Motherhood

Today I started reading a new book called Desperate: Hope for the Mom who Needs to Breathe, and I must say that just in the first chapter I am already being touched deep in my heart. You see being a mom is something that I have DREAMED of my whole life and having finally achieved that goal I am finding that it is so much harder than I ever could of dreamed it would be.

Do get me wrong it is so Rewarding and brings Great Joy to my life but at the same time it has also brought insecurities that I am failing at this absolutely AMAZING JOB that The Lord Chose me for. I am no longer responsible for just ME, I am now responsible for molding and growing a little life that is looking to me for direction. In all honesty I barely know what direction my life is supposed to be headed in and now I have another life to help lead in the right direction. 

I have realized that I am really good at putting on a smile and pretending that all is well in my world, and for the most part it truly is. However, with the one thing that I should feel the most secure about, I am not. 

In this book there is a series of lines that reads as follows: " Each of us has a story, but God, who originated the design of motherhood, is the expert advisor to whom we should turn. God has equipped us for every good work, and I am confident that He who designed this role to be so eternally significant is the one who is ready to help, support, instruct, and guide. He will provide all we need for the task he has given us to fulfill. But to hear from God we must become women of the Word and women who pray, so that His voice may lead us as we grow into this role with grace."
I have made that last part bigger because that is the part that hit me like a ton of bricks when I read it. IF I am not in the word and I am not praying then how can I expect this role that God has placed me in to be filled with the passion that it is meant to have.

In the past few months I have faced more heartache and uncertainty than I feel I have ever faced in my life. You see in January my husband and I lost our second child, I was twelve weeks but our baby had stopped growing at six weeks. There was nothing I did that caused it and I know that because we were able to have a biopsy done on our baby, but during all of this I have lost a little bit of my faith and I am in desperate need of getting that back. I know that this has happened to more than just me and I am aware that everyone handles things differently, but for me I hit a downward spiral into despair. 

Daily I am reminded that I no longer have the JOY of wrapping my arms around my belly and delighting in the soon coming of our baby, and that hurts more than some will ever know. I say all of this to say that I have not been in a place to allow myself to fully rely on God, to trust him to give me the support and guidance that I am so desperately in need of. I grew up in church my whole life and I know that he can and will take care of me,  I have even said to others during sorrowful times that everything happens for a reason and yet now that my time of sorrow has come those words cut through me like ice and I DEMAND TO KNOW THE REASON. However, I may not learn that reason until I meet him in heaven and I so desperately long to spend eternity in heaven and meet my precious baby and hold him in my arms as I do his sister and tell him that I love him, but in order to do that I have to get back to a place of yearning for the Lord. To hunger for his touch and his closeness. 

I am looking forward to the harsh reality that I am about to face as I read this book. That my life isn't perfect and that is okay, that being a mom isn't about having everything done and that little messes are okay. But most importantly that God created me to be a mother and he is to only one that can give me the Strength that I need to be GREAT at being a mom.  So from this moment on I am going to Trust in the God who created me and throw myself in the word and be diligent in my prayers so that I can leave the Legacy that I was made for.

And when I start to feel weary I will fall back on this scripture:

 " Come to Me, all who are weary and heavyladen and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

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The moment it hit me

This was the view I had when it hit me, there is so much more to being a mom than making sure my daughter is fed daily or clean and healthy. It is about teaching her things that even though there are so many other amazing people in the world that could do this job God blessed me with this particular little angel and it is my job to make sure that she learns not only the things that she needs to know to make it in the world as she grows but also what the Lord has commanded her to learn. I find myself emotionally overwhelmed by this task, not because I feel that I can't do it or that I won't but because I feel that I have been utterly and completely slacking in this area. How can I teach my daughter the things that are in the word if I myself am not fully taught or hold an understanding of them either? Knowing that makes me feel as though I have already failed my daughter and I know what I have to do to fix it. I am sorry if this seems scattered but my thoughts and emotions are all over the place at this moment. I want to be able to know each day that she has learned something new not just with colors, shapes, and words but also with scripture and biblical teachings as well. I don't want to have to leave that up to a Sunday school teacher to do or a pastor to be the first to introduce her to that, I want and now desire that to be me. My biggest dream was to be a wife and mother and never did I realize the impact that would have on my life to take who I am and make it better because that's what is required of me.

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The day our world changed forever

Thursday August 25th, 2011 at 7 pm I went into the hospital to start dilation. At this point I was already a week late and still had not started to dilate at all. We got to the hospital and they got me all hooked up to the monitors and started my IV, which was not that fun by the way. My parents, Zach's parents, Andrew & Alicia and our Doula's Evelyn & Pam were there with us that night for a little while. I in some way was expecting a miracle to occur, that I would dilate instantly and my water would break all on it's own. Well, that is not what happened at all, I had to drink some medicine every two hours for four doses and then wait. I felt timy contractions but it really just felt like I needed to go to the restroom. The next morning at 6:45 the nurse came into check my progress and well absolutely nothing, so they began giving me pitocin to hopefully get things moving. My Doctor came in at around 8:45am and I was just dilated to a 1 at this point, it was very disappointing because I was hoping to be much further along. My options at this point were to wait until lunch continuing to increase the pitocin and see how I progressed our be discharged from the hospital go home and come back on Monday and start all over. At this point it was already started and I didn't not want to go home empty handed, so we continued on. At 12:45pm my dr came and checked me and I had now dilated to a two which was just enough to break my water. At this point my pitocin level was already at a twenty and my contractions were so easy to handle, I thought I was doing great. However, it was not long after that those easy to handle contractions became not so easy. Talking through them was no longer an option and breathing was my best friend. I remember having a few visitors and thinking that I felt bad for not being able to visit. Before I go on you should know that this whole process was not what my husband and I had planned for, we wanted a natural labor not medicine at all. I wanted everything to happen all on its own, but sometimes in life you don't always get that. At about 4:30 pm after being on pitocin since 6:45am an having my water broken the contraction had become so intense that there was no break in between them they were literally one right after the other with less than a minute in between each one. I stayed dilated to a two pretty much this whole time, the nurse's decreased my pitocin level which at it's highest reaches twenty-four. Still nothing was helping, I knew at this point that there was no way that I or my body was going to relax enough to have this baby. It was at that moment I made the decision to have the epidural, telling my husband was hard because I felt like my body had failed us. Everything about this labor was not what we had talked about or wanted but at this point I knew I wasn't going to make it any further. Once I was given the epidural a whole new set of issues started to occur, our little baby girls heart dropped and it continued to be an issue for the rest of the time. She was very picky about what side I laid on and as soon as that changed so did her heartrate. I stayed on oxygen for the duration of my labor. By the way before I was given the epidural they checked me again and I was only at a three. I did my best to rest, mainly because I was exhauste. Zach was so amazing in every aspect of my labor he was there with me through all of the hard contractions and right by my side after. They came in and checked me a couple of times and it was a very slow progress. I remember in the daze of my sleep hearing them say I was at a good 5 or 6. I also remember during this time the babies heartrate was unsteady, the nurse contacted my dr to let her know how the baby and I were doing and she asked them to check me again. The nurse at this point was a little hesitant to check because it had only been about thirty minutes since the last time she had checked and didn't want to give me bad news, but when she checked I was already at an 8 to a good 9. That was very exciting, at this point I am pretty sure it was about 8:30pm, they came back thirty minutes later and I was at a full 10. I could feel the pressure of the baby and it was the craziest feeling in the world. I was told to push, at this point the dr was not in the room, I pushed about four times and they told me to stop it was time to get the Dr. As soon as the Dr came into the room they got everything set up and two pushes later she was here. Our little perfect Amelia had finally made it into this world. She was a wonderful 7lbs even and 20in long. I would not change any of it for the world, my doula's have said that you do what you can for as long as you can for this pregnancy and that is what we did. Our world has definitely been changed and I am so excited to see what this little life brings to our family.

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The Time has come at last!

It is finally here! Tomorrow evening we go into the hospital to start my labor. It has been the longest 10 months of my life, finding out that you are pregnant when you are only 7 weeks along and knowing that you have 33 more weeks to go before your baby gets here is a long time. It doesn't help that our child seems to enjoy the comfort of my tummy either. However, tomorrow evening we get the ball rolling. Zachary and I are both very nervous, it isn't entirely what we had wanted this whole process to be like but we also know that the safety of our little girl is way more important than what we want. I am looking forward to seeing her beautiful face and holding her in my arms. I want to see who she looks like, what color her eyes will be, her hair(if she has any). If she is long like her daddy or short like me, there is just so much to think about and ponder about. All of our questions will be answered soon and I can't wait. I look forward to seeing Zach hold his little girl and see the look in his eyes knowing that she is his daddy's girl. To watch him his going to be the most amazing thing to me, she isn't here yet and he is already the most amazing daddy in the world. He has such concern and care for her, he is so sweet when he talks to my tummy and he is so gentle when he rubs on my tummy when she pokes out. I know that he is going to be so amazing! Only another day to go and all of our waiting will be so worth it, we will have our sweet little angel here with us and then starts the journey to making sure we raise her in the way we are called to as parents. To teach her all that we have learned from our parents, to teach her about the love of Jesus and all of the amazing things that he has done for us. It is going to be a tuff journey ahead, but we are up for the challenge.

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