Thursday, July 28, 2016

A WORD FROM THE LORD, AND A MIRACLE!

I decided today that I would TRY and finish up my postings on my children.  All I have left is my last child, my only daughter Melody.  If you read my blog at all for any length of time you will no doubt here me mention her frequently,  telling stories and making references to her.  Let me start this though back in the beginning.

I was one of those girls growing up who made no bones about the fact that I wanted a daughter of my own some day.  It was something I gave a lot of thought to as I was growing up, just assuming I guess that it would eventually come to be. However, after having given birth to 3 boys, I was honestly wondering rather or not this particular dream was to ever come true.  Now don't get me wrong...I both loved and enjoyed my sons, but I just wanted a girl soo badly.  Not only to have and enjoy as a little one growing up, but as an older woman some day that could serve as a female friend to me as well. When I had turned 31 and we still did not have a daughter, we began to give some serious thought as to rather or not we should just throw in the towel and permanently close the door to the possibility of another child.  In my research about permanent birth control methods I came across an article [which why these articles were together or intertwined might be a good question?!]  which suggested ways to conceive a girl baby.  It's WAY too long to go into here, but let me just say this.  We tried this method, and it worked! I feel like I do need to mention that it will only work if your cycles are VERY regular, and you have a pretty good idea of when you ovulate every month.  Of course these days there are little tests you can give yourself that TELL you when and if you are ovulating, but in those days there was no such thing.  These things were both working just fine for me, and made sense, and after giving it some considerable thought we decided to go ahead and try it.  It's supposed to mean a much longer period of time of trying to conceive, but it didn't for me.  I was pregnant the first time we tried this. Which of course only made me think it hadn't worked at all. I am not going to lie...when I first discovered I was pregnant my immediate emotion was regret.  Whatever was I thinking?!  I had my hands very full with 3 WILD boys, including one who was already a teenager, and now more then likely I would be adding yet another boy into the mix, and starting all over with diapers, night time feedings, and the whole routine.  On top of that, I was the sickest I had ever been with any of my other pregnancies, and could hardly keep a thing down, and yet I still had SOO much to do with the taking care of our household and other children.  I was SOOOO emotional.  Honestly not like me at all.  Hormones were just running wild.  I was 31 years old but felt physically and emotionally MUCH older.  One morning after dropping my boys off at their various schools, I came home and made myself a cup of tea to try and calm my queasy stomach.  I found myself in tears [for the umpteenth time] and picked up my bible and began praying.  I felt I heard the Lord telling me to read a certain scripture, but honestly I was soo emotional I didn't know if I should trust myself.  Was this really coming from God?  I continued to pray and continued to feel I heard a scripture number coming to my heart.  I decided to go ahead a look it up.  It was Psalm 37:4  Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desire of your heart.  I felt a peace wash over me as I felt that from that moment on I KNEW I was going to be blessed with a daughter...the desire of my heart.  Now I am not one of those people who feels you can pull any verse, in or out of context, and MAKE it mean what you want it to mean.  But for some reason I just knew He was talking to me here and telling me just that.  I'd love to say that the rest of the pregnancy was a dream and there were no more emotional roller coasters, but it really wasn't the case.  The pregnancy was a hard one.  Doubt crept in from time to time.  I told NO ONE, not even my hubby, what I felt the Lord had told me.  It finally came time to put the nursery together and naturally I wanted to boldly paint it pink, and make it as "girly" as I could, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  They were just starting to be able to do ultra sounds that could determine the sex of a baby in those days, and yet neither one of mine had told me a thing. I actually went to a place that promised they would do whatever they could, take as long as it took etc, to determine the sex.  I paid 200 dollars for this!  And in those days 200 was a whole lot of money!  Not that it isn't these days too, but back then trust me it was huge.  But NO LUCK.  Her legs were firmly crossed, and they just couldn't say.  I painted the room in a soft, safe yellow, and put up Precious Moments wall paper.  Kind of girly I guess, but I felt like for a baby it would work.  If it was indeed another boy, I told myself I'd change the paper out by his second birthday.  She was due the 21st of July, and by the 4th of July I was hot, miserable and sooooo done, lol.  After examining me the doctor told me I was dilated to 3 and would no doubt have the baby that week-end.  Well she was wrong.  I carried the baby 3 more weeks to July 24th.  I feel I have to tell you this part too.  I felt like after having 3 healthy, pretty easy deliveries, I was a seasoned pro.  So when I began having contractions on the 23rd I timed them and felt like I knew it wasn't time to go to the hospital.  Soo I waited.  Even ended up going to bed that night not sure if I would make it through the night, but wanted to try and get a little sleep.  I slept wonderfully which must have meant the contractions stopped of course.  But when I woke up at  6 am I just felt "funny" and told my husband, lets go, and off we went.  All of my labors were soo short and quick everyone knew I didn't have much time. This was no exception.  I was dilated to an eight upon arrival, and the baby was fully effaced.  I was good and ready.  HOWEVER, the baby's heart rate was slow, and the water when broke was showing signs of definite distress.  I began to panic, and also quickly found out that I was not to get an epidural.  I was to do this naturally.  Now I had epidurals with all of my boys, and had no desire what so ever of doing this without some drugs.  However, the doc did not believe in them and everything was moving soo quickly it was really not an option.  I was wheeled into the delivery room very quickly after arriving.  I have to say I was NOT a happy camper and did do some screaming.  I really couldn't help myself.  Meanwhile the baby's heart rate continued to plummet, and yet things were moving soo quickly there was no time for a c-section.  As she was being born, the doctor counted aloud and the chord was wrapped around her neck 3 times, AND tied in a complete knot!  My doctor told me plainly that she felt it was a miracle.  In all her years of practice [and it was at least 20] she had NEVER seen such a long umbilical cord.  And if it wasn't as long as it was, we would have surely lost her!  IF I hadn't been such a "know it all" the day before and had come to the hospital to just be checked as everyone had wanted me to, we would have no doubt discovered the baby was in distress in plenty of time for me to have had a c-section, and not put her in such danger.  My gratitude was overwhelming needless to say, and I believed even more firmly in my heart that God had blessed me with this precious baby girl.  I had lots of blood pressure issues after her birth, and excessive bleeding etc., and my doctor told me when it was all over that she firmly felt my body had reached the end of it's safely having babies time.  I had to remain in the hospital for 4 days while they got everything stabilized, and we began to dwell on a name.  We had a boy name all picked out [another one starting with a J... Joshua] but had not settled on a girls name.  I really wanted to name her Summer Joy.  She had been born in the middle of summer, and it just seemed right.  But in my mind, a Summer needed to be a blonde, and Melody had been born with lots of super dark hair.  Little did I know it would all fall out by a month and she wouldn't get her totally towheaded hair until she was a year old, lol.  But there was no swaying me away from a dark haired baby named Summer.  Then it was going to be Melissa.  Or Melanie...but then Melody occurred to me, and that's who she became....our Melody Joy.
I am going to stop here considering this is plenty long enough for a single post, and she's only just been born, lol.  I will try not to go into so much detail as I finish up this story, though I am not sure when I will get to it.  Maybe Monday?  Though we do have another visitor coming this week-end, and lots coming up after that as well.  Hope you are all had a good week!  Blessings to you all!  Debbie



6 comments:

  1. Birth stories are always interesting. How good God is to give you the desire of your heart and to take care of each situation. I had to chuckle at the little girl who was born with all that dark hair knowing how blond she is. But she looks much more like a Melody than a Summer. Names have a way of doing that!

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  2. Melody Joy, a perfect name for your miracle girl :)

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  3. Isn't God good? And I don't mean that as a cliche'. He truly is good, faithful, loving and so, so kind. Thank you for sharing this sweet story of the miracle of your beautiful Melody Joy, who obviously has and continues to bring you so much joy. I look forward to reading the rest of the story.

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  4. What a lovely story. Filled with so many good things about Gods love and mercy.
    I loved it.

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  5. I was right there with you, Debbie. So happy you safely delivered your baby girl and her name is perfect.

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I am so glad that you would take the time to comment on my thoughts and feelings, it is such a blessing to me!