Our Story

In 2017, we were just a normal family. We were happily married with a 4 year old daughter and 2 year old son. We also happened to be expecting twins - one of our marriage’s biggest surprises. While the pregnancy was not a surprise, twins certainly were. We were anxious and expectant. After several months of anticipation, the time was nearing for them to be born. When Lauren was 36 weeks pregnant with them however, our world came to a jolting halt and was forever changed when our 2 year old son Jennings was diagnosed with the more rare and aggressive form of childhood leukemia - Acute Myeloid Leukemia. He was admitted to the hospital immediately for chemotherapy treatment and Lauren gave birth to the twins, a few floors up, two weeks later. The next several months we simultaneously cared for newborn twins, our oldest child, and Jennings as he underwent chemotherapy, horrible side effects, and a grueling bone marrow transplant. We faced seeing our child in great discomfort and pain, isolation, family separation, being far from home for long periods of time, marital challenges, parenting challenges, learned to be advocates for a sick child and practically got our nursing, maybe even doctoral degrees all from hands on experience with medicines, central lines and ng tubes. A year after his bone marrow transplant, Jennings had fully recovered, was cancer free and thriving. We had two and half beautiful cancer free years with Jennings before his AML relapsed in November 2020. Our family is facing this demon again and this is our story as we together, walk by faith into the pediatric cancer wilderness where there is much pain, but also much joy. Thank you for being here.