Baby Blogging

It has been a long time since I last blogged. And in that time we have had a lot of changes. Tim started working at GRCHS this fall as the Applied Business teacher; we went on a long vacation out west for backpacking, mountain biking, and mountain climbing; went on a mission trip to Costa Rica; and the biggest change of all: we're pregnant! Okay, I'm pregnant, but Tim is along for the ride and has to suffer my random cravings, morning sickness, back pain, pregnancy hormones, crazy moods, etc. I was asked by a few friends to start blogging again so that they can keep up with the pregnancy and our ever changing lives, so here it goes.

Baby Westrate-Stapert at 11 weeks 2 days

Currently I am 11 weeks and 5 days pregnant according to the doctor. However, my pregnancy tickers keep telling me that 11 weeks and 3 days even though they both have the same due date: April 4, 2012. It's a little confusing, but I'll go with the doctor. So let me catch you up on the past few months: morning sickness but no throwing up, gagging, insomnia, food sucked, severe fatigue, growing pains, pregnancy brain, early back pain and back muscle spasms, and a whole lot of worry.  Obviously worry was a big part of this pregnancy early on considering the previous miscarry. Though Tim and I were very excited and decided to tell family and work early on so that we could have support just in case, we both worried a lot. I avoided anything that could even possibly hurt the baby and prayed constantly for the health and life of this baby. Now that we are coming up on 3 months along, and almost to the 2nd trimester, I'm feeling less worried. My first appointment with the doctor was this week and she tried to use the doppler to hear the baby's heartbeat. After a few tries she couldn't find it. They rushed me into the ultrasound room and found that my uterus is tipped, which is why they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat, but the baby is healthy and fine. In fact, the baby was moving so much that the tech couldn't measure the heart rate. She called the baby a runner - like daddy :) It was so amazing to see the baby move that way. It made something that almost seemed to be in my imagination, real. Our baby is real - and ALIVE! I love this baby, I love the baby's daddy, and I'm so excited (and nervous) to bring this baby into our lives forever.

10 weeks 5 days pregnant

Some things we could use prayer for:

• My tipped uterus seems to be causing a lot of back pain and stress on my ligaments and of course there is the worry of possible miscarriage with a tipped uterus (though that's rare, and the doctor doesn't seem worried about this). Because of this there is worry about back labor, especially with the amount of lower back pain that I've been having.
• Lack of weight gain - Okay, I'm not against not gaining a lot of weight, so it's more like I need prayer that I can start eating again - and enjoying the food. The baby needs me to eat 300 more calories than I used to but it seems that I'm eating significantly less than before. Also, I forget to eat, always have, and that causes me some worry on making certain that the baby is getting all the nutrients (s)he needs.
• That we make the right choices for our baby. From choosing equipment based on safety or cost, to things like which vaccinations to get and which ones to avoid. There seems to be two sides of these things, especially with regards to equipment, and Tim and I seem to be on opposite sides. I'm more of a mind that I'd rather air on the side of safety, Tim prefers to air on the side of cost toting the line that most of the safety regulations are new and probability of safety. I see his point, and mostly agree, but I tend to have anxiety issues and have difficulty sleeping because of anxiety over things like this.
• Motivation - something that seems to come with pregnancy with me is a sudden lack of motivation. Pray that I get the things done that I need to both at work and at home, and that I re-find motivation to do those things.
• Non-pregnancy things include Tim's job (that it continues to go well and he continues to find his routine as a teacher), and my job (that I keep doing things the way God wants me to rather than what is easiest for me).

Lately I've been feeling down about our house. I hate that it's not clean and organized. I hate that the dishes sit in the sink. I hate the clutter on the counters and on the tables. It's weird because I used to be very clean and well organized. When we lived in Chicago, the apartment(s) was almost always neat, the dishes were done almost immediately, the floor was vacuumed at least once every two weeks. I also cooked - a lot - and had time and energy for my garden which produced way too much food for two people. Now, however, I can barely keep up with keeping the counters and the tables clear of clutter. Vacuuming is mostly reserved for when we have people coming over whom we don't necessarily view as family, or who have allergies to our cats. Our dishes are almost always piled up in the sink, and it keeps getting worse from there. (the toilets and tubs are usually clean though - I'm still somewhat obsessive about that). My mom and brothers wonder what changed. We joke a lot and say it's just me conforming to Tim's way of life, but mostly that's just in fun. Even when I have the time, I don't have the energy to clean or do yard work, or even play in my garden. Even when I'm not busy at work and am having a slow week (like last week), I'm often emotionally exhausted and don't feel like doing it. Often my job takes up 6 days a week to do activities, too often it takes up 7. I LOVE my job, and don't want to give it up anytime soon, but it wears me down. Because Tim doesn't care that much, I've just started shrugging my shoulders and leave it alone. I think if I could get some help with it, I would do it more. I've always like cleaning, it gives you such a sense of accomplishment, but I don't have the energy to do it all on my own anymore. I've even joked that I need a wife just to do the housework. Maybe now that Tim has that job at GRCHS we could hire someone to come in once a month or so to do a little something just to ease my stress.

Dreams

I must confess how terrible I've been in regards to my writing, both on this blog as well as outside of it. I haven't written a thing lately. I either don't have the time, don't think to write, or decide to fill up my free time with things like reading on my kindle or watching shows on hulu. I'm starting to understand why many churches give their pastors and their other pastoral staff sabbaticals. I could use one right about now. Not because I need the rest or because I need a break from my job, no, I need a sabbatical so that I can do some of the other things I want to do but don't have the time or the diligence to do them while working a full time and a part time job as well as being a wife, a daughter, a friend, and a woman. Lately the time I have in which I can be myself, I fill with reading instead of writing. I know I'm putting it off, and I even know why I'm putting it off, and the reason and the fact that I'm allowing myself to do that bugs me... and yet I don't change it. As Flannery O'Connor says "I don't know what I think until I read what I write." I suppose lately I have no idea what I think. Maybe I just don't want to know what I think.

I told the youth group kids to answer these questions for themselves: What do you dream? What do you value? What do you live for? These are my answers:

I dream about becoming a mother, and yet the thought scares me a little. Frankly, I'm a lazy person. I don't want to do cloth diapers because then I'd have to do laundry just for the diapers at least 2 times a week. No thanks. I want to send my kids off to a licensed day care so that I don't have to deal with them every minute of every day. Is that awful? Is that selfish? All I know is that I need time to myself frequently. Of course there are other reasons I want my children to go to day care early in life as well, but still. I also dream about writing, not just journaling or an occasional article, no I want to WRITE. I want to be an author. I want to write books that people love to read. I just don't know WHAT I want to write. Fiction? Fairytales? Christian inspiration, either fiction or non-fiction? Books for other youth pastors or books geared toward youth? I have no idea. I guess that is one of the reasons I'm struggling with writing. I don't know what I want to write, so I just don't write. Of course, I'm also afraid nothing I write will be good enough to publish. I'm not very good at self-critique.

I value family. I don't value friends as much, probably because to me my best friends become family. I value time to myself, just being on my own. I value my relationship with God, but it's purely selfish and really only grows when I'm in need of something. I value my relationship with Tim and I value Tim himself. I worry sometimes that I don't value those things as much as I should. I also value being dependent. That's not something most people value, but I like it. I like not knowing everything about everything. I like being able to just say "here, Tim, you do it". As much as I like being in control at work, I value being able to let Tim have control at home. I'd rather not have it. It's a weird thing to value, but I do value my dependency on others.

What do I live for? Sunday school answer? Jesus. Real answer? Yes, Jesus is definitely in there, but I also live for my family (which includes my closest friends), and the youth I work with. Maybe I'm lazy because I find myself living for others, and when it comes to myself, meh... who cares? I don't know.

On a totally different topic:

I would like to help coach the soccer team at Belding, but there are some obstacles in my way. The first one is, what if I need to leave for a game earlier than I get out of watching Abby? I can't take her on a bus. Soccer is volunteer, watching Abby is a paid position. Also, I really enjoy watching her. Practices shouldn't get in the way since the coach doesn't start them until after 5pm, but that might get in the way of having time with Tim since his practices for track will go until 5. Also, I don't see myself as being a very good assistant coach to anyone, especially a non-vocal coach whose purpose in coaching is more to further his daughter than to win. I don't know that I will like the way he runs practices, the drills he does, or his lack of expectations for the players. I would have an incredibly difficult time working under someone with little to no leadership skills. And yet, I long to do it and would love nothing more than to be able to coach... I'm just not sure I'd want to assistant coach.

Maybe I just want to do too much, or at least, do too much right now.

A New Project

While my sister was in town for Christmas I decided to start something I've been thinking about for a while now. I've been tossing around the idea of writing a journal full of stories, adventures, and thoughts from our lives for our future children and grandchildren to read someday. Some of these stories might be fiction (think mini-bears), but most of them will be from our childhood and early years of marriage. I want our kids to know what we were like before they came along, and I want them to know what marriage is like when it's young so that their marriages are more likely to be sustainable with realistic expectations. I have yet to start writing this, but I found a nice journal to do it in, and I think I'm ready to start it. I hope Tim feels comfortable enough to write in a story or more of his (Honduran spring break, florida sans shoes, other great tales from his early life). I'd like them to know our faith walk through this notebook. To know the real us. The us that isn't perfect or all-knowing. The part of us that is nothing if not human, rife with human error. I want them to know that God is with them by seeing how He has been with us. I also want them to know that they're not just loved, but also wanted.

Zombie Days

Yesterday was a good day. I got a lot done in the house, nothing bad happened, it was good. Today I feel like a zombie. I can't think straight, I can't remember the things I'm supposed to do, simple tasks take a ton of thought and processing. I don't know why. I'm able to write, though the number of typos I have to correct is crazy, and writing is the only way I'm able to process anything today. I went on facebook this afternoon in one of those "what am I doing" moments, and found that my sister-in-law sent me a message about having babies. It was a satirical post someone else had made on facebook about the lessons you should learn and the steps you should take before becoming a parent. (I enjoyed the part that said to take a grown goat to the grocery store with you, likening it to a small, preschool aged child.) It was funny, and I'm sure she meant it only as a joke, but part of me was like "huh... thoughtless". If things worked out differently, I'd have a child right now. I then hit the 'home' link and was going to go back to work when I saw a new picture of one of my old roommates from college and her husband. I clicked on it and the caption said "Parents to be!" Ugh. I mean, great for them, but really? Some days it just comes back to me and bites me in the butt.

I guess I should go back to staring at the things I should be doing for work, but being unable to figure them out. *sigh* I'm a loser.