a lot has happened...

well, a lot has happened in the last month and now we're just two days away from the arrival of our new daughter, Lord-willing. as most of you know, we were originally planning on having a home-birth in san jose with midwives. there was a slight complication when we found out that the baby was sitting breech about a month and a half ago. eileen did all the exercises and tricks that we could find in order to help the baby turn around, but it was to no avail.

at that point we had two options: schedule a c-section in san jose or wait until she went into labor, rush to the hospital, wait to see if the only person in the surrounding area (about 90 miles) that does c-sections is actually working. if so, then he would be called in to do an emergency c-section. if he wasn't available, she'd be shipped (on public bus) to a different public hospital over two hours away. the Lord blessed us and provided a way for us to be able to schedule a c-section with a reputable doctor in san jose. and here we are two days away from the operation. we'll be sure to keep you posted. check facebook pages for lots of photos to come.

video update

check out this video on the link below. it is an update of what we've been up to down here over the last several months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDg2DeJtXHM

august updates

I was so excited the other day to find “trolli” brand sour gummy worms…they are one of my favorite candies…and they we a good price! I just finished off the bag and thought that next time, I should get 2 bags J

Well, we are all moved into our new house and we love it. It feels more comfortable to live in a house vs. an apartment. We have more living space, as well as more space to entertain. There have been a few quirks with living in a Tico house in quepos, but nothing too bad.

2 days after we moved in…we ran out of water...for 2 days. Not having water is normal for half a day…but 2 days was a bit much (especially with a stinky bathroom!). After 1 ½ days, we realized that our neighbors who live below us had water, as well as the house next to us…so jared contacted the owner. I guess it was a simple problem…just to turn a nob to let the tank fill up. So, I think we have that under control now.

The blessing of having a washer of our own has had some issues. The first load I did didn’t drain all the way, so I needed to wring out the clothes. The next load I tried without any clothes, and it drained all the way. So now, it washes…it just takes 3 hours to do one load. Im not sure why it takes 3 hours, but maybe this can be fixed. I am just thankful we can do clothes in our own space. We also have 4 nice lines that are covered to hang the clothes out to dry…which can be a bit time consuming in the rainy season.

I think other than that, things have been going well. I love having a fridge with a separate freezer, I consider it a luxury. I have been able to freeze fruits that make great smoothies that are more like sorbet. We also now have an electric stove/oven which is a change from gas. Oh yeah, we don’t have hot water…which is not a big deal for me with this heat. There is a hot water heater, but it doesn’t work. The owner said he would get someone to check it out and if it is broken that he would buy a new one.

We have purchased some nice wooden furniture too! We bought 2 nice rocking chairs, 7 stools, and we also bought the nice big table that was in our apartment. We had to put the table outside since there isn’t a lot of space for a dining area inside.

We have also put together some baby items like the pack and play and a rocker. We have tested the rocker on our baby friend here, and the first time she was in it, she fell right asleep. It was funny to see her facial expressions when she felt the vibrations. I think I will start washing some baby clothes and diapers next week after school ends.

Next week is my last week at school. Thankfully, there is a sub to replace me and she has been able to spend some time with me and the students before I leave. Next week, she will start teaching so I can help her if she needs anything while I am still there. I think Tuesday, my last day, will be a big party day. On Monday, the moms from 1^st grade are going to throw a baby shower for me, so that should be fun! I will miss the students and I hope to return with the baby to show all the students. I still don’t know if I will return next year.

Also, next week we are off to Nicaragua for our visa run. We have never been there, so it should be a good time. It will be our last trip together before the baby arrives. We will be taking a bus to san jose, then a bus to Granada, an old colonial town.

I had an ultrasound last week, and everything is fine. The only slight concern is that the baby is in a breech position, which is not condusive for a homebirth. The midwives seemed to think that the baby has plenty of time to turn into a head down position and that if I do my exercises to encourage the baby to flip, we should be fine. So, we will go back to san jose at the beginning of October, when I plan to stay down there to wait for the baby to come. Please join us in praying that the baby will flip so we can have a homebirth and not have to go to the hospital for a more than likely c-section.

we're moving!

it continually amazes me how God provides. and he doesn't just provide, he goes above and beyond our expectations to do it.

this is how we were led to the house that we will be moving into at the end of this month. since i got pregnant, moving has been in the back of my mind because our lease ends in august, our baby is scheduled to arrive in mid october. i wanted to be settled into a place in october and not have to worry about moving somewhere. since i am going to use cloth diapers, i also needed a washer badly and if we stayed at this apartment, i knew that would be an issue.

originally, we were just going to stay in this apartment until december, with a discounted rate. however, december is high season...which would make it very difficult for us to find a place to move into at an affordable rate.

our friends, kim and laura, told us about 2 houses their friend owned in quepos and recommended us to check them out. last week, we looked at one of the two houses. it has a good set up and great price, but it is unfurnished and we would have to buy a lot...including a stove and a washer, among many other items. before we left, we noticed the wooded house next to it, and walked over to look in the windows. immediately, we both loved it. it has a nice wrap around deck with built in bar stands, and the deck is built around a big and beautiful mango tree. the house was furnished and the kitchen was significantly larger. we also saw a washer below!!

a couple days later, we were put in contact with the owner and he took us to the house. he have us a great monthly price, 30o dollars less than he was originally renting it for! the house seems like a great fit for us. it is on a hill, so it has a great view of quepos and the mountains. it is 2 story, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, closets (rare in CR), even a bath tub (which is EXTREMELY rare in CR), washer, new appliances, hot water, etc. the only thing we need to set up is a phone line, which will enable us to have internet.

we are looking forward to this move and consider it a blessing! finding a good, affordable place to move is rare, and God provided. Like I mentioned, the house is right next to the 1st one we looked at, which bryan is considering moving into if/when he returns to costa rica for longer term. God is good.

please pray for us during this transition!

homebirth

before jared and i came to costa rica, we talked about having a baby there so we would be able to get residency.  nonchalantly, we discussed that it would be good timing to have it after we had been there a year.  well, here we are.  we are one month short of a year, and our baby is due in october....october 12th.  

i have not had that much experience with babies.  i didnt grow up around babies or babysit.  i havent known many pregnant women or been around women talking about their birthing experience...so before a few months ago, this was all new to me.  thankfully, i now have a little experience with babies (a baby) since our good friends have a one year old.  before then, i cant really remember holding a baby for a long period of time or developing a relationship with one.  

with no knowledge of labors besides what i saw on TV, i always was interested in homebirths for some reason.  when i got pregnant, jared being who he is, tried to talk me into having the baby in our apartment...unassisted.  there have been births like this on the cantrell side, so he felt/feels confident he could do it.  i believe he can too...but, without experience on my part, i would like to have an assisted birth.  

after some research online, calls, and visits, we chose to go with a couple midwives who work together as a team.  they are americans and have lots of experience in the states and costa rica.  they live in san jose, which poses a slight problem since we live about 3 1/2 hours away.  for the birth, we need to be in san jose.  therefore, with a history of quick labors in my family, i will go to a house we rented outside of san jose a couple weeks before my due date.  during that time, i will meet with the midwives and relax....try to prepare for the new addition (Lord willing) to our family.  

yesterday, we drove to Finca Saramandaia where we are going to have the baby.  we went to meet the owners and check out the house we will be staying in.  it reminds me of our friends property in dominical.  very peaceful, very beautiful with a mountain view from the porch.  nice and quaint house with kitchen, dishes, and all the supplies we would need.  we put a deposit down, which feels good.  things are coming together.  

sharon, one of the owners, is a retired midwife, and she has a good relationship with my midwife, marie which is also comforting.  she said she would trust marie with her life.  there have been many babies born on the farm....and only girls! the 2 boys that were born there were transfered to hospitals.  there is a private hospital 15 minutes away from the farm.  i also found out sharon and her husband have a house in seattle, and knows of bainbridge island, which is where i went to grad school and jared and i were married.  pretty cool.  

another comforting piece of information she gave us was that with a baby, it is very easy to get residency.  she said all we need to do is get the baby's birth certificate and fill out the residency paperwork.  other than that...that's it.  once we are in process for residency, we don't have to leave every 3 months, which would be awesome.  we like leaving, but it is a hassle and expensive.  

everything is going well with the pregnancy.  right now, i am 29 weeks along and in my 3rd trimester...almost 7 months.  time is flying by!!  

we appreciate your prayers about this continual process and experience.  thank you.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothrops_asper

our program mascot, a dog, died yesterday. it was cause for both sadness and thankfulness. you see, he was killed by a terciopelo (extremely dangerous and aggressive snake) while he was standing alongside one of our guys who was working. though he died by the snake bite, he took the bite the snake would have given to adrian had the dog not been there.

another fantastic yet nearly tragic story brought to you by the dominical road

it began yesterday, on a particularly hot early afternoon (particularly hot for costa rica would be hotter than it ever gets in indiana) when the sun was high and the dust was blowing on the road to dominical.  for those who aren't familiar with this road (which i realize is the majority of you, but for those who have been on it, you will immediately begin to sympathize, yes, just being on this road is cause for sympathy) i can sum it up briefly for you:  dusty when dry/muddy when wet, very rocky, very bumpy, rutted, pitted, potholed, jolting, uncomfortable, painful, jarring, bone-shaking, and jerky, and that's in an suv.  now, imagine this road on a 125 cc, non-dirt bike motorcycle.

i was only twenty minutes into the journey, and only ten minutes onto this road when i found myself cruising at a modest 65 kph which is slower than i would typically go (as i would rather indure a shorter, more intense type of pain than a longer, dull, prolonged pain).  as i was on this particularly good stretch of dirt and rock (i still have difficulty even considering it a road) the back tire exploded and i began a sort of frantic fishtailing.  i am sure that many if not all of you have been in this situation in a car during the wintry months as have i, but let me tell you, that it is a much more serious situation when on a motorcycle.  in the instant that i realized that i had lost control (which was the same instant that the tire popped) my only thought was to quickly assess to which side the motorcycle was going to crash, so i could jump off in the opposite direction, or at least jump far enough away so as to not crush my leg.  at this speed, and on this road, trying to maintain balance without a back tire was not even a slight consideration.  i just wanted to walk away scrapped up all over my body with possible a broken wrist rather than a broken leg; this was my concern.  after what seemed like 2 seconds, when in reality, was probably more like 6 seconds, i found myself still on the bike and completely stopped.  you see, balance is one of those involuntary things, and while my conscious was occupied with escape routs, my subconscious was working overtime and with great efficiency, to which i am very thankful.

so i found myself on the side of the road, covered in sweat and dust, thinking to myself, here i am, what next.  i began to call eileen, who was already down in dominical, to let her know what had happened and that i would be late.  just as i was getting off the phone, i saw my friend tim barreling down road in his toyota prado.  he slams on the breaks which kicks dust into the air which sticks to my sweaty skin, but i am glad to have this break.  after we tried to put the motorcycle in the back seat, we tried to get it on the roof.  had we been a little stronger, that may have worked.  at this point, i have sweat out the last ounce of liquid in my body.  

we flagged down a truck (we stopped a truck) that was barreling down this road at a speed which clearly indicated that they were completely  unaware of any of the potholes, rocks, or any other potentially fatal obstructions in the road.  after coming to an agreement, though they said they were in a hurry, we threw the motorcycle into the back of this truck.  had i know what foreshadowing "we are in a hurry" meant, i would not have gotten into that truck.  i assumed that it was a "costa rican hurry" which would be roughly translated as an "american slow roll."  i was wrong.  there were no ropes to tie the motorcycle down; i stayed in the back with the bike to steady it, manually.  the tailgate did not shut properly.  there were no noticeable shocks on the truck.  upon starting up the truck, they took off with an acceleration that reminded me of the last spring meet i attended at churchill downs.  my muscles were immediately put to the test.  as the driver was forgetting that there was a untied motorcycle and a human being in the back of the truck, i was straining myself in such a way that i initially estimated that i would be able to keep up this type of energy exertion for one and a half minutes.  i was sitting next to the bike: left hand on the handle bar and right hand on the back of the bike.  the bike was teetering between crushing my legs, which were under the bike, and flying off the back of the truck.  with my head bouncing against the metal bed of the truck, my body was sliding further and further under the bike until i ended up almost laying down under the bike still trying to stabilize it.  as my arms were numb but still full of pain, my head was hurting from heat exhaustion and inhalation of massive amounts of dust, i figured that it would be better to let the bike fall of the truck than for it to crush my torso.  i relented that at the next major acceleration, turn, or large bump, i would give it a good push and let it fall of the back; these people were not going to stop for anything.  thankfully, they began making stops less than two minutes later in order to make the deliveries which were obviously very overdue.  After a total of over 15 minutes in the truck, these stops allowed some time for rest.  within 5 minutes, we were at a workshop where we left the bike with a promise to pick it up the next day.

the rest of the trip to dominical was uneventful, though there had already been enough events to call the trip generally eventful.  we went to dominical to celebrate the hebrew festival: the feast of weeks.  this is a whole different story, but basically it can be said that i learned quite a bit and had a very enjoyable time.

we had arranged to get a ride back with a couple that lived in quepos the next day.  our plan was for them to drop me off at the  shop and for me to ride the bike back to quepos.  well, in my previous disheveled state, i had forgotten to mentally mark the location of the bike shop.  we passed it (i later found out that the road actually splits into two parallel roads for about 2km; we were on the wrong one).  i eventually told them that i would just go back and pick it up later because by the time that i knew for sure that we had passed it, we were a half an hour passed it.  

i began to make plans to go back and get it as soon as we got back to our apartment.  i was in a hurry because it was just around 1 o'clock and i had just enough time to get down there and back before the inevitable daily downpour came.  the bus didn't leave until 3:30 so i was really debating on taking a bus or hitchhiking.  if i took the bus, i would arrive in mata palo at 5:00 which would really be too late to avoid the rain and the bandits that come out on that road after dark which is around 5:30.  the bus takes an hour and a half and a car can do it in an hour, so i decided to take my chances hitchhiking.  this is not really equivalent to hitchhiking in the states.  every car in costa rica is a potential taxi.  in fact, this is the occupation of some without an official taxi cab.  almost every local will offer their car as a taxi before they head off somewhere calling, "taxi a manuel antonio?"  when you hitchhike, you are expected to pay just like a taxi.  so, i took a taxi out to the airport which is like the beginning of the road to dominical, and i began to walk with my thumb for all to see.  also, the thumb in not the signal used in costa rica for hitchhikers, but i used it anyway; i like it.  after a little more than an hour of walking (which was very unusual) i finally was picked up by a man and a woman in a truck.  just as we had been underway for about a half an hour, PSCHYOUAP!  well, i wonder if you guessed correctly in your mind what that sound was.  if you guessed a flat tire, you guessed correctly.  At that moment, the couple asked what had happened to my bike; they saw the helmet i was carrying: ironic.

i offered my services to change the tire.  as i was laying in dirt and rock, i see the bus slowly roll past.  that would be the last i saw of the bus as we would not catch up to it as the driver adopted a much, much slower driving technique after the tire incident.  

i arrive at the bike shop as the rain begins to come down and the sun begins to set.  as i walk in to what would look to any of you as a badly kept junkyard, i'm wondering where my bike is.  "that couldn't be the front half of my bike could it, no way, he said it would be done by morning?" i asked myself.  out pops the old man from behind some unrecognizable piece of reconstructed metal something or other.  you don't have to be able to understand much spanish to know that "tu moto está muy mala" is not what i want to hear at this point.  it turns out that yes, the motorcycle is disassembled and what's more, he tells me i have to go buy this part at some shop.  so i walk, in the increasingly strong rain, to the other shop and buy the part.  when i return, i begin preparing myself mentally for all the unpleasant possible endings to the story which is titled today.  

of course prayer is key.  also key: the rain suit which i brought.  i put it on.  lightening.  over one inch of rain in less than an hour.  watch forest gump's description of a jungle rain in vietnam to get an idea of what i'm talking about here.  several answered prayers later, he tells me it's put together, but strongly advises me not to drive back to quepos.  if i had any other option, i may have taken his advice; i used the last bit of money to pay for the repairs on the motorcycle.  

long ride home in the dark jungle rain.  i arrived safely, happily.  i thought to myself after all of this: i wouldn't change one detail; i love life, and i love God.