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False modesty

I have a navel ring now. I got it yesterday.

But don’t worry. I still love Jesus.

I wasn’t sure if I should talk about this or not. I have been very concerned with modesty and how it plays out in my family, especially since I am raising a girl. Lately the whole idea of discussing anything that could be even remotely construed as immodest feels like a landmine. I spend an inappropriate amount of time wondering if I am going to screw up ‘the talk’ when it rears its ugly head  (“Mommy, why don’t I show everyone my private body??” gulp…where to step…). It feels a bit like any answer I give her will give her some sort of weird hangup and she’ll need therapy someday. I don’t know how to raise children that are truly modest.

See, I don’t think modesty truly consists of just wearing your skirts down to “there” or your shirt a size too big, or whatever. Certainly I think that I am instructed to not put myself on display for the purpose of making everyone think about How Great I Art (am?). But pursuing modesty in appearance can become a trap too.

A few days ago, J and I were discussing navel piercing. I don’t remember why, I just remember that it happened. He said, “That’s hot.”

I said in surprise, “Why didn’t you ever say so before? I might’ve….”

“Well, I knew you wouldn’t do that, so I never bothered to bring it up.”

I am having a little of what I’m calling a third-life crisis (I’m too old for a quarter-life and too young for a mid-life crisis). It’s not as dramatic as it sounds. Basically I cut off all my hair, bought a few new clothes (new to me, anyway, and a couple brand new fair trade items), and now with this new dare, as I took it, I set out to find a place to have my belly button pierced.

So before J’s drum class last night, I told him we needed to make a stop first. We went to the piercing shop, all four of us. J helped pick out the ring. It felt like a reclaiming of my abdomen. After having a surgical birth, then a completely unmedicated one, I wanted to celebrate that I have made peace with my midsection in some really important ways. I think this could have been accomplished without a VBAC (or a navel ring, for that matter), but that’s how it happened for me.

Also, my husband thinks it is hot.

The deed accomplished, we proceeded to drum class. I was holding the baby and chatting with one of the teachers. He wiggled just so that my tender act of celebration and a hint of rebellion stung, so I told C (or “the beautiful Miss C” as E sometimes calls her) that I had just gotten my navel pierced. She was being very encouraging and sweet and said it was beautiful. I said that I didn’t plan on showing it off much, but that I was excited to have it. She said something like, “You could, you know…there’s nothing wrong with your belly.” “I know.” I said. “I think I look fine, it’s just…well you know, modesty…” Internally I cringed. That’s not what I meant. I meant that I primarily got it for myself and my husband.

I think sometimes people might feel unwelcome at Sunday Services because people inside it look at them and judge them as immodest, whatever the condition of their heart is. As I said before, I think modesty has to go deeper than wearing enough clothes. It is so much more than being embarrassed about your body. It means recognizing your body for what it is, and realizing what it is not. I am for my husband (navel ring and all), and not for everyone else to look at in certain ways. But I am also not in charge of what everyone else thinks about. I am, in all things, to strive to bring attention not to myself, but to God’s goodness, beautiful creativity, and redemptive power.

Like I said, I wasn’t sure if I was going to share the fact that I had pierced myself. But then I started thinking about it, probably too much as usual, and it started to feel like false modesty not to. So there you go. I’m almost 30 and now I have a navel ring. And most people probably won’t ever see it. And I’m fine with that. And lots of other people have navel rings and everyone can see them all the time. And I’m fine with that too.

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Once Upon a Time…Later…

So…Gandalf comes back and he’s all cool and powerful and wise. And…they all lived happily ever after?

Nope.

That’s when the action of the story really gets going. See, Gandalf needed to become the white wizard because he would need all that power to deal with the increasingly overwhelming circumstances that would come.

One thing I have learned from J’s video games, board games and rpg’s is that you don’t want to go after the big bad until you’ve had a chance to level up.

So what does this have to do with me?

Well, I feel like I’ve leveled up. This doesn’t have anything to do with me being on some level that other people have to get to. Or with me wanting to get to some level that other people seem to have reached. That’s not what I’m talking about. But when S was born, some things were forever redeemed for me. God proved certain things to me, to the point where I no longer feel justified in my doubts about what He thinks about me or if I will be given the resource necessary to handle the challenges that arise.

So, when I think about having leveled up, it doesn’t mean that my life has suddenly become crazy in ways that it wasn’t before. I mean sure, I have two kids now. “Two is more than one,” as a friend is fond of saying when asked what it’s like having another child. That’s true. But really, I think I expect more from myself than I did before. Certainly more than I did when E. was this age. When she was 3 months old, I was a post-traumatic puddle on the floor. I think the main thing that saved me from sliding unchecked into depression was Phoenix Coffee, my great husband, and a few close friends.

But that’s where I was. I’m not there now. And I want to live in a way that honors the progress that I’ve made. It feels disingenuous to live as though I don’t know more about myself than depressed-puddle-on-the-floor Katie.

I’ve had some glimpses of this new power. Last week I took the kids and went to visit a friend L.  We had many, many opportunities to fall into old patterns of being stressed by each other. But we didn’t. There were a lot of factors that could have added up to a terrible time…I was only there for 24 hours. We had harvesting, canning, shopping, cooking and eating to do. We had 3 kids to take care of. We had differing opinions about recipes. We had fundamentally different understandings of why I was even there (teaching someone how to can is NOT the same as canning all their produce for them). Really any one of these things would have been enough to ruin a visit in the past. But you know what? I think it was the best visit we’ve ever had. And not just because of the tomato marmalade. We were able to assume the best of each other and respond to each other without our relational insecurities looming large and eclipsing the fact that we were there to have fun and encourage each other in our distinct yet symbiotic (someone who knows canning but can’t farm goes really well with a farmer who doesn’t have a canner) paths. We communicated honestly and without spite or hidden subtext (which I’m bad at hiding in my own speech and even worse at detecting in other people’s). She pointed out that “10 years’ll do that to you,” which I think is true. But I also think that insecurity will block a person from responding in love. But this time it didn’t, because I didn’t let it.

See what I mean? Leveled up.

And I’m hopeful that it’s just the beginning. I want to react graciously when E. is pushing boundaries. I want to not feel the need to fight to be heard just because deep down I am afraid I don’t have anything valuable to say. I want to be a better wife by having more of myself to offer J. I don’t know yet what else I want. I don’t know what the big bad is, but I want to be able to meet it head on.

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Princess Lessons

I am tired of the disney-ization of princesses. I mean, I grew up watching Disney movies and I think it is possible to watch them as a kid and not grow up to be a woman who hates herself or is un-empowered or whatever. But the thing that bothers me is that it could mean so much more.

When I was a little girl, my granny would teach me ‘princess lessons.’ This was not when I learned how to let  a man come and save me, or how to sulk and get what I wanted. This was not a time when I learned how I was the center of the world and everyone should give me what I want (which seems to be the common working definition used when people use ‘princess’ in a sneering manner if you are acting spoiled or selfish). This was a time when I would learn to sit up straight. To say “please” and “thank you.” To be kind. To care about the people around me, and to be helpful. The idea was, if I was going to be my parents’ little princess, I needed to act like it.

So I am reclaiming that title for myself. I reject all of the bad behavior and lack of self-examination that typically defines what a princess is. I want to act as though I am deeply loved and cared about and have the capacity to do great things. I want to create the culture in my home. I want to cook. A lot. I want to affect change in the world. I want to raise passionate and diligent children. I want to waste less. I want to spend my time well. I want to spend and assert myself on behalf of other people. I want to remember that my Father is the King and that even in this odd country I don’t need to assert my own Somebody as that is all to be sorted out in the end.

This is, apparently, my princess manifesto.

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Crockpot Ratatouille

I’m a fan of my slow cooker. It’s not that it’s actually less work. It’s just that there’s such a long gap between when you do the prep work and when you get to eat it that you sort of…forget. Also dinner tends to be a sort of busier time for lots of people so it’s nice to be able to do the work during a calmer part of the day.

J. doesn’t like squash. Also, he doesn’t like eggplant. So, for several weeks in summer, he is very sad (though he doesn’t complain) to see how much of these things end up in our csa bag. He’s very flexible by nature and had a very good mother so he will eat something even if he isn’t a huge fan. But still, I look for ways to hide the taste of things that I know he doesn’t prefer.

This is the second recipe that I’ve attempted. I made Ratatouille’s Ratataouille first, with a couple of little adjustments based on what I had in my kitchen. While we were eating this time, he told me, “I liked that last one, even though it was Ratatouille. But this…this is really good!”  Since I don’t have a problem with squash or eggplant, I really liked both of them, but my recipe is pretty different from hers.

So here’s my recipe for Crockpot Ratatouille.

The ingredients:

about a quart of peeled diced tomatoes, fresh or canned or whatever

1 large or several small onions, finely chopped

several cloves of garlic, depending on your taste

1 large eggplant, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

2 or 3 summer squash or zucchini, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

a red bell pepper, seeded and cut into bite-sized pieces

a green pepper, seeded and cut into bite-sized pieces

a few carrots, peeled if you like (or just washed) and thinly sliced

some red wine, to taste

salt and pepper, to taste

fresh herbs–I used parsley, oregano and thyme

shredded basil and some strong hard cheese to grate over top. I used a pecorino and it was delicious.

The method:

Put the tomatoes on to boil. As they are heating up, use whatever method you choose to make tiny pieces of onion and garlic. I used a food processor because I usually find using a knife to mince things tedious. But that’s just me. You can cook the onion and garlic in some oil for a bit, but I just tossed it in with the tomatoes and let it all boil down a little (with some water added until it looked saucy enough for me) while I cooked everything else. Just keep an eye on it.

Saute the eggplant, squashes, bell peppers and carrots separately over medium-high heat. I used some olive oil in a cast iron skillet, but a wok might be really nice too. The point of this is to seal in those flavors individually a bit before throwing them all together in the  final dish. A little browning is okay, but don’t feel like you have to cook them all the way.

As you finish sauteing something, toss it in the crockpot to make room for the next thing. After you finish all of that, add the herbs and the tomato mixture. Pour in as much wine as you’re using (I think I used about 1/2 cup or so). Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir to combine. Cook in the slow cooker on low for 3-4 hours.

Serve over brown rice, quinoa (E’s favorite!), couscous, or whatever grain catches your eye.

Either serve with shredded basil and grated cheese on top if you’re fancy, or put it out on the table if you’re not. This is also a flexible dish to serve for gluten free (just make sure your grainy side dish is gf) or vegan friends (just leave the cheese off or get some sort of vegan not-cheese…although be careful because those are NOT all created equal…and some of them have casein, which is a vegan no-no as it is a dairy protein.)

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Watermelon Rind Preserves…oops, I mean jam…

UPDATE: It turns out after a little research that what I like is actually watermelon rind JAM, not preserves. I didn’t want to preserve the shape of the fruit….I wanted it to be all smeary on my toast and only later realized that it’s actually jam.

These taste much better than they sound. Really. I tried them out of sheer curiosity, and because I really like the idea of using something that I would otherwise compost. And you know what? They aren’t bad. I mean, they aren’t my favorite preserves (ahem…jam), but I tried them in a sandwich with some goat cheese and they were pretty good.

So in case you are feeling adventurous too, here’s the recipe. Please note that I am not a canning expert and you should do your own research on how to safely can. Canning safety is NOT the point of this post.

There. That’s out of the way. Here’s the recipe. I started with the Ball Blue Book (a great resource for all things food preservation) and made some modifications.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 – 2 quarts watermelon rind

4 tbsp salt

water to cover

1 tbsp ginger

4 c sugar

1/4 c lemon juice

1 1/2  quarts water

1 medium very thinly sliced and seeded lemon

Method:

Trim green peel and flesh from the white watermelon rind. Cut rind into approximately 1 inch pieces. Dissolve the salt in 1 quart of water and pour it over the rind, then add more water as needed to cover. Mine looked like this:

Let it stand for 5-6 hours. If you forget about it, say, overnight…that would be fine too.  😉

Drain. Rinse. Drain again. Cover with cold water and let stand 30 minutes. Drain. Sprinkle ginger over rind (if you forget about this part, you can also just add some ginger to the cooking preserves later). Cover with water. Cook until tender. Drain.

Combine sugar, lemon juice and 1 1/2 quarts water in a large saucepot. Bring to a boil. Add rind (UPDATE: you can put the rind in the food processor after this initial cooking instead of waiting until the end…it’s less sticky that way). Boil gently until rind is transparent (this takes a long time-make this on a day when you have the whole afternoon free). Add lemon slices. At this point, you can use an immersion blender to make the texture more spreadable if you want to. I did. Here is what it looked like before:

I didn’t want to spread that on my bagel; thus the immersion blender (I highly recommend this particular kitchen gadget–like love, it covers a multitude of sins). I suppose you could also just chop the rind and lemon up very small using a knife or a food processor before you added them to the syrup.

But I digress.

As I was saying: add lemon slices, use the immersion blender if you want to. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot preserves into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust 2-piece caps. Process 20 minutes in a boiling water canner. Give to people who invite you to dinner parties if you think they’d care about it. Or give as holiday gifts. Or eat it yourself and enjoy the fact that you prevented something from being wasted. 🙂

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Lesson 1 from George MacDonald

I have recently started reading “The Lost Princess” (aka “The Wise Woman”, “A Double Story” and several other titles) by George MacDonald out loud to my daughter. Usually over tea or a snack.

The pertinent quote:

“As she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that she was Somebody; and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it that she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so, and took it for a fundamental, innate, primary, first-born, self-evident, necessary, and incontrovertible idea and principle that SHE WAS SOMEBODY. And far be it from me to deny it. I will even go so far as to assert that in this odd country there was a huge number of Somebodies. Indeed, it was one of its oddities that every boy and girl in it, was rather too ready to think he or she was Somebody; and the worst of it was that the princess never thought of there being more than one Somebody—and that was herself.”


As we finished the chapter, E. looked up at me and said, “I am Somebody!”

“Yeah?” I said, then held my breath to keep from dictating what would come next. I wanted to know what she would do with that information of her own volition. Will she get it?

“You’re Somebody! My dad is Somebody!”

Then later, when a younger and more wild friend hit her repeatedly in the head, she wisely said, “He’s Somebody. But he forgot I’m Somebody.”

I like my kid.

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Africa, Culture Shock and Integrating the Second Child

My friend Kate came to visit us this week. She gets a whole name mention because she is a Kate…one of the ones who has helped me find my own Kateness over the years. When we first became friends we were “the Kates” and I have some really great memories of that time in high school and college. She moved to Tanzania a few years ago because God told her to (soon after I had a kid and became a stay-at-home mom because God told me to. It’s a funny old world). Now she’s back for a year for a medical leave because her back is all messed up and she can get better care here.

The thing about Kate is that she sinks deeply into a role, or a culture, or really whatever she’s doing. So when she comes back here it’s hard for her to reintegrate, and it takes a long while. We spend a lot of time having conversations like this:

“E.’s little dress is really beautiful. Did you make it yourself? Oh wait…do people ask about that in America? Is that a thing?”

“Yes, that’s a thing. I don’t know if everyone would like that, but I do. Thank you.”

The “Is that a thing–yes that’s a thing” dynamic didn’t truly strike me until I saw my daughter and my friend together the past couple of days. They I realized that they are both having almost the same issue. And without even realizing it, I’ve started treating E. as though she has been in Africa for a significant part of her life. Because kids can go through culture shock too. Only, their cultures are smaller so it doesn’t take moving to a new continent, or even a new house. Receiving a baby is quite enough to send kids into a tailspin of confusion around what the culture of the home and family are going to be.

To be honest, the culture of our family has changed quite a bit since S. I sleep differently which means I am differently awake during the day (coffee can only help so much, you know?? And anyway I’ve limited my intake as I’m caffeinating my son too which could eventually make him more wakeful; though it hasn’t been a problem thus far). I can’t always just go with her right when I want to because there is someone else to bring along or to stay with. And mostly, she’s come along beautifully. But we have our issues. So I have begun attempting to just respond to them as though she’s trying to learn a now unfamiliar culture.

She screams. I say, “I still don’t like it when you scream right next to me. That’s still a thing.”

She throws things inside the house. I say, “It wasn’t safe to throw that in here before you had a brother, and it’s still not safe now. It’s still a thing.”

She pees on the floor. I say, “We still make our pee go in the toilet, or we wear diapers. I still don’t enjoy cleaning pee off the floor. That’s still a thing.”

I ask her to get in the car. She runs to the back of the yard. I say, “Before you had a brother, did I tell you things just to be mean to you?”

“Ughhh. No, Mom.”

“Why do I tell you things?”

“To help me. Or to keep me safe.”

“Well, that’s still what we do. That’s still a thing. So please get in the car.”

And it seems to actually work. Amazingly well. We’ve had some stressful times in the past month (you know what? It really isn’t fun to clean pee off the floor). But we are reserving sweeping judgment of her based on her behavior until…well, hopefully until never but certainly until after we’ve had time to set up a culture. But setting up a family culture without letting its structure be determined by the selfishness and insecurity that is all around us and wants to creep in like a poisoned gas our lungs appear to want is really, really hard. But it’s worth the fight. Because I love my family. And that’s still a thing.

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“Fig Newton” Cookie Recipe

Our family is doing well. My physical recovery time with this baby was amazingly short (it’s crazy how much better it is to NOT be recovering from major abdominal surgery…). Other than being deeply, deeply disorganized that is. I hesitated to take people up on their offers of food since I felt so good compared to last time, but then I realized that I am experiencing a normal amount of tiredness and that it’s okay to need help even if I’m not a complete puddle on the floor. I’m not totally overwhelmed, but I am somewhat whelmed and that’s to be expected.

Anyhow, this relates to fig newtons because it’s a symptom of exactly how with it I am not. I spent  three hours the other day researching recipes, grinding flour, and making these cookies. Then I finished them at around 6 p.m. and realized we didn’t have anything for dinner. Luckily, I had some soup that my friend JJ. had given me, so my family did not have cookies for dinner.

If you wanted to skip the stove-top portion, you could get fig jam or any other kind of jam, for that matter. Honestly I still want to tweak this filling recipe a bit (it wasn’t bad…just not quite fig newton-ey enough for my taste), so please let me know in the comments if you make these and come up with something delicious.

So without further ado, here’s the recipe:

 

Dough

  • 3-4 cups whole grain spelt flour
  • 1/2 cup apple juice
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 3/4 tsp. baking powder
  • 3/8 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • ½ cup pure (not extra virgin) olive oil, or other vegetable oil.
  • 4 eggs, divided
Filling
  • 2 cups figs, chopped (can use dried)
  • 2 cup apple juice
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 4 tbsp. sugar (optional–depends on your sweet tooth)
  • 1 tsp. orange peel, or zest of 1 orange

The method:

Make the dough:

  • Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add in oil and mix until the dough is sandy loooking.
  • Whisk 3 eggs together with 1/2 cup apple juice and add to the dough. Mix to combine. If the dough is too wet, add more flour. If too dry, add more apple juice. The dough should be only slightly softer than you want to use. Form the dough into a ball, place in an airtight container and refrigerate for 2 hours or so.
Make the filling:

  • Combine all the filling ingredients in a saucepan or skillet and cook over medium heat until all the liquid is absorbed by the figs and the mixture is thick.
  • Let the filling cool slightly, then puree it in a food processor until fairly smooth. Refrigerate until time to bake.
At baking time:
  • Heat the oven to 375F. Make an egg wash by whisking the remaining egg with a little water (a couple of teaspoons or less). I have quite a sweet tooth, so I added some sugar to the egg wash and it made for a nice sweetness on top.
  • Divide the dough into workable portions. On a lightly floured surface roll out each portion of dough into a rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Work with 1 portion of dough at a time. Cut the dough lengthwise into strips, about 2 1/2- 3 inches wide.
  • Paint around the edges of each strip with egg wash. Spoon the fig filling down the center of the strip and then fold the dough over to enclose the filling.
  • Place the tubes, seam side down, on the greased (or parchment-lined) cookie sheet. Press down lightly to flatten. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
  • Brush the tops with the egg wash and bake until light golden brown, about 15 minutes.
  • Let them cool, then cut with a sharp knife into cookie-sized pieces.

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My Son’s Birth (The New Birth Story Part 2)

A quick disclaimer before I continue- I will be quoting people as best I can but I may slightly misremember their exact words or meanings at times. I was…erm….distracted…

I woke up at 4 a.m., feeling uncomfortable and unable to go back to sleep (not unusual…this had been happening for over a month). I laid in bed until 5, then rolled over and asked J. if he wanted to get up and take a shower and go to work early, or if I should take a bath. “mmm…bthkm………uh-huh”

Okay, bath it is. I read Lord of the Rings for a while (can you tell this has been a theme with this pregnancy? It’s full of stories about people having to overcome fears and accomplish very hard tasks). At some point during this hour contractions must have started, because when J.’s alarm went off he came into the bathroom and found me holding the book in front of my face with my eyes shut waving my head from side to side.

“Um, WHAT are you doing?”

“Huh? Oh…it hurts….”

“Okay, when’s the last time it hurt?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been timing them.”

He got out his fancy new smart phone and used an app to time my contractions…four to five minutes apart and a minute long…same as a week ago when this happened…still, better safe than sorry. We made some calls around 7 and asked people to come to the house as soon as they could.

Then from the bath tub I threw up. Not like a week ago. Whoops! Time to go. J. dashed around trying to get a couple of last minute things in place and make sure we had kiddo things to take with us on the fly. The contractions started to be really, really crazy at this point. I started yelling through them as a way of releasing the energy without pushing the baby out on the bathroom rug. God, can I do this? 

My amazing three year old daughter came up and put her arm around my neck and said, “It’s okay, Mommy. You’re doing a great job.” Okay, kid, if you say so. Time to get up! Get dressed.

I moved into the bedroom and pulled on some clothes and sat on the edge of the bed as another contraction hit, full force. Maybe I can’t do this! Where’s my husband? Oh. He’s right there. Good. “I can’t do this! What if I can’t do this?!”  “Yes, you can. It’s going to be great, Katie.  You can do this.” Another contraction. I yelled even louder. E. came over to me, put her hand on my shoulder, looked into my eyes and started singing the ABC’s, then Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (or “Fwinkle, Fwinkle, Lilla Staiww” as she calls it). I laughed and forgot about a  contraction.

J. got us all moving and into the car in record time. He drove to the hospital, um…quickly. I kept listening to “You Are the New Day” by The King’s Singers. It’s about two minutes long, so halfway through each time I knew I’d have a contraction.

We got to the hospital and walked up to the maternity floor (the idea of sitting in a wheelchair did NOT appeal to me at that point, even though it was offered by kind strangers a couple of times as we made our way over). As I walked up to the door, one of the nurses at the station saw me and said, “Um, do you need a wheelchair?” haha…..

C. (our midwife) walked by the door at that moment and saw me squatting and holding onto the wall. She kind of laughed a little and made a hand-waving motion. “Uhm, room four. Get up. Let’s go.”

We made it to the room and I felt myself relax. Okay, I can have my baby here. God, I trust you. Please take care of me. I stopped yelling through contractions and just let them do the work they were supposed to do. About fifteen minutes later (half an hour before the birth) M. showed up and took E. for a walk; just in time for her to miss the messy part.

C. asked me where I wanted to go, and if I’d be okay with sitting on the bed and getting checked. I’d had some residual fear around being stuck in the bed and wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it. At that point I didn’t care. She checked me and said, “Well, you can bear down with this next contraction if you want to.”

What the what….?!?! “Um, I need a minute.”

“Okay, take your time.” A couple of contractions.

“Okay, Katie, what do you want to do now? You could push your baby out if you want to.”

Aghh!! My face must have said, because C. said, “Okay, then go sit on the toilet. Empty your bladder and see what happens.” I made it to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. Then I screamed. C. came and looked at me, then said, “Well, we have a head. That toilet works every time! Sooo, we could deliver your baby here, although that’s not really the kind of waterbirth I like to do. Katie, what are we doing here? Do you want to go to the bed?”

“I….I can’t.” Can’t walk. “How….?”

“It’s okay. We got ya. C’mon, dad, let’s go. One foot in front of the other.” Each of them looped an arm through one of my arms and they mostly carried me to the bed. I crawled up and got on my hands and knees and…panicked. “Can you check his heartbeat? Is he okay?” Everyone paused.

“You want to be monitored? Really?” The monitor had been another one of the things that freaked me out going into this labor.

“Yes, I just want to make sure he’s okay. Last time this is when….agghhhhhh!” Contraction.

They checked on him and he was fine. I still felt afraid. Then over the loudspeaker someone started to sing.* “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me/Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be…” Oh, right….Trust. Peace. Okay, I’m ready.

I began pushing (I gave myself a nosebleed and J. wisely said, “Stop pushing with your face, push with your diaphragm down here.” So I did).  They tell me I pushed for fifteen minutes, but it didn’t feel like it took that long. It seemed to take no time at all (and indeed, 15 minutes is almost the closest thing there is to ‘no time at all’ in terms of pushing a baby out). The cord was around his neck but C. quickly looped it over and he came the rest of the way out. Because I was on my hands and knees they passed him up and put him on the bed underneath me. He’s all squishy and gross! This isn’t like tv at all! Yay!!!!

Somehow we all got me over onto my back and S. came up onto my chest. We met each other while he got wiped off and checked. I waited for the placenta, then got stitches for a minor tear. Once the cord stopped pulsing, C. asked me if it was okay to cut it. She handed it to me and said, “Are you ready?” J. got to cut the cord.

And then we were four.

One of the passages that gave me encouragement during the last part of my pregnancy was something Paul wrote back in the day to people in Ephesus:

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power…in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…”

In Greek there are at least two different words for ‘knowledge.’ So that last bit should read, “To know by experience the love that surpasses simple understanding.” I don’t know why I was given this experience. At times I have waited for the other shoe to drop, because it just all seemed too good to be true. And I have struggled with how to write it up without it sounding like a tract or some other annoying cheesy thing. But I do feel at this point like I have a grasp on something that I didn’t before. I don’t mean that if you are nice and God is satisfied you’re a good person who thinks the right things then you get good experiences. It would be naive and cruel to think that way. But going back through my Gandalf on Celebdil visualization (yes, I’m a nerd. Get over it), I realize I got the opportunity to throw down my fear and mistrust and to make room for something better.

*I found out later that since we gave birth at a Catholic hospital (a fact that hadn’t played into our decision at all when we were making it), they do a morning blessing every day at 8:00. On the particular day we were there, Sister K. would usually have done it at 8 but she was late because of a meeting. Someone else was going to do it at 8 but they didn’t, and then another person was supposed to do it at 8:30 but they didn’t either. So when Sister K. got there around 8:40 she ended up singing it, which was exactly when I needed her to.

One small thing:

I’ve been encouraged by my midwife, Colleen Brezine, to share her name and the fact that S. was born at St. John West Shore Hospital in the Holistic Birthing Center. If you decide to have your baby there I can’t guarantee he or she will be born 45 minutes after you arrive, but I did have an outstanding experience there, for what it’s worth. I have not been compensated in any way for sharing this information.

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The New Birth Story (Part 1)

**I wrote this post, as you’ll quickly see, before my son was born. I wanted to capture how I was feeling at that moment, but didn’t want to publish it until the story had an ending. So without further ado…**

I am more of a doer than a planner. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to me to know what it is I should be doing, and I often put a great deal of thought and research into the hows and whys of my actions. But when it comes down to it, I get stressed out by planning that isn’t followed up pretty much immediately by doing. Once I figure out what the right course of action is, I really want to just get to it. It’s caused me (and by extension the people around me) stress in various church and other settings over the years.

My friend JJ. pointed out to me once that I work the best with a plan. I need to know what my ‘job’ is and then I am okay emotionally, whether or not it’s really hard.

But childbirth isn’t a ‘plan and do’ kind of event. At least, not unless you’re one of those hollywood moms who schedules a c-section or induction so they can go on vacation. But that’s not really my style.

This labor and this boy have been very good for me so far. I have almost gone to the hospital once, and have called the midwife a couple of times saying ‘I don’t think the baby’s coming right this second, but I’m having contractions fairly regularly and just thought you should know.’ I’ve been having contractions approximately every 10 minutes for over a week now. Does that sound exhausting? It is.

But it also allows me to enter into the experience in a way that feels really important and good. I need to feel like I am doing the best that I can from moment to moment to keep myself from thinking unhelpful thoughts. After we’d made our decision about where to birth (and with whom) and signed the forms stating our wishes about circumcision, IV fluids and a host of other medical interventions, there wasn’t enough to keep my brain busy. So my thoughts wander and end up in a terrible neighborhood, where I keep imagining worst case scenarios (it gets much worse than what happened to me…I know. I’ve watched that horror movie in my head a few times this pregnancy). People have asked me a few times if it is frustrating to have contractions that don’t do anything (another wise friend helpfully pointed out that this isn’t strictly true…while they aren’t labor contractions by hospital textbook standards, even if I’m not dilating centimeters at a time, each one strengthens and tones the uterus and prepares me and the baby for what’s to come).

Either way, through all these contractions I have learned that I do in fact have something to do. It is my job to be calm and present in this moment, and to love this baby. I have decided to trust my body and trust that God is ‘next to me’ (as E. is fond of saying) to take care of me. So each time I have a contraction it feels like a new chance to temper the resolve of my decision. Am I really going to trust? It seems like it’s happening in slow motion, which gives me a great chance to truly think through how I am processing it, and for that I am really grateful.