Shortly before Duane & I were married, I had a dream where I saw two children playing in the dirt. A little boy, and girl about a year younger than him. I knew the girl was my daughter Monkey. She turned and looked at me, and I saw she had Treacher-Collins. I assumed the boy was our son, even though I didn’t know his name. I have a lot of dreams, most of which I don’t take seriously, but there was something about this dream, which seemed more real than just a random dream.
Over a year later, Duane and I visited a church in California seeking prayer and healing after our attempt to live in India. While there, a lady handed me a picture of a leaf and the verse, “the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” She said something about how God was healing generational diseases in our family line. To Duane and I, it seemed clear God was saying we didn’t have to worry about our future children having Treacher-Collins.
When I was pregnant the first time, I thought for sure it was a boy. Between my dream and that word, I was not at all concerned about him having Treacher-Collins. We ended up having a girl, Monkey, who did not have Treacher-Collins. It felt like that word was true, God really did heal her of Treacher-Collins, even before He created her.
I later realized maybe the boy in my dream was not my son. Which I why I didn’t know his name. Over the past year I’ve seen that same picture of Monkey playing in the dirt with 3 different little boys who are each about a year older than her.
Now here we are, expecting our second baby, and shocked to find out she probably has Treacher-Collins Syndrome.
Suddenly it feels like our little world is spinning out of control. We are hoping for the best, but preparing for the worse. Yes, I know we can do this. I’m sure we will be great parents for our little girl regardless of what happens.
We knew we were playing the genetic lottery, with each of our children having a 50/50 chance of having Treacher-Collins. But we thought God healed that already. That’s the hardest part in all of this. It wouldn’t matter if she has Treacher-Collins, except it feels like God broke His promise.
Update later (after Lioness’ birth):
When we received the word about how God was healing generational diseases in our family line. To Duane and I, it seemed clear God was saying we didn’t have to worry about our future children having Treacher-Collins.
This is true, we did not need to worry about children.