Our Wedding Day! April 21,2006. God truly blessed me with such a wonderful man! He is everything I could have asked for in a friend, lover, provider and father.

A New Beginning for me and the kids :)

Tracy and I with our three kids......A little history, When I was 20 I got married to a family friend who had a two year old daughter Kristian. She had been born premature at 25 weeks weighing 2 pounds 12 inches. They divorced within a couple months of her being born, the mom (Jennifer) left Kristian with her dad and never came back. We married and I adopted Kristian....Then we had Emily and Josh. After nearly 10 years of marriage my husband came and told me he wanted a divorce....he was having an affair with a woman at work who was also married and had just adopted a little boy. They both divorced their spouses and married...So, there I was....March 2004....my world was falling apart and the kids were devastated. My now ex-husband hardly has anything to do with his kids, he gets them the usual every other weekend but has pretty much detached himself emotionally from them. God didn`t answer my prayers for my marriage to be restored because he had better plans.....he had a wonderful man waiting to be the husband and father the kids and I deserved. We were married last April and as you can read from our story we were so excited about adding to our family!

Our little Annie.....How do you hold your child as you wait for their little heartbeat to stop.....I wanted to soak in every moment of her.

We were gathered with about 80 family and friends for her funeral. We took some items from her room to share with others....Her teddy bear that we bought the day we found out we were expecting, the chiefs hat that her daddy hoped she would wear someday to the games...Her first pair of booties and her bunny......Her casket looks so big but it`s only 14 inches long......and if your wondering why we have green flowers, let me explain. We had told each of the kids they could pick out a flower arrangement for her....Both the girls picked out cute little flowers but Josh saw these green carnations that the store had for St. Patricks day.....which of course didn`t click with him. He thought Annie would have liked the green....so, he got the green. After her funeral we all released pink balloons with tags attached that had her name and dates along with the scripture Matthew 18:4-5 "Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me".

Ok....Here's the start of our story...

On October 28, 2006 we knew our lives would be changed forever after a home pregnancy test showed positive we were having a baby. The joy and excitement for my husband and I were overwhelming. The Lord was blessing us with the baby we had been praying for. Instantly we began preparing our lives for our baby. The first couple months were rough physically but every weekend we would sit and read our baby book to see all the changes that were happening within the womb, what amazement that always brought to us. On February 8, 2007 our sonogram was scheduled, we would finally get to find out the sex of our child. The sono tech seemed to take forever doing her usual measurements until finally she typed on the screen it's a girl. In that instant she became our little Annie. Annie Grace Liggett. A name we had picked out before we even knew we were expecting. I felt like God had implanted this in my heart - a name to honor him and the works he had done in both our lives. A name of God's Grace.

On March 10, 2007 our little girl was born at 23 weeks 2 days, weighing only 1 pound 3 ounces and 11 inches. The devastation it brought to our hearts was like nothing we have ever felt before , this was truly our greatest test of faith. She was born at 10:27 pm, after 20 minutes of trying all medicine could do for her it became apparent God had other plans for our baby. On March 11, at 12:35 a.m. only two hours and 8 minutes later our little girl made the transition from earth to heaven while in my arms. As always although our hearts were breaking God was faithfully there showing us his grace. First, it was as we arrived in the emergency room, while waiting to be taken to a room I sat silently praying that God would speak to me, that he would somehow show me he was present. There on the wall was a scripture God allowed me to have for those first hours of the unknown. Matthew 11:28. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Then it was through the kindness of our doctors and nurses. After delivering the news that I was fully dilated and there was no stopping the labor our resident Dr. asked if her could pray with us, as he took our hands and prayed for our baby God allowed us to see his love and concern for what we were going through. Then it was with all the support we had from our friends and family (at one point I'm pretty sure we had half our congregation at the hospital).

One thing God almost always does for us is let us know we are not alone in our pain, that what we are feeling and experiencing has been felt by someone else. In this case it was my good friend Mary, who nine years earlier had felt the loss of her son Nicolas after spending a short 13 hours with him. Shortly after Annie passed the reality of the world we live in started becoming very real there were plans to be made. I knew the tiny body I held in my arms no longer kept the spirit of my little girl but oh, how I loved that little body and how it broke my heart to have to let her go so quickly.

Just when you think God has done it all he decides to demonstrate his love for us even more. That's when Mary so gently reminded me of the ministry that was started because of her son. Again, God's Grace! Shannon was a NICU nurse where Nicolas had been and was so touched by the family and their needs in the time of losing their son that she decided to start Agape'Care Cradle....a funeral service for parents who have lost their child. So, after many years of hearing my friend pray for her son to be used by God he allowed us all a chance to see it in a very real and tangible way. After talking to Shannon she assured me she would not come get Annie until I was ready. I kept telling myself to be practical, that I needed to allow her to be taken but I just couldn't. I needed to spend the night holding and cuddling my baby girl. Kissing her and telling her how much I loved her. Finally at 6:30 a.m. about six hours after she passed we gave the ok for her to be taken. God had given me the time I needed to say good-bye. I hadn't met Shannon in person and had no idea how she would pick-up my daughter so I asked the nurse to take Annie out to her, I just couldn't bear the thought of seeing her laid on a cold, hard gurney. when the nurse came back into the room she could see the worry of a mother who just sent her child with a complete stranger and she shared with me that Shannon had brought a beautiful basket to carry her in and that she was sure that Shannon would take great care of our daughter.

I remember the next morning I couldn't wait to go see my baby girl. When we arrived at Agape'Care I expected to be ushered to a room where the first glance of my daughter would be one of her laying in a casket. I was so thankfully surprised when Shannon said to me I know you want to see your precious daughter, I'll go get her and bring her to you somehow that made being there all the easier. . I knew we had done the right thing by having Shannon take care of her the moment I saw the gentle care she gave as she brought Annie to me and placed her in my arms. She looked as beautiful as she had the morning before. The biggest blessing was getting to hold her. Again, I knew her spirit was no longer there but that tiny body had been with me every second of everyday for the past 23 weeks and I couldn't just not hold her. The whole time we made the arrangements for the funeral I kept her in my arms, kissing her and smiling down on her with the joy every mother feels toward their child. The fact that she was no longer with us did not in any way take away the excitement and joy of the life we knew. She was our daughter who we loved.

March 23, 2008 (Easter Morning…..18 Weeks)
On Thursday March 20^th we were at church watching our 12 year old daughter being baptized. When we stood up I felt like I had started my period. I left to meet Emily in the bathroom to get out of her wet clothes and that's when I realized I had started bleeding. All I could do is say "Please God, no". Tracy and I left the service and headed to the hospital. When I got there they informed us that I was fully dilated and the sack was protruding through my cervix. They would give us less than a 1% chance of being able to hold off delivery for at least another 6 to 7 weeks until we reached a point where there would be at least a small chance of Thomas making it. How could this be? We had just 3 days earlier been to the high risk doctor and found out we were having a son and that everything looked good. The night before Tracy and I had went shopping and had bought him some little outfits. That very afternoon we had received his bedding in the mail so that we could redo the nursery over the weekend. We were so excited to have him not our son too! The dr's put me on my head to try to keep pressure off my cervix and said we just had to wait. Friday morning came and we still had him with us, we had a little more hope. Friday night and Saturday morning came, even a little more hope. Maybe, just maybe the dr's would be wrong and I could make it several weeks. The last 48 hours had brought a lot of heartbreak as well as a lot of physical pain from lying flat on my back without moving and tilted on my head, not to mention I had started having a few contractions. Around 11pm I was coming out of some pain medication when the nurse came in and said it was time to listen to his heart rate, I loved it when they came in and did that, it always gave me a spark of encouragement to know he was still there and ok. As she started moving the Doppler around trying to find his little heartbeat, Tracy and I looked at one another with the same question in our eyes. After a few moments she left the room to get the Dr. and the sono machine. They couldn't pick him up so they would just take a look at him and make sure he was ok. As they stood there watching the sono I could see the look on their faces my heart began to sink so quickly. Then the Dr. explained that our little Thomas no longer had a heartbeat and that he was already half way through my cervix. They would need to go ahead and induce labor to deliver him. At 3:30am March 23^rd our son was born. He was SO tiny, only 6.5 ounces and 7 3/4 inches. Oh, how he was so cute though. We could see that he was going to have his daddy's chin and feet just like his sister Annie did. His mouth would be his mommy's. We had his funeral on March 26^th and we buried him by Annie. The last two weeks have been so hard, Thomas was our hope, he was our blessing, ..he was our reward after losing Annie. We had so many hopes and dreams for him, our hearts ache so much that we will never get to experience him here with us each day. We do however have a renewed spirit within us. We are not asking the same questions of why (at least not as often) as we did with Annie. We have learned over the last year that God is good and he is sovereign. He will bring good from such a horrible thing, and like us he too lost his son! At his service our pastor quoted one of the greatest authors known, the author of "Horton Hears A Who" saying, A person is a person no matter how small." Thomas you were so tiny but you have brought us so much joy, Mommy and Daddy love and miss you SO much! "There is no foot too small that it cannot impact this World".

April 4^th 2008