Through Rushing Water by Catherine Richmond ~ Book Review

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Sophia has her life all planned out—but her plan didn’t include being jilted or ending up in Dakota Territory.

Sophia Makinoff is certain that 1876 is the year that she’ll become the wife of a certain US Congressman, and happily plans her debut into the Capitol city. But when he proposes to her roommate instead, Sophia is stunned. Hoping to flee her heartache and humiliation, she signs up with the Board of Foreign Missions on a whim.

With dreams of a romantic posting to the Far East, Sophia is dismayed to find she’s being sent to the Ponca Indian Agency in the bleak Dakota Territory. She can’t even run away effectively and begins to wonder how on earth she’ll be able to guide others as a missionary. But teaching the Ponca children provides her with a joy she has never known—and never expected—and ignites in her a passion for the people she’s sent to serve.

It’s a passion shared by the Agency carpenter, Willoughby Dunn, a man whose integrity and selflessness are unmatched. The Poncas are barely surviving. When U.S. policy decrees that they be uprooted from their land and marched hundreds of miles away in the middle of winter, Sophia and Will wade into rushing waters to fight for their friends, their love, and their destiny.

MY THOUGHTS

This is the second book I have read from Catherine Richmond.  I love that her books are easy to read.  Even though they are easy to read, there is a lesson for everyone in each of her books.  Through Rushing Water is no different.

How often have we prayed to God, deliberately asking for a certain thing to happen in our lives, only to have God point us in a very different direction?  The main character in this story, Sophia, prays that God will send her to China to be a missionary.  Instead she gets sent to the furthest place from China she could get.  She finds out through the book, that perhaps God knew what he was doing!  An amazing thought, huh.  I think we can learn a very important lesson from this story - what  we think is best, is not always in God's plan for us.

If you are looking for a great read, this book is for you.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the Booksneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Happy 4th Birthday Ryan!

Today my baby turns 4!  How did THAT happen??


Since I shared Ashley's birth story with you, I thought I would share Ryan's as well.


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About a month before Ryan's due date, we found out that our doctor was leaving, and she would be gone long before he would even be born.  Not sure if it was because of the stress of that, or because I just couldn't eat anything because there was no room for my stomach, but I started to loose weight at every appointment.  But since baby was still growing and doing fine, the doctor's weren't too concerned.

Wednesday June 17, we met with the surgeon.  Ryan had been sitting funny for the last couple of appointments (kind of crooked) and hadn't changed at this one.  In fact he seemed more "stuck" as it were.  So after lots of discussion, we decided on another c-section.  The next day we received a date - July 9^th.

Wednesday July 9, 2008 – We showed up at the hospital at 5:45 am!  VERY early!  We registered and filled out all the paperwork and then were sent upstairs to get ready.

Once I was prepped, we had to wait about an hour before they wheeled me to the OR.  Dr. Galessiere, was the surgeon, Dr. Horne was the doctor assisting with the surgery, and Dr. Duerksen was the doctor to look after you.

The spinal didn't go nearly as smoothly as it did with Ashley (although THANKFULLY the catheater part went MUCH smoother)  The anesthesiologist wasn't the same kind woman that I had with Ashley.  It was some older guy and he was poking around in my back for a long time.  FINALLY it worked and I could feel my body starting to numb up.

Once they had me lying down they strapped my arms to the table, put a heart monitor on me, started my IV and put oxygen in my nose.  I don't remember any of this happening with Ashley so it was a much scarier experience.

I remember feeling very tired and a little nauseated at times.  A nice nurse by the name of Nicole brought me a cool cloth for my head which helped a lot!

At 8:40 am Dr. Galessiere pulled baby out and announced “It's a boy!”

They started to stitch me up and as I was starting to doze off, I heard them say the word "tumor" and "more time" and started to freak out!  I guess my heart monitor must have been going crazy because a nurse came over, held my hand and told me to go to sleep.  I didn't but I relaxed a little.  (Afterwards we found out that I had a dormid (?) tumor on my left ovary)  So after and extra 30 minutes of being "open" on the table they finally started to stitch me up.

When they wheeled me back into my room I noticed that Ryan was grunting while breathing. They had a monitor hooked up to Ryan to monitor his breathing and heart rate.  Ryan was 8lbs when he was born and had NO fat on him :)  He was one of the tiniest looking babies I had ever seen.

Ryan's grunting gradually got better although it was still there.  They assured us that he was alright and by the time we left to go home it was gone completely.

On Friday Dr. Horne came in to check on us and to say that we could go home whenever we wanted although if we wanted to stay another night that was perfectly fine. After discussing it we decided we would stay in the hospital for one more night.

Throughout the day the thought kept going through my mind that maybe we should go home.  At 7:30 pm I decided I would probably be more comfortable at home so we checked with the nurses.  Well, bad news. They said that although the papers were ready for me to go home, Ryan's papers weren't there. That meant that a doctor had to come in and check him out before we could leave.  At this point I really wanted to go home so they said they would see what they could do.  About an hour later the doctor showed up, checked Ryan out and said that we were good to go.  YAY! So we packed everything up and headed home!

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I am so blessed to be the mom to this wonderful, loving, energetic not-so-little boy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!