Like a Bat

Recently, I have realized something interesting about myself.  It's a somewhat new development in the past three years or so...one of those "mama" types of changes you undergo when you have your first baby.  What is it, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.

I have ears like a bat.

Now, don't get me wrong...I'm also pretty hard of hearing.  I've been somewhat deaf all my life, although most people who know me pretty well don't know it.  I lip-read a lot when people mumble (I married a mumbler), and I'm pretty good at filling in the blanks of other people's sentences when I can't hear every word they say to me.  James has finally been convinced of this fact, because I am constantly asking him to repeat things that he says because I couldn't hear him. 

So how can I have ears like a bat?  Aren't bats supposed to have incredible hearing?  Well, here's what I mean.  I can stand in the same room as my husband, listening to him tell me something, and he'll turn his head away mid-sentence....which causes me to completely miss everything he says when I can't see his mouth, thus forcing him to repeat himself.  BUT, if one of my babies cries upstairs in the middle of the night with their door shut and their noisemaker on while I'm fast asleep, it wakes me up.  I will sit up in bed, trying to figure out what woke me up.  Then I will walk upstairs, following the tiny little sounds right to the source.

How can I hear them, when I'm so hard of hearing?  I don't know.  I guess that's just part of being a mama!

You Know You Have Hyperemesis When....

I recently participated in a conversation with some women I know who have had hyperemesis during pregnancy.  Here are some highlights.

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE HYPEREMESIS WHEN...

Your care provider celebrates that you are throwing up only 3-4 times a week.

You're on hyperalimentation and your husband has to learn how to do sterile central line changes at home!

You walk out to get the mail and celebrate that you're getting some exercise. And then promptly go lie down. Or throw up.

The shadows outside are longer and your broccolli has headed and they were just baby plants the last time you saw them.

Your kid starts explaining to you that she has to have a lollipop or watch a movie "because that's what her body really needs right now."

Husband sets his plate of spaghetti down on the dresser while he empties you emesis basin, then promptly picks it back up to continue his meal, undaunted.

You apologize to your husband for waking him in the middle of the night getting sick (again), and he shrugs and says he can fall back to sleep easily.

You wake up one day saying you need bean dip and the family all says "She's healed!"

Your list of "nesting" accessories includes the installation of a nice, new commode... for pregnancy.

You take nine pills a day, and upon reviewing your medications, your care provider declares that you are getting by on very little meds.

The moment you find out that you're pregnant, you go into disaster planning mode, because you feel like you're in the path of a category five hurricane.

If you actually gain any pregnancy weight at all, there's high fives and congratulations all around.

Your husband is skilled at washing your hair while you are still in the bed!!

If you had the strength, you'd put the smack down on the next person that tells you to try crackers or ginger ale.

Your OB advises you (after the worst is past) to go home and eat potato chips and ice cream but don't tell the other patients!

You envy your friends with the flu, because you know that in a week or two, they'll feel normal again.

You stick your head in the freezer every ten minutes because heat makes you nauseated.

Your other baby thinks mommy can't walk anymore, because you can only crawl from the couch to the toilet and back.

You have a "safe list" and an "avoid at all cost" list of foods, based on how painfully or easily they come back up.

You start buying bottled water, because tap water tastes like soap.

Instead of seeing a baby bump, you can count your pulse by watching your belly button vibrate against your abdominal aorta with every heartbeat!

Your husband transports you from the bed to the couch by pulling you across the floor on a blanket.

Your insurance company refuses to let you have more than one zofran pill per day, so your husband calls them and threatens to admit you to the hospital for nine months unless they give you an unlimited supply.  And it works.

After you finally have the baby, you take a twenty thousand dollar hit on selling your house, just because you don't want to live anymore in the room where you spent nine months vomiting. It's totally worth it.

If any meals are cooked at home, its in a crockpot or the grill - both out on the porch.

You're on a first name basis with every food delivery guy in the city. But you've never tasted the food.

Your husband decides that his quiver is full after 3 because he has had enough, and he wasn't even the pregnant one!!

You have to start wearing maternity clothes when you're 5 weeks along because you can't have anything pressing at all on your stomach, even as much as normal pants or dresses.

It doesn't occur to you to wait until you've finished the first trimester to tell people that you're pregnant, because if you don't tell them, they're going to think you're dying.

A man that works with you tells you daily that you look "green." He only survives because you're too sick to walk across the room and smack him.

You've got "safe zones" where you can throw up at work, and you know where all of the exits are, so that you can get to the bathroom or a trash can in time.

Your in clinicals in nursing school at St. Joseph's and you have to leave extra early so you can stop on I-285 and vomit all the way and end up hospitalized by the end of the day...

When you finally make it to work (after about 20 weeks of pregnancy), your boss takes one look at you and tells you to go back home, because you're scaring all the men you work with.

The easiest part of your pregnancy is the labor and delivery...piece of cake.

Pregnant = Medical leave of absence

You wake up in the middle of the night to find your OB holding your hand...when you open your eyes he says, "WE are going to get through this."

AMEN.

AMEN.

and AMEN.

Like Her Mama

Question:  What's the first thing everyone says when they hold someone else's baby?

Answer:  "He/She is so cute/precious/sweet/tiny/adorable/etc."

Question:  What's the second thing everyone says when they hold someone else's baby?

Answer:  "He/She looks JUST like his/her mama/daddy."

But not with Belle.  She doesn't look like James or like me.  She does bear a really cool resemblance to James's little brother Will, but she doesn't look anything like either of her parents.  So, I've been walking around for the past two and a half years with a little girl that looks like someone else's kid. 

Little Charley-bug is another story, however.  Just about everyone who knew me as a baby thinks she looks a just like me, except with James's eyes.  Want to see? 

Here's a picture of me with my daddy when I was really tiny...

And here's one of Charlotte with James...

What do you think? 

Compassion

Today, I'm thinking about this statement on compassion:

Jesus' compassion is characterized by a downward pull. That is what disturbs us. We cannot even think about ourselves in terms other than those of an upward pull, an upward mobility in which we strive for better lives, higher salaries, and more prestigious positions. Thus, we are deeply disturbed by a God who embodies a downward movement. Instead of striving for a higher position, more power, and more influence, Jesus moves, as Karl Barth says, from "the heights to the depth, from victory to defeat, from riches to poverty, from triumph to suffering, from life to death."

Jesus' whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God's love. Here we see what compassion means. It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there. God's compassion is total, absolute, unconditional, without reservation. It is the compassion of the one who keeps going to the most forgotten corners of the world, and who cannot rest as long as he knows that there are still human beings with tears in their eyes. It is the compassion of a God who does not merely act as a servant, but whose servanthood is a direct expression of his divinity.

-- Henri Nouwen

Charlotte Lee

I just realized that I haven't written on my blog since before Charlotte arrived! 

Oops.  

Well, the second week of July, I was having contractions all through the day, every day.  Real ones. So on July 16, I went to the hospital and told my obgyn that I was ready to have the baby.  She hooked me up to the monitor, checked to see how much I was dilated, and agreed with me!  They gave me a little pitocin to help things speed up a bit, and later that night, right at 7pm, baby Charlotte arrived!

Here's a picture of us all with my mom, who drove into town to see the new baby and help take care of Ella while I was in the hospital.

The last five weeks have been busy and happy, and I will be doing more regular blogging now that I've had a little "maternity leave" from it. 

Hope you've had a good summer!!

Tiny Pink Toes

Last month, my mom took pity on my tired, swollen pregnant feet and decided that she would get me a pedicure.  Of course, Belle came along for the ride, since she's always game for an adventure.  She's never been to a nail salon before, since I can't really afford to get my nails done.  (We're poor, like most families of medical residents and people who work in seminaries, in case you didn't know.)

Well, as soon as we walked in the door, Belle noticed a very special chair towards the back.  It had a teddy bear head, and it was just her size!  She climbed right up to check it out while I got my nails done.

Hey, look at this, Mama!!

She watched the lady paint my toenails, and then she decided that she wanted to get hers done, too.  After spending a few minutes studying the big rack of nailpolishes in the front of the room, and finally selecting a rather loud hot pink....pretty typical of what a two year old would find attractive...she brought it back to me and asked if she could have a turn. 

How could I say no?

I asked if she wanted to sit in the teddy bear chair, but she decided that she'd rather experience this new phenomenon from the safety of her mama's lap. 

 

She held perfectly still, without even being told.

 And in the end, it looked wonderful! 

Have I mentioned that I love those pudgy little knees and feet?

Sweet girl.

New Digs

So rather than marveling at how long it's been since I've written anything, I'm just going to give you an update on what's happened the past couple of months.  I'm sure I'll circle back and write more posts about this stuff later, but at this point, I'm moving on.  Here are some pictures of what we've been up to:

We attended the Covenant Seminary graduation, and a bunch of my students were very happy to be done.  Especially this fellow, Stephen Williamson, who came all the way from Ireland to get his diploma.  He also got the dissertation award!

Then we packed up our cars and headed out of St. Louis and down South to our new home.  Belle was SO good in the car, and she didn't even fuss until the final hour of our 11 hour roadtrip.  I later discovered that she had a VERY wet diaper, and she just wanted me to change it, but I didn't want to stop when we were almost there.  She was a trooper. 

We went to Disney World where we played with grandparents and cousins, and we ate at Cinderella's castle!

Belle was a bit starstruck to meet all the princesses. 

She LOVED Sleeping Beauty, and ever since, she keeps talking about "Seeting Booty." 

James went to a gun show with my dad and met some of the world's best marksmen.  He's thinking about becoming one himself, once this whole residency thing is over.

Belle got her first haircut.  And a lollipop.

She felt so pretty, and she kept grinning for the camera!

My computer freaked out and the screen flipped sideways for awhile.  Still can't figure this one out.

I made a TON of blackberry jelly, so we're set for awhile.

We ate some great seafood.

Belle especially liked the oyster knife.  She attacked her corn with it.

We visited an old fort.

We set off some fireworks in our backyard for the Fourth of July.  Belle liked it for a few minutes, and then she wanted to go inside.  She's not fond of fire.  Smart girl.

Other things that I don't have pictures for...

I've been to the hospital three times (including once this morning) due to pregnancy complications.  I'm now 38 weeks along, so if I have any more issues, they're probably going to induce me. 

Also, my mom has been here to visit a couple of times, and we've had a lot of fun seeing her! 

My sister in law Lisa came to visit for a night with 6 kids (her four and two of her sister's kids), but I can't get the pictures from that to load yet.

James started his new residency program, and he loves it.  The people seem to be really nice, and he likes the work.  

So that's about where we are.  As you can see, each of these things could be a post on it's own, so I will probably circle back at some point and do that!  

What have you been up to lately?