Month: March 2012

  • Elliott’s Birth Story

    Elliott’s Birth Story

    It was almost a year ago, on the day after Elliott was born, that I said I would post Elliott’s birth story “very soon”…does 52 weeks later count as “very soon”?

    Today my baby boy turned one. Unbelievable. And in honor of my sweet baby Elliott’s first birthday, I polished up his birth story to post it for those of you who like to read very long, very detailed, very dramatic stories. Basically, if you can’t make it through one of my voicemails, don’t even try to make it through this blog post :). I’m not sure anyone will make it through this *incredibly* long story, but if nothing else, you should at least look at the pictures… 🙂

    So here goes nothing…

    Elliott Brian Moberg’s Birth Story

    When the doctor’s office assessed my due date, they said it was March 12. Now, I happened to know the exact date that I had ovulated the previous month (call me crazy) and so I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my due date was actually March 10. When we had our 8 week ultrasound, the tech said to us, “Oh, you’re actually 2 days ahead of where we thought you were…” And we just smiled at each other because she confirmed what we already knew. However, they didn’t change the due date on our chart because 2 days isn’t a significant enough change. We continued to tell people that our due date was March 12 because I figured if I was a couple days late that would make me feel better. I write this because it’s an important piece for later on in the story.

    On Saturday night, March 12, I began to have contractions averaging every 5 minutes. Now keep in mind that we’re going for the 4-1-1 here…4 minutes apart, 1 minute long, for 1 hour. The 4-1-1 is the ticket to get into the hospital. Each contraction was about 1.5-2 minutes long. And they lasted all night long. That first night they weren’t too painful…I had to “breathe” through them, but for the most part they were a piece of cake. As soon as the sun came up Sunday morning, they slowed and then stopped completely. I slept most of the day Sunday to make up for not sleeping all night.

    Now, take that pattern, intensify the contractions, and repeat it for the next 7 nights. And that is the beginning of my labor story. I had some pretty terrible back labor. There are really no words to describe how horrific back labor is, and unless you’ve experienced it there’s no way of understanding. Back labor makes each contraction feel like you’re living through 5 years of Hell (at least how I imagine Hell to be…). So starting about Monday night, I needed Brian’s help to get through every contraction. He would push as hard as he could on my tail bone during each contraction and it was the only way I could make it through each one. My 12 pound heating pad (glory of God in a heating pad) and our bath tub were two other ways I pressed through, but man…I was in an incredible amount of pain, and it intensifed each night and stopped each morning. I stopped being able to get any sort of real sleep during the days either because every time I layed down, the contractions picked up again. We were both exhausted…

    At my 41 week appt on Thursday, Christy the midwife checked me and I was at a 3, about 50% effaced. All my laboring had done SOMETHING at least! They did a “non-stress” test on Elliott and he was doing just fine in the womb–his heart rate looked great, they said.

    That night, my contractions intensified to an entire new level. They were so painful that I really wondered if I could make it through this process. It was awful. Well, then suddenly we hit the 4-1-1! Hallelujah!! We prepared to go into the hospital and called the midwife on duty to let her know we were coming in. Well, during the conversation we were having I got a contraction and had to breathe through it while on the phone with her. At that point she told me that I “really just need to calm down and pull it together.” Excuse me?! It was like she hd never seen or heard someone have a contraction before! I held it together while on the phone with her, but as soon as I hung up I burst into tears. I felt like I had done a pretty good job of pressing through the last 6 days without complaining/whining, etc….but the last thing I needed to hear was someone telling me I just need to pull it together and be tougher. She had no idea what I had been through… I was crying so hard that I started throwing up, over and over… After a few minutes of hurling, my contractions literally just…STOPPED. What the heck.

    Brian encouraged me to take a shower and try to relax, and we both tried to get some sleep. We propped me up with pillows because, like I said, every time I layed down the contractions intensified. Since the contractions had slowed to about every 15 minutes at that point, I kind of “rested” inbetween each one for about an hour. Then, suddenly, they picked back up again, and before we knew it I was back at the 4-1-1. It was around 6 am, and after talking through things with Julie, our doula, we decided to wait until 8 am to go to the hospital because a new midwife would be on for the next 24 hours starting at 8. Sure enough, Christy (the midwife who had checked me the day before, and the midwife who had walked closely with me through the hardest parts of the pregnancy) was on. Love Christy. Praise God for Christy. She had been at the hospital with us just two weeks earlier when I had the stomach flu and needed fluids via IV. If anyone was ready for me to have this baby, it was Christy.

    We checked into triage and the nurse who checked me said I was still at a 3, which was just about the most disappointing news that I had ever heard. How could I have labored that hard and not made any progress?? The hospital won’t check you in if you’re not showing progress. So since I was a 3 the day before, the nurse was ready to send us home. She said, if we wanted, we could walk the halls for an hour to see if I would dilate anymore. So Julie (Julie Benedetti, our amazing doula) and Brian and I walked up and down the hallways, lunging, doing squats, and praying. I knew I would lose it if they sent me home.

    Christy arrived shortly after an hour (around 11am) and checked me and…I was at a 4! 100% effaced! Progress!! The words had no sooner come out of her mouth than I just burst into tears. “I get to stay?” I sobbed. And Christy looked at me and said, “You get to stay. You’re not leaving here without your baby!” And I just unashamedly cried and cried…could this really finally be the beginning of the end? The end of this pregnancy, the end of this week-long labor, the end of this horrific back labor…we were finally here.

    Within a few minutes, I was all smiles again–so excited to finish strong. They checked us into the best (in our opinion) room…amazing view of downtown Tacoma and a nice, big tub. I was interested in having a water birth so we got to be in the “cool” room :). My back labor was so intense that I chose to get into the tub right away. I got some food into me, which was helpful, and labored in the tub for a while.

    Meanwhile, my contractions started to slow down… Not again!! They checked me around 3 pm and there had been absolutely no change to my cervix. At this point, I started to get pretty discouraged. How can I be laboring so hard and have made NO change? It had been a week of laboring to get to this. I really began to think that my labor would NEVER end. And the contractions slowing down again weren’t helping anything.

    I had gone into this labor hoping to do everything as naturally as possible. If my body would allow me to do it, and if I could handle the pain, I wanted to be all drug free. However, although that was my desire, my utmost desire was for the baby to be safe and for me to, well, survive :). I was prepared to get drugs if they were necessary.

    It was about this point in the story that I began to be so discouraged and exhausted that I was ready to pull out the big guns. It was seeming like my body was going to labor like this until the end of time, and I was ready to get things moving. Christy came in and we talked through options since I wasn’t progressing. So here’s where the irony comes in: I was 6 1/2 days overdue according to the record and my “official” due date. But we all knew that I was actually 8 1/2 days overdue according to the real due date. St. Joe’s Hospital has a policy that they will not induce you until you are 7 days overdue.

    So they wouldn’t induce me.

    Christy was irate, and I was pretty discouraged. But you know when you’re so exhausted that you can’t even muster up the energy to be discouraged? I remember hearing the news and just staring blanking at her, while inside my body was throwing a major tantrum. We finally settled on a plan: pump me full of morphine with hopes that I would be able to SLEEP (it had been days and days…) and also to give my uterus a rest. Hopefully contractions would pick back up after the morphine wore off, and if not…we would induce labor once the clock struck midnight and I was “7” days overdue….

    At 4:30pm they gave me the morphine, and Brian and I both tried to get some sleep. It definitely didn’t take away any of the contraction pain, but I was so relaxed inbetween them that I actually slept every few minutes or so. At that point, I was so sleep deprived that anything was helpful.

    At 10:30pm, Christy came in and, with a very distraught look on her face relayed the newest news: “I was just informed that there’s not enough hospital staff here tonight to induce you at midnight. We need to send you home.”

    And so we went home. Well after midnight. When I was, according to their records, 7 days over due after laboring for a week. They gave me another round of morphine before I left so that I could hopefully sleep that night. Christy was pretty upset with the hospital staff and filed a complaint. She made them promise her that they would call in enough staff for the next morning to induce me. The plan was, we would call around 6am and see what time they could get us in. As discouraged as I was, at least there was an end in sight…I could make it through one more night, with my new best friend morphine, if I knew that they would induce me the next morning.

    The good news is, I slept. Very well. I guess 2 rounds of morphine and two types of anti-nausea meds are the ticket to life and godliness. We got home around 2 am and I slept solid until 7. My contractions were super far apart again.

    So Brian called the hospital that morning and–they told us we couldn’t come in because they still didn’t have enough staff to induce me.

    It’s just laughable at this point, isn’t it?

    Brian had a long conversation with Sylvia, the midwife who was on call that 24 hours. Love Sylvia. She explained that although we were–obviously–eager to get things moving, it would be pretty shocking to my body to go from 0-60 since my contractions had slowed so much again. She encouraged me to keep sleeping as long as I could, and told us to call as soon as the contractions picked up again. She said we didn’t even need to wait for the 4-1-1, but that she would induce us as soon as they were regular and painful enough for us that we wanted to come in. We thought that was great advice, and I went back to sleep.

    That evening before dinner, Brian and I went on a nice, long, fast-paced walk on Ruston Way. It was beautiful out. I was totally “that pregnant woman”…I must have looked like a circus act; I was so huge, pumping my arms and waddling along the sidewalk, stopping every few minutes to breathe through contractions. But, it must’ve worked because around 9 pm my contractions really picked up again. By 11pm they were at the 4-1-1.

    Now for some reason, in this little stretch of contractions, I didn’t have any back labor. Who knows why…? But they were SO BEARABLE. I didn’t need Brian to help me through them and I could do all kinds of other things inbetween. I knew Sylvia would check us into the hospital so I decided to do my hair, eat some food, spend a little time on the computer… If that is what normal contractions are SUPPOSED to be like, then my back labor was surely a piece of hell.

    That little window must have just been a little gift, because the back labor picked up again within a few hours. By 3 am we were checked back into the hospital. I was between 4-5cm dilated. And although I was in a massive amount of pain, I was NOT about to step back into the tub. So Brian and I got special permission to leave the maternity ward and go climb stairs. Yes, you heard me right: climb the stairs. It was awful, but I know it helped. There we were in a cement stairwell…Brian would tell me how many reps to do it and I would just do it…climbing those stairs two at a time before I could let my brain stop me. My contractions were incredible painful by then, but we just got ‘er done.

    Here I am, at 3 am, as we are getting out of the car to check into the hospital. My last official "pregnancy bump" (more like a pregnancy mountain!) photo.

    At 6:45am I was at a solid 5 cm. Sylvia promised me the tub wouldn’t slow me down so I tried that for a little bit. Oh, I was in so much pain… I continued pressing through each contraction, literally wondering through every one if I was going to make it. My body was exhausted, and I knew that the pain in my could only get worse.

    Sylvia left at 8am, and Kim was the next midwife on call. Love Kim. She checked me at 9am, and I was at 7cm. Everyone in the room was so encouraged by that number and I just remember thinking, “Are you kidding? I feel like I should be dilated to 50cm at this point!! I’m working sooo hard!!!” It felt like it would be years to press through those final 3cm.

    At that point, Kim said to me, “We’re looking at a 2 or 3 pm baby based on the way you’re progressing. Do you think you can make it without drugs?”

    I knew my answer instantly, but everyone left us for a moment so Brian and I could talk through the decision. By 10:30am, my epidural was in, and I could finally r-e-l-a-x….

    Ahhhh…blessed be the name of THE EPIDURAL.

    I bet you can’t believe that we’re not to the end of the story yet. But here’s where “the end” starts to happen real quickly…

    They woke me up around 1:45 to check me, and I had made absolutely no change. Uh-oh, here we go again. We decided to break my water to see if that would help. After doing so, I only dilated .5 cm more. I was at 7.5.

    So at 3pm we decided to go ahead and try pitocin to get things moving. It was at this point that everything about that day became one huge blur of emotions…I look back and just see the world spinning.

    With the pitocin, my uterus started contracting every minute. This is way too fast, as the baby doesn’t have time to recover inbetween contractions. Very suddenly, my baby–whose heart rate had been so great the whole day that, literally, every single nurse who was in and out commented on it–had a huge dip in his heart rate. Though Kim was extremely calm, I could sense the urgency in her voice: ‘Susanne, we’re going to flip you over. The baby’s heart rate just dipped really low. We’re also going to need to put a scalp electrode on his head so we can more accurately monitor his heart rate.” I jumped up as quickly as I could to turn over and put my bumble in the air (which was quite the task, considering I could barely feel my legs, and my right leg weighed about 1,000 lbs thanks to the epidural) and the next thing I knew there was an oxygen mask on my face. I was instructed to breathe as deeply as I could. “This feels scary,” I thought. And everyone kept telling me how great I was doing (it’s not exactly easy to be on your hands and knees with your buttox in the air at 41 weeks pregnant when you can’t feel the lower half of your body) and how impressed they were that I could move my body like I did and I just remember thinking, “Don’t tell me I’m doing a good job…tell me what I need to do to keep my baby safe!” Something kicked into my spirit in that moment, and suddenly there was just nothing that was too great of a cost for our baby boy. I would endure any amount of pain–anything–to make sure he was safe.

    His heart rate picked back up again, and they told me I could flip back onto my back. I tried to refuse, saying I would stay there as long as I needed to if it would keep him strong, but they had me turn back over. It was at that point that Kim looked at me and said, “That was a pretty low dip in his heart rate. Just so you know, if that happens again, we might have to do a cesarean.”

    Wait, WHAT?!? A CESAREAN?!? Is it really that bad?? Wait, how did this happen?

    I was definitely caught somewhere between fairytale land and denial at that point. This was nowhere in the plan, let alone in my dreams. This couldn’t be happening to my baby and me.

    At 4pm, they checked me again and I had progressed to a 9. Things were looking good when all of a sudden his heart rate dipped really low again. They flipped me over instantly and I remember Kim saying she was going to call Dr. Sanford (midwives can’t perform C-sections, and Dr. Sanford is the doctor who backs up the midwives in case of surgery). Everyone panicked in a calm sort of way…it’s the weirdest feeling when everyone around you knows something you don’t, and despite the fact that you know that, they still tryto act like everything’s okay…when you know very well by their whispers and forced smiles that it’s not. To be fair, I realize this is their job…to be calm when the expectant mother they’re with is likely about to be rushed into surgery and doesn’t know it yet…

    It was like someone hit the fast forward button in that moment because it feels like the next thing I knew I looked over and Brian was in scrubs and I was being rushed down the hallway into a sterile room…

    But I  think it was somewhere around this part of the timeline that I moved out of denial and into faith. She was actually calling the doctor. I realized we needed a miracle. FAST.

    I remember being on all fours again, looking over at Brian, and my strong, steadfast, calm rock of a husband was beginning to lose it. The tears were brimming over his eyelids.We both know that Brian struggles the most in situations that feel urgent yet there’s nothing he can do to help. This was exactly one of those times. Yet I was filled with peace. I called him over to me and just smiled (through my oxygen mask) and held his hand and repeated to him the phrase that he had said to me probably hundreds of times over the previous 9 months when I was exhausted, defeated, sick… “My love, He’s got us in the palm of his hand…” and I believed it. I was trusting God for a miracle.

    I was sure our families were out there praying for us in the lobby (praise God), and I asked him to text our friends and ask them to pray as well. And I knew the other thing that was needed… “Will you call Linda? Will you ask Linda to pray?” Linda is a praying woman, who has walked with me through some rough, rough waters in this last season. She is a woman of faith, and I knew I needed her prayers in that moment.

    Over the past several months, my “theme song” has been, “Oh, Lord, You’re Beautiful.” I would sing the chorus over and over and over again, imagining the moment that I got to push Elliott out into this world. I would–literally–cry every time I sang it and pictured this moment. I couldn’t wait. “And when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds in me…” Realizing I was skewing the meaning of the words a bit, I would just picture the Lord’s eyes on my child–my baby–and his grace abounding in me. It brought me to tears every time. I had such a deep-rooted confidence that His eyes were on my child, and that His grace would be with me…the only two things that mattered in that moment. I needed to sing my song…I needed it to fill the room.

    I began to sing it through my oxygen mask, face planted in the pillow in front of me, and I knew I was too weak to sing on my own. Julie. Julie, our doula could sing with me. I asked her if she would and there we huddled, singing the chorus over and over again… I cried, thinking of all the times I had sung this to the Lord in the previous months, trusting Him for this very moment. I was believing God for a miracle.

    At 4:35pm, Dr. Sanford arrived. She couldn’t have been there more than 60 seconds before she explained that, based on the facts, a c-section was necessary. No…God’s going to come through with a miracle…we just need to give Him time. So I asked her if there was any possibility of pushing if I had dilated all the way. She very graciously said she would check me and we could talk about it if I were at a 10. But after checking me, and seeing that I was still at a 9, she very gently but firmly told me that we didn’t have a choice…the baby was not looking good, and we needed to get him out right away.

    Okay,” I resigned.

    And it felt like the world crumbled to pieces all around me. No, no, no…this just can’t be happening.

    I hadn’t realized how tense my body was until my mom came in. As soon as she took my hand and started to sing and pray over me, I felt my entire body relax. She sang–a song that she has sung over me since I was a little girl–and peace rushed over me like warm waters. After she prayed for me, I asked her to put her hands on my stomach and sing again…I believed with everything in me that the Lord was working…I was still believing Him for a miracle.

    There's nothing like having your mom there when you're having a hard day (week? 9 months?)…

    Suddenly Linda was by my side–what an unexpected gift! When Brian called her to pray I had no expectation that she would actually COME to the hospital to pray for us! She took my hand and though I wish I could remember every detail of what she prayed for me, the only things I can recall are her smiling face, filled with such joy and the words she spoke: “This little boy has a call on his life, and he’s opposed. But he’s going to make it! He has a huge call on his life!” I’m not sure if she repeated that over and over, but I remember them echoing in my mind. That was exactly the truth I needed to be reminded of…that was exactly what we were fighting for.

    And that’s when I looked over and my dear husband was dressed from head to toe in blue scrubs, a little cap and a face mask. No….no, no….

    Grateful.

    At 5pm they wheeled me out of the room and into the surgery room. I entered the sterile room and there was some pop song playing loudly on the radio and I thought, “Why are they playing such happy music? We’re not at the beach…I’m about to have emergency surgery because my baby’s struggling!” I immediately asked them to turn it off, and they did so. I was on a table that felt like it was half of my width, arms out by my head in  “T,” strapped down so that I couldn’t reach through the curtain and interfere with the surgery. They pumped more medication into me and I began to throw up. Not one of the more pleasant moments of life… At that point I was numb from the chest down. You try throwing up while lying flat on your back when you can’t feel anything from the chest down and you haven’t eaten anything all day. When you’re 10 days overdue, with no stomach muscles left.

    At last, at 5:20pm, Brian was by my side again (I found out later that no one had gone to get him to come to the room, so he finally just found it on his own…).

    And 5 minutes later, I heard our baby cry.

     

    I obviously couldn’t see or feel anything. But the thing that I remember the most is Brian. As Elliott was being pulled out, he just kept laughing this joyous laugh and saying, “Oh, my love!! Here he is!! Here he is!! I see him!!” It was one of the most precious moments of the entire day.

    The following minutes were both the sweetest and the hardest ever. In the previous weeks when discussing various delivery options, I would always say, “The primary reason I would be so disappointed if I had to have a c-section is that I wouldn’t get to hold our baby right away…I think I would bawl my face off.”

     

    And that is still the hardest part for me to look back on. My sweet, sweet baby Elliott was on a table, some 7 or 8 feet away, crying. And I couldn’t do anything about it. I had waited for him for 9 long, hard months…and all I wanted to do was hold him. But there he was, being poked and prodded by blue-gloved, strange hands while lying on a hard, sterile table. I was instantly enamored with him, and heart-broken that I couldn’t snuggle him close.

    Brian and I were talking to him and calling his name and he literally turned his head towards us and stopped crying for a moment. What a gift. He knew our voices. Some angel of a nurse asked Brian if he wanted her to take some photos because she could stand right next to him, so we have so many precious photos of his first moments that we just treasure.

     

    A few minutes later, they handed Elliott over to Brian and he brought him down by my face. Such a gift. We got to have what felt like a minute of time together (the three of us) until they had Brian leave so they could finish my surgery. At that point, I started throwing up again so they shoved one of those sucky tubes (like at the dentist) in my mouth. Lovely.

    Safe in Daddy's arms…

    A while later I was brought back to the hospital room where I got to hold him and nurse him for the first time…and I have never wanted to let go since.

     

    Completely enamored with our new little love…
    Could he possibly be any more perfect?

    Though I didn’t hear all of these details until long after he was born, they discovered fairly quickly upon surgery that the cesarean was absolutely necessary. Elliott was in the correct position, however, he had a prolapsed cord between my pelvis and his head, as well as the cord was wrapped once around his neck.

    Specifically, that is an occult cord, and here is the definition:

    “Umbilical cord prolapse is a rare obstetrical emergency that occurs when the umbilical cord descends alongside or beyond the fetal presenting part. It is life-threatening to the fetus since blood flow through the umbilical vessels is usually compromised from compression of the cord between the fetus and the uterus, cervix, or pelvic inlet. There are two types of cord prolapse: overt & occult. 

    “Occult prolapse occurs when the cord descends alongside, but not past, the presenting part. It can occur with intact or ruptured membranes. The diagnosis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of a sudden, prolonged fetal heart rate deceleration. An occult prolapse often cannot be diagnosed with certainty, but is suggested by clinical features (eg, fetal bradycardia) and findings at cesarean delivery. Cord prolapse occurs in 0.14 to 0.62 percent of deliveries.”

    Leave it to me to have the issue that occurs in less than 1% of all births.

    I’ve heard that a lot of women who end up having to have an emergency c-section say that feel like failures when it’s all said and done. That never crossed my mind. In fact, it was the opposite. I knew that I had done everything that I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually capable of doing. My wrestle came with the Lord…why did He allow this to happen?

    For months before my due date, I had been absolutely fascinated with the umbilical cord related to giving birth. I would ask every doctor/nurse/midwife that I came across questions about how it interferes with labor and why they didn’t do an ultrasound before labor to see where it was located. And that was one of the primary things I had been praying for leading up to the birth. That his umbilical cord would be in the correct position so as not to hinder labor.

    So as you may or may not be able to imagine, I wrestled with God…big time…over the circumstances surrounding the labor and delivery. Any time I thought about the birth or the circumstances surrounding it, I would just melt into a puddle of tears. (Those hormones probably weren’t helping me, either–ha!) I can’t tell you how many times I would just weep when I’d see pictures of me strapped to the table or of Elliott right when he was born, all alone. Or when I would just simply think about what had happened and would remember details.

    Then one night, I had crawled into bed before Brian and started thinking about how confident I was that God was going to do a miracle that day and keep us from having to have a C-section. Through my tears, I just wept over and over, “But I trusted Him for a miracle…”

    And after holding me for several minutes and wiping away each stream of tears, Brian finally spoke… So gently and humbly, he said to me, “My Love, He gave us one.”

    And I finally got it. He was so right. Although it wasn’t the way I wanted the miracle to look, he was right. The truth of that statement didn’t fully sink in until I found out how serious the umbilical cord issue was. It was a real emergency, and Elliott’s life was saved because of the C-section. If this were 100 years ago, one or both of us would have likely died. God kept Elliott perfectly strong and healthy in my womb, and then saved him through Dr. Sanford, who performed a perfect surgery and delivered my son–healthy and strong.

    So weeks after Elliott was born, I was finally able to understand that Elliott, in and of himself, was a complete miracle. I was asking God for a miracle, and in my mind that looked like not having to have a c-section. But Elliott IS a miracle! God did give us a miracle that day! He DID answer our prayers…He delivered our Elliott into our arms…and for him, we are eternally grateful.

    Our perfect Elliott…

     

    Our joy…
    Our family of three!!

    Happy birthday, our sweet Elliott Brian Moberg!!!!!

  • For the joy set before me…

    For the joy set before me…

    "Baby Beta"…due October 1st (ish…)

    We are overjoyed to announce the newest addition to this Moberg family…I have the honor of growing another sweet little love in my womb!!!

    I have just crossed the 11 week mark in my pregnancy, and I’m not going to lie–the last 5 weeks have had their fair share of challenges. Nothing compared to my pregnancy with my perfect sweet little Elliott, but nonetheless…challenging. The toilet bowl has once again regained the title of “bff” (it’s a love-hate relationship) and I am a slave to food. I am fatigued beyond fatigue and carry my Tums with me every where I go to try to keep my lunch from crawling back up my throat. Life is challenging right now. YET…I wrote the following thoughts the very first day that I threw up this pregnancy, and I wanted to share them, both as a reminder for myself and hopefully as an encouragement to others. It has only gotten harder since, but nonetheless, I cling to the truth of the promises here. I hope that these words bring comfort, revelation, and a new joy to all those women out there who have tough pregnancies.

    February 11, 2012

    Scripture talks about the fact that the greater we suffer with Christ, the greater glory will be revealed in us. Suffering, in any form, teaches us to identify with our Savior, who, as an innocent man, suffered a grueling death that he did not deserve. And then there’s the verse in Hebrews 12: “For the joy set before him, he endured the cross…”

    I’ve had this verse running through my head for about a year and a half now. Ever since I realized that I was one of the chosen ones to endure 9 months of vomiting in order to pop a baby out, I haven’t been able to get this Scripture out of my head. Because I knew we would have more kids–we weren’t going to stop at one–but with every addition, I would KNOW exactly what I was about to endure. And yet–yet–it is the JOY that is set before me that gives me the strength to endure.

    It’s been 10 months and 21 days (but who’s counting?) since I’ve thrown up. And as I clung to the toilet seat this afternoon, the Scripture that accompanied every vomit with Elliott ran through my head again. I heard myself say out loud, “Okay…” in between hurls. An acknowledgment that it’s time to really start enduring. So many thoughts and emotions and resolves hung up in that word, “Okay.” “Okay, Sus, it’s time to put your game face on…” “Okay, just 8 1/2 more months to go…” “Okay, you can do this…” “Okay, you’re going to make it…’ “Okay…this is for you, Sweet Baby Beta…this is all for you.”

    And, as motherhood continues to do, Jesus reveals his love for me to me even more. Because I am doing this all for oneone precious life, that I do not take for granted. Don’t get me wrong–I wouldn’t mind cramming a few more babies in there so that at least I could suffer once for two or three! But–it is all so worth it for my one. This little one is worth it, this little one is worth it all. To say Elliott was worth 9 months of throwing up is the most obscene understatement of all time. To say he was “worth” waiting 10 extra days for him to come, painfully laboring for 8 of those, all to end up in an emergency c-section…to say he was “worth” all of that? No way. I need a much stronger, much more powerful word. I can’t think of a single thing I wouldn’t endure to bring his life into this world.

    And so I understand Christ’s love more than ever before. Because He suffered for all of us, but He would have died just for me. Because he loves me that much. Because I–alone–am worth it to Him. And the fact that I know that my re-birth into my new life in Christ came because of His sacrifice sobers me.

    So now I wait for Baby Beta. I endure for Baby Beta. And I endure with joy. I do not look at this pregnancy as if it were an inconvenience to my life…it is my honor, my joy to bring life into this world. And the fact that this life will come as a result of suffering? Well, I say, the greater glory that will come!! I want Elliott, and Baby Beta, to grow up knowing that they were WORTH my sacrifice. And I did not sacrifice begrudgingly or with complaint, but with joy in my heart for the prize that was set before me. (And, oh!! What a prize!!) And I pray that this understanding would begin to give them both revelation of the gift that our Savior gave to them…a gift that came with a cost. But it was for the joy set before Him that he endured…and so I pray that they would each know their value and their worth. That if they had each been the only one on earth, Jesus would have died for them.

  • Elliott’s Birthday House Build

     

    Our sweet baby Elliott turns ONE on March 20th! Although we are SO excited to simply celebrate the past year of his life, we also feel prompted to turn his birthday celebration outward and change the lives of a family in need. Elliott, in reality, has everything he needs. So we thought, “What if we direct the money that would be spent on Elliott towards a family who doesn’t even have a home?”

    Would you like to be a part of changing the lives of a family forever by helping build them a home in honor of Elliott’s first birthday?

    Here’s how you can help:

    1. Pray for us! We need to raise $5,700 to build the home. For an additional $1,800 we can purchase furniture and appliances for the home (beds, curtains, stove, etc.). Please pray that we raise the money and also that this is a life-changing event for the family we’re building a home for and for all of us who have the honor to build and donate!

    2. Donate money towards the house! Elliott does not have the expectation that anyone would buy him a present for his birthday. However, if you were/are considering buying him a gift or card, would you instead donate that money towards the cost of the house? Even if you weren’t going to get him a gift, would you consider donating money towards the cost of the house? We will give him one card signed from everyone who donates toward the house.

    If you would like to donate, you can do so online under the “Support” tab here on our website. Be sure to clarify that the money is for the house build, not our regular support. Or, feel free to send us a check (again, noting that it’s for the house build):

    Brian + Susanne Moberg
    YWAM–TJ Base
    P.O. Box 5417
    Chula Vista, CA 91912
     

    Some further -very honest- thoughts…

    Brian and I got this idea in our spirits several months ago. We really sat on the thought and prayed about it because we knew it would be a lot of work–both to organize the house build and to raise the money. Not to mention the time and money it would cost those who are coming to build with us. But we really felt like our idea was from God. We want our family to be marked by giving away. We want Elliott to know from the youngest of ages that although he is the absolute gem and treasure of our lives, although we adore him to the point of not being able to take our eyes off of him, although we want him to have EVERYTHING he needs as well as some fun toys throughout his life…he is NOT the center of the universe. We want him to know that our lives are meant to be lived outward. We want him to have conviction over the fact that it is more blessed to give than to receive. We want him to experience the joy in giving, in pouring out, in changing the lives of any person that God puts in our path.

    As strong as this conviction is in my spirit, I’ll be honest–it’s been hard for me at times thinking about it. Those of you who know me, know that I L-O-V-E throwing a good party! 😉 It’s one of the ways that I love to love people. Whereas some may look at a perfectly planned out, thought out event as unnecessary or a waste of time, energy, and resources, blessing others in this way is truly one of the things that brings me life and joy. So, fittingly, I’ve dreamt many times over Elliott’s short lifetime of his very first birthday party. Of the cool presents I want to get him, of the awesome cake I want to make, of the theme–thought out to every detail. And not that I won’t ever be able to do that for him, but this year–it’s in our spirits to keep it SIMPLE. I was looking at party blogs (a DANGEROUS passtime for me) and I started to get a little sad that I wouldn’t be able to throw him this extravagant birthday party. But then, I realized–this is exactly why we’re doing this. As soon as I thought about a family with several kids sleeping on a cardboard floor and then aligned Elliott’s extravagant construction birthday party next to that picture…I was sick to my stomach. AGAIN–I’m definitely not saying that Elliott will never get a themed birthday party that’s all about him one day (trust me!) but THIS YEAR…God is doing something in our family. Probably mostly in me :). Even if I were going to just spend $100 on Elliott’s birthday party, this year I would rather spend that $100 on the paint that will cover the wooden slabs of the walls of the home that will be a family’s very first real shelter from the wind and the rain. I think about the $25 I might spend on party favors for our guests, and I would rather spend that $25 on sheets for the very first beds that these children have ever slept on. I think about the $50 I might spend on the cutest themed, extravagant food and I would rather put that $50 towards a stove for the family who has never even dreamed of having such a luxury.

    I am writing this with tears streaming down my face, broken over the fact that my heart still wrestles at times over wanting Elliott to have “extravagant” when so many families don’t even have “basic”. So here you go, world–the honest struggles of this mommy :). I am so, so, so grateful that God has put this in our hearts this year. I am so, so, so grateful that He is doing this transformation in my heart. I am so, so, so overwhelmingly grateful that He’s going to use us–and many of you!–to literally redirect the course of this family’s lives forever.

    The two young Mexican men who are students in our DTS class are here, ultimately, because their families were without homes when they were young and Homes of Hope (that’s the name of this ministry in YWAM) built them one. And that, again, floods my eyes with tears. I wish you could meet these two guys. They are WORLD-CHANGERS. Jonas has a burning fire inside of him that youth would know the REAL God…not the God who disciplines and tells you you’re going to Hell if you don’t follow him. But the God of mercy, grace, justice, and JOY. He is passionate about showing youth that living your life with God can be the ADVENTURE of your lifetime, much more rewarding than any pleasure you could get from the world. Then there’s Luis. Oh, Luis. This tough-looking Mexican man has one of the softest hearts of anyone I’ve met. He weeps over his family, his friends, and the lost. He weeps with a deep love and a fierce compassion. You will find him in the lowest of the lowest of places, serving, loving, and praying. Both of these men will–mark my my words–change the face of this nation. They are rising to positions of confidence, believing that they are, indeed, LEADERS. Believing that they have a call on their lives. Believing that God plucked them out of the mire and set them on firm ground.

    And they are here because someone built them a home.

    What if that group of people who built them a home that weekend had said, “No”? Where would these two be today? I’ve often wondered that…

    Well, my friends. All that to say, we are organizing a house build in honor of our sweet Elliott’s first birthday. I hope you will consider donating towards this house. The house build takes place in just under a month. PLEASE–consider this opportunity to alter the course of the lives of a family in need.

    To read more about Homes of Hope, the history of how the program started, the way they select families, etc., click here: http://ywamsandiegobaja.org/homes-of-hope/

    When Brian, Elliott and I first crossed the border into Mexico last July to check out this YWAM base and begin the decision process of packing up our lives to become missionaries, Sean and Janet Lambert took us to the most important place on the tour first. We crossed the border and they said, “Before you see anything else, we’d like you to meet Josefina.”

    I see now how that was so representative of Sean and Janet’s hearts. Yes, yes…we eventually saw the two Mexico YWAM campuses and over time we heard stories of the ways this particular YWAM base functions. We learned about Sean and Janet’s history and how they started this base. But first–first–it was important that we SEE. It was most important that we SEE the fruit of this ministry. KISS the cheek of the woman who can now safely lock her family in their home at night. TOUCH the hands of these beautiful children who no longer have to dig through trash for food and toys. So we met Josefina and her beautiful son and daughter. And that, my friends, was the moment my heart was captured.
    Grab a box of tissues and watch these two videos below if you would like to meet Josefina, too.

    BEFORE

    AFTER

    Finally. (Is this the world’s longest blog post?) Finally, I believe that we as a society are often so overwhelmed by the needs in this world that we shut down and do nothing because we know we can’t possibly help “them all.” I wrote a post several months ago, The Greatest, The One, that articulates this wrestle in my own spirit. Though Brian and I have both wept over the vast amount of poverty we see in this world, we are committed to helping the one in front of us. When I met Josefina and her two darling children, I was not overwhelmed by the vast need in Mexico. I was overwhelmed at how the sacrifice of one weekend, a little bit of hard work, and some money from a group of Canadians changed this ONE family forever.

    Will you consider helping us build a home for ONE family? Will you consider helping the ONE?

    Blessings, sweet friends.

  • 11 Months Old!

    11 Months Old!

    11 months…11 months…11 months…

    You know what comes next, don’t you? I can barely even type the words…

    THE.

    ONE.

    YEAR.

    MARK.

    Good grief! My baby is so BIG!!!

    Elliott continues to be a crawling, climbing, laughing, smiling, babbling bundle of contagious joy. He’s been working hard this month on feeding himself real food, repeating sounds, trying to do everything we’re doing, and learning how to stand on his own.

    He’s been super close to standing on his own for a while, and he’d do it for mili-seconds at a time, but at the beginning of February he started FOR REAL standing on his own. He was standing, playing with his Alphabet Train and just decided to let go! We both started clapping and then he thought that was the most fun game ever. He would just stand there and clap and laugh with us as we cheered him on. He did it so many times before it occurred to me to get the camera so I jumped up and grabbed it and captured this beautiful moment:

    Yay!!!!!

    Possibly my favorite picture of all time. I love his joy!!!!!

    Bath time is becoming one of Elliott’s favorite activities. For those 8 weeks we were traveling over seas we just showered with him because there were no tubs available. So, when we arrived to Tacoma to stay at my dear friend Courtney’s house, we were overjoyed to have a real TUB. We put him in it, and…he cried. A LOT. But he got used to it within a few minutes, and after about 15, splashing in the tub was his new favorite.

    The thing I love most about our new house is our bathtub. It is incredible. I’ve never seen a bathtub like this–it’s SQUARE! And huge! So bath time is like swimming in a swimming pool :).

    His favorite part is looking at his "friend" in the metal mirror…he usually gives him lots of kisses :).
    I LOVE this picture because it shows all of his teeth!
    This makes me laugh 🙂
    "Ooohhh…"
    Towel snuggles with Mom…
    …and Dad

    Eating has continued to be quite a steep learning curve…he still gags and chokes when we try to give him food other than purees. But since he loves doing EVERYTHING we do these days, he always wants to eat what I’m eating. So one day when I was eating a pear and he wanted some, I figured I’d let him try a few bites…

    And he did AWESOME! No choking or gagging, and he wanted more!!

    I KNOW we need to work on this skill, so one day I gave him small pieces of banana and he gagged on them and threw up. So then it occurred to me to give him a big chunk of banana (totally counter-intuitive, right?) because he LOVES taking bites of my pear. Sure enough…he safely ate the whole thing without gagging even once. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but I’m just going along with it…

    Yes, those are Christmas jammies. Because we LOVE Christmas in this household and it WILL be celebrated year-round!

    Some playful parts of the month:

    A good family friend, Sherrie Paul, sent Elliott this A-MAZING alphabet book…he LOVES it (almost as much as I do!)

    His favorite page is the "F is for football" page (You'd be proud, Coach & Mrs.!)
    "Don"t worry, I've got this, Mom."

    A little photo shoot that we had with Auntie Melisa:

    Learning to walk with one hand
    Laughing so hard at Melisa's silliness
    This is his new favorite way to sit.

    Now for some less-glorious parts of the month:

    Have you EVER seen a fatter lip than this one?!
    He had a cold for about a week, and this was what he constantly looked like…a snot moustache and a drool goatee…

    And, last but not least…a few of my favorite Elliott faces from the month. For some reason, the nickname I hear Brian and I call Elliott the most lately is, “Buddy Face.” No idea how that came about, but here are some cute faces from The Buddy Face himself…

    "Oh yeah!"
    "What's up?"
    Plotting…
    I love this face.
    My sweet 11 month old!