You made me

I am writing right now alone in my bed, with no kids running around or even a hungry husband asking me every 2 hours what we have to eat. It's nice and quiet, I have some time to be with my thoughts and with the Lord, but it's not the typical kind of "mommy time" I desire.

Late Thursday night, Doug and I headed over to the Emergency Room; everything is "fine" now, but I have to take it easy and recover with some good old-fashioned rest. Thankfully my husband took over all of my daily duties for now and seems to be holding up alright, but I'm up here alone in bed, grateful for the break, but almost wishing I had some things to busy me right now...

Just a few weeks ago, Doug came home from work and I told him there was something on my stomach I really wanted him to take a look at. He nervously lifted my shirt and saw written across belly in eyeliner "Baby #3" with hearts all around. He was so excited, we were overjoyed. The next week I had an ultrasound and was able to see our beautiful baby's heartbeat - but the doctor was confused because they saw other stuff in there along with the baby. Tumors, masses, polyps, bleeding? They weren't sure what to call it. So the doctor just said keep coming in every 2 weeks and we'll keep an eye on the baby's heartbeat and just make sure everything is OK. We were a little scared, but my husband was sharing scriptures with me like "Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." (Psalm 27:14) and "Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act." (Psalm 37:7) So that's all that we could do...wait. And our kind of waiting is hopeful, prayerful, confident. Worry creeps in, sure, but we have such a Hope.

So we waited and prayed and thanked God for this life that was inside me. "Right now, we have a baby," we said. "This moment, we have 3 kids and we can be glad for that!" We knew this baby already had a unique genetic blueprint, DNA present for several weeks now that would determine every characteristic this child would have all the way into adulthood, not to mention a strong, beating heart apart from mine that I got to see with my own eyes! It was amazing because it was life, and life is something to be celebrated. So we did, but I asked Doug to please keep it quiet until the next ultrasound, for my own piece of mind. So as difficult as it was, we didn't tell our observant 4-year-old or most family and friends, but still, we were so happy and so in love already.

This Thursday, though, less than a week before my next follow-up ultrasound, I started bleeding. It started out so slight, but when I went to bed that night, it had turned intense, even accompanied by the familiar feeling of early labor contractions. "I think we need to go to the hospital," I said to my husband around 11 pm. We made arrangements for the kids and quickly left, we prayed together in the parking lot, and headed in. After settling in at the ER, I felt the known feeling of downward pressure followed by a natural push. I wasn't sure of it when it was happening, but soon found I had delivered my baby completely on my own - just way earlier than I had ever wanted to. I cried and cried as I watched the nurses put my helpless tiny baby in what looked like a plastic take-out container to be sent out to a lab somewhere. After spending the entire night in the hospital with tests and ultrasounds, it was finally confirmed that I had a spontaneous, complete miscarriage. We were sent home, babyless, around 6 a.m.

So that brings me back to right now, alone in bed, just writing, trying to get my own head around it all and trying to hear God's Word in it all...that's just how I do things. I was randomly e-mailed this Bible verse this morning,

"The Lord will work out his plans for my life-

    for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever.
    Don’t abandon me, for you made me." ~Psalm 138:8

People have tried to encourage me by saying similar things, like everything happens for a reason or it was meant to be, and while essentially I believe this (see Romans 8:28), my eye was caught on the last part, not thinking of myself, but of my baby "Don't abandon me, for you made me." We have that promise that our God, our Maker, won't abandon us. I believe that for my baby too and I imagine that being the prayer of her heart, "Dear God, don't leave me, You made me." And I imagine God comforting her and holding her and assuring her that she will see her earthly mommy and daddy one day soon. 

 ..............

Doug and I are hurting right now, but we know so many other people have experienced this same kind of hurt, and while I wasn't sure if I was going to share any of this at all, if I could just encourage one person today who has quietly been hurting or struggling with losing a child this way, then this moment of vulnerability is completely worth it. And in the midst of this seemingly never-ending storm of a season for me, I know that God is still there and this is what I want to remember above everything else:

 The one thing I ask of the Lord—
    the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
    delighting in the Lord’s perfections
    and meditating in his Temple.
 For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
    he will hide me in his sanctuary.
    He will place me out of reach on a high rock.
Then I will hold my head high
    above my enemies who surround me.
At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
    singing and praising the Lord with music.

                                                                ~Psalm 27:4-6

Believe in a Baby

We have an obnoxiously loud, talking nativity in our house that my daughter likes to play again and again and again. But at times, even our story-shouting manger seems to be drowned out by "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and continuous Justin Bieber (this song is really on again?!)

What are we actually celebrating? I remember as a kid finding out about Santa and feeling like the whole world had deceived me. I naturally started wondering if the whole baby in a manger thing was some big fairy tale too. It's easy to understand how a child might assume such a thing, what with story of the North Pole somehow mixed in with the story of Bethlehem. Even for an adult, the fantasy of the holidays can become dangerously jumbled with the miraculous Truth. And while Santa might be a fun way to celebrate God's love at Christmas time, the greatest gift in the history of mankind came as a tiny baby over 2,000 years ago. And it's that same gift that gives us hope this Christmas.

Our pastor suggested to us this Sunday that for the next week leading up to Christmas, everytime we see or pass by a manger or nativity scene (even if it is juxtaposed with a flying reindeer) we should actively remind ourselves,

"It is true." 

Luke's "carefully investigated" "orderly account" states: 

..the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”-Luke 2:10-12

It is amazing. It is miraculous. It is our eternity... and it is true! This Christmas I pray that you can be very merry in knowing that God sent Christ for you. 

"Thank God for his gift too wonderful for words!"

- 2 Corinthians 9:15

Merry Christmas!

No excuses

So tomorrow puts me at 6 weeks postpartum, which all moms know really just means no more excuses in bed or at the gym! ;) At this point, your body is recovered enough to start returning to your regular activities. I got back to the gym a little earlier though with the intentions of just training a client, but I ended up feeling a little guilty leaving the gym without a single drop of sweat on me, so naturally I started exercising a bit again - VERY SLOWLY.

I'm very proud to say that I happen to have a good friend with an Olympic Gold Medal in weightlifting. I'd mention her name, but she is extremely modest.  

Tara Cunningham (Nott)-check out YouTube video SYDNEY 2000

Oooops! :)   Anyway, Tara offered to give me a technique tutorial on power lifting 5 weeks after I had a baby and still about 20 lbs over my pre-prego weight. I was pretty excited and felt fairly confident. I mean I do teach fitness classes and have been exercising (under the orders of my mother) for as long as I can remember. Yet it turns out doing reps with 10 lb dumbbells is NOT the same as squatting to the floor with a 50 lb bar on your chest (haven't even gotten to the actual lifting stage yet! lol) So after showing me a few basic techniques, she had me flip the bar while squatting as low as I could to the floor.

Well I made it down there... but then stayed down there! With the bar on my chest in an owl-like perch, I got stuck and then slowly fell backwards onto my butt with my legs up in the air and the bar on top of me. It probably looked like a mix between humpty-dumpty and a dead bird falling out of a tree. My core seems to be nonexistent at the moment and I am by no means good at this. But hopefully the doctor will give me the go-ahead this week and I'll be all in, back at the gym with no excuse but to try, try again.

Right on time

I've learned first-hand that God does not always answer when we want Him to or even beg Him to, but He is always, ALWAYS on time. Sometimes He makes you wait until the very last minute to test your faith or until you get your heart in the right place, but we serve a God who can be counted on to show up BIG TIME and ON TIME. And we should wait on that expectantly. 

I was due to have my son August 19 and because I was going to attempt a VBAC (Vaginal birth after a Cesarean), the doctors gave me 10 days to go into labor on my own. If I went past that, I would be forced to have a C-section on August 30. So the 19th came and went, along with several other endless days. From the beginning, I really felt that the whole VBAC thing was what God wanted for me, my husband, and my baby. So a few days before I was scheduled to have my C-section I completely broke down. I was getting impatient and frustrated. I was starting to feel overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and even anger. "Why can't my body labor and deliver a child?" "I'll never experience giving birth the way God intended it to be!"

Now that's not to say God doesn't use C-sections for good things... my daughter most likely would not have survived if it wasn't for that surgery. I, born a C-section as well, could say the same for myself and countless other people also. But this was personal now.. between God and I. A promise of sorts I had expected Him to keep. But just two days before surgery, I wiped up the tears of disappointment and began accepting God's will for myself and for my baby - no matter what that looked like. Well that Sunday morning on my way to church I slipped down my porch steps in the rain. I ended up in the hospital that morning instead of church to make sure baby was ok. Everything ended up being just fine.. but no signs of labor. That night I went to a small church service since I had missed that morning and really felt like I needed to be still and quiet with the Lord. The pastor, whom I had never met before, saw that I was clearly very pregnant and prayed with me. "Bring this baby tonight," he said. "Can you do that, Lord?" I was almost annoyed by it because at that point I was done asking for that and honestly maybe I wasn't sure if He COULD do that anymore. But sure enough, the next morning brought about some serious contractions. I was almost in disbelief when I started looking at the clock and realized they were coming 3 minutes apart. I managed to shave 1/4 of my legs and then we headed to the hospital!

After 18 hours of laboring in the hospital, my son was born (vaginally!) at 5:03 a.m. August 30. My C-section would have been scheduled for 5:45 a.m. that day. With just 42 minutes to spare, he was born right on time, according to God's timing - not mine.

Jesus was born at just the right time - and so were you.

"But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman.. " (Galatians 4:4)

Jesus died at just the right time - and so will you. 

"When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners." (Romans 5:6)

It's not your job to worry about His timing or try to figure it out for yourself.

“The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know." (Acts 1:7)

But God always hears you and shows up... 

right on time. 

“At just the right time, I will respond to you." -God (Isaiah 49:8)