Dear Ava,

Dear Ava,

It's been a week and a day since I've been home on bed rest, trying to slow the progress of these early contractions so you'll be born late enough to minimize your chances of fighting lung problems on top of anything else you might be facing.  Our little bun needs to be good and DONE.  

So since our release from the hospital last Thursday, my whole world has been my bedroom window for the past eight days.  Not that I'm ungrateful for the view that I have from our bed.  It's pleasant to wake up to a world of frosted pastureland and ice-blue sky and watch the squirrels pitch themselves recklessly from branch to branch.  The neighbors' horses pass by the window, too, and graze as slowly as statues while I lose all track of time watching them.  And then there's all the reading, games and company (both human and canine) that's kept me pleasantly diverted from focusing on how numb my butt is.  Not to mention plenty of time to simply sit in peace and allow life to unfold slowly around me.  I don't require constant stimulation.

* Side note: this should've been posted a few days ago... but the bedrest confinement as of late has been almost more than I can handle and I failed to post this in a timely manner.  Her adoring husband, Jason*

I could complain about how easy it is to become bored, but if I was, it would be no one's fault but my own.  Bed rest has been an exercise in mindfully choosing my activities in a limited capacity and taking pleasure in simply having someone to talk to or an enormous well-behaved dog to snuggle with while I listen to the classical radio station.  Or just to practice turning my worries into opportunities to pray.

Psalm 4:4 - "Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.  Selah."

And then there's you, little squiggleworm.  You're a never ending source of entertainment.  That is, if you can call huffing and readjusting through contractions entertainment.  You poor thing... I can only know how it feels to me when you're plastered to the underside of my ribs like a frat kid Saran wrapped to a wall.  It can't feel like a vacation to have a foot jammed underneath my ribs or your behind stuck out and frozen in midair for all to behold.  (And on that note, none of us will EVER forget the ultrasound appointment where you looked like you stood straight up out of my belly and greeted the tech and her trainee, who gasped, "Are they SUPPOSED to do that?!")

But for all that you may struggle with when you're born, the energy behind these defiant moves are a comfort to me; they assure me of how strong and well-formed you already are.  I keep your most recent ultrasound pictures in an album on my bedside table so I can remind myself everyday of how perfect you already are, and how much you've already thrilled us by being exactly who you are before you could do anything to further inspire our love.

When I show our visitors these pictures, I tell them that I'm so grateful that you seem to look so much more like your daddy than me, because I would rather see the person I love more than I'd want to see a reflection of myself.  Not to mention that he's kinda the looks of the two of us. I'm.... grateful for my skill with cosmetics.

I had better wrap up this iScribble so daddy can carry this pad from our tech-droughted house and download this letter to your blog at work.  Honey Boo Boo Dog says hello, by the way.  I wish you could know how devoted to you she already is.  She stays right with me no matter how immobile I am, and sometimes she slides up next to me and gently places her enormous head right on you like she knows there's two of us to protect.  I think she DOES know.  

So daddy will leave me in her care for a short time while he situates things at the office, and you and I and Honey will remain here all tucked up and warm while watching the morning sun move across the quilt.  It's quiet time, for now.

Notes from bed

A few words from labor and delivery:

Active labor contractions: yow.... But not deathly painful.

Ice chips:  manna.

Epidural:  a needle-borne miracle.

Barfing:  unexpected side effect of epidural.

Keep on truckin' , Mini!

Luv,
Mom

Happy Anniversary

At the risk of sounding like the voiceover from a beloved 80's movie, life happens fast.  Don't blink.  You might go into labor and not realize it.

I'm typing this from the confines of bedrest on our fifth wedding anniversary (which is Saturday, June 5th for the sake of being precise, since this entry probably won't be Wifi-projected to the world until Jason can post it for me tomorrow).  The morning still hasn't approached the dawn, and I'm laying here with a head tumbling full of questions.  

For instance:

Why is my brain at its clearest and most creative when my fingers are at their stiffest?  (You should see me looking like Mr. Burns, all bent over and pecking away at this iPad.  Apparently joint stiffness has an act in the pregnancy symptom circus.  Who knew?)

How is it that the cheap clutch of stargazer lilies that I bought a week ago from Wal-Mart have held up so much better than any expensive bouquet I've ever had the pleasure to enjoy?  (I have a special fondness for their fragrance... They remind me of spending time with Jason early in our relationship when we spent hours hanging out at a funeral home after work.  There were always flowers there, and the wild, pungent scent of stargazer lilies was always in the air.)

(And if you don't personally know us and you're reading this in another country, conducting a courtship within a funeral facility is culturally acceptable in the United States of America.)

And finally, what can I do to make today feel like a special occasion without compromising this horizontal position?  I certainly didn't expect to be in the early stages of labor three weeks before Ava's due date.  THAT news certainly was a face slap with a wet herring during our checkup on Thursday.  I suppose that I assumed that in the midst of all of the unpredictable circumstances swirling around Ava Leigh's health and development, the least that fate owed us was a timely delivery.  But try to argue that with a dilating cervix. 

After one more ultrasound with the perinatal specialist at Baptist Hospital, we feel like we have the clearest idea possible of what kind of challenges our daughter might be facing upon birth, and since babies born earlier have a higher incidence of respiratory complications than those born closer to their due date, we are doing everything within our power to encourage our little bun to remain in her oven.  Better development is at least one little gift we can give her.

So here I am, flat on my back, debating whether or not to wake my dear husband of five years and beg sweetly for a bagel.  Undoubtedly, I'll be requesting much more of him in the coming days as he attempts to juggle our normal responsibilities in one hand and my random requests in another.  Will you play Scrabble with me? ... Can I have another helping of turnip greens? ... Would you move Honey Boo Boo Dog off my leg? - My feet are turning colors and I'm losing sensation in my lesser toes...etc....etc...

I think I'll let him sleep a little longer.  He's going to need it, and it's a rare and precious feeling to linger here with him and not have to dash off somewhere. 

And my feet aren't completely purple yet.  

Practice For Opening Season

If I were to write a sixth grade-level science report covering the events of this past weekend, it would look a little something like this:

 

"The Uterus: Nature's Punching Bag"

by Heather Clenney

 

Sometimes when a pregnant lady is really tired and is too stubborn to sit down and order her husband around, or when she doesn't drink enough water, she might start feeling the intense effects of a natural process called Braxton-Hicks contractions.  These are also known as "practice contractions", even though my mom says that if the contractions that are just for practice make a woman feel like her baby's about to come flying out of her bellybutton, that should make me think twice about the consequences of making "adult decisions", whatever that means.

 

The End.

 

 

So it was apparently my time on Saturday evening to experience but a taste of what I've cheerfully signed up for in childbearing.  I started experiencing fairly sharp, spaced out contractions around 9:45 p.m., and throughout the course of the night, they grew more regular insistent.  I figured out around the midnight mark that if Ava's little baby body slinked into just the wrong place before a contraction happened, she got to spend the duration of the contraction right in that spot, whether it was jammed butt-first into my ribcage or some other unmentionable place.  Poor little squirrel.  Can't be fun.

 

And poor Daddy, too -- as he lay there in the throes of a cold, grasping for sleep, I rolled and moaned and generally made my discomfort known as we ticked off the minutes between contractions.  The pugs booger-barked and howled from their crates downstairs.  Miss Daphne shuffled from cabinet to floor, her fatness making every move apparent to oversensitive ears.  Even Honey Boo Boo Dog was a terrible disturbance where she slept at the foot of our bed as she kicked the phooey out of him while she galloped after whatever Great Danes pursue in their doggie dreams. 

 

Around 4 a.m., I renounced any right that we had to restful sleep and informed Jason that it was right time we drive to the hospital and have me checked for any, ahem, impending appearances.  I was fortunate that my sister and brother-in-law (Aunt Angela and Uncle Ben -- not the rice guy, by the way) were staying right down the hallway in the Blue Room since their power had been out at their Gourdneck home since the Christmas Day Ice Blowout of 2012 had robbed them of electricity and all its cozy benefits.  We roused them, and they sprung into action to help us get ready to go.  I took a warm shower -- which felt like the best warm shower in the history of all warm showers -- and stuffed a few granola bars into my bag, then we split for the lights of Little Rock.

 

I just had to listen to Paul Simon's Graceland album on the way.  It's become an adult pacifier of sorts for me, and by the time we reached the front doors of Baptist Hospital, I was fairly mellow.  Maybe even a little punch-drunk from the adrenaline and the South African beats.  And probably the lack of sleep. 

 

A cheerful nurse took me, Aunt Angela and Daddy into the examination room and strapped me into all manner of non-invasive devices to measure Ava's spunky heartbeat and the progress of my contractions.  We were there for four or five hours, I'm not sure now.  Probably because I was falling asleep between the nurse's questions and uterine events.  I have a knack for dozing off in semi-public situations.  I usually have crazy dreams.  There on the table, I dreamed that there were two fuzzy blankets beneath my cot, and no one would hand me one.  Last ultrasound I had, I dreamed that Korean singing sensation Psy was in my face trying to convince me that I needed to eat more cabbage.  Pish!  Tosh!  I get plenty of Vitamin Whatever, dude.

 

A few monitor beeps and one physical examination later, it was officially concluded that I was the victim of very regular Braxton-Hicks contractions, and that my cervix was thick enough to die another day (sorry.... getting off of a James Bond kick).  I was sent home to nurse my sore innards and recover from the rest we lacked.

 

All I can say is, if that's "practice", then come game time, you'd better be on like a hot mike in a back alley comedy club, Little Miss Uterus!!!

 

 





 

 



 

 



 

Hearts With Legs

Maybe it's the overcast skies and all the gray post-winter storm mush sloshed all over every moving thing outside.

Maybe it's the worry over missing my regular OB appointment because the ice and snow has knocked the power out at the women's clinic.

Or maybe it's my deficit of yummy Christmas cookies consumed this year.

Mommy's having a tough day.  I allowed myself to do a little bit more reading on Hypoplastic Left Heart babies, and anytime I take that much medical information into my already pregnancy-addled brain, it takes me a few days to sort it and settle in with it.  With her arrival so quickly impending, I feel like I can't afford not to educate myself as best I can in order to make the best decisions with my husband regarding her health.

I can't remember where I heard it, but someone once told me that having a child of your own is like having your heart walk around outside your body.  This makes so much more sense now, even with her little heart tucked up safely near mine for the time being....

  
I promise to snap out of this funk very soon.  I just need a day to sit with it again.

Aw fiddlefarts. Ran Outta Mayan Calendar.

"Leonid What's-His-Name,

Herman Munster, motorcade,

Birthday party, Cheetos,

Pogo sticks and lemonade,

Symbiotic stupid jerks,

That's right, Flanders,

I am talkin' about you!"

 

-Homer Simpson's re-jerked version of

REM'S "It's the End of the World as We Know It"

 

IT'S DECEMBER 21, 2012, 1:26 p.m. (Central Time) 

and the Mayans have already lost Australia, New Zealand, and most of Asia.

 

 

 

I was wondering about how that whole 12/21/12 doomsday scenario was going to pan out, anyway.  I mean, wouldn't it be kind of a tricky operation to destroy the WHOLE world during the short while that all the different time zones were within the same calendar day, anywho?

 

 

Trust the Oreo.  It's never steered us wrong before.

It's even been good to me, see?:

 

 

"Maybe what the Mayans forsaw was the end of Twinkies," said Daddy.

 

Bah.  Might as well have been an asteriod through my heart.

 

 

 

 

Faith Builds a Nursery

When things seem worrysome and uncertain,

it's good to know that someone strong and steady is looking out for you.   

 

 

From what we've experienced over the past few days, there are apparently

SO many more strong, steady Someones looking out for us than we ever could've anticipated.

Ava Leigh has a host of angels watching out for her, both in heaven and on earth. 

 

 

I sincerely do believe that angels exist in order to do the work that God intends them to do.

I also believe that the Holy Spirit moves within receptive people's hearts to accomplish what will bring Him glory. 

 

Sometimes I don't recognize these agents of heaven until after their work is done.

 

 I can look back and clearly see my shortfalls of faith He's smothered in protection and grace. 

 

God has certainly mended much more than I ever intended to break.  He's proved Himself faithful to me, even when I've refused to acknowledge His help.  Maybe it's been for the sake of others' faith that he's preserved me during those times.

 

 * ~ * ~ * ~ * 

 

I've been cool lately. Aloof. Too proudly self-sufficient.  Too captivated by my own supposed cleverness.  I'll hardly let my husband open a jar of peanut butter for me before I strain myself twisting the lid and beat it to death with the butt end of a butter knife because I'm so stubbornly convinced of my own adequacy.

 

Maybe this is a wake-up call. 

 

No spiritually mature Christian believes they are their own self-sustaining source of strength.

 

 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. 

Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

~ James 5: 16-18

 

Was Elijah the guy with the spiffy Sunday School haircut and a good citizenship award hanging on his office walls?  Likely not.

 

Was he the kid with the gold star on his Biblical behavioral checklist?  Who knows.

 

What I know of him and of other great figures of faith (like David and Moses) who were called "righteous" were the ones who were aware of humility as the foundation of their faith, even while others were calling them king or master.  They had plenty of screwups immortalized in writing for us to scrutinize, but in the end, it was their faith that ultimately set them and their families apart to be blessed.

 

It wasn't that terribly difficult things didn't happen to them. 

But incredible, history-altering things unfolded around them and because of them, too.

 

I know that my family isn't the first family to ever fear for a child's life.

I know that there are people out there who are aware of every mistake I've ever made,

and wonder why I would think I deserve God's favor in begging for the well being of our daughter.

 

They have a point.  I'm not deserving upon my own merit.  Neither one of Ava's parents are.

But that's exactly why we even dare to pray.

God's forgiveness is SO much stronger than the damage done by our shortcomings.

 

And the constant reminder of His LOVE is enough to conquer our fears.

 

 

This is why we keep adding details to her nearly overdecorated nursery.

This is why we wash her tiny clothes and hang them neatly in her closet.

This is why I collect books that I long to read to her.

 

Because we believe that God can make it possible for us to bring her home, healthy.