Comments on: Prayer for the Van Riesens http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2006/05/25/prayer-for-the-van-riesens/ Stories, thoughts & insights on Jesus, college students, and the Bible; Los Angeles, immigration, politics, ethnicity and culture, and also about my daughter Isabel - from a spanglish gringo father living in, learning from, leading & loving life in East L.A. Sat, 19 May 2012 04:16:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Anonymous http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2006/05/25/prayer-for-the-van-riesens/#comment-345 Anonymous Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:01:00 +0000 http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2006/05/25/prayer-for-the-van-riesens/#comment-345 Although I am not a religious man, I will pray for you and your family. I would like to share with you that my wife and I, too, went through what you are now going through. My eyes are full of tears as I send this message to you. Be strong. Although I am not a religious man, I will pray for you and your family.

I would like to share with you that my wife and I, too, went through what you are now going through.

My eyes are full of tears as I send this message to you. Be strong.

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2006/05/25/prayer-for-the-van-riesens/#comment-344 Anonymous Mon, 29 May 2006 13:58:00 +0000 http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2006/05/25/prayer-for-the-van-riesens/#comment-344 I will pray. p I will pray.

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]]> By: Alex & Susan http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2006/05/25/prayer-for-the-van-riesens/#comment-343 Alex & Susan Fri, 26 May 2006 08:54:00 +0000 http://www.spanglishgringo.com/weblog/2006/05/25/prayer-for-the-van-riesens/#comment-343 Dear Friends, I am sad to have to write this email. We received some hard news today. There may be problems with Susan's pregnancy. There is nothing conclusive, but we are reeling at the prospect. I will try to let you know what we know. First, the good news. The reason we were doing this ultrasound was to find out the gender of the baby. It is a baby girl! We were able to enjoy that news for all of 10 minutes before the Dr.'s came in and began to share their concerns. The Issue During a routine ultrasound, done essentially to find out the gender of the baby, the supervising radiologist found something on the baby's spine that concerned him. After looking for a long time he said he was 80% sure something was there, but that its significance could be everything from nothing to pretty serious. What he thinks he sees is an abnormal growth on the lower thoracic part of the spine. He cannot tell if the growth is on the outside of the spinal column or on the inside tube where all the nerves develop. There are differences in result and severity depending on which it is. I will try to lay out the possibilities below. The other problem had to do with them finding some water in the baby's kidney. Evidently this can be very normal, and can take care of itself over time. When it occurs with the spinal abnormality it raises the question of there being a chromosomal abnormality, and thus other problems with other developing parts of the body. They checked all the other parts (ie. heart, hands, legs, etc.) that will show developmental abnormalities and found that all of them were developing normally. That is the good news. The Possibilities There are 4 possible outcomes at this point. I will arrange them from best to worst. • The Dr.'s Wrong: There is, in his estimation, about a 20% chance that there is no growth there on the baby's spine. Listening to him, and he does seem pretty competent and experienced, he seemed pretty confident that something was there. I guess there is always hope, and something real to pray for! • Vetebral Anomaly with No Effect: The next possibility is that this would just be a random abnormality with no additional abnormalities in any of the other areas I mentioned above. This would sort of be the same as the first possibility, except that there is a little bone growth on the outside of her spine that is of no consequence. • Vetebral Anomaly with Effect: This would be diagnosed if the kidney and other organs or body parts showed abnormal development. This would reflect some chromosomal abnormality and likely produce some kind of chromosomal result like Down Syndrome or one of its relatives. This will be more clear after we take a couple of tests. The first was a cardiac test to see the functioning of the heart. They see no problem there but just want to check. The second is Amniocentesis. Most of you probably know about this test. It's primary purpose is to help people discover any chromosomal abnormalities. • Vertebral Anomaly in Spinal Column: The presence of the spinal column would be very serious as it would most likely cause neurological damage as the baby continued to develop. This could lead to any number of neurological problems. It is important to note that there may be other options, but that this is the best picture that we have as of today and our one meeting which was while they were doing an ultrasound of Susan. Next Steps We went in for "Genetic Counseling" today at 9:15 am. At that meeting we were able to talk about the big picture and what we are looking at for the rest of the pregnancy. The reality that began to sank in there is that even if there turns out to be very little wrong with the baby, this is going to be a heavily monitored and tested pregnancy. They are going to be very concerned about how the baby develops over the next 22 weeks. This was a pretty depressing reality given how hard the pregnancy has been thus far. From it's surprise arrival, to all the nausea Susan has felt, to this. Susan has not had an easy pregnancy and this only makes it harder. We set a date for another ultrasound, a fetal MRI and Amniocentesis on June 12th. They will all happen during the morning of that day. There is only risk to the baby with Amnio. We have not completely decided on whether to do it, as there is some small risk to the baby, but we are feeling a desire to know conclusively the health of the baby. We will also have a Cardiac Echo to see how the baby's heart is developing sometime in the next week. The fetal MRI will tell conclusively about the growth the radiologist sees on the spine. The Amniocentesis will tell us if there is any chromosomal abnormality. Basically, there are three factors that converge to make the Dr.'s and the Genetic Counselor concerned about our situation: The vertebral anomaly on the spine, the fluid in the kidney, and Susan's age. Any ONE of these factors alone is of no major concern. The presence of all three, and the possibility of them being connected, is what raises the red flag at this point. Status of the Van Riesen's Shock. Disbelief. Can this really be happening again? While this news does not come with the same certainty as Joshua's, it is pretty hard. Obviously, we are hoping and praying that it will turn out to be nothing. While all the different possibilities are racing through our heads, we are trying to stay focused on caring for Joshua and Hope and taking the next steps in the process. I wish I could say that we were full of faith about how this is going to turn out. Given these last number of months and all that has been going on for us, we are pretty fatigued and that makes it hard to have a lot of strength for the fight. The toughest part is to not just assume that it will be the worst case scenario. Your Prayers Obviously, we could really use your prayers. First, that this would turn out to be nothing. That God would have mercy and spare the baby and our family a major health issue. Second, that Jesus would help us they way he did the Father of the demonized boy. We do believe that God can heal the baby, but we are struggling with unbelief. Would you pray that God would help us with our unbelief that he can heal and that he is in control and really knows what he is doing. We will know for sure whether there is a growth on the spine on June 12th when we do the MRI. We will not know about the chromosomal situation until June 24th, as it takes two weeks to grow the cells from the Amniocentesis. What this means is that we have a lot of waiting to do and will need the peace and presence of Jesus. Please pray for that in the midst of our waiting and struggling with God over this. Lastly, if you are connected to any church prayer groups or other gatherings for prayer, we would love if you would ask them to pray for us as well. Sorry for the length of this email. I think it helped me just to get it all out. We are putting this out there to solicit as many prayers as people are willing to pray for us, so you don't have to worry about telling or not telling anyone. Thanks for being our friends and for praying for us in this difficult time. Love, Alex Dear Friends,
I am sad to have to write this email. We received some hard news today. There may be problems with Susan’s pregnancy. There is nothing conclusive, but we are reeling at the prospect. I will try to let you know what we know.

First, the good news. The reason we were doing this ultrasound was to find out the gender of the baby. It is a baby girl! We were able to enjoy that news for all of 10 minutes before the Dr.’s came in and began to share their concerns.

The Issue
During a routine ultrasound, done essentially to find out the gender of the baby, the supervising radiologist found something on the baby’s spine that concerned him. After looking for a long time he said he was 80% sure something was there, but that its significance could be everything from nothing to pretty serious. What he thinks he sees is an abnormal growth on the lower thoracic part of the spine. He cannot tell if the growth is on the outside of the spinal column or on the inside tube where all the nerves develop. There are differences in result and severity depending on which it is. I will try to lay out the possibilities below.

The other problem had to do with them finding some water in the baby’s kidney. Evidently this can be very normal, and can take care of itself over time. When it occurs with the spinal abnormality it raises the question of there being a chromosomal abnormality, and thus other problems with other developing parts of the body. They checked all the other parts (ie. heart, hands, legs, etc.) that will show developmental abnormalities and found that all of them were developing normally. That is the good news.

The Possibilities
There are 4 possible outcomes at this point. I will arrange them from best to worst.

• The Dr.’s Wrong: There is, in his estimation, about a 20% chance that there is no growth there on the baby’s spine. Listening to him, and he does seem pretty competent and experienced, he seemed pretty confident that something was there. I guess there is always hope, and something real to pray for!

• Vetebral Anomaly with No Effect: The next possibility is that this would just be a random abnormality with no additional abnormalities in any of the other areas I mentioned above. This would sort of be the same as the first possibility, except that there is a little bone growth on the outside of her spine that is of no consequence.

• Vetebral Anomaly with Effect: This would be diagnosed if the kidney and other organs or body parts showed abnormal development. This would reflect some chromosomal abnormality and likely produce some kind of chromosomal result like Down Syndrome or one of its relatives. This will be more clear after we take a couple of tests. The first was a cardiac test to see the functioning of the heart. They see no problem there but just want to check. The second is Amniocentesis. Most of you probably know about this test. It’s primary purpose is to help people discover any chromosomal abnormalities.

• Vertebral Anomaly in Spinal Column: The presence of the spinal column would be very serious as it would most likely cause neurological damage as the baby continued to develop. This could lead to any number of neurological problems.

It is important to note that there may be other options, but that this is the best picture that we have as of today and our one meeting which was while they were doing an ultrasound of Susan.

Next Steps
We went in for “Genetic Counseling” today at 9:15 am. At that meeting we were able to talk about the big picture and what we are looking at for the rest of the pregnancy. The reality that began to sank in there is that even if there turns out to be very little wrong with the baby, this is going to be a heavily monitored and tested pregnancy. They are going to be very concerned about how the baby develops over the next 22 weeks.

This was a pretty depressing reality given how hard the pregnancy has been thus far. From it’s surprise arrival, to all the nausea Susan has felt, to this. Susan has not had an easy pregnancy and this only makes it harder.

We set a date for another ultrasound, a fetal MRI and Amniocentesis on June 12th. They will all happen during the morning of that day. There is only risk to the baby with Amnio. We have not completely decided on whether to do it, as there is some small risk to the baby, but we are feeling a desire to know conclusively the health of the baby. We will also have a Cardiac Echo to see how the baby’s heart is developing sometime in the next week.

The fetal MRI will tell conclusively about the growth the radiologist sees on the spine. The Amniocentesis will tell us if there is any chromosomal abnormality.

Basically, there are three factors that converge to make the Dr.’s and the Genetic Counselor concerned about our situation: The vertebral anomaly on the spine, the fluid in the kidney, and Susan’s age. Any ONE of these factors alone is of no major concern. The presence of all three, and the possibility of them being connected, is what raises the red flag at this point.

Status of the Van Riesen’s
Shock. Disbelief. Can this really be happening again? While this news does not come with the same certainty as Joshua’s, it is pretty hard. Obviously, we are hoping and praying that it will turn out to be nothing. While all the different possibilities are racing through our heads, we are trying to stay focused on caring for Joshua and Hope and taking the next steps in the process.

I wish I could say that we were full of faith about how this is going to turn out. Given these last number of months and all that has been going on for us, we are pretty fatigued and that makes it hard to have a lot of strength for the fight. The toughest part is to not just assume that it will be the worst case scenario.

Your Prayers
Obviously, we could really use your prayers. First, that this would turn out to be nothing. That God would have mercy and spare the baby and our family a major health issue. Second, that Jesus would help us they way he did the Father of the demonized boy. We do believe that God can heal the baby, but we are struggling with unbelief. Would you pray that God would help us with our unbelief that he can heal and that he is in control and really knows what he is doing.

We will know for sure whether there is a growth on the spine on June 12th when we do the MRI. We will not know about the chromosomal situation until June 24th, as it takes two weeks to grow the cells from the Amniocentesis. What this means is that we have a lot of waiting to do and will need the peace and presence of Jesus. Please pray for that in the midst of our waiting and struggling with God over this.

Lastly, if you are connected to any church prayer groups or other gatherings for prayer, we would love if you would ask them to pray for us as well.

Sorry for the length of this email. I think it helped me just to get it all out. We are putting this out there to solicit as many prayers as people are willing to pray for us, so you don’t have to worry about telling or not telling anyone. Thanks for being our friends and for praying for us in this difficult time.

Love, Alex

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