An email to good friends

Dear All,

Following a rather difficult appointment at the hospital today, we would very much appreciate some long-term prayer.  

I saw the senior consultant today and he was concerned and has deemed the pregnancy as high risk.  It is quite likely that I will go into very premature labour and he said that if I can get to 28 weeks (40 weeks is when your due date is) then we can breathe a sigh of relief however, that is still very early for a baby to be born and it would obviously need a great deal of special care in hospital with potential life long complications.  It is also likely that I will need to have a c-section to increase the safety for the baby (although he said it is riskier for me).  I'm still having contractions which are probably being caused by the kidney infection I've had for the last 3 weeks.   So upshot is that I've got to keep a low profile - no travelling (our holiday to France has been cancelled), no lifting or carrying, no galavanting about.... and to have lots of rest lying on the sofa which just doesn't come easy to me! 

So specific prayer requests:

1) Pray that we would entirely trust God with all of this knowing that he has us in his hands.

2) That the baby would stay healthy inside for as long as possible and that the rest of the pregnancy would be really boring! 

3) The infection would be got on top of and the contractions would stop, and I would start to feel better.

4) That my joints would not flare on top of all of this.

As you might imagine, this is all a bit of a shock and emotionally draining but we're okay and looking to God for our hope and sustenance.  This isn't something that can be 'fixed' and is going to involve a lot of hospital trips and monitoring so please could you avoid asking lots of specific questions about the situation, but letting us know from time to time that you are praying  would be a huge encouragement.

Thank you for being such great friends and thank you in advance for your prayers.