Laughing with Sarah

If you were sitting across the aisle from me at Magpie Coffee right now, you would see a toddler with crazy hair who is sitting quietly next to his mama in a booster seat, eating a piece of toast and playing with a toy train, pausing periodically to flash his mama a smile or give her arm a hug. This is exactly what is happening right now. But that's not what I see. I see a toddler who will only eat his toast, and not any of his sausage. I see a mama who is fretting because he won't drink any of his milk on demand. I see a mama who is trying to figure out how to make sure that her blue-eyed 22-month old eats anything, and I mean anything, other than just carbohydrates. He ate carrots two nights ago, and maybe I can get some applesauce into him at lunch. Right now, I'd be pleased with a few bites or gulps of protein. I know that he likes sausage. I know that he likes milk. I know that he is a good eater. But as long as he has only eaten toast thus far, I will keep...

I'm getting good at posting things out of order here. Sorry about that. But even a month after the fact, I'd be sad if I didn't write something about Sam's baptism, which took place on Sunday, June 8 at First Lutheran Church in Decorah, Iowa. It was a beautiful, crazy, family-filled, celebration-heavy weekend. Matt's parents flew in from New Jersey. My parents drove in from Chicagoland. All three of my sisters came - Stephanie, Bethany, Kristin (plus Patrick, Laura, Shannon, Joanna, and Cameron). Jon and Charisse rode their motorcycles out. Throughout the weekend, we tripped over one another as we ate together and played together, as we celebrated together and gave gifts (two May birthdays, three June birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and baptism). At the center of the whirlwind was little Sam, our miracle baby, and the worship service where we would get to hear the promise that he, Samuel Tyler, is a claimed and called, anointed and beloved chi...

" THE VISITATION " by Fergal of Claddagh, on Flickr In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his na...

I just got off the phone with my RE's office, taking care of three items of business that are all big in their own ways. I called in to get things started for another frozen transfer cycle. No sense in waiting. So just like that, we are onto another cycle of meds and blood draws and ultrasounds leading up to a fourth embryo transfer. I want to feel hopeful, but right now, I can only assume that this cycle will end up like all three of the others. I mean, a lot of me is pressing forward because hey, we have at least six good embryos frozen and it'd be a shame not to go ahead and keep trying. I know that I'll bounce back, but right now, I'll admit that I have a pretty lousy attitude going into this cycle, even if I passionately want to press ahead and do it. So related to this, I also scheduled a consult with my RE to ask the same question I asked last time, "Is there anything that we should be looking for, or anything we should do differently, or any possib...

I should have posted this sooner, but here is an article I found that talks about about the church and the ways that clergy and churches can be more aware of and more sensitive to infertility and pregnancy loss affecting members in their midst. In the article, entitled " Infertility: Comfort, Comfort My People ," Deborah Patterson says, Children, indeed, are a wondrous gift from God, but sometimes the path to parenthood is a very challenging one. There are many avenues to blessed parenthood for those who would truly know the joy of raising a child, and the Church can play an important role in supporting that journey. Things to keep in mind for my own ministry, surely, and things to encourage other pastors and churches to think about as well.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will ...

A couple weeks ago - the Monday before Thanksgiving - Matt and I met with a RE for an initial consult to talk about IVF and how we might move forward. The very first thing he said to us after all of our initial introductions and handshakes was, "Well. You've had a rough go of it, haven't you?" So very kind. He put us right at ease, which was a good thing, since the next half-hour or so was filled with an overwhelming amount of information. The most detail-oriented part of the conversation was also the least interesting. He gave us all of the details about what an IVF cycle entails, but Matt and I have been doing enough reading about it that we basically knew all of this information before we walked in the door. More interesting - and overwhelming - was talk of success rates, insurance, money, and schedule. I was a little worried when we walked in that part of the consult would be us having to make a case for why we thought IVF was the right move for us. Be...

Saturday evening, instead of our regular Saturday worship, we instead planned a Thomas Mass. Basically, this means that instead of there being a sermon, there are instead a handful of stations for worshipers to visit, to interact with the day's lessons on their own, and to encounter God in a different, more hands-on way than listening to a sermon. These services, when we do them, are quite beautiful. At Saturday's, we had a prayer wall set up where people could post their prayers, we had a station where you could explore your faith journey through creating art with the assistance of a visual artist from the congregation, we had a station set up outside to burn prayer doves and watch the smoke rise up to God, we had a station for confession where you would place glass stones in the font as a symbol of reconciliation, and then, as we always do for these services, we had a station for anointing and healing. When I write the words "anointing and healing," and then al...

A friend shared this link on Facebook today and I thought it was worth sharing. It's an article called " The Barren Woman Bible ," written by one of my former seminary professors. She says, amid other things, In real life, barrenness is much more complicated. It's infertility and miscarriages. It's bleeding and not-bleeding—but on the opposite schedule than you want. It's counting days, doctor visits, taking blood, running tests, more doctor's visits and a slew of bills and—if you're lucky enough—insurance forms. And did I mention what it does to sex?! What was once fun and adventurous can become calculated, programmed or halted. And then there's the ending. In real life, God's "fix" is not always a boy-prophet. Sometimes it's adoption. Sometimes it's a birthed child. Sometimes it's nieces and nephews. Sometimes it's finding peace with childlessness. At least that's how it is for me and the other women who I...

In case you were wondering about the title of the blog, it is a reference to Genesis 18, where old, infertile Sarah is promised by a mysterious stranger that she would yet have a child...and she does what we'd all expect her to do: she laughs. A good year or two into this struggle to get pregnant, I thought about how often infertility shows up in the Bible. How many women are barren...or struck barren...and I at one point had huge plans to dig into all of these stories and perhaps write something - an article, a series of blog posts, a book? - about them all. Maybe this is a good space to dig into a few of them, maybe not. But for today, here's the story of the blog's namesake. I feel in good company with Sarah. --- God appeared to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent. It was the hottest part of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing. He ran from his tent to greet them and bowed before them. He said, "Master,...