Laughing with Sarah

The change of seasons from summer into fall and winter has always been a time that stirs up nostalgia in me. This is the season of preparing for holiday celebrations, and I feel nostalgic for a whole series of small, one-off memories of otherwise long-forgotten or even insignificant moments from childhood Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations. This is the season of college Christmasfest rehearsals, and I feel nostalgic for choir memories, for college moments, and for the days when there was the perfect mix of of alone time time, quiet space, and coming-of-age introspection. In recent years, this is the season of saying the long goodbye to my father, which evokes a different sense of nostalgia, laden with a lot of "what ifs" and "if we had only knowns." And so this is also a season where I feel nostalgic for all memories of my dad and all the things that I associate with him - food (especially holiday meals and treats), music (especially holiday music), and f...

It is 9:53 p.m. Both kiddos are asleep. The baby monitor is quiet. The dryer is tumbling with the last of the laundry. The living room lights are dim and cozy. I am stretched out on the couch with a cat at my feed, my knitting bag sitting next to me, ready for action. The remote control is also sitting next to me, in case I want a little background noise, but for now, the quiet is nice. I should be enjoying the moment and looking forward to an hour or so of unwind time before heading up to bed. But instead, my heart just won't quiet down and my brain can't settle, and I keep neurotically looking to the baby monitor, to catch any sound before it happens. And why? Because Sam said his tummy hurt. We watched the end of Finding Nemo tonight, and ate some popcorn. He was happy and sweet and wonderful. He was full of energy tonight, and was in great spirits. He played nicely with Ellie. He was helpful. He was funny. He was a good listener as Matt read him bedtime stories, and e...

This is the original of the picture that I posted to Instagram and Facebook yesterday, on Mother's Day. I posted it with the following caption: Never imagined I'd ever take a picture like this. My miracles number one and number two. #picaday #motheroftwo #babyeleanorann #bigbrothersam #mothersday #proudmama #ivf #infertilityjourney For anyone who has ever struggled with infertility, loss, or childlessness (by choice or not), or anyone who grieves the loss of a mother or a relationship with her mother, Mother's Day is a complicated holiday. For me as a daughter, I am one of the lucky ones. I have a fantastic mom, and we have a fantastic relationship. I have a wonderful mother-in-law, and we, too, have a wonderful relationship. But for me as a mother, my emotions on Mother's Day are still plenty complicated. My life these days is busy. Pleasantly so. My days are full of church and family, work projects and home projects, cooking, not enough cleaning, not nearly e...

" The Virgin with Child - 1(copyright 2009) " by Catherine Clarke, on Flickr I'm a pastor and therefore surrounded by church people all the time. People who flow along with the liturgical seasons as we move from church festival to church festival in the cycle of each year. December marks the season of Advent, a season of watching and waiting for Christmas. There are distinct themes of pregnancy during Advent, and themes of waiting. We count down the days until Christ's birth. We picture pregnant Mary visiting with pregnant Elizabeth. Which, of course, means that I am surrounded by thoughtful, insightful people who make the connection between the season and my current very-pregnant status. It is lovely. They all want to know what it is like to be pregnant during Advent, and they want to hear about what it is like for me, spiritually. And let me tell you. I want to find some deep meaning and connection between my pregnancy and the Advent/Christmas season. I want...

If you don't want to read the rest of the story, no worries. The quick update: had my regular monthly OB appointment yesterday afternoon. My blood pressure was good (which, given the rest of my day, as you'll read, is a small miracle). Owlet was squiggling up a storm in my belly, and heartbeat was 144. Belly is measuring 22cm, which is spot-on for being nearly 22 weeks. A small and very appropriate weight gain over the last month. We talked over the ultrasound report, and everything looks good. The only thing to keep watch on is my placenta, and not for any of the reasons that I had suspected. Apparently, anterior placenta after a c-section could potentially signal that the placenta has nestled in and gotten itself stuck in my c-section scar, which wouldn't be the best. But Dr. Locke communicated that the risk is pretty low, and that there's nothing to do or worry about right now, and that we'll do a repeat ultrasound sometime before 30 weeks. Otherwise, all is well...

In pregnancy, there is no rhyme or reason to any calories in/calories out equation you can devise. None whatsoever. I was on vacation the first week in July, at a conference the third week in July, and on vacation again the first week in August. Meaning that my eating habits have been all over the place. Or, rather, that I've had many very enjoyable eating experiences over the last month. :) I've also re-committed to working out these last couple weeks, mostly strength training and core. Lots of squats and lunges and side planks (ouch). Meanwhile, I keep stumbling upon pictures of myself from three years ago, when I was pregnant with Sam. I am a month "behind" where I was when I was pregnant with him, so it is an interesting mental and memory exercise to try to compare what life was like three years and one month ago to what is going on right now with this pregnancy and my body. We are almost at the halfway point in this pregnancy, and hour by hour I can't...

I'm not sure if it was Matt or my Mom who, in my life, first told me, flat-out, "Everything always looks better in the morning." But it is the truth, right? Every fear, every anxiety, every worry, every despair is heightened in the middle of the night. Especially when you are trying to sleep but can't. Especially when you awoke with a start. Yesterday was an anxious day for me, all day. I had awoken with a sore back to start the day, and my lower back ache coupled with constant (but not painful) cramps made me nervous that my body was trying to accomplish something (and by something, I mean nothing good). The constant aches and the constant anxiety about those aches meant that I became more and more of an exhausted, emotional wreck as the day went on. Every time I used the bathroom, I was sure that I was going to find bleeding. Meanwhile, yesterday was a very busy day, filled with meetings were I needed my brain to be present and focused, which meant using up ...

Today is Monday. I am currently four days past embryo transfer, and feeling curious about whether I am pregnant, though not anxious. How far we've come in all of this, that I could have such a deep and yet such a loose hold on the outcome of this cycle. More on that in a moment. Probably our best pre-transfer selfie ever! First of all - what? You didn't know that we had started another cycle? Oh right. Because I never mentioned it. Maybe all of this has become routine enough that I haven't felt the need to chronicle it all? Maybe frozen cycles are more of an obnoxious and tedious process rather than the excitement of a fresh cycle? Maybe we've just been busy? Anyway, we started a cycle mid-March. Protocol was birth control pills for a month, then pills and Lupron injections for five days, and then Lupron injections and estrogen pills for a couple weeks, transitioning to just estrogen pills and progesterone up until transfer, and continuing through my pregnancy te...

That's the theme of my last week. Up. Up. More up. Up to Rochester. Up for bloodwork and ultrasound on Friday. Up for bloodwork and ultrasound again today. As we get to the fine-tuning business as we near retrieval, up again, perhaps more frequently this week, to watch and micromanage meds until everything is just perfect. I'm not yet sick of the drive, which is good. But I'm also getting impatient and careless. I got pulled over this morning because I was rushing to get up for my appointment and was definitely going faster than the 55 mph speed limit. Thankfully, he was a wonderfully kind State Trooper who, upon learning that I'd never been stopped in Minnesota before, wasn't a regular commuter, and was on my way to a doctor's appointment, gave me a warning and a kindly suggestion to slow down and watch for Troopers down the road. :) Up go my numbers, slowly, finally. After last Wednesday's appointment, they bumped me up to 225 units of Gonal-F and 150 ...

Depending on how you count, we are either five or six days into our new IVF cycle. We started meds on Friday night. 150 Gonal-F and 75 Menopur for starters, and then they bumped me up to 225 Gonal-F and 75 Menopur after Monday morning's blood draw, which was itself a bit of an adventure. (They're remodeling the lab at our local hospital and can't process same-day results, which meant that I went through the bother of the blood draw only to have to drive up to Rochester - a 3 hour round trip - to re-do it that afternoon.) This morning, I rode with a friend up to Rochester for my next labwork. She had plans to be up here for the day and offered to give me a ride, which is lovely, because I'm going to be doing plenty of these round trip drives alone in the next week. Of course, her schedule vs. my schedule means that we left early - shortly after 7am - to get me here in time for my blood draw, which took about ten minutes total, from registration to getting up from the c...

Have I mentioned that among all of Sam's words, "Mama" is one of them? Never mind that he hasn't quite figured out how to use it. He calls me "Mama" when he is looking for me. He calls Matt "Mama" when he is looking for him. I think "Mama" is simply his word for whatever adult he wishes were paying attention to him in the moment. And he usually uses the word when he's asking for something. :) Being "Mama" - being a mother - is still all a jumble of things for me. I was thinking about it yesterday. Monday morning felt like Monday morning. It was a little too rushed, we were all a little too tired and sluggish and not quite ready to start the week. There are mornings where Sam's 6:30 a.m. get-up time seems fine, and other mornings when I grumble and wish he could stay asleep until 7:00 a.m. Some mornings, it takes a lot of energy to do all of the things that need to happen to get myself and Sam ready for the day, espec...

Two different families in the congregations have had babies this week. It's exciting! I consider every new baby these days a potential bff for Sam, and like to imagine all of these little ones growing up together, playing together, and going to school together. Yesterday, I was doing hospital visits and walked by the maternity ward. There was a brand new little baby girl hanging out in the nursery. So sweet. And I ran into one of the couples from church as they were on their way out after a weight check for their little one. My heart flashed back to Sam's birth and the first weeks of his life. The craziness of having this tiny little person in your care. Muddling through on little sleep and lots of nursing time. The excitement over all of the tiniest "firsts" of his existence. As I type, I have my almost five month old little man sitting in my lap, trying to eat my hand and getting drool all over EVERYTHING. He is absolutely content with life today, happy to be ...

I shouldn't be so suprised that things got very quiet here after Samuel's birth...but there's been so much on my mind and heart it is yet a wonder that I haven't written anything since writing out the epic version of Samuel's birth story and my recovery. Let's begin by stating the obvious: I am 100% in love with Sam. He is adorable, and sweet, and even when he is fussy, he is so darn cute that I melt, even when I would rather get frustrated. And let's begin by stating something else obvious: Our lives are 100% changed. It's hard to remember life before Sam, hard to remember what it felt like to be pregnant, hard to remember what a full night's sleep feels like, hard to imagine going back to work and post-maternity leave "real life." And it's all totally worth it. In the last five weeks, I've thought about many things: Even though the last few weeks were really pretty miserable (more than I let myself believe in the moment), I do ind...

(To read all of Samuel's birth story and my hospital stay/recovery, begin here:  Tuesday, November 19 , Wednesday, November 20 ,  Thursday, November 21 , Friday, November 22 , Saturday, November 23 , Sunday, November 24 , Monday, November 25 ) It is really hard to process everything that happened to me. I was so groggy through so much of it. I don't know what I remember versus what was told to me versus what I've seen pictures of. In the moment, I never felt particularly traumatized by anything that was happening. Looking back, it is amazing to me how many complications piled on, one after another. I can't say that my experience strayed from any ideal birth plan that I had, since I had been so careful not to have any hard and fast expectations about the birth. At the same time, who would ever plan for preeclampsia, a failed induction, a c-section under general anesthesia, and days of dealing with the weak fogginess of low hemoglobin levels. As I've done a littl...

We are now in week thirty-six. Crazy. Physically, I feel better than I did for most of last week - sometime overnight, late in the week, I think hedgehog shifted position, so my stomach removed itself from my throat, which made both my heartburn and queasiness feel a lot better, and meant that I've had a few nights now of better sleep. Not great sleep...but the getting up twice to use the bathroom sort of wakefulness, not the waking up every hour because my heartburn and tummy felt so awful. That being said, I have pretty much slowed to a screeching halt. I am tired all the time. Not sleepy, necessarily, but my body is slow and cranky. I don't really bend anymore, and I go through stretches when my belly just feels sore from doing routine things, like rolling over in bed. I'm super-slow, and having a harder and harder time doing any physical sort of stuff, which is frustrating, because lots of my routine house chores are far more physical than I ever gave them credit...

The kitchen is a disaster area. Soup bowls in the sink and crumbs on the counter And a pile of recycling that needs to be taken out. Two cats make the wood floors dusty. The stairs need sweeping, The living room floor needs dusting, And a good mopping would go a long way. On the couch in the living room, a bedroom pillow And two fleece blankets. Every time I put them away, it's another sleepless night, When I pull them back out and watch sitcoms on TV While trying to doze off After one o'clock. Don't get me started on laundry. Or on bathrooms, Especially the glass shower doors That need more scrubbing than I can muster. And have I mentioned that I can't bend over? Or roll over. Or twist. Or gracefully sit on the floor...or gracefully get up, for that matter. I wish... I wish I could go running, And drink a big cup of coffee, Or maybe some wine. I wish I could go clothes-shopping Or wear whatever shoes I want. And spicy food. How I wish ...

There are always plenty of things to be anxious about while you are pregnant. It's just the way of things. Even for the most normal pregnancies, there will always be anxiety. Have I gained enough weight? Have I gained too much? How do I know the baby is there before I'm showing and before I can hear the heartbeat? Am I going to get bad morning sickness? Will my ankles puff up to gigantic proportions in the third trimester? What will labor and delivery be like? Will I be a good mother? I am pretty sure that there is not one woman out there who, while pregnant, didn't encounter a little bit of anxiety about something, anything, at some point. But I have to be honest here. When you've lost pregnancies, anxiety stops being something normal, small, or usual. In the early weeks of this pregnancy, I was one constant ball of anxiety. Both of my losses were early and unavoidable. And so I counted every week. Six weeks put me farther along than either of my previous losses....

Ever since I started taking belly pictures at 20 weeks, I've been using them as an excuse to check in around here more. Last week, however, we were traveling, so while I got my picture in, I am finally getting around to writing something here! Last week was week 25. One week past viability, one week closer to the end of summer, one week forward, marching along toward showers and due dates and Christmas plans. We were in New Jersey all last week, making a friend's wedding an excuse to spend a while week with Matt's family. Upon arrival in New Jersey, I promptly cut my hair, something I've been meaning to do for a long long while. I've been growing it out to donate it, but then things like new jobs and moving got in the way, so it took a vacation to New Jersey for me to finally chop it. I couldn't be happier! The next day was the wedding. It was the first wedding in a long while that I simply attended. Between sisters getting married and being a pastor,...