Bigger Picture Moment: On Time and Blood and the Thickness of Both

Each Thursday we come together to share the harvest of intentional living through sharing a piece of life gleaned: a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week. Link up your gleaned moment this week BELOW!

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As penned by my sister, Jill ...

When my father passed away, I was 21. During the very few weeks leading up to his death I spent the weeks with my sister driving back and forth to the hospital. We would talk on the car rides up, spend all day together in the waiting room, then continue our conversations on the drive back. For some reason I don't remember to conversation, but I do remember us playing "Time Bomb" by The Format, over and over again and eventually learning to words where we were singing along.

We didn't always get along. In fact, in my eyes she wasn't my older sister most of the time. She was a second mother who took the reigns when our mother was at work. Sometimes she would make me breakfast, then we would walk to the park, then come back and watch t.v. together.

As we got older, I became the little sister that was her shadow. I always wanted to be with her, and play with her and her friends. She even took me trick-or-treating with her and her cool friends. (Yes, that's me dressed as Barney.)

I tried to hang with the big kids. I would try and be "fearless" to fit in with them. Like the time Hyacynth mentioned, when she pulled me in our red Radio Flyer wagon. I told her, "Hyacynth, it's too bumpy. SLOW DOWN!"

My sister then replies to me, "If I go faster the bumps will go away."

Trusting my older, much smarter sister, I nodded my head up and down to give her the go ahead to go faster. Big mistake. The wagon tipped over and she ran me over breaking my finger. I remember crying and crying how mad I was and how wrong she was. I still never let her live this down.

I was sifting through pictures and noticed the older we got, the less pictures we took together. We were always in different stages of our lives. There's a 6 year age difference between us, so when she was in high school, I was still in elementary school and we didn't have too much in common. As I look through my computer files I'm enjoying looking at gems like these.

Then I see a huge gap. No more pictures of just her and I, just forced family photos. I guess you could say we "grew apart" for some time. She was in college and didn't come home very often. Then she got married and had kids. She would visit on the weekends, but by that time I was in high school and cared more about my friends and was a typical teenager. 

While my dad was sick, we became really close and after he passed away he continued to grow in our relationship together. She started to become more than a sister, she was becoming a friend. Then at the age of 21, I needed a change. I saw myself falling into a black hole, spending more time with the wrong people in the wrong places. I saw myself slipping quickly. I think God was showing my sister and brother-in-law too. We joked that I could work for them, but then it turned into a serious offer. (Cue Godfather voice) They gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. I was going to move 2 hours away and live with and work for them.

Oh boy, did my life change. I went from living with just my mom and having all my friends by me, to living with not only my sister, but a brother-in-law, a 3 year old and a 1 year old and having no friends around me. I found myself bonding more with my sister and finding drinking and being wild less desirable. I found my way back to living a life for God and not for worldly things. Photos between my sister and I went from forced and fake smiles to this:

and this.

Soon, I met my husband and fell in love, moved out, and created my own family. It's amazing how God brought the tragedy of my father's death into a blessing within my sister and mine's relationship. I thank God every day that I lived with my sister, that he moved her and John to let me live with them, and give me a job. I'm so thankful that I was brought out of a life that was going nowhere except a dead end job and wasting my time doing stupid things. So dear sister, I love you. Thanks for being my best kind of friend when I needed you the most.

While I'm on a writing hiatus this week, my sister Jill is sharing stories here in this space; hope you enjoy her as much as I do!

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Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week.. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week HERE! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Natural Child Birth: The Story of Baby Emery

The Story of Baby Emery {my niece} as penned by my sister, Jill. 

Where has the time gone? It's been 5 weeks since I've updated and it only feels like a day or two.

To mash everything up together Weeks 38-41 were so boring, just like the rest of my pregnancy (which is a good thing!). As soon as I hit the 40 mark, my attitude changed from, "when she gets here, she gets here." to "For the love of God, get this baby out." I think at that point I had gone through a million bottles of Tums, a billion rolls of toilet paper, and stretched out every single pair of underwear I had. I was done, done, done.

I’ve attempted to write my birth story about 80 times. I wrote it twice and I realized I kept forgetting key events that happened that I found important or super funny. Mostly, I thought they were funny and I wanted to share. So here is goes, number 81, and I think this might be the winner.

I always planned to have my first baby in a hospital, but that quickly changed after my husband and I watched the documentary “The Business of Being Born”. Needless to say, even though it was very biased, it opened our eyes to the idea of a home birth. After some prayer and a terrible meeting at my OB’s office, we officially decided that we would go with having our little one at home

We didn’t plan on getting pregnant so quickly, and we were surprised that it didn’t take very long. We knew we wanted kids right away after we got married, but we were leaving it in God’s hands. My pregnancy was really uneventful and freakishly average. I had morning sickness, I was fatigued the entire pregnancy, and my hormones were raging. During my pregnancy I saw and OB once at week 10. I told her I wanted a natural child birth and she did the whole “Oh yeah, uh, no problem.”  Then at week 14, I wanted to talk to my OB but they just wanted to pass me off to a doctor who was free that day, who also worked for the practice. When I mentioned home birth the receptionists (who do not have any degree in a medical field what so ever) told me that midwives are not trained as well as an OB and I could not have a home birth and they know so many women who’s babies had died during home birth. Cue hormones. Needless to say, we left and sought out our wonderful midwife Barb.

My experience with my midwife was so much different than my OB. Barb took her time with me. Instead of 5 minute appointments and moody nurses, I had a sweet natured woman who took her time to get to know me. I enjoyed my appointments, and felt so relaxed. I never felt rushed unlike at my OB who would send me off to a nurse, then the nurse would shove a cup in my face and tell me to pee in it. 5 minutes later my OB comes in and asks, “Any questions? No? Good.” As she plants her face into my file to even remember my name. Now I know other women have had amazing experiences with their OB and natural hospital births, so I wondered why mine was so snotty. In other words, we just didn’t mesh well and I craved a different experience than what I was experiencing. OK, enough about that. Let’s get to the good stuff.

Fast forward through pregnancy to 41 weeks, I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little girl. We had a name, the clothes, and great baby gear, but I had given up hope that the child was ever going to exit my body. 41 weeks to the day I walked down to the front door of our townhouse around 11:50am to grab a package, and I felt a small gush as I coughed and walked back up the stairs. I didn’t think much of it because, let’s get real, gushing during a cough in pregnancy is pretty common. I’m talking about peeing of course. However, I felt another small gush about 3 minutes later. After 3 pairs of underwear in 15 minutes I called my midwife and my husband. Mike brought me lunch and we decided to run to the store really quickly to get snacks and some more food. At this point I’m only having contractions 20 minutes apart at the most and they get as close as 10 minutes. We walk into Jewel and I feel a huge gush, luckily I was close to the bathroom and ta-da! My bloody show.  So we hurry through the store and then my husband has a bright idea. “Hunny, I think I need a haircut.” He says. “You need a what? Are you serious? I’m in labor right now, and the next thing on your mind is a haircut?” I basically shouted.  “Fine, let’s go get your hair cut, but I’m sitting in the car and not going in with you.” I still wonder what the woman who cut his hair thought when he told her his wife was in labor. In Mike’s defense, the hair place was very close and it only took 6 minutes, and I enjoyed a nice phone conversation while waiting.

My labor had pretty much stalled by the evening. Barb told me to call her when the contractions were more consistent and closer together. Around 4am Saturday morning, I called her when they were about 6 minutes apart. She came by and I was laboring trying to rest. She brought Becky with her, (another midwife) and they waited patiently while I rested. During the day Barb had another labor and Becky left because yet again, my labor had stalled in the afternoon. I labored with contractions 10-20 minutes apart all day, some of which I labored in the birthing tub set up in our bedroom. It was exhausting and I began getting no rest. The early evening came and Becky came back.  She recommended that we take a walk or two to get things moving and it definitely worked.  They were closer together, finally. I tried to lie down during the evening but the contractions were getting more intense and I began to feel them in my hips the most. I felt like someone had been pulling each side of my pelvis and tugging on them violently.

By Sunday at about 3am, my contractions were about 2-3 minutes a part and so painful. I walked up and down the hallway through each contraction for about 2-3 hours. I remember crying to my husband, that I couldn’t do it anymore. I was so tired. My husband said, “Yes, you can do it. Your body is made for this. You’re almost there babe.” Unlike in the movies where the women just want to yell at their husbands, I wanted mine to hold me and love on me. Finally, around 8am, I felt the urge to push. I got back in the tub and asked my Mike to come in with me. Just having him there next to me is what I really needed. With every muscle in my body I began to push to get that baby out. I went from pushing on the toilet to the tub a few times, going between being on all fours to squatting. I was getting so tired, but I was on an adrenaline high. I needed to get this baby out and she was so close. Mike got in and held me up as I squatted and finally I could feel her moving down and I began to tear, which really put me in a panic. I gave myself a tiny pep talk in my head. “You can do this. If you tear, you tear, just get this baby out.” I leaned back and pushed. I remember hearing Barb tell me to get ready to grab my baby. I pushed the last push and then came sweet relief.

At 11am on May 20^th, 2012, after 48 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing, came this beautiful little girl at a whopping 9 pounds 2 ounces and 22 inches long. I was in awe of her beauty and of God’s miracle. This little girl was given to Mike and me, and I felt such a strong love that I never have felt before.

(Tired and happy momma)

*This is purely my experience through home birth and my experience through my OB.


While I'm on a writing hiatus this week, my sister Jill is sharing stories here in this space; hope you enjoy her as much as I do!