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My Journey to Becoming a Mom of 7 (A Mother’s Day Episode) · Praise, Prayer & Protein

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm Kate, mom of seven, coffee lover, and believer in finding joy in every season of motherhood.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is Praise, Prayer, and Protein, where we talk faith, family, fruit of living, and the real life mom hacks that make it all work.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, and welcome back.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it has literally been a hot minute since I have been able to even sit down and record a podcast.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Life has just been so full.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Music Fest was absolutely wild this year.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: We were at a venue every single day, either singing or piano.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was running to the city and back to the valley to take the three guys to each venue, but also what a joy it was.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: There really is truly nothing better than watching your kids come alive when they're doing something that they absolutely love to do.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be totally honest with you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I really struggle with music festival because I get so nervous for the kids.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I do.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It started when Ebon, our oldest, would do piano and I would just feel so nervous thinking he was gonna mess up or whatever.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: He was really good, usually got a gold seal every year.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was such a confident piano player, but it has carried on.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: This year I actually felt a little bit better.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't as nervous, especially for Ezekiel.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: He is such uh a performer, but this was Isaiah's first year of singing like that, but he did a wonderful job.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't believe how lovely his voice is.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know he can sing and I know he enjoys singing, but he was right up there with the competition.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that was amazing.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Zeke had a really big year at music festival.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, his songs that he chose to do were so good for his personality and the characters he did.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, uh for the sacred category, he did an old school worship song, Days of Elijah.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The judge loved it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And all week he just kept saying, Wouldn't it be cool if I got called back to the big show that they do at the end of the week for all the top uh music fest competitors in piano, strings, um, and singing to do Days of Elijah.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, Friday night we get the email, and the adjudicator had asked him to come back and sing that song.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he was just like, I'm going to worship Jesus in front of everybody.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that was just so cool.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: He lit he lit the place up.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: People were uh smiling.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I love the joy he brings uh to people when he hits the stage and performs.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he walked away this year again as the junior star winner, which was so, so amazing.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: What what an honor for him to be able to get that um and show everybody how much he just loves singing.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then right after recovering from music festival week, I jumped into prepping to host a Mother's Day brunch for over 60 women.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It turned out absolutely beautiful.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: My friends and family showed up.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm so thankful for them.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Back in January when we were fasting for the 21 days, I really felt the Lord asked me to create um something monthly for women to come, uh, a space to feel connected and uh a part of a community.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in May, I felt that would be a great time to host a Mother's Day brunch.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I approached our family that, you know, we love catering, we love using our Day Spring Ministry building together and asked if they'd be willing to help out.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, the food was stunning, the tables were beautiful, the decorations on point, the atmosphere was just so lovely.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We had uh women bringing their moms and just groups of mom friends came together.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just was really a special time of fellowship.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had some worship, and then we heard from some moms in some different seasons of motherhood, which was also really cool.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And to top that all off, uh, right after the brunch, uh Sunday was our last night of serving Alpha Marriage.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've been doing this for seven weeks.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we missed Easter uh in there because we we took Easter off, but it's pretty much been seven straight weeks of hosting 10 couples.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: We fed them a three-course meal every week as they went through the alpha marriage course.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is a really great course.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you would like a recommendation for something to do for your marriage, I would highly recommend looking through the alpha marriage uh course.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was so, so good.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I have missed uh recording.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have missed being able to get content out to you guys uh on Mondays, but this is a pop-up surprise.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's either gonna come out today, Thursday, or possibly uh Friday morning.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you will see this surprise um podcast in your podcast app.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So today, uh, since Mother's Day is on Sunday, I wanted to share a little bit about my journey, uh, what it has looked like for me becoming a mom.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh not a story I take lightly.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's it's not everybody's story, but I know lots of people love to hear how I became a mom, how I have all these children, how we have a big family, especially since I'm an only child and came from just a very quiet household of mom and dad and myself.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So beginning when Micah and I first got married in 2005, we lived in a very tiny apartment in Moncton.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: We had both just graduated from university and he got a job in Moncton.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I remember coming back from our honeymoon.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: We had a week to get everything organized, and literally our parents dropped us off on a Sunday night in this one-bedroom apartment, and he went to work Monday morning while I like unpacked our life.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a ton of stuff back then.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyway, I stayed there, stayed home in that little apartment and started unpacking everything.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had applied to do an internship program in Moncton for that year, that September of 05, and I didn't actually get accepted into that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that was pretty devastating.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I was in Moncton and I was determined not to give up.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I spent that year reapplying to um get an internship for 2006.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when I started in 2006, I did get that internship in October.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was really great.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very women's field uh being a dietitian.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was excited.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had always wanted to be a community dietitian.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I thought it was really cool that Superstore had dietitians, um, that maybe you could go grocery shopping with people and help people pick out um healthy food, but also on a budget.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was really cool to do.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I really had high hopes of um doing that in the dietetic field.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And as I worked in the hospital, I just realized, oh, um, there's a lot more to being a dietitian.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the hospital seems like a great place to work as well.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the longer I did that internship, it was like a nine-month internship, probably in January or February of 07.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all the dietitians at that time were having babies.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were in that stage of raising young kids, and they a lot of them wanted to work 0.5 or part-time.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to be home with their kids.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: They missed their kids, they had to take time off if they were sick.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even an older dietitian, she had kids in later middle and high school.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember her wishing that she could also be home for when they get off the bus because they were just going through so much in the teen years and just how much she wished she could also be home.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember asking them, like, why?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why don't you?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because Mike and I had talked about, you know, if we got pregnant or if we started our family, that, you know, we would like to see if we could make it work for me to stay home.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a realm for that, but he did.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: His mom was a great stay-at-home mom who always worked at home.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I was willing to give that a try.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to know why, you know, why they weren't.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, with I mean, it was 20 years ago and still it was money.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was that everything was built around two incomes, mortgages, payments, all that kind of stuff.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so basically they were forced to have to work.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember going home that night and just chatting with Micah and being like, I don't actually want to get in that spot.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're newly married, we've been married maybe one year at the time, one and a half years.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were dirt poor, uh, but we were making it work, we were budgeting, we were being frugal with our money, but I just didn't want to get in that space.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I graduated my internship in August of 07, I was expecting our first baby um that year.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I never really got the chance uh from August to December to enter the work, the workforce.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, okay, this is it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is me being a stay-at-home mom.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't not trying to get pregnant and I was pregnant.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I took that as like, okay, Lord, here we go.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be a stay-at-home mom.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: In that December of 07, our first baby was born on Christmas morning.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: What a blessing that was.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But truly, if this is a real Mother's Day episode, do you ever get a group of moms together that don't start talking about their labor stories?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Evan was induced.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: He was supposed to come around uh the 17th, I think.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So he was a week late.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I had already not been sleeping because you know, when you're pregnant, especially being pregnant around Christmas, you just want it to happen.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just want to have the baby so I'm home so we can celebrate Christmas.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was our first year in a new home, all that kind of stuff.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't happening.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, of course, I wasn't sleeping.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know what to expect.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's your first baby.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't go to any classes.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm just gonna see what happens.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh anyway, I got induced Christmas Eve in the morning and literally thought I would have the baby within a few hours.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was not true.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: 24 hours later, Ebon was born after a very long, long labor.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then when he was four months old, I started going to a mom's group in Moncton.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the Lord really laid on my heart to give him our family size.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: I heard um a testimony from a lady there who had 10 kids sharing about how the Lord had spoken to her about family size.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, Micah and I had talked about maybe having four kids, which was still a lot if you're an only child to think about having four kids.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Four kids is a lot.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just felt the Lord um ask me that, like if I'd be willing to give him our family size, if I'd be willing to let him be in control of that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I remember going home and sharing with Micah, and then him being like, oh, I don't know.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does that look like for vehicles and trips and like doing things?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know what four looks like because Micah, there's four of them in his family, but I don't, I can't see beyond that.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was his own journey of how the Lord showed up for him, and maybe we'll have him on here for Father's Day talking about um how the Lord spoke to him to uh release that to him.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, it all came around that okay, we were gonna let the Lord have control.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so I thought, okay, let's get pregnant right away.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, that did not happen.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: By the time Ebon was one year old, I found out that I was really deficient in iron.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I was not able to conceive a baby, and I needed to take a year to get healthy to get my iron up.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, oh, the Lord is asking me to be a stay-at-home mom.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've said I'd give him my family, and now I have to wait longer.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm just a stay-at-home for one kid.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want the house to be full if I'm gonna like make this a job.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that was a year of surrendering, and I know anybody who has struggled with having a baby or wanting to have a baby, um, that year felt like the longest year of my life.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of you um go through that a lot longer.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've prayed with many of you.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have sat with you and cried with you as you've waited to conceive a baby, and I honestly know how hard that is for you.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not, I don't want to take that lightly for anybody who's had to wait and so patiently to have a baby.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: After having all the iron infusions, honestly, if you feel like uh you should have your iron tested, definitely do it.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: The iron infusions, I feel like they brought me back to life.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, this isn't just a new mom thing.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: This was actually something that I needed to get healthy and it it changed everything.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, by Christmas of 20 or 09, 2009, we were expecting again.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was really exciting.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So in 2010, at the end of 2010, we welcomed sweet Jalen.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we lived in Moncton at the time.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The heat was absolutely crazy, the end of August.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was going into labor.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so I went in one night, but I'm so thankful it was just fake labor, but we got to sleep in an air-conditioned uh place because our bungalow had no air conditioning.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was so unbearably hot.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was absolutely crazy.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: The next day, our family all came up, like my mom and dad and Micah's parents, and we took Evan to like a splash pad.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: My mom took me to the mall walking in the air conditioned.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I remember like having some contractions standing under this big water bucket in Moncton, if you've ever been to the Centennial splash pad there.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, while I was having contractions in the middle of the afternoon.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for a lot of my babies for Jalen this time, I had done a lot of natural uh birth planning.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had had Ebon without any epidural, so I knew I was gonna do that for this baby as well.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I labored at home as long as I could uh until I felt like I was gonna start throwing up.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you know, you know.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then we made it to the hospital, which there's a ton of funny stories about my mother-in-law pushing me in a wheelchair, trying to make her way through a French hospital to find out where we were going.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of my best friends showed up for the delivery and she took a wrong exit and was late.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I swear the baby knew that.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And like I thought I would have the baby by the time she she would come.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I thought she was gonna miss it.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, uh, Jalen was quote unquote waiting uh until Auntie came there.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I, yeah, when they said it was a girl, I was so happy.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously, if you know you you know the end of the story, uh thinking back to that moment, what joy it was to hear them say it was a girl.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be a Mother's Day episode if I didn't shed a few tears?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she was so sweet.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to figure uh know how we named her, how our epic game of rock, paper, scissors went, you can go check out her episode of Miked Up with Mom.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh by the time we found out we were moving back home to St.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: John that October of 2011, 2011, we found out we were pregnant with baby number three.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really thankful we were living at my in-laws at the time because I was so sick.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so it was very helpful to be there uh for her to look after Ebon and Jalen for me while I laid in bed pretty sick.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham joined our family in 2012.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he was my first summer-ish baby.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had him at the beginning of the summer.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was um interesting for those of you who have summer babies.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we only get six weeks of really good weather.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't swim.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had two other kids to take care of.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: They were like one and almost two and four at the time.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was just a lot I couldn't feel like I could do.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was tired, I was hot, I was sweaty, I was nursing.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: It just was kind of a mess.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then we decided we thought it'd be a good idea to go camping.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was a bad idea, like totally bad idea.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up getting postpartum amnesia.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was really scary because I was so sleep deprived.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: When Abraham was probably nine months old, ten months old, maybe almost a year, it's all a blurred now.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I had the flu.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then we found out it was actually baby number four was on the way.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I felt, oh my goodness, God, we give you our, you know, we gave you our family size, but this feels like they're coming really fast now.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not waiting two years before I'm getting pregnant again.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is um, this is coming a little quickly.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, the first 13 weeks are not good for me.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm usually quite nauseous as Mike is trying to like make meals and do all that stuff while I lay on the couch.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, things were just sort of moving a little bit quickly, but I felt confident in the way I could deliver.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I felt confident, you know, after those 13 weeks to do the rest of the pregnancy.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, okay, I can do this.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna, I'm gonna trust the Lord, I'm gonna trust this process.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So in January of 2014, Isaiah was born.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's my only one that my water actually broke uh in public.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're a man listening, you don't have to listen to this episode.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But this is what women do.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about our stories.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why it just connects us or something.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the funniest part about Isaiah's delivery or Isaiah's birth story is I was with my sister-in-law and I had had a doctor's appointment, so I got checked, got a good sweep, and then started walking the mall.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I got some things just in case my water was going to break.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then we went to Costco, and I remember just grabbing a pickle jar, being like, if my water breaks here, I'm just gonna break this pickle jar or something ridiculous so that I don't feel embarrassed.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had seen that online or something, but that didn't happen.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then we decided, oh, I think my water is leaking, so we should probably go to the hospital.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go uptown and get Micah.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a January freezing cold day, and we parked up by like Stone Church.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're local here, you would know, you'll know these sites.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like walking up to meet us, and I remember kind of getting out of the van, hopping out of the van because I was excited that you know labor was starting or whatever.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And my water gushed, like it definitely broke, but it was so cold, and of course, your water is so hot.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, Mike had turned the corner and I was just steaming.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: All this steam was just coming off of me.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of my funny moment with Isaiah.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: We went to the hospital, they were like, Yeah, your water broke.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're not in labor yet.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they they sent me home.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I usually labor at home as long as I can before going back into the hospital.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah was the first delivery that um was really hard for me mentally.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I usually get to this spot where I'm like, okay, I'm ready to push.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when I got to that with Isaiah, the lady that checked me was like, no, you're actually only four centimeters.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I started panicking in my head, like, no, I've done this three times before.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can't only be at four centimeters, but she's telling me.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I allowed her to control the situation in that moment until I was like, Micah, this doesn't feel right.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: He went out, always have someone that can advocate for you.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is my number one thing.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: He went out, talked to another nurse, said, I want a second opinion.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is our fourth time doing this.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think she knows what she's doing.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: She's pretty in tune with her body.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a nurse comes in, rechecks me, and is like, that nurse was wrong.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get a doctor.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're ready to have a baby.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my first, like, oh, mental kind of break in having babies.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And after Isaiah, I was like, I need a break.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't have another baby so quickly.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be pregnant for a while.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: We had one of my closest friends come uh to meet the baby, and she just really spent some time praying over us.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we knew we had given the Lord our um our yes for family size, but I was just like, I need to just take a break.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I need a pause.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I need to know that I'm not gonna get pregnant within the next year.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we just kind of put everything on pause.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time Isaiah was a little over one, our kids were like, hey, when's the next baby coming?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something they were kind of used to.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I began to, you know, once they kind of turn one and you're sleeping and you get some brain cells back, I was like, oh, I could probably do that again.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't so bad.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm always the oh, it's not so bad.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Micah's like, it was bad.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we both knew that uh there was more, there was more people in our family in our in our story, and we weren't quite done yet.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um Zeke came along in 2015 and I was like, okay, this time around, I know what I'm doing.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am in control.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wouldn't it be great to have photos of this delivery?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're out there listening as a mom and you thought that too, and have lots of photos, kudos to you.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I asked one of my close friends who is a beautiful photographer to come.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, listen, this is how it works.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna labor at home, I'm gonna go to the hospital, and within two hours, I'm going to have a baby.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is how it's worked the last, you know, three times.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't work that way with Ebon, but the last three times, uh, this is pretty consistent.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: This, you know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I should have known.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I should have known that that was not how it was going to happen.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Labored at home, got to the hospital.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, she's going to have this baby within a few hours.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing how so many of the staff I had each time I had a baby.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Even though they were almost two years apart for some reason, I always had a baby at night, like in the middle of the night.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I had the majority of the same staff every time.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was God's little favor for me.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, oh, we know Katie, this is great.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Two hours we'll be ready.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So my friend Lynette is there.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's taking photos, which I'm so thankful for.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: She got so many great photos.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: But then after two hours, after three hours, after four hours, after five hours, things were not progressing the way that they should have.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful I had an amazing doctor there.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: There are some really amazing doctors, and I've always prayed for every baby to have amazing doctors, and I did.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he worked with me so good.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was so good to me, even though I begged him to take me to the OR.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I cannot do this.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yes, you can.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Zeke was sunny side up, which makes it so much harder to deliver a baby like that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I did not give up, but I did get some laughing gas, which was pretty amazing to calm you down.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lynette stayed with us the entire time.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: She was absolutely incredible.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And after a very long, long, long night and a lot of hours of um trying everything natural, all the pushing techniques, everything, Ezekiel was finally born.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: We did not know if it was going to be a boy or a girl.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: We usually we never found out the gender except for Jedediah, except for the next one.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I didn't know the gender of the baby, but I had always loved the name Ezekiel from like when we went to church at a different church.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: There was a little boy there named Ezekiel, and I loved the nickname Zeke so much that the second he came out, I was like, his name is Ezekiel.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it actually means God strengthens, which for me, that is exactly what happened in that situation.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you think after going through such a labor like that, I'd be done, but no, I wasn't.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: 20 uh 17 came around, uh, almost two years to the day.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jetty was a good uh two weeks late, I think, uh, before I actually was induced with him.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So he was my first daytime baby because I forced him to come out after being so late, and what a gift he was.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: He has just been the most jolly baby ever.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: A lady from our church was a nurse at the time, and the doctor wasn't coming.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember her looking at me, and she was like, You, me, and Jesus are delivering this baby.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a sweet, a sweet delivery.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a redemption of uh the hours and hours and hours of pushing the baby before.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: After Jetty, I soaked it all in.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just cuddled, I did not go places.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was November, December, January.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: We did a lot of snuggling.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of this is the last.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I did nothing.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to go anywhere, see anybody.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: I just loved all the baby snuggles, all the holding, just really soaking it in.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: By June of 2019, uh, Mike and I had a pretty hard conversation about if we were done or not.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I really wanted to be done because I felt healthy.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I um felt like my body was back uh to where I wanted it to be.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I felt I was not nauseous or sick or breastfeeding.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was just in a really, really healthy place.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we just came back from a really great vacation uh to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: He traveled for work and I was traveling with him when I could, which was such a blessing for our marriage.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, I'm done.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, I'm not sure if I'm done.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, like, but I understand you're the one that has to go through it all.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever you say, you know, I will I'll be okay with.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, I feel like the Lord is giving us a choice.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: We we said we'd give him our family size.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was basically for Micah, we were gonna have 10 kids, or he was gonna turn 40.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: One of those things were gonna happen first.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so anyway, he was he was fine.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: We were a few years away from 40, but he was content with whatever I decided.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we ended that conversation um late in June in 2019 with okay, um, if the Lord has one more for us, or if we're to have one more child or another baby, I'm gonna need a sign.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Our niece had been away for a whole year.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: She had already come home, but her luggage did not make it with her.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So after having that conversation about a few days later, her luggage arrived and she came to the lake because we all hang out here as a family, came out with her luggage and all the gifts she had bought for everybody while she was away.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And she started giving out uh different gifts.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time she got to Micah, she said, I really didn't know what to get you, but your first car, you had a lot of stickers and a lot of funny things on it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I decided to buy you this.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she pulled out a yellow triangle that was a sticky for your vehicle, and it had a kangaroo because she was in Australia and a little baby kangaroo in the pouch, and it was a baby on board sign for a car.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Jetty at this time was almost two, so that didn't make sense to kind of put it on the car for Jetty.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, our kids had always been part of our um family conversations about having babies and stuff, and one of them piped up and sort of was like, Mom, do you think that's your sign?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that is a physical sign that you usually only put on your car when you have a newborn baby.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So uh by June 2020, our last baby was born, Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, and his name means the messenger.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Seven is uh in the Bible if you're good with numbers.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a number of perfection, and we felt 100% complete.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember my delivery with him because I was just um I was in a geriatric pregnancy, love that, that I got to choose to be induced two weeks early, which I 100% took.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had gone naturally and I had been induced, and it didn't matter either way for me and delivery.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had I had it all, and I still never had an epidural for any of them.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just too scared of the epidural more than delivery itself.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I was induced with Malachi.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Even after having so many babies, um the induction just it took forever, and he was also sunny side up.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was gonna be in there forever, like I was with Zeke.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully, I had my OB with me.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: She delivered my last baby.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: She had been with me for uh a good majority of uh my babies, and this was the first time she was actually in the delivery room with me.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um once Malachi was born, I remember just repeating I never have to do this again, I never have to do this again.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is your last time, this is your last contraction.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the last one, that's the last one.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it was just it was a different experience for that.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't care.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did, I just didn't care at that point.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so grateful for my body.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful that my body was able to do that seven times.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I look back and as being part of um a woman in small group with with younger moms who were having babies and who've been sick.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just think, how did I do that?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I honestly don't know how I had the strength, how I had the courage, how I had the grit, you know, how I was so sick those first 13 weeks, like how we just did it.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know when God calls you to something, he gives you the grace to walk through it.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And looking back over those years, he definitely gave me an abundance of grace and peace and mercy and um perseverance to walk through the calling that he gave Mike and I to have such a big family.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because honestly, thinking about being pregnant again or birthing again or that I even did that that many times, I honestly can't even fathom.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even fathom that I did that.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this Mother's Day, uh there is absolutely no right or wrong way to celebrate Mother's Day.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is about honoring you, honoring your body, honoring what you do every day, what you as a mom bring to the table, bring to your children.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: So there were lots of Mother's Days I wanted to be in my room by myself, sleeping.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're just so exhausted.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh Mother's Days where I want to go out for a whole day shopping by myself, or just take Jalen and go shopping and out for breakfast.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's times I want to be with my mom.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's times where I want to be alone, whatever it is, every year is different.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I would encourage you to just think about what you want and express that expectation.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's something I learned very early on to tell Micah, like, this is actually what I want.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one year I really wanted a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, I can't do that.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot show our, you know, six boys it's okay to buy your wife a vacuum cleaner for Mother's Day.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you're right, that's not okay.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: But let's tell them this is what mommy has asked for.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we've just sort of made it like that.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, this is what mom actually wants.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And someday when you have a wife and she's a mom, I want you to ask her what she actually wants rather than try to, you know, get her something that she doesn't want or, you know, have an expectation that she doesn't want.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So just make sure you are making your expectations super clear for Mother's Day.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, all week, I hope you guys have been buying yourself treats, um, going out, getting coffees, getting treats, whatever you want, and just consider that an all-week Mother's Day gift.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, from me to you, my beautiful mom listeners and the few men that listen, I want to celebrate you this week, celebrate you today, and say happy Mother's Day.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: You are doing an incredible job.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: You were gifted these children because God knew they were the children for you.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some days are really hard, and some days you want to rip your hair out, and some days are full of so, so much joy and everything in between.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a little toast I gave at our Mother's Day brunch that I want to give to you.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here is to the good, the bad, and the ugly of mothering.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Mother's Day.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Love y'all.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: See you next week.