Tobin's Story:

On Tuesday, June 15, 2010 I received a phone call from my OB's office. The doctor explained that there were some concerns they had with my ultrasounds. They were seeing "red flags" that indicated there could be something wrong with our baby. We were then scheduled to meet with a specialist that Friday. The next couple of days felt like the longest days of my life. Friday morning we first met with a genetic counselor. She went over what they were seeing in my previous ultrasounds and what they would be looking for in the ultrasound I would have after we talked with her. Basically there were two things that they were looking for: Down Syndrome or Trisomy 18. She went over what each of those meant and answered the questions we had. We then went in for the ultrasound with the specialist. The specialist came in and explained what they were seeing in the ultrasound: 2 vessel umbilical chord, cysts on the brain, extra amniotic fluid, clenched fists, a cleft lip and clubbed feet. As he went over each thing my heart broke and I wept. When the ultrasound was finished we met with the specialist in his office and he shared with us that he believed our baby had Trisomy 18 which meant that our baby was incompatible with life. He gave us the option to terminate the pregnancy. There was no way we were going to do that. We loved this sweet baby and wanted to show him that love and make the most of his life whatever that may be. We scheduled an amniocentesis test for Friday, August 20th. This would confirm if he had Trisomy 18 as well as confirm the gender of our baby. The specialist prayed with us before we left.

I remember thinking August seemed so far away, but when August 20th came it seemed so quick. I was extremely nervous about the test, but it went rather quick and smoothly. On Monday, August 23rd (Dave's Birthday) we received the preliminary results of the amniocentesis. They did in fact find 3 of the 18th chromosome. Our baby had Trisomy 18. They also shared with us that we were having a baby boy. Dave and I held each other and wept. How could this be?!? After officially hearing the news Dave and I decided we needed to come up with a name for our son. We wanted it to have special meaning. It took us about a week to decided his name: Tobin Kendall. Tobin meaning "God is Good" and Kendall being Dave's grandfather's name and his father's middle name. We truly believed and continue to believe that God Is Good and wanted others to know that.

On Monday, September 6 after a few days of not feeling any movement from Tobin, Dave and I went in to the hospital for a non-stress test. I prayed so hard that God would allow us to hear Tobin's heartbeat. The nurse continued to move the Doppler around on my belly searching for his heartbeat. She explained to us that she wasn't confident enough to tell us that the heartbeat she was hearing was mine or his and so she would call our doctor to have an ultrasound done. Our doctor came and did the ultrasound. After a few minutes of scanning he showed us where Tobin's heart was and explained that there was no heartbeat...Tobin had passed. We decided to be induced the next day. Tobin arrived Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 4:06am. He was 2lbs 1oz and 12.5inches long. He was so beautiful and I cherish every moment we had with him.

Monday, December 12, 2011

2011 Blessings

It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone!  We certainly have enjoyed seeing God's goodness throughout this past year and I wanted to share with you just a few of the blessings we have seen this year.

My father-in-law's shop has struggled to survive the last 2 years, which has been a financial struggle for most of our family as so many of the workers are family.  This year they had more jobs in one month than they did for the last 2 years!  What a blessing!  They currently are extremely swamped with work and have been working round the clock.  It has been so wonderful to see the shop start to grow again, but difficult for our family when Daddy and Grandpa aren't around to play with because they have to work.  But we are so thankful that they are hard workers and have seen God blessing them for their efforts.

Dave enjoys painting and drawing and has really been working hard to enhance his art business.  In the last two years I have seen his talent develop and he has really been able to do so much more with his sports art.  I have seen God blessing him and he has had so many people inquire and commission him for paintings or charcoal drawings.  It is so wonderful to see him getting to do what he loves to do as well as making some extra money on the side.


In September we had the blessing of being able to take our first family vacation.  We were blessed with the gift of a trip to Myrtle Beach.  It was exactly what we needed.  It was time for us to relax together before Aidan's arrival.  We also had time to spend with extended family.  It was nice to be able to just be together Dave, Michaela and I without the stress of anything or any obligations.  It was a beautiful time to reflect on all the blessings we had received since we lost our sweet Tobin.



On November 3, 2011 we were blessed with the birth of our sweet son Aidan Kendall Courson.  It went better than I had prayed for his delivery to go.  It was my desire to have him in November because Tobin was due in October.  I really hoped for November 3rd because it is my Father-in-law's birthday and I wanted to go in on my own.  All three of those things were answered but it went better than I expected.  The delivery process was beautiful.  It was an emotional time for me.  There were tears of joy and tears of grieving the loss of Tobin.  It was a bitter sweet moment.  Holding him in my arms was the best feeling in the world!

 When Michaela met Aidan for the first time she was so excited and she has been a wonderful Big Sister!  She loves her baby brother.  In preparation for his arrival we kept telling her we were going to get to bring Aidan home soon and we would ask her what she was going to do with him.  One day her and I were rocking in the rocking chair and I asked her if she was excited for Aidan to come and if she was excited we were going to bring him home.  She looked up at me with her beautiful brown eyes smiled and said, "Yes!  I wish we would have brought Tobin home.  Why we not bring Tobin home?"  She completely caught me off guard and I of course began to cry, held her close and said,  "me too baby I wish we could have brought him home too".




Aidan has added so much joy to our family!  We have been enjoying his little cries in the middle of the night, his smiles when he hears Michaela's voice, his chest move up and down as we watch him peacefully sleep and listening to his tiny snore.  We have really enjoyed seeing how all three of our babies look so much alike. 


As the Christmas Season has been fast approaching, Michaela and I have each day been reading parts of Jesus' Birth and talking about the importance that it is.  Jesus is the greatest gift we have received.  He is the reason we have the hope we have and the reason we can look forward to the day when there will be no more pain and no more tears and we can hold our sweet Tobin again.



Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for our family.  We have appreciated everyone sharing in our joy of the birth of Aidan and God's constant goodness.

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