... or even Red Roof Inn, but Nathan and I are just hanging out together at Providence Hospital tonight.   It has just hit midnight, so today is officially the day that baby #5 will make his appearance with the help of the Lord and some kind medical staff.  

I’m feeling pretty wimpy about it all at the moment.   We had the test of the amniotic fluid today and it seems to have used up my current store of bravery!   It was intensely painful, and we ran into complications when the baby moved the umbilical cord against the needle.   It punctured the cord, drawing out cord blood that began to stream into the amniotic fluid and rendered the test ineffective.  

They took me to prenatal triage for a while, and everything seems fine... baby’s heart beat is strong!   After a concensus with the medical staff, we’ve agreed that even though we can’t officially confirm the lung growth on the baby, we’re sort of out of time and options, and baby looks big and healthy, so we’re proceeding with a labor induction around 8 or 9 AM tomorrow. 

So, we’re going to try to sleep here a bit, and praying that labor will begin quickly and that I won’t need a lot of pitocin for the process.   Also, for those of you who have been praying with us for a name for wee hobbit, I think the Lord has heard our prayer and indeed given us a name!   You’ll just have to keep tuned in for that! :)

I think we’re both feeling a little fragile tonight, yet still very held by the promises of the Lord, and very grateful as we recount to those around us His faithfulness.   My sister Oksana in Ukraine sent a verse to my Mom that has been so encouraging to me.   It’s from  Malachi 4:2,

        But to you who fear My name

      The Sun of Righteousness shall arise

      With healing in His wings;

What a promise!   It holds to me all the hope and potential of a sunrise, the lifting that you feel when the gray is swept away and the sun suddenly breaks through!   Living in a land where we see so little of the sun for months has just made it that much more precious to me.  

I’m wishing I was nearer my little folks just now, but so grateful that they are safely asleep accross town under the watchful care of Aunt Dani and Mimi, my Mom who finally arrived on the plane this afternoon.   So I rest and wait and look for the rising of the sun tomorrow, and the blessing that I know will be there, because when you are a child of God, every day is blessed.