My Own Reality Show

Just a quick note to my 5 readers.....my wife has re-entered the blogosphere. Check her out at My Own Reality Show. I love her and my boy more than anything and she is just going to be putting down her thoughts about the baby and herself and our life on this blog.

I'm a wuss

....and I really and truely mean that. Any man in this world who tries to tell me they are tougher or have a higher tolerance for pain than a woman is absolutely NUTS. If you are one of those who thinks you are I beg you go and watch a woman in labor and your opinion might change.

I start this post in this manner because the most common question Crystal and I get is how was labor? I can only give you my perspective because other than being a little tired she did ALL the hard work. I was there with her in every contraction and push but it was her body not mine doing it physically. But I can honestly say it was the hardest and more rewarding thing I have every had the opportunity to be a part of. Let me give you a brief run down of what and how everything went down.

First things first....Crystal came to me within the first 3 months of finding out she was pregnant saying she was thinking about delivering naturally(ie. no drugs). Now at first I was thinking she was nuts but after reading and researching I to agreed that I thought it was worth the try if that is what she felt was right. So we did all the classes (Bradley Method of Childbirth), learned how to work with her body, learned how to relax through all stages of labor, etc. Needless to say we felt prepared. I say "we" because the Bradley method is also known as husband coach childbirth. This means I was an active part of the labor. You could say I was the substitute for the medications. So I was there for her to put pressure, makes sure she said hydrated, make sure she ate, keep hotpacks on her back(cause she had back labor), and just be there to support her as she brought our child in to the world(and no Im not forgetting who actually brought Sawyer in to the world and I praise God everyday for the blessing).

Now for the good stuff(with out to much gross imagery). Crystal's contractions actually started on Monday the 8th. This is known as early 1st stage labor. Her contractions would come every 10 to 15 minutes for a while then they would quit or drastically slow. This type of labor can go on for a very long time and in Crystal's situation it did. This happened until Thursday morning. Her contractions started to be more regular. They came every 10 - 12 minutes and they were consistent(meaning they didn't stop) and the intensity grew. These are all good things. The only problem was she stayed here for a long time. Finally, after a basically restless night Thursday the 11th, friday night about 9:30 her contractions sped up to 7 minutes apart and again the intensity grew. Then things began to pick up till finally about 2:00 am Saturday morning she was contracting 3 minutes apart lasting 1 minute. This is an almost dead giveaway of 1st stage labor. So we packed up and headed to the hospital only to come back home because she was not as far progressed as we thought. So Crystal labored with contractions coming between every 3 - 7 minutes until finally about 8pm Saturday when things REALLY picked up. This time they went to 3 minutes and stayed there for nearly 2 hours. So off to the hospital we go and when she is checked she is 8 cm dialated and 100% effaced. This basically means she could enter transistion and be pushing at any point. Needless to say we were overjoyed. But this is where everything changed.......

...Crystal progressed nicely with in 2 hours to 9.5 cm dialated. But this is where normal labor completely changed. Instead of most labors in transistion where contractions last a minute coming 2 minutes apart poor crystal's contractions lasted 1 minute 45 seconds coming 2 minutes apart......meaning she was getting about 15 seconds of rest between contractions. This completely wore her out when combined with no sleep for nearly 3 days. Finally about 5 am she tried to push at the advisement of the Dr. only to be disappointed when she was still 9.5 cm dilated. So she picked her self up by her boot straps to gear in to finish this off and trudged along in this pattern of labor until she couldn't bare it anymore. Finally at 7am she was checked again only to be disappointed because she was still 9.5 cm. At this point we are on hour 33 of active labor!!!

Crystal's body simply gave out. She couldn't do it anymore due to simple lack of energy(food, water, and sleep). The midwife knew that Crystal in the very least wanted to deliver instead of a C-section so she advised Pitosin to help the body get to 10cm. This would have been a great idea except that pitosin makes contractions even harder. So the only choice that Crystal had was to take the medicine for pain. From here it was clock work. She got a bag of fluids, took the pain medicine, slept for 3 hours, woke up and 45 minutes later Sawyer entered the world. I have never been more proud of my wife than I am right now. She is the most amazing woman I know and I will never forget everything she went thru to bring our beautiful baby boy in to the world. I love her dearly and realize I am a total wuss when compared to her!.

What a Rush!!

HOLY COW!!!!! That is all I can say. This past week has been one of the highest and lowest weeks of my life! Watching my God fearing, beautiful, and tough wife be in labor for almost 40 hours was so hard. She came thru everything like a champ. I can't even talk enough about her right as I am so proud of the way she handled herself in all of it. But I will be working on a blog post here soon with the birth and labor story because this post is about my BOY (the Highs!)!

Almost all of you are aware of the arrival of Crystal and I's first son Sawyer James. He was born on Sunday Sept. 14th at 10:55 in the morning. As all parents say but it won't feel right to not say it...I think he is the most beautiful boy i have ever seen. I told Crystal that dang we made one cute kid:-P. that isn't ment to be offensive to anyone else but would you think anything less of the blessing that God has given you in this world. I can honestly say at this point nothing I have experienced has been like the first time I held Sawyer at the hospital. I was so nervous and yet so excited all at the same time. I was nervous because I was holding a baby that was 5 minutes old and I was excited because I realized how awesome the blessings of our God truely are. He entrusted this new life to Crystal and I to raise and bring up in His ways and that challenge isn't to be taken lightly. I didn't know if I was ready for that challenge until he was born. Now I know I am ready!!!!It has been God giving Crystal and I the strength, comfort, and heart to walk down this road and say that we are ready to do the VERY best that we can. That does not mean that we aren't going to fail cause we will and it doesn't mean that we will do everything right but what it does mean is that Crystal and I realize this is a blessing that God gave us and we are giving it back to Him because we can't do this on our own and to be honest with you I don't want to do it on my own. I want God to guide my family's steps.

Now for an update real quick. Sawyer is home as of Tuesday and doing very well. He is a little Jondus so he has to be on this little UV live blanket to help clear that up but with time he will be perfectly normaly. He is taking to the breastfeeding which is an answered prayer for Crystal and I as that was something we both are very passionate about. He isn't sleeping much in the night and sleeping alot during the day which is very normal. He was born at 7lbs 5oz and was discharged from the hospital at 7lbs .09 oz but as of yesterday he was already back up to 7lbs 2oz which is awesome that he is gaining weight back to soon. I will be posting photes on the web very soon on my Picasa Web Album. Final note......Thank you all SO MUCH to everyone for your prayers and support and I apologize if I didn't get to call you. We had a phone tree of people to call but with everything that went thru I wasn't mentally enough there to make the phone calls I needed to make and I am sorry. Just know that your warm words and encouragement has been felt by us all!

I'm Back.....

Well Im back. Been a long time since I had a post but figured it was about time to get back to blogging. I do not know how long I will be on this blog as I might start playing with hosting my own blog in the future but that is a little down the road and besides I have alot more to write about and be thankful for.

For those who do not know Crystal and I are expecting the arrival of our first kid. His due date, if he makes it that long, is September 11. Guess if he came that day I would have a reason to like that day. But we are VERY excited and have been extremely blessed by all the support and all the gifts from showers we received. Before anyone ask...no we don't have a name yet. We can't seem to decide. We are stuck between two names that we both really like. Hopefully we will be able to decide before his arrival but if not I guess we will just wait to see him.

There is alot of other things going on too but not nearly as important and my first boy. Football season is upon us and once again I am out doing myself in the fantasy realm. Currently I am enrolled in 4 fantasy football leagues, 1 baseball league, 1 nascar league, a survival football pickem, college football pickem, and a Pro football pickem. UGH!!! Im am going to have to start getting to work at 7:30(we start work at 8:30) just to get all my fantasy stuff laid out each day. Not sure I why i do this to myself so don't ask. Anyways have a few other post in mind but keep an eye out for post concerning the baby cause I am sure that will now be the main thing I post about.

WOW what an article

Sojourn Community Church, the church that Crystal and I are members, was featured in an article in the LEO(Louisville Eccentric Observer). What an article! I could see many people getting upset about this but not me! I find it very interesting! The writer no doubt has a bias about religion but i will give him credit for the attempt to not be. He did a good job in presenting the facts about the church(the things he calls good and bad).

Now a little details from my perspective. It seems the author is quite unaware of about Christianity and what it means to be Christian. He seemed to get stuck on the fact that Sojourn says that the homosexual lifestyle is a "sin". I can see why he would hung up on that. If you aren't a Christian and you don't understand what sin is, which I would argue that outside of the faith you can't understand what sin is, you would have a problem with someone telling you that a particular lifestyle is wrong. Now with that said it needs to be pointed out that Sojourn doesn't take this stance on its own and it isn't the only thing that the church would label as "sin". Sin is not a complex thing and it is something we all do and we are all called to turn from. So the "sin" of homosexuality is no less or no greater in the eyes of God than the "sin" of drunkenness, adultery, idolatry, murder, and pride(which is a message he preached here).

So to isolate one sin, in the case of this article homosexuality, is misleading. The sermon that is referred too in the article was also about Adultery as well and is one sermon is a line of many sermons being delivered this year by Daniel in the Book of Romans from the New Testament. Daniel does one thing if nothing else well and that is that he sticks to the scriptures. This is where the entire problem between the Christians and non-Christians arises. The belief in the bible and its words. Either you believe that the bible is the inspired Word of God or you don't. If you don't then the words of the bible are nothing more than foolishness to you, or as one person put here nothing more than mere fables for good living. If you believe the bible is the Word of God then you have to believe that he can change your life and the lives of those around you.

So for me I don't take this article as an attack on Sojourn. This is merely a non-believers take on the Church. I don't expect him to have a correct analysis of Sojourn or the beliefs of the Christian faith. Just as I would hope he would not expect me to have an understanding of how journalism is suppose to be done as I have no clue about journalism in the slightest.

more evidence of cultural influence in the Church???

I have been absent from the blogging world for a quite a while. Im not going to say I am sorry because plain and simple I just was not inspired to write anything and when that is the case what is the point in blogging. So with that said I guess you could say I got a little inspiration and decided to write some thoughts down.

This weekend Daniel(teaching elder at Sojourn) was preaching in Romans but he said something very quickly that caught my attention. He did not give a long draw out sermon about it(was said and passed by in less than a minute) but it was important. He said...why don't we celebrate people who have been raised in the church more than we do? What does he mean by this...well I think it is this! Think about the last time you heard a testimony. Most testimonies of salvation we hear are of people who i have come up "from the pits of Hell as a sinner and have been saved by the grace of God". Alot of times you hear the "i was a horrible sinner(ie partying, sexual sin, selfishness, etc)then God got my attention and I started to live for him. Now don't hear me wrong!!! that is AWESOME!

That is my testimony almost to a tee so I am not hating on that. But what does this do to those Christians who where raised the church and do not have that same "came from the pits of hell" testimony. Ask some of them and you might find Christians who are ashamed of that and I blame the Church. When you ask someone who was in church at an early age and became a Christian at a young age because their parents cared enough to get them in church you might hear something like, "well I was raised in the church" and they say it in a negative light.

This is a shame and I believe it is evidence of culture influencing the Church in a light that we don't ever think about. What light is that???? The fact that we have idolized testimonies that are "pits of hell testimonies" and downgraded (or at the very least not celebrated them in the correct light that they should be) those who aren't. I for one want to say to those who have been raised in the church....BE PROUD and THANKFUL. As the body we need to make sure we aren't idolizing the gift of salvation in certain peoples life and I feel that in many of our churches, in an attempt to create that "shock" factor we place certain ways in which people are saved on top of the mountain. Does this not take away from what God is doing in salvation...remember it isn't by anything we have done that we are saved!

So sad for my Volunteers!

How about them Vols showing up to play against Florida....o wait...they didn't!! Ok I have been one of the people saying stay off Phil Fulmer. He has won a national title, numerous SEC east titles and numerous SEC titles but this is starting to get sad. I am not sure what he needs to do but it is time to start looking at some changes. I don't mean fire Fulmer as he is always getting great talent in the recruiting(always in the top 25 of recruiting)but a change needs to be made. What has been the staples of UT football? On offense the Power I formation! We don't run that anymore but I will give Cutcliff a little slack as we are putting up nice Offensive numbers. The other staple has been shut down defense!!!We always run a 43 defense and we STOP THE RUN! Well we don't do that anymore. John Chavis is a good coach but change is not always a bad thing thus my question is it time for UT to make a move to improve our defense as it seems that has been the thing that is lacking in the recent years?