still smiling? yes ma'am

Yesterday I went to the doctor for my scheduled 36 week check to find out that I'm already 1cm dilated and the doctor can feel Bennett's head. She's getting ready to meet the world!

But let's back up to the nightmare that was week 34.
With my hormones out of whack and the stress of school starting it's only natural that my face start breaking out. What's not natural is when you have a huge, deep under the skin zip that's mountain sized on the side of your cheek. And what's even more out of the ordinary is when the whole side of your face swells up enough that you are unrecognizable. Also this all happened on a weekend, of course!
I already had a Monday and Tuesday sub lined up so that I could test my kids (unknown genius plan;), I made it to school by 6:30ish Monday morning, got ready for my sub, left school about 7:30ish and went to my doctors dark waiting area where I waited for them to open. As soon as the secretary stepped out of the elevator and saw who I was she assured me that they would be able to squeeze me in first thing. To make a long story short...my face was lanced that same day and I was told that I had a staph infection. As the days go by my face is slowly healing and I'm scaring less and less people on the street.

Yesterday was the second time I'd been back to my doctors office since everything had happened, the nurse was commenting on how good my face is looking and then she said, "You've been through so much to get here and your still always smiling." I really didn't think much of her comment until this morning while driving to school with tears in my eyes as Bennett was doing her morning yoga stretches. As I felt each of her movements I thought, "How can I do anything but smile?"
I was reminded of the verse Luke 17:6.
The Lord answered, "If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea,' and it would obey you!
Five years ago when this journey started I felt like I had faith the size of an apple. I knew that both of us (Zach and me) were healthy and I thought that bringing a baby into our family would be no trouble at all. As each year passed with no baby my faith seemed to get smaller and smaller. I realize now that the apple sized faith that I had was not complete faith in the Lord but faith in us. We can do this! When I thought my faith was "getting smaller" I was right, it was getting smaller in us but it was growing in the Lord because I realized that only He could make this happen! And when my faith got to the size of a small mustard seed (in Him), He did great things and we will have a sweet baby Bennett to prove just how faithful He is and always will be!