Dear Baby Jake,

After a lot of hard work, your room is finally ready and waiting for you. It's come a long way from where we started and we think you will love it. We look forward to laying you down in the crib that grandpa built and wrapping you in the quilt that sweet Connie at church made just for you. You are already so loved around here and everyone can't wait to meet you... you are the talk of this town for sure! With that being said, our bags are officially packed for the hospital, the car seat is in the car, and all that we're missing is you. And boy are we missing you. We think about you all the time, talk about you constantly, dream about your sweet face, and talk about what you will be like, what kind of personality you will have, and how wonderful it will be to finally hold you in our arms. We know you'll come when you're ready and when it's your time, but make that soon, okay??? We are already so in love with you... see you soon.

All our love and more,
Mommy & Daddy

PS - We really hope you like monkeys!

Labor of Love

It. is. almost. finished.

Remember that first post back in October about starting on the baby room? Never did I imagine then that four months later we'd still be working on it! But after four months, a wall-paper removing disaster (in which we removed the plaster as well), lots of spackle, a new ceiling thanks to my super-handy husband, crown molding installation, several cans of paint, and the search for the perfect furniture, the baby's room is THIS close to being complete! And as much as I would LOVE to share the pictures with you, our shower is this coming Saturday and I want to make sure that it is 100% complete before sharing the reveal. I mean, you've waited this long, right? So what's a couple more days? So instead, I'm just going to share a couple of pictures of this long process. And if you forget what a mess it was to start with, you can see the beautiful mess it was here. And I promise, since you've been so patient, that I will post the "after" pictures after the baby shower. It's worth the wait!

A few things to note here: Being the smart decorator that I am, I painted the walls and then realized that I was supposed to spackle them. Yes, I am a genius. So then I spackled. Then Josh attempted to take down the wallpaper on the ceiling (below) at which time all kinds of glue and gunk ended up on the walls. Needless to say, the walls were painted several times!

Whoops! That looks like more than wallpaper removal

Our lovely hole in the plaster of the ceiling. You just have to love old houses!

And that's how we ended up with a brand new ceiling. Talk about dusty!!!

And just because you're so patient, here are a few little things you can expect to see in the new room. Sorry for the teaser... I couldn't resist!

More to come soon! Stay tuned!!!

The Power of Prayer

I can attest to the power of prayer. Three weeks ago I was laying in a hospital bed being pumped with blood thinners and scared out of my mind. Josh had seen the size of the blood clot on the ultrasound screen and from the look on his face, I could tell he was incredibly worried. When his eyes welled up with tears I shot a fierce look at him and said, "Don't you do that. Don't you start," because I knew that he had to be strong enough for both (well, the three) of us. He held it together and after staying a few nights we were released with a lot of questions. On that day, I was pushed to the car in a wheelchair. When I was at home, I used my husband as a crutch to get from point A to point B. When I sat in the recliner or on the couch, I could only lay on my side as that was the only position where I could find a little bit of relief from the pain. I watched as people helped out around the clock, making meals and cleaning our house. But since the moment we found out something was wrong, people prayed.

When I tell you that people prayed, I need to define exactly how many people we had praying for us. As a pastor, Josh is in touch with a large network of people and is quick to get information out. On top of that, our families were praying over us, friends that we hadn't seen in years were praying for us, and emails came in from people we had never even met. In the hospital and over the phone we had elders from our church and good friends gather around us and pray... it was humbling and comforting and something I will treasure always. Although I will never know for sure of course, during these past few weeks I think I have had more people pray over me and my family than any other time in my life. How is that for overwhelming?

Yesterday we had an appointment with our wonderful Baby Doc and I waltzed into his office without a wheelchair. I laid flat on my back for an ultrasound and did not even feel a hint of an ache in my left leg. I listened as he told me that our baby looks perfect, has not been affected from the medications, and is in the 85th percentile for weight already. And then he looked at me and said, "I cannot believe how well you're up and moving around. The last time I saw you, you needed a wheelchair." When I heard this, I realized that even though he had told us this would eventually happen, even he did not think it would happen this fast. Our Baby Doc is a man of God and did not doubt that I would get better, but his medical mind told him that it would take longer. And even though this does not mean that the clot has completely dissolved (but then again, it also doesn't mean that it miraculously hasn't!), it does show that I have experienced an incredible amount of healing in an incredibly short amount of time. And oh how I will not take that for granted for I know that this gift has come from above. He heard your prayers, and He answered them. When I left the office I had an extra spring in my step for I was told that I could resume my normal activities and even work out if I felt up to it. The risk of this thing moving into my heart or lungs is so very minimal that our fears have been alleviated. I am still on schedule to be induced at 39 weeks due to the fact that I have to stop taking blood thinners first, but oh how grateful I am that this is all behind us. The road ahead is now filled with the joy of our impending baby's arrival... how great is that?

Prayer has been on my heart a lot lately, which is probably why I felt the need to do an entire posting on it. Our church just finished 21 days of prayer and fasting, and while I am ashamed to admit that I did not pray more than usual, I have been hearing God speak to me more than ever. Some folks would read the story above and give the credit to luck or modern medicine, but I know better. There are too many stories and too many "coincidences" in life that are linked to prayer. When my aunt was sick this past fall with carcinoma meningitis and we thought we'd lose her, our whole family and this town I live in prayed. Although she is not 100%, we're so blessed to still have her and she gets stronger everyday. She's beating the odds. When a man from our campus was in a snowmobile accident and they said he'd never make it, those warriors prayed, and he's now moving to a rehabilitation facility after several successful surgeries. The list goes on and on. I don't know about you, but it sounds a lot like cause and effect to me... prayer equals results, even when the results are not what we expect.

Even as I write this, I have to confess that I do not spend nearly enough time in prayer. The Bible tells us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), but more often than not I put it off until the end of the day when I have no energy left. No energy to talk to God? How sad is that? But even though we're taught to close our eyes and bow our heads, prayer is more than that- it's a conversation with the Maker, and it can be done no matter where you are or what you're doing. Back in the days when I had an hour-long commute, I would find myself talking out loud, as if Jesus himself was in the seat next to me, and it was such a great way to work things out in my mind and free myself of worry. Just speaking the words out loud allowed me to really connect in a way that I couldn't do when I was just silently saying them to myself. And then my husband taught me that prayer is not juts a one-way call, and that God wants us to open the door of communication by opening up His words, which are found in the Bible. Of course my first thought was, but what in the world am I supposed to read? Where am I supposed to start? So I started (slowly) in Matthew and moved on to Mark. Halfway through Mark I read something interesting about Ruth, which led me to read Ruth. When I was done with Ruth I felt compelled to read about Jacob, since that will be the name of our son and found myself in Genesis. I wasn't even through with his story when I was led to open up James, only to find that I must've read it some time ago considering that it had been marked up and underlined. The book of James mentions Job, so that's where I'm going next. Each time I open up those words, if I really open my mind to them and ask Him to reveal something new, I never go hungry. I walk away each time with something profound to think about and a desire to read something else, wherever that may be. My list now includes Esther and Hebrews, 1 Peter and Job... and although there does not seem to be a rhyme or reason to my reading patterns, He always knows where to take me. So if you feel like me and don't know where to start, just start. Just open it up and see what you'll find. Read it slowly and read the footnotes, write in your Bible and earmark things. And even if it doesn't happen right away, don't give up on it. The Gospels are a great place to start, but if you really just want to say you finished a chapter, start with one of Paul's letters in the new testament such as Ephesians or Galatians. Spending time in the word will enrich your life in ways that nothing else can, and all it takes is the time to open the book. It really is that easy.

Have you ever stopped and thought about who might be praying for you? What do you think that they are praying for? For you to find Jesus? For you to find a new job, a spouse, the child that you feel like you'll never have? We were at a church event about a month ago and our lead pastor said, "Every one of you is here tonight because someone prayed you in." WOW. As I look back on my life, on the poor decisions that I made and the road that did not remotely travel straight, there is no part of me that can take any credit for where I am today. I married a pastor- me! The most unlikely candidate in the world. And I know without a doubt that someone, somewhere (or multiple someones somewhere) prayed for me during those years that I wandered astray. And whoever you are, I thank you, for my life is rich with blessings and overflows with joy living in this light. And I want that for everyone. The more I am blessed, the more I am burdened for those who are wandering far from this path. A question we ask almost every Sunday to our congregation is whether we know someone close to us who is far from God. Yes! We all have those people. So what can we do? We can pray. Pray them in. If you do nothing else, you can do that. And prayer works... just wait and see.

Okay, so I was not planning on getting this lengthy, but like I said, this has been heavy on my heart and I had to share. I challenge you to work on your prayer life, and as I say this I am taking the same challenge. Approach things with prayer instead of taking your own way and wait and see what happens. If something you have been working toward has been difficult, whether it be a relationship or friendship, a search for a church family, or a big life change, consider that maybe you are taking your own way instead of God's way and ask him repeatedly (without ceasing) to help you find the way. The right path will be easy- He will make sure of it. Granted, you might end up in Small Town, Illinois freezing your buns off, but things will fall into place in a way that will prove to you it was His will and not yours. And that's a beautiful thing.

"Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? Your should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you will. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great powers and produces wonderful results." My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins."

~James 5:13-16, 19-20

Twice a Day, Everyday

Never have I been so appreciative of having love handles.

Then again, never have I disliked 8:00 so much, but the little guy will most certainly be worth it. Oh the things we do for our children *sigh* and ours isn't even here yet!

To our dear nephew,

Welcome to the world, little buddy! Since me and your Uncle Josh cannot be there to meet you, I thought I would write a little note to tell you how excited we are that you are here. You came into this world on Wednesday, January 28th, but I know that your mommy and daddy have been dreaming about you for a long time. I'm actually glad that God chose to give you to them now because your little cousin is on the way and you will be such good friends! From the pictures we've seen of you, you are such a precious little angel... you look just like your daddy, but I know that we'll see hints of your mommy as you get older. Both of your parents have such a wonderful way about them, so there is no doubt that you will grow up to be very smart, sensitive, and kind-hearted. You are a very lucky boy to be born into that family and they are going to love you so much more than you can even imagine, no matter what. And then on top of that, you have a ton of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents that are going to keep you covered up with love as you are such a blessing to all of us.

As for your Uncle Josh and me, we probably will not meet you until the late spring after your cousin is born. I know that you have lots of aunts and uncles, but I think you're going to like us best. :) Uncle Josh loves to fish, play football, and will definitely introduce you to the "toe-hold" and I will play just about any game with you that you request. I know that you and your cousin Jake will get into lots of trouble together, but we are so excited that you will always have each other to pal around with us. Our family lives all the way in Illinois, but if you come to visit, we have all sorts of fun things we can do up here. On the day you were born it snowed just about all day long, so make sure you visit in the summertime! We look forward to many, many fun times with you and your family.

Well little guy, be good to your parents and we will meet you just as soon as we can. In the meantime and throughout your life, just remember that you are loved by so many people in this world and are such a special little boy. Grow big and strong, laugh often, make good decisions, and love others as much as you are loved and we will see you soon. We love you so much.

All of our love,

Uncle Josh and Auntie Kim (and coming soon... cousin Jake)

Adam Robert, 1/27/2010 @ 12:40 PM, 7 lbs. 10 oz.
Congratulations Michael and Mindy!!!

Progress

Slowly but surely things are looking up around here after last week. At this time last week, I could not walk without help and could only lay on one side or another to relieve the pressure in my leg. Fast forward to now and I am up and walking around the house (although getting scolded a lot because I'm doing more than I should be!), feeling very little pain, and handling the twice-daily shots like a champ. That, however, I do owe to Josh as he's become quite the pro at them these days... it's just a normal part of our everyday routine. I've had a couple of "guest nurses" on the nights that he has had to work and they've been fabulous, too! Everyone is a little nervous at first, but so far I have successfully received every one of them. In a few weeks I will switch from my current shots (Lovenox) to Heparin shots because they can be reversed much more quickly in the event that I should go into labor early. Then once they set my date to me induced, they will stop all shots 48 hours before that and we should be good to go! We haven't been given that date yet, but from what they tell us it should only be about 6 1/2 more short weeks. The countdown has officially begun!

As for the bambino, he's just rockin' and rollin' in there... life is good for him! We had our second appointment with the new baby doc (again... LOVE him!) today and Jake checked out perfectly. Each week we will have an ultrasound and I will be on a fetal monitor for 20 minutes to monitor his heartbeat and make sure that I'm not having any contractions. Now that he's so big, the ultrasounds are awesome... we can see him in much more detail and he looks beautiful. He has a full head of hair apparently and is head-down and ready to make his debut. The only slightly scary part is that at 32 weeks he is weighing in at about 4 pounds, 10 ounces, which is about the 71st percentile. We're growing a monster baby! But the good news is that we won't have to worry about any issues with birth weight, but that's not entirely reassuring news for a woman who has never had to give birth before!

So that's the update... not a whole lot to report really. As I keep saying (and will continue to do so), thank you all for your continued calls and prayers. Although I don't know what the clot looks like these days or if it has started to break down, I do know that prayers are working. Just having no more pain and swelling in that leg has been a blessing in itself and I am so thankful that God has given me the ability to walk. We take so much for granted and don't even realize it until it's taken away. I also know that there are blessings in everything. Over this past week I've had someone here with me everyday from our church family and the time of fellowship has been rich and impacting. These are people that I normally do not get to spend much time with and have now developed a strong foundation for us to build on, and I would not trade that for the world. If God can use a blood clot to do that, He can use anything for His good. There are always blessings in the storm, but sometimes we forget to look for them. And since it's been awhile since I left you with any pictures (because there has been nothing of note to photograph!), here are a couple to tie you over until our lives become more interesting:

My view from bed rest... could be worse I guess!

Our handsome little man at 32 weeks... I just want to squeeze him!

The Road Ahead

God bless our Baby Doctor. Seriously. After a visit with him yesterday, I will forever sing his praises because we have been put so at ease after a very good appointment despite some very difficult circumstances. Actually, believe it or not, yesterday afternoon was the first time we stepped foot into his office. Since the day we found out we were pregnant, the baby doctor has been one of those things that we just never felt very settled about. At eight weeks we started seeing the doctors at the hospital here in town, but after one appointment in particular I knew that they were not the ones who were supposed to help bring our son in the world. At the same time, we had been seeing a wonderful woman who is also a midwife here in town, but she only delivers at home and we were never one hundred percent comfortable with the home-birth idea... at least not for our first child as these are uncharted waters for us. But because those were the options, we continued our visits with both and figured that the answers would come to us eventually.

About a month ago, a nurse from another hospital started coming to our church. Josh got to know her before I did and mentioned that she worked for another baby doctor in the next town over. Out of nowhere, another one of his nurses came to our church the following week just to check out our campus and visit friends who have been attending ours. Both ladies were very pleasant and I could tell that they loved their jobs. One of them even mentioned that they have a midwife on staff and my ears immediately perked up. A midwife at a hospital? This sounded like the perfect combination of what we had been looking for! During that same week there was one thing after another that seemed to be pointing us in that direction. A friend of mine has been seeing him since the beginning of her pregnancy and the more we talked, the more I realized that she had the same "wish list" that I did for my birth and he has been accommodating her every request. That was music to my ears. The icing on the cake was when Josh went to a Crossroads dinner at the new White Pines building and ended up being seated at a table with him. They hit it off and he told me all about how much he enjoyed meeting him when I got home. Based on all of this, we called the next day to make an appointment with him just to "check it out." Since everything had been so up the air for so long, I did not cross the other two options off of our list, but simply added a third possibility. Now normally, a doctor would probably not take on a new patient at 30 weeks who had been visiting another baby doc, but based on them meeting and the fact that I had been having a super-easy pregnancy, he put me on the schedule. My first appointment was scheduled for this past Monday.

The only reason I went into all of that is to share that God truly does nudge us in the right direction when we need Him to. This past Monday, I was in the hospital and missed my appointment of course, but when I was admitted, the new doctor was already treating me as his patient. Had we not had an appointment already lined up with him, there is no way we would have been able to make the switch. Not only that, but our midwife only handles low-risk pregnancies, and mine no longer falls in that category. Compound that with the fact that I only saw my old doctor twice during the three days that I was in the hospital and he introduced himself the first time (um, hello! I've been pregnant now for seven months... I think you'd know me by now!) and never once asked me how I was doing or if we had any questions about the months ahead, the delivery, etc. and it reaffirmed my feeling that he was not the doctor for us. To be honest, if he walked into the room to deliver my sweet baby, I would figure out a way to hold this kid in until his shift was over! The new doc, on the other hand, called as soon as he found out we were in the hospital (at 11pm at night!) and then again in the morning. Throughout the weekend, Josh spent many hours on the phone with him to keep him updated, ask his questions, and make sure I was being well taken care of. Like I said, God bless the new baby doc... He truly brought him to us when we needed him.

So anyway, sorry for the little side story, but I think it's an important one. While there are people who would argue that the above events do not interconnect or are merely coincidence, I know without a doubt that there was a higher power watching over us. Often times we don' t find this out until we reflect back on a situation, but even so, I know He was with us every step of the way. And He certainly was there with us when everything seemed so daunting.

But I digress... let me get back to what is ahead for us from here. We went to the new baby doctor Tuesday and had a fantastic appointment. As I said, we had never been there before, but we were greeted with hugs and questions about how we were handling everything. He checked on me and little Jake and both of us were the picture of health (aside from the obvious). Before he went too into detail about where we go from here, he made sure that we understand that from here on out, we will see him at every appointment and will never walk in and find that we're scheduled with whoever is on call. In fact, even if he is not on call when Jake is born, the hospital knows to call him as he delivers every single one of his patient's babies. As he put it, "we got into the business to help people, and it's the right thing to do." Josh and I were blown away. He then went into the details of our coming weeks: as it stands, I will be on Lovenox (a blood thinner) for the next 4-5 weeks. The Lovenox is an injection that Josh administers twice a day and he is doing a fabulous job! I could technically give them to myself, but I don't have the stomach for it. After the 4-5 weeks we will switch to Heparin, a different blood thinner, until the delivery. The logic behind the switch is that there are medicines out there that can counteract Heparin in about 20 minutes just in case I go into labor early. Granted, he also said that if I go into labor before we make the switch I will still be just fine, but they will have to treat me a as a patient who is high-risk for hemorrhaging, which is not uncommon. The Lovenox just takes longer to get out of the system. If all goes well up to this point, we will stop all of the thinners for 48 hours and induce my labor at 39 weeks. Now those of you who know my original plan for my birth know that the word "induce" is not my favorite. I associate that word with the drug pitocin, which was on my "get near me with that stuff and I will scream" list and for me it also means an automatic epidural. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against modern medicine, but I am not thrilled with the idea of not being able to feel my legs and move around during labor. Before I could even bring this up, he let me know that there are alternative methods to pitocin, and he will do everything he can to have as little intervention as possible. For those of you who are interested in all of this stuff (I find it fascinating... can you tell?) I am planning on doing an entirely separate post later on these details, birth plans, etc. so stay tuned for that. But the point is, being induced does not require me to no longer have a say in what I want and do not want for the birth. Phew.

As for Little Jake, he is still just happy as a clam in there. Because there is a very small chance that the blood thinners can cross the placenta, Josh and I will now be headed to the doctor every week from here on out. If there is a perk to being a high risk pregnancy patient, it's that we will get to see the little man on an ultrasound at every visit and they will monitor his heart rate for 20 minutes just to make sure there are no anti-coagulating effects going on in there. Yes, my vocabulary has rapidly expanded in the past week due these events! And as it turns out, we will get to meet him a little sooner than we expected and it sounds as if we will be induced somewhere around March 15th. Oh how we can't wait for that day!

Oh, and the leg? How's it doing? It's funny that I'm typing this from the comfort of bed rest and almost forgot to mention it, but it really does not worry us the way it used to. The doctor told us that on these blood thinners, the risk of the clot dislodging has gone down significantly. Over time, as the circulation improves and the clot starts to dissolve itself, the pressure should ease and the pain will begin to subside. As this starts to happen, he wants me to be "as active as I can be" because activity is good for circulation and in 8 short weeks my body will need to be strong. So for now, due to the pain, this means that I spend most of my day in a recliner or on the couch with my feet up, only making trips to the bathroom. Josh has me go up and down the stairs once a day as part of my exercise regime. Over time, I should be able to get around the house on my own and make some short trips out and about. We both look forward to that.

Wow... another uber-long post... thank you for hanging in there. Rarely do I have this much information to pack in, so I hope I did not bore you with all of the details and answered just about everyone's questions. Even though we're not entirely out of the woods, all of the risk factors are very low now and should stay that way up through delivery. Things are looking up. Again, thank you all for your continued prayers, phone calls, emails, visits, text messages, and help through all of this. Your prayers have certainly been heard and Josh and I feel comforted knowing that we have so many great folks who love us and want to help. We go back to see our favorite doctor next Thursday and we will continue to share any information as we have it. But for today, I leave you with a verse that one of the pastor's wives prayed over me last night and sums it all up perfectly:

"I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."

~Romans 15:13 (NIV)