Good morning, Blogging Family! Thank you all so much for your kind comments after Ivan’s last update. We have been so blessed during our nine years in the Bay Area. Although we are excited to discover what God has for us in Indianapolis, we will miss our NorCal friends and church family dearly!
It is my joy to share another exciting update with you all – and one that is even more life-changing than relocating to the Midwest. If you’ve followed us for a while, you may remember my post about honoring God in pregnancy, especially when carrying a baby poses a risk to the mother’s health. Ivan also shared how God has used our struggles in this area to refine his faith in our second book, Hello God.
To recap, one of my residual injuries from the 2016 accident was an ongoing dissected carotid artery. The original dissection occurred the day I was hit by the car and caused my two strokes. Although I had other vascular injuries that were repaired surgically, the carotid artery dissected in such a way that doctors felt this type of intervention was not worth the risk. My medical team allowed a reasonable amount of time for the artery to heal on its own. While we were waiting to see if the dissection would resolve naturally, I had an IVC filter placed in my lower abdomen and took daily blood thinning injections to prevent additional clots and strokes. When they did a scan the following year to reevaluate the artery, they found it was still partially dissected. It also displayed a small flap at the opening that posed a particular risk of blood clots.
After we learned the artery would likely remain partially dissected, doctors decided to remove the IVC filter and discontinue the injections. My ongoing instructions were to maintain a healthy diet, foster circulation through rigorous, regular cardiovascular exercise, and avoid activities that could cause a second dissection. (Hence my persistent love of working out! 😊).
One of the “activities” we were consistently counseled to avoid was pregnancy. These warnings were based not only on the carotid artery but also my uncontrolled seizures. God miraculously removed my seizures in late 2023, but as far as we knew the carotid artery was still a life-threatening barrier to biological children. Although I’ve had subsequent CT and MRI scans over the years, no one mentioned a change in the artery’s condition, or updated the warnings against pregnancy we received in 2017-2019. As our desire for children increased, we began researching adoption.
In spite of our research, God continued using various conversations and interactions to impress biological kids on our hearts. He also continued bringing up various obstacles to adoption. After we got back from our Australia-Indonesia trip this past summer, we prayerfully decided to follow these leadings and inquire about biological kids one more time. My initial meetings with neurology, OB-GYN, and high-risk OB-GYN reiterated the same advice we received years ago. While I’m overall quite healthy given everything I’ve gone through, and it was likely they could save the baby if I got pregnant and something “went wrong” later in the pregnancy, my own future would be more uncertain.
This forced us to do more serious praying and considering. Although it is God’s desired will for marriages to produce children (Gen. 1:28, Titus 2:3-5), living in a broken world means this may not always be part of His ordained will. I would love to do whatever is needed to bless Ivan with a child. Nevertheless if a vascular event during pregnancy or labor left him to care for a newborn and a permanently disabled wife, I would not be blessing Ivan or our child.
However, as you might have noticed, these deliberations and prayer times were missing a very significant data point – a current scan of the artery. We requested an MRI to see if there had been any change since the last prognosis. Then we waited. In years past, I’ve never waited more than a few days (perhaps a week at the longest) for imaging. However, through this process we learned that since I’m now considered relatively healthy, I don’t get to jump to the front of the queue like before. 😉
We requested the MRI in late June and I received a date for mid-August. This gave us extra time to pray, prepare our hearts, and evaluate how much of my safety we would be willing to risk in order to pursue a biological pregnancy. The day of the MRI finally arrived – only to reveal that there was a coding error and the tech had an order to scan a different part of my body. I asked if they could contact the neurologist on call to correct the error, but was told that the update would have to come from my personal doctor – when she returned to the office. We drove home very disappointed. But as the days passed, we also saw more clearly that this “setback” allowed even more time to pray and discern God’s will.
We were finally able to complete the scan about 10 days ago – almost exactly three months after we requested it. In my heart, I’d continued to sense that God was leading us to pursue kids regardless of what the scan said. But like I’ve described above, I’d also been encouraged to consider that this desire should not put an additional lifelong burden on Ivan, or any child God chose to bless us with.
My first hint that something had changed came at the end of the MRI. The tech asked why my doctor ordered the scan, which I thought was an odd question. Although radiology techs are not supposed to interpret images, they do look at the scans while they are conducting them. This means they can often see if there is a visible problem. True to protocol, he did not comment after I explained the residual artery dissection, but his question elevated my hopes that perhaps something had changed since last time.
Sure enough, the next day we received the interpretation from my neurologist and high-risk OB-GYN. The artery is now fully healed! There is not even any narrowing or roughness where the dissection and flap had previously been, both of which would still pose vascular risk to pregnancy and labor. This “healed but weakened” outcome was the result they considered likely if the artery did show signs of repair. In contrast, the full healing revealed by the scan means there is now no ongoing condition that would make pregnancy unsafe for me.
We are both humbled and overwhelmed with awe at how God has chosen to intervene miraculously in our lives yet again. He continues to restore desires and abilities that we thought were gone forever! Since people don’t usually feel vascular changes unless there is an acute problem, I don’t have any physical markers that suggest when the healing actually took place. It could have happened years ago, or quite recently. What we know for sure is the Lord’s timing is perfect in impressing this desire for biological children on our hearts, bringing about confirming conversations and prayers with those around us, and providing the medical data to reveal what He had already done. May He receive all the glory both from healing the artery itself, and from the future addition to our family we hope and pray He will provide soon! Thank you all for your faithful prayers and support in walking through the many highs and lows we’ve encountered in the past nine years.
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
Romans 11:36
