What I've been feeling over the last week

8-7 Sunday: I had been having contractions now here and there for the last couple of days. It was kinda cool to me because I never felt any contractions with Silas so this was a new feeling. Sunday night we were watching a movie and I could see that I would have one about every 10 minutes but they were not intense at all and not increasing in intensity. As we got into bed I thought that I might be woken up in my sleep with the real deal. Nope, it all went away.    

8-8 Monday: nothing special happening, still having contractions here and there. 

8-9 Tuesday: first sign that something might finally and actually be happening - lost plug. Christy, the midwife, thought that maybe I would be calling her that night with something more happening since I had been having contractions and cramping buuuut nope. All day nothing changed. Cambrya did go crazy that night before I went to bed and I thought she was just going to claw her way out LOL
8-10 Wednesday: Christy, the midwife, came and saw me. We talked briefly about sweeping my membranes. After checking me (that was super uncomfortable because it was causing crazy cramping), I was 3 cm and 80% effaced but my cervix was not ideally squishy for sweeping my membranes. Christy thought it would only lead to contractions that would eventually die out and frustrate me. But the good news is that Cambrya was very low, 0 station, with her head right up against my cervix. This means once I do start having labor contractions, they will be very efficient.
8-11 Thursday: I really thought tonight might be the night for some reason - NOPE
8-12 Friday: nothing - praying that God would bring her soon and give me patience if it's going to be past 42 weeks.
8-13 Saturday: I'm thinking this girl really isn't coming out. I am having stronger contractions but still
very irregular. Strong enough to make me squirm a bit. At this point I've tried every 'natural' way to get
labor started except castor oil and I really really really don't want to try that. I guess if it is between trying that and getting a csection, I'll do it. Tomorrow I see Christy again and we will talk about natural nudging methods. Tonight is a full moon!

...still no baby

...still no baby but at least God used His word to change my perspective in the last post :) I really do feel more patient and relaxed after looking through the Bible to give me the right perspective! Anyways you can read that below if you want but here is the 41 week shot

Getting ready to go fishing/walking to get baby sister out

He woke up from his nap and the birthing tub was set up. He ran across the room yelling, "Cool! Cool! Cool!" and then asked to get in it and play :)

Suckers are SO good!

No baby....yet

If you are reading this then that means you care about us and want to know the latest with the pregnancy. Well, it is still a pregnancy. I feel a bit frustrated today because I'm just ready. It's not so much a physical thing. I know that most women are so tired of being awkwardly large, having to pee every hour or being sick. I'm not that girl, I'm ok, my body is doing just fine - I too want my body back but it's not miserable. The really hard part for me right now is that my brain will not stop thinking about labor and I am tired of that. I don't want to think about myself any more. I don't want to wonder what every movement 'means' or little pain 'means'. I don't want to hope for some happy sign every time I have to pee. Or to be thinking about my water breaking or when this all will start. That is just tiring! And I think it really has made me lose focus of what is important. So I know that it sounds like I'm complaining, and yeah, I kind of am buuuuut it's so I can slap myself in the face and say GET OVER IT!

This is about God's timing. How can I forget that?! How can I forget in the midst of all this to think about the big picture. We are being entrusted with a child to raise in fear and awe of the Lord - to share the gospel with daily. He has blessed us with a little girl who is going to be here very soon even if those hours until then seem long- it will be exactly as He intended and on the day he has planned.  
Psalm 139:13-16 

¹³ For you created my inmost being; 

   you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 
   your works are wonderful, 
   I know that full well. 
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you 
   when I was made in the secret place, 
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; 
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book 
   before one of them came to be.

He has given us a precious little toddler that I can enjoy these moments with until he becomes a big brother. Silas isn't perfect but there is nothing, NOTHING, like snuggling with him and reading or watching a movie or hearing him call, "Moooooommy!" from his crib. Yes, I have to be patient and wait but the result is so worth the wait.  I have a job to do even while I wait.
 Deuteronomy 6:5-9

⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

My heart  is prone to loving 'me' right now. Listening to the world say, "do something nice for yourself everyday. Spoil yourself. Go out to eat, get massages, pedicures, treat yourself like the princess of the woooorld!" All my strength going into thoughts of myself instead of my strength and thoughts goig towards what pleases the Lord - I can be praying for Cambrya and Silas now and teaching Silas and practicing this myself as this passage commands me to do.

Unlike me, God is so patient with His impatient children, who don't act like they are told to act or listen the first time. (thankfully 1 John 1:9) I'm just realizing as I write this how much I am like my little Silas - stomping my feet and collapsing in frustration because I'm not getting my way. Man, that boy is impatient. God should be picking me up, spanking me and putting me in my crib. 

And here comes the spanking:

Psalm 144:3-4

³ LORD, what are human beings that you care for them,
   mere mortals that you think of them? ⁴ They are like a breath;
   their days are like a fleeting shadow.

Psalm 8

¹ LORD, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!

   You have set your glory in the heavens. 
² Through the praise of children and infants
   you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
   to silence the foe and the avenger. 
³ When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
  the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
   human beings that you care for them?^[c]

 ⁵ You have made them^[d] a little lower than the angels^[e]
   and crowned them^[f] with glory and honor. 
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
   you put everything under their^[g] feet: 
⁷ all flocks and herds,
   and the animals of the wild, 
⁸ the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,
   all that swim the paths of the seas.

 ⁹ LORD, our Lord,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Clearly, I needed a time out.