Delight?

I was meeting with a friend today for a biblestudy on prayer and came across this verse...."Whom have I in heaven but you? And I have no delight or desire on earth beside You." Psalm 73:25   This should be the cry of our hearts! What does delighting in the Lord truly look like? This is a question that I have been pondering most of the day.  Matthew Henry says " What is the desire of  a good man? It is this, to know, and love, and live to God, to please him and be pleased in him."

Nothingness = Bliss!

 I attended a birth that was 27 hours long on Thursday. The most beautiful (and one of the longest!) experiences I have had as a doula. I can normally bounce back pretty fast from these marathon days, but not so much anymore! I had to work Friday and Saturday so that  could  have contributed to my fatigue. Paul and I declared a "Rest Day" today and it has been wonderful! We didn't even go to church. We laid around and played with Lauren all day. I have never felt so good doing absolutely nothing with my family. Lauren has been running a fever for a few days so one of  us would have had to stay home from the day's activities anyway. Everyone take a day sometime soon to just 'be' and hang out with those you love! Don't do any chores and order take out!

Babies, Babies and more Babies!

I just realized that it has been quite sometime since I have mentioned  anything about my doula work. I am getting ready to help with my 12th birth. I can't believe it! I have a pretty busy March and April planned. I have four scheduled so far.  I feel so privileged to be able to be apart of these new little lives! It's a pretty rewarding job. So, for any of you who were wondering, yes, I am still in the "baby" business and loving every minute of it! I just started a part time job at a little place in Louisville that has lactation consulting and everything you could possibly need for pregnancy and nursing. It's a really neat place to work having doula experience because everything that I talk about with customers directly relates to my baby job. I am learning so much!

Update...

So, after a week and a half Lauren is officially on her full dose of medication. We had to start her on it slowly due to it causing upset stomachs. Now the real test starts. We have to watch and see if  she continues to have any seizures on the full dose. We have definitely seen a decrease in the amount of seizures. It's hard to tell how many she is having because you have to be looking right into her face to tell if she is having one at that moment. I didn't realize this, but when she is having a seizure she is not in a daydreaming state at all, but she is completely unconscience. ( I try not to dwell on this! ) When we think that she isn't having anymore seizures after a period of time we will get a 24 hour EEG done to see if the medication has completely stopped them or not. Pray that it completely stops them! If not, then she will have to go on an additional medication. Ugh! So far the only side effects that we have seen is that she seems to be a bit more tired and has constant blue circles under her eyes. From what I have researched, this is normal. I was doing a bit more reading about CAE, and even though it is controlled by medication, kids can still develop learning disabilities with this disorder. This made me cry! I struggled (and still do) with a learning disability. I had a very difficult time in school. Dealing with these issues is not something that I ever thought she might ever have to do. The realization that she could have learning issues is very hard for me to deal with. God is in complete control. She is not our child, but His. I just pray that if this is what our future holds then God would equip all three of us to handle it to the best of our ability. I think I need to spend some time meditating on 2 Chron. 20:15!

Adjustments...

Hope this finds you all doing well. I am sad to see the holiday season end, but am excited to find out what will happen in the new year!
Well, life has been quite interesting here lately. Let me start from the very beginning. Lauren has had febrile seizures since she was about a year old. These happen when she gets sick and her fever goes up so high so fast that her little brain can't handle it and she has a seizure. She has had two of these that we know of. That being said, about a month and a half ago I started noticing that Lauren was having a hard time listening and paying attention to me. She has always been slightly clumsy, but seemed even more so lately. She developed a double ear infection right around this time and she had a lot of trouble hearing us. I had to make her look right in my face to get her to understand what I was telling her. I start noticing that when I was talking to her she would get this "glazed over" look for 5-15 seconds in the middle of a conversation. I didn't pay to much attention attention, but I did mention it to Paul and told him that I thought it looked like she might be having a slight seizure or something. I had never experienced anything like this with her before. Paul did some research on " Absence Epilepsy" and it described Lauren's behaviour to a T. I started to notice that the episodes started happening more and more often. She got to the point where she was having them every 5 to 10 minutes. I think I almost had a nervous breakdown! We got her into the pediatrician and she confirmed what we thought was going on. Lauren had an EEG and a neurology appt. and the neurologist said that she definitely has Childhood Onset Absence Epilepsy (CAE). It is treatable. From what the neurologist and all of the research that we have done say is that they don't cause any brain damage and the child has no idea what is happening. They don't even remember them. Lauren couldn't describe anything to us because she didn't know she was having them. This disorder develops between the ages of 4 and 9. The earlier they start, the more likely they are to grow out of them. There is a small percentage that they can develop into gran mal seizures later in life. Anyway, the neurologist thinks that Lauren's case is pretty straight forward and that she will grow out of them. It could be ten years, but he is hopeful. She is on medication now to help control them, meaning that they should go away completely. He believes that the febrile seizures and these absence seizures are connected and that this is some sort of genetic mutation that might have just skipped generations. I am so thankful for that double ear infection! Without it we wouldn't have noticed the seizures. Thinking about the future makes us a bit nervous. It's hard not to think about the what if's. What if she doesn't grow out of the seizures? What if she can't learn to drive because of them? What if her medication has some strange side effect? If anyone is on this medication for a long period of time it can lead to depression and suicidal tendancies in teenagers. It's hard to think about, but we just have to take it one day at a time and pray that she grows out of it. Life is so exciting! Everytime we have turned a corner this year it seems that God says " I need a little bit more faith from you!" I cling to Isaiah 43:2