Introducing Colin...

Introducing
Colin Cavanaugh Ryan...

Sometimes God has miracles planned for you, in our case that was Colin. Not only has he been a little miracle to us as a family, but he also probably saved my life. While pregnant with him (which was totally unexpected!) we had an ultrasound, which was unusual on its own since Chloe, Stephen, Paige and Quinn didn't have them (well, Quinn had one 12 hours before he was born, but that hardly counts). I decided that I wanted to know if I was having a girl or a boy so I could be prepared and at the ultrasound they said it was a girl. So I started buying pink and we had a name picked out and everything was wonderful until we got a call saying they found a mass of tissue in my uterus that wasn't supposed to be there. We needed to go in two weeks later and have another ultrasound to see if it had grown any. Well, this couldn't be good. We started praying and got others on board in prayer as well. Two weeks later at the ultrasound we found out its not a girl, its a boy! Oh, and by the way, the mass is still there, it hasn't grown but you are now considered a high risk pregnancy, I can't see you anymore, you need to go to a specialist in Omaha. In the middle of all this I heard the song, "Before The Morning" by Josh Wilson on the radio and it really spoke to me in my situation. I listened to it over and over through the next few weeks. At the same time I got more and more prayer and as we prepared to go to Omaha I just wanted to hear from the doctor that it wasn't cancer. On March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, we traveled to Omaha and had a 3rd ultrasound. As we waited for the doctor to come in with the results we just confirmed with each other one last time that this baby was from God and his health and safety were first priority. The doctor came in looking perplexed and said, "Well, I don't know why your doctor sent you down here, but there is nothing abnormal on your ultrasound at all. You are perfect, the baby is perfect and I don't foresee that you should have any issues from here on out." Praise God - total healing! Yet, if it wasn't for the pregnancy in the first place who's to say when we might have discovered that mass of tissue. Matt and I went to Grisanti's to celebrate and we picked out names while we were eating. Our baby (definitely boy the 3rd ultrasound confirmed!) was to be Colin Cavanaugh - Colin meaning "Victorius / Destined" and Cavanaugh meaning - "Caring / Discerning". On July 25th we had a perfect little blond baby boy (with tons of blond hair!). He will be 5 months old on Christmas Day and is an absolute blessing to our family. He has a wonderful sense of humor, loves to laugh and wants to have conversations with people - you must make eye contact when he jabbers! All the kids adore him as do Mommy and Daddy. He is the cherry on top the gift of my family - God proves Himself to be generous above and beyond our wildest dreams. Colin is my little kiss from Heaven.