Life With the Norman's: August 2014

Last Wed, I began limited ultrasound training for the Keim Center where I've been volunteering at for a little over 2 years. It has been one crazy, wonderful, stressful, educational, awesome 8 days. I've learned several things about myself and about what it really means to be apart of a ministry.

A little bit of the saga of the past week just at the clinics alone: The first 2 days, that I can remember went really well. The 3rd day was when we really started feeling the attacks from Satan, knowing he wanted to discourage us as much as possible from finishing the training. It started off with Curtis screaming every time I tried to put him down or hand him to his wonderful 3rd Grandma, Grandma Charlotte. Then, Tori's shoe broke. That makes a job wear you have to stand all day very difficult. And then, while our fearless leader was taking a much needed day off to work on her house that she's suppose to move in to next week, the printer on the ultrasound machine broke. It's not a huge deal at the time because the actual machine still worked, we just couldn't give our ultrasound models or patients any pictures, and could not print off our images for our doctor to review. Pictures for models are not such a huge deal, but for pts, when they are seeking an abortion after the ultrasound, for the clinic to use our ultrasound measurements, we have to provide the pictures, so this made that kind of impossible. So we got a trainee repair guy to come out and look at it while we rescheduled all ultrasound patients to our Va Beach clinic. The repair guy was shady, did not tell us from the get go how much we would be paying him, then gave us a way more than necessary quote for doing absolutely nothing and possibly making the machine worse. Saturday, we saw just ultrasound models, but still could not give them pictures. Isaac tried to look at the computer part and fix it, but it didn't happen. Monday morning, with our first model on the table at 9AM, the machine just quit working. We fiddled with it some, tried figuring out something to do to make it work, but it didn't happen. So, we moved everything out to the beach location, which was still open as a clinic as well. So now, we're doing our training and also trying to figure out how to see pts. That was interesting...but good practice for when Tori and I will be solo nurses at the clinic. Tuesday, we started our blessings (eucharistao) list because we needed to keep our perspective on Jesus and off of everything Satan was trying to do. I think it was that day that we were clearly told our ultrasound machine was dead and it would not be usable any longer. Wed was an encouraging day, but somewhat stressful as Tori and I covered the clinic as well as did our training. It started out with scanning one of my favorite people here in Virginia and finding a heartbeat and seeing that everything looked like we wanted it to with the baby. I wanted to do a little happy dance at seeing that little heart beat :) but I contained my self :) Then, our fearless leader was told there was an ultrasound machine in Chesterville, but they had to go look at it then, so she left and it was Tori, Heather and I. I then, had my first patient who, once leaving, told the advocate that she was leaning more towards carrying to term after talking to me and the advocate. That made my heart happy. Today was a wonderful last day. We had a pretty easy morning so we did our book work and reviewed, saw 3 patients and really didn't have much craziness going on. That is the type of day we like. And we were praising God that he provided us an ultrasound machine in Norfolk and can't wait to try it :) All in all, we did 57 scans in 8 days. I feel like I've run a marathon but am so thankful for the past week.

On the family side of things, Curtis stayed with 7 different babysitters, traveled from close to Portsmouth, to Va Beach, to Chesapeake, to Suffolk and has been a trooper the whole time. The first few days were pretty difficult and it just broke my heart to leave him, but he got to where he would take his bottle and eat food and most of the time nap for the baby sitters. We are so incredibly blessed to have so many friends to help us do life and make it through the harder times.

Some of the things God has taught me this week:

1.When working for a ministry (or really anywhere) you have to be flexible. You never know what's gonna happen. I've always felt like I was pretty good at that, but God really stretched it this week and showed me that it wasn't me who was gonna make it happen. I had to rely on Him for the flexibility to not have my plans happen.

2.God has solidified in my heart that He wants me as a stay-at-home mom right now and it was the right decision to leave the hospital. It has been incredibly hard to leave Curtis every day and I hate only spending an hour or so with him a day before he goes to bed. And he has struggled as well. He would cling to me in the morning before I left, which is abnormal and nurse forEVER, which is not normal since he typically gets distracted very easily. I am thankful for this opportunity and look forward to hopefully working part time for the ministry in the future and love my days where I volunteer, but I am exactly where God wants me for now.

3. He has also taught me that this type of nursing is where he wants me. It's hard, mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically. It challenges my brain, stretches my comfort level and sometimes breaks my heart. But it is right where He wants me that's exactly where I want to be. I love this ministry. I love it's purpose. I love having the privilege of being apart of saving lives and am so thankful for the opportunity to get to do that.

4. I have the best husband ever! I've told him several times this past week that he wins husband of the year and I've meant it every time. He has driven all over our wonderful city to pick Curtis up, and pick me up. He tried his hardest to fix our ultrasound machine. He took care of our crying, fussy, sometimes screaming child. He babysit for our god daughter while taking care of Curtis. He has helped with dishes, laundry, cooking, and cleaning. I am so incredibly thankful for him and know that if it weren't for him helping me, I would not have made it through. God knew what he was doing when He gave me Isaac :)

All in all, it was a wonderful week. We still have our classroom part in Fredericksburg,and then competency, but I think compared to this, that will be a breeze :) I'm looking forward to seeing what God will do.

Our sweet baby boy is 9 months old today. I can't believe in just a few months, he'll be a year. The time truly does fly, but it is such a sweet, sweet time. I love how, as he grows, he is coming more and more in to his personality. Some of that personality is showing to be stubborn and hard headed, but that's only a small part. For the most part, he is an incredibly happy baby. He laughs all the time. He loves to make noises such as growling, screeching and yelling and then laughing at himself. He's learned to clap. He's learned to begin chasing Peaches around and loves it when Peaches comes and sniffs him because it tickles him. He loves playing with his little friends at church, but hasn't quite figured out that he can't pull up on them like he does us. He loves to stand at the door when Peaches is outside and bang on the door and yell for her. He's begun babbling some rather than just making sounds. He makes a sound that sounds like he's trying to bark, I guess because he hears Peaches bark, but it's hilarious. He keeps us laughing all the time. There is pretty much never a dull moment. At the same time, if he's not happy, he definitely lets you know it. He has a very pitiful cry that is hard to resist when he's mad or sad.

Here are some of his 9 month pictures and a few others from this past month.

This particular picture is getting somewhat dangerous to do, so it might be the last month for that considering he definitely tried to come off the chair.