleeding ourselves for the next couple of hours - and as long as the bleeding did not worsen and that she didn't begin to experience pain - that we could just come in the next day. This is what we did. The doctor's prognosis then was that Jessie suffered a hemotoma - which basically means blod clot - and that where the clot discharged from - there was then a small detachment of the placenta from the uterin wall. At this point in the pregnancy the placenta was still not settled higher up in the uteris and when it passed the cervical opening the bleeding occurred.

Jessie was put on full bed rest to allow that area to heal up and to prevent further bleeding. She experienced some spotting for about two weeks - but we had check ups twice in the course of those two weeks and the doctor said things were beginning to heal.

Now new tissue is forming and the placenta is reattached to the uterin wall. Jessie has been off of bed rest for several weeks, and is trying to get back into a normal pregnant pattern of life!

We are so thankful that the bed rest worked, that the bleeding didn't continue causing threat to the life of our baby. Jessie is still taking it easy compared to the amount of activity she was involved in before.

The latest struggle has been being attacked by one cold after another with her lowerd immune system. She is on cold either 4 or 5 since being pregnant - and this is probably what gets her the most down. Pray that she will quickly recover from the latest cold, and that her immune system would strengthen. Also please pray that Jessie's pregnancy will continue on without further complications, and that she will have a normal healthy delivery.

Pray for her spiritual health as well as it has been naturally affected by her physical health. Pray that she will have mental clarity despite pressure from head colds to really experience the love and presence of her Savior!!

We just wanted you to be informed so that you would have a chance to pray specifically for us during this time!

We did have a lot of help during Jessie's time on bed rest and we're so thankful for that. Because of that, Toshe has been able to keep up with his job responsibilties despite the extra concerns at home.

We appreciate your love and support for us!

We're having a baby! The background leading up to this monumnetal life change...!

Toshe and I have now been married for over two years! We love marriage - and are daily thankful for the blessings it brings!

As we look back, our first year brought A LOT of intense transition....from getting legally married in Macedonia, to having a month to prepare our Ohio wedding after being issued Toshe's green-card, from being in Colorado for a couple months for our honeymoon, our 3rd wedding celebration, and support development, then back to Ohio for Christmas, on to Florida for Toshe's new staff training with Campus Crusade, Ohio again, and then in February making the move to Macedonia together - with yet one more trip thrown in there for extra training back in Colorado in the summer, stopping back by Ohio - and then returning to Macedonia to find that our landlady had sub-letted our apartment without our knowing and hadn't kept track of the dates we would be returning - and so we didn't have a place to move back into - and found all our belongings to be stowed away in three different places by our landlady! Did you follow all of that? It was hard for us to too!!

It sounds like a mess doesn't it - but through all that mess God assured us that He was with us and that He would prosper our marriage and grow our love!

So what does all of this have to do with having a baby? Well, we're getting to that!
As we approached the end of our first year of marriage things started to stabilize a bit - giving us a chance finally to establish some healthy patterns in our marriage that we would actually like to keep (as apposed to some of the patterns we developed for survival purposes in the height of all the transition).

God was faithful to his promise to not allow us to endure more challenges than we could bear in that first year, and was faithful to take the time to teach us many things deepening our love and commitment toward one another.

Though, we value the result of all the victory and defeat that we experienced in our first year of marriage, we're happy to say that the second year was a breeze compared to the first. We've lightened up, and have re-discovered how much we really love spending time together. This second year we've got to really celebrate our love and flourish through the fact that we know ourselves, our God, and each other much better in light of all we've passed through in just two years of being united in matrimony!

Ok, on to the baby part!

Considering our stabilized state of marriage - we naturally began to discuss WHEN to start a family! We came up with a possible time frame of August 2008 - the month marking two years of legal marriage! :) Once coming up with a potential "plan" we kind of left the conversation at that. Well, July came around - which was a very intense month of living with the students amidst our summer missions project - and we thought...wow, August is next month! Are we ready for this?

After posing that question - we decided to wait...for an undecided amount of time- figuring we would readdress that question once things slowed down.

Well, amidst our swaying emotions regarding become parents...and when the right time was to enter into that phase of life; God showed us that He is in control - and showed us that HIS TIME is now - and He orchestrated things so that I would indeed get pregnant the very month we were originally discussing!

We were surprised...but in the end, we couldn't be more pleased that God revealed to us that the decision isn't ultimately in our hands...and that we need to trust Him with the timing! Which we do!

Now Jessie is concentrating on staying as active as she can in the ministry until the baby comes, considering how her role will change after the baby comes (at least at the beginning), and is reading up on all the changes going on in her body, about the baby's development, and about how to be a mom to a BOY! (that's right...we're pretty sure we're having a boy!)

Toshe has been able to keep up his pace in ministry well, and God has really blessed his efforts this fall. He's also considering what being a husband, and dad, and ambassador for Christ will look like all at the same time!

Together we are praying for our baby that he will have a heart inclined toward God from the start ...that he will be healthy....that God will keep our love strong so the baby will be born into a family where there is unity and harmony, and that God will prepare us to show our son unconditional love and to actively lead him toward HIM in every step of his life!

Please join us in those prayers!

It's been fun to recollect on the paths God has taken us down so far - to consider the new things he's introducing to our lives, and to fathom that we are in many ways still at the beginning and prayerfully have many more years of learning, joy, and lessons to come!