...netted two big pumpkins, two little pumpkins, and one little peanut named Ethan Lowell!
10 October -- exactly one month before my due date of 10 November -- and we're off to Frederick, MD, to enjoy the day at my favorite pumpkin patch. After a few hours playing outside with the kids, we would enjoy dinner with my cousins before heading home...that was the plan, at least. But we quickly learned that God's plans are not ours and God's timing is far better than ours ever could or would be.
Two hours into our adventure with the kids, I decided to sit out the hayride to the pumpkin patch in favor of visiting the bathroom. By the time Drew and the kids returned, I was ready to rest my feet in the Tahoe while they enjoyed the rides in the barrels on wheels, jumped on the giant pillow and crawled in the corn. Twenty minutes later (and a lot of googling "labor pains" on Drew's blackberry), I called Drew and simply said, "You need to come now." Who knew that labor could come so fast and so furious?
The kids are now strapped in their car seats and we are frantically making our way south, trying to decide what to do with our oldest two as it's becoming more and more evident that Baby White is not about to wait to make his appearance into this world. "Holiday weekend, friends out of town, parents two hours away...let's see if we can get the teenagers who babysit for us to watch the kids till my parents arrive." Here's where I get to tell you how incredibly awesome God's timing and His plans for us are...
You see, these teenagers were supposed to be apple picking on Saturday, but those plans were cancelled. Instead, the entire family decided to attend an arts and crafts festival, a mere 20 miles south of Frederick. And so, we met them at an exit along the interstate, switched vehicles and took their car straight to the hospital. They took my children home, played with them, loved them, fed them AND cleaned my house, while my parents began the two hour journey southbound.
Ethan was born less than three hours later...by that time, my parents were in Virginia and Drew was able to head home to show off pictures of our little boy, pack clothes for our oldest two and switch vehicles with our friends. Because it was a holiday weekend, my mother had off work and was able to keep Andrew and Marc with her the entire time instead of sending them off to play with their cousins. And because Ethan arrived in God's time, of his own accord, I was able to avoid a repeat c-section and leave the hospital 36 hours later, making recovery a breeze!
My non-stop prayer that last few months of pregnancy was that Andrew and Marcail would be well cared for while I was in the hospital. That they wouldn't need to be sent to three or four different places to accommodate others' work schedules, leaving them feeling displaced. Because we know that my babies stop growing the last few weeks, I even contemplated scheduling a c-section just so that I would have control of the schedule. How silly I am to think that I can control such things!!
God didn't give me enough time to make plans for Ethan's arrival. He did, however, speak very clearly to us about His perfect plans. While Ethan was premature, he was my biggest baby yet and had the shortest hospital stay. The staff at the hospital was fantastic...our nurse was a Christian who admitted that she prayed me through delivery. And best of all, I'm not recovering from a c-section ... I feel fantastic and food tastes good again!
"A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." (Proverbs 16:9)
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