20 years

It is December 31, two years later and I just found this old blog post that I was too emotional at the time to post. I think the time is here and I will give this to God and hit post.

2015

Everyone is remembering back in time, what with the world entering the year 2020. Perhaps I shall too, just for a moment.

In 2000, I was 20 years old. I was an ex-Amish for less than a year and wore a tan trench coat that looked like a dress. My favorite outfits were prairie skirts and blouses with peter pan collars, with my hair down, and a little triangle tied over it. I weighed 118 lbs and thought I was fat. I was hopelessly awkward, especially around boys.

2001, I bought my first car. A tiny Mazda MX3 that was my pride and joy. I didn’t have much money, but I did have enough to pay for it and pay for the first 6 months of insurance on it. Within months it was totaled after I pulled in front of a little truck that was perfectly hidden in a blind spot. I lay shaking in the car, and couldn’t move until a local farmer wrenched the door open. I showed him my hands and told him that my hands hurt. He stayed with me until the ambulance got there, holding and rubbing my hands. I will never forget him. How comforting his callouses were. I still have no idea who it was.

In 2002, I went with a friend to Mn to work at a boys camp. That trip would change my life in many ways. It was the first time I was away from my parents, church or family. It was exhilarating getting to make my own choices and decisions. I fell in love with the clear, fresh, cold Mn lakes, and had my first motorcycle ride. While there, I answered the phone for my friend several times, and both times it was her brother. I liked making him laugh, and I really liked talking to him, but always kept it short because he had a girlfriend and was planning to marry her. When we came home to Ky again, I worked with my friend cleaning houses. Her brother lived with her, but he was rarely home. When I would find out he was on the way home, I would skedaddle to my house in Trenton Ky, or go to my friend’s uncle’s house for the night. That winter her brother broke up with his girlfriend. At that point, we were friends.

In 2003, my friend’s brother asked me to go on a date with him. I remember distinctly having the thought that I was going to marry this man. In September after a chaotic and stressful dating relationship, I did. This was the first huge decision I made that went against my entire family. I had no doubts, and confidently married him, and confidentially started life with him in our little trailer in Auburn Ky. He was an ironworker like he is now, and we lived in motels and the occasional rental house. We lived on the road as we do now, but we didn’t do it well as we do now.

In 2004, we were on a trip to Alabama when we became sick. We drove home only stopping so the other could throw up beside the road and switching drivers every 30 minutes. We are overwhelmingly sick. We called home and the only friend that could help was Randall, my husband’s friend, who came over and made us chicken noodle soup and left it on the stove for us. We gratefully swallowed it and went to bed for days. We were too sick to take care of ourselves so my Mom asked our neighbor and also an old friend of hers to bring us some supplies. She dropped them at the door so we wouldn’t make her sick as well. Those days are a haze.

By March we found out we were expecting our first baby.

We had to move that spring or summer. So we moved to Guthrie Ky, the area I was from, and lived in a double-wide trailer that we rented to own if I remember correctly.

November 19, I was laying on the couch when I felt a pop and a gush of fluid. I don’t think it even occurred to me to be scared that our baby was very early. I showered, we packed our bags, and I wore a pair of knit stretch pants. It was thrilling thinking we would have a baby to take home with us. I didn’t know that when your water breaks, you become like a water hose that is unstoppable. The wetter my pants became, the longer they got. By the time I walked into the hospital waiting room, my pant legs were dragging behind me, leaving long wet slug marks on the floor. I sat down to check us in, and when I got up, the chair flooded. I politely asked for a paper towel and the nurses laughingly said they will handle it. We were utterly naive and unprepared. We didn’t even have a car seat. My parents bought one and brought it to the hospital for us. They strapped me down, on my back and I was to stay there. I didn’t know better, so I submitted. Labor did not progress so the next morning they started a drip of Pitocin. It was the most hellish experience of my life, and that’s all I will say about that.

By the time it was all said and done, the midwife who was impatient with me for taking so long had done such a shoddy job, she ended up losing a big chunk of gauze inside me after the traumatic birth which they later denied. I was so out of my mind from all the drugs upon drugs they had pipelined into my system, Pitocin, a double dose of epidural, and who knows what else, that I barely recognized my son when he was brought to me. I don’t remember much of anything until much later. He was 5 lbs 10 oz at 34 1/2 weeks along. By the time they gave him to me, he was too weak to breastfeed. We fed him from a tiny cup. We were given strict orders to see a pediatrician the day after we took him home.

He was 4 days old when we took him to the pediatrician who stripped him from all his clothes in the cold exam room while pressuring us to allow him to give him his shots. I was not an anti-vaxxer but my instincts told me to hold off and get his vaccinations when he was a little older. By then he weighed 5 lbs and 3 oz. We replied that we would like to wait a few months before starting his vaccination schedule. The doctor started to verbally abuse us for such a terrible decision and when we did not budge, he walked out of the room, leaving my tiny 5 lb son, naked on the very edge of the exam table. I snatched him up, got him dressed and we walked out of there. Years later I ordered the medical records from that clinic and saw to my horror that the pediatrician had put in his records that we were unfit parents. It was a valuable lesson which I never forgot.

In 2005, we were at a family reunion, and my 6-month-old son was exposed to whooping cough. For 3 months I did nothing but care for him, sitting at night in the motel bathroom with the hot water running to make steam so he could breathe easier. He recovered eventually. I got pregnant and had my first miscarriage that year.

In 2006, we moved again, and a few months later, we moved again to Mn. By this time we were no longer working on the road and were very poor. We worked in Mn for a few months and then moved home again and stayed with my parents for a month or two while we looked for work. I became pregnant twice, and both times lost the pregnancy. I went to multiple doctors, was poked, prodded, and tested on, and no one had answers.

In 2007 We moved again, experienced 3 more pregnancy losses, but became pregnant again in September, and miraculously, that baby became our little Sumyr. My husband had a good job, but we were desperately poor as we struggled to get out of debt. I had $20 a week for groceries, $10 of which I used to buy food for Sunday carry in because I was too proud to let anyone know how difficult life was. Still, people found out and a few friends, in particular, gave us terrific hands up.

In 2008 Our beautiful little girl was born at home, and a few months later we packed our $900 car that we could not pay for and went to Mn to work because my husband’s employer had filed bankruptcy and he no longer had a job. We were there for several months until his employer told him he is ready to have him back and has work again. Somehow in the space of a few days, complications arose, and he no longer had a job at all, and we had already moved back. When we got back, our house was covered in mold. We burned almost all the furniture we owned and again moved in with my parents for a few months until we could find a house. We cut firewood to make a living and would not have survived if we had not been living at my parent’s house. God was faithful and we always sold as much firewood as we needed money. I would stack it while he split it. That winter, my sister-in-law died very unexpectedly after giving birth to her 6th child.

In early spring 2009, we moved into a house in Auburn Ky again, and in spite of having almost no furniture, we were happy. My husband started a lawn service with a friend’s truck. We made $13,000 that year, and we felt rich. By April or May, I was expecting another little one. I asked around and through word of mouth found an OB that both my husband and I liked immediately.

In 2010 in the winter, our Lollipop was born after completely uneventful labor. Our hands were so full with three little ones aged 5, 21 months, and newborn. We were able to pay for our $900 car and upgrade to a little minivan. Oh, how rich we felt!

In 2011 We lost several more pregnancies and moved again to a trailer in Russellville Ky. My husband worked desperately hard at his business mowing yards and had built it up to where he needed help. He taught me how to sharpen blades, and every night in the balmy summer evening, we worked together to sharpen blades while our children played with the chickens. I was incredibly proud of him, how he had picked himself up and never ever quit. We were a team. My 3 children got chickenpox this year, and I still have hilarious visions of them running naked outside since clothes chafed them too much and we had only one neighbor who was very old and very kind and kept to himself. We decided this year that we were going to have to be done having children. The miscarriages were taking a toll on me and I was tired. We sold our van, bought a car, and I signed up for community college classes. Just two months later we discovered I was pregnant again.

In 2012 We welcomed little Dom into our home. And yes, we loved the Fast and Furious movies. We also bought our first home and moved into it. It was overwhelmingly exciting. Strangers started encouraging us to stop having children while the boys and girls ratio was even. I developed PPD.

I was happy if I slept two hours a night on Ambien or Benadryl or Unisom. . Sometimes 3-4 days would go by that I wouldn’t get any sleep at all.

In 2013 my husband started a construction company and hired full-time helpers to run the lawn service. We were still not rich, but we were comfortable and we had furniture in our house. I still had PPD and now also became insomniac.

In 2014, our little Ana was born bringing a brand new meaning to raising the dust. My husband built a beautiful expensive barn for a millionaire in town who made it his mission to sink our little business. $40,000 in the hole, that job was finally done, and my husband was traumatized. It was only by sheer chance that we didn’t lose everything. I was still desperately depressed, was on huge doses of sleeping pills per night, and struggled every day to smile and love and nurture my family.

In 2015, more miscarriages, We sold our lawn service and bought a Semi. For an entire month, my husband and I traveled with all our children. It was hard and absolutely glorious. We bolted an old van seat into the sleeper, and two car seats were securely bolted to the floor for our toddler and baby. Insomnia and depression were no better.

In 2016, we hired a driver to run our semi and were still floundering from losing so much money the previous year. We also stopped working construction and went back on the road in a little camper God provided. I pulled the camper in our old Excursion with 6 children. I often got separated from my husband in the semi and was forced to travel alone. After the children were asleep I smoked to stay awake, and often in the depths of depression, pressed my knife blade hard into the skin of my arms and legs. Pain gave me momentary relief. I turned to alcohol more and more often, earlier and earlier in the day, just to cope. Sometimes I lay on my bed in the camper and wept hard at my utter out-of-control life. Eventually, I started working out and was able to become much better as long as I worked out for 2 hours, 3 times a week, driving my body to utter exhaustion. By that fall, I was pregnant again and forced to walk away from all my vices including working out. The depression and insomnia came crashing in with renewed force. This is when I fell on my face before God and begged him to help me. He did. He gathered me up and set me completely free.

In 2017 we welcomed little Asher. Six children! We marveled at the gift God gave us. I was done having children and excitedly lost the rest of my weight and became strong, brown, and vibrant in spite of being in a 5 yr battle with depression and insomnia. I did not turn back to any of my vices but walked ever more confidently in the love of Jesus.

In 2018 my husband dropped the bombshell that he was not done having children. I took it to the Lord. I couldn’t even want to want to get pregnant again. For months I laid it before the Lord, and he answered. This was also the year that Tina contacted me out of the blue about True Hope products. I was praying for wisdom and healing from the Lord, knowing he wasn’t going to heal me miraculously, but knowing he WOULD bring me the knowledge I needed to heal. So when Tina sent me that message, I ordered those products immediately and started them as soon as they got there. For two weeks I was horrifically ill. And then the clouds lifted, and with them, the depression. A few months later, the Lord brought me an angel in the form of Kim who stayed at my house for the night and counseled me to read vast quantities of scripture daily, to renew my mind. I started immediately. I was still an insomniac but no longer in despair. I became pregnant that fall and miscarried within days of finding out I was pregnant. Only two months later I was pregnant again.

In 2019 We were working in Athens Tn in a dark, dreary campground that felt evil. The entire crew was depressed, and our employees were sometimes coming to dinner, drunk. My husband and I both craved alcohol even though neither of us was alcoholic. It was terrifying. My heart ached. I begged God for help. I was sick, horribly fatigued, and felt broken beyond reason, but even in the shattered feelings, I knew God was my rock and my salvation. Many days I only did what must be done, taking good care of my children first, creating delicious hot meals for our men, and loving and serving them no matter what state they came in. I prayed and prayed for them. Every day it rained, Every day was dark and heavy outside. Eventually, that job was done and we moved just an hour east to Knoxville Tn to a campground owned by a wonderful Christian man. I will never forget how it felt to open the curtains of the camper, and the sun shone so brightly that I felt a sob rise up as I cried out “THANK YOU JESUS”. Nobody craved alcohol anymore, and no one became drunk. There was just peace and rest.

In the spring my husband and I along with our little 7-week old precious fetus that we were starting to believe would survive, made the trip to Pa for prison ministry. I was very sick and tired that trip, but enjoyed two precious days with an old friend.

We came home, and a few weeks later when I was 11 1/2 weeks along, just days away from feeling “safe” in my pregnancy, I started to spot. I went to bed and did everything I could think of, prayed every prayer I could think of, and still, I spotted on. By Thursday I couldn’t take it anymore and got in my car and drove to my OBs office. Because the baby was so small, they did a vaginal ultrasound. I lay there, tears shoving hard at my throat, and pinched the skin of my hand so I wouldn’t lose control. I told the ultrasound tech that I am aware my baby died, and could I at least see her on the screen. She was compassionate and professional and immediately turned the screen so I could see. There was my perfect little one but no heartbeat. My doctor came in and put his hand on my knee as he looked at the ultrasound. Silently we looked at the still, perfection on the screen. I don’t remember what happened after that until I was in my car and calling my husband. We cried hard together, me driving home alone, and he with his employees, one who comforted him. In that pain, I found Jesus on a level I had never dreamed of. I didn’t realize just how powerful and wonderful he was. Later the hospital called to schedule a DnC and the hospital administrator was a friend of my parents and recognized my name. I cried with gratefulness when I got off the phone. Her compassion and warmth was my undoing.

2017 Insomniac and depressed and full of joy and peace.

I could not bear to think of birth control, or abstinence, or getting pregnant again. I was again on my face asking God. He answered me in a still voice inside me that never changed. “Just trust me,” he said. So we did. Even though in the history of our marriage we may have had unprotected sex one time over ovulation without getting pregnant, for 3 months, God firmly shut the doors of my womb and I did not get pregnant. And when it happened again, I felt no fear or worry. When the spotting started at 9 weeks, we had just arrived in Lake Findlay NY after a grueling trip, the men went to work, our coworker’s wife had a baby that was only 2-3 months old, and everyone was expecting food that night. I gathered myself together, drove to town, bought $800 worth of groceries for 3 families, 3 packs of pads, and went back to the camper to make dinner. Every day I worked and cooked and wondered. After a few weeks, we moved to SC. In the middle of dinner one night, after aching all day, I went to the bathroom and gushed blood, still, I was utterly unafraid and raised my hands to Jesus right there and wept with joy as I gave my baby to him. I received the annointing of the holy spirit right there and then.

My husband was eating dinner and he set his plate on the ground and we raced to the hospital, on the way there I gave my little one once again to Jesus and again thanked him from the bottom of my heart that I was allowed to keep him as long as I did. This was the first and only time we have ever gone to the ER for a pregnancy. There we found out we had placenta previa, but we also saw our baby. My husband and I felt almost hysterical with joy.

2019 finished out with me 6 months pregnant. I have never experienced this level of fatigue before. I am so tired that even my tired is tired. I am no longer traveling with my husband, and I am concentrating on running my house well, and efficiently. I am starting to really see the fruits of that labor and it is exciting.

I go into 2020 not knowing what is going to happen, but I have no doubt that God is with me, keeping me, strengthening me, and bearing me up lest I dash my foot against a stone. I trust him utterly!

2 Years later I found this old blog post and know that I must now add to it.

2020 brought a beautiful baby boy that we named after Lake Findley New York. Because that is where I received the baptism, the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Covid hit right when we were in the hospital having him. In May we went to Florida for many weeks where my children and I swam every day and got strong and healthy. We had covid in September after we bought plane tickets to fly away on a treasured trip just the two of us. We canceled our trip and stayed in quarantine instead.

Most of 2020 were spent renovating our house. My Dad was in the middle of it when we came home to have covid, and we spent a month sleeping in the living room, no doors, plywood floors and no kitchen. We paid for the renovations with cash and it was possibly the most thrilling financial choice we had ever made.

2021 found us in Florida again. We grew together, my husband and I, our hearts knitted tighter and tighter. We walked every day in Okeechobee and talked and laughed and cried together. It was a honeymoon with 7 children in tow.

In May we bought a house in Pennsylvania, and in August we sold our house in Kentucky. We moved in July, and by the first of August, I had covid again. This time I almost died. For almost two months the church that we had barely met yet, brought meals several times a week. I lay flat in the bed, double pneumonia, coughing until I felt weak. My baby ran wild in just a diaper. The neighbors didn’t judge.

By August 19 my husband called the ambulance and sent me to the hospital. He gave me to God and accepted the possibility that he would not see me alive again. But the next day my scrappy self checked myself back out of the hospital and dressed in only a pair of period shorts, ill fitting hospital socks and a tank top, clutching my flowers from my brother Rons family, my backpack on my back, I walked myself back out of that hospital. It was the last time in a month and a half that I was able to walk more than 20 steps without passing out. I wasn’t going to die in the hospital. No way, no how, no uh uh.

In October I had pneumonia again and family life chugged on slowly.

In November I was almost back to normal and hosted my entire Schlabach family for Thanksgiving. It was a celebration of life. When I was sick, so were my parents. My Dad spent almost a week in the hospital, and my Mom also had double pneumonia.

It is December now and I am happy. Tomorrow will be the year 2022. Our life is one of redemption and joy. We have suffered and lost, but what we have gained is a million times more!

This blog post is extremely raw. I pray that God sets you free from the skeletons in your closet and like our uncle says, you let them out to walk around.

Because when your skeletons are out of the closet and walking around, you need never be afraid. There is nothing that can come back and haunt you.

Can we all make 2022 a year of redemption?

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord

January 1,2022

As my husband and I drive, I read this blog post to him. After I am done I look over and see him weeping.

“Babe, what is wrong?” I was shocked to see tears. What he told me you have to hear. Especially if you are currently in the years the canker worm is voraciously gobbling up.

“God truly has restored all the years that the canker worm has eaten. In fact, if our life had gone perfectly, we would not be further ahead than we are now.” He replied.

“Not only has he restored, but he has mocked the canker worm, “ I said joyfully.

In peace we kept driving, the windshield wipers making whishing noises, the rain softly pelting down, and we both desperately had to pee.

I know you didn’t see that coming. But it is what it is and we yam what we yam.