GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS : Be Careful what you wish for…….

Today I am grateful for the health of   my children.

Our 2 year old daughter is so active  and we are hardly able to keep up with her. She seldom gets sick (one of the benefits of being on breast  milk for so long), and recently, I found myself wishing that she could pick up a bug, not anything too serious, just a little something to slow her down a bit.

Well, she got sick, and ha s been sick for the past week. Did we get any break? From having to keep vigil over a bad fever that at times did not seem to be responding to the conventional fever reducers and waking up odd hours at nights to administer her prescription drugs, we did not get a break. She was not eating and so she took this out on me ,as breastfeeding became her only source of food and probably what kept her alive, because she was not drinking either and would have been extremely dehydrated.

We also found that what she was diagnosed with initially, tonsillitis, was really not what the problem was, and so we found ourselves treating another problem. It broke my heart to see her so sick and had to rebuke myself for wishing illness on her. She is much better now, thank God, almost back to her normal self and as for me, so tired from this intense week but happy to see her smile and play again and vow to be careful what I wish for, next time I become tempted.

Even as I cuddle my daughter’s fever ridden body in my arms, I am comforted   knowing that she will get better. Some parents find themselves not being so fortunate at all, as they are told that their sick child will never get better and have just a matter of time to be with them. The parents of my son’s classmate who passed recently, I am sure got to the point where they knew their son would not be around for much longer. I just cannot even imagine that grief.

I am indeed grateful for the health of my children. 

INFERTILITY FACTS NEWS AND VEIWS – 10 reasons for wanting another child

The other day I was checking my blog traffic feed as I often do, to see the traffic on my blog and what people are reading, I came across this post that I did some time ago entitled, “10 reasons for wanting another child.”  I found it quite interesting and just thought that it would be a good idea to refer to that post on days when I feel physically inadequate to deal with my two energizer bunnies, just to make sure that I was not out of my mind when we decided to have another child.

Our son is involved in extra-curricular activities at school and that I am indeed grateful for, because this means that I just have my daughter for some days. On a day like today, though, I felt totally inadequate caring for just her. Even though the ratio was even, I was no match for her and many times had to resort to locking us both in our bedroom just to save on my energy.

My husband’s parents on many occasions would just take one look at our children and say, "that is exactly how their father was, busy, busy". Today I asked my father-in-law again, did you say my husband was quite busy as a child, just to confirm that my gene is not at play here. He responded, “oh yes.”

 As for me, my parents said I was an easy baby. All I needed was to be placed in my crib with my pillow and all was well with the world. She said I did not even cry when I was hungry, she just knew based on my meal timing.

So, here goes, read for yourselves, 10 reasons for wanting another child:-

http://onereachinganother.blogspot.com/2012/05/ten-reasons-for-wanting-another-child.html

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GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS – Feature 31 – It’s a matter of perspective

In these turbulent financial times, We are one of the few families who can have a parent staying home with the children, until they are ready for school. 

We did not start out with this being the plan, because when our son was 8 months old, I went out to work, only to have him get sick at the nursery a couple days after and because I had to take time off to tend to him, I lost the job. This made us decide that I would stay home with him until he was school age. Our daughter came and because of this past experience, we chose to make the same decision.

So how can you afford to do this, when times are so hard? you may be eager to ask. That is a fair question I might add, so here is the answer -We are able to do this, not because my husband makes a lot of money, but because with a lot of practice we have now grasped very well, how to live on a budget and further, we owe a lot of gratitude to my in-laws as they unselfishly decided to give of themselves, to have us stay with them since our return back home, until we decide on our next move, which should be soon. I must add that this has its challenges too, because we all love our own space to be ourselves, instead of always wondering if the people you are with are tired of you yet. Thank goodness, if our in-laws even feel this way, they have never made us aware, and the trade off for them is that they have their grandchildren around them at all times. I know saying goodbye when the time comes will be very hard.

Another psychological issue associated with the decision to be a stay at home parent, is guilt. I do suffer much guilt at times, especially when the finances decide that they will not be subjected to severe stretching and bending to be adequate. Thank goodness I have found a very effective way of dealing with this - I put things into perspective – as a result of my staying home with the children, I am able to save my family nursery fee for the baby, after school care fees for our son, doctor fees, because babies do get sick a lot when they are in nurseries and not to mention the cost associated with me going out to work – clothes, lunch etc. When I do the math, this is greater than or equal to a salary that I would take home. I must admit that I do get very tired at times and wish I was out working, just to get a break, but I am soon thrust back into the reality of this perspective.

I therefore no longer suffer any guilt from being a stay at home parent, instead I am grateful everyday that I have the opportunity of spending such quality time with my children, something a lot of parents with young children wished they could do and now look forward with great anticipation to what I will do, when our daughter goes off to school next year.  

GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS – Feature 18 – “You raise me up.”

Many nights I wake up at about 2:30 am and find that I cannot go back to sleep. Since the birth of our daughter it is as if my body feels that 4 to 5 hours of sleep is adequate. Anyway, one such night last week, after not being able to go back to sleep, I began scanning the television channels to see if there was anything worth watching at that time of the night. I stumbled across a talk show where they were featuring backup singers. What came out of this program was that these people, do desire to be in the limelight but they do not have the courage to and so it is those who possess this courage, are the ones in the spotlight. These individuals are then forced to just be the support while those who they assist shine. They featured about three sets of backup singers who support a lot of big name artistes. Towards the end of the show the host gave them their time in the spotlight and they were so good, you wonder why they do not have their own recording contracts.

So it is in our daily lives, there are persons whose shoulders we stand on, who allow us to be all that we can be. They, in their small corner, make it their duty to do everything to ensure that we shine. The rank and file workers in an organization who keep the organization operating at its best, those friends who are always there to encourage us, to push us along. The spouses who strive to bring out the best in each other, the teachers who want to see every student in their class do well, the parents who deny themselves just to ensure that their children have the best opportunities so that they can at least live a little better life than they did.

What I find with me is that I am at my best when I am working in the background. I will be honest and say that I do wish at times that I could be in the spotlight and have tried on occasions but find that I do not operate at my best there and so I have to be satisfied with others standing on my shoulders to be the best that they can be. You might say I am cheating myself, but I do see their success as mine too and that is adequate for me.

I would like therefore to use this space today to offer my gratitude and to honour all the unsung heroes around us. Just know that the spotlight would be overcrowded if all of us were jostling for a spot there.

OUR STORY…….STILL TOUCHING LIVES

On occasions lately, when I am contemplating what to post to my blog, in the back of my mind I am wondering, if people have had enough of our infertility story. Yes, we triumphed against all odds to become parents, albeit after the better part of a decade, but I am pretty sure we are not the only ones. Then I am reminded that our story is still quite amazing and still relevant….

Recently my sister-in-law emailed me from abroad, asking me permission to use information from my blog in a talk she was doing at her Church on Mothers’ Day. I was delighted, and I quickly responded, of course, I would be deeply honored.

Just last week a friend of ours came by. My husband is doing some work for his wife and so, while they were involved in a meeting, our friend and I began catching up, because we had not seen each other in a little while. Where is my daughter? he asked. I told him she was asleep. Immediately a big smile appeared on his face and then he said, “you now have your pair, I just can’t believe it, I think about you guys every day.” I was so taken by this. Isn’t it nice to know that you are in some one’s thoughts every day, especially knowing that this is because of something positive, your triumph in life.

Yesterday at Church, I was holding our daughter when a young lady and I began talking. As a result of the conversation we were having, I began telling her that every time my father sees our daughter, he would remark that my husband and I have brought back his mother to life, because she reminds him so much of his own mother. She said she has had the same experience with her daughter as well. I then said to her that one of the reasons that I fought so hard to have children of my own, was because I really wanted to see how they would look, and who they would look like. I then went on to say to her that there is a lady, now deceased, who would say to me from time to time, “I really want to see what your children would look like and this would motivate me even more to continue my infertility fight. You could see how delighted she was to hear this and then she quickly remarked. “God is truly awesome, I use your story from time to time in practice. (she is a OBGYN).

I came home from Church yesterday thinking, I do have a post for my blog tomorrow and while muddling over how I would formulate this post, one thing kept jumping out at me. Our story is big, bigger than us,  and the sooner we realize this, the better we are able to grasp the depth and width it reaches and the fact that it will forever be relevant. 

Last week in my 'Grateful Wednesday; post, I wrote that each of us have a unique life journey and things that happens to us in our lives are for the most part divinely ordered, according to this journey. Our infertility struggle, I know was divinely ordered and so we would not have had it any other way. God gave us this cross on our journey so that he could be glorified.

As added bonus, last evening while having dinner, our son remarked, “I love my family, I love my daddy, I love my mommy and I love my sister. He then got up and hugged each of us. My heart was full. My husband looked over at me with a smile and said, post for your blog, I said, of course. How could I not find a way to include this in my post today.

GOD IS TRULY AMAZING. 

GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS – Feature 16 - Divinely Ordered

Today I am grateful for Divine Order.

I believe that the way each of us life unfolds, is to a great degree, a result of Divine Order. Each of us have our unique life journey and sometimes this life journey takes us away from our friends and family for extended periods of time.

Recently our Church held their annual convention and for the past 6 years I was not in attendance because my husband and I was living abroad for 5 of those years and for the one year since we had been back home,  our daughter was an infant. I made special effort then to attend this recent one.

My heart was warmed and my spirit refreshed to see faces I had not seen in years. I remember saying to one of those individuals, that I dreamed about her recently, (It is often said that when your mind runs on someone or you dream about them, you are to say a prayer for them). It was therefore quite in order that she asked me if I said a prayer for her. I hesitated to answer because I did not pray for her specifically, usually in my prayers I pray generally, if there is nothing specific, for my friends and loved ones, and that in my view should be adequate.

I am grateful then for how life unfolds, so that we can get a lift in our hearts and spirits from time to time, because God knows, we sure need it. 

WHY AM I AN ONLY CHILD??????

We had more or less settled on the idea that we would not be trying to have anymore children, when we unexpectedly became pregnant. Our son was about 20 months old and my husband and I, after the initial shock had worn of, began embracing the idea of having another child around. We lost the pregnancy almost as soon as we found out we were expecting, to a missed abortion.

We continued however, to embrace the idea of having another child and took our doctors advice seriously, to change my diet, because my PCOS condition, which seemed to have intensified after the birth of my son, was the cause of us losing this pregnancy. I took the liberty of going on some fertility herbs, not by any means forgetting that it was as a result of a course of treatment from a herbalist that we were  proud parents of our son.

After being on this course of treatment for a while, we began trying to conceive. I could not shake the feeling though that maybe, God just had one child in his plan for us and even more so, many times throughout my infertility struggles, I had prayed that he just be merciful to us and give us, if only just one.

When we failed to become pregnant for while, I became even more convinced that we would only be parents of just one child. We sold all the baby gear we had purchased for our son, not only for this reason, but because we were moving from a house to an apartment and we needed the space in his room to set up for his growing years. I remember the lady who purchased his crib said to me, so you are not planning on having any more? A question I struggled to answer, but still convinced we were doing the right thing.

After we settled into our new space, I became overcome with guilt. What right do we have to deny our son the chance of having a sibling? What right to we have to think we know the mind of God? What if he is not yet finished with us, but just want our testimony to be fuller and richer.  The yearning for another child intensified and I had no choice but to give in.

Just last night, we were in the supermarket where we met a young man and woman  (not sure if they were a married couple) and a sweet 10 month old baby girl. We began chit chatting about everything from the age of our babies, to weaning. My husband, in trying to make a point, said to them, if another one comes…….The young lady responded immediately “if…..no if.’’ Thinking that she was probably saying, no if, we definitely want more, I decided to help her along and said, “not if, but when.” She looked at me with a smile on her face that seems to be saying, we are pretty sure, then quickly pointed to the young man and said, “we spoke about it and we have decided on no more.

When we got home, remembering my struggle in this regard, said to my husband. What is with this couple? Unless it is for monetary or health reasons (for us, we had both these reasons to contend with), what other right do they have to deny their daughter the chance of having a sibling. Let’s say that it is because she was traumatized by child birth (I know of one such case). From experience, Child-birth pain and trauma pales as your body heals and so, for me,  this is hardly an accepted excuse.

In my view, I believe any child with siblings around, makes them more rounded, with fuller lives, thus making them better placed adults and we have little right to deny them that.

What are your views?

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I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU!!!!!!!!

It has been over three months since I have posted anything new on my site.

This is due to the fact that my husband has been working out full time since then and my time is totally consumed with parenting for two, which leaves me no time really to write on my blog or my books for that matter.

Even as I am writing this note, my daughter who is now an active toddler, and naps just once a day for about a hour and a half, plugged out the computer twice before I could save anything and now has her sights set on the internet connection.

This note is therefore to promise you all that I am planning to return to active blogging soon, as I really miss it a lot, so bare with me.

My blog has a lot of earlier posts with helpful infertility resources though, for your continued indulgence, so please do not stop visiting.

I appreciate all of you who continue to visit my site and leave your kind comments. Those who write for answers to specific questions, please know that even if I do not respond right away, I am fully committed to always respond.

Happy reading, everyone!!!!!

GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS……..

When I was at the darkest and most difficult time in my infertility struggles, I was invited by a friend to a prayer retreat. She knew of my struggles and wanted me to be a part of this retreat and so I went, not wanting to pass on any chance for my prayers for children to be answered. I went, knowing I had to put all or nothing on the table and this relates particularly to speaking my shame in front of everyone and being broken and expectant before God.

All of us that went came to meet God on another level as it relates to answers to deep groanings of our heart.

The other day, after many years, I saw one of the young ladies who were at the retreat. I was holding my daughter and she was so excited to see me. I also told her that we have a son and she wanted to meet him immediately. We began talking about the retreat and she went on to tell me that she too had received her answers from God. She wanted to be in a healthy marriage and also wanted a business opportunity that would give her a sense of self sufficiency. She testified to me that she got her answers.

The conversation then went on to us talking about being mindful of how God works as it relates to him  answering our prayers and most importantly, how we prepare and align ourselves to receive these answers, knowing fully well, that he does answer  prayers in his own time. The thing is, and I do believe this wholeheartedly, that if he does not think that we are ready to receive these answers, then we can pray until we are blue in the face, none will be forthcoming.

As we continue to seek God for answers to our prayers, let us be reminded of this and be encouraged.

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OUR STORY....... Touching Lives.........

..............

When one of my Pastors told me some time ago, that my struggles will one day help others, I did believe him, but I had no idea to what degree.

I wrote in a post recently, how a friend, in a telephone conversation acknowledged us for a fight well fought. She was speaking about our Infertility struggles and how we came out of it with two beautiful children.

I am happy to report that the acknowledgements continue to come in. The other day my husband ran into a former teacher of his, and when the conversation turned to his family life, he mentioned that he had great struggles to have children, but after approximately a decade long of struggling, he now has two. His former teacher was so taken by this and remarked how incredible it was that we held out hope for so long, as he knows of cases where people have simply given up after struggling for a much shorter time. He then asked of my husband, “Can I use your story?.”

On another recent occasion, a Church sister asked my permission to hold our daughter, shortly afterwards, I heard her said, You and your husband’s story is a testament to the fact that where there is faith, God  keeps his promise. I was at a lost for words and was deeply moved. I did write in the first post of my ‘Grateful Wednesday’ segment that I am grateful for my infertility struggles and this is one of the many reasons.

Let me not hesitate then, to use this opportunity to encourage those of you who are facing challenges in your lives. Though you are probably not at the point where you can see the good in your situations (Yes, I can attest to the fact that there is, most times, some good in your struggles), just hang in there and remain expectant because sooner or later, it will be revealed to you. In the mean time though, ask yourself, what is this struggle teaching me and in what way will this knowledge make me a better person to the point where I can even use it to help others.

BE ENCOURAGED, THEREFORE.





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........AND OFF I GO.......

Well, the time is here. I will be heading to the hospital later today to have our daughter via c-section 7:am tomorrow, Thursday the 17^th of November. I can't wait to meet her.

I am a bag of emotions right now, excitement, anxiety, etc. I have every confidence though, that God will see me through to the end, because he did promise, that once he begins a good work in you, he will be faithful to complete it and I have absolutely no reason to think otherwise.

Anyone who have sent a kind comment, some encouragement, sent up a prayer on our behalf, or extended more physical acts of kindness, my family and I thank you so much . You have sure made this experience all the more rewarding.

We will sure have a lot to talk about when next I post.  

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HONOUR FOR CAYLEE

I guess by now, most of us have invested in this ongoing trial involving a mother, Casey Anthony who was being tried for the murder of her daughter, Caylee, who went missing and was later found dead, in the summer, about three years ago.

I must say, I was one of those who was somewhat upset when she was found innocent of murder, two days ago and only felt better after hearing her Prosecutor said, “If you are going to understand the legal system any at all, you must understand also, that sometimes, things just won’t go to the way you expect them to.” Also, the evidences could not lead to a murder conviction.

As I watch bits and pieces of this trial over the past weeks, I could not help my anger. Everyone was so busy trying to clear themselves of being connected in any way to this tragic death, lying if they have to, and all this time, I could not believe the different stories that came about. Why was no one thinking about Caylee. Of all the persons who gave testimonies, family and otherwise, someone must know something about this innocent child’s death, whether it be accident or otherwise. Why then is no one moved to honour this child’s memory by being direct and truthful about what really happened. She deserves closure and deserves to rest in peace.

I have heard that her mother was nineteen years old when she was born and the pregnancy was unwanted, but after watching footage of mother and daughter enjoying playtime, everyone can conclude that she seems wanted and loved. Why then would her mother wait a month before reporting her missing. If my child was missing, I would probably report it even before the required time had elapsed (48 hours as I understand it). Most of all though, why would she lie to the authorities when being questioned, when she is a mother and is expected to love and most of all be the protector of any child entrusted to her?

I was further upset when I see all the hugs and congratulations that Casey received after being proven innocent. I don’t know that I would want to be congratulated like that if I was in her position, because, in my opinion, no one should feel like a winner here, Caylee is still dead and it seem we are still nowhere closer in knowing how she died and her mother lied to the authorities to protect herself.

I understand that there are a lot outraged people out there because of the outcome of this trial and I can very much see why. Barring the part the legal system played, there are a lot odd outcome from this trial. Caylee was two when she died and I remember being so protective of my son at that age. Why were those who should have been protecting her seemingly not around  to protect her from her demise, when she needed them most. I know the defense theory is that she drowned accidentally in the family pool and accidents like that happens from time to time, but given the dynamics of this case, this is hard to digest.

I really hope this case will eventually have closure and Caylee will receive the honour she deserves.

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