Follow-Up Miracle

On Monday, April 18th, Samuel had his follow up visit with Dr. Kelly, his plastic surgeon at Vanderbilt, just 5 short days following his surgery.  The doctor's first words were, "He's fine."  What a relief!  The "tag" on Samuel's neck proved to be non-cancerous and as suspected ran deeply.  It was through the muscles of Samuel's neck and connected to tissue, but this did not seem to cause any need for alarm.  The surgery lasted all of 20 minutes. 

What did surprise us, however, was the explanation of what this "skin tag" actually was.  Apparently, when babies' ears are forming in the womb, they do so in 6 parts, and somehow, in God's providence, one of Samuel's parts did not form exactly where it should have.  It formed into the fold of his neck.  I know you are wondering how this is possible (as we did), but we were comforted with the knowledge that Samuel passed his hearing test as an infant.  His ear shows no signs of malformation or discomfort.  It is simply a miracle as God must have intended.

As my husband beautifully wrote after learning this news, our Lord knew that Samuel would one day need to hear the Gospel, and how fitting it is that it was in God's hands as He formed this little one within my womb, despite the "loss" of one of the six parts of his ear, God knew Samuel would be able to hear!   

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

With one year coming to an end and with a new one at hand, my mind is consumed with how good God has been this past year.

• After months of praying over how we could get a larger vehicle, the Lord managed to total our Malibu in February on I-65 going 70 mph and hitting the median twice.  Brian and I were on our way to church, I was 7 months pregnant, Daniel had just been dropped off at his Mimi's, and somehow NONE of us were hurt.
• We celebrated our third anniversary on March 31, 2010!  I was feeling very pregnant, so we ate at Demos' and then headed to Walmart to finish up with Daniel's birthday party supplies.
• After a very difficult pregnancy and a week of bedrest, I was able to celebrate Daniel's first birthday with him.  I had worked so hard on it that the idea of not being there was hard, so it was so amazing that I was released from bedrest just days before his birthday party!
• I woke up on Daniel's first birthday on April 20, 2010, bleeding...  My doctor was certain I was going to have the baby that day, so I was transferred to Baptist to be at a hospital with a NICU seeing as I was only 35 weeks.  Despite all of the trauma, days in the hospital, and many doses of magnesium, the baby was able to stay in the womb and was in perfect condition.
• We delivered a healthy, 7.4 lb., 18 1/2 inch baby boy on May 23, 2010.  Samuel Levi was dark-headed, blue-eyed, and amazing!  Labor was fast and delivery was in 12 minutes.  Wow, what a blessing!
• Brian turned 30 on June 25, 2010, and despite having two babies on my hands, I managed to conjure up a surprise party for him!  We were blessed with friends and family there to celebrate. 
• I took both boys to Gatlinburg for the 4th of July!  My mom and Jessica invited us to go along, and though it was difficult, it'll be a memory I cherish for years to come.
• Daniel started Mother's Day Out on August 17, 2010, and since then, his vocabulary, social skills, motor skills, and thoughtfulness have taken off!  He sings and dances all the time, and it's incredible to watch him grow like this. 
• Daniel was diagnosed with asthma in September, but after a month of using an inhaler, he was FINE!  Praise God from whom all these blessing flow!
• October flew quickly by, but it was in that month that I really saw love in its purest form.  Daniel loved Samuel with more love than can be explained.  He woke every morning waiting to kiss his baby brother, and when Samuel cried Daniel wanted to help.  It was more precious than any blessing I'd received.
• In November, we were blessed by visiting Gatlinburg with my family and Thanksgiving with Brian's.  Other blessings followed...  Samuel had an ultrasound of a small skin tag on his neck that proved it was not a tumor or a cyst! We also learned of our fourth pregnancy on November 14, 2010.  Though we decided not to share it until we had more details from our doctor, we were anxious to see what God had in store.
• December 2010 was filled with surprises, blessings, and loss.  We spent such great time with our family and friends over the weekends and holidays.  We watched our boys celebrate Christmas with such excitement.  We learned how to live simply and how to love more.  We saw our fourth baby on the ultrasound screen when we believed we were 8 weeks, though it wasn't as far along as we thought, and two weeks later, we learned the baby had passed at 6 weeks.  The Lord gave me the baby's name on December 30th, but to our dismay, we had to inform family of the baby and its loss when I went in to have surgery on December 31, 2010. 

It's hard to end the year on such a sobering blessing, but we are reminded yet again that God is good.  He gives and takes away, and He turns mourning into great joy.

Carrying a Blessing

Maybe you haven't noticed it, but I can't help but stare every time I see it...
 
It's that little gadget on the top right side of this page, and it's a daily reminder of how truly blessed I am.

Being a woman who has miscarried and was later given a child, I am incredibly fascinated by the process God takes in creating a child in a woman's womb.  I read all I can about what's taking place each week with this new miracle, and though I've already been here and done this all before, I am still amazed by God.  I am floored by what He's doing within me.  I am humbled that He's chosen me to carry this one, and though losing a child taught me to understand this, I cannot help at times to be human and want to be in control...  You know?

It's my body, yet it's actually His. 
It's my baby, yet it's totally His. 
It's our future, but it's completely His.

How in the world did God look down and pick me?  How did He know that Brian would be exactly the friend I'd want to have in every situation?  How did He know that losing our first baby would break me?  How did He know that I'd need time to heal?  How did He know that Daniel would bring more joy to me than I could have imagined?  How did He know that conceiving a third child would bring a calming peace over me in the midst of pregnancy and infancy? 

I'm not sure.  There's so much about my Lord that I simply cannot understand...

But this is what I do know.  He's good, and He just knows.  Not only that, but it's all His.  All I've been given and all I own, I owe to Him.  So, this sweet blessing is just that...  His child being carried by another one of His children...



I am 20 weeks along with Baby #3...

Miracles in the Making

Reading the Bible used to be incredibly difficult for me. It wasn't because the King James Version was impossible to interpret or even that I had a tough time learning to read because I didn't. It wasn't that the Bible didn't interest me or because it wasn't cool to be a Christian because it was. It wasn't exactly because I didn't enjoy the words on each divinely-inspired page or that I didn't have to time to take it all in because I did. It simply was that as a young child I could not believe the words I was reading were true.

How could a ninety-year-old woman have a baby? How could a man part a sea? How exactly did a person live inside the belly of a whale and not die? How could a young man live after being thrown into a lion's den? How could anyone feed thousands with a few fish and some bread? How could a person be "born again"? How could a man be crucified and raise from the dead? I just could not fathom that miracles like that were capable of happening in MY world.

Just recently, I have been made to believe. Those Old Testament events have not reoccurred, and physically, Jesus isn't exactly walking the roads healing and performing miracles like He did in the New Testament. But let me tell you that the words I am privileged to read are becoming much more believable to me.

Today, I learned of a young mother who gave birth to three healthy babies; each weighing in over five pounds; the triplets, who some feared would spend days in the NICU, are well. Last week, I listened as a young woman explained that she had miraculously been touched by grace, and that after years of doubting, she knew that God had given her the salvation she craved. A month ago, I watched as two aged church members had a surprise wedding ceremony after both had been widowed; I saw the love the Lord had placed in their lives even after having lost their loved ones.

I feel as though God has been begging us to believe. He places these events in our lives for us to see how great and glorious He is, and yet we still have trouble in believing that miracles can happen in today's world. God questioned the Israelites' doubt in Numbers 14:11, "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?" Is that not what we are doing now?

If we take just a moment to read God's word, we will truly be given a glimpse of how miraculous God truly is. Not only was He able to make miracles happen in the days before Christ, but He is far more capable of giving them to us today. Just as I had trouble believing them to be true in my youth, we have to be willing to see them as they are. God's miracles are in the making all around us, but will we ever be able to believe?