Day 7: Give Each Child Some One-on-One
I think as a rule women understand the concept of quality time better than men. For a man, if he is in the same room as you, not talking to you or paying attention to you, he probably still counted it as time ¨together¨ with you. But you and I both know that those moments of coexisting are not quality time.
While in our marriages we understand this concept, sometimes in parenting we are guilty of merely coexisting with our children. I spend all day, every day with Bella, but there are days that I don´t really spend time with her at all.
It´s important for our relationships with our children, and (if you have multiple children) for their relationships with each other, that each child have one-on-one time with each parent. If you are a working parent, you may only be able to spend quality time with one child per day, depending on your schedule. Even if you are a stay at home mom, it can be difficult to take time for those moments because there is just so much to do. However, the ideal would be to spend quality time with each child every day.
You don´t have to take each kid individually to a movie. Just look for small opportunities to spend a few moments of quality with your child. It can be before naptime or bedtime. It can be while you´re running errands. It can be a special activity you have planned. It can be as simple or elaborate as you want. (I think a mixture of simple and elaborate is nice, just to shake things up. But that´s just me.)
When we spend time with each child, we send them the message that they are important, and we contribute to a healthy self esteem. We also lay a groundwork for moments that our children will remember long after we are gone.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy, Day 6
Day 6: Get Out! (Outdoors, that is!)
Do you ever have those days wher eyou are pretty sure you´re going to kill someone, anyone, just because you are simply going out of your mind? I´ll be honest. I have those days sometimes.
The diagnosis? Being locked in your house with your kids all day, every day, will lead to a family-wide epidemic of insanity.
You´re not a bad mom. You just need some fresh air and sunshine. And so do your kids!
As long as the weather holds up, I try to get outside with my little one every day. Some days we go to the park. Some days we go for a walk. Some days we go to the store. But we get out of the house.
Not only will getting out the house help your mood, it will help your child´s mood. God did not create us to be indoors all day long. He also didn´t create us to go crazy.
It´s nice to mix things up. Sometimes you can do fun, organized activities with your kids outside. Sometimes you can all go for a walk or bike ride. Sometimes you can just let your kids use their imaginations while you read a book. The important thing is to get outdoors.
I said I try to get out every day, but sometimes it doesn´t pan out. However, when we´re only one hour into the day and I´m ready to pull my hair out, there is no cure like the outdoors. I get shoes on my feet and hers, I get a jacket on both of us, and we are outta here! The best part is that your kids will think it´s the best idea ever! They get out all of the cooped up energy they have, and come home much more well-behaved (and probably sleepy).
When you´re having one of those days, just remember my advice and let nature work its magic on your family!
Do you ever have those days wher eyou are pretty sure you´re going to kill someone, anyone, just because you are simply going out of your mind? I´ll be honest. I have those days sometimes.
The diagnosis? Being locked in your house with your kids all day, every day, will lead to a family-wide epidemic of insanity.
You´re not a bad mom. You just need some fresh air and sunshine. And so do your kids!
As long as the weather holds up, I try to get outside with my little one every day. Some days we go to the park. Some days we go for a walk. Some days we go to the store. But we get out of the house.
Not only will getting out the house help your mood, it will help your child´s mood. God did not create us to be indoors all day long. He also didn´t create us to go crazy.
It´s nice to mix things up. Sometimes you can do fun, organized activities with your kids outside. Sometimes you can all go for a walk or bike ride. Sometimes you can just let your kids use their imaginations while you read a book. The important thing is to get outdoors.
I said I try to get out every day, but sometimes it doesn´t pan out. However, when we´re only one hour into the day and I´m ready to pull my hair out, there is no cure like the outdoors. I get shoes on my feet and hers, I get a jacket on both of us, and we are outta here! The best part is that your kids will think it´s the best idea ever! They get out all of the cooped up energy they have, and come home much more well-behaved (and probably sleepy).
When you´re having one of those days, just remember my advice and let nature work its magic on your family!
Monday, September 5, 2011
30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy, Day 5
Day 5: Pick Your Battles, Set Limits, Say No
Have you ever heard the advice that says we should try to create a ¨yes¨ environment for our kids? Basically, the idea is that we surround young children with safe environments where there are few opportunities to get in to trouble. This way we won´t have to spend all day saying ¨no¨, which is frustrating both for us and for our children.
I think even when you follow this advice, kids are kids, and you´re going to have to set limits and say ¨no¨, no matter how old they are. Kids, like adults, are sinful, and need guidance and discipline in order to learn what is right and wrong.
That´s not to say that I don´t agree with the advice above. I do. Even Scripture says that we should not wear our children out by excessive discipline, etc. Not to mention that when we are saying ¨no¨ all day, we wear ourselves out, and nobody is happy.
We have to learn as parents to pick our battles. Is it really a big deal if the toddler wants to rearrange all of the DVDs? (A favorite activity of my one-year-old) Are you really going to be able to teach a one-year-old not to pick her nose? (Not that mine does that...) And of course, your battles will vary by the ages and number of children that you have.
When we pick our battles, we avoid saying ¨no¨ every five seconds. And when we do that, our children learn that no means no, because we don´t overuse it. Especially when we back up that ¨no¨ with the appropriate action, like distracting a baby, removing a toddler from the situation they got themselves into, disciplining an older child, etc.
As your child grows, you will have opportunities to set limits with them on an intellectual and spiritual level. As they understand more abtract concepts, you will be able to explain your ¨no¨, and I think that is really important. My toddler doesn´t understand many of these concepts, but at least I can explain that we don´t do this or that because it isn´t nice. We worked hard to get her to understand the word ¨nice¨, and now that she does, I can factor that in to my no. Older children can understand when something hurts mommy´s feelings, or when God doesn´t like certain behaviors. The more our children grow, and the more purposeful we are about the limits we set, the more they will be able to understand and grow as people.
We all have different philosophies about discipline, but I think we can all agree that none of us wants to discipline our child for no reason. However, a lot of times we ourselves create situations where we set our children up for failure.
An example: Yesterday we were eating lunch. Bella was doing great when Jairo decided to give her some jello. Bella loves jello, and I had made some for ¨dessert¨. Well, once she had a taste of the jello, do you think she wanted to finish her lunch? No way. (She did finish, though, because this is a battle I consider worth fighting.) When Jairo got frustrated with her, I said, this is not her fault, it´s ours. Because it was true. We set her up to fail.
And that´s where that advice about a ¨yes¨ environment comes in. I can´t hand my children temptation and then be upset when they fail. I need to teach them how to be strong against temptation when it arises, not tempt them myself.
The job of forming our children´s character will require of us that we set limits and say ¨no¨. It will require discipline. It will require choosing our battle and teaching our kids how to know what things are eternally important. It will also require vigilance on our part, to not place our children in situations where they are doomed to fail. None of us enjoys disciplining our children in any way. It´s not something we should enjoy. But it is something we should give high importance to, because it is one very effective way that our children will learn how to be the people they need to be. The important thing, as a purposeful mommy, is to use discipline that is also purposeful.
Have you ever heard the advice that says we should try to create a ¨yes¨ environment for our kids? Basically, the idea is that we surround young children with safe environments where there are few opportunities to get in to trouble. This way we won´t have to spend all day saying ¨no¨, which is frustrating both for us and for our children.
I think even when you follow this advice, kids are kids, and you´re going to have to set limits and say ¨no¨, no matter how old they are. Kids, like adults, are sinful, and need guidance and discipline in order to learn what is right and wrong.
That´s not to say that I don´t agree with the advice above. I do. Even Scripture says that we should not wear our children out by excessive discipline, etc. Not to mention that when we are saying ¨no¨ all day, we wear ourselves out, and nobody is happy.
We have to learn as parents to pick our battles. Is it really a big deal if the toddler wants to rearrange all of the DVDs? (A favorite activity of my one-year-old) Are you really going to be able to teach a one-year-old not to pick her nose? (Not that mine does that...) And of course, your battles will vary by the ages and number of children that you have.
When we pick our battles, we avoid saying ¨no¨ every five seconds. And when we do that, our children learn that no means no, because we don´t overuse it. Especially when we back up that ¨no¨ with the appropriate action, like distracting a baby, removing a toddler from the situation they got themselves into, disciplining an older child, etc.
As your child grows, you will have opportunities to set limits with them on an intellectual and spiritual level. As they understand more abtract concepts, you will be able to explain your ¨no¨, and I think that is really important. My toddler doesn´t understand many of these concepts, but at least I can explain that we don´t do this or that because it isn´t nice. We worked hard to get her to understand the word ¨nice¨, and now that she does, I can factor that in to my no. Older children can understand when something hurts mommy´s feelings, or when God doesn´t like certain behaviors. The more our children grow, and the more purposeful we are about the limits we set, the more they will be able to understand and grow as people.
We all have different philosophies about discipline, but I think we can all agree that none of us wants to discipline our child for no reason. However, a lot of times we ourselves create situations where we set our children up for failure.
An example: Yesterday we were eating lunch. Bella was doing great when Jairo decided to give her some jello. Bella loves jello, and I had made some for ¨dessert¨. Well, once she had a taste of the jello, do you think she wanted to finish her lunch? No way. (She did finish, though, because this is a battle I consider worth fighting.) When Jairo got frustrated with her, I said, this is not her fault, it´s ours. Because it was true. We set her up to fail.
And that´s where that advice about a ¨yes¨ environment comes in. I can´t hand my children temptation and then be upset when they fail. I need to teach them how to be strong against temptation when it arises, not tempt them myself.
The job of forming our children´s character will require of us that we set limits and say ¨no¨. It will require discipline. It will require choosing our battle and teaching our kids how to know what things are eternally important. It will also require vigilance on our part, to not place our children in situations where they are doomed to fail. None of us enjoys disciplining our children in any way. It´s not something we should enjoy. But it is something we should give high importance to, because it is one very effective way that our children will learn how to be the people they need to be. The important thing, as a purposeful mommy, is to use discipline that is also purposeful.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy, Day 4
Day 4: Be a Role Model
I think one of the hardest jobs in parenting is becoming a role model. Before we were parents, we might not have had to worry too much about days when we woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or were just in a funk for no reason. But, once we have children, every word, every action, every attitude is observed and learned by our little ones. It´s not enough just to hope and pray that our children become better people than us. We ourselves have to become the kind of people we want our children to be. We can´t ¨instruct them in the way they should go¨ unless we are already on that path. Otherwise it becomes hypocrisy.
Do you say ¨please¨ and ¨thank you¨ to your children? To your spouse? Do you eat your vegetables? Are you compassionate and considerate? Every day I personally see certain things in myself that I want to change so that I can be a better person for my children (current and future). I think when we have this mindset, motherhood becomes the best test of character and integrity that we could ever find.
Thankfully, this doesn´t mean we have to be perfect. When our good (yet imperfect) example is combined with seeking after God and praying fervently for our children, God will fill in the blanks. Even our failures are examples to our children in things like asking forgiveness and making restitution.
The easiest place to start is looking for opportunities to model good social behavior (please, thank you, excuse me, etc). There are hundreds of opportunities like these every day. (Right now we are learning ¨be nice¨ and ¨don´t hit!!!¨) But at the same time, we don´t just want polite children. We want children who are godly, emotionally secure, intelligent, etc. That´s where God will really start to take us apart and refine us.
Do your children see you reading the Word and spending time in prayer each day? The easiest way to start is with your kids. Just grab them, sit them down and spend 15 or 20 minutes reading a Bible story, talking about it and praying. My little one is one, so our time with God is simple and short, but it´s there. I don´t want her to remember a time when she didn´t hear God´s Word at home, where she didn´t pray, where she didn´t go to church, etc. Making time for myself to get away with God was a challenge for me. Good moments are times when our children are napping, at school or sleeping for the night. Even in those moments you will have many reasons not to spend time with God. But there also many reasons to be purposeful about that time and get it done. The most important reason, as a mother, is that without God we will never become the people we need to be in order to prepare our children.
A mother´s work is never finished, and the truth is that as a purposeful mother, we have to bring every word, every thought, every action, every attitude under Christ´s power. Honestly, this might be the single most important difference between merely having kids and being purposeful parents. It´s a high calling, with great rewards, both here on earth and in the next life.
I encourage you (and myself) to begin this and every day with prayer. Ask God to help you specifically in the areas where you are most likely to set a bad example normally. (Impatience, selfishness, lack of compassion, bad attitude, lack of gratitude, and the list goes on...) And when you fail, which you will sometimes, look at it as an opportunity to teach your children how to make ammends.
Let´s give our children a good example at home, so that while they still want to be like us, we will want them to be like us, too.
I think one of the hardest jobs in parenting is becoming a role model. Before we were parents, we might not have had to worry too much about days when we woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or were just in a funk for no reason. But, once we have children, every word, every action, every attitude is observed and learned by our little ones. It´s not enough just to hope and pray that our children become better people than us. We ourselves have to become the kind of people we want our children to be. We can´t ¨instruct them in the way they should go¨ unless we are already on that path. Otherwise it becomes hypocrisy.
Do you say ¨please¨ and ¨thank you¨ to your children? To your spouse? Do you eat your vegetables? Are you compassionate and considerate? Every day I personally see certain things in myself that I want to change so that I can be a better person for my children (current and future). I think when we have this mindset, motherhood becomes the best test of character and integrity that we could ever find.
Thankfully, this doesn´t mean we have to be perfect. When our good (yet imperfect) example is combined with seeking after God and praying fervently for our children, God will fill in the blanks. Even our failures are examples to our children in things like asking forgiveness and making restitution.
The easiest place to start is looking for opportunities to model good social behavior (please, thank you, excuse me, etc). There are hundreds of opportunities like these every day. (Right now we are learning ¨be nice¨ and ¨don´t hit!!!¨) But at the same time, we don´t just want polite children. We want children who are godly, emotionally secure, intelligent, etc. That´s where God will really start to take us apart and refine us.
Do your children see you reading the Word and spending time in prayer each day? The easiest way to start is with your kids. Just grab them, sit them down and spend 15 or 20 minutes reading a Bible story, talking about it and praying. My little one is one, so our time with God is simple and short, but it´s there. I don´t want her to remember a time when she didn´t hear God´s Word at home, where she didn´t pray, where she didn´t go to church, etc. Making time for myself to get away with God was a challenge for me. Good moments are times when our children are napping, at school or sleeping for the night. Even in those moments you will have many reasons not to spend time with God. But there also many reasons to be purposeful about that time and get it done. The most important reason, as a mother, is that without God we will never become the people we need to be in order to prepare our children.
A mother´s work is never finished, and the truth is that as a purposeful mother, we have to bring every word, every thought, every action, every attitude under Christ´s power. Honestly, this might be the single most important difference between merely having kids and being purposeful parents. It´s a high calling, with great rewards, both here on earth and in the next life.
I encourage you (and myself) to begin this and every day with prayer. Ask God to help you specifically in the areas where you are most likely to set a bad example normally. (Impatience, selfishness, lack of compassion, bad attitude, lack of gratitude, and the list goes on...) And when you fail, which you will sometimes, look at it as an opportunity to teach your children how to make ammends.
Let´s give our children a good example at home, so that while they still want to be like us, we will want them to be like us, too.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy, Day 3
Day 3: Be Available.
This is an interesting truth, but I know it is, in fact, true, because I have put it into practice with my daughter: When you are least available, your children will need you the most. Have you noticed this? You have a deadline, you need to clean the house before your inlaws come, you are going to burn dinner if you don´t get to the kitchen RIGHT NOW. And in that moment, your child needs you. RIGHT NOW!
So, what is the solution?
Well, first of all, it´s a good idea to not let things get to that point of urgency. But, life happens. So, the next best thing is to never be unavailble. I know that sounds impossible, but I´ll give you an example:
I´m at the computer, blogging. :) Out of the corner of my eye, I see little legs heading in my direction. I stop what I´m doing, I get up, I play with her for literally two seconds, and then I sit back down at the computer. More often than not, that´s all it takes. She´s off to play with her toys, feeling secure and loved, and I can finish my blog.
One more thing, though. I read in a Christian book once, and I fully agree, that children are never interrumptions. They are priority number one, after the husband. And the husband isn´t home all day, so most of the time they are priority number one. Which means that I can´t spend all day blogging. Or whatever it is I do with my time. My kids need one-on-one with me, as well as individual time to themselves, and this varies by age, too. So there has to be a balance.
My rule of thumb is this: If my daughter is especially clingy, that tells me that I am probably being a little too self-absorbed, and she needs some more mommy time. Remember that it´s a blessing that our children want to be with us! It won´t always be this way, so let´s soak it up. After all, blogging, dinner and the in-laws can take a number. It´s play time!
This is an interesting truth, but I know it is, in fact, true, because I have put it into practice with my daughter: When you are least available, your children will need you the most. Have you noticed this? You have a deadline, you need to clean the house before your inlaws come, you are going to burn dinner if you don´t get to the kitchen RIGHT NOW. And in that moment, your child needs you. RIGHT NOW!
So, what is the solution?
Well, first of all, it´s a good idea to not let things get to that point of urgency. But, life happens. So, the next best thing is to never be unavailble. I know that sounds impossible, but I´ll give you an example:
I´m at the computer, blogging. :) Out of the corner of my eye, I see little legs heading in my direction. I stop what I´m doing, I get up, I play with her for literally two seconds, and then I sit back down at the computer. More often than not, that´s all it takes. She´s off to play with her toys, feeling secure and loved, and I can finish my blog.
One more thing, though. I read in a Christian book once, and I fully agree, that children are never interrumptions. They are priority number one, after the husband. And the husband isn´t home all day, so most of the time they are priority number one. Which means that I can´t spend all day blogging. Or whatever it is I do with my time. My kids need one-on-one with me, as well as individual time to themselves, and this varies by age, too. So there has to be a balance.
My rule of thumb is this: If my daughter is especially clingy, that tells me that I am probably being a little too self-absorbed, and she needs some more mommy time. Remember that it´s a blessing that our children want to be with us! It won´t always be this way, so let´s soak it up. After all, blogging, dinner and the in-laws can take a number. It´s play time!
Friday, September 2, 2011
30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy, Day 2
Day 2: Get a Routine Going
There are lots of different styles of parenting, right from day one. There are baby-led parents, cry-it-out parents, and lots of mixtures of the two. We all feel strongly about our own method, but the truth is, your parenting philosophy isn´t that important for what we are talking about today. Even baby-led parents can settle into a routine. (If you don´t believe me, ask Bella!)
Whether you have been putting your child on a sleeping/eating schedule since day on or if you have been watching for your child´s cues to set the schedule, we have to first realize that schedule and routine are not the same thing.
Sit down while your little one is sleeping and scratch out a routine. Here´s a small part of ours, so you can see what I mean:
Bella wakes up. (Nurse/cuddle/pray, change diaper, wash faces (mine and hers), brush teeth (mine and hers), put on music)
Breakfast (see meal plan)
Wash dishes
My quiet time (if Jairo is up, he watches Bella. If not, it takes longer!)
Stuctured play in Bella´s room (see activities schedule)
Daily chores (Bella tags along, I encourage her individual play)
Bella´s quiet time (read a Bible story, sing a song, pray, ¨memorize¨ a Bible verse for the week)
Snack and drink for Bella, I start lunch
Change diaper (This is varies, of course!), Go for a walk or do rainy day activity
Naptime for Bella, she gets a drink and a song before I put her to sleep.
This schedule is until about 11am. That´s not even half of our day! I just didn´t want to bore you with all the details! The idea is that by making a routine I am deliberate about the things we do each day. Before I had a routine I often missed out on scheduled play for Bella, my own time with God and other things. It´s about living every day deliberately.
Bella has a much better day when we establish and follow a routine. And from all the studies I´ve read, it seems that most kids thrive from having a sense of knowing what to expect. Your routine will be different, and it will reflect your own schedule, your child´s schedule and your values and parenting philosophy. The important thing is that it works for your family. Do you work during the day? Then your routine will start in the morning and then pick up when you pick up your little one/s from daycare. I think in that situation a routine is even more important, because it ensures that you will have quality time with your chilren.
The way we spend our time teaches our children about our priorities. If they don´t get their own time each day (just like our husband needs his time and God definitely deserves His time!) they begin to understand that they are not a priority for us. I challenge you today to take a few minutes and draw up a routine. Start with the parts of your day that are unmovable, then the things that work best for you, and then a few new ideas. Try it tomorrow. Make changes until it works wonderfully and it´s something you can settle into.
And one more note. You are not a slave to the routine. If one day you need to shake things up, that´s ok! Your routine is a guide to having a productive and joyful day. Try to keep as much of your routine in tact, especially when traveling, etc. But in the end, this is just one more tool to help you become a more purposeful mommy, from one growing mommy to another!
There are lots of different styles of parenting, right from day one. There are baby-led parents, cry-it-out parents, and lots of mixtures of the two. We all feel strongly about our own method, but the truth is, your parenting philosophy isn´t that important for what we are talking about today. Even baby-led parents can settle into a routine. (If you don´t believe me, ask Bella!)
Whether you have been putting your child on a sleeping/eating schedule since day on or if you have been watching for your child´s cues to set the schedule, we have to first realize that schedule and routine are not the same thing.
Sit down while your little one is sleeping and scratch out a routine. Here´s a small part of ours, so you can see what I mean:
Bella wakes up. (Nurse/cuddle/pray, change diaper, wash faces (mine and hers), brush teeth (mine and hers), put on music)
Breakfast (see meal plan)
Wash dishes
My quiet time (if Jairo is up, he watches Bella. If not, it takes longer!)
Stuctured play in Bella´s room (see activities schedule)
Daily chores (Bella tags along, I encourage her individual play)
Bella´s quiet time (read a Bible story, sing a song, pray, ¨memorize¨ a Bible verse for the week)
Snack and drink for Bella, I start lunch
Change diaper (This is varies, of course!), Go for a walk or do rainy day activity
Naptime for Bella, she gets a drink and a song before I put her to sleep.
This schedule is until about 11am. That´s not even half of our day! I just didn´t want to bore you with all the details! The idea is that by making a routine I am deliberate about the things we do each day. Before I had a routine I often missed out on scheduled play for Bella, my own time with God and other things. It´s about living every day deliberately.
Bella has a much better day when we establish and follow a routine. And from all the studies I´ve read, it seems that most kids thrive from having a sense of knowing what to expect. Your routine will be different, and it will reflect your own schedule, your child´s schedule and your values and parenting philosophy. The important thing is that it works for your family. Do you work during the day? Then your routine will start in the morning and then pick up when you pick up your little one/s from daycare. I think in that situation a routine is even more important, because it ensures that you will have quality time with your chilren.
The way we spend our time teaches our children about our priorities. If they don´t get their own time each day (just like our husband needs his time and God definitely deserves His time!) they begin to understand that they are not a priority for us. I challenge you today to take a few minutes and draw up a routine. Start with the parts of your day that are unmovable, then the things that work best for you, and then a few new ideas. Try it tomorrow. Make changes until it works wonderfully and it´s something you can settle into.
And one more note. You are not a slave to the routine. If one day you need to shake things up, that´s ok! Your routine is a guide to having a productive and joyful day. Try to keep as much of your routine in tact, especially when traveling, etc. But in the end, this is just one more tool to help you become a more purposeful mommy, from one growing mommy to another!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy, Day 1
Day 1: Appreciate -- Don´t Anticipate!
One thing that is really easy to do when you have children is to anticipate. For example, if Bella wakes up after a ten minute nap and no longer wants to sleep, my immediate thought is, ¨Oh, man! This day is going to be so long now!¨
We develop these ideas based on past experience: Bella took a short nap, Bella was cranky all day, I almost went crazy and was counting down the minutes until her bedtime. It happens a few times and it becomes a mental rule. So when the same situation arises, it´s only natural to anticipate the same outcome.
The problem is that people are not science experiments or math problems. People are people, even tiny toddler people. We all react differently to our circumstances based on other things going on in our lives, such as health, mood, state of mind, the quality of our day so far, etc.
But here is the worst part about anticipating: When you anticipate something like a child´s bad mood, clinginess and tantrums, you actually create an atmosphere where those things are more likely to happen. Children are like sponges that soak up everything around them, including your mood.
This is what that would look like: Bella no longer wants to sleep. I feel stressed because I anticipate the kind of day that will follow this event. I greet Bella with a stressed attitude, and she can tell just by looking at me that something is wrong. As a result, she feels insecure and begins to get clingy and has a bad mood.
Interesting, right?
So here´s a better option, although it is also challenging! Whatever your trigger is (a short naptime, separation anxiety, an illness...WHATEVER), you have to try to unlearn your anticipation and try to live in the moment. It´s hard, but the more you do it, the more you form a new habit.
Here´s my new habit (usually!!): Bella is done sleeping after ten minutes. I hear her stirring in the next room or see her head peak out the door. I look at her and give her a BIG smile. I say, ¨Hi, Bella! Are you all done sleeping? Did you have a good nap?¨ and I pick her up. I try to get her to sleep again, but if she doesn´t, I don´t sweat it. I just grab her and play with her until she´s ready to be on her own. That is what being in the moment looks like for me, but your situation will be unique to you and you child/ren.
The most important thing is that we teach our children by our example how to have a brave face for adversity, and more than anything else, that no situation will ever change our love for them. It´s like the old saying, ¨If momma ain´t happy, ain´t nobody happy!¨ You, as the mommy, really do set the mood for your home.
That being said, we all fall short at times. Even though my daughter is only 1, I make sure to apologize to her when I notice bad attitudes creeping in. It´s another good example to her, and it helps me reframe my mindset to be more cheerful and positive.
Whatever your trigger or triggers, try to take a moment and stop anticipating. Instead, appreciate your child for who he or she is, and take an opportunity to share love. They won´t be little forever, let´s do our best to enjoy them! (Bad mood and all!)
One thing that is really easy to do when you have children is to anticipate. For example, if Bella wakes up after a ten minute nap and no longer wants to sleep, my immediate thought is, ¨Oh, man! This day is going to be so long now!¨
We develop these ideas based on past experience: Bella took a short nap, Bella was cranky all day, I almost went crazy and was counting down the minutes until her bedtime. It happens a few times and it becomes a mental rule. So when the same situation arises, it´s only natural to anticipate the same outcome.
The problem is that people are not science experiments or math problems. People are people, even tiny toddler people. We all react differently to our circumstances based on other things going on in our lives, such as health, mood, state of mind, the quality of our day so far, etc.
But here is the worst part about anticipating: When you anticipate something like a child´s bad mood, clinginess and tantrums, you actually create an atmosphere where those things are more likely to happen. Children are like sponges that soak up everything around them, including your mood.
This is what that would look like: Bella no longer wants to sleep. I feel stressed because I anticipate the kind of day that will follow this event. I greet Bella with a stressed attitude, and she can tell just by looking at me that something is wrong. As a result, she feels insecure and begins to get clingy and has a bad mood.
Interesting, right?
So here´s a better option, although it is also challenging! Whatever your trigger is (a short naptime, separation anxiety, an illness...WHATEVER), you have to try to unlearn your anticipation and try to live in the moment. It´s hard, but the more you do it, the more you form a new habit.
Here´s my new habit (usually!!): Bella is done sleeping after ten minutes. I hear her stirring in the next room or see her head peak out the door. I look at her and give her a BIG smile. I say, ¨Hi, Bella! Are you all done sleeping? Did you have a good nap?¨ and I pick her up. I try to get her to sleep again, but if she doesn´t, I don´t sweat it. I just grab her and play with her until she´s ready to be on her own. That is what being in the moment looks like for me, but your situation will be unique to you and you child/ren.
The most important thing is that we teach our children by our example how to have a brave face for adversity, and more than anything else, that no situation will ever change our love for them. It´s like the old saying, ¨If momma ain´t happy, ain´t nobody happy!¨ You, as the mommy, really do set the mood for your home.
That being said, we all fall short at times. Even though my daughter is only 1, I make sure to apologize to her when I notice bad attitudes creeping in. It´s another good example to her, and it helps me reframe my mindset to be more cheerful and positive.
Whatever your trigger or triggers, try to take a moment and stop anticipating. Instead, appreciate your child for who he or she is, and take an opportunity to share love. They won´t be little forever, let´s do our best to enjoy them! (Bad mood and all!)
30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy
I have seen some blogs out there that do series such as ¨31 Days to a Cleaner House¨ or ¨31 Days to Better Pictures¨, etc. I´m not affiliated with those blogs at all, but I liked the idea, so I am going to make my own series! Hurray!
I decided on the topic ¨30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy¨ for September because it´s a topic that I have learned a lot about and continue to learn a lot about. I think all mommies need some encouragement, and hopefully September will be an encouraging month for all you mommies that read this blog!
Pin It
Here are the links to each day:
Day 1: Appreciate--Don´t Anticipate!
Day 2: Get a Routine Going
Day 3: Be Available
Day 4: Be a Role Model
Day 5: Pick your Battles, Set Limits, Say ¨No¨
Day 6: Get Out! (Outdoors, that is!)
Day 7: Give each Child some One-on-One
Day 8: Teach your Child to Love God
Day 9: Cut Yourself some Slack
Day 10: Get Excited! (About dandelions, feathers, doggies...)
Day 11: Pray, Pray and Pray some More
Day 12: Connect!
Day 13: Annoy your Kids
Day 14: Stop Comparing
Day 15: Have some Tricks up your Sleeve
Day 16: Take some time for YOU
Day 17: Stay in the Word
Day 18: Paint your Nails
Day 19: Take a Nap
Day 20: Take Time to be Proud of your Kids
Day 21: Teach your Kids Compassion and Kindness
Day 22: Don´t Expect a Thank You
Day 23: Say ¨I Love You¨
Day 24: Go Get some Lovin´!
Day 25: Smile!
Day 26: Form Family Traditions
Day 27: Model Communication
Day 28: Teach your Kids the Value of Hard Work
Day 29: Remember Why you Do what you Do!
Day 30: Be the Person you Want your Kids to Become
I decided on the topic ¨30 Days to Being a Purposeful Mommy¨ for September because it´s a topic that I have learned a lot about and continue to learn a lot about. I think all mommies need some encouragement, and hopefully September will be an encouraging month for all you mommies that read this blog!
Pin It
Here are the links to each day:
Day 1: Appreciate--Don´t Anticipate!
Day 2: Get a Routine Going
Day 3: Be Available
Day 4: Be a Role Model
Day 5: Pick your Battles, Set Limits, Say ¨No¨
Day 6: Get Out! (Outdoors, that is!)
Day 7: Give each Child some One-on-One
Day 8: Teach your Child to Love God
Day 9: Cut Yourself some Slack
Day 10: Get Excited! (About dandelions, feathers, doggies...)
Day 11: Pray, Pray and Pray some More
Day 12: Connect!
Day 13: Annoy your Kids
Day 14: Stop Comparing
Day 15: Have some Tricks up your Sleeve
Day 16: Take some time for YOU
Day 17: Stay in the Word
Day 18: Paint your Nails
Day 19: Take a Nap
Day 20: Take Time to be Proud of your Kids
Day 21: Teach your Kids Compassion and Kindness
Day 22: Don´t Expect a Thank You
Day 23: Say ¨I Love You¨
Day 24: Go Get some Lovin´!
Day 25: Smile!
Day 26: Form Family Traditions
Day 27: Model Communication
Day 28: Teach your Kids the Value of Hard Work
Day 29: Remember Why you Do what you Do!
Day 30: Be the Person you Want your Kids to Become
Monday, August 15, 2011
Coffee Day, Take Two
So today the planets aligned and everything worked out for me to be able to have a coffee day! Finally! I first dropped my mother-in-law off at the bus terminal, stayed with her until her bus arrived, and then headed off to the mall.
At first I was considering getting a smoothie, but I decided that I needed the heart pounding, capillary dialating, ecuadorian grown coffee in my veins if I was going to get through the week. So I headed off to my preferred frappuccino place, Sweet & Coffee, and said, ¨One mocha frappuccino, please!¨, my mouth watering with anticipation (except I said it in Spanish). The guys behind the counter made that face. That face people make when they are about to shatter your dream to pieces and are not sure how to phrase it so as not to start a shouting match with the caffiene-starved mother of a toddler who has exactly one hour to herself a week. You know that face? Then he found the right words. ¨We only have hot drinks right now.¨ And just like that, my dream was gone.
Then I remembered that there is a Juan Valdez on the second floor of the mall, and I was off! I thought it might be too expensive, but I found a comparable frappuccino-esque drink at about the same price, so I went for it. One sip and I knew I had made the right choice. Although Jual Valdez is Colombian coffee. Not Ecuadorian. But I´m over it.
I read a few chapters of two books I took along, stopped in a few stores to get some information, bought some soy bean oil and headed home. I ended up having to walk a long way home until a bus FINALLY came by, and by then I needed another coffee. Obviously we are still working out the logistics of coffee day.
On a more serious note, though, as I was on the Trole (trolley) from the bus terminal to the mall, something happened that made me sad. A blind woman got on the trole to beg for money, which is pretty common in Ecuador, so I got some money out of my purse, ready to hand to her as she walked by. She was at the front of the bus, and the troles are really long, so I was just kind of waiting for her to get there and thinking about something or another. As she passed I put the money in her hand and she thanked me, and I was about to go back to my thoughts when I saw her getting off the trole. She was getting off with her son, a boy of maybe 5 or 6 years, who could see. He was apparently escorting her as she begged for money.
As a mother, seeing this hurt me deeply for a few reasons. First, I thought that I really wished I had given her more money. It might sound weird, but seeing that she was a mom, and imagining how, in this culture, she could provide for her son and herself with no job, I wished I could have done more. Then I thought that I wished I had gotten off the trole to talk to her. The I wondered how long she had been blind. Had she always been blind? Had she ever seen her son´s face? Had she ever looked at him as she held him in her arms and seen him looking up her, needing her and loving her as only our babies can do? I started getting teary-eyed on the bus. Then I pulled it together. A gringa calls enough attention to herself without blubbering like a baby on the bus for no apparent reason.
The last thing I thought about as I reflected was how humiliating it must be to have to beg strangers for money in front of your children. In Ecuador, and in most countries, people with conditions like hers have no opportunities for work besides begging. They are looked down upon by others, as though their physical condition had something to do with their worth as a person. And people feel good about themselves because they toss a few cents in the hands of the needy, while they never stop and consider that the ¨needy¨ are people. They are someone´s daughter or son, sister or brother, mother or father. And tomorrow any one of us could become ¨one of them¨ because of some small twist of fate.
And I guess I lied, because that wasn´t the very last thing I thought. The very last thing I thought was this: I wish I would have talked to her about Jesus. I wish that would have been my first thought. And I´m a missionary for crying out loud! I hope she´s around next coffee day, or any day. And I hope I´m not too busy thinking about one thing or another to see supernatural opportunities in everday experiences.
I don´t want to end on a low note, though, so I will end with this: I was standing in the trole on the way home, and I was thinking that it´s nice sometimes to be just another face in the crowd, another commuter going about his or her day, another anonymous blah, blah, blah...you get it. Anyway, all of the sudden I had this memory of a friend of mine who lived in Quito for a few months falling flat on her butt in the trole, and I struggled not to burst out laughing (which would be just as bad as bursting our in tears). Probably not funny to you. I guess you had to be there. Goodnight!
At first I was considering getting a smoothie, but I decided that I needed the heart pounding, capillary dialating, ecuadorian grown coffee in my veins if I was going to get through the week. So I headed off to my preferred frappuccino place, Sweet & Coffee, and said, ¨One mocha frappuccino, please!¨, my mouth watering with anticipation (except I said it in Spanish). The guys behind the counter made that face. That face people make when they are about to shatter your dream to pieces and are not sure how to phrase it so as not to start a shouting match with the caffiene-starved mother of a toddler who has exactly one hour to herself a week. You know that face? Then he found the right words. ¨We only have hot drinks right now.¨ And just like that, my dream was gone.
Then I remembered that there is a Juan Valdez on the second floor of the mall, and I was off! I thought it might be too expensive, but I found a comparable frappuccino-esque drink at about the same price, so I went for it. One sip and I knew I had made the right choice. Although Jual Valdez is Colombian coffee. Not Ecuadorian. But I´m over it.
I read a few chapters of two books I took along, stopped in a few stores to get some information, bought some soy bean oil and headed home. I ended up having to walk a long way home until a bus FINALLY came by, and by then I needed another coffee. Obviously we are still working out the logistics of coffee day.
On a more serious note, though, as I was on the Trole (trolley) from the bus terminal to the mall, something happened that made me sad. A blind woman got on the trole to beg for money, which is pretty common in Ecuador, so I got some money out of my purse, ready to hand to her as she walked by. She was at the front of the bus, and the troles are really long, so I was just kind of waiting for her to get there and thinking about something or another. As she passed I put the money in her hand and she thanked me, and I was about to go back to my thoughts when I saw her getting off the trole. She was getting off with her son, a boy of maybe 5 or 6 years, who could see. He was apparently escorting her as she begged for money.
As a mother, seeing this hurt me deeply for a few reasons. First, I thought that I really wished I had given her more money. It might sound weird, but seeing that she was a mom, and imagining how, in this culture, she could provide for her son and herself with no job, I wished I could have done more. Then I thought that I wished I had gotten off the trole to talk to her. The I wondered how long she had been blind. Had she always been blind? Had she ever seen her son´s face? Had she ever looked at him as she held him in her arms and seen him looking up her, needing her and loving her as only our babies can do? I started getting teary-eyed on the bus. Then I pulled it together. A gringa calls enough attention to herself without blubbering like a baby on the bus for no apparent reason.
The last thing I thought about as I reflected was how humiliating it must be to have to beg strangers for money in front of your children. In Ecuador, and in most countries, people with conditions like hers have no opportunities for work besides begging. They are looked down upon by others, as though their physical condition had something to do with their worth as a person. And people feel good about themselves because they toss a few cents in the hands of the needy, while they never stop and consider that the ¨needy¨ are people. They are someone´s daughter or son, sister or brother, mother or father. And tomorrow any one of us could become ¨one of them¨ because of some small twist of fate.
And I guess I lied, because that wasn´t the very last thing I thought. The very last thing I thought was this: I wish I would have talked to her about Jesus. I wish that would have been my first thought. And I´m a missionary for crying out loud! I hope she´s around next coffee day, or any day. And I hope I´m not too busy thinking about one thing or another to see supernatural opportunities in everday experiences.
I don´t want to end on a low note, though, so I will end with this: I was standing in the trole on the way home, and I was thinking that it´s nice sometimes to be just another face in the crowd, another commuter going about his or her day, another anonymous blah, blah, blah...you get it. Anyway, all of the sudden I had this memory of a friend of mine who lived in Quito for a few months falling flat on her butt in the trole, and I struggled not to burst out laughing (which would be just as bad as bursting our in tears). Probably not funny to you. I guess you had to be there. Goodnight!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Coffee Day
I mentioned in my last post that yesterday was to be my first weekly coffee day. Well, I got some kind of 24 hour bug, and spent most of the day in bed. The great thing was, though, that I spent most of the day in bed!
Normally when I´m sick I still do everything I must do because there is no one I can call to help out. Jairo is usually too busy, and that´s the end of my list of helpful people who live close enough to actually help!
Well, yesterday was a miracle. Jairo took Bella with him to pay some bills, giving me a chance to sleep for a couple of extra hours. I felt like a new woman when he and Bella arrived back at home. The best part of all, though, was that when they returned they brought me a frappuccino! So I got my first coffee day after all.
Hopefully next Monday will be a normal coffee day, but it was really nice of Jairo to give me my very own, personal, at home coffee day, don´t you think?
It totally made it easier to deal with the people from church who randomly stopped by my house...¨Would you mind teaching my son English for a few hours??¨ No, of course not, just let me hack up this lung and we will be good to go...sigh.
But alas, nothing was able to ruin my coffee day! It was a wonderful day! All thanks to my wonderful husband, who was determined to give me what I had been so looking forward to!
Normally when I´m sick I still do everything I must do because there is no one I can call to help out. Jairo is usually too busy, and that´s the end of my list of helpful people who live close enough to actually help!
Well, yesterday was a miracle. Jairo took Bella with him to pay some bills, giving me a chance to sleep for a couple of extra hours. I felt like a new woman when he and Bella arrived back at home. The best part of all, though, was that when they returned they brought me a frappuccino! So I got my first coffee day after all.
Hopefully next Monday will be a normal coffee day, but it was really nice of Jairo to give me my very own, personal, at home coffee day, don´t you think?
It totally made it easier to deal with the people from church who randomly stopped by my house...¨Would you mind teaching my son English for a few hours??¨ No, of course not, just let me hack up this lung and we will be good to go...sigh.
But alas, nothing was able to ruin my coffee day! It was a wonderful day! All thanks to my wonderful husband, who was determined to give me what I had been so looking forward to!
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Sweet Victory!
I have been sitting here at my computer for two hours trying to send a file. It is an important file, and I´m already really behind schedule in sending it. One time it almost sent, but then Bella woke up and by the time I got back to the computer the connection timed out. I was just about to call it quits and throw my computer against a wall when, miracle of miracles, the file loaded! I could have cried I was so excited. (That might be the hormones, though.)
I´m about to go to bed and join my sleeping angels (big and small) in the land of sueños, but I felt like it was time the world hear my thoughts again. After all, what would you all do without me?? ha.
Bella and I both have some kind of cold, so it has been a long day (made longer by my stupid, stupid email provider-no, I will NOT like you on facebook!), and I´m looking forward to a few short hours of sleep before we do it all over again. I am also excited, however, because tomorrow is my first weekly coffee day! Jairo has agreed to take Bella once a week for 2 hours or so while I go get a frappuccino and read a book. All by myself. Yes, alone. Are you as astonished by this idea as I am? A moment where I am neither wife nor mother. Although I will probably be thinking about Bella and whether or not Jairo got her to take her nap, and if I remembered to turn on the washing machine before I left...But still! I think it will be fun! So much so that I don´t care if I have to take a whole roll of toilet paper with me to the mall for this runny nose.
I´ll let you know how it goes.
I´m working on a whole new schedule for our home which I think will be better than our previous schedule, which could more exactly be defined as a ¨good effort¨, which all over-acheivers know to mean ¨yeah, not so much.¨ I got the meal plan done which was a huge undertaking. I was underwhelmed by meal plans I found online that include only dinner. I planned for three meals and two snacks, every day, so it was a lot of thinking. But now that it´s finished I LOVE IT! It takes so much thinking out of the mealtime process. So, my goal is to get to that point with the rest of the daily ruitine, so it just flows without a lot of thinking. The problem is that after the meal plan, I was so sick of planning things that I have been putting off getting back into it, even though I know it will help.
But you don´t care about that, right? So, on to tales of our lives. The other day Bella Boo had her first bloody fall. It sounds worse than it was, although that fact did not stop my heart from jumping into my throat and staying there for the whole day and night. She was walking and slipped, hitting her lower lip on the edge of the furniture. She has a perfect imprint of her two front teeth on the inside of her bottom lip. Luckily, Jairo was in the bathroom when it happened and by the time he came out to see what the crying was about I had cleaned up most of the blood. (He´s incredibly squeemish). Finally having a use for Bella´s boo-boo bunny, I went to retrieve it from the freezer, only to find it frozen to the freezer. OF COURSE. So I gave her a bag of frozen peas to suck on while Jairo went to the store to buy her a popsicle. In over-all crisis management I would give myself an A-, if only for that brain-dead minute where I stood there holding Bella thinking, ¨What was it that you´re supposed to do with blood?!¨ But it´s healing nicely now, and Bella herself was laughing with us about 10 minutes after it happened. Oh, the magic of icecream! (More proof that she is, in fact, her mother´s daughter). I, however, still have some high blood pressure every time I think about it.
On a happier note, Bella is now trying to talk more. She already knew a few words, but she added ¨all done¨, ¨no¨ (GREAT.), and ¨chau¨ to her vocabulary. (Chau is bye in Spanish. You probably knew that.) She´s also starting to love on her stuffed animals, which she used to just throw away every time I gave them to her. So, progress. It´s amazing how much there is to learn when you´re just a tot! And even so, it seems she learns it all so quickly, without any discouragement that there is still so much more to go.
In all, I think if you live with a toddler and you don´t find a reason every day to laugh, cry, scream (on the inside), marvel, and kiss, kiss, kiss, then you´re missing something. Because all of those opportunities are there, and you don´t have to look to hard to find them. And you should grab onto them, and live life with that same intensity that your toddler does (tempered with some wisdom and maturity). You might just learn something. I know I do, every day. And tomorrow morning I am sure it will be an extra effort to master a Bella classic: waking up with a smile!
I´m about to go to bed and join my sleeping angels (big and small) in the land of sueños, but I felt like it was time the world hear my thoughts again. After all, what would you all do without me?? ha.
Bella and I both have some kind of cold, so it has been a long day (made longer by my stupid, stupid email provider-no, I will NOT like you on facebook!), and I´m looking forward to a few short hours of sleep before we do it all over again. I am also excited, however, because tomorrow is my first weekly coffee day! Jairo has agreed to take Bella once a week for 2 hours or so while I go get a frappuccino and read a book. All by myself. Yes, alone. Are you as astonished by this idea as I am? A moment where I am neither wife nor mother. Although I will probably be thinking about Bella and whether or not Jairo got her to take her nap, and if I remembered to turn on the washing machine before I left...But still! I think it will be fun! So much so that I don´t care if I have to take a whole roll of toilet paper with me to the mall for this runny nose.
I´ll let you know how it goes.
I´m working on a whole new schedule for our home which I think will be better than our previous schedule, which could more exactly be defined as a ¨good effort¨, which all over-acheivers know to mean ¨yeah, not so much.¨ I got the meal plan done which was a huge undertaking. I was underwhelmed by meal plans I found online that include only dinner. I planned for three meals and two snacks, every day, so it was a lot of thinking. But now that it´s finished I LOVE IT! It takes so much thinking out of the mealtime process. So, my goal is to get to that point with the rest of the daily ruitine, so it just flows without a lot of thinking. The problem is that after the meal plan, I was so sick of planning things that I have been putting off getting back into it, even though I know it will help.
But you don´t care about that, right? So, on to tales of our lives. The other day Bella Boo had her first bloody fall. It sounds worse than it was, although that fact did not stop my heart from jumping into my throat and staying there for the whole day and night. She was walking and slipped, hitting her lower lip on the edge of the furniture. She has a perfect imprint of her two front teeth on the inside of her bottom lip. Luckily, Jairo was in the bathroom when it happened and by the time he came out to see what the crying was about I had cleaned up most of the blood. (He´s incredibly squeemish). Finally having a use for Bella´s boo-boo bunny, I went to retrieve it from the freezer, only to find it frozen to the freezer. OF COURSE. So I gave her a bag of frozen peas to suck on while Jairo went to the store to buy her a popsicle. In over-all crisis management I would give myself an A-, if only for that brain-dead minute where I stood there holding Bella thinking, ¨What was it that you´re supposed to do with blood?!¨ But it´s healing nicely now, and Bella herself was laughing with us about 10 minutes after it happened. Oh, the magic of icecream! (More proof that she is, in fact, her mother´s daughter). I, however, still have some high blood pressure every time I think about it.
On a happier note, Bella is now trying to talk more. She already knew a few words, but she added ¨all done¨, ¨no¨ (GREAT.), and ¨chau¨ to her vocabulary. (Chau is bye in Spanish. You probably knew that.) She´s also starting to love on her stuffed animals, which she used to just throw away every time I gave them to her. So, progress. It´s amazing how much there is to learn when you´re just a tot! And even so, it seems she learns it all so quickly, without any discouragement that there is still so much more to go.
In all, I think if you live with a toddler and you don´t find a reason every day to laugh, cry, scream (on the inside), marvel, and kiss, kiss, kiss, then you´re missing something. Because all of those opportunities are there, and you don´t have to look to hard to find them. And you should grab onto them, and live life with that same intensity that your toddler does (tempered with some wisdom and maturity). You might just learn something. I know I do, every day. And tomorrow morning I am sure it will be an extra effort to master a Bella classic: waking up with a smile!
Friday, July 29, 2011
Alright, I know I was supposed to be blogging...
Sorry to all of my faithful followers out there...all four of you. I keep meaning to blog, but I just never sit down and do it. But today I was thinking that if I have 15 minutes to play games on facebook (don´t judge me!) then I probably have time to blog.
Actually, in order to write this particular entry, I had to test my skills at acrobatics to climb out of bed after nursing Bella. I had to maneuver myself out from under my daughter and then do a sort of twisty climb to get over Jairo, while avoiding that plastic grocery bag on the floor which could potentially make noise, which would mean GAME OVER.
I originally got back up to clean the stove, but since it is a chore I hate with my whole being, I thought blogging sounded like more fun. Aren´t you glad?
As I listened to my husband snoring and as I watched my beautiful baby girl sleep sprawled out on the bed (leaving about 3 inches for my acrobatics) I tried to remember what sleep was like. You know, real sleep. Like, when you go to bed just because you´re tired and you wake up when you´re all done sleeping and super refreshed? I have a vague recollection of being one of those blessed people who sleep, but it seems like such a long time ago.
Not that I´m complaining. They say Thomas Edison only slept four hours a night. And he got quite a lot done in a day. Also, when he died, the autopsy found that he had died of not one but four terminal illnesses. Hmm. He was also known to be cranky, something we have in common. Now if only I could invent something as genious as a lightbulb, everyone would forgive the crankiness and think I was awesome.
Nighttime hours are great when you´re a mom because there exist things in these hours that do not exist in the daytime. Things like quiet, stillness, peace, focus, and the ability to accomplish things that you really want to accomplish and which have nothing to do with diapers, meals, and just taking care of everyone else. Don´t get me wrong, I love to take care of my family. But you have to find some time for yourself. The best part is that while I do feel slightly more exhausted than if I get more sleep (but once you´re exhausted, what´s a little more?), I don´t feel like I´m missing out on those special family moments. And I don´t feel like anyone is really missing me. Except for the occasional cry from Bella, or, now that she is bigger, the occasional peeping out of her tiny face from behind the bedroom door, with a kind of drunk-looking expression that says, ¨What the heck are you doing??¨ I love those moments! And they are a reminder that a mother´s work truly is never done. You don´t see her poking her head out to look for daddy. So that´s kind of nice.
The best part of motherhood are the rewards that are so completely unexpected. Like moments where your baby turns the music on your cell phone and starts dancing, and you just can´t help but laugh. Or when she puts a raisin in the giant straw and grins as though she has really accomplished something fantastic. Not to mention the spontaneous kisses and hugs, the smiles shot at you from across the room or when you realize that in her constant babbling she is talking to her toys about you (MAMA! MAMA!).
And being a stay at home mom has allowed us to create a special little world just for our family, and especially for mommy and baby. It´s nice to feel like you have all you really need, without so much as stepping out your front door. (Although the occasional frappuccino is nice.) I´m not sure I ever felt that way as a grown up (if I really am a grown up) until I was a mother.
Those are my thoughts for now. Thanks for reading, millions of devoted fans. :) But, alas, if I don´t sleep soon, my family will not be grateful for my Edisonian crankiness. And Bella´s one year pictures are tomorrow morning! (Only 2 months late!) And since there will be some family pictures, I really must get some beauty sleep. Although at this point, I will settle for some not-ugly sleep.
Actually, in order to write this particular entry, I had to test my skills at acrobatics to climb out of bed after nursing Bella. I had to maneuver myself out from under my daughter and then do a sort of twisty climb to get over Jairo, while avoiding that plastic grocery bag on the floor which could potentially make noise, which would mean GAME OVER.
I originally got back up to clean the stove, but since it is a chore I hate with my whole being, I thought blogging sounded like more fun. Aren´t you glad?
As I listened to my husband snoring and as I watched my beautiful baby girl sleep sprawled out on the bed (leaving about 3 inches for my acrobatics) I tried to remember what sleep was like. You know, real sleep. Like, when you go to bed just because you´re tired and you wake up when you´re all done sleeping and super refreshed? I have a vague recollection of being one of those blessed people who sleep, but it seems like such a long time ago.
Not that I´m complaining. They say Thomas Edison only slept four hours a night. And he got quite a lot done in a day. Also, when he died, the autopsy found that he had died of not one but four terminal illnesses. Hmm. He was also known to be cranky, something we have in common. Now if only I could invent something as genious as a lightbulb, everyone would forgive the crankiness and think I was awesome.
Nighttime hours are great when you´re a mom because there exist things in these hours that do not exist in the daytime. Things like quiet, stillness, peace, focus, and the ability to accomplish things that you really want to accomplish and which have nothing to do with diapers, meals, and just taking care of everyone else. Don´t get me wrong, I love to take care of my family. But you have to find some time for yourself. The best part is that while I do feel slightly more exhausted than if I get more sleep (but once you´re exhausted, what´s a little more?), I don´t feel like I´m missing out on those special family moments. And I don´t feel like anyone is really missing me. Except for the occasional cry from Bella, or, now that she is bigger, the occasional peeping out of her tiny face from behind the bedroom door, with a kind of drunk-looking expression that says, ¨What the heck are you doing??¨ I love those moments! And they are a reminder that a mother´s work truly is never done. You don´t see her poking her head out to look for daddy. So that´s kind of nice.
The best part of motherhood are the rewards that are so completely unexpected. Like moments where your baby turns the music on your cell phone and starts dancing, and you just can´t help but laugh. Or when she puts a raisin in the giant straw and grins as though she has really accomplished something fantastic. Not to mention the spontaneous kisses and hugs, the smiles shot at you from across the room or when you realize that in her constant babbling she is talking to her toys about you (MAMA! MAMA!).
And being a stay at home mom has allowed us to create a special little world just for our family, and especially for mommy and baby. It´s nice to feel like you have all you really need, without so much as stepping out your front door. (Although the occasional frappuccino is nice.) I´m not sure I ever felt that way as a grown up (if I really am a grown up) until I was a mother.
Those are my thoughts for now. Thanks for reading, millions of devoted fans. :) But, alas, if I don´t sleep soon, my family will not be grateful for my Edisonian crankiness. And Bella´s one year pictures are tomorrow morning! (Only 2 months late!) And since there will be some family pictures, I really must get some beauty sleep. Although at this point, I will settle for some not-ugly sleep.
Friday, November 26, 2010
The Past Six Months!
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!
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!
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!
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