Dear friends and family of Pedro,
First of all my love and prayers to you all - I feel very much for you for the grief of the illness and loss of this lovely young man. God be praised for the great hope He gives us and for the witness of Pedro and of you all.
My husband and I first heard of Pedro from my friends in Oxford and watched the documentary on his life.
Our eldest daughter got married in 2016: since she was very little, she dreamed of being the mother of a large family. Sadly, her first pregnancy was ectopic (she had none of the known risks for this), and her second miscarried at 11 weeks. Her third baby threatened to miscarry with a lot of bleeding. But thanks be to God the baby boy survived and was delivered in 2018 by emergency C-section. He is now 6. My daughter then struggled to conceive again. She and my son in law, being Catholic never considered IVF, but tried to use Napro (sadly, there are so very few doctors in the UK that can help). Two further pregnancies in 2020 miscarried very early. She was diagnosed with adenomyosis, which we were told makes it more likely to miscarry and have complications throughout the pregnancy, even up to birth.
Finally in 2023, she conceived again - only to lose that baby at 9 weeks and experience very nasty complications from the necessary surgery. Genetic testing showed that baby G had Turner syndrome. That December she turned 30 and felt her chances to have another baby were very low.
In January 2024 I received a WhatsApp image of a positive pregnancy test. From that day, my husband and I decided to pray for Pedro's intercession: we read the prayer on his card every evening and took turns asking him to intercede for her pregnancy to continue to full term and her baby to be born safely. I have to say many other people were praying, and although we did tell people about our prayers to Pedro, not all of them were asking through him.
It was a long nine months, holding our breath to reach the due date in September. At 20 weeks there was an episode where my daughter got food poisoning and ended up vomiting blood in the early hours: on account of the at-risk pregnancy 111 recommended being checked up at A&E, so I got that dreaded 2am phone call (I had to go and babysit my grandson). As I got into the car and tried to drive calmly, I remember being unable to pray, aware the baby was not yet viable, and just yelling 'Pedro, DO YOUR THING!'  All was well. (He did his thing, thank you Pedro)
Baby was born on 18th September. The labour was complicated and ended again with an emergency C-section. Many things went wrong around this time in our lives: mostly minor scares. My husband's car went wrong three times. My grandson developed spots while being with us, but it was only hand foot and mouth disease, not at all serious. My youngest daughter and my husband got Covid. One of our cats was run over and killed. Some other events I don't recall, but just that things appeared to go wrong that had the potential to rattle me – but then turned out OK (apart from the cat, which was sad).
The worst thing was that my daughter developed sepsis and then C.diff and was in and out of hospital: they were quite slow to act in spite of the suspected sepsis and then it seemed ages before they found the right cocktail of super-strength antibiotics for both her infections, which eventually cleared up some 2-3 weeks later. I felt very much for my son in law, who is prone to anxiety and was worried sick as well as really sleep deprived, and zooming back and forth to the hospital. In the middle of it all, the baby was healthy, beautiful, protected. We still prayed to Pedro, even while thanking him and God very much. I really do think that the answer to so many prayers made the enemy angry and he lashed out but was not allowed to touch that baby.
Little baby was baptised on 27th October. Her brother has prayed for a baby ever since he knew how. Last year it broke my heart to see him crying at the grave of his baby sister G. He adores his youngest sister and it is the most beautiful thing to see them together. We are all so thankful. We turned to Pedro every day of that pregnancy, and I am sure he joined us in asking for this baby to live.
Thank you, Pedro's parents and his family and friends, for the gift of his life and for enabling his great faith and love. May God hold your hearts until you are united with him again - where I hope we will also meet Pedro one day and eventually our little grand-daughter will thank him face to face herself!
VFW (Shaftesbury, England)
22 January 2025

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