Caroline's name was chosen long before Caroline even existed.
Let's face it - We girls have been thinking about names for our children since we were little girls ourselves :)
So when Doug and I started trying to have kids...
The pen, paper and Baby Names book quickly found it's way into my hands!
After much thought, we decided that if we had a girl, her name would be Caroline Anne.
We just fell in love with the name Caroline; and Anne is a family name from both sides of our family.
Caroline's brain abnormality was detected at our very first ultrasound when we didn't yet know what the gender of the baby was.
Because of all the fluid that had already begun building up around her brain, it actually looked as though her skull hadn't even formed.
We were given a diagnosis of acrania.
And we were told that this condition was not compatible with life.
There, the long road began.
We began praying,
And researching.
And praying.
And researching.
Then my friend Kelli told me of a blog she found that was written my the mother of an acrania survivor.
At last....
We had hope!
Her name was Vitoria de Cristo.
Vitoria de Cristo lived in Brazil and had recently turned 2 years old when we found her mom's blog.
I have to be honest and say that seeing her for the very first time was pretty difficult.
We just weren't accustomed to seeing babies with cranial deformities like that.
But, we were trying to prepare ourselves to have a baby just like Vitoria de Cristo so we began to read her blog.
It was hard.
Hard.
And more hard.
But their baby girl was ALIVE, and her parents gave absolutely ALL the glory to the God.
So we began to ask the Lord to give us this same story.....
This same miracle.
Several weeks later we had another ultrasound that provided us with
Our baby did NOT have acrania.
But it was clear that her brain was developing abnormally.
Things still weren't looking great, but we were sooooo excited about this new development because we thought that perhaps the new diagnosis would be compatible with life.
At this point in our journey, Vitoria de Cristo had become a part of our life.
We checked her blog every day.
And I'm not exaggerating when I say this...
We fell in love with her.
She stole our hearts.
Vitoria de Cristo's life impacted ours so much so that when we found out that we were having a girl, we decided to change her middle name from Anne to Victoria.
We love the name Victoria because we were confident that whether in life or death, Caroline would be Victorious in Christ.
On July 17, just one month before Caroline was born, Vitoria de Cristo went home to be with Jesus.
We grieved...
And we rejoiced that she had been healed and was in the perfect presence of Christ.
She lived a beautiful life and we were so grateful to know her story.
I find a strange comfort in knowing that Vitoria de Cristo was there beside Jesus when He healed Caroline.
I KNOW they are good friends in heaven, just busy being....
Perfect.
Caroline means "Beautiful".
Victoria means "Victory".
Caroline, you are, without a doubt,
A Beautiful Victory.
(If you want to read about Vitoria de Cristo, her blog is www.belovedvitoria.blogspot.com)
The Balloon Project #15
Uncle Chuck, Aunt Carol, Taylor, Ashlyn and Jackson love you, Caroline!!!
No comments :
Post a Comment