Pics.

Sunday morning...

We went to church this morning. It seemed to me as the most natural thing to do until I was getting off the car and received this comment from a gentleman: "Are you kidding me? You just had a baby!" then he said, "when we had babies my wife would be completely off her feet for over a week or so!" Since I wasn´t planning on engaging in a physical activity per se, I hadn´t seen the need to stay home. Going to church, in my book, engages you in a spiritual activity more than anything. Of course, there are physical expressions that, more likely than not, will accompany your worship and your participation in service, but those aren´t mandatory and you may do without them if you must. I had the choice between sitting in my living room couch by myself this morning lamenting how little I slept last night and having my own pity party or sitting in the sanctuary surrounding myself with worship and the Word. My options made it easy.

Now, I understand that there are times when you absolutely need to stay home and I don´t intend to bring about any condemnation upon those who feel they must stay home at times when I would chose the opposite. We are all "wired" differently, even in the spiritual. In my own personal experience, church is always the last thing I "drop". It is not because I am the Assoc. Pastor´s wife, it is because I benefit from church. Throughout my life, even when I was "just one more face" in a crowd of thousands I have always been ministered to in the corporate setting. God has always spoken to me personally and directly through the Word preached from the altar. I have always found release, healing, and victory through corporate worship. I have witnessed the power of corporate prayer. I have been nurtured spiritually through the Word. During the most difficult and challenging times in my life, I have found God in church. I can still find Him at home, but there is something powerful about the congregation... about meeting with the faithful and pressing into the presence of God together.

So, on a day like today when I finally managed to go to sleep at 6.00 a.m., nursed all night long, and ended up with two little ones on the bed with us in order to be able to sleep a little after 6 the last thing my body wants to do is get up, get ready and get going. But on a day like today when I am so much more vulnerable than ever to find reasons to feel sorry for myself, church will be the very last thing I´ll drop! In the altar I was refreshed, worship reminded me that I am so very blessed and the Word encouraged me to find the rest of the Lord!

Another quick one...

Let's see... it has been exactly one week and I could write very long about my week but I'll summarize it for you in a few highlights and pics.

• Came home on Monday

• Have enjoyed the most wonderful variety of fabulous meals. What a blessing to have a church family!

• Tuesday, while enjoying a great dinner we were all sitting at the table. Most of us eating and one tiny one nursing =0) Ben was opening the bottle of hot sauce to add to his meal and when he opened the bottle it shot a squirt of hot sauce straight in Elena's face. Now, luckily it was on the side of her head, part of her cheek and her ear, but knowing how hot that sauce was chaos broke loose! I had a nursing baby on my lap and couldn't really move fast enough; my mom was trapped between the table and the wall so her reaction was hindered as well. Ben rushed to get her and tried to start cleaning it off in the kitchen sink. The whole thing got Elena startled and, sure enough, she rubbed her eye! Next thing you know, nursing baby was quickly released into "Pita's" (Elena's name for my mom) arms and Papi and Elena were under the shower as we tried to flush the stuff off her eye. It was quite an ordeal but we calmed her (and ourselves) down and the meal was too good to not go back to it (thanks Maureen!).

• I feel like I've been nursing 23 hours a day and only managed 10 minutes of sleep!

• Elena is so sweet to her little sister! We are so blessed to see such a loving attitude towards her as so many changes have been happening. It is so wonderful to see them together and realize how much Elena has grown and now fills the hat of "big sister".

• Today, our downstairs apartment has been vacated and we are ready to move in! Tomorrow I'll walk the place writing a list of all the cleaning that needs to be done and hopefully recruit the help of some friends who have kindly offered their time for a cleaning day this week. Ben has begun to evaluate the opening of the wall/doorway to connect both apartments and we are looking forward to moving our living areas down there ASAP... it is so much cooler down there and just having the added space will also give us a sense of freshness and feel most definitely cooler!

Off to try to get some rest! Once again, I´m having problems with the posting of pics. I don´t know why, but my time here now is too limited to try to figure it out... sorry, I´ll try again later!

A new family...

We are home! After the longest imaginable "first stage" of labor, the rest of it went pretty quickly. We arrived at the hospital with contractions every 3 to 5 minutes at 4 p.m. By 6 p.m. I didn´t want to leave the tub as contractions were almost a minute apart. Now considering my first experience (8 hours of "transition"), that didn´t necessarily stroke me as good news. However, our nurse came in with the news that my doctor was there and was offering to examine me and, if everything was ok, go ahead and break my water. Everything was good and perfect, water was broken at around 7 p.m. and Adriana saw the light at 7.30 p.m.! I´ll post more later but thought you might enjoy a few more pics.

First pictures as a Family...

I meant to post more pics. but, as it is, it has already taken me a day to manage to upload these two... Sorry... will try later!

She has arrived!

Adriana Hope Levendusky
7/22/2006
7 pounds, 4 ounces
18.5 inches

All is well with mom and baby!

- Ben

Not here yet...

Our baby, that is... as you all know, my due date was on Monday and we're still counting days. I'm at peace, though, at least as much as I can be considering how hard it is to live normal life with such an impending event! But I am learning and eager to "walk the line". I'm not trying to undermine the challenges of being "in-labor-but-not-really". I can't deny the challenges of having contractions on and off and wondering if this "bout" of contractions will finally kick things into high gear and going to bed just to wake up later and realize that "we're still here". However, I don't want to walk through this aimless and hopelessly feeling sorry for myself and the overall discomfort I face. I know that He has a reason for everything and I so much want to grasp everything there is in this process to draw me closer to Him. I have learned so much of His love through the love of those around me from my husband and my mom to everyone at church. Everyone has been so gracious and supportive. We haven't had to cook a meal for the past couple days as people are already bringing us food. As eager as I am to meet this little person I don't want to rush the process God is using to make me grow. I will continue to update you as I am able to do and soon enough you'll hear the news!

News reports

This will most surely be my last posting until after the baby is born. I will be 40 weeks tomorrow and I can definitely tell that things will "kick in" sooner than later though, as you may know, there is no telling exactly when. So our bags are packed and we´re ready to go but we are making the most of the last moments/days of this pregnancy as well.

Friday night, my mom and I were settling for a night of P&P and Ben was leaving for youth group. About five minutes after he had gone, I heard him coming back up the stairs carrying something... Much to our delight, this is what had just been delivered:

We were thrilled! Thank you, you, and you! What a wonderful and precious gift to bless this baby with! I love you!

It turns out that all the time I had been going on and on about not having yet a bassinet, my husband was in on the surprise and this moses basket was being expected! Now we are indeed ready for this baby to come!

To add to our news, our downstairs neighbors have found an apartment to move into and will be moved out by Aug. 01. Now, I was hoping to have this happened before the baby came, but once we knew it was going to take them a bit longer I had resigned myself to the idea of not having the apartament available until after mid August.

Now, as I said earlier, I won´t be posting anymore until our new baby comes. Please keep us in your prayers as it could be anything from a few hours to a few days for the arrival! I will try to post as soon as we have news!

One more week

We've made it one more week. My mom arrives tonight and I'm happy and excited. It will be hard to be all crammed up in this little apartment but we will make it work. Our downstairs neighbors haven't found a place to move yet so in a week or two it will be five of us in this little space. My gracious husband has been so understanding of my culture, our need of proximity and the loss of privacy that comes with the territory! I know for a fact not everyone would understand, let alone appreciate having their mother-in-law move in for such extended periods of time. Guatemalan people don't know about doulas, it is usually customary for one of the mothers to move in with the new family to help with the new baby and all the household tasks. When this doesn't happen, it is usually because they live close enough to each other that mom shows up on a daily basis. Blending in the privacy of my husband's culture with the lack thereof of mine has been interesting. But as many other things we have faced in creating our own "home" culture we work at it one day at a time and understand that God is in the midst of the making of our home.

At any rate, we will continue to keep you posted about our new little Levendusky timely!

Quick Update

For those of you whose only means of information about our family is this space in the web and who are wondering about us, let me update you: we don't have a baby yet, I am still very pregnant and we expect to stay like this for at least one more week. My due date is not until the 17th and the doctor has warned me not to be surprised if we go a couple days later because all along this baby seems to be smaller than their "age". We are happily enjoying these last few days. VBS is obviously over, the Mexico team is half way through their trip and my mom is expected to arrive on Monday night. Some pics. for your enjoyment (hopefully)

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Para aquéllos cuyo único medio de información de nuestra familia es este espacio en la red y que se están preguntando cómo estamos, déjenme actualizarlos: todavía no tenemos bebé, todavía estoy esperando y "esperamos" permanecer asi por lo menos una semana más. Mi fecha estimada para dar a luz es el 17 y el doctor me ha advertido no sorprenderme si nos pasamos un par de días porque este/a bebé parece estar un poco más pequeño que su "edad". Estamos felizmente disfrutando de estos últimos días. Obviamente la Escuela Bíblica de Vacaciones ya termino, el equipo que viajó a México está a medio viaje y mi mamá viene el lunes en la noche. Le pongo unas fotos para que disfruten (ojalá)

Our little girl...

Nuestra niñita...

This is our doctor...

Este es nuestro doctor...

My husband as he was dressed up as a firefighter during VBS...

Mi esposo vestido de bombero para la escuela de vacaciones...

In the process of being dressed up...

En el proceso de disfrazarlo...

38 weeks pregnant...

38 semanas de embarazo...