NEWS!

Today was my due date.

We are glad Eamon did not come this weekend, partly because we are so happy to have him, and partly because there was a big snow storm on Friday night and Saturday.

Tomorrow starts NaNoWriMo. I am not writing this year, but Thomas is. I decided that I have enough projects to work on without starting another. It will be an exciting month.

We have been staying up too late. Silly baby... and silly us for getting distracted with various projects.

I have been reading Han Solo novels during nursings. They are really dumb. I have decided to start either Brothers Karamazov or Les Miserables (again) when I finish. My brain needs something a little less predictable. :-)

My current favorite CD's are Matt and Shannon Heaton's Lovers Well and Leahy by Leahy (eight siblings who play all sorts of instruments).

I started working on "thank you" notes and ordered birth announcements.

Typing with one hand is rather difficult.

Another Eamon Post

If Eamon had come on his due date, he still wouldn't have been born yet. But this week he will be a month old. It is odd to think of the time when we were still waiting for him and didn't know him because now I can't imagine life without him.

When he was born, he was 5 lb 3 oz. At his first appointment (day 5), he was 4 lb 9 oz. By the time he left the hospital (day 6), he was 4 lb 12 oz. When the visiting nurse came (day8), he was 4lb 14 oz. At the next appointment (day 13), he was 5 lb 2 oz. And according to my old-fashioned scales on day 22, he is was about 5 lb 12 oz.

He doesn't fit into his first preemie outfit anymore and his preemie onesies are beginning to get too small too. He still swims in some of the newborn outfits, but some of them fit quite nicely. I still don't know what to do with his clothes though; they seem too small to fold. We don't have his room set up yet, so we have been using a changing mat on the floor for diaper changes, a rolling storage shelf for his dresser, and basket bassinet for his bed. But he is big enough to get a bath in his baby bathtub. I love giving him baths; he gets so relaxed in the water and his little naked self is so adorable.

Sleeping and eating is going a little better too. At least, there are more nights that he sleeps better than nights (and days) that are miserable. I am still not doing anything much besides focusing on feeding, sleeping, and making sure we have food for supper, but I am beginning to get in some laundry and the dishes. Other projects are beginning to pile up too, like ESL childcare and the ICS website. So slowly we are moving on to a new normal type of life.

I love being a mommy!

Questions

I am realizing that my view of God is too small and too cliche. I can talk about God's love and grace and about His glory and supremacy. But very often it is just talk.

I started realizing this by finding fault with other people, but have come to see that the faults I see in others are more obvious in myself. I see my fellow Christians being judgmental or unloving, and get frustrated with the way they are hurting others, but only sometimes see my own judgmentalism. I could list other examples, but the examples aren't the point.

The examples only made me wonder what life would be like if I took what I believed about God and really lived it. I believe that God is "rich in mercy, abundant in grace." What would it look like if I lived like that?

How would it change the way I respond to my feelings of inadequacy? or the mistakes of people around me? How would it effect the areas of service I am involved in? How would it change my participation on my church and community? Am I willing to honestly look at the changes that I would need to make, and ask God for the help to make them?

We have a food pantry in our church. The members of our church are asked to help restock it every now and again. So we donate canned soup, peanut butter, boxed mac-n-cheese, and the like. By doing this, are we really acting out of our beliefs? Yes, we are providing for those less fortunate then ourselves, but are we giving as God has given to us? He lavished his love on us; he provides all we need; what would that look like in a food pantry at a church? Or would it mean having a group of people who would be willing to make a home-cooked meal for those in need? or would it mean taking people into our homes and letting them mess-up our lives?

What is God really calling us to when he says, "Be holy, even as I am holy"? Am I willing to question my lifestyle and make changes if necessary in light of such a statement? My view of God is too small and too cliche, but do I really want it to be any different? Or do I like my little comfortable life too much to seriously ask questions?

Birthday Stories

Today is my birthday. Every year as I was growing up, at my bedtime on my birthday, Mommy would come up and tell me my birth story. She would tell me how she went into labor, but the doctor had to do a cesarean because my older brother was cesarean. She would tell me how she wanted to be awake for my birth, but the spinal tap didn't kick in fast enough, so one doctor wanted to put her to sleep, but the other doctor gave it just a bit more time. She would tell me how that doctor broke hospital protocol and let Daddy carry me to the nursery. And she would tell me about how much curly black hair I had.

I loved hearing my story every year. It was my story. It told me how I was special and how much I was loved right from the beginning. And how I have never been good at "following the rules."

This year, I heard my story early. Mommy told me my story as I was in labor with my baby. She told me my story, and bits of each of my siblings stories. Each of them were different, each one was special. Eamon now has begun a story of his own - different from every other birth story that ever happened. It is amazing to think that each child who was ever born has their own unique story, just as each of them is creating their unique own story.

It was a good day. Birthday's aren't the "best day ever" like they used to be, but today was a day where I was reminded that I am loved by so many people, that I am special, and that I have a story of my own. And it reminded me that my story isn't done yet. Each day, I get to work on my story. It may be a little daunting because I don't know all the twists and turns this story may take. But I know that God is working in my life and making it something beautiful. And I know that someday the ending will read, "And they lived happily forever after."

So now the great debate is, should I do NaNoWriMo and begin to write Eamon's story as it happens? Or should I just keep a few short notes in a journal for later? I have only a few weeks to decide. :-)

Eamon's Adventures

 Today, Eamon Phillip Wiley is 2 weeks old. And what an adventurous 2 weeks they have been.

I wasn't expecting to have a baby at 35 weeks. He wasn't supposed to come until after his shower on October 8th, and I was hoping he would wait until my birthday at least. But he decided my sister's birthday was a better day to be born on (and Scott and Mr. Berner would agree :-)) and arrived as a late birthday present for Thomas. We are so happy to have him now though. I can't imagine waiting another 5 weeks to meet him.

So our first adventure was his being early. I have often thought that some people view giving birth as an initiation into womanhood or something. Once you have a baby, there is always something to talk about. You somehow now understand other mothers better and they understand you. Unfortunately, it sometimes gets conveyed that women without babies don't really understand life. Well, now that I have been initiated, I can understand that perspective. Giving birth is a life changing event. The moment I reached down and felt his head, seeing him across the room as they cleared his lungs, hearing his cry, and finally getting to hold him have completely changed my perspectives on life. It was as if I had been waiting all my life for this, but never knew that is what I was waiting for.

Besides him being early, everything seemed to go according to plan. We got to go home and were a happy little family until his first appointment when he got a blood test. He looked yellow, and his bilirubin levels were too high, but even the doctor didn't expect them to be as high as they were. She called and told us to take him to the NICU as soon as possible. Between road construction, a crying baby, and a crying me, it was a very stressful ride to the hospital.

He got put under the lights and we were able to stay in the Ronald MacDonald House just across the parking lot. His problem was high bilirubin levels and dehydration which cause excessive weight loss. So they hooked him up to an IV and I wasn't allowed to feed him for a while. (Although later that night, the nurse let me bottle feed him and change his diaper before we left for the evening.) We had to go home and get some things, which meant leaving the hospital without him. That experience was also life changing. I will never be able to explain, but any mother will know, how hard it was to walk out of the NICU and leave him behind. Then being able to come back the next morning and be told that I could breastfeed him, and we would be able to take him home that day, was such a surprise that my poor exhausted brain could hardly handle it. I was so happy, I was stressing about everything.

The doctor told us that he was a textbook case for jaundice, so he was very educational for the doctors and nurses in training. We had to keep him on a light blanket, but after two days, he had another blood test and his bilirubin levels were right where they were supposed to be. He was also gaining weight, so all was good.

On this past Tuesday, at his check-up, he was one ounce under his birth weight. We scheduled a 6-week appointment (rather than an every other day appointment) and we are now getting to work on being awake during the day and asleep during the night.

So our current adventure is sleeping for 2-4 hours at night and being awake with him 3-5 hours. Little goose is awake and alert and looking around during those hours... so adorable! and now he is fast asleep - and waking him for his feeding was miserable. Poor baby... poor mommy and daddy too!

But we love him and think we will keep him.