~Happy Six Months Squeaky~

Tomorrow my Rachel, our little rainbow baby, “squeaky” as we call her, turns 6 months! HALF A YEAR FOLKS! Where has the time gone?!?!

I can’t believe that just six months ago I held her tiny pink colored body in my arms for the first time, and now she is cooing and rolling around and will probably up and crawl one of these days! Blows my mind that God saw fit to bless us with such a sweet and gentle spirited little lass!

So in honor of her turning half a year, I decided to write up her birth story J Im pretty sure I wrote up Miriam’s like a couple weeks post partum…but hey at least I am writing it J

We had planned to deliver Rachel in the exact same hospital we delivered Miriam: Methodist in Des Moines. However, that was us “planning our way” BUT GOD ordered our steps:

I had been having fevers every night for almost a week, and nobody could figure out why. I went to the dentist and had a tooth pulled because I thought it was infected, but the fevers persisted. I think the Dentist was nervous about pulling it as I was 36 almost 37 weeks along. They took all the precautions they could, but that being said they couldn’t give me their normal drug to numb the pain. Let me just say I felt EVERYTHING, but never said a word of course. I was so tired of the fevers that I was willing to do anything…and I just wanted that tooth out!

Sad to say, I went through all of that all for not so it seems, because the fevers continued! Every afternoon long about 4pm until early the next morning I would get a low grade fever and chills and contractions would start up.

I called and called the doctor’s office in Des Moines, trying to get answers and they just kept saying “take Tylenol” blah blah blah. Now they were right, that really was all I could do. However, the receptionist was exceptionally rude in her tone and the way she spoke to me. I do believe that was God’s way of pushing me to break the tie and swithch hospitals. ALL in His grace, and proved to me that yes, sometimes God does use even rude people in our lives!

I remember I was just fed up with that particular doctors office, so I got online and inquired with the Cass County Hospital in Atlantic to see if it would even be possible for me to switch to their care this late in the game. To my complete shock they said “of course.” Since I was this late in the game however, I wanted to get things switched over ASAP so that very day Josh took me down there to sign papers to have all my records transferred from the Doc in Des Moines to the Doc in Cass County.

In my flurry of excitement and just utter joy, because up until that point deep down I felt very nervous about trying to go all the way to Des Moines to deliver. Miriam came pretty fast! I was most likely in labor with her for days leading up to her birth, but I didn’t know it. They had to induce me due to the fact that they thought my bag of water was leaking. They induced me at 7:45 and she was born about an hour later! That being said, with as much contractions as I was having at this point with baby #2 I was getting really nervous that her birth would go just as fast as her bigger sister!

Anyways, where was I?? Oh yes, so in my flurry of excitement and just pure joy I ran out the door with my things and miss stepped and fell down (37 weeks pregnant) and twisted my ankle! So now, not only was I dealing with the soreness of having a tooth pulled but also a twisted and now swollen ankle! This was Thursday. The very next day I had my first doctors appointment in Cass County. It went very smoothly and come to find out the nurse is a Christian! What a blessing that was! Later that afternoon my mom and dad and sister as well as Josh’s mom and sister and soon to be sister in law, arrived for my baby shower, which was to take place the following day (Saturday).

Saturday went fairly smooth. We had the shower and got a ton of lovely pink things for miss Rachel to wear. That afternoon my family and Josh’s family took off. Little knowing that if they could’ve stayed one more night they could’ve been here for the big day! LOL!

Sunday. A Pastor’s biggest day of any week. We are always busy, always on call, but Sundays are some of our busiest days in ministry. But this wasn’t just any Sunday… no this was in fact the very Sunday that was set to be our Church’s annual Thanksgiving pot luck! There was also a business meeting scheduled for this day following the lunch. And to top it all off this was this Sunday was our anniversary of our first Sunday in Brayton!! Can anyone say BIG DAY??!!??!!

So of course this would naturally be a Pastor’s Kid’s first choice when it comes to the day they will “arrive”…I mean it only makes sense. After all Pastor’s kids never behave themselves and always cause a ruckus…so why shouldn’t Rachel start out on a good foot right at the start?? LOL!

And it was indeed Rachel’s choice, because it is said that babies are the ones who decide when to be born. It is their body who puts off the hormone that starts labor…or so I’ve heard..correct me if I am wrong??

Long about midnight I started labor as near as I can tell. Or at least that is when things got really uncomfortable. But me being….well me…I just kept on sleeping. Or at least trying to…and for the most part I succeeded. Every once in a while waking to some pain …every so often. But trying not to pay too much heed….because of all that was going on this particular Sunday..I knew I just “couldn’t be in labor.” So I continued trying to sleep. You see sleep is very important to me. In college I always went to bed at 9pm (unheard of in college huh?? Lol). I never had a later nighter or an all nighter. I go to be at roughly the same time each night and wake at the same time each morning as much as possible. I love my sleep and I also love to rise early. So as much as possible I try and stick to this and keep getting up in the night to a minimum. Which isn’t always easy now that I have children lol…

Finally, the pain started to get a little more intense closer towards 4 and 5am. Like enough to disrupt my sleep…this wasn’t good. Not today~!

Well I’ve always been an odd person. I don’t do certain things I don’t like to do unless someone tells me to do them.
For instance when I worked as a cook the last year (2012) before I got married. I fell into my eating disorder pretty badly. I lost a lot of weight and ate hardly anything at meal times (one piece of jellied bread and whatever fruit was being served). That was it. And I ran every day and a few times a week I biked around the lake with the other cooks. On top of that I worked hard in the kitchen. Lifting things and being on my feet all day and stirring things. I remember beginning to feel weak all the time…hungry all the time. It was a strange feeling. Almost like I was going to pass out…though I never did. As I said I ran every afternoon. The cooks get a break from 1-4 every afternoon. And as long as you don’t have any other responsibilities this time could be used however we saw fit.

Most smart and intelligent cooks would catch up on sleep (which actually was the general idea behind this break being set up for us). Because we started our day at 6am each morning in the kitchen, so this 1-4 break was a welcomed and beloved nap time. But instead of napping, my rebellious and sin filled heart decided that running would better suit me. So that’s what I did. I remember each day, as I sat down to tie my shoes, telling myself that if anyone ….and of my fellow cooks or either of my bosses…if they just came and told me not to run…I would do it. Of course they never did…and how could they know. I remember wishing as I got my feet pounding that pavement again that someone would come and tell me that I didn’t have to do this anymore. That I didn’t need to run anymore. That I could eat more…that I should eat more. But how could they? Because I snuck that piece of bread and jelly and went out to eat with the rest of the staff..they had no clue that I was only eating that much. They had no clue that sometimes I tried to get so busy with a job that they would forget to send me to lunch. And when they did that I just didn’t allow myself to eat anything!

You see I do this a lot when I am doing something I shouldn’t. I come up with an impossible circumstance and say “well if they tell me to stop_____ (fill in the blank)” then I will stop. Problem is the circumstances I draw up are impossible and ridiculous and would never happen. And I know this. And that’s why in my sick and twisted way of living I allow myself to keep on a path I shouldn’t! The reason I do this type of thing is because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak! Part of me wants to do right but the other part of me…my sinful flesh, does not and so it makes up some unrealistic circumstance in order to change and when that unrealistic circumstance doesn’t happen then I think that I am “off the hook” because if God really wanted me to change He would make that unrealistic thing happen! So sick and twisted…I hate to even admit that I do this…I “put out the fleece” so to speak…but I am forgetting that “God cannot be tested nor brought under the power of any.” This was not to be my release from the awful ensnaring sin….no years later a miscarriage would be used to break those chains.

So for that time I was still trapped and chained.

Other times when it is something I should do, as in the case of the morning of Rachel’s birth, I should have gone into the doctor sooner. But trying to tell myself that I couldn’t be in labor, I made up in my mind that I would wait til Josh woke and asked me what’s wrong and then we would go to the doctor. You see I didn’t want to go. I hate doctors and I hate lying on a table flat on my back in labor…I would much rather labor at home in my own bed, lying on my side or whatever position suits me at that moment.

Finally though the pain was so severe I could not ignore. Josh was not waking. I kept rolling over and groaning loudly…all to no avail. My plan wasn’t working…so in a moment of sheer frustration I got up out of bed with a huge thud as my feet hit the floor. Well that did it…my water broke! My prayers had been answered!

You see because I knew that we would be trying to travel an hour away to give birth, I knew that I needed to be in labor beyond a shadow of a doubt! I did not want to go an hours trip all for false labor. So at the very outset of the pregnancy I prayed that God would allow my water to break on its own, then there would be no questions asked, we would just know it was time and the doctors would have to see me.

So we packed our things…and I am so embarrassed to say that we actually left Miriam asleep in her room by herself! Our fantastic babysitter lives maybe 5 min. away. We called and told her I was in labor, she said she would be over ASAP. We waited for a couple minutes but I just knew we had to get going…so we did. We passed her shortly after leaving and Miriam was asleep and was home alone for maybe 2 min. total!

It is a great thing that we left when we did though, because we got to the hospital and Rachel was born 20 min. after arriving! And I’m not kidding! It was enough time to check in, get upstairs and into a gown and onto the bed. I answered as many questions (they still didn’t have all my records from the doc in Des Moines) as I could in between contractions and literally moments later she was born!

I remember the nurse telling me that I couldn’t push because the doctor wasn’t here yet. She told me to pant. So I tried that for like a couple seconds. I told her “this isn’t working” she told me it had to work and told josh to get in my face and pant with me. So here is my hubby in my face trying to get me to pant. I literally would’ve started laughing had I not been in the throes of labor! We had to have been a sight! Here he is panting to his wife, only hours later to be on a stage preaching to the congregation of our church! All in a days work eh?!?!

So yeah I was like “um nope pantin aint working nursey” (I didn’t really say exactly that…lol). I just said “no this isn’t working…I am going to push.” And just like that she got off her computer from entering in my information and got over to me in time to catch Rachel!

Now this is ALL of God because Rachel had the cord wrapped around her kneck as she came out. The Nurse knew what to do and showed Josh (for future reference…not that we would need it ever lol). Now since Josh didn’t know this very pertient information, as near as we can calculate, if we had stayed with the Doc in Des Moines we would have been about to Stuart Iowa on the interstate when Rachel would’ve been born! Josh may or may not have known what to do about that cord..I am SO thankful we didn’t have to find that out the hard way! I also am so thankful that we switched when we did! We literally switched just 3 days before Rachel was born! God knew!

We planned our way but God ordered our steps! We thought we had it all covered…but God actually had it all covered!

Shortly after her birth they had me try to nurse her. She started making a weird noise and began to turn blue. So the nurse took her from me. After hitting her back she got her to pink up again. Josh and I thought nothing of it really. She seemed healthy. A good 6.7 and ¾ of a pound. Nice and pink. She was 37 weeks. Miriam was only 36 and she didn’t have to go to the NICU though they had them on standby for her the night she was born.

We assumed that things would go just like they did with Miriam. Yeah um we obviously had only one kid up to this point and thought that kids all follow the same pattern…we learned quickly they do not!

Josh left to go and preach and by this time the nurses thought it had been long enough and wanted me to try Rachel nursing again. But the same thing happened, only this time they whisked Rachel away from me. Leaving me in my room…wondering what in the world was going on. I quickly texted josh and my family to keep them abreast to what was going on. Mom called me and told me to go and see where they took Rachel. I was so nervous…I mean here I was in a Hospital I didn’t really know much about and now I was about to go wandering around to try and see where my daughter had been taken. I didn’t even know if me wandering around was “Kosher”???

But I took a deep breath and worry and concern of a mother for her dear child sent me on a mission. I walked out and met a nurse almost instantly in the hallway “I want to know where they’ve taken my daughter” I told her who I was and who she was. She led me to the nursery, where Rachel lay hooked up to oxygen through her nose. The nurse let me know that they were ordering a chest xray to rule out any heart abnormalities. They were also calling the NICU in Des Moines and seeing if a transfer was possible as Rachel’s case was more than this hospital was prepared in equipment and staff to handle. So for a few hours I watched as they poked and prodded my little girl.

I saw other babies brought in for check ups so they could be released. They cried at the slightest touch from a nurse and here my little girl was getting poked with needles and barely making a peep. It wasn’t because she was tough…it was because she didn’t have the breath support needed for crying. She was preserving her energy to breathe. Josh arrived hours later to the same scene. We by then knew we would be transferred to Des Moines. I would get my first ambulance ride. Josh kissed me and promised to go home and get Miriam and head to Des Moines so we would be together.

The hospital was kind enough to release me the very day of my delivery (most unheard of eh?? Lol). This was so I could be with my daughter. The ambulance ride was extrememly bumpy! I was so glad that I had taken some ibuprofen before leaving the hospital!

The whole ride there, when I wasn’t conversing with the driver, I was praying and thanking God for all the blessings. You see I did not want to wallow in pity over my situation…or of worry over the what ifs (what if Rachel had a sickness or some kind of birth defect etc.).

I was also praying for a safe trip to the NICU. We made it safely there. They asked if I wanted to be wheeled to Rachel’s room, as I had “just given birth that day” (they put a lot of emphasis on this lol). And I was like “no I am fine.”

Inside I was worried a little, but I wasn’t overcome….I had a peace that I just knew God had this under control! I know a lot of people were praying!

When we got to her teeny tiny NICU room I was a bit shocked at how small it was…and how hard an uncomfortable the hard bed was where I was going to sleep. I was also shocked at the fact that she was placed under a hood of oxygen …and I would not be allowed to hold her. How thankful I am that the ENT’s who transported her let me give her one last kiss before heading to the NICU. I would be savoring that and letting that hold me over for a day or so.

The nurses that first night were extremely helpful and caring. Their names were Mary and Rachel. We all had a good laugh over that because our girls are named Miriam (Hebrew form of Mary) and Rachel. And turns out that Mary’s husband’s name was also “Josh.” That was God’s grace because we all had a laugh about it! Laughing is the best medicine and it helped to lighten the worry and fear that was beginning to creep in.

Thankfully Rachel improved quickly and we got to go home just 2 days after arriving J! But even if that had not been the outcome…God would still be the loving and faithful and Gracious God that He is and would have seen us through!

Rachel is such a blessing to our family! She is for the most part a really layed back baby! She brings us much joy and we are all so smitten by her! She is a gentle soul and just smiles at almost anybody!

I am SO thankful for God! Who He is and how He has worked in and through my life! Praise be to Him for His wonderful blessings! Celebrating Rachel Renae’s sixth month is honestly ALL OF HIM!!!

I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. PS. 13:6