The story behind baby #7.

That is right ladies and gentlemen, you have heard correctly, baby number 7 is on the way! Since I have been keeping this pregnancy on the down low for the last few months I thought it would be a good idea to give you all a little background on what has been going on in our lives and in our family, that way everyone will know how to be praying as we will be needing your prayers more than ever!
After Ezekiel was born in July 2009 our plan was that he would be our last biological baby. All of my pregnancies have been extremely high risk, I have to take a shot of heparin every day (and up 6 shots a day if I use another brand of heparin), and I have always been crazy sick all nine months of the pregnancy. Some of you will remember how sick I was with E.Z. I lost 20 pounds and I almost lost him. Anyways, because of all the weight loss during the pregnancy with E.Z. my stomach muscles were very weak and I had the misfortune of getting four bad hernias because my stomach muscles literally ripped open during the pregnancy (Ewww! ). My doctor said that I would need to have the surgery to repair the hernias six months after E.Z. was born and after the hernias were fixed I would not be able to get pregnant again because it would risk rupturing everything that had been repaired during the surgery.
Lets fast-forward a little bit here. The surgery was going to be in January of 2010 and we were going to pay for it with our tax return money, BUT as most of you know that was not quite how it all played out. On January 21st 2010 we had the blessing and surprise of adopting our three newest additions. Because the adoption took place in the U.S. the kids and I stayed there for eight months and of course we had to spend our tax money that would have gone towards my surgery on the very costly adoption fees.
Fast forward again. In August of 2010 the Lord did a great work and sent our new big family back home to Brazil. Although we were overjoyed to be back home and have the family all together again it was a very stressful time. I did not realize I was pregnant soon after returning to Brazil and because I did not know that I was pregnant I did not start taking the blood thinner shots that I need in order to keep the pregnancy.
Soon after I saw a positive pregnancy test I lost the baby. It was a very strange time. Nathan and I were both surprised by how happy we were when we found out that we were expecting and when we lost the baby we were both very sad even though it had not been in the plan to have another one. The good new is we had already walked through having the four miscarriages when we were first married and we knew that the Lord had a plan and He would make something beautiful out of this trial. :)
My hernias were doing better than we had originally thought they would be after E.Z. was born. My doctor said that I did need to fix them sooner rather than later, but if we wanted to have another baby it would need to be before I had the surgery. So basically he gave us the "Now or never" approach. We prayed about having another baby (a lot!) and we both felt that the Lord was in control and He would do whatever He wanted to do. Sure enough we found out in October that we were expecting again! :)
We were both very excited but we decided to keep the pregnancy on the down low for the first trimester, after all I really did not want to have to explain a miscarriage to my kids.
In all honesty the first trimester was tough. I lost 10 pounds because I could not keep anything down and I just felt tired and weak all the time. The second trimester has still been difficult but SO much better than the pregnancy with Ezekiel, praise the Lord!
My kids have been troopers (as usual) through it all! They really are awesome! They all have been so generous in sharing our one tiny bathroom with a sick mommy and they all run to get me plastic bags at a moments notice. ;) We have developed a system that seems to be working out nicely, when I am too sick to get out of bed and Nate has to be at the church I just bring all six kids to bed with me. I think years down the road our times of snuggling, talking, reading books, and watching movies together will be very nice memories to look back on.
Please continue to pray for our family, my health and for a healthy baby. Pregnancy seems to make me miss all those little comforts of the U.S. much more than I normally ever would. I joke with Nate and say, " I miss all my favorite "F's!" - Friends, Family, Fast Food and Flushing the toilet paper!" lol! Just living in Brazil is a lot more work than living in the U.S. on a normal day. If you add in six little kids under six years old, making sure Nate has enough time to take care of the church and study, homeschooling, keeping up with the house, and a tough pregnancy well... I guess you will find that I need Jesus more than ever. :) Yes it is hard but in reality it is my absolute favorite place to be. I LOVE 100% dependence on Him. I have days that I wake up and say, "O.K. Lord, I can not even get out of bed and I have six little people that need me. I can't do this, I NEED You!" It is a very good place to be.
The way I look at it is I have nine months that I can let the Lord use to stretch me and grow me in my relationship with Him and then at the end of it I get another beautiful baby that I can teach to love Him. What can be better than that?
If I do my job as a mom right, if I raise all my kids to know and love Jesus I have the opportunity to send seven missionaries into the world! No matter what their profession is I know that they will shine their light for Jesus and the world will be a better place because they are in it. :)
Sometimes the Lord will give us more than we can handle, but He will never give us more than HE can handle.
2 Corinthians 12:9 say, " And He said to me, " My grace is sufficient for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
I am so excited to see what the Lord is going to do in and through our family in the year 2011. We are praising the Lord for His continued faithfulness and blessings! :)