Ready or Not...

Can you ever truly prepare for a huge change in your life? I guess you can plan for all possible outcomes, and get mentally prepared, but you can’t ever really imagine what it’s going to be like after the huge change occurs.

The newest member of our family will be joining us Friday morning. While I am extremely excited and everyone around me seems to be quite excited too (which I love!) I am nervous as well. Nervous about going through the c-section, nervous about what kind of baby he’ll be, nervous about how Eliza and Jackson will adjust, nervous about the recovery, just all around nervous. Everyone can tell me that it’s all going to be ok and everything will be perfect, but no one really knows-which I guess is why all my nerves are on edge.

I’m hoping that come Friday morning my excitement will outweigh the nerves. All I can really do at this point is keep praying about everything. I’d appreciate everyone else’s prayers too. As I’ve said before I’m not good when I don’t have control, and one thing I can control is my prayers. So I hope to spend the next day and a half saying a lot of prayers for calmness and health for me and my baby boy.

My family is so lucky to have all the support that we have. My mother-in-law is making the trek out here tomorrow to stay with us for the first week or so and then my mom is coming out here right after that. I know I won’t be able to do it without them! We are also so blessed to have many friends around here that are willing to put in a helping hand, even the smallest thing seems to make a huge difference when family is so far away. I just wanted to say a special thank-you to all the wonderful people in our lives. We are so excited to get to share this wonderful miracle of life with all of you.

We’ll try to post some pictures and info on Friday morning--probably on facebook. Once I’ve recovered a bit I’ll get some posted on here too.

The Waiting Game

People always say that God puts the opportunity in your life to help you achieve something that you really need. So if you pray for patience He will give you many opportunities to become patient. I think I should stop praying for patience. Unfortunately, patience is one of those many times a day prayers for me. Sometimes it’s a simple “please give me patience with this child” and other times it’s a bit longer and more dire prayer--especially lately as I wait for this new little boy to get here.

I think patience is one thing that I’ve prayed for my entire life. For some reason it just doesn’t come naturally to me. Maybe it’s today’s world with all it’s modern conveniences that seem to be a simple click away, or maybe it’s because I want for so little, or just maybe I am doomed to always be an impatient person regardless of the practice I receive on a daily basis. I guess I’m just going to have to settle with lots of prayers to get me through.

You’ve probably played the “waiting game” at some point in your life. Maybe you’ve had to wait for months, weeks, days, or even hours. It doesn’t seem to matter the length of time you have to wait, the waiting game is one of the hardest games ever to be “played”. When it’s all over though, it’s well worth the wait--usually at least.

Today I have another doctor’s appointment. It feels like I have been going to the doctor’s office once a week for a while now. My c-section has been scheduled for next Friday, August 31^st. I keep secretly hoping that at one of my last two appointments the doctor is just going to say--”ok let’s just do this”. Those of you who have been pregnant before totally understand what I mean. It seems like an eternity ago that the pregnancy test popped up positive. It seems like years ago that I was puking my guts out hoping to make it through the first trimester. I’ve known this baby is a boy for how many weeks now? Pregnancy is just a long process--obviously a necessary one, but still long. I’m thankful for the time I’ve had to prepare for his birth, and I’m thankful for a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby that is getting bigger each and every day, but I’m done.

So today I am asking for prayers. Prayers of patience for me. Prayers that I can enjoy this last week and a half with my kids and husband. Prayers that the aches and pains that come with a 9 month pregnant body may subside a bit. Prayers for low anxiety as the “big day” gets closer. Prayers that everything goes well during surgery.

I guess one thing I can keep doing while I play this waiting game is keep saying prayers! J

Fetomaternal Microchimerism

Wow! That’s pretty much the only word to describe my thinking right now. It’s been a heck of a week, and I don’t even want to go into details because they don’t really matter. The “wow” is more a declaration of how awesome God is. It’s not like I don’t know this, but sometimes when you are looking for explanation for events or just something to help you make sense of things He slaps you in the face with another amazing thing.

Brace yourself.



I learned an amazing new thing today. It is called fetomaternal microchimerism.  Kind of an intense word huh? Have you ever heard it before? Yeah, me neither. Fetomaternal microchimerism is the term to explain that every child literally leaves behind a piece of themselves in their mother. That’s right. Cells from each child that a woman houses in her uterus stay with that mother forever. Let me state that again, every child leaves a microscopic part of themselves with their mother that remains with that mother FOREVER.

I’m almost at a loss for words. This seems like such an amazing thing to me. We are physically linked to our children for life--how awesome is that?

I learned this fact when reading about Mary. The Assumption of Mary was August 15^th. For those of you who aren’t Catholic it is a holy day where we celebrate Mary’s body and soul being assumed into heaven. Mary’s body was a living tabernacle for Jesus--not just when she was pregnant with him, but forever. Christ’s divine body did not undergo corruption, even those few cells that were left in Mary’s body. For some reason it helps me understand the assumption of Mary at an even deeper level.

When you think about fetomaternal microchimerism in today’s world it’s just as amazing. All mothers out there know that they are forever changed the moment they become pregnant. It doesn’t take birthing a child for your whole life to change in an instant. The moment that test is positive your life is forever changed. I’ve always thought of myself as being a vessel for my children. I’ve always believed that I need to be the best vessel I possibly can be so that they can be as healthy as possible. Now I know that my body will forever be a vessel for my children. They will always be a physical part of me regardless of where they are physically or mentally.

Now if only there was a way to control their actions with those few cells!! J

　

Feeling Blue...

These posts seem to be getting more and more spread out--I guess that’s what happens this time of year. J

Yesterday I had a great appointment with my doctor. They did an ultra sound to check the size of this little boy and he is weighing in at around 8lbs. 6ozs. Usually in the third trimester ultra sounds can be off by a pound in either direction, so I’m guessing he is about 7+ pounds right now. The doctor is bumping up the dates of the c-section too. He doesn’t want to risk uterine rupture at all, so we’re having the c-section at exactly 39 weeks. Right now that would be August 31^st, however, he wants to re-evaluate my chart and see if he can bump it up even more than that. So it looks like we’ll be meeting this little guy in 2 weeks or so!

I brought Eliza with me to the appointment because I thought she might enjoy seeing her baby brother on ultra sound. She was super excited to join in, however once we were in the ultra sound room she was a bit freaked out. She thought the jelly and the wand were hurting me and wasn’t quite sure what was going on. She insisted that I was hurt even though I kept telling her it didn’t hurt at all. Later that day she explained to me that when they took the baby out it wouldn’t hurt at all--not like that ultra sound. I tried telling her that when the baby comes out it’s much more painful, but she was convinced.

I guess we were on the theme of boys yesterday because when I sent the kids out to play while I made dinner they decided to take blue chalk and mix it with water and paint themselves. Normally I wouldn’t really care about this--they were having a blast after all. However, we were heading to Eliza’s school for back to school night right after dinner. Still it wasn’t THAT big of a deal, I would just throw them in the shower and they could eat and get dressed and we’d be on our way. Or so I thought. I tossed them in the shower and lathered them up. I let them play for a few minutes and then went to get them out. Much to my surprise they were still BLUE! So I scrubbed them some more, still blue. At first I was just frustrated and then I just chuckled--I guess Eliza’s teacher was just going to meet the real Eliza. So there we went to back-to-school night with blue children. Hopefully, it will come off in their bath tonight but for now I just look at them and smile. It makes me think of all the “blue” that we have coming with another little boy.

Like Father, Like Daughter

You know that phrase “What would Jesus do?”. It became really popular when I was in high school. Kids started wearing those bracelets with WWJD on them and it seemed as if that phrase was everywhere. I never really gave into the hype, in fact I thought some of those people were using the phrase to support some bad behavior that they didn’t want judged. It just didn’t make much sense to me. But then again, I wasn’t really your average teenager.

As others were trying to get far away from their parents and tried to do everything they could to “rebel” I was pretty confident in my parents. Instead of thinking about what Jesus would do I would often wonder what my parents would do or say in certain situations. That’s not to say that Jesus wasn’t or isn’t a huge part of my life--but somehow my parents seemed a little more “real”. I was able to visualize them easier and because they were human I knew that I could try to live up to their standards better than I could live up to being perfect like Jesus. (Not that I didn’t or don’t try to be as perfect as I can every day) The problem was that my parents had amazingly high standards. Looking back at those adolescent years I am so thankful for those standards. I wanted to please my parents and make them proud of who I was as a person. I wanted them to be able to brag about me and to tell their friends that I was such a good teenager. I think most of the time I did a pretty good job of that.

Now that I am an adult I still find myself thinking “what would my parents do/say?” Once I thought that it might not be good that I think that way, but after thinking about it I’m glad I still have those thoughts. My parents are wonderful people. They live holy lives and strive to serve God in all that they do. Why wouldn’t I want their approval?

I’ve talked about how much I look up to my mom multiple times on this blog. I haven’t really talked about my dad very much. I’m pretty lucky to have the dad that I do. I would not be the person I am today if it weren’t for my dad. We were pretty much side-kicks during my teenage years. (drove my mom crazy!) You hear all the time about how important the father/daughter relationship is, and I am here to tell you that it is! For some reason the relationship that a father and a daughter have totally shapes a girl into womanhood. One of my brothers even likes to say that I’m a clone of my dad’s. I don’t think that’s quite the case, but we are very similar in how we think and how we look at life.

This morning I received an e-mail from my dad. Which is weird for more than one reason. My dad is about the last person I ever expect to receive e-mails from. He types one finger pecking at a time. He’s always had a secretary to do all the typing. So I was pleasantly surprised when I received the e-mail. It’s also weird to hear from my dad, he’s not really great at keeping up communication. Usually, I call him and check in, so hearing from him was a pleasant surprise. It was a pretty simple e-mail, but it really made my day. It was the best way to start out the day--hearing that my dad is proud of me. It’s not that I didn’t know that already, but it’s always nice to hear over again. It made me think that I need to do a better job of letting all the people in my life know how much I love them.

Whenever we hear that someone loves us or is proud of us--especially when it’s a parent saying it to a child, it gives us an especially wonderful feeling inside. So if you are a parent, don’t forget that no matter how old your child is or how “grown up” they may seem, hearing that you are proud of them and love them is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give them. Not to mention it helps remind me that even though I am an adult and I am accountable for my own actions my parents still have standards that they expect me to live up to, and I’m glad they do. Luckily I seem to be meeting those standards--or at least coming close.