That Time of the Year

It is happening this weekend!
Unless you live in England...

Thousands will celebrate this. 

But I also remember those who are struggling to conceive. Those who are having to cope w multiple miscarriages. This will be a difficult weekend for them. I know because I was once like them.

The sense of hopelessness, sadness, and a lack of fulfilment. The pain of watching those dear to you get married after you, and are now either pregnant or holding lovely babies in their arms. Your own arms feel so very empty. It was worse for me when I was working as a midwife. I watched women giving newborns away for adoption. I saw women signing forms to consent for abortions... I felt the love and loss of the women as I grieved for their fruits.

It took a while. Finally, I got to a point where I could agree to be present at the birth of one of my best friend's baby. What joy. Three months prior I hated the sight of her. Her distended belly made me feel even more inadequate and I entertained unreasonable thoughts like "You did this just to spite me!"

It was a process. Finally I could say honestly that I was at peace with whatever God had in store for me. I had what I thought were promises of sons before I even got married. But God is sovereign. And I could enjoy going traveling with my husband at the drop of a hat.

It was a triumph! I could laugh at the enemy. I could celebrate, worship and adore God despite my circumstances. Who I was (and am) is defined by HIM and HIM alone! Hallelujah!

And then the Lord opened my womb.

He indeed works in mysterious ways.

While I dont feel the pain of the past, I remember the difficulties. While I no longer shed such tears, I shed them when I pray alongside and for those who do. 

You know who you are - Hannahs with wombs waiting to be filled by Samuels. Praying and standing with you at this time.

Poignant Moment

Taking photos is a hobby.

Whilst others cam-whore, close ups are favourites of mine. 

This brings back memories of times when my older ones were around. We were at lunch. This was the table display. 

Suddenly missing my "boys".

Ah well....

Momma n Dotter Moments

We decided to do some baking again. Arrow #3 has her way and I have mine. Inevitably we start off clashing a little. Then we settle down in our own way. 

Final product is pretty good and more importantly, we are reconciled and not enemies! 

The next morning, I pack them away nicely. The smaller boxes contain the smaller cupcakes. The bigger contain the medium ones.

Every single one is to be given away eventually. I think Arrow #3 and I have had an overdose of this recipe ourselves! Haha!

Welcome Welcome

I was quite glad to be asked - could the youth worship team come by our place for a thanksgiving dinner cum looking ahead to 2013 time? SURE~ But ummm, make sure the place is cleaned up after? Thanks!

So it was. An evening of good food, good fellowship and good chats, followed by good clearing up after. Thank You Lord!

Memories....

There I was, standing in front of the mirror. I was preparing to go out for dinner. I had my entire outfit picked out, down to the accessories. Hubby of course was ready to go anytime!

Then problem arose - I could not find my clutch bags - the black one, which was with my white one, and which was together with my cream one.

That cream one. It's special. Because it’s from Mom.

As a little girl, I would watch her get ready for dinner and I would wait not-so-patiently for the moment when she brought this special bag out. How I loved this bag. It came along with wisps of perfume caressing the nostrils, with makeup and special softness which enhanced a glow on Mom's face for the evening. I would wait for that chance when she would pass me the bag to "take care for her". Then I would gently, almost revererently, finger the beads, caress the workmanship, and admire the entire craftsmanship. Those were special moments.

It was a truly special moment when on one visit home my Mom handed this symbol-of-many-delightful-memories to me and told me it was mine. It's faded. A number of beads are missing. The faded cloth is showing in parts. But it was mine. As was all the memories. I am so, so thankful, even to today.

Yes, I found my bags, all three of them.

But the other two will never be as special as this one….

Thanks Mom

She Remembers

It was fun today.

Arrow #3 spoke up while in the car, on the way to lunch. She suddenly remembered parts of her time in the house where she was born and spent the first few years of her life.

The floor (parquet upstairs, tiles downstairs) - was it because she spent time crawling on them? She learned to crawl under the chairs there, chasing after her brother and the hamster!

The waiting at the bay window waving to me as I left for work. She would sit there for a while longer after I left.... sigh....

The wooden table where she drew chalk marks to play games on. The favourite game was a local one called chongkak. Hmmmm how come she's not that good with maths?

The dancing while her brothers played nutty songs on the piano and keyboard. That explains her love for dance!

The time one of her brothers had a birthday party and we dressed up to do the Good Samaritan and told the story. The part of being the robbers excited the over excited boys!

She loved her room, and I'm sure it's because she had a queen sized bed all to herself. Initially she didn't like the big bed so we covered half of it with stuffed toys and lots of dolls to keep her company.

Memories.... ahhhh. Nice. I am glad we created memories for the children. This was a precious short 15 minute drive time.

Super precious because her grandparents were in the car with us!

Plans

Finally, after an entire year and more of unsynchronizable holidays and breaks, we might just have a week to ourselves. The family and my parents.

That means time together!

But of course, the children will want to link with their friends too. So the best thing would be for us to go off somewhere overnight and then leave them to their friends after that.

Making plans for this many of us is not going to be easy, but it has to be done. Memories have to be created, and planning has to be done.

But plan as we might, it is God Who will bring things to pass, so we need to pray and seek His will and way before we embark on anything else....

Which is what I am going to do as soon as I sign off here!

Memories

It was a short visit to the store. It was supposed to be a quick nip in, grab what is needed, pay for it and out.

Then when I went to the counter to pay these caught my eye.
Silly, noisy hammers. Tap anyone and it would squeak. Irritating to some, stress releasers to others.

So I bought one for my Arrows when they were studying for their final exam.

They enjoyed it.

Ha!

Fun

It's fun when you can laugh together.

I enjoy that with my children.

Like the time I taught them the best way to get rid of hiccups was by being tickled. We had fun there.... and yes, I still contend that this IS the best way!

Or the time we created fantasy worlds with blankets and cardboard boxes.

How about when we would all jump on the American King Sized bed and have a tickle-wrestle-mummy-always-wins time.

Yeah, it's good to be able to laugh together.

And the latest?

Facebooking across the miles over my second Arrow's birthday, set off by zany posting by Arrow #1

Thank you Lord for the fun!

What an Evening

He could barely stop grinning most of the evening. So many tales to tell with so many friends to tell them to.

Here he is, regaling them with another.
And here she is laughing at his version even as others delight in his gift of narration.
What a lot of laughter and fun there was that evening!

There was a wedding going on outside and we were definitely louder than they were when we were not filling our mouths with food!

Christmas Trees

I know some people dont think too highly of Christmas trees. But when my firstborn came along, I made the decision to have a tree and have done so every year since. It has become somewhat like a tradition for Christmas, which some people would say is pagan.

I think that it is more making memories as a family. We make it clear that Christmas is not about the trees and decorations and gifts, even though we do do gift exchanges. We explain what Christmas is all about, and by now, the children know already.

But a tree? Lights? Decorations? That is our family memory-making moment of the year.

For more tips on how to decorate a tree, go to EADotCom.

Creativity

Moms have to be lots of things.

Nurse. Driver. Cook. Cleaner. You name it. Amazing how many attributes can be ascribed to women!

Including being creative.

Recently while visiting a friend, I saw her packing little gifts for her daughter to give to the teachers in Teachers' Day. That brought back memories!

Of course as they grew older, the novelty wore off. But initially, it was good to make the effort indeed! In the meantime, it was just fun to watch my friend do her bit. Perhaps she will recemember and bless us too!

Being a Momma

I am going down memory lane for the next few posts here. Hope you enjoy the trip with me.

After a few years of marriage, Hubby and I decided to stop taking family planning measures and to try for a baby.

However, unlike the many women I nursed and took care of, I did not fall pregnant so easily. This was a shock to me because even before I had married, the Lord seemed to have promised me sons when a particular passage spoke to me.

It brought me much heartache to nurse women who were falling pregnant so easily, some of whom were giving up their offspring for adoption, for various reasons. I still remember one little chappie called Jack. His parents couldn't keep him because they were both of a different race and culture and so they named him, loved him for a day, gave him toys, and signed the papers to go. I would nurse him each night I was on duty while the paperwork was being finalised, I dreaded the day, which inevitably came, when his cot would no longer be in its usual spot in the nursery.

When my friends fell pregnant, cooing over their babies, my heart hurt and I envied them. Yes, I envied them. It added to my low self-esteem when I discovered I could harbour such feelings towards my own friends. I felt incomplete and not sufficient a woman.

I would cry out to the Lord much like Hannah did in the Bible. I alternated between asking God to hear me and telling Him to have his way. It was a time of huddling close to Him and to Hubby. It helped a little that Hubby was patient. But how could he understand?

There was no cause for my primary infertility, as they called it. Hubby checked out great and I had a mild case of endometriosis which wasn't enough to do anything to me. This, together with monthly reminders added to my sense of poor self worth which the Lord had to deal with.

Being offered IVF (those days it wasn't called IVF) was tempting. I was staff on the British National Health Service and it would have been free. But we decided to hold off for a while so we could think more about it. We ended up not thinking more about it for another four years!

During that time, my best friend fell pregnant and asked me to be present at her delivery. I was a good midwife and a good friend in other aspects. But I could barely even look at her bulging belly. Could I consider being there to help with her birth?

Thank God, in the end I did go. And whilst I did not actively take part in the delivery, just being there began the healing.

I began to enjoy not having children - we could get in the car and go anywhere anytime for short breaks and do whatever we wanted with ease. I could enjoy other people's children, baby sitting for them, and giving them back at the end of it all.

We began to honestl y be able to say, "Lord, if you want us to have children, we could be on the highest dose of the pill and we would still have children. If You didn't want us to have children, we could try and try and nothing would happen. You are Lord."

And then it happened. God has a sense of humour. I'll tell you more in the next post how things worked out.

Arrow #3

Did you have an eventful pregnancy? Or labour? With all three of my offspring, something happened. Take my third arrow for instance.

Early in my pregnancy, I woke in the wee hours of the night and found the bedsheets and bolster soaked in blood. (No, I am not exaggerating; there was that much blood.)

As I lay in bed, momentarily shocked by the discovery, I sent a prayer-thought up to God. I asked Him, "I thought You told me that I was supposed to have this baby. What's going on here?" (Someone who prayed for me on March 13 2004 had said that I would have fruit from the womb - not miscarriage!)

I didn't immediately get an answer.

My midwifery training switched on and I went on auto. I decided that I needed to change into clean clothes. Entering the bathroom to wipe myself down, I felt an urge to go to toilet. Even as I sat down, my maternal instincts screamed, "You are going to miscarry the baby!" I could feel something coming out.

Again, my training took over. I gathered the clot that I passed. Somewhat shaken at handling the almost hand-size clot, I then slowly and gently looked through it. Macabre? I had to see if there was any sign of my baby.

I couldn't find anything. The negative thoughts came that my pregnancy was too early to see anything. I dismissed it. I did not want to linger on such thoughts.

Finishing what I had to do in the bathroom, I went back to bed. Hubby had changed the sheets. I told him what happened, and we prayed.

Finally such peace descended upon us at around 4am and we drifted to sleep.We felt somehow assured that the baby was fine.

Later we went to the doctor's clinic. There, we saw the ultrasound scan screen showing her still fine.

What the devil had intended to steal and kill and destroy, the Lord had intended for life.

Making Memories

Do you make memories with your children?

There was a time when every Sunday we would take the children to the beach. Other families would be there. The children would kick a football around. The dads would (supposedly) go for jogs. Moms had the job of keeping an eye on the things and took the opportunity to chat.

Another things we did as a family was to have one Sunday meal at special "Children's Choice" places. Even though it was inevitably the fast food joints, we would let them choose and try to make a nice time of it.

Of late, we have also been inviting folks round for Sunday dinner cooked at home. Friends could be from all walks of life, different ages and backgrounds. Very often we would "mix them up"!

I wonder if my children will have memories of these times when they grow older....

Distraction Therapy Works

They were acting cranky. Aged six and four. Woken up from sleep in a bad mood. Close to tears as they approached the nursery cum kindergarten where they normally enjoy. Desperate for a change, I shot a quick prayer up to my Counselor and Guide.

"HAAAAAAALP!" I said inside of me.

Then I saw the older Arrow's mop of hair. He has thick, strong, black hair. Like his Dad. And like his Dad, when he gets up in the morning, it can be a little wild. Untamable at times. This day seemed like one of those days. So I dug into my handbag to look for my comb.

That handbag is a bottomless pit sometimes so it took me a while to find it.

Fishing around, I found it and brought it out with a flourish, saying triumphantly, "TAAAAADAAAA!"

I shall never forget the looks on my sons' faces that greeted my glee.

Shock. Incredulous. A "Mama's-gone-barmy" look.

Then as they burst out laughing, I realised why they had reacted the way they did. In my hand was a poor specimen of a comb - more than half its teeth were missing!

Needless to say, no one had their hair combed that day. But apart from a Mom who was red-faced for other reasons, the others were red-faced because they were in stitches.

Well, at least they went to school in a good mood.

I wonder how they told their friends. Worse, their teachers!

Lost

One time when I was away across the South China Sea, my dear Hubby took the two boys for a swim (my girl wasn't born yet). When it was time to go home, my Hubby got them changed and walked with them to the car.

Or so he thought.

One moment Arrow #2 was walking beside him, and next moment, he had disappeared! This is the dread of every parent!

Together with Arrow #1 they searched.

They enlisted the help of the security man and the lifeguard.

They peeked at the bottom of the pool.

No sign of Arrow #2.

Suddenly another security guard showed up with him in tow. Phew!

Arrow #2, being as short as he was, saw a man with long trousers and followed the trousers without looking up. He had forgotten that his Dad was wearing shorts that day, not the usual working pants! He trotted along this stranger's side until the front foyer. Then he realised his mistake! Thank God he had the presence of mind to look for help.

Did he cry? No.

Was he scared? Not initially.

I didn't hear about this until I got back a day later. Hubby and I then sat on his bed and chatted with him. Then he cried. And we prayed with and for him.

We were glad we had taught them even at a young age what to do if they got lost - stay put if possible, or if they saw someone in uniform, ask for help. He was too young to remember his phone number then. So we knew angels were watching over him!