Some of you may have noticed that for the past six months or so I haven’t been blogging! If you are a reader of this blog you know that about six months ago my daughter was born, and as you might imagine, life has changed quite a bit. My original plan was to try to go back using my journal and document as much as possible, but I really don’t have the time, so I thought I would just start by filling in what’s happened in the past six months and then just start blogging normally from here on out. I did, however, post my birth story, because I love reading birth stories and several people have asked me for mine.
Isabella was born on May 26, 2010 at 1:08pm. Life since then has been a whirlwind, and I can’t believe she’s already six months old! The first month was the typical baby-blues-ridden, sleep-deprived first month that I have come to understand that most moms have suffered through! It caught me off guard, but with the help of several moms who had already been there I got my footing and weathered the storm as a rite of passage to being a mother. Everyone kept telling me to hang in there until the first month passed, and they were right. Once Bella was about a month old life started to get back into a pattern and feeling like a new “normal”.
There have been many firsts; first smile, first vaccine, first “words”, first vacation, first fall (mommy was much more traumatized than baby!), first time playing with a toy, first time rolling over, etc. Each first brings mixed emotions. On the one hand, I feel proud that my little one is developing just as she should, if not a little advanced in some areas. I feel relieved that everything is working like it should. But I also feel sadness that already she is becoming more independent and needing me less and less. I know, to someone who isn’t a mother it might sound strange; after all, she’s still a baby! And her needing me less means more free time, which is something most moms covet. Still, if you are a mom I bet you know the feeling. I feel like every day she’s further away from me. She used to literally be a part of me, living in my body, unable to do anything for herself. Then she was born, and was no longer a literal part of me, and every time she masters a new skill I feel amazed, astonished, and a little more aware of the distance between us. I wonder how my mom must feel with the literal distance between us, between the US and Ecuador. Well, I don’t really wonder. I think I have a pretty good idea.
Recently my mother-in-law gave Isabella some mashed up apple (without asking me, thank you) and I walk in to find my daughter (four months old) eating solids for the first time, no problem. I went into the other room and cried. Not only was I annoyed that she gave her solids at four months (I plan on breastfeeding for at least the recommended 6 months exclusively) but she totally robbed me of a first. Silly, probably.
Which leads me to tell you about the challenges of raising a baby in a foreign culture. Raising a baby is hard enough, but even harder when you don´t have all the help of grandparents, aunts and uncles and in-laws. (Jairo´s family lives about 5 hours away, so we don´t see them too often.) Mix in the challenge of living in another country and you have the recipe for adventure (and hopefully not disaster!).
I was recently exchanging some Ecuadorian old wives’ tales with a friend online and I thought I would share some of them with you:
If you kiss your baby on the mouth, she will become really drooly. (The kisses, not the teething, apparently is what does it.) And drooly babies grow up to be fat kids.
If you put your baby in a sitting position before she is about 8 months old, her tailbone will come loose and she will get green diarrhea.
Don´t let your baby look up or her eyes will get stuck that way.
Make sure you shave your baby´s head or her hair will be ugly.
Babies hate pacifiers, and they give them gas.
Babies hate to be swaddled, they feel confined.
And so on!
The predominant attitude in this culture is that everyone is a parent of your child. They would agree with that saying, ¨It takes a village to raise a child¨ on a very literal level. Which is kind of a problem for me, because I feel like my having grown her inside my body for 39 weeks, pushed her out of my uterus on my own, and spent every moment of her life with her gives me some level of special authority when it comes to her parenting. But I´m in the minority. Random strangers will grab your baby out of your hands, just because. Which means you feel nervous all the time. There´s this one lady at church who, every time she asks to hold Bella, doesn´t even wait for my response before she takes her out of my arms and walks away with her. It drives me insane!
I don´t want to make it sound like I don´t value the advice and experience of other moms. I do! But in Ecuador, people don´t give advice. They tell you how you must parent. And if you disagree, they get really mad! Several of my American mommy friends that live here in Quito have had the same experience, someone yelling at them because they give their baby a pacifier or because they don´t want to shave her head! It´s hard to know how to react, because they believe such nonsense things so strongly that you know they are never going to accept reason, but at the same time you as a parent are not going to just give in on what you know is best for your child.
Still, what I really appreciate about living so far from everyone is that it has forced us to form a strong bond with Bella. This is especially true for me because in Bella´s whole life I have only been a total of about 3 hours without her. And I didn´t really like those 3 hours. It´s funny, people talk about wanting to get away from their kids, but I love being with my baby! Sure, it´s overwhelming sometimes. But it is so worth it. I don´t think I would be able to really enjoy doing some activity without her. I mean, I had a baby because I wanted a baby!
All in all, these last 6 months have been a whirlwind, and I wouldn´t change it for the world! Bella is getting into a really fun age, and she surprises me every day. She loves to laugh, play and be with mommy, and I´m soaking it up, because I know it won´t always be like this.
I really am going to try to blog more. No promises, though!
Friday, November 26, 2010
My Birth Story #1: Bella
Well, it's six months later, but for all who have patiently waited, here you go!
This birth story actually begins back at week 38 of pregnancy. On May 9th, Jairo´s birthday and Mother´s Day, I got my first real contractions. I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions forever it seemed like, but these were different—long, tough, and close together. After several hours of these contractions, I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, baby wanted to come out! However, as suddenly as they started, the contractions disappeared. All of week 38 followed this pattern, every single day. And every day I got more and more discouraged.
We finally made it to week 39 and the contractions continued. Then on Sunday afternoon my mother-in-law came up to stay with us, to help out around the house and help us with baby, whenever she would decide to come. Early the next morning I thought my water might have broken so we went in to see the doctor. She examined me and told me that I was nowhere, and my blood pressure was very high. She said it looked like I was going to need a c-section. She ordered an ultrasound to check on the amniotic fluid, to see how much time we could wait. I was really shaken up by the idea that I would need a c-section because I had been praying during the whole pregnancy for a natural birth, but I decided that either way the ultrasound was a good idea, and then we would go from there.
We went in for the ultrasound that same day and the doctor who did it not only said the baby was fine and that I should be able to give birth naturally, but while he did the ultrasound my contractions started up again. He ordered fetal monitoring to see how the contractions were coming and how baby was managing them. Based on the fetal monitoring and the ultrasound they decided that I was in labor, and the baby should arrive no later than the next day. The assured me that from here on out my contractions would not stop, and they would eventually end in me having this baby!
We went home and prepared to meet our little one! For a while the contractions kept going strong and everything seemed to point to labor, but later that night the contractions died down again. I felt completely hopeless and exhausted. The next morning I woke up with severe pain in my lower abdomen and lower back, so severe that we decided to go back to the clinic to see what was wrong. While we were getting ready to go to the clinic the contractions came on again, this time incredibly strong. They were very close together and I could not walk or talk through them so I thought, finally! This is it! Labor!
When we got to the clinic they examined me and found that I was at 1.5 centimeters and my blood pressure was 140/100, which is pretty high. The doctor said that there was no way the baby would get through my pelvis, and we were definitely going to need a c-section. Because of my blood pressure, she wanted to do the c-section right away. It seemed like there was no chance of me getting what I prayed for, and I felt completely abandoned by God. I felt like He picked the single most important thing to me and decided to use that to totally let me down.
Jairo and I were shaken up by this news, so I decided to call two people I trusted to ask their advice. First I called my friend Becky who lives here in Quito and gave birth a few months before me. She said she would call her doctor and ask him what he thought. When she got back to me she told me that her doctor felt confident that a c-section was unnecessary and he would like to see me. He offered to do the consultation for free. I called my mom, too, and asked her what she thought. She said to do what I felt was right, but to keep in mind that either way I might need a c-section and I needed to decide quickly because preeclampsia can sometimes be serious.
I decided to go see Becky´s doctor, whose office is about 40 minutes from our house. We went home, grabbed our bags (which had already been packed for FOREVER), left Jairo´s mom with instructions on how to work the dvd player, and got in a taxi to meet Becky and Byron and go to the clinic. My contractions slowed down and we had a nice car ride with our friends, with Byron and Jairo in the front talking about advice for labor coaching and me and Becky in the back with their son Caleb talking about how much the last leg of pregnancy sucks. We got to the clinic just in time to meet with Dr. Diego before he went home for the day.
We went into his office with Byron and Becky and told Dr. Diego the whole story of what had happened up until that point. I had taken the tests from the other clinic with me, and Dr. Diego asked to see them. He barely even glanced at the fetal monitoring sheet. Instead, he turned it over and said, ¨This way these papers will be worth something¨. Then he started to draw on them! He drew a stick figure pregnant woman with a smile on her face and belly and said, ¨If you´re happy, baby is happy. You are going to have a beautiful, normal birth. Women are created to do this! The hardest thing you have to do isn´t giving birth, it´s forgetting all of the ugly lies people have told you about this pregnancy up until now.¨ He took us in and did an ultrasound and said that our baby was perfect, and I wasn´t in labor yet. Then we went back and talked about the next move.
Dr. Diego recommended that I go home and come back to the clinic when labor started. If I wasn´t sure if I was in labor or not, I just needed to go in. At this point I can´t express how incredibly exhausted I was, and how much I just wanted to be done with the whole pregnancy thing. I asked the doctor if there was any way I could just have the baby now, and not go all the way back home. After all, the clinic was pretty far away for people who don´t have a car to go every day with these stupid contractions!! He agreed to induce, but he said he didn´t want to do it until the next day. He wanted us to stay the night at the clinic and relax, because he wanted me to have strength for labor. We agreed, worked out the financial end of things, which was much more than we were prepared to pay, but we both felt like this was the place we needed to be.
The clinic had its own restaurant which was overpriced but really, really good, so we got a late lunch there and then went to the park next door to walk around and get some fresh air. Then we had a doctor come in and take my medical history and we went back to the restaurant and got a frappuccino, which was awesome. Then we went back to the room and I took a shower. After that the doula came in and gave me a massage and talked with us for a while, and then we called it a night. We decided on taking medicine to induce at 6am. The doula was sad because she wouldn´t be the one to attend my labor because her shift ended at 8am.
The medicine they gave me wasn´t pitocin, it was something less-powerful, and they told me I would probably be delivering the baby late that night, after a second dose of the medicine. I was confident that wouldn´t happen because my body had already been trying to go into labor for like 10 days. I thought a little push and I would be off and running. I was right. An hour later my contractions started, around 7am. By around 10:00am my water broke, and by about 10:30 or so I was in the birthing pool pushing. It happened really fast! I will say that my water breaking was the freakiest experience of my life…at least up until that point. The rest of labor that followed was also pretty freaky.
At this point I am going to censor most of the story because the only people who really care about mucous plugs and gushing fluids are pregnant women and new moms. Hey, if you are one of those, feel free to ask me about it!! For the rest of you, however, I´ll share the short version.
No book or website can prepare you for what labor is really like. Of course, it´s different for everyone, but also there are just no words to express the pain, the mental place you enter into, the mix of hormones and emotions, and the experience of meeting your child for the first time. But you´re reading my birth story, so I will give it a try.
The pain surprised me. I´ve experienced some pretty serious pain before (like morphine in the hospital pain, so I really mean it). But this pain was a whole different thing. I´m sitting here looking for the words to describe it and I can´t think of any. Active labor made me want to scratch out my own eyes if that would have stopped the pain. It was disorienting, desperate, incredible. What they found out when I was already pushing (which is when my test results came back), and what I didn´t find out until Bella was already born, was that I had a urinary tract infection. My previous doctor wrote off my symptoms as normal pregnancy stuff, which is unfortunate because it made for a much more painful labor. In childbirth classes they warn you to be sure to go to the bathroom every hour, because a full bladder makes contractions much more painful. So imagine that instead of full it is infected, and instead of just your bladder, it´s your bladder, kidneys, and everything in between. Fun times.
The doctor decided to give me a shot in the back to help the pain. Since it was a water birth I couldn´t have an epidural, which was fie because I didn´t want one. The shot helped a lot. I was able to regain focus enough to push through contractions, which was good because pushing took a while. That was also a surprise. The books say pushing takes from about 5 minutes to an hour. I pushed for over two hours.
When I started pushing, it only took one or two pushes before they could see her head. Normally once the head is visible you only need a few more pushes and you´re done, so everyone was really positive, telling me that I was almost there. Over an hour of pushing later, and Bella hadn´t moved. I remember the midwife saying, ¨You´re so close, any time now!¨ and I said, ¨You´ve been saying that for an hour!¨
Finally the doctor said he wanted to do an episiotomy (if you don´t know what that is, you probably don´t want to) to help Bella get out, because my medicine was wearing off. I didn´t want one but I agreed. I just wanted to be done! He explained that I would have to get out of the birthing pool, have the episiotomy, and then get back in the water, so he called for a stretcher.
This is where my memory of labor gets fuzzy. When the stretcher got there, the doctor was waiting for my contraction to end to pull me out of the tub. Right at that moment, my contractions started coming back to back. I felt like I was suffocating. I could barely catch my breath from one contraction before another one came. I don´t know how long this went on. My mother-in-law was outside waiting and she said people would go into my birthing room for whatever reason but no one would come out. Everyone was just watching. They knew something was happening. Jairo said it was like something possessed me and I just pushed and pushed. I felt like I died. I literally felt like I was dead, totally absent from my body. Then I felt some kind of BANG and it was like I came back to my body. I looked down and saw Bella. One more push and she was out.
She cried and cried, but she was so beautiful. She was perfect. All the time I was pregnant, I still had a hard time imagining that there was a little person growing inside me. But there she was, like looking at a living photograph of me as a baby. And I realized that I never knew what love was until I met her.
The only thing I want to add is that it was my dream to have a water birth, a dream that was financially impossible, but God did what he had to do to make it possible. I also spent 9 months praying for no c-section, no episiotomy, and a healthy baby, and God gave me those things. Nothing is impossible for Him!
This birth story actually begins back at week 38 of pregnancy. On May 9th, Jairo´s birthday and Mother´s Day, I got my first real contractions. I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions forever it seemed like, but these were different—long, tough, and close together. After several hours of these contractions, I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, baby wanted to come out! However, as suddenly as they started, the contractions disappeared. All of week 38 followed this pattern, every single day. And every day I got more and more discouraged.
We finally made it to week 39 and the contractions continued. Then on Sunday afternoon my mother-in-law came up to stay with us, to help out around the house and help us with baby, whenever she would decide to come. Early the next morning I thought my water might have broken so we went in to see the doctor. She examined me and told me that I was nowhere, and my blood pressure was very high. She said it looked like I was going to need a c-section. She ordered an ultrasound to check on the amniotic fluid, to see how much time we could wait. I was really shaken up by the idea that I would need a c-section because I had been praying during the whole pregnancy for a natural birth, but I decided that either way the ultrasound was a good idea, and then we would go from there.
We went in for the ultrasound that same day and the doctor who did it not only said the baby was fine and that I should be able to give birth naturally, but while he did the ultrasound my contractions started up again. He ordered fetal monitoring to see how the contractions were coming and how baby was managing them. Based on the fetal monitoring and the ultrasound they decided that I was in labor, and the baby should arrive no later than the next day. The assured me that from here on out my contractions would not stop, and they would eventually end in me having this baby!
We went home and prepared to meet our little one! For a while the contractions kept going strong and everything seemed to point to labor, but later that night the contractions died down again. I felt completely hopeless and exhausted. The next morning I woke up with severe pain in my lower abdomen and lower back, so severe that we decided to go back to the clinic to see what was wrong. While we were getting ready to go to the clinic the contractions came on again, this time incredibly strong. They were very close together and I could not walk or talk through them so I thought, finally! This is it! Labor!
When we got to the clinic they examined me and found that I was at 1.5 centimeters and my blood pressure was 140/100, which is pretty high. The doctor said that there was no way the baby would get through my pelvis, and we were definitely going to need a c-section. Because of my blood pressure, she wanted to do the c-section right away. It seemed like there was no chance of me getting what I prayed for, and I felt completely abandoned by God. I felt like He picked the single most important thing to me and decided to use that to totally let me down.
Jairo and I were shaken up by this news, so I decided to call two people I trusted to ask their advice. First I called my friend Becky who lives here in Quito and gave birth a few months before me. She said she would call her doctor and ask him what he thought. When she got back to me she told me that her doctor felt confident that a c-section was unnecessary and he would like to see me. He offered to do the consultation for free. I called my mom, too, and asked her what she thought. She said to do what I felt was right, but to keep in mind that either way I might need a c-section and I needed to decide quickly because preeclampsia can sometimes be serious.
I decided to go see Becky´s doctor, whose office is about 40 minutes from our house. We went home, grabbed our bags (which had already been packed for FOREVER), left Jairo´s mom with instructions on how to work the dvd player, and got in a taxi to meet Becky and Byron and go to the clinic. My contractions slowed down and we had a nice car ride with our friends, with Byron and Jairo in the front talking about advice for labor coaching and me and Becky in the back with their son Caleb talking about how much the last leg of pregnancy sucks. We got to the clinic just in time to meet with Dr. Diego before he went home for the day.
We went into his office with Byron and Becky and told Dr. Diego the whole story of what had happened up until that point. I had taken the tests from the other clinic with me, and Dr. Diego asked to see them. He barely even glanced at the fetal monitoring sheet. Instead, he turned it over and said, ¨This way these papers will be worth something¨. Then he started to draw on them! He drew a stick figure pregnant woman with a smile on her face and belly and said, ¨If you´re happy, baby is happy. You are going to have a beautiful, normal birth. Women are created to do this! The hardest thing you have to do isn´t giving birth, it´s forgetting all of the ugly lies people have told you about this pregnancy up until now.¨ He took us in and did an ultrasound and said that our baby was perfect, and I wasn´t in labor yet. Then we went back and talked about the next move.
Dr. Diego recommended that I go home and come back to the clinic when labor started. If I wasn´t sure if I was in labor or not, I just needed to go in. At this point I can´t express how incredibly exhausted I was, and how much I just wanted to be done with the whole pregnancy thing. I asked the doctor if there was any way I could just have the baby now, and not go all the way back home. After all, the clinic was pretty far away for people who don´t have a car to go every day with these stupid contractions!! He agreed to induce, but he said he didn´t want to do it until the next day. He wanted us to stay the night at the clinic and relax, because he wanted me to have strength for labor. We agreed, worked out the financial end of things, which was much more than we were prepared to pay, but we both felt like this was the place we needed to be.
The clinic had its own restaurant which was overpriced but really, really good, so we got a late lunch there and then went to the park next door to walk around and get some fresh air. Then we had a doctor come in and take my medical history and we went back to the restaurant and got a frappuccino, which was awesome. Then we went back to the room and I took a shower. After that the doula came in and gave me a massage and talked with us for a while, and then we called it a night. We decided on taking medicine to induce at 6am. The doula was sad because she wouldn´t be the one to attend my labor because her shift ended at 8am.
The medicine they gave me wasn´t pitocin, it was something less-powerful, and they told me I would probably be delivering the baby late that night, after a second dose of the medicine. I was confident that wouldn´t happen because my body had already been trying to go into labor for like 10 days. I thought a little push and I would be off and running. I was right. An hour later my contractions started, around 7am. By around 10:00am my water broke, and by about 10:30 or so I was in the birthing pool pushing. It happened really fast! I will say that my water breaking was the freakiest experience of my life…at least up until that point. The rest of labor that followed was also pretty freaky.
At this point I am going to censor most of the story because the only people who really care about mucous plugs and gushing fluids are pregnant women and new moms. Hey, if you are one of those, feel free to ask me about it!! For the rest of you, however, I´ll share the short version.
No book or website can prepare you for what labor is really like. Of course, it´s different for everyone, but also there are just no words to express the pain, the mental place you enter into, the mix of hormones and emotions, and the experience of meeting your child for the first time. But you´re reading my birth story, so I will give it a try.
The pain surprised me. I´ve experienced some pretty serious pain before (like morphine in the hospital pain, so I really mean it). But this pain was a whole different thing. I´m sitting here looking for the words to describe it and I can´t think of any. Active labor made me want to scratch out my own eyes if that would have stopped the pain. It was disorienting, desperate, incredible. What they found out when I was already pushing (which is when my test results came back), and what I didn´t find out until Bella was already born, was that I had a urinary tract infection. My previous doctor wrote off my symptoms as normal pregnancy stuff, which is unfortunate because it made for a much more painful labor. In childbirth classes they warn you to be sure to go to the bathroom every hour, because a full bladder makes contractions much more painful. So imagine that instead of full it is infected, and instead of just your bladder, it´s your bladder, kidneys, and everything in between. Fun times.
The doctor decided to give me a shot in the back to help the pain. Since it was a water birth I couldn´t have an epidural, which was fie because I didn´t want one. The shot helped a lot. I was able to regain focus enough to push through contractions, which was good because pushing took a while. That was also a surprise. The books say pushing takes from about 5 minutes to an hour. I pushed for over two hours.
When I started pushing, it only took one or two pushes before they could see her head. Normally once the head is visible you only need a few more pushes and you´re done, so everyone was really positive, telling me that I was almost there. Over an hour of pushing later, and Bella hadn´t moved. I remember the midwife saying, ¨You´re so close, any time now!¨ and I said, ¨You´ve been saying that for an hour!¨
Finally the doctor said he wanted to do an episiotomy (if you don´t know what that is, you probably don´t want to) to help Bella get out, because my medicine was wearing off. I didn´t want one but I agreed. I just wanted to be done! He explained that I would have to get out of the birthing pool, have the episiotomy, and then get back in the water, so he called for a stretcher.
This is where my memory of labor gets fuzzy. When the stretcher got there, the doctor was waiting for my contraction to end to pull me out of the tub. Right at that moment, my contractions started coming back to back. I felt like I was suffocating. I could barely catch my breath from one contraction before another one came. I don´t know how long this went on. My mother-in-law was outside waiting and she said people would go into my birthing room for whatever reason but no one would come out. Everyone was just watching. They knew something was happening. Jairo said it was like something possessed me and I just pushed and pushed. I felt like I died. I literally felt like I was dead, totally absent from my body. Then I felt some kind of BANG and it was like I came back to my body. I looked down and saw Bella. One more push and she was out.
She cried and cried, but she was so beautiful. She was perfect. All the time I was pregnant, I still had a hard time imagining that there was a little person growing inside me. But there she was, like looking at a living photograph of me as a baby. And I realized that I never knew what love was until I met her.
The only thing I want to add is that it was my dream to have a water birth, a dream that was financially impossible, but God did what he had to do to make it possible. I also spent 9 months praying for no c-section, no episiotomy, and a healthy baby, and God gave me those things. Nothing is impossible for Him!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Week 69: Seeing the bigger picture (week 38 of pregnancy)
A lot of times it can be hard to know what God is trying to say to us, probably because we´re not really paying attention. For the past five days I have had false labor, sometimes very convincing false labor, and I have felt increasingly discouraged as the contractions fade and I´m left with no baby and the feeling that the big day may never arrive. (Not to mention that these contractions are too close together to allow travel to Puyo, so we will be staying in Quito after all...a plan I am not too crazy about!) To be fair I´m still short of my due date…I have about a week to go. But what with the false labor and my doctor telling me that the baby would come early, it´s hard not to get my hopes up.
When I pray about labor, each day I get more and more desperate, and the recurring question is, God, why are you ignoring me? I´m just asking you to do what you´re going to do anyway! I know you know best, and I know there could be a lot of circumstances that I don´t understand that make it better for the baby to come in a few days or a week or more, but I can´t handle this anymore! Don´t you see that I am at the end of my rope??
And to some extent, it´s true. I feel myself hanging on to my sanity by a thread as the days wind down…everything will be fine and then some small thing happens (like today, for example, when I dropped the box of crackers on the floor and couldn´t bend over to pick them up), and reminds me that I am still pregnant and will probably be pregnant for the rest of my life, and I just break down into tears and feel completely hopeless. I get the feeling from other pregnant friends that I am not alone in this end of pregnancy desperation. And even more women who are experienced in pregnancy and labor also encourage me, telling me that they, too, suffered through this phase. The third trimester may be equal in length to the other two trimesters, but it feels a million times longer. Plus there is that anxiousness to finally meet the little person that has been growing inside you! How is a soon-to-be mom to survive the torture of waiting?
I haven´t blogged about this before now because I have been in such a terrible mood, but today I was praying and I decided that I was going to sit down and get into God´s Word until I felt better. I told God that I knew that the problem here is me, not Him, and if He is asking me to wait He has a reason. I wanted to find out what that reason was and submit myself to it, and I wanted to have peace despite the desperation.
As I said, sometimes it can be hard to know what God is trying to say to us. On the other hand, sometimes He hits us over the head with it and it is so obvious that it´s almost annoying. The latter was my experience today. I decided to do a Bible study book that I have, since I wasn’t really sure where to begin reading the Bible. (I just finished my 90-day Bible reading plan the other day, which was a huge goal of mine, and now I feel a little aimless!) I couldn´t remember what the topic was where I left off in the study because it´s been a while since I picked it up. Funny, the topic was about how God speaks to us and why He sometimes does not give us what we ask for. Ha. Nice one, God.
Well, the verse that summarizes what I learned is this: ¨Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.¨ Romans 5:3-5
Could it be possible that God is using this pregnancy, even now so close to the end, to teach me something? Could He be trying to develop in me a character of perseverance and—Heaven forbid—patience? Maybe, just maybe, He knows a little something about what motherhood is going to require of me. Maybe qualities like perseverance and patience, and not to mention hope, are things that I will need to have stores of to draw upon in my role as a mother.
Now, I´m not saying that after having this lesson rubbed in my face that I am not one of those sublimely happy earth-mother types, rolling with the contractions and whatnot. I am still pretty annoyed that I wake up every day still pregnant with no sign that labor is any closer. (Nonetheless, rationally I realize that every day really does bring me closer to labor, since labor itself is pretty inevitable.) But I didn’t say I was looking for a radical life change in my time with God today…I was just looking for something to hang onto, something to give some sense of purpose to this waiting. God is faithful, as always, and has given me that. And what´s nice, too, is that He has showed me that having me wait a little longer for the arrival of this baby is not the same as ignoring me or being uncaring or insensitive to what I am going through. He was perfectly willing to communicate with me about the situation just as soon as I was willing to listen.
I felt like He was saying to me, ¨Look. I know you better than you know yourself, and I know that patience is not a virtue you possess in high quantities. But I know your little one, too, and I know that she is going to need you to learn to be patient with her. I want you to start now. And more than that, I want you to trust me. I want you to trust my timing and my plan, and know that what I plan for you is much better than anything you can dream up for yourself. I know how hard it is for you, and I know how heartbroken you are every time the contractions fade into nothing. I promise that all this suffering is accomplishing something.¨
And you know what´s funny? All this time I was looking for these contractions to produce dilation and effacement…but God wanted them to produce something much bigger and far beyond that. He wanted them to produce perseverance, patience, trust, and dependence on Him. Oh what small minds we humans have sometimes! Still…now that I understood the lesson…any chance the baby could come tonight?
When I pray about labor, each day I get more and more desperate, and the recurring question is, God, why are you ignoring me? I´m just asking you to do what you´re going to do anyway! I know you know best, and I know there could be a lot of circumstances that I don´t understand that make it better for the baby to come in a few days or a week or more, but I can´t handle this anymore! Don´t you see that I am at the end of my rope??
And to some extent, it´s true. I feel myself hanging on to my sanity by a thread as the days wind down…everything will be fine and then some small thing happens (like today, for example, when I dropped the box of crackers on the floor and couldn´t bend over to pick them up), and reminds me that I am still pregnant and will probably be pregnant for the rest of my life, and I just break down into tears and feel completely hopeless. I get the feeling from other pregnant friends that I am not alone in this end of pregnancy desperation. And even more women who are experienced in pregnancy and labor also encourage me, telling me that they, too, suffered through this phase. The third trimester may be equal in length to the other two trimesters, but it feels a million times longer. Plus there is that anxiousness to finally meet the little person that has been growing inside you! How is a soon-to-be mom to survive the torture of waiting?
I haven´t blogged about this before now because I have been in such a terrible mood, but today I was praying and I decided that I was going to sit down and get into God´s Word until I felt better. I told God that I knew that the problem here is me, not Him, and if He is asking me to wait He has a reason. I wanted to find out what that reason was and submit myself to it, and I wanted to have peace despite the desperation.
As I said, sometimes it can be hard to know what God is trying to say to us. On the other hand, sometimes He hits us over the head with it and it is so obvious that it´s almost annoying. The latter was my experience today. I decided to do a Bible study book that I have, since I wasn’t really sure where to begin reading the Bible. (I just finished my 90-day Bible reading plan the other day, which was a huge goal of mine, and now I feel a little aimless!) I couldn´t remember what the topic was where I left off in the study because it´s been a while since I picked it up. Funny, the topic was about how God speaks to us and why He sometimes does not give us what we ask for. Ha. Nice one, God.
Well, the verse that summarizes what I learned is this: ¨Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.¨ Romans 5:3-5
Could it be possible that God is using this pregnancy, even now so close to the end, to teach me something? Could He be trying to develop in me a character of perseverance and—Heaven forbid—patience? Maybe, just maybe, He knows a little something about what motherhood is going to require of me. Maybe qualities like perseverance and patience, and not to mention hope, are things that I will need to have stores of to draw upon in my role as a mother.
Now, I´m not saying that after having this lesson rubbed in my face that I am not one of those sublimely happy earth-mother types, rolling with the contractions and whatnot. I am still pretty annoyed that I wake up every day still pregnant with no sign that labor is any closer. (Nonetheless, rationally I realize that every day really does bring me closer to labor, since labor itself is pretty inevitable.) But I didn’t say I was looking for a radical life change in my time with God today…I was just looking for something to hang onto, something to give some sense of purpose to this waiting. God is faithful, as always, and has given me that. And what´s nice, too, is that He has showed me that having me wait a little longer for the arrival of this baby is not the same as ignoring me or being uncaring or insensitive to what I am going through. He was perfectly willing to communicate with me about the situation just as soon as I was willing to listen.
I felt like He was saying to me, ¨Look. I know you better than you know yourself, and I know that patience is not a virtue you possess in high quantities. But I know your little one, too, and I know that she is going to need you to learn to be patient with her. I want you to start now. And more than that, I want you to trust me. I want you to trust my timing and my plan, and know that what I plan for you is much better than anything you can dream up for yourself. I know how hard it is for you, and I know how heartbroken you are every time the contractions fade into nothing. I promise that all this suffering is accomplishing something.¨
And you know what´s funny? All this time I was looking for these contractions to produce dilation and effacement…but God wanted them to produce something much bigger and far beyond that. He wanted them to produce perseverance, patience, trust, and dependence on Him. Oh what small minds we humans have sometimes! Still…now that I understood the lesson…any chance the baby could come tonight?
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Week 69: Ready for baby? (week 38 of pregnancy)
Well, life has taken another interesting turn. My mom would say (and has said) that this is an opportunity for me to learn that now that I´m going to be a mom, I can kiss control of my life goodbye. ¨You can´t always have all of your ducks in a row¨ she tells me. I suppose she´s right. In some ways my life has been at the mercy of this little one for many months already, and it only gets more intense as labor and then life with our very own child are on the horizon, and we are learning that the best we can do is just roll with the punches.
I have had my qualms about our doctor since somewhere in the second trimester, I think. Little things that she does that I didn´t like too much...and many times I have thought about switching. Still, until recently nothing seemed like a big enough deal to switch over. I was just being too North American, I would think. Ecuadorian culture is definitely a ¨take it easy¨ culture...I am not a ¨take it easy¨ person. So there you go.
But recently there have been issues that seem less cultural and more worry-worthy to me, and when all of those isues culminated in me having a chernobyl-style meltdown that left even me reeling with surprise, I realized that something had to change. The major issues are related to pregnancy complications and whatnot, which most of you will not find interesting, but what it boils down to is that I feel like our doctor really could not care less about this pregnancy as long as she gets paid. The evidence is there, more and more with each passing visit it seems. Having all the classic symptoms of pre-eclampsia, a serious pregnancy problem which requires close observation at least, and at worst a medical intervention (inducing labor, etc), my doctor didn´t send me to get a single test done. Her response? ¨That´s probably normal.¨ She sent me to get an ultrasound, and we promptly took the results and pictures to her the next day. Then, a week later we go in to see her because my symptoms are worse and she says, ¨You didn´t get that ultrasound yet?¨ Jairo and I looked at each other, confused, and said, ¨Yes, we brought it to you last week.¨ ¨Oh really?¨ she replied, ¨I guess I forgot to write it down.¨ The exams she´s done on me to check for dilation and effacement (sorry, I know many of you are losing me now) are contradictory, indicating that she really has no idea what she´s even looking for. This doesn´t inspire much confidence, and while I realize that there are many aspects of labor and delivery that one really has no control over, one thing we can do is put our care in good hands. Of course, ultimately I know that I and our baby are in the best hands of all--God´s!! Still, we need to be responsible parents and try to do what is best for everyone.
After our last visit, I really could not handle the panic I was feeling every time we went to the doctor, my health getting progressively worse and her care of us getting progressively more lazy. I got so upset that I couldn´t stop crying...or hyperventilating. So Jairo gave me an ultimatum. ¨You need to tell me what you want to do. Whatever you need is fine, but tell me what we´re doing. You are making yourself sick.¨ Well I spent that night and the next day recovering from my meltdown, and I think seeing me so sad and quiet really freaked Jairo out. I am never quiet! Somewhere about half way through me processing all of this and trying to formulate a plan, Jairo came to me again, obviously worried and reassured me that he was more than happy to do anything I wanted, trying to get some kind of clue from me about what was going on in my head. Whatever else, I had to snap out of this zombie state and make a decision...my due date is only two weeks away, and everyone seems to think she is coming early. (I´m not convinced of that!)
Well, the next day I got up and started praying. (Something I could have done sooner.) First of all, I asked for forgiveness because my nuclear meltdown was such an obvious lack of faith on my part. My life, and the life of this baby, are in God´s hands. Our choice of doctor and hospital is important, but trusting God is more important, because when all is said and done He is the one directing our steps and He is the one who will bring this baby into the world in His time. Then I started asking for what often eludes me: Peace. Only He can give it, and I need it. And then I asked for wisdom to know what to do.
I realized that the best option is probably to go to Puyo, stay with the in-laws, and give birth at the North American hospital. It´s an idea we´ve tossed around since I got pregnant, but it just seemed too difficult since I needed monthly check ups and we´d have to spend the last month or so in Puyo. In the past few weeks we started discussing again, but it just seemed like too much of a hassle. Yet, the more I thought about it the more I thought that, despite the hassle, it was the only idea that actually made me feel secure and safe about labor. Not to mention that we will be surrounded by Jairo´s family, instead of being on our own. Another day passed and I became more sure of the idea. Yet I had this fear that Jairo was going to get mad at me. ¨Why didn´t you decide this sooner?¨ I imagined him asking me. ¨Now that I have all these responsibilities and plans here in Quito, now that everything is ready, now that we´re settled here, NOW you want to go to Puyo, just days before you give birth?¨ And, I thought, if he reacts like that...he´s right. I should have decided this long ago. In my defense, I had no idea it would turn out like this. But still...hindsight and all that.
So I prayed, and I told God the truth. The truth is that I don´t know what´s best. The truth is that I don´t know what to do. The truth is that I´m just trying to be as healthy as possible, and keep this baby as healthy as possible, and I´m not even totally sure how to best do that. But I know that there needs to be peace in my family, between Jairo and me, because otherwise everything else is pointless. So this was my request to God: If he says no, if he gets mad, I will let it go. He´s right, after all. I´ll listen to him. But if YOU want us to go to Puyo, if that´s what´s best, then let him go along with it. Let him say yes.
Yeah right, I thought. No way he´s saying yes. We´d have to leave in like two days!
He got home from worship team practice and I announced that I wanted to talk to him. He laughed. Good, I though, he´s in a good mood.
¨Okay, what do you want to talk about?¨
I decided to be direct. ¨I want to go to Puyo.¨
¨Really? Why?¨
I explained my rationale. I wanted to go to the hospital there, I think the trip really is doable, and I hate our doctor. I can only imagine those feelings will increase with the intensity of labor. It´s the only thing I feel remotely good about. Etc.
¨Are you sure that´s what you want?¨
¨Yeah, pretty sure.¨
¨Okay. Let´s go. We´ll have to leave right away. I´ll let everyone know and work everything out.¨
Do I or do I not have the best husband in the whole universe?? This whole thing went down yesterday, and last night as my husband was snoring away I said a silent thank you to God for blessing me with such a wonderful husband. And somewhere in his response I realized that in some way, just like it took him some time to really become a husband, it had taken him some time to really become a father. To think like a father. But there in that moment I realized, there is nothing he wouldn´t do for me or this baby. And I felt peace.
I think this is one of those many small sacrifices that I will be making my whole life for this little one. It´s hard for me to think of making this trip now, leaving the comfort of our home and staying with my in-laws, despite the fact that I get along great with them. They love me a lot, and I know they will be a big help to us. Still, I want to be here, in my bed, in my house, with my idea of the perfect birth. I guess this is where my mom chimes in and tells me to get over that right now, because from now on nothing is going to go according to plan. And that´s okay. I could use some help giving up control and trusting in God. But it is going to be hard to make the trip to Puyo, and even harder to make the trip back just days after delivery with a newborn in tow. But I think about staying here and I know that the right thing is to go.
Whatever happens from here on out, at least I can say it won´t be boring! And it will be a fun story to tell baby when she´s bigger, once all the ugly parts have faded into memory and become just funny little details in the bigger and much more important story of how she came to be. The story of how we loved her from before the time we even knew her, and how we tried to take care of her without really knowing how. And maybe, just maybe, seeing how hard we´ve tried, she´ll forgive us for all those mistakes we´ll make between now and then! (Well, maybe after she gets done with those teenage years...)
I have had my qualms about our doctor since somewhere in the second trimester, I think. Little things that she does that I didn´t like too much...and many times I have thought about switching. Still, until recently nothing seemed like a big enough deal to switch over. I was just being too North American, I would think. Ecuadorian culture is definitely a ¨take it easy¨ culture...I am not a ¨take it easy¨ person. So there you go.
But recently there have been issues that seem less cultural and more worry-worthy to me, and when all of those isues culminated in me having a chernobyl-style meltdown that left even me reeling with surprise, I realized that something had to change. The major issues are related to pregnancy complications and whatnot, which most of you will not find interesting, but what it boils down to is that I feel like our doctor really could not care less about this pregnancy as long as she gets paid. The evidence is there, more and more with each passing visit it seems. Having all the classic symptoms of pre-eclampsia, a serious pregnancy problem which requires close observation at least, and at worst a medical intervention (inducing labor, etc), my doctor didn´t send me to get a single test done. Her response? ¨That´s probably normal.¨ She sent me to get an ultrasound, and we promptly took the results and pictures to her the next day. Then, a week later we go in to see her because my symptoms are worse and she says, ¨You didn´t get that ultrasound yet?¨ Jairo and I looked at each other, confused, and said, ¨Yes, we brought it to you last week.¨ ¨Oh really?¨ she replied, ¨I guess I forgot to write it down.¨ The exams she´s done on me to check for dilation and effacement (sorry, I know many of you are losing me now) are contradictory, indicating that she really has no idea what she´s even looking for. This doesn´t inspire much confidence, and while I realize that there are many aspects of labor and delivery that one really has no control over, one thing we can do is put our care in good hands. Of course, ultimately I know that I and our baby are in the best hands of all--God´s!! Still, we need to be responsible parents and try to do what is best for everyone.
After our last visit, I really could not handle the panic I was feeling every time we went to the doctor, my health getting progressively worse and her care of us getting progressively more lazy. I got so upset that I couldn´t stop crying...or hyperventilating. So Jairo gave me an ultimatum. ¨You need to tell me what you want to do. Whatever you need is fine, but tell me what we´re doing. You are making yourself sick.¨ Well I spent that night and the next day recovering from my meltdown, and I think seeing me so sad and quiet really freaked Jairo out. I am never quiet! Somewhere about half way through me processing all of this and trying to formulate a plan, Jairo came to me again, obviously worried and reassured me that he was more than happy to do anything I wanted, trying to get some kind of clue from me about what was going on in my head. Whatever else, I had to snap out of this zombie state and make a decision...my due date is only two weeks away, and everyone seems to think she is coming early. (I´m not convinced of that!)
Well, the next day I got up and started praying. (Something I could have done sooner.) First of all, I asked for forgiveness because my nuclear meltdown was such an obvious lack of faith on my part. My life, and the life of this baby, are in God´s hands. Our choice of doctor and hospital is important, but trusting God is more important, because when all is said and done He is the one directing our steps and He is the one who will bring this baby into the world in His time. Then I started asking for what often eludes me: Peace. Only He can give it, and I need it. And then I asked for wisdom to know what to do.
I realized that the best option is probably to go to Puyo, stay with the in-laws, and give birth at the North American hospital. It´s an idea we´ve tossed around since I got pregnant, but it just seemed too difficult since I needed monthly check ups and we´d have to spend the last month or so in Puyo. In the past few weeks we started discussing again, but it just seemed like too much of a hassle. Yet, the more I thought about it the more I thought that, despite the hassle, it was the only idea that actually made me feel secure and safe about labor. Not to mention that we will be surrounded by Jairo´s family, instead of being on our own. Another day passed and I became more sure of the idea. Yet I had this fear that Jairo was going to get mad at me. ¨Why didn´t you decide this sooner?¨ I imagined him asking me. ¨Now that I have all these responsibilities and plans here in Quito, now that everything is ready, now that we´re settled here, NOW you want to go to Puyo, just days before you give birth?¨ And, I thought, if he reacts like that...he´s right. I should have decided this long ago. In my defense, I had no idea it would turn out like this. But still...hindsight and all that.
So I prayed, and I told God the truth. The truth is that I don´t know what´s best. The truth is that I don´t know what to do. The truth is that I´m just trying to be as healthy as possible, and keep this baby as healthy as possible, and I´m not even totally sure how to best do that. But I know that there needs to be peace in my family, between Jairo and me, because otherwise everything else is pointless. So this was my request to God: If he says no, if he gets mad, I will let it go. He´s right, after all. I´ll listen to him. But if YOU want us to go to Puyo, if that´s what´s best, then let him go along with it. Let him say yes.
Yeah right, I thought. No way he´s saying yes. We´d have to leave in like two days!
He got home from worship team practice and I announced that I wanted to talk to him. He laughed. Good, I though, he´s in a good mood.
¨Okay, what do you want to talk about?¨
I decided to be direct. ¨I want to go to Puyo.¨
¨Really? Why?¨
I explained my rationale. I wanted to go to the hospital there, I think the trip really is doable, and I hate our doctor. I can only imagine those feelings will increase with the intensity of labor. It´s the only thing I feel remotely good about. Etc.
¨Are you sure that´s what you want?¨
¨Yeah, pretty sure.¨
¨Okay. Let´s go. We´ll have to leave right away. I´ll let everyone know and work everything out.¨
Do I or do I not have the best husband in the whole universe?? This whole thing went down yesterday, and last night as my husband was snoring away I said a silent thank you to God for blessing me with such a wonderful husband. And somewhere in his response I realized that in some way, just like it took him some time to really become a husband, it had taken him some time to really become a father. To think like a father. But there in that moment I realized, there is nothing he wouldn´t do for me or this baby. And I felt peace.
I think this is one of those many small sacrifices that I will be making my whole life for this little one. It´s hard for me to think of making this trip now, leaving the comfort of our home and staying with my in-laws, despite the fact that I get along great with them. They love me a lot, and I know they will be a big help to us. Still, I want to be here, in my bed, in my house, with my idea of the perfect birth. I guess this is where my mom chimes in and tells me to get over that right now, because from now on nothing is going to go according to plan. And that´s okay. I could use some help giving up control and trusting in God. But it is going to be hard to make the trip to Puyo, and even harder to make the trip back just days after delivery with a newborn in tow. But I think about staying here and I know that the right thing is to go.
Whatever happens from here on out, at least I can say it won´t be boring! And it will be a fun story to tell baby when she´s bigger, once all the ugly parts have faded into memory and become just funny little details in the bigger and much more important story of how she came to be. The story of how we loved her from before the time we even knew her, and how we tried to take care of her without really knowing how. And maybe, just maybe, seeing how hard we´ve tried, she´ll forgive us for all those mistakes we´ll make between now and then! (Well, maybe after she gets done with those teenage years...)
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Week 68: Christmas in May! (week 37 of pregnancy)
These past few days I have had a lot of reason to feel like it´s Christmas time. For one, it´s cold here in Ecuador, or at least it was until today, which it shouldn´t be because technically we are in the hot season. Apparently the weather did not get the memo. I don´t mind the cold too much, especially since I´m mostly indoors nowadays, but the rain that goes along with it every day makes doing laundry a frustrating job. We, like most Ecuadorian households, do not have a dryer, so we hang our clothes out on the line to dry. My mom asked me the other day what we do when it rains every day like it has been this week. My answer? We wait.
But there are many more reasons to feel like it´s Christmas time, and they are much more fun. At the end of last week (I was way too tired to blog about it) I had my baby shower via Skype. It was pretty neat to get to see everyone and talk to them, although we got disconnected a few times. Still, when you´re a whole continent away, that´s not too shabby! Baby showers are always fun, what with the adorable tiny things and the games, not to mention the friends who I had not seen in over a year...and some that I had not seen in even longer than that. My aunt threw the shower and had the idea that people could either bring smaller gifts like baby clothes, which my parents will bring to me when they come here in just a few weeks, or if they wanted to get us a bigger item they could give a gift of money with a card telling how they would like us to use it. The majority of people just said to use the money however we most needed it, although a few did have me get specific things from my registry. I think it was a great idea considering the fact that logistically presents are just so difficult to transport to us. I wasn´t expecting a lot of money or gifts, mostly I was just excited to see everyone and get to share our excitement with them. Nonetheless we got quite a few really adorable gifts (like a tutu and a homemade quilt) and quite a bit of money, too. I felt incredibly blessed that so many people wanted to be a part of our daughter´s life and also amazed once again at God´s provision...I shouldn´t be so surprised every time God comes through for us for this baby since that was part of the bargain I made with Him about this little one, but I´m only human, I suppose.
Well, these days following the shower Jairo and I have done some shopping for the baby, picking up the essentials that we were missing and a few fun non-essentials as well. I´m trying not to buy too many clothes because my mom is bringing a bunch with her and also I don´t know how big this baby is going to be! Plus, there´s always the off-chance that those ultrasounds were mistaken and then what will we do with all of these girl clothes? Jairo assures me that we will have plenty of opportunity to buy anything else we might need once the baby arrives. So close to the end of the pregnancy, it´s really just nerve-wracking when you have everything pretty much done and there´s nothing to do but wait. Still, these little shopping trips have been fun and have given me a distraction to get through these last days!
So as if that were not enough, today we went to the post office (an uncommon adventure for us...and an all-day event, unfortunately) and were rewarded for our efforts with four packages!! One was a package for Jairo´s birthday, two were packages of baby related items, and one was a package from a dear friend of mine for me and baby. It really did feel like Christmas! Jairo and I were especially impressed by the tiny little baby socks that came in one package from my parents. I can´t even imagine a foot that small...but I suppose very soon I will be intimately familiar with two of them.
I spent the rest of the evening washing all the new baby clothes we got in the mail (and I am still amazed that such tiny clothes can fill up my line so quickly!), putting away the few baby things we bought while out and about, ironing the crib sheet and blanket (I had just washed them and they were beyond wrinkled), cooking burritos for my husband who had never tried them before, and clearing out the memory cards so that there is plenty of room for baby pictures. I was hoping to finish up my hospital bag and baby´s hospital bag, but there are only so many hours in a day.
Pregnancy-wise I have been okay, not great, but I´m not sure if it´s the pregnancy that is getting me down or if it´s the flu my husband gave me. The beauty of marriage is sharing, right? I´m pretty sure the immense swelling of my feet and hands is purely pregnancy, though. We´re getting that checked out tomorrow, just in case. Baby is as active as ever and, although I have frequent contractions, I have trouble believing that she´s going to come out. I feel like I´ve been pregnant forever, and I don´t see any real progress towards labor. I suppose it will come like a theif in the night. Or something like that.
Other than that, life is moving forward and I am trying to imagine how different this scene will be just a few weeks from now. Jairo and I are so happy lately that I can only hope that baby´s transition into our family is made easier by our happiness, and not that our happiness is made less happy by the transition. Selfish, I know. Until now we have never really been inclined to share much of ourselves as a couple with others, being a fairly private couple. Even the things I put on this blog are generally surface-level kinds of things, and my own thoughts which I tend to not ever keep to myself. What will it be like to let a third party into our little world? For now I can only wonder. Still, it will be nice to have my figure back...or at least normal-sized feet for starters.
But there are many more reasons to feel like it´s Christmas time, and they are much more fun. At the end of last week (I was way too tired to blog about it) I had my baby shower via Skype. It was pretty neat to get to see everyone and talk to them, although we got disconnected a few times. Still, when you´re a whole continent away, that´s not too shabby! Baby showers are always fun, what with the adorable tiny things and the games, not to mention the friends who I had not seen in over a year...and some that I had not seen in even longer than that. My aunt threw the shower and had the idea that people could either bring smaller gifts like baby clothes, which my parents will bring to me when they come here in just a few weeks, or if they wanted to get us a bigger item they could give a gift of money with a card telling how they would like us to use it. The majority of people just said to use the money however we most needed it, although a few did have me get specific things from my registry. I think it was a great idea considering the fact that logistically presents are just so difficult to transport to us. I wasn´t expecting a lot of money or gifts, mostly I was just excited to see everyone and get to share our excitement with them. Nonetheless we got quite a few really adorable gifts (like a tutu and a homemade quilt) and quite a bit of money, too. I felt incredibly blessed that so many people wanted to be a part of our daughter´s life and also amazed once again at God´s provision...I shouldn´t be so surprised every time God comes through for us for this baby since that was part of the bargain I made with Him about this little one, but I´m only human, I suppose.
Well, these days following the shower Jairo and I have done some shopping for the baby, picking up the essentials that we were missing and a few fun non-essentials as well. I´m trying not to buy too many clothes because my mom is bringing a bunch with her and also I don´t know how big this baby is going to be! Plus, there´s always the off-chance that those ultrasounds were mistaken and then what will we do with all of these girl clothes? Jairo assures me that we will have plenty of opportunity to buy anything else we might need once the baby arrives. So close to the end of the pregnancy, it´s really just nerve-wracking when you have everything pretty much done and there´s nothing to do but wait. Still, these little shopping trips have been fun and have given me a distraction to get through these last days!
So as if that were not enough, today we went to the post office (an uncommon adventure for us...and an all-day event, unfortunately) and were rewarded for our efforts with four packages!! One was a package for Jairo´s birthday, two were packages of baby related items, and one was a package from a dear friend of mine for me and baby. It really did feel like Christmas! Jairo and I were especially impressed by the tiny little baby socks that came in one package from my parents. I can´t even imagine a foot that small...but I suppose very soon I will be intimately familiar with two of them.
I spent the rest of the evening washing all the new baby clothes we got in the mail (and I am still amazed that such tiny clothes can fill up my line so quickly!), putting away the few baby things we bought while out and about, ironing the crib sheet and blanket (I had just washed them and they were beyond wrinkled), cooking burritos for my husband who had never tried them before, and clearing out the memory cards so that there is plenty of room for baby pictures. I was hoping to finish up my hospital bag and baby´s hospital bag, but there are only so many hours in a day.
Pregnancy-wise I have been okay, not great, but I´m not sure if it´s the pregnancy that is getting me down or if it´s the flu my husband gave me. The beauty of marriage is sharing, right? I´m pretty sure the immense swelling of my feet and hands is purely pregnancy, though. We´re getting that checked out tomorrow, just in case. Baby is as active as ever and, although I have frequent contractions, I have trouble believing that she´s going to come out. I feel like I´ve been pregnant forever, and I don´t see any real progress towards labor. I suppose it will come like a theif in the night. Or something like that.
Other than that, life is moving forward and I am trying to imagine how different this scene will be just a few weeks from now. Jairo and I are so happy lately that I can only hope that baby´s transition into our family is made easier by our happiness, and not that our happiness is made less happy by the transition. Selfish, I know. Until now we have never really been inclined to share much of ourselves as a couple with others, being a fairly private couple. Even the things I put on this blog are generally surface-level kinds of things, and my own thoughts which I tend to not ever keep to myself. What will it be like to let a third party into our little world? For now I can only wonder. Still, it will be nice to have my figure back...or at least normal-sized feet for starters.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Week 67: A recap of this week (week 36 of pregnancy)
Today is Thursday, and it´s the first day all week that I´ve actually gotten something done. It´s interesting, too, because each day of this week has been worse than the day before, making this day the worst day of the week so far. I feel like I might just drop over unconscious at any moment, so I thought I would try to get at least one blog entry done for this week in case the weekend follows the trend of each day getting worse and I have absolutely no energy or will left!
I´m at the tail end of my pregnancy, week 36 (almost 37) out of 40 give or take, and as far as I´m concerned, my due date cannot come fast enough. This whole pregnancy has been a difficult one for me. I realize that many women have even more difficult pregnancies, with months and months of total bedrest or hospitalizations, etc. so I don´t want to complain too much. I have only been ordered on ¨partial¨ bedrest for the past few months, which here in Ecuador is not that restrictive. I am supposed to stay home as much as possible, and not do anything more than moderate work. I can wash the dishes, for example, but I´m not supposed to take out the trash. (Not like I take out the trash anyway...) They put me on partial bedrest in the first trimester for a while because of some cramping, but that went away and so did the bedrest, and I felt pretty good until the end of the second trimester. Then I developed some high blood pressure, but not really high, just enough for them to put me back on partial bedrest. This doctor´s visit I found out that my blood pressure is officially back to normal, but I have been having really frequent contractions and lots of cramping and my doctor is worried I will go into labor early, so I am supposed to continue with the bedrest until 39 weeks. Just a little longer...
Still, this week bedrest has been more of a self-imposed treatment...I have the habit of doing too much too soon because I get so restless ¨resting¨, but this week even I have not been asking to get out of the house. I have been in a lot of pain, especially lower back pain (and of course the contractions) to the point that I cannot even lie down comfortably. There is literally no way to get comfortable for even 5 minutes. Last night was the worst night yet, and neither I nor Jairo got any sleep at all. It was like those torture scenes on tv where they give you drugs in one arm to make you fall asleep and drugs in the other to make you wake up to intense pain...that was my night. I would fall asleep from being so exhausted only to wake up 5 minutes later gasping from pain. Thank God for my incredibly patient and compassionate husband who gave me back massages off and on from about 2am until about 5:30am.
Apparently this discomfort is caused by the baby being really low, or as the ultrasound guy said the other day, ¨stuck way down there¨. I suppose it´s nice that she is getting ready to come out...that gives me some hope. Still, I wonder to myself how in the world I will have strength for labor if this keeps up...I don´t even have the energy to walk around my apartment.
I am tutoring a teen from our church in English for an army entrance exam, and today was the second day that I tutored him. When Jairo woke me up to tell me that this guy had arrived, I could not stop crying. Jairo was going to send him home, seeing that I was completely hysterical, but I felt bad that the kid had come all this way for nothing so I got up and got changed and ready, crying the whole time. I was so completely exhausted that I couldn´t handle the idea of even being awake, let alone trying to make sense enough to teach someone. I got calmed down and got the class done, and hopefully it made sense, and then I figured that while I was up I would try to do something productive, since the crying spell was over anyway.
I was a little productive. I washed the dishes that were piling up (all of them!), washed 2 loads of clothes (but Jairo hung them up...I´m not that ambitious), made dinner (fajitas...definitely worth the work), made gatorade (from powder...my new best friend), and downloaded some pictures that Jairo needed for a design he´s doing. I was trying to understand when in my life I accepted this kind of activity as ¨productive¨ and then I remembered...oh yeah, somewhere around 7 months pregnant.
I have two new fears about this pregnancy, or actually about labor, that I never even considered before. First of all, with all this talk from the doctor about the baby coming early, I am really worried she will come late. Here I am expecting her to come about a week before her date, and what if she comes at 41 weeks or more? I think I would literally lose my mind. I keep dropping subtle little hints to the baby, like ¨the exit is in a downward direction¨ and ¨please oh please be born soon!!¨ Ok, maybe not that subtle.
The other fear I have is one I already mentioned, that I will have absolutely no strength for labor. I really do not want drugs, and I especially do not want a c-section. It´s not that I´m especially against epidurals and other medicines, it´s really just that we don´t have the money for extra interventions in labor, and I also just prefer a natural birth.
I have this list of 6 signs that labor is coming soon, soon being about 2 weeks or so, and according to the teacher once you have 4 or more it is time for your hubby to stay close. Not like never leave the house close, but definitely never leave the city close. Well I have four, which means absolutely nothing more than what we already know: sometime in the near future, this baby will be born. When? Who knows??
I decided early on that I wanted to memorize Scripture for labor, and I chose Psalm 91 for Jairo and I to memorize together. I also wrote down a lot of other good verses in a pretty little notebook that I plan to take with me to the hospital so that Jairo can read them to me or I can read them, depending on what works. But I wanted to have one memorized, to give me something to focus on. We worked on it a lot in the beginning, and then kind of slacked off near the middle of pregnancy. The other day I was at church with Jairo for a worship team practice, which I decided to go to because I felt pretty good and wanted to get out of the house. Well, that was a mistake. It wasn´t too far into the practice that the contractions hit. I was sitting, so I decided to get up and walk, since braxton-hicks contractions usually ease up if you change activities. Well, the contractions went away but then I felt this incredible pain in my lower back as the baby´s head crushed some nerve in my body or my spinal cord or who knows what. So I was left with a choice...contractions sitting down or shooting pain walking around. I was more scared of the contractions so I decided to walk around, and realizing that I had about 3 more verses to memorize in Psalm 91 and labor could literally be any day, I grabbed a Bible and started memorizing. It was an ok distraction for the most part, although there were a few moments where I would sort of double over for a second and try to compose myself from the pain getting stronger, and in those moments there is really no good distraction. Well, I got the Psalm memorized really well, because I was too scared to sit back down until the end of practice. I was proud of myself that I didn´t cry a single tear until I got home.
Well, I asked Jairo to take me with him to church tonight and he promptly refused...I think ¨no¨ is going to be the standard answer until after baby is born. He´s only going to do some kind of instrument installation thing so he won´t be gone long, and I would have been really bored anyway, but in some way despite knowing how much I really need the rest, it kind of just seems pointless anyway. Here or there, I am not really able to rest. So I´d rather just be doing something. Otherwise, these last few weeks are going to go even slower!
Anyway, that is my week in a nutshell up until now. I still have to make Jairo´s birthday present, and I am currently about 10% done and have only 3 more days, so I´m wondering what kind of miracle to pray for so that I can get it done on time. I already gave in and had Jairo pick out a cake mix rather than make a homemade cake, so I´d like to do at least one thing well!!
I think I will take a shower, which seems to be a nice pain reliever until I turn off the water, and then I will probably try to sleep...which might work for a few minutes. Hopefully I will get enough minutes in there to not be traumatized merely by waking up! Jairo´s looking pretty tired, too...I bet he´s just as ready for this baby to come as I am!
I´m at the tail end of my pregnancy, week 36 (almost 37) out of 40 give or take, and as far as I´m concerned, my due date cannot come fast enough. This whole pregnancy has been a difficult one for me. I realize that many women have even more difficult pregnancies, with months and months of total bedrest or hospitalizations, etc. so I don´t want to complain too much. I have only been ordered on ¨partial¨ bedrest for the past few months, which here in Ecuador is not that restrictive. I am supposed to stay home as much as possible, and not do anything more than moderate work. I can wash the dishes, for example, but I´m not supposed to take out the trash. (Not like I take out the trash anyway...) They put me on partial bedrest in the first trimester for a while because of some cramping, but that went away and so did the bedrest, and I felt pretty good until the end of the second trimester. Then I developed some high blood pressure, but not really high, just enough for them to put me back on partial bedrest. This doctor´s visit I found out that my blood pressure is officially back to normal, but I have been having really frequent contractions and lots of cramping and my doctor is worried I will go into labor early, so I am supposed to continue with the bedrest until 39 weeks. Just a little longer...
Still, this week bedrest has been more of a self-imposed treatment...I have the habit of doing too much too soon because I get so restless ¨resting¨, but this week even I have not been asking to get out of the house. I have been in a lot of pain, especially lower back pain (and of course the contractions) to the point that I cannot even lie down comfortably. There is literally no way to get comfortable for even 5 minutes. Last night was the worst night yet, and neither I nor Jairo got any sleep at all. It was like those torture scenes on tv where they give you drugs in one arm to make you fall asleep and drugs in the other to make you wake up to intense pain...that was my night. I would fall asleep from being so exhausted only to wake up 5 minutes later gasping from pain. Thank God for my incredibly patient and compassionate husband who gave me back massages off and on from about 2am until about 5:30am.
Apparently this discomfort is caused by the baby being really low, or as the ultrasound guy said the other day, ¨stuck way down there¨. I suppose it´s nice that she is getting ready to come out...that gives me some hope. Still, I wonder to myself how in the world I will have strength for labor if this keeps up...I don´t even have the energy to walk around my apartment.
I am tutoring a teen from our church in English for an army entrance exam, and today was the second day that I tutored him. When Jairo woke me up to tell me that this guy had arrived, I could not stop crying. Jairo was going to send him home, seeing that I was completely hysterical, but I felt bad that the kid had come all this way for nothing so I got up and got changed and ready, crying the whole time. I was so completely exhausted that I couldn´t handle the idea of even being awake, let alone trying to make sense enough to teach someone. I got calmed down and got the class done, and hopefully it made sense, and then I figured that while I was up I would try to do something productive, since the crying spell was over anyway.
I was a little productive. I washed the dishes that were piling up (all of them!), washed 2 loads of clothes (but Jairo hung them up...I´m not that ambitious), made dinner (fajitas...definitely worth the work), made gatorade (from powder...my new best friend), and downloaded some pictures that Jairo needed for a design he´s doing. I was trying to understand when in my life I accepted this kind of activity as ¨productive¨ and then I remembered...oh yeah, somewhere around 7 months pregnant.
I have two new fears about this pregnancy, or actually about labor, that I never even considered before. First of all, with all this talk from the doctor about the baby coming early, I am really worried she will come late. Here I am expecting her to come about a week before her date, and what if she comes at 41 weeks or more? I think I would literally lose my mind. I keep dropping subtle little hints to the baby, like ¨the exit is in a downward direction¨ and ¨please oh please be born soon!!¨ Ok, maybe not that subtle.
The other fear I have is one I already mentioned, that I will have absolutely no strength for labor. I really do not want drugs, and I especially do not want a c-section. It´s not that I´m especially against epidurals and other medicines, it´s really just that we don´t have the money for extra interventions in labor, and I also just prefer a natural birth.
I have this list of 6 signs that labor is coming soon, soon being about 2 weeks or so, and according to the teacher once you have 4 or more it is time for your hubby to stay close. Not like never leave the house close, but definitely never leave the city close. Well I have four, which means absolutely nothing more than what we already know: sometime in the near future, this baby will be born. When? Who knows??
I decided early on that I wanted to memorize Scripture for labor, and I chose Psalm 91 for Jairo and I to memorize together. I also wrote down a lot of other good verses in a pretty little notebook that I plan to take with me to the hospital so that Jairo can read them to me or I can read them, depending on what works. But I wanted to have one memorized, to give me something to focus on. We worked on it a lot in the beginning, and then kind of slacked off near the middle of pregnancy. The other day I was at church with Jairo for a worship team practice, which I decided to go to because I felt pretty good and wanted to get out of the house. Well, that was a mistake. It wasn´t too far into the practice that the contractions hit. I was sitting, so I decided to get up and walk, since braxton-hicks contractions usually ease up if you change activities. Well, the contractions went away but then I felt this incredible pain in my lower back as the baby´s head crushed some nerve in my body or my spinal cord or who knows what. So I was left with a choice...contractions sitting down or shooting pain walking around. I was more scared of the contractions so I decided to walk around, and realizing that I had about 3 more verses to memorize in Psalm 91 and labor could literally be any day, I grabbed a Bible and started memorizing. It was an ok distraction for the most part, although there were a few moments where I would sort of double over for a second and try to compose myself from the pain getting stronger, and in those moments there is really no good distraction. Well, I got the Psalm memorized really well, because I was too scared to sit back down until the end of practice. I was proud of myself that I didn´t cry a single tear until I got home.
Well, I asked Jairo to take me with him to church tonight and he promptly refused...I think ¨no¨ is going to be the standard answer until after baby is born. He´s only going to do some kind of instrument installation thing so he won´t be gone long, and I would have been really bored anyway, but in some way despite knowing how much I really need the rest, it kind of just seems pointless anyway. Here or there, I am not really able to rest. So I´d rather just be doing something. Otherwise, these last few weeks are going to go even slower!
Anyway, that is my week in a nutshell up until now. I still have to make Jairo´s birthday present, and I am currently about 10% done and have only 3 more days, so I´m wondering what kind of miracle to pray for so that I can get it done on time. I already gave in and had Jairo pick out a cake mix rather than make a homemade cake, so I´d like to do at least one thing well!!
I think I will take a shower, which seems to be a nice pain reliever until I turn off the water, and then I will probably try to sleep...which might work for a few minutes. Hopefully I will get enough minutes in there to not be traumatized merely by waking up! Jairo´s looking pretty tired, too...I bet he´s just as ready for this baby to come as I am!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Week 66: Wanted: Motivation (Week 35 of pregnancy)
I don´t know if this is true of all or many pregnant women, but lately I have personally found that I have two instincts warring inside of me all day long. First, there is the nesting instinct. (Jairo loves to tell me I´m nesting, mostly because he loves to laugh at the idea of me making a nest for our new baby.) This instinct is powerful, and if ignored leads to extreme restlessness. It is, of course, the so-called ¨burst of energy¨ in the weeks before labor that prompts a woman to do things ranging from normal to insane in order to get ready for baby. Now, what alphabetizing the contents of the fridge or sweeping ten times a day has to do with preparation for a baby, I have no idea, but the instinct is there nonetheless. Apparently this instinct exists in all female mammals. For example, a female rabbit will tear out her own fur in order to line a nest for her little ones before they are born. I have not yet torn out my hair for nest-making purposes, although for other reasons I am tempted once in a while. But that´s another story.
The other instinct, however, is that of self-preservation. This is the instinct that tells you to just take it easy. It´s the one screaming at you that nine months pregnant is not the time to be on your hands and knees scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. It´s that little voice that says, ¨Why in the world did you think you could climb up onto a chair and reach that box at the very top of the closet to organize it at 6am??¨ Interestingly enough, this particular little voice sounds a lot like my husband. Not to mention all of the literal voices telling you, ¨Get some rest! Save your energy for the big day!¨ etc. I like how people think that energy is something you can save up, like there is some kind of bank somewhere that is going to give me dividends if I invest my energy for one month leading up to labor. If that really worked, women would do exactly that...they would do nothing but stay in bed for a month and then on the day of labor they would push that baby out so fast with the saved up energy and interest that labor would be a walk in the park.
Still, the self-preservation instinct is also a motherly instinct, because as a pregnant woman you become more and more aware that taking care of a child begins long before birth. Poor choices in pregnancy can lead to problems for mom and baby, so it does pay to be prudent.
Well, obviously, these two instincts are often in direct contradiction of each other, which makes for a confused mommy-to-be. And believe me, what with the surging hormones and the forgetfullness, mommy was already confused. So what is a pregnant girl to do?
Today, for example, I have a whole list of things I want to accomplish. The majority of them are not baby related at all, mostly because everything that I can do for now has been done a hundred times. I don´t know how else I can organize the baby clothes, or how many times I can take out the stroller and practice folding, unfolding, etc. My doctor has no desire to see me until week 37, so I don´t have much hope on the horizon for new baby-related activities at least until then.
One of the things on my list is to work on Jairo´s birthday present. The project itself is not difficult, but I know better than to trust my fluctuating energy levels, so I am trying to do it little by little. Jairo left early this morning, so my big plan today was to get up when he left and start in on the project right away. Well, I did get up when he left, thanks in large part to the construction my neighbors have going on which apparently involves a lot of hammers, but I did not work on the gift. I ate, first of all, because there was just no avoiding that. These days I am hungry even when I´m full, so eating small meals and snacks all day long is pretty much a custom around here. (In my defense, most of these foods are fruits and veggies, since I try not to keep junk food in the house...out of sight, out of mind!) Well, I ate, and I fed the rabbits, since I thought it only fair that we all eat together. Then, since I was still so tired that I couldn´t see straight, I came back to bed, but thanks to the neighbors could not sleep. I then decided to check my email and was delighted to see that several friends had written me, which is always a nice pick-me-up when one lives on another continent. So I spent some time replying to them and then decided that I would write this blog entry. Not exactly the productive morning I had planned, but my self-preservation instinct is basking in the glory of its victory.
So, now I am faced with the following options: I can work on the project in the two hours or so that I have left until my husband comes home, I can do all of the other things on my list until my husband comes home, or I can sleep...the hammering seems to have died down for the time being. I´m really leaning towards sleeping. (Listen to the sound of cheering coming from the self-preservation crowd!) I mean, you never know...maybe I will earn some kind of interest on resting...It can´t hurt to try, right?
The other instinct, however, is that of self-preservation. This is the instinct that tells you to just take it easy. It´s the one screaming at you that nine months pregnant is not the time to be on your hands and knees scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. It´s that little voice that says, ¨Why in the world did you think you could climb up onto a chair and reach that box at the very top of the closet to organize it at 6am??¨ Interestingly enough, this particular little voice sounds a lot like my husband. Not to mention all of the literal voices telling you, ¨Get some rest! Save your energy for the big day!¨ etc. I like how people think that energy is something you can save up, like there is some kind of bank somewhere that is going to give me dividends if I invest my energy for one month leading up to labor. If that really worked, women would do exactly that...they would do nothing but stay in bed for a month and then on the day of labor they would push that baby out so fast with the saved up energy and interest that labor would be a walk in the park.
Still, the self-preservation instinct is also a motherly instinct, because as a pregnant woman you become more and more aware that taking care of a child begins long before birth. Poor choices in pregnancy can lead to problems for mom and baby, so it does pay to be prudent.
Well, obviously, these two instincts are often in direct contradiction of each other, which makes for a confused mommy-to-be. And believe me, what with the surging hormones and the forgetfullness, mommy was already confused. So what is a pregnant girl to do?
Today, for example, I have a whole list of things I want to accomplish. The majority of them are not baby related at all, mostly because everything that I can do for now has been done a hundred times. I don´t know how else I can organize the baby clothes, or how many times I can take out the stroller and practice folding, unfolding, etc. My doctor has no desire to see me until week 37, so I don´t have much hope on the horizon for new baby-related activities at least until then.
One of the things on my list is to work on Jairo´s birthday present. The project itself is not difficult, but I know better than to trust my fluctuating energy levels, so I am trying to do it little by little. Jairo left early this morning, so my big plan today was to get up when he left and start in on the project right away. Well, I did get up when he left, thanks in large part to the construction my neighbors have going on which apparently involves a lot of hammers, but I did not work on the gift. I ate, first of all, because there was just no avoiding that. These days I am hungry even when I´m full, so eating small meals and snacks all day long is pretty much a custom around here. (In my defense, most of these foods are fruits and veggies, since I try not to keep junk food in the house...out of sight, out of mind!) Well, I ate, and I fed the rabbits, since I thought it only fair that we all eat together. Then, since I was still so tired that I couldn´t see straight, I came back to bed, but thanks to the neighbors could not sleep. I then decided to check my email and was delighted to see that several friends had written me, which is always a nice pick-me-up when one lives on another continent. So I spent some time replying to them and then decided that I would write this blog entry. Not exactly the productive morning I had planned, but my self-preservation instinct is basking in the glory of its victory.
So, now I am faced with the following options: I can work on the project in the two hours or so that I have left until my husband comes home, I can do all of the other things on my list until my husband comes home, or I can sleep...the hammering seems to have died down for the time being. I´m really leaning towards sleeping. (Listen to the sound of cheering coming from the self-preservation crowd!) I mean, you never know...maybe I will earn some kind of interest on resting...It can´t hurt to try, right?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Week 66: Fifteen Months Married (Week 35 of pregnancy)
We actually had our fifteen month anniversary last week, but we celebrated it today. We always like to do something special every 24th, even if it´s just something small like getting ice cream. This month we decided in advance that we were going to get a movie to watch at home and make fried fish with rice and patacones (fried plantains). That´s why we waited until today to celebrate, in order to have enough time.
I was thinking today about the beauty of living every day life with someone that you love. I was also thinking about the importance of laughter as an ingredient in that daily life. Lately I have noticed that Jairo and I have spent a lot of our time making each other laugh, and I think there is a direct correlation between that and how nice our marriage has been lately. Of course, there are always ups and downs, but I feel like lately we have been doing really well. It´s surprising, too, because our stress level is really high these days. My pregnancy is quickly approaching its big day, and that brings with it lots of stress as we try to get ready for baby, and getting ready involves so much more than just shopping! There are so many emotional aspects, for example. And in my case, the hormones currently surging through my body at record levels only add to the stress of that preparation as worries often turn in to tears. That, in turn, adds to Jairo´s stress level, while he is also dealing with all of those outside stressors of the ministry and of providing for his family.
Still, with all those things to stress about, when we are together, there is calm and genuine happiness that in other, less stressful times was not present. I think the key is laughter. Of course, there are many other important ingredients. But I think when you realize that your spouse is your teammate, and you are both trying to get to the same place in life, that´s a good common ground to let some things slide and just be silly once in a while.
I think it´s also good to tell each other once in a while why you appreciate one another. The other day Jairo and I were talking and I was expressing my feelings that being a wife, and soon a mother, is great, but sometimes has me feeling like I am on the sidelines while Jairo gets all of the action, so to speak. Jairo seemed genuinely surprised by this and started telling me how important what I do as a wife is for him to be able to minister. He told me, ¨I could not do anything that I do now if it weren´t for what you do here in our home and what you do to help me.¨ I replied that of course he could, to which he responded, ¨No, really, I couldn´t do any of it.¨ He went on to list all of the things I do for him on a daily basis and their importance to him, which I had never even begun to think of as important until now. So my point is that it doesn´t hurt to share those things once in a while, because we never really know what we mean to others if they don´t express that to us.
But to be honest, I am really thinking that laughter is the key ingredient to all of this. I have mentioned before that one thing I really love about Jairo is that he will do anything, and I mean anything, to make me laugh when I am sad. His specialty in my saddest moments when nothing else works is an impression of Steve Erkel. It gets me every time. On the other hand, when I want to make him laugh I do all kinds of crazy dances, which always makes him laugh, no matter what. It has become about 100 times more effective since my belly became a planet and I look that much more ridiculous. We love to laugh with each other and at each other, and I think that those moments are what make the hard times worth putting up with.
Although a close second would be this: Today after our celebration we were both on our respective computers doing our respective work and feeling contented to be close together, working in silence. He closed his computer, signaling that it was about time for him to get ready for church, and so I left what I was doing and we just laid there together for a minute and cuddled, and I thought, this right here is exactly why I got married. Two minutes of holding the whole world in your arms and none of the other silly things in life seem to have much significance.
Here´s to fifteen months of learning to laugh and learning to appreciate the simple moments in life! Soon we will be learning all over again when our little one comes...I have a feeling that those first few months are going to require even more sense of humor!
I was thinking today about the beauty of living every day life with someone that you love. I was also thinking about the importance of laughter as an ingredient in that daily life. Lately I have noticed that Jairo and I have spent a lot of our time making each other laugh, and I think there is a direct correlation between that and how nice our marriage has been lately. Of course, there are always ups and downs, but I feel like lately we have been doing really well. It´s surprising, too, because our stress level is really high these days. My pregnancy is quickly approaching its big day, and that brings with it lots of stress as we try to get ready for baby, and getting ready involves so much more than just shopping! There are so many emotional aspects, for example. And in my case, the hormones currently surging through my body at record levels only add to the stress of that preparation as worries often turn in to tears. That, in turn, adds to Jairo´s stress level, while he is also dealing with all of those outside stressors of the ministry and of providing for his family.
Still, with all those things to stress about, when we are together, there is calm and genuine happiness that in other, less stressful times was not present. I think the key is laughter. Of course, there are many other important ingredients. But I think when you realize that your spouse is your teammate, and you are both trying to get to the same place in life, that´s a good common ground to let some things slide and just be silly once in a while.
I think it´s also good to tell each other once in a while why you appreciate one another. The other day Jairo and I were talking and I was expressing my feelings that being a wife, and soon a mother, is great, but sometimes has me feeling like I am on the sidelines while Jairo gets all of the action, so to speak. Jairo seemed genuinely surprised by this and started telling me how important what I do as a wife is for him to be able to minister. He told me, ¨I could not do anything that I do now if it weren´t for what you do here in our home and what you do to help me.¨ I replied that of course he could, to which he responded, ¨No, really, I couldn´t do any of it.¨ He went on to list all of the things I do for him on a daily basis and their importance to him, which I had never even begun to think of as important until now. So my point is that it doesn´t hurt to share those things once in a while, because we never really know what we mean to others if they don´t express that to us.
But to be honest, I am really thinking that laughter is the key ingredient to all of this. I have mentioned before that one thing I really love about Jairo is that he will do anything, and I mean anything, to make me laugh when I am sad. His specialty in my saddest moments when nothing else works is an impression of Steve Erkel. It gets me every time. On the other hand, when I want to make him laugh I do all kinds of crazy dances, which always makes him laugh, no matter what. It has become about 100 times more effective since my belly became a planet and I look that much more ridiculous. We love to laugh with each other and at each other, and I think that those moments are what make the hard times worth putting up with.
Although a close second would be this: Today after our celebration we were both on our respective computers doing our respective work and feeling contented to be close together, working in silence. He closed his computer, signaling that it was about time for him to get ready for church, and so I left what I was doing and we just laid there together for a minute and cuddled, and I thought, this right here is exactly why I got married. Two minutes of holding the whole world in your arms and none of the other silly things in life seem to have much significance.
Here´s to fifteen months of learning to laugh and learning to appreciate the simple moments in life! Soon we will be learning all over again when our little one comes...I have a feeling that those first few months are going to require even more sense of humor!
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Week 65: A miracle week (week 34 of pregnancy)
Okay, miracle is a strong word. But something must have happened that I was unaware of. (At this point in my pregnancy, that doesn´t really surprise me.) My husband is always very caring and responsible, as well as affectionate, but once we got married and got so busy, I noticed a decline in his romantic gestures. Once I got pregnant, he got even busier because I was no longer around to help him, so the trend continued.
Now, I´m not saying my husband is never romantic or never does anything sweet. He does. He does a lot of very thoughtful things, one of my favorites of which is when he goes grocery shopping for me and brings me home all kinds of surprises. This week I commented to him that he never buys me flowers anymore. I think these comments are usually fueled by tv commercials and things of that nature, and are never really serious complaints. It´s more like I see it on tv and say, ¨Hey, that reminds me...¨ Jairo knows enough to know that those kinds of comments are usually just me being random, so neither of us pay to much attention to those moments. Which is why it surprised me that the next day when he got home from grocery shopping bearing many yummy treats for me as always, he also came home with a bouquet of roses! White and red roses, since he knows how much I love white roses.
Now, that was romantic gesture enough to last me a while. I´m really not that demanding when it comes to things like that...just once in a while I like to know that those feelings are still there. So I was all set. Then this morning someone called us at 7am, and afterwards I couldn´t get back to sleep. I really hate when people call before noon. It´s just so hard to get good sleep these days, and I wake up all the time to go to the bathroom, change positions, eat, etc. that I like to have the freedom to get some sleep. I can probably forgive anyone who calls after 10am, depending on the night I had, but 7am was enough to give me some violent day dreams. Jairo couldn´t get back to sleep later, so he got up. I heard him in the kitchen and wondered absentmindedly what he was up to as I tried hopelessly to force myself into REM. Then in comes Jairo to serve me breakfast in bed! As if that were not enough, he goes back to the kitchen and washes the dishes. All of the dishes. There were a lot of dishes.
Now, I´m not sure if I did something good without realizing it, or maybe the planets are all aligned (although I think that supposedly is going to usher in the apocalypse, so maybe not) or what happened, but I could really get used to this! I´m trying to think of a good way to return the favor, factoring in my lifestyle of forced rest...I´m not sure what kind of gesture I will come up with, I think he definitely deserves something special after all of these nice things he´s doing for me! I think I´ll try to get some sleep first, though.
Now, I´m not saying my husband is never romantic or never does anything sweet. He does. He does a lot of very thoughtful things, one of my favorites of which is when he goes grocery shopping for me and brings me home all kinds of surprises. This week I commented to him that he never buys me flowers anymore. I think these comments are usually fueled by tv commercials and things of that nature, and are never really serious complaints. It´s more like I see it on tv and say, ¨Hey, that reminds me...¨ Jairo knows enough to know that those kinds of comments are usually just me being random, so neither of us pay to much attention to those moments. Which is why it surprised me that the next day when he got home from grocery shopping bearing many yummy treats for me as always, he also came home with a bouquet of roses! White and red roses, since he knows how much I love white roses.
Now, that was romantic gesture enough to last me a while. I´m really not that demanding when it comes to things like that...just once in a while I like to know that those feelings are still there. So I was all set. Then this morning someone called us at 7am, and afterwards I couldn´t get back to sleep. I really hate when people call before noon. It´s just so hard to get good sleep these days, and I wake up all the time to go to the bathroom, change positions, eat, etc. that I like to have the freedom to get some sleep. I can probably forgive anyone who calls after 10am, depending on the night I had, but 7am was enough to give me some violent day dreams. Jairo couldn´t get back to sleep later, so he got up. I heard him in the kitchen and wondered absentmindedly what he was up to as I tried hopelessly to force myself into REM. Then in comes Jairo to serve me breakfast in bed! As if that were not enough, he goes back to the kitchen and washes the dishes. All of the dishes. There were a lot of dishes.
Now, I´m not sure if I did something good without realizing it, or maybe the planets are all aligned (although I think that supposedly is going to usher in the apocalypse, so maybe not) or what happened, but I could really get used to this! I´m trying to think of a good way to return the favor, factoring in my lifestyle of forced rest...I´m not sure what kind of gesture I will come up with, I think he definitely deserves something special after all of these nice things he´s doing for me! I think I´ll try to get some sleep first, though.
Week 65: The big mystery...solved! (week 34 of pregnancy)
We have been waiting patiently for another chance to see our little one, but my doctor is of the philosophy that ultrasounds are unnecessary except at 5 and 9 months. I personally believe they are justifiable at least once a week, because I just love seeing that little person in there! Still, I have waited and waited.
My mom wanted us to try to find out the sex of the baby before she sent out the shower invitations, so we decided to go ahead and get an ultrasound on our own. I have been pretty sure this baby is a boy since the beginning of my pregnancy, which means that I´ve had that idea for about 8 months! Imagine my surprise when the doctor told us that it´s a girl!
¨Are you sure?¨ I asked him, stunned.
¨Yep.¨
¨Like, really sure?¨
¨Yep.¨
A girl! What a surprise! My mom is ecstatic...apparently she has lots of friends who have had girl babies, so she´s probably tearing into the baby clothes as we speak.
To be honest, I wasn´t sure what to feel. In the beginning, even before I got pregnant, I wanted a girl first. Mostly to be sure I get at least one. After all, what mom doesn´t want a daughter. Still, 8 months thinking you are having a boy makes it an adjustment when you find out how long you´ve been wrong!
Jairo wasn´t actually surprised. Sometimes it drives me crazy how calm he is about this pregnancy. I sit here and worry about labor, the baby, life once baby is born, and Jairo´s just thrilled to be a dad. I think his approach is better, but I seem to be incapable of not worrying. Maybe it´s because during pregnancy and labor dad is more of a spectator, until baby is actually born. But anyway, I was really surprised. We haven´t even thought about girl names.
Still, the idea of all those adorable pink things is starting to get me excited. I can´t help but shake the feeling that maybe the ultrasound is wrong, so I´m still buying mostly neutral things for now, but my mother-in-law already started on the dress to bring our little girl home in. I joked to Jairo that he better be ready to run to the store to pick something up in case it´s a boy, though!
My mom wanted us to try to find out the sex of the baby before she sent out the shower invitations, so we decided to go ahead and get an ultrasound on our own. I have been pretty sure this baby is a boy since the beginning of my pregnancy, which means that I´ve had that idea for about 8 months! Imagine my surprise when the doctor told us that it´s a girl!
¨Are you sure?¨ I asked him, stunned.
¨Yep.¨
¨Like, really sure?¨
¨Yep.¨
A girl! What a surprise! My mom is ecstatic...apparently she has lots of friends who have had girl babies, so she´s probably tearing into the baby clothes as we speak.
To be honest, I wasn´t sure what to feel. In the beginning, even before I got pregnant, I wanted a girl first. Mostly to be sure I get at least one. After all, what mom doesn´t want a daughter. Still, 8 months thinking you are having a boy makes it an adjustment when you find out how long you´ve been wrong!
Jairo wasn´t actually surprised. Sometimes it drives me crazy how calm he is about this pregnancy. I sit here and worry about labor, the baby, life once baby is born, and Jairo´s just thrilled to be a dad. I think his approach is better, but I seem to be incapable of not worrying. Maybe it´s because during pregnancy and labor dad is more of a spectator, until baby is actually born. But anyway, I was really surprised. We haven´t even thought about girl names.
Still, the idea of all those adorable pink things is starting to get me excited. I can´t help but shake the feeling that maybe the ultrasound is wrong, so I´m still buying mostly neutral things for now, but my mother-in-law already started on the dress to bring our little girl home in. I joked to Jairo that he better be ready to run to the store to pick something up in case it´s a boy, though!
Week 64: Is resting more even possible at this point? (week 33 of pregnancy)
Well, I went to the doctor for my monthly checkup only to be told that I needed to rest more. Apparently my blood pressure is a little high.
Rest more? More? Is that even a possibility?
Okay, I know it is possible because I´ve heard the bedrest horror stories, but come on. I was not exactly accepting the idea of rest with much enthusiasm before. And now I need more rest? What do I even do in a day besides house chores and this blog? All of my current activities are pretty inactive ones tailored to this idea of getting rest, highly encouraged by my doctor and my husband. I work on different ministry things on the computer, so besides an impending case of carpal tunnel I think that´s fine. I sometimes sew, but that I do sitting down. I make bracelets and other crafty things, again, sitting down. My chores are limited to what my husband thinks is appropriate based on his idea of resting, so I only do the easy things like cooking and washing dishes. I wash the clothes, for example, but Jairo hangs them up on the line. So really, more rest?
The only thing I really get to do every day that is not resting is go on a walk with Jairo around the neighborhood. Even that I don´t get to do every day, because Jairo won´t take me if I´ve been complaining of pain or contractions, for example. I know he´s just trying to take care me and the baby, but it still annoys me how much everyone treats me like I´m so breakable! Okay, maybe I am a little fragile at this point, but I just don´t think we should exaggerate the fact.
This is one of those cases where I have to submit to my doctor (and husband...enforcer of my doctor´s commands) for the good of the baby if not for myself. The reality is that I cannot take care of the baby if I don´t take care of me, because we are so interconnected. So, while it generally involves much sighing and rolling of the eyes, and occasionally a few tears when I have to miss out on activities I enjoy, I do try to rest. After all, resting will never be as easy as it is now! Soon I will have a little one to look after, and once I´ve recovered from labor no one will be encouraging me to rest! Still, I think baby and I are going to have the habit of taking long walks and getting out of the house. Hopefully baby agrees.
Rest more? More? Is that even a possibility?
Okay, I know it is possible because I´ve heard the bedrest horror stories, but come on. I was not exactly accepting the idea of rest with much enthusiasm before. And now I need more rest? What do I even do in a day besides house chores and this blog? All of my current activities are pretty inactive ones tailored to this idea of getting rest, highly encouraged by my doctor and my husband. I work on different ministry things on the computer, so besides an impending case of carpal tunnel I think that´s fine. I sometimes sew, but that I do sitting down. I make bracelets and other crafty things, again, sitting down. My chores are limited to what my husband thinks is appropriate based on his idea of resting, so I only do the easy things like cooking and washing dishes. I wash the clothes, for example, but Jairo hangs them up on the line. So really, more rest?
The only thing I really get to do every day that is not resting is go on a walk with Jairo around the neighborhood. Even that I don´t get to do every day, because Jairo won´t take me if I´ve been complaining of pain or contractions, for example. I know he´s just trying to take care me and the baby, but it still annoys me how much everyone treats me like I´m so breakable! Okay, maybe I am a little fragile at this point, but I just don´t think we should exaggerate the fact.
This is one of those cases where I have to submit to my doctor (and husband...enforcer of my doctor´s commands) for the good of the baby if not for myself. The reality is that I cannot take care of the baby if I don´t take care of me, because we are so interconnected. So, while it generally involves much sighing and rolling of the eyes, and occasionally a few tears when I have to miss out on activities I enjoy, I do try to rest. After all, resting will never be as easy as it is now! Soon I will have a little one to look after, and once I´ve recovered from labor no one will be encouraging me to rest! Still, I think baby and I are going to have the habit of taking long walks and getting out of the house. Hopefully baby agrees.
Week 64: It´s that time again...more reasons why I love Ecuador (week 33 of pregnancy)
I´m going to add yet another item to my list of why I love this country: Landslides.
My husband was supposed to come back to Quito on Tuesday morning, but thanks to all the rain we´ve been getting there was a landslide and the road was closed. There´s only one way from Puyo to Quito (except the one that goes in a huge circle and takes a million years), so that means we just had to wait it out until the road crew got the landslide cleared up.
Well, eventually he did get home, on Wednesday morning, and he didn´t come empty-handed. He brought me a shelf that his dad made us (which Jairo designed, of course) and a crib set for the baby which his mom made, in green, which is my favorite color. He also bought me more thread for making bracelets and he brought our laptop which has been in Puyo at the computer doctor for about 10 years...or so it seems.
Still, the best part of him coming home was just having him home! It was a long couple of days without him, and such a relief to have him here, going about all his normal activities. Life is back to normal! It seems like it was good for him to get away from the business of all his responsibilities here and hang out with friends and family. I know he would have liked for me to go with him were it possible, but I think it was better for him this way. I really was fine here, although I didn´t enjoy the experience too much, and he was able to do whatever he wanted without worrying about me for a few days, which I think was probably a relief. He did seem a little disappointed that he didn´t get to play more soccer, but I don´t think he would ever really reach a point where he had played ¨enough¨, so all in all I think he had a good time. Now he´s home, so maybe I will finally get some of that rest everyone keeps telling me about!
My husband was supposed to come back to Quito on Tuesday morning, but thanks to all the rain we´ve been getting there was a landslide and the road was closed. There´s only one way from Puyo to Quito (except the one that goes in a huge circle and takes a million years), so that means we just had to wait it out until the road crew got the landslide cleared up.
Well, eventually he did get home, on Wednesday morning, and he didn´t come empty-handed. He brought me a shelf that his dad made us (which Jairo designed, of course) and a crib set for the baby which his mom made, in green, which is my favorite color. He also bought me more thread for making bracelets and he brought our laptop which has been in Puyo at the computer doctor for about 10 years...or so it seems.
Still, the best part of him coming home was just having him home! It was a long couple of days without him, and such a relief to have him here, going about all his normal activities. Life is back to normal! It seems like it was good for him to get away from the business of all his responsibilities here and hang out with friends and family. I know he would have liked for me to go with him were it possible, but I think it was better for him this way. I really was fine here, although I didn´t enjoy the experience too much, and he was able to do whatever he wanted without worrying about me for a few days, which I think was probably a relief. He did seem a little disappointed that he didn´t get to play more soccer, but I don´t think he would ever really reach a point where he had played ¨enough¨, so all in all I think he had a good time. Now he´s home, so maybe I will finally get some of that rest everyone keeps telling me about!
Week 63: Home alone (week 32 of pregnancy)
Today Jairo left for Puyo. He´ll be there for about 3 or 4 days. I would have gone with him, but since I am eight months pregnant and the trip is five hours by bus with no rests and no bathrooms, and Puyo is hot and humid, which will probably not complement my growing body too well, I will stay home. Jairo stocked the fridge and got me a few movies to watch, and being a ¨list person¨ as I am, I made a list of things to do while he´s gone, but I´m still really not looking forward to the time alone.
I think it´s a good lesson for me…Trusting God 101. Being a natural worrier, and being pregnant on top of that, I have another little list that I have not written down, but it exists all the same. It´s the list of what could go wrong. There have been landslides between Quito and Puyo recently, so Jairo´s trip is not exactly safe. It could be delayed, due to closed roads, and who knows when he´ll be home? It´s raining really hard, so he could have some kind of accident because of the bad weather—after all, those bus drivers are not exactly careful. On my end, I could have any number of pregnancy related problems, not to mention the unlikely but possible prospects of being robbed or some kind of natural disaster (they say Quito is due for an earthquake). Not to mention with my current lack of balance, I could slip in the shower and be stuck there for days until Jairo gets home and helps me up!
Okay, so I realize that this kind of worrying is a little silly. But more than that, I´ve realized that this kind of worrying is completely unbiblical. Jesus specifically commands us not to worry, because the truth that is so difficult for our human minds to grasp is that everything, absolutely everything, is under God´s control.
I think a lot about that verse that says that true love casts out fear, because fear comes from a belief that there is some eminent punishment just waiting to fall on us. That´s a paraphrase, but the idea comes down to what we really believe about God. If God is all-powerful, loving, good, and always works everything for our good, what is there really to fear? If God has ordained it, won´t He get us through it, whether it seems to us good or bad? And if He has promised to always do good to us and that He will never leave us, why should we fear? Doesn´t God love my husband much more than I do? And doesn´t He know what is best? And doesn´t He also love my unborn child even more than I do? And doesn´t He count my own life as dear to Him as well? Is He not able to protect and care for us?
Yet here I am, trying very hard not to go over my mental disaster list in the hours following Jairo´s departure. I guess it´s one of those things that´s easier said than done. This is just another one of those times that Joshua 1:9 creeps back into my mind: ¨Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.¨ Memorizing this verse was probably the best investment of 5 minutes of my whole life! We know that whatever God calls us to do, whether big or small, He will give us what we need to carry out the task. In my case, for example, there are some Oreos in my cabinet just waiting to offer me some moral support!
I think it´s a good lesson for me…Trusting God 101. Being a natural worrier, and being pregnant on top of that, I have another little list that I have not written down, but it exists all the same. It´s the list of what could go wrong. There have been landslides between Quito and Puyo recently, so Jairo´s trip is not exactly safe. It could be delayed, due to closed roads, and who knows when he´ll be home? It´s raining really hard, so he could have some kind of accident because of the bad weather—after all, those bus drivers are not exactly careful. On my end, I could have any number of pregnancy related problems, not to mention the unlikely but possible prospects of being robbed or some kind of natural disaster (they say Quito is due for an earthquake). Not to mention with my current lack of balance, I could slip in the shower and be stuck there for days until Jairo gets home and helps me up!
Okay, so I realize that this kind of worrying is a little silly. But more than that, I´ve realized that this kind of worrying is completely unbiblical. Jesus specifically commands us not to worry, because the truth that is so difficult for our human minds to grasp is that everything, absolutely everything, is under God´s control.
I think a lot about that verse that says that true love casts out fear, because fear comes from a belief that there is some eminent punishment just waiting to fall on us. That´s a paraphrase, but the idea comes down to what we really believe about God. If God is all-powerful, loving, good, and always works everything for our good, what is there really to fear? If God has ordained it, won´t He get us through it, whether it seems to us good or bad? And if He has promised to always do good to us and that He will never leave us, why should we fear? Doesn´t God love my husband much more than I do? And doesn´t He know what is best? And doesn´t He also love my unborn child even more than I do? And doesn´t He count my own life as dear to Him as well? Is He not able to protect and care for us?
Yet here I am, trying very hard not to go over my mental disaster list in the hours following Jairo´s departure. I guess it´s one of those things that´s easier said than done. This is just another one of those times that Joshua 1:9 creeps back into my mind: ¨Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.¨ Memorizing this verse was probably the best investment of 5 minutes of my whole life! We know that whatever God calls us to do, whether big or small, He will give us what we need to carry out the task. In my case, for example, there are some Oreos in my cabinet just waiting to offer me some moral support!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Week 63: Nesting (week 32 of pregnancy)
I was trying to explain the idea of nesting to Jairo. He thought the terminology was hilarious, the idea of me making a nest. It came up because I am pretty sure I have officially started nesting. I decided to use this energy to be creative, mainly by making bracelets and learning to knit. The knitting hasn´t taken too well yet, but I am not giving up. My mother-in-law will be here in just a month or so and I have already let her know that she will be giving me lessons!
Jairo was skeptical of my ability to weave bracelets, so he bought me a couple of embroidery threads (ever the supportive husband!) and said I should give it a try first. I made him several (all in the same colors since I didn´t have many options) and he was impressed that I actually knew what I was doing, so he got me some more colors. A vote of confidence from Jairo always looks like this; once he has seen good results he becomes an investor.
I also decided to institute family meal time. One meal every day we sit down at the table, no TV, no distractions, and eat and talk like humans. Jairo agreed, although switching off the TV seems to cause him some pain. He´ll get over it. It´s nice to sit down together, and we´ve had some interesting conversations, so I would say the idea is an overall success.
I did get out once this week with Jairo. We went to see Alice in Wonderland with some friends. It was Jairo´s first 3D movie, so it was fun to get to go with him. One of our friends bought the snacks, including nachos, so I was pretty happy. I´m always amazed at how much these things wear me out, but Jairo keeps reminding me that that is exactly why I have been sent to rest. Still, it was worth feeling a little queasy and exhausted afterwards, because it was really fun! It was probably my last movie theater visit for a long time, so I soaked it up!
All in all it has been a good week so far, although I am not looking forward to the end of the week when Jairo leaves for Puyo and I stay here in Quito. There´s no way I can make the trip at this point, but I´m not looking forward to being here alone for a few days. Still, I think it´s important for him to go see his family, because once the baby is born it will be harder to travel for a while. So for now I am focusing on this half of the week and picking out colors for bracelets to make while Jairo is gone. At least I will get to be productive!
Jairo was skeptical of my ability to weave bracelets, so he bought me a couple of embroidery threads (ever the supportive husband!) and said I should give it a try first. I made him several (all in the same colors since I didn´t have many options) and he was impressed that I actually knew what I was doing, so he got me some more colors. A vote of confidence from Jairo always looks like this; once he has seen good results he becomes an investor.
I also decided to institute family meal time. One meal every day we sit down at the table, no TV, no distractions, and eat and talk like humans. Jairo agreed, although switching off the TV seems to cause him some pain. He´ll get over it. It´s nice to sit down together, and we´ve had some interesting conversations, so I would say the idea is an overall success.
I did get out once this week with Jairo. We went to see Alice in Wonderland with some friends. It was Jairo´s first 3D movie, so it was fun to get to go with him. One of our friends bought the snacks, including nachos, so I was pretty happy. I´m always amazed at how much these things wear me out, but Jairo keeps reminding me that that is exactly why I have been sent to rest. Still, it was worth feeling a little queasy and exhausted afterwards, because it was really fun! It was probably my last movie theater visit for a long time, so I soaked it up!
All in all it has been a good week so far, although I am not looking forward to the end of the week when Jairo leaves for Puyo and I stay here in Quito. There´s no way I can make the trip at this point, but I´m not looking forward to being here alone for a few days. Still, I think it´s important for him to go see his family, because once the baby is born it will be harder to travel for a while. So for now I am focusing on this half of the week and picking out colors for bracelets to make while Jairo is gone. At least I will get to be productive!
Week 62: Good Friday (week 31 of pregnancy)
This week we celebrated Good Friday with a special service at church, and Jairo asked me to sing a special song with him during the service. I was pretty excited about it because it has been I while since I have gotten to sing with him (all that ¨resting¨, you know) and I really like the song we sang, too. Jairo also gave one of the messages (there are 7 on Good Friday!! But short ones...) and that´s always fun to watch because he´s so good at it.
The service was a difficult one for me. It was just too long and I am just too pregnant. Still, it was a really nice service. I just got some crazy contractions and we had to move back the special a little, which was no problem since Jairo is the worship leader, so no one even knew. I wasn´t sure I´d be able to breath enough to sing because of the contractions, but they went away. After that I was pretty tired, though, and I was relieved when we finally got home.
I had a friend of ours film the song with our new camera that some friends of ours sent to us. I was pretty excited about that because our camera broke quite a while ago and I haven´t been able to take any pregnancy pictures, which really made me sad. It was funny to watch the video and see that big belly in action!
I´m really looking forward to getting back into the things I did before, like being part of the worship team. Things like this service really remind me how much I miss it. I know it might be a while because even after the baby is born I won´t be able to just jump into everything again at once, but the idea of being able to be a part of it again is pretty exciting! Who knows, in a few years maybe our little addition will join us in music! Wouldn´t that be fun!
The service was a difficult one for me. It was just too long and I am just too pregnant. Still, it was a really nice service. I just got some crazy contractions and we had to move back the special a little, which was no problem since Jairo is the worship leader, so no one even knew. I wasn´t sure I´d be able to breath enough to sing because of the contractions, but they went away. After that I was pretty tired, though, and I was relieved when we finally got home.
I had a friend of ours film the song with our new camera that some friends of ours sent to us. I was pretty excited about that because our camera broke quite a while ago and I haven´t been able to take any pregnancy pictures, which really made me sad. It was funny to watch the video and see that big belly in action!
I´m really looking forward to getting back into the things I did before, like being part of the worship team. Things like this service really remind me how much I miss it. I know it might be a while because even after the baby is born I won´t be able to just jump into everything again at once, but the idea of being able to be a part of it again is pretty exciting! Who knows, in a few years maybe our little addition will join us in music! Wouldn´t that be fun!
Week 61: Other random occurences this week...(week 30 of pregnancy)
I can think of two things worth reporting from this week, besides our anniversary, of course. The first is that Jairo has begun teaching an evangelism class to the youth, something we´ve been wanting to do for a long time. It´s always so exciting to take another step in the ministry and see God come through again and again. He has about 6 students so far, and the class is going really well. The goal is to train them and then begin weekly outreach activities, so hopefully I will get to join in on that once baby is born and I am recovered!
The other notable event of this week was the first appearance of braxton hicks contractions. To be honest, the first one scared me half to death. I had read about them, of course, but it´s something else to feel them...especially when they are generally described as ¨painless¨, which was not my experience! It wasn´t a terribly painful experience, but it was more painful than painless...if that makes any sense!
I guess this can only be a reminder that, ready or not, in a few weeks I will be thrust into labor, completely independent of my will. My body is beginning its preparations. The window of opportunity for the birth is huge, up to two weeks before and two weeks after the projected due date. You´d think that science could do better than that! I´m hoping for baby to come a little early, but then I suppose most moms probably do. Who wants to be pregnant for more than 40 weeks?? Only God knows, and I am trying to put everything in His hands and focus on those few things I can do in the meantime. I suppose I ought to get that hospital bag packed!
The other notable event of this week was the first appearance of braxton hicks contractions. To be honest, the first one scared me half to death. I had read about them, of course, but it´s something else to feel them...especially when they are generally described as ¨painless¨, which was not my experience! It wasn´t a terribly painful experience, but it was more painful than painless...if that makes any sense!
I guess this can only be a reminder that, ready or not, in a few weeks I will be thrust into labor, completely independent of my will. My body is beginning its preparations. The window of opportunity for the birth is huge, up to two weeks before and two weeks after the projected due date. You´d think that science could do better than that! I´m hoping for baby to come a little early, but then I suppose most moms probably do. Who wants to be pregnant for more than 40 weeks?? Only God knows, and I am trying to put everything in His hands and focus on those few things I can do in the meantime. I suppose I ought to get that hospital bag packed!
Week 61: 14 months married (week 30 of pregnancy)
This week is another anniversary--14 months! Time sure is moving along quickly! This month I can´t say I have any deep marriage insight to share, I am just feeling blessed as I have another reminder of God´s faithfulness in sustaining this marriage. He is the one who led us to each other, He is the one who formed the bond between us, He is the one who bound us together in marriage and He is the one who gives us the strength and love to continue building our life together.
There is still nothing that comes close to the feeling of waking up next to the person you love, realizing that God has allowed you another day to love each other and enjoy each other´s company. Add to that the joy of waking up each day to feel our little one kicking and knowing that soon we will have reason to let even more love and joy into our home, and there is pretty much nothing that can top the life we have these days. God is faithful, and the good work He began in us He will bring to completion. Meanwhile, I feel thankful once again to have someone who I love and who loves me, and to be able to celebrate another anniversary, remembering why we decided to marry each other in the first place.
There is still nothing that comes close to the feeling of waking up next to the person you love, realizing that God has allowed you another day to love each other and enjoy each other´s company. Add to that the joy of waking up each day to feel our little one kicking and knowing that soon we will have reason to let even more love and joy into our home, and there is pretty much nothing that can top the life we have these days. God is faithful, and the good work He began in us He will bring to completion. Meanwhile, I feel thankful once again to have someone who I love and who loves me, and to be able to celebrate another anniversary, remembering why we decided to marry each other in the first place.
Week 60: My birthday week! (week 29 of pregnancy)
This week is my birthday week! The festivities actually started on the last day of week 59, but I figured it would be better to record it all together.
Actually, the festivities started off on a sad note. The day before my birthday, Jairo woke me up with the news that Patas, our littlest bunny, had died. Apparently she somehow got stuck in some part of the cage, but we´re still not really sure what happened. Well, the fact that she was my favorite and also the tiniest of the three combined with pregnancy hormones made for a really rough morning. I cried for hours while Jairo was at church, while I was supposed to be, you guessed it, resting. I brought the other little bunny, Rabo, inside and put him in the bathroom (for lack of anywhere else to put him) because I was so terrified that something might happen to him too. Orejas is huge and could never get stuck in any part of the cage, so I let her stay where she was. Finally I decided to get up and straighten the house, since I wasn´t actually resting but crying, and that calmed me down a little. There was very little food in the house, so I called Jairo after he got out of church to ask him if he wanted me to meet him at the market. He said he would pick up a few things and be home later, and I should just ¨rest¨.
He took a while to come home and had bought very few things, which surprised me. I didn´t take too much notice of it, though. He told me to get ready to go out and we would buy a few things at the store by our house, and then he started straightening up the house. (Yet another thing I should have noticed as strange, but did not...either thanks to my emotional stupor or my pregnant cluelessness.) I accepted this idea with no thought at all and got ready to go out. I suggested that we go to a restaurant because I was pretty hungry, but Jairo assured me that there was nowhere open right now (which I bought, although it was ridiculous!) and we would buy me a snack and he would cook. (Sold!) He was acting a little weird with some random phone calls to our friend who lives close by us, which annoyed me, but I still really thought nothing of it. I was focused on that snack he promised me.
When we got home I stopped, stunned, at the rabbit cage (where Jairo had replaced Rabo before we left, assuring me that he would be fine). There was little black bunny in the cage. My first thought was that the whole thing about Patas dying had been some cruel joke (I didn´t go out to see the body or anything...I can´t even handle things like that), but then I realized that this particular black bunny was much, much tinier, like a little baby bunny, and had different fur. I stood there like an idiot, not really understanding at all until Jairo said, ¨Happy birthday! I got you a new bunny! Do you want to hold her?¨ I started to cry a little bit, but those few happy tears, not the sad, mourning tears I had cried earlier, and said ¨YES!¨ She was absolutely adorable! I had never seen such a small bunny before, and she cuddled right up to me as I held her. We took her inside and I sat on the couch, only half-noticing that there was a backpack and a jacket there that were not there before and did not belong to us. I was in some other far away bunny land, and Jairo seemed pleased to see me so happy, especially after seeing me so sad in the morning. He only let me sit there for a few seconds and then said to follow him, and when I did (totally in my own world) I almost peed my pants when a kitchen full of people shouted ¨Surprise!!¨ Only then did I notice the balloons and streamers. I´m sure a few more of those happy tears came out, because I was beyond words happy at this point, and took a seat as everyone went around the circle saying their birthday wishes to me. Then is was my turn to talk and I thanked everyone for coming and for being my friends, all the while clutching my tiny little baby bunny. Then (finally) they brought out the food. Jairo had bought enough Chinese for everyone and two ice cream cakes. Could this day get any better?
Our friends stuck around for a movie before heading out, and it was really a great day. I couldn´t stop admiring my little bunny, who lives inside in a box until she gets big enough to join the others. I am way too traumatized to put her in the cage just yet.
A few days later Jairo took me up north to get donuts, frappuccinos and read books at the bookstore, which, besides a party with my friends, was the other birthday wish I had expressed for this year. So I got everything I wanted for my birthday, plus a tiny baby bunny!
I can´t believe I´m 23. When I was little I always thought I would get married at 23, so I guess I´m ahead of the curve on that one since I´m already married and pregnant. I will be a mom at 23! I can´t believe I was married at 21, and now I´m already 23! The time passes so quickly! Still, I´m way younger than Jairo who will turn 30 in May, so I´m cool with it. Plus, I don´t really mind getting older if I get to have such a great time having a birthday!
Actually, the festivities started off on a sad note. The day before my birthday, Jairo woke me up with the news that Patas, our littlest bunny, had died. Apparently she somehow got stuck in some part of the cage, but we´re still not really sure what happened. Well, the fact that she was my favorite and also the tiniest of the three combined with pregnancy hormones made for a really rough morning. I cried for hours while Jairo was at church, while I was supposed to be, you guessed it, resting. I brought the other little bunny, Rabo, inside and put him in the bathroom (for lack of anywhere else to put him) because I was so terrified that something might happen to him too. Orejas is huge and could never get stuck in any part of the cage, so I let her stay where she was. Finally I decided to get up and straighten the house, since I wasn´t actually resting but crying, and that calmed me down a little. There was very little food in the house, so I called Jairo after he got out of church to ask him if he wanted me to meet him at the market. He said he would pick up a few things and be home later, and I should just ¨rest¨.
He took a while to come home and had bought very few things, which surprised me. I didn´t take too much notice of it, though. He told me to get ready to go out and we would buy a few things at the store by our house, and then he started straightening up the house. (Yet another thing I should have noticed as strange, but did not...either thanks to my emotional stupor or my pregnant cluelessness.) I accepted this idea with no thought at all and got ready to go out. I suggested that we go to a restaurant because I was pretty hungry, but Jairo assured me that there was nowhere open right now (which I bought, although it was ridiculous!) and we would buy me a snack and he would cook. (Sold!) He was acting a little weird with some random phone calls to our friend who lives close by us, which annoyed me, but I still really thought nothing of it. I was focused on that snack he promised me.
When we got home I stopped, stunned, at the rabbit cage (where Jairo had replaced Rabo before we left, assuring me that he would be fine). There was little black bunny in the cage. My first thought was that the whole thing about Patas dying had been some cruel joke (I didn´t go out to see the body or anything...I can´t even handle things like that), but then I realized that this particular black bunny was much, much tinier, like a little baby bunny, and had different fur. I stood there like an idiot, not really understanding at all until Jairo said, ¨Happy birthday! I got you a new bunny! Do you want to hold her?¨ I started to cry a little bit, but those few happy tears, not the sad, mourning tears I had cried earlier, and said ¨YES!¨ She was absolutely adorable! I had never seen such a small bunny before, and she cuddled right up to me as I held her. We took her inside and I sat on the couch, only half-noticing that there was a backpack and a jacket there that were not there before and did not belong to us. I was in some other far away bunny land, and Jairo seemed pleased to see me so happy, especially after seeing me so sad in the morning. He only let me sit there for a few seconds and then said to follow him, and when I did (totally in my own world) I almost peed my pants when a kitchen full of people shouted ¨Surprise!!¨ Only then did I notice the balloons and streamers. I´m sure a few more of those happy tears came out, because I was beyond words happy at this point, and took a seat as everyone went around the circle saying their birthday wishes to me. Then is was my turn to talk and I thanked everyone for coming and for being my friends, all the while clutching my tiny little baby bunny. Then (finally) they brought out the food. Jairo had bought enough Chinese for everyone and two ice cream cakes. Could this day get any better?
Our friends stuck around for a movie before heading out, and it was really a great day. I couldn´t stop admiring my little bunny, who lives inside in a box until she gets big enough to join the others. I am way too traumatized to put her in the cage just yet.
A few days later Jairo took me up north to get donuts, frappuccinos and read books at the bookstore, which, besides a party with my friends, was the other birthday wish I had expressed for this year. So I got everything I wanted for my birthday, plus a tiny baby bunny!
I can´t believe I´m 23. When I was little I always thought I would get married at 23, so I guess I´m ahead of the curve on that one since I´m already married and pregnant. I will be a mom at 23! I can´t believe I was married at 21, and now I´m already 23! The time passes so quickly! Still, I´m way younger than Jairo who will turn 30 in May, so I´m cool with it. Plus, I don´t really mind getting older if I get to have such a great time having a birthday!
Week 59: Hormones and getting creative (week 28 of pregnancy)
This has been an interesting week. I would say my hormonal low was the day I decided to try on my wedding dress. I´m seven months pregnant. What exactly was I expecting. Jairo laughed when he came home to find me in my wedding dress and veil, wedding dress not laced up, of course, sitting on the bed, lost in my thoughts.
What was I thinking about? Who knows. I was remembering my wedding of course, and admiring my wedding dress which is even prettier than I remembered. So much has changed since that day, and so much is about to change again. I guess those were more or less the kinds of thoughts running through my mind. Along with a resolution to go jogging with my husband as soon as I´m able. I want to be able to lace this baby up again.
The high point was Dia de la Mujer, or Women´s Day, when Jairo took me out for ice cream. He took me to a new place that opened up close to home and I got the two scoops of ice cream with pineapple and strawberries...an excellent choice. I suppose this kind of thing doesn´t encourage the quick lacing up of my wedding dress, but it does raise those hormones to more stable levels, so I´ll call it a wash.
My productivity took a new turn this week as I decided to try out a pattern I found online for making a baby gown out of an old t-shirt. (Baby gowns are for sleeping, and not necessarily for a girl or boy in particular). I used one of Jairo´s old t-shirts and sewed one up while he was gone. When he came home and saw the gown he donated more t-shirts to me. Apparently he was impressed. (See, he is very supportive of all my little projects!) I was pretty impressed myself. It had been a while since I sewed, so it was fun to take it up again. I think I´ll see what other patterns are out there.
I have to say, I´m in a slump in some sense. I feel like this pregnancy will never be over, and like I´ve been pregnant FOREVER. I´m getting more uncomfortable now that my belly is growing, and the days seem to just drag on. Still, I know in my head that I should be thankful for these days, the last for a long time that I will have to myself. Still, I think having the baby, with all its challenges and trials, will be such a relief. This pregnancy has been difficult especially because the doctor has been strict with me about the resting thing, which makes for a more isolated pregnancy than normal. I´m looking forward to the days of getting out and about again like I used to, even if I am teathered to a stroller!!
What was I thinking about? Who knows. I was remembering my wedding of course, and admiring my wedding dress which is even prettier than I remembered. So much has changed since that day, and so much is about to change again. I guess those were more or less the kinds of thoughts running through my mind. Along with a resolution to go jogging with my husband as soon as I´m able. I want to be able to lace this baby up again.
The high point was Dia de la Mujer, or Women´s Day, when Jairo took me out for ice cream. He took me to a new place that opened up close to home and I got the two scoops of ice cream with pineapple and strawberries...an excellent choice. I suppose this kind of thing doesn´t encourage the quick lacing up of my wedding dress, but it does raise those hormones to more stable levels, so I´ll call it a wash.
My productivity took a new turn this week as I decided to try out a pattern I found online for making a baby gown out of an old t-shirt. (Baby gowns are for sleeping, and not necessarily for a girl or boy in particular). I used one of Jairo´s old t-shirts and sewed one up while he was gone. When he came home and saw the gown he donated more t-shirts to me. Apparently he was impressed. (See, he is very supportive of all my little projects!) I was pretty impressed myself. It had been a while since I sewed, so it was fun to take it up again. I think I´ll see what other patterns are out there.
I have to say, I´m in a slump in some sense. I feel like this pregnancy will never be over, and like I´ve been pregnant FOREVER. I´m getting more uncomfortable now that my belly is growing, and the days seem to just drag on. Still, I know in my head that I should be thankful for these days, the last for a long time that I will have to myself. Still, I think having the baby, with all its challenges and trials, will be such a relief. This pregnancy has been difficult especially because the doctor has been strict with me about the resting thing, which makes for a more isolated pregnancy than normal. I´m looking forward to the days of getting out and about again like I used to, even if I am teathered to a stroller!!
Week 58: Children´s Revolution (week 27 of pregnancy)
This week I started planning for our new project for Revolution Ministries...it looks like in a few months we might finally be working with children!! I am working on the planning for a year, and I already finished several months worth. The program is an after school program for public school kids that would meet once a week. Each week there will be a Bible lesson, a snack, a craft, a game and a song (all of which I am planning for each month!! It´s a lot of work!). We are currently looking into working in school in the outskirts of Quito, which is where many poor families attend small, poorly-funded schools. These kids usually have to walk home from school each day and stay alone in an empty house all afternoon until their parents get home from work. We want to help give these kids the love and attention that they can´t get at home, and help them understand the Father´s love for them. Our goal is to have everything in place by the beginning of the next school year, at the end of August. It´s not as far away as it seems!
I feel good about being so productive this week. I just decided that I might as well use the quiet time to its full potential while I can, as I understand that once this baby arrives I will have considerably less quiet time to take advantage of! I really like planning and developing lessons and curriculum, so in some way the time off is a blessing so that I can help get things ready for the next step of the ministry. Plus I don´t feel as useless!
Please pray for this project, because we have wanted to work with kids for a long time, and we are really excited! God is opening doors and showing us new and exciting ways we can serve Him, and all of these things need lots of prayer in order to go from dream to reality! If God wants to do it, He will make a way!
I feel good about being so productive this week. I just decided that I might as well use the quiet time to its full potential while I can, as I understand that once this baby arrives I will have considerably less quiet time to take advantage of! I really like planning and developing lessons and curriculum, so in some way the time off is a blessing so that I can help get things ready for the next step of the ministry. Plus I don´t feel as useless!
Please pray for this project, because we have wanted to work with kids for a long time, and we are really excited! God is opening doors and showing us new and exciting ways we can serve Him, and all of these things need lots of prayer in order to go from dream to reality! If God wants to do it, He will make a way!
Week 58: Two new additions to the family (week 27 of pregnancy)
Jairo and I got two new bunnies today! One is a black female, named Patas, and the other is a white male named Rabo. I´m a little nervous to put them in the cage with Orejas, since we´ve had her forever and she´s pretty spoiled. I´ve heard animals can get pretty jealous and she is huge compared to the others, so I´m hoping she will behave.
I love animals. Jairo always says that someday he is going to build me a house on a ton of land in the country and I will be able to buy all the animals I want. And I want a lot of animals. I want sheep, goats, dogs, cats, bunnies, chickens, ducks, llamas...like I said, I love animals! For now, though, I just get the bunnies, because our apartment really doesn´t have space for a llama. (I´ve thought about a lot of different arrangements, but nothing ever pans out.)
I was surprised Jairo let me get two more rabbits, because since I got pregnant he is the one who gets to clean their cage. Sometimes he complains about it, but I think he really doesn´t mind that much. He might love those rabbits just as much as I do.
In some way, the rabbits are nice to have around when Jairo leaves home and I´m here resting, as usual, and feeling a little lonely. Not that you can really have a conversation with a rabbit, but they are fun to play with (until they start peeing on everything...that´s when it´s time to go back in the cage.) I think the fact that I have to spend so much time alone is what really made Jairo decide to get me the bunnies. I used to go everywhere with Jairo, because I´m a part of almost all of the things he does. He always tells me how much he misses me being able to go with him to the youth service, drama practice, etc because we did everything as a team. It makes me feel a little guilty, like I´m not doing my job, but Jairo always assures me that my job for now is taking care of me...and this little one. I suppose he´s right. Still, I´m looking forward to hanging out with humans again...although most of them are not nearly as cuddly as my bunnies.
I love animals. Jairo always says that someday he is going to build me a house on a ton of land in the country and I will be able to buy all the animals I want. And I want a lot of animals. I want sheep, goats, dogs, cats, bunnies, chickens, ducks, llamas...like I said, I love animals! For now, though, I just get the bunnies, because our apartment really doesn´t have space for a llama. (I´ve thought about a lot of different arrangements, but nothing ever pans out.)
I was surprised Jairo let me get two more rabbits, because since I got pregnant he is the one who gets to clean their cage. Sometimes he complains about it, but I think he really doesn´t mind that much. He might love those rabbits just as much as I do.
In some way, the rabbits are nice to have around when Jairo leaves home and I´m here resting, as usual, and feeling a little lonely. Not that you can really have a conversation with a rabbit, but they are fun to play with (until they start peeing on everything...that´s when it´s time to go back in the cage.) I think the fact that I have to spend so much time alone is what really made Jairo decide to get me the bunnies. I used to go everywhere with Jairo, because I´m a part of almost all of the things he does. He always tells me how much he misses me being able to go with him to the youth service, drama practice, etc because we did everything as a team. It makes me feel a little guilty, like I´m not doing my job, but Jairo always assures me that my job for now is taking care of me...and this little one. I suppose he´s right. Still, I´m looking forward to hanging out with humans again...although most of them are not nearly as cuddly as my bunnies.
Week 58: Day trip (week 27 of pregnancy)
Today we decided to go to Latacunga, a city about 2 hours from Quito, because one of our friends is friends with the owners of a Christian camp there. We wanted to go see the camp and talk to the owners to see how much it costs, when it is available, and all of that to see if we can do some kind of retreat with the youth sometime after the baby is born.
Seeing as I don´t get out much these days, I was overjoyed at the idea of going anywhere, especially somewhere far away (but not so far away that it would be really uncomfortable...I am still pregnant after all). We went in our friend´s car, because in bus Jairo would have never let me go, and we left pretty early in the morning to be sure we got there in time to be able to stay a little while. Once we got into the city we stopped to eat, and I got the world´s biggest fruit salad for 50 cents, which even for Ecuador is really cheap. I was pretty excited. Then we headed off to the camp, which was pretty far outside the city.
The trip up there was a hot one (no AC in the car) and we had to keep the windows up because the road was so dusty, so I was suffering quite a bit in the heat. I decided not to say anything, though, because there was nothing we could do about it anyway and I really didn´t want to be left at home for the next trip! At one point I thought we were past the dusty part of the road and rolled down my window just in time to get a face full of dirt, so that made a great first impression, I´m sure. The windows were the kind you roll up by hand, and jept getting stuck, so my attempt at rolling up the window quickly was kind of a disaster and everyone in the car ended up very dusty thanks to me. Luckily I was with 3 men, and they thought it was funny that I got the worst of it.
The camp itself was really nice and we are now thinking about several different kinds of retreats we´d like to plan for the future. First of all, though, I think we will be doing a youth retreat, since it´s a goal we´ve had for a long time. The prices are really low, which surprised me because the camp is really cool, so I think we´ll be able to get a lot of kids involved.
On the way home we stopped off at some tiny town in the middle of nowhere where our friend´s wife was with her family. They offered us a place to stay, but we were all pretty tired and anxious to go home. We didn´t actually get home until pretty late at night, and I for one was starving, but I felt that kind of satisfaction that you only feel after spending the day in the sun with friends. Jairo and I chattered on and on about all the ideas we had for the camp, and I was really glad I got to go. Still, the few times I actually decide to do something outside of the house, I am reminded by the end of the day why the doctor told me to get lots of rest. I think I´ve had my fill of going out for a while...I´ll probably use tomorrow to recover.
Seeing as I don´t get out much these days, I was overjoyed at the idea of going anywhere, especially somewhere far away (but not so far away that it would be really uncomfortable...I am still pregnant after all). We went in our friend´s car, because in bus Jairo would have never let me go, and we left pretty early in the morning to be sure we got there in time to be able to stay a little while. Once we got into the city we stopped to eat, and I got the world´s biggest fruit salad for 50 cents, which even for Ecuador is really cheap. I was pretty excited. Then we headed off to the camp, which was pretty far outside the city.
The trip up there was a hot one (no AC in the car) and we had to keep the windows up because the road was so dusty, so I was suffering quite a bit in the heat. I decided not to say anything, though, because there was nothing we could do about it anyway and I really didn´t want to be left at home for the next trip! At one point I thought we were past the dusty part of the road and rolled down my window just in time to get a face full of dirt, so that made a great first impression, I´m sure. The windows were the kind you roll up by hand, and jept getting stuck, so my attempt at rolling up the window quickly was kind of a disaster and everyone in the car ended up very dusty thanks to me. Luckily I was with 3 men, and they thought it was funny that I got the worst of it.
The camp itself was really nice and we are now thinking about several different kinds of retreats we´d like to plan for the future. First of all, though, I think we will be doing a youth retreat, since it´s a goal we´ve had for a long time. The prices are really low, which surprised me because the camp is really cool, so I think we´ll be able to get a lot of kids involved.
On the way home we stopped off at some tiny town in the middle of nowhere where our friend´s wife was with her family. They offered us a place to stay, but we were all pretty tired and anxious to go home. We didn´t actually get home until pretty late at night, and I for one was starving, but I felt that kind of satisfaction that you only feel after spending the day in the sun with friends. Jairo and I chattered on and on about all the ideas we had for the camp, and I was really glad I got to go. Still, the few times I actually decide to do something outside of the house, I am reminded by the end of the day why the doctor told me to get lots of rest. I think I´ve had my fill of going out for a while...I´ll probably use tomorrow to recover.
Week 57: My new project (week 26 of pregnancy)
I mentioned in my last post about our anniversary that Jairo is always very supportive of my dreams and ideas. I have an example of that, which I am really excited about. For a long time I have wanted to develop an English curriculum to use in the ministry. I´ve looked at tons of ESL books, and I don´t like any of them. I went to college for languages, so I have a lot of experience learning foreign languages. I´m no professional in linguistics, but I have a lot of experience being a student of language, so I have seen a lot of textbooks and made a sort of mental list of the things I liked and didn´t like, knowing someday I would want to attempt my own curriculum. I´ve put this on the back burner for some time now, having always had much too much to do to even think about it. However, since I am under house arrest, I mean since I am ¨resting¨ so much, I once again got the ESL bug.
I started by outlining more or less the first level and what I wanted to teach. Then I started in on chapter one. Like I said, I´m no professional at this, and I´m just doing it in the way that makes sense to me. I got a little bit done on it before I showed it to Jairo. I asked him to look it over, proof the Spanish, and tell me in general how well it was working. He looked it over for me dutifully and said he was really impressed and ¨people will actually be able to learn from this book¨. I took that as a compliment since Jairo hates learning English.
So I decided to see how much he really liked it by proposing my full plan to him. Jairo is a graphic and industrial designer, and does everything artistic. I told him I´d like him to help me by doing the illustrations for the book, and showed him more or less what I wanted. He switched into professional designer mode (yet another side of him I had not seen) and explained to me how I needed to lay everything out in order for him to do the drawings. Apparently he was taking me seriously, which was pretty cool. Well, he bought me a special notebook where I can do the layout ideas for each page, and that´s what I´m working on now. He is waiting on our computer to get fixed so he can start on the illustrations, so for now I´m getting a head start. It might seem sentimental, but I like the idea of the ESL curriculum so much more now that we´re doing it together. And I really liked the idea before, so you can imagine how much I like it now!
I think it´s important for spouses to take an interest in the ideas, dreams and interests of the other. I think first and foremost we are here to help each other and be each other´s closest friend. Your spouse is the one person you really don´t want to laugh at your dreams! I know that aside from God, the one person who I really care what they think of me and my plans is Jairo. When he supports me and what I want to do, it´s like he gives me altitude for flying. If he didn´t support me, though, I would probably be tempted to give up.
That being said, I think we women who are wives should try to take a minute and think about how well we are supporting our husbands. Do we take an interest in his job, his hobbies, his interests and his dreams? Do we even know what they are anymore? I bet if we are doing a good job supporting our husbands, it won´t take long until they do the same for us. I find a lot of contentment in the fact that my husband is my best friend, and I think that kind of relationship is only born when we prove that we can be trusted with each other´s dreams, no matter how silly or impossible they might seem.
I started by outlining more or less the first level and what I wanted to teach. Then I started in on chapter one. Like I said, I´m no professional at this, and I´m just doing it in the way that makes sense to me. I got a little bit done on it before I showed it to Jairo. I asked him to look it over, proof the Spanish, and tell me in general how well it was working. He looked it over for me dutifully and said he was really impressed and ¨people will actually be able to learn from this book¨. I took that as a compliment since Jairo hates learning English.
So I decided to see how much he really liked it by proposing my full plan to him. Jairo is a graphic and industrial designer, and does everything artistic. I told him I´d like him to help me by doing the illustrations for the book, and showed him more or less what I wanted. He switched into professional designer mode (yet another side of him I had not seen) and explained to me how I needed to lay everything out in order for him to do the drawings. Apparently he was taking me seriously, which was pretty cool. Well, he bought me a special notebook where I can do the layout ideas for each page, and that´s what I´m working on now. He is waiting on our computer to get fixed so he can start on the illustrations, so for now I´m getting a head start. It might seem sentimental, but I like the idea of the ESL curriculum so much more now that we´re doing it together. And I really liked the idea before, so you can imagine how much I like it now!
I think it´s important for spouses to take an interest in the ideas, dreams and interests of the other. I think first and foremost we are here to help each other and be each other´s closest friend. Your spouse is the one person you really don´t want to laugh at your dreams! I know that aside from God, the one person who I really care what they think of me and my plans is Jairo. When he supports me and what I want to do, it´s like he gives me altitude for flying. If he didn´t support me, though, I would probably be tempted to give up.
That being said, I think we women who are wives should try to take a minute and think about how well we are supporting our husbands. Do we take an interest in his job, his hobbies, his interests and his dreams? Do we even know what they are anymore? I bet if we are doing a good job supporting our husbands, it won´t take long until they do the same for us. I find a lot of contentment in the fact that my husband is my best friend, and I think that kind of relationship is only born when we prove that we can be trusted with each other´s dreams, no matter how silly or impossible they might seem.
Week 57: Thirteen months married (week 26 of pregnancy)
¨A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.¨
This week marks our 13 month anniversary. I was thinking about the quote above, and I think the truth is that the longer you are married, the more you find new reasons to fall in love with your spouse. I think all of the reasons I fell in love with Jairo are all still good reasons, but the longer we are married, the more I get to know him, the more we share experiences together, the more he changes and grows as a person...all of these things give me many new reasons to keep falling in love with him.
A lot of the girls in the youth group ask me about marriage, love, and things of that nature, and I am always the first to tell them that love as God designed it really has nothing to do with the feelings we have on a given day. Love is much more than a feeling; in reality is a decision that we have to make every day. If we look at 1 Corinthians 13, none of what is described has to do with feelings. Whenever I think I´m doing well I just open up the Bible to those verses and swallow my pride.(Love is patient, love is kind...) Still though, the feeling that the world calls love, and what we would refer to as being ¨in love¨, definitely helps make the decision to love someone much easier! The days that those loving feelings don´t come as easily are the days that loving a spouse becomes a sacrifice, and it´s difficult sometimes. The days that we do feel those lovey-dovey feelings, it´s much easier.
I guess what I´m saying is that I don´t need any other reason to love my husband than the promise I made to him and to God when we got married. Still, it´s easy to find lots of reasons to keep falling in love with him every day (almost always!).
More than a year into our marriage, what are some new things that I love about my husband that I did not know about him or share with him when we got married? The most obvious thing I can think of is our baby that is currently about 65% ready to be born! I can´t even begin to explain what I feel for Jairo when I think about this life we helped form together, especially when he does something like read a book to my belly or sing it songs. Seeing my husband become a father is and will be a whole new dimension to him as a person and to our relationship as well. I´m looking forward to seeing him in action when this little one arrives!
There are many other things I´ve learned about my husband in the past year or so. He loves to see me happy, and he will do anything, no matter how embarassing, to make me laugh. He is incredibly patient, especially with me. He has a lot of big dreams and I´ve learned that I can help him by simply believing in him and the things he wants to accomplish. He believes in me too, and is always quick to encourage me to pursue what I love and to try new things. He is much more talented than I ever realized in the beginning, and seems to grow more talented rather than just being content with what he already has. He loves silly jokes and he´s really funny, even sarcastic sometimes which is not actually too common in this culture (but I really appreciate it!). He´s really not like anyone else I know, except maybe a little like me in certain ways, and while he has many friends and loves to be with them, he doesn´t trust very many enough to share secrets with them...which makes me feel priveledged to be the one he confides in. He is very sensitive, especially to the needs and feelings of others, which makes him even better at the ministry. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. These are all things that I had yet to discover about my husband when we got married.
Of course, I could also make a list of the faults I didn´t know about, because getting to know someone implies that you get to know all of them, and not just the good side. But I always remember a saying I heard once, that says that the faults you find in others that most bother you are the faults you yourself have. I always think about that when something Jairo does starts to bother me. I think, if I were to go to him with this and complain, would he be able to call me a hypocrite? And the truth is that almost always I´ve found that saying to be true. And on top of that, I can find many other faults in myself that Jairo does not share. So when I´m tempted to complain, I start praying and asking God to show me where I need to change. That´s a good prayer if you need to be humbled, by the way.
What can I say? Another month has passed, and we are richer, if not in the material sense, in the sense that we have shared that many more moments together, gotten to know each other that much more, learned that much more, failed and succeeded that much more, and come to love each other more, both in the sentimental sense and in the sense of 1 Corinthians. I feel blessed, as I do every 24th of the month, to see how God has blessed me with everything I ever asked Him for, and many things I never had the wisdom to ask for, but needed all the same. I´m still learning, and I have a feeling that I will still be learning all my life, but I look back on those first stormy months and I feel content to know that we have grown and still love each other more every day. I don´t think I can really ask for more than that!
This week marks our 13 month anniversary. I was thinking about the quote above, and I think the truth is that the longer you are married, the more you find new reasons to fall in love with your spouse. I think all of the reasons I fell in love with Jairo are all still good reasons, but the longer we are married, the more I get to know him, the more we share experiences together, the more he changes and grows as a person...all of these things give me many new reasons to keep falling in love with him.
A lot of the girls in the youth group ask me about marriage, love, and things of that nature, and I am always the first to tell them that love as God designed it really has nothing to do with the feelings we have on a given day. Love is much more than a feeling; in reality is a decision that we have to make every day. If we look at 1 Corinthians 13, none of what is described has to do with feelings. Whenever I think I´m doing well I just open up the Bible to those verses and swallow my pride.(Love is patient, love is kind...) Still though, the feeling that the world calls love, and what we would refer to as being ¨in love¨, definitely helps make the decision to love someone much easier! The days that those loving feelings don´t come as easily are the days that loving a spouse becomes a sacrifice, and it´s difficult sometimes. The days that we do feel those lovey-dovey feelings, it´s much easier.
I guess what I´m saying is that I don´t need any other reason to love my husband than the promise I made to him and to God when we got married. Still, it´s easy to find lots of reasons to keep falling in love with him every day (almost always!).
More than a year into our marriage, what are some new things that I love about my husband that I did not know about him or share with him when we got married? The most obvious thing I can think of is our baby that is currently about 65% ready to be born! I can´t even begin to explain what I feel for Jairo when I think about this life we helped form together, especially when he does something like read a book to my belly or sing it songs. Seeing my husband become a father is and will be a whole new dimension to him as a person and to our relationship as well. I´m looking forward to seeing him in action when this little one arrives!
There are many other things I´ve learned about my husband in the past year or so. He loves to see me happy, and he will do anything, no matter how embarassing, to make me laugh. He is incredibly patient, especially with me. He has a lot of big dreams and I´ve learned that I can help him by simply believing in him and the things he wants to accomplish. He believes in me too, and is always quick to encourage me to pursue what I love and to try new things. He is much more talented than I ever realized in the beginning, and seems to grow more talented rather than just being content with what he already has. He loves silly jokes and he´s really funny, even sarcastic sometimes which is not actually too common in this culture (but I really appreciate it!). He´s really not like anyone else I know, except maybe a little like me in certain ways, and while he has many friends and loves to be with them, he doesn´t trust very many enough to share secrets with them...which makes me feel priveledged to be the one he confides in. He is very sensitive, especially to the needs and feelings of others, which makes him even better at the ministry. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. These are all things that I had yet to discover about my husband when we got married.
Of course, I could also make a list of the faults I didn´t know about, because getting to know someone implies that you get to know all of them, and not just the good side. But I always remember a saying I heard once, that says that the faults you find in others that most bother you are the faults you yourself have. I always think about that when something Jairo does starts to bother me. I think, if I were to go to him with this and complain, would he be able to call me a hypocrite? And the truth is that almost always I´ve found that saying to be true. And on top of that, I can find many other faults in myself that Jairo does not share. So when I´m tempted to complain, I start praying and asking God to show me where I need to change. That´s a good prayer if you need to be humbled, by the way.
What can I say? Another month has passed, and we are richer, if not in the material sense, in the sense that we have shared that many more moments together, gotten to know each other that much more, learned that much more, failed and succeeded that much more, and come to love each other more, both in the sentimental sense and in the sense of 1 Corinthians. I feel blessed, as I do every 24th of the month, to see how God has blessed me with everything I ever asked Him for, and many things I never had the wisdom to ask for, but needed all the same. I´m still learning, and I have a feeling that I will still be learning all my life, but I look back on those first stormy months and I feel content to know that we have grown and still love each other more every day. I don´t think I can really ask for more than that!
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