Oh goodness, we've had a lot of things going on today. It's a good thing that we don't live down in TN with my family, or else we would have gotten dirty looks from the neighbors. *laughs* For some reason, though they do not keep the sabbath in the biblical sense, most folks in them there parts don't like to do any work on Sunday. Not only that, but they frown on others who would work on the Lord's day. Me, I'm of a mind that every day belongs to the Lord. There's no doubt that I get my due rest once a week. lol

Anywho, I man-handled some newspaper today, and it is currenly soaking in my paper bucket. This time, I broke down two whole newspapers, so it is taking more time and energy to make paper pulp. That is also why the paper is still soaking, since I need to mushify the stubborn pieces. *laughs* So, I will probably let that sit overnight, and then start drying out the paper for bedding tomorrow.

Not only did I get some exercise by mauling the paper, but I went out and cut the front lawn today. It looks so much better now, though we still have a few pesky dandelions that hid from the blade. They can have a good time hiding from DD though, as she thinks they are the prettiest flowers. So, she picks them en-mass.

While I was mowing and raking, DH had fun with the chainsaw, cutting up the large pieces of wood that we had in the backyard. He had sprung for a new chain for the saw, and he was very happy that the work went easier. He was able to take our maple tree all the way down to the ground. He didn't have the same kind of luck with the crab apple tree. He'll get it though. DH was talking about drilling into the trunks and leaving some coals to burn in there. We knew someone who did that whenever they were grilling, and they cooked the tree enough to finish off the stump until it was under the grass line. DH thinks that it sounds fun to douse it in gasoline and light it up, but I'm more conservative than he is, especially being that the one tree is a little too close to the house for that. lol

After DD had gotten successfully dirty and tired, she wanted to come in and relax with a movie for a bit. So, I took the time to sit down at the computer, here, and work on my latest project. Things seem to be going well, and I'm feeling like I'm actually getting somewhere. I was watching the clock, making sure that I wouldn't be on here too long, and then DH came and changed my plans for me. (Don't you love it when they do that? lol) I was going to make some chicken, but he has a yen for taco bell. I'm not complaining though. We don't really eat out very often at all. We calculated it out, and for the things that DH likes to eat, it would cost us a whole lot more to make them at home than it does to buy the things. So, less work for me? I'm not going to raise a fuss. *chuckles* Besides, I'm tired today. I've been fighting off a sinus infection for a couple days, and my face still hurts. I fell asleep so hard last night that I didn't even notice when DH came to bed a few minutes later.

I've got to start getting to bed earlier, but I'm so bad about that. lol Last night, we went over to Sis' place and had dinner with them. I had stopped at the market before going over there, and I'd been able to pick up some ears of corn. So, we had fresh corn, and Sis just loved it. After dinner, we sat around and played Monopoly, and I won! Yay! (my first time to win) The game took a long time because, well, it always done. On top of that, the guys had to go over to the work office for a while to close down a party. So, it was about 12:30am before we even left their house. Hey, but on the upside, it was really easy to put DD to bed. She didn't fuss at all as I pulled her shoes off and covered her up. lol

Tonight, it looks as though we are going to watch 'Bridget Jones' #2. DH got it for me, since he knows that I thought the first movie was funny. You see, he will pick up "chick flicks" for me, and then he actually enjoys them. He won't admit it though. The comedies that he's gotten for himself lately have been pretty disappointing, so he is actually having a good time, watching at least one video that is entertaining. lol I've got it pretty good. He doesn't even tease me when I start getting mushy over the movies. I was expecting him to snort and laugh at me when I started crying while watching "The Notebook", but he seems to have become a bit more understanding over girly things.

Oh well, dinner is here!

The continuing story from Incoming and the Incubator (part 1).

---

It was painful to look on my baby for the first time, but I loved her so much. My heart just ached for this tiny little girl who weighed 3 lbs. 1/2oz when she was born. What a skinny little baby! Awww....but so precious to me.

DD's first days were pretty difficult, and I'm glad that she doesn't remember it. Even though I knew that the nurses were doing all that they could to take care of her, it was still hard to watch them move her IV, to hear her tiny little cries. But if she had breath and will to cry, I was happy.
One day, when DH and I arrived to spend time with our little girl, one of her doctors came to see us. Armed with films and a less than happy face, he proceeded to tell us that some of the smaller vessels in her brain had burst, and she had a hemorage blocking fluid in her brain. For now, all we could do was wait and see if it would resolve itself, or if she would need to have a stint inserted to relieve the fluid buildup. We were already worried that maybe she would have health problems because of the circumstances of her birth, and now we had more to worry about.

I figured that I would take a little time to write about DD's birth today. When I start to feel uptight about life and where it is going, worrying over things that might never even happen, I like to think on the good things that God has done for me. As you can imagine, this is going to be a long post.

---

I was 27 weeks into gestation with DD, when things started getting weird. Of course, I'm not sure that there has ever been a day that wasn't weird with our family, so maybe this was just normal. Anyway, I was always hyper-vigilant when it came to taking care of the little sprite in utero. Because of what had happened with our son, I really did take it to heart when my doctor advised me to go to the hospital whenever something bothered me. If it was something small, then I should go. If I even just felt that something was wrong, without proof, I was to go. So, after a bathroom trip and a tiny amount of spotting, I informed DH that we should go to the hospital. He wasn't worried, and we just shuffled out the door. After all, I had been to the hospital every week. I had already had a threatened miscarriage with DD, and numerous other little issues, all of which left me on bedrest. Going to the hospital was 'old hat'.

I laid there on the bed in triage, bored and wanting to go back home. I wasn't really feeling bad, and I figured that after they looked at me, they would tell me the same thing that they always did. The doctor would want me to go home and stay put, not letting me do anything at all. Check. I've got that covered. However, the doctor walked in with a funny look on his face, and then proceeded to tell me that I was dialated just a little. I was about 2cm dialated, but they wanted to keep me because of my history. Oy.

Let me tell you, that was only the beginning. The first thing that the staff did was to give me a steroid shot, and those things burn! *laughs* I'm such a wimp. Then I was hooked up on monitors. By the next day, they were giving me magnesium for a labor that had just begun. I really don't like magnesium very much. It makes you feel feverish and like you have the flu. You know that it is working when you are sweaty and miserable. But, it did stop my labor for a while. Because I was a more steady resident than the other ladies, I was given a room by myself, right next to the nurses station. By the end of the week, nurses were bringing me magazines and just stopping in to talk, so I wouldn't be so bored. How sweet is that? :o )  In the meantime, I was worrying over the baby, and worrying over the fact that my parents were in Florida. I wasn't sure if they could get home in time if the little one became too anxious to be born.

By the end of the week, my doctor and the hospital decided that it would be best for me to be transfered to a nearby hospital that has the best N.I.C.U. in the area. So, I got to take an ambulance ride. Hey, that was kind of fun, and it felt like a real sight-seeing trip after the confinement that I'd been experiencing. The unfortunate things is that the trip seemed to aggrivate the delicate balance of things, and back I went on the magnesium. From that point on, I'm not really sure if there was a time when they were dosing me with that stuff.

Now, one good thing about getting so much doctor care is that I had ultrasounds all the time. It was so nice to be able to see my baby. We also had everyone just dying to tell us the gender of our baby, so we let them. It was good for the bonding experience, to be able to come up with a name before DD was born. I had secretly known that she was a girl, but I didn't want to tell anyone for fear that I'd be wrong and everyone would tease me. *laughs* Another good thing about having ultrasounds all the time was that my new doctor made a point to tell me that it looked like the baby was going to have a healthy brain. I know, it isn't something that all mothers stress about, but I had been told weeks before that DD had a choroid plexus cyst inside her noodle. Does it matter if the things are benign or not? Just knowing that my baby had a cyst in her brain bothered me.

We were now at 28 weeks, and it looked as though the magnesium was finally working pretty well. Having some success, the nurse left a catheter in my vein, but unhooked the rest of my IV. I was so happy. They were talking about letting me go home, and even let me get up to use the bathroom. Yay! Oh........or at least it was a good time until the doc came to check me right before discharging me. Apparently I was dialated to 4cm, with a bulging bag of waters. Great. In goes the IV, and they put me in my bed, with my feet elevated way over my noggin. I wish that they had foot straps to keep you from sliding down the bed when they did that.

It was only a couple more days later when things got hairy. No amount of magnesium seemed to work, though they did manage to OD me. It's scary when you just stop breathing. Woo! Thankfully things didn't get bad, but they did end up taking me off of the stuff because my belly contractions stopped. THEY thought that we were doing better, but it is because they weren't listening to me. In hindsight, I could recognize how my body was actually laboring when I had problems with my son. I knew that things weren't over because I was cramping, but they didn't believe me because a monitor couldn't pick it up. On the morning that DD was born, I called my nurse numerous times, and no one would get my doctor. It wasn't until I was thrashing around on my bed and sobbing into my pillow that the lady in the next bed called HER nurse and got mean with them about getting someone in to see me. My nurse came in and barely touched me before running out of the room. They had me in the O.R. within five minutes.

How ridiculous is it for someone to tell a laboring woman not to push? Oh goodness, I tried. My body was on auto-pilot though, and didn't want to listen to me. I think that was why I was in so much pain, because I was trying my best to fight my own body. Even though I hate needles, the one that they put in my back wasn't too bad. *laughs* The whole world seemed to become a little more bearable after that, even though I couldn't feel my own legs. I was still very uncomfortable about the idea that just over that partition, doctors had my stuff all apart. There is something very disturbing about being awake while someone roots around on my inside. Still, I was so glad to be awake to hear that soft little cry. The nurses wheeled an incubator over for a moment so I could see my tiny little baby, and then they hurried off. I don't remember much after that, because I fell asleep. I thought that you were supposed to be awake for all of that, but I sure wasn't. I woke up in the recovery room, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Why didn't anyone tell me that having the C-Secion would make me shake like I was having a seizure, and I wouldn't be able to control it? That would have been good to know, just so I wouldn't have worried.

After I was awake, the recovery nurse wheeled me into the N.I.C.U. on the way to my new room. I remember the ceiling, decorated in clouds. I still wonder if the babies really like it, having a sky above them while they lay there. I wasn't able to stay for more than a moment, but I did get to see my tiny little girl while she lay in a tiny hospital crib. She was under a heat lamp, and it looked as though she had every tube and cord imagineable hooked up to her. DD was on a ventilator for a while, just so she wouldn't have to try so hard to breathe. I couldn't believe how red she was. It almost looked like she was burned, but I would stare at her tiny chest and watch it go up and down, and I felt better.

I didn't get to see DD much during the next four days, while my belly healed. Unfortunately, I had a spinal leak, and it gave me awful headaches. I would try so hard to walk down to the N.I.C.U. , only to be pushed back in a wheel chair because my head was going to fall off. So, I had blood taken from my arm, and injected into my back, and that made everything better. It was time for me to go home, but it felt really wrong to leave my baby at the hospital. We came back every day though.

( To be continued....)

I had some quiet time this evening, just laying on the couch and .....listening. I had been in the kitchen, praying for a while, but there became a point when there just were no more words. So, I laid down on the couch and was still. DD is such a sweetheart. She brought me her knew kitty doll for company, and dragged her blanket in from her bedroom, so she could cover me up. After "reading" me a story about sleeping beauty, she laid down on our other couch and was quiet for a bit.

All in all, I think that this fear over my child is my Isaac. As I lay there, I started thinking about what Abraham was told to do, how precious his son was to him, and how he still was willing to sacrifice him. The fact that the Lord stopped him and provided a lamb isn't the point for me, but that he was willing to trust the Lord with what he valued so very much. That can be a hard thing to do.

I am definitely no "super christian", or some person with extraordinary faith. I am just one small person, trying to make peace with life, and love God. There are going to be days when I take one step forward, and two back. No one gets it right all of the time, well, no one but Jesus. lol I think about Moses, whom God was going to kill because he did not circumcise his son when he should have. Even legendary leaders fall flat on their faces sometimes, and don't have their hearts in the right place. I'm not making excuses, but accepting that I will never be perfect. I will not always do or say the right thing.

There are some days when I am envious of women who have more children than I do. I should adjust my thinking, and simply be tremendously happy that I have a child at all. God could have just as easily closed by womb earlier, and I could have spent my life without these wonderful and trying experiences. I am so very happy for women who have been so blessed by multiple children, and such varying personalities to learn. I am astounded by the capacity that a mother's heart has, to wrap itself around every new child, to love each as much as they do the first. It is just amazing.

I do not feel any less blessed because I have only my daughter to raise. She is such a gift. Some days I worry that I dote on her too much, that somehow I will love her too much, and I will raise a brat. lol Maybe in some ways, I do seek to give her too much, as it is. It really hurts my heart when she tells me that she would like a brother and a sister. She is so innocent, and she doesn't understand how much her loneliness bothers me. I feel torn about homeschooling because we have such little money that we may not be able to afford lessons, classes, and social outings. With DH's approach to church attendance, I'm not sure what I can offer her there either. *sigh* I worry that my little girl is going to grow up lonely, resent me, and become rebellious against myself and God.

I guess I just worry too much. I understand that I am supposed to give it up to God, and then leave it alone. The Word is right on, that we have enough worry for today, without adding the worries over tomorrow. I am still trying to understand what are my responsibilities, and where God takes over and does His work. So long as I am trying my best and being diligent, is it possible for me to fail? Whether it is a physical accident or emotional turmoil, how much of the burden is right for me to shoulder? I am just mulling over things like this, trying to understand what is a lack of trust and faith, and what is simply the motivation to be a good and caring mother.

*sad laugh* I am not praying any where near enough. There are so many questions and uncertainties. I should be doing more seeking and knocking.....