How to be the Perfect Parent

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I am laughing at all of you who really thought I would tell you how to be the perfect parent. Or maybe you are laughing at me, just tuning in to see what crazy idea I will come up with next. I promise not to disappoint on the crazy idea.

But are you a good parent? 

Does this question bring that familiar weight of guilt??

There is a strong sub-cultural notion that our most important job (if not our only value to this earth) is our parenting. 

This seems to me to be backward. For the circle of moms and dads I hang with, guilt is the emotion of the hour. Moms especially seem willing to sacrifice everything to the elusive goal of perfect parenting, while the foundational relationship of marriage suffers, and the foundation for all of life is completely ignored.

 There is a strong sub-cultural notion that our most important job (if not our only value to this earth) is our parenting.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course, mothering is incredibly valuable and important. It has often been underrated. The largest part of our culture idealizes children being raised by paid strangers while their own mothers make money to pay for luxuries. Don’t get me started on that stupidity! 

But there is an approach that is attempting to rectify cultural stupidity by creating an imbalance of its own. It is especially prevalent in churches and schools. While attempting to be the good parents, we who should know better fall short of God’s best.

My life is not about parenting

My life is not about parenting. Does this surprise you?? It surprises most people I meet, and they make comments about how much I am… myself.  Even though I have more kids than anyone you know, I am still called to be me before being a mother or a wife. Even though I home school, and most of my children have more time with me than any other adult, parenting is not my true identity.

My life is about Jesus. About walking with and obeying Jesus. Although mothering is more noble than my culture will admit, my identity is far greater than mothering.

Who will change the world?

If a person’s life goal just to raise good kids and then when they are grown their job is to raise good kids, and so on, who will change the world?? 

Good kids won’t change the world, especially when their sole spiritual purpose is to look like good parents when they become adults. Unless adults set the example of being the kind of parent who takes the risks of faith, surrendering everything including being the perfect parent (or looking like the perfect parent) at the foot of the cross, our kids may grow to merely look like good people instead of becoming the world changers they were designed to be.

One of the amazing surprises of motherhood is that your children do not become who you diligently teach them to be.

No. I wish.

They become who you are.

Take It from me. I have said before that I have an advantage usually afforded only to grandparents… the chance to see how the seeds I planted look after 20 or so years… but while I still have little ones under my roof. I have the insight of a grandparent while still being a parent.

It’s scary. I mean it

your children do not become who you diligently teach them to be

It can make you (on a bad day) wonder what the heck you ever thought you were thinking of in procreating in the first place. Let me hasten to say that this is not because I am ashamed of my older kids, or because they are failures. Not at all.

The fruit of your life does not lie.

But I see now, more than ever, how my mistakes have hurt them. Specifically, the areas in my life where I did not seek Jesus first, where I did the religious thing instead of the honest, risky, faith-filled thing… those areas? My kids paid the price. No one outside my home saw it coming. I fooled them all with my “my life is about home schooling” schtick. But I did not fool my kids. They knew me better than I knew myself.

Take it from me. The fruit of your life does not lie.

Children make it their life goal to observe their parents in order to make sense of the world.

And while you, dear mother, are committed to staying at home, committed to attending every sports game, committed to never missing a parent-teacher conference, committed to run and pick them up on the playground when they fall down, or whatever culturally decides you to be a superior parent, please remember that it is your relationship with Jesus which will determine what your kids know and believe about Him. Not what you teach them, not even what you so carefully model, but what you truly believe enough to stake your life on.

As you walk with God, there will come a time when He will ask you to do what is culturally unacceptable, what looks like negligent parenting perhaps. Maybe you will have more than two kids in a bedroom, miss a game or a conference, smile and encourage your toddler when he falls down instead of running to pick him up. And those around you may judge you, but when you walk with Jesus you walk outside the camp with Him, bearing His reproach. 

As you walk with God, there will come a time when He will ask you to do what is culturally unacceptable 

And that’s when your parenting becomes about giving your child what they best need to become the person they were truly meant to be… a world changer.

Pharisees maintain the status quo, They have to, in order to look good.

World-changers buck the status quo. They have to, in order to change the world.

Be a parent who is a world changer.

Hannah's Plan

Our Hannah started public school today. This experience is a bit unique to us, despite the number of kiddos we have. She has been rather dreading her first day as a sophomore, when she has to leave the freedom and security of life at home and go into windowless classrooms full of bored and hurting teens.

Our other kids her age and ability have started early college, but God has Hannah on a different track. She’s a bit of an athletic star, and as such has the privilege of playing basketball for the high school. Last year she played JV as a freshman and learned a ton. All the other girls had played together on special teams since they were in fifth grade. But this group let her in. It was a bit of a miracle in itself for the typically insecure group of public school girls to be nice to a former home –schooler they didn’t know, especially one who might take their position.

We talked on the way this morning about goals for the year. She has been praying for a friend with whom to share the battle. She knows she is there to make a difference. In this situation, you can hardly go in preaching on a soapbox and be effective. So the goals are:

1) Strive to succeed in everything you do. God may continue to grace your abilities and favor you, I reminded her, because when others respect you it gives you a platform for the gospel.

2) Plan now to put something into everyone you meet, even if it is a smile, a listening ear, a companionable acceptance of who God made them to be.

3) Look for the honest occasional opportunity to mention Jesus in your general conversation, so that people will understand why you are so giving, happy, and successful. (This part isn’t preaching, but just dropping a hint so the questioners will have an answer.) And

4) Pray for each person in your new environment, that God will stir up the circumstances in their lives so that their “field” will be tilled and ready for the seed you can plant. Ask God for a specific strategy for each person, and insight into their need beyond the school façade.

Even though I know the Lord made it clear this was His plan for Hannah, I had a moment of overwhelming sadness as I dropped her off. Watching the kids enter the building, it was hard to leave her there in that environment where students and teachers seem godless, bored, and beaten down. Her experiences last year (though full of blessings and victories) were a daily battle against the idea that being who you are is not good enough, as the prevailing attitude is often ridicule of joy and creativity.

I’m reminded that she is not mine, but the Lord's, and I raised her to be the person who challenges the status quo and fights that battle which is never against flesh and blood. I'm glad she goes forward on the offensive, praying and planting, knowing who she is and prepared to be a beacon in a very dark world.

When I picked Hannah up after school, she was all aglow. A few lockers down from hers, she made a new acquaintance her age who had been praying all summer for a Christian friend. What a joy that they can work the plan this year together!

My Kids Can Do Anything (and other things I've learned)

Wisdom I’ve gained from prolonged weakness:

1.My kids can do anything.

I’ve always been a delegator… I mean do you know anyone else who gives their two year old a daily chore? My one year old “helps” put away the plastic cups from the dishwasher and groceries (she’s soo cute. Today she had a brick of cheese and she says”heb-y” for heavy.)
But I digress.

I have discovered through weakness the need to delegate on a new level. And you know? I’ve found if I can provide vision and direction (and even sometimes when I can’t) my kids can learn to do it. Just the need is enough. And they amaze me. The weaker I am, the stronger they have become. They have developed so many great skills and are so proud of the contributions they make to our home and each other, as well they should be.

2. Cleanliness is relative

… (and right now my relatives are struggling with it. Just joking! )

What I mean to say is that the standards I used to keep have had to be adjusted. I have had to prioritize, and that means we clean the kitchen first, so we can stay healthy. We haven’t done so well with the corners, the closets, and the barn or the dusting. Some days it really seems we are almost caught up, then other days we seem to be barely getting by. But the good news is we’re still happy. I used to keep the standards. Now I just keep praying and receiving more grace.

3. I’m really a proud person.

I have always been able to produce, and I’ve been proud of this. Now on days when I’m blessed to get out of bed, I am humbled. I am poor in spirit. And that’s a good thing. And when my teens fly through with their perpetual round of friends to feed and house for the night, I am humbled anew because at times they get to step across food on the floor, use a dirty bathroom, get their drink next to a pile of dishes, and squeeze past Mount Laundry on their way through. Sometimes I am so humbled I can’t even stand to watch. The old me would have been bustling about fixing and cleaning. The new weakened me often gets to have a conversation with a young group of God-lovers.

4. Less is the new more

Doing less has allowed me to evaluate the life I used to live through new eyes. My Lord has shown me that my mothering has very little to do with the work I accomplish on their behalf, as I always used to believe. In fact, if my limbs did not work at all ( and I’m so grateful they do) I would still be able to be a loving mother by the choices I make for them personally and spiritually, and the way I run my home.

II Corinthians 12:7-9 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!

Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

I Wish I'd Never Been Born!

Like the ripple of a pebble on a pond, our actions have never-ending consequences. I remember as a child watching the Jimmy Stewart classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life!” in black and white. Clarence the angel, answers the main character’s prayer for help in a desperate time with a gift, “the chance to see what the world would be like if you had never been born…”

George Bailey, a nobody and failure in his own eyes, gets to see that his entire world would be eerily changed for the worse if he had not been in it. Choices he had made to sacrifice for others which he had either forgotten or not acknowledged are suddenly un-done. George was a man who stood against evil to his own peril (and sometimes almost regretted it). His actions had radically changed his world and he didn't even know it.

Our lives make an immeasurable difference that we cannot calculate this side of Heaven.

I love this movie because I think the theme is one of those poignant lessons we can never learn well enough. Our lives make an immeasurable difference that we cannot calculate this side of Heaven.

I was reminded of this truth recently. Two seemingly accidental conversations with people I thought I did not even know brought the power of this reality home.

We had attended a potluck at a home we had never visited. Isaiah grabbed me and said, “Mom, you remember Sue?”(not her real name) I looked at this young very vibrant woman and assumed she was one of his many college buddies. My initial response was, “No I don’t think we’ve met.”

Then this happy stylish young woman proceeded to tell me that we had met, five years before, at a park in Albany. As we moved on in the conversation, it began to dawn on me. But it could not be! We had been enjoying a picnic with our large brood of then eleven, when another family drove up. We were the only two families in the tiny park. I think that maybe I was big pregnant or had a newborn (safe assumption) and so was or did she… I can’t remember… but what I do remember was a bit of the conversation. We had a light and easy conversation about being Christian homeschoolers. Then we got into the subject of churches and it was not so easy.

This couple had been radically transformed by Jesus and then indoctrinated into a church with a whole bunch of rules and regulations. They were trying hard to fit in by dressing the part (she was wearing a shapeless longer dress and did not cut her hair or wear makeup) and live the life the church demanded. It was one of those well-intentioned churches that sincerely thinks they are the only true believers. The conversation got a lot more awkward at that point as we danced around the sensitive subject of whether or not our family would meet their church standards.

Like the ripple of a pebble on a pond, our lives have never-ending consequences.

I remember feeling so sad. Here were these wonderful people God had called and empowered and they were getting stuck in the miry concrete of religion. Soon it would cement and they would be stuck forever following a man-made rulebook. Too soon living relationship with God and others would be relegated to an unneeded corner of life. The prospect of this specter was so disheartening that I began to pray right then that God would intervene and change their lives. I only prayed for a few weeks whenever I thought about them. I have to admit my faith was very low about this. I had hardly ever seen anyone leave the cult-like hold after investing so much.

Fast-forward to Thursday night. Facing this unique joyful woman, I began to realize: God had answered my faithless prayer! He had used that chance encounter I barely remember to plant a seed in this family that is now a full-grown tree. Now this sweet family is ministering with my son! I am absolutely sure we were only one of the families and individuals God used, but it is so amazing to me to see fruit from that long ago encounter and a few weeks of scattered prayer. I want to sit down with them and hear the whole story, beginning to end, for I’m sure it is a breathtaking masterpiece of a God’s stupendous orchestration. This family is on the cutting edge of what God is doing in our valley, in prayer and true fellowship and street evangelism with the power of the Holy Spirit. The new look is part of the new revelation of enjoying who God is.

That happened Thursday night. Then Friday I administered the standardized test in Jefferson. As I was packing up my supplies to leave, the father of the hosting family came to hand me his payment. “You don’t remember me?” he asked. I was certain I had never seen him before.

We truly do not know the impact of

Our life…

Our words… Our prayers...

This man proceeded to tell me that I had made a big difference in his life! Truly, no one was more shocked than I was! “You came to my pastor’s house with Tony before you were married and prophesied over me. The words you spoke were the exact verses I had received two days before, so I knew they were from God,” he shared, “I have held on to those prophetic expressions as life verses for 24 years.” I then got to hear part of his journey into prayer, fellowship, evangelism and sharing God’s heart and words with others.

Just writing this brings me to tears. What are the chances that these two incidents would occur less than 12 hours apart? God is speaking. Of this I have no doubt.

We truly do not know the impact of our life… Our words… Our prayers.

When my older ones were in their early teens, a young family friend committed suicide. Of course everyone was devastated. We went to the funeral, and my husband insisted on bringing our oldest children. I was adamantly against this, and lobbied to protect them from the crushing reality. But he persisted, saying, “I want them to see this,” and he was so right.

The funeral was packed. Person after heartbroken person stood and sobbed out stories of Stephen’s life, what an amazing talented guy he was, how they didn’t know how they would go on without him, how they missed him.

As we drove home, Tony asked the kids, “Do you think Stephen would have taken his life if he could have imagined all of this?” Our kids sorrowfully shook their heads. “Satan gets you isolated,” he continued, “and then he tells you lies of your failure and lack of worth until you begin to believe them. He is always lying, stealing and destroying. The biggest lie of all is that our life would be better off un-lived,"... or as Job (and many others, including George Bailey) have said, "I wish I had never been born!”

My longing is for eyes to see the ripples on the pond so that we are not deceived.

If we knew how much impact we had, we would be much more purposeful about our words, prayers, actions. Of course we would! And along those lines, let’s not wait until a funeral (when the ones we love can't hear us) to tell others they have made a difference!

LONGING FOR HIS HEALING!

WHY CAN'T I SEE HEALING WHEN I PRAY???

The Healing Dilemma
At the turn of the last century, John G. Lake prayed with success over so many sick and injured with miraculous results that they shut down hospitals in his home town of Spokane, Washington. Spokane was declared the healthiest city in the US.
Aimee Semple MacPherson saw so many people healed from paralysis in answer to prayer that she filled mammoth rooms in the then brand new Angeles Temple with wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches. They are there to this day, a museum in honor of a move of God.
Stories like these inspire me, and yet they make me sad at the same time. Since God is no respecter of persons, I am left with a dilemma. So many healing needs surround me, including my own. I am convicted by the words of Jesus, “Preach the gospel, heal the sick, raise the dead.”

I want to learn how to pray and see God heal!

There, I said it.
Frustration with the status quo has brought me (finally) to this goal. I have begun to see that I don’t have the power I need to really miraculously change lives. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have seen amazing and miraculous happenings… more than just about anyone I know. But I am so aware of the need around me, and the power I have experienced is not up to the needs I see all around.

...the power I have experienced SO FAR is not up to the needs I see...

A couple of concepts come to mind. I believe I can grow in this. I remember 26 years ago when I came to believe that God did not live in the box I had put Him in… that He could do miraculous works and especially that He wanted to talk to His children.
It took quite a few years… a lot of fits and starts and failures before I could say with certainty that God was talking to me… showing me to do this or that. It was a few more years of trial and error to where I could tell someone else with certainty that God was telling them something and have confirmation it was revelatory truth.
Now I don’t believe it probably should have taken me so long to get to this point. I was not in constant fellowship during these years as I have been in recent ones. Since the point, almost 12 years ago, when I began meeting with people committed to my growth (and vice versa) at least weekly without a “Bible Study” agenda, my growth has been exponential. Being able to talk out my struggles and get insight and encouragement has been priceless. Also, back when I started this journey, I didn’t have a doctrine and church that supported that growth. Recently, I have read several terrific books on prophecy which lay out very clearly concepts I agonized over and despaired of ever finding out… finally learning from much pain and after giving up, sometimes getting stuck on one failure and so discouraged for up to five years.
All of this is to say that I want to go on that process in the area of healing and supernatural intervention. This time, I am in fellowship consistently with people who challenge me. This time, I will read anything I can get my hands on. This time, I am committed to failing faster, knowing that God honors the process of growth and that He loves it when His children want to walk in all the power He plans for them.

99% of Jesus' power goes to bring in the unsaved

For a while now, my concept has been that I need to pray for more people who don’t know Jesus, and THAT would bring me more miracles. Evangelist Ed Silvosa taught me that God spends 99% of His energy on the unsaved, because He leaves the 99 sheep in the fold and goes out after the lost one. I began the journey by deciding to pray for every person God put in my path with a physical need.
Last Friday, I was turning in some paperwork in a medical office. I was in line behind a man who was at his wit’s end. A former athlete, now in his forties or early fifties he could barely walk due to a serious accident for which doctors wanted to do a major surgery. Just before the accident, he had lost his job. He had moved to Corvallis to get adequate medical care, but there he had no friends or family, and no support. So he was in this office, trying to figure out if there was any way to pay his medical bills and fund the new surgery. I was so moved with compassion for this man that I told him I might have something that would help him. We went outside, and I clumsily said, “I know God. Sometimes I ask God to heal people and He heals them. Would you mind if I prayed for you?”
He was so open. Lifting his hands up in a surrender pose, he responded, “That would be wonderful! Would you??” So, standing outside of the Samaritan billing office in the brilliant afternoon sunshine, I just started praying.
At this point I became a bit self-conscious, as it was awkward to sort of “pick up” a male stranger that way. The awkwardness took a bit of attention away from my prayer focus and put it on myself, and as I prayed and considered later the ways I could improve the conductivity, if you will. I wish now that I had laid my hand on his shoulder or hand, as I have experienced that sometimes the power is better transferred through this means. I have recently been prayed for by people who have a lot of power in these gifts, and while praying since then, I started shaking and my hands got hot. I could stop it if I wanted, but I believe it is the Holy Spirit moving through me. So then the question is, “If I know the Holy Spirit is best moving through the hands, why didn’t I use them?” and the answer is I was afraid of what people might think… this man and others around. I think of Jesus putting mud in the eyes of a man who got healed of blindness as a result, spitting and putting his saliva in a man’s ear. I’m sure everyone thought that was pretty strange…until they got healed that is. And Jesus reminds me that when I am afraid of people, I am not as focused on Him.
And then I was in Safeway this week. An older woman was in front of me in line was struggling to breathe. Every breath was a supreme effort. She turned around and asked me if I had a cigarette. I told her “No. I don’t smoke,” and she replied, “You’re a smart girl.”
She then turned to the man behind me and asked him if she could buy a cigarette. He said he would just give her one. I watched her as she paid for her food and rolled her shopping basket toward the door, struggling to breathe all the way. All the time, I remembered what Peter and John said when they went to the temple to pray and met a man begging for money because he was lame. He approached them, so they obviously figured they were supposed to pray for him. I tried to talk myself into praying for this woman, but I couldn’t seem to muster the courage to approach her again.
"Break my heart with what breaks YOURS, Lord!"
I sat in my van and watched her loading her groceries. I prayed, “God, I probably should go over there and pray, but please give me what I need. I am afraid you won’t heal her and I will look foolish again.“ Finally as she drove away, I felt despair over my lack of boldness, “God, You know where I am, and You are going to have to change me so that I can do this sort of thing. I want You to change me, Lord.”

That night, I had a dream. I was going to have an audience with Jesus, and I was excited. I got dressed in my best clothes, and entered a huge building with soaring ceilings and marble walls that reminded me of the state capitol edifice. I walked toward the place where I was to have an audience with the King of Kings. He was supposed to be there sitting on His throne, but He wasn’t there yet. And where He was expected was a long line of people stretching through the building and out the door out of sight. What was amazing about this group was their diversity. They were young and old and middle-aged, very rich, middle class, and very poor, every color and size.
I wondered if these too were here to meet Jesus. I had an appointment, as it were, and I was in my own line facing them. I had nothing to do, so I watched the people, idly wondering how long I would have to wait to see Jesus. And then a thought began to present itself to my consciousness. I didn’t want to look at it first, but eventually I had to see the real truth. I had come to meet Jesus, and these people WERE Jesus! Instead of meeting with them, I had merely observed them, categorizing their characteristics dispassionately. I was not interested in meeting them.

"As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to ME"

“Break my heart with what breaks Yours!” I have sung these words in the song, and thought them risky and life-changing. But never so as now. I realize that my prayer that night in the Safeway parking lot brought the dream as a sort of answer. He was showing me what is in the way. I don’t have enough love to compel me to pray for the sick who do not express their need. To put it succinctly, my problem is a lack of love for strangers. Jesus tells me, “As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it unto ME.”
I have made a commitment to pray whenever I see a physical need. I am becoming aware that I have relied on my own wisdom to deal with most physical needs that present. If the baby is teething, I administer Tylenol. When Faith hit her head on the metal swing at the park, she came over, crying all the way. I felt her head, which was beginning to knot up already and was still extremely painful. My Mommy mind begins to think, “How quickly can I get some ice?” and then the Lord reminded me of my commitment. “Oh, okay.” I thought, “I can pray for this, but it isn’t that big of a deal…. But when we prayed, the pain immediately left, and so did the lump! And Faith was touched by Jesus.

Foundational truth

I was very convicted when things went down this way. First, I realized that, though I have accumulated a lot of wisdom over the years of being a mama, my truth was what Bill Johnson would call “foundational truth”. Sure, it’s true that ice would have brought down the swelling and taken away most of the pain, and that my daughter would have been fine in an hour or so. But with every foundational truth, God always has higher truth, His superseding power to intervene in the affairs of men. This is the truth I am seeking in the area of healing, and I need all the practice I can get. I will FAIL FASTER and someday see the mountains move!
By God's grace, I'm going to pray for healing for every single physical need that comes across my path.

Anybody want to join me?

Preeclampsia: My 11th Birth Story

Today, my blog is in honor of the many brave mothers and babies who have suffered with Pregnancy Induced Hypertension /Preeclampsia. This problem with very high blood pressure and extreme swelling and possible organ failure usually develops near the end of pregnancy and the standard cure is inducing labor. Many babies and mothers have died because their symptoms were overlooked until it was too late. If you are pregnant and text the word BABY to 511411, you can now receive monthly texts with vital information you may need for your pregnancy. Here is the first part of my story, which I wrote for the website at preeclampsia.org.

I developed PIH/ preeclampsia after the birth of my 11th child when I was 39 years old, so my story is about as unusual as it gets. Having had 11 babies in 16 years is unusual enough. My husband and I decided when we met that we would trust God to give us the babies HE wanted us to have, so we have never used birth control... our first child was born by C-section 10 months after we married, the next one 13 months after that, and the rest were born between 16 and 22 months apart for the next 16 years. I had three children at home after the C-section nightmare of the first. I discovered I didn't need a C-section. and it pushed me to discover alternative choices to the traditional hospital-style birth. After my midwife moved away and I was involved in a car accident, I had another C-section (this one an emergency) because they thought I had spinal cord damage from the car accident. Anyway, this gave me the amazing opportunity to become a V-BAC twice!

My next six births were in a hospital, but I called all the shots, only going in when I was ready to push, enduring the twenty minute baseline on the monitor while standing up and walking in place. I learned that, for me, labor is manageable if I walk through it. Afterward, though, it was nice to be in the hospital and be cared for, since that put less burden on my growing family, and grandma (later older kids) could take over at home.

I had Jewel Anne on May 9th, 2005. She is the only one of our babies to come early, and she was five days early... thanks to my discovery of raspberry tea as a labor stimulant. What I think is interesting is that I developed PIH five days after she was born, on her expected due date. I had gone home Tuesday after spending the night in the hospital as usual, was feeling weak and tired, but figured I am almost forty, so that's to be expected. On Friday I woke up with a horrible headache which got worse throughout the day, but I took some percocet (which I take for after-pains) and got on with the day because I had a test already scheduled for a group and I didn't want to reschedule. (I run a home business seasonally administrating tests for home schoolers in my area) and, of course, had to nurse the baby, run the household and get on to work.

While I was administering the test that morning, I remember thinking how odd it was that I was having trouble seeing. I couldn't focus very well at all, and kept trying to measure my vision. It was as if I had a gold swirling vortex in front of my eyes and had to try to look around it or through it. This, plus tiredness and the intense headache which kept getting worse, made me a little concerned.

By the time I had gotten done testing and everyone had gone home, my sister-in-law and family showed up to see the baby and stayed the day. I wanted so much to cancel with her that morning, but my husband had said they were so looking forward to it, and were traveling two hours to come see her. He talked me into it, so I had all of my children plus my sister-in-law and her four around all day. I did go up and take a nap after lunch, but by dinner time I was on two percocet and the headache was still very intense, I was swollen so badly my shoes would not go on my feet, and I was pretty sure this was something serious.

I had my husband take me to the emergency room. They took my blood pressure and became very concerned. In the twenty minutes we waited for the doctor to come in and admit me it had raised substantially. They put me in a room on intervenous magnesium sulfate and tried to keep me quiet and still. I remember being frustrated that I couldn't even read my Bible because of the visual disturbances, as I would have liked the comfort. It was so hard sending my newborn baby home with my husband, pumping milk for her and not being able to nurse her unless they brought her in. It was even harder then to send her with a friend the next night as my husband had taken all the time off he could and had to go back to work.

I was so hypertensive that they would check my reflexes and I would kick HARD halfway across the bed. I have never had reflexes like that!! The hypertension made me feel like I was on 10 cups of coffee, and even with the mag sulfate I couldn't sleep for three days.
But God met me in that hospital room in the middle of the night. I discovered a station that played beautiful soothing Christian music and showed beautiful pictures with verses from the Bible superimposed on them. I would be praying and asking God a question, and the next verse would very often be my answer! It was amazing, and I felt HIS presence and power so clearly there, and I was not afraid in the least. I had such a peace that this was all going to work out for good. I know my children and church family were praying up a storm.

Because the normal treatment for PIH is to deliver the baby, they couldn't do that in my case. We just had to wait it out. It took me five days to be sent home from the hospital. I still remember what a relief it was to finally sleep! My recovery was slow going. I had been injured in a car accident six weeks before the baby was born (nothing too serious, just a whiplash-type injury to my neck and shoulder) so I had to see the chiropractor in a town ten miles from my home twice a week for six months, then once a week for the rest of the year.
That injury has now healed, Praise God! But between the recovery from PIH, car accident and sleep apnea which had also been diagnosed before the accident, My health was not what it had been. I did not lose the baby weight in between that pregnancy and the next.

I am now 16 months past my last birth, and Jewel is a happy healthy child who is very bright and understands everything. She nursed and took a bottle for ten months. I am now 30 weeks along with baby number twelve. My OB's have not seemed at all concerned about the PIH, even though I am now a higher risk, having had it and being overweight and forty years old. Early on in this pregnancy, I was having intense abdominal pain on the upper right side. I also felt crummy a lot. It just seemed that something wasn't quite right. The docs I saw were completely unconcerned. Those feelings seemed to fade during the second trimester and are back now that I am in the third trimester. This is unusual for me, but I have learned a lot reading on this website. It strikes me how many women knew something was up long before the doctor would admit it. Many have described pain and swelling early on which was almost always dismissed as indigestion, gall bladder, etc. This has really helped me not to feel I am being a hypochondriac.

(Through the next pregnancy, I monitored my blood pressure (mostly by going to KMart or Safeway when I was shopping and doing the free test where you sit down and stick your arm in the fixed cuff). I also always asked the nurse what the numbers were at prenatal appointments. You know they always want to say, "It's okay," but I persisted and ask what the numbers were. My blood pressure has always been very low when not pregnant and pregnant until now... so low they would say, "Wow. That's a really great low pressure." In between my seventh and eighth children, for instance, it was 100 over 50. During pregnancy number 12 I checked it at Safeway when I was feeling really rotten. It was 139 over 83. The OB's said that was okay, but they didn't really know my history. The doctor I saw for years stopped delivering babies six years ago, and for those three births I was stuck in one of those clinics where you see a different doctor every time.

I tried increasing my calcium intake with the end of the next pregnancy. Whenever I am lacking calcium in pregnancy I get severe leg cramping in the middle of the night, and I was having some episodes so I thought it couldn't hurt. I can almost always alleviate this in one day by drinking a couple of glasses of milk or taking some liquid or coral calcium vitamins. Also, I tried taking a low dose of aspirin, and of course making sure I got adequate protein and liquids. Exercise was harder to come by consistently because of the time of year , as I test seasonally).
(Postscript to the article I wrote: Despite my best efforts, I developed preeclampsia /PIH with baby number 12, Ezra James. The doctors believed it was so random, it would never happen again, but I saw the numbers increasing and ended up being admitted in exactly the same time period, after baby was born, which was doubly rare... again. This time, the doctor limited my liquids, which in my opinion was pointless and painful. But God's grace was so abundant to me, and my children are very healthy.
With baby number 13, Keturah Rose, I had similar elevated pressures, but it was not severe enough to warrant a hospital stay. Happy Dance!!)

Blessings to all of you women out there who have been through this horrible ordeal. May you seek God and find health and healing.

While We're Making Other Plans...

""It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things"
— Donald Miller