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!

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!

Week 69: Seeing the bigger picture (week 38 of pregnancy)

A lot of times it can be hard to know what God is trying to say to us, probably because we´re not really paying attention. For the past five days I have had false labor, sometimes very convincing false labor, and I have felt increasingly discouraged as the contractions fade and I´m left with no baby and the feeling that the big day may never arrive. (Not to mention that these contractions are too close together to allow travel to Puyo, so we will be staying in Quito after all...a plan I am not too crazy about!) To be fair I´m still short of my due date…I have about a week to go. But what with the false labor and my doctor telling me that the baby would come early, it´s hard not to get my hopes up.

When I pray about labor, each day I get more and more desperate, and the recurring question is, God, why are you ignoring me? I´m just asking you to do what you´re going to do anyway! I know you know best, and I know there could be a lot of circumstances that I don´t understand that make it better for the baby to come in a few days or a week or more, but I can´t handle this anymore! Don´t you see that I am at the end of my rope??

And to some extent, it´s true. I feel myself hanging on to my sanity by a thread as the days wind down…everything will be fine and then some small thing happens (like today, for example, when I dropped the box of crackers on the floor and couldn´t bend over to pick them up), and reminds me that I am still pregnant and will probably be pregnant for the rest of my life, and I just break down into tears and feel completely hopeless. I get the feeling from other pregnant friends that I am not alone in this end of pregnancy desperation. And even more women who are experienced in pregnancy and labor also encourage me, telling me that they, too, suffered through this phase. The third trimester may be equal in length to the other two trimesters, but it feels a million times longer. Plus there is that anxiousness to finally meet the little person that has been growing inside you! How is a soon-to-be mom to survive the torture of waiting?

I haven´t blogged about this before now because I have been in such a terrible mood, but today I was praying and I decided that I was going to sit down and get into God´s Word until I felt better. I told God that I knew that the problem here is me, not Him, and if He is asking me to wait He has a reason. I wanted to find out what that reason was and submit myself to it, and I wanted to have peace despite the desperation.

As I said, sometimes it can be hard to know what God is trying to say to us. On the other hand, sometimes He hits us over the head with it and it is so obvious that it´s almost annoying. The latter was my experience today. I decided to do a Bible study book that I have, since I wasn’t really sure where to begin reading the Bible. (I just finished my 90-day Bible reading plan the other day, which was a huge goal of mine, and now I feel a little aimless!) I couldn´t remember what the topic was where I left off in the study because it´s been a while since I picked it up. Funny, the topic was about how God speaks to us and why He sometimes does not give us what we ask for. Ha. Nice one, God.

Well, the verse that summarizes what I learned is this: ¨Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.¨ Romans 5:3-5

Could it be possible that God is using this pregnancy, even now so close to the end, to teach me something? Could He be trying to develop in me a character of perseverance and—Heaven forbid—patience? Maybe, just maybe, He knows a little something about what motherhood is going to require of me. Maybe qualities like perseverance and patience, and not to mention hope, are things that I will need to have stores of to draw upon in my role as a mother.

Now, I´m not saying that after having this lesson rubbed in my face that I am not one of those sublimely happy earth-mother types, rolling with the contractions and whatnot. I am still pretty annoyed that I wake up every day still pregnant with no sign that labor is any closer. (Nonetheless, rationally I realize that every day really does bring me closer to labor, since labor itself is pretty inevitable.) But I didn’t say I was looking for a radical life change in my time with God today…I was just looking for something to hang onto, something to give some sense of purpose to this waiting. God is faithful, as always, and has given me that. And what´s nice, too, is that He has showed me that having me wait a little longer for the arrival of this baby is not the same as ignoring me or being uncaring or insensitive to what I am going through. He was perfectly willing to communicate with me about the situation just as soon as I was willing to listen.

I felt like He was saying to me, ¨Look. I know you better than you know yourself, and I know that patience is not a virtue you possess in high quantities. But I know your little one, too, and I know that she is going to need you to learn to be patient with her. I want you to start now. And more than that, I want you to trust me. I want you to trust my timing and my plan, and know that what I plan for you is much better than anything you can dream up for yourself. I know how hard it is for you, and I know how heartbroken you are every time the contractions fade into nothing. I promise that all this suffering is accomplishing something.¨

And you know what´s funny? All this time I was looking for these contractions to produce dilation and effacement…but God wanted them to produce something much bigger and far beyond that. He wanted them to produce perseverance, patience, trust, and dependence on Him. Oh what small minds we humans have sometimes! Still…now that I understood the lesson…any chance the baby could come tonight?

Week 69: Ready for baby? (week 38 of pregnancy)

Well, life has taken another interesting turn. My mom would say (and has said) that this is an opportunity for me to learn that now that I´m going to be a mom, I can kiss control of my life goodbye. ¨You can´t always have all of your ducks in a row¨ she tells me. I suppose she´s right. In some ways my life has been at the mercy of this little one for many months already, and it only gets more intense as labor and then life with our very own child are on the horizon, and we are learning that the best we can do is just roll with the punches.

I have had my qualms about our doctor since somewhere in the second trimester, I think. Little things that she does that I didn´t like too much...and many times I have thought about switching. Still, until recently nothing seemed like a big enough deal to switch over. I was just being too North American, I would think. Ecuadorian culture is definitely a ¨take it easy¨ culture...I am not a ¨take it easy¨ person. So there you go.

But recently there have been issues that seem less cultural and more worry-worthy to me, and when all of those isues culminated in me having a chernobyl-style meltdown that left even me reeling with surprise, I realized that something had to change. The major issues are related to pregnancy complications and whatnot, which most of you will not find interesting, but what it boils down to is that I feel like our doctor really could not care less about this pregnancy as long as she gets paid. The evidence is there, more and more with each passing visit it seems. Having all the classic symptoms of pre-eclampsia, a serious pregnancy problem which requires close observation at least, and at worst a medical intervention (inducing labor, etc), my doctor didn´t send me to get a single test done. Her response? ¨That´s probably normal.¨ She sent me to get an ultrasound, and we promptly took the results and pictures to her the next day. Then, a week later we go in to see her because my symptoms are worse and she says, ¨You didn´t get that ultrasound yet?¨ Jairo and I looked at each other, confused, and said, ¨Yes, we brought it to you last week.¨ ¨Oh really?¨ she replied, ¨I guess I forgot to write it down.¨ The exams she´s done on me to check for dilation and effacement (sorry, I know many of you are losing me now) are contradictory, indicating that she really has no idea what she´s even looking for. This doesn´t inspire much confidence, and while I realize that there are many aspects of labor and delivery that one really has no control over, one thing we can do is put our care in good hands. Of course, ultimately I know that I and our baby are in the best hands of all--God´s!! Still, we need to be responsible parents and try to do what is best for everyone.

After our last visit, I really could not handle the panic I was feeling every time we went to the doctor, my health getting progressively worse and her care of us getting progressively more lazy. I got so upset that I couldn´t stop crying...or hyperventilating. So Jairo gave me an ultimatum. ¨You need to tell me what you want to do. Whatever you need is fine, but tell me what we´re doing. You are making yourself sick.¨ Well I spent that night and the next day recovering from my meltdown, and I think seeing me so sad and quiet really freaked Jairo out. I am never quiet! Somewhere about half way through me processing all of this and trying to formulate a plan, Jairo came to me again, obviously worried and reassured me that he was more than happy to do anything I wanted, trying to get some kind of clue from me about what was going on in my head. Whatever else, I had to snap out of this zombie state and make a decision...my due date is only two weeks away, and everyone seems to think she is coming early. (I´m not convinced of that!)

Well, the next day I got up and started praying. (Something I could have done sooner.) First of all, I asked for forgiveness because my nuclear meltdown was such an obvious lack of faith on my part. My life, and the life of this baby, are in God´s hands. Our choice of doctor and hospital is important, but trusting God is more important, because when all is said and done He is the one directing our steps and He is the one who will bring this baby into the world in His time. Then I started asking for what often eludes me: Peace. Only He can give it, and I need it. And then I asked for wisdom to know what to do.

I realized that the best option is probably to go to Puyo, stay with the in-laws, and give birth at the North American hospital. It´s an idea we´ve tossed around since I got pregnant, but it just seemed too difficult since I needed monthly check ups and we´d have to spend the last month or so in Puyo. In the past few weeks we started discussing again, but it just seemed like too much of a hassle. Yet, the more I thought about it the more I thought that, despite the hassle, it was the only idea that actually made me feel secure and safe about labor. Not to mention that we will be surrounded by Jairo´s family, instead of being on our own. Another day passed and I became more sure of the idea. Yet I had this fear that Jairo was going to get mad at me. ¨Why didn´t you decide this sooner?¨ I imagined him asking me. ¨Now that I have all these responsibilities and plans here in Quito, now that everything is ready, now that we´re settled here, NOW you want to go to Puyo, just days before you give birth?¨ And, I thought, if he reacts like that...he´s right. I should have decided this long ago. In my defense, I had no idea it would turn out like this. But still...hindsight and all that.

So I prayed, and I told God the truth. The truth is that I don´t know what´s best. The truth is that I don´t know what to do. The truth is that I´m just trying to be as healthy as possible, and keep this baby as healthy as possible, and I´m not even totally sure how to best do that. But I know that there needs to be peace in my family, between Jairo and me, because otherwise everything else is pointless. So this was my request to God: If he says no, if he gets mad, I will let it go. He´s right, after all. I´ll listen to him. But if YOU want us to go to Puyo, if that´s what´s best, then let him go along with it. Let him say yes.

Yeah right, I thought. No way he´s saying yes. We´d have to leave in like two days!

He got home from worship team practice and I announced that I wanted to talk to him. He laughed. Good, I though, he´s in a good mood.

¨Okay, what do you want to talk about?¨

I decided to be direct. ¨I want to go to Puyo.¨

¨Really? Why?¨

I explained my rationale. I wanted to go to the hospital there, I think the trip really is doable, and I hate our doctor. I can only imagine those feelings will increase with the intensity of labor. It´s the only thing I feel remotely good about. Etc.

¨Are you sure that´s what you want?¨

¨Yeah, pretty sure.¨

¨Okay. Let´s go. We´ll have to leave right away. I´ll let everyone know and work everything out.¨

Do I or do I not have the best husband in the whole universe?? This whole thing went down yesterday, and last night as my husband was snoring away I said a silent thank you to God for blessing me with such a wonderful husband. And somewhere in his response I realized that in some way, just like it took him some time to really become a husband, it had taken him some time to really become a father. To think like a father. But there in that moment I realized, there is nothing he wouldn´t do for me or this baby. And I felt peace.

I think this is one of those many small sacrifices that I will be making my whole life for this little one. It´s hard for me to think of making this trip now, leaving the comfort of our home and staying with my in-laws, despite the fact that I get along great with them. They love me a lot, and I know they will be a big help to us. Still, I want to be here, in my bed, in my house, with my idea of the perfect birth. I guess this is where my mom chimes in and tells me to get over that right now, because from now on nothing is going to go according to plan. And that´s okay. I could use some help giving up control and trusting in God. But it is going to be hard to make the trip to Puyo, and even harder to make the trip back just days after delivery with a newborn in tow. But I think about staying here and I know that the right thing is to go.

Whatever happens from here on out, at least I can say it won´t be boring! And it will be a fun story to tell baby when she´s bigger, once all the ugly parts have faded into memory and become just funny little details in the bigger and much more important story of how she came to be. The story of how we loved her from before the time we even knew her, and how we tried to take care of her without really knowing how. And maybe, just maybe, seeing how hard we´ve tried, she´ll forgive us for all those mistakes we´ll make between now and then! (Well, maybe after she gets done with those teenage years...)

Week 68: Christmas in May! (week 37 of pregnancy)

These past few days I have had a lot of reason to feel like it´s Christmas time. For one, it´s cold here in Ecuador, or at least it was until today, which it shouldn´t be because technically we are in the hot season. Apparently the weather did not get the memo. I don´t mind the cold too much, especially since I´m mostly indoors nowadays, but the rain that goes along with it every day makes doing laundry a frustrating job. We, like most Ecuadorian households, do not have a dryer, so we hang our clothes out on the line to dry. My mom asked me the other day what we do when it rains every day like it has been this week. My answer? We wait.

But there are many more reasons to feel like it´s Christmas time, and they are much more fun. At the end of last week (I was way too tired to blog about it) I had my baby shower via Skype. It was pretty neat to get to see everyone and talk to them, although we got disconnected a few times. Still, when you´re a whole continent away, that´s not too shabby! Baby showers are always fun, what with the adorable tiny things and the games, not to mention the friends who I had not seen in over a year...and some that I had not seen in even longer than that. My aunt threw the shower and had the idea that people could either bring smaller gifts like baby clothes, which my parents will bring to me when they come here in just a few weeks, or if they wanted to get us a bigger item they could give a gift of money with a card telling how they would like us to use it. The majority of people just said to use the money however we most needed it, although a few did have me get specific things from my registry. I think it was a great idea considering the fact that logistically presents are just so difficult to transport to us. I wasn´t expecting a lot of money or gifts, mostly I was just excited to see everyone and get to share our excitement with them. Nonetheless we got quite a few really adorable gifts (like a tutu and a homemade quilt) and quite a bit of money, too. I felt incredibly blessed that so many people wanted to be a part of our daughter´s life and also amazed once again at God´s provision...I shouldn´t be so surprised every time God comes through for us for this baby since that was part of the bargain I made with Him about this little one, but I´m only human, I suppose.

Well, these days following the shower Jairo and I have done some shopping for the baby, picking up the essentials that we were missing and a few fun non-essentials as well. I´m trying not to buy too many clothes because my mom is bringing a bunch with her and also I don´t know how big this baby is going to be! Plus, there´s always the off-chance that those ultrasounds were mistaken and then what will we do with all of these girl clothes? Jairo assures me that we will have plenty of opportunity to buy anything else we might need once the baby arrives. So close to the end of the pregnancy, it´s really just nerve-wracking when you have everything pretty much done and there´s nothing to do but wait. Still, these little shopping trips have been fun and have given me a distraction to get through these last days!

So as if that were not enough, today we went to the post office (an uncommon adventure for us...and an all-day event, unfortunately) and were rewarded for our efforts with four packages!! One was a package for Jairo´s birthday, two were packages of baby related items, and one was a package from a dear friend of mine for me and baby. It really did feel like Christmas! Jairo and I were especially impressed by the tiny little baby socks that came in one package from my parents. I can´t even imagine a foot that small...but I suppose very soon I will be intimately familiar with two of them.

I spent the rest of the evening washing all the new baby clothes we got in the mail (and I am still amazed that such tiny clothes can fill up my line so quickly!), putting away the few baby things we bought while out and about, ironing the crib sheet and blanket (I had just washed them and they were beyond wrinkled), cooking burritos for my husband who had never tried them before, and clearing out the memory cards so that there is plenty of room for baby pictures. I was hoping to finish up my hospital bag and baby´s hospital bag, but there are only so many hours in a day.

Pregnancy-wise I have been okay, not great, but I´m not sure if it´s the pregnancy that is getting me down or if it´s the flu my husband gave me. The beauty of marriage is sharing, right? I´m pretty sure the immense swelling of my feet and hands is purely pregnancy, though. We´re getting that checked out tomorrow, just in case. Baby is as active as ever and, although I have frequent contractions, I have trouble believing that she´s going to come out. I feel like I´ve been pregnant forever, and I don´t see any real progress towards labor. I suppose it will come like a theif in the night. Or something like that.

Other than that, life is moving forward and I am trying to imagine how different this scene will be just a few weeks from now. Jairo and I are so happy lately that I can only hope that baby´s transition into our family is made easier by our happiness, and not that our happiness is made less happy by the transition. Selfish, I know. Until now we have never really been inclined to share much of ourselves as a couple with others, being a fairly private couple. Even the things I put on this blog are generally surface-level kinds of things, and my own thoughts which I tend to not ever keep to myself. What will it be like to let a third party into our little world? For now I can only wonder. Still, it will be nice to have my figure back...or at least normal-sized feet for starters.

Week 67: A recap of this week (week 36 of pregnancy)

Today is Thursday, and it´s the first day all week that I´ve actually gotten something done. It´s interesting, too, because each day of this week has been worse than the day before, making this day the worst day of the week so far. I feel like I might just drop over unconscious at any moment, so I thought I would try to get at least one blog entry done for this week in case the weekend follows the trend of each day getting worse and I have absolutely no energy or will left!

I´m at the tail end of my pregnancy, week 36 (almost 37) out of 40 give or take, and as far as I´m concerned, my due date cannot come fast enough. This whole pregnancy has been a difficult one for me. I realize that many women have even more difficult pregnancies, with months and months of total bedrest or hospitalizations, etc. so I don´t want to complain too much. I have only been ordered on ¨partial¨ bedrest for the past few months, which here in Ecuador is not that restrictive. I am supposed to stay home as much as possible, and not do anything more than moderate work. I can wash the dishes, for example, but I´m not supposed to take out the trash. (Not like I take out the trash anyway...) They put me on partial bedrest in the first trimester for a while because of some cramping, but that went away and so did the bedrest, and I felt pretty good until the end of the second trimester. Then I developed some high blood pressure, but not really high, just enough for them to put me back on partial bedrest. This doctor´s visit I found out that my blood pressure is officially back to normal, but I have been having really frequent contractions and lots of cramping and my doctor is worried I will go into labor early, so I am supposed to continue with the bedrest until 39 weeks. Just a little longer...

Still, this week bedrest has been more of a self-imposed treatment...I have the habit of doing too much too soon because I get so restless ¨resting¨, but this week even I have not been asking to get out of the house. I have been in a lot of pain, especially lower back pain (and of course the contractions) to the point that I cannot even lie down comfortably. There is literally no way to get comfortable for even 5 minutes. Last night was the worst night yet, and neither I nor Jairo got any sleep at all. It was like those torture scenes on tv where they give you drugs in one arm to make you fall asleep and drugs in the other to make you wake up to intense pain...that was my night. I would fall asleep from being so exhausted only to wake up 5 minutes later gasping from pain. Thank God for my incredibly patient and compassionate husband who gave me back massages off and on from about 2am until about 5:30am.

Apparently this discomfort is caused by the baby being really low, or as the ultrasound guy said the other day, ¨stuck way down there¨. I suppose it´s nice that she is getting ready to come out...that gives me some hope. Still, I wonder to myself how in the world I will have strength for labor if this keeps up...I don´t even have the energy to walk around my apartment.

I am tutoring a teen from our church in English for an army entrance exam, and today was the second day that I tutored him. When Jairo woke me up to tell me that this guy had arrived, I could not stop crying. Jairo was going to send him home, seeing that I was completely hysterical, but I felt bad that the kid had come all this way for nothing so I got up and got changed and ready, crying the whole time. I was so completely exhausted that I couldn´t handle the idea of even being awake, let alone trying to make sense enough to teach someone. I got calmed down and got the class done, and hopefully it made sense, and then I figured that while I was up I would try to do something productive, since the crying spell was over anyway.

I was a little productive. I washed the dishes that were piling up (all of them!), washed 2 loads of clothes (but Jairo hung them up...I´m not that ambitious), made dinner (fajitas...definitely worth the work), made gatorade (from powder...my new best friend), and downloaded some pictures that Jairo needed for a design he´s doing. I was trying to understand when in my life I accepted this kind of activity as ¨productive¨ and then I remembered...oh yeah, somewhere around 7 months pregnant.

I have two new fears about this pregnancy, or actually about labor, that I never even considered before. First of all, with all this talk from the doctor about the baby coming early, I am really worried she will come late. Here I am expecting her to come about a week before her date, and what if she comes at 41 weeks or more? I think I would literally lose my mind. I keep dropping subtle little hints to the baby, like ¨the exit is in a downward direction¨ and ¨please oh please be born soon!!¨ Ok, maybe not that subtle.

The other fear I have is one I already mentioned, that I will have absolutely no strength for labor. I really do not want drugs, and I especially do not want a c-section. It´s not that I´m especially against epidurals and other medicines, it´s really just that we don´t have the money for extra interventions in labor, and I also just prefer a natural birth.

I have this list of 6 signs that labor is coming soon, soon being about 2 weeks or so, and according to the teacher once you have 4 or more it is time for your hubby to stay close. Not like never leave the house close, but definitely never leave the city close. Well I have four, which means absolutely nothing more than what we already know: sometime in the near future, this baby will be born. When? Who knows??

I decided early on that I wanted to memorize Scripture for labor, and I chose Psalm 91 for Jairo and I to memorize together. I also wrote down a lot of other good verses in a pretty little notebook that I plan to take with me to the hospital so that Jairo can read them to me or I can read them, depending on what works. But I wanted to have one memorized, to give me something to focus on. We worked on it a lot in the beginning, and then kind of slacked off near the middle of pregnancy. The other day I was at church with Jairo for a worship team practice, which I decided to go to because I felt pretty good and wanted to get out of the house. Well, that was a mistake. It wasn´t too far into the practice that the contractions hit. I was sitting, so I decided to get up and walk, since braxton-hicks contractions usually ease up if you change activities. Well, the contractions went away but then I felt this incredible pain in my lower back as the baby´s head crushed some nerve in my body or my spinal cord or who knows what. So I was left with a choice...contractions sitting down or shooting pain walking around. I was more scared of the contractions so I decided to walk around, and realizing that I had about 3 more verses to memorize in Psalm 91 and labor could literally be any day, I grabbed a Bible and started memorizing. It was an ok distraction for the most part, although there were a few moments where I would sort of double over for a second and try to compose myself from the pain getting stronger, and in those moments there is really no good distraction. Well, I got the Psalm memorized really well, because I was too scared to sit back down until the end of practice. I was proud of myself that I didn´t cry a single tear until I got home.

Well, I asked Jairo to take me with him to church tonight and he promptly refused...I think ¨no¨ is going to be the standard answer until after baby is born. He´s only going to do some kind of instrument installation thing so he won´t be gone long, and I would have been really bored anyway, but in some way despite knowing how much I really need the rest, it kind of just seems pointless anyway. Here or there, I am not really able to rest. So I´d rather just be doing something. Otherwise, these last few weeks are going to go even slower!

Anyway, that is my week in a nutshell up until now. I still have to make Jairo´s birthday present, and I am currently about 10% done and have only 3 more days, so I´m wondering what kind of miracle to pray for so that I can get it done on time. I already gave in and had Jairo pick out a cake mix rather than make a homemade cake, so I´d like to do at least one thing well!!

I think I will take a shower, which seems to be a nice pain reliever until I turn off the water, and then I will probably try to sleep...which might work for a few minutes. Hopefully I will get enough minutes in there to not be traumatized merely by waking up! Jairo´s looking pretty tired, too...I bet he´s just as ready for this baby to come as I am!

Week 66: Wanted: Motivation (Week 35 of pregnancy)

I don´t know if this is true of all or many pregnant women, but lately I have personally found that I have two instincts warring inside of me all day long. First, there is the nesting instinct. (Jairo loves to tell me I´m nesting, mostly because he loves to laugh at the idea of me making a nest for our new baby.) This instinct is powerful, and if ignored leads to extreme restlessness. It is, of course, the so-called ¨burst of energy¨ in the weeks before labor that prompts a woman to do things ranging from normal to insane in order to get ready for baby. Now, what alphabetizing the contents of the fridge or sweeping ten times a day has to do with preparation for a baby, I have no idea, but the instinct is there nonetheless. Apparently this instinct exists in all female mammals. For example, a female rabbit will tear out her own fur in order to line a nest for her little ones before they are born. I have not yet torn out my hair for nest-making purposes, although for other reasons I am tempted once in a while. But that´s another story.

The other instinct, however, is that of self-preservation. This is the instinct that tells you to just take it easy. It´s the one screaming at you that nine months pregnant is not the time to be on your hands and knees scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush. It´s that little voice that says, ¨Why in the world did you think you could climb up onto a chair and reach that box at the very top of the closet to organize it at 6am??¨ Interestingly enough, this particular little voice sounds a lot like my husband. Not to mention all of the literal voices telling you, ¨Get some rest! Save your energy for the big day!¨ etc. I like how people think that energy is something you can save up, like there is some kind of bank somewhere that is going to give me dividends if I invest my energy for one month leading up to labor. If that really worked, women would do exactly that...they would do nothing but stay in bed for a month and then on the day of labor they would push that baby out so fast with the saved up energy and interest that labor would be a walk in the park.

Still, the self-preservation instinct is also a motherly instinct, because as a pregnant woman you become more and more aware that taking care of a child begins long before birth. Poor choices in pregnancy can lead to problems for mom and baby, so it does pay to be prudent.

Well, obviously, these two instincts are often in direct contradiction of each other, which makes for a confused mommy-to-be. And believe me, what with the surging hormones and the forgetfullness, mommy was already confused. So what is a pregnant girl to do?

Today, for example, I have a whole list of things I want to accomplish. The majority of them are not baby related at all, mostly because everything that I can do for now has been done a hundred times. I don´t know how else I can organize the baby clothes, or how many times I can take out the stroller and practice folding, unfolding, etc. My doctor has no desire to see me until week 37, so I don´t have much hope on the horizon for new baby-related activities at least until then.

One of the things on my list is to work on Jairo´s birthday present. The project itself is not difficult, but I know better than to trust my fluctuating energy levels, so I am trying to do it little by little. Jairo left early this morning, so my big plan today was to get up when he left and start in on the project right away. Well, I did get up when he left, thanks in large part to the construction my neighbors have going on which apparently involves a lot of hammers, but I did not work on the gift. I ate, first of all, because there was just no avoiding that. These days I am hungry even when I´m full, so eating small meals and snacks all day long is pretty much a custom around here. (In my defense, most of these foods are fruits and veggies, since I try not to keep junk food in the house...out of sight, out of mind!) Well, I ate, and I fed the rabbits, since I thought it only fair that we all eat together. Then, since I was still so tired that I couldn´t see straight, I came back to bed, but thanks to the neighbors could not sleep. I then decided to check my email and was delighted to see that several friends had written me, which is always a nice pick-me-up when one lives on another continent. So I spent some time replying to them and then decided that I would write this blog entry. Not exactly the productive morning I had planned, but my self-preservation instinct is basking in the glory of its victory.

So, now I am faced with the following options: I can work on the project in the two hours or so that I have left until my husband comes home, I can do all of the other things on my list until my husband comes home, or I can sleep...the hammering seems to have died down for the time being. I´m really leaning towards sleeping. (Listen to the sound of cheering coming from the self-preservation crowd!) I mean, you never know...maybe I will earn some kind of interest on resting...It can´t hurt to try, right?

Week 66: Fifteen Months Married (Week 35 of pregnancy)

We actually had our fifteen month anniversary last week, but we celebrated it today. We always like to do something special every 24th, even if it´s just something small like getting ice cream. This month we decided in advance that we were going to get a movie to watch at home and make fried fish with rice and patacones (fried plantains). That´s why we waited until today to celebrate, in order to have enough time.

I was thinking today about the beauty of living every day life with someone that you love. I was also thinking about the importance of laughter as an ingredient in that daily life. Lately I have noticed that Jairo and I have spent a lot of our time making each other laugh, and I think there is a direct correlation between that and how nice our marriage has been lately. Of course, there are always ups and downs, but I feel like lately we have been doing really well. It´s surprising, too, because our stress level is really high these days. My pregnancy is quickly approaching its big day, and that brings with it lots of stress as we try to get ready for baby, and getting ready involves so much more than just shopping! There are so many emotional aspects, for example. And in my case, the hormones currently surging through my body at record levels only add to the stress of that preparation as worries often turn in to tears. That, in turn, adds to Jairo´s stress level, while he is also dealing with all of those outside stressors of the ministry and of providing for his family.

Still, with all those things to stress about, when we are together, there is calm and genuine happiness that in other, less stressful times was not present. I think the key is laughter. Of course, there are many other important ingredients. But I think when you realize that your spouse is your teammate, and you are both trying to get to the same place in life, that´s a good common ground to let some things slide and just be silly once in a while.

I think it´s also good to tell each other once in a while why you appreciate one another. The other day Jairo and I were talking and I was expressing my feelings that being a wife, and soon a mother, is great, but sometimes has me feeling like I am on the sidelines while Jairo gets all of the action, so to speak. Jairo seemed genuinely surprised by this and started telling me how important what I do as a wife is for him to be able to minister. He told me, ¨I could not do anything that I do now if it weren´t for what you do here in our home and what you do to help me.¨ I replied that of course he could, to which he responded, ¨No, really, I couldn´t do any of it.¨ He went on to list all of the things I do for him on a daily basis and their importance to him, which I had never even begun to think of as important until now. So my point is that it doesn´t hurt to share those things once in a while, because we never really know what we mean to others if they don´t express that to us.

But to be honest, I am really thinking that laughter is the key ingredient to all of this. I have mentioned before that one thing I really love about Jairo is that he will do anything, and I mean anything, to make me laugh when I am sad. His specialty in my saddest moments when nothing else works is an impression of Steve Erkel. It gets me every time. On the other hand, when I want to make him laugh I do all kinds of crazy dances, which always makes him laugh, no matter what. It has become about 100 times more effective since my belly became a planet and I look that much more ridiculous. We love to laugh with each other and at each other, and I think that those moments are what make the hard times worth putting up with.

Although a close second would be this: Today after our celebration we were both on our respective computers doing our respective work and feeling contented to be close together, working in silence. He closed his computer, signaling that it was about time for him to get ready for church, and so I left what I was doing and we just laid there together for a minute and cuddled, and I thought, this right here is exactly why I got married. Two minutes of holding the whole world in your arms and none of the other silly things in life seem to have much significance.

Here´s to fifteen months of learning to laugh and learning to appreciate the simple moments in life! Soon we will be learning all over again when our little one comes...I have a feeling that those first few months are going to require even more sense of humor!

Week 65: A miracle week (week 34 of pregnancy)

Okay, miracle is a strong word. But something must have happened that I was unaware of. (At this point in my pregnancy, that doesn´t really surprise me.) My husband is always very caring and responsible, as well as affectionate, but once we got married and got so busy, I noticed a decline in his romantic gestures. Once I got pregnant, he got even busier because I was no longer around to help him, so the trend continued.

Now, I´m not saying my husband is never romantic or never does anything sweet. He does. He does a lot of very thoughtful things, one of my favorites of which is when he goes grocery shopping for me and brings me home all kinds of surprises. This week I commented to him that he never buys me flowers anymore. I think these comments are usually fueled by tv commercials and things of that nature, and are never really serious complaints. It´s more like I see it on tv and say, ¨Hey, that reminds me...¨ Jairo knows enough to know that those kinds of comments are usually just me being random, so neither of us pay to much attention to those moments. Which is why it surprised me that the next day when he got home from grocery shopping bearing many yummy treats for me as always, he also came home with a bouquet of roses! White and red roses, since he knows how much I love white roses.

Now, that was romantic gesture enough to last me a while. I´m really not that demanding when it comes to things like that...just once in a while I like to know that those feelings are still there. So I was all set. Then this morning someone called us at 7am, and afterwards I couldn´t get back to sleep. I really hate when people call before noon. It´s just so hard to get good sleep these days, and I wake up all the time to go to the bathroom, change positions, eat, etc. that I like to have the freedom to get some sleep. I can probably forgive anyone who calls after 10am, depending on the night I had, but 7am was enough to give me some violent day dreams. Jairo couldn´t get back to sleep later, so he got up. I heard him in the kitchen and wondered absentmindedly what he was up to as I tried hopelessly to force myself into REM. Then in comes Jairo to serve me breakfast in bed! As if that were not enough, he goes back to the kitchen and washes the dishes. All of the dishes. There were a lot of dishes.

Now, I´m not sure if I did something good without realizing it, or maybe the planets are all aligned (although I think that supposedly is going to usher in the apocalypse, so maybe not) or what happened, but I could really get used to this! I´m trying to think of a good way to return the favor, factoring in my lifestyle of forced rest...I´m not sure what kind of gesture I will come up with, I think he definitely deserves something special after all of these nice things he´s doing for me! I think I´ll try to get some sleep first, though.

Week 65: The big mystery...solved! (week 34 of pregnancy)

We have been waiting patiently for another chance to see our little one, but my doctor is of the philosophy that ultrasounds are unnecessary except at 5 and 9 months. I personally believe they are justifiable at least once a week, because I just love seeing that little person in there! Still, I have waited and waited.

My mom wanted us to try to find out the sex of the baby before she sent out the shower invitations, so we decided to go ahead and get an ultrasound on our own. I have been pretty sure this baby is a boy since the beginning of my pregnancy, which means that I´ve had that idea for about 8 months! Imagine my surprise when the doctor told us that it´s a girl!

¨Are you sure?¨ I asked him, stunned.

¨Yep.¨

¨Like, really sure?¨

¨Yep.¨

A girl! What a surprise! My mom is ecstatic...apparently she has lots of friends who have had girl babies, so she´s probably tearing into the baby clothes as we speak.

To be honest, I wasn´t sure what to feel. In the beginning, even before I got pregnant, I wanted a girl first. Mostly to be sure I get at least one. After all, what mom doesn´t want a daughter. Still, 8 months thinking you are having a boy makes it an adjustment when you find out how long you´ve been wrong!

Jairo wasn´t actually surprised. Sometimes it drives me crazy how calm he is about this pregnancy. I sit here and worry about labor, the baby, life once baby is born, and Jairo´s just thrilled to be a dad. I think his approach is better, but I seem to be incapable of not worrying. Maybe it´s because during pregnancy and labor dad is more of a spectator, until baby is actually born. But anyway, I was really surprised. We haven´t even thought about girl names.

Still, the idea of all those adorable pink things is starting to get me excited. I can´t help but shake the feeling that maybe the ultrasound is wrong, so I´m still buying mostly neutral things for now, but my mother-in-law already started on the dress to bring our little girl home in. I joked to Jairo that he better be ready to run to the store to pick something up in case it´s a boy, though!