4 little Ferguson’s, 4 big Miracles

As I held Paxton in my arms today, I was reflecting on my life, and the journey it took for us to get to these 4 little Ferguson’s that fill our home with giggles and grins……..

I remember as a newlywed, discussing with Dale how long we’d wait to have children.  He was at a commission only job, and thought 4 years would be good.  I was hoping for more like 1 or 2! I was sitting in church one Sunday, and a little baby boy was peeking his head over his momma’s shoulder at me.  My heart swelled, my eyes filled with tears and I squeezed Dale’s hand tight and asked, how can I wait so long for my dream to come true?  All my life I had wanted to be a wife and mother!  I had been a wife for 8 months now, couldn’t we get to the mother part?  Sensible Dale, and his good money management, said we needed to wait so I could be a stay at home mommy.  I sighed, wiped my tears and agreed. Yes, I could definitely wait 4 years, if it meant I could stay at home with my baby. Little did I know, we were already TWO MONTHS PREGNANT!  We didn’t figure it out until one day I came home from work SO excited about supper!!!!!! I had run to 2 different stores to gather the things necessary to make this extraordinary meal of…….

Mac n cheese, little smokies and  fluffy white rolls.

Remember that school lunch?  Man I loved it!  To say Dale was disappointed, would be a major understatement!!!  He thought for sure, I surprising him with a steak dinner.  He looked at me like I was CRAZY!

Between that bizarre supper, the flu-like symptoms I had for a month now, and me bawling over Dale saying he was getting rid of the dog, we figured out it was time for me to pee on a stick.  Yup, pregnant!  We cried, we laughed, we sat there in complete shock.  So much for our 4 year plan.  But what about me staying home?  There was NO WAY we could live off Dale’s income.  With commission only, we never knew when the next check was coming!

15 months into our marriage, little 7 lb. 11 oz., Destiny Joy came to be part of our home, and guess who got to be at home with her from the very beginning? Yup! Me!  God answered our prayers for me to be a stay at home mom.  He laughed at our 4 year plan and gave me the desires of my heart, well before the 4 year mark.  And you know, the numbers never did add up right for us to “afford” for me to quit my job. But month after month, He provided. Sometimes by a bill coming with credit on it, even though I had only paid the stated amount the month before. Or an unexpected refund check would come in the mail.  And man, $50 used to go far at Aldi’s! (like the woman with the oil jar in the Bible) I NEVER do that good there now! lol 🙂  God provided for our each and EVERY need, all because we trusted in Him!  Praise His name!

When Destiny turned 2, we decided it was time to try for another little Ferguson.  I got pregnant in Bahamas, but I also got food poisoning from some bad crab……I was sick for 10 days, oh the misery!  Later, I lost our first baby. 😦  I was heartbroken.  We decided to try again, and a few months later, got a positive test.  Yay!  A little brother or sister for Destiny.  Again, we miscarried. Again, I went to the clinic every day to have blood drawn to follow the pregnancy hormones back to zero.  Again the humiliation of losing a child.  (I don’t know why, but you really feel like you did something wrong!)  Destiny says “It’s ok momma, our baby is in Heaven with Jesus and the angels.”     Now the fear was starting to set in.  I had been very, very, sick after Destiny’s birth, with infection, and spent months in bed. Could it have damaged me?  Was I EVER going to carry another child to term again?  The Lord blessed me with a special verse to cling to:

(  ) = my personalization

Ephesians 3: 14-19 “When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the creator of everything in Heaven and on earth.  I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give (me) mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit.  And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in (my) heart as I trust in him.  May (my) roots go down deep in the soil of God’s marvelous love.  And may (I) have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love really is.  May (I) experience the love of Christ, though it is so great (I) will never fully understand it.  Then (I) will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

The fullness of life, I just knew that was God’s promise, that I would be pregnant once again.  I clung to a small strand of hope that it was true, praying it would be so and done to His honor and glory, begging Him night after night, to let me carry another child to term, to let another baby live down here on earth with me.

6 months later, I found out I was pregnant again.  Praise be to God!   We made it far enough along, that we told people, and I was starting to wear maternity clothes.  Then, miscarriage number 3 occurred.  How humiliating it was to “un-tell” people!!  Now I was just mad!  How could God do this to me? He gave me that verse about fullness of life!!!!!  My life long dream was to have 4-6 kids, and it was just not happening!

I told Him I was ticked, and no longer would be talking to Him about having a baby.  I would run this show myself!   We saw a specialist and they ran $10,000 worth of blood and genetic tests.  They all came back normal.  There was no reason my body couldn’t carry another baby to term.  So, we went home, me more determined than ever, and started counting days, and all that hoopla that entails.  We conceived, and this time I almost made it to the end of the first trimester.  I was in full maternity clothes, and feeling great;  THIS was going to be THE pregnancy, I just knew it!  The Thursday before Mother’s Day, I miscarried my 4th baby in 2 years.  This time I broke.  I sobbed, I repented, I gave it all to my Abba Father, my daddy in Heaven.  I confessed my stubbornness, and my pride.  I laid my desire of having more children on the altar, and stepped back and let go.  What a scary thing to do!  I felt sad, yet so very much at peace. I knew this was what God had been asking me to do all along.

On May 24th, Dale and I reached our 5th anniversary.  We celebrated, as most married couples do (wink wink) just to celebrate, with no thoughts of a baby, and conceived just 2 weeks after our 4th miscarriage.  For those of you unfamiliar with miscarriage, your body usually takes a good 6 months to “reset” from a miscarriage, and prepare for another cycle.  What a miracle! Our due date was February 14th.  Our anniversary baby had a Valentine’s day due date….how romantic! 🙂

Tylan Zachary Ferguson came into the world on February 15th, after 3 months of bed rest and lots of medication to keep me pregnant.  He was a hearty, healthy 9 1/2 pounds.  Oh, how my heart leapt for joy to have another baby in my arms and home.  Destiny was 3 1/2 at this time and SO happy to have a baby brother!  She would sit and hold him, an hour at a  time, stroking his face, and telling him how special he was.

After all our troubles, it was explained to us, that we may never have another baby again, we were sad, but ok.  We were SO very thankful for our 2! We now had a boy and a girl, our family could be complete, and I was going to learn to be content with my 2 on earth and 4 in Heaven.  I figured that was God’s way of giving me my 6 kids.

Then, one morning, I woke up very abruptly, and sat straight up in my bed.  The first thing I thought was “Hmm, since we are out of bedrooms, the new baby could sleep in the basinet in the corner of our room.”  WHAT?  My heart started racing, what a weird dream!  But, wait, hold on…..I HAD been feeling lousy, and bloated, and nauseous….oh my word! Could we be pregnant?  I was still nursing my 10 month old full-time and hadn’t had a cycle yet!  I took a test, went to the doctor and found out……WE WERE 15 WEEKS PREGNANT!!!!!  My 10 month old was going to be a big brother!

Oh. My. Goodness.

Avery Lyn Ferguson was born on my 27th birthday, 5 days early no less!  She was 10 pounds, 3 oz.  Another natural delivery, another miracle brought into our lives!  Her pregnancy was, by the book perfect, with the exception of some leg problems (nerve damage from Ty’s pregnancy), but nothing life threatening to either of us.  I was so thankful for another healthy baby, but started praying that God would allow my body at least a 2 year break, since it seemed to be “fixed” of our previous problem of staying pregnant.  With a 4-year-old and 2 babies, 17 months apart, I was SO happy, but SO exhausted! 

And wouldn’t you know, He allowed us to get pregnant again…this baby due right after Avery turned 2.  Isn’t God funny? He TOTALLY has a sense of humor!  He gave me my 2 year “break”.  Dale told me next time I should pray more specifically.  Like that I wouldn’t GET pregnant until the 2 year mark, not that the next baby be BORN at the 2 year mark.   🙂

Pregnancy number 8, in 8 years, was hard on this ol’ body.  I had more complications with this final pregnancy than ever before.  Paxton was diagnosed with a Complete Circumvallate Placenta.  This means the placenta was not properly attached, which allows a thick, round white and opaque ring of membranes to slowly cover the placenta, limiting minerals, nutrients and oxygen to Paxton throughout the pregnancy.  We started praying right then and there, that God would feed our baby, since my body could not!

Pregnant women who experience circumvallate placenta, are at a very high risk to deliver a premature baby or have a miscarriage. You can imagine how often I fought the spirit of fear those first 25 weeks! I started contracting at 14 weeks, and I spent the next 6 months on bed rest, and once again, saw a specialist.  It’s so hard to not be fearful when you have a history of losing babies, so DAILY, HOURLY, I had to give my fears to Him.  Pleading with the Lord to allow this baby to live here on earth, with me.

God gave me another special verse to cling to, this time through a dear friend:

Psalms 23:7 (TLB):  “(She) will not fear bad news, nor live in dread of what will happen. For (she) has settled in her mind, that Jehovah will take care of (Paxton).”

Wow, how powerful!  And what a promise. Oh, how I clung to that verse like a life line!

Paxton Clay came into the world at a whopping 10 pounds 3 oz!  Not only had God fed Paxton for me, He fed him WELL!  🙂  What a miracle!  The perimeter of the placenta was 95% covered in that white opaque band, and still we had a BIG healthy boy.  I get chills and teary eyed just thinking about it, and the miracle occurring in my womb all along, God was providing my little Paxton with the food and oxygen he needed to live. Praise the Lord!

So here we are, Dale, Tonya & 4 little Ferguson’s….. 

God has answered my hearts desires, and I am living my very own dream come true!  I often think about my 4 babies in Heaven, and look forward to the day when I can kiss those sweet faces.  Until then, I know they are safe in the arms of their Abba Father, their Daddy in Heaven, and for that, I can be truly thankful. 

“No one else knows the strength of my love for you. After all, you’re the only ones who know what my heart sounds like from the inside.”

 

~T

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