We are fearfully and wonderfully made!

Well, I finally broke.  Honestly I don't quite know how I have done this for as long as I did.  I asked for a leave of absence from work today.  I have mixed emotions about it but ultimately believe this is the best thing for my body, my baby, and my sanity.  Most of all I will be relieved to be away from countless well intentioned people constantly asking me the same questions and giving me their two cents about how I should best cope.  I don't mind if family does this...but constantly having co-workers do it is exhausting.

  Its strange how exhausting this process is.  I wonder what it feels like for baby dear to be growing inside of me.  Baby dear doesn't have formulated thoughts but emotions? How does it feel to be in there.  There is the passage of time.  Baby dear has a soul.  That soul has personality without experience.  If anything it is raw personhood, the very essence of personality, the building blocks are just waiting for experience to form it.  This is very interesting to me.  Baby dear has a guardian angel...where is that guardian angel?  Is it standing next to me too now?  Or is is it small and tiny wrapping its wings around baby dear, keeping baby dear company spiritually?  I tend to believe this later one.  Baby dear's guardian angel is its first companion...they probably communicate in a spiritual way that baby dear won't remember later, but the impression will last.  How sad for babies that are born into harsh environments to go from the gentle comradery with their angel to a rough and tumble world.  When this is the case how does that effect the future spiritual development of a child?  It seems if the premise I have laid out is true that it would make the poor baby mistrust  its spiritual awakening and companion in the womb and perhaps more difficult to have a deep and trusting relationship with God later in life.  But if a baby goes from that sweet friendship to loving arms and voices he or she may miss their first friendship with their guardian angel but feel comforted by the love of their parents and so retain a sweetness to the spiritual experience within the womb.  This is all musing of course, I have never heard of anyone speak on this matter but I think there may be some mystical merit to what I saw.  It certainly can't hurt to think it I suppose.

   Baby dear, who are you?  What does God aspire for you to be?  What is his perfect will for your life?  Will you be artistic and agile like our warrior ninja?  Will you be passionate and feisty like your mama?  Who will you be Baby dear?  We love you.  We pray you are healthy and growing well.  Guardian angel of my baby, keep your wings wrapped tight around Baby dear, guard Baby dear from all fear or uncertainty and sing songs of triumph and praise until Baby dear can hear me that Baby dear's heart will be made for rejoicing and laughter.  We praise You God for the gift of this life.  We praise You for we are fearfully and wonderfully made!

You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb.

I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew;

my bones were not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be.

How precious to me are your designs, O God; how vast the sum of them!  - Psalm 139

My Life as a Platypus

  I feel awful.  I gag as I write this, between sentences, words, letters.  I type as I can.  I thank God that I am not vomiting. I wonder 'if I did would that make me feel better?'.  I am starting my ninth week of pregnancy...or eleventh depending on how you look at it some people tell me.  All I know is that nine weeks ago a new life was brought into being.  About five weeks ago I found out.  I want to say that I am thrilled beyond words for this new life, for my first child.  And I think I was...now, to be honest, it is hard to understand how women do this multiple times.  I do not have the experience of having a child before to bolster me through.  I am sure it is absolutely worth it!  I AM so excited to have a toddler someday...please give me the toddler.  Or an infant...give me an infant, I will rejoice!  But this process of "growing your own" leaves me feeling exhausted, sad, constantly nauseous.  My warrior ninja husband is so excited but he has a sad look in his face when he looks at me.  I can't stand the way he smells...shoot, I can't stand the way anyone smells.  Everything makes me gag.  I feel like a platypus.

  I am a Platypus.  I am part duck, part beaver, a mammal that lays eggs.  No one else in my family is a platypus.  I have no platypus history to look at and ask "How did you juggle all the demands of being a platypus?"  "When you were a platypus and pregnant what did you do?"  No.  My family, my history, my frame of reference did not prepare me for my undertaking of being a platypus wife.  Let me explain lest I leave you in confusion.  Let me start with my background, culture, and faith.

  I am a Roman Catholic, true to all the teachings of Rome.  I grew up in a blessed Catholic home with six sisters, two brothers, a stay at home mom and employed dad.  My mother bravely took on the task of educating us.  I first stepped foot in a "real" classroom when I started taking community college classes at 16 to supplement my home-school high school classes.  I guess you could say I hit the ground running and didn't stop until I got my Masters in Occupational Therapy in May of 2011.  My adventures occurred throughout the years but ultimately my formal education was completed there.  Growing up I was surrounded by big happy Christian and Christian Catholic families that home-schooled their children, for the most part, but all of which had mothers that were stay at home moms (SAHM).  Sure, all these families made financial decisions to sacrifice in some way so this was possible...but it WAS possible.  And now here I am.  Catholic, married, expecting our first child, and working because it is necessary.

  I am in no way against working but as this pregnancy has progressed I have come to a deeper realization of why for most of history women did not work.  I am amazed by the devotion and love of mothers who go through this pregnancy sickness time and time again.  I wish I could be them.  I wish I could curl up on my sofa and try to ease my stomach slowly with crackers, water, small sips of soda.  I wish I could be miserable at home.  Instead I get up each morning and throw up (like so many of SAHMs...but then I dress, try to make it look like I brushed my hair, forgo the makeup (as I am sure they are also doing) and drive to work at a skilled nursing facility (some people still call it convalescent hospital) to rehabilitate the elderly and breath in all the smells that comes with it.  At least I get to wear scrubs.  I just don't understand.  I don't understand how other moms do this.  It is SO HARD.  I tear up just thinking about going back to work after the weekend.  I am uncomfortable and nauseous at home but at least I am not gagging in front of the whole world.  At least I am not having to excuse myself from a patient as my super sensitive nose picks up every smell associated with the act of living to discreetly gag.  I have taken to hiding in unused rooms to lay on the bed around lunch and I can actually fall asleep I am that exhausted!

  I know this sounds like an awful diatribe...but really I am confused.  How do working women DEAL with this?  I've never had an example of this...I feel alone, sad, angry.  How many times in a day are people going to ask me how I feel??  The SAME PEOPLE!  I want to scream at them...I FEEL AWFUL!  I FELT AWFUL WHEN YOU ASKED ME AN HOUR AGO!  YOU CAN OBVIOUSLY TELL I FEEL AWFUL SO WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME!?!?!?!?!!?  Instead I tell them what I did an hour ago with a weak smile "Okay!" "Fine.".  Or all the trite sayings..."It will all be worth it."  yes...thank you...

  I am a Catholic.  I HOPE and BELIEVE (if those can go together) that when I am puking my guts out on an already empty stomach, my stomach feels likes it being punched, and only stomach acid is coating my throat, that in those moments when I say "This is for my husband, for the holiness of my unborn child" it is gaining extraordinary merit.  Because on the one hand I believe it should and on the other hand I am so unhappy with the situation I can't see how God can accept my pathetic cry for graces for my family.  I realize am not the best at smiling joyfully through suffering, but I am trying really hard to still be loving to my husband, to NOT say all the sharp things I want to say to well meaning condolers,  I am TRYING to still find ways of making my warrior ninja smile like I used to do so often before I felt sick all the time.  It is very discouraging.  Very draining.  Very sad.

  Hello little life inside me.  I don't want you to feel like I am angry at you.  I don't want you to feel that I am sad that I am expecting you.  I LOVE YOU.  I WILL LOVE YOU.  Mama's just going through a hard time right now.  I want you to be a child of joy and laughter.  I pray specifically for these things and that God will pour his Holy Spirit down upon you even now and FILL YOU with the gifts of the Holy Spirit!  I pray that He will give you Wisdom and a Compassionate Heart!  I pray good things for you my baby.  I put my hand on my abdomen and imagine you in there.  Try and make it feel REAL.  I smile at you.  Your daddy puts his hand there and smiles at you.  Its hard to imagine you but deep down I do KNOW that this is all worth it!  I can't wait to see what you look like, who you are.  I am sorry this is so hard.  You are growing so fast it must be exhausting to you too.  The tears I cry are not because of you but rather for you.  I offer them as a sacrifice of praise.  I PRAISE you JESUS for this life within me,  I offer my pregnancy sickness as a SACRIFICE, a self-giving for this life you have created within me.  This LIFE which is a testimony to you!  This LIFE which IS A SONG OF PRAISE by its very existence.  This is hard my love, my Jesus, it feel unending and lonely.  I praise you in the storm!  I bless your holy name!  Help me.  Help me continue to sacrifice with a steadfast and willing heart.  Blessed be your name when I am found in the desert place, when I'm suffering - blessed be Your Name!

I am a platypus.  I am not just one thing.  I am more than what other mom's I admire are.  Not more as in better, I just have an extra role that does not seem to combine with motherhood.  I want to be a good mother.  I want to be available for my baby.  I have no idea what the future holds and this is a time of uncertainty.  Jesus, YOU led me on the path I have taken.  YOU told me you had ALL THE MONEY in the world!  Provide for our family.  Let your perfect will be done and my will conformed to it.