Hypoplasia/Insufficient Glandular Tissue

I sent Tom an email a few weeks ago (when he was in Michigan), "This is about the best thing I've seen explaining my low milk production." It is this article, http://kellymom.com/bf/got-milk/supply-worries/insufficient-glandular-tissue.

I never have made enough milk for Max, and after visiting two RN specialists and lactation consultant in the early days, and after three weeks of donor milk that costs as much as fine wine, I started him on Baby's Only formula. It was a bit of a mystery to all of us why after a full-term delivery I didn't have enough milk for my baby. He didn't seem to have latch issues, he was a eager little eater.

The first night of his life, he slept only about an hour, and the nurses said usually they have to come in and wake the baby up to feed. He wanted to feed from when he was born at 6 pm until 10 am the next morning when we finally got them to give him donor milk because he seemed so hungry. It might have been his joie de vivre, but it was also hunger.

Two of the specialists suggested maybe I didn't have many milk ducts. This Kelly Mom article listed a few different indications for women for whom this is the case. As best I can tell, without extensive testing, if there is such a thing, this is me.

After a month on a hospital-grade pump, taking hormones to support prolactin, drinking two kinds of herbal teas, and slamming fenugreek, I resigned myself to not being able to meet Max's nutritional needs. It did involve tears, especially when he smelled like the formula that first night. I saw an article about MRIs of the brains of formula-fed babies', hybrid-(both mother's milk and formula) fed babies, and strictly breastfed babies. Whatever activity they were measuring for was all throughout the breastfed baby's brain, and less so for the babies receiving any formula. That made me cry too.

We, Max and I, have persisted in nursing. He has gained weight rather exponentially on his formula, but we still nurse both day and night. Milk production is highest sometime after 1 am, so I haven't tried to discourage him waking up in the night to feed. And the sweet thing is we have it as a comfort.

It turns out I'm a rather unselfconscious breast-feeder, so both at home and in public, we nurse. Abby and I flew back with him from a visit to Phoenix at 10 pm a few weeks ago. The poor guy got the fall-aparts, and justifiably because he's normally asleep by 10 pm. He was beside himself during a long taxiing, and only could finally be calmed when we nursed during takeoff.

I texted her the next day, "Thinking about last night, what ever would we have done without the breast?!" Her reply, "Mob with pitchforks."

This has also been a good website: http://www.noteveryonecanbreastfeed.com.

6 May 2015 update:  I have used Traditional Medicinals Mother's Milk Shatavari Cardamom tea, Gaia Herbs Lactate Support, and WishGarden Herbs Milk Rich in later months. I think each have helped me increase milk production a bit, but WishGarden is probably the best.

Happy six months to our baby love!

Early days of cloth diapering

Tonight I write about diapers because it's something I knew very little about a year ago (though I had changed disposable diapers for girls and a boy as a nanny), and it's what's going on in my life.

I am inclined to cloth diaper. At least I was when I registered for baby gifts. Now that we're five months in and my once-supportive husband wishes we were using disposable diapers exclusively, I have asked myself, why do I persist?

There is thrift - a disposable diaper costs between $.20-30 each. A cloth diaper would pay for itself after about 72 uses (at $18/.25). There are newborn sized cloth diapers, that go from 5-10 lbs, and then the bigger sizes that go from about 8-35 lbs. I determined to use disposables for the newborn baby Max. Then, I received five cloth diapers as shower gifts, and found a Groupon to buy two one more diapers plus six used Play All Day hemp/cotton inserts at a baby boutique.

There is the environmental benefits, illustrated in the following table from The Internet (credit: AppleCheeks cloth diapers). If it's true, there is a clear environmental benefit to cloth diapering. I did read an article, that I can't find now, that said our personal efforts at recycling/reducing consumption are a drop in the bucket (like 1%) compared to industrial pollution, but I am not deterred, just discouraged. Though it is for this reason that Tom thinks cloth is not worth the while:

The prices to be paid besides just the cloth diapers - water, electricity, detergent, and time. Our water is included in our rather high HOA fee, so in a financial rather than environmental decision, I wash the cloth diapers every-other day, on Hot-Cold with an extra rinse. I use ECOS detergent, a very small amount, which I bought on sale at Natural Grocer after reading this extensive chart. You can't use detergents with enzymes for diapers because it erodes the waterproofing.

These are my seven diapers:

GroVia AI2 - hybrid diapers, shell and snap inserts sold separately. Inserts are poly-backed hemp/cotton (hemp and bamboo are best for absorption) with a fleece cover. I have three shells and four inserts. I also use the hemp inserts sometimes. These GroVias seem like the "coolest" system to me, but Max seems to smell the most pee-y after wearing these. If they leak, it's usually out the leg, but the part between the crotch is most similar to a disposable diaper (not super-wide). At about $17 per diaper and $17 per two inserts, they are a bit above average cost. Made in China.

BumGenius 4.0 - pocket diaper, it comes with two microfiber inserts you have to stuff inside. Microfiber absorbs quickly but can't hold as much as hemp. I usually put a hemp/cotton insert with a smaller microfiber in the fleece pocket. These are about seven inches wide at the crotch, and Tom thinks Max hates it. I don't think Max hates it, but it doesn't seem easy to learn to walk in these (which he hasn't started doing). I have one. China. About $18.

BumGenius Freetime All-in-one - "AI1" diaper. This particular diaper has two long flaps out each end that stack on top of each other, they're fleece on microfiber. It doesn't seem super-absorbant, but the advantage is if you have a babysitter, or husband who doesn't have the patience for cloth diapers, they are very easy to assemble (flip the flaps over each other and velcro). I have two. China. About $20. 5/25/15 update - The strip of velcro is not sewn as the top of the diaper, but as the diaper shifts with wear, the strip of velcro becomes the top of the diaper, making a kind-of sharp edge against the fat, beautiful baby belly. So I'm now down on Freetime for that reason.

AMP Diapers - pocket diaper. I stuff a hemp/cotton insert. Wide in the crotch, gusseted at the leg-holes for extra absorbency. I have one, $13 new, but only sold at a baby boutique (not on Amazon or Target). Made in Canada.

It is possible to get hugely into cloth diapering, and I stumbled across a brand made in the US or Canada (last summer) that sells out every week on Tuesday when they release their new stock. I'm not hugely into cloth diapering. From this enthusiastic crowd there are great resources for parents interested in cloth diapers, but I did find it overwhelming to sift through all the info. I'm trying to condense my one little experience here.

Even now, I don't use cloth diapers at night, and I only use them at our home. If we're at my in-laws or parents' house, we use disposables exclusively.

Disposable diapers - Pampers Swaddlers were great for Newborn through Size 2 having tried Huggies, Seventh Generation, and Babyganics in the newborn size. We're using Pampers Dry Time Size 2 lately and though maybe they're not as good as Swaddlers (they're slightly cheaper), they get the job done. I try to purchase them as Amazon open box, or at Target with remainder baby shower gift cards. Our next box is Pamper's Cruisers in Size 3, but we haven't broken them open yet. 3/26/15 update - Cruisers are working great, he kept peeing out Swaddlers Size 3 at night, but Cruisers in Size 3 are getting the job done.

I did read Somewhere that even if a person doesn't cloth diaper, it's still a huge environmental boon to flush poo whenever possible out of a disposable diaper. It also keeps a diaper bin from smelling for quite a while longer.

Disposable diaper bin - I have a Diaper Dekor Plus bin. It takes special sold-for-itself plastic bags. I spent a lot of time trying to decide on this from reading reviews, and I've generally been happy with it. As long as I change it once a week, the smell does not overpower. Dekor sells cotton bags that can transform it to a cloth diaper bin, but I keep it for disposable.

I use a wet bag for the diapers. I don't rinse them (besides wiping/dropping the poo in the toilet), and then turn the bag inside out in the wash and wash it too. The bag brand I have is Planet Wise, but a wet bag without cotton on it would probably be more simple. When I anticipate Max going #2, I use Real Nappies Diaper Liners, which fold into the diaper and make it easier if they do catch the poo.

I can see a benefit of owning all the same type of diaper, but my cousin Anduin said to try different kinds and be willing to use different kinds. Of the four brands I have, I can't say one is much better than the others. Any of them can be layered for extra absorbency, though the layer next to the baby's skin should be fleece (or raw silk, I read). There are services where you can rent diapers and try them out for a month. That's an option for someone toying with the idea of cloth diapering, but I imagine most moms want to have things ready and waiting when their baby arrives. There are also cloth diaper services where you don't have to own or clean the diapers at all, depending on your city.

I don't know what we'll do long-term, if we will try Elimination Communication, if I would still cloth diaper if we have two kids. I would need more diapers to do two kids at once, but for now seven is enough (I just ordered the shell below, though, because it is cute).

Reluctant adventures in food

At 5.75 months old, a list of things Max doesn't like to eat
Apples (a taste)
Applesauce
Avocados
Bananas
Broccoli
Egg yolk
Grapes (a taste)
Oatmeal
Peas
Rice cereal
Sweet potatoes
Teething cracker
Tomato sauce
Tuna with curry (a stretch, okay)
Yogurt

A list of things Max does like to eat
Breast milk
Formula
Cucumber (a taste)

Baby Dan, Baby Pam, Baby Max

My parents as babies, and Max. I haven't found a baby picture of myself yet.

Baby Dan (1953)

Baby Max

Baby Pam (1954) & Momma Pat

 Baby Max & Momma Hannah

Baby Max, his own wonderful self

Project Hannah

In a world with many sorrows, I don't necessarily look away. A year ago, when I was so sick growing Max, I had to look away, especially from the Ukraine. But normally I seek out news of the world. In fact, it moves me most, events in the world across cultures.

This past week has had its sorrows, from the news and closer to home. I don't know anyone who wasn't deeply affected by the death of the Jordanian pilot at the hands of the Islamic State. I didn't seek extra information besides what I read or heard on the radio. It was enough to break my heart from the other side of the world. I thought Omid Safi's article about Moaz was particularly humanizing.

Six days ago, friends from our little community in Colorado lost their baby in the third trimester. They are the fourth people in the past year who've lost a baby. I've been sad every day.

In 1998, I saw an insert in my church bulletin that Trans World Radio was starting a program called "Project Hannah:  Women of Hope." It was meant to encourage isolated women around the world, and train them practically in nutrition, health, parenting, work, and life in Christ. As a teenager, I sent away for their information and used their daily prayer calendar through college. The prayer calendar is specific, usually topical for a month, and they mailed it to me. They now broadcast in 70 languages.

But then I became itinerant. I stopped following their work, donating occasionally, but not praying daily as I had for those years. The calendar still comes to one of my three addresses, but my life is still pretty irregular.

This fall, I found out they had an app. I spend a lot of time on my smartphone, more than I can be proud of, but so it is. I downloaded their app, and now have access to their daily prayer needs once again.

I mention this because I've found it's an antidote to being overwhelmed by information, even though in some cases the prayer requests alert me to suffering of which I hadn't been aware. The prayer needs are tough, here is today's,

Please pray for young girls and women who are violently and emotionally traumatized. Ask that they will come to know God's restoration and healing through Jesus Christ. Many are in despair and consider suicide as an escape from the torment of being locked away, beaten, starved, and raped when they resist their pimps.

Despite the sorrows, this prayer calendar offers me the one thing I can do about any of this [besides working in these environments, giving money, and contacting my senator]. To pray. I am encouraged to be a part of Project Hannah again because I join my prayers with others around the world. 

I had a hard fall, and it wasn't particularly because I was a new mom. Reconnecting with these lives of women who suffer put my own suffering in perspective, but not in a way that belittled my experience.  Rather I thought, if Christ is there for the worst of what these women go through, he is here now. That was the other gift of returning to Project Hannah.

Instagram

Ever so subtly, since October or November of 2013, I have included a link from this blog to my Instagram account.

Why did I start an Instagram account wherein I share my life with friends and Facebook and the NSA? To see my sister and Bens' Instagram pictures of a cat show. It always starts that way.

A careful observer would see a correlating decline in my blog posts to my membership on Instagram. I would describe it thusly:

1) Your pictures go from your phone to Instagram, no need to email them to yourself, then download, or plug in the SD card and download, then upload. It's easier.

2) There is only room for a few pithy words and hashtags. It's easier.

3) When Google Reader got canceled, suddenly it became more difficult to follow everyone's blog in one place. I use Feedly, but it's not as good and requires a separate login. Instagram gives you everyone who participates in one real-time timeline.

4) You still have a voice to 10+ friends who care, though they may be a different 10 friends than you had before. My dad does not have Instagram. Neither does Anduin.

I'm sad I don't have the same blog record for 2014 that I did in previous years, but my life was a little less interesting than it has been. For now I will try to maintain my blog somehow, but if you would like fairly regular updates, you can find me at http://instagram.com/XAHHAXKK. That's Cyrillic for HANNAHKK. Cute pictures of Max drop regularly.

Three days ago

Cafe Pasqual's Chicken Mole

Mainly it is important to have a record of Pasqual's mole recipe in the permanence of the internet (tongue-in-cheek?)

Pasqual's is a wonderful restaurant in Santa Fe. Tom and I went there for our second anniversary, and upon returning, I wanted to figure out how to replicate their mole and found the recipe from their cookbook. In fact, it is very difficult even to try. It takes four or five hours. Even to try.

But I did try and just sent the last of it off to a party tonight. We didn't attend the party because the baby is experiencing his first fever, but it put me in mind of making it again someday when I'm using a food processor and not a bullet blender.

Montessori momma

This is a story partly from December 2014 and partly from now.

In December, Max and I visited my brother Mick in Austin, Texas. We got a roundtrip ticket for $75 including luggage on Frontier and it was the weekend before Tom's once-a-decade board re-certification, so we went for five days with his blessing. 

Mostly, we ate really well because that's what you can do with a person who is three months old, you can time you meals around their naps.

But also, for the last year+, Mick has been a Guide at an Austin Montessori school. It's a classroom aide only more awesome. He works with 4-6 graders (there is alternate language to describe some of these ideas; it's not all 1:1 with the public school system). Max and I visited him at his school one day. It is a suburban block of about 12 houses that have been put together to form a campus by loving hearts and gardeners. Max and I got to spend about an hour with the early childhood specialist, Gwen. She had mobiles, she had wooden toys, she had Swedish glockenspiels, she had floor beds and nursing corners, and child-sized furniture. She was very encouraging. And I ate it up. I've been interested in what Mick describes (the Austin system is one of the best in the country) so this personal experience with it got me even more excited. 

I also sense this beginning of nurturing Max's mind and heart and body as a way I can connect with my mom. I don't know her familiarity with Dr. Montessori, but she loved to learn and worked hard to stay at the edge of new ideas - in rural Wyoming before the internet. I took Suzuki piano lessons in 1987.

In the subsequent weeks since our visit to Mick, I've been on Michael Olaf's website and read their newsletters. It was the Christmas season, so I made Max gift lists of wooden toys (too many wooden toys, really). I used his Christmas money to buy him the butterfly mobile he had loved in Gwen's classroom. We got Mandarin and Spanish CDs to listen to while we play. We have egg shakers. I try to ask him if he's ready to go on to the next thing, or at least tell him we're going onto the next thing. 

Max's butterflies sans Max

One night I was googling the certification and came across a blog dedicated to all things Montessori. It discussed weaning:

The sensitive period for weaning begins between 5 and 6 months of age....Weaning marks the beginning of a process of separation from the mother, as the child becomes aware of his independence and of his self as a separate entity....The need for the mother will naturally be replaced with the child’s desire for independence, if care is taken to support and nurture the child first steps towards autonomy. 

As I said before, I don't make enough milk to nurse exclusively, but this made me sad. We're at 4.5 months now, 5 and 6 months are so close. This sweet communion Max and I share is going to give way to his independent self? 

I don't have a slam-bang conclusion for my musings. At least I can imagine trading complete closeness with my baby to hold Max's hand as he discovers the world, Maria Montessori-style*.

*Don't hold me to this if I get on another kick in the future.

The Xi'an stool

A story from October, 2014.

In 2007, I met Mandy, my old Soderquist Fellow and dear friend, in China. We had good adventures, saw amazing things, and got sick. This past year China became an extra-special place for Mandy because she and her husband brought their daughter home from China.

My story does not touch their family's story, but it does end a mystery. One of the days Mandy and I were in Xi'an, a city in the midwest of the nation, we went to an antique bazaar. I found it in a Rough Guide, which I have always thought were unique guides if a bit up-market for the way I traveled in those days. 

June 2007

Xi'an was the end of the Silk Road, the part of the world that most captures my heart and mind. So the treasures there that day in the bazaar were treasures indeed. There was a sort of incense pot with Arabic on it, and a beautiful real ivory necklace I still remember. I did not barter for either, but I did find a little rough hewn stool.

You see it here, no glue, no nails, extremely worn. It must have cost $15. But that day as we carried it through the rest of the city, I got an inordinate amount of attention. People watched me, said things to me, pointed at it. No one we encountered spoke English, so I never knew what it meant. I guessed it was a typical childhood toy and was somehow nostalgic to the people who saw it. I subsequently guessed milking stool.

Fast-forward to Jim and Lois' visit to Colorado three months ago. They had been my colleagues in Afgh and were making a world friend tour as they anticipated shifting from a career teaching in Asia to teaching in New Zealand. Now Lois is innocent as a dove, but she is also sly like a fox. The moment she saw my bench she asked why I had an opium pillow.

If you google it, that is exactly what it is. Mystery solved. And no, it is not a nostalgic childhood toy.

"Nigerian virologist delivers scathing analysis of Africa's response to Ebola"

My post title makes reference to an interview with the president of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Oyewale Tomori. The link came from my former MSF head of mission, an Armenian fellow who is now my Facebook friend.

Because of my experiences, the outbreak interested me sooner than it interested our national news channels. I am proud of MSF's work with Ebola since the spring, the only organization to mount a major response in some areas. There are many other brave, brave people who have cared for the sick, both national health providers and expatriates. But from my time with MSF I harbor a special interest in their work.

Even so, Dr. Tomori doesn't see MSF as the heros of the day, rather he is looking to the regional WHO office for leadership. If you don't read the interview or at least skim it, I've copied quotes below that struck me. I see the interview as clear-eyed about both emergency response and development:

1)  "Africa has the capacity and the capability to solve most of her problems, but Africa will not enable her human resources to perform effectively and efficiently."

2)  "People say African countries are poor. But it’s not poverty. It’s misuse of what we have. As we are talking, with all the crises that are going on, the presidents of our countries are still traveling in the best of conditions. Some will come to New York in their private jets, although their national airlines collapsed years ago; in addition, they will bring along a long retinue of private, personal, and public assistants, all lodged in the best hotels. I am not saying the president should not be treated well, but these are issues we need to look at."

3)  "I do not believe there is an African country that cannot buy gloves for its staff. Personal protective equipment may be very costly, they may need assistance on that. But let us participate."

4)  "There are 600 Nigerian health care workers who want to go to Liberia....But we must find the funds to provide insurance for all national and international health workers who are currently working or have volunteered to work in the Ebola-affected areas of Africa. Bear in mind, in Africa we do not have a welfare system. I am the welfare system for my family, my brothers, my uncle. So when I go to an Ebola region, I am thinking of the 23 other people that depend on me. If there is no insurance, I will stay home."

5)  "There are more than enough people in Africa—health care workers from Gabon, DRC, Uganda, Sudan—who have experience with [Ebola]."

6)  "If you go to Sierra Leone or Liberia today, there must be at least 10 international groups there. At the end of this epidemic, everybody will pack their bags and leave. The African countries will be left not really knowing what has happened to them. Like someone hit them smack in the face, totally disoriented. There will be millions of scandals about how money was misspent and so on. We will focus on those and move on. Ten years from now, people will have forgotten that there was Ebola and we will be back to where we started."

Baby Max

On 5 September, I gave birth to Max. 

I labored somewhere around 36 hours, and the last 18 were full on. Tom and I compromised a water birth with midwife in our living room by having a water birth with midwife at the University of Colorado hospital. 

My doula said it was the most beautiful and peaceful birth she's seen - which wouldn't quite be the words I would choose - coming from someone I'd hired to encourage me, but we were grateful for the outcome. And actually, working that hard/suffering and then reaching the goal/delivering was a high point of my life. I forgot it rather quickly the next week when nurses weren't helping us feed and change every three hours, but the sweet boy remains.

We stayed at the hospital for 48 hours, or $23,500 according to what the insurance agreed to pay the hospital for the $39,000 the hospital said a non-medicated vaginal delivery with room service for two people is worth. It was an excellent experience with world-class access, but the US healthcare system is not fixed, in case anyone was wondering.  

And now the weeks have gone by quickly and so slowly in the middle of the nights. The lowlight of the intervening time is Tom breaking his ankle rock climbing such that he just had surgery and can't carry the baby for two months (to the car, to the changing table, to the living room...). But it's been fun to discover him as a dad, at which he does a great job despite being confined to the bed with a bottle.

Speaking of bottles, my milk never came in to where I can feed the baby exclusively. That has been a disappointment, and I mostly record it here for my own benefit, but we used donor milk for a time and Max has transitioned to formula with gusto. Or perhaps I record it for another expecting friend, or someone who will have a baby someday and be encouraged by this version of childbearing. I acknowledge we're not always Winning.

We love the cuddles and blue eyes, appreciate when he occasionally sleeps six hours in a row, cannot always discern how to comfort him in his great sorrows, and enjoy the joy he brings to other people. He may have started smiling not-on-accident today.

Here he is at one month old.

His usual scowl, inherited from his momma,

but it doesn't mean we're angry

 His infrequently-spotted (no pun intended)
dimples, inherited from his daddy

My mom at 32

My aunt Greta sent this picture via Facebook a few weeks ago, initially to my sister because it's her seated there with Grandma Pat. It's a special picture for plenty of reasons, four generations including Grandma Hazel, who Aunt Greta said would not have been pleased to have her hair not fixed for a picture. It would have been sometime in the summer of 1985, judging Abby's size. That would make my mom 32 going on 33, just what I am. What a sweet laugh they were all having, healthy and happy.

World Cup 2014

The World Cup has come and gone. I love it for the global party it is, and am simultaneously disgusted with FIFA. As I trust most people who follow soccer/football are.

It brought me to reflection on the last two World Cups, nostalgic for the possibility and excitement of my great adventure starting in Berlin in 2006, when Germany hosted and I attended the final two games on the Fan Mile, where Germany came in third and Italy won. And then 2010 with the vuvuzelas of South Africa honking, watching games with friends from eight countries, carrying-in snacks and staying up for the 11 p.m. games, getting sick from a bad watermelon in Faizabad.

This year found me on my couch in my home, a sensible American Leather sleeper off Craigslist in a condo built in 1973 in Colorado. I'm a homeowner, and a television owner. My husband was away working in Michigan, so I watched games by myself in Spanish on Univision - because our cable package has that and not ESPN. Seven months pregnant, trying to stay cool.

I've been missing the Hannah of 2006 and 2010. Settling down is not particularly glamorous, though Hannah of 2010 had begun to long for it. But I trust that each of the seasons of life are sweet in their way.

Here we were five days ago at Leah and Phils' beautiful wedding (reception). I got to be a bridesmaid, and the lady who took the picture told Tom to put his hand on my stomach, otherwise I would look huge. Ha. 

Saying goodbye

June 4 marked two years since Joy died. In a blessed life where I've had two wonderful real moms, I counted Joy as "another mother," one of a few more ladies who cared for me alongside their own children, my friends. Joy was the real mom to Amanda and Sarah, two years older and a year younger, respectively, and wife to Philip, who was in both my dad's weddings.

Joy took me to piano lessons with Amanda and Sarah for two or three years between moms, she helped me with my 4-H sewing projects, she was my Sunday School teacher who each week hand-printed our memory verse on an index card. As I grew up, with Sarah and Amanda, I joined the family moving Amanda to college at UNC, decorating the new steel building for Sarah's wedding, sneaking down to Amanda's for her surprise Golden 28th birthday. As a trifecta of legendary bakers, they hand-wrote a recipe book for my wedding shower.

Sam, Sarah, baby E, Joy, and Philip at my wedding

Joy died young, at 62, after seven years of cancer coming and going. Christmas day fell on Sunday in 2011, and Dad, Tom, and I went into church for the service. Joy and Philip were there too, and at some point, knowing her cancer had come back for the third time, I started crying during the service. Afterwards, she gave me the hug, comforted me. When we went to Malawi in the spring of 2012, I didn't say goodbye to her because I didn't have the courage for it to be the last time. And it would have been.

If I've given up one thing for my years of travel and life abroad, and this looks to be the first year I won't have left the country since 2003, it was getting to say goodbye. Along with Joy, I was gone when my Grandma Shirley died in 2005, my Grandpa Ken in 2010, Daddo in 2012. No one has ever put guilt on me for missing the funerals, and I don't feel guilty, but I do regret.

Without the closure of the funeral and shared experience of loss with others, there's a sense of unrealism to losing someone. In perpetuity, they should be at their house when I drive up. It's exacerbated with Joy because she wasn't old yet.

I don't know how to close except in the hope of Jesus' resurrection. In the meantime, there are sometimes tears when I drive up exit 47 on my way home.

Mother's Day

I had a spiritual director during college named Tracy. She was the first person who clued me into Mother's Day being difficult for some women. I'd regarded it as a happy day, from the earliest celebrations when our church would buy a bucket of carnations and I would pick a pink one during the service and give it to my mom. Maybe there were a few years in the middle when it was poignant and sad, but then when I got a new nice mother, I enjoyed celebratory picnics in the pasture spearheaded by Dad.

This past week, I saw a revival on Facebook of the sentiment that for some women it's an unbearable day. I had my own new experience, with a wriggly little boy squirming away inside me at 24 weeks. But yesterday I had joy and not pain, we hoped for and want this baby and were able to conceive him with little heartache. Another year may bring another story.

Sometimes a good thing becomes a cliché, which was almost where I felt we (likeminded Facebook friends had) arrived yesterday, feeling guilty at any mention of the good work of mothers, lest it be placed on a pedestal above other good work of faithful women. But as Ali A. has said, in paraphrase, something that's true or good is always true or good.

Below is a copy/paste of the most meaningful thing I read. There was a piece on Huffington Post by a mom who'd lost her young baby, heartbreaking, and any number of disappointments around motherhood or longed-for motherhood, but I thought Amy Young's article at messymiddle.com (which I'd never encountered), was a gracious word. Ms. Young called it "Acknowledging the wide continuum of mothering."

To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you

To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you

To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you

To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.

To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you

To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you

To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you

To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you

To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we acknowledge your experience

To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst

To those who have aborted children – we remember them and you on this day

To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children – we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be

To those who step-parent – we walk with you on these complex paths

To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren -yet that dream is not to be, we grieve with you

To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you

To those who placed children up for adoption — we commend you for your selflessness and remember how you hold that child in your heart

And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising –we anticipate with you

This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.

Babies

Two weeks ago, I visited my grandparents in Phoenix, Arizona. Tom was working in Michigan and I haven't been feeling well so I went down for a little sunshine and TLC in the shape of pancakes with Grandma Pat's syrup. And Bankaw went to get the old bike gear fixed and came back with a new Schwinn cruiser, which I rode around a man-made lake multiple times daily, loving the warmth, birds,  flowers, and palm trees. 

The other special thing is that my childhood friend, Crystal, lives about 10 miles away. I was visiting the week her first baby was due. Three years ago just now, I was in her wedding to Troy, a few days before Tom and I started dating. I didn't have high expectations that her baby would be born while I was there, but we did get to have dinner one night and a walk around aforementioned lake another day, after brunch by Grandma Pat.

I ended up extending my stay by two days because Tom wasn't getting home until Monday. Would you know my luck but that Crystal had little baby C on Sunday while I was still there! I got to cuddle him when he was 12 hours old - isn't he the sweetest fellow.

Which leads me to another related story.

I am growing Tom and my own precious little baby. Here it was about a month ago (top right hand side you can see its brain, and it's torso to the left). I'm just coming out of a hibernation after three months of being very sick. My mom was sick and very sick with her pregnancies, and her mom before her, and I have been sick. Let Tom tell you about it some time. Things are going better with anti-nausea medication and maybe the passage of time, though it's overstayed its first trimester. We're hoping for a birthday very near to Tom's at the beginning of September. Thanks be to God for new life, and that it's almost spring.

Pretty little presents of 2013

We had a nice Christmas in Wyoming, pinballing between Tom's parents and mine. It's not an entirely restful recipe, but I'll take it when it comes to splitting time. We got to see both families every day from 23 Dec-26 Dec, including an all-party outing to Saving Mr. Banks.  

Here are three sweet gifts I received, by no means exclusive of many lovely things:

My grandma, Maggie sent the Nantucket lightship basket made by a friend of her and my grandpa. There is a story about how Daddo ran into that Massachusetts friend in a hospital in Normandy in 1945, and he subsequently moved to Nantucket and learned how to make lightship baskets, but I need to have Maggie write it down.

The Moravian star. Cousin Anna from Tom's side gave it to me in the family exchange. One of our neighbors here had one hanging from her house as her Christmas decoration and I thought it was so pretty.

Tom gave me Chanel No. 5. I did not entirely realize we were giving each other presents, so in fact, only one of us gave the other a present. (It's not for a lack of ideas or shopping prowess!) But I'm mostly just enjoying that he went for it when I expected nothing.

Thankful, five years on

Five years ago to the day, 28 November, I met Tom at the Larson's on the first day of Advent, Fake-Sunday-style (Friday).  It was the day after a lovely Thanksgiving feast hosted by my Norwegian friend, Solveig.  

Thanksgiving chicken and green bean casserole, 2008

Our winsome holiday, Thanksgiving, as

enjoyed by Brits, Dutch, and Norwegians

iPod 2005

My iPod is eight years old.  Take that, planned obsolescence!