Our sweet Kateri turns three today! I thought I would share the crazy that is her birthstory, since it is a key part of what brought us to our new home and wild homesteading life.
We’d had our house on the market for the last couple of months of my pregnancy. It’s pretty crazy being pregnant, having five other kids, and showing your house. We had a very promising showing scheduled for a Friday, but when I woke up at dawn that morning, I knew we’d also be meeting our baby that day.
Did I mention we were planning a homebirth?
As someone who generally has five hour start-to-finish labors, I wasn’t sure what to do. Have the baby before the showing? During? Would a laboring woman in the bathroom deter the potential buyers?? Some how stay labor until afterwards?
I guess you could say I chose the latter.
We cleaned that house like crazy people in labor. Then we left, so the house could be shown. We ran a couple quick errands (to a gun store? why??) and then I decided that I just couldn’t be out in the world anymore, so I broke into my neighbors house to hang out there for a bit. Good thing we love them. And that they were out of town at the time.
Andrew dropped the kids at my parents house, came back to our neighborhood, and we scooted back to the house as soon as my spy-eyes saw that the showing was over. I hurriedly called my midwives and they managed to get there about thirty seconds before Kateri Lilyana arrived.
Needless to say, after our realtor relayed that story, we got an offer on the house.
But, I can’t leave out the part about her name! We knew early in the pregnancy that we wanted to name her Kateri, but her middle name eluded us for a long time.
She was born on Friday and still middle-nameless on Sunday (and we were still offer-less on the house). At Mass that Sunday morning, the name “Lilyana” popped into my head. “Lily”, like the symbol of St Joseph, patron to whom we’d be begging the sale of our house! (We already had a Josephine, since we’d also been trying to sell the house when Avila was born. Come on, St. Joe! Help us out!) St. Kateri is also known as the “Lily of the Mohawk” so the name was perfect. She became “Kateri Lilyana” that Sunday morning and we signed the offer on the house that afternoon.
Thank you, dear St. Joseph!
It would still be over eleven months before we found our home and land, but I really think St. Joseph AND St. Kateri, patroness of the environment (earth/land), have been helping us through this whole adventure.
Happy birthday, dear Kateri Lilyana! You continue to add adventure to our everyday.
Oh my goodness that is nuts!!! What a blessing that the house sold right afterwards – I absolutely would have taken it as a sign that we should buy a house if I found out the mom was in labor during our showing!
Definitely one of those things that makes you look back and say “At least it makes a great story!”
I’m 33 (almost 34!!) weeks pregnant and have a for sale sign out front. My biggest fear so far has been closing around my due date. However, since we haven’t had any offers forth coming, I guess you could say my new fear is that we get a call for a showing while I’m in labor. 🙂 I’ll remember your story though and hope for that.
Where did the time go? I can’t believe you’re so far along! You can do it! It’s amazing how God works things out, even when they seem completely insane to us.
I know! It’s crazy to think that in a month I could be holding a baby in my arms. While we’d like to be “home” sooner than later, we know it’s all in God’s timing!