Saturday, May 9, 2015

Mother's Day



May 12th, 2013. That was my due date. After wanting nothing more than to be a mother my whole life, I was pregnant. We told our families right away, but waited to tell the world, just in case. 
We went to hear the heartbeat for the first time when I was 9 weeks along. But the room was silent. We had lost our baby, and my body didn’t know. I decided not to intervene but to let my body figure things out. After a month of being pregnant but not pregnant, I decided to take the medicine to help the process along. I called into work sick, took the pills, binge watched Disney movies, and waited. After a second dose 12 hour later, it was all over. And I could start to heal. 

Except that my hCG levels still showed that I was pregnant. I had to continue to get my blood drawn each week, and the levels weren’t going down fast enough for my doctor’s liking. By mid-December, I was almost where I needed to be, but every visit to Quest Diagnostics tore me apart. I just wanted to move on. I wanted to stop being reminded of it every week. So I stopped getting my blood drawn. I started to heal. 

With the New Year came a new calendar. I started filling in the family member’s birthdays and anniversaries like I did every year. Then I got to May. May 12th. Mother’s Day. I had no idea until then that my due date had been Mother’s Day. All the healing came undone. 

But God is faithful. He really used that season of my life as I clung to Him. In sorrow, we choose whether to move closer or farther from God. I believed what I had always believed. God loves me. God knows what’s best. And God was in control. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but God is the ultimate Comforter. He was definitely close to my broken heart as I stumbled through the next couple of months. 

I wasn’t ready to try to get pregnant for a while after the miscarriage. Then we wanted to avoid a holiday baby. Then we stressed about getting pregnant and for several months the tests came back negative. We finally stopped trying. But God was in control. The next month I was pregnant. With another May baby. I got to hear the heartbeat. I got to feel the kicks. And the hiccups. And after a ten hour labor, I got to hold him. And then bring him home. 

Time has shown me a lot that I could not have seen before. I have a better vantage point of the tapestry that God was weaving. Two months after the miscarriage, Doug lost his job and we both worked part time. Nine days after we found out we were pregnant, Doug was signed on full time with benefits. At the time of the miscarriage, we lived in a one bedroom cupboard that was almost always too hot or too cold and had cardboard walls. A month after Coen was born, we moved into our brand new townhouse. The day before we moved we got new neighbors and we found out just how thin those walls were. The timing was too perfect. I am not saying that God could not have provided for us if we hadn’t lost our first child. He absolutely would have. We didn’t lose our child because God couldn’t work with our situation. I’ll never know why we lost that child. But I can see how God worked everything together for the good of his purpose (Rom. 8:28). Without the miscarriage, there would be no Coen, my rainbow baby. 

This year will be my first Mother’s Day. It has been a journey to get here. This first Mother’s Day feels like I finished a marathon. It will forever be bittersweet. And forever a reminder of God’s faithfulness.  

 

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Sugar Fiend

For the month of March I decided to give up sugar. If you do a quick google search you'll find a plethora of articles on the effects of sugar on the body. And how we are consuming way too much sugar on a daily basis. So I decided to go 31 days without sugar and see if I could tell the difference. I didn't count calories or cut grains or dairy. Just all refined sugar. No natural sweeteners either. My best friend did it with me so we could have a support system.
   The first few days were really hard. At the end of the night my brain was used to me grabbing a sugar snack. Luckily I didn't have any in the house. No candy, cookies, or ice cream. I experienced headaches as my body was being detoxed from the sugar. But it got easier to say no to the sugar. It's always a choice to eat sugar. Sometimes we just don't realize that it's in a product. I was most surprised to find that sugar has been added to Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, enchilada sauce (except for Trader Joe's), and salami.
   Throughout the month I started to notice little things about myself as my body adjusted to life without sugar. I talked with my friend and discovered that she was experiencing the same things.

I had a lot more energy. Naps were still amazing, but I didn't feel like I was dragging myself through the day by late afternoon.

I slept better. It didn't take me long at all to fall asleep at the beginning of the night or after nursing Coen in the middle of the night. Before there were some nights where it took me 45 minutes to fall asleep after waking up.

I also dreamt a lot more. Which I'm guessing means that I was getting regular cycles of sleep. I spent more time in REM sleep which is restorative.

Things started tasting different. Milk tasted sweet. It tasted like there was sugar was in it. But nope, it was just plain milk. There was also a time where I had Costco pizza for dinner (sugar in the dough, sugar in the sauce-long story as to why I ate it) and it tasted sweet. It didn't taste good. Bleh.

I could feel different parts of my body slimming. My stomach slimmed. Doug noticed my butt and waist got smaller.

I felt better emotionally and mentally. I felt happier. Less on edge.

Thinking about sugar and eating it didn't sound appealing. During a Target trip I walked through the Easter candy aisle. I love Reese's peanut butter eggs and Cadbury Creme Eggs. So I thought I would pick a couple up for when April came around. But when I thought about actually eating them it did not sound appealing. So I left without buying anything.

The first couple of weeks I sweat a lot at night. I have no idea how it was related or even if it was. I wasn't hot and it wasn't hot in the room. I just woke up sweating. Like it was part of my body detoxing. Maybe it was.

Fruit tastes amazing when you don't eat sugar. Watermelon and strawberries were my favorite.

The first part of the month I felt so hungry all the time. So I ate a lot. Oatmeal. Hummus. Carrots. Yams. Broccoli. Chicken. I cooked a lot of good meals off Pinterest. But as time went on I noticed that I wasn't as hungry as I was in the beginning. I didn't constantly feel like I was starving.

I ended up losing 5 pounds without trying. Which wasn't my goal or anything, but weight loss is always a plus.


Then March ended. I didn't really want sugar though. So I didn't eat it. I continued to eat my sugar free bread fruit with sugar free whipped cream for dessert.

Then last Saturday (April 4) I decided to have a Magnum Peanut Butter Ice Cream bar (I blame Shopkick for having me scan them). It was alright. It was super sweet and a little too much for me). I felt gross afterwards. But it made my cravings return with a vengeance.

I thought that maybe I'd allow myself one treat a week. Maybe it would be in the form of a meal like orange chicken from Panda Express. Or it'd be a piece of birthday cake. But sugar is addictive. All the articles say this. They even explain how it's similar to cocaine in how if effects the brain. And now I see why. I am a sugar addict. Yesterday I wasn't planning on having any sugar. Instead I ate a Magnum bar, half a bag of Sour Patch jelly beans, and three starbursts. I had a stomachache and I still reached for the candy. Today I ate a bag of Oreo Minis, a Reese's peanut butter egg, and a small carton of mini Robin's eggs. And I'm feeling it. I feel like I never want to eat sugar again. But I will. It's addictive. And not eating it can be inconvenient. I had to read all labels. Forget eating out because it's impossible to know what's in the food. And same goes for eating at people's houses. Which is why there were some times when I ate the food anyways cause I didn't have the heart to tell them that they were serving sugar.

I do want to cut back on sugar though. I just can't believe how powerful it is. Who knew? It's ridiculous. As good as I felt off of it it's nice not monitoring everything that I eat. So as you can see I'm torn. I'm sure I'll give up sugar again. I just wish that more people could understand how destructive it is so that it wouldn't be so prevalent.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

8 months

1. Coen loves food. He loves it so much that I'm actually having to feed him less of it so that he'll still breastfeed. Plus is messes with his tummy sometimes and that makes for some very long nights. But he'll pretty much eat anything. The only things he doesn't like are baby food peas and dill pickles. His favorites are bananas and sweet potatoes.

2. He is crawling all over the place now. He'll follow me around the house grunting and wanting to be picked up. It's very sweet but also makes it hard to get anything done. I'll be trying to wash dishes and he'll be standing right behind me holding onto my legs and patting them, asking to be picked up. And he's really fast when he wants to be.

3. Him and Luna do not get along. After a couple of scratching incidents she is having to be shut in our room if he is up and on the loose. So whenever we're not home or when he's sleeping she has run of the house, but otherwise she has to be put away until she can be nice/he learns to leave her alone. Even though she's scratched him he is so excited when he sees her and wants to pet her so badly.

4. He loves hugs. When I'm sitting on the floor watching him play he'll crawl over to me and into my lap for a hug. Melts my heart.

5. He loves books. Pulling them off the shelf. Turning the pages. Ripping the pages. I've had to tape a page back together in a library book. I always saw those pages and thought that the parents needed to keep a better eye on their children and teach them how to take care of a library book. I never thought about the fact that it could be babies doing the damage. And in my case, it was. Oops.

6. He's starting to protest. He is a stubborn one and gets very upset if he is thwarted in his plans. If he is wanting to grab the computer and is told no and the computer is taken away he has a mini melt down. If I need to put him down while he's wanting to be held because I really have to go to the bathroom, he has a melt down. Most of the time he is a happy go lucky baby, but he will let you know when he's upset!

7. He absolutely loves his dad. Doug was away for the weekend and you could tell that Coen missed him. He got crankier and crankier as the weekend went on. The day Doug was coming home I had texted him about how stressed out I was with Coen and how he was crying non-stop and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. When Doug got home that all went away and Doug said that if I hadn't texted him about it, he never would have known Coen had been so cranky (I'm just glad he believed me).

8. Coen has cut his two bottom teeth. Those were some loooong nights/days. Only 18 more baby teeth to go...Now we can't let him bite our knuckles. And luckily he hasn't bitten me while feeding...yet.

9. He's starting to transition from 3 naps a day to 2. Every day it seems to go back and forth. One day he'll take two really long naps. The next day he'll take 2 short and one long, or 3 short naps. He goes to bed at 8 every night and wakes between 6:30-7:30. I love that it has finally gotten lighter in the early morning. I'm dreading daylight savings because it doesn't feel so early when it's light out. I wish we'd get rid of day light savings!

10. Coen loves playing with his tongue. Sometimes he sucks on it. Sometimes he turns it upside down. I haven't seen him do a tongue taco yet, so we're not sure if he has the gene or not, but we keep showing him how to do it. He also loves blowing raspberries and has started putting noises with it. So cute!

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

7 months

I had hoped that I would be better at blogging and writing more of Coen's early months down. But he keeps me so busy that when I finally have a free moment I'd rather eat or sleep or shower. At least I keep track of his happenings on the Calendar that hands in his room. It's like a daily baby book.

1. Coen's first Christmas was a success. He got a lot of toys and a lot of things that he needed like a high chair and a pack n play. He mostly loved the paper and would get mad when you took it away from him. He loves all paper. He eats the mail before I can get it home and the church bulletin when I'm carrying him to the car.

2. He's getting close to crawling. He'll reach for a toy that's out of reach and go onto his belly and then reach his little arms out for it. He can scoot and turn but it seems to be more because he's squirming. I don't think he's really understood that he can move his whole body to get to places. He's almost there though and then all hell will break loose.

3. He's starting solids slowly. I don't really know what approach I want to use, whether to give him purees or follow Baby Led Weaning (pretty much skip purees and give them real food to give themselves). He isn't really good at feeding himself but he really wants it. If I eat something in front of him that he wants he gets really mad until I give him some. So I guess I'm kind of blending the approaches. I don't really give him purees but will put the food in his mouth. He loves bananas and sweet potatoes. He didn't like applesauce. And he had his first french fry today and he really liked those.

4. He lost two of his toys yesterday when we were shopping: his rattle ball and his hedgehog. Luckily he's young enough that he didn't know they were gone. But I was bummed, even though they both could be replaced. Luckily they were both at the same store so we were able to recover them. I know this is just the first of many lost items. So much to keep track of with a baby!

5. He still doesn't have teeth. I think he has had real teething days, they just haven't popped up. Although I feel like whenever he has days that he's cranky and we're not really sure why we just blame it on the teeth. Yesterday at the store he was doing his "Mmmm mmmm" moaning sound and a lady comes around the corner and goes, "Oh, he's teething, that's the teething cry." I thought it was kinda funny because it wasn't at all, it was the sound he makes when he's really tired and he's fighting sleep. I felt like, "Why are you telling me what my kid's cry means? You don't know him..." I know she didn't mean anything by it at all, and she was really sweet. Five minutes later he was asleep in my arms.

6. Coen loves skin. He loves pulling on faces and arms. Sometimes it's really cute and sweet and sometimes it makes me cry out in pain. He also loves to pull hair. To Doug it feels really good so he lets him play with his hair. However, it does NOT feel good to me and is really painful. Whenever he pulls my hair I have to remind myself that I can only blame myself at this age for wearing my hair down.

7. Coen still loves books and is starting to enjoy them more sitting up. I'm starting to run out of books that I remember as a kid and we've read through most of the Berenstain Bear books. There's a lot of books at the library but a lot of them are dumb. I know once Coen can pick them out himself I will be reading a lot of books that I think are dumb, so I'd like to read books that I enjoy now.

8. Coen is starting to babble consonants. He goes "daadaadaadaadaa." It's super cute and smiles real big when you do it back. It's like he's saying, "You get it!" I keep meaning to teach him sign language but I haven't had a chance to look into how to teach it. All in time I guess.

9. We went out of town for Christmas and Coen slept horribly. It was the first time he'd spent the night anywhere besides home. The first night at the hotel I ended up sleeping with him in one of the beds. The second night we ended up on the couch of the house where we were staying. And then when we came home he wouldn't sleep anywhere besides with me. For a night and a half he was in our bed. But I just can't co-bed. I'm so torn on the whole thing. But I really need some time to myself to unwind. And I don't sleep well with him right next to me. I love cuddling with him and love holding him when he's sleeping, but I'm not able to get the rest that I need. And I feel like I can't be an effective and good mom when I'm exhausted. So by the third night we had him sleep in his bed. We had done some sleep training at the beginning of December so we did some of that again. It worked a lot better than I thought and he stayed in his crib after ever feeding throughout the night. I could write a whole blog on our sleep adventures (and probably will in the future).

10. As Coen gets older we keep being like, "This is the best that you've been." Don't get me wrong, there are some things from when he was a newborn that I miss and won't get back. I loved how he would sleep for so long during the day. I loved cuddling up and watching movies and sleeping. I liked holding him and reading for hours. But I love learning more about him. I love watching him play with his toys. Watching him notice a different toy that he wants, drop the one that he's holding, and go after the new toy. I love watching him problem solve. I love making him laugh. Sharing my life in little ways (like sharing a banana or a muffin). I like that he likes going for walks in his stroller. I love seeing him sit in the bath and splash and play with his toy boats. As he's getting older he's more interactive and more aware and it's so rewarding. I'll miss having a newborn, but every day the adventure gets a little bit sweeter.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Object Permanence

Coen was a little grumpy this afternoon. He woke up from a nap and was crying real tears. He cried through his feeding and after about 20 minutes he finally perked up a bit. So we played. I gave him some mixing bowls which he loved. I also gave him a baking pan and a spoon. He liked picking each one and hitting other stuff with it. I showed him how to hit the spoon against each of them to make a fun sound. Then he took the spoon and banged on the items as well. It cracked me up and I had no idea he could be shown how to do something and then turn around and do it!

Once he got bored of that we read a few books while he chewed on the spoon. Then it was time for a new activity so I grabbed his burp cloth and started playing peek-a-boo. I think it was last week that I got a reaction from the game for the first time. He'd chuckle each time I revealed my face and wait for the game to start over. So today we played for a long time. I must have hid behind the cloth at least 40 times. Sometimes I hid his face but he seemed to like it best when I was the one to hide. Every time I took the cloth away he was delighted to see me and his face lit up and he'd chuckle (still only does small short laughs). He still hasn't mastered object permanence which is why the game is so great to him. Object permanence is being able to understand that things continue to exist even when they cannot be observed. So every time I pop out from that cloth it's as if I magically appear to him. It's also why you can remove an item from the baby that you don't want them to have, hide it, and they'll forget about it. Older children will just go and grab the item from behind the couch, or open the cabinet to get it back out, because they know that the item still exists.

As I was playing with me it struck me how oftentimes we haven't grasped object permanence when it comes to God. We'll see him work in our lives and we know that it's God. We praise him for his faithfulness. We cling to him through our storms and trials. He is there when we need him. God always shows up. But that's all that it is to us sometimes. We think of him showing up but He never went anywhere. Instead He is there, waiting for us to pull the cloth aside so he can say "peek-a-boo." We act like He doesn't exist when we can't observe Him working in our lives. We forget that he exists when we can't observe Him.

But that's completely wrong. Whether we're hiding behind the cloth ourselves or we feel like he's hiding behind a cloth, He's still right there. Sometimes waiting for us to seek Him. Sometimes whispering and quietly working in our lives. Sometimes shouting to get our attention. But he's there.
I need to have spiritual object permanence. It's easy to come to God in trials. It's harder in good times. It's easy to praise Him in good times. It's harder to continue depending on Him during good times.
I love getting little spiritual glimpses through things like a simple game of peek-a-boo. What a gift.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

First Heartbreak

I feel like the older I get the more I'm reflecting on random parts of my life. I've been thinking about middle school a lot. I had a really good experience. I was at a small school with people I had grown up with. We were sheltered enough that we had retained our innocence (and stories we heard appalled us).

It's amazing to me that that was literally half a lifetime ago. Today I was drinking my coffee and looking at my Timehop app and saw that Monster's Inc. came out 13 years ago. And then I remembered: Yesterday marked the day that I got my first broken heart, half a lifetime ago.

It wasn't my first boyfriend. I had ended my first "relationship" and broke his heart. But this was the boy next door. A boy I had grown up with. He was 2 years older. We walked to the movies with our siblings and held hands. He burned CDs for me of bands that he liked (mainly A Newfound Glory and Blink 182). We watched movies in the garage with our siblings. I rode on the back of his BMX bike. We hugged. We played Sardines at night in the neighborhood. We wrote notes and handed them off to each other. It was cute. It was so innocent. It lasted for a summer and then was abruptly over. I got dumped by his sister. I found out he hadn't like me for a couple weeks and his whole family had known. I felt humiliated. I was broken. He didn't want to be friends. He said we only hung out because we liked each other. And that was that. We all pretty much stopped hanging out. I vowed to myself to never let that happen again.

It took me 2 years to move on. And I have no idea why. I have analyzed what it was about that relationship and the best answer I can come up was that it was just because it was the first heartbreak. And things like that can scar you. I hadn't loved him. I didn't even really know him. We didn't really have a friendship. He was right in that we only hung out because we liked each other. And he was right in ending it. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe I was just a hopeless romantic that finally had a guy interested (I was never a pretty girl in my classes), and the rejection hurt. Maybe the fairy tale, Cory and Topanga, boy-next-door story was shaped what I thought relationships should look like.

That experience shaped me though. I became the heartbreaker. I didn't let anyone get close. I ended relationships after a few months. My longest relationship before Doug was 4 months. A big part of that was because I'd figure out that I didn't want to be with the guy a lot faster. So why waste my time? Why get invested and open my heart up to be broken again when I knew it wasn't going anywhere? (Something I knew and ignored with the boy next door). In some ways I'm glad I did this, because most of the guys in high school weren't worth the investment.

A lot of experiences in my life have caused me to try to protect myself. To put up walls and not be vulnerable, because I only saw vulnerability as an opportunity to be hurt. This was one of the first experiences to contribute, but not the most profound. But living that way is so pointless. Yes, there are situations and people to protect yourself from. But to limit your vulnerability, to limit your capacity for pain, is to limit your capacity for joy. And if I want to live my life with joy, I need to be able to be vulnerable. Not letting people in because they might hurt you will keep people out of your life that could lift you up and be a lifelong friend. We learn from pain and joy. Embrace life. Don't cower.

My heart mended and I moved on. It was cracked and broken again a couple times over the years but that's because I was able to open my heart to others. And Doug got to keep my heart. And I his. Both have scars but they're what makes us uniquely us. Without those scars I wouldn't be who I am today. So I can look back with a smile on that first sweet, simple, puppy-love relationship. And be thankful for how it contributed to my future relationships.

It'll be fun in 26 years when I can reminisce about this time in my life, and how much will have happened in the next half of my lifetime.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Babies and Pumpkins

I know that putting babies in pumpkins has gotten a little overrated the past couple of years. A bit "basic." And then there are all of the failed posts of the crying baby or the baby freaking out. I never thought much of them. But then I had a baby. And I figure he's only small enough to put in a pumpkin once. So people may roll their eyes at people putting babies in pumpkins...



But look how cute he is!


This was the closest we got to a smile. He never really fussed, he just kept looking around him. I think he was enjoying being outside. We tried singing songs, making noises, making faces, everything to get a good grin, but he was just sitting contently in the pumpkin.


Then he figured out he could reach the corn and had a blast playing with that!


He didn't hate the pumpkin at all. Although he did not like getting out of it. He got a little stuck haha.

It's a bit of a relief to be able to do things that make it seem like fall. With how busy we are and how much time and energy Coen demands from us I wasn't expecting much from this holiday season. But today we went to the grocery store to pick out pumpkins ($5 at Ralphs!), and I seeded and cleaned out both pumpkins during one of his naps. During his morning nap Doug and I watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and tonight we're going to roast seeds, watch "Hocus Pocus" and make kettle corn (assuming bed time goes smoothly). We're getting to enjoy our fall and that makes me really happy.

Coen's new napping schedule also makes me really happy. I had heard about the "90 Minute Sleep Program Book" which basically states that your baby doesn't sleep well because he's overtired. It suggests following the natural rhythm of tiredness which occurs 90 minutes after your baby has woken up. So the past 2 weeks I've tried my best to put him down 90 minutes after he last woke up (some days were harder than others because of appointments and activities). And it's actually working really well. The last couple of days he's gone down for a nap without a peep. And it's not sleep training. I'm not letting him cry it out or anything like that. I just swaddle him up and put him in his swing and he goes to sleep within minutes. If he fusses I stay with him until he drift off (less than 5 minutes each time). It has been glorious and I hope that he keeps it up. Some naps are still only 45 minutes long but that's ok. Most days he takes at least an hour and a half nap (yes!). And it's amazing what I can do with that time!