After getting married, Paul and I began to talk about getting our lives right with God and maybe trying to attend church again. My parents lived in Waco, Texas still, at the time and were going to Antioch Community Church. One Saturday night, my Dad just mentioned that we would be more than welcome to tag along, if we wanted.
Sunday morning came and we decided to go. I was still extremely sick with morning sickness and felt a lot of shame over being pregnant longer than I was married. I remember putting on a loose shirt and tight waist pants, trying to hide the growing bulge of my belly. We walked into the church and while I don't remember what the sermon was about, I remember thinking that I liked it! The word that came spoke to my hurt and struggling heart. Everyone was so friendly! But of course, I kept thinking, they were friendly because they didn't know my story. They didn't know how awful I had been. They didn't know that I got pregnant before marriage. What would they think of me after they found out?
After a couple of weeks of going to church on Sunday, I began to look for a Life Group so we could have some friends. I found one and we went, hesitantly, scared, but it turned out wayyyyy beyond our expectations.
This group was a God-send! We are still in Facebook/Twitter/Instagram contact with them all, and hope to meet up with them later on still. We made friends and there was this one couple, who were engaged at the time. The sweet lady, Courtney Binkley, sat down with me and asked me about my pregnancy, and my story. I hesitantly told her my story and her response blew me away! I don't remember her exact words, but she was so accepting and even interested in my story. She told me that unless we have failures, we can't have testimonies. It amazed me that I was accepted and loved. Slowly, our story got around in the group and all of them were so loving.
Before Paul left for the Navy, a couple found out we didn't have a car yet and really had no means of getting one. So they GAVE us their car! It was the biggest blessing that could have every happened to us. We felt so loved, and I believe it was God's way of showing us He still cared and loved us too. Despite our failures and our weaknesses, He showed Himself strong.
Once I got up to Chicago, I attended a couple of churches, but ended up not enjoying any of them, so I watched Antioch's sermons online.
Paul graduated from Bootcamp and that was a glorious day! I couldn't sleep all night and I was ready to go around 3:30 am! :) I needed to be on base around 6:30, so I left around 5 am to get to the Navy Base. I was shaking with excitement and just couldn't wait to get there. The line to get into graduation was nearly a mile long, but once we got inside, it was smooth sailing from there! I was nearly 7 1/2 months pregnant at the time and still experiencing some nausea and dizziness, so the Sailors who were seating people made sure I was comfortable and had some water. The 10 divisions soon marched in and I searched in the sea of white clad sailors for my tall, handsome man. But everyone looked alike, so I resigned myself to seeing him afterwards. My greatest fear was that I would mix him up for someone else and hug the wrong person! Haha!
This picture was taken later on in the week, right after graduation. I was still pregnant with TJ at the time.
They soon called "Liberty!" and the newly graduated Sailors were free to see their families. I ran through the crowd and searched each face as I passed. Where was he?! Then there he was! The first thing that hit me was how skinny he was! I think I asked him first thing if he had eaten enough. He promised me that he had! It was so nice to get a nice long hug from him.
That was the beginning of our journey in the US Navy, as a military family. It would be a journey that would take us into a lot of ups and downs. We would go through unbelievable hell in the next few months. To be honest, I am glad I didn't know the future on that happy day, because if I had, I think I would have been running to the other side of the world with him in tow. But I'll get to that part of the story later on. We had from September 10th (when he graduated) to December 15th to be in Chicago, while he was in A-school. He was required to stay in his "ship" (it was actually just a regular brick building, but in the Navy, everything is a "ship." lol). He would have been allowed to stay with me if his school time would have been over 80 days long, but his actual school dates didn't quite add up to that....of course they would add up to 78 days. Haha! Just our luck, right? Anyways, we made the best of it and every evening I would drive to the base and would eat dinner with him and spend some much needed couple time with him. We would sit and talk in the car, or go in the NEX and walk around. We bought some things for the baby and got ready to be parents.
He asked his teachers if he would be able to get off from class when the baby came, and it must've been God, because they said yes! Normally, from what we had heard, they didn't allow that. They even allowed him to bring his phone to class, just in case I went into labor. What a blessing, right?! Sure enough, the morning of October 8th, I started to have pains, and I felt like the baby was going to be coming soon. I went to be monitored, alone, at the hospital, to see if I was having real contractions. They told me that the baby would be coming, but for me to go home and rest for a bit. I went home, and relaxed, called Paul and told him it would be soon. He got out of class early and I went to pick him up (I had our car). We went back to the hotel and I rested. I woke up a lot in the middle of the night with pains and we went to get checked out again. Later on, after the horrors of my first delivery, I would do research on safer, more relaxing deliveries and regret my decision to get checked so much! But I was a first timer and didn't know much at all.
I had dilated a bit, but still wasn't in "active" labor, so I went home to rest some more. We went and walked the mall, we walked around the hotel, we did squats and I rolled around on my birthing ball. That evening, Paul was still with me (his instructors had told him to just take the rest of the week off since the baby would be born soon), and he cooked dinner for us. He was heating the last part of our meal up and I was rolling around on the birthing ball. Suddenly there was a pop and a gush...my water had broken! I was so excited and scared at the same time. We went to be checked out again and sure enough, they confirmed I had broken my waters. So I was admitted. That was October 9th, near 10 pm. I had been in labor for a while and couldn't imagine the pains getting much worse. I was laboring and progressing pretty good until around 3 am, when suddenly, the nurse who was checking on me panicked. The room filled (I think there was around 20 people in there! At least it seemed like a lot) with people and I was lifted and flipped over onto all fours. They attached a head monitor to the baby and they put an oxygen mask on me. I had absolutely no clue what was going on. Paul was standing by my head and I kept asking, "What's going on? Is the baby ok? Am I ok? What is wrong!?" No one was answering and they were just pushing a lot on my belly and rearranging the baby. Fear and terror took over my heart. I remember Paul laying his hand on my shoulder and just standing there in shock. At the time, my faith in God wasn't strong and my first reaction wasn't to pray. I wish it had, because since then, I have learned that praying is the best calming method there is!
Finally, after what seemed to be a long time, they told me they had nearly lost his heart beat completely. It had dropped down to 17 and was intermittent. They told me I needed to lay on my side because if I laid on my back then I would be squishing his cord and he would loose oxygen. Around 10 am, they came in and told me I had been laboring a long time and that I wasn't progressing as fast as I should be. (Little did I know that this was a scare tactic and that they would have pushed a c-section on me). I was already at 7 cm and if I didn't progress to a full 10, ready to push, by 12, then they would be suggesting surgery. I told them there was no way I wanted to have a c-section and asked for a little bit of pitocin. They gave that to me, along with an epidural. I was so exhausted that I knew if I didn't have some relief, I would be too tired to push. (By the way, the epidural did nothing for me besides numb my legs and made the delivery so much worse! My other two babies were delivered without an epi and I am so thankful for that). Anyways, at 11:30 am, they came in to check my progress and low and behold, I was ready to push!!! The pushing began and at 12:23 pm my little man, TJ was born! He didn't cry at first, and he was very purple. So they rushed him over to check him out and got him some oxygen help. After a few moments though, we heard his little cry and they brought him to me to hold!
The feeling of holding my baby in my arms overwhelmed me. I cried and cried! I couldn't believe I was actually a mother and that my little man was finally here! He was very early (he wasn't due until November 17th, originally, and then they pushed the date up to November 7th). So we stayed in the hospital for 3 days while he was watched closely. He ended up having jaundice, so he had to be on a blue glow light. The only time we could take him off was when we were holding him. I had lost a lot of blood (let's just say, don't let a nurse rip your placenta out of you....let nature take it's course. Unless, of course, there is a threatening situation going on. My nurse just wanted to get the mess cleaned up and get it over with and rushed the process.) On top of that, I had extremely low iron levels and they wanted to get my iron levels up before I left.
After going home, life as a mommy and daddy became the norm. Sleeping in became a thing of the past. Sleeping, in itself, became a thing of the past. But the joys of having a little one to hold was so worth it!!!
Well, this blog has been long enough for now. I'll get to more of the story later on! Blessings~
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