A new kind of dating...

So, when you're young and single, you can meet people fairly easily -- especially if you go to college, where the organizations are set up so that you can meet people with like interests and create those "lifelong friendships" everybody talks about.

Then, you get married and have children... and things change.  Suddenly, the concept of meeting people and "compatibility" is based on completely different things.  Whether someone is a good match has to do with your children--their ages, your parenting philosophies, etc.

Now, I'll admit:  I am very fortunate to have friendships that are strong and super-meaningful to me.  Aren't my best friends gorgeous?

Vanessa, Me, & Christine

Unfortunately,... they live many miles away in different directions, and we don't get to see each other as much as I'd like.  So, that leads to this - this need to meet new people, and ya know -- keep me from going insane?

Believe it or not, making new mom friends is hard.  So, when I finally had the opportunity to make a friend and plan a "Mommy Date" not very long ago, I was actually a little nervous.  There's a teacher that my husband works with who has a baby a little less than a month older than Natalie.  In mommy-speak... that means compatibility.  So, we ran into her, with her baby (Bonus! Something to start the conversation.... ding, ding, ding!) at the grocery store.  Taylor introduced us, and I said one of my probably-not-that-funny quips about Mommyhood, and she laughed.  Woo hoo! Instant camaraderie over our babies and mommy-dom.  Yes!  But, then it was back to grocery shopping.  And it hit me!  Neither of us had exchanged information and we hadn't made plans to meet.  All that charm (okay, more like nervous-babbling-because-I-really-wanted-this-new-person-to-like-me) had been for nothing.  Blech!  I disgust myself.

But, I got a second chance in the parking lot, and I pulled up my big girl panties long enough to ask her if her family of three would want to get together sometime with the three of us.  And then, I felt like the nerdy guy getting the girl's phone number.  Even worse, I'm like the nerdy guy who doesn't even know what to do with them when he does get the digits.  What do you expect?  I'd never done this before! 

Then late last week, we met a mommy with twins about Natalie's age (she told us that they were conceived through in vitro, and we had an instant connection both because of our babies ages and because of infertility), and she was so suave asking for my phone number... it made me realize that I really was like the nerdy, inexperienced guy when I had asked for that other mommy's information.  Oh, to be suave and cool like this other mommy.  Oh great - it's like high school all over again.  But then again, this time, I'm a little less self-conscious about the extra fat packed onto my rolls around the middle, and I've got an adorable baby girl who thinks all of my dorky jokes and ridiculous sound effects are hilarious.

Thankfully, looking back on my whole "Mommy Date Pick-Up" encounter just makes me laugh, and now we have a plan for our families to meet and have dinner next weekend.  I'd call it a play date with our kids to make it seem less ridiculous... but I'm pretty sure a play date for babies less than 6 months old is ridiculous.  Just sayin'.

Natalie is 4 months old now!

Confessions of a Sad Day

Uh-oh.  Now that I’ve written this post I look back and realize this is two totally serious posts back-to-back.  I’m thinking that something good has got to happen.  And soon!

Today hurt. 

That is the truth.  I went to pay my respects to a man who, in his own special way, made an impact on a lot of people.  He died on Saturday.  Suddenly.  Unexpectedly.  In a tragic accident.  

I couldn’t help but let the hurt wash over me.  I mean, that’s what you do at a funeral.  You allow yourself to hear the funny quips and the sad truths and you can cry without it being viewed as a weakness.  Two men (both of whom I have looked up to for a lot of years) cried today and seeing their tears made my own swollen cheeks damp again.

That’s the thing… I cried.  I never allow myself to cry, either.  My husband says that I build up this wall of grief and I tackle emotions by myself.  “Why won’t you let me help you?” is a question he often asks me.  The truth is that it’s easier to keep my million-mile-an-hour pace than it is to give in to my emotion when I am really upset.

It’s not just because of the funeral, because of this loss of such a wonderful human being.  That would be enough, I would think.  However, it is so much more.  I saw his children sitting at the front of the memorial.  I saw his daughter smile as she looked around and saw all the people who loved her father gathered in this place.  I was jealous of her.  In the face of this horrible tragedy, she has been blessed with her father's gloriously sunny disposition.  And I am SO not that person. 

I sat in my seat with my own beautiful, smiling daughter in my arms. And I got this horrible feeling as the memory of losing my mother as a child came to my mind.  Seven years old and I had already defined how to compose yourself when you lose a parent, and I was acting the same way all over again --  putting on a brave face and not crying because I didn’t want the world to see my vulnerability.  And that’s when I broke today.  I saw those older men, my mentors, with tears on their cheeks.  I saw this family that has now been broken by the loss of a great man, and … I lost it.  I actually cried.

Then, I allowed myself to feel the sadness and anger over the things that I have been pretending don’t bother me.  First, there is the fear of our entire unknown future as we embark on a possible new journey with our careers (especially Taylor).  He is hard at work on his principal certification, and that may mean moving again.  That total unknown scares me a lot. 

Then, there is the anger I feel toward the guy who installed our heating and air conditioning.  He came in August and did the installation, but didn’t install the furnace properly.  He said he’d be back in two weekends.  Three months later, the day after Natalie was born, he came to fix the furnace so our baby would have heat (but only after Taylor left him a message shaming him for leaving our house so that our newborn would come home without heat).When he fixed the furnace, he changed the air conditioner so that it now won’t work (and he also damaged our ceiling in two rooms).  So, he said he’d be back the very next weekend to fix what he had messed up and finish the work.  Because my husband and I were in the hospital with the brand new baby, my dad was with him finishing the work.  He clearly wasn’t done, but my dad trusted the guy, took his word that he'd be back, and paid him the remainder of what we’d agreed to pay him.   We did not trust him and were not planning to pay him until everything was completely finished.  And now I know us not trusting him was the right thing.  Here we are, Natalie is almost 3 months old, it’s getting hot (80’s today), and we don’t have a functional air conditioner.  (In case you weren't keeping track, it's been over 6 months now since he initially came to do the installation.)

It’s times like these that I question everything.  Do I have the right to be hurt?  The right to be angry?  I mean, I can’t help it but sometimes I feel so unworthy of my feelings.  Like, how can my mom’s death still hurt my heart?   It has been over 16 years.  And I pretended for so long that our miscarriages didn’t even happen.  Do I deserve to mourn them now?  Or the losses of our failed adoptions?  Or what about our little foster baby?  We know he now has a wonderful and stable home with friends of ours.  Is it wrong to look back and be sad about the day he left our home?  Am I allowed to be upset that our home is in a state of limbo when it comes to climate control?

Am I allowed to mourn the loss of this ag teacher who seems to have been taken from the earth too soon?  I don’t know.  My prayer is that God will comfort me, knowing that he is now in heaven. 

I pray that God will help me to feel better about … no actually, that leads me to realize my real prayer.  Taylor asks me why I won’t let him help me.  Why I never cry.  Why I won’t allow myself to hurt or feel.  So, my prayer is that God will help me to feel.

I am almost there.  I still feel totally unworthy of that precious baby girl I just laid in her crib to sleep.  It is my wish that my own level of self-worth will increase… because I never want her to question her own value.  She is everything.  She deserves the very best -- and that includes the very best possible version of her mother.  Lord, please hear this prayer.  I give my tears to You, and I give my fears to You.  Help me to remember that You created me, and that means that I am worthy of all that You have given me.  You created my angel baby, and she is definitely worthy of everything I can offer and more.

Today’s burial service was in the heat of the day, right at 2 pm.  I now have a sunburn (ridiculously, it is a red blotch with a fair colored outline of the huge cowhide cross necklace I was wearing now ingrained in the middle of my chest).  It’s like I have been physically branded by my hurt. 

Here’s the thing -- my swollen cheeks and puffy eyes will go down and my sunburn will fade, but the imprint left on my heart by this day will remain.  I have opened my eyes.  I see the Truth; I’m just having to take the progress one step at a time.

How do you dress an almost 3-month-old
for a funeral taking place in 80-degree heat?
Comfortably, I guess.
...And yes, that's her bath seat. 
What?  She likes it more than her bouncer. ;)

New Mommy Top-Ten List

You Know You Just Gave Birth to Your First-Born because…

#10:  Your newest (and possibly only) accessory is now a burp cloth.

#9:  You have become super skilled at multi-tasking, like breastfeeding while texting, doing dishes, or making the bed.  You are definitely the only person you know who breastfed while putting on make-up this morning. 

#8: You’re absolutely amazed that you even had the energy to put on that make-up this morning.  And were it not for the fact that you are going somewhere to see important people today, you would’ve considered it a lost cause.

#7: You’re no longer sure that a world exists outside of your baby’s room, much less your house.  And because no world exists, you realize it would be a wasted attempt to post on your blog.

#6: You suddenly find yourself driving a minivan because they’re safe and family-friendly, when all you ever wanted before was a tiny car that looked “cool” and got great gas mileage so that you could road-trip whenever you felt like it (or wait, was that just me??). 

#5: Every time you get in that minivan, you have to take so much stuff that it feels like you’re moving (even if you’re just going down the road for a couple of hours!).   Hey, you never know when the little one is going to explode out of the diaper… all over your friends’ couch.  So, you learn to take extra-extra clothes and how to apologize profusely.  (I’m so sorry, Christine and Evan… I hope she didn’t ruin your loveseat!)

#4: The best thing that has happened to you since your baby was born was fitting into a pair of non-maternity pants.  Granted, it took 7 weeks and said pants would have caused you to gag if you’d fit into them before pregnancy because they were your “fat” pants.  But now, hooray!  They don’t have to have the stretchy belly band!!

#3: You encourage watching sad movies because then at least you won’t look like a blubbering idiot when you tear up, like you suddenly do at every corny, sappy commercial.  And now, the amount of time you have to watch television and movies is actually less than the length of most commercials.

#2:  You suddenly have to have a camera phone, digital camera, video camera, and mini digital camera with you all the time because you know that the new little bundle is going to do something just phenomenally adorable… like wake up.

#1:  You know your baby is the most beautiful being on the entire planet.  And you’ve seen George Strait, Brad Pitt, Channing Tatum, and Jake Gyllenhaal… without shirts. Ha, ha!

Happy January, everyone!  Natalie is now 8 weeks old!!

"You're adorable!" ... Who, me?

So, I guess you think that's cute?  This picture of me looking utterly happy, with my baby's loving grandmothers-to-be?  You bet your happy little hiney that's cute!  And if you don't think so, then as my sister-in-law Mandy says, “Sorry 'bout your bad luck" cuz that’s the kind of mushy-gushy, love-like-there’s-no-tomorrow stuff I want to post on here.  Nothing you can do about it.  

Gotta love friends that are more like family!!

Okay, to be fair, I do understand that the blunders and complaints are probably much more interesting to read about… but, I don’t want to seem like a whiny brat (all the time, anyway) so, I guess in between the lovely of the lovely horror moments (there is one at the bottom of this post, if you were hoping for that), I’ll post some of the awesome things that happen every once in a while.  Like baby showers.  

Well, let me back up a bit and clarify some things.  Yes, I am unashamedly the most goo-goo-ga-ga, new mom-to-be that you have ever met.  But, I haven’t always been this person.  I was actually told at one point or another that I was an interesting person to be around.  I could talk about things other than babies, nap nannies (so flippin’ awesome!), and cloth diapers.  I could, really, but even when I was not obsessed with diaper champs and crib bedding, I desperately wanted my life to revolve around these things.

In fact, I was probably the opposite type of person.  I was an Ag teacher… my life revolved around stock shows, animals, trailers, students, contests, and the busiest schedule out of all the busy schedules you’ve ever seen! That might be a slight exaggeration, but I was never home, and it was all pretty much on purpose.  After having gone through so many trials with infertility, adoption, and foster care… I was tired of focusing all my energy on it.  You may think I’m horrible for giving up for a minute, but please understand:  I needed to feel like I wasn’t just a failure (failed fertility treatments, failed adoptions, failed…, failed…).  Being an FFA advisor and Ag teacher was something that I could do and be successful (I made a difference in some students’ lives, and we had some state-qualifying teams, too!)  I selfishly gave myself to it.  And even though it was one of the hardest years of my life, it was SO worth it! 

But, once we settled in our new positions and home, we went back to the fertility specialist.  We didn’t expect much, honestly.  It was too hard to get our hopes up again.  But, after vigorous treatment options (which they said had failed, but surprise!), we were pregnant.  

Sonogram picture they gave me at the fertility ultrasound. 
I was being checked for mature eggs - Surprise!!

 

It was like a light-switch went off.  I was a mother already, needing to do anything I could to make sure that I didn’t screw up this little life that we had worked so hard to create!  My husband, Taylor, immediately wanted me to consider being a stay-at-home mom.  Not that working and being a mom is impossible… or even that being an Ag teacher and a mom is impossible… but it wouldn’t be easy.  My loving husband told me that we deserved to be able to give our baby the best possible start we could.  Just reminding me of how hard we worked to get here.  (I remember thinking, has it really been three years??)

So, I immediately turned in my resignation.  And we made plans to move closer to family for support.  This meant that we were starting over.  New job for Taylor, living in a new community, with a new church family, and now hours from the life we had been putting together.  I honestly didn’t think we would have a baby shower at all.  It’s just a side effect of moving around – people can’t keep up with you!

That brings me back to my post of awesome things that happen.  Because then, we had some great friends start planning showers, and some amazing ladies at our new church asked if they could throw us one, too.  So, we went from no baby shower… to having three of them!  The one at the church ended up being our main one with the majority of our family and lots of new people who are just as excited to meet our baby as if they were family – and they are.  Can’t wait to introduce our baby to the family, including the church family!  The other two showers were amazing, too.  They included people that we hadn’t seen in so long and people who mean the world to us whom we may not have seen if they had been asked to drive to our new town for the church shower.  We have truly been blessed, and there really isn’t much left that we need (or even want) for our little angel!  A huge thank you to everyone… but especially those who remember me as a human, and not just an ushy-gushy mom, who apparently is the type of person who claps for a nap nanny (that’s right, I did that… And I’m only slightly ashamed :) ).

An older sonogram picture, just for good measure...
Well, she's making a much happier face than she did yesterday. 
It wasn't good enough to get a copy of the picture to
share with you, but I saw her little grimace - poor baby!

 

Okay, so now that I’ve completely bored you with how awesome things are, I’ll give you a little tidbit of misery to cling to until my next post.  My baby will be here sometime within the next 10 days now.  You’d think I’d be excited, and I am… except for one tiny detail.  I can see my breath... INSIDE!  We hired someone to install central heat and air in our house back in August.  We never messed with the furnace before now because it has been HOT (yay, pregnancy).  But now it’s cold enough to need heat… and the thing isn’t hooked up right!  And, to make matters even lovelier, we are getting no response from the install guy.  After calling him and leaving tons of unanswered messages, Taylor left a message last night shaming him for leaving his wife and soon-to-be newborn baby in the cold because he didn’t finish his job.  We’ll see if we get a response.  And while I’m thankful for the roof over our head, I am simply dreading this baby being ready to come home before we get the heat situation under control.  Yay -- “Mommy of the Year,” here I come.  My parents have offered to let us borrow a stand-alone heater, which we are picking up this evening.  That doesn’t fix my furnace, though, does it??  Cheers for people who don’t keep their word or follow through on their work.  :(

Norvells Plus One... Almost

I’ve had so many friends who’ve said I need to start a blog. I guess this is my attempt…

So, for my title. Well, we are a work in progress. In more than a million ways, but who has time for a million? So, here are those I’ll list –working toward a better relationship with God, working toward a family, working toward a bit of sanity in this crazy world. And now for my random rantings…

Well, right now I'm consumed with one big change that is happening in our family - our baby! I’ve decided that the worst (and most absolutely overwhelming) symptom of pregnancy is not in the books. It’s not the incapacitating nausea, the double-you-over back pain, or the fire-breathing dragon heartburn… it’s IMPATIENCE. And I have so got a bad case of the pregnant-and-impatient blues.

I realized yesterday that I had known about my pregnancy for seven months, and I had another symptom of pregnancy – emotional overload. I got all mushy and wrote a sweet note to the baby, which I proceeded to post as my status update on Facebook, thereby bringing tears to many of my friends and family’s eyes. Well, at least my pregnancy isn’t just making me emotional. I’m surrounded by tons of other people who cry at the drop of an emotional symbol in MY pregnancy. HA!

Anyway, I guess I say all that to say that I am very excited about the baby – this baby girl, this life that my husband and I were able to create. *Side note: if you’ve met us, you’ll understand just how scary the thought of a combination of my husband and I may be – dear God, please make her smart! If not, I fear she doesn’t stand a chance!* So, yeah… on the one hand, excited… on the other hand – scared out of my mind! Another of what I think is a “normal” sign of the end of pregnancy – fear. I’m scared for her to come early and be born with some form of brain deformity (in case you didn’t catch my point earlier, this kid needs as much opportunity brain-wise as possible – with my husband and I’s genes, I’m not thinking Miss America is in the cards… just saying, but of course don’t ask me once she gets here, I’m sure my rose-colored glasses will be awesome).

To top off all of the normal emotions, I’ve also been in pre-term labor for over a MONTH now. That’s right – I first went into labor on Oct 6^th, and I still don’t have a baby. So, some part of me (no matter how small), really is getting anxious to have a kid already. Not really looking forward to looking like I’m pregnant without a baby in my belly, or to having to be up at all hours of the night, or to having the lovely extra expenses that are going to add up (oh, by the way our expense statement says we’ve already spent twice the amount this month than we spent last month… that includes hospital deductibles paid in advance, but still!)… no, not looking forward to any of that. But, I can’t wait to hold an adorable little baby girl in my arms. And this time, I’ll know that it won’t matter if we move, it won’t matter if we have a perfect temperature reading in our refrigerator, or the excessive number of smoke alarms strategically placed throughout the house that have to meet somebody's approval for adoption. No, it won’t matter – she’ll be all ours. And nothing will ever change that.