Hi! I’m Whitney. I have been married to my husband for 10 years and together we’ve had three boys. Two of them thrive alongside us here and one was born into heaven. I like to say our first taught me about the love of God the “Father” as I entered parenthood; our second teaches me about God the “Son” as I continue to learn patience and forgiveness; and our third continues to teach me about God the “Holy Spirit” and how to strive towards sainthood. Our youngest had a chromosome deletion which resulted in a prenatal “life-limiting” diagnosis.
My journey through a difficult pregnancy and subsequent child loss taught me a lot about “Uniformity with God’s Will”. I leaned on Mary and began to understand what it truly meant to give your “fiat” or “yes” to God which, ultimately led to my conversion to Catholicism. A few months later, through prayer and divine intervention, I met Lizzy and we began to unwrap our shared desire to pray for and support others in their faith when they are given this heavy cross of a prenatal diagnosis and/or child loss.
Hi! I’m Lizzy. My husband and I have three amazing children and have been married for 11 years. I grew up Catholic and Jeff converted to the faith in 2014. When our oldest two kids were 4 and 2, we received the amazing news that we were going to have our third baby. All was going well with the pregnancy until the prenatal screening came back that our daughter tested positive for Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome. Our faith was shaken, and we were worried that our daughter would face health challenges.
Around the 20 week mark of the pregnancy, we learned that our daughter had a congenital heart defect and would need open heart surgery in her first few months of life. This compounded our fears and worries reached to new heights.
While we stuck firm in our faith, and knew that our daughter would be cherished and loved no matter what, we struggled a lot. We asked “why us?, why our baby?” We both gravitated towards the merciful love of the Lord with the prayer “Jesus, I trust in You.” We were also buoyed by the prayers of countless friends and family, from near and far. I believe these prayers, along with the grace of the Lord, made a huge difference in the relatively peaceful birth of our daughter, and the success of her heart surgery when she was 4.5 months old in 2018.
Now that our daughter is a bustling 5 year old, getting ready for kindergarten, and running after her siblings, I feel called to help others going through difficult pregnancy, loss and health challenges. It is through the intercession of St. Gianna and the Holy Family that I hope we can make a difference in the lives of the families and babies we serve.