Stepping up, Reaching out & Accepting Help
~guest post by MRS
Tragedies happen. It’s terrible and never something anyone looks forward to, but sometimes, good things can happen in the midst of those tragedies.
A few years ago, a local farmer passed away, suddenly, before he was able to finish harvesting his crop. That fall local farmers, the local elevator and co-op worked together and donated time to harvest that farmer’s crop for his grieving family. We all felt incredibly sad for the family, but it was amazing and so encouraging to watch the community band together to help out a neighbor. I have heard many similar stories of farmers banding together to help out another farming family in need and those stories are always inspiring.
This week has been a trying week for HandyMan and me and has given us the opportunity to be the recipients of a generous small town community coming together to help out.
Blue's baby sister
Last Wednesday, during a routine ultrasound at my regularly scheduled prenatal appointment, my OB/GYN discovered some complications with the pregnancy. It seems my body, at only 22 weeks pregnant, is preparing itself to deliver a baby. Unfortunately that is at least 14 weeks too early. After being referred to and examined by a high-risk pregnancy specialist on Thursday, I was admitted to the hospital in order to stop my body from going into labor.
I underwent several tests as well as an ultrasound that finally revealed our baby’s gender, a GIRL, and I was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix. On Friday morning, I underwent a procedure designed to keep our baby where she belongs for several more weeks and have been hanging out in the hospital ever since.
While it has been an emotional, stressful and exhausting week, it has been amazing to watch the members of our church, our families and community come together with offers of help, prayer and support. The women of our church have sent countless offers to help with Blue and provide meals. Several men have offered to help HandyMan out with projects around the house. Our family spent a significant amount of time keeping us company in the hospital and taking care of Blue so that we could focus on protecting our unborn baby. We appreciate all of it more than we can say and we are going to be forced to swallow our pride and accept their offers of help, because I am going to be on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy. I’m not looking forward to it, and I am incredibly sad that I am not going to be able to take care of Blue the way I want to, but I have to do what I need to do in order to have a healthy baby!
Much like those farmers who “circled the wagons” to help out a fellow farming family in need, our community has come together to help us. To me that is a small town, farming community at it’s best and I feel so privileged to be a part of it!
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Mrs: I feel for you. I too was struck with a very “eventful” first pregnancy. Hang in there! Bed rest seems like the pits (and it is), but when you hold your baby girl for the first time it will be long lost memory. I did a lot of word puzzles, surfed the internet for baby clothes and filled out the son’s baby book.
It is amazing in times of need the people who comes out of the wood work. My sons’ Early Childhood teacher’s husband recently died unexpectedly. She is not originally from a rural community, and was over whelmed with the amount of love that was sent her way. Her freezer is stocked with more hot dishes than a she and her young son will ever eat! People she had never met before showed up with hot meals, a thoughtful prayer and a helping hand.
This is what makes rural communities one of a kind and the best places to live.
Hang in there. You, your baby and your family are in my prayers.
Emily – Thanks for the advice! I was briefly on bed rest with Blue and it did stink. Facing several months of it is no fun at all! I definitely need to have HandyMan pick up some word puzzles or Sudoku games for me 🙂 It is SO amazing and encouraging to see all of the people who have offered help already.
Thanks for the prayers, we appreciate them more than we can say!
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