Happy Father’s Day!
We’re spending a completely lazy day with Mike today… doing a little golf on tv, a little grilling on the back porch. I’ll make his favorite Oreo ice cream dessert, and we’ll all be exceptionally nice to him. Because he is, without a doubt, a really stellar father. We are all blessed to have him.
So today, I am grateful to Mike but also to my dad… and to Mike’s dad… and to Josh… and to my brother and Mike’s brother… to all of the really good dads out there who are vested in their families. Thank you.
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Here or there…
Mike and I are planning our anniversary trip this summer … we’ll have been married 15 years in August. Stacy has graciously offered to keep the kids so we can go away together, but now we can’t decide where to go. 
We’re lazy people. Really, we are. We want to go somewhere and eat yummy food, wander around, maybe go to the beach or shop or sight-see. Not much else.
We talked about going to New Orleans because we’ve always loved going there together, and because the food is so amazing. But it seems wrong to plan an entire trip around the praline bacon at Elizabeth’s.
We talked about going to the Keys, but that’s a 6-9 hour drive, and I’m not so keen on that. We talked about going to our favorite beach, but we go there with the kids. We talked about a cruise.
We talked about Gatlinburg and Savannah. We’ve done a lot of talking. Not really any actual planning. And since we’re saving up for this, we need to do some actual planning. So I’m asking for suggestions…
Where should we go?
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Are you see through?
I’ve been homesick today. We spent a wonderful day yesterday with the cousins for their birthday, and we got to join in with all of Stacy’s family for the family birthday lunch. Her sister and her family were there, and Stacy’s parents and both grandmothers. It was wonderful. We have been immeasurably blessed to have been taken in and accepted by her family since our move.
But sometimes, the day after, I feel lonely for my family. I’ve written about this before, and I really don’t have any different thoughts… just more of the same sadness. But I have been thinking about who share these feeling with… who I tell about various things. Am I completely transparent with everyone? Should I be?
Who do we tell the secrets of our souls?
I like to think of myself as a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kinda girl. If you ask me something, I’ll most likely tell you. And I try really hard to act the same way at work or at the store as I would at home. I may not embrace what I look like, but I am pretty comfortable with who I am, and I try to present that same person everywhere.
The people at work talk about how nice I am, and I suppose they’re right. They talk about how positive I am. But would they say that if they knew the craziness in my head today? If they knew I seriously am paralyzed by the thought that I missed a deadline at work last week? If they knew that I think the cleanliness of my house is a reflection of the contentment of my soul? Or that I think people must think badly of me because I’m overweight because I think badly of myself for that reason? Would they still think the same of me?
And do I trust them enough to share these things? There’s a difference between presenting myself as truthfully as possible and being really transparent with who I am.
I know we can only be really, truly transparent with people we trust. But are there people we only trust with certain things? Certain aspects of our own craziness? Why is it that we trust certain things to certain people? Because those people relate to that particular crazy? Or because that person would approach that aspect in a different way than I would?
Whether he likes it or not, Mike’s the only one I’m always completely transparent with… all the time. There are probably times when he’d rather not know all of the craziness deep inside my head. And I am blessed to have dear friends who learn lots more about me than they probably would like to know.
But in the end, it is with Mike that I am most vulnerable, most honest, most present. And I guess that’s the way it should be. Here on this Earth, as my husband, he’s the one I’m going to share the most with through the years.
There was a time when I could say that I was also always completely honest with God, but I don’t so much feel that way now. I need to work at building that relationship again (and yes, I know I’ve said that before). I know that God isn’t the one who changed or left the relationship. It was me, and I want to change that.
Unfortunately, much like trying to mend a broken friendship, I’m not really quite sure how to start. How do I go about being open and honest and transparent with the One who sees and knows whether I speak or not?
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She said, he said…
This is the first year since Eliza’s birth that the days of the week are the same as they were that year. Her birthday this year is on a Tuesday, and she was born on Tuesday. I always think a lot about her birth and the events surrounding that time in our lives. Makes me a little sad, brings up some latent guilt. But mostly, it makes me so grateful for the little sparkly birthday cake stickers on my sheets and for the fact that I’m here to see them and she’s here to stick them.
Most of you haven’t been reading my blog long enough to know what happened, so I thought I’d give you a bit of an Eliza history lesson tonight. And it seems like it’s only fair that you hear about it from both sides… (now’s the time when you hum a little tune while I try to convince Mike to play along… shouldn’t take long, he’s usually pretty agreeable).
Here goes…
She said… Five years ago yesterday, I had this horrible pain in my stomach. I was seven months pregnant, and Eliza hadn’t been exactly easy to carry to that point. At first, they were concerned that I had placenta previa and would have to deliver a couple of weeks early. At various points, they thought she was going to be too big or too little. Given that, I wasn’t just real surprised to be hurting. More annoyed.
I finally called the doctor and he suggested some options, and we tried them, eventually going to sleep.
He said… When your wife is seven-plus months pregnant, you get used to a certain amount of “I feel like crap.” That wasn’t what Chel was doing Saturday night. More like “It feels like something is stabbing me with a steel sword that has been sitting in a white-hot fire for an hour.” It was frightening, concerning and an awful feeling when you don’t know what to do about it. Thankfully, the doctor gave us some advice to get us through the night.
She said… Five years ago tonight, Mike and I were sleeping in separate beds. I was lying in a hospital bed being pumped full of IV fluids of undetermined strength or intent. I was huge and swollen, happily watching the first few moments of the Trading Spaces $100,000 make-over before falling into a sedative-induced sleep.
Mike was home with Griff.
He said… When we went to the hospital, things didn’t seem too bad. I recall we just sort of stayed in a room with a monitor on Chel and hung out. They wanted to monitor for a certain amount of time, which meant Chel had to stay over night. Given the previous night, I was not all that crazy about leaving her. At the same time, I didn’t want to leave Griff at Mandy and Josh’s because I was concerned he might begin to worry himself. But leaving Chel was one of the more difficult things I’ve done.
She said… By Monday morning, I had enjoyed a good night’s drugged sleep and was waiting for my doctor to release me to go home. They had run a ton of tests while I was there and finally let me go early afternoon. After hearing that I’d been admited to the hospital, my mom decided to drive down from Arkansas to see us, so she arrived at our house not long after Mike and I got home. We spent what I recall to be a very pleasant evening with my mom and Griff.
She went with me and Mike to my regular appointment on Tuesday. I have to admit that it’s all a bit fuzzy for me from here. I remember snippets of things. I remember my doctor insisting on an ultrasound (which I now know was to determine if she was big enough to be viable). I remember him asking me to go get some bloodwork done and to then come back after lunch.He said that the Sunday bloodwork showed a few things he wanted to check further.
I was really completely detached from reality at this point. Mom and I went to lunch (shrimp bisque with cornbread) and she was kind enough to overlook my refusal to see what was going on. I had even sent Mike back to work to teach his classes.
When we went back to my doctor’s office, he asked to see me in his personal office. Never good. I never wanted to see his office. he asked if Mike was with me & then had me call his cell and tell him to meet me in labor and delivery immediately. Still, not convinced this was happening.
I was so swollen the nurses couldn’t get an IV in me, and the anesthesiologist had to come take care of it. My doctor came in and told us Eliza weighed about three and a half pounds and that she was going to be fine but that I had HELLP and my platelets were falling to dangerous levels. He said they had to take her right away or I would bleed to death on the table. Nice, huh?
So they took me to the ER, and they laid me out there with all of these people milling about… and I had my gown around my neck. I remember being completely humiliated. And some precious, unnamed nurse came over and covered me up. Bless her for trying to give me a bit of dignity in that moment.
And I don’t remember anything until later, when I work up. I remember vague things… my friend, Linda, coming over after her son’s first birthday party. How weird that Eliza, Harrison and my dad share a birthday? I introduced her to the nurses as my boss, and that seemed to upset her. I remember the meds they were giving me hurting. I remember asking everyone if they had seen Eliza. I remember Josh and Mandy keeping Griff, though I never remember asking anyone if that was true. I just accepted that it was.
After about 11 p.m. Wednesday night, I finally got to meet my daughter. The time between the two points not so clear for me.
He said… Everything seemed great on Monday. I dropped Griffin off at school and went to the hospital and Chel was released. Chel’s Mom left Monday morning early (really early) after hearing that Chel was having to spend the night in the hospital. When she got there, we all kind of laughed that she had driven six hours and now everything seemed fine. But Chel had a regular appointment the next day and Chel’s mom decided she stay a few days since she was down. Chel and her mom went to that appointment, I think I met them there. After waiting a bit, Chel came back and said the doctor wanted Chel to get some blood work done and have lunch, and the come back to see him and he’d have the results. I went to teach my class while Chel and her mom had soup. I worried that I should get back, but there was no indication that there was anything up. As I was driving to pick Griffin up, I got a call on my cell phone. Chel said that I needed to come to the hospital and meet them in labor and delivery. It was then that I got worried. I think the whole time I was worried that something was wrong with Eliza. When I got there, the doctor came in and everything seemed to get serious. I was sort of confused until Chel tried to tell the doc that Eliza was too little and she couldn’t give birth this soon. Then the doctor explained that her platlettes were so low that if they waited much longer, her blood would be unable to clot and she would bleed out on the operating table. And I said, “Go Now. Shut up Chel.”
The doctor had said the baby would be fine. But, in all honesty, that wasn’t my biggest concern. As awful as it sounds now, at the time, I didn’t know Eliza. I loved my wife. I couldn’t live without my wife. Do the surgery now, doc. And he did. And they wheeled Eliza by me in an incubation chamber, pausing long enough for me to look at her, before they rushed her to the NICU. And when I saw her, she was so tiny, so helpless. Then I worried about both of them. This wasn’t my first C-section, and it took longer than it was supposed to for Chel to get out of surgery. I kept asking what was taking so long, and to this day I don’t know if it really did take long or if I was panicked, but it seemed excessive. When she finally got out, Chel was on serious drugs. Lots of people came by, I went down to see Eliza and so began several days of treking around the hospital from NICU to labor and delivery and back. And feeling awful every time I left either one.
Today, I am grateful for both of them, that God set in motion a bizarre set of circumstances that allowed the doctor (who is fairly close to divine, in my book) to know what needed to be done, for a mother-in-law who just happened to be there and helped calm my stressed nerves and for my wife for whom I am more grateful each day.
Eliza’s first day, a 3 lbs, 10 oz.
Eliza and her daddy in the NICU.
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Happy Birthday, Mike!
Mike’s family didn’t celebrate birthdays big like mine did, and I can remember how surprised he was that I made a big deal out of his birthday when we were first together. But he went along with it and seemed to enjoy himself. That’s kinda the story of our lives together… I do things, Mike goes along & seems to enjoy himself.
I am blessed beyond measure to have him in my life. He was pretty wonderful at 20 when we first met, but he’s beyond wonderful now. Mike wears his age well. He’s settled into himself, into what he believes and what he wants. Age looks good on him.
He requested this year that we not get him any gifts. I cheated a bit, of course. The kids got him a creeper - one of those things you lie on to work under a car… you know, like the Fonz was always lying on in the garage. Griff selected their gift after lying on the ground last week to help Mike replace the radiator on the truck.
And I promised Mike that I would stop saying anything bad about myself (he told me yesterday that I pissed him off… that was a hint that maybe I’d gone too far with the beat-Chel-up theme of late). So that’s his present from me… nothing but happy Chel talk.
Enjoy it, sweetie. I love you like nothing else.
I love this photo of Mike and his brother, Chuck, at Spring Training. Mike’s standing with his best friend (you know, other than me), watching his favorite team with his whole family with him. A nice spring day, a little baseball, a little fun. For him, this is heaven. And seeing Mike happy and content makes me very happy.
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