These are the nights of parenthood that I have to die to myself the most, stick a fake smile on my face, and do what is best for the heart's of my kids.
I am tired. I am frustrated. I am tired of puking (yes I'm talking about vomiting again, don't you know that's all I do). All I want to do is take a bath, zone out to a show, and go to bed.
But tonight is the annual Harvest Party, that my kids have been counting down to for literally weeks. So I'm going to go load up on pain pills, reapply the eye makeup I've cried off today, stick a mint in my mouth to hide my vomit breath, a put a huge fake smile on my face, and drive us all down to the dang party, and pretend to have the best night of my entire life.
Why? Because tonight that is what being a good mommy means. Choosing my happy heart, and having self control: two things I talk to them about daily. If I can't do these two things, why should I expect them to?
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Caught In Limbo.
I think my favorite place to barf is hunched over the hard wood floor downstairs, puking onto a clean towel.
I am dead serious.
Places I hate puking the most are into the toilet and/or the sink. Why? The SMELL!!!!! Makes the puking go on and on and on, cause I can never catch my breathe, never catch a scent of something calming.
Yes, this is a freaking nasty, very pathetic blog post. But this is my life.
I have no words to describe, nor do I want to take the emotional energy to portray what end of pregnancy 'morning' sickness is like. All I will say is this. I spend my ENTIRE day trying not to puke, and I fail miserably every single day.
On days like today I ask myself, "Why in the hell would I not be induced ASAP?", "Why continue one more day of this endless torture if I had an option?".
The truth is, I don't really have a good answer.
From the moment I learned of this pregnancy, I thought, "I am going to be induced a week early with this baby, and get an epidural." This was my plan the ENTIRE pregnancy....until a little less than 2 weeks ago.
All of a sudden I started thinking that I have never had the chance to know what it is like to go into labor on my own, and started getting REALLY sad to think I was never going to know what that was like. I want an adventure story, even if its not too adventurous. I want a real labor story.
This is our last pregnancy, our last baby, our last delivery. I have such picturesque ideals of how the onset of this labor would go.
It'd be on a dreary fall day, slightly chilly outside, with rain coming down. I would spend some of the day at home, laboring in my room while listening to the rain outside, as my husband packed the car for the hospital, and the girls came in off and on to check on me. Some of the day would be spent in a bubble bath, just timing contractions, and reading something peaceful, like devotions from my Jesus Calling devotional. When things became regular and were picking up more I would get dressed in some comfy (but hospital stylish) clothes, have a 'what to expect' chat with our little girlies, and head out to the van. I would be in the back with some pillows and blankets. Laboring away. Driving into town. In the rain. Smelling the rain, and listening to it splash up against the sides of the van, and trickle on the windows. We'd arrive to the hospital before anything got too hectic, and go from there.
Why do I dare write my own labor story? Simply because I know it doesn't exist. God has a plan, I keep hearing. I know this to be true. I just fear that his plan for me won't include going into labor on my own.
I've researched online, and know, some women's bodies simply do not go into labor on their own while it is still optimally healthy for the baby. I've seen this in the life of my friend who started labor around 32 weeks, and in my own life with my child that had to be induced at 42 weeks, and was born with lots of post term 'ailments'. Neither one of these times were optimally healthy for the baby, yet the body did what it did. I do of course ultimately want what is healthiest for the baby, and I do realize an induction could be the safest thing for sure. I just wish for another destiny.
I am in the mourning process. Still holding out hope. Trying to be realistic. And realizing those don't go together. Caught in limbo. Puking my guts out.
I am dead serious.
Places I hate puking the most are into the toilet and/or the sink. Why? The SMELL!!!!! Makes the puking go on and on and on, cause I can never catch my breathe, never catch a scent of something calming.
Yes, this is a freaking nasty, very pathetic blog post. But this is my life.
I have no words to describe, nor do I want to take the emotional energy to portray what end of pregnancy 'morning' sickness is like. All I will say is this. I spend my ENTIRE day trying not to puke, and I fail miserably every single day.
On days like today I ask myself, "Why in the hell would I not be induced ASAP?", "Why continue one more day of this endless torture if I had an option?".
The truth is, I don't really have a good answer.
From the moment I learned of this pregnancy, I thought, "I am going to be induced a week early with this baby, and get an epidural." This was my plan the ENTIRE pregnancy....until a little less than 2 weeks ago.
All of a sudden I started thinking that I have never had the chance to know what it is like to go into labor on my own, and started getting REALLY sad to think I was never going to know what that was like. I want an adventure story, even if its not too adventurous. I want a real labor story.
This is our last pregnancy, our last baby, our last delivery. I have such picturesque ideals of how the onset of this labor would go.
It'd be on a dreary fall day, slightly chilly outside, with rain coming down. I would spend some of the day at home, laboring in my room while listening to the rain outside, as my husband packed the car for the hospital, and the girls came in off and on to check on me. Some of the day would be spent in a bubble bath, just timing contractions, and reading something peaceful, like devotions from my Jesus Calling devotional. When things became regular and were picking up more I would get dressed in some comfy (but hospital stylish) clothes, have a 'what to expect' chat with our little girlies, and head out to the van. I would be in the back with some pillows and blankets. Laboring away. Driving into town. In the rain. Smelling the rain, and listening to it splash up against the sides of the van, and trickle on the windows. We'd arrive to the hospital before anything got too hectic, and go from there.
Why do I dare write my own labor story? Simply because I know it doesn't exist. God has a plan, I keep hearing. I know this to be true. I just fear that his plan for me won't include going into labor on my own.
I've researched online, and know, some women's bodies simply do not go into labor on their own while it is still optimally healthy for the baby. I've seen this in the life of my friend who started labor around 32 weeks, and in my own life with my child that had to be induced at 42 weeks, and was born with lots of post term 'ailments'. Neither one of these times were optimally healthy for the baby, yet the body did what it did. I do of course ultimately want what is healthiest for the baby, and I do realize an induction could be the safest thing for sure. I just wish for another destiny.
I am in the mourning process. Still holding out hope. Trying to be realistic. And realizing those don't go together. Caught in limbo. Puking my guts out.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
I'm supposed to be huge, I'm 8 months pregnant. What's your excuse?
For some reason, when women get towards the end of pregnancy, I've noticed that people feel the need to say insensitive things to them, or about them.
This is something I really don't get at all. Well.....except for the fact that these comments usually come from people who have never experienced the blessing of carrying a child. So, these remarks come from a very very naive and selfish place. Or these comments come from men, usually older men. Again, you don't get it.....
This has happened to me EVERY SINGLE PREGNANCY i've had. Yet still leaves me scratching my head. I still don't get it.
I was looking online at just random pregnancy and labor stuff, where women were sharing 'end of pregnancy' stories, and came across a FANTASTIC 'come back' to the 'kind' remarks people LOVE to share with very pregnant women.
A woman was sharing how she was getting just sick of people telling her that she is huge, and so instead of being pissed and bottling it in, she started responding to them. Her response?
"I'm supposed to be huge, I'm 9 months pregnant. What's your excuse?"
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
Upon coming across this quote I shared it with my husband, who of course just rolled his eyes. After begging him to PLEASE let me use this comeback at least once in response to someone's remarks, I finally agreed with him that responding this way isn't necessarily the most mature or kind thing to do.
So to honor my husband's wishes, I will not be using this comeback. Out loud at least. I can't promise I won't be thinking this in my head the next time someone shares the obvious with me.
Cause after all, if they ever get to experience the blessing of pregnancy, they'll be huge too. And I hope the embrace it like a WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!
This is something I really don't get at all. Well.....except for the fact that these comments usually come from people who have never experienced the blessing of carrying a child. So, these remarks come from a very very naive and selfish place. Or these comments come from men, usually older men. Again, you don't get it.....
This has happened to me EVERY SINGLE PREGNANCY i've had. Yet still leaves me scratching my head. I still don't get it.
I was looking online at just random pregnancy and labor stuff, where women were sharing 'end of pregnancy' stories, and came across a FANTASTIC 'come back' to the 'kind' remarks people LOVE to share with very pregnant women.
A woman was sharing how she was getting just sick of people telling her that she is huge, and so instead of being pissed and bottling it in, she started responding to them. Her response?
"I'm supposed to be huge, I'm 9 months pregnant. What's your excuse?"
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
Upon coming across this quote I shared it with my husband, who of course just rolled his eyes. After begging him to PLEASE let me use this comeback at least once in response to someone's remarks, I finally agreed with him that responding this way isn't necessarily the most mature or kind thing to do.
So to honor my husband's wishes, I will not be using this comeback. Out loud at least. I can't promise I won't be thinking this in my head the next time someone shares the obvious with me.
Cause after all, if they ever get to experience the blessing of pregnancy, they'll be huge too. And I hope the embrace it like a WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Leave Enough Room To Twirl.
The other evening, while at the women's dinner out here at the ranch, I had one of those 'slap you in the face' moments from the Lord. It was totally divine, and completely awesome.
As you know, we've been restructuring alot of how we do things around the Morrow household in terms of teaching and disciplining our children. Sadly, this came as the result of doing these two things 'brainless and heartless' for several years, until the light bulb went on and we finally asked the Lord what he would have us do. Not surprisingly, he started leading us in the opposite direction from which we were presently traveling. It has been months upon months of praying, listening, experimenting, failing, and succeeding, but we have settled into a routine that feels emotionally and spiritually healthy to our family, and that is a huge blessing. I never ask myself the question 'Why am I doing this? I hate this!' while instructing or disciplining the kiddos, and that in itself is entirely freeing.
In the early years, not so long ago, I was just blindly following the crowd around me, even though day to day I was shriveling up inside with conviction and doubt. I felt like what I was doing was stealing life from my kids, my self, my husband, my family. I felt like I was trying to put too many firm borders on my family, for no other reason than I felt like I was 'supposed to'. Not a convicted from the Lord supposed to, but a everyone else is doing this supposed to. What I say daily in the hearts of my family was devastating. I felt like my man was stumbling to get his footing and gain respect while trying to settle into our 'family plan', and I saw the hearts of my children starting to loose their child likeness. They were loosing their girly screams, they were loosing their endless laughter, they were loosing their shiny smiling eyes, and they were becoming restricted.
This was the kicker, when I saw this all happening, that finally freed my heart to look at other options for child training. I knew what we were doing was stealing life and joy, and not promoting the love of God in our family. I was inhibiting their child likeness, and I wanted them to experience joy and freedom and innocence and childish fun. I wanted them to have insanely fun chaotic moments, within safe boundaries and borders. But, I didn't want them to be so surrounded by these borders that they only concentrated on them. I only wanted them to recognize these borders when they bumped up against them. Other than that, I wanted the to be totally free to be them.
The other night at the women's dinner I was talking with a friend about her beautiful back yard and gardens. They are truly immaculate. So well planned, so well placed, so well thought out. This year she added yet another 'bed' to her garden on the edge of her yard, a sort of border if you will. Once again, a masterpiece. She was talking about her plants, and her 'beds' and in doing so brought up a conversation that she had had with a young girl out here more recently. This women had asked the young girl if and where she thought they should add yet another flower bed to her yard, and the girls response:
"Make sure you leave enough room to twirl."
This one simple sentenced slapped me in the face harder than most other things have in my life. This is what had felt so wrong to me about our 'old ways' of training our children, and this is what feels SO right about this new way of training our children. We are leaving enough room for them to 'twirl'. Isn't that just a beautiful image, of a young girl, in a summer dress, on a summer day, in a green lawn, surrounded by beautiful flowers. Her head is tipped back with her face towards the sky, sun streaming down through her blond hair, her eyes are closed, her arms are out, and she is twirling.
Not a care in the world.
I want to give that to my children. And I am so extremely satisfied when I do. The freedom to be innocent, to have not a care in the world. The freedom to connect with who the Lord made them to be. To feel like a pretty little princess, adored by her King. To feel confident in who they are as young young women.
I once heard that a goldfish, if alive long enough, will eventually grow to fit the size of the bowl it lives in. Meaning, stick that goldfish in a tiny little bowl, you're going to always have a tiny little fish. BUT.....stick that same fish in a huge aquarium, eventually you're going to end up with a healthy size fish. Why? This fish has been allowed to develop and grow into who it was made to be. It was given the freedom to be all that it was meant to be.
Now....back to the little girl.
Lets say this girl is twirling and twirling in this yard, soaking in the sun, her mind off on things even more beautiful than the garden she is in, when all of a sudden the texture of the ground under her bare feet changes from soft green grass, to sharp rough bark chips. Is this girl gonna keep on twirling? Maybe. She might just step once into that bark, in that flower bed, that is a border on that lawn, and be able to quickly remind herself that border in there and move back in to innocent twirling. But....there is a good chance when she does bump into that border, its going to jolt her into another world. Her eyes are going to pop open, her feet are going to start burning, and she's going to have to stop twirling in order to deal with the situation at hand. She has bumped into a border. She' gonna sit down, and start picking all of those bark dust slivers from her feet. Her mind in no longer in 'fantasy land' but now in reality. She's thinking through how she got too close to that border, she's making a plan to avoid this next time, to prolong the twirling. She's mapping things out in her head, wanting to go back to her 'freedom' but at the same time hoping to stay aware of the 'dangers' at hand. Once she's finished picking the pokies out of her feet, and finished processing through her new plan, she goes back to the safe center of the yard, surrounded by the borders of beautiful gardens, tilts her head back, and the twirling begins again. There has been a lesson learned in there, but her freedom remains in tact, and her heart remains in contentment.
This is what I more than anything want to provide for my girls. A place of freedom and innocence, surrounded by 'beautiful' borders. Just like the gardener, I want my borders to be well planned, well placed, and thought out. I want them to create the most unobstructed environment possible in order to insure optimal 'twirling space', but I want them to remain there intact indeed. I don't want the borders to be the focus, but only the reminder. I want the twirling to be the focus. And when a well placed border is bumped into, we will certainly do the work it takes to learn the lesson. But once the lesson is learned, we will return to the wonderful joy that childhood is as quickly as possible.
After all, childhood is short. We must leave time for twirling.
As you know, we've been restructuring alot of how we do things around the Morrow household in terms of teaching and disciplining our children. Sadly, this came as the result of doing these two things 'brainless and heartless' for several years, until the light bulb went on and we finally asked the Lord what he would have us do. Not surprisingly, he started leading us in the opposite direction from which we were presently traveling. It has been months upon months of praying, listening, experimenting, failing, and succeeding, but we have settled into a routine that feels emotionally and spiritually healthy to our family, and that is a huge blessing. I never ask myself the question 'Why am I doing this? I hate this!' while instructing or disciplining the kiddos, and that in itself is entirely freeing.
In the early years, not so long ago, I was just blindly following the crowd around me, even though day to day I was shriveling up inside with conviction and doubt. I felt like what I was doing was stealing life from my kids, my self, my husband, my family. I felt like I was trying to put too many firm borders on my family, for no other reason than I felt like I was 'supposed to'. Not a convicted from the Lord supposed to, but a everyone else is doing this supposed to. What I say daily in the hearts of my family was devastating. I felt like my man was stumbling to get his footing and gain respect while trying to settle into our 'family plan', and I saw the hearts of my children starting to loose their child likeness. They were loosing their girly screams, they were loosing their endless laughter, they were loosing their shiny smiling eyes, and they were becoming restricted.
This was the kicker, when I saw this all happening, that finally freed my heart to look at other options for child training. I knew what we were doing was stealing life and joy, and not promoting the love of God in our family. I was inhibiting their child likeness, and I wanted them to experience joy and freedom and innocence and childish fun. I wanted them to have insanely fun chaotic moments, within safe boundaries and borders. But, I didn't want them to be so surrounded by these borders that they only concentrated on them. I only wanted them to recognize these borders when they bumped up against them. Other than that, I wanted the to be totally free to be them.
The other night at the women's dinner I was talking with a friend about her beautiful back yard and gardens. They are truly immaculate. So well planned, so well placed, so well thought out. This year she added yet another 'bed' to her garden on the edge of her yard, a sort of border if you will. Once again, a masterpiece. She was talking about her plants, and her 'beds' and in doing so brought up a conversation that she had had with a young girl out here more recently. This women had asked the young girl if and where she thought they should add yet another flower bed to her yard, and the girls response:
"Make sure you leave enough room to twirl."
This one simple sentenced slapped me in the face harder than most other things have in my life. This is what had felt so wrong to me about our 'old ways' of training our children, and this is what feels SO right about this new way of training our children. We are leaving enough room for them to 'twirl'. Isn't that just a beautiful image, of a young girl, in a summer dress, on a summer day, in a green lawn, surrounded by beautiful flowers. Her head is tipped back with her face towards the sky, sun streaming down through her blond hair, her eyes are closed, her arms are out, and she is twirling.
Not a care in the world.
I want to give that to my children. And I am so extremely satisfied when I do. The freedom to be innocent, to have not a care in the world. The freedom to connect with who the Lord made them to be. To feel like a pretty little princess, adored by her King. To feel confident in who they are as young young women.
I once heard that a goldfish, if alive long enough, will eventually grow to fit the size of the bowl it lives in. Meaning, stick that goldfish in a tiny little bowl, you're going to always have a tiny little fish. BUT.....stick that same fish in a huge aquarium, eventually you're going to end up with a healthy size fish. Why? This fish has been allowed to develop and grow into who it was made to be. It was given the freedom to be all that it was meant to be.
Now....back to the little girl.
Lets say this girl is twirling and twirling in this yard, soaking in the sun, her mind off on things even more beautiful than the garden she is in, when all of a sudden the texture of the ground under her bare feet changes from soft green grass, to sharp rough bark chips. Is this girl gonna keep on twirling? Maybe. She might just step once into that bark, in that flower bed, that is a border on that lawn, and be able to quickly remind herself that border in there and move back in to innocent twirling. But....there is a good chance when she does bump into that border, its going to jolt her into another world. Her eyes are going to pop open, her feet are going to start burning, and she's going to have to stop twirling in order to deal with the situation at hand. She has bumped into a border. She' gonna sit down, and start picking all of those bark dust slivers from her feet. Her mind in no longer in 'fantasy land' but now in reality. She's thinking through how she got too close to that border, she's making a plan to avoid this next time, to prolong the twirling. She's mapping things out in her head, wanting to go back to her 'freedom' but at the same time hoping to stay aware of the 'dangers' at hand. Once she's finished picking the pokies out of her feet, and finished processing through her new plan, she goes back to the safe center of the yard, surrounded by the borders of beautiful gardens, tilts her head back, and the twirling begins again. There has been a lesson learned in there, but her freedom remains in tact, and her heart remains in contentment.
This is what I more than anything want to provide for my girls. A place of freedom and innocence, surrounded by 'beautiful' borders. Just like the gardener, I want my borders to be well planned, well placed, and thought out. I want them to create the most unobstructed environment possible in order to insure optimal 'twirling space', but I want them to remain there intact indeed. I don't want the borders to be the focus, but only the reminder. I want the twirling to be the focus. And when a well placed border is bumped into, we will certainly do the work it takes to learn the lesson. But once the lesson is learned, we will return to the wonderful joy that childhood is as quickly as possible.
After all, childhood is short. We must leave time for twirling.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Breech Baby Frank.
So, for a few weeks now I have been having what was assumed to be gallbladder pain. I went in yesterday for my confirmation ultrasound, to confirm indeed that it was my gallbladder. We were then going to make a plan from there. Oh plans. They never work do they?
Good news: gallbladder is normal, healthy, perfect.....well except for the large baby head, hands, and feet that are pressing against it. Yep, you heard me right, I've got a breech baby in there. A frank breech baby to be exact. Now, this is fine. I've been through this many times before, the thought of a breech baby in itself doesn't freak me out. Even the knowledge that I will most likely have to have a c-section doesn't freak me out. The thing that freaks me out is that during the ultrasound they found that the cord is wrapped around the babies hand. At first I thought 'well at least its not the neck', and although that is true, a pinched cord, is a bad bad thing.
So of course I did what any logical person would do: went online. Yikes. Online you find tons of stories of babies dying due to a cord being wrapped around their neck, but you also find a slew of stories of babies dying from their cords being wrapped around other places: like their foot.
Oh holy heck. What am I supposed to do with this info?
Trust God.
Yep.
It just feels that lately, in my life, trusting God usually doesn't go in my favor. I know that sounds horrible. And it is. But again I said thats what it feels like. Feelings don't often match up with truth.
The idea of having to deliver my little Ozzy, dead, because of something stupid like the cord being wrapped around his hand, is a little unbearable right now. And it should be. I am analyzing every feeling I've been having, everything he is doing, trying to figure out if he is in danger. I want his hand to slip out of the cord, but then again, if it does, then there is a huge chance of a knot forming where his hand was.
I want to trust God, I really do, but I don't. I trusted him with Noah, that tanked. I trust him with my marriage, that fails often too.
I know trusting God is the right thing to do, and really the only option, but right now, it doesn't sound like a good plan at all.
Please don't be alarmed. I am not having a crisis of faith. I am just one who believe that the Lord would rather us admit the fault of how we are actually feeling, than fake the perfection of false emotion.
He knows I am having a hard time trusting him right now. Why pretend?
If what's going to happen is what's going to happen, what's the difference anyways?
Good news: gallbladder is normal, healthy, perfect.....well except for the large baby head, hands, and feet that are pressing against it. Yep, you heard me right, I've got a breech baby in there. A frank breech baby to be exact. Now, this is fine. I've been through this many times before, the thought of a breech baby in itself doesn't freak me out. Even the knowledge that I will most likely have to have a c-section doesn't freak me out. The thing that freaks me out is that during the ultrasound they found that the cord is wrapped around the babies hand. At first I thought 'well at least its not the neck', and although that is true, a pinched cord, is a bad bad thing.
So of course I did what any logical person would do: went online. Yikes. Online you find tons of stories of babies dying due to a cord being wrapped around their neck, but you also find a slew of stories of babies dying from their cords being wrapped around other places: like their foot.
Oh holy heck. What am I supposed to do with this info?
Trust God.
Yep.
It just feels that lately, in my life, trusting God usually doesn't go in my favor. I know that sounds horrible. And it is. But again I said thats what it feels like. Feelings don't often match up with truth.
The idea of having to deliver my little Ozzy, dead, because of something stupid like the cord being wrapped around his hand, is a little unbearable right now. And it should be. I am analyzing every feeling I've been having, everything he is doing, trying to figure out if he is in danger. I want his hand to slip out of the cord, but then again, if it does, then there is a huge chance of a knot forming where his hand was.
I want to trust God, I really do, but I don't. I trusted him with Noah, that tanked. I trust him with my marriage, that fails often too.
I know trusting God is the right thing to do, and really the only option, but right now, it doesn't sound like a good plan at all.
Please don't be alarmed. I am not having a crisis of faith. I am just one who believe that the Lord would rather us admit the fault of how we are actually feeling, than fake the perfection of false emotion.
He knows I am having a hard time trusting him right now. Why pretend?
If what's going to happen is what's going to happen, what's the difference anyways?
Friday, September 7, 2012
Perspective.
Life is all about perspective isn't it.
Dealing with a miscarriage is a cake walk compared to this.
Begging for Christ's swift return. I'm ready.
Dealing with a miscarriage is a cake walk compared to this.
Begging for Christ's swift return. I'm ready.
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