Easter thoughts

We're only a few days away from Easter, and I've been thinking about that first Holy Week.  Not from the standpoint of Christ or his disciples.  But rather from the standpoint of Mary, because, after all, I am a mom just like she was.  

Just 3 weeks ago today, I had my son.  I wonder, in those first weeks after Christmas when Jesus was so tiny and Mary so young and a new mom, did she wonder who he would become?  Did she gaze into his tiny features and see what was down the road?  

I imagine she didn't.  If she's anything like me, she was probably just overwhelmed with the moment itself - trying to bottle, to grasp, to hang on to the wonder of being her child's mother.  His weight in her arms, his smell, his newborn movements, his tiny toes...him.

Photo credit: Kathy Chase

I can relate to those thoughts and feelings she must have had after Jesus was born.  But then at Calvary, Jesus told his disciple John to care for his mother (John 19).  She was there.  What was that like for her, to watch her son's crucifixion?  What horror she must have lived through that day...  It's bad enough watching your child get a shot or kissing their scraped knee.  Imagine...  or don't.  It's too hard.

I look at my son and I wonder who he'll become.  What sort of a boy will he be?  What sort of a man?  And I know that I and my husband and the people with whom we surround our family will all contribute to who Connor will become.  But it's also true that he has a free will.  He will become, in a very real way, who he wants to become in spite of and not because of my best efforts.

I pray that he will be honest, kind, gentle, strong, brave, fun, funny, loving, and a man of integrity.  That he will know Truth and walk in it.  And these prayers I have can't really be very different from the prayers Mary had for her son, her Jesus, right?  I think they're the prayers of most mothers.

Photo credit: Kathy Chase

But simply that I pray them for him doesn't mean that he'll become who I want him to become.  Prayers certainly can't hurt!  But, again, he gets to choose.  So I think of Mary, whose son chose not to be with her, but to die for me, for my sins.  Did she feel betrayed?  How did she bear up under the weight of that grief?  Of burying her firstborn son?  What questions she must have had...

I celebrate Christmas, my favorite holiday, with such joy for her.  There was nothing but potential that first Christmas night - nothing but a blessedly ended pregnancy, labor and delivery resulting in new life with such promise.  The Promise.  Those things, we are told, she cherished in her heart.  And they had to have come flooding back to her that day at Calvary.

Did she wonder why she'd gone through it all - the shame of pregnancy outside of wedlock, the pain of birth, the years of investing time, energy, and all her resources into her children?  I imagine the thought crossed her mind, but she instantly rejected it.  It was all worth it.  Every second of lost sleep, every tear shed, every resource given.  Because he was her son.  HER son.

Maybe I'm wrong about that.  Maybe I'm way off base.  I don't ever want to see my children hurt or harmed, and I can only imagine what a fierce mama I'd turn into if I could ever get to those who might hurt them.  (I wonder what Mary would have done had she come face to face with Pilot or the Pharisees...)

But this Easter, I'm thankful, as always and yet again, for Christ's willing sacrifice.  It was a sacrifice he made that not only hurt Him (clearly), but also hurt those who loved Him, and He knew what He was putting them through as He did it.  And in hurting those He loved, it hurt Him yet again.  I'd never thought of that before now.

Thankful for Christ's sacrifice, yes.  And especially for the grace I get to know because of it.

Happy Easter.

He is risen.  He is risen, indeed!

My children after their naps.  They love their plugs!

A new favorite way to be held.

My little loves.

Two weeks ago today

He's only 2 weeks old, and already he's officially out of all of his newborn outfits.  How does that happen so fast???  I only had a few newborn outfits, so I guess it's a good thing, but... STOP GROWING ALREADY!  Except, keep growing, because that's what you're supposed to do, Connor.

Two weeks ago today seems like forever ago already.  What was life like before I had 2 littles?  I don't really remember.  How do they grow so fast?  I'm not really sure at all.  How do they take up residence in your home and your heart with such instant permanence?  It's a beautiful miracle.  How bad was labor and delivery?  I already don't remember, and the pay off is SO worth it!

If you're not into birth stories, here's where you should stop reading - I get it.  Birth stories aren't interesting for everyone, despite how dear to my heart this story may be.  If you're interested in what life was like for us 2 weeks ago when Connor joined the world, read on...

I mentioned in a post, maybe even my first post about Connor that things didn't go like I'd planned at. all.  In order to explain that statement, I have to start about a week and a half before Connor was born.  It was a Tuesday, and I was at work.  My throat was really scratchy and I had the constant urge to cough, but I had a lot to do and other than a scratchy throat, I felt fine.

That night I slept horribly and had a tiny fever - I felt so bad first thing Wednesday moring that Chase stayed home from work to take care of Lily so I could rest, and to take me to my 37 week checkup with my doctor.  I was feeling pretty good by the time we got to the doctor.  I just felt really tired, but everything looked really good.  Dilated to 3cm.

Wednesday night did not go well at all.  I woke up at one point with a fever of 102.  All I could think was, "I can't be sick and go into labor!"  I went back to the doctor on Thursday (exactly 1 week before I went into labor with Connor) and tested positively for Influenza A.

If you've never had Influenza A, count your lucky stars!  I've had it twice in my life, and I count them as among my very worst days - I thought I was dying.  My whole body ached so badly that I couldn't sleep for more than about 45 minutes at a time (if I was lucky).  TV wasn't interesting, I couldn't concentrate to read, I didn't want to eat or drink, but knew I needed to because I was still eating for 2...  It was bad.  My doctor put me on Tamiflu - an amazing drug that helps ones body get through the flu faster.  Bless it!  And bless my husband who stayed home Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to take care of Lily and me.  He was amazing!

By Friday evening I was feeling much better, but Lily was a little warm.  She spiked a fever at 5:30pm (right after every doctor's office in the area closed, of course.), so the next morning we took her in and had her tested for the flu.  Fortunately it came back negative, so we decided to wait out her symptoms and let her body fight whatever it was fighting.

She ran a fever all the way through Monday evening at which point her fever broke and she seemed to be doing much better.  We spent Tuesday and Wednesday around home getting things cleaned, washed, and put in order.  Tuesday I had a doctor's appointment and ultrasound, but I'll explain that later.

Then Wednesday evening, I felt extremely exhausted.  Chase, Lily, and I all ended up napping in our bed before Awana that night, and Lily and I stayed home - I just couldn't pull together the energy to go!  I finally went to bed that night around 11, and felt like things were changing.

Thursday morning (March 27) I woke up at 3am to the sound of Lily's cough.  I went to check on her, and she was burning up - fever of 102!  I got her dosed with Tylenol and settled in bed again, and a contraction started.  I went to the bathroom, and it was clear that ready or not, things were going to happen today.

I went back to bed and started timing contractions - they were 7 to 10 minutes apart as long as I laid still, and they weren't very intense yet.  I dozed between contractions until Chase woke up at about 7:30.  I told him he wasn't going to work that day.  He tried to tell me about some meeting he had, and then I said, "Well, you're not going, because we're going to meet your son today."  Then it all clicked and he got excited!

As soon as the doctor's office was opened, I called in and got an appointment for Lily - I did not want to bring an infant home to a toddler with a fever!  Next, I called my mom and asked if she could follow us to the doctor's office and then take Lily home with her after that.  She agreed.

By 10:30 we were sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office - my bag, Chase's bag, baby's bag all packed in our car ready to go to the hospital.  Lily's bag packed in Grandma's car ready to go home with her.  We'd waited there for like 30 minutes when a nurse came in to tell us that Lily's doctor had gotten called to the hospital on an emergency and wouldn't be back for a while.  Would we like to wait or see someone else?

This is where I went into a contraction.  I asked the nurse to wait.  And then I told her I was in labor and we'd like to see someone sooner rather than later.  Her eyes got big.  She asked if I needed a wheelchair, or if I needed a ride to the hospital.  I said, "No.  I need to take care of my daughter.  Once that's done, then I'll go to the hospital."  She turned and we got called back to see someone else very quickly.

Lily got put on an antibiotic for the start of an ear/sinus infection, and Mom took her home.  Chase and I put gas in the van, grabbed lunch for Chase, a Gatorade for me, and made our way to the hospital.  We walked in, and I told the admitting nurse that we were going to have a baby today.  I told her she could try to send me home, but I'd just stay and walk because my baby was coming.  She watched me go through a contraction, and then checked me straight into a room (no triage!  Hurray!)  She was great - I was at 5cm.

She got me checked in, put in my IV, and I got in the hot tub.  (I don't know how women labored without them!  Oh my gosh.  SO my favorite place to labor!!!)  It was about 1 or 1:30 by the time all that was done.

I labored in the hot tub, on the birthing ball, and walking the halls for the afternoon and into the evening.  At one point, my doctor called and offered to put me on Pitocin or to break my water to get things moving faster.  I said thanks, but no thanks.  The difference between laboring with one's water in tact and without it is... I can't even describe the difference.  It's just so much more manageable with water in tact!  For those of you interested in going without pain meds, that's my best advice - labor as long as you can with your water in tact!

I took about 2 -3 hours per centimeter, so it was a long labor even once I was in the hospital.  By midnight I was at about 9cm, and I really wanted to get to 10 if I could before they broke my water.  Chase was a champ, but so tired, and Laura, a friend who came along for the ride, was also exhausted.  Strangely, I had the most energy of anyone in the room (save for my nurse).  I guess that's what adrenaline does for you...

At 1:30am on Friday morning I was at 9.5cm, and it was time to get things moving or I wouldn't have had energy to push this baby out.  My doctor broke my water at 2am, and it took 2 hours of trying different positions, and working with that last .5cm to get it to go away.  And let me tell you (again), laboring without water is a whole different ball game!  We finally got to 10cm around 4am and then the pushing started.

It's weird, but pushing feels so good when you've just had to breathe through contractions for so long!  You at least feel productive... until your baby crowns.  Then everything just hurts!  Anyway, it took an hour to push out baby boy, but I had a great team around me to encourage me.

Baby boy's size was always a question, through the entire pregnancy.  At my 20 week ultrasound he was measuring in the 90th percentiles in almost all of his measurements - he was actually measuring 2 weeks ahead.  So we'd done an ultrasound on Tuesday, 2 days before I went into labor, and it estimated baby boy at 8lbs, 2oz.  My doctor did the ultrasound because she wanted another look at his size.  However, we also discovered that I had quite a bit of amniotic fluid.  So because of how much fluid I had, we didn't think he was that big.  My guess was 7lbs, 6oz, I think.

Anyway, there was a point when I was pushing at which my doctor got a good look at baby's head.  She looked up at Chase and asked how big the ultrasound had estimated baby.  Chase told her 8lbs, 2oz.  She responded, "Huh."  At that point, I think she knew he was bigger than that...

At 5:06am on Friday, March 28 (exactly 30 months after his big sister), Connor entered the world.  I was glad that this time I knew that after his head was out, I needed to push again.  I didn't know that with Lily... I figured the head was out, the body should just sorta come, right?  Not so.  If you're getting ready to be a mama, know that you have to push the baby's body out too, ok?

Grand total labor time:  26 hours.

I said that it wasn't what I'd planned at all.  The only thing about the labor that wasn't what I'd planned was that last .5cm taking 2 hours to go away!  Otherwise, it was really a great experience (except for the pain...).  We had great nurses, a safe delivery, my doctor did the delivery, and everyone healed up pretty quickly.

It was all the things surrounding the labor and delivery that weren't what I'd planned.  I didn't plan on being deathly sick a week before I went into labor.  I didn't plan on missing big things at work because I was sick and having a baby.  I didn't plan on having to decide whether it was ok to bring my toddler to the hospital to see her new brother because she had run a fever that morning.  I didn't plan on her having to stay away for a day after we got home because she was still running a fever off and on.  I didn't plan on having a lingering cough while I was in labor.  I didn't plan on having an 8lb 12oz baby!

But those things we don't plan are what make each story unique, right?  All in all, I am SOOOO glad we are here, today, 2 weeks later.  It is a blessed thing to be safe, home, happy, and growing.

PS - It doesn't matter, and to each their own - you have to do what you have to do when you're birthing a child.  But for those wondering, both my labors were pain med-free, which is what I wanted.  However, if you want an epidural or any other kind of pain med, you have my full support!  I'm not here judging - believe me!  Labor and delivery, no matter how you go through them (vaginally, c-section, pain meds, no pain meds, emergency, home birth, whatever) is not for sissies.  It is a life-changing experience, and each woman has the right and privilege of pursuing it in the way she wants.  Much as my husband would have rather I'd had pain meds, I'm so thankful that he supported me in laboring the way I wanted to labor and stood faithfully by my side the whole time.  I hope each of you have that same kind of support - that is what will make the most difference in your experience.

A letter to my son

Dear Connor,

We're not quite 2 weeks in, and there are some things I want you to know.

First and foremost, my son, you are loved.  Unconditionally.  Always.  Forever.  I can't promise I'll love flawlessly, because I know that I won't.  But I can promise that I will love fiercely, painfully, beautifully, passionately.  I hope that as you grow, my love is never something that you question - it is something I never will question.

From the time we knew about your sister joining our family, we half-joked that she was perfect.  But we were half-serious too.  I haven't said that about you yet.  But know that I think you're perfect too.  You're perfectly formed, arrived perfectly on time (what do doctors and due dates know anyway?), are a perfect fit for our family, and are perfectly ours.

I don't feel like I know you as well as I knew your sister at this point in her life.  Or maybe it's that I have more trouble reading what you need and when.  I'm sorry that you have to cry for a minute while I get your sister settled with breakfast or a book or a toy - that's cry-time she never had to have.  I'm sorry that I can't always tell if you're hungry, or need changed, or are gassy, or just need to be snuggled.  I'll figure it out - and you'll help me.  Because we'll just keep getting to know each other better every day, ok?

I haven't spent the hours just gazing at your sweet, handsome face like I did with your sister.  Frankly, I don't have the hours to spend gazing.  But, my son, I am giving you a gift she never got - an older sibling.  Lily loves you so already - she's positively smitten with you!  She checks on you all the time, needs to know where you are, helps change your diapers, gives you your pacifier.  She can't wait to teach you to read, to run, to race, to ride a bike, to do all the wonderful things that you'll someday do.

I take pictures of you two, and they remind me of the pictures I have with my big brother.  It's hard to get pictures of just you because your sister is always so near you and you do most everything together already. Siblings are so special.  They are to be cherished.

I'll close for now with my prayer for you, and for your sister too:  

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God... (Colossians 1:9-10)

With all my love, dear Connor, my son,

Mommy

First week as Mommy to 2

I feel settled.  We're finding our groove, the rhythm by which we'll function as a family.  Four is a good number for us right now - Daddy, Mommy, Lily, Connor (and of course, Frazier, our dog who feels extra neglected right now).

It has been a week of firsts, a week that went by both too quickly and not quickly enough.  I remember feeling the weight, after Lily was born, of each moment being a moment I could never have back again.  That hasn't been as overwhelming this time around, in part, I think, because this is round 2.  These moments are things I don't want to let by, but then I catch a glimpse of what I think Connor will look like in a few years, of an expression I know I'll see again and again.  I think of the developmental milestones we'll hit in the coming months, and I look forward to them... but not too much.  Today is still a day I will never get back again.

At the moment, my newborn is napping in his crib which also happens to be in his big sister's room.  His big sister is napping in her bed, and I get a few blessed minutes to catch up on life.  I'm not thinking this will last long, so I'll cherish the quiet and cherish the noise too when it comes.

Here are some firsts we walked this week:

Connor had been home less than 12 hours and
his daddy was already working on developing his interests.

First time visiting with cousins, uncle and aunt, and grandparents.
SO glad they came to see us!

This picture cracks me up!  It looks like Lily was up with Connor all night.
She wasn't, but she looks so zoned and exhausted.  :)
She loves to hold her brother, though the holding doesn't usually last more than about 3 seconds.

First time out of the house.  Mommy was going stir-crazy, so we called up Grandma and had supper at her house.
Lily does have on a dress (I didn't let her go out bottom-less).  Everyone did very well.
We're getting better at getting out when we want/need to.
I never realized how much I need to get out of my house until I was cooped up here for a week with
sickness, and then cooped up between the hospital and home for a week with baby...

First visit to Grandma's house!  Lily does pretty well sharing Gram so far,
but that's because Gram pays lots of attention to Lily.

This is the face I see a LOT, like whenever Connor is hungry.
He turns his head and opens up his little mouth just like that!
This was actually his first bath.  At 1 week old, I decided it was time.

Lily was very interested in this "sponge bath" concept.
She offered him a bite of her yogurt when he was upset.
She also coached him on how to calm down, "Take a deep breath, take a deep breath.  It's ok."

Baths for everyone!  First day with fresh, clean kids and Mom. :)

First decent nap in his crib.  Thanks Mom for making the bedding!

As aforementioned, first time both kids napped in their room together.
It only lasted 40 mins till Connor got up, but I'll take it!

Before I close this, I just want to list some things that I have enjoyed for myself this week.  In no particular order...

• sleeping on my back
• hugging Chase with no one in between us
• sleeping on my stomach
• being able to lean over my plate while eating without feeling like there's a basketball shoved between my ribs and my bladder
• how easy it is to stand up from sitting on the couch
• non-maternity clothes!
• not getting kicked, elbowed, or otherwise pummeled every 20 seconds
• feeling like I know what I'm doing this time around
• snuggling both my kids at the same time
• being a mom <3