Prescription

Here’s a dose of Mormon in case you haven’t had it today.
I have mentioned church callings from time to time on the blog.
About.com has a pretty accurate summary of what a calling is in my religious community:
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a "calling" is a position or assignment in which members have been asked to serve. Members are called of God to serve each other, and all callings are important. Callings are voluntary.
The Process:
There is a specific process in which callings are issued.
First the person who presides over a calling will carefully ponder and prayerfully consider the name of an individual. They submit that person's name to the proper priesthood authority (such as a Bishop) who also prayerfully considers the recommendation. Once spiritual approval has been received the calling is extended to the individual. When a person is extended a calling they either accept or reject it.
When a calling is issued and accepted the rest of the congregation during Sacrament Meeting “sustains” that person by the raising of a hand, a sign of support. After the regular services are over the person is set apart for their calling. Setting apart is when the proper priesthood authorities place their hands on the person's head and give them a blessing.

Whew. Got all of that? Now we can dive in a little deeper.
One of my favorite talks is given by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Lift Where You Stand.
He shares the following account:
“Some years ago in our meetinghouse in Darmstadt, Germany, a group of brethren was asked to move a grand piano from the chapel to the adjoining cultural hall, where it was needed for a musical event. None were professional movers, and the task of getting that gravity-friendly instrument through the chapel and into the cultural hall seemed nearly impossible. Everybody knew that this task required not only physical strength but also careful coordination. There were plenty of ideas, but not one could keep the piano balanced correctly. They repositioned the brethren by strength, height, and age over and over again—nothing worked.
As they stood around the piano, uncertain of what to do next, a good friend of mine, Brother Hanno Luschin, spoke up. He said, ‘Brethren, stand close together and lift where you stand.’
It seemed too simple. Nevertheless, each lifted where he stood, and the piano rose from the ground and moved into the cultural hall as if on its own power. That was the answer to the challenge. They merely needed to stand close together and lift where they stood.”

Given in October 2008, this address prepared my heart to serve in our branch nearly a year later.
Laboring among a limited number of Saints is hard. And there are so many church units smaller than mine! But the efforts endured in our callings have yielded experience, and good friendships. I’m truly standing and lifting among choice people. :)
With that said, it has been refreshing to stay home from church this past month, to take a kit-itty-kat break, you know? Many times this year it felt as if we are lifting a pipe organ, so this hiatus is much needed. At times it is hard to remember D&C 64:33 !

AND, Can I just say how thankful I am for the new handbook? It makes that pipe organ feel like this:
Back to the essentials. Getting people back to the family, back to the home. This handbook speaks universally to every unit of the Church. Meeting needs not standards. Gotta love it.

Don't you?

Why Can’t We Be Friends?

A recent blog post of a friend spurred this post.
After I had Caleb I was frequently asked if he was a “good” baby.
Now that I have a second child that question is not as pertinent as how the firstborn is adjusting to the, well, the adjustment.

So here’s the scoop (and a couple of toppings) on that subject.

Caleb’s first encounter with Nathanael was at the hospital. He entered the room and Nate was crying. This probably wouldn’t have been a problem for other children, but if you know Caleb (and odds are if you are reading this blog you do), you’d know Caleb doesn’t like crying. Like most males it weirds him out to the point of petrifaction. As we put Nate into his carseat, Caleb managed to mumble, "Nate no go home. Nate stay here."

Despite the rocky start, Caleb has warmed up to his little brother. See Figure A

(Sadly, most older children never perceive their younger siblings as more than Projects.
This is when the older child feels compelled to inform, instruct, improve and/or correct their “immature” or “inexperienced” sibling mercilessly- it seems the relationship is nothing more than a community service project)

Overall, I’m liking this whole three-year space. It wasn’t in my child-spacing blueprint but I’m diggin’ it.
Since my siblings are not close in age or otherwise, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured the only way to insure my kids were close was to have them close together. (After reading the Old Testament, The Book of Mormon, and watching Lost, you’ll be instilled with a great concern for sibling rivalry. Trust me.)

But things are good… for now. Check back in with me every so often, okay?

Anyways.
Caleb is very independent at this point and, besides trouble with breastfeeding, Nate is the most chill baby I’ve ever had the pleasure of spewing out of me. Nate is not the proverbial squeaky wheel. Like today. I took a 20-minute shower before 10:00 AM. Week 3, people. In the bathroom Nate sat happily in an inactivated bouncy seat, wide awake while Caleb remained occupied in his room. If you have kids you know that just doesn’t happen. EVER.
I know kids really are pretty much just the luck-of-the-draw and sadly you can’t nurture a type B personality, so I’m feeling pretty dang grateful. And smug. But mostly grateful.

Not Defeated.

As part of being Branch Mission Leader Michael teaches a Gospel Principles class each Sunday. We often read the upcoming lesson during the week as a family to help him prepare to teach.
Today he is teaching Chapter 2: Our Heavenly Family (click for complete lesson).
I really liked this extract from the lesson:

“At the Grand Council we also learned the purpose for our progression: to have a fulness of joy. However, we also learned that some would be deceived, choose other paths, and lose their way. We learned that all of us would have trials in our lives: sickness, disappointment, pain, sorrow, and death. But we understood that these would be given to us for our experience and our good (see D&C 122:7). If we allowed them to, these trials would purify us rather than defeat us. They would teach us to have endurance, patience, and charity.”

Good Sabbath.
I'm trying hard not to miss my Primary kids today...
Nate is doing a good job helping me cope. :)

Tickled Phthalo

I’d had enough.
After the first two pregnancies, no more inductions please.

Towards the end of my pregnancies, around week 36, my blood pressure elevates if I even look at a stairway. Seriously.
Last Wednesday, I went in for a routine weekly appointment. I parked on the wrong side of the building and didn’t want to re-park my car, so I walked to whole 40 feet to the other side. Upon assessing my vitals, BP was at 150. I had to go to the hospital and be evaluated and monitored. After 15 minutes of rest, BP was back down to 118. High BP is enough to send any OBGYN into an induction-tizzy.

And. I. hate. being. induced.

It is intense, and I feel rushed and on a deadline. With Caleb, the intervention almost led to a c-section, with Emma it took 24 hours for my body to ripen. The fact of the matter is my body has a disposition of a toddler- rush it, and it will drag it’s heels.

So, that’s why I was eating my friend Paul’s spicy taco casserole like it was going out of style; I was trying to avoid pitocin. And after a week of spicy foods, jumping jacks, squatting, walking, stair climbing, and other old wives tales, but no baby I concluded that self-induction is a freakin’ joke and was conceived to pass the time not to actually advance labor. (Who are these “old wives” anyways?)

That Thursday, I’d been having BH contractions for weeks {yawn}, and did a lot of power-squatting and it was finally getting me somewhere- unplugged. Globs were becoming dislodged, hooray. That evening, I convinced Mike to order some spicy buffalo chicken fingers and coaxed him into trying a few induction pressure points on me. This was not our first time dabbling in acupressure…

Back in 2008, Michael and I enrolled in a birthing seminar in preparation for Caleb’s arrival. One evening the class covered pressure points beneficial for women during labor and postpartum. One point, which aids in lactation, Mike found specifically well. It was also that same point that the instructor demonstrated on me twice.
Two hours later while settling down to bed, my boobs sprung a leak. I was wet all night. That is when we learned my threshold for pressure points.

I don’t know if Mike had forgotten about my sensitivity or was just underestimating the power of acupressure, but he went all-out on every pressure point, rubbing and holding each area. By 7:30, I went to bed.

(Remember my bed?)

10:00 I woke up completely wet. My couch was soaked.(Why does every experience I have with acupressure end up with me being soggy while sleeping?)


My water broke. No contractions. Just so much fluid and I was still leaking. Heavily.


I was freaked-out. I’d never had my water break outside a hospital.


We called the on-call doctor (since, you know, my regular doctor was in Bermuda... how cliché) and he told us to “mozy” on over to confirm my water had indeed broke. After dropping off Caleb at our friends’ the Hartys, we drove the twenty-five minutes to our hospital. Halfway there I realized that in thirty minutes it would be December 31st and, odds were, Nathanael’s birthdate. New Year’s Eve and Emma’s original due date.


We check into the hospital around midnight. The nurse gave me an ambien to help me sleep while we waited for contractions to start.


They started at 1:00 AM. I let Mike sleep as I counted and breathed through the contractions. It was like clockwork. The first hour, they were 7 minutes apart, the next they were 5. By three o’clock they were 3 minutes apart and really beginning to cramp my style. I woke up Mike and called the nurse for pain relief, knowing they wouldn’t get to me for another hour. Yeah, I’ve done this before.

After the best epidural I’ve ever had, I slept and waited for the tell-tale pelvic pressure, so I could begin pushing. It came around 9:00. Nathanael made his way into the world at 10:04 AM, one pound heavier than predicted. Mike was finally able to cut the cord, something he had yet to have done with our previous children.






I cannot describe the elation I felt when they scooped up Nate and placed him on my stomach and began to clean and garnish him, so I won’t. But you can imagine. Like you can imagine the color blue. :)

DAY 5