A Season of Prayer

At church yesterday our pastor said that he was calling the month of November, "A Season of Prayer and Thanksgiving". He has asked that as a church family, we be committed to pray. We will receive a prayer card at the close of each Sunday morning service to serve as a guide throughout the week. The verses this week are Psalm 88:1-2: "O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry". Wow, what verses, for us as a family, this is what we did the first few weeks, cry day and night before the Lord asking Him to help us because we didn't know how we would make it to December - yet here we are. This is also the perfect time for this "Season of Prayer" to begin, we only have 5 1/2 weeks of my pregnancy left! Prayer is something we have definitely come to rely on, actually, besides our trust and faith in the Lord, it is truly the only thing we have held on to since we found out about Tristan on August 15th. All we know to do is pray!!!! But knowing what to pray for has been the hard part. In my life, I have always known exactly what I was praying about/for, but this is so different. I mean, do I pray for the Lord to completely heal Tristan? do I pray that the amnio results are wrong and prove to the high-risk doctors that they are not 100% accurate (like we were so adamantly told, without any regard to our emotions!)? do I pray that the Lord's will be done? or do I open up by heart, with the great possibility of being hurt if my requests are not answered, and specifically pray? My heart and emotions have been back and forth since August 15th about whether it is even really possible to know what I want regarding Tristan's precious life. I would have never dreamed of being here, not knowing how long we would have with our baby, but yet I know without a doubt that God chose Trayc and I to be Tristan's parents for a reason, and that I may never know (this side of Heaven) the answer for any of this, therefore all I can really do is pray and trust in His will - obviously, I want the Lord's will to be done because He knows better than we do and He knows the future. Yet this is SO HARD TO PRAY because the desire of my heart, as Tristan's mother, is to only pray for complete healing, after all, no one would want to lose their precious baby! We have received so many cards from people saying they are "praying for a miracle and for complete healing". Of course, after we found out that Tristan would be born with Trisomy 18, my ONLY prayer was for complete healing because I was so devastated that I honestly couldn't see how I would go on if he didn't live and if there wasn't complete healing, but the further I have come emotionally and spiritually, and with the peace I now feel I'm praying differently. I am still praying for complete healing, but at the same time I am opening up my heart to pray for specific "little" miracles in Tristan's life. I realize the Lord, He himself, has the power to completely heal him, but if He does not chose to completely heal him (this side of Heaven) then I am praying: 1) that he makes it to my c-section date of Dec. 12th, 2) that he is born alive, 3) that he lives at least 24 hrs. Wow, as I sit here and type those 3 things I realize how far the Lord has brought me since August 15th, and it is only by God's grace and peace that I can say them. No mother would ever dream of only praying her baby would live 24 hrs. but that is where we are right now, that would be our miracle (as we have been told by doctors that only 50% are born alive and the ones that do only live a few minutes to a few hours). Regardless of Tristan's number of days here on earth, he is our 3rd miracle baby. We have told Tanner, our 11 yr. old (since he was able to talk), that he was our "1st miracle baby" because doctors told us we would never be able to have children, and then when we had Tayden, Tanner said, "Mom, now we have a 2nd miracle baby". Yes, we did and now, even though the future of Tristan's life is so uncertain, he is still our "3rd miracle baby" and we will always refer to him as that. He has already been our family's miracle for so many reasons - the conception of him without infertility medication, that he is still alive today at 34 weeks, that he is continuing to grow and gain weight and that he has touched us in a way that we can't even describe. Our prayer as a family is that our experience as we travel this "Trisomy 18 road" and that Tristan's life, no matter how long or short, will touch people all around the world and that through it all, the Lord Jesus will be honored and glorified!!!