Pregnant in America

Here is the trailer to a new film that will be coming out:
http://pregnantinamerica.com/#TRAILER

Take a look!

The flu blug has bitten us..

Well, it's been a looooong week of taking care of two kids both down with the flu. Yesterday the darn ol' flu bug bit me really hard on my hiney....rats! I just can't be sick, absolutely, cannot, do not want to, be sick right now...I have my first class starting next week and my second one the following week...way too much to do, no time for laying around miserable.
I'm so determined to kick this flu in it's behind...I'm taking mega doses of vitamin C & echinacea, drinking lots of strong black tea to help in coughing up this crud inside of me, eating tons of chicken noodle soup, and praying really hard that I'm 100%, totally cured by the end of today...yeah, well I can believe in the power of pray can't I???

Overwhelmed & weepy

This past week I have just felt overwhelmed, and weepy off and on. Not sure why I'm feeling weepy, I guess I'm just not that emotionally stable right now. Too many things on my mind, some things I wish I could just forget forever, some things I will never forget. There little thoughts that swirl around in my head and may be quiet for a time, but then creep up on me...words that whisper how inadequate I am. I try not to listen, but it's hard not to at times. There are words my father and I spoke together a month ago that I don't ever want to forget.

Being overwhelmed though, I know exactly why I'm feeling this way. So very much to do...too much for one person. I look around my house and wonder how I could ever keep up. Yikes! It's so frustrating how messy the house has become and how there is so little time to do anything about it. Some would say it doesn't matter, but a messy house creates this feeling of stress inside of me. When things are more in order I feel peaceful. So, this weekend I tackled my bedroom and cleaned up really well...it now feels peaceful to go in there. I also got our family room in order, although not as dusted and vacuumed as I'd like, but movies and games are back in order and there is a feeling of peace when I walk thru there now.
Now my big project is finishing picking up and organizing ds2's room...if anyone wonders where the last tornado touched down, well it was in there. Ds2 is at church youth camp until Sunday night so I decided to overall his room. I took out more toys than any one child should ever have, rearranged his furniture, vacuumed thoroughly, and then stood looking at the mountain of toys that somehow have to go back in there...like that's going to happen!

Then it's time to get to work on my new classes starting up in a couple weeks...I have notebooks to put together, handouts to print out, and a few things to purchase. I'm so excited to get back into teaching. Before we moved here 3 years ago, I was teaching 2 nights a week with about 6-8 couples per class...it was great! And it looks like it will happen again.

So, being overwhelmed & weepy is justified I guess...maybe it's time to quit for the day, eat the batch of chocolate chip cookies I made (yes, I took time to bake!), and put in a good movie.

Tomorrow's another day...and everything will be there waiting for me...

This is your life...

I love this song...the melody is beautiful and the words are something to really think on...

This Is Your Life by Switchfoot
Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes

This is your life and today is all you've got now
And today is all you'll ever have
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes
This is your life
Are you who you want to be
This is your life
Are you who you want to be
This is your life
Is it everything you've dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over
This is your life
Are you who you want to be
This is your life
Are you who you want to be
This is your life is it everything you've dreamed it would be when the world was younger and you had everything to lose
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes

I think of my father who lies dying....he is scared to close his eyes because it could be the last time...his days are short, his days are numbered....when his last one is only God knows. For the rest of us we wait and wonder when he will be taken home, and I ponder my life and wonder if I am living each day as I should...wondering, am I who I want to be, is my life everything I've dreamed it would be.

I am working hard at building up my childbirth classes and it's happening! I have 6 women registered for March classes, and about 5 others interested. I have 2 locations that I will teach at, holding two simultaneous classes weekly. I hope to start doing monthly healthy pregnancy classes in a month or so, and then start taking on doula clients again. The doors are opening and it's thrilling to be doing what I'm called to do.

I'm also excited to be able to attend the Midwifery Today conference in Eugene, OR this year! Yippee!! I'm going to room with a woman I have been emailing with who was going to attend the midwifery school I am enrolled in. It will be so uplifting to be surrounded by all these wonderful midwives and birth speakers...I think I will come home refreshed and ready to take on the world.

Fear...

fear \'fier\ n 1 : an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by expectation or awareness of danger; also : an instance of or a state marked by this emotion 2 : anxious concern : SOLICITUDE 3 : profound reverance esp. toward God syn dread, fright, alarm, panic, terror, trepidation

Fear. An amazing emotion. A strong powerful consuming emotion. A debilitating emotion.

For me fear has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a child I was painfully shy. Fear whispered in my ear many a time that I wasn't pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough, good enough...it told me over and over that I would fail, so I found it easier to not try. It was easier, and still is, to hide away somewhere and hope no one sees me. It's easier many times to find all the reasons why I shouldn't, so that I don't.

I've been reading through some other midwifery student blogs lately and one of the issues that comes up is fear. Fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of not knowing what to do in certain situations, etc. And it's like a lightbulb came on for me...fear is what caused me to doubt myself so much. Fear is what caused me to run and hide from my midwifery education. I finished my first year and then became convinced that I just couldn't learn everything and know everything to really be a competent midwife. And it was the fear that immobolized me. It put so many doubts in my head and I began listening intently to those doubts and fears, until one day I decided it was easier to run and hide.

I don't want to run and hide anymore...I want to do what the Lord has called me to do, and although I admit I'm still not convinced midwifery is that calling, I do know that I was meant to teach childbirth classes and help educate women about birth. I do know that He gave me a real desire about birth and where He will lead me with that desire we'll have to see.

Here is one of my favorite quotes:

By Marianne Williamson from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

She says it so well and after meditating on this I know that it is fear that holds me back.
But how do we push past the fear in our lives? I believe the answer lies in faith. When we have faith that we are called to something great in our lives and we have faith to live that greatness out, we can shut the door on that fear. And if and when fear rises up again, we remember that we are children of God and He wants us to succeed not fail.

Pursuing dreams...

Is the Lord showing me the way?
You know the story of the man that drowns and goes to heaven and asks the Lord why He didn't save him even though the man kept praying to be saved...the Lord says, I sent a boat, built you a bridge, and sent a helicoptor...what more do you want! LOL

Well, I feel that way sometimes...I'm so busy waiting for some miraculous sign, you know the kind, some neon sign with a big arrow pointing in the direction I should go, that I just don't see the little signs that keep me pointing in the right direction.

I don't pursue my dream of opening a childbirth service in my area because of fear, doubt, procrastination...fear that I can't do it, doubt that it is what I'm meant to do, procrastinating for the right moment. Yet, continually there are those little signs that totally point to this being my calling, and others see it, but I don't, or can't because of the fear and doubt clouding my vision.

There's a line in one of my favorite movies, the Rookie, where the main character is asking his father for adviced on whether he should pursue trying out for baseball, his lifelong dream, and his father says, "it's okay to think about what you want to do, until it's time to do what you were meant to do"...and he means it in the sense that we need to pursue our dreams.

Maybe it's time I start doing what I was meant to do, instead of constantly wondering if I'm doing the right thing...how many more ways can the Lord show me?

Time to put my plan into action...time to dream big, and make that dream come true...as my dying father told me, life is too short...

Life & death...

Today I sat on an airplane soaring high above the most beautiful white majestic clouds as I made my way back home from a weekend-long visit with my dying father.

Gazing out the window, contemplating so many things about my life, about my father's soon to be death, about regrets, about dreams forgotten and never fulfilled, I find myself crying silent tears while my heart aches with each breath.

I go over and over in my head the words that were spoken this weekend as we each tried to speak from our hearts...I try to remember, not wanting to forget anything my father said as we held hands, cried, laughed, and silently savored our time together. I can't forget. I don't want to forget any of it. I need to hold on to this past weekend forever.

As I lay beside him on the bed which has now consumed him, not allowing him to care for himself any longer, my father says in a a very quiet whisper that is now his voice that he has many regrets from his life. He feels he made too many mistakes and didn't say I love you enough. I tell him he is a good man, a good father, and lived a very, full and rich life. Not rich in monetary value, but in love, family and memories. I tell him that he needs to spend his days remembering the good times, the fun times, and realize that everyone one of us has made mistakes and has regrets, but those aren't what make our lives truly blessed.

I say, more for me than him, our lives are rich and full if we have loved often, laughed frequently, and can move past our mistakes and see those as opportunities to learn and grow.

He tells me that life is too short and he wishes he had more time. He says there isn't enough time.

We need more time to say good-bye, to say I love you, to see another sunrise and sunset, to forgive and forget, to simply hold hands and lie quietly together.

Time.
It slips by so quickly and silently, that before we know it, another year has come and gone, we have grown older, as have our children, and we didn't have enough time to say I love you's enough, or to write that note to a dear friend, or to share a cup of coffee with our neighbor, or to live our dreams.
Time.