Part 2

My life has changed significantly with a fourth child and I feel anxiety claw at me as I think "oh crap, now I've waited so long to blog my trip that I won't remember when I went to that amazing breakfast." Wonderful little bits and pieces lay strewn at the bottom of my consciousness like treasure on a sea floor. So humor me as I dive at random and reclaim the pieces that meant the most to me. They won't be chronological but I can't imagine why it would matter. I have a couple of things that I want to jot down and remember though they aren't really stories... For one thing, I think my trip was a very unique experience because I wasn't on a tour. I was with people who live in Talpiot Jerusalem and know all of the best restaurants, and all of the best shopping areas and all of the best of everything all the while letting me see things most tourists probably don't like riding in 30 taxi cabs and shopping at the grocery store, and the fruit market, and picking children up at school. Most of our time was spent wandering around seeing amazing things without a large group to keep up with. Everyone in my life loves me and showers me with such amazing blessings that I'm downright embarrassed to think about it all. It brought me to tears several times on my trip as I thought about all of the people who cooperated to give me this incredible experience. The words "humbled" and "gratitude" seemed to bump into each other in my mind constantly as each day passed and I was actually able to feel what it was like to miss my kids! LOL! It took a few days but I really did! I found myself thinking about parents who travel for work all of the time or are in the military etc... and have those feelings on a regular basis. It gave me a profound respect for their dedication to provide for their families no matter what. The second day I was there, I hit the wall. I crashed and burned. I have always wondered what - exactly - jet lag felt like. When I was a small child I heard about it and wondered; I thought it might be an actual illness like altitude sickness. No, it's just plain old complete exhaustion. It felt like my body was made from lead and I was trying to breathe helium instead of oxygen. Bart had really hoped if she kept me on my feet all day the first day I wouldn't get it. But I did. It all happened when we came back from a very interesting grocery shopping trip (result of only about $8 wasted on things we thought were one thing but turned out to be another) and she went to put groceries away and make me more coffee. No matter what you read about my trip, if I forget to mention coffee, just picture it somewhere in the scene. Coffee was continually being made, drunk, bought or discussed. Morning coffee was fresh ground in her cool glass coffee carafe thingy with the chemex filters and afternoon coffee was cappuccinos in her awesome Nespresso machine. There was one day that lacked coffee, which I am sure I will write about eventually and all day long we wished for coffee and discussed it at random intervals until we got a rather subpar one at a gift shop (we were on a tour and weren't allowed to go anywhere except gift shops). Anyway, that second day as Bart cheerily chatted and busied around in the kitchen I made friends with her Ikea couch. Very good friends. She tried to shriek me off of the couch but it was no good. It was euphoric. I had found heaven. It wasn't to last long because it couldn't last long. Nothing on my trip was long lasting. I was on a runaway train the whole time. She was getting me geared up to flag down a taxi to go get the boys from band practice after school. And so we did. We shopped in a lovely little quiet area of town that I've forgotten the name of and then began our quest for a cab. But, again the taxi thing didn't work out. Our taxi driver announced shortly after picking us up that he was giving us the boot and heading another direction. So, there we stood forlorn in the rain staring at each other three blocks from where we had started with him. It was noteworthy I know because she told "everyone" the story and got shocked responses from "everyone." Our despondency was short lived. We found a very jovial cab driver who spoke very little English and was very encouraging of Bart's attempts at Hebrew. We had a lovely ride with him, Warren and Harrison used their Hebrew and thrilled the little man to no end. I think that was Sami. The next morning Bart took me to a full Israeli breakfast at the Inbal Hotel. It was hands down the most impressive breakfast I've ever seen. After that we went on a tour with a Jewish tour guide of several significant sites to Christians including the place where he ascended into heaven and the Garden of Gethsemane. She did not believe in Jesus so that gave the tour a different feel than if she had. I don't regret it because it was interesting to see a non believer sharing details about these historical sites. On this tour a few things stood out to me. The Garden of Gethsemane is beautiful but small and guarded. You aren't allowed to touch the ancient trees and I rather imagine it used to be huge. Second, it was quite disappointing to me that Constantine's mother Helen erected a church where Jesus ascended into heaven. Walking in to a church made it impossible to envision Jesus rising into the air. I think if they had to make a memorial it should have been more like an observatory or a roofless monument of some kind. This is the church rebuilt. Helen's was destroyed. Gethsemane

Hazel Ann

Jody and I have another child. A breathtakingly beautiful little girl named Hazel Ann. Somehow we never had the sense to ask God for her, so he gave her to us of his own volition to show us how wonderful His ways are and to bless us because He loves us so much more than we will ever truly comprehend. She is as calm and quiet as a morning after snow has fallen. She gazes into my eyes and her lips play with a smile then form a perfect O. Her head and cheeks are as soft as a peach and her toes are long and amusingly prehensile. Her fingers are delicate and refined; she holds them like a little lady about to play a pinafore. The overwhelming gush of raw love and emotion when she was born still sneaks up on me several times per day. Her squeaks and coos, her gulping as she tries to drink every drop of milk and her little hands grasping my finger, my necklace, my shirt. The desperate sucking on her hand as she anxiously waits to eat again and again and again. These are all magic. A magic I really never thought I would experience again in my life as a mother. I find it incomprehensible that I was content without her and amazing that God has given her to us.
Her birth was the most gentle and easy of my four children. I woke up a little after 4 AM on Sunday, October 23rd. I got up to go to the bathroom and felt little trickles of water running down my legs. I couldn't really bring myself to believe my water had broken but sure enough it had. I stared contemplatively at the evidence and couldn't quite believe it. After a few seconds I said "Jody..."
He responded as though he'd been awake for hours. "Yes."
I said "I guess my water broke."
He sat up and said "should I call the midwife?"
It set the tone for the whole morning.
I called Gin and texted Jen B. to tell them how sorry I was that they were going to miss the birth. They were both sad but gracious about it. I know Gin blamed me for starting the labor by having Eden's birthday party and going to the pumpkin patch but it was actually the easiest birthday party ever. I didn't even have to set out plates and napkins or make a cake or basically anything. The pumpkin patch excursion probably took 20 minutes and required very little from me, other than supplying the coupon code on my phone for my living social discount. I take comfort in the fact that the midwives believed very strongly that there had been a drop in barometric pressure causing me to go into labor. Either way, I really would have held on until the girls got here if I could though the end of pregnancy really is a miserable thing. I had not the slightest premonition that Hazel would show up 9 days early, but man is it a relief to be done being pregnant.
Jenny T. came over right away with her camera and we hung out and laughed about Jenn D. being completely comatose when I called her. I was having light contractions, Jody and I had the bed ready, and I was kind of twiddling my thumbs and wondering if I should eat something or if it would be puked back up in no time. Finally I decided to have some cheerios. At the time I thought it was goofy of her to take the picture but as I looked at the photo's it seemed like the natural beginning of the story.

A little while later the midwives came. Jeni checked me and I was 5 centimeter! I wandered around for awhile doing little things and I couldn't find the right place or position, so I'd grab Jody and hang on him since every other contraction was starting to feel uncomfortable. He makes me feel warm and fuzzy. ;-)

Jody went to wake up the girls and get things together for the birth and I just couldn't seem to find the best place to sit so I sat on a barstool in the middle of the living room. I think someone had drug it in there to set my drink on while I sat on the ball but it became my platform for the first half of my labor. While my friends lounged on the couch making funny conversation, I perched up on the barstool laughing and moaning.

Jody came down from upstairs and said the girls told him he was joking when he went to wake them up for the birth. I found this very entertaining. It didn't take five minutes for them to come down to check for sure.

My midwife Jeni had told me I could get into the bathtub whenever I wanted to but I wanted to wait until I was not coping easily with labor and wanting relief. Finally awhile later I went in the bathroom and got into the tub. I lounged in the water worrying to Jody that my labor wasn't getting hard and wondering if it was just going to take a really long time. Jeni offered to check me and I was at 7 centimeters. I remember locking eyes with Jody and saying 7 down 3 to go!" He smiled. The only thing hanging me up was how many birth stories had I read and how many births had I attended where a person progressed great and then stalled anywhere between 7 and 10? I was happy but not over confident. I continued to feel a niggle of fear that this could take all day. The girls came in the bathroom and Eden anxiously asked me how much longer it would take. I laughed about how present and excited she was. I told her I had no idea. I focused exclusively on a picture in my mind of my body opening wide up for the baby. With each contraction I would go limp and find that picture. I could feel my insides creaking as the baby came down. This is what they call "laboring the baby down." It was fun to doula myself through this process so consciously.
I had to go to the bathroom so I labored in there for awhile leaning into Jody, my ever present faithful one. He did whatever I asked, pushed on my knees, braced his arm so I could hold onto him. I remember yelling for God to help me and hoping to high heaven this wasn't going to last for very many more hours. I announced that I was getting shaky so they brought me some nasty sweet stuff to balance my blood sugar and forced me to drink it. Jeni said I was getting pushy to which I whiningly replied that I WISHED I felt pushy. She wanted me off of the toilet especially since the baby was in a +2 station as she didn't want me to plop a baby in there. I still maintain there was no danger of that happening but all of those dramatic people like to say "it's a good thing we got her out of there when we did" so I just let them say it. I didn't want to get back into the bathtub so Jenny T. ran out to Jeni's car and got the birthing stool and they set it by the tub. I sat down on it and hated it instantly but I felt the baby about to come out and announced that I would not be moving. It seemed like I waited forever for the next contraction and then I pushed, ever so slowly telling myself not to tear and holding my mouth ajar. Every time I felt it start to burn I'd slow down a bit and then let it rest for a second. It's the first time I've ever tried to control the pushing so that I would not tear. Very gently, the baby's head came out and the midwife said "the cord is loosely around the neck but it flipped over easily". By this time all of the kids were gathered around and though I didn't know it, Kearney was laying behind everyone and attending her first birth as well.

When they handed me the baby, I felt a rush of love such as I cannot describe. I don't remember having it with the other kids to such a magnitude. I was completely overcome by it. She was completely covered in vernix and incredibly beautiful and perfect in every way. I'm told it's the hormone oxytocin, but that seems to make it sound so much more clinical than it felt!

Kaitlyn was at my left elbow and everyone wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl. She got nervous and said it was a boy. I said, "lets check and see." We checked and I instantly wished I could take the words back and let them be hers so badly but I instinctively corrected her and said "it's a girl!" Nick seemed a little terrified of the baby, I think because she was covered in vernix and had blue skin but I reassured him and a few minutes later he was all over her, trying to give her a matchbox car.

Eden wanted to be a part of everything. She cut the umbilical cord. The midwife warned her that she might have to cut twice but Eden didn't wait for her to finish the explanation, she expertly snipped the cord and was complimented by Jeni who told her she did a better job than most adults.

Then she helped weigh, measure and dress her. Eden's very competent in a foreign setting. I wonder what she'll be when she's grown.

All in all, my labor lasted from waking up a few minutes past 4AM to 7:52 AM when Hazel was born. She weighed exactly 7 pounds even though she was 9 days early, was 20 1/2 inches long and her head was 14 inches. The average baby head is 13 inches so that makes my completely skid mark free delivery quite notable. ;-)

I could post a thousand pictures and make this story so long because I love to tell a birth story but I guess I'll stop here. Hazel's birth was amazing. The pain was never worse than a stomach flu and I honestly think if I'd known that it would go so easily and end so soon I probably wouldn't have bothered complaining for the 20 minutes when it was a bit of work and wasn't feeling so great.

Lift Off

As Jody and I sally forth in life with our arms locked and our shoulders squared, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are walking across the palm of God and he has marked our path for us. So, while sometimes one of us feels like a foot gets stuck in between his fingers or that the wavy print of his hands are too bumpy (maybe that's why I've been so queasy lately), I must thankfully acknowledge, that it's a close, familiar and special, even Holy place we tread. I'm overwhelmed when looking back over the last few years, seeing so clearly how God has held us, spoken to us and used us. It has been a much better journey than the one people walk down there on the cold hard ground. I think I can remember the day we stepped off of the ground and into his hand. Well, I'll speak for myself, I tend to assume that Jody always feels exactly the same way I do because he does more than half... but anyway... Fear had a clincher hold on us of with all of that stuff we were going through and God put a picture in my mind of us sleeping in our bed and it was sitting in His hand. His other one was smoothing our covers. I guess that was the moment of "lift off."
I'm pregnant. When we found out, it might be an understatement to say that we were extremely upset that things were NOT going our way. Just to clarify why, I'd like to reference my 2005 Christmas letter where I lined out that we had been blessed with a second daughter and were happy that Gods plans had so far coincided with ours and we hoped for a little boy someday to make our family complete. You may then reference the 2007 Christmas letter in which Nicholas (the little boy) arrived. You can imagine our shock that God had not wrapped up his family plan for us when we did. Nick will be four in June... Jody and I even looked to heaven and asked God if he just didn't even like us, in our selfish moment of "BUT WE WERE DONE!" I wallowed in this self pity/God loathing state for a few weeks... several weeks... much to the bemusement and even dismay of my closest friends, but alas it came time to read James and reconcile. This is the only proven method in my life for receiving constructive criticism. I have granted James a special authority but I suspect it's because he's dead and his book is short. Some little excerpts: "God blesses the people who patiently endure testing." Made me think of this little peanut inside of me right now because I always hear "it's a blessing, it's a blessing, it's a blessing." Then down a little further "Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above who created all of heavens lights." Ah, what could be more "good and perfect" than a little baby, hand made by God for our family? The part in between talked about the danger of blaming God for tempting you when you want to do something wrong. Something wrong... something wrong... like considering a pregnancy anything but a joyous sovereign gift from heaven to be celebrated and going so far as to ask God if it's a mean trick? See, I like it when James sticks it to me. I must be sick... but anyway. Alrighty then! So yeah, that's what we signed up for when we stepped off of the the cold hard ground and onto the living palm of God. Plans that were not our own and ways that are not our ways. We've kinda got our "palm legs" though. We can roll with it.
So, to the wonderful little person inside of me, if you ever read this blog, you've blessed me already and I've only known about you for a few weeks. You will be an amazing person I know, and I consider it pure bonus that God used you to help me become the woman He wants me to be.