It’s been four weeks since that fateful morning dawned. Four weeks of bedrest. Four weeks of changed plans. Four weeks of waking up every morning wondering if today will hold some good news, or more that’s hard to swallow. Four weeks of daily surrender to a God who’s plans are better than mine (whether I understand how they could be or not.) Four weeks of missed holiday and family events on the other side of the world.

Four weeks of concentrated family time as we share one room and Daddy doesn’t have to go to work every day. Four weeks of watching Lincoln grow up right before our eyes. Four weeks of time with Thai friends and enjoying the community here. Four weeks of market runs, scooter rides, and eating piles of delicious Thai food. Four weeks of watching God daily provide for our needs in ways we could have never dreamed possible. Four more weeks of enjoying the daily squirms and flutters of “baby victory” as they continue to grow big and strong.

Friday marked 20 weeks gestation for our “baby victory.” When I realized it I cried. With the uncertainty the last few weeks have held, my emotions have been… distant and reserved. I haven’t even been able to consider what it would be like to hit these pregnancy milestones!

Approaching our 20 week marker, we’d been told Tuesday evening that the clot had shrunk by 1 cm. which was wonderful compared to the weekly reports we’d been receiving that it was still growing.  Thursday held it’s own fair share of excitement. Chris and Lincoln packed up to head to immigration, fighting for a medical visa extension so we could all stay on. I woke up and passed a very large blood clot, significantly larger than the one we had been monitoring these past weeks. Especially with the size of it, we were concerned that passing the clot would disrupt the uterine environment to the point of starting labor, so once again… we waited. I laid in bed and prayed, wondering at each twinge and desperately hoping. Hoping that contractions wouldn’t start. Hoping that I wouldn’t see any more blood. And hoping that passing this clot was the “next” miracle we’d been praying for.

An ultrasound Thursday night, after resting all day, showed only a tiny sliver left of any blood clot. Fluid levels looked good around baby, and all growth had continued as normal too. We were told to come back in for a check on the 19th. We were elated! And…. afraid. This was by far the best news we’d had since our saga started, and yet we’d spent weeks preparing our hearts for the hard “what ifs” we could imagine were still ahead of us. We’d been told various components of my situation makes flying unwise, so we were preparing to be “stuck here” until baby is due the end of May. Our prayer had become that if God wanted us to consider flying before May that He make it abundantly clear that HE was involved in my healing process. We are praying for another miracle.

Since passing the clot on Thursday we’ve been praying that there is absolutely no more bleeding. We know that externally God has answered that prayer, but we won’t know about the internal till our check on the 19th. And if it’s clear again then, we may actually be able to make some plans to get home!

In the meantime our little fighter is still with us. Halfway there! We’ve come so far and we couldn’t be more grateful for God’s infinite grace.