Seasons Greetings 2016

Lucky #7 : Naomi Ruth Esther Birth Story

Just as I was starting to think I would be pregnant forever.......God finally blessed us to have baby #7 rather unexpectedly and quickly! I went over my "due date" by 5 days and had the most intense Braxton hicks contractions starting at about 38 weeks. My husband came home on leave at 39 weeks and 3 days, so I was even prepared to have baby without him being home since we had half of our children at 38 weeks! So when Oct. 10th rolled around (40 WKS.) and I was still not in labor, I was then starting to prepare in my mind that my husband might have to go back on the road before the baby would be born! Every morning we prayed that, that day would be the day baby would be born....we went out to a park everyday to walk around and still nothing more than some pesky Braxton hicks contractions. With our last 5 births from Noah to Moses I experienced PROM  (premature rupture of membranes) in other words my water would break way, way before I went into active labor!  I would have to induce my own labor with a breast pump and herbs. So in my mind I am just waiting for my water to break for a good warning time that baby would be ready in the next day or two. However on early Saturday morning I was awoken out of sleep with intense contractions that I could not sleep through, still no water breaking so I just ignored them and did some laundry, took a shower and laid down in between contractions. Saturday morning we had planned to go out soul winning with our church....but decided to stay home since church is 40 min. Away and through an under water tunnel  that can sometimes be blocked for 30-40 min. by the slightest fender bender, and I could just imagine that It would be just my luck to have to give birth in our van  in traffic.  We had planned to take the kids to the park again to walk around but I was just not up for that either, since I had been up all night with contractions. I spent most of the day trying to catch up on the sleep I lost the night before, but the contractions kept coming! I wasn't 100% sure I was in true labor since my water hadn't broken, but was concerned because of the amount and intensity of the contractions, so I wanted to go check on baby at the hospital to make sure baby was okay. I figured they would just send me back home if baby was fine and my water still hadn't broke. We left at about 4:15 pm. The contractions continued on the drive over which seemed really long with my husband driving super slow  and catching almost all the red lights. Finally we got there and found the labor and delivery. I checked in and they told us to wait in the lobby while they prepared a room for us. My husband could tell I was very uncomfortable with the contractions and so after waiting 10 or 15 minutes we went back up to the front desk and there was a nurse there ready to call us back. We went to the exam room and got the hospital gown on and I went to the bathroom in the room and my husband being there the last two births looked at my face and went to the hallway to find a nurse and told her, "my wife looks like she did last time we had a baby, I think she is going to have the baby now" with that we had a doctor and a couple nurses come right a way and asked me to lay down so she could check my cervix and get a heartbeat on baby. No way was I going to lay on my back in the middle of contractions so I laid on my side and heard her say, "I feel a bulging bag of waters, head, no cord and she is complete". Then she asked me if I wanted to go over to the labor and delivery room or just stay there to have baby in the small exam room. I don't remember if I said anything at all,  I just laid on my side and held onto the bed rail, she said I could do what I wanted , I could lay on my side and push if I wanted to, whatever I felt like doing. So I felt like pushing and out popped the bag of water. They rolled us over in the bed to the labor room and baby came in just a few more minutes with a few pushes at 5:18pm.  They handed me baby and I couldn't even believe it was a girl!!!!

They asked my husband if we wanted the eye cream and all the other things they do for routine hospital birth babies. He said no to everything and there was absolutely no fuss or fight! The dr. And nurses all told us they are there to do what we wanted......a big change from my previous hospital births!! They were all very kind and gave us all the space we wanted and said whenever we were ready for them to get baby measured and weighed to just press the nurse button.  They did check my blood pressure which was elevated probably from just the quickness and unexpected delivery, but other than that everything was perfect!  The hospital was very clean and just recently renovated so the bathroom looked like a hotel with sparkly tile backsplash!  They gave us a pack  of newborn diapers,  wipes, all the nylon panties I wanted, brought me food and snacks. I was surprised no one came in to tell me the dangers of not getting the vitamin k shot or rolling their eyes about not bathing baby. When we asked about discharge they said that it's at 48 hours, we asked to go home sooner and they agreed as long as baby didn't have any signs of jaundice or heart problems. Our pastor and his wife stopped by with a card, Balloon and healthy snacks for the night at the hospital.

It was now night time, Chris pulled out the chair into a bed and went to sleep, I stayed up almost all night just holding, cuddling and feeding  baby. In the morning Chris left to pick up the children who were with my sister and took them to church, the playground and brought them back to the hospital.

 All the staff that came by the room just loved the children and said how beautiful they all were. No one made us feel like our children didn't belong there. The kids were all excited to see baby and try out all the hospital snacks and drinks.

We did the pku test along with a bilirubin test and her levels were very good, so we got a knock on the door and it was the discharge nurse sending us off with a gift bag of diapers, wipes, nursing pads, baby records and footprints. Chris got everyone back to the van and pulled  up to the front. The nurse carried baby Naomi in the car seat and made sure we snapped her in place and wished us well.  That was all, very smooth birth and pleasant hospital stay! A little over half way through the pregnancy is when we decided to do a hospital birth instead of a homebirth and  I hated the idea of  going back to the hospital after having 2 homebirths, but at the end of the day what I really want for my births are respect for my birth decisions and a trained professional guranteed to be there at the actual birth just in case of an emergency. Unfortunately  I didn't feel like the homebirth midwives in this region offered either of those gurantees.  Even during the prenatal visits the staff was very respectful and allowed me to bring all the children to the appointments and when a male Dr. Was assigned for my group b test he let me do my own swab test so I would not be exposed in front of a male! We also opted NOT to do a sonogram, genetic testing, Flu shot etc...and nobody threw a fit. Praise the Lord for our sweet new blessing Naomi Ruth Esther, my husband being the labor coach, my sister for watching the other 6 children for the evening and all our friends and family who prayed for us!

A little Pumpkin is On the Way !

To celebrate our 7th baby coming this fall, we did a pumpkin theme baby shower!!!

Who doesn't love pumpkin flavored everything???

I made some games and got lots of pumpkin snacks!!

My Aunt and Mommy came down from DC to celebrate!

Rachel is convinced she is having a sister!!

38 weeks and 2 days today!!!

We had lots of friends come and shower us with cash and gift cards, some cloth diapers and hand made burp cloths! We opted out of the sonogram this time around so we have no idea what we are having!!! The suspense is killing me!!! Hopefully I will have a birth story post in a week or two =)

Back to Hospital Birth

I know this is shocking and I am still kind of shocked we are planning a hospital birth this time around. There are only 3 different homebirth midwife companies that attend in the area we live in and EVA Homebirth is definitely disqualified because of our last birth experience (you remember the midwives who told me NOT to try and go into labor the day my water broke because they had another mom in labor and didn't so much as come to check my temperature or verify that my membranes ruptured some 30 hours after I called them and told them my water broke and needed to start inducing labor with natural methods and then tried shipping me off to the hospital after we spent some $4,000 out of pocket btwn. blood work and prenatal visits!) So I set out hopefully to find a different midwife and it sounded good; I even went to an appointment.......but the appointment was downright awful! The office and birth center was filthy like musty clothes and blankets stuffed in corners, dingy fetal dopplers lying around on the floor, toys everywhere, old soda cups....I wish I had taken a picture.....but it was all kind of surreal. If that wasn't enough there was another mom in there with her 2 kids just hanging out at my appointment in the chair next to me who changed her baby's diaper in the chair next to me and didn't even bother to get up and wash her hands....then she starts telling the midwife how she is leaving her husband and dating women and the midwife is just staring into her eyes telling her how much she has been thinking about her lately......She could obviously tell I was taken aback and said, "Oh you know this is how prenatal appointments should be ....a group setting with other moms ". It can't get any weirder right......wrong.... we hear scratching and howling and she says, "Oh that's my pit bull in the other room, I should let him out to play with the kids." UUUUMMMMMMMM NO!  I like animals alot but I don't want a strange pitbull unleashed with my 6 children in the room because this is a breed that makes up 6% of the dog population and does like 80% of the fatal attacking!

 Never the less I am not picky and was just going to sign papers anyway but the Lord intervened and caused her printer to run out of paper and she was supposed to mail the papers to me ....but they never came some 2 months later! On top of this shenanigans Chris is doing truck driving and so there is no guarantee he will be here at the birth....so I don't want to go unassisted without a midwife or husband and 6 other children roaming around...lol. So I called up the local hospital!

The local hospital has an OB residency program that even without insurance costs less than a homebirth the total would only be approx. $3,200 and if paid within 60 days of birth $2,220! Praise the Lord our insurance covers the whole thing though!  So far the appointments have been good, one of the dr.'s told me I am the expert with this being my 7th child and so it seems they should have no problems with my natural birth plan. =)  Baby is due in about 7 weeks so I should have a birth story soon =)

DIY Thieves Laundry Soap

So we have been Young Living Essential Oil addicts for going on 2 years and embraced the chemical free home!! God has been so good that with sharing our love for aromatherapy we have a nice little team from referrals so our monthly orders are paid for and we get points back with every order =) For this reason I have been using our mandatory $100 monthly order (only mandatory if you want a commission check for that month) to buy the ready made thieves laundry soap for the last year and I love it, I really do, but at $26 for 62 loads I wanted to try and stretch our oily orders further. Especially with alllllllllllllllll the dirty clothes and diapers around this house!

 So I finally got around to making diy laundry soap!!! I have been using it for about 5 days and my clothes look clean and smell wonderful!!! There are a bazillion different Pinterest recipes for dry and liquid diy detergent so I will share the one I used =)
What you need :
5 gallon paint bucket ($5)
5 caps of Thieves household cleaner (about $2.75 worth of cleaner from the 14.4oz bottle)
1 bar of soap shredded (recommended was the thieves bar soap, but I used Melaluca Geranium) ($10.25)
1/2 cup Borax (about $0.50)
1 cup Washing soda (about $1)
2 cups.Baking soda (about $0.70 worth from the 2lb box)

About $20 for the first time making it and then $15 after that because you don't have to buy the paint bucket again =)  S0 $15 for 160 loads vs. the $26 for 62 loads is more than double the savings!

What to Do:
Boil 4 cups of water, add in shredded bar soap cook on low and dissolve, add in the rest of the ingredients. Fill paint bucket half way with water and then dump in the pot of ingredients. Put the lid on the bucket and let sit overnight. It will be lumpy in the morning so give it a good mixing with a hand mixer. It should bubble up and smell amazing!! Use 1 cup of this mix per load. This makes 160 loads!!! Happy Washing!!!

Numbers 19:19 And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even.

Summer Freebies

Sometimes kids get board in the summer and when you have 6 kids on one income you can't just pack everyone up and go to Chuck E Cheese or Museums that cost per kid so we find free or very cheap stuff to do! There is a free nature center right by our house we can literally walk to the kids and I love to go to. The paddle boats are only $4 to rent. 

Also about 10 minutes away is another park with a free petting zoo!

 About 15 minutes away is A little family beach with small waves and sand, so my kids get the beach effect without me having to worry about a wave sucking them in...lol

 At one of the military bases by our home there is a children's self defense class for only $5 a kid!! Our children were more interested with the pretend weapons than any self defense techniques...lol.

July 11th was free slurpee day! We had a successful trip to 7-11 and got all 6 kids to carry their own slurpee from the machine to the car without spilling!

My favorite summertime freebie is Chick Fil A's Cow Appreciation Day! We went to 3 different locations and got our fill of chicken, fries and salad for free!  My vegan sister even came to join us and she got oatmeal, a fruit bowl and a southwest salad with no chicken ....by wearing a sign that said "Eat Mor Chikin".  We are thankful for the full life God has given us =)

Worthy of Death

    I don't even watch the news.....but the supposed shooting at the sodomite bar in Orlando has pretty much taken over my facebook news feed with christians trying to figure out what the correct response is to such an event. For the most part many claiming to believe the Bible are mourning for the loss of these people and calling them innocent victims. The funny thing is most are only mourning the loss of 49 lives lost...not the 50 which includes the shooter. Now why is that? Why are they not mourning the loss of Omar Mateen and airing his life ambitions, holding candle light vigils and donating thousands to a gofundme account to help support his wife and child left behind? I will tell you why: people believe he deserved to die because of the wrong he did. You see our society although far from the God of the Bible we still find it morally unacceptable to support and love unconditionally a person who is a mass murderer, because justice says he deserved death after his evil deeds. That is perfectly correct by the Bible (Gen. 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man).......but there is another group of people God demands the death penalty for....... people are overlooking because they are watching too much Fox News. It's time we as christians stop letting society dictate what evil deeds are worthy of death and turn back to the Bible!!! 

    Let's start with clearing up a common misconception that all sin is just as bad as any other sin. I mean you know if you stole a cookie from the cookie jar or raped a 5 year old....well you know we are all just sinners and deserve a second chance at life right??? Wrong!!! Some sins do not merit a second chance at life they merit the death penalty! Among these capital crimes are rape, adultery, murder, beastiality and wait for it....................homosexuality (Lev. 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."; Romans 1 ) The Bible tells us that there is sin that is greater and there are greater punishments for certain sins. John 19:11 "Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin". Let's please stop acting like all sin is the same, it's a lie from the pit of hell. I would like to see someone turn the other cheek just the same way to someone who stole a pencil off their desk and someone whole molests their child. Yes all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but not all sin does God give the government the responsibility of administering the death penalty. Romans 13:4 "For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

     From a biblical perspective there are some that deserve to die right away not just live their lives out until the normal course of events plays out and they die like everyone else as part of the curse of sin. For this reason, I have absolutely no problem with the pastors in our country who are taking a stand and saying that the sodomites killed in Orlando were worthy of death. It was wrong the way that they died, because Omar Mateen was not an ordained minister of God to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil....but the truth is if our nation followed the Lord and his PERFECT LAW there would have been no Pulse nightclub shooting because they would have all already had been put to death by the government. The Bible is very clear that the way someone becomes one that goes after strange flesh and lusts after a member of the same sex is because God has given them over to reprobate mind, it's too late for them. I am an independant baptist and it is often mentioned in sermons against calvinism that there is a point where when we reject God the last time, he gives up on you and you will become incapable of receiving salvation. (Proverbs 1:28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me." For instance in Exodus when Pharaoh hardens his heart against the Lord and then he gets to the point of no return where God hardens his heart and he is no longer capable of turning to the Lord because God has given up on him. After this happens where God has given you up this is when you begin to do animalistic type of behavior like lusting after children, animals and those of the same sex. At this point it's just too late. Please read Romans 1 to see I am telling the truth. People have normal sinful desires of the flesh like stealing or committing adultery who are not reprobate....but no normal person has the desire to take and molest a child. This can only be done by those who have been given over to a reprobate mind, God says in the New Testament by the way that those with a reprobate mind are worthy of death. Read it for yourself. 

Romans 1:18 "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."