Monday, October 28, 2013

Church Mountain

We have been enjoying these past crispy clear Autumn days by spending some time hiking around Mt. Baker! John and I absolutely dislike spending time at a gym, but we love to be outside enjoying the Pacific Northwest beauty that surrounds us.

We were excited to hike Church Mountain with some friends and like always, we got our stuff ready to go the night before so we could get out the door a bit faster the day of the hike. Unfortunately, we managed to leave Sariah's carrier by the door and didn't realize it until we were almost at the trail.

Did I mention that Church Mountain is 8.5+ miles roundtrip with an elevation gain of 3750 ft?

Lets just say that we are NEVER going to forget to bring Sariah's carrier again! I was thankful that we were able to pass Sariah around from person to person, but that was still rough.

We improvised by attaching two tourniquets and using it as a sling to help hold Sariah's weight...and I thanked God Sariah is a light-weight baby!

This was a hard hike and the circumstances made it even harder, but the view was spectacular! We will definitely be coming back in the future with a carrier.









Thursday, October 17, 2013

Thirteen Months Old

Sariah...






  • Likes to color with crayons
  • Kicks her soccer ball around the house and invites others to play with her
  • Had a rough month of sleepless nights
  • Got her fourth tooth
  • Likes to go on walks
  • Attempts to say a few words: ball, apple, baby, there, this, that
  • Gets a little nervous around animals
  • Imitates everything mommy and daddy do
  • Washes her own hair during bath time
  • Gets excited when we put her shoes on because she knows we are going outside
  • Is becoming more caring with her stuffed animals and even puts them to sleep on a pillow
  • Plays peekaboo with anyone
  • Has great problem solving skills and is very persistent

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day

I read this post a couple of weeks ago and was deeply impacted by its message.

SUFFERING IN SILENCE NO MORE

'“So what happened last week?” the vendor asked, wondering why I’d disappeared for several days in the middle of a critical deadline. “Did you have the flu?”

“It was…” I trailed off, trying to decide how much I wanted to share with someone who was really more of a professional contact than a friend. “It was…lady stuff.”

Just like that, I slapped a vague label on the most excruciating loss of my life.

Mere days before this conversation took place, I was chipper and dreamy and carrying a baby. Then, in the course of one horrid day, it all unraveled. Now, I found myself sitting back in my office chair, stunned, grieving, and facing an urgent mountain of work.

I pawed my pile listlessly, wondering how the world could go on when mine had surely ended. All around me, keyboards chattered and telephones rang. Coworkers eyed me suspiciously, clearly not buying my excuse that I was ambiguously under the weather.

I’d just lost a baby. And it had dropped me into a hell of despair so deep that it hurt just to breathe.

So, why was I keeping it a secret?

Miscarriage is death. It brings with it all the agonizing grief that comes with losing a loved one. But miscarriage is also a taboo topic. It’s the very reason that we hide our pregnancies during those first dicey months, fretfully waiting for the danger to abate before making any announcements.

When bad news comes, couples that lose a pregnancy tend to mourn in secret, telling only close friends and family about their loss.

There are no funerals. No memorials. You don’t get sympathy cards and bereavement time. Instead, routines go on, and you take sick days.

We reduce a miracle to a topic not fit for polite conversation.

An estimated one in seven pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Each year in the U.S. alone, over 700,000 babies don’t survive to be born. Millions of people must be mourning them. So, where are they?

As a society, we let ourselves believe the lie that miscarriage is a minor event in a woman’s life. “It happens all the time,” people tell you, as if knowledge of its frequency will put the loss in perspective. (Imagine giving that same line to someone who just lost a grandparent.)

“It really wasn’t a baby yet” is another line people glibly offer. Or, “You hardly even knew you were pregnant.”

I ultimately had two miscarriages, both at about 10 weeks. Both times, I knew I was pregnant for nearly two months.

That’s a lot of mornings to wake up enchanted that there’s a child growing inside you. It’s many long afternoons of fatigue, strange cravings, and nausea. It’s countless cups of decaf coffee and glasses of wine declined. It’s 60 prenatal vitamins.

I don’t blame society for being so callous about pregnancy loss. If nobody ever tells people how much it hurts, how are they to know that miscarriage is such a big deal? Why shouldn’t they think that it is no worse than blowing a job interview or having your team lose the big game?

As with so many verboten topics, perhaps the answer is simply for people to be more open. To stop pretending that if we ignore miscarriage, it won’t hurt.

Years later, I still think about that miserable afternoon at work and how much easier it would have been if I’d just exhaled the truth. If I could have let people say, “I’m so sorry.” If I hadn’t had to pretend that it was a normal day even as I was in the grips of soul-swallowing grief.

Because the only thing worse than losing something that meant the world to you is pretending that you lost nothing."


Author
- Jody Pratt


Please re-share for your friends and family. Hopefully it will help this taboo topic, be taboo no longer. So many women, men, and even others close to the couple, have experienced this heartbreaking pain alone.


VIsit Jodi's words here:
http://www.babble.com/pregnancy/coping-with-miscarriage-pregnancy-secret/





Monday, October 14, 2013

Sleepless Nights

I did not read a whole lot about sleep training a baby when I was pregnant, but I did spend a lot of time praying that God would bless me with a child that loves to sleep. My prayers were inspired by the fact that I cannot function without sleep. I pretty much become Godzilla when I don't sleep well for a couple of nights in a row. 

The newborn days were hard because babies have no concept of time and want to nurse every 2 minutes 2 hours. I felt constantly tired and wondered if I was ever going to feel like a normal human being again. 


God heard my prayers and Sariah started sleeping through the night when she was 2 months old. I felt like a new person the morning I woke up and realized I had slept a whole night without any interruptions. 


I wish I could say that Sariah continued to be a great sleeper...but the reality tells a different story. 


This past summer, Sariah got a cold and then she got a couple of teeth and then she got Roseola and as a result, woke up multiple times a night. I let her nurse as much as she wanted because she felt comforted and safe. When she got all better, I expected her to go back to her old sleep patterns but it never happened. Sariah continued to wake up once a night to nurse and while I was slightly annoyed, I figured that getting up once a night for 10 minutes was not bad. 


Our little sleeper turned one year old three weeks ago and for some unknown reason, decided to start a new sleeping routine which includes hours of screaming in the middle of the night. Sariah goes down to sleep just fine and wakes up at 3:00AM screaming. I always let her nurse and put her back in her crib, but she continues to scream for the next 2.5 hours. John and I are SO tired! 


For 2.5 hours I sit in her room, encouraging her to lay down, assuring her that she is okay, telling her it is night-night time... while praying for supernatural patience and love. 


These last couple of weeks have been extremely challenging to me and I can truly say that my prayer life is very active. 


I keep hoping that tonight will be different and that this is just a stage, but sometimes when I am up for hours in the middle of the night, I start wondering if it is going to be like this forever. My logical self reminds me that Sariah will eventually sleep through the night again, but my emotional and tired self whispers that if this is the new normal, our child is never going to have a sibling because I can't handle having another child that will keep me up like this. 


I am being reminded almost constantly that I need to lean on God for strength. I am thankful that the Spirit reminds me that I can find rest in the arms of my Father. 


Friday, October 4, 2013

Who You Are

I have watched this video a couple of times today, because one never gets tired of receiving words of encouragement.

May we never forget our worth in the eyes of our Creator. It is time to find that woman and set that woman free!


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