Knocked Up...Knocked Down

Good surprises

When thinking about my hopes for having a child, I have been reminding myself that despite my past track record, circumstances can change at any moment...for the better.    This reminder was reinforced by a conversation that I had with my husband earlier this week.

As the familiar scenery of our neighborhood passed by on our post-dinner walk, he reminisced about a sunny Saturday afternoon in early October, 1993 that remains in sharp focus in his memory.  He was sitting in the stands at a college football game with his female cousin when his mind started swirling about the state of his young life.  The game and the raucous cheering of the crowd surrounding him had faded into the background as his thoughts turned inward. 

He was 25 and had graduated from law school the previous spring, but was still unemployed and had no good leads despite a thorough and dedicated job search.  He had taken the Bar Exam the previous August, but had not yet been notified of whether he had passed or failed it.  He had less than $100 in his bank account.  He was living in his childhood bedroom at his mom and dad's house.  He did not own a car and was driving one of his dad's old cast-offs.  He had drifted away from his church and, to a large extent, his faith.  He had no girlfriend and no prospects.  The realization of the cumulative sum of all these facts hit him like a ton of bricks that day in the bleachers.

He felt like a failure, and he could see no imminent way out.  There was no light at the end of the tunnel.  Panic swelled up in his throat.  His normally ruddy Irish complexion blanched, and his anxious thoughts must have been evident on his face because his cousin turned to him and asked, "Hey, what's wrong?  Are you okay?" 

Although he didn't know it at the time, his life was about to change dramatically.  Good surprises were right around the corner; they were so close that he could practically reach out and touch them, but he just couldn't see them yet. 

Within three months after the day of that football game, he had a secure job as an attorney, his bank account was on its way to being replenished, he had been notified of passing the Bar Exam, he had started dating me and secretly had the gut feeling that we eventually would get married, and he was out of his childhood bedroom and living self-sufficiently in a nice townhouse apartment with one of his best friends.  Having his own car and, infinitely more importantly, the rekindling of his faith took a while longer, but those things also came to pass within the next few years.

I've been thinking about my husband's inability to see light at the end of the tunnel back on that day at the football game, and my own frequent inability to see light at the end of this tunnel of recurrent miscarriages.  I think it is all too easy, in the midst of upsets and disappointments concerning matters that are near and dear to our hearts, to develop and nourish a spirit of fear.  It becomes easy to be flinchy about the future--to have the expectation of impending doom and to continually wait for the other shoe to drop.  This spirit of fear can spread from one area of life until it colors our entire perspective.

I know that this spirit of fear does not come from God and it is not his will for me.  More and more, I have been trying to banish it by trusting God, not trusting him to grant all my wishes and to give me happy circumstances, but trusting him to give me the strength to survive and grow from the difficult circumstances and experiences.

However, upon reflection, I think that I need to go a little farther.  I already know that things can change overnight for the worse, but I need to remember that they also can change overnight for the better.  I need to be bold:  I need to nourish hope--hope in the possibility that something good could be awaiting me in the near future.  With God, all things are possible.  He is not only my rock in hard times, but also a father who delights in giving his children good gifts. 

Good surprises could be just around the corner, not yet in my vision, but almost close enough to touch.

Six (Hopefully) Interesting Things

I was having trouble thinking of a topic for a new post, so I thought I would try this meme that has been making the rounds:

Six Interesting Things About Me:

1)  The odds of my arrival in the world were quite slim.  I was conceived when my parents were both 40, after my mom had suffered with severe endometriosis for years and shortly after my dad had a vasectomy.  That's right:  a vasectomy.  Due to things being hectic at his job, Dad canceled his follow-up appointment after the procedure, and his bits that were snipped grew back together.  (And get this:  my mom's name is Myrtle, so she literally is Fertile Myrtle.  I wish I had taken after her with regard to fertility and fecundity.)  I was born a few days after my sister graduated from high school and my brother was almost 16. Due to the fact that, after adjusting to the initial shock, my parents were happy to have another child and because I always felt wanted, it never occurred to me that I wasn't planned until my sister told me when I was an adult.  She had good intentions in telling me; she wanted me to know the circumstances behind my birth because she thought it seemed special, as if I were meant to be here.  I don't know how special it is--I think all of us who are here were meant to be here. 

On the one hand, I find it more than a bit ironic that some couples, like my husband and me, can do everything possible to have a baby and yet don't have one while other couples, like my parents, can do everything possible to avoid having a baby and yet have one anyway.  On the other hand, I'm certainly glad to be here, and it makes me feel hopeful to know that it is possible for a baby to get here despite great physical odds to the contrary...maybe even contrary odds such as the mother's history of recurrent miscarriages.  Anything is possible.

2)  I am severely allergic to pretty much everything that has fur, and I have asthma that has gotten pretty scary at times, so I can't have a dog or a cat as a pet although I love them dearly.  (As a child, my allergies weren't as severe, and we had cats that I adored, so I know what I am missing.)  However, I still am able to have a pet that I adore.  Thankfully, I am not allergic to birds, and I have a yellow cockatiel named Chloe.  She is very social and friendly, and loves to be scratched and petted.  One weekend when we were cleaning the house, we mindlessly had the TV on next to Chloe's cage, although we weren't paying attention to it.  An "Andy Griffith Show" marathon was running, so the theme song played roughly four times per hour for several hours.  A few days later, out of nowhere Chloe piped up and sang the show's complete whistling theme song, complete with pecks on her cage denoting certain guitar strums.  She loves attention, and we made such a fuss over her when she whistled that song that now she sings it to me every day when I get home from work and get her out of her cage.  It always makes me smile.

3)  My husband and I spend more time together than most people would think is humanly possible.  We work for the same employer, in the same subject matter area, under the same boss, and his office is right down the hall from mine.  Our weekday routine is that we get up together, get ready for the day together in our one tiny bathroom with one small pedestal sink with a small mirror over it, drive to work together in the same car, walk from the parking garage to our office together, sometimes attend work meetings together, sometimes work on projects together, eat lunch together almost every day, drive home together, eat dinner together, usually go for a brisk post-dinner walk together, go to sleep together, and then get up the next day and do it all over again.  We don't need to ask "How was your day?" because we already know.  Miraculously, we don't get on each other's nerves much, although we often do have minor squabbles in the morning before work because neither one of us is a Morning Person, plus he thinks that I am the Slowest Human Alive and I think that he is the Most Impatient Human Alive.

4)  I have a confession to make.  For those of you who are cerebral and/or classy, I hope that it doesn't cause you to lose too much respect for me.  I own a "remote control fart machine" that makes several different flatulence sounds and can be used to play practical jokes on people.  My husband gave it to me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and I was thrilled, despite the packaging that trumpeted "As Seen On the Howard Stern Show!"  I have used it on certain family members, and I thought it was HILARIOUS.  You can shun me now if you feel the need.

5)  I currently take ballet lessons every week, but I never had a ballet lesson in my life until last year at age 36.  My previous dance experience entailed only one year of jazz when I was 12.  I am by far the oldest, stiffest, and least coordinated person in the class...and then there's the unflattering leotard.  It's VERY HUMBLING, but I love it and it's good exercise.  I think it's important to keep learning new things as I get older (and as my joints get creakier).

6)  I am freakishly good at the game "Hide and Seek."  Years ago when my husband and I were dating, he and his roommate had a small party in their three-story townhouse apartment.  After playing a few games and having a few drinks, someone's suggestion of playing a good old-fashioned round of "Hide and Seek" was greeted with much enthusiasm, and the hiders scattered to our hiding places.  My husband never has been great about putting away his clean laundry, and I found a big, fresh pile of it on the floor of his bedroom and crawled under it.  My husband, not knowing I was there, came in and picked his hiding place by merely standing behind a curtain (amateur!).  He was found within three minutes.  However, it took them over an hour to find me, and I won the title of All Time Hide and Seek Champion.  Hurrah!

Unfortunately, my talent backfired on me while playing "Hide and Seek" with my little niece a few years ago.  We were playing outside, and I found a great hiding place by crouching under the drooping leaves of a small bush.  I waited...and waited...and waited for her to find me.  It was chilly outside, and I shivered as my bended knees ached so badly that I never thought I would be able to straighten them again.  Finally, I came out, yelling "Here I am!  I give up!"  There was no answer except the sound of crickets. Unbeknown to me, my niece had gotten bored with the game and had gone into the house about 20 minutes prior to that time.  I discovered her in the family room comfortably watching TV and eating snacks.  D'oh!

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I am not tagging anyone, but please feel free to do this meme yourself if you would like.

Hot stuff

As I mentioned before, I have been a wee bit stressed out lately due to getting back on the roller coaster of trying for another pregnancy after five miscarriages.  The fact that I am on progesterone supplements does not seem to help my emotional state, either.  Last month the hormones seemed to make me feel PMS-y in an irritable way; this month I am feeling PMS-y also, but in a much more sad, weepy way.  I am not a big cry-er, and before the miscarriage years I could easily go three to six months without feeling the need for a good bawl.  However, yesterday I wept mightily in response to a re-run of the somewhat cheesy movie "Hope Floats" on TV.  If that's not hormones talking, I don't know what is.

In times like this of stress, sadness, or hormonal angst, one of the ways that I traditionally like to relax and regroup is to retreat to the bathroom for a nice long soak in my bathtub.  I LOVE my bathtub; it's one of the things that attracted me to my 1920's-era home when we were house shopping and saw it for the first time.  The porcelain tub is over-sized, long and deep, and the back rest is slanted comfortably for reclining.  The bulbous white porcelain faucet knobs charmingly have "HOT," "COLD," and "WASTE" printed on them in black lettering.  There is no overflow drain, which means that you can fill the tub all the way to the very top with soothing warm water.  My idea of the ultimate in relaxation is sipping a glass of wine in a hot bubble bath while listening to quiet, soothing music by the gentle flicker of candle light.  Ahhhhh....

However, I am in the two week wait, and on the off-chance that I conceived this month, long hot baths are a no-no (as, of course, is the glass of wine).  During pregnancy, hot baths may cause the core body temperature to rise too much, thus increasing the risk of miscarriage (see this article).  During pregnancy, a core body temperature of 101 degrees or greater can be of concern (see this article), potentially causing miscarriage or certain birth defects. 

My husband, who is a mother hen towards me, is aware of this information and has become the Water Temperature Police.  Over the weekend, I was taking a shallow, quick, utilitarian bath--warm, not hot--and he indignantly burst in and stuck his finger in the water, declaring it to be too warm.  My usually easy-going husband then demanded that I only take lukewarm showers, and he forbid me from taking any more baths at all unless I'm in a part of my cycle when we know that there is no chance that I'm pregnant.  My less-than-mature response was something along the lines of "nyah, nyah, you're not the boss of me, and besides, this water isn't even hot."  But then I saw the desperate look of worry in his moist eyes as he choked out, "Pleeeeaase, I just don't want us to go through another miscarriage," and I quickly relented. 

I immediately got the thermometer to see if my warm-but-not-hot bath had caused my body temperature to increase.  I was surprised to find that it had risen to 99.6 degrees.  That meant that my temperature was safe for a potential embryo and was well below the hyperthermia danger zone, but it still was disconcerting that it had risen one whole degree solely due a quick, relatively shallow, warm bath (a few hours later my temperature was back down to a normal 98.6 degrees).  Imagine what prolonged soaking in a hot bath or indulging in a long, overly hot shower could do to one's body temperature. 

I need all the help I can get when it comes to avoiding another miscarriage.  Therefore, I have given up my beloved warm baths, and this morning I shivered under the puny dribble of a lukewarm shower (although our bathtub is a thing of beauty, our shower leaves much to be desired).  I guess it's a small price to pay if it might help me to have a baby. 

 

Encouragement

Thinking about the prospect of trying for a 6th pregnancy was stressful, but actually trying for another pregnancy and opening myself up to another potential miscarriage in the immediate future has been much more stressful than I anticipated.  I have been trying to focus on positive things and to not be fearful, but it is a challenge.  I often find myself feeling tense, as if there is an elephant sitting on my chest.  I have to remind myself to breathe deeply and to keep trying to trust God.

Yesterday was a difficult day.  I came home from a hard day at work and was sitting on my couch feeling tense and trying not to slide into negativity.  Emotionally and spiritually, I was struggling.  I try to focus on what I have rather than what I don't have and to have a spirit of gratitude.  I try not to indulge excessively in self-pity.  I don't always succeed.

The truth is that four years of repeated miscarriages and heartbreak are hard.  I have ups and downs.  Easter this year for me was an "up" and I really felt the joy of the meaning behind the holiday.  Yesterday was a "down."  Niggling thoughts crept into my mind like "God, I have been marinating in this pain for four years now.  Have you forgotten me?"

Just then my husband walked in and handed me the phone as a voice mail played from an infertile friend who is a Christian.  She said that she was reading the Bible and praying for me when a Bible verse came to her attention.  She said that she felt compelled to call me about it, as if the verse was for me.  Here's the verse:

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." (Isaiah 43:18-19).

I immediately dissolved into tears, but in a good way.  I felt the tension melt out of me.

I don't know if this means that I am going to have a baby; I'm afraid to dare to hope that.  Maybe it means that I myself will walk out of the desert that I have been in for the past four years as a new, stronger, better, more compassionate, more faithful person; I do dare to hope that. 

Whatever it means, I do know that it was very encouraging and that God hasn't forgotten me.

Blindsided

During my miscarriage years, there have been many times when I have felt utterly emotionally distraught.

Tonight is one of them.

It's 3 a.m., and I haven't been able to fall asleep yet.

Earlier this evening I was blindsided with some unexpected news. One of my best friends who is unmarried and had no particular plans for having a family just called to inform me that she is SEVEN MONTHS PREGNANT.

To explain how much of a shock this is, let me give you some background. I am going to refer to this friend as Jane, but that's not her real name. Jane and I met thirteen years ago when we started working for my current employer on the same day. We went through training together, ate lunch together every day, and soon became fast friends. When I got married a few years later, Jane was one of my bridesmaids. When my husband and I found a flat in a great, cheap, charming old apartment building nestled amongst the most beautiful homes in the city and a flat opened up across the hall, Jane moved in and became our neighbor in addition to being our close friend.

Jane and I became acquainted with another woman, whom I will refer to as Mary, and the three of us women became a tight little group. We even took a girls' vacation to Paris together a few years ago. I considered Jane and Mary to be some of my best friends, and definitely my best friends in the city where I live. Sadly for me, Jane moved out of state 2 1/2 years ago (to go to MBA school), but we stayed in touch via regular e-mails, phone calls, and visits.

Jane has never been married or had children, but she started dating a guy in August and I thought things might be getting serious with him when she brought him to town to meet me and her other friends here last October. Early in December, she flew into town for another visit, alone this time, and stayed at my house for the weekend. When I asked her how things were going with her new boyfriend, she indicated that she thought he might be marriage material. I had just had my fifth miscarriage, and I remember saying to my husband, half jokingly, in private, "Jane will probably have a baby before we do." Little did I know that she was already pregnant at the time.

Jane was supposed to come visit again for a New Year's Eve party that I was hosting, but she wasn't able to make it. I talked with her on the phone and e-mailed with her a few times earlier this year, but then, weeks went by, and it occurred to me that I hadn't been in contact with Jane for a while. Mary mentioned that she had e-mailed Jane, but never received a response, and she was wondering if Jane was okay. I e-mailed Jane over two weeks ago, but never heard back from her. I left a few messages on her voice mail, but she didn't call me back. This was unusual for Jane, so I started to worry. Today, Mary and I went out to lunch (note: Mary is 9 months pregnant with her second child, and that can be a bit emotionally challenging for me at times), and I asked her if she had ever heard from Jane. The answer was "no."

Then we really started to worry if Jane was alive and well, and Mary called Jane at work to find out. Jane said she was fine and sheepishly apologized for not staying in touch. She also cryptically told Mary that she "had some news" and would call her and me this evening. Of course, Mary and I speculated that Jane was engaged, which would be exciting. For some reason, it crossed my mind that Jane might be pregnant, even though I knew that Jane is a fledgling Christian who has expressed that she believes in the wisdom of sexual abstinence until marriage.

Well, the phone rang at 9:45 p.m., and it was Jane, who told me that she found out in November that she was pregnant with her new boyfriend's baby. It was a totally unintended pregnancy and was quite a shock to her--quite a stressful adjustment--but she is excited about it now and is due to have a boy on June 7, her birthday. Physically, the pregnancy has gone totally smoothly and the baby is chromosomally normal and seems to be thriving. She has put her condo up for sale and moved into her boyfriend's house. He wants to get married right away, but she said that she needs a while longer to digest the whole situation, and she wants to delay the wedding until this fall.

She told me that she was sorry to have to tell me about her news because she knows that it's not fair that she irresponsibly, accidentally, and easily got pregnant--and stayed pregnant so effortlessly--when I have been married for 10 years, I want so much to have a baby, I have planned extensively for a baby, and yet I haven't been able to have one. She said, "You have done everything the right way. It doesn't make any sense. I feel guilty." She told me how much she wants me to have a baby soon and how badly she feels that I have suffered through five miscarriages. She told me that she understood that it would be hard for me to deal with her situation and she was sorry because she didn't want to cause me any pain.

She tried to be sensitive, but I just felt like a big fool, a pathetic person with whom people feel that they need to walk on eggshells. She tried to ask me about what the miscarriage specialist had told me and to ask me about the progesterone and my fertility monitor, but talking about it with her made me feel even more pathetic.

While all of this talk was prattling through my phone receiver, I mainly was in shock. I didn't cry. I congratulated Jane and tried to be supportive, but I also told her that I was hurt that she waited until she was SEVEN MONTHS PREGNANT to tell me (note: for three of my pregnancies, she was the second person whom I told, after my husband) and I was also a bit hurt that she had been avoiding me and had not been returning my e-mails or calls for weeks. She apologized and said that she had been ashamed and embarrassed; she hadn't told her other friends here, either, including Mary, until tonight. At least I wasn't the last to find out...I think.

Finally, the excruciating conversation ended.

Just when I think that I am strong and somewhat accepting of the trainwreck of my reproductive endeavors, something like this reminds me that I'm not.

After I hung up, I realized that my body was shuddering--visibly, physically, uncontrollably shaking. I felt completely wretched. I walked into the room where my husband was watching baseball on TV and told him the news. He became angry about the unfairness of it all, and his choleric reaction wasn't helping me any. He kept asking me what was wrong with me, why was I shaking--was I having a seizure or something? He was worried. Fat tears started to roll out of the corners of my eyes, and I started to sob.

And right then, bright red blood dripped out of my nose. I have never had any hint of a nosebleed in my entire life--until tonight. Blood gushed out. Blood reminiscent of a miscarriage. Strange. We got wads of Kleenex to stem the tide, but it just kept coming as my body shook and heaved with sobs and tears streamed down my face. Finally, the bleeding slowed down and eventually stopped.

At first, I wasn't even thinking specific thoughts, I was just in emotional pain--confused, mute, animal pain. Then I thought of how Jane was pregnant during her visit in December, as she slept in my guest room, ate the dinner I cooked for her, and sat up late on my couch chatting---and also during our phone conversations and e-mails earlier this year, and she hadn't breathed a word of it to me. She was pregnant, planning to get married, and HAD MOVED--and I didn't know any of it for all that time. She has wrestled for months with the shock and adjustment of an unintended pregnancy, and didn't tell me. I wondered: what kind of a friendship do we really have? I thought we were close! What a sham! I felt betrayed.

Disorganized snippets of thoughts raced through my miserable head. I realized that our idle conversations about going to Europe together again will never come to fruition now. I realized that the next time I see her she will probably be holding her baby...and that she will be so busy being a mom and maintaining her full-time career that she probably won't have much time for visits with me from now on. I wondered if she is going to have a baby shower. I realized that she has a big belly at this very moment.

And then I thought about how sad I am that I don't have a baby, and that all of my unborn children have died...all five of them. I envied her fertility and her ripe belly. How can it be so easy for Jane and so hard for me?

And then it hit me: it's not easy for Jane. This baby wasn't planned. Jane was raised in a traditional, conservative home, and she is ashamed of being unmarried and pregnant. She feels stupid and irresponsible for being so careless about using birth control. Her news initially was met with shock, not enthusiasm, by her family. She just got her MBA and started an exciting career that she loves and that has enabled her to travel around the world as she had always dreamed; a baby wasn't on her radar, at least not right now. I could tell that she has struggled with her changing body image as her stomach swelled. Jane and the baby's father are about to be parents together, but they probably don't even know each other that well yet; I could see how that would be hard.

I thought about the strength of my marriage, how much I love my husband and am sure that he is the only one for me. We know each other inside and out. Our marriage has been sorely tested through the loss of five pregnancies, and it has weathered the storm. It has grown and deepened. My husband said, "She might have a baby, but she doesn't have what WE have." I realized that I wouldn't trade places with Jane if I could.  I am thankful for what I have.

I thought about my faith, which has been strengthened and matured in the crucible of my miscarriages. I thought about Jesus--the light that has given me peace, hope, and comfort in the darkness.

I asked my husband to pray with me, and we got down on our knees on the hardwood floor by our bed. I don't think we have ever prayed together on our knees at home like that before. I literally cried out to God, weeping and telling him how much I was hurting. I told him that I have tried to be strong, but I just can't do it anymore. I am helpless and beaten down. I asked God to help me keep my focus on him and to trust him. I begged him for grace, peace, comfort, and strength. I prayed that he wouldn't allow evil and bitterness to get a foothold in my heart or my relationship with Jane over this unexpected news. I begged him for a miracle, for a baby of our own, but I also prayed that if having a child isn't God's will for me that he would give me the strength to accept it.

I felt a little better.

I asked my husband to get the Bible out and read parts of it to me. He read about how God can place a barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children (Psalm 113:9); he read about how one day God will wipe every tear from our eyes (Revelations 7:17 and 21:4); he read about Jesus saying "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28). (A yoke is a crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen, mules or other draft animals working as a team; if one member of the team is very strong and they both are pulling together in the same direction, the burden on the weaker member of the team will be light.)

When I heard that last part, about Jesus' yoke being light, a clear image suddenly popped into my mind of the yellow tandem bicycle my family had when I was a child. My dad would sit on the front seat and reliably pedal, but sometimes I would get tired. Sitting on the back seat, I would stop pedaling, put my feet up, and rest...yet I was still being propelled forward by my strong, dependable father, whom my eyes were fixed upon.

It struck me: that is exactly what Jesus meant when he said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Sometimes when I'm weary, I just have to stay on board with God, fix my eyes on him, rest, let go, and let God do the pedaling for me.

That's what I'm doing, and I'm moving forward.

The Bermuda Triangle of quality family time: soccer practice, violin lessons, and choir

Is anyone else out there as dismayed as I am at what modern childhood (and thus parenthood) has become?  I'm talking about overly scheduled lives that send children and their parents manically ricocheting in their minivans or SUVs from soccer practices to violin lessons to ballet lessons to choir practices to chess clubs.  I'm talking about how it has become a badge of honor for parents to talk about how little time they have and how stretched and crazy-busy they are due to all their children's activities.   I'm talking about lives with no balance.

It's not that I think there's anything wrong with enriching a child's experiences through organized activities or with discovering their talents and helping them to flourish--quite the contrary.  Playing soccer or musical instruments or attending dance classes can be wonderful ways to for a child to bloom.  But I do think it becomes a problem when a child is involved in so many activities at once that the tyranny of the calendar becomes stressful and exhausting for not only the parents but also for the child. 

In my opinion, children need some unscheduled time just to BE.  Some of my most cherished childhood memories involve summer days filled with lolly-gagging in the hammock as dappled sunlight made patterns on the pages of the Nancy Drew book I was reading, jumping through hissing sprinklers and squealing with laughter with the neighbor kids, and using my imagination to turn the woods behind our house into a fairytale land.  When I see some of the kids today, I wonder if they have any time to develop their imaginations and whether all their activities, all the constant striving and competition, are going to result in burn-out by the time they get to high school or college.

When I think about the current lack of balance in the lives of so many families, three questions keep popping into my mind:  (1) How did things evolve into this state? (2) What is the point of it all? and (3) How can a family today avoid it?

How did we get to this point culturally?  I don't think it used to be this way. Either my parents were terribly lax when I was a kid, or kids just weren't as busy with organized activities back then.  Prior to kindergarten, my scheduled activities consisted of Sunday school and a several months of  pre-school at a local church for an afternoon once or twice a week where we played and did some finger-painting.  In elementary school, my activities consisted of one year of Brownies (directly after school) and some sporadic piano lessons...plus there was no homework until third grade.  I think we played some soccer in gym class, but there were no organized soccer teams anywhere in the tri-county area, not for kids of any age, nada, zilch.  I had plenty of time to climb trees and play badminton in the back yard with my friend who lived next door.  I drew pictures, wrote stories, and read voraciously.  My dad and I went for lots of bike rides in the summer and sled rides in the winter.  I spent time in the kitchen learning to cook from my mom.  We sat down at the dinner table to eat together almost every evening.  The pace was not manic, or harried, or stressful for any of us.  It was nice. 

My relaxed childhood schedule is quite a contrast to the current hectic lifestyles that I see my nieces and nephews and their parents living.  Their calendars are just about as logistically complicated as the D-Day invasion, despite the fact that the kids are only in elementary school.  Now it appears that parents feel pressure not only to involve their kids in multiple organized sports and attend all the games, but also to sit and watch every practice.  (I personally cannot imagine anything more excruciatingly dull than watching soccer, by the way.  That's probably why the term "soccer mom" has always made me cringe.)

Why have things gotten so intense?  What is the point of it all the busyness and hyperparenting?  I can't figure it out, except that maybe now parents are afraid to have their kids running around the neighborhood playing in yards with other kids.  Maybe there has been so much on the news about abductions and pedoph*les that people feel that their kids are safer at soccer practice than playing in their yards.  Maybe parents think that their kids need multiple activities to stay out of trouble.  Maybe people think that a long resume of their kids' activities will help the kids get into better schools, and ultimately to become richer and more "successful."

I don't know.  But it's not the way I want to live.

What I value, both for myself and for any potential child of mine, are good relationships: loving relationships with God and others, and self-worth that is based on being a creation of God and doing one's best--not on a grade point average or a soccer trophy or a bank statement.  We are human beings, not human doings.  In my experience, good relationships take a lot of time, time just to be together. To me, a hectic life of hurriedly careening from one organized activity to another without time in between to breathe seems utterly draining and devoid of peace and meaning.  Maybe some people thrive on that kind of a life, but I'm not made that way, and I have a strong aversion to it, both for myself and for any child that I might have.

But how does a parent avoid getting sucked into the vortex of that kind of life?  My only idea is that if I ever have a child, I will only involve that child in one extracurricular organized activity at a time, especially during elementary school.  However, I'm not even sure how feasible that is these days.  There seems to be a tremendous amount of pressure to overschedule children.  I have seen friends and family who expressed views similar to mine have babies and vow that their families would not become the frantic, overscheduled kind. At this moment they are lurching somewhere between little league and kiddie golf practice.

What do you think?  Do you agree that the overscheduling and hyperparenting is out of control?  If so, do you have any strategies to avoid it?

The grass isn't necessarily greener

I was reflecting on my recent "Spring has sprung" post and was thinking that although it's true that my struggle to have a baby probably will help me to appreciate motherhood more, I need to be careful not to idealize having a family.  Instead of looking at motherhood through rose-tinted glasses, I need to remember that being a parent is hard, too, and the grass is not always greener just because there's a swing-set in the yard. 

Sometimes it's easy to look at friends with babies and small children with envy, despite their sleepless nights and mountains of dirty diapers.  Babies are clean slates--small, cute, simple, and utterly dependent; it's easy to project our own ideas of our "dream child" onto them.  When you have been trying to have your own baby for years to no avail, you have plenty of time to dream and pine for a family, blowing the pitter-patter of little feet into something larger than life.

The cure for this, in my opinion, is to spend some time with the parent of a teen.

I was fortunate enough to be able to do this recently when a friend of mine who moved away and now lives out of state came to stay with me for the weekend with her 16-year-old daughter.  The daughter is a good kid who has a sweet disposition and has never been the shrill, door-slamming type of teen...but she is still a teen, trying to spread her wings and test her limits.   Her mom and I sat up late on a Saturday night, talking in our pajamas on my comfortable red couch, discussing the trials and tribulations of parenting a 16-year-old daughter and of trying to strike a balance between keeping her safe and allowing her some space and independence to learn life lessons... the hard way, if necessary. 

At the very same time, unbeknown to us at the moment but discovered the next morning, her daughter was at a friend's house doing something that her mother considers dangerous and verboten. 

My first impression regarding raising a teen today is that things seem more complicated than when I was a teen, in so many ways.  (It's official: I am an old fuddy-duddy.)  For example, changes in technology have made it much harder for parents to monitor their teen's social activity and to keep track of who they are associating with and what they're into.  Now there are cell phones, the Internet, instant messaging, e-mail, and Facebook.  It's a far cry from when I was young and we had no computer and only one phone that I could use, which was anchored to its spot in the foyer between the kitchen and living room via a cord.  My parents usually answered the phone and asked who was calling, and there was no privacy for my conversations due to the phone's location. 

One thing that hasn't changed is the scary thing about teens:  they are naive, feel invincible, and don't realize the potentially life-altering negative consequences of seemingly small choices, such as getting into a car with a drunk driver who wrecks the car and leaves them as a paraplegic for the rest of their lives or getting so drunk at a party as to be in a semi-conscious, woozy, defenseless condition that unintentionally makes them an unwilling yet easy target for a predatory guy who deprives them of their virginity by raping them (two examples that actually happened to friends of mine in high school).

On my couch that Saturday night, my friend posed many parenting dilemmas to me that she is facing about how strict to be with her daughter, whether and to what extent she should "snoop" to determine whether her daughter is making good choices, and how much independence to afford her.  If you keep a teen under your thumb too tightly, they could totally close themselves off from you, rebel, and go hog wild when you're not there, having failed to develop internal self-restraint because external restraints were too firmly imposed upon them...but if you give your child too much leeway and something horrible happens to them, you'll second guess yourself for the rest of your life.

I certainly didn't have any answers for my friend, and I don't know how I would handle things if I were in her shoes.  I can see that her position is very hard...even though her daughter is basically a good kid.

I am reminded of my sister's comment that having a child is like living with your heart walking around outside your body.  That Saturday night, as I had watched my friend's daughter go eagerly clattering down my front walk in her mini skirt to jump in a car with a bad muffler that was full of teens (who were about to make some unwise decisions), I could imagine what my sister meant.   I had felt an uneasy feeling, a knot of worry in my stomach as I had watched the car's red tail lights disappear into the darkness, and I had said a little prayer that my friend's daughter would make good choices that night.   

Of course, I always have realized that cute little babies turn into teens who turn into adults who make their own way in the world, and that's as it should be.  I still want to have a family just as much as ever.  But the next time I feel that surge of longing when I see a pink-cheeked, cherubic face in a stroller, I'm going to balance it with the image of my imagined teen-aged child, my own heart disappearing into the night in a car with a bad muffler.

And I'm going to feel a little bit more thankful for the simplicity of my life right at the moment, with my heart safely in my chest.

Personality profile

First of all, THANK YOU to everyone who wrote kind words of encouragement and advice in response to my last post.  The thought and time that you took was very generous.  I appreciated each and every response; you all are so wise, and gave me a lot of food for thought.  I am digesting it all, thinking things through, and am in the process of creating a Plan B.  I will keep you posted.

Part of creating my Plan B involves trying to figure out what type of career would be a good fit for my personality and skills.  A break is a wonderful idea, and I'm still hoping to be able to become a stay-at-home mom, but neither of those things would be likely to occupy the rest of my life (assuming that I live to my life expectancy).  Beyond those ideas, I would like to have an idea of some sort of vocation to aim toward that might be fulfilling to me and useful to others.

I believe that God has gifted each and every one of us with certain abilities and talents that help us to feel fulfilled when we use them and that benefit others and glorify Him.  To use an analogy from the Bible (1 Corinthians 12), we are like different parts of one body, each one unique and necessary for the body to function as a whole.  A body needs all of its parts:  feet and arms as well as eyes.   

If  you don't blossom as "you" and use your particular gifts or I don't blossom as "me" and use my particular gifts, who will?  Each of us is a unique creation.

Due to the career confusion that I described in my last post, I took the Myers Briggs personality test In order to discover more about what makes me tick and what I have to offer .  Most of you probably are already familiar with this tool for determining personality type, but for those who aren't, you can read an overview of it here.   You can also take an extremely abbreviated version of a personality type test here or here.

If you read the links, now you know that the the determination of your personality type is based on four basic questions:

1) Where is your energy naturally directed (i.e., are you an extravert or an introvert)?

2) What kind of information do you naturally notice and remember (i.e., are you a sensor or an intuitive)?

3) How do you decide or come to conclusions (i.e., are you a thinker or a feeler)?

4) What kind of environment makes you the most comfortable (i.e., are you a judger or a perceiver)?

Based on my test results, I am an ISFJ (introvert, sensor, feeler, judger).  A description of my personality type can be found here or here or here.  Apparently, my personality type is called "the nurturer," and people of my type are traditionalists who greatly value stability and security, like to help others in practical ways, and tend to gravitate toward the helping professions, such as nursing, elementary school teaching, etc.  That's interesting, because one career option that I considered several years ago was becoming a speech pathologist.  Hmmmm...more food for thought and fodder for Plan B.

So, do you know what your personality type is?  If so, do your current job and activities match your type?