Shepherd!
O, Praise the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together! Our baby Shepherd is finally here!
Yes, it’s me in person with an update! Emily and her husband think I’m a computer addict for some reason and said they wanted to see the photos of me in the birthing pool with my laptop… Am I that bad??? haha!
Our beautiful son Shepherd arrived early this morning at 3:44 am safely in the water with his mom and dad there to hold and cuddle him. It was a reasonably normal labor but very painful as his head came out and his shoulders waited several minutes afterwards to come (ouch)! He has some bruising on his face that hopefully will clear up in the next few days.
He is 10 pounds and 4 ounces and 24 inches long. Wow!
Eric is currently on his way to take Shepherd to the doctor to get checked out, and our midwife has just left our house. She was fabulous and actually was forced to bounce back and forth between our house and another client’s home because she was in labor at exactly the same time – stressful! She stayed with me after midnight to deliver and has been back again later this morning to check on us. It is a beautiful day, and we praise the Lord that He gave us this blessing and wonderful baby to love. It is also our Nanny’s birthday, so this is an extra special day and will be for years to come.
I’m settling in now for some sleep, and I can’t wait to share some early day blessings with you on my blog in the future. Have a wonderful weekend! I know I will!
Great Answer
I begged and pleaded with God this morning. In my sighs and tears I meditated on the great promises and prayers of the saints in His Word, and I do believe He has answered my prayer with a “yes.”
I sent out a huge email a little while ago to many people I know, but of course it got blocked in several accounts for spam since I don’t normally send out messages to that many recipients. Anyway, after a few hours of regular contractions (while Eric and I were enjoying a special celebration dinner with our daughter Lydia for graduating to “not sucking her thumb anymore”), we came home to settle in for a questionable night. Would this be it?
My water broke as I was fixing the slipcovers on my couches of all things. (I know, I know. People who know me well aren’t a bit surprised!)
Well, that was a few hours ago, and I am definitely in labor. It’s some fierce pain, but I’m obviously not to the point of not being able to talk or type yet! I am extremely excited and cannot wait to meet Shepherd! He is coming quickly. The blessing of home birth is I am going to go upstairs, settle into my bed for the night, pray with my husband, and try to get a few more hours of sleep while my midwife makes her way over to spend the night with us (she is actually catching another baby across town as I write this). Only God knows if I will sleep tonight or be awakened before morning ushering in our newest family member! Thank you for praying. I hope and pray to share joyful memories and photos with you all soon!
Kristi
God is so good!
Here for a Visit, Here for a Birth?
My mom and sister (with husband and my nephew) came down today to help us for the rest of the week, and secretly I know they are doing their own share of begging God that He would bring Shepherd here quickly! Can you believe it? He still isn’t here! I share the same surprise that everyone who knows me does at this point because honestly I just look (and feel) like I’m about to pop!
I have scattered thoughts, deep and extremely profound I’m sure (ha!), concerning these circumstances and how God is using this waiting time to sanctify me, but right now I am too busy doing other stuff around the house, compiling old photos and purging — things I didn’t anticipate having time to do this week (Grammy, I found your “white picture”)! I am kind of a basket-case of emotions, hormones, fears, excitement, and peace, which come and go at various points of the day. I am tired of everyone I know asking me, “Do you think he’ll come today?” because it reminds me of the fact that I’m waiting and it almost puts a dent in my patience. But I know people love our family when they ask, and they are just checking on us and loving us.
This time is a precious time in my walk with God, a time of claiming faith in the unseen and faithfulness of my Father, a time to trust and obey and to do it with a willing and joyful heart. It’s not easy, but He never said it would be easy.
It would be so easy for me to try to move things along, to schedule a c-section or induction, and I’m not saying I think families who decide to do that are wrong or inferior. But in my heart I believe God has a plan for Shepherd and his delivery, and it is best that I avoid interfering with it as much as possible. He seems to be healthy, and I seem to be healthy. I honestly can’t believe that I feel so strange for being full-term with my baby in womb, but in these days I guess it’s really not normal anymore to reach 40 weeks with a baby! Anyway, the challenge now is to wait and trust that God knows best and He will start it all when it’s supposed to start.
Well, I wasn’t going to start going into all of my thoughts; I guess they just spilled out and on to the page. I am thankful my sweet mother is here to help right now in this time of need. My sister Jennifer and her husband Blair are visiting, too, and it has been so good to spend time with them and my adorable nephew Noah (he is so big now)! I am going to sit back, take it in for a few days, and just be thankful for these memories God is giving us… And you can be assured that I’ll keep you posted about Shepherd if he comes in the next few days.
If you would like to pray for us, please pray that these would be illuminated in our hearts and minds over the next several days:
- for strength and patience (1 Peter 4:11)
- for contentment (1 Timothy 6:6)
- for safety (Psalm 91)
- for confidence in God that destroys Satan’s attempts to weaken our trust (James 4:7)
- for joy as we glory in all that Christ is (Galatians 6:14)
Water Birth
The kids were watching home water births on You Tube with me this morning, and I said as we started this one, “Oh, I love this song!” We kept watching, and I saw the dad’s Carolina hat and thought, “Oh, that’s neat… probably a birth somewhere near here…” then I noticed the blonde hair of the midwife and said, “Oh! That’s Mrs. Lisa! Mommy’s midwife for Meredith’s birth!” Then, a few seconds later, I saw the dark hair in a ponytail and said, “Oh! That’s Mrs. Brandy! Mommy’s midwife for Shepherd’s birth!” Ha! Ha!
That just got me so excited. I am officially full-term and okay for a home birth now, and we have our blue pool set up just like the one in this video. I can’t wait!
This is a sweet video (no gory stuff if you’re wondering); enjoy!
Pregnancy Photo-op: 2 mos. later
I posted some pictures exactly two months ago at 27 weeks of baby Shepherd and me. Well, here we are now at 35 weeks – only 2-5 more to go! What do you think? Will we make it?!
I’ve had some birth guessing games before on my blog, and this time I want to send one of my Verse Purses to the person who guesses most correctly. Just leave your predictions in the comments of this post (email is not shown publicly but required to enter), and my husband will stick your purse in the mail soon after Shepherd arrives. Sorry guys, if you want to play, I guess you can pass the Verse Purse along to your favorite female if you win!
I can’t wait to meet him! I’m washing / sterilizing all of our home-birth supplies like I did for Meredith’s birth this week (hmmm, my oven seemed a whole lot cleaner back then!) and praying that he comes quickly and safely into the world. We were talking last night with the kids about their births, and I told Eric that I hope Shepherd has Lydia’s shoulders and Steven’s head because Lydia’s head and Steven’s shoulders were gigantic! Meredith was small all over and still is. None of them have been too “small,” though, each weighing over eight pounds!
Shepherd’s Baby Birth Game
- What do you predict?
1) Delivery Date
2) Delivery Time
3) Delivery Weight
Pregnant Tummy Pictures
Well, here is baby Shepherd hanging out at 27 weeks. Sorry for the not so glamorous pictures and the bad hair. There were a few with me smiling like a cheese ball, but they were blurry. Everyone tells me that he looks very high; my prediction is that he is already settling in like his siblings with big feet and stretching out his long body! Everyone says also that he looks like a nice little basketball, and I totally agree. That just makes me laugh! Steven looked like a basketball, too. The kids are kissing my tummy all the time now, and Meredith has made a habit of trying to lift up my shirt in public – oh no! That is always hard to explain to a little one!
This is also the time when Eric starts laughing and poking fun at me because I make the oven buttons start beeping. We have a cooktop with lots of digital buttons on the front, and when I start getting big, I’ll turn on the burners just by standing there. He loves to make fun of me about that. So… I turn the “oven lock” on just to avoid the jokes.
I know it’s annoying when pregnant women say, “I am SO HUGE,” but I really do feel so huge. I am simply not able to get to the gym very much because of our busy schedule and can certainly feel the impact. Apparently having four kids so closely together has really wreaked havoc on my muscles and their ability to stretch and “relax” well, too. (I love to state the obvious!) Seriously I am in a good deal of pain right now from my abdomen to my thighs, and although I knew it was going to happen, I thought it would be closer to June / July — not now. After each delivery I have had some kind of nerve / muscle issue which makes me pretty useless in my legs for a few days. I don’t know why, but I am experiencing that issue right now. I’m not mentioning this to whine; I am quite scared about managing this pain and ask for prayer that God helps me take care of the kids and do the things I want and need to do between now and July without downing a ton of Tylenol, which I refuse to do.
Women are at risk for developing SI joint problems later in life due to childbirth. Female hormones are released during pregnancy that allow the connective tissues in the body to relax. The relaxation is necessary so that during delivery, the female pelvis can stretch enough to allow birth. This stretching results in changes to the SI joints, making them hypermobile (extra or overly mobile). Over a period of years these changes can eventually lead to wear-and-tear arthritis. During pregnancy, the SI joints can cause discomfort both from the effects of the hormones that loosen them and from the stress of carrying a growing baby in the pelvis. The more pregnancies a woman has, the higher her chances of SI joint problems. – All About Neck and Back Pain
Anyway, I’ll probably post more pictures a few weeks before the birth and have a little birth weight guessing game just for fun. I’ve really enjoyed the baby games before on here. It’s always fun to watch someone else getting bigger, right?! Honestly it’s all worth it because I am already getting so excited to meet our little Shepherd!
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