The Miracle of Seth

I was pondering the circumstances around Seth's birth, and can see God's hand and plan at work in a mighty way. As you know, Luke and I had been trying to have a baby for the past 7 years. We had gone to multiple specialists and all said we were fine, that it was "unexplained infertility". I called it the "God factor." So, we continued to pray, that God's will be done and that things would come about in His perfect timing, not ours. We didn't feel right trying to force God's hand by taking fertility drugs or doing surgical methods to try and become pregnant so we just waited.

In our early marriage Luke and I set down with a "goals/wish" list for what we wanted in the next five to ten years of our lives. We listed things such as: buy a house, pay off our car, pay down debt, buy a new camera, and have children. We also had a list of our top five dream vacation spots, among them were: California, New York, the Carribean, and Colorado. As we waited for our little bundle of joy (impatiently at times) we slowly began to check things off of the list of desires. Our car was paid off and we had gone to Colorado and California in the first few years of marriage. By our five year anniversary we had a substantial amount of debt paid down, took a trip to NY and the Carribean, and by the end of the year - bought a house. Now, the only thing on our list left was children. Amidst my prayers for a baby, I told the Lord He could have our first child, and even (foolishly) prayed for even a miscarriage to show me we could have a baby. About January of 2007 I had a brief vision of a future son - he looked just like me as a child with curly brown hair and laughing eyes. He was so strong and beautiful, and my only thought was "this is not Gabriel." Strange thought, since Gabriel was what we had agreed to name our first son, but that was nonetheless my main thoughts about it. In March of the same year I found out I was pregnant - I awoke early one morning, at about 3 am with an urgent need to take a pregnancy test. It appeared as though it would be negative so I threw it away and went back to bed. The next morning I awoke and felt I needed to recheck the results, and to my surprise it was positive. However, I did not feel the elation I thought I would feel about getting a positive result, instead an overwhelming sadness came over me as I felt we were going to lose this child. The next day I started bleeding, and over the course of a month and a half we lost our first baby. Although we did not know the gender of the baby, I had a strong feeling it was a boy, and we decided to name him Gabriel David, our angel baby. Through it all I felt God's peace and love, He carried me through some rough months. I finally found healing on my birthday that year, November 25th, which was Gabriel's due date. I realize that even though it wasn't what I had wanted for our family, God was faithful, and He answered my prayers.

My grandma took a bad turn with her health when she had a stroke in late 2007. I felt strongly that we would have a child around the time my grandma passed away, to help my mom cope with the loss. Luke and I decided to start the adoption process, as we had been putting it off for a long time and felt the timing was right to start our family. After completing the majority of paperwork towards the adoption, and completing the first meeting of our home study, we anxiously awaited our child. My grandma passed away in June, and at the same time I took another pregnancy test and found out I was pregnant again. I felt a real peace about this child, and even though there were worries about loss again in the first trimester, Luke prayed about it and God pointed him to Psalm 113:9 "He makes a woman in a childless home a joyful mother." That has become the life verse for this pregnancy.

I received news yesterday that the credit union I have worked for the past five and a half years decided to close my branch. I am going to be laid off on February 27th, the very day I had requested to start my maternity leave. This is significant, because it means not only do I get the money that I was planning to get when leaving for severance, but they are throwing in an additional 5 weeks of pay, plus unemployment benefits. How perfect the timing for everything was, is just incredible! We are very blessed, and I just wanted to share this brief testimony that surrounds the birth of Seth Gabriel Erickson - "Appointed/anointed strong man of God" as his name means, he was definitely appointed for this time in history, and I can't wait to see what he becomes! May God bless you and I hope this serves as a reminder that we serve a faithful God. Although we often travel through life with blinders on, if we hold out our hand and trust God to guide us, He will allow us to accomplish much more than we would have done on our own.

Okay, we'll tell...

We are naming our baby Seth Gabriel Erickson. Seth means "annointed or appointed", and Gabriel means "strong man of God". Seth was the name of Eve's "replacement son" for Abel, and in the same way, Seth is sort of our replacement son for Gabriel. We wanted to tell our immediate family first before announcing it to the world, and I'm happy to say that everyone likes it. =) Just 10 weeks, 2 days, and 15 hours remaining...

Precious Baby

Sweet baby, I love you so much!
How I am longing for that first touch,
To see if you look more like daddy or me,
I can't wait to squish your little cheeks!

80 Days!!

Wow, it's crazy to look at the countdown and realize I have already gone through 200 days, with only 80 days left until baby is here! I'm getting excited. He definitely is starting to show his personality more, wiggling around, kicking and punching. I can tell loud noises scare him, because he got jumpy when Luke was scraping the windows on the car the other day and also towards the end of the movie the Incredible Hulk when the enemy gave a loud roar. I found out yesterday that babies cry in the womb, and actually cry real tears! I thought that was amazing!

I had my prenatal appt today and was shocked by the weight gain, which I will not reveal, and also by the fact that I now seem to have high blood pressure. I was a 140/80, which they are going to keep an eye on but haven't told me to do anything differently at this point. I'm now down to biweekly appointments, and then at 36 weeks will be switching to weekly. A big step today was telling my boss that I was going to start maternity leave starting March...this gives me a week before the due date to nest and get settled. So, that leaves 47 more days of work...that is if baby doesn't chose to make an early entrance!

We Have a Name!

...but we're not telling! =) We kinda learned our lesson on this one, I think it's better we keep our mouths shut until baby is born as I know some people are quite opinionated and I would prefer not to hear bad things about it....it took us 7 months to agree on something as it is! The first name is nothing we have mentioned before so guessing won't help. I'm just thrilled to know that we found the perfect name, and I love the meaning behind it. We think it's a really powerful name, and it's kinda fun having a secret.

Praise the Lord!

God has proven so faithful over these past few months and weeks. I have so much to be thankful for. It is just now hitting me, with my little one squirming away, that my life is about to change drastically. It still hasn't really felt that "real" to me, even though I'm only days away from my third tri. I guess I do have a few updates.

1) We decided to go with the Bumgenius 3.0 cloth diapers, they are the closest to disposables that we found and very highly rated. Plus, they grow with baby so we should only need the same 24 diapers I'm buying from birth to potty training. The parent reviews also said they work great at night, unlike the Kushies I had been contemplating previously.

2) Baby hadn't been kicking as hard as he was previously and I didn't feel like I felt him as much as I was supposed to so I made a call in to the doctor a few days ago. I had an ultrasound yesterday to make sure everything was still okay, and baby was perfect as always. He is now head down, ready to meet the world! His little legs were crossed like the perfect gentleman and his kicks were mainly to the back of the uterus as well as the placenta which is why I hadn't been feeling it as much. He was so huge I could barely tell what to make out on the ultrasound, his head barely fit on the screen. It was cool to see the brain and his huge hands. I told Luke that he has daddy's hands and was almost concerned with how large they were but examining other 26 week ultrasound picts I've determined they are normal sized for a baby of that term. I just didn't expect him to grow so much in just 6 weeks. Also, I passed the glucose test, which is a big answer to prayer because I was at high risk for gestational diabetes (and passing means I don't have it)

3) My company has been talking about layoffs and shutting down branches and it turns out my branch is one of the top picks. So, if that is the case they may be shutting us down around the time the baby is due. Talk about perfect timing! I mean, the baby entered existance as my grandma was exiting, to help my mom cope with the pain of losing her mom. Now it looks like he may be entering the "real" world at the time when I would be out of work anyway. God definitely has a plan, and it's so apparent just looking back at the last few months. I can't wait to see what he has in store for us!

God Takes Care of Us

I just want to praise and thank God for what He has done in our lives. It is so exciting after all the years of waiting to finally be expecting a healthy baby. He has taken care of us in the recent weeks, here are a few examples:
1) At my 24 week appt I passed the glucose test, so I don't have gestational diabetes which I was at high risk of getting
2) Baby was less active in the past couple of days so I called in the nurseline and they had me come in today for an ultrasound. I didn't get any pictures, but my he has grown! His head barely fit on the screen. He is now head down, in the birthing position, waiting for his entrance into the world. We also saw his legs and feet crossed like the perfect gentleman, though it appeared that his little kicks were cushioned by the placenta as well as the back wall of my uterus (thus my not feeling him kick as much). It was great to see him alert and awake, and I even felt him kicking as they did the scan so I could see him move while we watched his little body. I can't believe we only have 13 weeks left!
3) My work has been seriously talking about shutting down branches next year and my branch is a top contender. If we do close it would likely be in March, right around the time my bundle of joy enters this world. Does that seem perfectly planned, or what? Yes, everything about this baby points to the evidence of God and His plan for us - from baby's conception around the time of my grandma's passing, to his entrance to the world possibly around the time I would have been out of work anyway.

Praise the Lord!