Addan's 6

October,  2004 I took a pregnancy test and it was positive!  Yippee,, another Philbrick to add to our home.  We had just moved to PA so this would be our first baby here.  This pregnancy was after two home births so we thought we could do another home birth.  Everything seemed great with the pregnancy.  Toward the end of the 8th month, Mark and some of the boys got a terrible cold and cough.  We didn't think much of it but it did seem like a hum-dinger cough!  Our family got together with another family while one of the boys had the cough and we "shared" our cough with them.  Only they got it bad!  So badly, one of their daughters had to be hospitalized and we found out this little cough was whooping cough.  Mark got the bug from kids at school and shared it with our boys. 

At the end of my pregnancy, when I was my normal 2 1/2 weeks late, my Mom came to wait for the baby to help me.  This visit became much longer than we expected!  Little did we realize, our couple week visit became a couple month visit! What a LONG time this was.  I felt so much pressure but knew it was totally out of my control! 

We figured my due dates (I had one of those wheel charts my doctors always used and it was always accurate with the dates the doctors always gave me) were the end of May/early June.  So we figured the LATEST with my normal 2-3 week late was mid June.  June passed and then July passed!  Ugh, I couldn't believe it!  It was horrible, everyone was calling, people were concerned, every week in church I was quizzed about it being "normal" and ok!  Ugh!  In the back of my mind I remember how big Tim was too and that worried ME!  Would I be able to get a 20 lb baby out!?!?!? 

Finally, on Aug. 5, the midwife came over and checked the heart beat and other things and everything seemed fine.  She suggested I go get a stress test done on Monday (this was Friday night).   The Lord was so good, that very night/early morning, I went into labor.  It was rather quick.  Mark called the hospital and told them we were on the way (we chickened out from the home birth) and Addan came SO quickly (for me).  I went in at around 6am and he was snuggled in my arms at around 8am.  And he only weighed 9lbs.  God was so good!

Our friends who we shared the cough with, called and asked all about the baby.  The lady said to me, "Tammy, you know why you were late, don't you?"  I wasn't quite sure yet!  The memory was too fresh!  "Our daughter had whooping cough and that's what Mark and your boys all have.  The safest place for a newborn would be in your womb until the 6 week period of healing passed."  We figured out that 6 weeks was to the time of me having Addan.  God was protecting our sweet baby.  While we waited and tried everything to get him out, God knew what was best for him!

There's been so many times in my life that I try and manipulate circumstances to what I think is better only to see later, the different plan was God's best and for my best!  This lesson was SUCH a vivid picture of that for me!