Category: Travelogue

Notes about the journey

Come Monday

It’ll be alright.  Whatever happens, I know that it really doesn’t matter what the blood test result is because God is in control of my circumstances.  Nothing can take me out of his hands; nothing can stop him from loving me; nothing can take away my faith in a living, creating God.  I certainly don’t understand him all the time, but I still love him even when it hurts.

If you somehow missed the news last week, we’re pregnant – for now, anyway.  My hcg levels last week started out great and then didn’t do what we were expecting on Friday.  Based on the bleeding and cramping over the weekend, I do not expect good news today, but I’m not willing to say it’s over until we get the results of the blood work.  I didn’t let myself think about it much over the weekend except to tell God that I really want to keep this baby, but, more than that, all I need is to follow him.  The world would call that prayer foolish, but I know it’s true.  I have heaven to look forward to, and I have an eternity to spend with the babies we’ve lost.

I don’t wish this baby to be among the losses, but I can’t look past the next test.  Last week, I looked from Monday to Wednesday to Friday.  It’s impossible for me to see past each of the tests that mark the time until the ultrasound.  It’s not that I don’t want to imagine holding our little one in nine months, but I can’t.  One day last week, I went to a giant baby store and wandered around, indulging the desire to dream of decorating a nursery and pick out toys and clothes as if I were any first-time expectant mom.  It was great to visit, but I can’t live there – not until we have a baby with a heartbeat.

It sounds horrible to admit, but Friday after I got the news of our hcg level, I didn’t let myself cry or think that it was over; I made plans for a few running events in case it turns out that I can actually do them.  That’s the only bit of dwelling on the negative I’ve allowed.  It may seem morbid to plan a running program “just in case,” but it’s actually pretty simple psychology.  If we lose this baby, I need something to focus on that I can look froward to and that will make me feel proud of myself when I accomplish it.  I suppose that always choosing some sort of physical fitness feat like a triathlon or half-marathon is probably simple psychology, too: if my body won’t do what I want when I’m pregnant, then at least I can make it do something I want it to do in the athletic arena.

All weekend I’ve blundered my way through congratulations and people asking if we’re excited.  For the record, I stink at these conversations.  I say something that will make the other person stop talking – something that they want to hear, like “Thanks, we’re very excited,” or “I can’t wait!”  It’s insincere at best and usually it’s a lie.  I’ll be excited when we have good news; until then I’ll be guarded and optimistic.  The people who know better – our friends – have just been sweet and honest by saying, “We’re praying for you, and other than that, I have no idea what to say yet.”  That is priceless and that keeps me positive when I’m tempted to start the hand-wringing.  Those are the friends that know what I know: come Monday, I’ll either still be pregnant or I’ll be preparing to run a race, but either way, I’m running the race God set in front of me.  You are the friends that support me: running with me (literally, Melissa, and I love you even more for it!!), supporting me when I’m weak, dragging me to the first aid station when I fall, and cheering no matter what.  Know that I am blessed to have you in my life and that come Monday, I’ll need you more than ever, whatever the lab results may be.

Hello, Blog, It’s Me…

Sorry I’ve been absent for a while.  I’d say my schedule has been running me instead of the other way a round for the last month.  I realized this morning that I haven’t posted an update from the October 15th service, so I promise that is coming SOON!  I may not be prolific this month since I am also participating in NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/ if you think I’m just making crap up…).  I am thinking about posting a private feed with my results if you promise to critique nicely.  When I get that far, I’ll post about it, and you can ask me for the password if you’re interested in reading what will hopefully end up being a full-length novel by the end of the month.

Fortunately, it has been a productive month.  The October 15th Memorial Service was beautiful, and we had surprise press coverage.  I’m slowly building on my NaNo word count (the goal to be a winner is 50,000).   I’ve lost 25 pounds over the last two months, and I won one of the two “Most Improved Temple Awards” in our class.  I am probably more proud of that trophy than almost any other award I’ve ever gotten.  I also got a medal in a 5k race that I ran/walked incredibly faster than I imagined I could.  Now my competitive streak is flaring up because I am working my duff off to improve on that time in the Turkey Trot.  I realize that if I complete a 5k at any speed that I should be proud, but I really want to prove that chubby people can run – without having a heart attack. 😉  Oh, and it’s also nice to fit into smaller clothes.

We’ve also finished all of the testing to proceed with IVF, so we’ll meet with the doctor right before Thanksgiving to plan our next steps.  My dear, sweet husband has been warning people that I may soon look like the kid in The Exorcist with my head spinning around.  Needless to say, he’s expecting hormone treatments to be a cake-walk.  Ha!  We both know I get cranky when I’m “hormonal,” so you’ve been warned.  I feel like this sounds like a Christmas card letter with all of the catching up, so sing a little “Feliz Navidad.”  And I promise to try to write more often.

How Dieting Became Spiritual Awakening

“The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, ‘I am my own god.’ This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis— my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25).”  from the October 5th reading in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

I started an official diet last week (www.body4believer.com if you’re interested).  It’s fairly strict on what and when to eat, which is exactly the type of diet I usually avoid.  However, it is very simple to follow, and it’s very simple in its classification of how well you stick to the plan: you are either hot or cold.  There can be no middle ground, no mostly following it with a few changes, no close enough for horseshoes or hand grenades.  You either do it or you don’t.  So far, I have lost almost five pounds, which is more than I lost in two months of dieting my way.

My weight loss efforts always fail because I cheat.  I let myself off the hook if it’s a bad day: “I feel really stressed right now, so it’s okay to have an extra cookie (or five).”  I get busy and don’t make time for exercise.  I am an emotional eater, so I justify my bad eating by telling myself it’s just for this one day – just this time.  I realized last week that my body completely represents my spiritual condition.

I let myself cheat all the time.  I tell myself that acting in anger is justified in the situation.  I rationalize thoughts that I know are totally unacceptable to God because I cling to the right to own myself.  I have often put up walls with God.  I struggle with being a woman and being a Southern Baptist Christian because of the very literal interpretation of what women should be and do in the church.  This, however, is a rather theoretical argument for me, as I have never been prevented from serving in any church I’ve attended.  I use this as leverage to hold on to my identity as a woman in the church.  I want to hold on to my right to my own identity, when in reality, I have no right but to follow God if I profess to know him.  Here’s where the last week of dieting comes in.

When I have been tempted to eat chocolate cake or barbecue or cheat in any way, I’m finding that my reason for denying myself is the realization that I have no right to cheat.  I skipped the hard work for years, so now I have a lot more work to do.  There are no shortcuts.  To borrow from our pastor, I can’t pray my way out of something I behaved myself into.  I can no longer hold onto my right to eat chocolate cake because I will have to earn that freedom after I do the work to get back into shape (preferably, one that’s not round).  I am starting to see blind spots that I developed in my faith where I skipped the hard work, and I realize that Oswald is right again: proclaiming my right to myself is my sin.  My claim to myself leads to over-indulgence and obesity, physically and spiritually.  Denying my right to myself is hard work, but necessary if I want the freedom to be what God created me to be.

October 15th – How You Can Help

You are all invited to the October 15th Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day memorial service (details here https://mabbat.wordpress.com/october-15th-memorial-service/).  If you can’t come but would like to participate, here are a few ways you can help:

PRAY!!  Pray that women and families who need healing will come to this event and find comfort and acceptance.  Pray that those who need help and/or counseling will have the courage to ask for it through our registration cards.  Pray that God will use this time to draw people into relationship with him.

Light a candle.  And tell someone why you’re lighting it.  There is an “official” Wave of Light you can participate in by lighting a candle on October 15th at 7:00 p.m. in whatever time zone you live in and letting it burn for an hour, the idea being that there is a continuous wave of light that begins that evening and covers the whole country as an act of remembrance.   Even if you haven’t lost a baby, if you read this blog, you know someone who has.  Given that 10-15% of all acknowledged pregnancies end in miscarriage, and some estimates put the actual number at 40% of all pregnancies (March of Dimes statistics), you know someone else who has lost a child this way.

Give back.  Donate time, supplies or money to an organization who is working to save lives, like Sav-A-Life (www.savalife.org).  Or a non-profit foster care and adoption agency, like Agape (www.agapeforchildren.org).  I mention these because I have friends who work for both of these agencies, and they do a lot of good work in the local community.

There are lots of ways to help out even if you can’t or don’t want to attend an event.

The Art of the Ugly Cry

We all have something that we’re ridiculously afraid to do, even if it might help us feel better.  My husband will do anything not to throw up (who can blame him??); I will do almost anything to avoid the ugly cry.  Ladies, you know the one: your skin gets blotchy, your face contorts uncontrollably, your nose runs more with each sob, and you can’t turn it off until the ugly cry has run its course.  Guys, you’ve all seen it at least once (many, many more if you’re married…), and you feel powerless in its wake: the woman you love has morphed into a blotchy, snotty, sobbing beast – usually for a reason beyond your control – and nothing you do will return her to you.  Ah, the ugly cry.  Life would be so much more dignified if we could shed quiet tears and sniffle gently into a handkerchief.

As much as I try to avoid it, the ugly cry has its place, especially in the grieving process.  Somewhere between depression and acceptance comes the ugly cry – the moment all of the emotions come rushing out in the inglorious process described above.  I have learned that the longer I put off having the ugly cry, the uglier life gets for everyone around me.  Repressing emotions generally just pushes them out somewhere else, and I get cranky and moody and snarky.  As much as I don’t want to be a weepy mess, it’s really necessary if I’m going to accept the pain and frustration and move past it.  I have also learned that for me the fewer witnesses, the better, including the dogs and usually even my husband.  I like to have my ugly cries alone where I can pour my heart out to God (he’s the only one who can understand what I’m saying at that point anyway) without anyone trying to plug up the fountain that was once my face.

I have also learned that my ugly cries tend to be self-pity parties.  If I blurt out all of my complaints to God at once in a nobody-likes-me-everybody-hates-me-guess-I’ll-go-eat-worms fashion, I will at some point in the tirade realize that I’m being ridiculous, I look ridiculous, and now my head hurts from all the ugly crying.  The world is not really going to end.  Realistically, the worst that I could imagine has happened, and I’ve survived to tell the tale.  I realize that this is just a single page in my life’s book, and the rest of the story is up to me.  I can wallow in the grief (which I did for a long, long time), or I can pick up the pieces and act on what I profess to believe.  The art of the ugly cry is the catharsis waiting at the end of the release of all that pent-up emotion, and, while the ugly cry is truly ugly, it’s a step forward in the healing process.

October 15th Memorial Service

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  If you live in the Birmingham, Alabama area, I would like to invite you to a memorial service at Oak Mountain State Park (Bluejay Pavilion 10:30 am).  I won’t repeat everything I just added to the page, so look to your right and click on “October 15th Memorial Service” under the Pages tab.  I am also (I think) posting the publicity flyer at the end of this post, so please print it out and invite anyone you know who might be interested.  If I do it right, there will be both a PDF and a Word 2010 file.  I would love for anyone who reads this blog to come, whether you have experienced a pregnancy or infant loss or not.  You have been a tremendous support for me, and I would love for you to share in this special time of remembrance.  If nothing else, come later and bring a picnic lunch – we have the pavilion reserved for the whole day.

 

October 15th Flyer

October 15th Flyer (PDF)

Multitasking: The Art of Screwing up Several Things at Once

I have been on a mission to “catch up” at work, which is probably impossible given the volume of stuff that accumulates on my desk in a given day.  I have learned that I can only do one thing at a time well, so while I have been working my duff off at work, my house is a wreck, I haven’t exercised on a regular basis, and my writing has been nonexistent.  This laser beam focus is great for the one area of my life receiving all the attention, but it is wholly imbalanced and wreaks havoc on everything else.  So for the last two weeks, I have achieved breathing room at the office while simultaneously suffocating under a mountain of laundry and dust bunnies.

I’d like to say that I will eventually become a well-adjusted individual, devoting balanced amounts of time to marriage, family, friends, home, work, church, and hobbies.  It’s just not in my personality, though.  Balance is a struggle for everyone, and for me it’s usually an all-out war.  I have learned, however, that I have limits, and I have learned that I tend to overestimate what I can accomplish in a given time period.  I have learned that I can say no and that it’s okay to say no even when what I’m being asked to do is a worthy task.  I just haven’t learned to pace myself very well.

I have learned that Philippians 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.) is not an appropriate rallying cry for multitasking.  While I can, and certainly do, do all things through Christ who gives me strength, I have learned that this has much more to do with the spiritual tasks I face every day: loving my neighbor even when I’d rather kick them in the shins, communicating said desire to kick my neighbor in the shins to God and asking him to change my desire, treating the people around me with the love and respect due every creation of God, surviving the day when I’d rather give in to depression or anger – these are the things that I can only do through Christ, whereas a trained monkey could do most of my to-do list.  The spiritual tasks are the ones that elevate us to reflections of the image of God, and they can only be accomplished well through the strength of Christ.

I tend to evaluate my success based on the things I have accomplished from my to-do list, but realizing that those things are really just trained monkey business helps me remember that I too easily get wrapped up in temporal goals while ignoring what’s truly important.  It also makes me laugh to imagine a monkey vacuuming my house – that would really get the dogs going.

Icebreakers

The new school year means the beginning of a new year of children’s ministry and the chance to break out my giant book of ice breaker games.  I am a natural introvert, and, true to my contrarian ability to find some way to not quite fit the mold, I love ice breaker games.  Like most introverts, I prefer quality over quantity in my friends.  I have a really hard time with small talk, so I tend to dive in without the cursory, “How ’bout them Braves?” or, “Nice weather we’re having.”  If I want to ask someone a question, no matter what it is, that’s what I lead with as a conversation starter.  Apparently, some people find that to be off-putting; they like to warm up in a conversation before they jump into the deep end.  (I know, I’m as shocked as you are that everyone is not exactly like me.)  I can often tell you everything about a person’s emotional or mental status without ever knowing that they have a dog named Bob, they have blond hair, or that their favorite color is blue.  I’m often surprised that I could skip this level of detail since those are the “easy” things to learn about people.

Ice breaker games, however, force an introvert like me to interact on a more surface level.  I can learn that I have lots of little things in common with people along with knowing how and why they tick.  It may not seem important to know anyone’s shoe size or favorite ice cream flavor, but it provides me with another way to connect with someone I might not be able to talk to otherwise.  While I was leading English as a Second Language at church, I loved that our students embraced the ice breaker games because we learned that in spite of the obvious cultural differences in the American teachers, the Chinese students, the Hispanic students and the Iranian students, we often had a lot more in common than we would have imagined.  Everyone has a favorite color; everyone had a favorite subject in school; everyone has a favorite food, and apparently pizza is a universal favorite, regardless of country of origin.

Ice breaker games remind me of some important things in my relationship with God, too.  I tend to want everything to have meaning; my poor husband has been harassed on more than one occasion because I’m sure that when he sighed it meant something other than he needed to expel air.  I do the same with God – pushing to find an answer – even when there is no reason to push.  God made the sky blue and the grass green – it must mean something.  It means the grass is green, and the sky is blue.  While I’m tempted to always be looking for the deep end, it’s okay to spend time in the shallow end and remember the basics: God is good; God loves me; God has blessed me beyond measure.  I can stop and tread there for a while before I go back to pondering the mysteries of faith and life.

If you have attended church for a long time, you have probably heard the warning that we can’t stay on the mountain; like Moses, we have to come down and re-join the rank and file.  Life is what happens in the valley, and God wants us to experience abundant life.  We need the mountain-top time to keep us focused on what’s important, but we can’t set up permanent camp at that altitude.  If you have avoided church because you aren’t holy enough to even reach the mountain top, guess what?  Neither are church members.  That’s what God’s grace is for:

“23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23-24

There’s an ice breaker – we all pretend to be assorted versions of perfect (perfect job, perfect mental health, perfect attitude, perfect marriage, perfect kids…) instead of being honest and admitting we need help climbing our assorted mountains.  The good news is that as deep and wide and long as our troubles are, God’s love and grace are deeper and wider and longer and waiting for us to wade through the shallow end and dive in.

Back to “Normal”

After over a month of weirdness, it feels great to getting back to “normal.”  I never claim to be normal for fear my family will call me out and publicly present evidence to the contrary.  After almost six weeks of sitting on my duff, I am finally back to daily life and work and (occasionally) housework.  It’s amazing how long it has taken to get back into shape just to complete a full day, not to mention exercise.  In case you hadn’t already guessed, the Frantic Frog is off the table this year, but we are going to try a few running events between now and January, including the Turkey Trot – my family’s new annual tradition before we eat pancakes and pose together in our t-shirts.

I have been so blessed by so many of you who have been praying and checking in on me.  It is a tremendous gift to have your support and your prayers; I only hope to do half as well when you need the same support in return.  You have lifted my spirits and my heart in tremendous ways, and I am so grateful God has put each of you in my life.  Now that I am catching up, I should be keeping up with the blog better than the last few weeks allowed, and I hope to have some details in the next week about a Birmingham area prayer/memorial service for October 15th Pregnancy and Infancy Loss Remembrance Day.  First, I have to find my desk under all the piles that accumulated in the last month!

Sticks and Stones, Part II

Yesterday I shared words that other people can use, but it’s just as important for butterfly moms to know how to react when someone hurts their feelings.  We can either be constructive and repair those hurt feelings, or we can lash out and create more hurt feelings.  I’ve done plenty of both.  When you feel tremendous pain, physical or emotional, it’s really tempting to hurt someone else.  I guess misery really does love company, maybe because we don’t know how to ask for help and end up acting out like kids do.  Whatever the reason, it solves nothing to drag someone else down with you, and it usually adds guilt to your emotional dogpile.

It’s a fact that someone is going to hurt your feelings; this is true in all of life, and dealing with a miscarriage tends to amplify that factor.  My whole life I have been pretty bad at confronting hurt feelings with any level of maturity.  I’ll let things pile up until I explode and do the stereotypically female historical rendition of every wrong, real or imagined.  No good has ever come from my method.  When I actually act like an adult and have a conversation about what’s bothering me, it’s usually resolved without any crazy emotional outbursts (although, I will cry – that’s a given) or assistance from the History Channel.  When I respond the same way when confronted by someone I’ve wronged, we can both move on with a stronger relationship.  That said, there are good times to just let things roll off and ignore them.

I have a rule that when someone hurts my feelings, I will speak with them about it if it’s a relationship I value.  If it’s someone I do not deal with on a regular basis and do not care to deal with on a regular basis, I just let it go.  For instance, someone I speak to once a month in the hall really won’t care about the situation for more than a few seconds, and confronting them is likely to cause more harm than good.  A friend that I would like to spend more time with is worth the effort it takes to share my feelings, and not talking to them is likely to cause more harm than good.  Anchored by Hope offered this as a possible way to confront the hurtful words: “Thank you very much for your sentiment, but let me tell you that this wasn’t really what I wanted to hear right now. I know what you mean, but it still hurts me more.”  This is a great way to start the conversation, or you can just stop there if you don’t want to or can’t explain more about why it hurt you.

Another rule I made for myself is to sit on the hurtful comment or incident for a short span of time, like a few hours or a few days.  If it still pops back into my head, then I know I need to address it; if I can’t really remember why it upset me, I let it go.  If I let it go for more than a few days, then I have to let it go forever.  It’s kind of like training a puppy: if you don’t address the bad behavior when it happens, then they have no idea why you’re punishing them later for something they don’t remember doing.  However, it’s good to wait a short time to address a problem until you can control your emotions and therefore your tongue.  If you can speak rationally in the heat of the moment, you are to be greatly admired and should begin counseling me immediately.  If you are human, then you should probably cool off before you tell someone they hurt you; you’ll be able to “use your words” and avoid further injury to either party.

Avoid using your loss as a weapon.  It is possible to bludgeon someone with bad news: someone bugs you about working on a project or ribs you about dropping out of Zumba, and you give them enough rope to hang themselves before you inform them that you had a miscarriage and were unable to keep your normal schedule.  I’ve done it, more than once.  It doesn’t matter if the person was being a jerk, I should know better than to take someone down a notch like that.  There are fair ways to take someone down a notch, but a surprise verbal assault is cheating.

Recognize that most of the time, whoever hurt your feelings by saying something insensitive really didn’t intend to hurt your feelings.  If you accept that they meant well, you’ll be able to forgive and forget much more easily than if you go off half-cocked with only the thought that they hurt you.  Also recognize that sometimes, there will be no right thing for anyone to say to you.  Miscarriage is the loss of a loved one with all of the grief that goes with it, and it carries the added weight of hormonal mood swings and actual physical symptoms that are often painful.  Just surviving physically, mentally and emotionally is a feat of strength worthy of honor.