Our smallest, biggest blessing.

In July 2007, we find out we were expecting baby #3. We were very excited and also a little concerned. Pregnancies are very hard on my body. I have been on bed rest for all of my pregnancies. This last one was no different, except I was on bed rest for all but 4 weeks. At twenty weeks I was 80% effaced. Our midwives and doctors begin preparing us for the reality that our child would not survive if she were born so early. I was put on complete bed rest, with two small children. My husband had just been hired with a new company (an answer to one of our prayers) that required full time travel for the first 18 to 24 months, meaning he was gone usually from Sunday afternoon until late Friday night. And you know what? God sustained us. Every other week, I was in the hospital for an ultrasound and there was always someone available to watch the children. When I would have to go to the hospital in the middle of the night with contractions, my husband's family was always there to watch the children. Friends stopped by several times a week to bring food, clean house and take my children to the park. Week by week went by, and God sustained us and protected us.
When I hit 36 weeks, I was finally allowed off bed rest. And still no baby. Thirty seven weeks, we stripped my membranes THREE times, and still no baby. Thirty eight weeks found me walking around the mall for hours on end, trying to get the show on the road. And still no baby. Saturday, March 22 found me at a friend's house for a picnic and bible study. Shortly before we started the bible study, I came out of the bathroom and told my husband and friends that my water had broken. Nothing else though, no contractions. Later that evening we called our midwives and they immediately came over (I have a history of very, very short labors). My water was indeed broken, but no contractions. We walked up and down our darkened road for hours. My neighbor stepped outside to see what was causing her dogs to bark, and still no baby. At four 0'clock in the morning we decided to take a nap. When I woke up a few hours later, still no contractions. Our midwife called the doctor to update him on my progress and to get medical permission to keep me at home. (We had been planning a homebirth and our state law requires that a doctor be consulted when your membranes have been ruptured for X amount of hours with no progress.) The doctor said okay, to start antibiotics at 1:30pm and bring me in then if I hadn't had the baby. So it kept going. We tried everything to get labor going and nothing worked. Finally, we decided to pray. Why we didn't do that first, I don't know. It always seems that instead of running to God first, we always try to take care of things ourselves. And it never works. Within 10 minutes of taking it to God in prayer I was in transition. 8cm dialated. Within 20 minutes the midwife was shouting for my husband to come or he was going to miss the birth. At 1:32pm, two minutes past the doctor's deadline, our daughter was born at home, at 39 weeks gestation. It was Easter Sunday.

What a beautiful picture of God in his sovereignty. Over two thousand years before, His Son had risen from the grave, a Savior for all mankind, promised since the beginning, and here my husband and I were holding our new daughter, whose days God had already ordained.

Today is that sweet little baby's first birthday. The very one who doctors said would never make it to term, and would in all probability die as a result of a premature birth. Soon after her birth, a very close friend gave me a scripture that the Lord had led her to:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11