The other two kids have their birth story online at beccalynn521.blogspot.com, so I found Elise’s and I’m posting it here for posterity.
It all started the evening of Sunday, the day before her birthday. We stayed home from church that day so as not to bring any germs into the house before Elise’s birth. In addition, Dave was still not over the cold that the rest of us had gotten over nearly a week before so he needed to rest. We all just sat on couches and rested all day long. Dave slept in pretty late on Sunday morning and me and the kids made cinnamon buns while he slept. When he awoke, they were ready to eat shortly thereafter and we all ate a fair share of them while we watched TV, I read and knit a sweater for Elise, and we ate. The kids took out all the blankets and pillows from the ottoman and their beds and made a big, squishy floor to lay on while watching TV. It was great and relaxing. It was very similar to the day we’d all had together on Thursday. Dave had stayed home that day because we thought we were in labor and we’d laid around all day then too.
Sometime in the late afternoon, early evening, we went to Sam’s because we were out of toilet paper and soap, Ollie’s to get a gift for our little friend Zoe, and Lowe’s so we could buy more paint for touching up the hallway and living room walls. Throughout the entire trip, I was feeling sick to my stomach with deep low back pain and pelvic pressure and burning. There were no contractions, just slow, steady, growing pain. I tried squatting while looking through the books and rolling my hips but the pressure and pain wouldn’t stop. When we went to Sam’s, I ate a soft pretzel and that made my stomach feel much better (with all the salt and mustard), but the lower pressure just persisted. We FaceTimed Gail on the way home to wish her a proper happy birthday and talked about how it was too bad the baby hadn’t come on her birthday. When we finally came home, it was so painful I had a really hard time getting out of the car. I sat there for awhile just waiting for the pain to end and it wouldn’t. I knew we had to eat and get to bed so I declared that Dave would, unfortunately, have to do the majority of all that work getting dinner out and getting the kids in bed. If I had known it would have been our last bedtime pre-baby, I might have soldiered through the bedtime snuggles. We reheated the white chili I’d made the other day and as we ate I was in a lot of pain and Elise was making it difficult to find a good position because her feet were up in my ribs. As soon as we were done, I was going to lie down but it then occurred to me that there were some things left undone that I wanted done in case I went into labor. I threw diapers in the wash and I think I folded some laundry. Maybe I did a few dishes too, and then I lay down in my bed with The Flash on Netflix and the little sweater I was almost done knitting. The back pain relaxed and I started having contractions. They were immediately regular. Already 2-5 minutes apart. (I believe I’d been having them during our errands, but that the back pain had been so intense that I hadn’t noticed them). Rosie had told me that I needed to go in when they were that far apart so I could get the antibiotics for the Group Strep B. It seemed weird that they would start so suddenly and be so close together, but I called the Women’s Health group anyway. Nylene was the midwife on call and she told me to come in. We called JB and he came over within 10 minutes while we switched the suitcases around so that the kids suitcases were in the house ready to go with JB when they left in the morning, and ours were in the car. By the time he came over, Asher had already fallen asleep. I wished he hadn’t because I hadn’t snuggled him to bed that night since I’d been in so much pain. I’d really made an effort to do it every night in the weeks leading up to this, knowing that it was special and necessary that I make sure I did all I could to pour into him before his life turned upside down and he wasn’t the baby anymore. So, I went in and gave him an earnest kiss on the forehead and told him how I loved him and he would always be my baby. It was tough because I was in pain, but important. I’ll always remember that moment, kissing his baby, blonde head because when it was all over, that little head seemed so huge suddenly, and that baby boy was no longer a baby.
We had already promised Noelle sometime earlier in the day that she could sleep out in the living room with the pillows and blankets she’d pulled out earlier. Because JB ended up sleeping here, she and he ended up sleeping in the living room together—her on the little couch and he on the big one. We said goodbye and she was ecstatic, running over and giving me hugs. I wanted to return them, but the contractions were uncomfortable.
Dave and I got in the car and drove into Waynesboro. The contractions were painful enough that I had to do my deep, belly breathing through them. They were still as far apart as before, but irregularly close together. We got to the hospital around 8pm and signed in waited in the ER until Mary Ellen, the nurse who would be taking care of me all night, came in. I refused the wheelchair and was crouching through a contraction as we waited for her. Then, we went upstairs and were put in our room – room 2025. They monitored me right away, for probably an hour. It was supposed to be less, but the baby didn’t have any accelerated heart rate until later. The contractions weren’t comfortable at this point, but they were still regular, probably still 5 to 10 minutes apart. because I was being monitored for so long and it was nighttime, I was able to rest and sleep a little bit through these contractions. when this was done, I believe we went to the tub for a while. Maryellen put some lavender and chamomile bath soap in the tub and I relaxed in there to see if the contractions will get stronger or less intense. I had some scriptures playing at this point and also back in the room when I slept to help me through it. I started at Psalm 23 and I think the app played Psalms until somewhere in the 50s. I didn’t keep track. At this point, I was thinking about relaxing through the contractions and letting them do their work. It was working.
I was managing the pain and had things progressed like I expected from here, I think I would have been fine. They were less intense but still regular. I stayed in there 30 minutes to maybe a half hour and then went back to the bedroom. I think at this point I rested, drink some water, and I asked for an apple which they gave me. The apple really helps my stomach which was irritated. We slept for a while then I woke up and I had contractions that were more painful in about two minutes apart. Dave had to help me through each of them, and each one brought me to the toilet where empty my bowels over and over and over again. These lasted for about an hour. however, the nurse came in and said she had found me sleeping during that time I haven’t had any contractions at all. Nobody was monitoring my contractions when they were two minutes apart. They came in after this point in time and monitor them and I had contractions that were very short and small and far apart. However, they hurt a lot. during the night, it was Nylene the midwife who is taking care of me. I’m sure she’s wonderful, but I felt very discouraged by her. She kept coming in and seeing these don’t look like labor. These aren’t strong enough to be labor. These aren’t close enough together regular enough to be labor. She suggested that maybe I was having prodromal labor. I was frustrated, because the monitor seem to be showing one thing on my body was telling me another. It felt very much like labor. It was getting harder and harder to hold myself together during each contraction. In addition to the tub, I also used the ball to help me get through them, though at one point with Dave on the rocking chair behind me trying to help me, he just fell asleep. Getting on my hands and knees with my butt up on the air in the bed helped as well, and I even rolled around with my belly on the ball while on the bed. They monitored me for the last time around 5 AM. At this point in time my contractions looks like they were doing nothing. They were 10 to 15 minutes apart. However, from my perspective they still hurt a whole lot. They were about seven or eight on the 1 to 10 scale of pain. They decided to send me home around six, we left around 630, and then we stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s because we are both starving.
We came home at seven, just as Asher was waking up and we sent JB back to his house. No well was very sad to see that there was no baby almost on the verge of tears. Me too! We turned on Disney Junior, let the kids have blankets and pillows in the living room, and I instructed Noel to get herself and Asher a banana and a granola bar. I told them they were not to talk to us or wake us up since we have been up all night long so they did a very good job of that. Dave slept at least three hours maybe more. I slept as much, but woke up freights contraction. The contractions were still about 10 minutes apart, but extremely painful. We came to the point where I was afraid to move because I was afraid that I would get a contraction my walk to the bathroom or walks to the kitchen to grab something to eat and I wouldn’t be able to function through the contraction. I also didn’t want to wake Dave, since he was still struggling to get rid of this cold. If we hadn’t been in the hospital all night, he might’ve been able to get rid of it, but sleeping on the hospital couch and trying to catch up on his rest that morning really were cutting it. So, we slept for at least three hours while our children were mesmerized by the television. At 10ish, Dave woke up and showered and started getting his coffee. I also got up which means that I had to find a way to get through each contraction. Honestly, I don’t remember much about what I did. I was just trying to survive. I am pretty sure I peed a couple of times, and I know I finished knitting the baby sweater I’d started the week prior. Mostly I sat in the rocking chair or on the birthing ball and marked the contractions. I wasn’t even calm or feeling no pain between them. I was uncomfortable the entire time, but it the pain was nearly impossible to bear once the contractions came. As Dave ran around getting ready for the day, I kept screeching at him that one was coming and I needed him now. Of course, by the time he got there, it was halfway done so it was really hard to use him to focus since he wasn’t able to be there with me anticipating them. This was nothing like the peaceful morning I had right before Asher was born. This was frantic, painful, nauseating, overwhelming, and out of control.
Finally, sometime after 11am, they started getting closer together, though they were still irregular. They were 6-8 min apart. Then 4-6. When they had been 4-6 minutes apart for a couple of contractions, I called. I didn’t heed Nylene’s advice to wait an hour. I just couldn’t bear this anymore and I knew it would still be painful at the hospital but at least if we left I’d feel like I was doing something. I called Potomac OB/GYN (Now Summit Women’s Health) and they called me right back and said to come in. I told JB we were coming over to drop the kids off very soon. He told me I sounded “great.” Ha ha. Between contractions I started grabbing things like extra essential oils, some cheese and apples. I also quickly printed a 39 week photo and had Noelle take my picture while in between contractions. I directed kids to get shoes and coats and all this happened between contractions, when Dave and sometimes Noelle would come and count me through them with 6:1 counting. Even Asher came up behind me and mimicked Daddy’s back massage. I laughed at his and Noelle’s sweet attempts to help and the laughter calmed down the next couple of contractions. I grabbed suitcases and pulled them out doors and Dave finished making tea and coffee and then we piled the kids into the car to drive to the Usher’s. I believe at this point I had a couple of contractions that were back to 10 minutes apart and I started crying. It had been such a long, frustrating night that it was really hard to hold it together, which of course made the contractions worse. I didn’t know if I was to spend days in this pain while trying to take care of my kids alone or what. I wanted my baby or I wanted the pain to end. This in between nonsense was more than I could take.
We dropped the kids off and as they were unloading and Dave and JB were talking, another contraction hit and I tried to breathe through it with Rachelle but it caught me off guard and I wasn’t in a comfortable position and I couldn’t get on top of it. I ended up crying. Then she lead the breathing and once I followed her lead it was okay.
We drove to the hospital. I don’t remember much about the drive, just being in pain and trying to get through these things without losing it and getting frustrated about red lights and traffic. When we got there, they put me in room 2035. I had wanted 2037, which was the tub room and where Asher was born, but it was still occupied. My nurse was now Sherri and my midwife was Jackie. I got in and immediately kicked off my shoes and stripped into my robe. I was probably in the second phase of labor at this point and not very polite anymore. They were about to monitor me. Again. “Can you please not do that? I just spent all night being monitored!”
“Well, we have to see if your labor has progressed,” they responded. I started in the bed so they could find the heartbeat, and then they obliged my request for a ball. Meanwhile, they started asking all the same, dumb questions they’d asked the night before and I was not in the mood to answer. “Can’t you just look at my answers from last night?” I said. “I just answered these!” I leaned back on the ball into Dave for each contraction and we breathed through them. Sometimes I tried to kiss him through them as that can help relax your lady parts, but when I suddenly had the urge to bite him through the intense pain, I decided that wasn’t working and that it wasn’t safe for him. Now that he was awake, he was more capable of helping me through the pain, but we had already set a bad precedent so it was still hard to focus. Jackie came in and checked me and found I was 5cm dilated. She stayed in there still after telling me that info and another contraction started.
“WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING IN THERE?!?” I hollered. She calmly removed her hand and I leaned forward and held onto her through the next few contractions. So, I had dilated about 2cm at home, then. At least there was progress. I should have felt encouraged but I was just so overwhelmed by the pain and the exhaustion. I told them I didn’t want the penicillin and they convinced me to get it, but didn’t give it right away. They got the tub ready and I eagerly got into it. Dave played Jon Foreman’s “House of God Forever” on repeat. But sometimes I needed him to get me through a contraction and he was busy trying to get the song to play again and that was annoying. Nothing was as controlled as I’d expected it to be after Asher’s birth. He also just let the album play on, which was fine. All the songs were relaxing. The tub was a bit more relaxing than the ball, but that didn’t last long. It got too hot and I felt too constrained. I was also getting tired of holding myself upright. I feel like at this point I must have started slipping into transition because all I wanted to do was lie on my bed on my side and sleep between contractions. We moved back to the bed and the nurses were wondering why I didn’t take advantage of the tub. “We did that. We’re done with that,” Dave and I countered. I was irritated with them and their slowness since the previous night. It wasn’t any of their faults, but circumstances and my pain made me very irritable.
I laid on my side on the bed and faced the window, holding onto the bars of the bed as I went through contractions and sleeping between. I don’t know how far apart they were at this point. I didn’t care. I didn’t asked to be checked. I just wanted to concentrate. I tried to breathe calmly through them, but I just couldn’t. Sometime back on the ball I’d asked Dave to pray through the contractions and I needed him to do just that now. My hands were getting numb and it was difficult to use any type of loud voice to get his attention before the contraction started, but I’d say, “Pray. PRAY!” and he would pray for me every time. Mostly he was paying attention. Sometimes, he wasn’t. I don’t even know if I was being monitored. I’m pretty sure I would have screamed at anyone who tried to do that at this point. Dave was praying me through the contractions and we were on a roll when the nurses finally decided it was time to give me the penicillin. I’d already talked through the fact that I didn’t want it with Jackie when I first got there and she talked me into it and Dave said we wanted it. But then they hadn’t done anything. Now that I was in the throws of the worst part of it I said I didn’t want it. The nurses listened to me and Dave said, “No. She wants it. Give it to her.” They tried in my left arm twice to get a vein and blew out two veins both times. Sherri tried first. (SHe’s so sweet. I apologized profusely later for my uncooperativeness). Then Shelby came in. “I thought you were only going to try twice and leave me alone!” I whined. “That’s what Sherri told you. Now I’m trying,” Shelby said. She got the vein and shortly thereafter they started the penicillin.
I don’t know how long I lay there going through this. At one point I started moaning through the contractions. And I still demanded that Dave pray each time. With each contraction I tried to visualize what was moving and where the pain was coming from. I wanted it to be over so badly, I analyzed it and thought about how my cervix was opening—willed it to open. It was around this point that I also started vomiting. Rosie said that she likes when her girls vomit because it helps open the cervix, so I knew this was a good sign. Then, there was a break. “Maybe this is the break before pushing contractions start,” I thought. But they came back and I didn’t necessarily feel it was time to push. Each contraction was horrific and each one felt like it was bringing me closer to my baby. I felt like her head was lower, the cervix was wider, things were opening…and then I felt a grunting, tiny urge to push.
“Dave, call Jackie. I think I need to push,” I grunted. She came in and shoved her hands up inside and didn’t give me any information, but she did tell me to give a little push. When I did, the water broke.
“Good,” she said with a smile.
“Am I 10cm?” I asked. “Can I push?”
“Yep, you can push,” she replied, as calm and easy going as if the weight of the world didn’t depend upon that question.
I breathed a little, waited to see if I had any urge to push, and then I pushed gently. It hurt so badly. I needed to push a lot harder than that. I don’t know why I thought I could get away with anything smaller. She let me stay where I was (apparently my butt was hanging out over the edge of the bed) and she was even cool when I threw my leg over her shoulder. I started pushing much harder. The pain was agonizing and the effort was more than I had, but I pushed through it because I knew that the delivery of the baby meant the end of this agony. I don’t know how long I pushed or even if I pushed with contractions. I just pushed frantically and Jackie even told me I could slow down so as not to tear. I thought about that but then decided I didn’t care about tearing. And then she was crowning…and her head was out. I vaguely remember something about the cord being around her neck so don’t push and it was hard not to push the rest of the way out. When it was safe to push again (and I don’t remember how I knew it was) I pushed the rest of her out. I looked up and she was purple and long and Jackie was asking Dave to say the gender. “It’s a girl!” he said, a little disbelieving. I threw my head back against the pillow and they pulled her up to my chest without even wiping her off. She was purple and even blue and quiet and skinny. She had some gurgly cries, but not many, at least not at first. In between frantic cries about all my fears and frustrations from the whole, awful ordeal, I looked at her and checked on her and repositioned her the best I could to make sure she could breathe and cough out the mucus. She was perfect, they said. She is perfect, I agreed. “Hey, little girl, I’m your Mama. Happy birthday!” Her umbilical cord was flacid by this point, and still attached to the placenta inside. I felt like it was short because I could feel it pulling against me. Jackie said it wasn’t short. Soon, they clamped it and Dave cut it and I pushed out the placenta. Pushing that out was so easy compared to labor. It was so easy. Jackie stitched me up and accidentally squirted lidocaine on my face and my eye. It was okay, though. Then she stitched me up. It was the quickest stitch up ever. I held Elise almost the entire time, and they all commented on the amount of blood and the mess that Jackie made. There was blood all over everything. It was crazy. They weighed the baby—I wanted that done but nothing else, and she was 7lbs 4oz. I was cold and this time the shivering was actually cold (I’d started shivering before, during, and after pushing from the hormone drop) so Sherri brought me a couple of warm blankets. Then, everyone left. Two more ladies were having babies at that time, which I didn’t know, and one was waiting to be discharged. My nurse, Sherri, asked if she could discharge the other patient who had been waiting all day since I wanted more time to bond with the baby. I said sure, because I know how it feels waiting to be discharged all day when you just want to go home. What I didn’t realize is that we would wait there for an hour and a half with the blood only half cleaned up and me and the baby naked and sitting in the rest of the mess with no gowns, no diapers, no pads or anything. I don’t blame them, they did what they had to do, but after awhile, I really needed to pee and when I rang the nurse she wasn’t ready to come and help me. So, I found the washcloth left over from my barf bucket and shoved that between my legs so I could waddle to the bathroom and pee. Then Dave looked around and found my pads, and a pair of mesh underwear. I found the nursing gown and a bathrobe, and then replaced the chucks (large plastic pads that they place under a laboring woman) on the bed because I’d seen where they kept them, and sat back down on the bed with the baby. Meanwhile, Elise had pooped in the blanket they’d given her. Dave ran out to the car and grabbed her cloth diapers because I wanted her first diaper to be a diaper we could keep and he gave her her first diaper—which she hated. Then we grabbed all the linens that were soiled and threw them in the linen hamper. We pretty much took all of the linens. I was going to get back on the bed but I realized that there was blood all over everything and I just didn’t want to get bloody again after putting new clothing on myself and a new blanket on Elise, so I sat in the rocking chair with a pillow under my butt and held and nursed her there until the cleaning crew came and pulled apart and cleaned the rest of the bed.
Eventually, a nurse came back too, but they didn’t do the rest of Elise’s check up then. She was nearing the end of her shift and had instructed my night nurse to take care of that. She also assigned that particular nurse—Christie—to just me.
Once they cleaned off the bed, Dave went to the Usher’s and picked up the kids and I sat with Elise during that time, snuggling an nursing and occasionally talking to the nurses. That took him about an hour or an hour and a half. When the kids came in, I didn’t tell them the gender. They came up and looked at her and then I pulled the blanket back and showed them her diaper (it was pink). “It’s a girl!” Noelle said, and then started laughing happily. She got her prayer. Her hearts desire. This entire pregnancy and the baby that resulted was the answer “Yes,” to her fervent prayer. I was so happy for her and the lesson about prayer she learned from this whole thing. And Noelle was in love. Absolutely and completely.
I sat down on the couch with them and gave them each a turn holding her. Thankfully, that got on video even though their reaction to her gender didn’t. Asher loved her feet and wanted to touch them over and over. I let him hold her as well and even though he loved her, he then wanted to do other things. He certainly didn’t fawn over her like Noelle did. That’s when Christianah, the nurse, came in to do her bath and her footprints and her hospital bracelets and vaccines. She bathed her first and the kids followed her around as she did so. Then, she did her footprints and her vaccines. Noelle went over and took her hand and tried to tell her about and prepare her for the fact she was to get a shot. It was very sweet how she took such a protective attitude towards her little sister. “It’s just going to be a little shot,” she said sweetly, trying to comfort her. I have a feeling this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between them.
Dave didn’t stay the night this time. He needed sleep and the kids needed him, so this was our first baby where I stayed in the hospital by myself. Besides, the cold had started turning into a sinus infection and he needed to go to rest, and he did go to the doctor the next day and get an antibiotic, which finally kicked it and gave him some energy.
Elise didn’t sleep well the first night, and as usual, I didn’t either. I’m always too excited and worried to sleep the night after having a baby. I rested in 20 minute increments. She would nurse, need to be held and burped, and then I’d put her down where she’d be happy for 10-30 minutes. She needed her diaper changed a couple of times (she pooped meconium 3-4 times over the course of the afternoon and evening) and at one point she woke up sort of struggling to get rid of phlegm. She looked like she was choking. I ran her over to the nurses station where they patted her for awhile and suctioned her mouth. Then they checked her vitals and her weight and found that she was 7 pounds, 6 ounces, 2 ounces higher than her birth weight—and this just after she completely filled a cloth diaper with meconium. So, we assumed that one of the scales was incorrect. They also gave me a hand crocheted hat for her to wear since the one I’d knit and brought with me was too large. It is a sweet, pearly white hat and it fit her perfectly. Eventually, I gave her to the nurses so I could try to sleep a little bit,though I was unable to get much sleep. This continued through another day and night, since we had to stay an extra day since the penicillin never got into me in time. We discovered that she likes to suck so we gave her a pacifier and that helped a lot. On the one hand, it was good to be in the hospital because it forced me to sleep and it was nice to have the nurses to turn to when I had questions. On the other hand, I was by myself a majority of the time and I felt lonely and exhausted. I missed Dave. He came as often as he could, but a maternity hospital stay is different when you have two, lively kids at home. From the first night through the first week, Elise has slowly learned to sleep a bit more on her own at night, but it was slow going at first. We had some beautiful hospital portraits taken of her before we left and thankfully, we only got leaving a half hour later than we thought we would on Wednesday, which was a blessing. We waited around for hours to be discharged when Noelle was a newborn.
So, she is here. She is tiny. She is perfect. She was worth it, even though it was my most difficult labor of the three (due to the fact that I had an epidural for Noelle and slept through the difficult parts).
When my chemo was done and I laid my head back in the seat of my car with relief knowing that I had done what I set out to do and I didn’t have to keep doing it anymore, I released a burden I hadn’t fully realize I’d been holding and those three words hit home for me in a new way.
part of me too if you want to.”
My sweet, firstborn daughter. Oh, dear girl. Back when she first learned how to speak–only a couple of words mind you–we realized that she likes to know what our plans for her are. At two or three years of age, when her vocabulary really blossomed, asking our plans was something that took up a major part of her day. She wanted not just to know what was happening now, and next, but she wanted an entire itinerary for the day. And, if we told her all our plans for the day, she’d continue to ask for them over and over again, wanting to make sure she knew exactly how things would happen and what to expect. Her worrisome little spirit clung to those plans. If, heaven forbid, we should deviate from this set schedule, she had a really hard time handling it.
During their infant stage, all my children are very attached to me. They love their Daddy, don’t get me wrong, but he is a poor substitute for Mommy. I was not only their home for nine months, but I’m their source of food. It’s more than just a warm body and food, though. I seem to be able to comfort them with my touch and my voice in a way that no one else can. My youngest is currently in this “Mommy only” stage. She is only truly happy when she is in my arms and/or I am completely available and within reach. If she can’t be in my arms, she is somewhat content as long as she can maintain eye contact with me. I’ll do the dishes, and walk to the counter to wipe it and then to the stove to prepare eggs for breakfast and all the while her eyes are fixed on me, moving with me, stalking me. She doesn’t just look at me, she looks at me with expectation. She knows that I have everything she needs. As long as she can see me, she isn’t worried about how her needs will be met.
We’re going through a very difficult time in our family, a time where I wonder if God is actually capable of meeting our needs because we’ve never had so many of them before. I’ve never really experienced anxiety in a physical way until this past year. Our needs are so big to me. So impossible. I wonder if God wants to meet them or if He is capable of doing so. I wonder if He cares and if He even loves me sometimes. I sometimes tend to focus on the problems and not on my Father in times like these–the mortgage, how full the fridge is, my teeth that always cause expensive problems–these seem bigger than He is when I’m focusing on them. I’m not looking at him so I forget that He sees me and he is capable of meeting my needs. I forget how big He is. I forget that He has a perfect plan through the madness. I forget that he provides even for the sparrows.
In that moment of realization, I looked to Him. I looked to my Father. You can guess what happened then. My heart rate slowed, my stomach no longer felt queasy, and I felt at peace. My emotional burdens were very physically lifted off of my shoulder as I turned my face toward heaven. All day, when I felt like my circumstances were overwhelming me I just thought, “I need to look to Jesus. I need to think of Heaven,” and I didn’t feel the need to pick up the burdens again. There was peace and it was beautiful.
I just have to give a little testimony before ending: The other morning, I told my husband somewhat jokingly that I was out of meal plans for the month so God was going to have to do something. Two days in a row, friends showed up at my door with dinner. We have had a year full of trials, but also a year full of small miracles just like that one. Don’t, for one minute, think that God doesn’t see you and that He isn’t capable of meeting your needs.
rebeccagettel 