Jubilee Birth Story

For my own memory as well as anyone else interest I wanted to testify to God's amazing kindness to us in Jubilee's birth and hospital stay.

I was scheduled for an induction on July 9, I was only 39 weeks but because in addition to being done being pregnant, my parents were caring for the other kids and my Dad was leaving for a mission trip to Africa on the 14th.  We had been praying that I would go into labor on my own and not have to have the induction.  I didn't sleep well the night before the induction; contractions, a bad storm and excitement kept me awake.  I called the hospital at 6 am and they said to come in for my 7 am induction.

On the way to the hospital my contractions from the night before got more regular and more intense.   We arrived at the hospital around 7:15 and were waiting to be brought back and my contractions got even more intense and more regular.  Erik says I'm very timely, he figures I knew it was time and just decided to go into labor.  They came out to give us an update on our room around 8 (they were cleaning it) and I told them that I was having pretty regular contractions, there was another lady who came into the waiting room in clearly much more pain than me.  I told them it was a terrible thing to be a little bit in labor and have to watch someone else more in labor than you and know that's where you need to go (funny thing is after were all done with delivery she was still laboring- poor woman).  I think they finally finished cleaning the room and came to get us around 8:45.  The doctor checked me and I was 3 cm and 80%, so I decided to walk a little bit and the contractions got even worse and I started down my, "I can't do this...they should just do a c-section...I'm never going to make it..." path.  This is where Erik intervenes and tells me that I need to get an epidural, which I get and I become the happiest person alive eating my popsicle and not feeling the contractions any more.  


At this point the doctor checks me, I am 4 1/2 cm and they break my water, about an hour later my pain comes back.  Now, I have several friends who have described labor with an epidural as "pain-free."  This has never been my experience, even with all the epidurals I have gotten I have always felt pain and usually really intense pain at the end.  What I think I didn't know is you can get more drugs in the epidural machine!  Wow!  This is such great news!  My best friend, the epidural drug man, came back and got me so high on epidural I couldn't feel anything!  The pain in my back had been really intense the whole time so I had been laying on a bag of ice, well in melted and laying in a puddle of ice water and couldn't feel a thing- I had 6 warm blankets on me because I was shaking like crazy but I didn't know about the ice water.  So after I got all nice and numb they told me to call them when I was ready to push.  Basically I laid there for maybe 2 hours and almost fell asleep- this has never happened to me before.  Eventually my IV fluids were out and they came back in to check me and the doctor said, "You're complete, you ready to push?"  Now, I have to say, Erik had been saying I was probably ready and was so numb that I wouldn't know but I was so relaxed I didn't really care I thought that if I just waited as long as possible I wouldn't have to push as long.  So they break apart the table and get me ready to push, they have to tell me when I'm having a contraction (another thing that has never happened to me before) and I push once, twice, out pops her head, three times out pops her body and I'm done.  I can't feel a thing- so all those people who told me they had pain free deliveries weren't lying after all!  She was born around 4 pm, 7 lbs 12 oz, 19.5 inches longs.  

Then after she was born she was having a lot of trouble breathing, she was grunting and couldn't really cry.  They called over the NICU doctor who didn't like it either.  In addition she and I both had fevers right after delivery (probably because of all the blankets I was under).  After a chest xray they determined that she had a spontaneous pneumothorax (which is a pocket of air outside the lung pushing in on the lung).  It was small but they needed to keep her in the NICU and we couldn't hold her or nurse her because she hooked up to a machine that put pressure in her lungs to keep them from collapsing.  

The did lots of bloodwork and some of it was elevated.  I can't tell you how grateful I am for all the prayers we received both for our souls and for her healing.  They were all met.  I was really sad not being able to hold her or nurse her, Erik was sad that she was sick but God met us both and set our hearts and hope on him.  By late morning on the 10th she was off the breathing machine and I was able to hold her and nurse her and with 48 hours of her delivery all her x-rays and blood work had cleared up!  It truly was an answer to prayer.  

In God' amazing kindness, while Erik was in the car waiting for us to come down from the NICU he very randomly was going through his ipod and decided to play this song, he didn't know it.  What a gift from God, this is exactly why we named her Jubilee and neither of knew this song.






We are so grateful to God for our girlie and for the way he grew our faith in him through her birth and healing!

AMEN and AMEN

All I can say to this article is AMEN!

Home At Last

On May 9, 2012, Erik's Mom went home to be with her Savior.  Today we celebrated her life with family and friends.  For those who are interested, here is a snapshot of her life.

Baby Girl

We had our official sonogram a week or so ago and the tech confirmed that it looks like a girl. We are so excited. We are planning on naming her.... Jubilee Resounds Sandra Sheffer.

The bible talks about the year of Jubilee, which come every fifty years. It is a year when land should lay fallow, should be restored to its rightful owner and when slaves are set free. The biblical word in of itself doesn't give the meaning for joy. But it seems like the when you say the word people equate it with joy (probably because of jubilation). For me, Jubilee means joy that comes from freedom. In the past 3 years, God has taught me so much about grace and the freedom that Christ gives to his children, it has transformed my life in many ways and so I love the name Jubilee for our last little girl because if nothing else parenting has/is teaching me that I am free in Christ and that my righteousness comes only through Christ. The reality of this truth is something that I want to go shout from the rooftops, hence Resounds.

Her second middle name is Sandra, in honor my mother-in-law, who will soon know the real freedom that Christ brings when she enters his kingdom, free from sin and suffering, welcomed as a child is welcomed home. She will be greatly missed and always remembered.

Parenting

Karis has lots of thoughts on parenting. A few weeks ago she told me that she was never going to have her children clean up and that she would wait until after they went to bed and then clean up for them. I told her I would be sure to write that down and show it to her children when she asked them to clean up. So now she has come up with a new list of "Rules" for her children, she wrote them out for me.

1. Bring your bowls to the sink.
2. Clean up your toys when you're done.
3. Do not tease.
4. Think of others first.
5. Ask only once.
6. Read your Bible every day.
7. Don't tackle Daddy when he gets home.
8. Always go to Grandma's on Wednesday.

Not bad, they sound a lot like the rules I'm always harping on.

From Scratch

Today is my Grandmother's birthday, she passed onto to be with Jesus several years ago but I've been thinking about her today. Both of my grandmothers were wonderful woman and I was blessed to live very close (blocks away) from both of them so they were always very much a part of my life. The grandmother whose birthday is today was my mother's mother. She grew up in Alabama and went to school with no schools. She knew how to skin a squirrel! She worked as a librarian but I still spent lots of time with her.

It is impossible to comprehend the impact that one person has another person. Some of my memories of her include: learning how to sew in her basement on her sewing machine (which I loved); eating toasted cheese and tomato (grilled cheese with her on the porch; how clean her how always was; her always reading (in my genes I suppose); playing with my cousins in her attic and basement; sneaking peanut butter out of her basement pantry (which is now in my garage); her baking (also in my genes) apple pie, blueberry muffins, oatmeal cookies- yum; her slaving all day to make homemade perogies that were gone in 20 minutes; making sauerkraut soup (which I never ate) on Christmas eve only for everyone to discover when I was in my 20s that she hated the stuff and so many more.

This song, like no other song, makes me think of her (don't know the people in the video just love the song). I love the last line, "She gave us much more than we thought, from scratch." Very profound, when I think of how much I took my grandmother for granted. As a stay at home mom, I wish I could call her when I want to know how many cups are in a quart (the kind of thing she knew off the top of her head) or how to clean silver (not that I ever do that), she would have been better than google any day!

Happy Birthday Grandma, you are missed!

She loved to hold her grand grandchildren!

With my grandfather, who adored her, and her two children.

Four Generations (Karis was just a few weeks old)- boy do I look tired!

It's a...

I took this paper to the doctor on Friday morning and asked her to take a look on the sonogram, fill out the paper and put it in a sealed envelope...we opened it as a family when I got back...we are THRILLED!