Getting back into the swing of things…

As I mentioned before, I really missed and still do miss the hospital. Many reasons… the drugs were nice… I’m not going to lie, we never changed a diaper (the nurses were awesome!), the food was great, people were constantly there to help us, if Trey got fussy in the middle of the night, he could spend the night in the nursery and there was kind of a “honeymoon” euphoria after having our baby. Mostly, however, I liked being able to put my worries and plans on hold. For a whole week we decided to not think about finances or moving or anything important besides Trey. (kind of like vacation…)

Well, we are home from the hospital and it is time to get back to reality. It kind of feels good. You can only live in that “honeymoon” stage for so long. Today I did laundry and cleaned Trey’s bathroom… it actually felt good to do somethings around the house again!

The thing I put of thinking about the most this summer was Canvas Church. I know this has been hard for Mark because it has been on the forefront of his heart. My maternal insecurity set in and once I realized we would not be selling our house before Trey got here, the more I got comfortable with the idea of just being here. Honestly, it scares me to death to move away from everything I know and love with a brand new baby and be apart of starting a church from scratch…again….but even more so!

I can’t escape it though. It is like God gave me a relief this summer while preparing for Trey. Now that he is here, my heart has gained capacity to remember what God has called us to. Savannah has continually been on my heart. I look at pictures, read others in our group’s stories, and I am reminded that this is where we are supposed to be. Even more so, I am reminded that God has a plan for Trey in Savannah too. There is no mistaking the time of his birth… God had it all in control.

I am actually getting excited again. It can not be denied… God has great plans in store for the city of Savannah! Even though I tried… you can’t miss God’s hand in all that is going on with our church and the city! So although I am scared and nervous, I am excited about the adventure ahead. Now…if someone could just please buy our house!

savannahcanvas.com

Postpartum thoughts…

I had no idea a little thing that only weighs almost 8 pounds would keep me so busy! I have had no time to myself yet I  am not even sure what I have been doing?! : )

Here are the random thought in my whirling through my head…

- I love my baby so much!

- Trey sure does like to eat! If he is awake he wants to eat!

- Will my stomach ever look the same?… (no! unfortunately I know the answer to that one!)

- I have a whole new appreciation for my mom… and would not have made it through the last couple of weeks without her!

- A C-section really is not as bad as the doctors made it out to be! (Although, I greatly miss my pain medication… it ran out last week!)

- my life is now run by Trey’s feeding clock!

- everyone said “You have no idea how much your life is about to change” … even though Mark and I got tired of hearing it…. they were right!

- I think our baby might be a red head… and we have already realized he has the temper to match it! : )

- Postpartum blues are a real thing… I thought pregnacy was bad… (sigh) … I would like to feel normal again!

- Sleep is a rare and short thing… all the days run together…

- Mark and I went on a small short date Friday night… we got in the car… it was just the two of us… it felt really normal… when will the three of us start feeling normal? : )

- Dare I say I miss being pregnant!?! I never thought I would say that!

- I miss the hospital! Can we go back? : )

- Our baby is vastly loved! I am overwhelmed at the love shown by our family and friends!

There is my brain in a nutshell right now! One thing is for sure… I love this baby! He is amazing! He is our gift from God and worth whatever life change we need to go through!

I love him so…

I am completely and ridiculously head over heels in love with my baby! People probably tried to warn me but I don’t think it is possible to describe the love a mother has for her child : )

Please don’t laugh but last Sunday night Mark and I were talking. I told him I was worried that this all might be a big “let down”. That it would be good and all but ultimately not that great…. I know I know… I am weird but crazy thoughts were running through my head the night before we were headed to the hospital. Mark said he didn’t think so and was pretty sure it would be amazing.

Well he was right. My heart is just overflowing with love for Trey. Sometimes I sit and hold him after I feed him and I just cry. Its like I don’t know what else to do with everything I feel inside. I stare at him for hours. A nurse commented in the hospital how she had never been in a room where the TV was not on all the time. Ours wasn’t because we were too wrapped up in being with him! His eyes captivate me! I love the way he smells and have noticed I am starting to smell like him. I get sad when night rolls around because I know our time together has ended for the day (for the most part). Yes, I am smitten over my baby!

As I was trying to fall asleep in the middle of feedings last week, God spoke to me. He said, “I love you the same way”. I had just spent some time just holding Trey close to my face before putting him to sleep and God spoke to my heart and said “I love holding you close too”. I know in the Bible it says that God is the “giver of all good things”.  I think if he is the “giver” of the love of a parent then how much more so does He love us. I can not even fathom!

It is so good to catch small glimpse, of what I am sure will be many, of God’s love through our baby boy!

Hospital to Home…

I promised more details : ) ….

God is so good too! Our birthing process was amazing! We went in Monday night to start induction. My water broke around 9:30 the next morning. I started labor… felt contractions for maybe an hour. They were not that bad but I am sooo glad I had the epidural by the time they got more intense!!!! I conquered one of my top fears… getting an epidural around 11 am. I had seriously been dreading that since I was a little girl! At 5p.m. I had still not dilated at all. My contractions were very intense and minutes apart so the doctor pretty much said we have little to no other options besides a C-section. They wheeled me in around 8p.m. I was terrified. I just now have gotten to where I don’t pass out from giving blood, so the idea of doctors cutting in to me and me being awake during the whole thing was scary! I made it and God’s presence was with us the whole way! Mark juggled the video camera, camera and comforting me beautifully! By 8:49p.m. we had a baby!

The most amazing sound in the world was hearing my baby for the first time!

Our hospital stay was AMAZING!! I would highly recommend Cobb hospital! The nurses were wonderful! I felt like I was in a training seminar. They taught us so much and were patient enough to help when needed. The food was great! I had room service for each meal and was able to order off of a great menu. Many times I felt we were in a hotel rather than a hospital! Even though we had been there five days, I was really sad and scared to go home! Our time there was amazing!

Trey ended up having Jondus. He was under Billy lights most of the week. We even had to take a travel kit home. This was the most heart wrenching part of our week this week. As soon as we got to see our baby, he was summoned to lay in a plastic bed under what looked like tanning bed lights. I just wanted to hold him and be with him. This process really stretched the whole “cut the umbilical cord” process! But the good news is that his levels went down over the weekend and we were able to come off the lights Sunday!

We are home now and trying to develop a schedule and some sort of normalcy again! We LOVE being parents! Even amidst my increasing sleep deprivation I keep pinching myself because this all fells to good to be true!

I praise God for the incredible blessing he has given us!!!

He is here!

I promise to blog more later… Trey arrived Tuesday night via section at 8:49 pm. He is amazing! We are completely in love with our new little boy!

Slide show Here

My dream job awaits me…

So reality has hit me… ready or not this week Mark and I will become parents! We are getting induced early because of my blood pressure problems. I was kind of wanting the whole “Father of the Bride II” rush to the hospital surprise but on second thought (reality kicks in) and I realize this really is the way to go. We have a scheduled time to be at the hospital and my mind is whirling because that is in less than 24 hours (and yes its late and no I can’t sleep)!

An awesome reality hit me today… Mark and I were sitting in Trey’s nursery, cleaning it up a little and getting it just right for his arrival. We started looking through some of his toys and books. Somewhere between Mark reading me “George’s Bunny Adventure” and putting away his 100th onsie I realized I was about to start my dream job.

Since I was a little girl, really as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a mom. I remember playing house perpetually. I lived it. My dolls (my beloved Cabbage Patch dolls : )  went every where and did everything with me. My sister and I used to make our rooms our apartments and would have play dates for our “kids”and go to the grocery store on our bikes. I remember later in middle school writing an essay about the “Greatest day ever”. My day included “getting” to baby-sit a baby all day and going shopping and then I think having my best friend spend the night. In high school I nannied and worked after school programs at an elementary school. In college, I nannied some more, tutored kids and taught dance.

Although I did not see it at the time, God has been preparing me for my dream job the whole way. Now, Lord knows, I pursued every other venue out there. I tried “making something of myself” and having a “career” but every door and every option was shut in some way out of my control! I was really upset about that for a while…. depressed even. I felt that God was being mean and reducing me less than what I felt was my potential.

But something in me just clicked today… I don’t know… I really see that God knows me better than even I know me. See a couple of years ago a wise lady said to me… ” you know God doesn’t give us what we want…” and I thought “yea yea I know… He gives us what we need…”  but she said, “No, He gives us what we really really want“. To this day I can not get that out of my head. And you know what she is right. For me, I thought I wanted a successful teaching career and then a renown ministry. He took both of those away from me. I pouted for awhile… (to be honest, I probably still was until today : ) but now am starting to realize God did not take something from me but yet has given me the purest and deepest desire of my heart… motherhood. This really is what I have always wanted I just kinda forgot.

The good news is that although I forgot and turned away from being the person God created me to be, God did not forget! He has made me a certain way for a purpose. He loves me and wants to give me what I truly desire not the surfacey momentary pleasures of my heart.

He is good and we can trust Him… especially heading into unknown territories such as parenting : )

Tagged… I love this kind of stuff : )

(especially bored on bed rest)

The Rules:

1. Post the rules at the beginning
2. Answer the questions only about yourself
3. At the end of the post, tag five people and post their names, then go to their blogs and leave them a comment so they know they’ve been tagged. Ask them to read the sender’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know you’ve posted your answer

Hopefully Parents Soon!

Well, we went to the doctor yesterday and got some good and bad news… but mostly good! It looks like my blood pressure is back up! This is not too good and weird because I have been on bed rest now for two weeks. I get to do another 24 hour urine test…fun stuff! The good news is, because of my blood pressure and threat of preclamsia, they are scheduling us for an early induction!!! It looks like we may have a baby by this time next week! We also get to have a sonogram Thursday which I am really excited about but I guess that is nothing compared to the possibility of seeing him in person very soon!

We should know a lot more by tomorrow! 24 hours seems like such a long time!

Link for Layla

I had to link this to my site! This is a video from my sister-in-law’s blog of our niece and nephew. Layla is so smart and full of personality! Tanner is so sweet and will soon be Trey’s buddy! This video is adorable! I love them both!

Rest…

This word has haunted me over the last three years. It is especially haunting me right now as I am on bed rest awaiting the arrival of our first baby. It has been two weeks into this venture that it finally occurred to me that I might should ask God what He wanted to do with this down time I was now facing.

I thought maybe there is some exciting project I could work on while down… maybe I could help Mark get some things rolling and on paper for Canvas, maybe I need to try to devour every parenting book there is …. maybe that’s why God hasn’t allowed Trey to come yet…. I need to be better prepared.  So I threw the question out there to God and waited. The weekend came and went and I forgot I asked Him about it. Then this morning God answered me… not in a way I expected… in fact I thought it was my husband’s voice resonating in my ear because he has said this many times before….

God simply said … “I want you to rest and I want you to enjoy it.“

Why is it so hard for me to accept the fact #1 that rest is good and #2 that sometimes God simply wants to bring joy into our lives? I forget so many times that God is my Father. He acts out of love. The other day I came across a passage in Deuteronomy. It reminded me of the gentle and caring nature of God.

“For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye,” Deuteronomy 32:10