I don’t really like that label!  I should cherish it.  But I generally don’t.

I try to use WAHM for myself whenever I remember.  That stands for Work At Home Mom.  Because I DO work at home.

I have a very hard time accepting my “identity” as a mom who doesn’t have a job outside the home.

It’s not always hard.  I really feel SO fortunate to have this time with Caleb!  He sometimes asks to go to daycare when we drive by one (because they have a playground outside!), or if he hears of one of his friends at school going to daycare.  He doesn’t fully understand what it is, but it has a playground, so it’s exciting!

But when he asks to go to daycare I’m happy I get to keep him home with me when he’s not in school.   Now, there ARE most CERTAINLY days when daycare sounds good to me too…..but for the most part I feel so blessed to have this time with him.  ESPECIALLY as my heart breaks each time I think about him going to school ALL day EVERY day next year for kindergarten!

HOWEVER……

I think with this baby coming in just days I’m feeling a little trapped.  I remember breastfeeding Caleb and how much I cannot be away from the baby at first.  And then I think about her heart surgery and how much that is going to take from all of us.  And how much we will have to be home and keep her away from people because she can’t get sick.

And I start to feel the walls closing in on me.

I miss using my brain.  I miss critical thinking.  I miss CREATIVE thinking.  I miss having an office.  I miss having meetings.  I miss having co-workers (who are more than 3 feet tall).  I miss not doing the same thing everyday.  I miss leading.  I miss talking about things that are not child related.  I miss SO MANY things.

And I think with this baby coming it’s just reminding me that this season of life is not over yet.

And I don’t regret this baby!!!!  It’s not that I am wishing this time away.  It’s not that I don’t want to be able to spend this time with her. I’m so grateful that I do get to be with her to monitor her heart issue, to be with her as she heals.  I don’t have to worry about working around a work schedule or quitting or losing my job.  I am pretty crazy blessed!

It’s just hard sometimes.  I am thankful and at the same time still longing for more.  It’s an internal conflict.  (It’s probably part of the lovely concoction of massive hormones racing around my body too!)

Sometimes it’s just hard to not feel like I’m losing myself a little bit.  And really, I think everything going on with church right now has brought it up big time.  I miss being a part of leadership and all that goes along with it…the good, the bad and the ugly.

But for now, we are eagerly waiting to meet this sweet (giant) baby girl!  I’m sure the minute I get to look into her eyes and see that toothless grin while she sleeps snuggling on me….things will look awfully different!

A couple weeks ago we met with one of the pastors because he wanted to share something with Tim and I before we heard it in church.

Our church will be merging with Metrobrook Church in April.  In this merge our church will move into Metrobrook’s building.  The church will be called Brew City Church, and our pastor will be the lead pastor.  But the two bodies will be merging with one another.

That may not mean much to you reading this, but it was quite a punch in the gut for me.  Metrobrook is the “parent” church that “planted” Veritas.  Long story short Tim and I were youth pastors at a church and Tim sought out a mentor to meet with.  That mentor was the pastor of Metrobrook Church.  Soon after their relationship started he asked Tim if he would be interested in a position at their church as Church Planting Residency.  This would be a time where he would be on staff at Metrobrook learning, and at the same time, preparing to start their first new church.  We were not looking to leave our youth pastor positions, but felt this was a good move, so Tim took the job.  At the same time we found out we were pregnant with Caleb!

Fast forward a year and a half-ish and we started Vertias.  The relationship with Metrobrook was not what we had hoped for, or, in retrospect, what they had wanted to provide, but we were well in the throws of starting this new church and were ready to just let God lead and forge ahead with passion, vision, and excitement.

Our relationship with Metrobrook ended horribly.  There is no other way to put it.  And really, I’m keeping it kind.  It was a very painful, hurtful, terrible way for that relationship to end.  Very soon after that the lead pastor resigned from that church.

About a month after Metrobrook cut ties with us is when Tim confessed his affair to me.

I don’t know if I had ever felt so alone in my life.  The amount of betrayal, feeling stabbed in the back, horrible mistrust was overwhelming.  I had nowhere to turn.  I had to lead this struggling, horribly wounded church with no one to help me.  Nowhere to turn for advice since our “parent” church had basically, cruelly, just kicked me to the curb. (Or at least, that’s how I felt).

BUT, that was two years ago.

However, this news of our church now MERGING with this church has stirred up A LOT of feelings.  Brought up a lot of memories.  And my head is having a hard time overruling my heart.

FAILURE.

That is one of the overarching words that keeps coming up.  Keeps haunting me.  Keeps slapping me in the face.

Walking into that building, facing those people, means I have to face people who prayed for us.  Who gave money to us.  The hard earned money they gave paid for the gas for Tim to drive to meet up with the woman he chose to have an affair with.  I don’t have any idea how Metrobrook explained the sudden cutting off of Vertias, so I don’t know what they know or think.  I don’t even know who of them know about the affair (the cutting off of Veritas had nothing to do with the affair).

I have to walk into that building not as a pastor, not as a leader, not as anything but a failure.  I failed at leading a church.  I failed at keeping my marriage together.  I failed at seeing the signs my husband was having an affair.

These are my FEELINGS.  I know in my head they are not all accurate…..but I can’t get past the FEELINGS that this all brings up.

The pastor who was there at the time and made most of the harsh decisions is no longer there.  And I have met with and made amends with the pastor who is still there.  But going back there just brings up those feelings of pain, betrayal, abandonment.

I’m trying very hard to CHOOSE to look at God instead of the circumstances around me.  To look at what HE has done.  To see the miracle of Him holding Tim and I and Caleb together as a family.  And bringing a sweet daughter to our family.  To remember He doesn’t care about me being a pastor….He cares about me being His daughter.  He wants to heal us and bring us closer to Him, to make us whole, to transform us into His beautiful child more than He wants us to DO for Him.

But, it is a lot harder to find His eyes than it is to look into the eyes of the people I feel I have failed and let down.

I know in my head this church merge is good and right.  It will be expanding God’s Kingdom, His influence in our city.  I know that in my head.  But my heart just wants to RUN.  Run far and fast!

But I won’t.  I won’t run.

I will drag these heavy legs through those doors.  I can’t guarantee right now that my head will be high….but hopefully by April I will have let God do more work and maybe I will be able to hold my head up as I walk through those doors.

Maybe.

And yet, I feel conflicted.

One one hand there are times when I am SO ready to be done being pregnant. I’m done with the pain, discomfort, the crazy swelling, lack of sleep (believe it or not I really think I will sleep more soon after she is here than I do now!  that’s how bad it is!), inability to bend over and pick something up off the floor, and this cold is just making everything worse!

Tim CANNOT wait to meet this little girl!  I can’t wait to see what she looks like and hold her in my arms.  Caleb even keeps asking if the baby is here yet.

BUT…..

On the other hand, this is the last time I will be pregnant.  And that is kinda sad at times.  I sit and watch her roll and squirm in my belly and am in awe that there is a little person inside me.  And I know I am really going to miss that.  There is just a special magic, amidst the muck, of being pregnant.  The amazing miracle it is to hold and nurture a life and watch it grow in my belly is something I’m really going to miss.

With the joy and anticipation of meeting Baby Bubbles, I’m feeling a sadness at this all being over soon.  And this sleep deprivation and hormones are not helping me to keep any sort of emotional balance to all of these feelings.

Two weeks (or less) will bring our little girl into the world.  There is still a lot of cleaning to be done in these last two weeks.  I, sadly, have never gotten that surge of “nesting” energy.  I have a DESIRE for things to get done, but the ability and energy to get up and do them….not so much!

Sometimes I feel like Rachel from Friends when she was yelling at her belly, “Come out! Come out! Come out!!”  And other times I just want to hang on to every little kick, nudge, roll and hiccup in my belly and want them to never end.

Today I had my weekly ultrasound and my last growth scan of Baby Bubbles!  It went great.  She did everything they look for her to do and all looked well.  We even got to see lots of HAIR!  Caleb was born with a full head of hair and I was kinda hoping Bubbles would too…it looks like that is just about guaranteed!  They saw nothing that was any cause for alarm, and I got to see her cute chubby cheeks again!  She is measuring big….a whopping 8 pounds 1 ounce at 36 weeks!  At most I have 3 weeks to go which (if she follows the general growth curve) would put her at about 9.5 pounds when she’s born.  A little big?  Yes.  But we just make big babies!  And the ultrasound measurements can be off by up to 2 pounds!  As long as she’s healthy, I’m good with that!

So, that’s how I got to start my day….gazing at my little girl and wondering when we will get to hold her in our arms.

But 2 years ago today…..one of the worst if not the worst day of my life.

Two years ago today is when Tim confessed to me his affair and my world imploded.  I won’t rehash all the details.  It’s just simply not necessary.  But these past several weeks have been hard.  UGH!  SO many triggers!  Really out of nowhere things!  Dumb little things that should not even make me think of the affair just pop into my head!  Songs on the radio that have nothing to do with anything somehow get linked up to thoughts or questions I have about the affair, the whys, the memories.  It’s painful. And HORRIBLY frustrating.

It’s frustrating because Tim is doing so much better right now.  WE are doing better.  There are moments when I think there is no way THIS man could have had an affair.  And it’s so frustrating to be thrown back there for no good reason outside of Satan trying to drag me down again in my “fragile” {read exhausted and maybe slightly hormonal} state.

People like to say, “It’s time to put the past behind you.  Don’t let it bother you.  Don’t dwell on it.  It’s over.  Move on…” Those kinds of things.  If it were that easy, there would be little need for psychologists and counselors, right?!?  I PROMISE you, on a stack of Bibles, I DON’T dwell on it!  I am not kidding when I say these things pop into my head out of nowhere.  If it were a matter of flipping a switch so that these dumb little triggers would never prick my heart again I assure you I would do it!  But it doesn’t work like that.

The last few weeks Tim has been amazing!  The end of this pregnancy has been rough for me with lots of contractions, discomfort and down-right pain sometimes.  Tim has put me on “bed rest” a bit and is doing most everything around here!  He has been so supportive and encouraging.  I’m seeing him let God in and do some work on his heart.

And it’s wonderful!

And it’s scary!

Because I’m struggling to trust it.  I’m struggling to trust that this won’t be another roller coaster ride where we plummet again soon and this becomes just a foggy, distant memory that may or may not have been reality.

And I know that’s no way to live.  I can’t keep him and everything he does at arm’s length….JUST IN CASE.  That’s not how we heal.

So, I’ve been trying to let my guard down some.  I’m trying to let myself laugh more.  Let myself enjoy what we have right now, today.  And not worry so much about whether or not it will be the same tomorrow.  Because it’s here now.  And I’m trying not to miss it.  I’m trying not to compare it to the past, or worry about it’s presence in the future.

But it’s hard.  Today, it’s hard.

Today holds a weird collision of the past and the future.  What happened today two years ago colliding with  seeing the daughter of our future.

And it’s kinda messy.

But life is messy sometimes….most of the time.  God never promised us a perfect, clean, neat little life.  He promised us Himself.  IN the mess.  Never leaving, no matter how messy it gets.

I thought it was clever!  It made me giggle with all the talk of this year being the end of the world. (For the record, I don’t think the world will end in December)

I’ve been trying to get excited for the new year, fresh starts, putting the past behind, looking forward to what is to come.  But I don’t feel any fireworks for 2012.  It could be the pregnancy exhaustion, I won’t rule that out.  But I just don’t have it.

2011 was a hard year.  NOT as hard as 2010 was….PRAISE GOD!  But certainly not an easy year either.  Looking back, I think I kinda feel like we floated aimlessly through it, just surviving day by day.  Not that the year was wasted at all, just….aimless mush.

I don’t like being aimless!  It bothers me.  QUITE. A. BIT!!

I don’t necessarily have to have everything planned out, but I like to have a direction.  Even a vague goal to work toward, something to anchor to.

And it’s been a long time since I have felt like I/we have had that.

And I don’t feel like I have that for 2012 either.  I think that is part of my “new year’s funk”.  I still don’t feel any direction or goal we’re working towards.

Now, of course, BIG things are going to happen in 2012!  Baby Bubbles will be born in 5.5 weeks or less {GULP!}, she will have open heart surgery {DOUBLE GULP!}, Caleb will start school ALL day EVERY day in the fall {TRIPLE GULP!}…..but I don’t feel like any of that gives me the direction I feel like I’m missing.

And I know this just means more prayer, more listening, more waiting….but it leaves me in a bit of a “new year’s funk” I wasn’t anticipating.  When God is ready, and I’m ready for Him to show me what I am to do, I know He will do it.  And maybe, for now, it’s simply being a mom and that is the only direction or goal I am to have right now.

And that is quite a responsibility…one I don’t feel equipped for!  Hopefully this crazy love I have for Caleb and Bubbles will be enough to get us through until I can figure out how to do this mommy thing!

But I can’t shake this nagging longing for more.  Maybe I’m being selfish wanting more when I have so much right in my midst.  I don’t know.  I’ll have to figure that out I guess.

But, in the mean time, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU!  Let’s see if those Mayans knew anything, or if the guy responsible for counting the days just got bored and stopped at 2012!! 

I. AM. SORE!!! Wow!  Nothing will make you feel old like lugging around a giant belly and it making every muscle, bone and tendon in your body ache!  I have been rocking the waddle for quite a while now.  Between the sciatic pain, back pain, braxton hicks contractions, and general pregnant-ness, I am quite a sight to behold.  Tim has a hard time not laughing as I try to get up off the couch or in and out of the car.  And if anything falls on the floor, chances are it will either stay there or I’m calling for Caleb to come pick it up for me.  He even says now “I’ll pick it up for you mommy because you can’t bend over.”  What did I do without him last time??

I don’t sleep anymore.  Haven’t slept much in the last couple months.  (See aforementioned pain description.  It is at full strength when I am trying to sleep, roll over in bed, get up for the zillionth time to go to the bathroom, etc.)  And I know it won’t get any better come February.  I think we should be able to bank up sleep so that when we need to make a withdrawal there would be some reserve we could pull from!  However, I think my reserve would be empty right now anyway!

I LOVE feeling her move!  Her movements are much different now….there isn’t much room in there anymore for her acrobatics.  And every now and then she does something that makes me gasp a little, but this is what I will miss most when she is born!  I love watching my belly bounce and seeing her roll under my skin.  It borders on creepy, but I think it is o so amazing!  It’s still hard to believe there is a little living PERSON inside me!  It’s just so amazing!

I’m much more concerned about things going wrong this time.  I think starting out the pregnancy thinking we had lost her got me started on a rocky road.  Once I had FINALLY stopped freaking out for every doctor and ultrasound appoint and relaxed and got used to enjoying them….then we find out she has the heart defect and will require open heart surgery.  This little life is so fragile.  All life is really!  I know at any moment God can decide to take her home and leave me here without her.  And sometimes I get so nervous that’s what’s going to happen.  I didn’t have so many fears with Caleb.  That was a pretty uneventful (for a type 1 diabetic anyway) pregnancy.

I don’t feel at all ready for her to come!  It’s very different this time.  She and Caleb will be sharing a room, so there’s really no “baby’s room” to get ready.  We had to rearrange things a bit, but there’s no decorating I can do.  There’s no “girlifying” the room or anything like that.  No showers this time.  Not nearly as much to buy or borrow since we kept everything from Caleb.  If it wasn’t for this giant belly, there would not be much evidence of a baby coming.  That is not to say I don’t think about her ALL. THE. TIME!  It’s just very different this time.  And I don’t feel ready!!

This is our last.  Unless God speaks very clearly to us, this is our last baby.  That is a very bitter sweet statement.  I’ve spent time thinking about this, and sometimes it makes me want to cry.  I am more than blessed!  REALLY!  A boy, then a girl, two kids who (presumably) will be healthy.  TWO kids?  REALLY?  I mean, how much better could it get?  But…..that means no more belly kicks.  No more flutters to feel in those early months.  No more watching that staticy garbled image on the ultrasound screen wondering who he/she will look like.  No more belly (well, not a cute belly anyway!  There will still be plenty of belly there!).  No more pregnancies.  And that is hard sometimes.  It’s sad to think there will be no more.  So, I REALLY don’t want to wish this pregnancy away.  Or rush it in any way.  I want to try to savor each of these last moments.  Hang on to them.  Not let them slip out of my memory.

BUT…..

It also means no more nausea, aches, restrictions, maternity jeans (I am REALLY hating these today!), swollen feel, ankles, hands, all of the aforementioned pain issues!

So, that is some random, miscellaneous-ness rolling around my sleepy, achey pregnant brain today.  And, due to my lack of any real rest as of late….I cannot guarantee the coherent-ness of any of these thoughts.

And, today’s post is brought to you by the number 2 and “-ness”.

So, we took him to this class and it was just TOO PRECIOUS!!  We had to borrow a baby doll from a friend for the class and he learned how to put on a diaper, swaddle her, feed her and burp her.  I don’t know how much of that he will actually be doing with baby girl right away, but he “knows” how to do it now and can be a great helper!

They talked about how the baby will cry a lot at first and why; that there will be times we need to do quiet activities when the baby is sleeping; and how important they are as the big sibling.

Caleb was SO into this class!!  My heart was just overwhelmed to watch him get so excited and into it!  He wanted to do everything for “his baby”.

We also got to go see a labor and delivery room and post-partum room so the kids knew where mommy and baby would be staying for a few days and where they would be visiting.  Caleb seemed to get quite a kick out of the big whirlpool tub in the labor and deliver room!

It’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that I will have TWO kids in just a couple months!  But I know Caleb is going to be an AMAZING Big Brother!!

But, I did not expect it to go SO FAST this time!  I hit the third trimester already!  I only have 12 (or less) weeks to go!  Where did the time go??

All of a sudden I have this giant belly….which I am still wondering how in the world it’s going to get bigger and where she is going fit!

I think this is about 27.5 weeks (Sorry for the ugly bathroom shot - it's the only mirror we have in the house!)

And I have clothes like these hanging in the closet in Caleb’s room:

I STILL cannot believe I have GIRL clothes in my house!

With Caleb I was SO TERRIFIED of giving birth!  I ended up having a c-section with him, but I was so scared about going into labor and having to actually deliver a person!

With little girl, I just want to keep her inside as long as I can.  Not because I’m afraid of labor, but because she is safe there!  I can keep her safe.  She does not have to struggle for oxygen in my belly.  Her blood is pumping just fine right now.  I can give her warmth, she isn’t struggling to eat, I can feed her just fine (with lots of yummy holiday treats! 

But, I know, come February, I won’t be able to protect her as well.  She will struggle.  She may have a hard time eating.  She may get very exhausted when trying to eat and breathe.  I will have to watch every breath to make sure she is ok and getting enough oxygen.  I will have to give her heart medication so that she won’t suffer heart failure symptoms.

I won’t be able to protect her as much anymore.

And all I want to do is keep her close and safe.  And not suffering and struggling.  But once she is outside my body that job is going to be much harder.

And I don’t want Caleb to feel pushed aside by his little sister and all the attention and care that she will need.  I don’t want him to feel less loved.  He has been through SO MUCH these last two years as Tim and I deal with the affair, closing the church, jobs, etc, etc.  I don’t want anything else to harm him either!

I find myself struggling with so many fears.  There is so much that I can’t do anything about right now.  We won’t know exactly how much care or how many issues baby girl will have until she is here.  We won’t know how Caleb is going to react to having a baby sister around until she is here.  We don’t know much of anything until she is born and we figure things out one day at a time.

And I need to be ok with that.  I need to increase my trust and belief that God DOES know ALL of that….and SO much more!  I need to trust Caleb in God’s Hands.  I need to trust baby girl in His Hands.  Because my hands are incredibly incapable.  My hands can do so little compared to His.  And we desperately need His Hands wrapped around our family, guiding us, holding us, strengthening us.

And I know He will.  I know He IS.

I just forget…..OFTEN.  It’s hard to give up control, especially of this tiny little life I love to feel kicking my belly!  And the not as tiny life who smiles at me and hugs me and is currently singing “Frosty the Snowman” without ceasing!  I want to hang on to them.  TIGHTLY.

So, we take it one step at a time.

And tomorrow I have another ultrasound with the perinatologist.  And I’m planning to go in asking them to give me GOOD news.  Even just the mundane things.  I want to hear things like, “She has two arms, two legs, and one head.”  THAT is good news!  And I will take it!  THAT will make me happy tomorrow!

AND, we still need to pick a name for this sweet little fighter girl!

25 weeks 4 days

I have been putting off writing this update for about a week now.  (Well 8 days since we met with the pediatric cardiologist….but who’s counting, right??) I wanted to be able to write when I would be more calm and not super emotional.

The only “exposure” I’ve had to Children’s Hospital is stories Tim tells me of his experiences there when he had cancer as a 13 year old.  Those stories are awesome to hear now because he beat cancer.  He survived.  He is living today.  And he certainly feels a connection with any Children’s Hospital.

But tonight I’m having a hard time getting to sleep.  I want to hear what the doctor has to say tomorrow so I know what we’re dealing with…..but I don’t want to hear what the doctor has to say because I don’t want to know what we’re dealing with.

I keep thinking of about 20ish weeks ago when we were waiting for our ultrasound at a radiology clinic to “confirm” that our little girl was gone.  My OB didn’t see that little grain of rice on the ultrasound like she was supposed to, and my hormone levels were concerning, so we had to get a more sophisticated ultrasound.  I remember crying in the waiting room, unable to hold back the tears because I knew when we walked into that room there was a high probability that we would not see our little baby.

But God gave us a miracle.  There was a sweet, tiny little heartbeat on that screen!  I started bawling again!  God let us keep our little girl!

And now, tomorrow, we are going to be staring at that little heart again.  Waiting for the doctor to tell us what he/she is seeing.  Is there a hole?  How big is it?  What is the damage?  Is the aorta in fact in the wrong spot?  Will she need surgery?  When?  Will I be able to hold her when she is born?  SO MANY QUESTIONS.

I have been hearing so many wonderful stories of people who have given birth to babies with heart issues, needing heart surgery, holes. etc.  People are asking me who our doctor will be to see if we will have the same doctor they had/have.  And the stories are great!  They give us hope!

But I’m tired of joining these clubs.  I don’t want to be part of the “our-marriage-is-working-through-an-affair-club” or the “I-was-a-pastor-but-had-to-close-my-church-club” or the “my-child-has-a-heart-defect-and-is-joining-the-Children’s-Hospital-club”, or the numerous other not fun clubs I’ve been initiated into against my will.

Why can’t I be part of the “I-got-to-go-to-Disneyland-club” or the “I-lost-100-pounds-club” or the “I-won-an-Oscar-club”?  (Ok, I know the last one is next to impossible, but it’s something I REALLY would love to do!!!)

I know, I’m being selfish and having a little pity party.

I’m just so scared.  There’s just so much going on in life right now I don’t feel like I can face this too.

We are praying for a miracle, but I have so many doubts that God will give it to us.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because life just keeps getting harder and harder for us lately.  Maybe it’s because I know that God likes to teach us things in our hardships, through pain, growing our faith when we have to trust Him because there is nowhere else to go.

This time though.  I guess I want the easy way out.  I want to see God’s amazing, miraculous Hand at work again.

I want to be part of the “the-doctors-can’t-explain-it-but-there-is-nothing-wrong-with-her-anymore-but-I-know-exactly-what-happened-and-God-gets-all-the-credit-for-healing-my-little-girl-club”!

[Forgive my rambling...it's very late and I'm very tired.  I just thought if I got this out it would help me to sleep tonight.}