Visionary Womanhood is my personal journey with the Lord enroute to becoming a woman after God's own heart. The journey goes through the steps and experience which drew me closer to God and to His purpose for me as a woman. To read the earlier posts in this series click HERE.
We left off at my being a career mom, working 8-5, followed by soccer practice, supper, homework and exhaustion! I asked the Lord for a glimpse of His plan or vision for my life and He freely gave it! To be at home, putting my family first and devoting myself to their care.
Things were settled in my heart with a renewed interest in keeping my home and nurturing my family. But time was a huge issue, I just didn't have time! Things continued on like this for a while when one month I realized my cycle was late. After suffering three miscarriages we had decided on no more children. Taking the pregnancy test confirmed I was indeed pregnant - totally surprised, shocked and terrified!
This pregnancy was a milestone in my faith in God. Through this time, God revealed His strength, peace and grace vividly to me. I"ll try not to bore you with too many details, but I just wanted to journal the details of this pregnancy for me to always come back to.
With my previous miscarriages they all started with spotting at around 6 weeks. With this pregnancy, I didn't tell anyone except dear husband and just "sat and waited" with no emotion, no hope but just waiting. At seven weeks, I made a doctor appointment and within days started to spot. At my first doctor appointment we reviewed my past pregnancies and decided to just wait another week to see the doctor. The office ordered blood work at a lab and I decided that I would not get it done since all signs pointed to another miscarriage. When the time rolled around to see the doctor, things looked better physically and I got the blood work done and got a good report from the doctor. We waited until about 12 weeks after the first sonogram to share the news with our family. It took this long to actually believe and become excited about being pregnant. Each day I would take a walk, lay my hand on my stomach and pray Scripture over the baby and thank God that He created this life.
Things went along well with the pregnancy, but at each doctor visit, I noticed a lot of turnover in staff. A new assistant was there almost at every visit. There was just an underlying unsettling there I couldn't put my finger on. Finally at 28 weeks, I was informed that the doctor had lost birthing privileges at the hospital we were scheduled to deliver at, but he assured me he was working on getting privileges at another hospital and was adding an associate and things would be ok. Since it is just in my personality to have a plan and a focus, this did not sit well with me, so I took it to prayer. God revealed to me that He is the author of life and nothing can happen without Him knowing about it and allowing it. As my due date got closer, I could not get any answers from the doctor's office. What hospital would I deliver in, who would deliver the baby, were my questions and the answer was "just call the office when you go into labor".
At this time my husband had gotten a truck driver job closer to home. His dispatcher was keeping him on short runs as we did not want to him to lose any days from work. He usually worked on Saturdays, but the week of my due date, they let him off at the last minute. That Saturday morning I awoke at 6:00 AM with a contraction. I wanted to make sure this was really labor, so I got up and piddled around the house, cooked breakfast, cleaned up etc. and the contractions were still there. The call to the doctor was made and I was directed to a totally different hospital with no further information.
We traveled down to the hospital which had no information on me (due to the doctor's office), and they put me in triage. While under evaluation, the baby's heart stopped beating. My heart stopped and fear filled me, all this time with this pregnancy and what if the baby didn't make it? They got the heartbeat back and went ahead and admitted me. It was seen that an IV was needed, so two nurses set about to both get it. They were a nice nurse, and a nurse with an attitude! The nurse with an attitude won out after a brief argument at my bedside! Shortly after this a man in basic hospital scrubs came in - assuming he as the janitor, he looked around the triage ward. He approached us and introduced himself as the doctor which would be delivering the baby! He was very gracious and handled the awkward situation very well. They settled us into a room and the nurse with an attitude was assigned as my nurse - yeah! To give you an example of how she was a little off - she checked me and said I was dilated to 5. Right after that we realized the baby was crowning and she said "Maybe that was a 10 instead of a 5". Lord, please help me! She called the doctor on his cell phone as he had gone to get something to eat. As soon as he got there we began to get ready to birth the baby. Again, the heartbeat stopped. I knew to push effectively since the baby's life depended on him getting out fast. He came out with the cord wrapped around his neck twice, but soon began crying which was the sweetest sound in the whole world.
First of all I was not bored with the details of your story, they are all part of the script God has written. I came over via the Well study and your words about the miscarriage hit home as I've experienced the very thing these last few days. I was thankful to read you heard the sweet sound of a child crying. Blessings to you and keep sharing, you're mentoring all of us with your words.
ReplyDelete