Our Story

Welcome to Faith45

Hi friends, we are the Reuschels – Hope College sweethearts, living in and loving West Michigan. We are raising our family here and always remembering our two little girls who get to live in Heaven. Faith45 was born out of a dream to honor our girls by helping other families cope with a loss we know all too well.

June 2016 our world was turned upside down. Excited first-time parents, we entered the 20-week routine ultrasound blissfully unaware of how our lives would change that day. A beautiful image filled the screen and that’s when the tears began. Tears of joy and tears of gratitude for the miracle of life. Shortly after, words like “incompatible with life” entered our world. And that day, the prayers began. Prayers of healing and prayers begging God to just let us meet our daughter.

It was confirmed that our daughter had a genetic condition called Trisomy 13 and most likely would not make it full term. But, at 37 weeks, we welcomed our little girl in to this world. After 28 hours of labor, she was placed in our arms but did not have a heartbeat. Moments later, God decided to answer our prayer and we got to meet our little girl. She began breathing and her little heart was beating. She even opened her little eyes. God gave us 45 minutes to make a lifetime of memories with Faith, 45 of the most amazing, special minutes that we will never forget.

What followed were days and weeks of learning how to live without our little girl. Days and weeks we never dreamed we would have to live.

Then, just 3 short years later, we lost our second little girl after just 10 weeks of knowing about her. And so began another season of grief. A different season of grief, this time figuring out how to live after a miscarriage, how to live after losing our Esther. 

Our desire is to help other couples and families going through those days and weeks following the loss of a child. Losing a child is one of the hardest times a parent could ever have to live. We believe God has called us to walk this road and to be his hands and feet to others walking it as well.