(A powerful testimony of courage and perseverance).We arrived at the birth clinic, and my husband held me as I fearfully awaited the verdict.
“It’s too late to stop labor. Your baby will be born today,” the doctor pronounced. We began preparations to transfer to a larger hospital, and I wept. My second daughter, Grace, was born just a few hours later, weighing in at 3 lbs. 9 oz.
While my second daughter was my first actual preemie, she wasn’t the beginning of the story! I got married at age 22, starry-eyed and imagining how many children I could possibly have. I especially dreamed of holding a baby in my arms on my first anniversary. After announcing our first pregnancy, I was walking on clouds! But our joy was short-lived. Six weeks later we were saying good-bye. I was heart-broken.
As the months went by, I was pregnant again. And again I had to say good-bye. Then came the third loss. By the time I reached my first anniversary, I was expecting for the fourth time.
However, I wasn’t celebrating. Rather than celebrating my anniversary with a baby in my arms, I was in bed, bleeding, expecting a fourth loss. The first three times, my faith was strong, but this time, I hit a breaking point.
I began to question. I began to cry out to God. “Why God? Why are You doing this to me again?” I poured out my anger and frustration. I felt God had treated me unjustly. After a life of service and sacrifice, why would God do this to me?
Eventually I sobbed myself to sleep. When I awoke, I felt like there was an ultimatum. Which way would I go? Would I choose to follow God? Or would I walk away? Who was I without God? Did I want to find out?
I wrestled. I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. And you know what? God was indeed with me! He carried me through it all. In the end, I chose Christ. I decided that I would say, as Job said: “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
I still expected to experience yet another miscarriage over the next few days. But God had mercy. He spared the life of this little one! My pregnancy continued. I loved watching my belly grow and feeling the flutters, which soon turned into kicks and flips. I was delighted!
At twenty-eight weeks, however, I realized that something was very wrong. I was soon diagnosed with preterm labor. We fought hard to keep her in, taking and doing everything the doctor recommended. Finally at 37 weeks, we had our firstborn daughter, Rosy!
My second daughter came just 11 months later. Grace was born after another battle against preterm labor, but this time it wasn’t enough. She was born at 31 weeks.
With my third daughter I spent months on bed rest again, which culminated in a six week hospital stay. I was pumped full of drugs, which were doubled in dose and then tripled. During this pregnancy, I began to question the wisdom of having more children. I wondered if it was even possible to be a good mother to the children God had already given me. I saw giving up any future children as a sacrifice of love for them.
With great sadness we scheduled a vasectomy. However, between the initial appointment and the actual surgery, God changed our hearts. With great trepidation, we canceled it and waited to see what God had in store for us!
The fourth time, I endured six months of complete bedrest and had an in-home nurse come and give me bi-weekly progesterone injections in hopes of preventing the birth that seemed imminent. The sheer quantity of drugs, plus a total of six miscarriages by this point, took a toll on me and I decided that there had to be a better way to do things. The conventional route wasn’t working.
I began researching ways to treat preterm labor naturally. I started implementing what I learned, and I was able to cut my normal bedrest in half with my fifth baby, completely naturally! I felt successful. I continued to research and learn more and with my sixth baby I only had one month of bed rest. That was a major improvement. Both of those were completely drug-free and under the care of a midwife.
I was excited with how far I had come, but I wasn’t done learning. With my seventh baby, I eliminated the preterm labor altogether and I continued on to have baby eight and nine without any preterm labor. I also never lost another baby, either. I had successfully broken the cycle!
My husband and I are now missionaries living in Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, Mexico. Nathan is a church planter and we work primarily with the Tarahumara people group. I stay busy homeschooling my nine children, plus being involved in the many ministry opportunities God brings us. Life is good and I am grateful that God can use my past experiences and struggles to bless others. He truly does work all things together for good.
I wrote a full length book sharing my story! I believe it would encourage you if you have walked this road of loss, or even experienced any trial. I would recommend it to any woman. I share my faith journey through the process. There were times I questioned the Lord’s sovereignty but He showed Himself faithful, and walked through this journey with me! My book, “Lessons Learned: My Journey through Pregnancy, Miscarriage and Preterm Labor” also includes my guide to treating and preventing miscarriage and preterm labor naturally.
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Missionaries in Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, Mexico
Family picture: Nathan and Misty Marr with their nine beautiful children: Rosy (19), Grace (18), Lizzie (15), Andy (14), Bekah (12), Ruth (10), Philip, Susy (7), and James (6).Tomorrow I am going to send out to you 11 good ideas from Misty Marr to help you have a healthy pregnancy. Be looking for it.
424 Hits
Yes, you can change people’s lives every time you open your mouth!
One of the names of our God is the “God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3). Did you notice that He is the God of ALL comfort? We need God’s comfort in different ways as we face different situations in our lives. But there is nothing that is too painful for God’s comfort.
Do you love preparing meals for your family? Or do you find it a chore? Dearest wives and mothers, can I encourage you today that cooking and preparing meals for your family is not an insignificant task? It is a powerful part of your powerful mothering career. It holds families together. It keeps generations alive.
I read this morning Luke 6:40: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
Writing about parenthood, the great preacher and writer, J. R. Miller says: “Duties cannot be transferred.” I happen to agree with him although many modern Christians would not.
How well-taught are your children? In answering this question many mothers refer to the school or college to which they send their children, perhaps the best private school they can find in their area. Parents like their children to go to the most prestigious school possible.
I sometimes hear women use Proverbs 31 as an excuse to be career women. They say that this woman was in real estate because verse 16 says: “She considers a field and buys it.” To purchase land to plant a vineyard is not the same thing as being in a full-time career. Vineyards were part of home life in Israel. They were part of their survival. As this family grew, they needed land to plant another vineyard and so she needed to check out the most suitable land. It is still the lifestyle in Israel and European countries today. When ministering in different countries in Europe Colin and I have stayed with many families who own their own vineyards nearby to their homes.
Not easy to do, especially in our marriages, but it works miracles. Let’s keep soft and humble hearts. Matthew 19:8 tells us that a hard heart leads to divorce.
What a momentous job we have as mothers. It’s no ordinary job. It’s the most powerful in the nation. One of our many great tasks is to be the peacemakers and to keep unity in the home. Wow, that’s not easy, is it? Sometimes we ourselves can be the cause of disunity!
A dear friend shared with me today a beautiful understanding of God who is our El Shaddai which means "The Breasted One."
It is a very important aspect of parenting to build a hedge around our family and home. Truthfully, it is God who builds the hedge, but we have to do our part. God built a hedge around Job's home. Satan was not able to touch Job until God removed the protective hedge He put around him. Satan tells God in Job 1:10: "Hast not Thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?"
I love the different words God uses to describe our children. God loves to reveal His plans to us by pictures. Psalm 128:3 tells us that our children are like "olive plants" sitting all around our table. The Hebrew word for "olive" is "zayith" and means "an olive (as yielding illuminating oil)." Among many other uses the olive was used as oil for the lamps to light up their homes. It was also used to light the golden candlestick in the holy place of the tabernacle.
Proverbs 26:8 tells us that to bind a stone in a sling is as bad as giving honor to a fool! A stone in a sling is not meant to be bound up but to go forth to hit the target. It goes forth to slay the enemy. In the same way, we are foolish to bind up God's truth and hide it. God intends His words to go out from our mouths to accomplish God's plans and purposes (Isaiah 55:11). The spoken word has great power. God created the world with His Word. Many times, we hold back divine miracles from happening in our lives because we are too shy, too afraid, or too lazy to speak out the word of the Lord.
A mother wrote me, saying, "I love all the positivity about motherhood I read here, but it seems to outweigh the blurbs about loving wifehood. As a young mama who tries to keep my priorities of God, hubby, and children in that order, do you have any thoughts?"
Worry? Why worry? What can worry do?
Are you bold to speak the truth when deception and lies are being proclaimed? Or do you find it easy to stay silent because you feel too timid or you are concerned what people think of you?
The trying days, the sighing days, the days when things go wrong,