Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Name

Many have asked how we chose "Hope Avery" as a name. So, here it is:

HOPE: One of my all-time favorite characteristics about God is that he is the 'God of Hope'. Hope is a "constant expectation of good" and over the last few years, God has been teaching me a lot about that. Our family has seen quite a few challenges over the past few years in regards to my dad's health and different situations that have come up. God has constantly brought me back to this simple truth and it has become a cornerstone in my walk with him. Secondly, I love that God is the hope of the nations, the hope to the hopeless, the hope of EVERY human heart. This makes me so excited. The world is looking for hope and we have found it in Jesus! So, our prayer is that our Hope would be a woman who brings hope to the hopeless of this world because of the hope she has in Jesus (the anchor of her soul!).

AVERY: Josh and I argue over the true meaning of Avery. I have read "wise ruler" and he has read "nobility". So, we will just claim them both. :) A very trusted friend gave us a word when I was pregnant that this baby would have a sharp mind. So, when we came across this name it seemed to fit. I have been praying wisdom over her since pregnancy. We are believing that she will be a wise woman who leads from a place of purity and an undivided heart (wise ruler). We are also praying that she would know her status as a daughter of the king from an early age and walk out in her true identity (nobility).

TERNDRUP: Well...that one she's just stuck with. :) (Just kidding Craig and Linda!)

Please pray with us for our little world changer!

Picture: On the way home from the hospital

The Birth

Well, I never thought that I'd be one to a. blog and, b. blog about my baby's birth, but I've told the story about 1 million times in the past week, so maybe from here on out I'll just refer people to the blog. However, on a more serious note, this birth was such a sweet experience and full of answered prayers that I feel like it's worth sharing with the blogging world.


Before Hope was born a friend encouraged me that in every experience we have, God is desiring to give us a fresh revelation of who he is. So, for the past few weeks I've been asking the Lord what he has for this birth. The Monday before Hope was born I felt like God said that this birth was going to show me how much he DELIGHTS in me, his child, and how he delights in the details of our lives, every last one of them, every need, every want, and yes, even every desire. When I look back on the events of last week (it's already been a week?!)--by the way i'm posting this later now, I'm overwhelmed again and again by this revelation and the freshness of his delight in my life. It teaches me every day how to delight in Hope and every detail of her life.

How it all went down...

Thursday (March 1st) was my official last day of work. I got off in the afternoon after finishing everything up, putting my away message on and was loving life. I had even planned to get a pedicure the next day to celebrate the last few days-or weeks-of being pregnant. That night a few friends and I decided to go out for dinner (while Josh had discipleship) as a last "hoorah" before baby. We went to Victorias, which seems so fitting since it was basically my one and only pregnancy craving. About halfway through dinner I started noticing that I was having contractions (about 7:30pm). I didn't think too much of them because I was basically convinced from the beginning of pregnancy that I would have a way late baby. But I was pretty worried about going through labor on a stomach full of fettucinni alfredo.

After dinner I swung by Taylor's house to see her baby room and kept tracking my contractions. At about 9:30 I sent Josh a nonchalant text that said "I think I might be in the early stages of labor". Awesome. He came by Taylor's and we hung out for a little bit, semi-joking and in denial that this could actually be happening. At 9:45 we headed home because I decided that if I was going into labor, I wanted to clean the house a little (I blame my mother's genes) and pack our hospital bag. At about midnight we had finished all this and got into bed. Immediately the contractions picked up. So, Josh and I hung out for a little bit, talking and timing contractions. At about 2pm my contractions were about 5 minutes about so we called the midwife on-call and we decided to head up to the hospital. We figured at that point we might as well because it was for sure that neither of us were getting any sleep.

At the hospital they checked me and I was only 3 cm dilated (you have to be 5 to be admitted), so they gave us the option of walking around the 4th floor for an hour and seeing if anything had progressed. Yes, please. I mean, nothing is more fun than walking around a hospital from 3:30-4:30am while having contractions. :) Sadly, after an hour of walking nothing had changed and they sent us home to "rest". So, I rode out the rest of the night trying to rest between contractions while Josh slept.

In the morning I started throwing up (another sign of labor) so we called the midwife again. I had actually been praying that I would deliver on March 2nd because I know my midwife was on call all weekend at the hospital and I wanted to make sure she was there for the birth. She told us that she thought we should come back up. I was hesitant because there's nothing more defeating than being sent home from the hospital TWICE (especially when it's 30 minutes away). This time we left the bags in the car and went upstairs to get checked. The triage nurse said that I still hadn't progressed and didn't want to admit me. However, my midwife (sent from GOD!) came in and said she felt like enough progress had been made to admit me (4 cm, 90% effaced). At this point I was super dehydrated and shaky from throwing up and not being able to eat. So, being in this triage room was probably the worst part of the whole experience as we waited for them to open up a room for us. Somehow it felt like we were in there FOREVER because the room was tiny and we could really do nothing to cope with the contractions effectively (at that point they were 1-2 minutes apart).

Finally, at about 1:00pm we went down to our room. Not long after the anesthesiologist showed up (with his residents) to give me an epidural (ha-le-lu-jah). For about an hour the resident-in-training tried to give me an epidural while the anesthesiologist watched and I tried to stay as still as possible. Apparently I have a curved spine, which made it super challenging for them to get the epidural in, even after the anesthesiologist FINALLY took over. By the grace of God, at this point they had put an IV in and pumped me with liquid because I was so dehydrated. This slowed down my contractions significantly so that while I was hunched over getting the epidural it was more bearable. By 2pm they had finally succeeded, I finally relaxed (praise Jesus for modern medicine!) and Josh finally went to get our bags from the car.

The nurse checked me right after the epidural and I had progressed to a 6/7. She also accidentally broke my water at that point (Josh was pretty upset that we never got our "movie-like water-breaking in public" adventure). After this Josh and I settled in and were anticipating a long wait ahead. I have always heard that the epidural can slow labor down, so I figured it could be hours and hours at that point.

An hour later the midwife came in and said I was at a 8/9 and that this baby wasn't too far away from coming. We were shocked! I do confess that at this point I asked Josh to hand me my make-up bag so I could look half-decent when Hope arrived...which also goes to show that the epidural was definitely working. :)

After that, the rest was history. An hour after that we called in the nurse because my epidural seemed to to be wearing off. She checked me and said, "honey, there's no time to fix the epidural, you need to push!" So, I pushed for about 20 minutes and then out she came--at 5:57pm to be exact!

The whole experience was so filled with the grace of God and even little ways that Jesus was showing us how present he was. Even my nurse was wearing a shirt that read "Hope" across the front! I share my experience not to weird anyone out, but hopefully to encourage you that labor CAN go well and that Jesus is always in the business of teaching us something along the way. Before I got married I said I never wanted to have kids because I didn't want to go through labor. Well, SO glad I changed my mind (with a little coaxing from Josh) or I wouldn't have this little angel around or the experience of bringing LIFE into the world (what a HUGE honor!).

Hope Avery Terndrup--Born on March 2nd at 5:57pm. 6.6 lb, 19.5 in.

I love this version of Psalm 37:23: "The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives." (NLT)

May you feel the delight of the Father today and know that he is in the midst of every detail of your life!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Here We Go!

Josh and I started a blog a few years ago when we first moved to Norman. It was our feeble attempt to keep people updated on our lives, since we were on the move like crazy. Well, I only posted once on that blog and now I can't log into it because it was linked to an old email account. Figures. SO, we are trying again! Now that we have a child, we figure our lives are a little more interesting than before and this is our attempt to keep family and friends near and far apprised on our lives and the lastest adventures with Miss Hope Avery. Hope you enjoy!