Go Twinkies!!

Today, I woke up feeling kind of gross. I ate breakfast and the feeling didn't end. I made myself some prego tea that my friend Chloe sent me from Portland. That helped but for some reason, today is not my day. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then a turkey sandwich. I drank a glass of milk. I have had 3 bottles of water. Now, to be motivated to take a shower. I am really taking this pregnancy as a chance to be properly intune with my body and pay attention. If I don't feel all that energetic, I am not going to push myself. As long as I am consuming food and water, the baby gets proper nutrition. I may have caught the cold that Kaleb has had the last 2 days. I pray that is not the case!

Tomorrow we are going to a Minnesota Twins game at noon. So I want to make sure I have enough energy for that!!

Songs that uplift...

 This song is wonderful and has helped me through many rough times.

The explanation behind the song "Healing Begins"

I hope and pray that people turn to Jesus for their comfort just like the song ^ talks about



This song is so powerful and so amazing!! "Desert Song"

"Desert Song"

Birth Research 2

Thenaturalmommy.com

What I Believe: Natural Childbirth



I believe that natural childbirth is best. I believe that the female body was created to give birth. We were not created to be cut open so that our babies could be through a man-made hole in our abdomen. We were not created to need the assistance of synthetic hormones to push labor along. And believe it or not, being created with the purpose of giving birth in mind, we were even made to accommodate the incredible size of a newborn baby’s head. I even believe that God’s intention was for childbirth to be an exciting, intimate experience that women would look forward to.

However, all of creation was affected by the fall of [wo]man – the first sin, which separated us from the perfect existence God had dreamed for us. Now there are miscarriages. There are stillbirths. There are breech babies. There are labors that stall or stop for various reasons. There are maternal deaths. There is pain.

So man has created ways to avoid these horrific experiences. We have ultrasounds to be able to view the baby and any potential health problems. We have cesarean sections, which have saved countless lives (both mother and child). We have pitocin, which can kick-start a stalled labor. We have epidurals, which numb the mother to the pain of childbirth.

It sounds like we have created the perfect labor – painless and safe. But it is not as risk-free as the doctors would have you believe. These interventions may be the best options when facing health issues for mother and/or child, but when they are used to accommodate schedules and personal preferences, they are putting health and lives at risk needlessly.

Inducing labor has gone from only being used when absolutely necessary to becoming the most popular option when a woman goes over her due date. In a time when science can tell us so much about the world around us and our own bodies, we come to think of “due dates” rather too concretely. Your due date could be two weeks before the doctor’s prediction, or two weeks after. If you induce labor because your baby wasn’t born by a specific day, you could be delivering your child two weeks early. And along with the health concerns that prematurity can cause, induction itself has dangerous side effects.

Induction causes more painful and intense contractions without the three to ten minute breaks that God intended our bodies to have during this exhausting process. Those unnaturally hard contractions have been known to cause uterine rupture and placental abruption (either your uterus or the placenta ruptures or tears). Induction can also cause limited blood flow and oxygen supply to the baby which can cause cerebral palsy among other things, and can lead to a drop in the baby’s heart rate. Because of these risks, induction also increases the chance of a cesarean section. And on top of that, inductions require constant monitoring, which limits the movements of the laboring mommy. Induced labors are also longer than natural ones. Still sound like the perfect labor?

Due to the intense contractions and decreased mobility, induced mommies often turn to the epidural for relief. I know I did when I was laboring with my first (which was also induced – I was blindly following professional advice – skip to the end for my opinion on that matter). Epidural risks are not explained by medical professionals. This is probably what frustrates me the most about nurses in the delivery room. Instead of coaching the laboring mother through the pain with helpful massages and encouraging words, they immediately go for the epidural permission form. But there are risks! They can range from week-long headaches to year-long backaches. When you think about the pain of labor and delivery, consider the relative speed with which that passes. Then compare it to living with a chronic backache AND a newborn. If you had to choose, which would you? Also, a laboring mommy with an epidural would not be mobile, and the absence of movement could cause labor to slow or stop, leading to a cesarean. Epidurals also could cause a drop in maternal blood pressure, which would, again, lead to an emergency cesarean. And then there is the ever-present risk of the needle which is inserted into your spine.

Cesarean sections are a serious abdominal surgery in and of themselves and are full of risk as well. The World Health Organization estimates that the rate of C-section should be between 5 and 15% of all births. Yet they found in sample hospitals that the average rate for a C-section was 27.3%! And part of the blame for the rise of that statistic is on uninformed women who are actually choosing C-sections over natural births because doctors tell them it is safer. However, these women are increasing their risk of maternal death, hysterectomy, hemorrhage, surgical injury to other organs, infection, blood clots, and rehospitalization for complications.

The following statistics from WebMD seem slim – until you know personally know someone in the 2.13%.

The most commonly seen complication with repeat C-sections in the newly reported study was attachment of the placenta too deeply into the uterine wall, a potentially life-threatening condition called placenta accreta.
Scar tissue that forms following a first surgical delivery increases the risk for placenta accreta with subsequent pregnancies.
Just 0.31% of the women in the study delivering by C-section for the second time developed the condition, compared with 2.13% of women who had a fourth surgical birth and 6.74% of women who had six or more cesarean deliveries.

A good friend of mine was having her third child. She wanted a natural birth, but due to complications, she delivered her angel girl via her third C-section. Afterward, the doctor explained that during the operation, he opened her abdomen to find the “most beautiful blue eye staring up” at him through a quarter-sized hole in her uterus. The doctor who had stitched up her previous two C-sections had left her womb resembling “Frankenstein’s monster” – a quote from the doctor himself. The doctor then explained that if her water would have broken – if she would have gone into labor naturally – due to her poorly stitched uterus, she and her baby would have died.

One of the most amazing facts I have learned on this journey is the benefit to the baby to be born naturally. It is normally assumed that childbirth is a traumatic experience for the baby, and the connection then is often made that a C-section would be better for the baby, even if it may be worse for the mother. However, most babies born through C-sections have to receive breathing treatments and are more likely to have asthma later in life. Why? Because before birth, the baby’s lungs are filled with fluid – as they have no need for them in the womb. During natural childbirth, this fluid is squeezed out. During a C-section, however, this does not take place, making it more likely that the lungs will not inflate properly, which leads to the newborn laying in the incubation unit with tubes coming out of her nose. And more studies have shown that when babies are born this way, it effects their breathing for years to come.

And yet doctors continue to perform C-sections. They continue to recommend induction – which increases odds for C-sections. They continue to recommend epidurals – which increase odds for C-sections. They continue to perform episiotomies (I’ll let you research that one on your own) after research calls them all but an unnecessary evil. They get irritated (at the least and irate at the most) when you refuse to lay on your back during labor (my nurse actually told me the doctor would not deliver my baby unless I was in bed) – which increases your odds for needing an episiotomy and an induction, and with that, the risk of a C-section.

Henci Goer, award-winning medical writer, writes in this article:

How can obstetricians hold beliefs so contrary to the facts? Primarily because “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Despite rhetoric about being “women’s health physicians,” obstetricians are surgical specialists in the pathology of women’s reproductive organs. The belief that birth is difficult, dangerous, and damaging and that major surgery is preferable validates and reinforces their sense of professional worth.

I appreciate doctors. In this fallen world, we need them. For unhealthy pregnancies, for breech babies that will not turn, for emergencies that would otherwise turn deadly – we need doctors.

However, they tend to lean towards a very unnatural laboring and birthing experience for mothers. And I Believe that, unless your specific situation prohibits it, childbirth should be left to progress as God intended: naturally.

Birthing Research

This is from

Birthingnaturally.net

Luke 8:15
But the seed on good soil stands for those with an honest and good heart. They hear the message. They keep it in their hearts. They remain faithful and produce a good crop.
Are you Trusting God, or Yourself?
Many women ignore God when it comes to childbirth, deciding God is unable to help they put their total faith in doctors and an epidural. But women who trust in medication as their salvation are not the only ones who do not rely on God during childbirth. A funny thing happens to some women who determine that it is best to labor without medication, they begin to have faith in themselves instead of God. I am not talking about the faith that they should have in the way God made them, or the faith that God will bring them through. I am talking about a faith in themselves that can teeter over the boarder of pride and cause you to stop trusting God because you do not think you need too.
They begin to understand the process of labor, how it all works together to get the baby out. They learn some techniques to relax and comfort measures for the pain. They choose the best birth team they can find, and insist on having their coach attend classes to understand what they will be doing. They write a plan to ensure that everyone knows what they expect to happen during labor, and how they want things handled. Then the knowledge and wisdom that they have gained begins to puff them up, and they become convinced that there is no reason that they should not have the labor experience they have planned for.
The danger here is that the heart has gone from a faith in God, to a faith in self. In some cases it goes from a faith in God to a faith in nature. Either way, the heart has been divided and is no longer pure. You see a pure heart only serves one master. A pure heart places its faith and trust in only one place. When the heart begins to have faith in something or someone other than God, that heart is not pure.
Sometimes, we look at God's creation and have faith in the creation rather than the creator. Instead of trusting God will get you where you need to go, you trust that your car will get you where you need to go. Instead of trusting that God will cause the sun to rise every morning, you trust the sun can do its job. And instead of trusting that God will strengthen you through your labor, you begin to trust that you will be strong during labor, or the techniques you have learned will strengthen you during labor.
This may seem a small thing, almost an unnecessary turn of our attention to semantics. I assure you this is vitally important to your labor and your life. Why? Because the woman who trusts in herself is not trusting in God. You will not have two lords in labor any more that you will have two lords in life. You will choose one to serve, and the other will be ignored. You cannot trust in your strength and God's strength at the same time.
You see, God does give strength to those who trust in him. God does answer the call for help from those who call His name. But, if your heart is focused on yourself, you will not call on God during your labor. If your heart is serving some other master, or relying on some other master, it will not occur to you to lean on God when the labor gets tough. There is no energy left to continue actions that do not fit with where your heart is.

James 1:5-7 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him. But when you ask you must believe and not doubt, because the man who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. Such a man is a double minded man, unstable in all his ways."

Double minded is one way to say that you are unpure. You are half for one thing and half for another. This double-mindedness causes you to doubt, and you become like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. Do you need it explained in simpler terms? A mind that is split between God and something else creates a person who acts not out of wisdom or trust, but out of doubt and impulse.
One thing that I hope you have learned so far is that faith in God will allow you to labor in peace, despite the amount of pain your body may happen to be in. What happens if instead of laboring with faith, you labor with doubt? You will lose that peace, you will have much more difficulty relaxing and the pain you feel will seem more intense. You can help prevent doubt at your labor by working now to have a pure heart.
Let me review for you an allegory that is frequently used to explain the process of achieving a pure heart. Metals are mined as ore from the earth and are not pure. In fact, there are many impurities that not only make the metal unsightly, but also make the metal weak. To purify the metal, refineries heat the metal to such high temperatures that the metal becomes liquid. All the impurities float to the top to be skimmed away, or they burn up in the heat. What is left is a strong, beautiful, pure metal.
When God looks at our hearts, he sees the ugliness and the weakness that comes from impurities. He sees our hearts as the ore and recognizes the value of our hearts if he could get the impurities out. So He begins to turn up the heat. This is a painful process, first because we do not like to be in hot situations, and second because we do not like to face the truth about our own hearts.
What exactly happens when God turns up the heat? It is different for every person, but basically you start to see difficulties or trials in your life. These trials have been designed to cause you to turn to God rather than the impurities in your heart. These trials also help you to recognize where you had not been wholly devoted to God, so you can seek forgiveness and try to prevent becoming impure again.
The first step to a pure heart is recognizing these opportunities that God is giving you to turn from the things that divide your heart, and relying on God. The second step is using these opportunities to turn to God. Remember this will probably not be an easy task. It will hurt to go against what your heart has been relying on. But remember that soon, your heart will be relying on God alone, and then it will hurt to turn away from God!
Once, as I was praying for understanding about a specific issue in my life, God showed me a beautiful picture to help me understand what I needed to do. I was walking with Jesus in a garden, and the garden was my heart. Jesus and I talked about all the lovely plants that were growing there, and I began to get a little nervous because the garden was overrun with unsightly weeds. I turned to Jesus and asked Him to help me remove the weeds from my heart.
As we bent down to weed the garden, I realized how strong the weeds were. In fact, I could not pull a single weed out of the ground. "What is wrong? Why can't they be pulled out?" I asked Jesus. He looked very sad as He showed me a view from underground. What I saw was a massive, heavy vine of a root that had burrowed to every part of my body. I looked at the weeds, and again at the root and began to understand that it was not hundreds of weeds, they were all linked to the same root system. I would never be able to pull any of the weeds out.
In desperation, I cried to Jesus, "How do I get rid of it?" He simply answered, "Kill the root." I understood. I needed to stop feeding the root system so it would die. Once the root was dead, the weeds would be easy to pull. I needed to starve the root, that meant that I needed to make conscious decisions everyday to follow Jesus, and not continue in the petty "little sins" I had not worried about for so long. I needed to stop gossiping, stop reacting in anger, stop the bitterness, stop the laziness. In short, I needed to stop allowing myself to commit sins simply because they were seen as "normal" or "average" parts of daily life. I needed to live according to a higher authority.
Are there weeds in your heart garden? Perhaps like me you expected to simply pull out the weeds, but it does not work that way. These weeds must be tackled from the root, and they must be starved. I urge you to spend time in prayer asking God to revile to you what sins in your life have been destroying the purity of your garden.
We know that a pure heart is important because it allows us to rely on God for our strength. Despite the amount of training, reading, preparing, praying and building your faith you have done, your strength must still come from God. Paul boasted in his weakness, because he understood that through his weakness God was able to demonstrate His strength. The idea of "when I am weak then I am strong" can be a difficult one to grasp.
Try to think of the plants in your garden, specifically think about beans. There are two main types of beans, bush beans and pole beans. Bush beans grow on a low bush, and the bush is able to hold the weight of the beans without additional support. The bush may get leafy and full, but the bush will never get very tall. Bush beans produce a crop, and can be beautiful in the garden. Yet they are limited in their growth because the plant needs to support its own weight. When the plant is too big or full of fruit, some of the branches sag into the dirt, potentially destroying the fruit.
In contrast, pole beans grow on a long weak vine. The vine needs a support to wrap itself around and keep it off the ground, or the fruit will rot in the dirt. Without the support, pole beans simply do not grow. And yet, when given adequate support, pole beans can grow into magnificent plants - in fact, they will continue to grow to completely cover the support they are given. If you add more support, the vine will continue to grow to cover that support as well!
Relating beans to life, you can live like a bush bean or you can live like a pole bean. You can live your life relying on your own strength to support you and your fruit, and there will be a limit to your growth. Or you can live your life relying on the strength of God for your support, and you can grow strong and tall, growing ever further as you rely more and more on His strength for your support.
You see, when you rely on God's strength, you do not need to be strong yourself. God holds you and supports you. God allows you to grow and to flourish. Some people do manage to have growth and bear fruit relying on their own strength. But that growth is limited, and when the rains (trials of this life) come, the plant can easily lose fruit and branches because there was not enough support.
It is the same in labor. You can rely on your own strength, or your ability to perform certain techniques. These techniques are useful and have helped many women through labor, but they are simply tools. Your faith should be on God, not on your own body. By relying on God's strength for your support, you are able to use many tools. What worked to relieve pain an hour ago, may not work in 15 minutes. By relying on God's strength to keep you laboring in peace, you can easily and without regret, change techniques or comfort measures. You will not need to feel as if you "failed" because you could not do the breathing right. You will not blame your husband because he did not massage you effectively. If a technique does not work, you simply ask God to show you what to try. Usually, God programs the body to desire the type of activity that will encourage the baby to descend and help move the labor along. But if you are relying on a technique, or your knowledge, or your own strength, you may not be listening for the signals that God is sending you.
So you see, you knowledge of comfort measures and pain relieving techniques is not a bad thing. In fact, these are extremely helpful during labor. But you need to be careful about where you place your trust. Are you trusting that God will show you what to do? Or are you trusting that what you know will get you through? When your defenses are down, and you are left to what is in your heart, you will be your true self. If your true self does not trust in God, you will not rely on Him during labor.
Relying on God does not guarantee a perfect or painless labor. Only God can determine what will await you, and He is more concerned with your character than your comfort. But, by relying on God through the trials, you will be able to achieve peace despite the pain, discomfort, or boredom you may be feeling during your labor.
God never promised us that life would be easy. In fact, we are told that in this life, "you will have trouble." What a blessing to know that when trouble comes; whether in the form of a difficult labor, death of a loved one, or financial crisis; we do not need to rely on our own strength, but can continue to grow trusting in God's strength for our support.

Forgiveness

We are commanded by Jesus to forgive others, even those…especially those…who have wronged us. He commands us to do so, because, when we forgive, especially those who have wronged us terribly, we are most like him.
Forgiveness does not mean that we make believe the injustice never happened, or make light of it. It means we cease harboring ill against the other. We let it go.
It does not depend on our ability to bring the other to the same realization. We cannot control the other. We can only control ourselves.
Our forgiveness must commence regardless of the other. We can only make the decision for ourselves to move to the center. We cannot force the other to take that same step.
Forgiveness is not for the weak.
A barrier to forgiveness is our sense of justice. If we forgive the other and move on, where is justice? But this is why forgiveness is so hard. It is easier to forgive if we feel some guarantee that justice will be delivered in the near future. But that is not forgiveness.
Forgiveness looks only within, what we can do. It does not think of what should be done to the other.
When we focus on the injustice that has been done, it will become a dominant thought, and so we might be tempted to be God’s instrument of justice, to help things along.
Jesus died on the cross for our sins and the least we can do is forgive others. No matter what they have done. Yes, it is hard but we have to do so. Jesus sacrificed everything for us.

But we should be careful in our zeal about seeking justice, for God is an impartial judge. If we call upon him to bring justice to our offender, he will begin with us. So we should not call down justice upon the other. The role we have been given is to forgive. Justice is what God will do, mercifully.
When we forgive, we are reminded of the mercy that has been shown to us. When we forgive even the most malicious of acts, we begin to see–only then can we see–how we have been forgiven.
When we forgive, we know God more clearly.
Even when the wrong done to us carries with it such an overpowering sense of malice, when we are filled with disgrace, humiliation, isolation–even then we forgive. Especially then.
Because,
When we feel this way, we have the privilege of feeling what Jesus felt–disgrace, humiliation, isolation,
and
When we forgive, we are most like Jesus.
Forgiveness is deciding what kind of person you want to be, what kind of life you want to live. It is a decision whether to be more or less conformed to the image of Christ. That decision is before us more often than we might think.

Matthew 18:21-23

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.[a]

 23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants

The beginning..

There are a few things you should know about our family:

We met September 24, 2009 ^

Kaleb asked me to marry him on top of a waterfall July 11, 2010

 

 We were married June 25, 2011

We are followers of Jesus Christ.

We are Bible believing Christians.

My husband and I attend the Willmar Assembly of God church, in Willmar, MN.

I (Jenni) am 15 weeks, 4 days pregnant.

I thought it would be a good time to start a family blog. This way people can keep up with what is going on in our neck of the woods. The biggest news is that we are going to be parents in December. That is the main reason I want to start this blog. In 6 months our family of two will become three. We are so excited and so thankful to God. This is an amazing journey that we are both excited to take.

I am a strong believer in natural childbirth. We see a Certified Midwife named Joy. This means that we will only be having one ultrasound just to get a picture of Bsby H. so that family can be happy. We will not be finding out the sex of the baby until he/she comes into the world. Bringing a child into this world is not a curse or a burden it is a wonderful blessing. It is a partnership between the mother and God. Together, they bring a living, breathing, human being into this world. I think of it like this, how many days are we alive on earth?? If I live to be 90, that is 32,850 days. My rational is this, am I willing to suffer terrible agony for 1-2 days in order to bring a child into this world?? I mean considering I will be on earth more than 30 thousand days, I find it disgusting that women are not willing to suffer a little. I mean seriously.  YES labor, is hard work and can be a struggle. I am refusing to use the P-word when talking about my future laboring process. I won't do it. (P- word = pain.) And pain will not be a part of my labor process. I plan on breathing, humming, praying and meditating my way through the birth of this child. I see that there is NO other way to do it. Using heavy drugs to lull contractions brings some medication to that tiny little person. AND I refuse to do that. The babies that come from epidurals are drowsy and sleep way too much. I want a healthy drug free baby.

Today, June 28, 2012, I felt tired and run down. We moved into a house and I did lots of unpacking yesterday and the day before. Today, I rested and read books and spent time with God in prayer. And can't forget the most important thing, I at lots and lots of food!! And drank about a gallon of water.

 11 weeks

 13 weeks

14 weeks