Well it has been 5 months to the day that our little Leo was
born. We have our fighting little lion. He came into the world happy and healthy; something
that I was praying for the whole time I was pregnant. God certainly granted those prayer requests because
Leo’s favorite thing to do is smile. I struggle
with writing this entry more than any other.
I struggle because while we are blessed to have this little guy in our
lives, I know so many of you have been waiting longer and have had much larger
obstacles. I don’t know why God has
given us this child before so many other couples, and while we thank God for
him every day, I struggle to understand why.
I guess that is not for me to know; God doesn’t have to explain himself
me, we just have to be open to the gifts he gives us. I feel it is my duty in this blog to share
that there is hope.
His birth didn’t go exactly like I had planned but rarely
does anything. In my last few weekly
visits to my doctor I hadn’t progressed at all, so when I was a week over my
due date we went ahead and scheduled an induction. I went into the hospital the night before
they were going to do the induction.
They wanted to give me some medicine to start the whole process. After the third dose of the medicine, my
contractions were a minute apart, but I still had not progressed at all. I knew
then that the birth was probably not going to go as I had planned. Fortunately, I was not feeling the
contractions but unfortunately I hadn’t progressed at all, and as the nurse put
it to me, “no pain, no gain”. As I laid
awake that whole night I kept praying to God let me be strong enough to do this
or give me a sign to go another way.
When my doctor came in the morning she gave me 3 options: 1. I could go home and wait another week (no
way was I leaving that hospital without my baby) 2. She could give me Pitocin and put me in labor
for as long as I wanted but there was still an 80 percent chance I would have
to have a c section or 3. Have the c
section within the next half hour. After
my husband and I discussed it we decide to just go ahead and do the c section
right away. We had waited long enough
and an 80 percent chance that we would have to do it anyway we decided it was
probably God’s birth plan.
So 45 minutes later I was being wheeled into the OR, my
parents and in laws making it just in time to wish me luck. While lying on the table with my husband by
my side I waited to hear the sound that I had longed to hear forever. I could feel the doctors pulling and pushing
on my stomach and could feel a release of pressure so I knew they had pulled
him out. Then out of the corner of my
eye I could see a little purple body being handed over to a nurse but I still
hadn’t heard him cry. Those few seconds
were the longest of my life. When that
little cry filled the room tears came rolling down my face. He was finally here our wait was over. Blessed be God!
People kept telling me your life is going to change forever
with him. I guess they were right! It certainly has changed for the better. He is such a good baby sometimes I feel a
little guilty. Of course he would wake
up in the middle of the night when he was a newborn but he would eat and go
right back to sleep. He also started
sleeping through the night at 1 ½ months.
My husband was out of work for a few months and why that seemed like it
just another obstacle in our lives, it was really a blessing for us as a family
to spend so much time together. Since I
am a preschool teacher I had the summer off so we were able to do a little
traveling and Leo at the age of four months has already been to 9 states and a
good majority of the counties in Nebraska.
I was hoping to be a stay at home mom but with my husband
out of work I had to return to school in the fall. His dad was an excellent stay at home dad but
has since returned to work. He certainly
misses being at home with Leo and so do I, but we are blessed to have his Amma
(grandma) watch him during the day. We
are loving being parents and look forward to all the fun times ahead!
