Happy Birthday, Liz

LIZZY'S BIRTH STORY

About 26 years ago, we lived in Brewarrina, a small town in north-western NSW, and I was pregnant with our first child. 

Brewarrina was a very small town, so we often went to Dubbo, about 5 hours' drive away, for shopping and medical check ups. 

On this particular trip to Dubbo, I was about 34.5 weeks pregnant and we were having a check up because my local doctor had thought I was a bit small for that gestation, so he wanted some checks done in a larger centre. 

So, after a couple of days of shopping, we marched into the ultrasound room, hoping to get the checks done and dusted, so we could start on our 5hr journey back to Brewarrina.    I wasn't feeling great, seeing stars and had a bit of a headache, but put it down to too much heat and shopping.   We were sick of the big smoke and the heat and ready to head north.   Little did we realise what a little smoke Dubbo was compared to Sydney. 

The ultrasound specialist began her checks and got very quiet.  She called in another technician and they both look worried.   Someone checked my blood pressure and asked a few questions.  Then they panicked!  

They gave us a pretty bleak scenario.  This child possibly had an external bladder and/or kidneys and was growth retarded and they weren't sure why.  My blood pressure was through the roof and I was being sent to Sydney immediately on a plane for specialist treatment.

'Um, excuse me, we're actually going home.  It's all good, you're all over-reacting and we just want to get home before it gets too late and we have to drive into the sun.' 

No, we weren't going home and it finally sank in how serious this could be.   So, I stayed put while hubby dashed off to let our Christian friends at St Faiths House of Prayer know to start praying!   Thankfully, there was a prayer retreat happening at the time, so there were plenty of pray-ers. No mobile phones back then to send text messages, no Facebook for quick coverage, just leg work. 

In the meantime, the medical staff started the process of organising a plane for me to go to Sydney, and let Dave know that he'd have to drive down.     I wasn't allowed out of bed and was told I had this condition and that condition, most of which I'd never heard of.  We then decided to freak the parents out, giving them enough information to worry and not enough to put their minds at rest, because we honestly didn't know ourselves what was going on.   It was a difficult time for them, because it was very difficult to get in touch with us and find out what was going on.  No mobile phones and this was the first grandchild on both sides of the family. 

So, on the plane, I'm lying on my back, thinking that I was going in the wrong direction and where was my hubby and what on earth was going to happen to this baby.    I remember looking out the plane window, seeing some clouds and lots of blue, and feeling pretty helpless, and I began thinking of some lines from a song I'd sung in church many times - 'God who made the earth, the air, the sky, the sea, Who gave the light its birth, careth for me.'  It sure was a big sky and I needed an even bigger God to fix this problem.   I felt quite calm after that and the attending nurse was glad of it, because anxiety wasn't helping my elevated blood pressure.  

We got to Sydney and I was taken by ambulance to King George V Women's Hospital, part of Royal Prince Alfred, and eventually sent off to intensive care, where I was parked next to a lady with gestational diabetes who was in a bit of strife.   Because it was only a few days before Christmas and something like midnight when I arrived in the ward, they were scrambling to find specialists.   A young female doctor came in, an intern from memory, and her first words were pretty chilling and not at all comforting - 'If this was the 1950s, you'd both be dead!'   'Um, thanks.  Your bedside manner could use some work', I thought to myself.  

So, here I am in Sydney, in intensive care, with a chatty and very sick lady next to me, wondering what on earth is going to happen next.   It's past midnight, I should be asleep, at home, about 800km away, with my hubby, but I'm not.  Hubby had had to get the car out of the garage where it was being serviced, try and convince the bank to give us a cash advance on our mastercard at short notice, and then drive to Sydney late in the day, not knowing where on earth he was supposed to go.   On the way through the Blue Mountains, he followed a truck with a large boat on it.   He suddenly felt an urgency to pull up, and did, and had he not done so, he would have been hit by the boat because it came loose from the truck.   When he finally got to the edge of the city, he rang NRMA, and someone kindly escorted him to Newtown and showed him how to get to where he needed to be.  I think he arrived at something like 2am, only to find me wide awake! 

The next day, they gave me endless drugs to get my blood pressure down, told me I had something called pre-eclampsia and oedema and that my baby would undoubtedly be born with life-threatening issues, based on the ultrasound information.   They did another ultrasound and decided that something must be wrong with the ultrasound machine back at Dubbo, because the baby was now bigger than the technician back there had measured her to be.     The original measurement showed that she was about 9 weeks behind in her growth, and this one showed her to be only about 7 weeks behind.   We put that down to prayer! 

They then put a central line into my heart, to control the blood pressure.  That was a whole lot of fun and the bruises were amazing.   

I also got my first taste of a catheter and endless canulas!   They did another ultrasound and found it gave yet another size reading, a bit bigger again.  More prayer from the fervent pray-ers!   After another 36 hours of drugs and endless conversations about conditions we had never heard of, it was decided that they needed to do an emergency caesarean because the continued elevation in my blood pressure could kill one or both of us.    I remember them saying they had given me enough drugs to knock out a football team and nothing was improving. 

So, Elizabeth Sarah was born by emergency caesarean in the early evening of  22nd December, 1991, about six weeks early.  She weighed in at one and a half bags of sugar (so dubbed by our friend Suzy), which translates to about 1.5kg or 3lb 6oz.  She came out looking like a frog - skinny legs and arms and a big belly.   She had a tinge of red hair and looked a lot like her Dad!  (No, he doesn't look like a frog!).   She had a large bubble on her belly button, which they had mistaken for incorrect placement of her bladder and kidneys, but it was all good.   It was a sac of amniotic fluid that soon went down.  

She went into a humidicrib and I wasn't allowed to be with her for about the first 36 hours because she was so tiny and I was still so sick.   Dave spent his time going between the two of us.  

At just four days old, she started to breastfeed, though we continued tube-feeding her as well.   I spent my spare time mastering the art of walking with swollen legs, a large, painful scar and many bruises.   You don't realise how hard it is to walk up and down steps until every part of you is in pain. 

Liz made good progress and at just 12 days old, she became the youngest and smallest baby ever released from the NICU, and we started heading back to Dubbo with our little 'doll'.  We couldn't find any clothes small enough (premmie clothes were virtually non-existent back then) so we went to a toy shop and bought some dolls' clothes.  Thankfully it was summer and we didn't need a lot once we got home to the Brewarrina heat.   We still have the one premmie jumpsuit we were able to buy, which is equivalent to a 0000, and even that was too big for her.   

Lizzy's Grandma made cotton nappies the size of men's hankies and a few little dresses, but mostly she lived in a few small cotton tops and nappies.  Lizzy's great-grandmother, Nan Gardner, knitted her a few bonnets and used an orange to guage the right size for them and got busy knitting some clothes for the cooler months.  She died when Liz was just a few months old, grateful to have seen and held her first great-grandchild.   

I'm thankful, looking back, that Liz was our first baby because we didn't realise just how tiny she was.   Many others did and often marvelled at her.    She took about 18 months to catch up to 'normal' size and you wouldn't know now that she was a premmie.  

We've had quite a few medical emergencies since then and the lessons learned in this first big test we have never forgotten.  The biggest lesson learnt and still being learnt is that when you're out of your depth and you really can't do anything, you have to trust God because He is bigger than all of it and He can do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. 

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory...............  Ephesians 3:20

This is the hymn I learnt and sang many times as a child, the first verse of which I remembered and sang again and again during that time. 
1 God who made the earth,
the air, the sky, the sea,
who gave the light its birth,
careth for me.
2 God who made the grass,
the flow'r, the fruit, the tree,
the day and night to pass,
careth for me.
3 God who made the sun,
The moon, the stars, is he
who, when life's clouds come on,
careth for me.
4 God who sent his Son
to die on Calvary,
he if I lean on him,
will care for me.
Author:  Sarah Betts Rhodes (1870)

So, Happy 26th Birthday, Liz!  It's lovely to see you with your own little people now, knowing that you've survived a few of your own medical dramas and found God faithful in the midst of them all.   It's lovely to see you following hard after Him, and growing in the God who made the earth, the air, the sky, the sea and who careth for you.  

Five Miracles and Five Privileges

Once upon a time, there were three little girls and their sad little Mummy.   Not sad because there were three of them, nor because they were girls, but because they were growing out of being little and there were no more coming behind them.    I always felt we were supposed to have five children, and yet all that was happening was one miscarriage after another, usually in the early stages.   

After yet another miscarriage, this time at ten weeks, just after we moved to the farm, I finally went to the doctor and she suggested some tests.    She ran the tests and called me in to make an appointment.  Out in the waiting room, my ever-growing little girls played in the toy section, and I waited to hear my results.  She started with a strange question.

'Those three little girls out there - they are yours, aren't they?'  

'Yes, they are - you were my doctor for one of them, remember.'

'Well, it's just that these genetic and other tests show that it's physically and genetically impossible for you to stay pregnant long enough to have a healthy baby.   You need to go home and enjoy the ones you do have, though it's beyond me how that happened.  And don't start with the God-stuff - you know where I stand on that!'   

So I went home, sad and grateful.   Sad that there would be no more, and grateful that God had performed three miracles that science couldn't account for.

After a time of grieving any future possibilities, God showed me very clearly that I needed to change my attitude and find contentment in who my girls were at their various ages and stages.  

Contentment is a hard thing to choose when you're pretty sure the status quo isn't going to change.  It's one thing to be content for the time being, with the hope of future possibilities.    But it's quite another thing to choose contentment when this is all there is. 

But I did choose contentment and I found a new appreciation for the girls, and their ages and stages, and a new appreciation for each of them for who they were, and not just part of my mothering dream.    I realised that while I was pining for another baby and then another, I wasn't loving well the ones I  had already been given.   So, I chose contentment and it brought me a great deal of freedom from many things. 

But, I pretty much gave up on my dream of five children.

But, many years later, we were surprised with another miracle and another privilege.   By this time, my older girls were 16, 13 and 11 and they were pretty convinced I was either pregnant or had a brain tumour!!   They were relieved to find out I was 14 weeks pregnant.    We welcomed Raelee Rose the following May, and a few years later, we welcomed Abigail Eloise, 21 years, almost to the day, after her oldest sister was born. 

I had my five, the number I always thought I'd have, with doctors still sprouting their negativity and their disbelief and their worst-case scenarios, 'You need to have an abortion, you're too old, you need to get over yourself and get a life, this will happen and that will happen, ....... blah, blah, blah.' 

Well, here I am, the mother of five miracles and five privileges.     I am still trying to get a current photo of all five girls in the one place at the one time.    One day!   This one was taken when Abi was just a few days old. 

And these are our two youngest miracles now.  

And on the hard days of parenting and sleep-deprivation, I need to remember my story of five - and the privilege that I have been given.   For many of us, conception and pregnancy and birth are not a given - it's not that easy.  

But for all of us, regardless of how 'easy' it is, our children are a privilege and we do well to remember it, on the hard days and the good days.   

Children are not just the fulfilment of our dream - they are a gift from God and a heritage - a huge privilege. 

Psalm 127:3  Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

Linking up with other writers at Five Minute Friday, a writing party on a given prompt.  Today's prompt word is 'five'.  

I'm Tired of Wanting

Linking up at Five Minute Friday, an online community of writers who write every Friday for five minutes on a given prompt. 

Today's prompt is 'want'.

I'm tired of wanting.  

I'm tired of hearing 'I want................',  'I want that',  'I don't want to'.

I have been staying in my oldest daughter's house for over a month now, waiting for her to have bub number 2, and trying to be of some help.   My toddler is three and a half, and her toddler is nearly three, and the dynamics of two toddlers and two mothers in the same space is interesting, to say the least.  

They spend so much of their time wanting something from their mums, most of the time very definitely and loudly, with body language to match.  And they often want the same thing at the same time, even though they didn't want it until the other one had it.

The other day, they were both sitting at the table wanting, wanting, wanting while we prepared food.  We were both trying, very patiently, at the end of yet another long day of wanting, to gently encourage them and teach them and remind them to stop wanting and just ask, nicely, for something and then to wait - patiently.   But, they were doing more than just wanting something they 'needed'.   They were competing and wanting something just because the other one had it or suggested it or was not allowed to have it.   It was driving us nuts! 

And I got to thinking, that toddlers aside and our need to persevere with them, I wonder how God feels about His children constantly wanting and demanding and being jealous of each other.    We know what our girls want and need and we do our best to meet real needs, including the need to stop wanting.   We often separate them and take them aside, to reconnect and reassure and let them know that we haven't forgotten them, and to get their focus off each other and onto their primary relationship with us. 

And we can and should do that, because they're little and they need us, even though they may protest loudly or they may go willingly.  It's our job to make that reconnect happen.

But, it's up to US to reconnect with God when we find ourselves wanting, wanting, wanting - what someone else has been blessed with, or just because we see something and suddenly feel so discontent without it.  

Psalm 23:1 says, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.'   I know the word 'want' there means more than our modern word want, but it is talking about needs being met and about contentment.  

It's so childish of our children to squabble amongst themselves and whinge to us about what they don't have, and yet I find myself realising how childish my demands and discontent are in God's eyes. 

I'm tired of wanting when my Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills.   I don't need to want - I just need to wait, in full confidence, in expectation, not in sullen, cynical silence or loud, demanding cries.  

It reminds me of the verse about the weaned child, quiet on its mother's lap.   That is our goal for our children, but is it our goal for ourselves - to be like a child who doesn't need to be placated and 'fed' all the time, but one who is quietly waiting, on God's lap (not distant and independent), having learnt that all its needs are recognised and met in due time. 

Psalm 131:2  But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.

Linking up at

Why It's Not a Waste of Time to Play With Your Children

Sometimes all my baby wants is for me to sit down and play with her, and while we often extoll the value of reading aloud to our babies and children, I must admit I can have the tendency to look at those play times as vaguely annoying at best and downright irritating at times. I usually try and escape within 5-10 minutes of pulling all her toys out and hope that she stays amused.

It’s not a waste of time though.  At a young age, it’s helping them discover, shapes, colours, objects and as they grow older, we can help grow character and ideas through play time. 

I loved imagining as a child, especially with little people and role play toys, but I even made up stories using my marble runs, and would build houses for my one hundred marbles out of lego so that they were all lined up and out of the way at night time.  Putting them in a jar was boring. 

Mum would often let us pick out toys to borrow from the toy library which we loved and spent many hours imagining with these toys.  Perhaps it afforded her some peace and quiet when she wasn’t breaking up arguments about who was playing with what. 

My favourites were the Fisher Price, Little Tikes and Duplo house sets, and also the laundry, kitchen and baby change stations.  With the laundry set, I used to set it up like a Laundromat, pretending that my teddies and I were a small struggling family in the 1^st world war, my husband had just gone off to war and I’d just had a baby I mean seriously I was still playing with these as a young teenager, and just occasionally I could persuade Mum to come and sit in the room where I was playing and transcribe my little stories.  I still have those pages of blue handwritten notes of stories and one day I’m going to write them into something my baby can read.  

 I hope this helps you to look at your child’s play time differently, especially on those days where they are just begging you to come play too, and you can’t see forest through the trees or the floor through the toys. 

 The picture that I have above is ‘The Railway Station School’ a playtime that I am now developing into a story.  The railway station came from the toy library but I later bought it at one of their sales. 

Wisdom from Nana Nell the Great

 

This past week, we’ve had the privilege of hosting Stephen’s grandmother, and parents, but after his parents, left, his nearly 90 year old ‘Nana Nell’ stayed on for a couple of days before we drove her up to one of her daughters to stay with.

One night after dinner, I thought I should take the opportunity to ask what her top ten household and parenting tips were, as one day, sad as that will be, she won’t be around to ask, and I would regret having not asked her.   Nana Nell raised 5 children, who in turn have given her 18 grandchildren and 34 great grandchildren.  During the 2^nd Word War she worked in Sydney at a Home for unwanted children, and thought she knew all about children, but when she had her own, and was with them 24hrs a day without pay, she realised she knew nothing about being a mother, and so went for prayer from the minister’s wife.  From that day she made it her mission in life to  be a great mother, and is now the one others go to for wisdom. 

So here they are, just as she thought of them, top ten tips and a few funnies to boot.

(Hey, and I don’t do all these, all the time, but I hope there is something in here that you can hold onto, and just because you can’t get these all done, doesn’t make you any less of a good Mum.)

1.  Make your bed as soon as you get out of it.  Turn around at your door and survey a neat room before you leave.  

2. Pick up any washing and take it to the laundry or hang it up.

3. Whatever you cook is for the whole family.

4. Whatever job you don’t like, get it over with first.

5. When you sort dirty washing, go through everyone’s pockets.   (She told us a funny story of how her boarders would always leave money in their dirty pockets and she would always return it, but one day she announced she would keep any more money found.  Suddenly there was never any money in their pockets.)

6. Have the house tidy for your husband, including yourself.  My husband told me later he really appreciated the effort I put in.

7. Praise the children for what they’ve done right during the day, and if they’ve made a mistake, just say ‘I’m disappointed about such and such’ then leave the matter alone. 

8. Tidy the kitchen together after dinner and spend time with your children before bed. It’s important your children have happy memories.  We would always work together to clean the kitchen and sing.

9. Teach your children to come in with a smile.

10.  Take a bucket into a room and put everything that doesn’t belong in that room in the bucket, straighten up the room and then distribute the things in the bucket so you aren’t making ten trips to and from that room. 

Nana also told us a story of the worst punishment she ever dealt out:

One day they had gone to visit another family after church, with her brand new big, fashionable hat, which she left on the front seat of her car.   Unbeknownst to her the children played hide and seek in the car and squished her hat, and in great annoyance she declared that there would be no singing on the way home in the car, at which all the children were devastated.

When her eldest daughter Robyn, got her very first pay check two years later, the first thing she bought was a big beautiful hat for her Mum.

 

Is there someone in your life who has wisdom to share with you?  Who would you regret not asking if one day they were suddenly not around to share with you anymore?   I’d love to hear if anyone interviews an older family member or friend to share some good ‘Titus 2 Wisdom’ of the older women mentoring the younger.

 

Linking up at: www.arabahjoy.com

 

Bearing Fruit With a Baby

It’s a year to bear fruit and I’m sitting here staring at that great visual.  The top of my bookshelf, the FAITH, the us, our kiss, the LOVE, the woman under the tree nursing her baby, and it’s not such a small one.  It’s about the size of mine, nearly one and needing the nurture more now than ever.   

They told me life would change when I had a baby and I knew it would, but for four months it didn’t really.  She was too small to move, and I could do nearly everything I could before.  The meetings, the ministry, the prayer rooms for hours, the Sunday School, the youth group for the teenage girls that I had taught in the highschools and who had stared at my rounding belly growing fuller each week.  Those girls who had promised and begged for baby-sitting rights.

Slowly it all started to change, and I struggled to keep up.  I knew I had to lay stuff down, but I struggled against the pruning.  I was surely bearing fruit, but all my opportunities started getting snipped away, because now she could move and talk and crawl away and wouldn’t keep quietly sleeping through each meeting. 

My sister had made me the wire tree for Christmas.  She said it was a prophetic gift and this was the year for bearing fruit.    I had asked Stephen only days before Christmas to make me a wire tree, but he didn’t have time, but my sister did, and she who didn’t know my request, had it whispered in her ear by God.  I tried so hard for the first half of the year to keep up.  Keep up with meetings and the friends who could be so busy without a baby.    I tried to grow fruit and grew frustration. 

I set goals that I met and then couldn’t and got frustrated and wondered why my baby couldn’t just be ‘normal’ and settle into a routine. Not while her Mummy was busy dashing here there and everywhere. 

This week my mother and father in law came visiting after a family funeral.  It was his birthday so they bought us a vacuum cleaner, and they cleaned my house and called it a holiday.   My windows, my floor, my sink all sparkling clean and at the round table we sat to talk, and I asked him what it meant to bear fruit, and he, who has struggled with burn out and not doing enough for God,  said that it meant first there had to be a pruning of the activities that were no longer bearing fruit so that I could focus on the areas that were.

Thank you father in law; that one sentence has freed me to do what I need to do.  To spend time in the Word, to journal and hear God’s heart, and to write down the revelation for everyone.  To not try anymore to bear fruit but to water my soul so that it can and to grow my baby into a girl who is in love with her Heavenly Daddy because her mummy is, and little girls copy their mummies. 

It’s my year of Hope and Growth, of understanding that life is a journey and I’m learning I can’t make all my dreams and desires happen instantly.   

Linking up at: Thriving Thursday

Belonging Like a Booger and Tissue Five Minute Friday

Five Minute Friday is when we write random stuff and funny stuff, and stuff that just wouldn't come out otherwise.  We have a prompt, today it's belong and we write for five minute and all link up and then have fun encouraging one another.  Would you love to join us?

What does it look like to belong?  It looks like my little baby snuggled up into me just because, because she’s hungry or tired or wants me.  It looks like a baby sitting on her Aunty’s lap playing the piano and singing her doodle diddle doo song because she knows that a song belongs to music, or needing to read a book before bed because that belongs. 

There are just things in life that belong to each other, salt and pepper, & a tissue and a boogy, and wiping that boogy just cost me a whole minute.  

Belonging looks like a friend ringing you up for help with her assignment because she knows you’ll come and you ringing your Mum because you just need help with the baby, because she belongs to you and those four other sisters and there’s nothing quite like belonging to your child, like a booger stuck to a tissue.