Choosing Love

I'm going to be really honest with you all. I am tired. I am hormonal. And I am selfish.

How's that for being real?

There are days where I just want everyone to leave me alone so I can read a book, and take a nap. And there are times where I feel completely wracked with guilt because everyone keeps telling me to enjoy this season because my kids are only little once, and so often I'm not enjoying this season of life because I'm tired and selfish. And hormonal. But I already told you that.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being tired and hormonal. God designed a woman's body in some pretty unique ways, and it's only natural to have some crazy hormones especially after giving birth. And obviously there's no sin in being tired, it's kind of an obvious result of having little children particularly when you have a nursing infant who doesn't sleep through the night. The problem lies with how I deal with them.

I don't always feel like smiling at my children, and reading that book. I don't always want to sing to Max, and I definitely don't always want to discipline in love. 

But...sometimes you just have to make yourself. If we're believers then God doesn't leave us in our sin. God promises to give us the strength to face the trials that come our way. God wants us to rely on Him to get through the day, and God gives grace to those who know they can't do anything without His help.

The truth is I don't always feel these happy , loving feelings towards my children. But, I can ask God to help me love them the way he's called me to, and He will. He will help me choose love even when I'm exhausted, even when I'm overwhelmed by the needs of five small children, and even when I want everyone to leave me alone.

He is faithful. He will give us everything we need to face the day. And we can rest in that truth.

My Reality

I fear I may have left you all with the impression in my last post that life was moving along beautifully with five children, with hardly any problems.

Well let me just set the record straight.

There are days where I'm lucky to get a shower before noon, and I spend most of the day in my pajamas.

More times than I can count, I'm so overwhelmed that I yell, and have to ask for forgiveness.

Most days I can only find time to read a psalm in my daily read through the Bible in a year plan, because I find it's all I can focus on.

Most of my prayers are sent up like flairs, basically always asking God to help me, give me strength, or give me wisdom.

A lot of nights dinner has consisted of Peanut butter and Jelly.

We would be ordering in a lot more if we could afford it.

Homeschooling has been hit or miss.

We've watched way (WAY) too much tv in the last 7 weeks.

Being on time only slightly late somewhere probably means that my kids have shoes on the wrong feet, the girls hair hasn't been brushed, and that they have food on their faces.

Life right now is crazy, and a little overwhelming. But slowly we're figuring things out, and discovering our new "normal."

Life With Five

Five kids. Wow. I have five kids. How on Earth did this happen?! :)  It really doesn't seem too long ago that we were bringing our first baby home from the hospital, and had no clue what we were doing, and now we are taking care of our fifth newborn. Crazy.

Speaking of crazy, that might be a good way to describe life with five right now. Busy, crazy, loud, and other similar words are all very good ways to define our lives right now. Of course that's how I would have described our lives when we "just" had four children. The main difference right now is we are a bit more sleep deprived, but you probably assumed that. :) 

                                     

In all seriousness, though, the transition from four children to five children has been pretty smooth. Max really hasn't had much jealousy, he just has to be reminded to be gentle a lot.  I feel bad because we keep calling Luke Max, but I guess it wasn't that long ago that Max was the newborn in the house. Jack, Anna, and Lily love him, and the girls are constantly asking if they can hold him. 

My parents were down for the first week Luke was born, and that was a huge blessing, and Erik works really close to our house so he's been able to be around a lot. I've been enjoying having a newborn in the house again, and I'm trying to soak up all the sweet cuddles while I can. Our church has been awesome about bringing us food, so this is the first week since we've been home that I've had to cook. We haven't done much in the way of school work these last few weeks, but hopefully we'll catch up soon. Truthfully we've been watching way more videos than normal during the day, but thankfully the weather is getting nicer so we've been able to go outside quite a bit too.

I'm feeling pretty well. The first two weeks Luke was home he had his days and nights mixed up, so that was pretty difficult, but he's starting to sleep better now. I also try to lay down while the four older kids are resting/napping so I've been able to get some extra sleep that way. The Lord has been very good to give me the strength and energy I need to get through the day.

Luke's Birth Story

"As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me, your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!..Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me!" Psalm 40:11, 13

As I said in my last post, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep the night before I went in to be induced(which is always great, since you know how much sleep you get when you have a newborn!) Anyways, by 4:30 Friday morning I gave up any hope of getting any sleep, and got up. Once I started moving around I felt something weird, and wondered if maybe Luke had flipped back over, but was still feeling pretty anxious about everything.

I took a shower, made some breakfast, read some verses in Psalms, and before I knew it, it was time to go to the hospital. My good friend Laurie arrived to watch my other children, and we were off. I was still feeling anxious, but I was starting to feel more calm.  I knew my other kids were in good hands, and that God knew exactly how this day was going to go and whether or not Luke was suppose to be born that day.

By the time we got admitted, and I was being hooked up to the monitors, there was no talk at all of Luke being transverse. The nurses found the heart beat right away, much to my relief, and we were able to laugh about my standing on my head adventures with them.

Labor moved pretty slow, for most of the day I stayed at a 4. By five that night, the other patient my doctor was inducing had given birth hours ago, and now they were just waiting on me. I had got an epidural so I wasn't in any pain, and I knew that this was typically how my body handled inductions. 

Well a few minutes later, I felt an enormous amount of pressure, and quite a bit of pain. I had Erik get the nurse, and she said I was at an 8, but not to start pushing yet, and left. I guess the epidural wore off or something because I was in the middle of transition, and I could feel everything! Erik was a great coach trying to encourage me(he later told me  that he figured out pretty quick I didn't want him talking to me!) and holding my hand.

It's all kind of a blur now, I remember people talking to me, and me getting annoyed because I couldn't talk I was in too much pain, and being more than ready to push. I remember someone saying I couldn't push until the doctor got in the room because she'd be mad, and me thinking that I really didn't care if the doctor got angry or not this baby was coming!

Finally it was time to push, and within just a few pushes Luke was out. They laid him on my stomach so we were able to do skin to skin right away. I was so relieved to be done with labor, and the joy I felt seeing my sweet little boy for the first time was overwhelming. They cleaned him up, and within 15 minutes Erik and I were left alone with Luke, and he started nursing right away.

So far Luke's been an extremely laid back baby. He's also well loved by his brothers and sisters, which has brought me so much joy. We are so thankful to the Lord for giving us this sweet little boy.

Standing on My Head & Spinning

Two weeks before I was due with Luke, my doctor suggested scheduling an induction because my gestational diabetes was getting worse with each passing week. I was a little torn, I had really hoped to go into labor on my own, but I also didn't want to put myself or Luke at any extra risk. After talking it over with Erik and praying about it we decided we would go ahead and schedule an induction for March 15, but in the mean time we would try as many natural ways to get labor started on its own as we could.

A couple of days before I was suppose to be induced, I went in to the doctors for one final check and a final NST, where I was told that Luke had flipped himself over and was no longer engaged. I hadn't dilated at all, which was pretty discouraging to hear since the week before I had been almost 2 cm. Who knew you could un-dilate?!

We were pretty discouraged, and the night before I was scheduled to go in for induction I felt a really weird sensation, and was fairly confident that Luke was transverse. Max had been transverse until the week before I had him, so I was familiar with how it felt. I sent out a text to some close friends to have them pray for us, and one of my friends sent me a text back with some info on how to try to get a transverse baby to flip into the head down position.

So at eleven o clock that night, if you would've peaked into my window, you would've seen a nine month pregnant woman standing on her head while her husband spotted her. I used to do gymnastics, but being pregnant sure throws off your center of gravity!

We tried this several times, and then decided it was time to go to bed. We prayed Luke would flip over, but prepared ourselves that we might be coming home for a few more days because I definitely did not want to have a c -section.

Neither of us got much sleep that night, though..

And then there were Five

I'm so happy to announce that Luke Thomas was born March 15 at 6:26 pm. 

More details to come!

Condemnation & Legalism

Most mama's I know have struggled at least a little bit with mommy guilt. I know I do. Some days I feel like a complete and utter failure in the way I'm parenting my kids. I'll often quip to my friends that I feel like "It's the blind leading the blind around here!"

Because, honestly, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I don't come from a big family, and neither does my husband, neither of us were home schooled, and since those are two big things in my life I often struggle with feeling like a failure. Like someone else could be doing a better job than me. Like I'm messing everything up, and one day my kids will rebel, despise me and the way they were raised, and never walk with the Lord(which is totally not in my control, but believing one lie often leads to believing more lies.)

But here's the other thing I've been noticing about condemnation. It makes me more legalistic. Let's say I hear about how another friends child loves being read to from books that are above their grade level. Instead of being happy for my friend, I might start feeling like a failure because Jack has a hard time sitting still for books that aren't picture books. So what might happen the next day during school time? If I allow the guilt and feelings of condemnation to rule my heart, I might really push for Jack to sit still for a book I know he doesn't understand(or at least enjoy), get really frustrated with him, and damage the relationship I have with my son.

Friends, this should not be. If we are walking with the Lord, there really is no condemnation(Romans 8:1). We are all different, and we can rest in the fact that the Lord has different plans for each of our lives. He wants us to seek Him and follow Him, and His plan for our lives is going to look different than our best friends. But we can rest in knowing that God is Sovereign and knows what's best for us.

"The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." Psalm 16:6

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