My adventure of mothering had begun and the first challenge came with breastfeeding the little tike.  I had inverted nipples and I just could not get him to latch on.  I am sure that all the drugs poured into my body before his birth did not help his ability to have a strong suck.  Thank the Lord there was a woman who kept encouraging me not to give up. I would take a bottle nipple and put in over my nipple so he could latch on. It took time to get the milk flowing, sometimes the bottle nipple would fall off and spill all over me. For a first time mom this was not the best experience. But, we persevered and after about seven weeks, he latched on himself and we continued until we conceived.

Twenty two months after the birth of our son, our little girl was born. I had a repeat cesarean section, because that is just what you do. Hospital policy. We had moved to a different city by this time and I took a train down to where my doctor was for my check ups, because I could not change insurance midstream. During one of trips, three weeks before my due date, I went into labor. When I went into the hospital to prep for surgery, my water broke. The thought came to my mind, "Maybe I could just have this baby naturally", but I was told, "NO", and the surgery was done. Our little girl was a healthy 6#5oz. bundle and we were thankful considering I still didn't "know nothing about having babies." Nursing was easier this time and we continued for about 17 months.

You probably know how the scenario goes. We now had the all American family, a boy and a girl. What were we to do now? We haphazardly used a form of birth control and Natural Family planning. The only problem was, we were more natural than we planned!! Well, we soon conceived our third child. Now this was a challenge. At this time my husband had stepped out of church ministry and was only working part time jobs. We had no insurance. We were really crazy!  In the eighties, having a third child with out the security of a job and insurance would be classified as insanity.   The Lord was still in control. We kept chanting our mantra; “We Love you Lord and know you will work everything out for our good and Your Glory.“  He certainly did. My husband got a job that included medical benefits, even with the pre-existing condition of pregnancy. Little did we know how valuable this would prove be.

Our third child, a precious BIG boy, at 9lbs. 7oz., was born by repeat section, but he was not healthy. He checked out O.K. at birth but my heart told me there was something "not right," I kept trying to get a pediatrician to look at him. When he nursed, he seemed to labor so hard and have a difficult time breathing and nursing at the same time. He had a rare birth defect that required his transport to Children's hospital. This is a whole another story itself, but in summary, he was there for seven weeks, suffered a stroke and two surgeries. It was really a medical fiasco, but we finally had our precious little boy home at seven weeks. I had pumped during those seven weeks so I could maintain my milk supply, as I was not allowed to nurse him during his stay in the hospital. This was not easy, as I was encouraged by the staff to just bottle feed him and I would not need to keep up the routine of pumping. As a more experienced mom by now, my heart told me otherwise and the Lord gave me the grace to continue. My little one nursed like a trooper when he got home and continued for over 22 months!! I know that it was the Lord. We loved him and He worked everything out!