WIWS: My Kids are Hams Edition

The pictures today were... well... let's say that the most positive adjective I can think of is amusing.  

I really, really wanted to get a great picture of Sadie's dress.  It's an amazing dress that I found on Thred Up back in winter (you can still get $10 off your first order and there are a ton of things on there for less than $10, which is one of the reasons I'm such a fan), but the kids, who had me to get the camera out and take a picture they weren't exactly cooperating.  

Case in point:

Do you see how he's mimicking her?  And I have no idea why he kept pulling his shirt up and tucking it in like a half shirt.  He really did look normal (with pants and a sweatshirt) when we were at Mass this morning.

And then, finally, I snapped the picture I'd been looking for:

And even Patch paused to give me a chance to snap a picture of his smile:

So it wasn't a total loss.

Maggie (who amazingly changed out of her sleeper this morning with minimal crying) slept through the photo session, however I did get a few pictures of her on our way home from Mass in the car, while we waited for Daddy to return a destroyed baby gate... thankfully Lowe's agreed that a metal baby gate shouldn't be able to snapped in two by a three year old, even if that three year old has super human strength.  

While we sat in the car she stole my sun glasses and posed with her binkie:

Finally Sadie requested the camera so that she could take my picture.  And after snapping a few picture when I wasn't ready we ended up with this picture, which I'm not really a fan of, although again, Patrick's being Patrick:

So I'll throw in this picture from earlier in the week in the same dress:

However I did have to share this picture of my new maternity jacket (I paid $8-something from Thred-Up after using a $10 credit!  See why I get so excited!  And it's wool!).  So I'm set for the rest of this winter, just in case it never ends, and for next fall/winter too without having to worry about fitting into my non-maternity jacket if it gets too cold in October:

And so that is what we wore for this first Sunday of Lent, where we had a relatively peaceful Mass (Mae spent most of it worrying about not moving so her socks wouldn't touch her pants, because she didn't want her Dora socks to be covered up).  For more What I Wore Sunday stop by Fine Linen and Purple!

Autism and Empathy: A Maggie Update

When you start reading about and researching autism you're likely to run into claims that people with autism struggle with empathy and understanding and recognizing others feelings.

While I know that my experience with Mae is just one tiny story on the spectrum, I've found that the exact opposite is true.  If I have a child who is going to sob because someone else was sent to their room or has fallen down and gotten hurt, it's going to be Maggie.

Yesterday Mae was having a tough morning and had spent a good deal of time snuggling with me on the couch.  She and her sister have been watching Frozen in the mornings and most mornings she loves the movie (okay, every morning except yesterday), as she suddenly loves all things princess.

But yesterday one of the last scenes came on (I'll try to be vague for those of you who haven't seen it but want to) on the frozen fjord and Mae leaned over and buried her head in my lap and starts to sob.  I glanced up and saw what was happening on the screen and held her and said:  "She loves her sister very much, just like you and your sister love each other very much, huh?"  And Maggie said, "Yeah!" in a clear, small voice, before dissolving into tears again.  And then the scene was over and she was back up playing and running and laughing.

Another moment I keep replaying in my mind came when Patrick was having one of his I'm-almost-a-year-and-a-half-old-and-I'll-cry-for-no-reason-if-I-want-to tantrums.  I was trying to console him over whatever it was and Maggie walked over and leaned over and studied his face with a very serious expression on her own face.  Then she leaned over and put her arms around him and started to hug him.  His little hand shot out with his hand flat, tapping her on the chest to stop the hug and she stopped and let him go and looked at him for a moment longer before sort of shrugging and running off to play.

And on those rare days that come about once a month when her big sister gets sent to her room for something for a few minutes, Maggie is inevitably the one who bursts into tears the moment I send her on her way, and has been known to cry until her sister returns downstairs.

No, from our little experience in our little corner of the world if I had to say that there is one person in our family feels the emotions of others more acutely, almost as if they were her own, I would say that it is Maggie, who will often shed tears when her brother or sister are upset, and who seems the most keenly attuned to what everyone around her is feeling.

She may not yet be able to express those feelings in words clearly, but for anyone who is watching they are there, clearly reflected in her expressions and actions as she seeks to comfort anyone who's upset or in pain.

Why We Announce our Pregnancies Early

12 weeks pregnant with Sadie...
I could have kept it a secret the first time around.
But that's pretty much it.

A couple years ago I was asked why we announce our pregnancies so early.  The person suggested I wait until after 12 weeks when the "danger had passed."  At the time I rolled my eyes because we lost Christian at 14 weeks, so no, that wouldn't have helped.  But it's really more than that.

We announce our pregnancies early for a number of reasons.  Maybe the biggest is that I'm not very good at keeping really good news to myself.  I'm horrible at not telling Paul about the really cool thing I found for his birthday or Christmas.  And it's a thousand times harder for me to keep a baby a secret.

That's not the only reason though.

I can't imagine keeping a loss like that a secret.  I know that for some people that is exactly their reaction, and that is exactly right for them, but my reaction is the opposite.  My instinct is to write and write and write until I run out of words.  And for me, that's healing.

At the same time I feel like the people that may potentially help me through a loss should be able to share in the joy of the announcement when the news is good.  If you might be reading sadness in the future, than I definitely want the share the happiness with you that we're feeling right now.

And for us, that fits our strategy with the kids.  Sadie talks about Christian now and then, sweetly.  She looks at the little 12 week ultrasound picture that we have up on the wall with the other pictures of herself and her brothers and her sisters and talks about him.  Not every day, or every week, and not sadly, because our hope is in God to see him again someday.

Still, there's another reason that we would never be able to keep this secret from our kids... or from anyone who knows us in real life.  I live in a house of little bump watchers.  Sadie is perpetually on the lookout.  And she's not the only one (or at least not the only one to notice!).

We told the people we know in real life at about 5 weeks.  Yesterday one of Mae's therapists and I were sitting on the floor talking about how quickly each subsequent pregnancy shows and she said she'd suspected I was pregnant before we made the announcement.  So to say that I show early is really, really accurate.  To give an example of how early I now show took a few pictures.

This is me at 7 weeks and 6 days:

Yeah. I know.  My first time around that would have been 20 weeks.  These days my muscles sense the pregnancy hormones and call it a day.

And lest you think that was how I started out here's a progression from the week we found out to now (because I'm totally coping an idea I saw on pinterest):

That would be a 2 lb weight gain... but it looks like so much more!

So why do we tell?  Well, for a variety of reasons I listed above, but also because this is one secret that just doesn't keep well.  By the way, I've had men rushing over to help me lift cat litter into shopping carts in two different stores and acting very concerned that I'm even trying to do something like that, so I would say that I am obviously showing at this point (and that people in Michigan are so helpful about helping with things like that!  I'm amazed!  I shouldn't be but I am!).

And those are the various reasons we tell pretty much as soon as we find out!  It's just what's right for us!

Why Using the R-Word Isn't Pro-Life

I wasn't going to write this post.  Other people had already put into words any thoughts that I had on the subject and had said them more eloquently than any of the thoughts that were bouncing around the inside of my skull and so I thought I'd leave it as it was, sharing one of my favorite posts on facebook, but otherwise staying silent.  And then I saw a conversation below a post on the subject that was being shared on a prominent Catholic website and I made the mistake of reading the comments.

I didn't think the comments would be bad.  I mean, it wasn't like I was wadding into the comment section of the Huffington Post or National Catholic Reporter.  But I was in for a surprise.

As I scrolled down adult after adult were defending using the word "retarded" as an insult.  There was quite a bit of hand wringing that was accompanied by phrases like "save us from being too politically correct" and people telling other people that they needed to grow a thicker skin.

Oh and there was also a lot of "there are more important issues out there to waste time on this one."

That was what stopped me.  That was when I knew that I needed to write this post.

The words "retarded" and "retard" are pretty common derogatory terms in our culture.  They're used to describe situations and people that we don't like or that we think are stupid or ridiculous.  That guy that just cut you off while you were driving?  He's "just a retard."  A situation was really horrible?  It was "retarded."  (let me say that I wince writing that, but that I think that it helps to lay out what we're facing before we go any further...)

I'm sure the vast, vast majority of people who use the word, do it unthinkingly.  It's something they've used for years, decades even, and they don't give it a second thought.

But language matters.  The words that we choose and use matter.  And when we use the r-word, tying a word used for a group of people with whatever it is we dislike at the moment... well like it or not, the words we use have power.

We live in a society were the solution to knowing that a child will likely have this label if it's discovered while still in the womb is, far more often than not, to kill that child.  A great percentage of our population who face the possibility of this diagnosis have shown by their actions that they're okay with this label being a death sentence.  Plenty of the pregnancy books I read talk about like it's the obvious step to "stop this from happening" or to "eliminate the problem" (as in "pre-natal testing has done much to eliminate the problem...")

And I can't help but think that using the word that's been used for decades to describe those who are often most vulnerable among us as a common insult, does nothing to help the image that is going to come into a woman's mind when she's lying on the sonogram table and is given a frightening diagnosis.  Because it's likely that her entire life she's heard the word used flippantly for all that is bad or stupid or ridiculous in the world, and now she's thinking of it as applying to the life within her and she's making a choice that statistics show is likely to not be in the baby's favor.

Yes, the choice goes beyond that, but the word, the use of the word, the derision with which it's used in our culture, does nothing to help.  It hurts both the born and the unborn.  Because like it or not, when you use that word, you're also saying that that situation or person or whatever it is that you're speaking of with derision is like so many people who would be medically (or technically or clinically or however it's used) labeled with the term.

I feel like I stand on the edge of this issue, my heart aching for those who face it more directly in the special needs community.  It is not part of Maggie's diagnosis.  If I go back through her records I see that I was first told that she was "more severely autistic than is average in autistic children in her age group."  Her cognitive tests came back and were unimpressive, although the psychologist has repeatedly told me that it's inaccurate at this point because you can't really measure intelligence if the person can't communicate the answers to the questions.  No she won't point to the bear's knee or his ear or his nose... because she wasn't pointing at all at that time.  Developmentally she consistently measure around 18 months... which is probably why she and Patrick sometimes remind me of twins and relate to each other so perfectly.

But while Mae may not technically fit the label, we live in a world where those who are different are often called the r-word.  We live in a world where the news reports that a mother has killed her autistic child and there's a certain segment of society that the murder is somehow justified.  We live in a world where carefully worded prenatal books basically praise the murder of children who are seen as somehow less than perfect, because it's seen as the norm. An embrace of eugenic attitudes is creeping across our nation as surely as if we were in Belgium or some other nation that has decided it's okay to do away with those who do not fit the mold that we find "perfect."

So I lament the use of the word and the culture in which it's so often used to show disdain and dislike.  Maybe I'm just not "thick skinned" enough because I wince visibly when I hear it.  However I don't think that's the case.  I think that a physical reaction to a word that's used to tie a segment of our society who is often marginalized and pushed aside, to all that we dislike, is appropriate.

And if we're truly going to be pro-life we need to be respectful of all life and remove the word altogether from our vocabulary.  Use you're imagination.  I know we can do better than resorting to the r-word when we dislike something.

Let's take the word off the table altogether.  It might be tough at first.  It isn't easy to pluck a word that a person uses reflexively from their vocabulary.  It's easy to slip up and use it if you've been using it your entire life.  But if you use the word stop yourself and start again, renew your quest to have your words mirror the actual respect that you have for life.

Because it matters.  It matters so much.  And until we start showing respect for life in all of its forms and phases, can we really expect those who don't see the innate value of human life to give our arguments a second look?

Finding Her Voice

Maggie was having a sensory sort of day yesterday.

I blame the snow.  And the cold.  I've been trapped in a house for three months with a sensory seeker who's greatest thrill is running as fast as she can into wide open space, giggling her head off.

There's only so much stimulation that can go on inside the four walls of this house.  And it still doesn't compare to this:

So her main outlet right now is climbing.  And I'm guessing when she's scaling a baby gate or attempting to climb the mantle she's picturing herself doing this:

And that means that the therapists and I find ourselves saying:  "Down!" about a million times a day.
And she'll look at me blankly or maybe not look at all until I say "abajo" and then she'll turn and smile sweetly and say "Abajo! Abajo!" in a sweet singing voice and will jump down to the ground with a flourish. Because the kid really wishes her first language was Spanish.

Yesterday's sensory outlet, however, also came in the form of wanting to come over and squeeze Mama's cheeks and then give me hard kisses all over my face.  And it also came in the form of going over and hugging her big sister as tight as she possibly could.

My favorite parts of the day, however, are scattered throughout the hours, as day after day Mae begins to discover her voice.  And in an amazing not-a-common-gift-in-our-family-sort-of-way we've found that Maggie is the only person in this house who can carry a tune.  I've been desperately trying to record her all week long, and so far have had no luck.  The moment she sees me turning my computer or camera towards her she's on to something else.

But she's been singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Row, Row, Row Your Boat.  And she was working on singing Happy Birthday this afternoon because she would love to have that song on repeat all day long.

Her favorite thing to do is to climb up onto the dinning room table and dangle her legs of the edge and look down, sometimes with her toy unicorn pegasus that she's pretending to ride and sometimes holding a little plastic star in her hand while she sings "up above the...." and trails off before beginning to sing the words again.

Little by little she's finding her voice.  And I can hardly wait to hear what she's going to say next.

Ash Wednesday in Pictures

We only made it through 36 minutes of today's service.  Despite getting them fed and hopefully ready, the time difference from our normal Mass was just to great for a certain bunny and I couldn't take the back and forth between screeching and laughing and thrashing to get away from me to run around.  But... we were there for the ashes... which made a certain child's whole, entire day:

As you can imagine, she was over the moon.
She's the reason we made it, with two screaming kids,
long enough to get ashes.
Because she was so, so excited about going up for her ashes.

Maggie just wasn't having any of it.

Patch's ashes matched the bruise on the middle of his forehead...

An Ash Wednesday Selfie...
And...

Sadie wanted to snap a picture of us and here it is.
Yes, those are my pajamas because even with the heat turned up this house is feeling cold
(to me, Paul assures me it's not)
right now!

A Lenten Question: Should I Fast When I'm Nursing

I first wrote this post in 2011 and while I would change parts of it if I were writing it today (I'm definitely more aware of how difficult it is to give up meat when you have other major dietary restrictions), it's a topic that I still see come up every year around this time and I thought it would be the perfect time to repost it.  And while I don't stress it in this post because I was so focused on nursing when I wrote it, the same definitely also goes for those of us who are pregnant during this Lenten season.  When you're body is nourishing others it's not a great idea to deprive it of nutrients.
      
  Every year I see the question come up on the Catholic forums. Are nursing and/or pregnant mothers excused from the fast? There is always immediately a flurry of responses. For the most part they are filled with common sense. But then the encouragement starts... as in "I'm nursing and I'm fasting and I still have a ton of milk. You should do it too." These answers worry me (more on that below). Anyways here is the formal answer to whether or not we're required to fast, which will be followed by my own experience with the matter:

"Those who are excused from fast or abstinence Besides those outside the age limits, those of unsound mind, the sick, the frail, pregnant or nursing women according to need for meat or nourishment, manual laborers according to need, guests at a meal who cannot excuse themselves without giving great offense or causing enmity and other situations of moral or physical impossibility to observe the penitential discipline."

From EWTN's Fasting and Abstinence

Now many of us can give up meat. I know that, as I design my food schedule on a budget, we have plenty of days that, unintentionally, don't include meat. And since eggs and dairy products are allowed, it's pretty easy to get adequate protein in other ways (we tried Greek Yogurt recently, I believe it was Yoplait, and it had something like 13 g of protein! It's hard to beat that in anything! And for those worried about health it has 0g of fat! And it was tasty!).

Fasting, however, is an entirely different thing. And the mentality that many of us can fall into can be dangerous. We may think "well she's only nursing x number of time a day... How much can one day of fasting in a week (two during this first week) really affect my milk supply." For some, rare women, it may not be much. But for many of us, the result would be dramatic.

When Sadie was almost one I thought I'd be okay "cutting back" on Ash Wednesday. She was eating a lot of baby foods and while she still nursed quite a bit I didn't think that one day would really affect my milk supply all that much. Besides, I told myself, I would still eat two small meals and one big meal. I wouldn't be doing the whole bread and water thing. Really the main difference was that I was cutting out snacks.

I was fine all day and so was my milk supply. Then it was bedtime and I was faced with a very hungry baby. And suddenly it was gone. I had no milk. And I had a baby who lay next to be and sobbed herself to sleep.

It took over a day for my milk supply to return to normal. And in that time I had a miserable, hungry, cranky baby and a dribbling supply of milk that slowly returned as I ate.

You may be able to nurse and fast. But there's a good chance you may not. And why would anyone want to risk finding out? I think we can all agree that the babe in our arms isn't included in the fast.

Sure, some little bit of pride in the back of my head tells me I can fast every single year. After all, I'm only nursing... well let's see... six.... or seven times a day... and Maggie gets a lot of her food from baby food these days... I tell that tiny thought to be quiet. It's not what's best for my baby. And that is the important thing.

There's very likely plenty of time in the future for fasting. For now, if you're a nursing mom, accept your exemption and know that sometimes it's harder not to fast when everyone else is fasting and you'd really like to join them (aren't we an odd bunch! Really, wanting to fast?).

Besides, there are many of substitutes we can make. Give up the internet (okay, I'm not doing this, but I've heard of brave souls who do!). Or your cell phone (that would be easy for me... I'm always forgetting mine. I haven't seen it in two weeks although I suspect it's dead at the bottom of my diaper bag). Or television! There are lots of sacrifices we can make that don't affect the well-being of our children.

Just pick something that has become a distraction in your life and see how the next forty days go without it!

C-Sections... My #1 Tip

A girdle made all the difference when
moving around post c-section.

I cannot believe I forgot this.  There is one thing that I learned after my first c-section that made an entire world of difference in the recovery process.  It is huge.  It's something that's worth spending a little money on, especially if your hospital (like the first hospital I delivered in) doesn't offer them.

Post c-section girdles make all the difference in the world.

They can be the difference from being unable to walk or move and moving around to being up and walking (in my estimation I had around 80% less pain when wearing it and wanted to curl up and cry like a baby when I wasn't).

With my first c-section I just got cheap girdles at Walmart and I layered three or four at a time.  It worked.
The second time I bought a medical grade girdle like this.  It was more painful putting on the first time, and I think it made the post baby cramping more extreme for the first day, but the support it offered was amazing (the nurses thought that I was crazy wearing it and kept telling me it would make the pain worse, but the doctor thought it was great).  And I don't think the discomfort of wearing it was any worse than the nurses coming in to do the whole little "massage" thing that makes the uterus contract.

I wore it for the recovery period last time too and my only wish was that I had more than one (maybe one in a larger size and one in my normal size to size down to over the first week or so).

So there you have it. If you know you're having a c-section I can't recommend these enough!  They have made all the difference in my post c-section recovery.

And if you have any post partum c-section recovery tips you'd like to add in the comments I know that there are lots of us out there that would appreciate them!

C-Sections... On the Bright Side!

Yesterday I promised to write a post about the positive aspects I'd found from having had three c-sections.  After all, there are a lot of articles out there to tell you why to avoid them.  I think those bases are covered.  But for those women like me who are going to be having one because they and their doctor's believe it's the best choice for the situation they're in, I thought I'd shine a small ray of light.  It may not be the ideal we dreamed of or planned, but its not all storm clouds and gloom either!

1.  Knowing when baby is going to arrive- Okay, admittedly this isn't 100%.  Maggie decided to join us the weekend before her schedule c-section.  However, the idea of knowing roughly when to expect baby (and knowing that we can't go past that day) does make things significantly easier for Paul and I (as long as baby doesn't decide to come super early) when arranging child care for the big day.

This is big since we don't have family, or really anyone who's watched the kids who we can fall back on in the state we live in.  Having a date and being able to organize childcare is one of those things that I appreciate about having to have a c-section.

2.  Three words: Hospital Baby-Moon- So, if you've read any pregnancy books or magazines that suggest taking a "baby-moon" you probably picture a trip to someplace warm and sunny with virgin margaritas or to a cozy bed and breakfast somewhere that you take early in the second trimester when you're hopefully past morning sickness, but not yet feeling gigantic and ready to pop.  And for the first two babies I definitely didn't look at my time in the hospital this way.  I refused everything except motrin, with the exception of 1 dose of painkillers, after my c-section with Mae just so I could go home after two days.

But with Patrick I found that I really appreciated the extra time in the hospital to snuggle and bond with baby and eat meals that I hadn't cooked for myself (okay, it probably helps that the hospital that I'm going to be delivering in has a fantastic menu that is simply amazing).  I knew that the girls were well cared for and having fun and going to the zoo with their grandparents (and coming to visit me and the baby daily) and I let myself enjoy that extra time to nurse and cuddle without having to jump up to pull someone down who was scaling a baby gate.

3.  Nursing-  This isn't a plus specifically for c-sections but I wanted to address it.  One of the scare tactics that's used when the topic of c-sections comes up is that someone is likely to act as if you're going to have problems nursing if you have a c-section.  While I'm sure that's true for some women (and for some who go through natural births too), it isn't an across the board rule, and hasn't been my experience at all.

When Sadie was born they whisked her away for about 45 minutes to clean her up while I was sewed up.  When Maggie was born they took her away for about an hour and a half to get her bathed (both times Paul was with the girls the entire time, with Maggie he finally demanded they stop what they were doing and bring her back to me).  With Patrick I was shocked when they kept him in the room and handed him to me immediately and let me hold him while they wheeled me into recovery (something they told me was impossible at our hospital in California, but is a policy I love at the hospital here in Michigan).  But one thing stayed the same across the board with all three babies. They all started nursing right away without any problem.  My milk still came in while we were in the hospital and it was still the start of almost two years of nursing with each kid being weaned a couple months before the next one was born.

In other words, having a c-section doesn't inevitably mean you'll have problems nursing, any more than any other choice will mean that it will be easy (I still solidly struggled with nursing my first time around from about 1-2 months, but that had nothing to do with how Sadie came into the world and had everything to do with her being a reflux-y baby who nursed every hour for the first 18 months of her life).

About to meet Mae.

4. Not going through labor before the c-section-  This one isn't specific to all c-sections, but is for those moms out there who know their having a c-section in advance for some reason, like I'll know with this baby, or like we might have known if we'd realized Patrick had flipped transverse after that first ultrasound when we got to the hospital when he was still head down.

I have had one c-section when I hadn't gone through hours of labor (they'd actually been blocking my labor, which was apparently progressing anyways, but I hadn't felt a thing, despite not having any sort of painkillers).  And it made all the difference in the world.  After both Sadie and Patrick's births I felt like I'd been run over by a truck.

After Maggie's birth, the mostly "planned" c-section I was up and ready to go.  I was begging nurses to let me out of bed that day.  I was refusing morphin left and right.  I was ready to take a shower and get dressed.

So while I don't regret that long, long trial of labor with Patrick in the least, in my experience there was an advantage to not going through labor before having surgery.  I found it much easier to recover when my body had only gone through the surgery, without the extra fun of an unsuccessful labor.

5.  Baby-  I'm going to try to put this one into words that won't be misconstrued.  When Sadie was born the skin on her head was actually broken by my pelvis (or possibly by being pulled back from where shed gotten stuck).  Her heart was decelerating with each contraction for a while.  And Patrick was seriously battered by a long labor in a position that just wasn't going to work.  When you're in a situation where natural delivery just isn't going to work, I do think it can be a blessing not to go through all of that for you and for baby.  After all the end goal is having a safe delivery with a warm, snuggly baby in your arms at the end.  That's what we're all praying for, no matter how baby ends up being delivered.  

6.  Surviving-  This is the biggest plus.  Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, I'm here to raise my children.  And my children are here too.  Without c-sections neither Sadie or I would have survived the ordeal of childbirth and I'm infinitely grateful that we live in a time when the doctor's were able to bring both of us through that day.  That trumps my birth plan and some imagined experience I would have liked to have any day of the week.

C-Sections (a series)

#1

I went in for my first doctor's appointment last Tuesday and it was nearly as uneventful as I imagined it would be.  It was just a new pregnancy intake appointment, where I answered questions with a nurse practitioner and didn't see my doctor at all.

But one statement that she made towards the end of the appointment sent my head spinning, as thought after thought began to chase each other round in my mind.

"Our doctor's are very, very good and very supportive of VBACs."  She said in an optimistic voice.  "So I'm not sure if you want to try, and I can't promise you they'll say yes, but you should bring it up if you want to because there's a very good chance they'll say yes."

"Oh."  I said, and sat there dumbly.

I didn't say that I'm 99% certain that none of the doctor's in the office would be on board with the idea.  My own doctor was the only one on board for my VBA2C and he was very clear that if the trial of labor failed he wouldn't be on board with another attempt.

Still the question, "If I could have another trial of labor would I?" kept running through my head and I'm finally sitting down to order my thoughts and face the fact that the answer, quite simply, is no.

#2

As a woman who's had three c-sections in the last five and a half years I've probably read more than my fair shares of articles and online debates on the topic.  C-sections, like breastfeeding and co-sleeping and so many other hot button issues in the seemingly endless rounds of Mommy wars, is a topic that is sometimes wielded like a weapon to cut other moms down.

"Had a C-section?  You know you didn't have to?"  Someone will likely say (no, seriously, it really happens when the topic comes up).  "It really wasn't necessary."

I was told quite a few times that my first c-section wasn't necessary.  Sure I went into labor naturally and progressed quickly and had no painkillers for an hour before pushing and was up and about in a variety of positions, and pushed for five hours before my c-section, but I probably could have done something differently.  You know, if I tried a little harder.
 

And my last?  Maybe if I'd just toughed it out for a little longer.  Sure it was a 36 hour trial of labor (I did ask for an epidural around hour 34), and I was up pacing the halls and bouncing on a birthing ball and doing my hypnobaby mp3s, but I'm sure I could have done something differently.  I mean, I may have gotten Patch to turn from breach to head down twice, using the spinning babies positions and hypnobabies breach mp3 I'd downloaded, and he was transverse in the end when they did the surgery, but I'm sure I could have done something.

#3

The point of all that, in case you were wondering, is to show how, no matter how good your reason, you'll run across people, who, with no medical training or knowledge of your case, will announce that you could have done something different. They'll be wrong.  They're taking the fact that there are unnecessary c-sections and applying it to every woman who's ever had one.

Of course, if you've read here through my last pregnancy you know I'm a big fan of natural child birth.  But I'm also really thankful that c-sections exist.  Because there are those of us who wouldn't be here if it weren't for that option (as I was told by pretty much every doctor I saw after I delivered Sadie).

Which is a whole lot of lead in for the post(s) (because I have a feeling there may be more than one if this first trimester exhaustion doesn't knock me off my feet first) that I'm going to write for a friend who is expecting and asked me to write about my experience with c-sections (and who I'd like to congratulate here!  You know who you are! Congratulations!).  The posts to come are going to be my mishmash of what I've learned from my c-sections, because while it's not my first choice in the way I'd like to welcome our little ones into the world, it's not all bad either.

And for those of us who do face necessary c-sections, we might as well look on the bright side!

My Not-So-Brave Thoughts on Lent this Year

I've been in survival mode lately.

I see people post on Facebok about Lent coming, and about being super excited for Lent and I'll admit, I've kind of wanted to hide under the bed.

You see, I think of Lent and being in the first trimester with morning sickness, while still nursing a kid who started eating solids about three months ago (and thus still nurses a lot) and I find myself spiraling into a sort of overwhelmed wait-isn't-this-Lent-already... isn't the first trimester always kind of like Lent? sort of place that just isn't pretty.

Usually I'm all jazzed up and excited about Lent and Advent and let's-get-these-preparations-for-the-big-party-started... but this year I'm mostly trying really hard not to stare too long in the mirror at what kind of a wimp I feel like right about now.

I should really go back about a month and a half, for this to all make a little more sense (I hope).

These past weeks have been exhausting.  I felt like Maggie was slowly slipping away.  It wasn't making sense.  She would sob when it was time for therapy.  She was up again at night.  A few times I thought we were going to have to take her to the ER because her tummy troubles were flaring up so severely and she was in so much pain.  The teeth grinding had started back up.  She'd cry for two to three hours in the afternoon, sobbing inconsolably, not wanting anyone to touch her.

There were bright spots, moments when she'd sing or laugh or tell me that she was a mermaid, but for the most part, I was at my wit's end.  I thought we'd found the answer.  Gluten and casein were the problems.  I'd carefully tested and introduced supplements and vitamins and she'd been thriving.  And then suddenly it stopped.  It wasn't working any more.

Was that just it?  Were the solutions temporary?  Had her body gotten used to them?  Was she always going to have GI problems?

I wracked my mind trying to pinpoint the problem.  I walked around muttering to myself about how she could possibly be getting gluten because this just felt like what she's like when she has gluten, but I just couldn't see how it was happening.

I wondered if I just wasn't handling every day problems as well because of the exhaustion or pregnancy, but really I knew it had to be more than that.  I even lost my patience (pregnant Cammie is not nearly as long suffering when people say stupid things) with a therapist who said that the problem was that I give in too easily to her demands, pointing out that as one of three children that absolutely and positively is not reality.

And then I went upstairs to sew while Paul stayed downstairs during therapy and I heard him say "No, no, don't put that in your mouth.  It will make you sick."  I came charging down the stairs and saw Maggie clutching play dough in her hand and trying to hide behind a chair to eat it.

Play Dough.

It's one of her rewards during therapy and she frequently sneaks tiny bites of it.  After seeing her do that Paul picked up a container and saw the small stamped warning.

Did you know that Play Dough (the kind you buy) is made with wheat? I didn't.  I knew that the kind we made when my mom was a preschool teacher was made with wheat flour, but that never really reminded me of the sweet smelling packaged stuff and I just didn't make the connection that the stuff they were bringing in and out for therapy day after day wasn't gluten free.  Honestly I thought it was some concoction of chemicals... but gluten?  The idea that it was wheat never entered my mind.

I felt a little insane, mourning the lost weeks and needless pain she'd gone through while rejoicing that we'd found out what it was.

"That small an amount would effect her?"  People asked me incredulously.

Oh my goodness.  You have no idea.  One bite of breaded fish meant two weeks of hell on earth back in November.  Eating Play Dough six days a week was definitely enough to pretty much grind our entire lives to a place of tears and pain.

It's not better yet, but we're getting there.  We're three days out and already her digestive problems seem to have eased.  She's happier.  She's sleeping again and we haven't had tears in the afternoon for two days.

So maybe I will be ready for Lent... or as ready as I ever am, since even when I think I'm ready, it usually turns out that I'm not.  The preparation that is Lent is always a challenge, and it's usually not the challenge that I expected to face.

Usually I have a list of dozens of things I want to do and a few I want to give up.  Usually it's something dramatic and difficult and time consuming.

This year it will be simpler. Our diets are already extremely restricted (I know it doesn't have to be food, but food is always very, very effective for giving up things since apparently I'm rather food focused).  Sure I'll give up something, although this time it may seem small (I'm thinking of giving up soda, which I usually drink when we go out... not a huge part of my life but something I do enjoy when I have it).  And I'm resolving to pray more, especially refocusing on daily prayers.  Maybe I'll even manage a little more spiritual reading, which will involve slowing down to pick up a book that isn't aimed at the six and under set.

But for the most part I'm just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and making it to Easter.  It may not be glamour or exciting or pin worthy... but it's my plan.  And at the moment it feels exactly right for me.

WIWS: Our Attempt at Getting to Mass

I had it all planned out this morning.  No one was sick.  No one was coughing.  It wasn't actually snowing outside.

We were going to load up the van and go to Mass.

I got the kids bundled up and ready to go, because we got a few more inches of snow yesterday and outside it looks like this: 

But hey, at least the windchill wasn't bringing us down to -19 or anything crazy like it was earlier in the week, and at least my face wasn't going to feel like it was freezing off when I stepped outside.  

I was proud of our time management this morning.  There were only minor wardrobe disagreements with a certain three year old (I insisted on matching shoes, but caved to letting her wear her mermaid tail under her jacket, because in this house we choose our battles and getting that thing off of her isn't one I'm going to be fighting) and smiled when I saw we still had a whole ten minutes to get to the 9 am Mass.  It should have been enough time.

Sadie even snapped a couple pictures of me for the WIWS link up while we waited for Paul to bring the van around out of the garage.

Here I am in a Thred Up Maternity dress (oh yes my friends, not only does Thred Up have awesome non-maternity and kids clothes, they also have a maternity section that I have been known to stalk):

Please ignore the Cinderella dress and sippie cup that I apparently didn't know I was standing on.
Let's just pretend that by 8:50 am my house doesn't look like a tornado rolled through the living room
in the form of three wild little bunnies.

And here I am ready to brave the cold.  Notice my non-fleece-tight-covered-legs?  It's because I was picturing a quick dash in and out of our church.  I was not picturing shoveling snow in this outfit:

Patrick had to be in all the pictures.

And in case you were wondering here's the mermaid:

She's been pretending to be a mermaid pretty much all the time so when I saw a Ariel costume at Meijer on clearance plus and extra
15% off I knew it was exactly what Maggie, who'd been trying to squeeze into a tiny doll tail she'd found, needed.
She pretends that bean bag chair is the ocean and she and Ariel spent a lot of time swimming in it.

Here's the princess who was way too cool to smile:

Around the time the pictures were done I noticed that it was taking Paul an unusually long amount of time to get the car out.  So I glanced out the back window and saw this:

The car was stuck on a bar of ice that was under the new snow (the snow bank against the fence behind the garage keeps us from being able to back as far out as we need to be able to do get the car out easily).  After several failed attempts to get the car out on his own Paul brought me (and the kids, since they can't really stay in the house by themselves) out so that I could drive while he pushed.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

He pushed.  I drove.  We shoveled.  I wimped out and got back in the car to defrost.  He pushed and shoveled some more.  I poured kitty litter under the tires.  A neighbor came and doused the area around the tires with salt.  Another neighbor, walking home from the Mass we had now missed, began to dig too.  They all pushed the car and it stayed stuck tight.  I realized that we were missing the second Mass of the day and snapped this picture:

A little over two hours in...

Finally, with all three men pushing, it moved about a foot backwards.  And then two hours and twenty minutes after the car first became stuck, I shot out of the alley and across the street into a plowed alley and finally stopped the car to thank everyone and wait for Paul.    

Having missed the second Mass on account of weather we gave up our plans (night time Mass with Maggie and Patrick is pretty much a nightmare) and called it a day.  

It wasn't a total loss though.  The kids and I did morning prayers and the readings for Mass while we were waiting for Paul to dig the van out, and Sadie and I prayed a rosary during the first hour of sitting in the car...

Here's hoping every is happy and healthy on Wednesday and that we can actually get the van onto the road to get to Mass.

Pregnancy Craving of the Night...

And now I'm a little bit sad because the artichoke is gone... and I wish there were 10 more of them here just waiting to be devoured.

At least it's one of my healthier pregnancy cravings...  And one will have to do for now because I have a feeling Paul wouldn't be excited about the idea of driving for half an hour as four inches of snow drift down from the sky to buy a dozen artichokes (and I'm not asking because I definitely don't want him out on those roads!).