The Breech Birth of Annaka Faith

Shanea and Shane helping me through a surge

      This birth starts at 6:30am Sunday morning. I am laying in bed feeling each surge come and go, thinking "these feel different?". I eventually get up and start getting ready for church stopping every 10-15 mins to breath through a surge. I get the girls and hubby up and start getting them around, make breakfast and have a cup of joe. Sit down in the living room and watch the girls play, waiting for time to go before we leave for church. Thinking as I sit there, "these feel different?". I share this thought with Shane and we go about our day joking about having a labor day baby. On the inside I'm thinking "If I have to go through another day of labor and have no baby I'm liable to completely lose my mind!".

      We get to church and our youth pastor is giving a sermon about "Facing Your Giants"; a fantastic sermon. However good, I really didn't expect it would hit me like it did. At the end, while Burnie is praying and I am going through another very different and strong surge, I start balling me eyes out. Shane starts holding me closely and I just cried, he's looking at me very confused and I'm now thoroughly embarrassed so I excuse myself to the restroom. But alas when I cry I tend to get extremely red faced and swollen so I can't hide it! This sermon made me realize I am facing my giant! It's making me realize that I can't give up and get frustrated, I have to wait on God's perfect timing! This gives me strength and more patience for the day I felt sure was going to be another day of labor and no baby.

Where Is He taking me?

      I think most disciples of Christ can agree that God is always teaching us something. Sometimes it is little lessons, and when I say 'little' I mean we learned them easily and quickly. Sometimes they are big lessons, meaning they took us a long time to learn and they were well not so easy! So far I've only posted the bigger ones. I really want to post the smaller ones too.

       A friend recently shared with me that she is inspired by God when she reads scripture I post on Facebook. So, I'm thinking if God uses these little lessons he is giving me to talk to other people how can I not share what he gives me? Is that not what a disciple should do?

A Breech Story

      I am currently 39 weeks pregnant with a breech baby and I'm planning a home birth. This will be my second home birth (God willing!) and I could NOT be more excited! I'm at peace with the location, the action, the people involved and our current financial situation. Now, to tell the story of how I became so calm and relaxed about all this. Rest assured it was a bit of a rocky road to get to this point!

      Like I said this is our 2nd home birth, and third baby. So giving birth is something, thanks to HypnoBirthing, and chiropractic well care, I'm already very excited about. I really do just crave it! However I've never had a breech baby. I know what most are thinking. A breech baby? "how do you do that outside a hospital?". Well it's simple. You labor like you would a Vertex baby, I'm guessing the normal amount of hours what ever that is for you and your baby, then the tricky part comes in, you allow your body to push the baby out. And guess what folks? It does! Really just that simple.

OK OK, yes I'm being a little sarcastic. Sorry, I am 39 weeks pregnant, sarcasm is my middle name.

~Differences~

    Since starting a walk with Christ I have often encountered 'different kinds of Christians'. For a new believer and for non-believers, in particular, I think this is a very confusing thing. It creates disbelief and questions. Not that questions are bad, asking and listening are how we learn.

    I (a representative of ONE believer) have a certain walk with Christ. I have no reason to think my walk isn't exactly right for me. And honestly if it's good for me and works so well for me, it would stand to reason that it would work great for others, Right? Well, that is the dilemma.

    "If your walk is so wonderful and your walk has brought you so close to Christ, is it not "the perfect walk", or at the very least great for others too?"

"In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." Ephesians 2: 21-22
"It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teaches, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4: 11-13

Surrendering Satan

A good friend shared something with me recently that really helped to open my eyes to my sin.

I have this friend that has grown up a missionary in third world countries. His childhood was centered in missions and his marriage has been spent in missions also. He and his wife just returned to the states after 20 years in Bolivia. They are amazing wonderful people and I love them. They have devoted their lives to the Lord and building a great relationship with him. As well as teaching others about him.

They have shared these crazy (I feel they are crazy scary) stories with me of how Satan shows himself in these places. They say it is very different here than it is there. There it is very obvious, possessions, men being able to do things that aren't humanly possible like jump from 3rd floor roof tops, things of this nature. Very scary stuff. He tells me how unfortunately he has developed the ability to feel Satan's presence when he is in it. Like in these obvious situations and sometime in less obvious situations when his presence is strong. Anyway, he tells me about how they feel Satan's presence shows itself in less obvious ways here. Like; TV, music, child abuse, mental illness and such.

I think this is really interesting. If you can detach yourself from your personal likes and dislikes on the subject of music and such you can totally see how having an influence over this industry could help Satan to win over more and more people. When you surround yourself with something good or bad you will feel the effects of it, good or bad.

Unrelated and Pure

Above is the picture of play time I walked up to the other morning as my sweet daughter was having all her dolls "lay" together. Being a mother of girls I will tell you these kinds of things set off little alarms in your head. You are unfortunately sent strait to a place of worry over how and why she is pretend playing like this and concern that she doesn't understand something that could be easily explained. So I ask her why all her dolls are laying down and why the prince is kissing the princesse? She looks at me all confused and worried and says "They are married and trying to be Unrelated and pure." I let out a small laugh and look at her very perplexed and say "Whaatt?" So she repeats herself now getting a little defensive and frustrated with me that I don't know what Unrelated and pure means. I ask her if she can explain to me what these two words mean to her. Her response confuses me more. So, together we look up the two words separately in the dictionary and she realizes she is a little confused. So I ask her where so got the words from. She says "I read a story about how Moses goes up the mountain and God tells him to keep his marriage pure." She is referring to the story in Exodus 19-20

I'm thinking, "Yeah!!" that she is remembering the stories so well and kudos to her for backing up what she believes and has learned on her own. (She reads her little Bible constantly when she has free time, Little Girls Bible storybook by Carolyn Larson, a great book) We talk a little longer and I get to the bottom of it with my famous, me-"Shanea, do you have a question you'd like to ask me?" Shanea-"Yes, Why do married people sleep in the same bed?"

God answers our paryers

When I decided I wanted to do this blog my sweet friend, Michelle, showed me a few "tricks" or really pieces of advice about blogging. Like for one, let a post sit a digest a few days before posting. I'm thinking "that's great advice, I always speak before I really think it through!". So then I sit down get the site all ready, start typing a post, finish it, read over it several times and say, "this is exactly what I want to say I'm posting it!". I really felt like this is good, so no problem right?

Well, the post was about Shanea's eye and how it hadn't healed in 4 days and the different remedies we were trying, and of course "My plan" for the days ahead to try and make it better. I do that a lot, concoct a Plan to fix something. Forgetting it's never My plan to begin with. It's all in his hands! If I could just get this patience thing down! My husband says frequently that I am an instant gratification girl, now now now!

We wake this morning to two things that prove to me it is God's plan not mine. First off, I had the colloidal silver overnighted from vitacost.com (great place!) and of course the only thing that didn't make the shipment was the colloidal silver! Seriously frustrated. I look at Shanea's eye and wouldn't you know it after several long prayers yesterday he healed completely! It was looking so yuck yesterday and I was seriously thinking I would have to set up an eye appt and God stepped in and did his magic! Shanea says to me this morning "You did pray a lot yesterday mommy and it only took God 4 days!". She is so funny. My 5 year old has more faith sometimes than I do! Love it!

Lesson: (I seem to have to be taught this particular lesson a lot!)
Let God work. Have the patience to know he is doing his thing and your prayers will be answered in some fashion. So it boils down to patience, and FAITH!
"...how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" Romans 8:32

Eyes

Recently Shanea has gotten a double "eye infection". I use this term loosely, as I am not really sure that is what you'd call it. I feel pretty confident in saying it's not pink eye, but it's definitely something not so good. Red eyes, gunkie stuff coming out of both eyes and she is all congested and coughing a good bit.

I did some research and we are using a homemade herbal eye drop (sterilized water, with chamomile drops and belladonna drops diluted) that really seems to be relieving any discomfort, but not drawing the infection out. We purchased some colloidal silver, which is a great natural herbal remedy that fights bacteria and viruses. It can be ingested so I know it's safe for her little body. We are hoping this will do the trick. My next move tomorrow morning I've yet to share with her is egg whites. A sweet friend of mine found this remedy in her "bible" of homeopath remedy's.

The best part of all this is how she is really being a trooper about the eye drops, the warm compresses and having to keep herself very sterile, so she doesn't pass it to anyone. Poor baby has washed her hands so many times they are starting to dry out! Thank goodness for my lotion!

I have openly prayed for Shanea's eyes with her and on my own. She really responds to knowing God is working on it! She knows he will heal her; it's only a matter of waiting. I love that she is so trusting and patient for him. We are really blessed in her as a first child. I can't imagine a better role model for our future kiddos.