New Hyperemesis Resource: Joy in the Morning

Make sure to catch the latest hyperemesis blog, Joy in the Morning. It is a joy to read, and I am thoroughly enjoying going through all of the author's research findings as she journeys through the available HG research. This will be a wonderful data resource and conversation meeting place for all of you HG mamas out there.

Enjoy!

Pregnancy as a Chisel: For Mamas With Hard Pregnancies

I absolutely love Bambi's post from yesterday, Pregnancy as a Chisel. As a woman who has struggled with very difficult pregnancies, her article speaks straight to my heart. I think it will speak to a lot of you ladies out there - especially those of you who are hyperemesis mamas.

She writes:

"[N]o pregnancy is easy even on the "easiest" day.  It has a chiseling effect on us, as any change of life or health does, either forming us further into the image of Jesus or marring us into a fretful, complaining, distorted chunk of bitterness that makes us miserable, as well as those who have to live with us.  Some of the most humble and compassionate Christians I know, are ones who have walked through physical trials...or multiple or seriously difficult pregnancies, and emerged with lessons painfully learned and applied."

And again:

"God does not owe us an easy life.  Nowhere in His Word does he say that. And faith means caring more about what we can't see than what we can. It is so easy to coast along in our own strength until we are brought face to face with our weakness.  And our physical health is so inextricably linked with the spiritual, that often when God sees fit to deal a blow to one, it affects the other greatly.  But anything that causes us to recognize our neediness is good."

Especially catch the quote from J.R. Miller - so appropriate here.

As a small side note, I completely agree with her statement that each pregnancy helps her to understand her body and her health better.

"[W]ith each pregnancy, I understand my own body a little better and how to take care of myself. More importantly, previous pregnancies have taught me that good health is not to be taken for granted and could change tomorrow."

I could not agree more.

Make sure catch the whole article!

Severe Pregnancy Nausea from Copper Deficiency

A friend's post reminded me that I needed to publish this (after keeping it in draft form for months). Here it is!

***

Here's something fun from the comment section in the article "The REAL Cause of Morning Sickness":

This comment, which I found extremely interesting, was from a woman who discovered that her HG was caused by copper deficiency:

"Hi  :) I just wanted to leave a comment, just in case it might help someone else figure out what’s going on with their body and pregnancy. I started having severe morning sickness at about 8 weeks pregnancy that lasted until I found out the cause (for me) 9 weeks later. I was COPPER DEFICIENT. I still can’t believe it, but it was absolutely horrendous and even now if I think I can skip a dose of copper with my prenatal I will get paid back for it and the symptoms immediately come back. I am taking Garden of Life’s Prenatal with added chelated copper (2 or 3mg a day; no more than 3 and no less than 2). The results from the added Copper were, for me, absolutely MIRACULOUS and almost instantaneous.

"I am SO SO SO SO thankful that I was a biology major for part of my college career and was so studious (I made all As in the pre-med program at my school, but ended up changing because I ended up knowing that wasn’t the route I was supposed to ultimately take).

"After experiencing nearly all-day morning sickness, having literally everything smell absolutely horrible to me, and then eventually becoming extremely irritable (I had to stop working all of this got so bad… I am lucky that financially my husband and I are able to handle this. I really don’t know how I could have functioned otherwise…) I started experiencing symptoms similar to MS. I would have nerve pain/slight tremors, started developing spider veins/beginning varicose veins (a symptom of copper deficiency) and even slight twitching.

"Once all this happened I woke up one morning absolutely KNOWING I was having damage done to my Myelin Sheaths. It was like the word Myelin Sheath sang itself in a mantra inside my head -yelling at me to get online and do the research I needed to do to fix what was going wrong.

"In between trips to the trash-can and/or toilet (because I was throwing up bile at that point -I would throw up with absolutely nothing in my stomach) I researched online. I KNEW I didn’t have MS. I just knew that was not the case. I knew there was something going on — and all the research I did pointed to Copper Deficiency like a bright and shining arrow.

"I am supplement junky (seriously I am, I have enough herbal/vitamin supplements to fill up a very large kitchen drawer) and found out that I’d bought some copper a while back and decided that this was something I was absolutely going to try. I took about 4mg that day (the upper limit is 10mg, but taking that much is not something I’d advise unless your doctor recommends it, even if your deficient as I was/am).

"The results literally were almost instantaneous. By the end of the day not only did my all day “morning sickness” go away, but I could actually walk around without everything smelling incredibly strong and incredibly disgusting inside my own house and outside in my yard and neighborhood. I started to FEEL different as well. It was like Copper Deficiency affected the way I saw and felt about absolutely everything.

"These days SO MANY vitamins, including the high quality vitamins, have far more Zinc than Copper in them. If you eat a fortefied cereal chances are it contains far more zinc than copper. If you eat eggs (which are AWESOME for your growing baby, lots of good B vitamins, minerals, choline, etc) they contain a lot more zinc than copper.

"Before I conceived (and for the first few weeks) I was taking Megafood’s Women multivitamin. This is a whole food vitamin that is very reputable… After I found out I was pregnant I switched to Garden of Life’s Prenatal. I also took plenty of Magnesium (Natural Calm), Calcium (Swanson’s Coral Calcium), DHA (Garden of Life’s Prenatal DHA) and a small amount of Organic Spirulina to help chelate some of heavy metals that seem so prevalant in our food.

"I really thought I was doing everything so perfectly… But I really believe taking vitamins that have zinc/copper imbalances (more zinc than copper) for years probably contributed to my copper deficiency. Finding out what exactly it was causing my morning sickness has been an absolute MIRACLE. And I still believe I am somewhat copper deficient because I absolutely cannot take my prenatal (GoL’s prenatal is 3 pills a day) without Copper. I have small 2mg pills that I usually break in half and take that way. If I think I can get away with less copper my morning sickness and all the symptoms immediately start coming back.

"I’ve written a book here it feels like! But I seriously hope I can help someone else. If you are experiencing what I’ve experienced the conventional advice will NOT help you. Taking vitamin B6 (as recommended by my OB) only made my morning sickness Worse, which makes sense because taking B6 will only exacerbate a Copper Deficiency. Copper Deficiency can also cause problems for your baby. I am thankful that I caught mine when I did and believe part of my severe symptoms were because my body was giving all the copper in my prenatal (not very much) to my baby instead of to me (which of course I am glad of!).

"If you are experiencing traditional morning sickness with depression like symptoms, irritability, and then experience ANY kind of nerve pain or tremors you could be Copper Deficient, as I was. I stumbled on this page in googling the connection between mineral deficiencies and “morning sickness” and definitely am living proof that a mineral deficiency can cause severe morning sickness. I’m not sure what prompted me to write all of this, but I sure hope it ends up helping someone! My baby (boy) has been nothing but active and healthy in my only two ultrasounds, so I’m thinking my body gave all my dietary and prenatal copper to him, leaving me with the severe morning sickness and eventual more serious symptoms."

Of course, when I Googled it, I found other articles saying that copper toxicity (overdoing it with copper) can cause morning sickness.

Ah, pregnancy nausea. It loves to baffle us.

Stopping By

Hello, dear readers!

My husband has been at his new job for a week and a half. We're adjusting.

And what do I have to say about re-entering the corporate job world schedule?

Blergh!

That wasn't a word, but it is now. You have my permission to use it.

In all seriousness, our new life has been both easier and harder than life with a small independent business.

The part that's easier:

• Set hours
• Regular income
• Guaranteed income
• Health insurance
• Steady work

The part that's harder:

• No help at home
• Far less daddy time and family time
• Schedule and workload set by an employer rather than self

My main conclusions:

(1) I am extremely thankful for the Lord's provision through this job.
(2) I hope that my husband will be able to work from home again at some point.
(3) We both have some learning to do to work into our new schedule.


In some ways it's felt like taking up where we left off three years ago, when my husband left the corporate world, and that's nice - we've been here before. It's not all new territory.

But both of us are still having to learn to be more independent rather than interdependent, and that's a challenge.

My secondary conclusion is simply that this new life of mine leaves almost nothing left over for extras.

When I get up in the morning, I set immediately to working through my daily routines. When those routines are over, it's time for bed.

Repeat.

Time for blogging? Hobbies? Even little things, like extra cleaning projects?

Nope. Not one bit.

And I'm also good and tired. Except for our one-hour daily quiet time, there's no down time. Not that there was before, but there were more breaks - for example, when my husband took the older children to run an errand, or when he watched the children play outside while I cooked dinner.

So... I'm tired. Very tired. I'm trying to pay attention to the things that need to get done, and to jettison all else.

It's very good discipline for me. I need it. And it's always good to learn to make better use of the time that we are given to steward. My husband, too, is learning to steward and guard his time more carefully.

But there's very little time for blogging, even though I have half-written posts running through my mind most of the time. Right now I can't even make it to my inbox to answer email or respond to comments in a reasonable time frame.

As an aside, I would also appreciate prayer for our family, as my husband's mother received a diagnosis of cancer this week. While it's supposedly an operable form with a decently good prognosis, we are all still concerned (especially as she already has numerous other serious health challenges).

And I'll try to update on recent events, the homeschool convention, etc., when I can, which will be... sometime.

Readers, have a wonderful Sabbath! Love to you all.

Tidbits and Snippets for July 22nd

Get the Digital Baby Monitor Out of the Nursery - Well, crumbs. Just after we bought our first one (and can't return it). (Deep Roots at Home)

Planned Parenthood Sells Baby Parts - What surprises me is that this surprises anyone. (Get Along Home)

"In our day, murder, as long as it is “legal”, is just a distasteful thing that has to be done, while a dozen other, lesser sins are considered to be utterly unconscionable. It’s not the deaths of the babies that are outrageous, but the subsequent selling of the parts. After all, that is illegal.

"That’s like saying the Jews probably needed to go in a lot of cases, and maybe just a few were unnecessarily killed, but the real horror was in the theft of their property and making lampshades of their skin. Yes, the Nazis were bad for murdering so many Jews, but if it had been illegal to then use the remains for lamps, surely they wouldn’t have done that. They only go as far as they’re legally allowed! When what they are legally allowed is the absolute worst they could do to a person, we certainly can’t expect them to behave in an “ethical” way afterwards, can we?

"Why shouldn’t they, and we, benefit further? The babies are dead anyway, aren’t they?

"And we wonder why God is rapidly dismantling our nation. Come quickly, Lord Jesus."

(Read the whole article.) 

On the same topic, don't miss this excellent article - Preserving the Precious, Protecting the Weak (Ready to Be Offered)

Life Hack - I needed to read this. I hope that it blesses you too! (Contentment Acres)

Also, don't miss her great piece on doing housework with children. Oh, goodness, is this an area of my life that needs work!

Truth and Beauty: Rebuilding Culture By Doing the Next Thing - The material and pertinent points apply to both Protestants and Catholics. (Wildflowers and Marbles)


From the Bookshelf

Humanae Vitae

I've read about it for years - now I need to actually read it.

The Return of the King

My easy reading for the month.

 


The Well-Trained Mind

I started it, panicked, quit, and sent it back to the library. Now I'm starting again from the beginning. This is an excellent book, even if it does have the tendency to induce hyperventilation in homeschool mamas.

Birthing God's Mighty Warriors

This is a fascinating book. Besides decrying what seems to me an overuse of italicized print, I agree with a vast majority of it. There are some theological points on which I disagree (or just question), and it's obvious that the author and I come from different Christian subcultures (she seems to be more the charismatic type; I'm more of the don't you dare ask me to lift my hands during worship type). But aside from that, this is an excellent text, and I recommend it.












The Wheel on the School

A children's read-aloud from our history program. I am enjoying this thoroughly! Yet another children's classic that I missed during my own childhood and am now getting to enjoy. The wonderful joys of having children!













Have a wonderful week, dear readers!

Tidbits and Snippets for July 15th

Do Less and Live More - Especially relevant for homeschool mamas. (Becoming Minimalist)

Pastor Starts Movement to Lower American Flag - It should never have been otherwise. (Titus 25)

Hope, Redemption, Grace and Cost. From Gay Activist to Follower of Christ - "Dr. Rosaria Butterfield talks about her journey from a lesbian and gay activist, to meeting Jesus and what Christianity costs us." (Generation Cedar)

"There is simply no price you can put on the peace of God... There's no price you can put on a God who loves you enough to give you the gift of repentance."

What's So Wrong With the "S" Word? - "I can attest that there is at least one person on the planet who was sheltered as a youth and who, now in her 30’s, makes her way in the world quite well. That person is me. Actually, believe it or not, there are others like me. Many others. You might not know it though because, well, we’re just so adept at socializing." (The Modest Mom)

Preparing Homeschoolers for College Success: Reading Aloud - I loved this. (Smockity Frocks)

These Indescribably Precious Children of Mine - Taking this in a very unusual (and very convicting) direction. (Get Along Home)

What Should Christians Do in Troubled Times? - Yup. (Contentment Acres)

Have a wonderful week, dear readers!

Really, Really Random Ramblings

Hello, dear friends!

It's been a bit since I've checked in. As I mentioned, I've been super-busy lately - both with the usual run of life, and with the extra preparations for my husband's start date with his new job.

During the coming week, we will be getting our baby his annual check-up, taking the children to swim twice plus our church's kids' club, hosting two sets of family, working madly on shopping trips and home fix-it projects, getting my husband ready for his job, and preparing for and attending our state homeschool convention.

I'm tired just thinking about it!

Needless so say, I probably won't be around much for the next week or two. That's okay, of course, but do know that I am thinking of each of you!

Additionally, for the past few weeks I have been a bit down. To be specific, I have been grieving deeply over the recent Supreme Court decision here in the United States.

My head and my heart are bowed.

I am grieving for a people who have yet again made another step away from God - and which decision is both approved and applauded by leaders and populace alike.

I did not expect the decision to go any other way. The writing was on the wall, and the decision was made years (decades? centuries?) ago. But I still grieve.

I do not wish this blog to turn into a war zone. If you want to fight, please go elsewhere. But I would like to say that this issue is not "Big, mean, stupid Christians who want to deny civil rights to a repressed minority people." It's about Christians who believe that there are transcendent truths regarding human behavior, and that there is a God who has laid down the laws for human existence - laws that cannot be trifled with without severe long-term consequences.

And for a country that again has thumbed its nose at the Bible, and the Bible's God - I grieve for this country.

Thus, though we had a great 4th of July celebration, it was a bit subdued. It's hard to celebrate when one feels that our country has just made a decision both horrible and basically irreversible.

However, truth be told, our country has a long history of departure from God. It is now over 40 years since we declared open season on our precious unborn babies. And the ground of our nation is now stained with the innocent blood of millions upon millions of wee ones who were slaughtered in their mother's wombs, all with the full approval of the American courts.

It has been many years since this nation honored God - certainly not in my lifetime.

Friday's decision was just another step in the same direction.

As a matter of fact, it feels silly to be writing about this at all, because I spent hours upon hours (that I should have been using elsewhere!) writing an extremely long post about the topic last week. In many ways I am retracing my steps.

But I'm not sure whether or not I'll ever publish that article.

Firstly, I'm not a skilled debater (and I do not enjoy heated arguments).

Secondly, I don't really want this to become an issues-based blog.

Thirdly, as I discussed last week with a dear friend, it's hard for us Christian mommy bloggers to find the fine line between blogging and doctrinal teaching. God's Word forbids women from teaching in the church, and the written word from a blog is just as much teaching as the spoken word from the pulpit. I don't want to cross that line.

So I'll have to sit on it for a while. We'll see.

In the meantime, I will share two observations:

The fallout from this decision is going to be horrendous for the Christian church

If you choose to stay faithful to the Bible in coming years, you will pay. Your family will pay. Your church will pay.

Are you ready?

Are you ready to hated for following Christ? For following the Bible? For refusing the swim with the crowd?

(Am I ready?)

I am incredibly fearful (though I should not be), because I can see quite clearly the direction that this is heading, and it will most likely be ugly for the church. I do not think that we believers in this country (who have always known both respect and freedom) have any conception of where this could be headed. But our rights (of religion, assembly, expression, parenting, personal choice, etc.) are clearly on the way out in favor of extreme government power. And that scares me.

For those of you who claim to follow both Christ and the crowds - dear friends, please consider. You will be called to choose one or the other. We cannot choose to love God and to love the world's hatred of God at the same time.

(I know there are those who will respectfully disagree with me on this point. I love you anyway.)

Secondly, I invite each of us to consider how we, the church, helped lead our nation to this point. My other article (which will probably never be published) examined this issue in depth, but to put it briefly - by our actions (or lack thereof) we have gutted heterosexual marriage. And in doing so, we created a homosexual definition of marriage for ourselves - and then acted upset when the homosexuals wanted in on it. We can blame only ourselves for our selfishness, and we can begin to address the larger culture only by addressing the sins within our midst first.

Justin writes in his first-class summing-up:

"And yet, the people are getting something they deserve. While the courts and the government have set the American cultural slide into motion, the people have embraced it. When no-fault divorce came along, there was little real opposition, and today, many churches simply accept it. When coverture was overturned, no one batted an eye (today most people don’t even know what it is, and most pastors balk at the concept). Americans thrust themselves whole-heartedly into the idea that women ought to be able to take care of themselves, and as education and career replaced marriage, the churches were silent, or even encouraging. For decades, Biblical marriage has been slowly relegated to the dustbin of history, and only an outspoken few did anything to stop it."

And Cindy adds in her excellent article:

"While we’re calling gays to repentance, don’t we have some repenting of our own to do? While we’re rightly demanding the government to restore marriage, don’t we need to restore it in our own understanding, as well?

"Or do we prefer to continue treating marriage as if it were ours, to be entered, enjoyed, and disposed of in whatever fashion makes us happy? If so (and I sadly suspect it is so, given the number of Christians who have called me a fool for saying this utterly unsurprising and thoroughly biblical stuff), then I suggest you line up behind those confused, degenerate, hell-bound gays and affirm their marriages along with the government. If we’re not as a people going to get back to treating marriage as a sacred covenant, rather than a personally beneficial economic and sexual arrangement, then we might as well put the rainbow on our own Facebook profiles, because they only want the same thing so many professing Christians already have, and that is not traditional marriage, no matter what we want to call it."

I invite each of you to visit the links below. I regret that it is not a more exhaustive list - I only started keeping it recently, and thus missed a great many excellent articles.

There are at least three positives here:

(1) The Christian church is most likely on the brink of beginning to experience true persecution in this country. This is scary. But fire, while it burns, also purifies - and the church is in desperate need of that purification.

(2) The rise of the issues at hand has caused me to dive head-first into massive amounts of reading and research. I have learned so much! I have learned about marriage, human behavior, human sexuality, life ethics, theology, church history, politics, law, and theology and the Bible in general. I have also begun to make a lot of the "X led to Y" connections that are missing for so many of us in our understanding of history. This has been amazing and a huge blessing to me.

(3) For those of us in the church, we are going to learn a new skill - how to trust God when we don't have the security of respect from the culture and freedom of worship guaranteed by the government. We've been used to these securities, and I, like many, feel panicky as I survey the possibility of losing them. But many of our brothers in other countries have never known the freedoms we take for granted. It may be our turn soon to join their ranks.

(I apologize for my pessimism, but I think it's justified.)

Please pray for our country. For the Christian church. For our people.

Hope is not lost, but the trajectory of this time in history is clear.

Now, read!

(Readers, I do apologize for the downer tone of this post. It is a faithful reflection of my mood at the time of writing, however, and is now impossible to edit out. If I had had a more faith-filled response, here is what I would like to have written instead. Follow the link and enjoy!)


***


Fox, J. Mark (June 29, 2015). Christians, Practice What You Preach [blog post]. Retrieved from http://jmarkfox.com/2015/06/29/christians-practice-what-you-preach/

 

Kainz, Howard (July 7, 2011). If Contraception, Why Not Gay Marriage? [journal article]. Retrieved from http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/if-contraception-why-not-gay-marriage

 

Alexander, Lori (June 27, 2015). Grieving Over the Supreme Court's Decision [blog post comment]. Retrieved from http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2015/06/grieving-over-supreme-courts-decision.html

 

French, David (June 26, 2015). The Supreme Court Ratifies a New Religion That Is Incompatible With Christianity [journal article]. Retrieved from http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420376/marriage-christians-religion-love

 

Mohler, Dr. Albert (June 27, 2015). Everything Has Changed and Nothing Has Changed - The Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.albertmohler.com/2015/06/27/everything-has-changed-and-nothing-has-changed-the-supreme-court-and-same-sex-marriage/

 

Dyer, Cindy (June 29, 2015). I'm Not One to Say I Told You So [blog post]. Retrieved from http://getalonghome.com/2015/06/told/

 

Lawler, Leila (June 27, 2015). Bits and Pieces [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/2015/06/bits-pieces-56/

 

Headmistress (June 26, 2015). Supreme Court Rules We No Longer Live Under the Rule of Law [blog post]. Retrieved from http://thecommonroomblog.com/2015/06/supreme-court-rules-we-no-longer-live-under-the-rule-of-law.html?doing_wp_cron=1435714102.7762739658355712890625

 

Challies, Tim (July 1, 2015). You Don't Really Know Who Your Friends Are Until... [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.challies.com/articles/you-dont-really-know-who-your-friends-are-until

Douthat, Ross (June 26, 2015). Gay Conservatism and Straight Liberation (jurnal article). Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-gay-marriage-and-straight-liberation.html?_r=1

Steyn, Mark (July 2, 2015). Going with the Flow (online journal post). Retrieved from http://www.steynonline.com/7032/going-with-the-flow

Jacqueline (July 5, 2015). Top US Hospital Embraces Political Correctness Over Truth (blog post). Retrieved from http://www.deeprootsathome.com/top-us-hospital-embraces-political-correctness-over-truth/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DeepRootsAtHome+%28Deep+Roots+at+Home%29

Justin (July 6, 2015). Justice Anthony Kennedy to Be Excommunicated? (blog post). Retrieved from http://titus25.com/justice-anthony-kennedy-to-be-excommunicated/


And for encouragement in dark times:
Don't miss these!

Neal, Rebekah (July 4, 2015). Love That Wins (blog post). Retrieved from http://www.readytobeoffered.com/2015/07/love-that-wins.html

Haupt, Heather (July 6, 2015). Intentional Parenting Means Raising Daniels (blog post). Retrieved from http://www.heatherhaupt.com/2015/07/05/raising-daniels/#comment-48964

Mackintosh, Jennifer (June 30, 2015) Truth and Beauty: Rebuilding Culture by Doing the Next Thing (blog post). Retrieved from http://wildflowersandmarbles.com/2015/06/30/truth-beauty-rebuilding-culture-by-doing-the-next-thing/