The Race Is On

A few days ago I wrote a post but I"m not sure I want to share it yet. So here is another post about my life in general.

The rat race is on. Brian is officially writing another book. Its a long, complicated story on how he became the author of this book when he was only suppose to be the technical editor. But suffice to say, he has a talent for mending, patching, and fixing projects gone array. It sure is a stressful talent! He has to write about 200 pages of content in less then a month as well as write a term paper and keep up with his other school assignments. And oh, yeah, something about a full-time job that is also very demanding right now! For me this all means having a husband is might be here in body but is not available. I have to run the house hould\family myself and generally keep Garrett from bugging Brian too much. And in case anyone is wondering- no, writing a book is not glamorous. At least technical books aren't. It is tedious, slow, time consuming, and mentally exhausting. And the money doesn't seem to make up for all the hard work! Its also difficult when the editor is being very strict and limiting. 

I had a pretty enjoyable weekend. I went to a pot-luck hosted by my midwives. It is such a fun community of people to hang out with. Its nice talking to other parents who are like-minded and to share stories and such. I also was fortunate to go out with two of my best friends with out kids! (well, I had the baby. Thanks to my dad for watching Garrett!) I've known these girls for about 5 years and I really can't remember a time of us doing anything together without our kids! I really enjoy their company and they are both so funny. The topic of conversation was still centered on our kids a lot as we were discussing homeschooling for a large majority of the time. I feel so fortunate to have friends who are always available to support me and hopefully I get to support them too. Its been fun to watch our children grow up and watch each other grow as mothers and people. I really feel so fortunate to have such a community of people around me... my mommy friends, church friends, friends through work, my homeschool friends, my childhood friends, my neighbors. I have never felt such part of a community before now!

I made a big decision this past week. I went to my regular doctor and received a prescription to help with anxiety. I've been dealing with anxiety/depression for over a year. About 80% of the time I feel fine but 20% I'm not and that 20% feels pretty horrible! I have taken a natural approach earlier to dealing with it and it helped a lot. But I finally decided that with all the life chances I've gone through lately, it being winter (winter is worse for me!), its been hard to exercise and hard to do self-care in general, I decided I wanted to do something that was a sure thing. Because why feel bad if I don't have to? And why feel bad when there is so much at stake (my happiness, me being a good mom to my kids and available as a wife.) So I did it. Sadly the medication is making me feel a bit sick and I've been a bit sleep deprived lately. But I know the side effects will go away soon.

Lastly, my house is a mess! I can't seem to catch up. Its been hard to stick to routines since having the baby. I'm trying. It seems I do good for a short time and then not so good. I"m hoping my sweet mom will come over soon and help me either clean or just play with my kids so I can have some time to clean. (Cleaning your own house feels really good sometimes!) I think two of the hardest parts about being a mom is never having time to finish a project- everything is done is short periods of time. Second, always seeing your work being undone...."what? I have to do laundry again?? I just did that!" I"m always feeling "behind" in so many areas of my life. But I'm trying to remember what Fly Lady says. She says we are never behind. We are right where we are.

Something Isn't Right!

I"m really starting to think Tristan might have reflux. His colic\gassiness really had improved over the past last few weeks. But we are dealing with an alarming (rather, distressing) amount of issues which finally lead me to doing some internet searching last night. I really think something isn't right. I don't know if its reflux, allergies, or what. I have been pretty sure that he doesn't tolerate dairy in my diet, so I have avoiding it. So I'm wondering if he has reflux or some other allergy type symptoms, or a combination of both? I hope the doctor can get to the bottom of it.

The most distress and tiring symptom we are dealing with is Tristan waking up screaming. He falls asleep pretty easy for naps and bedtime but is waking up a lot, especially during the day and its a very high pitch, deafening scream with no warning signals. He does this screaming at least once a night too where as before he really was only waking up to nurse (and he doesn't want to nurse during these crying episodes.) He also seems to be mostly asleep during these screaming fits. Tonight was hard. He kept waking up every 5 to 10 minutes after he fell asleep and I just now finally have him next to me sleeping in the swing. When he cries he also puts his arms up and leans back. He is also coming off the breast during feedings crying. This doesn't happen all the time, but often enough. I feel like lately I don't know what he wants. He acts hungry but then cries and screams at the breast. Its hard for me feeling like I can't "read" him.

He has had a variety of gas, screaming, fussiness at the breast since birth but we have always contributed it to  my over-active let down and over supply and to dairy in my diet. (Read this article to learn about colic in breastfeed babies.) But he has gotten a lot better at dealing with the flow of the milk and my body is finally calming down with the milk production, but now all of a sudden he is back to the screaming during feeds. Combine all of this screaming with spitting up, hiccups, wet burps... I'm just frustrated for him and myself. 

Hello Blogging World

Its been a while since I have posted. To be honest, I'm not sure if I really want to continue to blog. I have two main reasons for this. The first reason is, I find it hard to take the time to write and thus it is one more thing in my life I feel like I'm neglecting. The second reason is, I have a hard time sharing my thoughts with others in many ways. I often feel like I never do a good job explaining my own thoughts and feelings. I often feel emotionally vulnerable after sharing.

But here for now, is a short list of what has been going on on my life and things I had thought "oh I should blog about this"  but then never did.

 My friend invited us to a party to celebrate an Indian holiday. The holiday celebrates the rice harvest and the fact that the days start to get longer and warmer once again. There was great company, dancing, panting of rhythm sticks, great food, and talk about Indian culture and customs. Great fun!

 

 Tristan and Garrett both received their baby naming and blessing at church. Brian, Grandma Doris, Grandma Baskin, Grandpa Boehm, Aunt Heather, and 3 cousins were able to come. It went really well. Tristan received his blessing during Sacrament by one of our home-teachers and Garrett received his blessing after church by our other home teacher.

 That same day, I received a new church calling. I'm now on the board to help plan and implement our church's weekday activities for women (formally called the Enrichment Board.) At the same time, Girl's Camp prep is underway! We are now planning our fundraiser for the year (another babysitting night for the members of our church.)  

 Brian went on his annual 10 day business trip to St. Louis. I decided to take a trip to visit my brothers and nieces in PA for a few days. We stayed in a hotel this time because the baby still tends to cry a lot at night. It was a great visit. I also got to see my best friend from my childhood, Cindy and meet her new baby. Sadly, my brother's (who has a different mother)  mother became sick unexpectedly and then passed away the night I left for home.

 

  

 After my trip to PA and while Brian was still away, my (newest) dryer died. My dad came over and diagnosis-ed the problem. Brian came home with 10 days worth of dirty laundry before the dryer was fixed. A few days later my dad repaired it. But something must have gone wrong in the process of putting it together and now it still is sort-of-broken. It only works sometimes! And it only dries small loads. Its been very frustrating and I still have not had it completely fixed.  Ugg! In this process as well, my washroom has been torn apart as well which is kind of good because its forcing me to purge and organize my craft\kid corner. 

 My dad was in a car accident. I'm sad about this. It makes life complicated for everyone. But he is ok besides a really sore back.

We had a meeting with Child Find to discuss getting Garrett evaluated for speech and his fine motor skills. It went ok. Kind of weird. I don't' think they are going to be able to help us. 

 Last week was just a crummy week. One of those weeks things just don't go well. But we had a fun trip to Port Discovery and I meet another like-minded mommy there! I went to a LLL meeting which was great and meet a new lady who is about to give birth with my midwife in attendance. I talked to a mom on the phone who recently had a loss and was able to support her a bit. We had our first meeting with the YW to plan the camp fundraiser and that went great. So it was a bad week but I meet 3 new friends and we did some fun stuff.

 After the Y.W. meeting I locked Tristan in the car by accident. First time that has happened. It was snowing. Luckily Brian was at home and I was jsut about 15 min away at church. So Brian came to the rescue. Tristan cried himself to sleep in the van while I waited. How sad. But hey, it could have happened earlier in the day when I was in Baltimore! Now I"m aware of how it happened which will help me be conscious to not let it happen again.

I woke up 2 days in a roll with a plugged up ear. I was also not feeling too well. Turns out I had a cold and an ear plugged with ear wax! The doctor irrigated my ear out. That was weird. Not exactly painful but not fun either. We all have colds, including the baby, but at least it is not too bad.

Snow! Two big snow storms. Storm #1 Brian was in D.C. for the weekend. I managed to dig a small spot for him to pull into once he came home. He make it home Sunday night but it was a very long process to make it from D.C. to our house. Been in the house a long time and yet my house is messy and I"m not getting much of anything done. I wish I could go sledding. Brian has had no work all week so far.

Brian is working on a book project that isn't going too well (not his fault.) He is busy with a demanding school class. Basically he is home but still working all the time and not available.

I'm still spending a lot of time and energy trying to figure out our homeschool style and trying to get into some sort of routine for me and the kids. I"m enjoying finding all kinds of (free) "living books" to introduce Garrett too. The routine thing is such a hard thing for me. Starting today we are working on following a specific evening\bedtime routine for the next 6 weeks as a family. Pray for us! haha.

A Year of Suviving and Thriving

Last week marked the 1 year anniversary of my brother-in-law, Chris Sr's, death. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 32. My sister-in-law and good friend, Heather (who is my husband's sister) was left with their two kids, Chris Jr (now 5), Ariel (now 3), and at the time she was pregnant with baby Hope (who is now 7 months old.) Chris was a fun guy to be around. He was very social and he always seemed to have friends hanging out at his house. He also was a minister with his church and was very passionate about his faith and his love of God. He did a lot of work in spreading the news of God's love for everyone and wasn't afraid to talk to people currently in the lowest of lows.  

It goes with out saying that this past year has been a difficult year full of grief, changes, and challenges for Heather and her children. But this year did bring many wonderful blessings, the biggest of all was the birth of Hope Alexandra. Heather is an amazingly strong women. There are many hard moments and days but she has a lot of faith in the Lord which helps her along. For me, its been a bit difficult to be so far from her (well, only an hour or so but still its not right around the corner.) Its difficult to want to be able to help in the small moments only to be so far away.  For example, when baby Hope had colic it was so sad knowing Heather was home late at night dealing with a crying baby and fighting with the other two to go to bed while being all  by herself with no relief. It is moments like that we are thankful for things like text messaging!

As the 1 yr anniversary date of Chris's death approached Heather decided she wanted to have a celebration. She wanted Chris's life to be remembered. But what she really wanted was to celebrate a year of her not only Surviving but a year of Thriving. She wanted to celebrate her survival of all the "firsts" in her new normal. She wanted to celebrate the fact that even though her best friend and love is no longer by her side she can still smile, laugh, and have joy. So we had a party!

I went the night before and we had a big slumber party with the kids. On Friday we cleaned the house, the kids played, Heather went shopping for supplies while I watched the kids, we prepared the food. The really fun and amazing part was an art project Heather came up with. On pieces of paper she wrote events, emotions she has dealt with, and all "stuff" she survived and thrived through in the past year. Then we hung the papers on the wall which created a large visual memorial acknowledging and celebrating this incredible year. It really was an amazing ritual.

(picture: I think we added more after this picture was taken.)

Then we ate, visiting, talked about Chris, talked about life. People who stopped by to join the party would walk in the door and immediately see the Wall of Thriving. They would read it and then say, "Heather you forgot to write XYZ on the wall." Heather would grab a pen and add the suggested event to the Wall of Thriving. 

 

 

Birth Choices. Time For A Change

"I want to thank you for seeing me during my pregnancy as a back-up OB for my planned homebirth with a midwife. Even though I only went to your office twice, it was very comforting having a place to go for an ultrasound and to have your services available just in case a complication would arise during my pregnancy. I realize that in the current political climate surrounding homebirth and health care it can be risky professionally for an OB to provide services to women like me who seek out alternative care during our pregnancies. So it is with great appreciation that I thank you for doing the uncommon thing of providing medical back-up! It truely was comforting knowing that I would have a point of entrance into the medical system if the need were to arise."

It felt rediculiously great to finally get this thank you note, along with a gift card to Starbucks, and a picture of my cute little boy into the mail to the Dr who provided me with back-up OB care for my homebirth. I hope that expressing my gratitude to his male OB does at least a little in way of making midwifery and homebirth a bit more accessible to women every where.

I dream of the day when women can truely be given free choice to seek the type of medical care they desire for their pregnancies and birth. A day when all midwives can work legally with-in the law, a law that recognizes the validity of midwives. A day when women living in New York, Maryland, New Mexico, and all states will have the same rights and privileges to seek the services of a midwife. A day when that midwife can have full access to medical resources so they can provide the mother with the best care they deserve. So that when babies do come too early or when a complication does arises a women can go to the hospital and her midwife can accompany that mother with out fear.  

Its time women have a choice and a voice. Its time we take back our pregnancy and birth experiences. Whether that birth is in the hospital or at home or in a birthing center. With a midwife or an OB. Whether that pregnancy ends in the saddest or scariest day of our life when we have a miscarriage or stillbirth or give birth to a sick baby who may or may not live or be handicapped. Or whether that pregnancy ends up being one of our happiest days ever when we give birth to a healthy, fat baby.

Its time for politics to stop dictating our births. Hospitals need to stop banning thing like VBACs. Its time for hospitals to stop insisting women receive certain mandatory interventions and instead reserve those intervention for when they are truely needed.  Its time for OBs to take a step back and allow midwives their rightful place once again in the world of "catching babies." (And not just pseudo midwifery care provided in the hospital- where hospital policies tend to force midwives to provide "watered down" midwifery care.) And most of all, its time women are given the chance to make truely informed choices and then get full support from our laws and the health care system in that decision. It is time!

And lastly, it is time we women learn that we are powerful, strong, birthing machines. That our bodies are amazingly designed to give birth. That pregnancy and birth are normal, natural processes. That "babies come out!" Yes, things can and do go wrong in the process and at these times it is a great blessing to have all manner of medical intervention. But let us remember (or realize perhaps for the first time) that the process matters. A healthy baby and mama are most supreme but the process matters. Pregnancy and birth can be one of the most empowering experiences a women will ever go through. 

I hope to do a part in bringing this vision to fruition. Even if my part is tiny and perhaps insignificant in the scheme of things.  

"As women, we are inherently both power-filled and power-full. Each one of us knows on some level that we do have awesome strength at our core." --from the book Mother Rising

   

On Education. A Quote.

After being slightly aware of what a "Charlotte Mason educational" is for the past 2 years, I have finally jumped into reading and learning more about this educator and her appraoch. Two of my friends are owed credit for being patient with me in answering my questions until I got to the point of actually digging into some material on-line and in books. Looks like I"ll be doing a lot of reading for a while!

Its interesting to note how at differant points in my life I'm not ready to face something but when I come back to the topic later it totally clicks. For example, the book which I'll be quoting here, I started reading it well over a year ago and just coudn't get "into it" and wasn't getting much from it. But now much later, after reading some lighter, watered down outlines to get the "big picture, " this books is really interesting and is talk to me.

Here is a short passage that spoke to me recently. Its taken from For The Children's Sake. Foundations of Education for Home and Family by Susan Schaffer Macaulay, page 8. I won't give a commontary of why I like it so much. I'll just put it out there.

"When a baby is picked up, spoken to, and loved, he is starting his education as God planned. For all our lives we are human beings, in an active state of learning, responding, understanding. Education extends to all of life. In fact, an educational system that says, one bright summer's day in the dawn of my youth, "There. Now you are educated. This piece of paper says so," is doing me a gross disfavor. The truly educated person has only had many doors of interest opened. He knows that life will not be long enough to follow everything through fully."

7 Years Ago Today....(post 1 of 2)

Today marks 7 years since my little girl, Sierra Mae, was born silently into this world. Each year I'm amazed that it was so long ago that I was pregnant with her. Today I find myself wondering what it will be like to one day say "its been 15 yrs...20 yrs..."

As always, I have found the days and weeks leading up to this anniversary date more emotional then the actual day. It always seems to happen to me this way. This does leave her birthday a pretty peace day (except this is always a hectic time of year and I'm always feeling like I don't have enough time to truely stop and to honor her memory.) This year I've really felt the need to revisit and remember the events around her life more then I have the past few years. I think this is due to the fact that I had another pregnancy, another birth, and a new child enter into my life this year. I also have many friends who have lost babies at various stages of pregnancy this year. My heartaches for them and when I hear of their loss I am always reminded of my Sierra, my loss and my own heartache. I think this re-visitation of my own experiences and my own grief must be another step in the healing process. Its a moment to take stock of what I've gone through and to further assimilate the experience into my life...to understand who I am and how I came to be.

My Sierra was my first child. I had wanted her so badly. We were so excited to be parents and Brian just knew we were having a girl. My pregnancy, although too short, was wonderful. I really had such a good pregnancy...except the actual outcome! She had a chromosomal problem called Trisomy 18 that effected her body so badly that she wasn't growing properly at all, possibly had major defects in her heart, and her body was unable to handle normal fluids which caused edema, especially around her head\neck and around her heart. It was the fluid build up that caused her actual death.

We learned at 17 weeks that she was "sick" with a chromosomal problem but at that time the doctors were not sure which one. Their educated guess was Turners Syndrome or Trisomy 18. Three short weeks later she died. I was very fortunate to have those three weeks, although they were weeks full of anxiety, uncertainty, feeling hopeful and then feeling realistic, then to feel guilty for not having hope... (and on and on). Those 3 weeks gave me time to connect with my child and very importantly, I was able to research and talk to other mothers who had gone through high risk pregnancies. I learned that if my baby died anytime soon I could give birth to her. This knowledge ended up being such a blessing because my OB was not very sensitive to us or our feelings and tried to strong arm me into going to a different hospital to have a Dilation and Evacuation performed. But instead, I stuck to my guns (with the help of a wonderful specialist who supported us) and I was able to give birth to my little daughter.

She was tiny for her gestational age- only 6 inches long- and it was evident that her body was effected greatly by that extra chromosome. But at the same time, she was perfect. Tiny but perfect arms, legs, 10 tiny toes and 10 fingers. Tiny eyes and mouth. I"m so thankful for the chance I had to hold her and I know one day her body will be healed and will grow and she will be beautiful.

I had so wanted to carry her to term even though I knew she would die no matter what. (Trisomy 18 is considered "incompatible with life." Many babies with T18 are miscarried or stillborn.but some babies do bless us for a time with their presence on earth for a time. Sadly though, of those babies who are born alive, only about 10% live to see their 1st birthday. ) To this day I still would have chosen to carry her to term even if she would never have taken a breath. I wanted as much time with her as possible. I'd give so much to have felt her kick and move, to be able to talk to her through out my pregnancy, and then to have held her being much bigger and to really know what she looked like, to have pictures I could share with others and display in my home, and to have a proper place to go visit her. Alas, I'm thankful for the time I did have and I"m thankful I did get to hold her and take pictures of her. Instead of having her pictures displayed in our home we have a quilt made with love and tears by her maternal grandmother. I have other trinkets around our house that remind me of Sierra. Instead of having a grave to visit we have a memorial garden to visit created by loving and sensitive employees of Harbor Hospital.

Sierra Mae was- and still is- very real to me. I have felt her spirit and know she is a very sweet little girl. One day we will have her present with us again.

Please visit www.trisomy18.org to learn more about Trisomy 18 (the second most common chromosomal defect), and to read of about some amazing little children. Also, visit www.missfoundation.org for general info and support on pregnancy and infant loss.

(pictures in this post are taken at Harbor Hospital's memory angle garden. I'm very thankful for the hospital creating this garden and for the memorial services they have for their angle babies born at the hospital. I don't visit often but am so happy to have some place to go in her memory. Today I tied ribbons on the tree in memory of Sierra and all of the children my friend's have lost this year. I was going to do ornaments but didn't have time to make them so decided ribbons would look lovely too.)