The Hand of God

We had a delightful Sunday afternoon/evening with some friends of ours and were getting ready to say goodbye and wind down for the day when they had a problem with their car alarm and couldnt get their car going. While Hubby was trying to help them figure that out I was cleaning up the kitchen and headed outside with some scraps for the animals when I suddenly felt a "GUSH". ...I knew right away that my water had broke, and thus from the get-go I knew that the much repeated statment that "each pregnancy and birth is so different from the other" was once again proving itself true--with my other two my water never did break on its own. I wasn't quite sure what to think since I wasn't having regular contractions or any pain at all. Nervous to the point of shaky and almost in denial that this was really happening, I called my doctor. Since I wasn't having pain or even many contractions she took it all very calmly and gave me all the typical doctorly orders to stay relaxed, count contractions when they start, make sure the baby is still moving regularly and all that good stuff. It seemed to not be long after we got off the phone that the contractions started to pick up a little more momentum. I set about packing our bag, attending to last minute details and writing down contraction times and lenghts.
By a little after midnight most everything was ready including the borrowing of the car with the now fixed alarm problem as our vehicle doesn't circulate on Mondays. And even in the nervousness of the moment we had enough presence of mind to recognize the first in a string of timing miracles! We needed a vehicle and God had it all worked out ahead of time!
By this time I was feeling confused. I KNOW each birth is different, but all I had to draw on was past experience... my contractions were getting harder, longer and more frequent, my pain level was DEFINATLY going up, but the contractions were still far from regular and sometimes still 12 minutes or so apart. In my past labor the contractions had been super regular, about every three minutes, but with much, much less pain. Finally by about 3am I told my husband that I didn't care if they were regular or not, they HURT and I wanted to go see my doctor and find out how far along the way we really were. The prearranged agreement was that she would check me at her small office which is quite near and all of us would wait to go to the clinic together, which it not at all near, until I was at about a 6, thus avoiding an overly long and stressful time away from home. She knew that my desire was for a natural birth and understood that I would be most comfortable at home for as long as that were possible.
The car ride was aweful! All I could think about was the fact that the clinic was SO far away and I was already in so much pain I had no idea how I would ever make it to the clinic if I could barely make it here to the little office. I just kept asking God for help over and over. We got there, she checked me and I was only at 4 or 4 1/2cm. She said it would be best to wait a bit longer before heading accross town that I should just try to stay calm and as comfortable as possible at home for another hour or so.
As we were leaving I think I must have mentioned to her that I felt like pushing, because I do remember that through the haze she reminded me that if I push before its time it will just wear me and the baby out and won't help us at all. I kept that on the for front of my mind and had a very painful frusterating car ride home, I no longer had control over the push factor. Whether I wanted it to be or not every contraction was a push and I could not stop it. I was certain that if this was only "half way there", that there was no way I'd make it to the end with out a dreaded epidural. Half way home I couldnt handle sitting anymore and actually twisted around and knelt on the floor of the car and just hung on for dear life.
When we got home I knelt again as it was the only position I could handle and I frantically told my husband, "I really think this baby is going to be born now!" He said," You stay here and I will go get the doctor and bring her here to the house". I panicked and made it clear that under no uncertain terms was he to leave me. I told him that I felt like the baby's head was between my legs, at that point he looked and could see her crown. I think from that moment it was only about another minute until out little princess was born and caught safe in Daddy's hands.
From there things get pretty blurry in my memory but our doctor arrived soon and took care of all the "after" details starting with the cutting of the cord and ending with stiching me up. By the time my other children were waking up on Monday morning things were mostly cleaned up and calmed down and they were quite surprised and pleased to meet their new sister!
.....theres a boquette of emotions inside of me, to rich and mixed to be able to put properly into words. So much could have gone wrong and didn't. In fact its hard to imagine that things could have turned out any better. I will treasure forever in my heart they way the Lord turned so many things upside down and made an impossible desire of mine, possible in the most unexpected way.

I never did get any fruit jam made...

...But I did have a baby! : )
Our precious little girl made her appearance 4:40am, Monday, Oct. 26. She weighed 5.6 lb and measured 17.3 in. And what a story we have to tell!!! I'm out of time and battery and have a little newborn needing Mommy's arms but I'll be back soon to tell all about it! : )

No Energy to be Creative

I am just too tired and dizzy to do a good job at creative writing right now...but I am woefully aware of just how neglegted my little corner of the cyberworld is...so here I am, catching up real quick before I have a baby and inevitably fall way behind again! : ) By the way, if you are a reader who faithfully checks in on me despite my neglect, thank you for sticking with me!

SO,...the breaking news in my life of late...

• Mic had one great evening of reintroduction to her expansor plaque...and then it broke. This is becasue I let her use it without denture paste, which made her much more open to it, but does no good because it doesn't stay where it goes. Last friday we were finally able to get it fixed and she has had it in for only one hour since and now refuses to open her mouth again. The problem is the denture paste/the form of the plaque itself. Even with the paste it doesn't stay put which is a big problem, and Mic is not handling the paste in her mouth, which is also a problem...but I don't blame her. I put some on my palate to see what if feels like and the texture is AWEFUL. ...I am feeling very cornered and frusterated with this situation, I am at a loss for satisfactory resolutions. You know its not getting anywhere when she even won't use the plaque with denture paste on it in exchange for chocolate---she LOVES chocolate.
• Another great first in her life, Mic started swimming lessons last week! New things often take time and trasition for her before she can begin to enjoy them. So I was very pleasantly surprised when on the first day and from the very begining there was no protesting, no tears, and just a HUGE ear to ear grin on her face for the entire hour long lesson. She LOVES it, and is doing great!
• To be fair I should talk about my son as well. Lets see...He is steriotypically TWO. Do I need to say more? ...one cute thing lately is that he has discovered the fun of wrestling with daddy. He climbs up on his dad and "attacks" him with all his might, grunting with effort. The noises, faces and laughter that follow are just too great!
• Me? Well I'm 37 1/2 weeks along and counting. According to yesterday's ultrasound baby has indeed assumed the head down position. Days are uncomfortable and nights are worse. I am ready to get on with this and meet our precious cargo! I still sustain that as far as pregnancies go I really can't complain too much, based on what others tell me of their experience. However, this has definatly been the most uncomfortable of the three for me, and as it so often seems to go with me, my issues seem to be all backwards. Most women have to look out for high blood pressure, too much weight gain and high glucose during pregnancy. I have worked extra hard to gain weight, have had round after round with low blood pressure (thus, dizzy, dizzy, dizzy me) and my blood sugar has been checking in on the low side, despite my best efforts to eat healthy. I am thankful that none of this is serious and all is apparently well, but I am also very ready to feel more "myself" again! (yes, yes, I know that may take a little while yet)

Today I cooked a pumpkin and my ambitous afternoon plans include trying some new pumpkin recipes and maybe finally trying to make some pear jam. ...I make no promises, what I really feel like doing is laying down with D for a nap! : )

Beauty School

A couple weeks ago we were having a calm saturday evening at home as a family when suddenly I realized things were a little too quiet. A hurried peek into the bathroom found my daughter proudly working on her new hairstyle...with a pair of scissors in hand. The bangs were gone and in not to many more minutes the braids would have been next in line! Of course being the orderly little girl that she is the handfuls of hair were thrown neatly in the garbage one by one as they came off of her head. She was so proud of herself and her great accoplishment that I couldn't be too upset, but we did have a serious little chat later on about how, where and who will use scissors on her hair in the future. : )
So this week we finally made time to go get a fix cut. Really her new "look" does a pretty good job of covering up the damage as well as being a whole lot easier to comb the tangles out of, so we are all happy with the outcome!

Back in the grind

Meet orthodontic apperatice of which I have no idea how to pronounce its name #1. Roughly a year and a half or two ago this is what the doctor had us try to use in Mic's mouth to help push and pull things into shape. ...She threw up on the doctor when he put it in. We gave it a sincere try even though it was miserable. The life literly went out of my child's eyes, she shut down emotionally, she drooled through a bib an hour and by day three she was so completly dehydrated that she hadn't urinated in 18 hours. At that point we called the doctor for a heart to heart and the thing came out and stayed out.
Meet orthodontic apperatice #2--much more user friendly and lower profile. This is an "expansor", though I think that is a generic term for several types of gizzmos all of which look differently but are used orthodontically to expand different areas of the mouth. This little guy goes up on the palate area and covers part of the upper teeth as well. In theory it stays in all the time except for when brushing teeth and that little screw gets a half turn twice a week for six weeks slowly pushing out the part of her palate that is majorly caved in.

Mic has come a long way since we tried to use #1 on her. Someday she will need to use gizzmo #1, but it may be another couple years before shes ready for that. In the mean time we are very thankful for a WONDERFUL, experienced orthodontist who understands treating the whole child and not just a crooked mouth, so much so that all this time from the try with #1 to today he really has simply dedicated himself to making friends with Mic and gaining her trust putting his medical agenda on hold as much as possible to allow her to mature emotinally and for her oral aversions to lesson.

However, we are also against the clock. The younger all this molding takes place the more flexible her mouth is and the better end result will be had. So, today was the BIG day. A restart in orthodontics, with the introduction of thinger #2.

...She didn't throw up on the doctor when they tested the fit. But she also absolutely would not open her mouth again to put it back in, it came home in a pocket in the diaper bag. SOOOOO...we have some major work ahead as over the next couple weeks we need to find the way to help her overcome her "stuff" and in a healthy way be able to accept this little thing-a-ma-jig in her mouth.

This is just how tiring the day was physically and emotionally, my babe hasn't had a nap in ages and this afternoon she slept for over three hours!

P.S.

We are accepting all avaliable prayer support in this endeaver!!!

G*R*A*T*I*T*U*D*E

Ok, so the truth is that I've been a major grouch lately. Things from the important to the down right absurd have been getting on my nerves and eating at me. So much so that the blog entry I wrote in my head the other evening was titled "G*R*O*U*C*H*Y". And I was going to let of all my built up steam in high fashion. The next morning a small, still voice of reason somehow filtered through the jungle in my brain and said, "what if you make a thankful list instead--your no fun to be around when your grouchy, you don't even like being around yourself right now! Why don't you think about something good!"
So with no further ado...
I'm THANKFUL for:

• Two days of "better"oral breakfast for Mic. (Before yesterday and today for about a month shes had no more than one or two small bites for breakfast at most. Today she had a very small peach and about 8 bites of cereal!)
• Health!!--Mic hasn't been able to get over a common cold without a major GI crisis and about a week of vommiting in years...and this week she did it! A common normal cold, had and ended as a common normal cold should be, in a few days, almost no calorie cut and with no vomiting!
• Cardboard boxes and mud! Beat this one, toys r us! My kids have spent large amounts of time this week playing with minimal fighting and no boredom and their high tec entertainment has been the refrigerator box turned fort and a mud hole and bucket of water in my back patio! Messy, but worth it.
• A healthy, low-risk pregnancy and only about 5 weeks to go. (yes, I am aware that this BLESSING is also probably a very large contributor to my current state of exhaustion thus lower coping level, which is a nice way to say grouchyness!)
• Safety
• The new women's Bible study group I've been able to be a part of the last three weeks.
• Freedom to educate my children as I believe is best for their current needs.
• Maternity clothes......seriously, have you ever worn anything more comfortable! : )
• Stuborn kids,...OK this is a stretch, honestly the rigid little wills manifesting themselves so prominently around here are driving me batty, but on the bright side they are sound enough in mind and body to reason and have an opinion and state it emphatically.
• Sweet potatoe and pumpkin season!!!!!! YUM!
• A wonderful, loyal, patient, faithful husband who not only puts up with me, but loves me too!
• BMs in the potty. In light of our gross failure thus far at potty training, almost all the BM does make it in the toilet and if I have to choose something to continually clean off of every imaginable surface, I'd rather it be this way than the other...
• A home in a spot that has a good water supply (many in the city center are without) and is on high enough ground that flooding is not a factor (over the last few weeks many homes not far from here have had anywhere from a few inches to 1.8 meters of standing water)
• The best two little cuddlers ever in bed with me this morning, is there possibly any better way to start a new day!?

And I could keep going!!! ...but here comes a fussy, stinky toddler and a day full of responsabilities that I have been shirking all morning... ...catch you later!

First Day of School

So, we have officially begun our adventures in homeschooling. It remains to be seen who will learn more, my daughter or I. I have a feeling it may be a close race! The below pictures are her "first day of school" pictures. Its taken me longer than I meant to post these, we have finished our fourth week of school already. I thought I would take lots of pictures along the way of all the fun things we do. I was right about the fun things--we've already done lots of those and we are barely started......but pictures I have none! Though I pride myself at multitasking fairly effectivly I guess being mom, homemaker, wife, teacher, organizer and keeping my two yr. old from interfering with Mics efforts has rendered me a completly ineffective photographer! I don't usually even remember the camera exists until we are all done and cleaned up.

Funny thing about generations. I obviously grew up in a 35mm world where one held still for the camera so as not to waste film. And, on the contrary, my girl is obviously growing up in a digital world! I pull out the camera and she immediately begains to dance, prance and parade striking some of the most goofy poses ever. I considered pasting the entire string from this photo session, she was acting giddy and silly and Oh-so-fun. But for fear of over kill I ended up just choosing a couple of the pictures and left it at that.

All dressed up and ready to learn.

Striking a pose.
Some of her books.
And just because he's too cute for his own good...heres my little man. I had just found and attached the cup holder to his car seat, so he had to sit and try it out--he was pleased as punch!

Belly

31 Weeks

C'mon, grow belly, grow! : )

Accion de Gracias

I think I had more than my share of adrenaline pumping yesterday.
Starting at 3:30am when I got up to attend to a fussy little boy. I got him reaccommodated in the bed and then as is my custom, since I was already up, took a quick peek at Mic. ...and her bed was empty. My heart was instantly in my throat as I began to force myself to CALMLY look for her. Our bedroom is one independant room, with one door that leads outside, she had to be in the room somewhere! In the dark, I checked her brother's bed, not there. I checked the floor, nothing. I turned on the light. Panic was rising. My daughter was not in the room, she couldn't have just disappeared into nowhere, and if it were the rapture we'de all be gone! Heart pounding I went to tell my husband. He knew right away by the tone of my voice what had happened. And calmly informed me ......that she was in our bed! Apparently while I was in a very deep sleep, she got up, came to our bed, pulled on hubbys feet until he woke up and pulled her up to give her some huggies and there she was all snuggled up asleep and I was none the wiser. It took some time for me to get my heart rate back to normal.
The rest of the morning and afternoon proceded fairly uneventful. After a nice late sunday lunch and laying Mcqueen down for a nap we decided to take a real quick trip into the store to get a couple things we were needing. The sun was shining hot and we only planned to be gone about an hour, Mic had just used the toilet and finished a tube feeding so I didn't bother to bring the diaper bag or any supplies of any kind with me. Sweaters seemed like a silly idea too, the car was toasty hot from the sun. One thing lead to another and it took us a little longer in the store than planned as we left evening was coming on fast and some thick storm clouds were forming. "Its going to rain hard," I observed as we got in the car to head home. We were about a 1/2 hour away from home. I noticed that it was exactly 7:07pm on the readerboard of a nearby shop. Some big drops splatted as we pulled out of the parking lot and by the time we were about half way home the water was coming down in literal sheets that made visability difficult. The down town area of our colonia among many other areas of the city is notorious for its poor drainage problems. And as we neared down town and hit some exceptionally high water areas the motor of the car sputtered, ahead was higher water, lane reductions and heavier traffic, getting stuck there would be a dangerous and costly affair. It didn't look like we'de make it through. We turned back. The cell phone battery died so we had the added stress of not being able to communicate with my MIL who expected us an hour ago and had my son with her. My husband decided to try to get to a Wal-mart with a covered parking garage where we could call and wait. But the rain, traffic and poor/no visability made entering from the front impossible and going around the back we couldn't get through the high water to get there. We took another side street but the water was so high we decided to drive up onto the wide sidewalk instead. We sat on the sidewalk with the motor running feeling a bit safer and trying to decide what to do. The water was rising quickly and dark was coming on. Just than a bigger vehicle passed on the street and as it did we could feel our little car loose the sidewalk with the movement of the water, rocking and floating briefly. Thats when we got a little scared. As dark continued to take over, my husband told me that he was going to try to get us out of that street and to higher ground but if the car died we'de need to leave it and walk somewhere, we couldn't risk floating off at the currents mercy. (this morning we saw photos in the news of stacks of cars in our area that had been parked outside their houses and did just that, the water current pulled them along and stacked them up like dominos). My husband reved the engine and I prayed hard and our guardian angels pulled us out of there! We began to snake our way up and down dark hilly streets looking for higher ground and a safer place to wait and try to formulate a plan. The temperature had really dropped, so we were cold to boot. We sat in several different spots and periodically drove on a little further looking for a way out, but all lower streets were severly flooded and impassable. We finally took advantage of a slight slowing in the rain and I knocked on the door of some strangers and asked to use their phone so that we could at least let my MIL know that we were OK, just stranded. By this time we also had puddles inside the car, and my sandled feet were soaked. As we made our way through unfamiliar neighborhoods up on the hill we saw an easy chair and a boulder in the streets, pulled from somewhere by the current and left in the middle of the road as if someone had carelessly tossed them there. We also saw a heavy metal and cement man hole cover completly lifted up by the upcurrent of the underground drainage, and several small rock and mud slides. After much wandering through water laden streets, waiting in akward spots and praying fervant prayers, we were finally able to pull into our driveway safe and sound at about 10pm.
Only once we were inside and trying to wind down did I realize how incredibly tense and worked up I was from the three hours of cumulative stress and danger. And most of all THANKFUL that in the end what could have gone wrong in so many different ways and places didn't. THANKFUL to have my whole family safe and sound and together. THANKFUL for a roof over our heads and a mostly dry house. THANKFUL to GOD who really does take care of us and for his mercy and protection. YUP, I'm feeling pretty thankful today! : )

Moments I wish I could stick in a canning jar and preserve forever...

Mcqueen: Mic! Help. Fish. (trying to "unstick" a fish toy)
Mic: (a few feet away playing with her baby) I can help, I can help!
Mcqueen delivers the toy into her hands and she finagles it free and calmly hands it back, no pulling, pushing, shoving, or fighting over who will play with the fixed toy.
Mcqueen: Tanku, Mic, Tanku
Mic: (moving back to her own game) Your welcome.

This was a real life conversation had by my two and four year olds yesterday! This is not a typical scenerio in my life...I think of it more as a glimpse of hope. God letting me know that there really is hope that, by the grace of God, my children will become kind, caring, helpful, Godly, law-abiding citizens someday rather than the bickering, selfish, stubborn kind of people that no one enjoys being around.
I had more to say about this, but it will have to wait, ...my intervention is urgently needed in the living room where trouble is brewing over who has rights to a chair...