The Plan

Many of you will be anxiously anticipating the phone call saying we are headed to The Farm in labor and later the phone call saying mother and baby are doing great and here's the stats. However, since we are going with a non-traditional method of childbirth in the U.S., our cell phone coverage and thus our ability to make those calls is limited. So here is the plan for those of you awaiting the news.

As soon as labor starts we are packing the last minute supplies (everything else is already loaded into the van) and heading to The Farm. We have the cabin for a week, feel very comfortable there, and have a 2 hour drive to get there, so there is no need for us to wait until contractions are 5 minutes apart and 60 seconds long. Once we know it's time, we are taking off! We will call our midwife as we head out the door and let her know our status and that we are coming, then we will call Emman's mother, Debby (or if labor happens in the next several days our friend from church, Joy, as Mike-Emman's father- is recovering from emergency surgery that he had this morning to remove a staph infection from his knee- please pray for both of them as he recovers), to let her know we are going so that she can load up her last minute things and head out the door for her 4 hour drive to The Farm. (Debby/Joy is coming down to watch Caleb. We want him to be a part of the birth as much as he wants to, but don't expect a 2 and 1/2 year old to sit patiently through labor and birth.) We will then call my parents to let them know it's time. Finally, we will call our good friend Nathan to tell him. He will then post a blog on this site on our behalf to let the rest of you know we are on our way to The Farm.

Since there is no cell phone coverage we will not be making any immediate "she's here" calls. Rather, after we have had time to become acquainted with her and everything is running smoothly with everyone, someone will make a trip into town and call Nathan. He will then post another blog on this site letting you all know if she is indeed a Savanna Zoe and her length, weight, date and time of birth and that everyone is doing fine, and/or any prayer requests we might have.

We are not sure how long we will stay after the birth. It may be 2 days or it may be the whole week. After we return and are feeling up to it we will post an update and make calls to people personally.

We just wanted to let you know what we are planning on so that no one becomes concerned if they read that we left and don't hear from us for a few days. Consider no news, good news. If something outside of normal happens we would be sent to the hospital and then we would be in town and could call and let you know there was something wrong. As long as we can't call, we are still on The Farm and everything is going great.

Of course we always appreciate your prayers and believe strongly in the power of prayer. So please pray even now for a smooth, normal, healthy birth. Once you read we are in labor, please pray then too and continue praying for labor, birth, bonding, recovery, and health for us all. Thank you!

God bless,
Jade