Thanksgiving Wrapup

Oh, I had visions of Thanksgiving posts waxing eloquent with all the amazing thoughts about thankfulness and contentment and trusting God and blessings and... lots of whatnot. But that ship sailed before I had time to write about it. I'm still grateful, thankful, celebrating God's goodness... but the words I had in my head to write about it flew away... so I'll just post the pictures from our wonderful time with our family this holiday season. Most of them are poor quality, cheap-flash pictures, and I didn't do any editing... but they tell the story better and more quickly than I can type so here they are! :(

 My adorable nephew Elliot. :)

 Carolyn got to help set the table with Ammy's pretty china. I remember doing the same thing at my Granny's house- it was always really special!

 Crescent rolls.

 Even Nora got to help. :)

 Love the expression on Nora's face here. :)

 Apple for apple pie. We sure did have a feast, though I don't have any pictures of it! :)

 The menfolk watched a lot of football on Thanksgiving Day, and they volunteered so sweetly for KP after dinner was over!

 Dad took a nap on the couch in preparation for his volunteer job as chauffeur for our first middle-of-the-night Black Friday shopping experience. :)

 Shelly and I had a fun time, despite some long lines! We spent an inordinate amount of time weaving through the aisles at Target- but got some fun stuff and more importantly spent some fun sister time together. :) We pooped out at 4am and went home. Laura got a full night's sleep, since she wasn't quite as interested in deals on children's clothing. ;)

 I think my favorite thing I found was this set of 2 matching fleece pullovers for the girls. :)  So cheap, and they loved them! :)

 Friday (after we slept in! :)) we had "little Christmas," trying to hit all the fun Christmas activities we did growing up, all in one day. :)

 The grandkids helped pick out a tree for Ammy and Papa.

 We took a family picture (this is the best we got- at least you can see everybody's eyes!)

 And some cute cousin pictures!

 I can't decide which one I like best!

 We decorated the tree with all the ornaments we grew up with!

 Here Nora is instruction Elliot on how to do it correctly.

 She was very careful to try to hang them "just so."

 Carolyn doesn't care for pictures, but she did like hanging the ornaments and hearing the stories behind some of them!

 The hangers were a little bit tangled. :)

Finally, candy cane cookies just before bed. Then a Christmas movie, and we were all whooped!

Busy, fun, wonderful weekend! I am so thankful to have family (on both sides!) that really ENJOYS each other. It is such a blessing to be together! :)

Thanksgiving Feast

Yesterday was Carolyn's "Thanksgiving Feast" at her pre-K class. It's a fun thing that I get to be one of the "room moms" this year, so I get to help out with things. My cohort is an experienced room mom, so she knows exactly what to do, and helps me learn the ropes. This little party was so much fun!

 All the kids had hats like either Pilgrims or "Native Americans" (they still call them "Indians" at Carolyn's school... but I'm pretty sure that's not PC these days). I thought Carolyn looked so cute in the paper hat. :)

We feasted on fruit, cornbread, popcorn, and grape juice. I had to wake Nora up from her nap after only about 45 minutes so she was pretty grouchy the whole time... maybe next time there's a party at school, I'll get a babysitter. :)

And here's Carolyn with her beloved teacher. This woman is 100% amazing. I may have mentioned it before. But she exactly the kind of person I would love to be. She has so much energy, heart, enthusiasm, and love for God- she is someone who naturally makes everyone around her want to be the best version of themselves. I would love to be the kind of person who inspires others to be better, love God more, love life, and be thankful. Plus, she is an outstanding teacher. :)

Buried!

That pile of envelopes on my table is the orders I mailed out yesterday! I sent out 24 packages yesterday... and today I've got another "work day" so hopefully I'll get caught back up to a sane level soon. Busy season making bows... my "love-hate" relationship with them has been mostly "love" recently; I've been doing better with keeping the balance by trying to restrict my "work time" to early mornings before the kids are up, leaving me freer most days to resolve things early in the day so I have more space to really be present with my family. I also take 1-2 "work days" weekly so that I have some real dedicated time to work on my business. I never really thought life would take me where I had essentially a part-time job working for my own self. But this is where we are right now, and I am thankful for the outlet, for something that makes me feel the sense of significance as an individual that tends to get buried under the overarching "mommy" role. It's also, admittedly, nice to feel successful at something in a time when a lot of our thoughts, money, time seem to revolve around attempting to resolve this big failure that I'm dealing with.

I was thinking about it yesterday (ha! I think about it every day)- and I think that what I really deep down in my heart desire is just to be healed, whole again. I don't feel like it is so much about a baby anymore as it is about just not wanting to be broken. Physically- what is hardest for me is to look around at others (I just about broke down in church on Sunday when they had a baby dedication!), see the vibrant pulse of life within them or wrapped in blankets in their arms- and feel that my own physical reproductive potential is so compromised that it will take a true miracle for me to ever know what that is like again. No guarantees; I could be completely reproductively finished at 30 years old (28 in fact, because that's how old I was when Nora was born). I grieve over the loss of that internal hope that my body possesses what it needs to nurture and promote life.

But when I get down to the real "stuff" underneath, I realize that the physical is only the surface- it's an avenue that God has used to enlighten me to the brokenness in my heart. Feeling so powerless physically makes me realize how much I depend on my own self- my intelligence (ha!), physical capacity, finances, plots and plans to make life turn out like I think it should. I think I had to really get down into this place of brokenness to realize that what I need is not a baby to hold in my arms to make everything all right again and prove that I'm not broken.  What I need is for God to do a miraculous work in me to put me back together again, to seal the broken places together again so that I can be complete, whether or not He ever does answer the prayer I repeatedly pray. I don't want to walk through the rest of my life, dreading and surviving announcement after announcement from the people I love, each one sending another dart of shame and sadness, as if to say "Ha! See, other people are "normal." Other people's bodies work the way they were supposed to. Too bad yours doesn't, and there's n-o-t-h-i-n-g you can do about it!" My heart needs to be whole so that it can hold joy that isn't yet my own but comes from the Lord- so I can spill His love and joy out over my friends' blessings. I need healing for my heart because it is in humility and open-handedness I will find the way to live as He wants me to. It is only in laying down my purposes for my life that I will find His, and in finding His, find the fulfillment and peace that my heart longs for.

"Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight."

Writing

One of the coolest things about the past few months has been seeing Carolyn's amazing intellectual growth and increasing maturity as she's been at school daily since August. I'm sure that some of it is developmental (she's always been one that does things on her own timeframe and rarely gives any warning that a new skill is about to emerge), but a large portion of the credit for the astounding progress she's been making has to go to her fantastic teacher. I have never had much success at interesting Carolyn in letters or really learning much of anything at all- it's like there's been a "wall" there. But lately it seems the floodgates are opening, and she is suddenly SO interested in letters, words, sounds, everything. She loves to write with a Sharpie marker, as below.

 You can read YMCA, God, Bed, Carolyn, Nora, Mama, Dad, and several nonsense words with backwards lowercase "h's" (last week was "H" week at school). I also see a lot of "RSVP" because that is a word she's learned from a Fancy Nancy book. :)

Some of it makes less sense, though I can still get "cat," "bed," "horse," and "toy" out of this... this is pretty characteristic of her drawings lately. Most still feature Rapunzel as a main character, along with Carolyn (now being drawn with long hair as she is growing it out, and always with bangs since she knows that if she grows them out she will have to wear hair clips to keep them out of her face ;)), Tinkerbell (hair on top of her head), Nora, and Baggins the dog. Also she likes to draw houses.

So, so fun to see her mind expanding, and, especially, her confidence blossoming! For the first time I think she is beginning to get that heady sense of her own potential and she is taking more risks (trying things she doesn't already know she'll be good at ;)) and learning so much! We have parent teacher conferences next week for her and I am looking forward to seeing what her teacher thinks about her progress this year. Pre-K was definitely the right decision for her. I absolutely love where she is; the school is great, the kids and other parents are great, and the teacher is absolutely superb. I have met very few people that come anywhere close to her passion, engagement and ability to love with abandon. She is exactly what our Carolyn needed for this year. :)

More Thoughts

Here are some thoughts for tonight.
1. I need to blog more. I think the reason I have such a block about it lately is twofold- one, I'm just out of the habit, and two- I have TOO much to say quickly. There are always all these thoughts floating around my head that really do deserve an outlet... but I rarely have time to sit down and let them out. I need to get back to being okay with mediocre.

2. Sisters are GREAT. I love Having a sister, Being a sister, and being the mother of two girls who Are sisters. I especially love watching Carolyn and Nora's sister relationship develop. Yesterday Nora had some small (but very grievous ;)) injury, and I was comforting her, and when Carolyn heard Nora crying, she came out of her room, very gently put her arms around her sister and said "it's okay, Nora. I love you." And then Nora, sniffing, said "I love you, too sisher..." melts my heart to see them love each other. :)

3. God uses pain to equip us for ministry. Relating back to #2, although I am sorry that my sister had to experience the struggle she did before my nephew came into the world, I am grateful that when I call her to tell her that things didn't work out (again) this time, she can say "I know. I understand." It's easier to feel as though someone shares your trouble when you know that they really do "know." I hope that some day I can use what this journey has meant to me to encourage others. Maybe that's part of the redemption. I certainly feel as though I could use a little bit of that right about now.

4. I'm glad that our family has started going through the Growing Kids God's Way class at our church again. It's been a couple years since the first time we took it,  and since we both feel as though this may be an area we may be equipped and called to serve some day as teachers, we decided this is the year for us to take the 20 week parenting course again. We're a couple weeks in and already I can tell that just re-energizing our focus on parenting and having the accountability of a class to attend has been helping.

5. Relating back to #4, we were talking this week about child-centered parenting- the most common philosophy of parenting in our society today, and one we believe is detrimental to family structure and healthy development because it undermines the sense of family as a community and emphasizes the importance and autonomy of the individual over the health of the family. Children do not "make" a family- they join and expand a family. I was thinking about this as it relates to the saga of our journey of the last 18 months. I never thought our family would be "complete" with just the 4 of us- I always wanted to have more children. But it really must be complete, as we are, for our family to be a healthy place for whoever-that-may-be to join (whether by natural birth or by adoption someday). Whoever that little person is that God has for us deserves a healthy and whole family to expand, rather than being born into a vacuum and having a hole to fill before his life ever even starts.

Sometimes I feel so tired of this journey because it has exposed so much of my own brokenness to me, and just about as soon as I start to feel like I'm healing, something happens to make me feel like that old wound just gashes right open again, exposing how broken I really am underneath the surface- how after months and months of this cycle of bitterness, repentance, anger, acceptance, joy, grief- I still haven't gotten the point. I'm still trying to fill a hole, rather than embracing wholeness in Christ and letting Him heal me from the inside, so that there is no longer any hole. Maybe I'm moving a little bit in the right direction... but sometimes it seems as though there is so far to go. But I guess the truth is, God doesn't give babies to those who deserve them (obviously...)- His gift of life, like the gift of grace in Christ, just isn't something you can track down to a formula that makes sense. You just have to trust Him. And I am trying, so I suppose that is something.

6. I need to go to bed! :) My new "work schedule" has me up at 5am most mornings so that I can have all my bows for that day wrapped up by 8am when the kids get up, leaving me more free for the rest of the day. :) So far it's working out well... but only when I get to bed on time!

TV Time

I don't do nearly as well as I used to with taking snapshots of our real, wonderful, messy, everyday life! So yesterday when the girls were sitting almost snuggled together on the couch watching "Little Bear" (an actually reasonably intelligent, not terribly irritating show), I just snapped (with the flash of course which ruins everything) a pic of their dazed, TV-enthralled faces. I love the little bare feet, the hat smushed down over messy pigtails, and the mismatched heart patterned tights with the summer dress. I love these girls with my whole heart. So so blessed I am to be their mom.

Chocolatey

So today we did the Hot Chocolate 15K in Chicago! A little bit crazy maybe- we drove down last night, ran this morning, and drove back home this afternoon! We had so much fun running together! Never in my wildest anticipation of what married life would hold for us, yea nearly 10 years ago now- would I have dreamed we would actually participate in a SPORT together at any time. I am absolutely NOT athletically gifted- but I have learned this year that I CAN run- maybe not really fast, maybe not really well- but I can do it- and running is something that is so individual that I can even feel like I'm "winning" when the only person I'm competing against is myself.

Today wasn't even a "great" run- I didn't eat very well yesterday or sleep all that well last night, so I just didn't feel my best- but it was actually my best time so far for a longer run (15K= about 9.3 miles). We finished in 1 hour, 26 minutes, and 17 seconds- total pace was 9:16 per mile. The last 2 miles I ramped up the music on my headphones and quit trying to talk, and we probably averaged closer to 9 minute miles for the last 2. It felt really good to be done! And because it was the Hot Chocolate run- afterwards there was chocolate fondue and hot chocolate! Very yummy, and a great "date" with my hunky hubby. :) Plus, I placed right in the middle of my age group this time (502nd of 999), instead of somewhere at the bottom, like the last race I did when I checked. :)

After the race, we enjoyed some PF Chang's with Shelly and Bryan and Elliot and the kids and then the little ones took a nap, Brad and Bry watched football, and Shelly and Carolyn and I went to the mall together for awhile. It was the first time that I tried to take Carolyn on a "girl's excursion" that wasn't really totally "about" her. She really did quite well- and enjoyed being one of the big girls. It might have helped that we stopped for a Mrs. Field's cookie and somehow managed to end up at the Disney Store at one point in the trip. :) We don't have a Disney Store here anymore- but I swear I spend more money there than I even did when we had one here! It's just a treat to go now when we go to Chicago.

Drove home, and finished listening to the last book in the Hunger Games series on the way. Learned an important lesson- don't get engrossed in an audiobook while the kids are in the car, unless they are sleeping! Being interrupted at the most exciting point in the story tends to make you a bit grouchier than normal!

Developments

Last night the weather was just beautiful- very un-November-like. We ditched our boring dinner plans and went for a pizza picnic at the park. I could NOT believe how well Carolyn is pumping her legs on the swing now! After all summer of trying to wheedle and cajole her into independent swinging- she finally got it within weeks of starting school! This is what she said when I asked her about it: "I just watched what the other children were doing and tried to do the same thing. And that's how I did it." She was SO proud of herself and excited to show us her new skill. :)

Nora can't pump her legs yet, but she loves swinging too- Brad had her laughing so hard last night! I love that deep, bubbly toddler laugh! So sweet!

Today was a day of unexpected blessings for me, too. I found out a friend is expecting a baby, and for the first time in a long time, my real heart response was about 98% joy for her and only about 2% of the "black thoughts." That's progress for me! And of course I'm not doing that well every day or every moment... but I was so happy to feel the true joy welling up inside me, thankfulness for my friend's gift and the joy that is in her life. It was nice to not feel so selfish for once.

Plus, God must have known I needed some encouragement because I had two separate people really come alongside me today and just encourage me with phone calls and words of support. Someone I don't even know very well (she's one of my clients) came by to pick something up and just went out of her way to tell me that she "gets it," she's been here, and to tell me that I'm not alone- how kind and sweet for her to open up to an almost-stranger about her experiences.

I have another friend who is dealing with her first miscarriage- in a situation almost identical to the one I faced before I was pregnant with Nora. Talking to her just brings back all the emotions, and even though it has been 3.5 years since that event, I can still remember so vividly what it felt like to be told that I would never meet my little one here on earth- and then to have to wait the days it took for what my heart and mind knew to be confirmed in my body. My friend is "there" right now. I wish I didn't have the experience to be able to say "I've been there too," but I'm thankful that there were so many to gather around me when I went through it, and I find that it brings meaning to the suffering to be able to come alongside my friend and "go there" with her, too.

I wonder if this infertility struggle will be something like that, in the end, a way to share common ground and lift someone else up at a time when they most need it- heaven knows there have been so many who have come alongside me. I wish I could somehow "know" that we will come out on the other side- that I'll be able to be the one saying "It was lousy and hard, but hey, look at this beautiful baby that was waiting for us all along?" But of course one of the hard things is that you really don't know if you'll ever see the redemption of the thing here on earth. Maybe "the other side" looks really different from what I want it to look like, and getting there from here means a slow transformation of my heart to where I can embrace a plan for my life that doesn't resemble the one I had laid out. It's scary for me to even type that out because I want what I want so deeply and viscerally.

I've been thinking about the days following my first miscarriage in the context of praying for my friend, and remembering how the grief softened my heart and almost immediately after it happened, I was so raw and bleeding that I ran to my Father and felt His comfort like never before. Looking back, it seems so simple now- especially since I know now what I did not know then- that little Nora was just waiting for us- this stunning ray of sunshine and light that came directly out of such a dark time for me- God's gift of grace to us- a little love note from Him. The funny thing is, I don't think I could have appreciated the gift nearly as fully if I had not just had the devastation just previous to it. I don't think that I could have let Nora really "be God's" during my pregnancy if I had not seen firsthand both His sovereignty and His good will toward me. I am praying for my friend that she will find herself stunned at His grace in her life- that out of this darkness she's in right now, she will return, blinking in the sunlight and stronger than ever.

My second miscarriage/ectopic/awful experience was really different for me. My heart was so much harder. I chose the first time to let God use the experience to make me better and not bitter- but the second time, I chose to be angry about it, to do everything I could on a human level to make redemption (aka another child) come. Instead of a time of feeling close to God, I feel like in some ways I've been on a wilderness journey these last 18 months- a slow refining as my notions of control have been burned away by the obvious truth that I cannot rule my own life- reproductively or otherwise. It has taken a long time, and there have been many tears and struggles- and I have no doubt that we're not through with this thing yet- but I do feel as though my heart is finally beginning to soften, to release the anger and bitterness I chose in my grief and fury over what happened 18 months ago.

And I think that is a good thing.

Updates

Because I frequently lurk on blogs myself and have a bizarre interest in the finer details of other people's lives- especially for some reason, people experiencing reproductive difficulties- and because this blog is more or less my "journal" (well, it's all the journal I ever keep), I thought it might be time for an update on how "Things" are going. Here is the basic synopsis.

We are in the middle of our first "controlled" cycle with the REI doctor (reproductive endocrinology/infertility specialist). We had an initial consultation with him, then he did some ultrasounds and lab work to get a sort of baseline picture of what is happening. He said that our two basic options (excluding IVF, which we are not really considering at this time- not because we think there's anything inherently wrong with it, but just because we don't have peace as a family about pursuing it at this point; maybe in a year or two, but not now) are to go ahead with a laparoscopy to look inside and see what type of damage led to and/or resulted from my ectopic in May 2010, or to try "multiple ovulation" for a few months to see if we can get lucky. We decided we'd rather give conservative treatment a try since at least that will give us more information to work with and a better sense of the necessity of the laparoscopy.

So this month I took Clomid- been there, done that before- don't love it- and the side effects seemed worse this time- I remember one Kindermusik class where I swear it was 900 degrees in that room! And it sure does make me grouchy... but got through that okay. Had 2 follicles of the right size- one on each side. I had an injection to time ovulation and then a followup scan today to check to see if I ovulated. So far everything looks good. So now we just get to wait- either for the inevitable- or for a miraculous intervention from God. At this point I would honestly be totally shocked if it worked- I've sort of stopped expecting it to- thought I'm still disappointed every time when it doesn't. This whole journey has lasted so long now that I don't even know what I'd do without it. I remember a friend who had successful IVF this year saying how weird it felt to be on the other side of the "fertility" fence- the infertility struggle (like a lot of other tough things in life) tends to be something that almost defines you for that season of life- I honestly can't even fathom not having this problem on the forefront of my mind. I think I have been healing in a sense that the pain of it is duller than it used to be- at least most of the time- but it's always sort of "there."

There are tough moments- lots of them. I long for the day when, one way or another, the "I'm so happy for you!" I say to friends seemingly every month as miracles are coming into being all around me- can be fully joyful and not tarnished with the shadow of grief that happy news for others exposes in me as I feel that twinge of brokenness sting my heart. It's not that I don't feel genuine joy- especially for the many friends we have who know this struggle all too well- I really am happy for the great gifts that God has given to my friends! I am even moving past a point of really even feeling jealous. I just feel broken. I'm really ready to not feel so broken anymore.

But though the road is a bit rocky and steep at times- there are unexpected blessings along the way. Just this week I was able to catch a glimpse of how God has been preparing our family for this season that none of us planned for. Even down to the way some of the insurance stuff has been shaking out, it's obvious that He cares for us and is in even this. One of my favorite surprises about this season is that I have found myself actually Liking the doctor we are seeing. We sort of "had" to see him because he is the only specialist in our area that our insurance would cover. The other "bigger" office in town where Brad rotated as a resident doesn't take our insurance, though they would have been our first choice. But I think that God knew that I needed this particular person in my life. I had heard some really weird things about him- he's not the kind of person who's super warm and fuzzy on the outside- in fact, if you don't read him right, he easily comes off as a total jerk. But somehow, I kind of like crusty, grouchy people when I can see that underneath the tough exterior there's a totally different person inside. I had a math teacher in high school who was like that- no one liked him at first because he was really gruff and not really easy to get to know. Maybe it's the challenge of making someone who doesn't like anybody like me- but I decided from the outset that I was going to like him and see past the exterior- and you know what, he turned out to be one of my favorite teachers in high school- not to mention the most superb math teacher I ever had. The doctor we're seeing is a lot like that.

But I can sense that underneath the surface, he's actually a really nice guy- maybe the weirdest person I've ever met- but I actually find him somewhat endearing- and I laugh every single time I see him because he's just such a character. His understanding of social niceties is a bit lacking- one time, he left the room without even saying goodbye- but he's really very funny. Today I asked him "How are you?" and he said "Same as usual- grumpy." And I told him about my math teacher and how he reminds me of him. And he grunted, and then said "well, I've been a lot grouchier since my lawsuit failed." And then I thought that he was talking about a real lawsuit- but he then elaborated- "I sued Sesame Street because they patterned Oscar the Grouch after me- and his trash can was modeled after my college dorm room." Maybe this joke isn't as funny if you've never met this doctor- but it has had me laughing all day every time I think about it. I am glad we are seeing this particular doctor- because ironically I think he's a good match for me. I tend to be a little anxious (ha!) and of course emotional about this. It's nice to have the person who's taken over responsibility for this part of my life be someone who can approach it from a totally unemotional point of view. He isn't mean about things, but he is very authoritative- and oddly enough that behavior makes me feel calmer because it makes him seem like he's got it all together and I don't have to worry about what's happening in my body because he will take care of that for me. For some reason that's why I like "man doctors" (my father in law is the best doctor I've ever known) because I think that they tend to do a good job of not following me down the emotional rabbit trail I'd lose myself on but decisively take control and help me calm down by showing me they can handle it so I don't have to. So, I'm thankful for the unexpected blessing of a doc that not only knows what he is doing and can do it competently- but one I actually like. :)

And that, I think, is enough of an update for tonight. :)