Ian & Larissa (Pray for Ian) are Pregnant, Leaving the blogosphere

[Mela99]

Well, it looks like Ian and Larissa are having a baby very soon, and will no longer be doing a blog, speeches, or anything else. I hope this is what Larissa wanted, and not what she felt was expected of her. She was pretty clear in the book that the idea was terrifying for her. I hope she's happy and handles it all well.

As per Instagram:

ten years ago today started the longest battle ian would go through. sept 30 2006 meant that ian would break both forearms, destroy his right knee, and ultimately have part of his brain removed that meant no short term memory, no ability to speak for 2 years, dependence on a wheelchair and a whole bunch of other crap that no one would choose for themselves. yet ian is the kindest, happiest, strongest, most gentle and faithful person and the value of his life will go unmeasurable until heaven. and so so soon we will meet his little baby and see one more piece of his story redeemed. and with this new life we're ending the story of the last ten years - no more blog, no speaking gigs or writing or showing the darkest spaces of our marriage. our book will still be in print and that's enough. // our last blog post coming this weekend //

 

@prayforian if anyone wants to see the ultrasound.

 

[Eternalbluepearl]

I just saw the announcement on their Facebook page today. There was an ultrasound picture. Larissa says they are going to stop blogging now. I apologize if this is posted elsewhere.

[littlemommy]

Congratulations to them, I hope they are excited and happy. Now to be a wet blanket...I read once that having a first baby was like throwing a nuke into a marriage. My husband and I were stable financially and very happy together, and our first few months with a baby were still really hard. I had read all about hormones but that wasn't the same as swimming in them, the sleepless nights breastfeeding....it was all very hard. My husband was able to help and empathize as much as a first time dad can (he did much better the second two times!) and sometimes I still felt resentful, like he should've been doing more. I don't know how much help Ian can be, and how much help he still needs, but I sure hope Larissa is surrounded by willing helpers. 

[Koala]

Wow...

I am very conflicted about Ian's ability to consent to having a child....or a marriage for that matter.

[LurkerOverThePond]

As much as I feel for their tragic situation, I really can't say anything positive about the baby announcement. What were they (or most likely Larissa) thinking..

[fundiefan]

I agree with the comments about consent and Larissa's poor decision making.

I haven't read much on them recently but from what I remember, his ability to consent has always been in question. I wanted to cry when I read of their wedding, and not in the way people normally cry at weddings.

Did he consent to his sperm being...um...taken? That is not something I can imagine a person in his position allowing.

Too many questions.

I don't questions loving and committing and dedicating to life with someone after injury. I loudly question you making decisions for them that impact their entire existence.

[JMO]

Is there another couple like this that's followed on here?  I thought we found out that she was pregnant a long time ago?  Long enough that this would be their 2nd child. 

[Buzzard]

7 minutes ago, JMO said:

Is there another couple like this that's followed on here?  I thought we found she was pregnant a long time ago?  Long enough that this would be their 2nd child. 

 I was thinking the same thing. I feel like we've had this conversation before, along with the concern for the child's safety, but I think that was a different brain injury.

[JMO]

@Buzzard, found it.

 

[Palimpsest]

Yes, there are two different families both with husbands who have TBI.  Each family has different issues resulting from those brain injuries.  

Both families seem to have good family and friend support systems and plenty of medical personnel in and out of the home to monitor the situations.  Ian has made an amazing recovery considering his injuries.  I don't think he is capable of much hands-on parenting.  I don't think he is capable of being Larissa's "spiritual leader."  

I do think Ian is capable of informed consent to marriage and to having children.  He has short term memory problems and he has difficulty communicating verbally - that doesn't render him incompetent.  People seem to ignore the fact that he was professionally assessed and deemed competent by a judge prior to their marriage.  There are also plenty of medical professionals around who know him personally and are capable of assessing his abilities much better than you can on the internet. 

Ian has limitations.  I don't know whether I agree with their decision to have children - but it is not my business.  This is a choice they are entitled to make - even if Larissa is in the driver's seat of their family bus.  

Disabled people, including those with serious brain injuries, do have the right to have sex lives and to have children.  Being married to a disabled person and being their primary care-giver doesn't mean that you should never have children and cannot also parent very successfully.

Where Ian and Larissa are concerned it really does seem to me that internet diagnosing of his capacity to consent (or rather his supposed lack thereof) has a tendency to turn into concern-trolling.  

I'm glad Larissa is no longer going to blog publicly.  She should focus on her family and giving their new baby the best life possible.  It will be like being a single mother in many ways.  A single mother responsible for a significantly disabled spouse and a child.  Guess what - some people can do it well. 

I wish Ian, Larissa and the new baby the very best.

[Mela99]

I had a few people message me, so I'll post this here - I did a review and Q & A of their book is anyone is unfamiliar with who we're discussing here.

 

 

[lilwriter85]

9 hours ago, JMO said:

Is there another couple like this that's followed on here?  I thought we found out that she was pregnant a long time ago?  Long enough that this would be their 2nd child. 

 

9 hours ago, Buzzard said:

 I was thinking the same thing. I feel like we've had this conversation before, along with the concern for the child's safety, but I think that was a different brain injury.

Another couple in which the husband has TBI is Ben and Katie Rye. Their blog was linked on Lynsdie Brooker's first blog. They fit on the fundie lite scale. They had been married two years before they were in a car accident. Ben was severely injured and seems to have the same limitations as Ian. Ben and Katie had a son last year. They live near Katie's family who seems to help out a lot.

 

As for Ian and Larissa, I still suspect that Ian's family pushed the marriage onto them and in some ways took advantage of Larissa. I wish them the best and hopefully family and church members will be helping them out despite their church's bad reputation.

[Mela99]

Still no blog post. Wondering what she has to say. I'm really curious. 

[Mela99]

The last blog post is up. I'm... kind of flummoxed because I'm really not sure what she's saying. Maybe someone who can interpret fundie better can tell me. They no longer feel God wants them to do this? They're stopping because they don't like some of the questions they've been getting? She wants a career and babies instead, or someone else wanted to talk about that?

Someone else needs to interpret this. I need plain English..... They're having a boy, though.

steve and i always wanted to write a book. we just didn’t know what the ending would be. and we didn’t know what the ending of our blog would be, either.

that was ten years ago, nearly to the day from when we started. we wrote to keep the updates that fueled the prayers and begging for Jesus to not let him die.

then our words became a means of sharing what his broken body was showing us about Jesus’ broken body. updates on healing and surgeries and what we needed to believe in order to keep going.

and then steve left us and our words became mine and i didn’t know God like he did. and the gaps in our hearts that started with ian grew deeper and so did our need for heaven, and prayer, and the strange connectedness that words written online created.

then we were married under the big tree next to 14 people that would carry us and in front of 150 that would remind us of why we said yes. my words turned back into our words as we figured out how the heck to do marriage and grief and watch other lives move so much faster than ours ever could.

then videos started and publishers found us and soon work i had wanted to do since i was a little girl was sitting on our lap. we put our words to a book and believed enough about God to believe it would be worth it. we shared our words at events and churches and small groups and somehow ended up in a film that allowed us to share Jesus to the world and put us on national talk shows and cable channels.

and it was worth it. and it always will be.

but then the words started coming less easily and the requests to share our words out loud weren’t coming but my career was and talk of babies was.

and then the cost of the words started to seem like a little too much after giving ten years of our hearts to strangers. the vulnerability and the comments we’d hear and the risks weren’t being outweighed by confirmation from Him anymore.

and that became ok.

because the new beginning of raising our son that we’ll bring into the world  in a few short months isn’t something we want to share in our words. and for now, that local church and family is where we want to be.

the 14 that stood with us, as many as they could, met us in the mountains on 9/30, ten years since the 9/30 we wish hadn’t happened. and that’s where we will keep being. living out the rest of our story, for now, not online but in rooms filled with the faces we get to live life with.

 

we’ve made it this far because of prayer and the local church and the church at large and because of every single plea made on our behalf. until we can hug each of you around the neck in heaven, the three of us give our love and gratitude, always.

love

L

[season of life]

I think she means she won't publish a book because it's too difficult to go back to that emotional place. I think. I assume she is going to stop blogging and focus on family. She already shared so much, maybe she doesn't want to put out a book.

[libriatrix]

6 hours ago, Mela99 said:

Someone else needs to interpret this. I need plain English..... They're having a boy, though.

steve and i always wanted to write a book. we just didn’t know what the ending would be. and we didn’t know what the ending of our blog would be, either.

....

and then steve left us and our words became mine and i didn’t know God like he did. and the gaps in our hearts that started with ian grew deeper and so did our need for heaven, and prayer, and the strange connectedness that words written online created.

then we were married under the big tree next to 14 people that would carry us and in front of 150 that would remind us of why we said yes. my words turned back into our words as we figured out how the heck to do marriage and grief and watch other lives move so much faster than ours ever could.

Is anyone else really creeped out by the way she parallels a partnership with Steve (her father-in-law!!) to her partnership (marriage) with Ian?? I"m hoping that was a poor writing choice and not indicative of anything darker....

[Mela99]

I'm of the opinion that Steve was a very, very strong personality, and very into his faith and I think Larissa took his lead and took his comments about her needing to marry Ian or get out deeply. I think she was incredibly vulnerable at the beginning of Ian's accident, and she admits she immediately clung to the Murphy family more than hers, so I think she was just... taken in by it all.

I get that she wants to share her child with her church and her family only, but her writing is just odd to me.  And part of me felt a little twinge when she talked about her church in Indiana because that church .... I'll leave it at that. 

I do wonder what she does to support herself and Ian. And I'm glad his brother and wife live with them and Larissa will have help. 

[Mercer]

When I first started reading things she wrote, I thought Steve was her boyfriend/partner because of the way she described him and couldn't figure how where Ian fit into the story. I don't mean to suggest anything inappropriate is going on between them (I'm sure it's not) but her level of emotional dependence on Steve seems a little worrisome. They seem pretty enmeshed.

[0 kids n not countin]

As per their blog and Facebook page Larissa is pregnant and they're going to stop blogging.

[Howl]

If this is the family I was thinking of, the problem with the husband was that he could not be left alone, at any time.  He had unpredictable rages and occasionally wandered off -- not a good situation for raising a child.  That said, if there are family living with them who can address the difficulties of caring for the husband....all good, EXCEPT the issue of the unpredictable rages.  Perhaps that's been addressed through medication or some other mechanism. 

[Slt]

Anyone else see that Larissa and Ian are expecting a son in a couple of months? They also seem to be done blogging for now. 

http://ianandlarissa.com/blog/

[Palimpsest]

On 10/8/2016 at 3:34 PM, Howl said:

If this is the family I was thinking of, the problem with the husband was that he could not be left alone, at any time.  He had unpredictable rages and occasionally wandered off -- not a good situation for raising a child.  That said, if there are family living with them who can address the difficulties of caring for the husband....all good, EXCEPT the issue of the unpredictable rages.  Perhaps that's been addressed through medication or some other mechanism. 

No. This is not the same family.  You are thinking of Kathleen and Caleb Darling.  The Darlings are now expecting their second child - and their daughter seems to be surviving very nicely.   http://www.adarlingkindoflife.com/

The other couple who are living with TBI are Katie and Ben.  They have a son who seems to be doing well too.  http://katieandbenupdates.blogspot.com/  

It is quite possible that all three families made responsible decisions and made sure they had adequate supports available to them when they decided to have children. 

On 10/5/2016 at 9:30 AM, Mela99 said:

I'm of the opinion that Steve was a very, very strong personality, and very into his faith and I think Larissa took his lead and took his comments about her needing to marry Ian or get out deeply. I think she was incredibly vulnerable at the beginning of Ian's accident, and she admits she immediately clung to the Murphy family more than hers, so I think she was just... taken in by it all.

I'm of the opinion that Steve emotionally blackmailed Larissa into marriage with Ian, and his cancer dx played a big part in the pressure for them to marry, although I do think Larissa genuinely loved and still loves Ian as he is today.

Also John Piper grabbed onto the Murphys and made them poster children for his agenda.  It is possible that Larissa is tired of that role - and that public pressure - too.  I'm glad she is stepping away.

Quote

I get that she wants to share her child with her church and her family only, but her writing is just odd to me.  And part of me felt a little twinge when she talked about her church in Indiana because that church .... I'll leave it at that. 

Yes.  I share your reservations about that church.

Quote

I do wonder what she does to support herself and Ian.

Larissa works for a bank in the marketing division.  I also assume that they made some money from the book and speaking engagements.  They are also selling Ian's paintings and, last time I looked, Ian was still listed as a business partner in the production company he started with his friend just before the accident.   

[ladyamylynn]

I just saw this. Picking my jaw up off the ground now. 

[Joplin4206]

On 9/30/2016 at 11:20 AM, Koala said:

Wow...

I am very conflicted about Ian's ability to consent to having a child....or a marriage for that matter.

Don’t lose sleep over it. He is and was able to consent to both. 

On 10/5/2016 at 12:52 PM, Mercer said:

When I first started reading things she wrote, I thought Steve was her boyfriend/partner because of the way she described him and couldn't figure how where Ian fit into the story. I don't mean to suggest anything inappropriate is going on between them (I'm sure it's not) but her level of emotional dependence on Steve seems a little worrisome. They seem pretty enmeshed.

You were so wrong, but that’s okay. 

[Georgiana]

Do you understand how the internet works? By bumping these to the top, you are making them MORE likely to be read and LESS likely to be buried in the oblivion. 

You are making this worse because you can't let things from multiple years ago stay dead. The best thing you can do is STOP RESURRECTING THREADS.