Our Son's Answered Prayers

Last year our son Jacob began praying for a brother or a sister and my husband and I wanted another child but I still had lingering fatigue problems that occurred immediately following a miscarriage nearly three years earlier. I must confess that I had perhaps lost hope to have another one since the drastic efforts toward better health that I made in my life didn't provide complete recovery and wasn't sure it was possible since it was labeled a hormonal imbalance (along with low blood sugar). I knew I needed to get more serious about prayer, first for healing and second that if I got pregnant that the Lord would need to provide the strength to take care of another one. I asked our son to pray for this as well. When we took our vacation to the beach last year I had the strangest feeling that something, someone, was missing from our family and that it was incomplete. Within a few weeks we learned the news of the pregnancy and we were thrilled that God gave us the opportunity to do this again. Our son was very excited and we believe that it was the prayers from his believing heart that were answered. We involved him in the pregnancy as much as possible so that he would understand what was about to happen. Throughout the pregnancy I felt really well as long as I maintained the same diet, regular exercise routine, and adequate rest.

I started the early part of my pregnancy in the care of an OB then came to the midwives at the advice of my ND who recommended natural childbirth to expedite a good recovery. Though I could have had the birth experience with the OB I felt that the midwives practice was more conducive to sticking to my goal (no meds) and even though I knew it was something I must do I was afraid that I would change my mind and I needed all the encouragement I could get. When I passed my due date by nearly a week I came in for a non-stress test that happened to cause stress for me because I was nervous that I would need to be induced and that would ruin all of my plans. I was a few weeks overdue to see my chiropractor and finally decided that I would do this the next day. I was noticeably more relaxed afterward and began to have contractions several hours later that lasted for two hours but wasn't at regular intervals. During dinner they subsided but after a shower they were harder and could be timed. My mom came in the middle of the night to stay with Jacob and we were out the door and off to the hospital. Upon arrival the contractions were 4 minutes apart and I measured 5 centimeters. For pain management I used mental imagery by envisioning a mountain stream from a camp that I attended many times (which I happened to discover a picture among my things just a few short weeks earlier and left the picture out to look at every day as a reminder) and a worship song that contains the lyrics "Nothing is too difficult for Thee." After a short while Gretchen felt the contractions were staying the same so she wanted me to get into the shower, but when she measured me I was 9 centimeters and ready to push soon. I was elated at that point because I knew that it was too late for the meds and that we would meet our baby soon! We couldn't believe how fast things progressed and that I only had to push a half an hour or so. On April 1st, two days before Jacob's 6th birthday, we gave birth to another son and his name is Joshua William Plavchak. You can't imagine the additional happiness we felt when Jacob met his baby brother for the first time-he had become just as much his baby as it is ours.