Arrival Postponed

What do I always say.....God's plan is so much better than mine.

We've been putting the finishing touches on Isaac's room and making sure the house is in order for Isaac's arrival on Sunday/Monday. Tonight we put together the changing table, the last piece of furniture. As we were finishing my phone rang which is odd because it never rings at night. It was my doctor calling, which scared me. Basically he wanted to let me know that he isn't actually on call on Monday, he's not on call till Thursday, January 8th and asked that we postpone the induction until January 8th. He said he would feel better if he was there as would I. So, we will be going to the hospital Wednesday night and hopefully having a baby Thursday. Looking on the bright side, it give Isaac several more days to grow inside as well as for the progress of labor to begin on it's own. I know that the doctor and I would both prefer that this process begin on it's own.

But, as I've been saying for the past few day, God is teaching me to be patient and reminding me daily that I'm not in control, that He is in control. God has transformed my attitude the last few days and I'm so thankful as my blood pressure can't take much stress right now. God is so good to us.

So, we will be waiting for a few more days for Isaac's arrival. We will keep you updated.

Another Monday update

So I've had my weekly appointment this week. The doctor said he really thought that I was going to have a baby this weekend. My response was, me too!
Since my blood pressure was ridiculously high this weekend then almost normal again today, he's decided that we shouldn't wait that much longer to have this baby. He said it's not good for your blood pressure to have such big fluctuations. After some conversation about the baby, he did an exam to find that I've still made no progress towards labor. Bill said he was surprised that I wasn't more discouraged. I told him that God has really been working on me about relinquishing my will for HIS will. Little did I know that a half hour later the doctor had a plan of his own.

In light of my blood pressure, he has decided that if Isaac hasn't decided to come on his own, I am scheduled to be induced on Sunday night with hopefully a baby on Monday sometime. My doctor is on call on Monday so he is hoping to deliver Isaac!
He did make us aware that sometime inducing doesn't work in order for us to be prepared for this possibility. I like that fact that he prepares us for almost all possibilities. He said if inducing doesn't work that we will then decide if we want to try again another day or have a C-section. I feel as though he's leaning towards a C-section just to be on the safe side as he's worried about my blood pressure. A C-section is not my first choice but if it means I have a healthy baby and I'm healthy, then I'm all for it.
So I ask you, on a selfish note, to pray that God allows me not to have a C-section, but that He will make me flexible and that I will want what He wants in order to have a healthy baby.
We will keep you updated if there are any changes!

2 things God is teaching me

Warning: Before you start reading, I'm feeling very windy, but compelled to share. So this is a long post.

So I feel very compelled to share with you what God is teaching me. Maybe it's because I don't feel like I have a group of people to share with at this moment or maybe someone reading this needs to hear what God is teaching me. Isn't it interesting the way God compels us to do things.

Number 1
God is continually teaching me that His plan is best.
If you've been following my blog you know that I continually "preach" about God's faithfulness and how His timing is so incredible. He always provides so much more than we can think or imagine when we wait on Him. Just when I think I've learned this, He points out and I have to learn the hard way that once again I'm doing things my way instead of His way.
Case in point. I'm a planner. I like to think about everything that might happen and plan a course of action for each scenario. Basically I like to call it being prepared and not being a control freak as some other people do. :-) This baby is a prime example. For months now, the dr has been telling me that he will most likely be born the week after Christmas. For those of you literal people, I know the week after Christmas isn't over yet. In my mind, I just knew he was going to come this weekend. Well it's Sunday evening and he's not here, nor does it look like he's coming. This has been very hard for me as I am a results oriented person. If I'm going to spend hours and hours in pain with contractions I want something to show for it. Some type of progress. Even the littlest hope that there is an end in sight. Please don't get me wrong, I love being pregnant, but in my mind because I've been told for 2 months that he would be here by now, I expect to reach that goal. As I laid there praying last night I just kept saying "God what are you trying to teach me that I'm not getting?" I knew there was a lesson in all this. He kept impressing upon me His answer, but I didn't like it so I kept asking Him. I finally got to the point that if I thought God audibly spoke to me, He would say listen woman, you have to wait for me. It isn't my time yet. When it is, I'll clue you in. Be patient. If you know me at all, you know that I struggle with being patient. So I feel like God is really telling me to chill.
Today I read on of my pregnancy newsletters which I didn't really want to do because they all say the same thing. "Your baby is ready, expect them any time." I didn't want to hear that. For a month I've been told once I get to 37 weeks he's full term and he will be fine. There's no
reason that he should have any problems. For the first time, this newsletter said that yes he is ready and he shouldn't have problems, but for every day he stays in he will be much healthier. It was like it hit me in the head for the first time. Maybe God is saying, yes Anne, this baby is ready to come meet you and daddy, but for everyday he stays with you, he's safe and growing and will be more ready to meet you. Duh, hit me in the head. A light bulb went off and I think I woke up. So I've really been resting in God's peace that everything is done and when God is ready for Isaac to enter this world, so am I.

Number 2
Am I seeking God's approval and worrying about His approval above all.

Again if you know me, you know I'm a people person/people pleaser and I love it when everyone is happy. When reading my devotions today, the topic was on pleasing God. I was gently reminded that I need to ask myself "Why am I doing this?" "Is it to please God or is it to please someone else?" I think most of the time if I answered that question honestly it would be the later, that I'm doing what I'm doing to make everybody happy. I was encouraged and reminded that as a Christian, I am called to make sure that everything I do and say pleases God. Am I going to fail? On a daily basis. Here's the good thing. We serve the most forgiving God and all we have to do is to ask Him to forgive. That concept continually blows my mind. He is so powerful, yet all I have to do is call His name.
This morning at church we sang one of my favorite songs "How Great is Our God." We all know I'm emotional, especially at this point in life, but every time I hear this song and think about what I'm singing I'm so amazed at how great God really is and how incredibly unworthy I am to have His love. Brad, our worship leader likes to sing this song and for the first time that I've heard him, he incorporated one of my favorite hymns "How Great Thou Art." If you know both songs, they fit together perfectly. I'm a firm believer that even though those two songs were written most like 50-100 years apart, God knew that they would be used together in a mighty way. I was totally overwhelmed by how great my God is. Even as I sit hear and write, I'm almost overwhelmed with emotion thinking about God. There have been so many times in my life that I think I have this Christian walk thing all figured out. Lately God's been revealing to us little by little and prompting us to change things in our lives so that we can start to truly be a Christ followers. I am so amazed at how much God yearns for us to be a part of what He is doing. It is so amazing to me that he wants us to be a part of something so big.

No baby yet......

So I know that all my avid blog followers are wondering, just as everyone I know is wondering, if we have a baby yet. The answer is no. I really thought that he might come this weekend, but maybe my mother's intuition is a little off. But as Bill says, they weekend isn't over yet.

So we thought maybe yesterday was the day as I started having contraction Christmas night around 10:30 and had contractions on and off until 9:00 the next morning. They weren't increasing in time very much until about 7:30 am then they started coming about every 6 minutes. So I called the hospital around 8:30 and asked if I could come in early to have my Non-stress Test that I was going in for later just to make sure I wasn't in labor. We got ready drove to the hospital and it was weird but as soon as we got in the car my contractions slowed down. By the time we got to the hospital.....NOTHING. The good news for the day was that Isaac participated quite well and it only took about 20 minutes. Dr. Urquhart was there and came in to see us. He said my blood pressure is down and the baby looks amazing. So those are two good things. He said to except him any time. Hopefully that will be the case. We will keep you updated as things progress.

Happy Christmas Eve

Our family of almost three right after Christmas Eve Candlelight and Carols.


Merry Christmas Eve to everybody!

We can hardly believe that it's almost Christmas. Where has this year gone? It has certainly blown by for us as I'm sure most people can say the same thing. Finding out in May that we are going to have a baby, moving to Idaho in October then starting our lives has really made this year go by quickly.
As we prepare for a baby at just about any time, I'm ashamed to say that the Christmas season has passed by very quickly this year. Singing Christmas carols and going to the Christmas Eve service tonight made me realize that I miss my family much more than I thought. This is the first time that neither Bill nor I have been with any of our family for Christmas and it's sad. I must say though that we've always wanted to spend Christmas with just the two of us and this will be our last chance to do that. So our plan is to open presents, have Pot Roast and potatoes then go see a movie. As Bill says, that's our plan unless we are at the hospital. :-) We are happy to be spending this time, just the two of us, but we do certain miss all of our family traditions that we do with either his family or my family. God is good to us. We definitely can't complain with all of the blessings He has given us this year, even if we aren't with our families at Christmas, we will be with most of them soon enough when Isaac is born.
As we were once again reminded tonight, Christmas is not ultimately about the presents and spending time with family, it's about the birth of our Savior. Without Christmas, we wouldn't be able to celebrate Easter. Without His birth, our faith wouldn't have meaning. I encourage you to thank God for His gift to you this Christmas.

Baby shower

So here are a few pictures from the Baby Shower at our church. We had such a good time and received so many great gifts. We had a friend take pictures and he took tons so I just posted a few. This first picture is of the snow. When we got to church it wasn't snowing. They opened the door during the shower, it was really snowing which it's hard to see here.

Snow, snow, snow

So it's a cold Tuesday morning in Idaho and once again it's snowing. It's snowed every day since Thursday or Friday. I honestly can't remember the first day of snow. Sunday we got about 6-7 inches on snow, then yesterday it didn't really snow. This morning we wake up and it's snowing again. Let's just say in a few days we've probably had about a foot of snow. It's beautiful but very cold.
One more thing we've found is that because Lewiston doesn't usually get snow (yeah right!) they don't actually salt or scrape the roads. They put this gravel/sand down on the main roads and then work on the side roads when they get to them. Not that big of a deal, but on our way to the hospital for my weekly non-stress test, we found it was a big deal. None of the roads by the hospital were cleared and you have to go up hill to get to the hospital. Not a pleasant drive, that's for sure. A five minutes drive turned into almost 20 minutes.
Well, after the yucky drive Isaac decided that he was not having any of this fun today and that he would do everything he could to run away from the monitors. Literally. I'm not talking about just being hard to get a long with, he was a stinker. We moved that monitor all over my belly and truly chased him around. A 20 minute test turned into 2 hours because we couldn't get more than 3-4 minutes of recording time with his heartbeat actually increasing. He started with the hiccups and then decided to roll around. After all his acrobatics he decided he was tired and would go to sleep therefore he stayed still and we could record his heartbeat, but it wouldn't increase because he was sleeping. So, we had to wake him which made him very unhappy. Fortunately we had the sweetest nurse in the world who did everything she good in order to get a good reading from him. She was wonderful.
So, it's almost Christmas. Like you didn't know that already. For some reason every time I hear the Christmas story this year I cry. For some reason it's very special to me that I'm pregnant during the Christmas season. I guess in an odd sort of way I relate to Mary a little bit more. That probably doesn't make any sense, but it's just this weird thing. Of course it could be the pregnancy hormones, but I'll never admit to that.
Basically we are preparing for Isaac's arrival at almost any time. Every day I have more contractions and more signs that say it might be happening soon, but as stubborn as he is he might just be fooling us. From what Dr. Urquhart says, if Isaac doesn't come on his own this week, we will decide next week when the perfect time is for Isaac to come. So we are very excited. We have so much to do, but sometimes it's nice to just stop and think about the fact that in a week or so I could actually have a baby in my arms. That thought is overwhelming but very exciting.
I pray that you have a blessed Christmas and New Year. Remember that this season isn't about gifts or rushing around getting things done, it's about a gift that we were given. God gave us such an amazing gift of salvation and all we have to do is accept it. Isn't it amazing that he makes it so easy.

The Latest Pictures

Here's two of the latest picture for our ultrasound today. The ultrasound tech said he looks good. He weighs around 6lbs 6oz. That doesn't seem to big, but when you think he has another 4 weeks to grow, it means he could be upwards of 10 lbs. But he will doubtfully make it to his due date.
The farther along you are the harder it is to make out clear pictures in the ultrasounds but he managed to get a few good ones. He said Isaac is practicing his breathing quite well which is a good sign! We got to watch him move all around...I know that shocks everyone. As you will see in the second picture, you can see an amazing view of his nose an mouth. The way he was laying it was hard to see his whole face, but it was amazing to see his mouth and nose perfectly formed and watch his mouth opening and closing. I think he was trying to say Hi Mom and Dad!
We will keep you updated on what's going on. As long as he doesn't decide to come on his own we know he will be in there for at least one more week.

Profile Picture


His nose is the white blob in the middle. It looks kid of funny till you know what you're looking at. Someone even said it looks like he has a goatee if you look at it the right way. Maybe he's already taking after his dad!

Twice in one day......

So here I am posting twice in one day. What in the world.
I had to share my good news with you. We went to the doctor today and had a good report. Once again, Isaac is on his own schedule when it comes to the Non-stress test. He decided he didn't want to move around so we tricked him. I drank this huge glass of really cold water. Let's just say almost instantaneously he decide to jump around. It was actually really funny to see how quickly he responded to the cold water. But as usual he sounds really good. His heartbeat is a little lower today when resting, but that's to be expected. They tell me the older her gets it will slow down.
As for my blood pressure, not so good. It was 140/100 which they weren't happy with. The doctor is sending me for an ultrasound tomorrow which I'm excited about. I don't think that I can ever not be excited about seeing my baby grow. They just want to make sure he's growing right. High Blood pressure tends to result in low birth weight babies, however Gestational Diabetes has the opposite effect. So who knows. Not that anyone is keeping track, but I have officially gained 1 lb with the pregnancy. I was hoping that I wouldn't gain any, but I knew that was probably not going to happen. I can't complain that I'm almost 36 weeks pregnant and I am just now gaining 1 lb!
The doctor said that he would prefer to "cook" him for another week or so. Of course every week he's "cooking" the better off we will be, but he also said if for some reason Isaac comes now, he didn't think that Isaac would even need any breathing assistance. The doctor thinks he will be fine, which is good.
So we are so excited that at this point the baby looks good and we can't wait to see him tomorrow. Please keep us in your prayers as we still have 4 weeks to go.

Snow

So now that I've had more rest and have a little more clarity of mind I thought I'd post pictures of the snow. These of the mountain turned out absolutely beautiful!
Hope you enjoy.

I'm done with school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I had to share with all of my friends and family that I am officially done with my Masters degree. I will not be going on for any further education :-) Bill keeps saying, but you could get your doctorate and be Dr. Ford. Since it's 11:36 on Sunday night, way past my bed time, especially since I didn't have a nap today, I can officially say this is the latest I have ever turned in an assignment. For those of you who don't know our assignments are due by 12:00 and my professor was kind enough to let us turn them in by 12:00 in our time zone. This gave me the ability to go to church tonight and continue building a relationship with the 5th and 6th grade girls which I'm really growing to love.
So as you can probably tell by my random thoughts, I'm very tired and must get to bed as I will be going to the doctor tomorrow and I would like to have another good report! I will be uploading beautiful pictures of Lewiston's first snow. Oh I have forgotten how pretty mountains are covered in snow. I think I've been away from WV for too long if I just remembered it when seeing our mountains today. Of course the mountains in Idaho are much, let me emphasize MUCH, bigger than the ones in WV.
So, until tomorrow when I have more clarity of thought.......

Oh, by the way...thank you so much to anyone who has prayer for me as this has been a trying semester with finishing school, moving and being pregnant. God has been so good to me and has given me the energy I need to finish as well as the understanding from professors that I needed. He always knows best. Plus he had Isaac wait to come until I finished school. I've said since the day I found out that I was pregnant that this baby just needed to wait until I finish school to come. Now I'm asking he wait one more week, just to be sure he's fully developed, then he can make his appearance. Who knows when he will come. Only God knows for sure.

Another update

Here we are on Thursday, another trip to the doctor. Actually today I had to go to the hospital because all of my doctors were out of the office today.
The good news is that my blood pressure was down. She took it every 15 minutes and the last time it was 131/78 which for me is fabulous!
Isaac slept through the first part of today's non-stress test so we didn't have much activity, then the nurse brought me some juice and crackers and he decided to wake up and of course he wasn't too happy with us, as usual. Although he did do exactly what he's supposed to do. He is such a good baby. I was still having several contractions which was better than last night. Last night I was a little on the worried side as I was having contractions every 7-10 minutes for almost an hour, but after I got up and moved around they started slowing down and finally went away which is a good thing.
I will see my doctor on Monday to get the results of the preeclampsia test. Tomorrow I will be 35 weeks which is one week closer to the finish as Dr. Urquahrt says. As I said on Monday, he will be happy if I can keep him in until 36 weeks, but every day after that is a fabulous thing! So I'm still taking it easy. I won't be shocked if he tells me on Monday my days of freedom are over and I'll spend the days up until delivery in bed. But, that's okay with me. At the beginning of this pregnancy that was my biggest fear, but now I'm realizing at least I'm not in the hospital until he's born.
Please continue to pray for us. Like most first time parents, we are facing lots of changes in the next few weeks and we are praying that Isaac waits a few more weeks to be born in order for him to be fully developed. We are reminded daily that God's not surprised and even if Isaac was born today, he's God's son and God will take care of him.
On a side note.....if you read Bill's blog as well you will know that he has been reminded lately that our son isn't our son, he's God's son. Just like Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, God has been reminding Bill that Isaac isn't our son. The most interesting thing is that when I can't sleep I find myself praying more and more and God's been reminding me that this isn't my son, it's His son. God is entrusting Isaac to me and Bill to raise. When you think about parenting that way it brings it into a completely different light. God is entrusting His children to us for a moment in time. Wow! That scares me, but excites me. God just amazes me every day.

Another week.....another new development

So here we are, 34 and 1/2 weeks pregnant. I've been going to the doctor twice a week for several weeks now. They are watching me very closely to make sure that Isaac and I are okay. Isaac is doing great and his personality is coming out more and more every time we visit the office. It seems as though Monday's he wants nothing to do with the non-stress tests and Thursday's he's fine with them. Once again, yesterday he was having none of it. I ended up holding the monitor for 40 minutes just to keep his heart rate recording. His heart rate is perfect and everybody at the office says he's such a good baby! Let's hope he stays like that ;-)
Me on the other hand, I can't say my body is fairing as well as I would like. For the most part, I feel pretty good, just tired. Two weeks ago, my blood pressure started slowly creeping up just a few points each visit. Last week, each visit it was around 130/94. Yesterday it was 150/92. Not good. I also let him know that Saturday I was having lots of contractions but in no pattern. He of course said don't worry unless they are in a pattern, but if there's any pattern call immediate. I was almost beginning to wonder if I wasn't having contractions, it just felt like that. Then during the non-stress test the monitors picked up a few contractions which doesn't bring a sign of concern unless they are in a pattern. So.....I'm getting side tracked. Because of my blood pressure and my family history, I am at a very great risk for preeclampsia. I think I spelled that right. We are waiting for the test results to see if I do have this. If I do, I will most likely be spending the rest of the pregnancy in the bed. For now he's ordered me to rest as much as possible, but not complete bed rest. He also said he'd be happy if we could keep this baby in for another 2 weeks. He would be okay if I delivered a month early but not six weeks early. So for now I'm resting.........No matter what I will do what's best for the baby, even if I have to spend the next 6 weeks in bed. Not my first choice, but if it helps to ensure a healthy baby, no problem.
At this point I'm not panicking, maybe I should be, but I keep reminding myself daily that things that happen with this pregnancy and in life do not shock God. They must surprise us, but He's not surprised. He wasn't shocked that my blood pressure was so high yesterday even though we were. I can't say I was thrilled that the doctor told me to go to bed, but I feel as though God has been preparing me for this news. Before we moved I was dreading the day that I would be sent to bed, but God has really changed my mindset and helped me realize that if the house isn't perfectly clean, nobody, including any drop by visitors will die. They'll think I'm a horrible housekeeper, but oh well :-) I must say that only God could be preparing me and my slowly changing my heart that everything doesn't have to be perfect.
I will keep you updated on what we find out from the test results. I'm hoping to have the results by Friday but it might be Monday since I go to the doctor then.
By the way....for those of you who are following the school process, I will be done with my Masters degree on Friday. I think that is the MOST wonderful news. I can't wait to be done. That's one less stressor in my life!

Twice in one week

Can you believe it. I've been motivated to post twice in one week. I most have more energy than I thought.

Well here we are, several days after Thanksgiving, buying a Christmas Tree over a week ago and it just got done tonight. We put the tree up on Saturday but I wasn't thrilled with it so I made some changes tonight and I'm as happy as I'm going to be with because I can't climb on the chair again to make changes.
As you'll see our tree is quite large. If you remember our tree from previous years, it was very little. Let's just say I'm happy that we live in a bigger house or the tree wouldn't have fit in our old living room. I'm happy with it and our decorations! Now if I could just get everything else put away things would be good.
So without further procrastination here's a few pictures of our tree.

The Willow Tree Nativity

The Brewer AVON Nativity

Our yearly Christmas Ornament
"Hark the Harold Angel Sing"

Happy Monday

So almost every Monday of my life since Kindergarten I've dreaded. It's either been the first day of school after the weekend or the first day of work. Now though, I have a different outlook on Monday's. It's Bill day off! Which means it's a great start to the week, however I seem to get very confused on what day it is.
Lately it feels as though my life seems to be consumed by doctors appointments, which is a good thing. Every time they say the same thing. The baby looks amazing, he's growing like he should and everything looks good. We are very happy to hear that every time. I'm starting to have contractions which is a good thing (so they tell me). It's not very pleasant to be woken up in the middle of the night with contractions, but it's another sign that things are progressing and he's getting ready to make his entrance into our world. We learn more every day that Isaac has his own way to do things. Every time we go for a non-stress test he gets very unhappy with me. On Friday the poor nurse at the hospital had to case him around then finally he decided to stay still. Today we weren't so lucky. From what she said, he did have his back towards us which made it harder to hear his heartbeat. Well, the nurse thinks he was sleeping when we started so he didn't get too mad, but let me tell you he must not have liked the fact that we woke him up. He basically refused to stay still long enough to get a good reading on his heartbeat. Because he kept moving the poor nurse literally had to sit on her knees for a 1/2 hour and chase him around my belly because he would get mad and "swim" away whenever she put any pressure on him. It was almost amusing if the poor nurse wouldn't have had to sit there the entire time. This baby surely does have a mind of it's own. Hopefully when he's born he doesn't mind if people touch him because I have a feeling he's going to be the hit of the town.
So we are very excited that things are going well and he's growing like he should. We are hoping that since he's measuring around 36 weeks we only have about 4 weeks before we can meet him! Even if he doesn't come on his own the doctor will take him in about 5 weeks so I can't really complain.
So last night at church we had a celebration service. I can't complain that we don't usually have Sunday night services so we enjoy going when we have them because it's always a time of worship. Last night we did a lot of singing and worshiping as well as sharing what we were thankful for. I couldn't help but think what our life was like a year ago. If you've been keeping up with our lives, you know a lot has changed in the past year. Last Thanksgiving we were praying for Bill to have a ministry, specifically a full time ministry as well as a start to our family. This is something that we had been praying for for a long time. We never would've guessed a year later we would be living in Idaho about to have a baby. I think how ready we were to move on and start our lives, wondering if God was hearing our prayers and if He would ever answer them the way we wanted. We started to believe that full time ministry and having a family of our own might not be what God wanted for us. Maybe He had a different plan for us, we just needed to figure out. After many more months of disappointment God blessed us first by finding out we were going to have a baby. We both felt as though if God provided this baby, He would by no means leave us high and dry with no way to provide for the child He had given us. Little did we know about 6 weeks later we would get a call from a Pastor in Idaho asking if we were interested in learning more about their church. Least of all did we think 5 months later we would leave everything we had in Lynchburg and move all the way to Idaho with me being 7 months pregnant. This just goes to prove that God's plans might not be in our time or exactly what we thought they should be, but His plans are always so much bigger and better than our limited minds can imagine.
Often times we revel in what God has done for us for a short period of time. I encourage you to do whatever you need to do in order to never forget how God has provided for you or supplied you with something that you've been praying for, even if you've been praying for a very long time. God has been continually reminding me that His plans are so much bigger than ours.