Well, I have been a bit silent lately.  Every time I sit down to write a post (and there are many in the queue), I realized about halfway through that all the words contained in the post are complaints and that’s not what I’m trying to do with my life.  I am really very very good at complaining though.  And then today I realized that I should have done an Allen post yesterday!  and a day late isn’t too bad because I think Katie’s was even a few more late….so – here goes.

Allen:

10 years ago we had been in the hospital already for a day and a half – the nurses and midwives and doctors were not working well together and it wasn’t fun.  They didn’t agree on procedures or care or really anything about the labor and delivery process, and me – 20 years old and having no experience at all in such matters, had only them to trust.  It was scary and it was …. really just very scary.  When you finally came into this world, you were whisked away quickly and put on some monitoring machines – you had a fever and were kind of purple in a way you shouldn’t have been.  The nurses were worried you’d contracted group B strep because of the amount of time we were in labor – you and me – Me laboring to get you out, you laboring just to survive and come into this crazy world.

They kept you in the nurses station on the monitors and you stayed on them for 12 hours – Daddy and I went back and forth and visited and tried to feed you (you wanted none of it).  We were so tired – all of us.  The hospital staff would tell us to rest and they’d bring you in when we were needed, but we could hear you screaming down the hallway – my family has constantly reminded me that when I was born I was so loud that the nurses turned the monitors off to the waiting room  – I think you were my equal in that.

We spent 5 days in the hospital where I felt like the nurses thought I was just going to let you starve if you didn’t nurse (like I said, you were not interested), so they didn’t want us to leave until we’d figured it out.  I don’t know how, but we managed to feed you a little and somehow convinced them that we’d give you formula and not let you starve and they let us go home.  Poor Daddy had gone back to working at Round Table the day after you were born and had come back and forth from the hospital and that and all the craziness that life held for us at that point.

Buddy, it was hard and scary to become your parents.  Getting home was just as surreal as being in the hospital – there was not a lot of sleep for about 2 years…..you had colic, I kept getting sick, and Daddy stayed constant with work and school and made it through.  You started working with me when you were 6 weeks old and I couldn’t handle being housebound anymore.  Strapped into a baby carrier, you’d sell yarn and teach knitting with me and the knitting ladies would oo and awe and help hold you when needed.

I’m sorry it’s not a flowery amazing miraculous story….  It was that too.

It was amazing to have this little person who was so very reliant on two people who had no idea what they were doing.  You were not part of our plan little man – but you were part of God’s plan for us, and so many many times I am thankful for that.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord – plans to prosper and not to harm.  Plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer. 29:11.  That verse first came into my life at a youth conference in High school, and I think I’ve said it every day since.  Remember that these plans won’t harm (even if they hurt), they will help prosper – and they’re to give us hope and a future.  Allen I want you to remember that verse as you get older and get to these funny middle ages of childhood where everything feels like it’s wrong.  Where you no longer fit in with the little kids and you aren’t quite a teenager (though I know you can mimic their actions well).   I hope you have hope in the future.  I hope you know God’s plan is to help you prosper – that you faithfulness will only be a fuzzy reflection of His faithfulness in your life.

Love you buddy.  Happy birthday – Thanks for making me a Mom and for forgiving me when I don’ t know what I’m doing either.