Aaron (AJ) and I (Tristen) met in the winter of 2006 as Young Life leaders and instantly became best friends. He was planning to join the army and I was just about to graduate nursing school. Unplanned by us, we fell for each other and by the end of the summer of 2007 we were dating. We were engaged by that Christmas and married the next fall (Sept 20, 2008). We lived in Chicago for our first year of marriage- he worked as a paramedic and I worked as a pediatric nurse. We moved to Denver in the fall of 2009, for our love of all that is outdoors and to make some friends before we started trying for children.
We found out we were pregnant in June 2010 with our first child, due Feb 11th, 2011. We were over joyed and both secretly hoping for a little girl. In September we went for our 20 week ultrasound and found out that not only would we be having a beautiful little girl, but that she had a potentially fatal form of dwarfism. Month by month we tracked her growth, riding the roller coaster of- will she or won't she live. The closer we got to the end of the pregnancy, I kept building up extra amniotic fluid so we had to have it drained 3 times in order to try and carry her as long as we could. In the end our beautiful daughter- Sophia Rose Dinkel was born on Jan 26,2011 after 3 hours of pushing, unable to breath in this world. Jesus took her right away to live with him. She was diagnosed with Achondrogenesis Type 2 (Hypochondrogenesis). We miss her with every inch of our being and can't wait to see her again someday.
We have used this blog to keep our loved ones up to date on our long road through the pregnancy and birth of Sophia, and now the even longer road of grief. We had Sophia's brother- Blake Jeffry Dinkel join our lives August 21, 2012. He has been such a blessing to us- helping heal our hearts and bring us the joy we were missing in our lives.
Thank you for taking time to read and care for us.
