Lucy has a theory.  She thinks that all we need to do to make the world a better place starts with a little Holy Water.  You take some of this “magical” stuff in a cup, and go find a bad person.  You have two weeks to do this, as she assured us this evening that the water stays good for two weeks.  When you find the bad person, you have them drink the Holy Water.  Then they won’t want to be bad any more.

I want to live in her world.

In the space of an hour tonight, the girls’ imaginative play included two hilarious and touching games.  The first was “Mass”, complete with Goldfish and water intincture for communion, the girls taking turns as priest, and a fantastic version of “Hosanna to Jesus the King” of Lucy’s own creation.

When that was finished, Lucy announced that we were going to do what the man on the computer was doing (Craig was watching the State of the Union): she would stand up and talk, and we would all clap.  The speech sounded roughly like this: “Blah, goobdy-glah, ookie jimbas.”  It was quite hilarious.

Somebody please disagree with me if this is not you experience.

This is my request.  Please, please, do not tell me that “the only thing that matters is a healthy mom and a healthy baby.”  I’m not saying I don’t want a healthy baby, or that I would rather bleed to death, or that I don’t appreciate that I live in a place where I have the opportunity (not to mention the medical insurance) to allow us to catch a placenta previa and do something “safe” about it.  But what I hear, although I know it is not what it intended, which is why I try not to get upset about it, is, “don’t get so worked up about your birth.  Your experience of it doesn’t matter.  Stop being upset.”

I know that’s not what people who say this mean.  But I also know that I need to mourn the birth I was really, really hoping to have.  And it is mourning.  I am between “denial” and “bargaining” at the moment, and in a way watching myself work through it.

So I know, of course, that the most important thing is a healthy mom and a healthy baby.  Otherwise I would not be signed up for surgery in two weeks.  But it is not the only important thing, by any stretch of the imagination.  And it rings empty to hear it in the midst of the emotional pain that comes with this kind of change of plans.  It strikes me as the rationalization of a society that isn’t comfortable with suffering, that doesn’t want to admit that what it often forces women to do with their bodies is suffering, and that focuses on the ends to the exclusion of the means.  ( I had to throw some psychology and philosophy in here sooner or later, right?)

And I’ve been there, so I know that holding a beautiful, healthy baby does not make the experience of birth go away, no matter what the birth was like.  Particularly when you can’t nurse the baby in your lap because it is too painful, or wear your favorite baby sling for two months, and you are constantly reminded how the birth went.  I do not love Lucy less because she was born by a c-section.  But if I could go back and change the way she came into the world, I think I might.  Of course there are lessons to be learned from every situation, and I do like to think that things happen for a reason, but adding unnecessary suffering to a situation (and a lot of it with Lucy’s birth had to do with the way we were treated, not just the fact it was a c-section rather than a vaginal birth) doesn’t make sense to me.

So even if it’s meant to be comforting, I’d rather not hear about how lucky I am right now.  On the other hand, I am curious if anyone out there did actually, truly, find the “healthy mom, healthy baby” argument comforting.  Particularly at this stage of things.

So I’m really looking forward to meeting this very wiggly baby in two weeks.  And I’m looking forward to enjoying the last two weeks of this pregnancy as much as I can.  But I can’t simplify my feelings (blame it on the hormones if you want) to “thank God things are going to be ok”.  I do, repeatedly.  But I’m stubborn, and I’m an oldest child, and I’m still going to be upset that things didn’t work out “my way”.

Enough ranting.  I should say that I do appreciate all the prayers and well-wishes we’ve gotten over the last couple of weeks.  We certainly need more prayer for the next month or two now.  I’m sorry I’m keeping you all so busy!  But like I said before, it has been a true blessing to know how many people care about our family.  And in looking for a bright side, I certainly find one there – how many people have spent a little more time in prayer these last few weeks than they would have otherwise?  How many people have I reconnected with because they heard one way or another about what was going on and reached out to us?  I don’t think I’ll ever doubt our support system again.

I know there’s reason to all this somewhere.  Our OB thinks maybe she had such disappointing birth experiences so that she would become an advocate for fewer c-sections and interventions, so that more women could have experiences they could remember with more joy, healthier bodies, fewer complications, etc.  And she has been a great blessing to us, especially when I think that some women go to doctors like a couple of them I’ve met over the last few weeks – lacking sympathy, lacking anything that could be called “bed-side manner”, very nearly lacking respect of me as a person (as opposed to a condition).

Apparently I babble when I don’t sleep well.  But since all this is what has been keeping me awake, I thought I might as well record it for posterity.  If you’ve read this far, thank you, and I’m sorry.  I’ll quit now.

I have to say I’ve been pretty overwhelmed by all the notes we’ve gotten saying that we are in people’s prayers.  Thank you all so much!!  No matter how things end up going, it has been a great blessing for me to know how many people care about me and our family.

The ultra sound appointment is set for 2:40 this afternoon, then it’s straight to the OB’s office to discuss where we stand, and then if there is time, we’re meeting with the midwife while we’re uptown.  And then I’m hoping for a celebratory dinner somewhere…  So I’ll update as soon as I can, but it probably won’t be until this evening.

The girls went with Taylor to visit her family in Bunkie (Tay has been here helping us out since Sunday – she’s better at getting the girls to sleep than I am!) so the house is quiet, maybe for one of the last times for a while.  Please pray for their safe journey, also, and that the Newtons survive our little bundles of energy!

I’m pretty sure this will take several days to explain, in part since my writing time is now divided by a number of thank-you notes which must be written with all haste.

Which seems like as good a place as any to start.  We were very, very blessed by the generosity of friends and strangers on our trip to Fargo, ND, this past week.  We were gone from Tuesday morning to the following Tuesday night, and only spent one of those nights away in a hotel.  So pending the thank-you notes, here are the people to whom we owe our very awesome, very long trip.

We spent the first night in St. Louis, MO, with Nate, Angela, and John Paul.  Craig got to know Nate first in his role as a Catholic blogger (read: “they met on the internet!”)  Nate and Angela are in the beginning stages of starting a new Catholic Worker on the other side of town from the long-standing Worker of St. Louis, and as they have kicked most modern communication technology out of their house, we’ve been corresponding with them by snail mail for a couple of months now…mostly about whether they would be interested in allowing us to crash at their house on our way north.  Happily, they were willing.  We left New Orleans early, arrived in St. Louis in the afternoon, and had a great time having dinner, going to playgrounds, eating frozen custard, and discussing the joys and difficulties of living a holistic Catholic lifestyle.  Nate and Angela were leaving on their own road trip the next day, so we were really grateful to them for going out of their way to take us in.

Next we went on to Iowa City, where we stayed with people we actually knew, Mike and Violet and their beautiful daughters Stella and Juniper.  They let us stay two nights, so we had time to visit, take the kids to the library, stay up late, and marvel at how peaceful Juniper is at all times.  Mike and Violet let us sleep on their mattress.  They are awesome.  They offered to leave things where they were in case we wanted to stop back there on the way home.  Sadly, we didn’t make it back to see them again this trip.

From Iowa City we went on to the original purpose of the trip, a Young Disciples reunion in Fargo, ND.  There, again we stayed with strangers, although the arrangements for this “host home” had been made by a friend of ours who used to run the YD program.  Josh and Tracy, the young couple we stayed with, provided toys, stairs, and cereal for the girls, as well as a Mary Poppins cup with built in straw.  What more could little girls need?  We were there Friday and Saturday nights, and had a good reunion and more fascinating theological discussion.  That was actually the other theme of the trip.

While we were in Iowa City, Mike and Violet had mentioned the place their friend Brenna was living: a Catholic Worker farm outside of Dubuque, IA.  Violet was kind enough to call and see if we could come visit the farm on our way home.  And sure enough, they had a space for us.  Actually, Brenna gave up her bed so we could stay, and we got in late since we didn’t leave Fargo until almost one and there are no useful interstates in the area, (South Bend and Highway 31, anyone?) and the roosters are apparently on Mountain Time, as they started crowing at four in the morning.  But the people of the farm (do I call them Farmers?  Workers?) were so hospitable, even though only Brenna knew us from Adam, and she barely so.  Craig was feeling down and out by the morning (he didn’t sleep well) and we were offered another night, should we need it.  We have several good farm stories now, and Craig is ready to move immediately, and, as usual, we had good food and good conversation and left feeling welcomed and rested (Craig napped through lunch).

So finally we went back through St. Louis, and stayed at a hotel, because even though Nate and Angela had offered us another night at their house, they were getting back from their road trip that same day, and Craig had come down with a cold, and our humility had about run out, so we decided not to impose anymore.  And even the lady working at the hotel offered us milk as we were checking in for the tired and grumpy (read: screaming) girls.

Thus the pile of thank-you notes I have to get started on.  We have a new standard of hospitality to live up to.  We were well cared for on a long trip, one we could not have afforded to make without the generosity of friends and strangers.  And I think the best part was, if we had stayed by ourselves in hotels all those nights, trying to get the girls bathed and to bed on time, sleeping until we had to get ready to go, watching TV because there isn’t a whole lot else for a three-year-old to do in a hotel room, we would have missed so much.  We would have missed catching up with old friends, we would have missed making new friends and learning a wide variety of new things.  The girls would have missed playgrounds, frozen custard, and farm animals, just for starters.  I wouldn’t have so many letters to write, which I actually can’t wait to start.  Connections we had to people in other places which were tenuous, if they even existed, are stronger now.  Our like-minded community, which we keep trying to build a little here and there as we go, has grown tremendously.  It might just have been worth the 3,200 miles in the car.

I finally, after months, decided to read a blog of two today.  This article was first, and it came at just the right time.

Lucy: “If God was made of glass, and had a thing in his back so you could wind Him up, like a wind-up bunny, then he could go up to the sky and come back down from the sky.”

And later in the same car ride…

Craig: “Have you ever tried to talk to Jesus?”

Lucy: “No, I’m too shy of him.”

Ah, it’s time again for me to write about something of substance.  Or something.

We talk often about trying, someday in the future, to live in an intentional (Christian) community.  We liked what we had at the Tulane Catholic Center, we’ve had retreat/camp experiences that were short term communities, and we liked it, so we’d like to do something similar full time.

Funnily enough, Craig’s parents already practically have this.  We borrowed their house over the 4th of July weekend while they went on a vacation to Boston.  Here is how our weekend went.

We drove in on Saturday afternoon and set up shop.  Before we could decide what we would do for dinner, Miss Mary Lou and Mr. Bob next door invited us over for ham, corn on the cob, and potato chips.  This, of course, led to an evening of conversation, running children, and general fun.  It was a good way to start the holiday.

On Sunday, we went to Mass (after which the youth group help sparklers to liven the spirits of those exiting the church – Fr. Tom’s idea, not ours!) and then spent a long time talking over donuts with Rusty (who we found out lives two blocks from Craig’s parents) and Anna who is the 13th of 18 children.  We were almost the last ones to leave.  But we went back home and cooked hot dogs for Bob and Mary Lou (aka B-Bob and Mimi) while the girls swam.  Dinner was kindly provided by Mr. Joe and Miss June across the street, and B-Bob and Mimi, the neighbor next to Joe and June, Mr. Darwin, and the couple two doors down were also there, along with a good part of Joe and June’s family.  So far – five meals, four of them in communities.

The other thing with Mr. Joe is that he invites everyone who lives around him over for beer every afternoon at 4.  Accommodations are made for little ones who can’t drink much beer.  And Mr. Bob spends 9/10 of the day, rain or shine, hot or cold, on his back porch (which might as well be his front porch) open to company.  We barge in frequently, and often return with ice cream.

Monday we had Mr. Darwin and B-Bob and Mimi over for dinner (Craig made some amazing meatballs, I’m sure he would be willing to share the recipe if he remembers it!) and then went to a youth group softball game.

Tuesday Craig went to work and the girls and I met Bob and Mimi at the donut shop, where they meet their friends Bill and Mary (and anyone else who comes in!) every day.  Lucy enjoyed her pink sprinkled donut, and the shop owner gave them donut holes when she saw that Samantha hadn’t touched her pink sprinkled donut.  Chocolate milk was enjoyed all around.

We finally headed home Tuesday evening after Craig took some youth to visit a local nursing home.  On the way back I was counting (we had 6 of 9 meals in community – and 7 if you count dinner with his parents after they got home!) and realized that the community we would like to build could look very much like this:  neighbors watching out for each other, feeding each other’s dogs, drinking each other’s beer, (occasionally accidentally feeding each other’s beer to each other’s dogs…) talking, talking, talking.  Most of the world’s problems have been solved at least twice on Bob’s back porch.  But there is one thing that makes it all happen – people take the step to invite other people to share with them.  Then the trust builds, then the back porch is always open.  It was a good lesson for me.

We were watching Brother Sun, Sister Moon last night, which scared Lucy is so many places (she doesn’t like feverish people, or strange looking crucifixes, or lepers…).  The frolicking in the fields was a bit more 70s than I cared for, although Samantha enjoyed pointing out every flower, bird and dog (=sheep).  When the crowd came and they opened San Damiano, Lucy said,

“I want to go to church with flowers.  And ducks.”

Me too, Lucy, me too.

I love the Latin with the double u’s.  And we had occasion over the past weekend to find out the real reason that we get Easter Monday off of school.  It’s to allow people with small children to recover from the Triduum.

Or not, since I think that’s probably just us.  But we survived it – two hours on Holy Thursday with an un-napped three-year-old, two hours Good Friday, and over three hours on Holy Saturday.  Here’s the blow-by-blow.

We arrived late for Holy Thursday, because we came straight from New Orleans at rush hour, straight from Craig’s FoodFast retreat at school (that means 50 or so high school students fasting and learning about poverty for 24 hours).  I cooked the closing meal, Hatian red beans for 50.  That is getting to be my specialty, if anyone needs catering in the near future.  (We made it for about 200 the Friday before – that’s another story!)

But anyway, we got there, parked in the boonies, and planted ourselves and our tired babies in a pew.  I’d been prepping Lucy for a couple of weeks about the people getting their feet washed and such, but we couldn’t see very well, and she was really too tired to care.  Samantha alternately climbed, fussed, and nursed the two hours away.  Then it was home to Nana and Papa’s to collapse, except collapsing doesn’t happen at grandparent’s houses, at least not right after you arrive, so we were up for  a little longer.

Friday brought sleeping relatively late and the (traditional?  I’m not sure) Good Friday fish fry at the Bakers’.  More fish, hush-puppies, fries, and the like that we could eat.  Then on to the Veneration of the Cross.  Samantha was very, very fussy, and I finally ended up nursing her in a side chapel.  Unfortunately, it was the crucifix chapel, and rather than bringing up a cross to the altar like I expected, the liturgical plan was to circle everyone through this very chapel to reverence the cross.  When I saw the altar servers and deacon headed my way, I had to very quickly detach sleeping Samantha and run for the pew.  As much as a person can run with a surprised, yet thankfully still sleeping, toddler in her arms, anyway.

But my close-escape was not the end of our trials.  As Craig came up to the chapel in the line (behind me unfortunately, so I didn’t get to see the festivities) Lucy, whom he was carrying, latched onto the wall with both hands and refused to let him enter the chapel.  (I don’t think “chapel” is really the best word for this space, now that I think of it, it’s really more of a nook, but that sounds funny to me.)  Lucy was apparently afraid of the crucifix, which was strange because the night before she had wanted to stay later so Craig could “show her Jesus”, but that was not about to happen during the silent watching after the Holy Thursday liturgy.  Anyway, Craig returned to the pew thwarted.  But yet, we survived and went home (well, to Craig’s parents’ home at least), again, to bed.

Holy Saturday dawned.  We made one excursion, then made sure there were naps all around.  (Lucy has been successfully avoiding them lately, but that was just not an option.)  We got all dressed up after a later-than-planned dinner and headed out.  Mass started at 8 PM.  We were as prepared as parents can be for such a thing – books, a lacing card for Lucy…but no snacks.  Well, we were almost as prepared as we could be.  The bonfire went well enough.  Lucy was interested, but Samantha was fussy.  But it wasn’t a big deal since we were outside.  The procession inside calmed her down for some reason, and God be praised, she nursed to sleep as soon as we got to the pew.  And slept through all the readings, the lights coming on, the Alleluia-ing, the Baptisms, and even the applause that went with them.  I didn’t get to see much since I spent the whole time sitting down, but I was so glad she slept.

Of course, she did wake up, as usual it seems, in time for the Eucharistic prayer, and so we spent the rest of the evening back and forth, in and out of the building.  There isn’t anywhere to hide a screaming infant in that church.  The final outburst, in the liturgical silence just before the closing prayer, was the loudest.  Father (apparently, I couldn’t hear it with the screaming in my ear as I rushed -again- for the door) mentioned that it sounded like a broken record, at which Samantha promptly changed her tone.  So she showed him.  Or something.

But we celebrated with cake and cheese cubes and broccoli and punch afterwards, and slept late on Easter morning.  We were tired.  It was so worth it.  I love the Easter Vigil.  I started going in middle school (or earlier?) when my mom was doing RCIA for children.  I got to hand the brand-new neophytes (is that redundant?) the towels after they were Baptized one year.  I have always loved the liturgy for this night, the fire and water, the litany of the saints, the lights coming on in the middle of the service.  The oil and the smiles on 10-year-old faces afterwards.  (And Fr. Tom does not spare the oil.  He slathers.  Even after they changed, the poor boys all had holy-oil cow-licks.)  St. Jean does beautiful liturgy, and it was a blessing to me, screaming baby and all, to experience it this year.  It was that little taste of the Holy that I miss sometimes now that I don’t get to daily Mass, or adoration, or those other quite times that I used to so often.  It was totally, entirely worth it.

Easter included an egg hunt at one neighbor’s house, and then Mrs. Mary Lou’s feast at the other neighbor’s house.  Many, many desserts were sampled.  A bunny had his tail straight-pinned on.  There was a pinata, but I missed that part.  Monday Craig and I had a movie date (finally cashing in one of our Christmas presents) and we drove home.  And today I finally finished unpacking.  We are nearly recovered.

Happy Easter!