Apologies to all for the lapse in post last week. Between being a first time mom and figuring out my employment situation the last few weeks have seemed to run together without time for much else. As such, today’s post is short and sweet.
These days there’s so much talk about main character energy. Given how few people seem to take a genuine interest in reading I find this a bit ironic but it does beg an interesting question. Should you be the main character of your own life? Before my conversion to the faith I would have answered of course. Who else could your life possibly be about? However, as with many things since I first entered the Catholic Church, my current response is entirely different.
I no longer strive to exude main character energy because my life became infinitely better when it stopped being about me. I found Christ, I got married and, most recently, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Certainly I still hold tremendous agency over my words and actions but my world no longer revolves around me and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I choose to place three other people at the center of it. In a hundred years if anyone is still telling my story I pray that through my efforts to be a good wife and a good mother, it’s a story which points others to the love and truth of Christ.
I’ve told my husband that before I met him I felt like I was just keeping myself busy and somewhat productive. I always felt called to be a wife and mother and though I worked toward those ends while still shaping myself into a productive member of society, I often struggled with a sense of aimlessness. I was entertaining myself until God brought love into my life. Now, I know beyond any doubt that the work that I do within my family is a fulfillment of God’s plan for me and there is no better feeling.
The world needs more moms. Even before my conversion to the faith I was acutely aware of the multitude of ways, big and small, that my mom was lovingly shaping my life for the better. For many years now I’ve aspired to be just like her. Here are some of the life changing mommisms that guided me to the beautiful life I have today.
Pajamas are for sleeping – These were words instilled in my sister and I since before we were old enough to dress ourselves. There’s an appropriate dress code for every occasion and, unless it was pajama day at school, we were always properly attired when stepping out our front door. During college and amid long nights of intense study my sister even went so far as to sleep in her outfit for the next day to ensure she was dressed for class. Too often people underestimate the power of looking the part when heading out into the world to do something productive.
Never show up to a party empty handed – Good manners are so frequently under valued in our modern world but when trying to make friends it’s polite to bring something to share. A six pack of beer or some tasty baked goods are my usual go to’s. Even going to family dinners I always ask what I can bring. It’s a gesture of gratitude to your host who has gone to all the trouble of opening their home to you.
If you say no they’ll stop inviting you – These words maintained permanent residence in my brain during my first two years in Indiana. I was new to the area, had no family nearby, was incredibly shy and in desperate need of friends. Saying yes to social gatherings with people I knew little or not at all was, and often still is, distinctly uncomfortable. However, thanks to my mom, my fear of not receiving an invitation ultimately overcame my social anxiety.
Do it right now – Though I’ve been tempted to roll my eyes once or twice upon hearing this, there’s no denying that it’s often been just the push I needed. One notable instance was when my mom was encouraging me to start house shopping during the height of covid lockdowns. An argument could be made that this mommy advice got me my first house. Over the years it’s also come with some parental tough love at times when I needed a firm nudge in the right direction.
I’ll pray for you – This particular mommism doesn’t come in the form of advice and so it sometimes gets forgotten on my list of mommy quotes. However, in recent years I’ve come to realize it’s one of the best things she’s ever said to me. This is a promise which I know will be kept. With four little words my mom expresses the ultimate motherly love, entrusting her child to God. Although our prayers are often answered in the most unexpected ways, no prayer is left unanswered and so there is no greater comfort than to know that God hears all my mom’s prayers.
Although I officially entered the Catholic Church three years ago, my conversion did not end when I received the sacraments. Quite the opposite. I am still learning and growing in my faith as I suspect I will for the rest of my life. One blaring difference I’ve noticed since converting is my attitude toward children. I’ve known that I wanted to be a wife and mother from the time I was learning to walk. Despite our lack of faith in my upbringing, the importance of family was among the first lessons to be taught in ours. My childhood was truly blessed with an abundance of love from my mom, my dad and my big sister.
That kind of close-knit family unit seemed to me the ultimate recipe for perfect happiness, not too big and not too small. I grew up with so many reasons why four was the ideal number for a family. Although we bickered like siblings, I loved having a sister and I know she feels the same. We didn’t always get along but I wouldn’t have wanted to go through childhood with anyone else, especially in comparison to our classmates’ sibling relationships. When we were little we played together with the neighbors and when we got older we developed that strange unspoken communication that only two sisters who love each other can. This came in particularly handy during some sticky social situations or when we started being interested in boys. I was convinced that more siblings would have diminished our sisterly friendship and felt lucky to only have one amazing big sister. I figured that there was simply only so much love to go around in a household.
I could not have been more wrong. When my husband and I started Catholic marriage prep the priest asked us how many kids we’d like to have and for the first time I was completely happy to tell him we wanted two or three. After being married for two years and now with our first baby girl in the mix I’m singing a very different tune. “As many as God will give us” is my new answer. I can think of no greater joy than to nurture a large loving Catholic family. There may be a finite number of rooms in our house but the love I’m capable of feeling for my own children has shocked me over the last few months and I have yet to find its limit.
During a long visit with my family from Colorado we had the supreme joy of welcoming our baby girl into the Catholic Church. She is now baptized and an adopted child of God. She has received her passport to heaven. Now the hubby and I are tasked with teaching her how to use it.
In that spirit, my parents joined us for a drive to the Shrine of Christ’s Passion in St. John, IN. It was a warm, bright sunny day, perfect for walking the life like stations of the cross. I count it a special blessing to be able to take this walk with my parents as well as our newest addition to the family.
1st Station: Jesus is condemned to death
2nd Station: Jesus carries his cross
3rd Station: Jesus falls the first time
4th Station: Jesus meets his mother
5th Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his cross
6th Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7th Station: Jesus falls the second time
8th Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
9th Station: Jesus falls a third time
10th Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments
11th Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross
12th Station: Jesus dies on the cross
13th Station: The body of Jesus is taken down from the cross
Many Catholics are familiar with Saint Anthony, the patron Saint of lost things. He is credited with abundant miracles and is often the one we invoke when we’ve misplaced our keys. This month we celebrated his feast day to thank him for his assistance. Although I hold Saint Anthony in the highest regard along with all those in heaven, I would’ve forgotten his feast this year had it not been for his holy intercession and a little help from my mom.
On June 13th my parents happened to be visiting to help us welcome our daughter into the Church through baptism earlier that week. My mom and I popped out with baby for a bit of antiquing around town. Little did I know that Saint Anthony had his eye on us. Just as we were leaving the last shop before heading for home my mom spied a thin blue rosary hanging by the door. I’m working on my holy card and rosary collections (you can never have too many) and couldn’t resist looping back for a second look. The tag on the simple strand of beads said $12. No doubt the shop owners had yet to meet the Blessed Mother and fully understand the miraculous power of this holy devotion. For 12 measly dollars I couldn’t pass up this sacramental. After purchasing the little rosary we once again made our way to the door and I examined the inscription on the back of the medal. “Saint Anthony” I exclaimed to my mom, holding it aloft for her to see.
“You know it’s his feast day.” She smiled back at me and the two ladies behind the counter. They nodded in a polite though somewhat uninterested fashion. However, I felt as though I’d stumbled onto a rare treasure. I’d of course heard of Saint Anthony and even prayed to him a number of times upon misplacing various household items but today I had the pleasure of finding him. No doubt this was due to his finding me first. Through the rosary, a most beautiful devotion to the Holy Mother, the Saint of lost things found this brand new mother, guiding her yet deeper into her faith.
These words are so often the most difficult to say, yet always the most necessary. When approaching any cataclysmic shift in life; the birth of a child, marriage to your dearly beloved, the start of a new job, a move across the country to a new city, we have a vision for how we want these things to go. Obviously, we pray that they will proceed without complication and will lead us to further fulfillment of God’s plan for our lives. However, in all the commotion, when faith and trust in God are most critical, we are prone to forget both altogether. We content ourselves to power through by our own grit and determination, throwing ourselves into any labor that might bring about that shining vision we had when we started. There’s always one more thing on the to do list to occupy our time which seems far more pressing than falling on our knees before the blessed Sacrament. Carving out time for this is never a mistake and I suspect there are few people who would regret it. I was personally reminded of this during the days leading up to my daughter’s birth.
“Lord, give me strength. I trust you. Let your will be done.” These were the words playing on repeat in my mind prior to and during childbirth. I’d spent the previous nine months agonizing over potential complications and interventions, praying everyday for a safe, smooth and natural labor and delivery. However, when the time came, all that worry fell away. My baby girl did what all girls do. She took her sweet time getting ready. She took so long in fact that my labor ultimately had to be medically induced due to concerns regarding a skinny, single artery umbilical cord. This was not the totally natural, intervention free experience I had prayed for but even in this, God was present.
I don’t believe my scheduled induction was the refusal of a prayer but rather an answer to one. It required me to relinquish that glimmering vision of mine and instead place myself completely in His hands. Had things gone precisely according to my plan, I would not have been able to do this. After the better part of a year of fretting, I was blessed with the chance to simply let go and lean into His will and mercy. Once it at last became clear that I would almost certainly be induced all my fears evaporated. I had done everything I could do. Our daughter’s birth was now entirely in His hands. On the eve of my scheduled induction I told my husband that I didn’t know how to be nervous as I had no concept of exactly what it would feel like. The next morning I still couldn’t dredge up enough fear to be nervous; not during the drive to the hospital, not as I changed into the hospital gown, not even that afternoon when the midwife came in to break my water.
In that room as contractions mounted I could muster only one prayer for strength and that His will be done. I’m thrilled to say that He did indeed answer this prayer 100 times over. Although I was medically induced I was able to successfully deliver our baby girl without an epidural after a relatively brief labor, roughly nine hours in total. We’ve all heard stories of childbirth, the excruciating pain and gore of bringing a new life into the world. In many ways it was the most difficult thing I have ever done. However, at no point did it seem to me an impossible undertaking. I credit this entirely to His grace. Though it was a task that I alone could perform, I was never alone in the pain. God blessed me with a husband who was at my elbow the entire time ready to help in any way, even if it meant enduring a headlock from his laboring wife for three hours. God also blessed me with full confidence in the knowledge that He made me for just this purpose, to birth this beautiful little girl and raise her to know Him. He was there with me, assuring me all the while that this was exactly what I was meant to do.
For many women, especially those approaching childbirth for the first time, any abnormality in you or your unborn child can feel like cause for alarm. Happily, not every finding in ultrasounds and prenatal visits poses significant risk to baby and such was the case for me. The only possibly alarming aspect of my pregnancy anomaly was how little research is available on the subject. I had an isolated single umbilical artery (ISUA). In simple terms, this means that my baby’s umbilical cord formed with one artery instead of the typical two and it was “isolated” because neither baby nor myself showed any indications of congenital conditions which are sometimes associated with SUA. I am not a doctor, midwife, nurse, doula or even an aspiring medical student. I do not seek to provide medical advice in the area of anomalous childbirth as I am certainly no expert but perhaps my experience can help to ease some mental tension for expectant mothers who happen to stumble upon this post
As previously mentioned, ISUA is not cause for worry. On its own it’s not even medically deemed a high risk pregnancy although a few studies indicate it may occur slightly more frequently in cases of twins. From what little information I could gather, ISUA occurs in about 1% of women and almost always results in a perfectly healthy baby. One small risk of ISUA is more rapid deterioration of the placenta, therefore depriving baby of essential nutrients toward the end of the third trimester. To monitor for this many providers will closely watch development and growth via extra ultrasounds and heartbeat monitoring. They will be very interested in information regarding baby’s movement and some providers may also recommend early induction. Some studies suggest ISUA might slightly increase the chance of c-section but there’s no clear consensus on whether this is actually linked to the abnormal umbilical cord or fetal distress brought on by early induction. In short, there is very little known information on ISUA but all sources agree that, excluding any additional risk factors, pregnancy, labor and birth are typically unaffected by this anomaly.
In light of all this as well as many conversations with my provider I approached childbirth feeling quite content about the anticipated safety of our baby girl and myself throughout the process. However, I was faced with a question which became a source of much deliberation during my third trimester. To induce or not to induce? The women in my immediate family have thus far been blessed with smooth, safe and even relatively brief natural labors for all of their births. I am of the opinion that the human female body is quite literally made to bear children and will generally do so just fine without intervention. Obviously complications can present themselves at any time for anyone which is also why I chose to birth in a hospital where extra care was readily available should it prove necessary.
Over the course of this pregnancy I also educated myself on the different methods of intervention as well as the risks associated with each. Among the women on my husband’s side, labor and delivery without an epidural are practically unthinkable. Modern technology has made leaps and bounds in ensuring the safety and even the relative comfort of mothers and babies during childbirth, an incredible feat for women everywhere. Nevertheless, I personally tend toward the natural approach. Each additional intervention comes with additional risks and side effects, rare and minor though they may be. Perhaps I’m a bit naive, never having given birth before, but from what information I’ve found, unmedicated births are often uncomplicated ones and this is the goal I’m striving for as the due date nears. However, there is no correct answer to childbirth, even one involving an anomaly like ISUA.
Throughout this pregnancy I’ve taken birth classes, read books, researched interventions and spoken with many mommas from all walks of life. All their stories are different and their advice similarly varying. There is no correct way to birth a child and I don’t think it’s for me or anyone else to pressure expectant mothers into decisions they aren’t comfortable with. This post is not a rule book or a blueprint for the perfect childbirth. If such a thing exists I haven’t found it. However, I do hope this post can impart a little peace of mind and a degree of confidence to the mommy readers. Regardless of what you hear or how many horror stories you find online, you were made for this. God shaped this beautiful miracle in your womb for a purpose and you absolutely do have what it takes to bring that baby into the world.
Yesterday Catholics everywhere celebrated yet another holy day on the liturgical calendar, the Feast of the Ascension. After suffering death on the cross and rising again on the third day Christ returned to His disciples for a time and continued His teaching. Yesterday marked the end of that teaching when he ascended into heaven.
With the due date for our baby girl fast approaching everyone wants to know how I’m feeling. All the mommies in my life are excited to commiserate on all the aches and pains of third trimester pregnancy, the itchy stretch marks, the ill fitting clothes, the inability to sleep comfortably and of course the sad realization of one’s newly increased girth. I know countless women have faced these and many more discomforts during pregnancy and I don’t diminish them in the slightest. However, on the whole, I’ve been blessed with a very easy pregnancy. There were a couple of sleepless nights and I certainly haven’t been immune to feeling a bit bloated on occasion but in general I’ve felt remarkably well throughout this experience.
After a necessary closet reset I’ve found that I’m still perfectly able to move, get outdoors and do most of the things I enjoy. Evening strolls around the neighborhood are a welcome means of clearing my head, breathing in some fresh air and getting the blood flowing. I’ve also been able to savor all of my favorite foods, maintaining healthy eating habits, with only slight adjustments to frequency and portion sizes. I have thankfully not been afflicted with unexpected and nauseating aversions to anything in particular. When people ask me how I’m feeling I can honestly say that I feel great!
I am totally overjoyed to be pregnant. Even the occasional jolt from a baby kick to the bladder makes me smile. She is constantly on the move, wiggling into more comfortable positions in my belly. She’s especially active when we go to mass or whenever we pray our daily rosary, as if she already knows that those prayers are for her. Those tiny kicks and flutters are welcome reminders of the beautiful life beginning inside me. We’ve also found that she responds to the sound of daddy’s voice and my husband has already begun the practice of bedtime stories for the little one.
We are both over the moon to soon be able to meet this baby girl. I can’t wait to hold my daughter, to soothe her with lullabies and cowboy songs as my parents did for me, to rock her to sleep at night and love her in every way a mother possibly can. Even the dirty diapers and traumatic bath times seem a welcome gift as I think about what the next years of our lives will bring. I truly can’t wait for every messy and exhausting detail of motherhood. It certainly will not always be easy or pleasant but there isn’t the faintest doubt in my mind that this is the very best thing I will ever do.
I hope everyone had a blessed and happy weekend as we entered into the joyous season of Easter. We spent the weekend feasting and spending time with family per our usual traditions at this time of year. As we begin this time of celebration and good cheer in honor or the Resurrection of Christ, today’s post is all about Catholic love, joy and hospitality.
I’ve written on this subject before, most often in reference to the aggressively hospitable woman who raised me. Over the last few years my mom has nurtured a thriving network and culture of deep love and friendship in her home and parish. We joke sometimes that she is the Glenwood mom for all current or potential Catholics in the area looking to grow their faith and community. She’s the woman people seek out to set them up with that cute boy from mass or to give them a lift over the occasionally treacherous passes on their way to Denver. For those looking for a home cooked meal and a riveting theological heart-to-heart, my mom is the person to call. Through all this she has solidified for herself and my dad deep, true and lasting friendships. I aspire to be just like her. Recently, God gave me my chance.
Despite being incredibly shy, I love people and for years I have craved holy friendships like those that my mom has cultivated. However, my lack of social confidence has frequently been a barrier to achieving that goal and I once confessed this to one of our priest friends. To my surprise and delight he didn’t scoff at me and my poor social skills or brush off the comment as meaningless small talk. He simply offered to set my husband and I up with other young Catholic couples in the parish. It was an offer I could not refuse though it did require a little courage to take him up on it.
A week after our initial conversation I contacted him expressing a desire to connect with those young Catholics he’d mentioned. Three short hours later I received a text from a young woman from the parish asking us to dinner with her family at their home. She sent a picture of her and her husband with their two adorable kids as a little introduction. I was a bit taken aback at how seriously and quickly the father had gone about his work of finding us Catholic friends and I felt a little awkward about the situation as these new Catholic friends had come into our lives somewhat inorganically. However, I didn’t dare turn down the dinner invitation.
On the day we were to meet my husband and I hopped in the car and headed down the road. We both chuckled to learn that the little family lived less than ten minutes from us. We were first greeted by their two kids who opened the door and welcomed us inside, closely tailed by their mother. Throughout the evening we learned all about them, their faith journeys and even some shared Colorado experience as they’d spent some time there before moving back to the midwest.
We were also happy to discover that they were also expecting a baby. After dinner had been cleared away their son recruited my husband to build a toy car race track in his room and all the boys headed that direction. This gave us gals a chance to chat about all things pregnancy related and she even gifted me Made for This; The Catholic Mom’s Guide to Birth by Mary Haseltine, a book which I’m still in the process of reading and thoroughly enjoying. Eventually their little girl got bored of watching her brother play with his cars and climbed up next to me on the sofa with a book of her own in hand. Needless to say, we ended up staying and visiting much later than we’d intended and excitedly chatted about promising new friendship in the car on the way home.
They’ve since introduced us to a newly engaged couple from the parish as well and we all had a great time chatting about weddings, babies and of course, all things Catholic over a card game one evening. I firmly believe that God answers all prayers in His own way and His own time and rarely does this occur as we’d expect. However, I’ve also been blessed with a wonderful epiphany after meeting this welcoming Catholic family. Sometimes, all we have to do is ask.
Blessed in the Midwest 