Jim and Lissa

Leave it to my husband to write a blog to tell me he loves me! Actually, to be completely honest, I came across it when I sat down to write my own blog for him. (Is that where the love note is headed these days? Is there yet such a thing as a "love blog?" I'm sure Jim will tell me if there is.) I had been planning all day to write "Eight Things I Love About Jim" or "Eight of My Favorite Memories From the Last Eight Years," but taking these precious years and boiling them down to a few points is just too daunting.

Sometime shortly before 7:00 CDT this evening, Lissa and I will have been married for exactly eight years! They have been eight crazy, amazing, scary, challenging, wonderful years. We left everything and everyone we knew in western New York to go to Dallas with nothing but jobs and dreams. (At least we had the jobs!) We struggled to find a church home where we both felt comfortable yet challenged to grow, and we were richly blessed.  We bought our first house.  We went on a mission trip to Serbia.  We had Brennan.  We became debt free except for the house.  We were trained as financial counselors.  We grew in faith — in ways we never could have imagined — together.  (Still so much growth to do!)

This past year or so has been especially trying...and rewarding.  We heeded God's call to again leave everything and everyone we knew in Dallas to go to Nashville and truly serve God in my work, something I had been praying about for years: work that matters.  We worked (and worked and worked ...) on the house to prepare it for a sale.  We packed up everything and moved it to Nashville, uprooting our entire little family and throwing ourselves into chaos.

This year has been unbelievably hard.  We have struggled, disagreed, worked tirelessly, argued, cried, prayed, and, at times, cracked.  But, through it all, we did it together, with God's provision, guidance, and grace.  There is no one else I would want — or who would have been able — to have shared this time with me.

I love you, Lis!

I have said it before, and before that, and probably even before that.  I really do intend to be better about posting — to be more deliberate and consistent — each time I say it.  It's not that I don't have things that I want to say or share on this site, but I guess I have a hard time getting up the motivation to actually sit down and write, not to mention that we have a 2-year-old running all over the place.

Well, my department leader at my job has inspired both me and Lissa to take up what will hopefully be some more regular posting.  That, combined with the fact that Lissa and Brennan are out of town this week, has given me some motivation to technologically update the site (mostly under the hood) and write this.  Needless to say, much has happened in the past 27+ months since my last post when Brennan was born.  I will try to recap in some semblance of chronological order:

1. We made it home from the hospital safe and sound (as you probably guessed), and got little sleep for awhile.  But, Brennan is amazing and good, so everything has gone smoothly overall.
2. We paid off Lissa's car. No more car payments!
3. We paid off Lissa's last student loan. No more student loans!
4. We are debt free except for the house!  (Sensing a theme?)
5. We led a Financial Peace University class at church.
6. We traveled to Nashville to be trained as Certified Financial Counselors.  Yes, both of us!  Note:  Financial Counselors, not Financial Planners.  There is a huge difference.
7. Brennan turned one.  We rented a pavilion and attempted to have a cookout to celebrate, but it was freezing, and we ended up back at our house. 
8. After much prayer, discussion, angst, and advice-seeking, I applied for a web development position with The Lampo Group, Inc. in Nashville.
9. I — and actually Lissa too — had several e-mail and phone interviews with Lampo over the next 3 months, and when they were seemingly about to hire me, I turned down the job.  It's OK.  That particular position just wasn't a good match for me.
10. We took a vacation to South Padre Island with my parents (my mom was newly-semi-kinda-retired), and we hated it.  The trip and the company were great; it was the area that we hated.
11. While in South Padre, Lampo got back in touch with me about another position that matched exactly what I had told them I was hoping to pursue!
12. <<Insert more e-mail conversations and phone interviews here.>>
13. Lissa and I traveled to Nashville without Brennan for final in-person interviews.
14. I accepted the job as Lampo's new System Administrator, I tendered my resignation to Idearc, I did a knowledge transfer at work, we worked endlessly and tirelessly on the house to prepare it to sell (with immeasurable help from friends), we moved to Nashville, we lived temporarily in a condo, I began my new job, we accepted an offer on the house after three days on the market, we found a rental house in Nashville, we traveled back to Dallas to pack the house and move, and we moved everything we own to Nashville (ourselves) and into the rental house...all in the span of two months!  <<Deep breath.>>
15. We are completely debt free and have a fully-funded emergency fund.
16. Brennan turned two.
17. We experienced the remainder of what have likely been nine of the craziest, most exhilarating, most difficult, most rewarding, most faith-challenging, most relationship-challenging, most emotion-draining, greatest months of our lives as we learned and fought and grew and prayed as a family.
     
     
     
     
18. ... Oh, yeah.  Then we got called by our former neighbors in Dallas to tell us that their had been a police standoff at our old house, and a man had been shot and killed on our front steps by a sniper.

All in all, it has been fairly quiet and calm in our lives since my last post. 

I apologize for the delayed posting, but as you can imagine, things have been crazy. We did the C-Section shortly after 4:30 p.m., and Brennan Jacob was born at 4:53.

http://brennan.jimandlissa.com/

Due to the slow progress, the doctor introduced a very small dose of Pitocin to move labor along. This seemed to work well at first, but as the strength of contractions increased, the baby wasn't responding well. The heart rate would drop each time, indicating that the cord may be wrapped around an arm, shoulder, or something. So, now a C-Section has been scheduled for 4:30 p.m. CST. So, ready or not, here comes the baby!

The next update should introduce him or her!

It seems that the doctor who said Lissa was at 9cm was wrong. When she was checked again at noon, she was still only 5cm. So, unlike what we thought, things are actually progressing slowly. I guess now we just hang in there...

Well, it's the real thing! We got to the hospital at around 8:30. When they checked around 9:00, Lissa was already dilated 5cm. Right now she is up to 9cm and is getting her epidural. (They kick me out of the room during the procedure, so I could take a few minutes to send an update.)

I'll tell you one thing, Lissa sure has been strong. (Thanks for your prayers!) She doesn't have a high pain tolerance, but she has really been amazing.

Things are moving really quickly. So quickly that they weren't even sure they had time to do the epidural. Additionally, the baby finally dropped. (Lissa's doctor wasn't sure that the baby would fit.) It shouldn't be long now!!!

Well, unless it's false labor, it seems that it is time! Lissa had contractions most of the night. They started off at about 15-minute intervals. Then they dropped to 10 minutes. Since about 5:30 CST this morning, they have been pretty consistent around 4, 5, or 6 minutes. So, it's probably about time to head off to the hospital.
Subject to my access to a phone connection (or the strength of my cellular signal) and Lissa's needs, I will be trying to post some updates as things progress. Of course I will include any pictures as they become available.
We would both appreciate your prayers:

• That this is real labor.
• That everything will go smoothly and without complications.
• That Lissa at least has a chance at a normal delivery rather than a C-Section.
• That Lissa will have the strength, endurance, and patience she needs throughout labor and/or surgery.
• That I will be able to support Lissa in any way she needs.
• That our little gift from God will be healthy, strong, and active.
• That, regardless of what happens, we both recognize that it is God's will and that He is control of everything.

And the silence is finally broken.

Yes, I've been absent for quite some time. It's understandable, you see, for as many of you know, it will soon be Jim and Lissa plus one!! I know that is a scary thought, but there is no turning back now. Lissa will be 37 weeks pregnant -- full term -- tomorrow! So, this could all become a reality any day now.

Every day when my computer brings up this page as my home page, I am filled with guilt that I have gone so long without blogging or updating. But then I get over it. I have enough things in my life to worry about! Besides, my reasons are really good ones. It has been an exceptionally busy, exciting time for us these last five or six months. Once we left for Serbia we did do lots of blogging, but we did it on the Taste of Serbia website. Then, after returning from that amazing experience, I attended lots of staff development for the upcoming school year, we celebrated our five year wedding anniversary, and... we found out I was pregnant! (To answer the ever-popular question, no, we did not get pregnant overseas.) I proceeded to make my way through the first trimester, waiting with anticipation to share our great news, struggling with many complex emotions and adjusting to changes in my body (which included nausea and vomiting, of course). Immediately after the first trimester ended, I suffered from pleurisy, an inflammation of the lining between my rib and lung. It was an incredibly painful, frightening two weeks, but God was gracious and ever-present, granting me more peace than I could have imagined. When that was finally over I was well into my fourth month and I finally started feeling like myself again.