Gearing up!

So a few days ago we thought we were going to welcome our little one into the world. Just kidding! After almost 24 hours of continual contracting it just petered out. I was very frustrated, to say the least. I felt like I had sent my sweet little man away to spend the day with multiple aunts so that mommy, daddy, and grandma could sit around and watch NCIS all day, waiting for something to happen. However, I have noticed my Braxton Hicks contractions to be more effective and I believe wee one has figured out the way out. There has been much pressure on my cervix the last few days or so.

This is always the time of the pregnancy that goes the slowest. I keep thinking, "Geez! Get out already!!!" At the same time, though, I don't want her coming out until she's ready. I've seen babies that were not quite ready to come out. They usually have trouble adjusting. That is why I am so dead set against induction. It implies that the doctor knows best when that kid should be born rather than The Creator that made the kid. When I consider how said Creator is pretty much the only person who knows exactly what day and time the ovum was fertilized, I tend to think He is probably the only one who knows exactly when that kid is ready to be born. Call me crazy...Most of my co-workers do...

So here we go VBAC! I wrote a post about VBAC-ing at the beginning of this pregnancy. I still feel the same, only stronger. We took the Bradley classes (all 12 of them). It was a challenge. It was an hour drive both ways, but I feel that it was very helpful to prepare us for what is to come.

Also, I have been praying for God's peace through this thing and I feel that He has definitely provided it thus far. I continue to pray for His peace for everyone involved in the birthing process (Me, Naomi, Matt, Mom, and all the midwives) and continue to pray for a safe, successful VBAC. The closer the time comes for this baby to be born, the more at peace I have been feeling. I didn't even realize it until my mom commented on it the other day. She said I seemed a lot more at peace about this labor than I did for David's. Part of it is, I am sure, the fact that I am more prepared. My midwife told me there was no need for me to take a birthing class for David. I didn't know about proper bodily positioning to get David in the right position before he was born. Looking back I realize that I was doing everything wrong. I was relying on my own knowledge of obstetrics and where I worked to get me through that birth. Now, I am relying on God's guideance. I believe He led us to the Bradley classes and He showed me the perfect focal point (an awesome playlist of some awesome praise and worship songs that I have compilated on my IPod).

Most importantly, though, I have tried to make God the center of this pregnancy and birthing process. This is where that peace comes from. God is in control. He always has been, but until I made Him the center of this pregnancy, that peace was always illusive.

Geez, perhaps I should make Him the center of everything in my life, hmmmmmm? Lately, labor and giving birth have not been concerning me. What has been concerning me is my role as a wife and mom. It seems I am no good at this role on my own! My house is always a mess and lately, in this last part of my pregnancy, I just have not had the will power or energy to do anything about it. My husband does not feel respected or loved. I am not caring for my child the way I should be and I am about to add another child to the mix. Could something so simple as making God the center of these aspects of my life make the difference? It worked for my impending labor. I think it is time I made Him the center of every part of my life.

My first thought is, "This is not the time to start making radical changes in my life! I am about to have a baby for heaven's sake!!" However, I am pretty sure that is a big fat cop-out! What better time to make this change than right when I have a new little one. I am going to be home for the next several months so I won't have to deal with work. My mom is going to help me learn to care for my house so we can get rid of the housekeeper that has not only been draining our bank account, but has also not been the best housekeeper in the world. It will be a slow process, but I think the process needs to begin right now with the decision to make God the center of the process. I cannot do this on my own. There is no possible way.

Proverbs 3:5 says,
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight."

I have been wandering a twisted road in trying to be a wife and mom on my own. I have found all sorts of organizational methods and books and things to try to do this, but none of it works. Perhaps I should start trusting in the Lord and acknowledge him in ALL the parts of my life. I have seen him give peace and perseverance in the areas I have entrusted to Him already. I think I will start trusting Him with the rest.

Jesus,
I have not acknowledged you in all my ways. I have tried and tried to accomplish these tasks by relying on my own understanding. Please forgive me for forgetting about you. Constantly remind me to trust you to help me be a better wife and mother. Help me to seek to put you in the center of every mundane detail of my life. Guide me as I venture on this path you have put me on. Thank you for being present in every area of my life. Help me feel your presense and your peace as I care for my family and household. Be the center of my role as a wife and mother.
Amen.

Hurting.

Have you ever had somebody say something so hurtful to you that you just wanted to roll up in a ball and die? It's even more painful when the person is one of the closest people in your life. That happened to me the other day. I will not repeat what they said and I will not say who said it, but it still hurts. It makes me wonder: if I wasn't around, would that make their life easier? According to what was said, I get that impression. They haven't mentioned it since, either. Why does that make it hurt more? There is this huge awkwardness between us that doesn't seem to go away. So now everytime that person says they love me, those words will be hanging in the air, drowning out the love part. I will ask myself, "Do they really love me?" What can I do to relieve this pain?
I read about other people's lives and how perfect they seem according to blogs and Valentine's day plans and facebook posts. Why can't my life be that happy? Am I doing something wrong? If so, what? What can I do different? What can I change in my life to be able to have a happy family?
I feel like a failure this week. I have been trying new ways to keep my house in order, but it always feels like one step forward, two steps back. Then this week happened and now I am two miles backward. Both David and I were so sick I could do little more than keep him fed and not die, myself. So, nothing got done around the house. When David went to sleep, I went to sleep. I didn't even see the disaster until I started feeling a bit better on Saturday and looked around. I did 2 loads of laundry and the dishes, but couldn't even summon the energy to fold the second load and put the clean dishes and first load away. The next day was work and an hour before leaving for work those words that have been floating around my head for the last 2 days.
Oh, I hurt. Where can I turn? To whom can I turn? Ah. I know. Psalm 121.

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From whence shall my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.

So as I read this on my trusty Kindle, I am crying in the middle of work. Even those I love the most, trust the most will always fail me. All except one. The Lord who made heaven and earth. He will never fail me. He will always heal me. He knows when I am hurting. Psalm 56:8 = Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Thy bottle; Are they not in Thy book?" He records and knows every tear I shed. God will provide the healing. He will provide not only the analgesic to aleviate the pain but the NSAID I need to heal the wound. Not only will He heal my hurt, but He will show me how to fix the problem.

Psalm 73:23-26, 28

Nevertheless I am continually with Thee;
Thou hast taken hold of my right hand.
With Thy counsel Thou wilt guide me,
And afterward receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
That I may tell of all Thy works.

All that to say, God will guide me and teach me the way I need to go. Even though everything and everyone else may fail, including myself, He will not!

I find that after exploring God's word, my turmoil has been replaced with peace. Even though I still hurt, it is as though a buffer has been placed between the words and my soul. I am still wounded, but somehow, the words do not continue to wound. It is almost as though I can feel the healing taking place.

So what do I do with this? I don't want to use this peace and healing to hold over those that hurt me. I refuse to taunt, "Nanna, nanna, boo, boo! You can't hurt me! God is on my side!" No. I want to figure out where the painful words came from. Am I really causing that much hurt in this person's life that they feel the need to hurt me so painfully back? If that is the case, what can I do to stop? How can I be a source of encouragement instead of a source of pain? How can I get this person to help me help them? I do not yet know the answers to these questions, but blessedly I know who does! "With Thy counsel Thou wilt guide me."

So. God, help me take the healing you are providing in my life and be a source of healing and encouragement in this person's life. Help me pray for them. Give me the words to say to them and to You to help them. Give me the strength and wisdom to be what this person needs of me. Continue to grow this person. Continue to help them grow into the person of God that you want them to be. I love them, Lord. I don't want to tear them down, but build them up. Open my eyes to see how to do this. It seems that everything I do hurts them. Help me stop. Help me think. Help me love. Help me. Help them. Help us. God, be glorified in us separately and together. Unify us. Strengthen us. Bind us together for Your glory. Amen.

Round 2.

Welp. I'm sure you, whomever you may be that chooses to read my few and far between blogs, know by now that I am preggers once again. Actually, I am very excited. I've had the baby bug since October. Baby is due end of August/beginning of September. I choose not to include a due date for the same reasons of last time - people harrass towards the end with statements like, "You still haven't had that baby?" and "Wasn't your due date two weeks ago?"
I also have a ton of worries. There are the usual worries of miscarriage, preterm labor, gestational diabetes, preterm rupture, preeclampsia, chromosomal problems, Placenta or vasa previa, and every other worry that comes with being a pregnant antepartum nurse. However, I also have the worries about the delivery. I really want a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarian).
I have already been asked a dumbfounded "WHY?!?!" by my biggest skeptic at my job, who I am glad to say is going to work somewhere else. The reason being I feel cheated out of the birth experience I wanted with David. Ok. I know, and have preached this knowledge to my birthing class students, the whole purpose of labor and delivery is to give birth to a living, healthy baby and the means is unimportant. Unfortunately, being obsessed with this area in nursing, I really want to experience a vaginal birth. First of all, recovery is shorter, less painful, and there is less risk for infection. Second of all, I just really want the experience. I want to be able to say, "I did it! I accomplished that." A repeat, scheduled c-section is too easy. I know. Everybody wants the easy delivery. Why go through all the trouble if you don't have to, right? Well. I want to. Why should I feel guilty about that?
So, with a planned VBAC come many other worries. A VBAC is riskier than a regular, run of the mill vaginal delivery. A VBAC carries with it the possibility of uterine rupture. However, there have been recent studies that show that a VBAC may be safer than a repeat C-section.
Now, the next thing is (and this is how you can pray, if you are still reading) is to find an OB provider that we can afford and will support a VBAC. We loved the midwife we had last time, but she is out of network for our insurance and we can't just pay for it like we did last time. I was working full time then and we didn't have any other children. Please be praying for the search.
All these worries and what is my solution? Pray like a beast. Ok, so that may not be an actual phrase, but I have been. Maybe, pray like a squeaky wheel is a better term. I Thesselonians 5:17-18 says, "Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." It doesn't say God will give you everything you want. It is just a simple command to not stop praying. So that is what I will do. I know God will give us what is best for us because He promised He would. So I keep praying.

Bummed.

So, my breastmilk is depleting and we are coming to the end of the breastfeeding era. I am sad. It appears to be a combination of stressed out/dehydrated mom and uninterested David.
During the day, he just doesn't "have time" to breastfeed. He barely has time to eat solids. It's go-go-go all the time. He will take the breast in the morning when he is sleepy (and the cat is not around. Sorry Milhaud. Morning feeding = you hang out outside) and at night. When he is sleepy. He gets excited if I offer during the day, but that only lasts about 30 seconds then it's off to the next thing.
The other problem I am running into is that I have been busy and stressed out sinced we got back from Colorado which causes me to not drink as much because I don't think about it. One track mind. Go do this. Take care of David. Take care of myself? Only when everything else is taken care of. When I realized how much less milk I have been producing I had a big wake up call.
Now I am trying to boost my milk supply by drinking more and drinking Mother's Milk tea and trying to get David to nurse, but after a week, I am not seeing much change. I think we are just at the end of an era.
It makes me sad. I like breastfeeding. It is really the only cuddle time I get with the busy monkey. Ah, well. All things come to an end eventually. I will take my 5 minutes of cuddle time in the morning and evening and cherish it all the more for the brevity of it.

Continuing to wait and continuing to pray...

Welp. David is older than the last time I posted (obviously). In fact, he will be 9 months this week. I am still tired! But, I have devised a sort of system as far as housekeeping is concerned. It is called, clean up the mess after you make it. Novel idea. My mom has always been on my case about this since I was a little girl. Recently, I have been putting it into practice and it is amazing how well it works! Usually, the mess is cleaned up after the monkey goes to sleep, but it is still going ok.
I haven't blogged in forever because nothing much has changed. I am still praying for God to make a way for me to be a stay at home mom. I got a bit of comfort in this arena today, from the sermon at church, of all places! The sermon was about The Lord's Prayer. One thing he said really stuck out to me. God always answers prayer and He does it in 3 different ways.
1. Yes! Your will is also My will!
2. Not right now. That will be good for you later, but not right now.
3. I have something better in mind.
So. I can infer that my desire to stay home with David is obviously not a "Yes, definitely, right now" type of answer. I have two options left to me. "Not right now" and "I have something better in mind." Either way is not so shabby. "Not right now" implies that God needs me where I am right now. This tells me that my work for Him as a floor nurse is not done yet. In that case I am in the perfect place, which is in God's will, and who am I to argue with Him about it? The "I have something better in mind" option is obvious. He has something better in mind and I am excited to see what that might be.
So. Until I figure out which way we are headed I will continue to pray that God will provide a way for me to be David's full time mommy. I will also continue to pray that He would give me the grace and the strength to continue to glorify Him where I am.

Thoughts on Motherhood thus far

In a nut shell: Tough, but worth it. Wow, that sounds cliche. Let me expound. I will probably sound like a big whiner, so bear with me, those who care to read on. David is a good baby. He is not fussy without reason. I get cranky when I am hungry/tired/dirty/etc, too. However, it can be quite a challenge figuring out which it is sometimes. Especially, when I'm tired. Which brings me to my next paragraph.

I am tired. Yes, I know. It comes with the territory, but I am tired. Bone tired. Seems like I will never not be tired. Because I am tired my house is a wreck. And it seems like every effort I make to get it into some semblance of presentable gets undone as soon as it is done and my kid is not even mobile yet. How can this be? Do things just jump out of place when I am not looking? Right now, as I write this, I am frustrated to tears. Where is my magic wand? Accio clean house!! Nope. Didn't work. At least, as far as I know it didn't work. I mean, Matt didn't call me just now to say, "Wow, our house just cleaned itself!!" How does one work 2 nights a week, care for a precocious 4 month old and keep the house clean and husband happy? It must be possible. Right? Is it not possible? If it is not, I would like to know so I can stop feeling like a lazy idiot. Maybe I am just a lazy good for nothing. Maybe my dad was right when he told me no man would want me because I was bad at house work.

What I would really like is to not work at all. Not a possiblity at this point in our lives, but a dream none the less. Before I had David I didn't want to go to work because I liked being at home, but I didn't worry about leaving Matt alone. He liked the time to himself so it wasn't too difficult giving it to him. Besides, once I was at work it wasn't so bad as jobs go. It really is a rewarding job and it is as much ministry as it is a job.

Now, however, it is getting harder and harder to leave David. I know he is with daddy and they are having "guys' night," but he is so upset when I am gone. Matt texts me at at work that he cries for hours at a time. I don't want to have to have other people take care of him and I definitely don't want to have to put him in Mother's Day Out. I don't like this at all. Sure, you can "present" reality to me and tell me that we need the money I bring in from my two nights a week and we need the health insurance that my job provides, but I don't like being away from my baby and that is the short and tall of it.

So. I am going to pray that God will somehow make a way for me to stay home. I can't see one right now, but I know that He can. Meanwhile, I will wait. This is the lenten season right now, is it not? Lent is all about waiting. This year the song Matt is using to tie in a sermon series all about the number 40, is the song "40" by U2. Here are the words:

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song
How long to sing this song
How long...how long...how long...
How long...to sing this song

He set my feet upon a rock
And made my footsteps firm
Many will see
Many will see and fear

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song
How long to sing this song
How long...how long...how long...
How long...to sing this song

What do I see here? "I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined and heard my cry." Ok. I will wait. He is not deaf. He can hear and see my need/desire. "He set my feet upon a rock and made my footsteps firm." He will give me the strength to wait. And He will give me the strength to figure out life until then.

I just realized that all I did was whine this entire post. I did not even mention the part that makes all this frustration worth it. My beautiful (I figure I can get away with that term for at least a year, right?) child. Just when I think it wasn't possible, the little man child grows more beautiful every day. He makes me laugh all the time, even when he wakes me up in the middle of the night. I love his cooing (video to come on facebook of that cuteness) and smiles. I love that he is so friendly to everyone he meets. He is changing by the minute, it seems and is so smart. He observes everything so seriously. One can almost hear the gears turning in his brain. He makes the frustration and exhaustion worth it. I can keep going just so I can see what he will do next.

A different use for this blog.

When I first started using this blog I thought it would be a good place to post updates on my growing family. Now, however I think I will use facebook for that. Everybody that would be interested in familial updates are on facebook. Instead I will use this post as a commentary on life. Since I am not inspired to comment on life very often there will probably not be many entries. Every now and then, however, I do get inspired (usually at work when there is nothing else to do) and so I will blog. If you the reader are so inclined to read my inspirations, be they ever so few and far between, I encourage you to do so!