Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Daily Treasures


You are the trip I did not take;
You are the pearls I cannot buy;
You are my blue Italian lake;
You are my piece of foreign sky.
("To My Child," quoted in Charles L. Wallis, ed., The Treasure Chest [1965], 54.)
This simple verse of Anne Campbell’s, written in behalf of her child says a lot about my life.  I recorded it in my journal years ago as a reminder of the promise my husband and I made to God to happily, prayerfully and willingly allow God to send to our family as many children as he wanted to send. Surprisingly this promise isn't limited to biological children. After taking in 4 exchange students, we hosted 2 more because God asked us to.

At first this promise scared me a little.  I wrote in my journal, "What if I’m still having children in my 40’s?  What if God sends me multiples?"  But God is faithful when we honor Him.  He has enlarged my heart, my understanding, my willingness, my capacity and even my ability.  Now I understand the scripture “Children are an heritage of the Lord: and.. . happy is the man [and woman] that hath [their] quiver full of them" (Psalm 127:3-5)  And I laugh as I read what I wrote, for now I would feel blessed to continue having children in my 40's and doubly blessed if I had twins.
When I received the mp3 audio, Daily Treasures, from EternalEncouragement in return for my honest review, it reminded me of this promise.  I was surprised that Lorrie Flem’s message really dug deep inside to shed light on what that promise really means.
What are my treasures? Here’s all 6 of ‘em.


"Daily Treasures" helped me realize it’s one thing to have children at the expense of or sacrificing worldly treasures but a completely different thing to actually view my children as THE Treasure! We don’t travel the world or buy extravagant things because that’s not where our hearts are.  We happily use our resources to raise a growing family on one income. 

 Wow Lorrie, you’ve hit the nail right on the head.

The sacrifice of the “Treasures” is not enough; it’s actually what I view as the “Treasures.”   I’ll be chewing on this for months to come. 

If you would like to get your own copy of Daily Treasure, then head on over to Eternal Encouragement.  Lorrie gives lots of practical ways to help us view our children as the treasure they are.

                                                                                                                       


Friday, February 24, 2012

Herbal Remedy for Threatened Miscarriage

Thanksgiving morning I had just dropped off some of my children to play in the “Turkey Bowl” (football game) and I was listening to a recording of A Healthier You radio show. David Christopher was discussing miscarriage.  I believe God, thru His Holy Spirit, spoke to my mind and said, “If your friend ______ starts having a miscarriage, you are going to have to help her.”  Wow, that came out of nowhere!

I've been studying natural healing for over 10 years and it has blessed my family so many times.  Especially during the many years we did not have insurance.  More recently I began studying at The School of Natural Healing to become a Master Herbalist and know that the late Dr. Christopher put together an Anti Miscarriage formula in the 60’s which has been used successfully to save lots of babies.  As this thought came to my mind, I said, of course I would help my dear friend save her baby.  She was about 7 weeks pregnant at the time.

I know how to make this anti miscarriage formula but  I also know that a lot of herb shops don’t carry false unicorn, one of the ingredients. So I was mentally going over in my head how I may need to make calls to herb shops and drive out of town to find what I would need.  Then I put it out of my mind so I could focus on Thanksgiving plans.  I actually forgot about it after that. 

Then, the following Tuesday, I get a call from this friend saying she can’t come over for our home school PE because she’s bleeding a lot and cramping and is losing the baby.  I say, “I may be able to help you herbally, do you want me to come over?”  No, she says, I’m bleeding a lot, it’s too late.”  I tell her that with my first pregnancy, I had an episode where I bled a LOT and did not lose the baby.  This information renewed her hope so I said, let me call you right back, I’m going to look up something about miscarriage.  After I get off the phone, I remember my God moment the week before.  I call her back and tell her, I think God wants me to help you, so I’m going to gather the herbs I have and try to find an herb I need and I’ll be over as fast as possible.  In the meantime, she is to go straight to bed.

Here is the link to miscarriage on the herbal educational site sponsored by The School of Natural Healing:

One miscarriage preventative that I had on hand was red raspberry leaf tea with Composition Powder [Chest Comfort Formula] to take with it.  So I grabbed these and headed over.  At the same time, my sister who lives an hour away, was picking up the false unicorn herb and driving it over.

When I arrived, I immediately started mixing the red raspberry leaf tea.  When it was done I gave it to her to drink with 2 Chest Comfort formula capsules.  Within 20 minutes she stopped bleeding. My sister arrived within another hour with the False Unicorn herb and we mixed up 6 cups of tea with the false unicorn and lobelia  (anti miscarriage formula).

We followed these instruction which can be found on the herbal legacy website  and in the following books: Herbal Home Health Care, Every Woman’s Herbal & Dr. Mom’s Healthy Living:

It reads: False Unicorn & Lobelia: Dr. Christopher's Anti-Miscarriage Formula: False Unicorn, 3 parts, and Lobelia, one part, constitute this combination. Unless otherwise specified, teas are always made with one teaspoon of herbs to a cup of distilled water (if obtainable). If hemorrhaging starts during pregnancy, stay in bed, and use 1/2 cup of this tea each 1/2 hour until bleeding stops, then each waking hour for one day, while in bed as much as possible and then three times in a day for three weeks.  If bleeding continues instead of decreasing, see a doctor. Lobelia is also an important herb in the anti-miscarriage formula. It will do such wonders as seal up a tear in the bag of waters in an instance of a threatened miscarriage.

I had a powder of one herb and tincture of another so I made a tea making sure I had the ratio of 3 parts False Unicorn and 1 part lobelia.  My friend’s cramping stopped not too long after the bleeding stopped.After about 2 hours of no bleeding, she had some blood show when she went to the bathroom but it appeared to be old blood not new blood.  We put the timer on to make sure she took the tea on schedule.  It did make her a bit nauseated but she said she could suffer a little to try to save her little one.  We also made a point to pray each hour. 

She continued to do well and I left that evening when her mother-in-law was there to help her.  She said the next morning, when she went to the bathroom, she had a cramp that lasted just seconds and she passed a blood clot.  She said she didn’t know what to think, was she still pregnant or not?  She called a midwife who said she’d only had one previous patient with that much bleeding that early in pregnancy,  who stayed pregnant.  My friend continued to feel nauseated for days, so she stopped taking the false unicorn/lobelia to see if the nausea would go away.  It didn’t.  A few day after that she was able to see the midwife for the first time and they were overjoyed to hear the baby’s heartbeat.  God is so good!  He prepared the way ahead of time.

For a little more information on this herbal combination, Dr. Christopher considered this a tonic which would help the body go the way it needed to go.  Midwife Sandra Ellis in her book, Dr. Mom’s Healthy Living puts it this way:

“Be aware (not beware), when using the following formula (false unicorn/lobelia), it is going to help the body accomplish whatever it needs to do.  If the baby is healthy and the pregnancy is viable, then it will stop the miscarriage.  However, if there is something wrong with the baby or the pregnancy is not viable, then it will help the body to abort the fetus.  It is important to understand this principle because if you are using this formula to stop miscarriage from happening – you need to understand it may have the opposite effect.  It may help the body to flush the pregnancy because there is something wrong...I have used this formula successfully with many women who were spotting and cramping with threatened miscarriage.”

I wish I had known years ago what I know now..  I have 6 children now but with my first I had unknown bleeding in the first trimester, preterm labor and leaking amniotic fluid which resulted in delivery at 31 weeks, followed by placenta acreta after he was delivered.  My second baby I had leaking amniotic fluid at 20 weeks but didn’t delivery till 36 weeks. and my 3rd pregnancy I lost in miscarriage caused by partial sac separation.  All of my pregnancies I had an infection  which is known to cause all of these pregnancy problems. 

Now I feed my body a good diet with no refined flour or sugar,and lots of fruits and/or veggies every meal.   I take herbs packed full of nutrients, and in a form easy to assimilate by the body, that may be missing in my diet.  When I give my body what it needs it has the building blocks to do what God created it to do.  My last subsequent baby’s have been full term with no complications.

I’m not giving medical advice, I’m just sharing this experience because I feel very blessed to have been able to help my friend when God wanted me to and I feel blessed to have the information I have.

Update:  My friend had a baby boy!  After this episode she had no other complications.