"Spring, Spring, glorious Spring.
It's on its way hooray hooray!!"
I am not a winter person. At. All. So when I see things like this, I know that Spring is truly on its way:
Beautiful red cardinal on top of the raked-away straw from last year's garden
Flowers (as Ruby would call them) Nonetheless - brightness amidst the gloom
Rotor-tilled garden plot!
Long lists of things to do to get ready for a certain little girl's SECOND birthday.
Sorry I've been an absentee blogger. This lent I am really trying to focus on being more present as a wife and a mother, which means I am more absent from the online world. We're less than a week in, but it's been good so far. These sweet kiddos are just growing up too fast and I don't want to "just a minute" their childhoods away while I'm on the computer.
Hope you and yours are having a peaceful, reflective Lent. I read something the other day that said that the sacrifices we make during Lent help to make more room in our hearts for Love and for God Who Is Love. May your heart expand this Lent!
The kiddos have been having so much fun together lately. It seems like they are finally starting to play "with" each other (as opposed to just playing together.) And although it means we have a lot BIGGER messes to clean up because of their new-found "siblingship" it sure is nice for them to be able to play with each other while I'm cooking dinner (because by that point I am ready for a break!) They go downstairs and it's just precious to hear them playing and laughing together. Ira has even wanted to put Ruby to bed the last few nights. Some of their favorite things to play are:
-Ira pushing Ruby in her Little Tykes car running and cutting donuts and doing power slides,
-Dumping out all the Hot Wheels and playing cars on Ira's track from Christmas,
-Playing the drums,
-Chucking stuffed animals out of the toybox,
-Running around with balloons,
-Coloring and making confetti, and
-Doing puzzles (not the same puzzle, but Ira doing big puzzles and Ruby doing her little ones.)
Ira reading Ruby her bedtime story:
It is just wonderful to see their relationship develop. I hope they always stay close. I know they will have their fights and their disagreements, but I know I cherish the relationships that I have with my siblings and consider them some of my best friends, and I hope Ira and Ruby can have that when they get older too (with hopefully a handful of other siblings by then! ;-). We'll see what God thinks of my "plans!"
A sequence of funny faces:
(Oh, and the bandaid above Ira's eye is holding closed a nice gash from sliding into the table they have with their kitchen set while playing the aformentioned "running around with balloons" game.)
Today, as I was putting away our Christmas decorations, and getting out our "normal decorations" (the few we have.) I put back up our little statue that we bought to remember our babies up in heaven.
And I'd be lying if I said that I haven't been thinking a lot lately about our sweet babies. Four of them, my goodness. A full half of our family is up in heaven. And although half of our family attaining the goal of our life here on earth is wonderful, it also makes me so sad.
As I was putting away our ornaments, I carefully wrapped back up the ornament that my parents gave us in 2008 - the year we lost 3 of our babies. It's a clam shell with a pearl in it that says "Every life leaves something beautiful behind." I also ran across a card that a dear friend sent after this last miscarriage that said "All sorrow comes from love and from holding dear." Such true sentiments. Even though we knew each baby for such a short time, I loved them all dearly. I had dreams for their lives. I had names for them - Caroline, Levi, Hope. I still haven't been able to name this last baby yet. It's not for lack of thought about it, the right name just hasn't come to me yet.
And as much as I want to be ready to try again, I am still very much in mourning. And not just for this last baby, but for all of them. I realize that if we had had just one of them, our life would be very different. There's obviously no way that we could have had three full-term babies here on earth in a matter of a year (2008) but we did have three babies here on earth that year. And we lost them all. And I realize that if we hadn't lost those babies, we probably wouldn't have our little Ruby Roo. So it's not that I wish our life was any different, but I still long for our babies we lost. I long to see their faces and hold their smushy little bodies. I long to rustle their hair (like I do to Ira & Ruby dozens of times each day.) I yearn to hug them and kiss them and show them how much I love them. But I can't - yet. I like to think of our Blessed Mother mothering them for me until I get there. And I like to hope that my grandparents are up in heaven and are singing to them and holding them and spoiling them just a wee bit.
Which leaves me here, right where I belong for now. I really am happy with this life that I have. It's definitely not what I would've chosen for myself, but I'd be a fool to think that I know what's best for me. Only my Creator can know that. And I trust Him.
This is what I picture up in heaven:
Beautiful statue that I found for my friend who has also miscarried.
A friend of mine recently posted a link on Facebook to a little girl's CaringBridge website. I followed the link to find out that this little sweetie is only 5 days younger than Ruby. I cannot imagine the agony that her parents are going through. She was diagnosed with leukemia in December 2010 and received a bone-marrow transplant just 3.5 weeks ago. She is now fighting a number of infections and could use lots and lots of prayers. You can visit her CaringBridge website here. Would you please lift little Paxten and her family up in prayer?
Kiss your babies and thank God for your blessings!
Would you add a cup that looked like this to the final rinse of your white load of laundry?
I did today. And I'm pretty excited about it too!
It's bluing. Mrs. Stewart's Liquid Bluing. It's biodegradable and non-toxic, and I'm hoping it's the solution to my dingy whites.
About 2 months ago, we started using homemade laundry detergent (for cost reasons mainly.) After much research, I decided to try this recipe:
1/4 bar Fels-Naptha soap
1/4 bar Ivory soap
2/3 c. washing soda
1/2 c. Borax
6 c. water, then an addition 4 c., then an additional 22 c.
At first, I thought it was leeching a LOT of color out of our clothes (like when I washed jeans, the water was DARK blue. I had to seriously alter the way that I normally do laundry (four large loads every 10-14 days of dark delicate, dark dry, light delicate and light dry.) With the homemade stuff, it seemed as though you had to sort very carefully so that colors didn't bleed/leech. So I'd sworn off of using it. Then I thought I should give it some more time. I sorted more carefully (whites, lights, brights, darks, and dark and light delicates (which I wash in Woolite anyway.) And in that time, I began to think that perhaps our clothes were getting clean. It seemed like they were getting fairly clean at least. Until the last few loads that came out feeling downright greasy. (Andy's work clothes and our bed sheets.) Still don't know exactly what happened there. The 2nd time I made it, I increased the soap to potentially combat the greasiness. Used this recipe:
1/2 bar Fels-Naptha
1/2 bar Ivory soap
2/3 c. washing soda
1 c. Borax
Water, water water.
Now I think that maybe the Borax is too much (softens the water too much so that the soap isn't as effective- is there such a thing?) So next time, I think I'll decrease the Borax.
Pretty much I have no idea what I'm doing. I am truly a mad scientist.
But I did read that bluing would help make dingy white whiter. And I found some when we were going through my great aunt's possessions yesterday. So I decided to use it in my white load today. It is currently in the dryer, but to me, the stuff that was saveable (namely things that had not gotten dingy over the course of 6 years of use like Ira's blanket or Andy's work socks - which are not six years old, but my are they grody!) does look nice and bright.
I really would like to figure out this homemade laundry soap thing. Because we stand to save a TON. And it's all much better for your clothes and skin and the environment. But I think there are a lot of variables (hard/soft water, what each ingredient does and how it interacts with the other ingredients, my affinity for packing the washing machine full and not sorting clothes all that carefully -dark dry, light dry, dark delicate, light delicate) There are SO many variables that I just don't know much of anything about. And I'm not having the greatest luck finding information on the internet about it. There is a wealth of recipes for homemade laundry soap. And there are tons of people saying how well it works and tons of people saying that it doesn't work at all. But there's just not much about how it works. Or troubleshooting advice. So if you are in the know, SPEAK UP!
So I'm on the fence. Our laundry doesn't smell bad when it's done washing. It doesn't smell "clean" either. It doesn't smell like anything at all really. I just think our laundry could look cleaner. I guess I will continue to dink with my recipe. I'll use the bluing every once in awhile. And I'll keep trolling the interwebs for solutions.
Wow, a whole month since I've blogged. Yeesh! There is so much to catch up on. Rather than trying to write all our updates in paragraph form, you're going to get bullets. because they're easier. and faster. and who doesn't love bullets?!
-We are the proud owners of a new Canon Rebel T3i. I sat up (literally) all night the night before Thanksgiving waiting for the deals to go live on Best Buy.com. They were supposed to go live at midnight, or so everyone thought. They really didn't go live until 5:03am. However, between camera, lens, and accessories, we saved several hundred dollars buying it this way. Totally worth it if you ask me! I am learning a lot, but boy do I have a lot to learn! Since it came on Nov. 30th, We've taken over 1,000 pictures. Practice, practice, practice!
One of the first photos with our new camera.
Who doesn't love that effect?
-We decorated for Christmas on Dec. 3rd (early for us) and have been thoroughly enjoying the decorations. Ruby has done amazingly well with the ornaments on the tree. Today was actually the first day that she got one off the tree, and it just slipped off of the branch as she was pushing the button to play the music. The same day we were decorating for Christmas, we heard an ambulance and thinking it was just Ira playing with his GeoTrax one, didn't think much of it. About 10 minutes later, Andy went outside to grab something and saw the ambulance in front of our neighbor's house. He'd had a heart attack and they were never able to resuscitate him. If you would, pray for his soul and for his sons and daughter. He was only 54. Andy and I were both in shock for awhile afterwards. Really made us realize how you never know when your time on Earth will come to an end.
-We made our own advent candles this year. Well, sort of. I bought fat short white candles and we painted them with melted crayons. It worked wonderfully and they are beautiful. They will also last us quite awhile it seems! While on the advent theme, we had a great advent, probably our best ever, in part thanks to Holy Heroes' Jesse Tree DVD. I'd tried paraphrasing the Jesse Tree scriptures before for each day, but only got about 10 days in before I got too busy and just gave up. This DVD had 2-5 minute clips to watch each day. Some days children "acted" the scriptures out, and sometimes it was "illustrated" with felt board. It was a little "homemade" looking, but the content was spot on. And Ira really seemed interested by them. We also tried doing Holy Heroes' Advent Adventure online. There was a lot to keep up with on that though, and Ira isn't totally functional on the computer by himself, so we did them when we could and skipped them when we couldn't. I think we ended up doing about 12 days of it. I was very impressed with the quantity of information presented as well as the amount of activities (coloring pages, crossword puzzles, and word finds for each day.) Again, a little "homemadeish" but very good nonetheless. Maybe next year we'll be able to catch more of the Advent Adventure. (Oh, and heads up, they also have a Lenten Adventure!)
-Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes! Yeesh. After reading plenty of disparaging articles on the amount of BPA in canned food, but most especially canned tomatoes, I was feeling like I needed to do something. Cause we eat a lot of canned tomatoes around here. And we have plenty of fertility/pregnancy problems around here. So when I saw Roma tomatoes on sale for 73 cents a pound at Wal-Mart, we bought 50+ pounds and I set to work blanching, dicing, and canning/freezing them all. We ended up with 21 pints, and 6 quarts canned and 13 pints frozen. That should hold us until Julyish when we'll hopefully be getting tomatoes from our garden.
-Our Wise Men continue to traverse from afar. It never ceases to crack me up the places I find them as Ira "travels" them throughout the house.
-Ira had his first Music Program on December 14th. It was precious and very professional. His class sang and signed/did actions for 3 songs as well as a finale with the whole school. I am so impressed with the job his music teacher does. After being in concerts much of my school career, playing for concerts for my sister's music classes, and Andy doing lighting for concerts (in the very same auditorium Ira's concert was in) it was quite surreal to sit in the audience as a parent. We were so proud!
-Ira helped make the cupcakes for his class party. They were an idea that my mom had sent me. I was so impressed because they were super easy. All I had to do was frost the top and Ira assemble them the rest of the way. I think they turned out pretty cute eh?
-Andy surprised me with a new lens for our new camera. We had agreed that the camera/accessories would be our Christmas present to each other and from both of our parents. However, no one held up that bargain as we got presents from both sets of parents and for each other... hmm... The lens he got me is a 50mm prime lens that I'd been drooling over that is incredible for taking portraits. I'm excited to have some down time coming up here to learn more about our camera/photography.
-Ira had to miss the annual Caroling Party at my parents' this year due to a fever that spiked mid-day the day of the party. You could tell just how sick he was because he wasn't even too broken up about missing the party that he'd been talking about going to since last years was over. Andy was a sweetie and stayed home with him so that Ruby and I could still go. Ruby loved it. The weather was beautiful and she learned to sing "Gingle Bells" (as she says it.)
Ruby and her "not twin", my sister's little girl, Anna.
-We had a wonderful Christmas. Or should I say Christmases. We spent Friday evening with Andy's mom's side of the family, Saturday evening with just Andy's family, got up, dressed, hair done, and ready to walk out the door for Midnight Mass (our Christmas tradition) only to decide not to go because the kids were both messes. (Oh well, traditions are made to be broken right?) We ended up going to 9:00 am mass. All Ira wanted to do before mass was open his Hot Wheels track from Andy's parents the night before. So Hot Wheels we did until it was time for mass. After mass, the kids played with Hot wheels again until I finally suggested we open presents (because I couldn't wait) around 11. Ira was a doll. After opening 2 presents, he said, "Wow mom and dad, you are really generous. Thank you." It was incredible. This from the kid who circled every boy present in the Toys R Us catalog because that's what all he wanted for Christmas. Santa brought Ira tools, wood, and a kit to build a tool box. He brought Ruby an old-fashioned handmade swinging doll cradle. We spent Christmas afternoon at my parents' and had a blast opening presents, watching Ira and Gemma take hundreds of pictures with their new Fisher Price digital cameras, and playing games. Although we went a lot of places in a short amount of times, Christmas was actually very restful and relaxing. Oh, and we saw 2 foxes in our yard on Christmas Eve morning.
Can you spot the foxes?
-Andy had to work the week between Christmas and New Years because his company cashed out his vacation for him when he was furloughed last year. It was sad not to have him around, but we survived and are hoping he'll get to be off next year. We're just grateful for employment!
-We spent New Years Eve at the wedding of a beautiful couple. One of my little sister's best friends from high school got married and was kind enough to invite us to her wedding. The kids loved it and had a blast dancing the night away. Ira had a slight incident with 3,000 pounds of guys during the garter toss but he lived to tell about it (and believe me, we'll probably never hear the end of that one.)
Okay, I think you're pretty much caught up on our lives at this point. I'm going to try posting more regularly as I do not love mammoth posts like this. In the meantime, blessings for a wonderful New Year!
Andy and I were pregnant again. We were due on July 4th. We found out on October 24th. Finding out you're pregnant is a bittersweet moment when you've miscarried before. Instead of it being the beginning of dreaming about baby, it is the beginning a most mentally challenging time. You don't allow yourself to dream about a healthy pregnancy and a baby because then it seems it will hurt all the more when it's taken away. Those dreams that are just too beautiful, too right, too good to be true. For me, up until about 8 weeks (the latest we'd miscarried) are just hellish mentally. I worry over every symptom or lack thereof. About the waxing and waning of symptoms. I wonder every time I go to the bathroom if this will be the time I see spotting. There is scarcely a moment of the day where I'm not thinking about the fact that I'm pregnant and about what could happen. And as the days tick by on the calendar, it seems as though the worry only gets worse, not better. Up until the first sonogram, when things become clear one way or the other. In our case, there's either a healthy heartbeat, or a very slow heartbeat and sub-chorionic tears. And so we know whether we will have a baby or a miscarriage.
We scheduled our first sonogram for November 15th. I felt nauseous many, many days (which I hadn't with our 3 miscarriages), so on occasion, I allowed myself to dream about having a successful pregnancy. I dreamed about how we would tell people and when. I thought that Christmas would be a wonderful time to share our news. We'd be right around 13 weeks, through the awful, worry-filled first trimester. I thought how delightful it would be to feel the baby moving inside of me. I dreamed about telling people on Facebook and all the wonderful happy comments. I dreamed about watching my belly grow and wearing maternity clothes. About those awkward hugs from Andy as my belly got "in the way." I dreamed about baby names and about labor and delivery. About nursing and baptism and Godparents. About Ruby being a big sister! About Ira being a big brother again. About a lifetime together. I let my mind wander to those blissful things on the days I felt nauseous. Because I actually like that nauseous, sick feeling, because for me that's a sign of a healthy pregnancy. Those nauseous days are good days - even great. Which also means that those days that most would consider "good" - the days when I felt fine - those were some of the hardest days. Those days I just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep, because when I was sleeping, I couldn't think about what could happen. But as the pregnancy progressed and the nausea didn't, I wondered. My mind tried to rationalize why I wasn't feeling as sick as I knew I should (eating healthier, staying busier, hormones being just right where they should be, etc.) but in my heart of hearts, I wondered.
We went for our first sonogram on November 15th. I was right at 7 weeks pregnant. We were hoping to hear a healthy heartbeat but instead saw an empty gestational sac. The sono tech thought maybe I was off on my dates, but when you practice NFP because you've struggled with fertility and miscarriages before, you know that you aren't off on your dates. Not even a little bit.
My doctor wanted to repeat a sonogram the following Monday to see if anything had changed. Nothing had. I was diagnosed with a blighted ovum, meaning that essentially as soon as the egg was fertilized, the baby stopped growing. Makes you really think about the fact that life really does begin at conception. Because I wasn't pregnant with nothing. I was pregnant with a baby who is now up in Heaven glorifying God. And so we began Thanksgiving week knowing that we were losing another beautiful baby and waiting and hoping, even praying for a natural miscarriage (because apparently sometimes with blighted ovum, it can take weeks for your body to recognize that the pregnancy isn't progressing, sometimes so long that you're at risk for infection, in which case a D&C is required - not something I wanted to go through.)
We told our parents right after we found out on the 21st, but it just felt weird to tell anyone else at that point. Saying "we're going to miscarry" just feels a little weird, because in the back of your mind, until it actually starts, you hold onto that miniscule hope that maybe, just maybe everyone is wrong, that maybe you'll actually see all those things you dreamed about come to fruition. And in case you're wondering, it turns out it hurts just the same whether you let yourself dream those dreams or not.
I finally, thankfully, started miscarrying on Saturday, November 26th - Andy's birthday. My niece had a birthday party that day and I didn't want to ruin the day with our less-than-upbeat news. And then, the longer we didn't tell people, the less I wanted to tell people. You probably know the feeling, you're just tired of sharing some sort of news, good, bad, or indifferent. I remember feeling the same way after Ruby was born. We called our immediate family and one of my best friends (her godparents) and then I just wanted to be done. It wasn't that the news wasn't wondrous and miraculous, I was just sick of telling people. I just wanted to spend time with my newly-born miracle. Same with this, I didn't want to tell anyone else.
So it wasn't until Tuesday that I basically had to tell my younger sister because I invited her over to learn how to make yogurt. Tuesday was the day that the miscarriage really started in earnest. The bleeding became very heavy and the cramping was comparable to post-birth when baby starts nursing - you other moms know the cramps I'm talking about. Plus, there was just a lot of pressure "down there", making it difficult to stand for very long. So it wasn't like I could just not tell her - despite really not wanting to. Then of course, I had to tell the rest of my family the next day. I didn't want anyone to feel "left out" by not knowing. Didn't even feel like telling my best friend (Ruby's godmother who has experienced multiple miscarriages as well.)
I knew in my head that I really wasn't facing the grief well - basically just in denial still. I hadn't even really cried. Part of it was that we were busy with the holiday, but part of it was that I just wasn't ready to come to terms with it all. Friday though, a number of things happened that brought me face to face with the fact that we'd truly lost another baby and I spent much of the day sobbing. And I called my friend and we cried together. And it was good. And healthy. And necessary.
I will say though, this miscarriage has been totally different than the three that we experienced in 2008. Part of it is that this miscarriage had somewhat of an explanation (blighted ovum) and although we certainly don't know why
this particular pregnancy developed into a blighted ovum, we know that
it did, and that that's why this pregnancy wasn't successful. That's much more knowledge than we have, even still, about our three other miscarriages. And most of it is that I'm in a much better state mentally. Ruby's birth was therapeutic and redeeming in multitudinous ways. Before we had Ruby, I worried that Ira would be an only child. No offense to only children out there, but that is just not something we ever dreamed of or wanted for him. I felt regret over not relishing my pregnancy, labor, delivery, and early days with Ira. I just wanted to be done with them, because I naively thought I would get to experience them over and over as our family grew like I just knew it would. But with Ruby I did relish all those moments as if I would never get to experience them again. So that if I never got to again, I'd at least have those precious, sweet, beautiful moments committed to my heart. Before Ruby, I needed another pregnancy to ever feel "right" mentally again. God, in His mercy, granted me that, although I certainly didn't merit it. And I don't take that fact lightly. I was given her and her pregnancy as a pure, undeserved gift. And it was SO healing. And although I long for a big family, I feel so grateful for the two precious, beautiful, fearfully-and-wonderfully-made gifts that I have been given. And I rest in the peace that God's plans for our family are better than my own.
