When is it time for a change?

Yes, our seasons of life change and for me and my family we look forward to a hopeful future, a possible move north and quieter way of life. Sometimes I long for the one or two close friends and distance myself from myriad of folks with opinions by the minion. Conform or lose your place. I don't need to conform. I need to be me and my soul and spirit needs to continue to long for God and follow His will. When the focus is off the material beings and moving more heavenward; it is then we truly move into the next season of our life.

I wanted to springboard off of my last entry and go into a little bit about where we, as a family, are moving toward, praying about and at times struggling with ~ the idea of moving north. Why? Every logical explanation would point towards keeping our roots firmly planted here, in New Jersey, where our family and friends and vibrant church family reside. We have built a life here. Our ties run very deep.

Moving into this new season of life - our forties - has opened our eyes to many things, unfortunately one of them would be bills; more specifically making our bills, saving for the future - possibly three weddings for our girls, possibly six college educations, or at least partially contributing to them, retirement etc. These are heavy duty responsibilities and each needs to be addressed at some point to make sure we are in a position to fulfill these needs.

It is no secret that New Jersey is a state with a very high cost of living. In fact, in our research, we have found NJ to rank the 7th highest state in the country for cost of living index. While some think "it's all relative" in regards to the higher pay scale for which those in the Mid Atlantic states enjoy, regardless it is still a rat race and one in which a large family of eight finds hard to keep up with. Keeping our heads above water has become increasingly difficult.

For the past year I have been joining various forums and speaking with folks from other areas of the northeast, for which both my husband and I have a particular affinity, and understand "it's bad all over," but one has to wonder if it's relative? Speaking for myself my soul belongs in Maine. My husband and I first visited this beautiful, rugged state in 1997. We went camping in Bar Harbor. I cannot describe the feeling my soul experienced when I viewed the tall pines and breathed in the salty ocean air or took a long, cleansing breath atop the peak of a Mount Cadillac. It's just something that gets in there and doesn't leave. A flight of fancy perhaps? While I might have answered "possibly" a year later, I can safely say that returning each summer for 12 years a flight of fancy it is not. It is no secret that I am a cold-weather gal. Everyone who knows me and knows me well can testify that the slightest hint of humidity sends me into a deep melancholy and mad dash for the air conditioning switch, much to my husband's chagrin. Lately - now that November has rolled in, we have spent many a night on the deck with the fire pit, enjoying the chilly breeze and warming our hearts and souls and bodies by the fire, often reciting the rosary as a family out there or roasting marshmallows. What is missing? The loud silence and the tall pines, the clear air and crystal water of the northern states. I cannot say it's the same - in fact a morose on my part listening to the Atlantic City Expressway hum as we recite the mysteries.

So the question becomes: are we chasing a dream? Yes. And what is wrong with that if one does so responsibility, without impulsivity? Many questions have warred within our minds and hearts as we have prayed and contemplated this move: will the children adjust? Will we make friends? Will the distance between ourselves and our family be a negative impact on the children - on us? Will we be able to get as much out of the two Traditional Masses being offered in Maine as we do in our active parish here in NJ? And then reality hits us and we say, "How can we afford to continue here in NJ in this economy raising a family of eight?" And so we go back and forth; at times believing we have made a concrete yes or no only to revisit the thought a month or two later.

God will lead us in this season of life. Ironically I prayed two novenas to St. Theresa of the Little Flower. While I am not one for asking Our Good Lord for a sign, I did in this case because it is just too big a decision to go on instinct. My first novena was back in June. Specifically I asked her for yellow flowers if it is Our Lord's will and if He would bless such a move and take care of our children's souls and red for us to stay put. On the ninth and final day of the novena I received my red flower. Though saddened because my heart yearns for points further north, I accepted my answer and prayed that our Lord would settle our restless hearts. About a month ago when the yearning began anew, stronger than ever, I started another novena begging St. Theresa to understand my "second request" and after two weeks my husband came home with a bouquet of yellow flowers, unaware of my current novena I was making. What am I to make of these seemingly conflicting answers? Perhaps, after some reflection, that Our Lord would bless us in either decision. I feel at peace with that answer, especially since Our Lord has shown me other smaller signs that detaching ourselves from our current way of life would be a blessing in and of itself.

And so it appears we move closer and closer to a decision to go north, follow our hearts and open ourselves to what other possibilities life might have to offer.

Seasons of change

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

A season of change does not necessarily apply to the physical seasons themselves; the leaves changing in fall, the snow in winter, the flowers in spring and the green, green grass of summer. While I entirely enjoy each season and what it has to offer, with the exception perhaps of summer, the seasons of change that I am referring to here in this post is more the season of life changes. Much has happened since the birth of my last child 20 months ago. I moved into my 40's and well, life has slowed in a way. Yes, I am busy homeschooling 4 of the 6 children and tending to the house, trying to run my business Fidelis Transcripts, running and taking care of a farmette - yes that's a busy life indeed, but slowed in the fact that I am no longer pregnant indefinitely (thanks be to God) and sleep deprived and tied to the bottle in the middle of the night. Well, let's be honest - I do have my bottle, by I digress.

I am speaking of the seasons of life that a person goes through. I believe you go through one each decade. Your 20’s are all about finding love, having fun, being carefree. Your 30's are all about making your way and establishing your life while growing a family and then you hit your 40's and you wonder who you are. I know, I know - that sounds SO cliché', but for many of us we hit our 40's and realize we were so busy in our 30's just surviving childbirth and diapers and bottles that we don’t' remember who we were in our carefree 20's! We find ourselves lost in a sense.

For me personally in my 30's I clung to many very orthodox principles and went gung-ho and full fledged, following the crowd if you will of my dear friends in my circle who share my common beliefs. I read many articles, books and heard many lectures on what is supposedly right and what should be avoided at all costs and just followed them without hesitation in the spirit of "sacrifice." I didn't take into account the "sacrifice" I was already making and presenting to Our Lord just by being open to life. I was doing it all as my Type A personality usually dictates.

Some kind of light-bulb moment happened to me in the spring of 2009 after my youngest preemie was home and thriving - out of the "danger zone." We could actually breathe now and then it hit me - what now? What now? I was becoming increasingly restless and questioning why have I been doing what I have been doing for the past seven years? I started to re-evaluate my outward practices while concentrating on my inward spirituality. I made many changes, especially outwardly, specifically switching from skirts to pants on a daily basis. While I loved my time in skirts and feel it gave me a better appreciation for femininity and modesty I could feel my angst growing for having to wear them. I read much on St. Gianna Beretta Molla, a physician, a working mom, professional woman, and a loving wife and, might I add, a woman who wore pants on occasion! I began to think that following the crowd in either direction might not be such a good thing if you do not have full conviction to do so.

Many things happened after my switch. My heart and soul remained the same and in fact my spiritually increased - perhaps I was over-compensating because of some hidden guilt that I was raised with, but nevertheless - a change occurred in me. I felt like ME again and it was a freedom I hadn't felt in a long, long time. I was not so fortunate though in transitioning my new-found outward freedom with my close circle of friends. I love my circle of friends. Many of them have true conviction and are devout, humble human beings for which I hold much respect, but there was a sense of ousting that occurred. It was subtle, but it happened. Perhaps I was going through some "spiritual warfare" as one close friend put it. No - I am going through another season of life. One that many of the younger generation of orthodox Catholics might not understand because they are still in the weeds; the thick of things, unable to open up their hearts and minds that all of us evolve and change and that might not always equal something bad.

While I spent many a day hurt and puzzled by the subtle, yet obvious in ways, treatment, I think I really grew into the woman I am supposed to be in this season of my life. It's very easy to close one's mind and make rules and regulations black and white; it's much harder to try to understand the changes of close friends and then accept them for who they are and what they are going through.

I learned a valuable lesson through all of this: True friends will be there for you no matter what you are going through; fly-by-nighters will let you go and as hurtful as that is, it is a part of life and we can either treasure how we have been touched by their friendship or become bitter at the end-results.

Yes, our seasons of life change and for me and my family we look forward to a hopeful future, a possible move north and quieter way of life. Sometimes I long for the one or two close friends and distance myself from myriad of folks with opinions by the minion. Conform or lose your place. I don't need to conform. I need to be me and my soul and spirit needs to continue to long for God and follow His will. When the focus is off the material beings and moving more heavenward; it is then we truly move into the next season of our life.

Fumbling in the dark

I am no stranger to getting up in the middle of the night, feeling around in the dark for the door, trekking up the hall to the kitchen, squinting at the bright fridge light and pouring formula into a bottle for a crying baby in the other room, then lugging my butt back to bed.

I have been doing this for 12 years now. Yes, I get the occasional reprieve - but it's not often and it's few and far between. The effects of interrupted sleep on the body over the years has aged me beyond where I should be for 41 years old, though I always hope to bounce back to my "former self" at some point.

And now it seems like I am fumbling in the dark with a less concrete visitor to my body. I have the same middle of the night "fog" but it's 10 o'clock in the morning. I still hit the corner of the dresser but I'm not stumbling to make a bottle at 2 a.m. Unfortunately, it's not just from lack of sleep. "Probably MS" that's what I have heard from two different doctors several weeks ago.

Words like, maybe, possibly, it could be, perhaps, possible, float through the various conversations with the mixed bag of physicians I see month after month. Even more disturbing are phrases such as, you need to relax more, this is a classic sign of stress, you're a mother of six - it's no wonder you are forgetting phone numbers. Probably the most unnerving and irritating response I have recently received was from my former GP who has four children himself and a wife who homeschools them as I do my own children. He said to me at the last visit when I was telling him my symptoms of tingling in the hands and feet, the forgetfulness, the numbness in the toe ('insignificant' he said to that one) was this: "You could be my wife! (!) My wife suffers from anxiety and this is textbook anxiety." He then wanted to put me on a different antidepressant (I've been taking antidepressants for 10 years now) and Klonopin, an antianxiety. I told him I didn't want to switch antidepressants and I didn't want to be on an addictive drug such as Klonopin when I don't FEEL anxious. He said, "You're a different person then you were 10 years ago. You are much more stressed out with six children." I am not going to say that tending to a 12, 8, 7, 5, 4 and 1 year old is all roses and yes, it CAN be stressful, but I know my body very well. I know medicine very well as I have been a medical transcriptionist for 10 years. I have read hundreds of medical reports. I know whatever this is, it's not all anxiety. I am fortunate to have a very reliable "gut instinct" and the gut has been right about 85% of the time if I had to guestimate looking back on my life.

I suppose for now I will continue stumbling in the dark until I can receive that gentle reprieve I so desparately am searching for.

Quiet in the Chaos

Truth be told, I have no idea what quiet is anymore. Needless to say, I had quite a sensory shock on my arrival home from the hospital. For the first few days I could feel myself literally shutting down to block the abundance of noise going on around me. Though sitting in the hospital for all that time was lonely - on the flip side, it was quiet. I can't recall a single day that my ears rang. There has been a sunny day or two when Philomena has been asleep and Nicholas was napping and the four older ones were playing outside that it was quietER in here; still there are the sounds of the dishwasher running and my washer which ca-clumps when it's obviously unbalanced (I can relate), or one of the four dogs barking or whining. One would think that at 2 am I would find the quiet I am searching for, but alas, not so. Last week a mysterious beeping noise started to sound within the confines of the house. We checked our cellphones, we looked for beeping toys hidden underneath beds or in hampers, checked the telephone batteries; the beeping could not be located. We did eventually figure out that it was coming from the attic and was our carbon monoxide detector by the furnace which was beeping at 20 minute intervals. This detector is hardwired into the alarm system and apparently was in "service needed" mode. It's always something. Kudos to the person who invented those spongy ear-plugs...a lifesaver and world-blocker-outer indeed.

Philomena is growing nicely and has blended right into her new overstimulating household. We were discharged from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit on Tuesday, March 3rd. It was a long three weeks in there. Her main issue was feeding. She was labeled a "poor feeder." Oh to have that diagnosis. :) I still have trouble getting her to finish her entire bottle, but she's getting there. Only two days ago was she even due to be born so I think she is doing well considering how early she was.

On a lighter note, there are moments in my sleep deprived day that make me chuckle. As I was mopping the kitchen floor I hear a commotion going on downstairs. An obvious fight has broken out between John Paul and Isabella. John Paul comes storming up the stairs and marches into the kitchen and proclaims, "Bella really needs to change her altitude!" I had to laugh. "Send her to the roof for 20 minutes and see if she changes." This statement was met with a blank stare as he turns on his heels and scampers back downstairs to instuct his sister to go to the roof for a while to change her altitude. You have to laugh.

Last evening, as I was quizzing Isabella for her First Holy Communion interview, which occurs on Saturday morning, John Paul announces that he wants to be quizzed too. Okay, so I ask him, "Tell me the 10 Commandments." He ponders this a while and blurts, "You should commit your neighbor's wife." His sister was quick to correct him, "No, no, no...that's the LAST commandment John Paul, not the first." It's a good thing our neighbors cannot commit us based on the commandments because I would be sitting beside a window in a clean, sterile building looking out over the grounds of the funny farm in my newly pressed, crisp straigh-jacket.

Listening to the kid's conversation on the commandements made me think of my oldest daughter when she was learning her prayers. She proudly announces to me one day that she knows the Our Father. She begins, "Our Father who art in Kevin..." Priceless.

Philomena Anne

I promised I would write all about Philomena and her birth. I have been preoccupied with living here in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for the past two and a half weeks to be able to put two thoughts together to write a blog entry!

After I had gone down to Antenatal Testing on the 10th and they decided my uterus looked way too thin, they scheduled my section for later that day. It was very surreal sitting in my hospital bed and feeling little Philomena inside me kicking around and knowing that in a few hours she would be in the world.

Apparently, so the medical records say, she was delivered pretty quickly after I was put under general anesthesia. She was immediately taken to the NICU for observation and given oxygen and eventually graduating to CPAP. She was 5 pounds and 5 ounces and 17 inches. They put her in a crib but she started losing weight so they moved her to an isolette to keep her warm. They told me she was burning too many calories trying to keep her body temperature up.

My husband did all the feeds and kept her company while I recouped. He did a fantastic job and she fed well at first. Then as the week progressed she seemed to get more and more tired with her feeds. She has an NG tube (a tube that is inserted in her nostril and goes directly into her belly) and her scheduled called for every other feed to go in her tube. She stayed stuck there until yesterday, believe it or not, when she finally advanced to six full bottle feeds.

Our adventure here in the NICU has been a roller coaster ride. It's difficult to hear doctors and nurses all tell you to just be patient and "watch her grow" and "she'll catch on in her own time." In the meantime there are five other children at home who have been without their mother for two months and a husband who has been trying to keep his job and run the house for the same length of time. The stress is tremendous - I don't think I can even articulate how tremendous the stress of it all really is.

Philomena is so pretty and very healthy she just has a difficult time staying awake to eat. I consider myself lucky, though, when I talk to other moms in here (who, by the way, have been my complete sanity!) who have been here for months! Some moms here have babies born at 24 weeks gestation and are looking at two more months or more here. There are some sick babies so I feel blessed that Mena is healthy with the exception of her feeding.

I expect our Good Lord is trying to teach patience and what it means to absolutely wait on Him in His time and I hope we did pass His test or at the very least came close to passing it. Thankfully, we have been blessed with good friends and family who have helped us out; the Mantoans who have four children of their own yet week after week took on all five of ours so that my husband could go into the office once a week. My sister in law and brother in law who also have five children and took all of our kids once a week so Kevin could go into work. Their charity blows my mind. Where would I be without my hospital visits from my sister who can make me laugh at any given moment and especially when I need it the most or my brother who would come over to the house at night after a long day at work and watch and bathe all the kids at the witching hour so Kevin could come up to the hospital to visit me? We were tremendously blessed with so many good people from church who gave us meals and would come over and clean the house or check the kid's schoolwork. There were just days I would sit here in the hospital in awe of the help we were getting, sometimes from people we didn't even know! There were good people in our homeschooling support group who dropped off meals as well. Though we think God has tested our limits, He also poured out His mercy and blessings at the same time to get us through.

I hope to be able to write more blog entries from my home computer and not the hospital computer. It will be a weird feeling to be home all the time, but one I can't wait to experience.

Birth Day

The Birth...

Last week started like any other week. I was looking forward to Thursday the 12th - the day Philomena was scheduled to be born. When Tuesday rolled around I went down to the ATU department for my weekly ultrasound. They did the ultrasound and I waited (as usual) until the Perinatologist came into the room to consult. She put the file down on the tray and said, "Well the baby looks good, but looks like we will be delivering you today." I am not sure what I felt at the time; shock, anxiety and some other transient feelings I can't articulate at the moment. I made all the calls and got everyone scrambling.

The next few hours I went through all the preoperative things that you go through before major surgery. They put in two IV's (as if one is not bad enough!) and the dreaded catheter. Dreaded - this is the correct word to describe catheterization! Please peel off every layer of my skin with a dull potatoe peeler, but get that catheter far from me! I got blood work drawn and then went downstairs to interventional radiology to have the balloon catheters placed. This procedure was horrible. I laid on a flat hard table and they strapped my arms down and draped me for incision. I was told ahead of time that they might lightly sedate me. I wish now they had. Incisions were made in the groin area into two arteries. The catheters traveled into the opening of the uterus. This took approximately 45 minutes and all the while I was contracting, mostly due to stress and the pain that was enveloping my entire back from lying flat with an eight month pregnant belly.

From Interventional Radiology I went to the OR waiting or holding area. I was asked yet again if I wanted my tubes tied to which my automatic response was, "no." Again I had to lay flat and really it was agonizing on my back. I stayed in holding for about 40 minutes until the OR was ready and the teams were in place. They wheeled me into the OR and there must have been 15 people in there. One of the residents was saying she has never witnessed so many people in one room. My arms were strapped down again, but I made sure my rosary was tightly wound around my left hand. I had a lot of heads peer down into my face and say different things and then I don't remember anything else.

I woke up in a fog and I can't say even now where I was when I woke up. I remember trying to gather my thoughts and having a very difficult time with that. I did ask whoever was peering over me at the time how the baby was. "Good! She's doing good!" I felt relieved and then thought to ask if I had a uterus or not. My OB doctor came over at that time and told me yes, I did still have my uterus. I am not sure whether I was relieved or a bit stressed about that one.

I don't think I can really recall much of that evening except they gave me this button that delievered a heavy duty narcotic. I know that evening I had difficulty with shallow breathing and oxygen saturation.

I stayed in bed for the next two days. My husband surprised me by having one of the NICU nurses wheel Philomena down to me and I got to hold her in my hospital bed. What an angel she is. She just has this perfect angelic sweet little face. I cried.

I never did feel like I was getting better and by Thursday the 12th I just felt like I wouldn't make it. Truly, that's how awful I felt. I suppose that's because my hemoglobin levels dropped dramatically and it was decided that I receive two bags of blood in a transfusion. By that evening I felt much, much better and by Friday I was able to walk to the NICU for the first time and see my baby.

Today is exactly one week post-surgery. I feel better each day. I have been dealing with extremely swollen legs and feet and I feel like the swelling has gone down today a bit because I am walking more like a 70-year-old than a 90-year-old. I still have staples that have to be removed, but my belly even feels better today.

I cannot tell you how many people I had praying for me and Philomena, but the Lord God was definitely watching over us and seeing us through.

I will write more about Philomena in the next blog a little later on.

9 Days

A Healthy Fear

"They" say there is a healthy fear and an unhealthy fear. An unhealthy fear of anything leads to great anxiety and a paralysis of the emotions. Fear in and of itself is not a bad thing for God created us with the emotion of fear to protect us as well. This is why when something frightens us or we find ourselves in a sudden and unexpected time of panic or danger our bodies let off adrenaline which gives us that extra boost to be able to gain control of what has happened. It's healthy to be afraid of snakes, for example, for some are poisonous and meant to deliver a deadly bite. A healthy fear helps us manage our impulses as well.

Unhealthy fear, on the other hand, occurs when we allow our irrational self to gain the upper hand. Yes, I know I am waning philosophical tonight, but I have been reflecting on what I will be going through; what my family will be going through, my doctor and friends on the day of the surgery. Everyone of us will experience at the least a bit of anxiety and at the most tremendous fear. I thank St. Philomena and St. Anne for all of their prayers and granting me peace in that I feel like I have friends in heaven who are advocating on my behalf. Some nights I like to remind St. Philomena that I did promise her namesake to my unborn child without my husband's approval no less. I am confident she will look with kindness and increase her pleadings to Our Lord for my safety and for little Mena's safety as well. I don't have an unhealthy fear of next Thursday; anxiety perhaps, but I don't let my mind wander too far off into the "what-ifs" zone. This is not a good place to be. Fear and faith, at this point needs to be properly balanced, otherwise a prescription for Ativan might be in my near future.

NOW...

My OB confirmed this evening that the baby will be born on the 12th - next Thursday. I have been here a month on the 9th. It seemed like an eternity that first week and now I am nearing the end in just a week from now. Philomena will be 35 weeks, but I am confident that she will be born strong. I picture my child with dark hair and blue eyes and perhaps a bit shy. Whenever I go down to ultrasound and they try to get a face shot she moves her arms in front of her face as if to hide. I went down today for what is called a biophysical profile. They just scan the baby to make sure she is growing properly and has good fluid levels. All went well. She looked terrific and happy.

I, on the other hand, will be quite thankful when my trips downstairs to antenatal testing are over! Each Tuesday and Friday I get a knock on my door from "transportation" to wheel me down. Lately, transportation has brought the ever flattering "double wide" wheelchair. I am beginning to get a complex. I know I carry a belly the size of a small basketball out front, but maybe I am bigger than I think. Maybe the back of the wheelchair has a sign much like those trucks that go really slow in the right lane of a highway carrying a double wide modular home. You know, the ones with their hazard lights blinking and a rather large sign that reads, "WIDE LOAD." Thankfully, my fears are dispelled when one of the ultrasound technicians who saw me sitting in the hallway, as is routine now, asked why I was put in such a wide chair. She said I looked like Alice in Wonderland sitting in such an over sized chair. At first I chuckled as she pointed to my hair and told me that was who I reminded her of. I am not sure whether to be flattered, insulted or angry. I guess I do have a similar modest wardrobe as Alice, and my hair is blond, but I can think of many other people I would much rather have been compared to so I will digress.

THEN...

After finding out our baby was a girl, for me personally, I began to have a special connection with her, praying for her by name and picturing what she might look like. My monthly trips to the OB became every other week and my OB starting having a bit more serious talks with me. She informed me sometime around September - just as field hockey season was off and running, that a time would come in this pregnancy when bed rest would be essential. I really just tucked that information away in the dustier parts of my brain and enjoyed the last few months of being active, much to my husband's chagrin and my well meaning friends who always thought I did too much. I am glad now, though, being confined to this hospital bed when I look back over the very active summer and fall seasons and the rest that God has willed for me at this point in time.