March and April short entries

03/06/2017:

I'm over half way through this pregnancy.  I still cry every day.  I cry myself to sleep most nights.  Not every night.  I try so hard not to cry and I hate my emotions right now.  My feelings and voices in my head lie to me all the time.  Making sense of just those two things is like swimming through honey. 

Happy things:

I'm still running, barely...but it's a run-ish.  Avg about 13:30 m/m but can maintain for 5-6 miles depending on the day.  I've been running about 15 miles a week, give or take.  That has been good for my spirit. 

I have been doing yoga.  Not very consistently.  The prenatal yoga has been frustrating as it causes me to face reality of childbirth since the lady is constantly talking about it. 

My children are happy and somehow in spite of me, thriving and doing well in school, sports and life. They are excited to have a new sibling.  I suppose I'm doing a good job of hiding my lack thereof. 

Unhappy things:

I feel like Jon and I are on two islands each struggling with our own adjustment, neither of us supporting the other one, rather simply trying to survive. 

I am struggling to get to a place of some kind of peace or calm. 


04/19/2017:
My OB doc told me about a new thing they are offering for patients in labor, nitrous oxide.  It's been offered for pain in the UK and Europe for many years now but just now making it's way to Boise.  I am starting my third trimester and so I'm trying to seriously think about how I will cope with labor again. I watched a YouTube video of a birth with an epidural.  It was so calm and no biggie.  It still doesn't convince me that I want that level of intervention.  However, trying to view just two videos of L&D with the laughing gas triggered some really crazy physiological responses.  Lots of uncontrollable crying, my heart is skipping beats, feeling like I cannot breathe and actually wheezing, feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack.  I am panicking.  This is yet three months away.  What in the world is wrong with me?  This is supposed to be a happy thing and I should be way further down the road than this. 


I have had a couple weeks now of less crying and more focused thinking.  I really thought I was making progress until I tried to watch a video.  I don't know. 


The pastor at church says that the things you cannot control are the places where God gets to show up.  I'm trying desperately to believe this.  If God really has a peace that passes all understanding, then I sure hope somehow He will extend it to me. 

Mile 99

I can smell the barn.  I am visualizing very clearly now, the FINISH.  My due date is tomorrow but for some reason I had this very day in my mind as the day I would have a babe.  Mostly because of the number line it would create.  Joy was born on the 13th, Halle on the 14th, Dawson on the 15th and Dante on the 16th...doesn't it seem like this babe should be born on the 17th?  Seems entirely reasonable.  Plus this would be the ONLY babe to come before the due date.  EVERY CHILD HAS BEEN OVER DUE, but who's counting anyway.


Something happened over the weekend.  We went to the mountains on Sat (7/15) and helped one of my best friends run an aid station for a local trail race/ultra.  Those mountains hold magical times for me.  My best childhood memories are there.  My happiest days of life exist in those mountains, even at the very spot where the AS was.  It's rejuvenating.  It reminds me where I came from and who I am.  I came home Sat night with a new perspective.  I am strong and stronger than I think, stronger than I feel.  I remember that from running ultras.  I was reminded that one race, one experience does not at all dictate the next. 


No matter what happens, I will keep choosing faith. I will finish this race and at the end, my buckle is my babe.  Not something I will wear but a CHILD I am blessed to nurture, love and teach for the rest of my life.  I don't know how I got so lucky...how ironic to say that vs what I was saying back in November.  WOW!