“I testify of the great blessing of children and of the happiness they will bring us in this life and in the eternities.”
Category Archives: thoughts on life
Service
Last week I lamented on facebook that I needed an extra night sleep. The weekend before, one by one, my family fell sick, with a slight cold. It was nothing major, Dadzoo missed a couple days of work and was up all night coughing which kept me up, along with the kids who needed tissues, water and some love during the night. By the time Sunday night came around I was exhausted, just in time to feel that little tickle at the back of my throat indicating that is was my turn to be sick, and then then baby woke up with a little fever, I was up again, all night. The next day wasn’t better, baby was sick and irritable, I spent most of the day holding and nursing her, by the time Tuesday came around I felt like the walking dead! Now I don’t tell this story to complain. I am a mother, this is what I do and I am happy to help my little ones, serving them is central to my life and I find a lot of satisfaction in that service.
But I was so tired, and I needed a break badly. However Tuesday was a busy day, I was going to be gone a good portion of the day at an appointment in town and by the time I got home my children would be arriving with homework and a myriad of activities. It was going to be one of those “survival” days, where you just do what needs to be done and forget about the extras (like sleep!).
As I was getting ready to leave the house for the day I got an e-mail from a good friend offering to bring dinner that night. I felt a little funny about it at first. It wasn’t like I was sick in bed and unable to make dinner for my family, why put this friend out just because I was a little tired? Then the thought came to me “let her serve”. I took a big gulp and told her that I would love dinner, and thanks.
Immediately my burdens felt lighter, I went about the day not having to think about dinner at all, it was wonderful. When I got home from my appointment and got my kids off to their various activities or busy with homework, I found that I had almost an hour with nothing to do. NOTHING to do…that never happens, especially at 4:30 in the afternoon, but I didn’t have to worry about making dinner that night so I was free, I was able to lay down and sleep for almost a full hour, when I woke I felt so refreshed and able to finish the evening tasks with renewed energy.
I am so grateful for a friend who didn’t suppress a prompting (and I know it was, our Heavenly Father is mindful of our struggles, however small they may seem) to serve. I know she will be blessed for her act of charity in my behalf.
As I thought over my dear friend’s act of service I wondered about myself. I thought back to the times when I was prompted to serve those around me, and I suppressed those thoughts and actions. How many e-mail haven’t been sent, visits made, cookies given, hearts soothed and dinners shared. Serving other spontaneously is very hard for me, the anxiety I struggle with has to do with people and social situations, for me to just take a dinner or make a phone call is extremely difficult, but I am finding that if I can push through the feelings of fear and anxiety (with help from my Heavenly Father) the feelings of love far surpass the feelings of fear. As I have been pondering, praying and searching I have become convinced that one of the ways I am going to defeat this postpartum depression/anxiety and become the person I am suppose to be will be through serving others.
Not Forgotten
I haven’t blogged for almost 6 weeks, I wonder if anyone even reads this blog anymore! I usually give up on a blog when the writer goes this long without updating. While the blog has been long neglected it hasn’t been forgotten, always in the back of my mind, and as I went through my days I was always thinking and snapping pictures to blog about, however, other bigger circumstances were in the way. I have been hit right between the eyes with post-partum depression/anxiety. It really blind sighted me, never having suffered with it before. I am being treated by a wonderful holistic practitioner, who is caring for my physical body and by a therapist, who is more like a mentor, and he is taking care of my mind helping me to become stronger and not afraid. For the last couple weeks I have been feeling better than I have in a long, long time, years really. I think my depression and anxieties have been quietly festering below the surface for a while now, and the post-partum cocktail of hormones and lack of sleep brought everything sharply to the surface. I am thankful for that. Everything I had experienced during this last pregnancy and birth made it easier to identify the problem and so I was able to seek help quickly. I would like to write more about this later, maybe, mental illness is hard to share, it is so very personal and so very painful, it is hard to put oneself “out there”. Anyway, during all those blurry and fearful days, there were things going on, life as usual (and I am very good at going along as if life is as usual) children and babies to love (an oh how I love them), my dear husband who takes over where I fall short (and I have fallen so very short lately) along with a home and garden to care for. I thought I would share some snap shots of the last six week. I am also planning on getting back blogging, Dadzoo says I have important things to say and that I need to say them (although I don’t know if I agree with that). I feel anxious about this, but I won’t be afraid, I love blogging and I won’t let my fears keep me away from the things I love anymore.
Birdhouse gourds, this is about half of what we harvested.
Broccoli, there is nothing as wonderful as fresh broccoli from the garden.
Green cabbage, ready for harvest.
Purple Cabbage, this was harvested a couple weeks after the picture was taken.
Washing tomatoes from the garden.
Getting ready to make an can tomato sauce.
Fresh beets from the garden, they are going to be sliced and cooked up for dinner.
Carrots, sweet and fresh from the garden, there are many more waiting for harvest.
Chili sauce, our secrect family recipe and a favorite on eggs in the morning.
Purple Cabbage, sliced and ready for dinner, I love how this looks, the purple and white.
Making a big pot of chicken stock. It takes me 48 hours to make this and I store it in the freezer for quick soups in the wintertime.
Eating an Elephant
I think I have finally tipped over the edge into insanity.
I am insanily
tired
busy
in love
crazy
messy
sensitive
and unorganized
Sounds like I just had a baby or something…..
Baby Sister will be four weeks old this Friday (where did the time go!) and I think it is time to gather up all my insanity and start working towards sanity. Now I know I have a small baby and a bunch of other kids hanging around, and that life won’t be normal (whatever that is) for sometime and that is ok, but I need some order around here so I can function with a little sanity. I am totally finding life overwhelming right now, where do I start to reclaim some of the order that I use to find in my home, when everything feels so out of control? I am reminded of the saying “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” That is what I am going to do, eat my elephant, one bite at a time. Each day I am going to set a small goal for myself, something that needs to be done and can be done, and I am also going to remind myself of all the things I am doing. Yesterday I was able to get all the laundry done, the kitchen didn’t get cleaned, but that is ok, considering I kept the baby fed, my family fed everyone was bathed and I was able to hold baby sister when she needed me.
When all is said and done, I am doing pretty darn good.
What are the elephants in your life,
and how to you tackle them?
Surrender
I have never gone into labor on my own. For all five of my previous births I have always had an induction, some were for medical reasons, others for convenience. Three of my babies were born at about my due date, one was two weeks early (due to pre-eclamptia) and one was a week past. For this baby, my sixth, I decided that I really wanted to go into labor on my own. After reading and researching I had decided that letting my body go into labor when baby is ready was the best choice for me and my newest addition. Talking it over with my doctor (who has the heart of a midwife, really) he was more than happy to let me go two weeks past “the date” and is willing to help me deliver any way that I want to, excepting a homebirth.
So there I was happy to let nature do her thing, to wait until baby was ready, to happily gestate into week 42 if I had to. Or was I? When week 37 hit was I going strong ready to have this baby, ready to let my body do its thing, and more than willing to try every folk remedy, wives tale and rumor out there to get baby here as soon as possible. Every little twinge from my uterus made me stop, and if there were two twinges I was ready to time my “contractions”. Was this it? Would I know? Would I go early? Should I call Dadzoo, my doula, my Mom? What should I try first to speed up these contractions, drink 2 gallons of raspberry tea instead of one? Take extra Primrose oil? Castor oil? Run the stairs? Meditate on a flower opening? Only to have all my excitement and hopes dashed in an hour or so when no more contractions came.
What was I doing wrong, why wouldn’t baby come? I was ready, the house cleaned, closets de-junked, all necessary items washed, sewn, pressed and put away all awaiting the arrival of my baby. My freezer is full, the nursery painted and decorated, children taken care of, laundry done. I was practicing relaxation, eating well, resting as much as I could, thinking positive thoughts, loving my man, reading all the birthing books and blogs I could. I am ready, really ready, where is she?
Then came Monday night. That evening I started to contract, sporadically at first, then it settled into a nice pattern of 10 minutes apart. They weren’t uncomfortable, but enough that I noticed them. Figuring that I should sleep while I could I went to bed, only to be woken up at about 3:30 am with some hard contractions about 3 or 4 minutes apart. I lay in bed for about two hours, timing and contracting, they were very consistent, 3 to 4 minutes apart, but weren’t particularly hard, however they did command my attention. Was this it? It had to be, right? Remember, I don’t know what it feels like to go into labor on my own, in this aspect I feel like a first time mom. At about 5:30 am I got up, cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, checked my bags and walked the hall waiting for Dadzoo to wake up. When he woke up, I told him I was pretty sure I was in labor, could he work from home today in case? He was more than happy to do so and I continued to walk the hall, contracting, getting more and more excited. This HAD to be it!
About 8:00, I noticed that the contractions I had been timing for about 4 hours started to be less noticeable, and were stretching to 5 or 6 minutes apart and I was completely exhausted. I lay down for a little bit, fell to sleep and they stopped completely. At 9:30 I got up and got ready, I had a doctor appointment that morning and I was hoping that I had dilated a little bit, knowing that early labor will sometimes stop and start and maybe I was just so tired that my body decided to give me a little rest….right….? Dadzoo came with me to the appointment, and while I had a few more contractions in the car, nothing really started up. My doctor examined me and I hadn’t changed, I am (was) still dialated to a “1” like I had been for the past two weeks and soft. Here I am, 39 weeks pregnant, with my SIXTH baby and only dialated to a ONE!
I. Was. Crushed.
My doctor was kind. Dadzoo was disappointed. I wondered what I had been doing wrong and what is wrong with my cervix!
Dadzoo drove me home and when we got there I went right to bed, so very mad. Luckily Dadzoo could work from home that day, he took care of everything, while I holed up in the bedroom and licked my wounds, wallowed in the discouragement and did a little thinking and praying.
The whole appeal of letting my labor start of naturally, and laboring unmedicated wasn’t something I came up with lightly. It isn’t some romantic ideal, an endurance competition or bragging rights. I really feel that it is best for my baby and for my body. In the frantic last weeks of my pregnancy I had been forgetting something very important. It is the idea of surrendering myself, my control, my body to something that is bigger than myself. This world is all about schedules, timing, fast quick and easy, having what we want NOW, and being in complete control all the time no matter what. Pregnancy and child birth, in its natural form is none of those things. From the first moments of conception we give ourselves over to this tiny little soul that grows within our body. We give ourselves over to morning sickness, fatigue, sore backs, pelvises and breasts all for the sake of a child, our child, our Heavenly Father’s child. I understood that about pregnancy, but I wasn’t treating the idea of birth in the same light. Birth happens slowly, sometimes over the course of weeks, we slowly open ourselves, we give up control of our body and its functions, we surrender to the great forces of nature and its timing, not ours.
So while I am not giving up completely on the old folk remedies, and I don’t condemn anyone for choosing an induction, for me and this baby I am learning a great life lesson.
That sometimes you just need to surrender.
