A Few Days in August

November 19, 2019November 18, 2019 / Julie / 3 Comments

I am not pregnant, but for a few days in August, I thought I probably was. We were away on vacation for the first time in five years – for the first time in three of our children’s lives.

We’d had a rough beginning to the trip: my husband had come down with pneumonia and my son with bronchitis. (“Can’t we weave wiffout Daddy?” the little stinker had asked an hour before his own symptoms arose.) So I’d done all the packing and loading and driving and unloading and unpacking by myself.

It was a lot.

But there we were, two parents and five kids finally lodged in our rented condo in the Blue Ridge Mountains and I was feeling grateful.

Grateful – and nervous that I might be pregnant.

Two days into the trip, I stole away from my crew for a little time to myself. I pulled out my laptop and sat on the rooftop balcony and wrote up my feelings. I hadn’t thought of publishing them, but re-reading them now, I recognize that they sum up much of my thinking lately.

I get asked all the time whether we’re “done.” (Having babies, that is.) I wonder whether the questioners think about the emotional conflict their curiosity can trigger.

For the first time, we’re about to celebrate a toddler’s second birthday without having another babe in arms or in utero. And for the first time, we’re aiming to be “done.” The idea of another pregnancy is overwhelming, even scary (mostly for medical reasons). Yet the idea of another baby, should one ever come our way, is wonderful.

~~~

8.20.19

I sit here on this balcony, listening to the cars whoosh past and the oak branches rustle in the breeze. (The maple stands mostly still. Why does one tree rustle while its neighbor does not?) I sit on a simple old patio rocker, roofing beneath my feet in this forgotten space. Who will notice this balcony, the owners must wonder, when the view is from the other? But this one is partly shaded at 11am; the other bakes. I lean back in the chair and look up at the swirling clouds, water vapor shifting around, trading places in 3D. A passenger jet soars past. We aren’t that remote.

I sit here, not knowing whether I might be pregnant, but suspecting I am. I am grateful that it’s too soon to take the test. Next week, if contradictory proof doesn’t appear on its own, I will have to get up the nerve to know the truth.

I have been fearful. I have been anxious about the physical repercussions of another pregnancy. I have been feeling greedy about my time. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel: three children in all-day school within days, five children within a few years.

But just now I read a line from Anthony Doerr. “They are miracles,” Doerr writes of his twin boys. “Born from cells much smaller than the period at the end of this sentence – much smaller than that period – the boys are suddenly big and loud and soak the fronts of their shirts with drool.”

I read that line and I look down at my abdomen and I think with wonder on those cells (now perhaps bigger than a period?) that may lie hidden there. I think with wonder on the child who may soon be staining shirts with drool. So many people would think on the logistics we’ve had to go through this week: packing, fevers, bottles, stroller and child wrangling, and think that another child would never be worth it. I know exactly how hard it would be; part of me resists mightily against it. But the rest of me knows that each of my children have been the most incredible gifts life could possibly offer. And that this one, if he’s there, would be too.

* The line is from Doerr’s beautiful 2007 memoir, Four Seasons in Rome. I highly recommend it.

Hope and Love (and the Same Old Pitfalls) in a New Season (7 Quick Takes, Vol. 45)

October 20, 2017October 20, 2017 / Julie / 4 Comments

Goodness, it’s been too long. Again. As always. The prudent thing for me to do at this point in non-blogging would probably be to throw up my arms and walk away with a liiittle dignity. But I can’t give it up. I can shove it aside and starve it and neglect it, apparently, but I can’t give it up.

So, here you have me.

Since it’s been so long, I thought I’d do a little 7 Quick Takes to tell you how the 7 (seven?!) members of our family are faring these days. Beginning with…

—1—

Myself. Because I’m the blogger.

(Would you believe that this, I think, is the first ‘baby bump’ photo I’ve taken this pregnancy? You may not be able to see the whole bump because of my hanger-on, but I think she adds a certain something to the picture.)

Looking at my calendar, I see that I’m now 35 weeks into this pregnancy. (Yes, I had to look at the calendar to figure that out.) Somehow, I’m feeling simultaneously comfortable/healthy/energetic and uncomfortable/unhealthy/fatigued. Part of it just depends on the day – some days I feel great and other days I am whooped. (My blood pressure has been really low this whole pregnancy and boy have I been feeling it.)

But I think a lot of it has to do with how I’m carrying this baby. She’s hanging out really low – almost entirely below my belly button. So on the one hand, I can breathe comfortably and (from my vantage, if not yours) I don’t even look that big. But on the other hand, I’m having some difficulty walking and sitting. It feels like she’s cozying right up into my hip bones. And like she might just decide to pop out at any moment.

My OB thinks that Baby’s positioning might mean that I’ll actually go into labor on my own this time. But I’m skeptical. I’ve needed Pitocin for every labor so far – even the one in which my water broke ten days early. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to experience labor without it.

Other than the pregnancy stuff, I’m fine, I guess? I’m currently feeling pretty overwhelmed about the (disgusting) state of my house, but I just don’t have the energy to get to most of it. At least not with my kids underfoot. There’s such an incredible difference between what I can accomplish alone vs. what I can do with them around me. Not just because of their (constant) needs, but also because I really struggle to focus on the tasks in front of me. I’ve found that if I put on my noise-cancelling headphones and listen to a good podcast, I can work happily and productively for a good long while. But while trying to monitor the kids, ‘focus’ is pretty much a lost cause.

Fortunately, I now have two little ones who will nap pretty much every afternoon while their brothers are at school. Would you believe that, seven years into parenthood, this is the first time I’ve experienced that wondrous, almost mythical afternoon break that is a reliable naptime? My first child was a terrible napper and my second gave it up early, and until now I’ve had at least one of them home every afternoon anyway. But with the two big boys at school, Mommy has some freedom in the afternoons. Woo-hoo! Something to celebrate!

For another month or so, that is – until we add a newborn into the mix.

So far I’ve been using naptimes to do housework or prep dinner or even take the occasional cat-nap, but I’d really like to see if I could claim at least some of it for writing. (I have so much on my mind! So much I’d like to chew on with you!) We’ll see. I’d like to promise that I will, but I feel like I’ve broken enough promises in this space.

—2—

On that cheery note, let’s move on to the baby!

Not much to report here. Baby Girl’s pretty quiet for now. (I mean, obviously. But she’s also pretty quiet, activity-wise. I’m thinking she’ll have a more sedate personality. We shall see!)

She’s shaping up to be just as big at her arrival as her siblings were at theirs. At my 32-week sono they estimated her weight to be 5lbs, 3oz, which sets her up to weigh around 9 pounds at birth. Imagine that. Her big sibs were 8lbs, 10oz (4 days late), 8lbs 15oz (10 days early), 9lbs, 1oz (7 days early), and 9lbs even (4 days late). So I’d say that 9 pounds is a pretty good guess!

We still haven’t chosen a name for her, and as we’ve barely talked about it, I don’t see us coming up with one anytime soon. But that’s pretty typical for us. We don’t usually get very serious about our baby-naming discussions until a few weeks from delivery, when I’m so hormonal and weepy about it that Brennan takes pity on me. Then we whittle down our list to a couple of options and decide when we see the baby.

Okay, on from Baby Girl No Name to…

—3—

Baby Girl who shouldn’t really be called Baby Girl anymore!

Can you believe this little one is now 20 months old? She’s a real toddler! And, toddler-like, she’s starting to express some opinions, exert some independence, sneak in some misdeeds, etc. Overall, though, she remains super sweet and easygoing, and we are completely in love with her.

It’s been really interesting to see how she’s coming along developmentally as compared to the boys. She’s been saying a decent number of words for months, and now she regularly uses little phrases and sentences. (She ends every meal by holding up her plate and saying, “I done, Mama!” At which point I promptly melt into a puddle of maternal mush.)

She’s absolutely in love with babies and baby dolls, so I think she’s going to be preeetty happy here in about a month. We’re just going to have a big task ahead of us, keeping her eager little hands in check around her baby sister. Oh, well. That’s better than the alternative!

—4—

This one started preschool this fall. Can you believe it?

I’m not sure I can, yet I rejoice in the development. (I mean, seriously, the Hallelujah Chorus would have been completely appropriate for the start of this school year.)

And it’s not just me. I think he is also much happier these days, what with the fun school to attend twice a week, the relative peace on the other three weekdays while his big brothers are at school, and a generally reliable rhythm to his days. I think this is a kid who likes to know his schedule.

He’s still a screamer, but as his language skills (slowly) improve, he’s expressing more and more and screaming (a little) less. The other day he told me, “I so angy!” and I almost laughed for joy. (But I didn’t. Because it would be really annoying for your mom to laugh while you were telling her how angry you were.)

He’s gotten to be a (mostly) sweet big brother and good playmate to his sister, which I’m just pinching myself over. I did not see that coming. He also regularly pulls off what is possibly the cutest moment of my day, when he comes down the stairs after his nap all sleepy-eyed, smiling and whispering “Good morning, Mommy!” Again – I melt.

—5—

This one has entered Kindergarten. Kindergarten: real-deal, all-day, away-from-Mommy school. And he’s done great.

I thought he might not. He’s my mama’s boy, the one who clings to me and smothers me with hugs and kisses each day. I thought he’d be afraid, that being away from home all day would be hard on him. But he seems fine! He loves his teacher and he’s making friends and he hasn’t complained once about going to school. It’s been such a relief.

We celebrated his sixth birthday at the end of September and I think it may well have been the happiest day of his life. We held his party at a local bounce-house place where he and a bunch of his friends and cousins were able to run and jump themselves silly. He had a Star Wars cake and got a bunch of nice (mostly Star-Wars-themed) gifts, and at the end of it all we revealed his biggest gift to him: a guinea pig.

(We should cue the Hallelujah Chorus again here.)

I am not a pet person. I have nothing against animals; they just don’t do much for me. I don’t care to really touch them or play with them, so why would I ever want to go through the trouble of caring for them? Brennan is more of a pet person than I am, but he’s also more of a practical person than I am, so it’s been easy for him to say no up until now.

But this child. He just loves animals. (This past Sunday as we left his religious education class, he announced to me, “I want to be a saint, Mommy. I want to be an animal saint like Saint Francis, because I love animals so much.”) He loves them consistently and passionately, and it might have been the time he wanted to keep a cricket he found at the drug store, or the time he cuddled and kissed a baby snake he found in the yard, but he finally wore me down. And so Brennan and I decided it was finally time for a pet.

A caged one, but a pet nonetheless. Meet Houston:

The kids are in love. Brennan seems to like him pretty well, and I’m guess I’m warming up to him. He is pretty cute. And thankfully, he seems to have a good temperament for being surrounded by a bunch of little kids. Our house now smells like guinea pig cage, but whatever – our house kind of smelled to begin with.

—6—

Now onto this one.

My boy! My sweet, thoughtful, growing-too-fast firstborn. He’s in second grade now, old enough for me to start seeing glimpses of what he’ll look like, and what he’ll be like, as an older kid. It’s bittersweet.

This child has lately been my reminder and my hope regarding seasons of life and difficult phases and how they pass. The last half of the summer (the slower half) was hard for him. He’s super social and loves people and I’m seeing now that he’s a much happier person when he has people and work to occupy him. For a while there, he’d just about pulled into the lead on the ‘most challenging child’ front, but once school started, he perked up immediately. Second grade, including his lovely teacher and (from what I hear) great class have been so good for him.

Except for tiffs with the brother nearest in age to him (and what’s new in that, right?), he is such a good big brother. Our daughter adores him. She’s taken to walking next to him with her hand in his, and backing herself right into his lap when she sees him sitting still. He reads to her, and the other day I caught him helping her down one of our terrace walls in the yard: He climbed down one level, she reached her arms out to him, and he put his around her waist and lifted her down. Then he climbed down the remaining level and did the same. (Again with the melting!)

He always humors the 3-year-old when he wants someone to play outside with him, he helps him and reads to him, and he does a pretty good job of keeping tabs on the little guy.

And even with his just-15-months-younger-than-himself brother, he can be so generous. When he received his first little cash gift from the tooth fairy, he gifted one of his (two) dollars to his brother. And he seems to have done so every time since. This week I was kind of annoyed when the 6-year-old held out his hand to receive one of the 7-year-old’s tooth fairy dollars, tossing out a flippant, “It’s mine, right? I get one every time the tooth fairy brings you two?” But there was no hesitation or annoyance on the big brother’s part: “Yes, you do. It’s yours,” he said. For all their squabbling, I think they view each other as partners, and that partnership is one of the greatest gifts in my life right now.

—7—

Now for my husband.

I guess I’d say Brennan is doing pretty well these days. After a frustrating run at work for a good long while, he has finally started a new position. Brennan (a software engineer) has done this several times since I’ve known him, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him shift from work that was so dull to work that interests him as much as this new job looks to do. I’m relieved!

At home, Brennan has been keeping busy with projects, of course. He recently finished a section of iron fencing on a couple of the walls that surround our back patio. It was a long, dirty process: the fencing arrived unfinished, so Brennan had to grind them down, prime them, paint them, attach feet to them, and install them himself. He also added one light post, moved another, and painted all three. Here’s the final result:

Isn’t it pretty? Now we just have to host an outdoor cocktail party or something. Once we pull all the weeds growing out of the patio. And move the sandbox out of the way. And get rid of all the junky, broken toys. And buy patio furniture. And, like, have a little TIME on our hands…

Which these guys pretty much never allow us.

Brennan has also just finished painting the boys’ new bedroom. (The room shuffle goes like this: All three boys will be moving up to a room on the third floor. Our daughter will move into what was her brothers’ room, and we’ll put the new baby in the nursery for now. When she starts sleeping through the night decently well, we’ll put her in the same room as her sister.) Brennan’s next project? Building bunk beds!

***

Alright, I’ve bored you plenty by now. I hope that you and yours are all well and that the beginning of this new season/school year has been as good for you as it has for us. I hope to “see” you back here soon. Hope. We’ll see. Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised either way.

Also, don’t forget to hop on over to Kelly’s for the rest of this week’s Quick Takes!

Flowers For My Boys (A Gender Reveal)

July 25, 2017July 25, 2017 / Julie / 1 Comment

It’s been something like two weeks since I posted my little pregnancy announcement and told you that I was soon to have my 20(ish) week sono, so I feel like this post should be preceded by a looong drumroll.

Here we go.

. . .

Wait for it . . .

. . .

(I am so excited to get to use that graphic again.)

It’s a girl and she looks to be healthy, so I have no deeper, more interesting reason (thank goodness) for the delay in telling you other than the fact that I’ve been busy. (I’m always busy. Everyone’s busy. What a boring excuse. Let’s get back to the baby.)

It’s a girl – she’s a girl, and we’re so excited. The boys wanted another sister. Josie will, at some point I’m sure, be glad to have a sister. And as a sister-less woman myself, I feel so grateful for the opportunity to witness a sisterly relationship up close.

As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to have at least four kids: two boys and two girls. That way each child would know what it’s like to have a brother and a sister. As annoying as my brother was to me while we were growing up, and as much as we fought like cats and dogs, I am honestly so glad I have a brother. I am glad I have him. (Love you, Eric.)

But I would have loved to have had had a sister too. With this baby’s arrival, we will have hit my little daydream of a goal, and indeed done one better: three boys and two girls.

To be honest, I can’t begin to express to you just how grateful I am to have “hit that goal.” (And yes, I know that’s a terrible way to put it). After a lifetime of hoping to be a mother, I can still hardly believe that I’ve gotten to be one. And after a motherhood spent focusing on boys, I can still hardly believe that I’ve now been given daughters too. Truly, I feel the weight of these blessings.

Now that we know the baby’s gender, I’m eager to get our household – and our things – ready for New Baby Girl’s arrival. I want to switch the kids’ bedrooms around. I want to buy them a few new pieces of furniture. We might need to replace some random pieces of baby gear. We’ll definitely need to get a couple of new car seats and I really want to buy a new stroller. (I think it’s funny how we could coast so long on all our original baby gear and now everything seems to be giving out or wearing down at once. Four kids might be the limit for baby gear produced in 2010.)

Conveniently (HA!), everything else in our house seems to be giving out too. Air conditioning, refrigerator, dishwasher, random parts of our van . . . so I think this summer might go down as That One in Which We Spent All The Money.

Ah, well.

C’est la vie.

Not much more to say here, except to report that the morning of the sono, the boys wanted to know what color flowers we would bring home to them afterwards. “So is that what you want us to do? Bring home flowers, just like last time?”

That’s what they wanted.

So we obliged.

(Don’t you love pink?)

~~~

Baby Steps

July 10, 2017July 10, 2017 / Julie / 8 Comments

Here I am after months of not writing, with too much to explain, too many ideas to number, too many things to catch you up on – and I have no idea where to start. So this will probably be a stumbling, disjointed post.

Baby steps.

I’ve been pondering how to jump back into blogging and the only thing that seems doable is for me to pop on here (with hopefully increasing regularity) with short, random thoughts. Like this one:

Back in December, I was waxing downright sentimental about a new “thing” in my life – a laptop. A brand-new laptop, one that wouldn’t be glitchy, one whose battery would hold a charge, one that wouldn’t shut off when you shifted its position, one that wasn’t so heavy and unwieldy it served more as desktop than laptop.

The month before, we’d bought me a newer, smaller, lighter, more versatile machine. And I was in computer heaven. Like, “La dee da, look at me: I’m a cute, modern lady with a cute, modern laptop. I love this thing and I will carry it around with me wherever I go. I will sit on the sofa with it because I can. I will tote it to the coffee shop because I can. I will carry it up to the bedroom because I… BANG.”

Foolish me dropped my beautiful new laptop.

It kind of limped on for a while, but now the thing issues a death siren every time I turn it on. So it sits in a drawer, waiting for me to get up the guts to see about getting it fixed. Because that’s how I go about my life: When I screw up, I shove whateveritis in a drawer and try not to think about it for a while. This is a very mature approach to life.

Ah, well… like I said, I’ve got too much to explain, too many ideas to number, too many things to catch you up on. And this sad new-computer story, written on my stupid old-computer, is but just one of them.

Baby steps.

But really, I have something so much better to tell you about. Something so much more important, so much more Catholic-mom-blog-ish:

We’re expecting baby #5.

Unusually for me, I’ve waited quite a long time to make this pregnancy blog official. I’m already more than 20 weeks along. (More than half-way! That’s nuts!) We told our family at Easter, when I was, what, maybe 10 weeks? Then I took that pic and shared it on Facebook and Instagram around 14 weeks. But the neglected blog has remained neglected. Until now.

Baby steps.

Thanks be to God, all seems to be going well, pregnancy-wise. And THANKS be to God, I’m now feeling like a normal, functioning person again. My first-trimester-and-change was rough. (Maybe the roughest of all my pregnancies? It’s hard to gauge.) I’m just so relieved to be on the other side of it.

Anyway… due date! This little turkey is due on November 22, 2017 – just one day before Thanksgiving.

The kids are super excited – well, the ones who understand what’s going on are excited. Son #2, who is the most enthusiastically (read: aggressively) loving member of our family, promises that he’ll be a better brother to this baby than he is to his little sister. He’s been kissing my belly obsessively, saying ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ to it, and the other day he told me, “I just can’t stop wuvin’ diss new baby!”

Brennan and I are happy too. Happy and more relaxed than with my previous pregnancies, I think. Because when you’ve already had four? You kind of know how to deal with the pregnancy and new-baby things. Not that they don’t bring hardships! (See: morning sickness.) But pregnancy and infancy have long since ceased to be strange concepts around here, and that counts for a lot in my book.

Alright, I think that’s enough for my first little baby step back toward blogging. But I’ll be back soon! I’ve got a certain, always-interesting sonogram scheduled for Wednesday and you know what that means… (hopefully) we’ll have a gender reveal to share with you soon!

(In all seriousness, we’re well aware that the 20ish-week sono will tell us so much more about our baby than whether s/he’s a she or he. If you could spare a couple of prayers that baby proves to be healthy, we’d appreciate it.)

Thank you! May you all be well, as well.

Twelve Days With Beautiful

February 16, 2016 / Julie / 14 Comments

Twelve days ago, something wonderful happened.

We welcomed a daughter.

Little Miss Josephine Marie Walsh was (finally) born on Thursday, February 4 at 12:38 in the afternoon. She weighed nine pounds even and measured 21 and a half inches long.

We followed our tradition of choosing a family name for our girl, just as we did for her brothers. “Josephine” is for my great-grandmother and “Marie” is after my middle name and my mother’s. (And my mother received her middle name in honor of her Aunt Marie, so there’s another level of family connection to that one.) I love how “Josephine Marie” hearkens to the Holy Family. What a good reminder her name will be to our own little (well – less little now) family.

Josie and I are both doing very well at this point, thank goodness. Like her brothers, this little one proceeded to loose far too much weight in her first several days (nearly 16% of her birth weight), so we’ve had to begin supplementing with formula. (No surprise there.) Within days of beginning it, Josie rebounded beautifully: she gained nine ounces in three days, she stopped fussing so much, her – ahem – digestive system began to function normally again, and she started sleeping through most of the night. Amazing. I’m so grateful.

I’m feeling better too. The last time I had a baby, I was so excited (and, apparently, awake) that I dashed off a quick update for the blog, like, that night or the following day. So I thought I’d be able to do the same this time. I was wrong. Unlike my previous three deliveries, which all went something like this: Pitocin administered around 9am, baby born at 4 or 5pm (full day of work: check) – this one stretched on for what seemed like forever.

First there was the getting turned away from the hospital after a half-day’s worth of waiting and monitoring. Then there was the return to the hospital and the round after round after round after round (literally – four rounds) of a drug that was to prepare me for dilation. Then there was the middle-of-the-night start to my Pitocin. Then there was my customary eight hours of labor before finally, blessedly, pushing for less than five minutes to welcome Josie into the world. (Full day’s work, morning shift, immediately following two back-to-back shifts and one false start: check.)

When it was all over, exhaustion overtook me like it has rarely done before: I was nodding off mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-answer to curiously awake-looking nurses. Needless to say, writing (even to answer emails or texts) was put on the back-burner. So was moving around. And thinking coherently.

Thank goodness Brennan was such a champ: He stayed up all night long that first night, changing diapers, soothing our newborn, and managing her spit up. (Poor thing was born so quickly she must have taken a gulp of fluid on her way out.) And he’s continued to work super hard for the nearly two weeks of my recovery since then. I’ve managed the baby and some dishes and my own exhaustion/weakness/wooziness; he’s managed the boys and the cooking and did I mention the boys?

Today will be his first day back to work and are we! going to! miss! him! Thankfully, as of this past weekend, I think I can say I’m emerging from my fog. I think.

What I can say with certainty is that our little Josie is beautiful. Yesterday I sat staring down at her in near disbelief. I cannot believe we have a daughter. I cannot believe how lovely she is. I cannot believe we have been so blessed as to welcome another perfect little baby into our lives.

Thank you to all of you who kept us in prayer during my pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Thank you to all who have given us help and offered Josie welcome. Thank you.

Today Is The Day. I Hope.

February 3, 2016 / Julie / 3 Comments

I have to qualify that first statement with “I hope” because yesterday was supposed to be the day – the day I was to appear bright and early at the hospital, get myself pumped full of drugs, go through all manner of torture, and then joyfully, if exhaustedly, finally get to meet my first daughter.

(I’m such a romantic about childbirth.)

Alas, it was not to be. When we arrived yesterday morning we were ushered riiight into the waiting room, where we remained for more than an hour and a half. (Let’s call that clue #1.) Then we were allowed behind the Big Locked Doors, but still kept waiting. Then paperwork and getting set up in a triage room, not a delivery room (clue #2). Then another hour and a half of attempt after attempt to monitor Baby Girl, who was dancing around so much they could barely find her. And during all that time, there was nary a mention of starting me on any of my get-to-it-already drugs (clue #3).

Finally, after we’d been at the hospital nearly four hours, we were told to go home. “There is no room at the inn,” they said. They were slammed, they said. I guess everybody who was fortunate enough to not go into labor during the blizzard decided to do so in the first 36 hours of February instead.

Everybody except me.

Because my body refuses to do something so normal as to go into labor on its own. (Just like it refuses to produce enough milk to sustain the fruits of those labors.)

But let’s not wallow right now. Let’s recognize the benefits of getting sent home from the hospital without a baby to show for our efforts: First, there’s the fact that I didn’t have to start a long, drawn-out, uncomfortable process in the afternoon, my meager breakfast a distant memory and my baby likely not to arrive until late at night. Second, there’s the fact that I got to have lunch. (Food on the brain, Julie?) Third, Brennan and I were both able to fit in afternoon naps. Fourth, we got to spend a reasonably relaxed evening with our boys – a big difference from the rushing of the night before. Fifth, this morning we didn’t have to leave two boys crying at the kitchen table like we did yesterday. Sixth, overall we’re much better rested and prepared to meet our daughter today than we were yesterday.

So as long as they actually do take us today, I promise to not be too fussed about the delay. (And anyway, this way I get to give my dear old Uncle Tom a birthday buddy. Love you, Tom.)

I have to break here to share with you a clever little something my big five-year-old said the other day. On Monday (one day after my due date and one day before the originally-scheduled induction), our neighbor, who was bringing our guy home from the bus stop, asked him something like, “So, are you ready for Baby Yesterday? Or Baby Saturday?” (Our nickname for the baby during the pregnancy.)

“How about Baby Tomorrow?” he replied.

Then last night, when I said to him, “Hopefully your sister will come tomorrow,” he said “I’m sensing… she will.”

Love this kid.

I have to share something funny I did a couple of weekends ago — something that seems ironic given my current please-baby-just-come-already situation. I was interviewed on CNN about the possibility of going into labor during The Blizzard of 2016.

Yes! Isn’t that funny?!

The Friday afternoon the storm started, I received an email from a woman at CNN who’d read my “(Please No) Having a Baby in a Blizzard” 7 Quick Takes post. She said she worked on CNN Tonight (anchored by Don Lemon) and that they were wondering whether I might be interested in appearing on that night’s show to discuss my concerns about potentially going into labor during the impending snowstorm.

After a good laugh and about three seconds of hesitation, I said yes. I did a quick Google search and dashed off a Facebook post – “Tell me what you know about CNN Tonight with Don Lemon” because – yes, Julie is a dweeb who watches zero television. I knew nothing about the show. (If it had been an NPR program/host, I would’ve been set.)

A few hours later, after everyone else in my house had gone to bed, I found myself changing into some semi-decent clothes and putting on make-up for my television appearance. I called CNN via Skype from my hastily-cleaned-up bedroom. I sat in front of my laptop and followed the tech guy’s instructions. I found a pen to fidget with while I talked.

Around 10:40pm, I was on. And it was so much fun! The whole thing was good-natured and laid-back – the exact opposite of my few previous experiences of being interviewed for radio or television. (For work, on topics like emergency contraception, immigration, and poverty – much more stressful than snow and babies!) Don and I chatted baby names and contingency plans and how my friends had suggested that I pretend to have contractions during the interview. (He seemed a little nervous at the prospect of any such thing occurring.) Our conversation was light and fun and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. If you’d like to see the interview for yourself, you can find it here.

There was, of course, no blizzard baby after all. I’d say I’m about seven parts relieved that it didn’t happen. (The stress! The safety concerns! The wanting to deliver at my own hospital, which is not the closest one to us!) But I’m also about three parts disappointed: One because it would have been a cool story, one because my parents came out to be snowed in with us for “nothing,” and one because I wanted this baby here by now. I didn’t want to be driving into the hospital three days after my due date to induce labor for a baby estimated to already weigh something like 9 pounds, 12 ounces.

I am so impatient.

I am also so afraid for my pelvis and baby’s shoulders.

But, here we are. I finish writing this post on my phone, in traffic, just a couple of miles away from the hospital where, God willing, we’ll meet our baby girl later today.

Please pray that she arrives safely, with all of us in good health. (Praying for a not-horrible birthing experience would be cool too, but at the end of the day, I’ll take safety over everything else.)

Thank you kindly. I’ll update here after baby’s born.

We’re now here and they’re all set up for her arrival. I guess this is real.

7 Quick Takes Friday: (Please No) Having a Baby in a Blizzard Edition (Vol. 39)

January 22, 2016January 22, 2016 / Julie / 8 Comments

—1—

This week’s 7 Quick Takes starts just like last week’s: Tired mama falls asleep on the sofa at a ridiculously early hour, wakes near midnight, and promptly experiences a burst of energy that she feels she should take advantage of.

So here we are. One o’clock AM blogging, it’s nice to see you again.

[Random note: I just sneezed and I think it scared the (still in utero) baby. She seemed to jump and stretch there for a second. I wonder if she did that funny little startle reflex thing?]

—2—

Apparently this has been 2016’s Week of Freaking Out in Anticipation of Snow. My region – the Mid-Atlantic – seems to have one of these every few years. This edition has us preparing to be snowed in against the wilds of a 36-hour snowstorm/blizzard that could bring 20-30 inches of accumulation, 40-50 mph winds, white-out conditions, widespread power outages, and… thundersnow. (Yes, thundersnow.)

Sounds like fun, hm?

—3—

Normally, I’m that damned-by-others sort who stands in the face of such dangers and says, “Bring it on!” But this year I happen to be approaching my 39^th week of pregnancy. So I’m a little nervous.

I’m not super nervous: I’ve never fully gone into labor on my own. My first and third children were induced and I required Pitocin to get contractions going with my second. So it’s not like I have some history of sudden, fast, or early labors.

But this is my fourth baby. And we do live 45 minutes from the hospital in ideal conditions, up a long, steep driveway that we’ve gotten stuck on more times than I can count.

And there was that second labor, when my water broke ten days before my due date. Ten days before this baby’s due date… was yesterday.

—4—

I’ve been voicing my fears about this blizzard/baby combo on social media, but of course. And it was funny to see yesterday that I was quoted, via one of my blog-page Facebook posts, in a Reuters article on women who are worried about giving birth during the blizzard. Here’s the post that the reporter took notice of:

It’s 11 days shy of my due date with baby #4, 1 day shy of the earliest I’ve ever gone into labor, 15 days shy of the latest I’ve ever been induced, and 2 days before we’re supposed to get a potentially record-breaking blizzard.

I’m vascillating between thinking this is no big deal and freaking out because GOOD LORD, WHAT WILL I DO IF I GO INTO LABOR IN THE MIDDLE OF A BLIZZARD?!

—5—

I’m a little less nervous about that happening than I was, because we’re actually pretty well prepared at this point: We have plenty of food (so much that I plan to spend part of the weekend preparing meals to freeze for after the baby comes). My husband is taking off work today to (among other things) get the snow thrower all gassed up and ready. Our neighbors (who have some large snow-removal equipment) are prepared to help us keep our driveway clear. A friend who regularly drives emergency personnel in snowstorms has offered to drive me to the hospital if need be. And – here’s the kicker – my parents are coming to get snowed in with us. (They’re even bringing salt for the driveway, a 4-wheel-drive truck, and maybe a generator!)

As one of my girlfriends pointed out to me, there’s no way I’ll go into labor when I have my parents here to help.

—6—

I had another ob appointment and sono this week, and I thought the reactions to my “Hey, I’m a little nervous about having the baby in this snowstorm” concern were pretty funny.

On Tuesday, my obstetrician was clueless: “Oh, is it supposed to snow?” (Wouldn’t you think that folks in her line of work would need to be a little more aware of such things?!)

On Wednesday, the nurses in the sono department seemed to think the whole situation was pretty funny: “And Saturday is a full moon!” they laughed. “Once we had a woman who the ambulance hadn’t been able to reach because her street wasn’t plowed, so her neighbors put her on a sled and pulled her down to the main road!”

It’s good to receive such sympathetic responses from medical professionals.

—7—

To give you a sense of what we have to work with at our house, here are a couple of pics from the winter of 2013-14, when we had several “big” snows (but nothing like what we’re expecting this weekend).

Here is the upper part of our driveway – the part that’s all gravel, and mostly flat.

And here’s part of the lower, steeper part of our driveway – the part that’s paved, but which we get stuck on all the time. (Yes, the van + Christmas tree are stuck in this photo.)

Also, for good measure, here’s a snowy view off our front porch.

People keep asking me how I feel about all of it. Physically, I feel pretty well. Though I continue to have lots of little contractions all the time, that’s not unusual for me, and I’m nowhere near as uncomfortable as I was at the end of some of my other pregnancies. So I really don’t think I’ll be going into labor this weekend. In all likelihood, this whole thing is No Big Deal. It’s just that if I do go into labor, it suddenly becomes a Very, Very Big Deal.

This is going to be fun! (I’ll keep you posted.)

Linking up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes Friday. Stop over there to check out the rest!

(Not) Watching the Debate, Political Parties and Mr. Fluffy Puffy, and Staying Close to the Stories: 7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 38)

January 15, 2016 / Julie / 2 Comments

—1—

I feel like if I’m to publish anything this morning, it should really be a review of last night’s GOP presidential debate. I mean, along with the mush and the madness that comes from being a mother, that’s what I do here, right?

Alas, I didn’t watch it.

By the time the evening came around, I was just so tired from the pregnancy and the parenting and the cold and what I now suspect is an ear infection, that I just had no energy to get excited about the debate.

So I lay down on the sofa to relax a while with my smartphone, I checked Twitter, promptly got all jealous of the people who were tweeting the debate, turned on the TV in spite of myself, saw about five minutes of the melee… and fell asleep.

Which is why I’m writing this 7 Quick Takes at one in the morning: When I fall asleep on the sofa, I have a heck of a time getting back to sleep in bed.

—2—

Let’s show you some images from our life here lately, shall we?

This was yesterday morning. The bigger one was a very, very fast cheetah and the littler one was… I don’t know… an excited toddler? I should have kept the video going another few seconds: As soon as I stopped it, little brother tackled big brother.

The two are becoming quite the pair now that their biggest brother is at school all day.

—3—

The 4-year-old has retained his ridiculously long-lasting obsession with setting up “museums” all over the place. He already had a big bin of dinosaurs and another of animals with which to re-create The Museum of Natural History (a la Night At the Museum) when he made his Christmas wish known: He needed people. So the little guy asked (a very confused-looking) Santa for people for his museum (namely: Teddy Roosevelt, Attila the Hun, Abraham Lincoln, and Sacajawea) and thankfully, dear Santa delivered.

Kiddo had me take some pictures of him with (part of) his collection the other day:

—4—

Poor biggest brother – I don’t have as many photos of him these days. But here’s one from a few nights ago. The older two carefully spread out a few pillowcases on the floor, placed throw pillows on top of them, sat down, and then the oldest said: “Mommy, look! We’re playing rug!”

Creative kids, they are.

—5—

I realized the other day that I may well have taken zero – zero “baby bump” pictures this whole pregnancy. Mostly, it just never occurred to me to do so. But also, every suitable mirror has been surrounded by junk for so many months that I probably (subconsciously?) didn’t want to bother with it.

Anyway, I figured I should have at least one such picture before baby comes, so I cleared away the obstructions from the front of one mirror (but not the background – sorry!) And… here you go:

37 weeks, 3 days. To be precise.

I feel like I’m a little smaller this go-round. (Though I have nothing to show you by way of comparison, because I’m not well enough organized to know where those photos are at 1:30 in the morning.)

That “smaller” feeling is ironic given that last week the sono tech told me that Baby Girl is going to “break the bank” insofar as weight is concerned. (My babies were 8 lbs 10 oz, 8 lbs 15 oz, and 9 lbs 1oz. If this one keeps on her current trajectory, we’re looking at the upper 9’s. Ugh.)

—6—

I read a really thought-provoking article the other day. As I put it on Facebook:

This was fascinating to read – probably because it affirmed several observations I’d already made. 😉 But seriously, a huge reason why Republicans and Democrats get annoyed with each other is that they imagine the other as a mirror of themselves. And they’re not. Democrats are less ideological than Republicans imagine them to be; Republicans are less policy-oriented than Democrats assume them to be. The two parties don’t simply hold different positions – they ARE different.

In other news, my 5-year-old has named his coat “Mr. Fluffy Puffy.”

I kinda-sorta wrote on the subject (the difference between the parties – not the coat) a few years ago, in one of my first posts on the blog.

—7—

To close, here’s another compelling piece I read this week. Laura, of Mothering Spirit, shares her heartbreak over learning her twins’ lives may be in danger. The situation is quite serious, and I’m sure she and her babies could use our prayers. (Please pray!)

But what really struck me was Laura’s recognition that even these very personal, intimately painful struggles are connected to bigger, older stories.

There it is: quiet and simple and true. The deepest memory, the of-course of the ancient story, the same anger and despair, the fearful frustration of the wild unknown.

Read the whole thing for a much better relation of what she means than I’ve presented here. I’ll just add that when I find myself worried or scared or frustrated or overwhelmed – and then I have the good fortune to recall a story, or to have an image come to mind, of other people throughout time who have experienced similar struggles – I am heartened. I feel less alone. I feel more connected to other people, indeed to humanity itself, and to God.

I wish I remembered those connections more frequently, and I’m glad Laura has the comfort of doing so in this very trying time.

~~~

Have a wonderful weekend, all. And please be sure to stop over to Kelly’s to read everybody else’s Quick Takes for the week.

Ready, Not Ready

January 13, 2016 / Julie / 6 Comments

This past weekend I hit the magical 37-week mark of pregnancy (full term!) and my husband and I cleaned out our minivan. He vacuumed and rearranged the car seats; I cleaned the van’s interior with – what else? – baby wipes.

I also laundered various baby gear, cleaned out my boys’ closet, and starting shifting the toddler’s belongings from his room to his big brothers’. (Kiddo’s getting promoted – a.k.a. demoted – to the rank of “roommate” here in the next week or so. Poor thing.)

I haven’t yet started washing baby clothes, but I am very proud of myself for having pulled out an overflowing bin’s worth of gender neutral-ish clothing from my (much too large) stash of boy stuff.

All that is to say, between the 37 weeks and the weekend’s accomplishments and the fact that (according to last week’s sono) baby girl likely weighs about 8-and-a-half pounds already, by the end of the weekend I was officially Ready For This Child To Be Born.

But then Monday happened.

Monday happened, and though it contained nothing but normal, low-level mishaps, it left me wondering (not for the first time) how I could possibly think I’m fit to handle four children under the age of six. Here’s a sampling of that evening’s Facebook activity:

It’s 5:27 on a Monday evening. At this hour, responsible stay-at-home mommies up and down the east coast are diligently preparing healthy dinners for their families. But me? I’m upstairs hiding from my boys, eating a chocolate doughnut.

My second chocolate doughnut.

However, today was the day of pink eye, pacifiers dropped on exam room floors, toddlers sucking on public chairs and sticking their hands in public (urine-filled) toilets, little napping, excessive screaming, and cackles from the child to whom I’d just said, “You gave Mommy a hard time today, didn’t you?”

So hide I shall.

Update: I returned from hiding just in time to catch Today’s Offending Party removing his poopy diaper. And then putting on a fireman’s helmet to (happily) dance around stark naked.

Today is begging to be mommy-blogged.

My beloved tormentor.

Last week, I was all set to update you fine folks on the health situations I mentioned on New Year’s Eve.

“Though I sit here with a raw nose, watery eyes, and a throat dry from open-mouthed breathing,” I was going to say, “I didn’t want to wait too long to tell you kind souls that things are looking up for our family, health-wise. (Mostly. Because in a household of six people, what would cold and flu season be if somebody weren’t sick at any given moment?)”

But then last week happened, and this one too. And I’m no longer feeling perkily overconfident that we’ll all soon be healthy. Our stupid, nasty cold is hanging on for dear life. Child #1 now has an ear infection; child #2 has an eye infection (and has developed an allergy to the antibiotic prescribed to address it). Child #3 and myself are still congested, sneezing, snotty messes. Brennan has somehow (thank goodness!) escaped the so-called “cold,” but his mother has just succumbed to it.

As much as my sore body wants (Not So) Little Miss Baby Girl to arrive as soon as possible, my good sense really, really wants us to be healthy when she makes her appearance. So I’m feeling a little more down now than I was when I drafted my “things are looking up for our family, health-wise” post.

Still, on one very important count, things are indeed looking up: Brennan seems to be firmly on the upswing. Though he’s still somewhat fatigued, his numbness and weakness are fading. (What a relief!) He’s still experiencing some of the negative effects of the spinal tap – occasional headaches, feeling like his brain is bruised – but he’s not bogged down by them like he was that first week. Every day seems to be getting better, slowly but surely.

Honestly, it’s been like I’m looking at a different (happier, much more comfortable) person from the end of December. The boys and I are so glad to have Brennan “back.”

Somebody was very sad when Daddy had to go back to work after Christmas vacation.

As for me (insofar as the pregnancy is concerned), Baby Girl and I are coming along fine. I’m still experiencing occasional episodes in which I feel faint and I’m contracting (what feels like) pretty much all the time – but I’m fine. Everything is checking out as it should. And unless I go into labor by myself before then (ha! unlikely!), it looks like we’ll be scheduling an induction for sometime around the 24^th.

Which is about ten days away.

So… I suppose Brennan and I ought to wrap up some loose ends so we can plant ourselves firmly in the “ready” camp, hm? (That, and we need to get our family healthy.)

Last but not least: Thank you so much to all who have been praying for us and otherwise offering support. I find your kindnesses at once uplifting and humbling. Thank you, thank you.

GoodBYE December, Hello January

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015 / Julie / 17 Comments

Knock, knock.

Anybody there? Remember me – your unreliable blogger? The one with the three little boys and the political opinions and the big ol’ belly?

These Walls - Goodbye December Hello January - 1

This is the kind of shot you get when the 4-year-old mans the camera.

Yes, I managed to fall off the face of the internet again. At first it was, “Okay Julie, you really need to set aside the computer for a bit – you’ve got Thanksgiving coming up and Christmas to begin prepping for and all those jumbles of dishes, laundry, and toys you’ve been neglecting. Mom up.”

But after a few days of happy productivity (Thanksgiving dishes made! Christmas decorations up! House decently neat! Christmas shopping well underway!), we began our decline.

These Walls - Goodbye December Hello January - 2

I have to show off my Thanksgiving tart. Isn’t she lovely?

I didn’t so much notice it as we went along, but as Advent gave way to Christmas and events in our household took a step up in intensity, it really hit me: This month has been hard. I am worn down. And we’re not done.

Allow me to pause here to say to the few of you who noticed my absence for the past (more than a) month: I’m sorry. I do believe it’s been my biggest lapse yet. Until a few days ago, I felt this nagging guilt about it, especially regarding the things I’d left hanging (like my Home to Me blog hop). But now I feel no guilt. Now I realize that we’ve been in survival mode for most of this time. And as far as I’m concerned, things related to blogging simply don’t matter when one’s in survival mode. This is what matters:

(Well, them and dishes, because if dishes paralyze the kitchen, then the kitchen paralyzes the household.)

So, what’s the deal? It goes something like this: sob story, sob story, icing on the cake, admitting how overwhelmed and worried I’ve felt, then a dose of pull-yourself-together reality.

Sob Story One

In the first week of December, I started to feel faint – like all the time faint, like “Gee, might something actually be really wrong?” faint. So I went to the hospital, where they found my blood pressure to be a bit high, but otherwise gave me a clean bill of health. (I had no markers for preeclampsia, for those of you who know about that sort of thing.) Another kinda-high blood pressure reading the following week won me another round of bloodwork, but that too, thankfully, came back normal. Since then I’ve continued to experience episodes of faintness (not fainting, thank goodness). At first they came every day, but now it’s down to every two or three.

In sum, I started the month by experiencing yet another round of “Julie develops weird symptoms that doctors get worried about until they realize she’s perfectly healthy.” The frequency with which this happens is, frankly, pretty embarrassing, and gives me very little confidence in my own assessment of my health.

Sob Story Two

As my daily episodes of feeling faint tapered off in the middle of the month, my husband began to experience some strange symptoms of his own: His hands went numb. Soon enough his feet did too. And his lower legs. And his lower arms. And he began to experience weakness in those areas. Last week, when the numbness reached his elbows, Brennan took himself to the ER.

The poor guy underwent a barrage of tests, one of which (spinal tap!) he’s been suffering the effects of for a full week. Thankfully, the tests quickly ruled out the scariest possibilities: stroke, brain tumor, multiple sclerosis. But we’re still waiting for the rest of the results. The doctor’s best guess at this point is that Brennan has a mild case of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. (Guillain-Barre is a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks his nerves. It causes numbness, weakness, even paralysis – sometimes of a person’s entire body, and can take months to recover from.)

Scary and stressful enough, right?

But then there’s the context: It’s Christmas. (Brennan came home from the hospital the evening of Christmas Eve and felt too unwell to attend Mass with us the next morning, or indeed to make it to any of our family gatherings over the weekend.) We have three small boys. (Daddy was able to read “The Night Before Christmas” to them at bedtime, but barely had the energy to open gifts on Christmas morning.) And of course, we’re expecting a baby at the end of January.

These Walls - Goodbye December Hello January - 4

This pic will always make me a little sad because it shows that Brennan wasn’t with us.

Icing on the Cake

A few days before Brennan’s symptoms worsened, our toddler cut his eye on a decorative metal bucket, the other two boys had keep-you-up-in-the-night-coughing colds, and I started having “real” contractions. When my obstetrician confirmed their “real” work, she told me to take it easy. I laughed. “So… what about me taking three small boys into Baltimore this evening for a visit to a pediatric ophthalmologist? For the toddler? Who cut his eye?”

“After that,” she replied.

These Walls - Goodbye December Hello January - 5

Stupid decorative culprit.

In retrospect, my laugh should have been louder and crazier. It certainly has been in the days since. I’ve been telling my girlfriends that I don’t want to hear the words “You’d better take it easy!” unless they’re accompanied by a live-in nanny and/or housekeeper.

Overwhelmed and Worried

Ever since he came home, Brennan has been weaker than usual, exhausted, suffering headaches, and (in an effort to control the headaches, which come from a lack of spinal fluid) limited from carrying anything heavy or moving in certain ways.

So for me, “taking it easy” has looked like lugging around and wrestling into submission the 32-pound toddler. Through my contractions. It’s looked like three hours of sleep after a late, late Christmas Eve spent wrapping presents. It’s looked like ushering various combinations of three little boys to two Masses and three family gatherings by myself. In and out, in and out of the car, contracting and hobbling and feeling faint, loading and unloading ad infinitum.

Or at least that’s how it’s felt in my woe-to-me worry-fests. (What if Brennan’s symptoms continue to worsen? What if he’s out of commission when I have the baby and I have to manage all three boys, a newborn, and my own recovery without his help? What if he too ends up needing my care?)

Pull! Yourself! Together!

Calm down, Julie.

Honestly, I know the reality is much brighter than my worries would have me believe. Brennan’s health problems seem to be temporary. (Indeed, as of this morning, he was feeling better than he has in some time.) My wonderful dad came to help me with the boys while B was in the hospital so I could focus on him and on our remaining Christmas preparations. We’ve had lots of offers of help in the days since then. (Though, mundane as our needs are, I don’t know how to make use of them!)

And while, at eight months pregnant with my fourth child, I’m contracting all the time, occasionally feeling faint, and suddenly feeling very uncomfortable – I’m healthy. And so is the baby. Even if she comes early (and I doubt she will), she should be fine. Full term is just over a week away, and that’s a great place to be.

Our boys are dealing with nothing more daunting than colds and silly childhood injuries. (The toddler’s eye is healing nicely.) They don’t seem to have noticed our concern over Brennan’s health. (Me: “Daddy’s been feeling a little funny lately. He’s at the hospital to have it all checked out, so Grandpa’s coming to help take care of you.” Them: “GRANDPA’S COMING!”) Our mess of a floor is a testament to the many treasures they acquired over the past week, and they’ll probably remember this Christmas as the one when they sat on the sofa with Daddy to watch their first-ever Star Wars movies.

Right now I don’t have it in me to write a grand “Year in Review” post. I can’t sit and reflect on the sum of 2015 or come up with resolutions for 2016. But I can tell you that December was hard and I’m hoping January will be better.

I pray yours will be too. I pray that your hurts will heal, your hopes will be realized, and your joys will be amplified. Thank you for reading along in 2015 (except… yeah… for December); I hope to meet you back here more frequently in 2016.

These Walls

Sharing stories from within the walls of my home; encouraging discourse on the wider world outside them.

Pregnancy

A Few Days in August

Hope and Love (and the Same Old Pitfalls) in a New Season (7 Quick Takes, Vol. 45)

Flowers For My Boys (A Gender Reveal)

Baby Steps

Twelve Days With Beautiful

Today Is The Day. I Hope.

7 Quick Takes Friday: (Please No) Having a Baby in a Blizzard Edition (Vol. 39)

(Not) Watching the Debate, Political Parties and Mr. Fluffy Puffy, and Staying Close to the Stories: 7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 38)

Ready, Not Ready

GoodBYE December, Hello January