A horrible blogger

I am a horrible blogger. Not only is there the occasional spelling error in almost every post, but I hardly post at all. I am busy, as most of us are. It keeps me from this cathartic enterprise, I call online journaling. 

K and I are doing as well as can be expected after all we have experienced. A lot has changed since my last post. In my last post I updated you on the birth of our first son, F. He is now almost 3. You would never know he was born early other than how tiny he is. He still wears 24month clothing and pants fall down all of the time because he has a petite frame. But he is full of life. He had curly hair and a smile that lights up the room. Over the last year he outgrew the need for physical therapy, outgrew the need for occupational therapy, and last month he outgrew the need for speech. He still has one surgery ahead this January, he has had four surgeries so far in his life and we are excited to be done with that chapter of our lives. He is a cuddle bug, a reader, a creator, a talker, a dancer, a runner, and a dreamer. And we hope someday he will be a man with a heart for the Lord. I love listening to him say his prayers and seeing him reading his children's bible, but for now to him it is still stories and reciting words. I love watching him grow. 

In my last post I mentioned that K and I were trying to become pregnant again. Our third round of climid fertility drugs worked and I was pregnant. We added weekly hormone shots and other drugs to try and keep me from having a baby 4 months early this time, but we were scared and clung to God and one another. At 22 weeks I called my midwife team, I wasn't having contractions but I felt like the baby was pushing his way out. I told her I knew it seemed silly but it didn't feel right. My midwives believed me and scheduled an emergency ultrasound. My cervix was borderline doing surgery to show me shut. They suggested rest and redid an ultrasound 3 days later. It has shortened by 3cm and Js head was pressing down on it, it was time for an emergency surgery to try and keep this baby in. The remainder of the pregnancy I was on restricted activity. It was difficult. I wanted to pick up F and I couldn't. I wanted to make love to my husband and I couldn't. Any wrong move could make the baby come. My anxiety shot up and went on anti anxiety meds to help for the remainder of the pregnancy. It worked and they removed my stitches and immediately I was 5cm dilated. A week later I went into labor and J was born at 38 weeks. He came out purple and not breathing and spent 2 hours in the NICU. It was much better than him spending 4 months there. I received my natural birth that I wanted completely lucid with zero drugs. I loved it. It was so much better than the first experience even though I pushed for hours. 

F and J light up our lives. J is 9 months now and beginning to crawl. He babbles and smiles and still prefers mommy's boobs to any food. Our lives are busy and full. Almost too full. With F we were in isolation. We were not suppose to be in crowds like churches or have people in our home or go to peoples homes. His health was frail and he wasn't supposed to be exposed to anything. We used to host Bible studies in our home and were active in church and that just stopped with Fs birth. Finally in May 2018 we were given the go ahead to return to normal life. It was summer and it was beautiful. We went to church on Sundays. F went into the nursery and he loved getting to play with other children. It warmed our hearts. He had missed out as much as we had only he hadn't known any other way. K and I joined Bible studies and it worked. It was summer. I wasn't working and the kids had plenty of time with us. 

F was doing so well that he no longer qualified for home care and this meant this year our kids had to go to daycare when I returned to work. It has been two months now and it is awful. We hardly have time as a family. J used to be content to play and now because I'm only with him 4 waking hours a day he wants me right there and I can't cook or clean. F acts out for attention and by Tuesdays is already asking for the weekend and saying "mommy stay home?"every day. It breaks my heart. I am contracted through the rest of this school year. I love being a counselor in a school. I love making a difference in the lives of kids and feeling as if God is using my talents, but not at the expense of my kids. 

K and I discussed it and we are going to embark on a new journey. Now that I'm finally done with grad school and I'm comfortable in my job after 5 years here, this is it. Next year I'm staying home. Only F has missed out on enough social interactions with kids and he loves his daycare friends. So we are opening a daycare only open on days that that teachers in our district are required to work and 30 minutes before and after their required contracted hours. I am already half full for next year. I'm nervous about having our house thrown into chaos and managing 7-9 kids on my own, but I feel it is what is best for F & J. Both of them will have me and friends around them. And K thinks it is best for us too. I will start work when I use to leave for work and be done 30 minutes before I usually even get home. I'm more than structured and organized enough that being home works for us. And that 30 minutes to cook a meal means I won't be doing it as we both rush in the door and the kids want all of our attention. Instead we get 30 more minutes of family time. 

Spiritually we think it will be good as well. K and I loved our groups this summer, but now that the kids only see us 4 hours a day during the week they hate us leaving for Bible Studies. They didn't care in the summer, but now its mommy don't go, daddy don't go. And we left our group and went to a by-weekly group so that we can compromise meeting our kids needs and our own. 

I feel God's peace in this decision, especially as we are crazy and thinking about having another child. I told K I want to wait until F is 4 and J is 2 before we try. I want them big enough to easily climb on and off my laps without me having to pick them up, just thinking of that being easier to handle when pregnant again. I'm excited about this being in our future. 

Yes, K and I are stressed out, but we are happy. Yes, we are busy. We are also full. God has blessed us and we are trying to be the best stewards of our blessings by making this change. We are all excited. I hope to maybe have more time to get back into blogging. When it isn't a yearly update I feel as if they have more meaning and God can use them more. I hope that happens. I hope God uses this to speak to someone and maybe the only person He speaks to through this is me, but that is still a good thing. 

What a Difference a Year Makes

My blog became unimportant to me on January 18th 2016.  The night before I couldn't sleep. I got up to clean the house in the middle of the night for the first time in my life. I just "needed to". At 3am I convinced my pregnant body to go and get some sleep before the alarm went off.

6AM came around and when I went into the bathroom I panicked. Was that my mucus plug? It couldn't be I was only 24 weeks pregnant. I called the doctor and my husband drove me to labor and delivery to be checked out. They monitored me for 3 hours. Not one contraction and I was closed. They said this happens and 99% of the time the mucus plug grows back, no worries.

By noon contractions started but they told me to expect cramps due to the exam. By 3 they were 90 seconds apart and lasting 45 seconds. My boss wanted to call an ambulance, but I convinced her to simply have my husband come pick me up. Somehow he turned a 30 minute commute into a 10 minute one and the same on the way to the hospital.

It was only a few hours later that I gave birth to our son, F. Labor was awful. I had planned out how to natural birth and knew that back labor was the worse, but I had to stay on my back to try to slow down labor. I had steroids and magnesium shooting through me making me itch and burn on top of everything. The contractions seemed to stop and they didn't believe me when I said it was time the baby wanted to come. The machines were detecting zero contractions, but at last I convinced the nurse to have the doctor check. By the time he was there the baby was on his way. The doctor screamed push and I screamed "No! He isn't ready! He'll die!" But push I did. Two pushes and he was out. The NICU team was there an shoved a camera in my husbands hands to capture the moments of life that possibly would be his only ones. I got up off the bed and walked across the room the doctor followed me and held a towel between my legs to catch the blood as I watched my son breathing with tubes. He was beautiful. He was scary. They took him away.

Back on the bed, it was time to push. It didn't work. The placenta wouldn't come. K was with the baby as I requested he do when they took me off to surgery. When I woke up I tried to sit up. I wanted to see F. I needed to know he was okay. They kept pushing me down. Finally they let K come and see me and together they brought us back to the NICU. The next four months were the longest months, days, and minutes I have ever endured.

There were several times we never thought he would make it. Helicopter rides to a different city to live for three of the months in a Ronald McDonald house. Surgeries that lasted twice as long and where the nurse comes and says "The doctor needs to speak with you in a private room" after you have seen surgeon after surgeon come out and give good news, to find out your son is in respiratory failure, and on and on and on. Those were long days when I forgot I even had a blog.

Then we came home and there were hospital monitors and oxygen tanks in our own home. We weren't allowed to have visitors. He qualified for home health care when I returned to work in August. Scrubbing stations and fast masks in our own home became the new norm. Therapies and doctors appointments kept us busy, but slowly and steadily the fear subsided and the joys of everyday moments took over. They were there in the beginning, but now they were there more than the fear. The nightmares went away and it was okay.

He will turn one next week and he came off of oxygen last month. He is crawling and doing perfect considering how young he was when he entered the world.

He has consumed every moment and that is why I haven't posted. I haven't cared. K, F, and I we cling to each moment we have together as if it were our last and we are closer for it. But in case any of you ever came looking I wanted you to know where I had gone, and what had happened.

He still wears a oximeter probe at night connected to a monitor and that is our normal. I think I might miss it when it is gone. I doubt I will write often. We are trying to get pregnant again and F is moving and wiggling. I still have one more class to take in grad school before I can keep me job without fear of losing it. That will keep me busy this semester. I work, manage  his medical needs, take care of him and K, take care of our home. I had forgotten this until I went looking for a blog. A blog to help me with a question I had. When I was looking I saw blogger and remembered, Oh yeah, once upon a time I had a blog.

The Power of Words

Words can hurt, wound, and cut. But they can also empower, uplift, inspire, and so much more.

Yet, on facebook, news media, and every day in the workplace I watch the adults of this world not only state opinions and comment on ideas, but cut one another down. Christians can be the worst. First we read Obama= Hitler, now it’s Trump=Hitler. I’m not going to debate politics, but I am going to say that the way we put each other down, does not build up this nation, the leaders, or it’s people.

Yesterday, there was a news article that many of my Christian friends cheered and posted on facebook. A news anchor called Obama a pussy.  They cheered “It’s about time.” How is that constructive? How does that inspire debate? How does that create new ideas. Instead it teaches disrespect of the leadership of our nation that God tells us to respect, whether or not we agree with him or her. There are many people whom I greatly disagree with.  I can have constructive arguments. Sometimes we agree to disagree, other times I’m swayed or they are. Name calling and belittling of individuals or groups of people does not allow for any of this. It becomes a show. There is no respect, no life given through words, no encouragement, and it dampens out hope.

Children get this message easily when I teach it. But then someone takes the toy they want and they call that person a name or push them. We adults are acting like these same children. We know words have power, but when our emotional buttons are pushed we say things we wouldn’t say in person.

Teaching children about the use of social media, we always tell them don’t put something on social media you wouldn’t say to a person face to face with your parents present. If grown ups had this mindset, I think the world would be a more cheerful place.

Yesterday I once again had the privilege to hear my child’s heartbeat from within. Sometimes I worry that I am selfish to bring a child into this world. It’s dark, full of hatred, full of hurt and wounded individuals ready to lash out at anyone around them. But then I remember that this child is in God’s hands. If we give him or her to God, maybe she/he can have God’s light shine from within her. Maybe she/he can  shine light into this dark world. It’s a tall order to model that to my children. After all, sometime I’m just as guilty as everyone else I see on social media. Sometimes I cut down my boss behind his/her back to my husband at home. Sometimes I cut down the neighbors, a politician, or a family member. God reminds us that our tongues are sharper than a double-edged sword. As I think about becoming a parent, I recognize the need to gain self-control over my tongue and my hands that type. I must show my child the power of words, by modeling how they can make this world a better place.

The Sad News

This past week my husband and I decided to reread the Harry Potter series together, out loud. He opened up my English copy of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone and out fell a card from a floral shop. Assuming it was from an old boyfriend K teased me, but I knew that while boyfriends gave me flowers none of them had them delivered with a card.

Instead the flowers had been a sympathy bouquet from my best friend. I had just lost my first child to a miscarriage. I read the words that she loved and was praying for me. She was sorry for my loss. It left me reliving the numbness I felt before the pain sunk in. Sometimes I forget that I could have had a 6 year old running around my house right now. Instead K and I are expecting our first. It made me worry that I hadn't felt the baby move in a few days. I'm over a week away from my next doctor's appointment and anxious to hear the heartbeat.

All selfish thoughts. All about me, my baby, and K. That very night my best friend who had once upon a time sent me flowers started contractions and bleeding. She was 36 1/2 weeks with twins. She had an appointment two days before and both babies were fine. One of the girls made it and the other was still born after an emergency C-section. 

My friend who once comforted me is not losing another baby. She had five miscarriages before making it this far with her twins. My heart breaks for her and her husband. Why? Why would the Lord allow her to lose six children? I don't understand and I never will. But I know that God was my great comforter and strength. He is the one that healed me before and He will be there for my friend. 

I admit my fear is spiked selfishly for me and my own child. I hate that. Why can't I simply feel empathy for her. Why do I turn everything and make it about me and how it affects me. If you read this pray for my friend. If you read this pray that I will love selflessly. Maybe that is something motherhood can help teach me. I pray and hope it does. 

I Needed to Cry

A few days following my last post my parents were over visiting. My mother asked how things were going. It was the only trigger I needed. The tears poured fourth and my insecurity was laid out for K, my mom, and my dad to see.

I felt vulnerable, exposed, but I  also felt release. In my last post I mentioned that I felt like I couldn't breathe. It's because I wasn't truly  letting it go. I might pray a prayer or tell K a worrisome thought. That was as far as it went. I didn't weep before the Lord.

This day on my couch with my husband wide eyed in shock I rambled out all of these fears and sobbed physically releasing the tension and fears that had built not only in my mind, but in my body. Since then I have felt much better.

My mom and dad were incredibly supportive and agreed that yes I will make mistakes, but reminding me that it will be okay. God is bigger, as my mom loves to say. She reminded me that we give our mistakes to God as he commands he can bring forth good out of any horrible situation, we simply have to remember to give it to him.

K did chastise me slightly after my parents left. I think he felt embarrassed that he hadn't caught on to how big my fears really had been. How could he have though, while I was exposing the tip of the ice berg of my feelings with him I was keeping a large part covered up. He so generously offered that if I cannot sleep I can wake him up to talk or cry. He reminded me that I am his partner and that it hurts him to know I was feeling the amount of fear and insecurity  and he hadn't known about it. He is right of course. If we are partners I need to be completely vulnerable with him, not only partly.

I have cried once since then over the fears and it helps. I've also cried watching things about Syrian Refugees on the news, even watching a presidential debate. But the crying helps. I use to cry a great deal. It was how I let my feelings out. Somehow in the last year or so I lost that. Partly I think it was because I was so happy that I didn't feel the need to cry, and partly as I think about it I believe I felt like now I'm a mom, I need to be bigger, stronger, wiser for this child and I can't be a crying mess.

But parent or not. I'm human. And I have a husband and we both try to be bigger, stronger, and wiser for one another. It's okay to be vulnerable with him, and it is okay for him to be vulnerable with me. Together we can be the biggest, strongest, and wisest parents we are capable of being for this child, but apart while I can't speak for him, but I can feel small, insecure, weak, and unsure. Thank you Lord for such a wonderful partner and husband!

Confidence Lost

There have been times in my life where I felt insecure. Junior high was one such time. Each time I begin a new job I go through a few weeks of insecurity as I try to establish myself and learn from mistakes that will inevitably transpire. Usually though, I am quite confident.

Where did my confidence go? Why am I unable to see God as my strength in this new role? He has always provided and protected me before. Why am I unable to trust the almighty God with our child? Why do I think I need to control every aspect of his/her life to keep her safe when I am no where near as powerful as the Lord?

Most of my life I have felt secure in my faith. This allowed me to feel confident in who I was as a Child of God. I did not always enjoy being different and sometimes I wanted to fit in, but even as a child and teen I usually was brave enough and confident enough to do what I knew was right. I would defend the person being picked on even though I might worry that the bully might turn on me. I would say I don’t drink at 20 even though people would initially laugh and poke fun. Usually I would win peoples respect and friendship as I didn’t judge them, but held true to who I was.

Since discovering I was pregnant I feel insecure on the regular. I feel pressure. After all I was a child and family therapist. I was a parenting trainer. I was a parent/infant attachment expert. And the truth was I was good at all of those jobs. Happy clients that made progress increased my confidence. When I had a difficult case I wasn’t too proud to read and get second opinions and I learned from those cases and felt more confident going forward. I was even confident in the not knowing. I could tell a family, I want to give you the best advice and I feel as if I need to sit on this for a day or two, maybe get a second opinion and we will dive back into this later. I was confortable not knowing.

Now I lay awake in bed terrified. Will I be a good mom. In the moment I won’t always have a day or two to look up answers or gain second opinions. I’ll have to guess and do my best and I know I’ll make mistakes. And it will affect this child. K reminds me that we have to place this child and our parenting in God’s hands and that worry is not from God. He is right. I tell him that I do not know how to get rid of these thoughts, but I do give them all to God in prayer. This world is so evil. As a therapist I feel as though I was exposed to the worst of it. I worked with those hurt by the sins of others or even their own sinful desires, addictions, and dysfunctions.  I fear how that will affect our child. What will s/he hear and see at daycare or school. It makes me wish we could afford for me to quit my job and stay home with our children. Yet, I love helping children and I love my job. I simply want to protect my child from the inevitable loss of innocence that will happen in this world and I can’t. I feel helpless. I feel overwhelmed. I can hardly breathe.

Where did my confidence go? Why am I unable to see God as my strength in this new role? He has always provided and protected me before. Why am I unable to trust the almighty God with our child? Why do I think I need to control every aspect of his/her life to keep her safe when I am no where near as powerful as the Lord?

Primal Mama

I feel the need to apologize to K, but mostly I feel the need to apologize to myself. I feel as if something foreign is living inside of me and I’m not talking about the baby. I’m talking about something in my brain and heart that whispers to my insecurities and spurs on tears.

This last week I felt as though I could cry every single day. I have given in and cried on a few of those days. I’ve cried tears of joy that I’m pregnant and the baby made it through the first trimester. I’ve cried tears of fear that this is going to change my amazing relationship with K. I’ve cried out of fear that our marriage will never be the same. Mostly I’ve selfishly had tears of sadness as I can no longer button my two pairs of pants that I loved to wear to work. And no, I haven’t gained a pound this pregnancy, in fact I’ve lost six pounds, which only adds to the sadness.

It doesn’t feel fair or logical to me, that I would lose weight and yet my pants already would become so much tighter. The truth is I have an incredibly short waist and there is no where for this baby to grow but out. I will not have the long cute belly. I will not look like the pregnancy clothing models. I need to accept it. Today as I sat in the doctor’s office listening to the heart beat she could even tell which side of my belly the baby is on more because it’s bigger than the other side. And yes, that is where I cramp the most. Ah, pregnancy.  I’m fifteen weeks tomorrow and I know that this is the point where most women’s pants stop fitting like before, somehow I had deluded myself to think because I was being healthy that it wouldn’t happen to me.

K has been understanding and supportive. He told me despite the trials in our life together so far he only feels more in love with me. He said that he doesn’t see my body changing or having a baby doing anything other than bring us closer together and making him love me more. I pray he is correct. To which he replies as long as God is the center of our relationship I am correct. I have a good man. Thankfully, I know these are not only words for K. He believes these words and believes in God more than anything else.  K, thanks for handling these ups and downs with me and being on this crazy journey of life with me. I love you!