Winter is a Time for Waiting

My last post was all about how anxious and afraid I was of impending labor.  I'm happy to say that in a matter of a few days after that, I was able to adjust my attitude and perspective.  Jesse had given me a blessing that I would be able to "look forward" to the birth.  I didn't realize at the time of the blessing how very desperately I would actually look forward to it.  I am now 10 days past my due date, the longest I've ever been pregnant, and I've now been feeling very anxious about things needing to start moving along!  I'm sure I would be feeling impatient regardless, but the fact that we need to start planning a move to California, along with traveling out there in just a few weeks to house-hunt, is putting really worry in my head about every passing day.  And now I'm also approaching the mandatory hospital/OB transfer (i.e., automatic hospital induction) if I reach 42 weeks without going into labor.  4 days away.  I would normally say, "Anything can happen in 4 days!  Don't worry!"  But the reality is that 7 days ago, I never ONCE imagined that an entire week would slip by without me having the baby.  It isn't a stretch of my imagination, anymore, to think that 4 more days could just as easily slip by with nothing happening.  And it's really stressing me out.  I have tried every trick available to me - Chiropractic, positioning tricks, acupuncture, cervical stretching, black and blue cohosh herbs, castor oil, reflexology points, prayers and blessings, my tried-and-true tactic of vigorous physical activity (jumping on the trampoline nice and high, long brisk walks, swimming for 1.5 hours), and yeah, less internet-friendly things ("You get the baby out the same way you get the baby in!").   Only castor oil had much effect, but it was never labor, and it fizzled out and left me with very unpleasant side effects that I'm still dealing with a week later.  Swimming yesterday had me hopeful, too.  I felt like I probably did a lot of good with baby's position, while the physical activity probably encouraged things.  I had fairly steady (but still completely mild) contractions all evening/night/morning.  But once I got out of bed, even those started fading away.  It's hard for me to know that there is such a deadline hanging over my head, and the pressure of an upcoming move on top of it, and seeing other babies who were due at the same time or even later than mine already coming into the world.  Why isn't my own baby coming?  What's the hold up?  Why do I have to wait?  Will the waiting lead to a very unwanted hospital birth? 

I went for a walk this morning (hoping to encourage things along, of course).  It was very cold, and foggy - the fog was literally causing frost to form on all the tree branches, encasing them in white.  It was much quieter than normal outside.  I think the fog plus the existing snow on the ground muffled more typical noises of the town.  As I walked, all these thoughts above, and more, kept running through my head, and I was having silent conversations with Heavenly Father, trying to figure out the unknowable, trying to find peace in my heart with wherever this path in my life takes me, trying to calm myself and let go of stress and worry.  It's a very hard thing to do.  You just want answers!  You just want to understand the plan!  Why can't this all be easier??  It would be easier to hold on to sanity and patience if you could just know how everything would end up, right?  Not knowing is so hard.

As I walked along, my face freezing cold, but also soaking in the peace of the environment around me, I remembered another time that I felt very distressed and found peace and comfort in the nature around me: When I was in Girl's Camp and "ran away" to the river and sang hymns.  In particular, "How Great Thou Art" has always been a comforting hymn to me, since that day.  Today during my walk, I took a pause at the dock of the mostly frozen over lake, and just looked and listened for a few moments.  The ducks contentedly waddled along the ice, paddled away in the icy water.  A song bird here or there chirped out a few cheerful notes, despite the gray cold of the morning.  There was snow and ice everywhere, and such silence.  The whole world just seemed frozen.  But the world did not seem anxious about when it would thaw.  Rather, it seemed peaceful.  Very peaceful.  And I thought to myself, "The whole world is waiting.  I'm waiting for the birth of a baby.  The earth is waiting for warmth and the rebirth of spring."  But I have been waiting with a lot of stress and worry in my heart.  The earth and its creatures know that the season will change when it's time, and they wait contentedly, seemingly without a worry or a care at all.

I left my spot on the lake and continued walking along, following the path that runs along the creek that exits the lake.  It was frozen.  Seemingly frozen in time, just like me in this pregnancy.  But I found that if I listened very closely, I could hear the small gurgle of water running beneath the surface of ice.  Things were still moving, still changing.  Time will march forward, and eventually the lake and the creek will both thaw and move freely, and the frozen trees and bushes and grasses around them will turn green again.  Perhaps if I listen closely enough, I can feel my own body and baby moving forward as well, preparing for a time not far away where things will change and new life will be brought to this earth.  And as I walked along the creek, I started to remember the song, "How Great Thou Art".  And you know? I thought: If God can create entire worlds without number with such beauty and rhythm and foresight, how much better can He create a single life, and know when it should be brought to the point of birth?  He gave this baby to me quite unexpectedly.  Can I not trust Him to also know when the time is best for his arrival?  Can I give up my very mortal worries and stresses and wishes for answers, to accept that this baby will come when it's time? 

The world is frozen, and waits.  I wait along with it.  I am so eager for this baby to be born, and still anxious about avoiding being transferred for a hospital induction.  I definitely look forward to every contraction I feel, at this point, telling Father in Heaven how grateful I am for that contraction, how eager I am for more.  It's a disappointment when they fizzle away.  But perhaps today has given me a little more insight and hope that things will work out for the best, and in their own time.

As I Approach the End

This post is really for my own benefit, and not so much intended for public viewing, although I realize that by putting it here, there will be people who read it.  I realized a long time ago, when I kept up this blog much more frequently, that when I write things out, my thoughts tend to be more comprehensive and deep than when I just let them float around in my head without an outlet.  And writing has always been a stronger form of communicating my thoughts than talking about them.  So here I am, getting out my thoughts on "paper".

Two or three weeks ago, as I realized my due date was definitely approaching faster than I anticipated, I started feeling some emotions that were quite new to me.  Every time I thought about going through labor and delivery again, I felt afraid.  Not quite afraid enough to panic, but enough that the thought of experiencing a contraction made me want to curl up and hide.  The word recoil seems to fit well.  I recoiled from the thought of experiencing labor and birth again.  It actually made me want to cry, knowing that the time was approaching.  At first, I couldn't really think of a logical reason I was feeling this way, so I would just push the emotion away, bury it under attempts at being productive and checking things off of my to-do list.  If I didn't think about it, maybe it would just go away.  The problem was, as time moved forward and days ticked off the count-down, and I still wasn't dealing with these very negative and very real emotions, they continued to get worse.  Now I really was starting to panic at the thought of labor contractions.  Now those feelings of anxiety and fear were invading my dreams - they weren't even dream scenarios, just dreams where I was acutely aware of my generalized fears! - and then I would wake up and spend the rest of the night in a restless half-awake state, those emotions just tormenting my attempts at sleep.

I realized I needed to talk about it.  I met with my midwife earlier this week, and I told myself I needed to tell her what was going on with me.  I was afraid to.  I nearly talked myself out of it.  I don't like talking about anything that is even halfway personal to me, because I always end up crying.  (I think I feel too vulnerable, or something - it doesn't matter if it's something good or bad, too personal = crying!)  But when she went through her typical list of "have you had any vision distortions, or headaches, or swelling" etc., she asked about my sleep, and so I took a deep breath and told her how I had been feeling so anxious and afraid of upcoming labor, and it was getting so bad that it was invading my sleep. 

I cried.  I cried so much.  But we talked for what must have been 20 or 30 minutes.  Mostly, she just sat and listened patiently as I got it all out.  And where I hadn't really been able to find logical reasons for my fear before, things started to occur to me as I stopped bottling it up.

• I didn't really want to be pregnant again.  Since we thought Malcolm was our last one, I didn't have that attitude of "Oh well, I probably would have been pregnant again eventually, anyway"  to help me out.  No, this time I just plain didn't plan on another pregnancy at all.  So on top of feeling like I was pretty much forced to deal with the aches and pains of pregnancy, I was also starting to realize that I was very soon going to have to deal with labor pretty unwillingly, too.
• Malcolm's birth, the most recent one, was quite different from the rest of them.  Typically, my water would break as I was just about to push, or already pushing.  Having the amniotic fluid still inside creates a pretty noticeable buffer for contractions.  By the time I was in active labor with Malcolm, my water had been broken for 24 hours, and I had pretty much no buffer left to help me through those contractions.  They hurt.  It was thankfully a short time to feel it, as he was born just an hour or two after active labor started, but the pain was very real, and I remember very clearly saying "I never want to do that again!!" only moments after I was holding him in my arms.  And I meant it.  I really didn't want to do it again.  So it makes sense, that on the heels of that particular labor, I wouldn't be very excited about another one.
• 5 kids is a lot of kids for a very introverted parent in a 2 bedroom house.  I'll be honest that while I love little babies, I'm not looking forward to the added chaos and strain a 5th child will put on me.  
• I haven't been feeling confident in my ability to relax and and work with the contractions instead of against them this time around.  Every time I try to listen to one of my tried-and-true relaxation tracks, I can't manage to keep my breathing focused, my muscles only stay loose for a minute or two, and I can't keep my mind from straying to things that make me feel worked up instead of relaxed.  I have relied heavily on relaxation in previous births.  Why isn't it working this time, before labor has even begun?
• I think I'm also subconsciously understanding that we're moving out of state and away from friends and family pretty darn soon after baby is born.  Once baby is born, that will be a MUCH BIGGER reality than it is right now.  I may be afraid to "speed up" that realization by having the baby.

After talking with my midwife, I began feeling much better already.  It was definitely a physical relief, that feeling of a weight off of your shoulders, quite literally.  I hadn't realized how much strain it was putting on me to try to ignore and bury all these thoughts and feelings.  Just vocalizing them was putting me on the path towards fixing them.  And fixing them is very important to me at this point - I wholeheartedly believe that my attitude and emotional state going into labor will affect how I deal with it, and how smoothly labor goes.  If I continue to have negative feelings about labor, it will probably end up being miserable for me.  And with 7 days left until my due date (baby could come any minute now!!), I don't have a lot of time to turn things around.

I developed a loose plan of action to accomplish this goal.  First, my midwife reminded me that if this is truly to be my last baby, this is my last chance to get something wonderful out of the experience of labor.  I remembered that my first homebirth, Alex, left me feeling simply incredible.  He was by far my biggest baby, and while I wouldn't categorize any of my children's births as "fun", his was definitely amazing.  I felt strong and empowered in ways I had never felt.  The rush of energy, the feeling that "I can do anything!" was with me for quite a long time, even through a very uncomfortable recovery.  I smiled through much of his labor- and laughed, too!- even though it was hard.  Contrast that with Malcolm's birth, where I was very nearly crying through contractions at the end, and my biggest thought wasn't "I can do anything!" but "I never want to do that again!", and I know which one I'd rather experience.  I want the one that makes me feel strong and confident and powerful.

So how am I going to get there?  I had to start by cluing in my dear husband.  This was not something I should try to hide from him, after all.  But it took a couple days for me to be ready to open up about it, all the same.  In the meantime, I went back to reading a book that I'd started months earlier, but had never finished.  I bought the book The Gift of Giving Life: Rediscovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Birth, originally with the intent of giving it away as a baby shower gift.  When I first received it, even though I wasn't planning another baby, I flipped through the first chapter and was so touched by the things I read, that I decided to keep it for myself.  It had sat on my shelf for a very long time after that, untouched, but I finally convinced myself to read it a few months into my pregnancy.  And then life got busy, and I let it slide again, only a few chapters in.  When I picked it up again after my visit with the midwife, what was the very first section after my bookmark?  The very thing I needed to focus on: Fear. I gleaned so many good things from it, a book written by Latter-day Saint women on the spiritual knowledge they had found over their years of study on pregnancy and childbirth.  There were scriptures and birth stories and insights galore, and even some tactics for how to overcome fear.  I started writing them down.  There were a couple scriptures that I found to be especially uplifting as I read them:

John 4:18
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out all fear:  Because fear hath torment.

This one speaks truth to me first in the way that fear makes you feel.  It really does feel like torment!  It's not something I want to be experiencing on top of the existing challenge of labor.  But the bigger thing this says to me is love will cancel out fear.  What do I need to love?  My very first thought is the baby.  If I can focus on my love for this baby joining our family soon, remembering the end goal, it will be extremely helpful.  But I also need to love myself.  I need to remember that I am strong, and powerful, and capable.  I need to honor my emotions, but find truth and love for myself despite any negative emotions I may be experiencing.  And also very importantly, I need to love God.  He is the one who designed this process of birth, and I trust it so well.  I trust that He designed it to help me feel closer to Him, and to realize my potential through experiencing it, as well.  He doesn't give the trial of labor and birth to women as punishment, but rather as a means to grow and stretch ourselves.  I have felt the blessing of it before, and if I remember to love, I am confident I can feel it again.

Doctrine and Covenants 121:7
My [daughter], peace be unto they soul; thine adversity and thine affliction shall be but a small moment.

Labor is really very typically not a long ordeal for me.  Sometimes it's almost too fast.  My adversity and affliction will be a small moment in the grand scope of my life.  I can find peace in that knowledge, I can find the strength and confidence to endure it well for such a short time.

Doctrine and Covenants 38:7
But behold, verily, verily, I say unto you that mine eyes are upon you. I am in your midst and ye cannot see me.

I can remember that God is there.  He is watching me.  He knows every detail of my life and my thoughts and my reality.  His Son, my Savior, has experienced all things, knows everything that I ever have and ever will go through.  They do not abandon me during the birth of one of my children, one of the precious souls sent to me from their presence in Heaven.  My Heavenly Father is wise and all-knowing.  He knew that we needed this child in our family.  Even if I can't see Him, He will be there to help guide me and comfort me.

Many of the birth stories in this book had thoughts that struck me so hard, as well.  One said:

Pain is simply a sensation, but suffering comes from thinking that what is shouldn't be.  I saw that no matter what happened to me in this life, I could trust that God had me in mind and that life happens for me, not to me.  It's all for my good.
The words that the Lord spoke to Joseph Smith popped into my mind:  "If the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know...that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good (D&C 122:7)

 I especially liked the line that "suffering comes from thinking that what is shouldn't be".  I think that's where I have been going wrong, these last few weeks:  I didn't sign up for this!  It isn't fair!  I don't want to feel that again!  If I can remove those lines of thinking, the suffering should go away.  Yes, I will experience pain.  But will my thoughts cause me to suffer, or will I endure the pain with patience and strength?  If I can look forward to this child without the undertones of negativity, I will be more successful at accepting pain without suffering because of it.

All of this reading has been extremely helpful, and after only a couple days, my attitude is already shifting.  I also did talk to Jesse, who was, of course, loving and understanding and not dismissive of my reality at all.  I asked him to give me a priesthood blessing for comfort, and he did.  I felt his love, and God's love for me, and was promised that I would be able to "look forward" to this birth, and be comforted, and to feel the presence of the Holy Ghost.  Blessings are so important in pregnancy, I think.  But it has felt even more profound this time around, as I have felt myself losing confidence in my own ability to handle things.  I need that divine help more than ever.

Going forward, I plan to continue to read this wonderful book, to help me rediscover all the wonderful blessings surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.  I hope I might be able to finish it before the baby is born.  I also plan to practice my relaxation more regularly, focusing on breathing calmly and repeating affirmations that will help shift my attitude.  If I can find enough quiet time, I will also attempt to meditate, to spend time in quiet focus on my hopes for peace, strength, and confidence through the labor experience.  Pray more, think about holding an adorable baby in my arms more, remember my blessings more, and appreciate life more.  And if I'm being totally honest, I think it will help if I end up going past my due date and I start feeling anxious for labor to just start already!!  I still think Malcolm's birth took me by surprise by being as early as it was - with all the others, I had already been waiting anxiously and attempting to get things going on my own.  I think if I'm a more willing participant in inviting contractions to begin, I will fare better.

So, here's to another week or more of pregnancy, during which time I can find myself eager for another baby, another experience with childbirth, and success for turning around my attitude towards it all. 

The Hard Things

Have you ever had a moment where you had a thought, and knew that it was Truth?  Not just something you believed to be true, but something you knew was True, on a deep spiritual level, even if you had no reason to know it?

When those terrible tornadoes went tearing through Oklahoma about a month ago, leveling schools and ripping lives apart, I had such a thought. I was in the middle of feeling a deep despair for all these families, especially the children, who lived though such a terrifying experience, wondering how they could deal with something so inexplicably *bad*.  I was crying over their terror that they must have felt in the moment.  Crying over the loss of the families whose loved ones didn't make it. Imagining my own children in a similar situation as those little school children.  It all seemed so horrifying, so wrong, so awful, so unfair, so hard....

It was in this moment of deep sorrow that the thought came to me, "The hard things are the good things."  The thought caught me off guard.  It didn't make any sense to me, but I felt like it was really True.  As I mulled over it, I realized that all this thinking about tragedy was making me value things and people in my own life that much more.  And how every time something "bad" has happened to our family, it has done nothing but help us on other, more important levels.  The things that other people, or even us, have perceived as "hard" are definitely hard... but they have always brought along with them a strength of another kind, something I wouldn't give up just for the ease of skipping over the "hard" times.

I have been clinging to this Truth for dear life these past few weeks, as a new sort of hard thing has jumped into existence, and has thrown me for a complete loop.  Unexpected news, completely opposite of everything I wanted at this point in my life, going against every conscious decision I have made in the past year or so:

We are having another baby.

I was shaking almost to the point of being unable to have functional hand control as I took the test, locked behind the bathroom door as my children rampaged in the small apartment.  As lines started to form I was pleading with every piece of my soul that it would be negative.  Please be negative!!  As it quickly changed to a dark, all-too-familiar and completely undeniable positive, I broke down in heavy sobs.  I did not want this.  My mind raced with all the things that would be made harder in my life.  I had been so very, very ready to move on to the next stage of motherhood, to leave behind the babies and toddlers and wakeful nights and breastfeeding and, and, and.... (honestly, the list of things I rattled off in my brain for why I didn't want this would possibly shock you). We really, truly, had just barely decided that we both wanted to be *done*.  Neither one of us could imagine a scenario where we would actively want another child.  The 4 we had were already exhausting us, and lately, it seems like the exhausting and frustrating parts have very much outweighed the good, fun parts.  Now that we are looking forward to a new job in California, we were just starting to feel like maybe soon we would finally have our feet firmly under us, like we might finally enjoy some stability for a while, and be able to build a future instead of just clinging for dear life to the present.

And then the rug got pulled out from under us.  This. Changes. Everything.  And we feel it to our bones.  So I have been reminding myself over and over that "the hard things are the good things".  If it was Truth then, it must be Truth now, and although I still mourn a good deal for the loss of the lifestyle I imagined would be starting over the next year or two, as kids got older and we left toddlerhood behind, and moved to a new home with (hopefully) plenty of space for everyone.... I am trying to remind myself that every time something "bad" has happened to our family, we have ended up stronger, happier, with pieces of our lives we wouldn't give up for anything.

And truly, I don't want you to think that I think babies are "bad".  I love babies!   I feel like I'm pretty darn good at being a mother of babies.  But I've lived through 4 of them, and I know realistically what they mean in terms of the energy and devotion and effort and heartache that will be required of me.  Especially when piled on top of relocating to a brand new place, where I will not have the family support that I have enjoyed these past few years, nor good friends at the ready to offer me help when I need it.  Especially when I'm getting older and feeling the burden more heavily as older children get busier and require more from me as well.  I do not kid myself - this will be a hard thing.  I hope beyond hope that I will come to enjoy it, and savor another baby when I had convinced myself I would have no more.

But if I'm being honest, I'll share that I'm not there yet.  About the only excitement I've had is that maybe, just maybe, this baby might end up being a girl, and my only regret with being done with more children is that Melinda would never have a sister.  If this life-changing surprise negates that regret, I think I will feel happier a lot sooner than I would otherwise. (Not that I would be devastated with another boy.  They're great!  But if we get another boy he might never get a name.  Seems like we have exhausted the list of boy names we both like...)

And I know, I know, that this "hard thing" of mine doesn't even come close to the "hard thing" of being victim of a majorly destructive tornado. My hard thing ends with a new family member to love. It doesn't tear my life apart.  It just sets me back a few years for all the things I had started to hope and imagine for myself and my family.  Still, we all have our own difficult things to go through.  I never thought mine would be yet another surprise pregnancy.  I have to believe that there will be good things to come, but for now I'm still just wide-eyed with terror that I'm doing this.  Again.  Yeesh.

I sure hope Heavenly Father knows what he's doing.

Positive test, May 28th

Oh, and I'm sure you want details.  It looks like the due date is about February 1st, so either late January or early February. It could go either way. I'm thankful I get to do summertime during early pregnancy rather than late pregnancy.  And that I didn't get rid of a few key baby items yet.  Even though I already *did* get rid of quite a few things I'll have to replace, starting with maternity clothes. (Yay...)  We're hoping that we will move to California before the baby is born, because we just can't fit another baby in our apartment... but at the same time, we'd like to spend a little bit of winter and maybe Christmas here, so the ideal window would be fairly narrow.  We'll see as time moves on, I guess.  So far I'm feeling fine, symptom-wise, just a little more tired and ever so slightly more sensitive to food likes/dislikes.  And maybe more cranky, but that might just be having the kids home for summer break all day, every day, too.  ;)  And dreams, ugh.  Vivid dreams every night. I wake up feeling like I just lived a real, eventful day instead of just sleeping peacefully.  (Last night in my dream, it snowed.  In June.  After several days in the 90's and 100's...)  Anyway, I'm just rambling now.  Bottom line is, here we go again!!  5 kids - this is going to be insane!!