Coping with change

I suppose that every year of life is full of changes, be they large or small. Especially when you're married and raising children, change happens - daily! As usual, this past year has been full of changes for us. Of course, our nearly seven years of marriage has been a roller coaster while Jared completed his Masters and then Doctorate, during which we were having babies and moving around. :) We have spent much of our married life dreaming of the 'next' thing. How great will life be once you (Jared) are finished with your Masters? How much better once your Doctorate is completed? How much better once you (Jared) have a real job with a living wage and we feel comfortable with me (Barbara) staying home? How much better when....? It never ends. We've had hard lessons in learning to embrace and accept the present. Endure! seems to have been my motto for ages, now.

After Lillian was born last year we were told we shouldn't have more children, it would be too dangerous. We were upset, obviously, as we'd always hoped to have many children. However, we had Lillian, and she was truly a miracle baby, considering what was going on inside my body. It was a time of great patience as we mastered NFP, a difficult thing to do when a pregnancy would be a matter of life and death. It was also a time of healing as we mourned the life we had planned. A few months after Lillian was born I had a huge chunk of my cervix removed because of high-grade pre-cancerous cells. My doctor took so much of my cervix that if the dysplasia returned I would have to have a hysterectomy. However, she said that once a LEEP procedure is done, it's rare for the dysplasia to appear again. In my case, however, it did.

When I had my check-up in January they found the high-grade dysplasia was still there, and after several biopsies and discussing my case with the oncologist, it was decided a hysterectomy (uterus and cervix only) had to be done, and very soon. I had surgery on April 8, and what felt like the longest recovery ensued.

We have had very dramatic labors and births with all of our children, and my pregnancy with Lillian was also quite dramatic. We had gotten to a point where it seemed that 'all of the bad things' would happen to me regarding my reproductive organs. Less than one percent of attempted VBACs (vaginal birth after c-section) will have a uterine rupture - that was me! *waves* Most LEEP procedures remove all the high-grade dysplasia - not me! *waves again* I even had a hemorrhage three weeks after my hysterectomy. I was at home and it was quite terrifying. I started bleeding, got light headed, and the next thing I know my mother is rolling me over as I'm vomiting, and my husband is on the phone with 911. The ambulance came, I passed out and threw up some more, and then they rushed me to the hospital where they discovered two hematomas at my surgical site. Scary times. We sent my two oldest kids off to Kansas for two weeks to be with family so I could lay low and heal. Luckily, all is well now.

Now, with all of this change has come sadness. Even though we had planned on having no more children after Lillian, there was still that small hope. That idea that if God wanted it to happen, it could, and he would take care of us. But now that my uterus is gone, there is no hope of birthing any more babies. And even though I don't have to worry about cancer anymore, or dealing with icky, painful periods, there is serious heartbreak in the fact that I am 31 years old and we will have no more children. I know, I know, adoption is an option. But the thought of adoption is so far off the radar. Right now there is only grieving. Grieving the loss of what we wanted, of what we hoped for, of what could have been. There is only fielding my oldest daughter's questions of "when can we have another baby?" "Wouldn't it be great to have a fourth baby, maybe a boy this time?" When will you be pregnant again, Mama?" And even though we finally told her why we can't have more, she doesn't quite get it, and she still questions. I'm sad when Lillian grows out of her clothes and instead of saving them, we're passing them on. The same goes for Dominic's clothes, now that we know there will not be another boy. I hate that when I hear of people talking about being "done" I get upset, thinking, "wow, if I could have more, I WOULD!" And I know that's not fair, because everyone is at a different place in their life, but that's just the truth. I guess that's what grief does.

This grieving has brought me closer to my husband, though. Together we have cried over the loss of future children, but we've marveled at what we do have. After the surgery this spring my doctor told us how bad things were inside of me. One of the things was that my uterus was covered in endometriosis. So, I guess we're incredibly blessed and lucky to have the three beautiful children we do have. On a different note, my husband is also a bit relieved to not deal with anymore drama! It seems that every time we have a baby I nearly die, so I can see how there's relief there for him. And of course, it is kind of nice to not have to worry about NFP for the next 15 years. :) It's almost like God said, "Hey, you trusted me last year and did NFP instead of birth control, even though it was terrifying. So thank you, and now I'll save you the trouble and take your uterus." It sounds weird, but there is that silver lining there.

It has been stressful in our house - stressful on our marriage, stressful for our children. The stress of dealing with this on top of having small children, one of which I was still nursing, was sometimes unbearable! Luckily, Lillian kept nursing through it all, and just recently quit. I am so thankful she didn't quit nursing during and right after my surgery. That would have been just awful. At least she nursed all the way until I was recovered. And she's still a snuggle bug, thankfully. Still, I was not ready for her to stop nursing - she just turned 16 months old today, but she was ready. That was another grief to deal with. My final nursling - I wish it was bitter-sweet, but I'm just bitter about it.

I feel that this year has been a hard lesson in learning that we cannot know what God has planned for us, and we simply cannot always understand it. How can this happen to us, a family who so desperately wants children, when all around the world there are women who don't want their babies, and go to terrible extremes to prevent or end pregnancy? We want children, why would that be taken away from us? I'm sure God has something great planned for us, but right now all I can do is be thankful for what we have, and trust that He will help me through. I am bitter, I'm angry....I'm angry with God. And that's okay. He's the only one who can really help me through this, and although He's always known that, now I know it, too.

On a sleepless night...

This year has been so full of change for us. This blog, unfortunately, has been been non-existent during it! It's funny how every time I post it's been nearly a year since the last time. *sigh* such is life. :) Right now it's 3:30am and I am AWAKE. Usually after I nurse Lillian in the night we all go right back to sleep, if not sleep during nursing, but lately she's been so grunty/unsettled while she nurses that I'm awake with her. Tonight she needed a new diaper, which never happens in the middle of the night anymore, and that has woken me up. So, on with a quick post, to get the blog running again, and to hopefully make me sleepy. :)

So, our major change of this year has been the birth of Lillian! :) She joined us on this side of the womb on February 28th, and she's an absolute joy. Of course we adore her, and Dominic and Sophia have been thrilled with her from the beginning - it warms my heart to see them with her, fawning all over her. :) Her birth went smoothly and as "naturally" as possible for a scheduled c-section. We had a great doctor and nursing/birthing staff in a great hospital. Although recovery was long and painful, the birth itself was everything we could have hoped for in that environment, with no complications during or after. I was able to hold Lillian within a minute of her being born - they delayed all testing and gave her to me after quickly checking her over. The nurse helped me with skin-to-skin contact, and then helped Lillian latch on and nurse while they were sewing me back up. It was lovely! She has been my best nurser yet, and I hope to nurse her much longer than my other two - Sophia weened herself at 14 months, after I'd been pregnant with Dominic for three months, and Dominic weened just after 12 months. Lillian's six months old already, and I'm hoping for at least another year, if not more, of nursing. Because of all my uterine/cervical health issues, she is most likely our last baby - so I'm hopeful to keep her close to me for a long time.

Jared completed his dissertation last November and defended in December, so we are COMPLETELY done with school forever (aside from homeschooling our children, anyhow). THAT is a wonderful thing - a very close second to Lillian's birth! Lol. Seriously, though, because more than five of the six years of our marriage have been handling Graduate school, Jared's doctoral completion is a major thing for us. That is one of the heaviest burdens we've carried, and it is a relief to be rid of it!

We have also just bought a house - three months ago, to be exact! First-time homeowners and LOVING it. Apartment living was horrendous, especially during this last heavy (and LONG!) South Dakota winter. It was pretty brutal. Add to that all the difficulties with my pregnancy and oh my, let's just say we are so glad to be in a house. :)

As always, I am hopeful to be back into full swing with this blog, and I intend to post regularly. :) Pictures are to come of the house and the kiddos, of course, and I'd like to get this blog up to speed on all the happenings in our life!

Here's to new beginnings (again!!).......

Finding a Rhythm

So much for getting back into the swing of blogging as my earlier post suggested! Lol. Now that we've moved past university life and into a steady job and a new city, I think I'm ready for blogging. :)

We're in a tiny two-bedroom apartment in Sioux Falls, hoping to move into a house next summer if all goes as planned. I'm trying to find my rhythm here at home with the kids, especially as we adjust (or not) to apartment living - sandwiched between noisy neighbors upstairs and grumpy neighbors downstairs. That house sounds better and better every day, even more so with baby number three coming at the end of February.

Part of my "rhythm" quest is trying to be more "Nourishing Traditiony" in my kitchen and with meal planning. I've finally started brewing kombucha in the last couple of weeks. Had my second batch turn out last night, and it was quite tasty! Now I've got six quart jars brewing that should be ready next Wednesday. So exciting! The kids love it, Jared loves it, and baby #3 and I love it, too.

We're also back into soaking our oatmeal for breakfast, and today I've made bread with leftover oatmeal. I did this last week, too, and oh my goodness, it is delicious! I got the recipe from The Sisters Dish blog, and it was actually the first time I've made bread with yeast! Of course I've made banana bread, pumpkin bread, pizza dough, etc., but never "for real" yeast bread. I'm pretty proud of my newly discovered bread-making abilities, and so happy to be getting more natural in the kitchen!

The kids seem to be pretty comfortable with our new life and city. They talk about missing people back in Kansas but they never break down about it, and they adjusted quickly to everything. I'm pretty sure that having the stress of school off Jared helped the whole family dynamic. Our crazy last semester in Kansas was just about too much for all of us, so even with moving away from all things familiar, life feels better. They had a tea party with their dolls today while I made bread - until they came to help knead it, or rather to throw flour around.

All in all, life. is. good.

Homemakin'

We are back online after our move over the Christmas/New Year break! The move was hectic, especially as it was over the holidays, and it was also challenging because we moved to a smaller place. We were, however, able to fit everything in. We left lots of books in boxes to be stored in closets, and stacked our closets to their limits with all our extra stuff. I've been amazed at the spaces I was able to come up with for storage. Our little two bedroom duplex is cozy, though, and has plenty of room for us. The kids and I are comfortable being here all day, and that's what matters the most. The kitchen has very little counter space, but it's large enough to hold our table and the hutch, which helps both with the lack of cabinet space, and the lack of counter top. It's a bit easier for me to get lots of cooking done because the kids can be right in the kitchen with me, doing their own things at the table while I work. All their drawing/painting/coloring things are kept in the hutch, so I can quickly pull things out for them to keep them occupied. We were fully adjusted to the new space by the time Jared had to start the semester - his FINAL semester (God willing). :)

Now that Jared's back to university, we have more of a routine going. Well, in theory we have a routine....we should be officially starting that tomorrow, at the very latest. :) One of my resolutions is more serious home cooking, and yesterday was a landmark for me. I made my first ever turkey, and my oh my, was it delicious! Jared and I both agreed it was one of the juiciest turkeys we've ever had, and the gravy was to die for, too.! I was so happy about it! And, now we have lots of meat left over for turkey pot pie, or enchiladas, or skillet turkey tettrazini -  whatever we want! Woohoo! What I also did, was make turkey broth. I picked all the meat off, then threw all the turkey bones (and carcass) into my slow cooker. I chopped up and tossed in carrots, celery, onions and garlic, and added some pepper and apple cider vinegar. I cooked it on low overnight, and oh my goodness, it's so yummy! It's taking a short stint in the freezer at the moment so I can easily take the fat off the top, and then I'll salt it and save it for soups and stews. I feel like quite the Susie Homemaker today! Lol. I wasn't really thinking last night as I was cleaning up, and I threw away all the left-over turkey bits I'd used to make the gravy. If I'd thrown that in the slow cooker as well, I can only imagine how much dreamier the broth would taste. *sigh* There's always a next time, I just gotta find some turkey on sale....

I know this is my first post in over a month, but I'm hoping to keep up several times a week now. I've just recently left facebook as a way to save my sanity, and also to cultivate my family time and be able to share it more fully here. As we enter this final stage of Jared's doctorate, I'm getting more and more excited about the adventures to come, as we really set sail with his career, our family and our life goals. So exciting!! In the mean time, I'll be writing about life on the home front, as we live it now.

St. John Bosco, pray for us!!

When can I do it all???

I have so many things I want to do right now....planning, organizing, sorting, reading, etc. I feel like I'm so behind! I'm certainly behind on keeping a blog. :)

Jared brought home prize money from Montreal, so I was finally able to make some book and Montessori purchases. I'm so excited about this, and so excited to get things sorted and organized so I can get the kids going on stuff, but I feel like I can never find the time right now! I tend to want to have it all perfectly planned out as far as organization, storage, and how, when and where I'll implement things. The trouble is, I never have the time to just sit down and figure that out, or at least when I do get to sit down, everything I "need" to get done seems like work, and all I want to do is sit. This just means that all the great things I've got stay put away! When I finally just got out the paints for Sophia one day, she had a blast, and I didn't have anything worked out about it. When she was done, I quickly organized it, and put it away. Ba-da-boom, done! I really just need to do that with everything else, but it seems like all the other things require so much more time....

Also, I feel like I'm never able to research more ideas for things to do with the kids, especially Montessori activities. I feel very limited in creative ability - I like to write, and I can do that creatively, but all things crafty are beyond my scope, unless every little thing is plotted out for me, with detailed descriptions. :) That is something I would like to spend more time on, just so I can be more of a "natural" (or learned natural, rather) at coming up with my own Montessori or crafting ideas.

I guess I'm mostly just feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the fabulous things that I'm just now discovering. I have so many books around (at least 30 from the library) that I want to devour this very moment. I find I keep renewing and renewing them because I'm never finding the time to read them. And yet, I do find time to do lots of reading sometimes. Probably I've overwhelmed myself by checking out or borrowing every single book I want to read, all at the same time! I also have so many things online I'd like to be reading - particularly blogs and articles full of wonderful ideas. And, I want to start doing more family traditions, especially following the liturgical year. There's also the marvelous book, Nourishing Traditions, that I'd like to dive into so I can get started on...well, nourishing food traditions.

To top it all off, we'll be moving into a much smaller (and cheaper!) place in the next week, so that really throws a wrench in the organizing and storage department. Patience is something I am ENDlessly working on. I want to do it, and I want to do it/have it all set NOW. *sigh*

Sophia's really coming into her own, and is at a great age where she can do so many things, and just devours anything we give her...I just want to offer her more! And, if I'm more organized about it, I could get a lot of my own things done, that I'm always wanting to do, while she's doing her own fun things.

At least tonight Jared took the kids to his parents' house, but I stayed home. I really needed the time to myself; it's been so crazy around here, and will continue to be crazy until January 1st. I feel like the craziness never ends. I need to sort through things, pack, and figure out what won't fit (because we're moving to a smaller place), so I can start getting rid of (or selling) things. I also need to start reading so I can get a bunch of these books back to the library....

AND, Christmas is next weekend!!! I feel like I haven't even enjoyed Advent!!

Oh, geez, when and how to fit it all in.....

Diapering extras and caring for your cloth diapers

I'd like to add a few more things about diapers before I retire this subject for a while and focus on the rest of our life! :)

Some extra things that are wonderful to have in the old diaper stash are diaper doublers and fleece liners. Doublers are wonderful for night time (and nap time if you have an extremely heavy wetter). The doublers I use are the Stay-Dry Hemp Fleece Doublers (found at Babyworks.com). I like to call them miracle workers. My children tend to be the wettest in the morning. If I don't use a doubler for his morning nap, Dominic almost always leaks out of his Best Bottoms. These particular doublers have a fleece lining on top, which wicks moisture away from baby's bottom, leaving him feeling dry while his diaper is wet. Although I want my kids to feel the wetness of their diapers (hoping this discomfort will encourage them at potty-training age), I prefer them to be comfortable at nap/night time so that we all get a little more sleep. :) You can buy fleece liners by themselves if you don't want the added bulk of a doubler, or if you already use a fantastic diaper that doesn't need any more absorbency oomph, but could use that "staying dry" power.

I know I mentioned cloth wipes before, but I'll mention them again. They are amazing! They will change your life! They are easy to use! They are amazing! Whoops, getting redundant. :) Seriously, though, cloth wipes will make your whole cloth diaper change that much easier. I generally only need one at a time, unless the diaper is particularly offensive, in which case I'll use two, and sometimes three. I am disposable-wipe deficient, so I tend to use about 5-8 disposable wipes on a poopy diaper. Cloth wipes are a quick rinse with a diaper sprayer.

Diapers - a more thorough look. :)

We've experimented with multiple kinds of cloth diapers since Sophia was born over three years ago. I mentioned before that we began with Chinese prefolds and Bummis Whisper Wraps. This system just didn't work for us. They leaked, and I'm not sure if it was just the covers or the diapers, but it was maddening. I had several different types of diapers that my sister-in-law had sent me, so I tried all of those. I spent hours on the phone with Babyworks trying to trouble shoot my diaper issues. In the end, after trying several things, we went with Bum Genius 3.0 pocket diapers. Now, these diapers are fairly expensive, but we only needed 18 of them because they're a one-size diaper. Very handy! We had to buy special detergent, but that one bottle lasted us the life of the diapers (two and a half years!). So, considering all costs, still WAY cheaper than disposables, not to mention much better for the environment.

When Sophia was 11 months old I was pregnant with Dominic. I knew I couldn't use her diapers for him, so I started researching again. As much as I had loved my Bum Geniuses, the velcro was just awful. After one year it was fading, catching everything in the dryer, shrinking, and not fastening. I decided to go for snaps this time. I ordered three of Kissaluvs organic hemp/cotton fitted diapers. With these I ordered to wool covers from Royal Buns. Both the diapers and the covers were/are excellent. The Kissaluvs are super absorbent, and the wool covers, of course, are amazing.

Let me just quickly tell you about wool covers. Wool is naturally antibacterial/antimicrobial, meaning it doesn't harbor bacteria or retain odors. Because of this, it only has to be washed once or twice per month. PER MONTH!!! That is, if it doesn't get soiled. Yes, you must generally hand wash. However, you put it in the sink with a little water and lanolized wool detergent, squeeze it a couple of times, and then let it soak for at least 15 minutes. Take it out, squish it with a towel, and lay it out to dry. Not very complicated, and honestly not too time consuming. Wool is the most amazing thing to use at night; with a good wool cover you are basically guaranteed a leak-free night, even with just a so-so diaper. In the morning, if the cover is damp inside and smells of urine, flip it inside-out, lay it out to dry, and by the evening, no wetness, no odor! It is AMAZING. If you do smell urine at the end of the day, it's time to wash the cover. Also, wool diaper covers are not like commercial wool. Commercial wool tends to be itchy and generally irritating, but wool diaper covers are untreated and soft, soft, soft. This also means they are incredibly breathable (read: not hot), so they can be worn in winter AND summer.