Everything Changes

It's been 11 days since the Lord made His face to shine upon us in the birth of our precious son. It seems impossible that that much time has passed already!

The story of his birth has the fingerprint of God all over it. I want to shout it from the rooftops that the Lord was good to me in His perfect Providence.

Weeks before my due date I was already beginning to dilate, which triggered my eager anticipation of the finishline. By 38 weeks I was 3 cm dilated and 70% efaced. I was having tons of false labor and my anxiety mounted every time we left town.

I was praying for a moderately paced delivery and hoping to go on my own. At my 39 week appointment my blood pressure was unusually high. The nurse and doctor both looked at me with concerned expressions which only added to my anxiety.

To be continued...

Lvb

6 Days and Counting

Yesterday for several hours I felt the baby working its way down lower and lower. When I got home from coop Dale said my stomach had changed, obviously it had dropped.  At 7:00 I started timing contractions. Four hours I had them. I sat on the exercise ball for about half an hour a few times, which seemed to get things going once they slowed down, but at 1AM when there was no sign of baby I finally went to bed.

It seems like such a mean trick to feel all these new things everyday and none of them put me into labor.
Dale, in his sweet way, said before I went to bed, "I'm sorry you didn't have your baby yet." I didn't cry. Its not that desperate. Yet...

I know it will happen when everything is right and rushing that is a mistake. God made my body perfectly. It's just my nature to help when circumstances are not the way I think they should be!!

On a happy note, I am back under the 40 pound mark. I was very, very nervous 4 weeks ago when I gained 4 pounds between weekly visits, that I'd gain another 10 before this was all said and done. With a lot of prayer and a little restraint I have been able to scale back my sugar consumption. In turn my eating is considerably more controlled.

I will tell you this. After over a week, maybe two, of limiting sugar, I made peanut butter oatmeal butterscotch chocolate chip bars to take to church. I tasted one and couldn't stop going back to them. I felt and probably looked like Cookie Monster! And then my stomach ached for hours... I can't let my guard down. Not for a single minute! I can't do it on my own either. The Lord is my strength in ALL things!

Thanks for checking in on me. I will keep you posted!

Lvb

Hanging On

I am still here and very pregnant. Its hard to believe that I am on the outside of week from my due date. My rationale is off kilter, clearly. I've been scouring the internet for safe home induction methods for nearly two weeks now! Sheesh! How do I get so wrapped up in this crazy cycle!

I am still functioning like normal, but I am restless. Unfortunately for my house, my energy is spent scouring the internet instead of organizing and cleaning!! I am nesting, no doubt, but I am whittling away at silly projects instead of doing things that really need my attention.

On a happy note, things are good on the home front. Dale and Kennedy took a sick day today and Jas had a second round of the stomach flu. I was thankful to have the stragglers take their turns now rather than later. I will bleach and disinfect everything in the morning in anticipation of the end of our flu run.

We have a quiet week and busy weekend and start of next week. I wish it were the opposite. I need the busyness to keep me occupied and off the internet. Honestly, not an hour goes by that I don't feel like this baby could come at any second! It is messing with head. Pray for me, friends!

Lvb

Happy Birthday, Kennedy!!

I have a long list of things to do. We have company coming tonight and more company tomorrow. I should be doing laundry, cleaning under and behind furniture, organizating drawers, grocery shopping. Instead I am in my bed listening to my kids play outside.

This year we decided to take every birthday off from school. Thank you Kennedy for yet another day to let things go!!

My sweet Kennedy is 15 today. Shoot! I might cry. All of a sudden it seems like the end of her childhood is so much closer than the end! Of course it is, but it never seemed like it before now.

I could gush over how amazing and helpful and delightful she is in so many ways, but instead I will just thank God for her life. She is a blessing in the most profound way. She exemplifies how God gives us abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Lvb

Pregnancy Update

Hi my sweet friends! Some of you this is our only communication most of the time. Others of you talk to me regularly and have to hear my post repeated multiple times. Either way, I thought an update would be appropriate.

I will be 38 weeks tomorrow and have, as usual, been anticipating labor every minute of this last month. Strangely, the closer I get to my due date, the more nervous I get about labor. I just can't get past the dangerous possibilities of everything that could go wrong. Being 36 years old and after 8 pregnancies, I am at a high risk. I should be avoiding the internet altogether because most recently I've learned that after five deliveries your uterus can start to let you down, being unable to contract properly and what not. It's silly, I know, but it's in my head now. I am drinking red raspberry leaf tea 3-4 cups a day to prepare my overworked uterus and trusting the Lord that I am His handiwork and having babies is the good work that He prepared for me in advance! Therein, He gave me a super-uterus that will in no ways fail me or this baby!

Maybe you remember a recent post that I wrote about needing to give up sugar. I rebelled against that conviction soon after I found out that I didn't have gestational diabetes. As a matter of fact, I spun out completely. In recent days, I have sought the Lord for help in this area and changed my perspective from abandoning sugar by way of a diet to a simple neglect of this vice that has consumed me for so long with the Lord's gentle leading one day at a time. In a surprising turn of events, I feel better! I feel more normal, not so heavy and draggy. I can't believe the difference! With that, in honor of a birthday date, I had a few bites of Mcah's birthday ice cream. It upset my stomach significantly for about an hour. It's kind of like when you drink loads of caffeine, and then you quit, and then you have a Coke, it gives you a jolt. Who knew it could affect me so much! I'm a junkie girls. My addiction has forced reality from my grasp in this area.

In other news, we have stomach flu. It's been cycling through the whole house for days. I got hit today, but managed to stave off the vomit with the same magic tea that is prepping my inards for childbirth. It's kind of a miracle. Everyone else that has had it has thrown up at least once. Praise be to God, the giver of every good gift!

Pray for me this next few weeks that my courage will be up and that the baby will come in perfect time and delivery!  Hopefully we will have a good report for you soon!

Lvb

Mastery

Listen, I am in a whirlwind of change!!

My days are full of busy excitement as we near the end of this eighth reign of hormones! And look forward to a precious new addition to our bustling household!

I have stumbled terribly in my pursuit of healthy eating which has caused an excessive increase in my weight. This makes me sad. I have unrealistic expectations of having a basketball pregnancy, at least once. Clearly it's not going to happen. My basketball is more like a half deflated beachball. I mean seriously... I've been inflating and deflating for almost a decade. How can I expect it to look any better than this? I should be thankful that my uterus is even able to hang in there for another round! And I choose to be grateful for that starting now!!! ....rather than resent my stomach for not being picturesque. Blasted Pregnancy magazine! Why do you haunt me so!?!

I am excited about a writing project I began a few weeks ago. The Lord has set a fire in my heart and I have set my face like flint in this endeavor.

My greatest struggle as a mom is, franky, I am mean. It's something I have battled from the early days of this journey. Pressure makes me hostile. Out of that hostility has come sarcasm, impatience, outbursts of anger, fits of rage, and the like. I spew poison on these precious lives over petty things, cry at the end of the bad days, and beg God to change me.

It's not that He won't, but my resolve fades the next day and I have a few good days to trick myself.  So then I don't beg God for His precious grace to keep me from this unkindness, and I am stranded in a fit of tears right back where I started 14 years ago in a crazy cycle at least once a week, and one full PMS week a month, and 9 full months of the year whenI am pregnant.

Ha! Ok, I exaggerate for emphasis. You know this about me by now! But it is a haunting flaw in my life that I fear will bring a terrible result someday. After all, the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. How can I sow unkindness and expect to reap righteousness?

I can tell you this, as I seek the Lord for the help and the how, He is changing me with little I intentional behavior modification from me. Twice the kids have asked me why I am being so nice in the past couple of days. I was excited both times to say, "God is changing me! I am begging Him to!!" It's amazing to when someone else notices.

Not that I have already arrived, or always behave perfectly, but my freak outs are much less common and I am always asking forgiveness asap after the incident.

I can tell you why too. It is because, if You seek the Lord, He will be found! Not in one day for one day, but each day a pursuit of it's own. My spiritual survival and growth DEPENDS on seeking the Lord daily, as daily bread for life. Praying, searching the Scriptures, journaling my progress and failures. The practice of righteousness is not an irregular exercise, but a daily effort.

Pray for me, my sweet friends! I don't want to lose this zeal! I am so excited to share what I am learning! Until it is complete, I will try to keep you updated here!

Lvb

Home... with my thoughts escapin'

The kids and I arrived in Emporia yesterday afternoon.  Its bittersweet to be "home". I love coming back for any reason. I love sitting up late with my sweet mama as she busily finishes up details from the day and preparations for tomorrow. She is truly an inspiration.  I love getting up early enough on the weekends to have coffee with my dad before he takes off to start his list of todos. I love that my kids have their own space and some much needed privacy in their own rooms, but I still find them all piled up in the tiniest bedroom watching batman cartoons together.

It's bitter to be away from Dale. The first night, I miss him. The second night I wish he was going to be come. By the third night and each following, I barely sleep and anxiously await every text and phone call.

Who knew my world could become so intricately engrossed in another human being. It's been this way for years, but I've never been so keenly aware of it as I am this year, being apart weeks at a time for various reasons.

I'm a creature of habit, see. I like routine. I like my normal. This is evidence of my current hormonal imbalance: the desperation to escape my normal.

Dale calibrates my life. When I am spinning out, he comes in and by his very presence I settle. He brings this much needed balance to my off the charts emotionalism.  I adore him in a way that I cannot fully understand. God knew he was the perfect match for me even when knew not.

I am so thankful.

And I miss him so.

Lvb