Everett Updates

Please check in our blogger site for the updates on Everett and Kimberly. I will be posting via Twitter, so you should see the feed over to the right.

Hopefully I'll be able to check here & there for the play by play.  Also hopefully get pics in there too...

Elsa Jenae Pelletier is here!

It is with joy and extreme gratitude that we welcomed Elsa Jenae Pelletier to our family.
She was born into our world, December 13th, 2011 at 8:02am.  Weighing in at 7lbs, 2.3 oz and 19.5" long, she is healthy and gorgeous!


The birth story is Kimberly's to share, and I'm sure she'll be writing it as soon as we get internet hooked up at our new home, but she is doing well also, although birth does take awhile to recoop from...


[oh yeah, we moved... again.  Just weeks before Elsa's arrival, we moved across town to the Chess House; a charming centennial two-flat located in the heart of southwest downtown Wheaton, we live below our friends and property managers who have twin girls, now 3 months old.  We are settled in and love the environment here.  It is much more us than any other place we lived together.]  


It goes without saying that the birth of a child is one of the most spectacular and life changing moments that one can experience.  When I watched Elsa being born and spending now the first week with Kimberly & her, I truly know what this means.  Some things said are just not comprehended until we walk that journey ourselves.  It's an emotional bond that is instantly sparked into being as a mother, as a father, and somehow also as a brother (Jonan has a sister!).  It's the expanding of our hearts, the overwhelming blanket of grace, of love & of wonder.


Elsa is certainly special. I am particularly fond of her, and I'm sure you will be too :)

Listen to Your Life


"Listen to your life.  See it for the fahomless mystery that it is.  In the boredom and the pain of it no less than the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace."


Frederick Buechner - Now and Then

sometime around 9:10pm

Jonan Eilam Pelletier was born into heaven




Mom is doing great


Tears have been shed


Prayers have been answered


Thank you all for your support

6pm - PWH

Greetings all.


So we're on round three of the Cytotec.  After round 2 Dawn (from church) showed up filling in as a last minute doula and totally served Kimberly greatly giving a crash course and massage.  I ran for lunch with the Millers and Kimberly's family.


Right when I got back from lunch I immediately walked into Kimberly hunched over on her side, breathing and chanting as contractions really started hitting her hard.  They came with about 3 min on and only 10-15 sec of relief.  This went on for about an hour and half.  Dawn was really great coaching her through this. My parents arrived at the hospital from Arizona in that time and got to quickly visit with Kimberly.


Soon though the pain became very hard to manage, so we began to have conversations about having an epidural.  After talking it over with friends, anesthesiologists and a really sweet word from our nurse Nikki, we decided to go ahead with the epidural.


Kimberly responded greatly with it and immediately felt much better.  After this she got to "eat" some more, and had a nice family visit with both sides including my brother and his wife (sans little Olivia, since she's too small to visit) in the roomy room that we're in and then.  We then had Dr. Eppes visit to check and administer round 3.


We had a brief time to rest quietly and then Beth (Kimberly good friend since high school) showed up to fill as Dawn's "replacement".


Mood is again rather calm and we are still taking everything one step at a time.


We will lose Nikki at 7:30, we'll miss her, she's been great.


Sorry for such a matter of fact.  I don't really have much time or energy to go into expository writing.  I'll leave that to Kimberly who has really turned into such a great writer...


- Please no Facebook linking or quoting -

11:20 - PWH

We just finished meeting with both the doctor who met with Kimberly on Monday and Susan, who is a social worker on staff here.

Dr. Ebbs visited with us answered some questions for us, and was very supportive to us and assured us that we are in good hands.

Susan walked us through a lot of logistical issues, answered more questions and was also super supportive and very gentle with us.

And of course having the Miller's with us has and will be a tremendous gift to us.

Kimberly "ate" a small tray of goodies (chicken broth, jello & tea) and is awaiting a second round of Cytotec to continue the delivery process which is supposed to be every four hours.


Mood is still rather calm.


-& remember, please no facebook linking- 

social media disclaimer

Hello all. Out of respect for how we want to disseminate information, I would like to request that our posts both here & on Kimberly's blog, not be copied or linked to on Facebook, Twitter or the like.


Thanks for your understanding...


You will most likely see this reminder on the bottom of our posts.

@ the hospital

Good morning from the hospital...


Kimberly & I arrived early this morning to Prentice Women's Hospital to start the process of inducing.  We are now on the day shift which means our first nurse has left for the day and we now have Nikki attending to us.  Kimberly was given the first round of medicine that begins this procedure which will likely take around 12-18 hours.  Kevin & Karen Miller are our support here as we walk this journey today.  The room is really nice (though we didn't get a lakeside view) and the mood is mostly calm.  Kimberly did have a bit of a rough start with blood getting drawn and the IV put in (small veins).  All is good now for the most part and Kimberly is now napping.


Not sure of how regularly I'll be able to update, but I'll try my best.  I know many of you have express your willingness to do something for us.  I will also try to communicate if needs to come up.  Prayers are always the easiest and probably best way to support us.

Jonan Update - 1.24.11

Jeff and I wanted to let you all know that Jonan Eilam Pelletier passed into eternity sometime Monday (1.24.11) through another routine visit to check up on me, consult with our ongoing care doctor, and hear Jonan's heartbeat we found that he had passed. After many tries at hearing his heart and an ultrasound, two doctors confirmed Jonan's death. 

I felt Jonan moving late in the day on Sunday (and for many days before this), so we are fairly certain it was sometime on Monday. One of my prayers was to be able to know the day he passed, I am thankful to know this. We loved him every minute until that time. We trust the Lord's timing in this.

We truly did not expect this to come so quickly, and the shock has been painful.  Thankfully, however, we were given these precious 12 days since we found out of Jonan's condition to celebrate him and prepare him for eternity. How amazing. Monday morning I woke up and had my routine with Jonan which had began a week a half ago since we found out. I wake up, sometimes Jeff and I would have time to pray. After that I would read aloud a Psalm from the Bible to Jonan. That day I felt very strongly that I should read to to him Psalm 27 for some reason. It begins like this: 

 "The LORD is my light and my salvation;
   whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
   of whom shall I be afraid?"

We will never know the actual moment he passed, but there is peace in my heart knowing he potentially heard the words of Scripture being read over him in his last hour. 

Jonan and I ended our time that morning with the same two song I would sing to every morning with him since we found out. We would first listen to Beautiful Things which I wrote about extensively on my blog: jonaneilam.blogspot.com, there is a post by the same title. And then we finish our time with the song The Earth Is Yours. Though I will never know for certain, I like to think Jonan entered heaven while hearing this last song. And let me say for some reason Monday morning I actually shut the blinds while listening to this song because of the joy I had singing this with Jonan...I thought someone may think I was a little crazy.  I guess sometimes worshiping God from the depths of ourselves can appear that way.

Thank you for your prayers at this tender time. We are filled with both sorrow and joy. And in awe of God's faithfulness to us continually.

We will have a service before Jonan Eilam's burial at our church, likely sometime this weekend. We desire to open this up beyond our family to our friends who wish to grieve and to celebrate life with us.  If you desire to be there, you are welcomed. There will be more information on this to come.

Update on Jonan

Jeff and I wanted to update you on our conversation with the specialist yesterday. She called to see how I was doing and give us an update on Jonan. Since we saw her last week she has done some more research on Jonan and consulted more specialist about our unique case. The leading diagnosis for what they are seeing is something called Amniotic Band Syndrome. This is where bands form in the amniotic sack and attach themselves to the growing baby and stunt the normal growth in specific areas.  Though the likelihood of this happening in any pregnancy is extremely rare, when it does actually happen it often looks the same as other pregnancies where it has happened. The most common form of this is called Limb Body Wall Complex (LBWC) where these bands effect the head, body, and limb...exactly the way Jonan's abnormalities have been forming. Though the doctors cannot see the actual bands around him, the way his particularly abnormalities are forming having led them to this diagnosis. They often do not see the bands on an ultrasound to come to this diagnosis. 

The cause of this are yet unknown in the medical community. It happens very early on and it completely sporadic. 

So, what does this mean? Basically, this is, as I said before, extremely rare for any pregnancy and the chances of the it happening to the same couple twice are almost none. This is great news for us in our desire to grow our family. The possibility of genetic testing is something we can still pursue, however she did say everything would likely come back normal. As you may imagine, this is great news to us. 

Though this does not change the outlook for Jonan, we have found comfort in having more understanding of what is happening to his little body. Thank you all for your continued prayers and thoughts. We feel this strengthening daily. 

the rough story

Here's the story of the news as we lived it those first few days.


We went in for a routine ultrasound Thursday afternoon (1.13.11) to check up and find out the gender of our child. Within 15 short minutes we were sitting with our midwife as she explained some severe abnormalities she was seeing in the ultrasound. Within an hour they had an appointment set up for the next day at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with a maternal-fetal specialist for a level 2 ultrasound to see more of what was going on.  That evening Kevin and Karen Miller (our associate priest and executive pastor at our church) met with us at our home, offered comfort and wisdom, and offered to go with us to this important appt. on Friday.  

After an hour and a half of ultrasounds, the specialist let us know the following: The baby is a boy (Kimberly really felt this all along).  Our son's heart is outside of his chest, as the chest is open and will not close. His skull is open as well, with the brain tissue open to the amniotic fluid.  His spine is also open and twisting around itself. His organs are not forming correctly and are small. He also missing his left arm, and has 2 clefts in his pallet. Overall, his diagnosis is that he is not "compatible with life" outside of the womb. There is no specific diagnosis as these abnormalities are not commonly found all together. This is likely some sort of chromosomal problem, that likely began right from the start of life. Nothing could have been done to change this if found earlier and this is not from any specific thing that was done or not done early in pregnancy. It simply is what it is. 

We were given 2 choices with his life and this news: we can either terminate the pregnancy or carry him until his life ends.  After much prayer and discussion, we have chosen to carry him for as long as he and God decide his life will be. We feel strongly called to be his parents, as he is our son, and we will provide the environment necessary to sustain his life as short as it will be.  We love him more than we could have ever imagined.  Every ultrasound we can see his heart beating, his legs moving around, and his arm waving at us.  He is an incredible little fella enjoying life in his cozy home. Kimberly can also feel him kicking around at times.  

This sad news has nearly overwhelmed us, as you can imagine. We have been going through intense emotions all over the spectrum.  From weeping and weeping as we have begun to miss the life we had hoped he would have. We long to hold him and be with him in ways we know we will not be able to now. We also have felt joy as we get the privilege to be his parents for the rest of his short life and celebrate him every day as well as the unspeakable joy at naming him, with the Lord's guidance, just this morning (more on that in a minute).

The Lord and the church has already been a blessing for us with meals and various others means of support emotionally, spiritually, etc. We have felt this as well as the presence of God in significant ways. We feel very blessed. 

There are some big questions for us in the coming months. We don't how long his life will be or when it will end. We don't know if it will end in miscarriage, a still birth, or if he will live for a minute or two after delivery. The anxiety and uncertainty this brings is something we ask prayer for through the coming months. It is Kimberly's desire to see him live for a couple minutes, to maybe see his eyes open or even a small cry, but as we pray we trust the Lord with the way He will answer. Either way, we will be able to hold him after he is born and say goodbye and rejoice in holding our first child. We will also have a pastoral blessing before his burial, and a little service for those closest to us.  

Primarily we do need these prayers, but we want you all to know that if the Lords moves you to do anything in any way, we will joyfully accept that encouragement in any form (a photo, a word of encouragement, a verse, a hug, a thought, a story, etc. etc.). Honestly and sincerely, we don't know everything we need right now, so if the Lord guides you in any way at all, please feel the freedom to follow the leading He gives. Thank you. 

 We also want you to know that we are open to talking about this.  If you see us or call us, or we are hanging out somewhere feel free to ask us how we are, ask any questions that come to mind, or talk about it if you want. Also, don't feel you have to do these things in any manner. We understand this can be awkward not knowing how we are doing or where we are on any given day can make this challenging. We understand that. But know we are open to talking and if, for some reason, it is a difficult day for us, we would gently let that be known, so please don't fear any interactions. We welcome seeing any of you. 

Please watch this little video introducing our son's name. We named him based on meaning, so every time we speak of him we will remember the Lord and our son in a beautiful way.

Blessings and Peace, 

Jeff & Kimberly

We Are Expecting!

To all who haven't heard. To all who may actually find their way here. Kimberly and I are expecting our first child. We are days away from finding out the gender and are totally excited to see the 2nd ultrasound pic. We have decided to keep names to ourselves until the baby has arrived.

Back in Black

New design. New hope. Now that we are expecting, we really hope to update more often, as well as link to photos as we are able.

Change of Blog Title

Greetings all. Now that we have been back from Costa Rica for just over a month, I have decided to change this blog over to a general blog for Kimberly and myself. We can't promise that we will update it often; we need to still get used to this, but check in periodically for news, happenings and most of all, our journey on this adventure of life.

- Jeff

**We are at the Charlotte airport awaiting our connection home. I wrote this yesterday morning hoping to connect yesterday but it never happened. I will update Monday and Tuesday so you can get the full details. They were a great 2 days!!***

Hey Everyone! I am glad to finally update again after the long weekend of no connection! We are doing great and enjoying waking up to such beautiful sunshine for just another couple days, well aware of what awaits us back in Chicago. Though it is chilly at times up in the mountains where we are staying & working, the view is breathtaking any time we wish to look around and the sun continues to wrap us in its warmth. (deep breath, ahhh). This weekend was full for us. Saturday we helped out a family of the church by tearing down their house. The structure was

badly damaged as you can see in the pictures; there was nothing they could salvage. This picture through the windows of a bedroom shows where the dirt from a mini landslide has filled in their functioning green house. The

family is staying with the next door neighbor until they can get the money to build. The government will help rebuild, but only if you have a title to the house. This home is, in fact, this family’s home, but when they acquired it they were not given a title, so they can receive no help from the government. We were glad to spend our day helping them in the tear down phase. We all enjoyed the physical part of demolition and ripping this home apart; we worked together well and felt like a team. However, most difficult part for me was when I was using the mallet to bust out the walls of the back bedroom. I was just swinging away when I looked over at this little boy staring at me with this sad face (see picture). I realized at that moment this was his room I was destroying. He stood there like this for a half hour or so. A couple people from t

he team had to walk away because of the tears. It was a difficult moment for us all. For us, just another day of work together, and for this family, their lifelong home destroyed. Whew. They were really grateful, however, and thanked us profusely at the end of the day. See the picture together before we left.

Sunday was a fun day. We packed up from our hotel that morning due to and large group coming to the hotel we were already staying. We spent some time walking around the beautiful grounds there and taking a “coffee trail” where you can see coffee growing (picture) and read some interesting facts about it (picture). We then hea

ded to the church where we were going to redecorate their sanctuary. They began taking down the Christmas décor the day before the earthquake and never got it finished. So we spent the day taking it down, purchasing new fabric, and giving some new life to them through giving their church a facelift. We enjoyed our work very much that day and were so glad to be able to bless them with some fresh life in their worship center. Just like us, their environment matters to them; so to add some color and life was fun! (see before/after pics). They were grateful and love it! Sunday evening was a great church service, Jeff got to run sound J and then we all headed to a wonderful steak restaurant. We all enjoyed fresh strawberry shakes (picture) and large Argentinean steaks.

First steak I have had in over 5 years…great way to break the drought! They were excellent. The pastor and his family joined us. You can see Jeff and Roy together (picture) and Roy’s son (little Roy) with the restaurant owner’s new little puppy. And yes, the puppy joined us in the restaurant. He was so cute! We ended the night with some traditional Costa Rican coffee (pic) and tiramisu. Then off to our new hotel for the night.

Today we are helping some stuff at the shelter and the church. We will probably do a bit of souvenir shopping later today or tomorrow before we catch our plane home. So if you expect a souvenir you had better leave a comment! :) Thanks again for praying and following along. If you saw the van we were in and the precarious roads and landslides are were driving along, you would pray endlessly for us during the day :)! All our love!

Jeff & Kimberly

Strawberries and Sinkholes

Hey Everyone,
I am taking a break from cleaning the church's community center where earthquake victim's have been staying since the tragedy. Our morning consisted of taking a tour of the damaged areas the government would allow us to go. We got about 3 miles from the epicenter before we had to turn around and have some telling pictures of the roads and damage.
One of the most interesting moments for me was driving along the very road I saw on the news back home, where the first two little girls where killed. All of this devastation is backdropped by this beautiful countryside with lush green and storms that go in and out at the top of the mountain. It is beautiful. Along with the homes that were damaged was the farming/agriculture. The main concerns seem to be the cows and the strawberries. We stopped by a strawberry farmer hoping to salvage 40% of his crop this harvest. Can you imagine if you income suddenly dropped by 60% for the next 3 months? It's so sad. However, the strawberries were wonderful! And amidst seeing all this our team was not without the comic relief of me falling up to my waist in a small sinkhole (below).











It appeared to be solid until I stepped on it and got sucked in instantly. Honestly, I was a bit scared because I went down so fast, but I climbed out just as fast (thank you, adrenaline). After my heart started beating again, we realized I was just wet and smelly, it could be worse. As I write this I am finally dry, but probably still a bit smelly. Luckily the community center had some fresh socks for me when we arrived! Check out the picture!! Well, I better get back to cleaning, thanks for all your prayers and support. Keep commenting, we love to hear from you! Love, Kimberly

We're Here

Don't have long, in the middle of a work project, which included getting the computer center up and running at the church's community center. Finally online. More to come, but just wanted to let you all know we got here safe and sound. Everything is going well. Tons of pics already to sort through to give you all a quick update.

Jeff

On Our Way

Greetings from lovely Charlotte!

2:45am was certainly a rude awakening. We are sitting at CLT (Charlotte Douglas Airport) after our first leg of the journey. We got about a 2 hour layover here, and most of the gang is actually getting some breakfast. Kimberly and I are sitting in a big terminal, eating some food bars, taking pictures and now as I type Kimberly is asleep on the floor.


Our departure had only one slight issue. We were dropped of at terminal 2 at O'Hare for our US Airways flight only to find that in the small print of our itenerary, that our flight was operated by United, so onto the train to terminal 1. Ah, planes trains and automobiles. This is why we go to the airport early...

Fun observation: a guy on the plan, mind you it's like 6:30 at this point, actually had a Heineken. Good morning. Of coarse as I sit here across from the Carolina Beer Co., I can't say that I wouldn't enjoy an oatmeal stout that's being advertised.


Costa Rica update -

We have been informed that our hotel has changed and we thought it was this place, but after looking where this place is, it seems that it is over an hour away from where we will be serving. Oh well, guess we won't be suffering for Jesus at that "resort". Certainly looked like a fun place with a beautiful view of a nice volcano. Not sure of what our internet access may be. Hopefully this will not be our only post.

Our friend Josh and a buddy of his will be picking us up when we get there. Josh is from the Dominican Republic and has been volunteering at Willow for just over a year now. He was down in his homeland and then traveled over to Costa Rica a few days ago to join us on our trip.

Talk to you soon.

updates

Here's a link to some updates on what's happening down in Costa Rica. You can navigate around the website as well to get a picture of what the church is doing down in that part of the world.

link to photo album

check out photos from my first trip to Costa Rica back in 2003.

Earthquake

You may or may not have heard, that last Thursday (Jan 8th), an 6.1 earthquake rocked Costa Rica just northwest of San Jose. In fact it was very near one of the churches (CCS) we will be visiting on our trip. As we have been discerning how best to utilize our time down there over the last couple of weeks, Glenn our trip leader felt that our time should have a humanitarian aspect to it. Serving in a shelter, feeding the homeless, building houses. As the events of this past week have unfolded, it is becoming clear that these promptings have somewhat prepared us to turn our efforts to helping in earthquake relief.


Here is a snippet of an email from Pastor Roy who is the main person we will be getting direction from as where to serve.

The situation in Fraijanes, Poasito and the other small communities near
the base of the volcano are very affected. In Fraijanes 16 people died.
From CCS alone 14 families lost their homes completely. The
majority of the others have damage of 60 to 70% including Roy 's home.
The Community Center is being used to house families that have lost their homes
(the gym was not that affected but the vocational center has some cracked walls
and the computers are all on the ground many broken). The quake lasted
22seconds. The last quake of significance in Fraijanes was in 1988.
CCS is being sought out by all the authorities and surrounding
communities to lead as people search for the next steps. Roads and
bridges have been affected so normal communication with San Jose is broken (one
long route is available). Continue to Pray for CCS and the network
churches and the communities of the region.

welcome mesage

Hello all! We are so glad that you are here and are able to join us on our trip through this medium. We are also extremely grateful for your support of Kimberly and me as we are serving in this unique way. We wanted to have this as a cool way to keep you updated on all the happenings of our trip. As we have time (and internet access) we will post stories, thoughts, pictures and any news.

-Jeff & Kimberly