Completing Him Challenge: Task #2

Week #2 Task - And I'm only two days late! :)

"June 14 – Post Pictures from your dating days (or tell us all about it!). Think about one thing you used to do or have as a couple that you have lost in the shuffle of life. How can you regain it?"

She elaborates:

"Purpose this week to do something that reminds your husband of the youthful wife you once were - maybe it's wearing something you know he loves on you (remember we dressed to please back in those dating days!), go somewhere you both used to enjoy going together - alone!, look at photos together of the "good ol' days", watch a favorite movie, or just simply sit together talking, listening, dreaming, holding hands, rubbing his back, and simply paying attention to the amazing husband of your youth! Treasure him this week!"

Boy, is it easy to forget romance and relationship once kids arrive. Oh, my goodness, it's amazing how fast all that stuff goes out the window. Even though I swore it never would. Round-the-clock insane busyness, constant exhaustion, the never-ending needs of babies and small children - I completely understand how marital romance is lost once little ones arrive. Before I got married I read all those Christian marriage books and swore that I would always be the perfect, romantic wife who met her husband's every need and never forgot the romance. And now? Hmm... well, I do my best to be dressed when my husband gets home and to be reasonably cheerful, but - romance? Our last "official" date night was... hmm..... well, it was so long ago that I can't remember it! Oh yes, I think it was about a year ago. The one before that was multiple years prior.

The lesson? Keeping a marriage healthy after kids is HARD! That is why I need this challenge!

So, our dating story:

I actually saw my husband about six months before I met him. He was playing Judas in a Passion Play at our town's local megachurch, and for some reason I went to see the show. (The show, by the way, was an awesome show - it was The Masterpiece by Keith Ward, with music to die for that I still listen to around Easter. You can see a picture of my DH as Judas if you click here and scroll down to "Judas Remembers". The pictures on the site are of the first run of the show (DH was in it three times) at the church where I saw it.). He did a great job!

Six months later, a friend of mine, Becky, invited me to her annual Halloween/Harvest party. I went, even though I was desperately behind in my organic chemistry work, and I also had a new liturgy to learn to play in the morning at my church where I was the organist. I dressed like a farmer - the only thing I could throw together last minute without going shopping! I showed up on time, and, as Becky hangs with the theatrical crowd, I was therefore the only one there for the first 30 minutes! So we got to hang out in the bounce house and chat for a while, and had a lovely time catching up. Becky and I had been friendly acquaintances in high school, but our friendship really blossomed after graduation, when we were each attending different colleges. (There's a reason for that, but that's a whole different story! Suffice it to say that it was the most interesting love quadrangle you've ever seen. No, make that a love quint-angle.).

Anyhow, after that, the second guest arrived, and lo and behold, it was "Judas"! Becky said "I'd like you to meet my friend Joe," and so we were introduced. Our conversation that night was very basic and brief, but I did go home rather smitten, as, I found out later, did he. And I don't even believe in love at first sight! :)

Our acquaintance continued to unfold over the next month. The next time I saw him was when we both showed up (unknowingly) at Becky's choir concert. The three of us spent the evening after the concert talking together at a Denny's (a horrible, filthy, disgusting Denny's - please don't ever go there!) and having a wonderful time despite the revolting ambiance and the deplorable service. After that, we both had an excuse to see the other, through our mutual friend Becky, and so we got to know each other. Becky eventually acted as our go-between, and Joe asked me out officially the week before Thanksgiving.

We dated for a year and a half before getting engaged, and then were engaged for one year before getting married. So many fun memories!

Our courtship was not, however, always a bed of roses. My mom disapproved of me marrying "young," and of my marrying a man who had not graduated from college and whose income was not stellar. There were plenty of fights and lots of tension in the house. As a matter of fact, one of the worst fights I ever had with my mom was the night Joe and I got engaged, because she found out (through a slip-up) that I was considering going to culinary school instead of getting my Master's Degree, which had been my original plan though I had little interest in it. As a result of that, we never ended up telling my parents that we had gotten engaged. What a weekend - that would make for a story in itself.

Additionally, I was in the process of discovering my Christian faith, and Joe was a bit back-slidden in his faith at the time - which created its own set of complications. Our debates and conversation, though, were a great growing exercise for my faith, as was the clash between his ultra-Pentecostal and my Lutheran upbringings.

Anyhow, we got married at a lovely little Lutheran church - not my own church, which was too small (and ugly!) to get married in, and then went on a 10-day camping honeymoon up the coast of California - Joe's first encounter with camping! We had a great time. Shortly thereafter, we moved one state away to our new home in Arizona, and have been here ever since. Marriage, like all post-high-school experiences, has been an intense growing experience and an ever-present source of surprises and challenges. What a time it has been!

Okay, that was fun! Now I have to think of something "dating-days"-ish to do - I think I'll get out our wedding photo book to look through with hubbie. That should be fun!

Second week's challenge - CHECK!

An Uncertain Birth Future

A few days ago, I received the rather upsetting news that our midwife, due to a new practice partner, will not be able to accept the bartering arrangement by which we have "paid" for our two births (we've done computer services for birth services). The question now: Where does that leave us in case of another surprise baby?

Here are some of the options I can think of (good and bad lumped together):

(1) Pay cash - nearly impossible, as our finances can be described by the term "shoestring"

(2) Traditional OB care and hospital birth - Not even an option.

(3) Traditional OB care with "oops!" unassisted homebirth

(4) Unassisted pregnancy and birth

(5) Trying to find a midwife with discounted prices for bartering or using a senior student as primary caregiver

(6) If my husband changes jobs, hoping that homebirth will be covered by a new insurance. Or using a "flex spending account" - not quite sure what that is, or if it's an option.

***

While I completely support a woman's right to UC (unassisted childbirth), I'm not comfortable with it for myself, for three reasons: (1) I know quite a bit about birth, but my husband does not; and a woman in labor is not the best midwife in the world, (2) something could easily happen outside of our ability to handle it, (3) both of our babies have had a hard time at the end of labor, especially our last, who required some resuscitation and suctioning. Not fun to handle solo.

However, at the very least it looks like we might have to face the chance of losing our midwife. I guess we'd live through it, but we are really bonded with her and would hate to lose her. Kind of an upsetting transition!

Of course, this is all entirely theoretical. We have not yet come to a peaceful answer to the "Are we done or not?" question regarding childbearing. But I'm one of those uptight people who likes to have theoretical future situations resolved in advance, even if they may never materialize! So here is yet another question for us to ponder.

Doing a Summer Challenge

I found this randomly in a blog I just started following:

Completing Him Summer Challenge

And on a lark, I decided to do it! It looks easy, helpful, and not very time-consuming, so it shouldn't be hard to keep up with (though with my blogging skills, I'm sure I'll manage to be late with most of the tasks). And I can't figure out how to do the button (my button skills are weak lately), so I'll just have to leave the link. But in the meantime, it should be fun!

This week's task: "June 7 - announce to your readers you are participating by posting the button on your site and leaving your link below. Optional: Embed the HTML from this video in your blog post!" As far as I can complete that, I have. Check!

I've been meaning to do a "life update" for the past month or so, so I'll hope to do that soon. I really need to learn how to do short and sweet updates rather than saving everything for the great-American-novel type of update - my blogging life could improve if I could learn that skill! In the meantime, enjoy your summer! (Personally, I'm just counting the days till summer is over.... I am SO not a heat fat!)

Thoughts from an HG Mama

Any readers of this blog know that I am in the middle of praying through our "What do we want to do with our childbearing career?" question in hopes of arriving at a peaceful decision that both I and my husband can live with. As I see it, we have three options: (1) We can say that we are done, done, done, and be done! Finis! (2) We can say "maybe another, but not now" and be in a holding pattern, or (3) We can be "open to children" now, then, or any time in between. Where we'll end up is really a mystery - I'm just trying to pray and wait for the Lord's wisdom, and pray also for agreement between myself and DH.

A few days ago, I ran across another HG mama blogger - oddly enough, not among my scanty number of HG blogs, but amongst the natural-birth blogs that I read in droves. She is like me in that she adores pregnancy but dreads it for the HG-factor. She and her husband, however, have come to a place of peace in their decision that, HG or not, they are going to refrain from using either birth control or natural family planning, and welcome any and all children that God sends them. Wow! That is one brave woman - braver than I, I must admit. And while I don't have a steadfast stance on the fertility/birth control/sterilization/family size/etc. issue, I do admire and respect their position.

Here are a few snippets of conversation that she and I have had over the past few days (her part is in bold):

"It's probably not apparent in my post, but I really am at peace with our decision to be open to more children. I'll share with you why:

"My mother got pregnant 6 times (she has 7 children) on different forms of birth control.

"After surgery for endometriosis, sister A was told she couldn't get pregnant. 1 week later she conceived.

"Sister L got pregnant at 14 (several years ago), carried the baby until 38 weeks gestation and then he died in utero. No cause found.

"I got pregnant just 4 months after my second child was born and miscarried at 8-9 weeks. After that my cycles were so messed up I thought I couldn't get pregnant anymore. When we got pregnant with Anna is was very unexpected and she has been such a blessing!"

I'm curious! You said that you have made peace with your decision to be BC/NFP-free. Does that mean that you're really okay with going through HG every couple of years through menopause?

"Yes, I'm really okay with having HG every 2-3 years for the next 10-15 (ish?) years. Through my birth experiences and through those experiences of those I love I have learned that it is truly the Lord who gives and the Lord who takes away (Job 1:21). If I decide I don't want any more children, as happened before I conceived A. (third child), the Lord may still decide that he wants me to have more. Should I decide I want children before the Lord's timing, I may have that child taken away (as happened with "baby MAC", conceived just 4 months after my second child, C., was born). I've found that when I wait on the Lord's timing instead of my own, blessing abounds."

How do you manage the fear? I lived with overwhelming fear for every cycle in between our eldest and our youngest, and it was exhausting.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6) I have prayed so hard over the last few years. I feel like my relationship with the Lord has become deeper than I ever thought possible. I try to focus on the things I love most about pregnancy and how privileged I am to be used by the Creator of Heaven and Earth to bring life into the world. I view my trials as suffering for Christ. Through my sickness, those around me are witness to the physical and spiritual saving grace of Christ. They see how ill I am, and how I lean on the Lord, and how He always gets me through."

Also, what I noticed during my last pregnancy was that SO many things in our life got out of control, especially with our son (things like diet, TV time (skyrocketed), behavior issues (too sick to discipline), etc.), and they took months to get back under control - and we're still feeling the ramifications. How do you deal with not being able to care for kiddos, especially with multiple children?

"We've had this problem in our house, too. It's of particular concern now since S. (5) will begin homeschool in the fall. How will I homeschool through HG? I don't know. Thankfully, the worst of my illness is usually confined to between weeks 7 through 20/21 or so. We can take a good portion of that time "off" and call it summer vacation. As for diet, I've found that simple, nutritious meals aren't that hard to prepare/serve if planned carefully. My children LOVE frozen blueberries and will eat them like candy. Served with peanut butter crackers, it makes a nice snack. I've also found that by adding a bit more high-quality, high-calorie foods, as well as adding a good carbohydrate and protein each meal makes them full quickly and keeps them full longer. TV does tend to take over my children's time when I'm sick, so I'm planning to take away all tv's in the house except the one in my bedroom. They can watch bible movies, veggie tales, talking word factory, etc in there with me when I can't get out of bed. Also, I've found that when I take the tv's away they play nicely together and have a lot of fun! I wish I had an answer for you on discipline, but I don't. We have major problems there, too, during HG. Kelly at Generation Cedar also talks a lot about teaching our children to have Christ's "servant heart" and how pregnancy, especially a difficult one, is an excellent opportunity for children to learn to serve.

"I don't have all the answers. I simply feel called to give this part of my life over to the Lord and seek His will, not my own. I don't feel I should obey the Lord only if I'm sure the consequences will be to my liking, or if I think I will succeed. I feel I should obey "anyway", not "because". It's hard, I know it's hard!"

I asked B. if I could share her responses here, and she said "Sure!" I know that many HG mamas will have very different opinions than those shared here, and I also personally know many, many deeply devoted Christian HG mothers who have come to conclusions directly opposite to B's - so please don't think that I'm taking sides here! But for those mothers out there who would choose this route (the open-to-children-anytime route), I wanted her beautiful words to be out there for them! Thank you so much, B., for your insights! And I definitely agree that HG should have a puke-green awareness ribbon!

I would love to hear any other perspectives on this issue (family planning, biblical worldview, birth control, family size, fertility, etc.) as well as how they relate to HG - politely stated opinions only, as I know that many people hold very strong views on these issues!

Hyperemesis... and Gluten?

There is the occasional HG question on one of the birth yahoo groups I subscribe to, and one woman wrote the following:

"I started drinking ginger tea and drinking Hansen's Ginger Ale (no HFCS). My midwife recommended Vitamin B-6, so I take a combo of B-6, B-12 and folic acid (I can't stomach prenatals) and that seems to help. The biggest thing was my diet change this time around. I realized I was vomiting when I had gluten in my food. I took it out and it has helped a lot. I also eat mostly fruit and veggies, all organic. I also eat like every half hour, in tiny meals. I eat when I am nauseous too and although it is hard, it still helps to not vomit. I also munch on ice all day long. If I drink a glass of water, it can cause me to vomit. Munching ice has helped a lot so that I don't get dehydrated. I also will drink coconut water if I am throwing up a lot, to get my electrolytes and potassium up."

Interesting! Very interesting! Any concurrence out there in HG land?

I'm trying to do low-gluten right now (with lots of relapses), both to try to re-jumpstart my pregnancy weight loss and to deal with the fatigue issues that are ever-present for me. Wouldn't it be interested going gluten-free helped with HG issues, at least for the gluten-sensitive among us?

Someone is Channeling Me...

Occasionally I run across a blog post that could have been written by me... it's creepy. And it happened tonight! So I am cross-posting - thank you, sister blogger! You have saved me a lot of time!

My terrible secret

Not every detail mirrors my life, of course, but the thoughts, emotions, fears - it's all one big ditto. There sure are a lot of HG mothers out there when you start looking!

I've shared on this blog how torn I've felt about "should we, shouldn't we" in regards to considering any more pregnancies - both practically and theologically. Since my eternal vacillating has gotten me nowhere in terms of coming up with a peaceful decision, I have decided to commit the issue to prayer and wait for peace on this issue. I want to be able to say "We're done and we have peace with that decision" or "We're open to another child and we have peace with that decision" - rather than always having one foot in each camp and thinking something different depending on how I'm feeling, how the kids are behaving, how clean the house is, etc.

Hopefully I/we can come to a place of peace on this! I'm tired of being in limbo. And being who I am, having unmade decisions in my life is infinitely stressful. I was under a ton of stress not having the school decision made for our children (homeschool, public school, etc.) even though that decision didn't technically have to be made for another two years - and now that it is made, I have a lot more peace. I want the same thing regarding our childbearing career! I will write more on that as we go along this journey.

Night, all!

Hodge-Podge of Anti-Nausea Remedies

Every few weeks, someone posts a question about bad morning sickness on Mamapedia - "I'm really sick and it's getting worse and I don't know what to do - help!" I always post the same thing: "Stay hydrated, try liquid nutrition, try to get Zofran if it gets bad, check out www.helpher.org, look for a supportive care-provider." Yesterday, when one of these requests came out, I took the time to look through the answers, and I made notes of the various remedies mentioned by the mothers who responded (see below).

Looking at these answers, I am reminded once again of the fact that morning sickness remedies are highly individual. It's not "For condition A, take remedy B" - it's "For varying manifestations of condition A, take one of several thousand remedies and eventually find out what works for you." When I was pregnant with our eldest son, one of the most frustrating activities of the day was surfing the net for nausea remedies. I would find TONS of women writing "I had horrible morning sickness and I tried [remedy X] and it completely cured me!" Then I would, of course, try [remedy X] and find it to be useless for my nausea. It's such a shot in the dark.

And of course, some of these women are writing about their experience with normal morning sickness, while others are writing about severe morning sickness or hyperemesis - quite different things in terms of being able to find remedies.

Several of these remedies, especially the drugs, I had not heard of before. Always good to have new options to try!

Here is a list of things mentioned:

- Sea bands

- 8 oz. of warm water with 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar, taken at lunch time and then again in the middle of the night

- Zofran, Reglan, Tigan, etc.

- PICC Line

- Liquid nutrition (Jell-O, Boost, Gatorade)

- Sucking on a thin slice of raw ginger

- Ginger tea, from fresh or powdered ginger

- IV fluids

- Acupuncture

- Ginger ale

- Peppermint candies

- Lemon-ginger tea

- Vitamin B supplements

- Peppermint-Ginger together in Shaklee's Stomach Soothing Complex (???)

- Peppermint aromatherapy

- Cool water - to drink and to use with a wet washcloth on the forehead

- "Try mint tea with honey and cinnamon. Make sure you get ceylon cinnamon not cassia cinnamon (which is what you usually find in the store)."

- Tums

- Mint tea

- Unisom & Vitamin B combo

- Emetrol

- Eating whatever one can keep down

- Promethezane

- Zantac 150 daily

- Ginger pills

- Ginger cookies before bed

- Prenatal vitamin containing anti-nausea medicine

- Freeze pops

- Crackers, lemon-lime soda and a banana

- Exercise