{"id":192,"date":"2019-06-19T11:49:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T09:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?p=192"},"modified":"2021-03-03T07:44:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T06:44:53","slug":"faith-over-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"Faith Over Fear."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The last few weeks, I have pushed myself to finalize most of the things to do regarding work and now am finally on maternity leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s getting real as now, my agenda is all about me and getting ready to meet this little princess  and offcourse the usual turning my house upside down and scrubbing the walls .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just realized, because I have been all over the place, my emotions have not had the chance to settle and now that am home, I am beginning to realise how emotional and what a milestone this time is for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With I-J, I had just graduated and immediately started my master degree 5days after she was born and with Olivia, I was mourning and not really on maternity leave. So, having four weeks to prepare before baby’s arrival and another 12 weeks to care for the baby is a blessing I cannot begin to grasp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Tuesday, I went for my routine check up. The lead gynaecologist who did both of my cerclages and has been with me since that emergency last year, came out to call out my name from the waiting room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immediately she saw my face, you could see that, no matter how she tried with all the faces staring at the waiting room, she couldn’t hide her joy, I had not been scheduled with her for several weeks now because of her tight schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hurried to her, she embraced me and exclaimed, “ooh 35 weeks!!!” And I responded “yes!! We made it!”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love having appointments with her because I don’t have to come in and explain my story each time. She knows my story too well as well as the technical aspects of my body. Each time I talk with her, I can see how my story has impacted her as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a doctor, they ought to stand behind or be guided by facts, statistics and research. So in the middle of the storm last year, when they couldn’t rely on research telling me ” sorry, we have to go back to the national association of doctors to discuss your case as it’s unique and read more research”, I was on the other side of research, I was relying on my faith and standing on hope as the only sure promise I had from my heavenly father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, each time they walked in to give me bad news, I assured them that my baby’s name is Hope and my father isn’t surprised with what’s going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This doctor has seen me crying in fear on the operation table that night when I had arrived with bulging membranes and she held my hand tightly and said ” I am going to do my best to save your baby and keep her in”. She’s the same one who took out that same emergent cerclage after Olivia tried to burst through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On that day, we were both numb, she was called in, she looked right at me and shook her head almost to say ” how did we get here”. This is after I had seen her in my ward room an hour earlier and all looked good and we were hopeful that we would reach 24 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She’s the same one that was scheduled to see us at our last postpartum check and told us to wait for at least 3 months before trying again and said ” when you get pregnant, we will do a preventive cerclage at 12 weeks, then we have more room to work with”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So at 8 weeks pregnant, I booked at appointment to see her and you could see the expression in her face. We talked about the cerclage and other restrictions since I was a high risk now. We talked about how this pregnancy was different but we will not forget the past experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 12.5 weeks, she held my hand again as I cried again on the operation table, this time with the hope that my baby had a chance of not only passing 24 weeks but reaching full term. Those next 12 weeks leading up to 24 weeks were the hardest emotionally for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, when she reaches out to embrace me instead of the standard doctor-patient handshake, I understand where we have come from. The last appointment I had with her was at 24 weeks which was such a huge milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, last week at that appointment, she set the date for removing the cerclage ~ next week Tuesday at 37 weeks. She said, bring your bags as this baby might just follow the cerclage and be born since the cerclage is the only thing holding your cervix right now..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes, we might meet this baby next week or she might be strong willed like her big sister IJ and come past due date .
To be honest, I have actually been praying that she comes at 38weeks which is still considered full-term and some have found this shocking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember, a few weeks ago, a friend was in her 32nd week of pregnancy and I said ” now the count has begun for you” and she became so defensive saying..” Noooo, no, still 8weeks to go”! Then I learned that we all have different stories and journeys. For her, a full term baby is born at 40weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, I am coming from giving my everything and wishing there was something more I could do for Olivia to reach just 24 weeks so she could be given a chance, even if it meant NICU time. So any gestation after 24 weeks is bonus for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Faith
Faith Over Fear – Image by Nelly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We cannot judge people because of the experience they have or not gone through. It’s like me telling Kipchoge the Kenyan marathon record holder “ooh, that was wonderful, finishing at 2 hours, 2 secs”. Off course he will not be happy since his aim was to make it under 2 hours. The same for the racer Lewis Hamilton, every second counts. So it is with mamas who have never had preemies, all they know is full-term babies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This journey keeps moulding and teaching me to be considerate of other people’s journeys and to continue sharing my story as my story might just become someone else’s survival guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told my husband that am not sure whether my emotions are ready for birthing and how this time round it will be very different. I rely on fa<\/strong>ith over fear this time as my baby is called Love. What a constant reminder of what a friend<\/a> wrote to me “that my heart is ready to love again” (~ “..1 John 4:18<\/a> There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear..<\/em>.”.
More on that next week. For now, gotta pack that bag and iron the last bit of clothes I rewashed\u00a0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you all for walking this journey with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Lots of love from,
Mama Faith, Hope and Love. <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last few weeks, I have pushed myself to finalize most of the things to do regarding work and now am finally on maternity leave. It’s getting real as now, my agenda is all about me and getting ready to meet this little princess  and offcourse the usual turning my house upside down and scrubbing the walls . I just realized, because I have been all over the place, my emotions have not had the chance to settle and now that am home, I am beginning to realise how emotional and what a milestone this time is for me. With I-J, I had just graduated and immediately started my master degree 5days after she was born and with Olivia, I was mourning and not really on maternity leave. So, having four weeks to prepare before baby’s arrival and another 12 weeks to care for the baby is a blessing I cannot begin to grasp. Last Tuesday, I went for my routine check up. The lead gynaecologist who did both of my cerclages and has been with me since that emergency last year, came out to call out my name from the waiting room. Immediately she saw my face, you could see that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":""},"categories":[9,5,6],"tags":[209,212,208,219,221,220,207,210,206,142,205],"yoast_head":"\nFaith Over Fear. - No Fear, Just Hope<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"no fear just hope is a platform to share God\u2019s truth, hope and love through topics that bring life, joy, awareness, comfort and hopefully some moments of laughter to you\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?p=192\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Faith Over Fear. - No Fear, Just Hope\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"no fear just hope is a platform to share God\u2019s truth, hope and love through topics that bring life, joy, awareness, comfort and hopefully some moments of laughter to you\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?p=192\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"No Fear, Just Hope\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-19T09:49:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-03-03T06:44:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/sincerely-media-zUZY3VgJ99A-unsplash-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/\",\"name\":\"No Fear, Just Hope\",\"description\":\"Journey through loss and life afterwards.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/#\/schema\/person\/7d239acef2601b4cf6aa929b63bd8d6c\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?p=192#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/sincerely-media-zUZY3VgJ99A-unsplash-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/sincerely-media-zUZY3VgJ99A-unsplash-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":1707,\"height\":2560,\"caption\":\"no fear just hope\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?p=192#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nofearjusthope.com\/?p=192\",\"name\":\"Faith Over Fear. - 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