A Sitting Hen

Duck hen waiting.

Last week Wednesday I went in for an ultrasound check and they found that baby Elizabeth Grace, aka Libby, had flipped into position and was no longer breech. Since I was at 37 weeks they had me immediately stopped taking the medication that I had been on since January for stopping the contractions....things looked really promising. For pretty much two days I had strong on-again/off-again contractions, especially during the middle of the night. We made the mistake of cancelling our company that was due to come over for dinner on Friday night, so of course, my labor stalled and stopped. Since then, even though we have had two storm systems blow through, I have only had a few contractions here or there...

It is God's sense of humor kicking in of course. We have been specifically praying since January that "Libby would be born in the hospital with Dr. Edwards as close to her due date as possible right side up...." (My last two babies came out "sunny side up"-very painful births that I hope not to repeat.) Libby's due date is June 20th, so as much as I would like her to come out NOW-or even to have come last week-I have to be thankful for God's faithfulness to our constant prayers....Now of course it is 90+' outside-which makes a 9 month pregnant woman, in an old farmhouse without central air, pray even more for a quick delivery....(Thankfully we do have window a/c units in two of the bedrooms. The other two units are not working properly and have to be taken in to be repaired.) My two oldest kids leave in a week for my brother-in-law's wedding in Wisconsin and I have to admit that I was hoping Libby would come early so I could attend as well....but instead I will be here in Ohio-hopefully holding a new born baby or still trying to patiently nurture my "something sacred on limited bedrest"-the newborn baby that God has blessed us with......

We now have three duck hens sitting on eggs and at least one of them rarely leaves her nest. They have all taken up residence either near or inside our barn. The one hen that rarely leaves her nest is actually inside the barn....I can't even imagine how hot it is in there for her the past few days....yet she stays on those eggs-nesting her babies.....and hopefully around the same time that Libby is born we will see her leading out several newborn chicks! I have told my husband that we need to find a way to band/mark the duck hens, because you always want to keep your hens that are good nesters...I want to make sure that we keep any hens that actually produce new life.....

The picture above is one of the hens finding her way onto the top of back deck railing last month...you can see that the garden had become all grass again from all our rain this spring. We've now been plowed and my husband has been able to plant potatoes, tomatos, green peppers, onions, lettuce and spinach. We have a lot more to go, but it is tough with his full time job, the rain and my bedrest to get it all done-we just try to remember that slow and steady will eventually win the race. Whatever we get planted during this time is a blessing to the family.....and is more than we have been able to do in the past few years with the opening of our business.

Wishing all of you peace in your sweet homes!

Always,

Stephanie