Pregnancy Cravings Crisis

There are many funny things that happen during pregnancy- Weird digestive issues. Odd shapes protruding from your mid-section. Perfect strangers asking you very personal questions and seriously invading your personal space. But I find pregnancy cravings to be equally as odd. When I am not pregnant, I do everything I can to quiet my unhealthy cravings. I try to distract myself with a better choice or just ignore the craving altogether. ("I am in charge!" I say. "I will not succumb!")

And then I get pregnant. All sense of self control and self denial literally FLY out my door. Fudgsicle for lunch- SURE! Veggies and dip for a post lunch snack? At least it's somewhat healthy, I rationalize. Chipotle for dinner? Only if Daniel agrees. (Please Lord, let Daniel agree...) It's as if I feel entitled to the craving because... I'm pregnant! with twins! It's winter! The twins need it (this one works well on Daniel ;)

Is it because our culture expects pregnant women to have cravings that I feel such a lack of control? Is it because people are inclined to say: "Go ahead, you're eating for 2 now." (or in my case 3!) And then, as if to add insult to injury, the things I crave the most are the things pregnant women aren't really supposed to have. For example, a California sub from Jimmy John's sounds DELISH. But I'm not supposed to have lunch meat. And I'd love to wash that sub down with an icy cold Cherry Coke. Except the caffeine is bad for the babies and the Coke is bad for all of us. And then I make chocolate chip cookies for small group but sampling the raw cookie dough is a no-no so I shouldn't risk it.

And I'm not alone in my cravings crisis either. I have had several mama's share some pretty hysterical cravings stories from crying over chicken salad (Hi Lauren!) to refusing to eat a banana split (Hi Christie!)

But then there's a flip side to this coin: food aversions. Currently, I cannot BEAR the thought of eating leftovers. I will make something really tasty for dinner one night and the next day the mere thought of heating up the leftovers makes me lose my appetite. More times than not I have chosen to skip the meal than eat the leftovers. WHY?! I am normally fine with leftovers, especially if it's something that I enjoyed the first time! Am I growing children who will also hate leftovers?

Cravings Count

While pregnant with Isaiah I craved apples & peanut butter, watermelon, chocolate milkshakes from UDF, guacamole.

While pregnant with the twins, I have craved/am currently craving veggies & dip, Chipotle burritos, the ever classic pickles (by themselves though), Jimmy Johns, LaRosa's.

Celebration Sadness

Have you ever heard of seasonal depression? As far as I understand, it's a feeling of sadness when seasons change, or more specifically when winter hits and the days are short and cold and dark and the promise of spring seems so far away. Well I'm fairly certain I don't have seasonal depression but I DO think I suffer from celebration sadness. After every major celebration- typically the day after- I just feel kinda down and sad that the party is over and all the planning and anticipation has passed.

Example 1: I remember when I was maybe 9 or 10 and I felt so sad the day after my birthday, I crawled in bed with my mom and just cried. I had had a WONDERFUL birthday sleepover but then it came time for all my friends to go home and all the presents were open and the celebrating was done and I just felt sad that my special day had come and gone.

Example 2: After my wedding, the next day was filled with traveling and starting our honeymoon- which was fantastic and so much fun! I thought I had eluded the celebration sadness. Nope, just prolonged it. The day after we got back from the Caribbean, Daniel had to jump right into his Master's program at UK and I was left in our little apartment in Georgetown, KY with nothing to do but unpack. I cried. And then I called my mom and cried some more.

Example 3: Usually after all the Christmas celebrating is finished and we've rung in the New Year, I'm ready to clean up and take down the decorations. I have found that this is the best way to do it anyway. When I'm ready for the celebration to be over, or when I'm ready to get home from your vacation, or when I'm ready for life to just get back to normal- this is ideal. It's when I don't feel ready that the sadness kicks in. And this year, I feel a little melancholy. I feel like I didn't linger long enough this Christmas. I didn't drink in the lights and the glow like I usually do. I missed out on some of my favorite traditions because I forgot to do them or because I didn't carve out the time like I have in Christmas' past. I feel like I zoned out through most of December. And I don't think it's because we got too busy or too wrapped up in gifts or all the other excuses people have for this sort of thing. I think it's because my world has been spinning wildly off it's axis since Friday December 13.

Ever since the ultrasound tech delivered the news of twins, the babies are never far from my thoughts. And not necessarily in a sweet, maternal sort of way. More in a "oh my gosh, what are we gonna do?" kinda way. We have had SO MANY people step up and offer every possible kind of help imaginable, from playdates for Isaiah to people offering to prepare meals to my mother-in-love (this phrase fits us better than the "in-law" part of the phrase) buying me 2 bags stuffed full of maternity clothes. So much sweet, kind, gracious, servant hearted help, but at the end of the day it is Daniel & I who have to go through this. I need to make peace with this and accept my reality. The best part of Christmas coming to an end is the promise of next Christmas and the chance to learn a lesson from this year's celebration. Well, the best part of being pregnant with twins is the promise that God will walk with us every step of the way. That's what I have to cling to, that's the only kind of help that will soothe my trembling, freaking out soul. And I feel so ungrateful! I have so many friends who would LOVE to be pregnant with twins right now. Who am I to complain or be so thankless? Yet the light at the end of this tunnel stays dark.

Do you feel like you didn't linger long enough this Christmas?

Forgive me as I fumble through the early days of this pregnancy and as I honestly share my journey with the world. Thanks for being friends who listen :)

Yup. We're having twins.

Friday the 13th has never been an ominous day for me. I wasn't raised in a superstitious home, in fact my parents did a great job of explaining that we don't have to worry about superstition because the power of Jesus' love overrides any of that dark spooky stuff. Anyway, this particular Friday the 13th was an exciting day because it was my first official OB-GYN appointment. Daniel & I had known for several weeks that I had gotten pregnant right after the miscarriage so it was exciting to know that today I'd get to hear baby's heartbeat. I needed to hear that heartbeat to wash away the left over shards of fear the miscarriage had left behind. From the start this pregnancy has been so different than my pregnancy with Reuben (see this post to understand why we decided to name the baby I miscarried.) I have had significantly stronger symptoms. No nausuea or morning sickness (thank you Lord) but oh, the heart burn. This baby was making him/herself known from the start! Also, my clothes stopped fitting 20 minutes after reading the positive pregnancy test. Ok, ok, maybe not THAT soon but I was surprised at how quickly I was unbuttoning jeans and hunting for any remnant maternity clothes (not planning on getting pregnant again so soon, I had loaned out most of my maternity clothes.) When pregnant with Isaiah I stretched my regular clothes well into my second trimester. This was not going to be the case with this pregnancy. To be honest, the weight gain was freaking me out a little bit. I had just stopped nursing Isaiah and I had read that some weight can creep back in after you stop nursing. That explained some but not enough to make feel ok. I've always carried around some extra weight but I stay pretty consistent and when your pants suddenly don't fit, that can be the cause of a female freak out...

So, back to Friday the 13th, my awesome midwife-turned-doctor squirted the doppler goop on my belly and very quickly found that heartbeat. It was music to my ears. My tears started to fall and my doctor gently squeezed my hand. I told her I was crying happy tears but she said she knew they were happy tears born out of sadness. She even let me record the heartbeat so I could send it to Daniel. Then she started pressing on my belly, trying to see if she could feel my uterus. She pressed for a a few minutes and said "Remind me again, how far along are you?" I said "Well, we don't technically know. I think I'm 10 weeks. The miscarriage was a little over 11 weeks ago so I can't be much farther along than 10 weeks." She pressed a few more times then said "I know everything is fine because the heartbeat was so strong but let's get you in for an ultrasound and see if we can get an accurate due date."

So I headed home, happily considering what this could be. Here's what I figured, from most logical to most far fetched:
Option 1- I'm having an abnormally large baby.
Option 2- I'm somehow still pregnant from the miscarriage. Seems a little impossible but I serve a God of amazing things, I wouldn't put this past Him.
Option 3- It's twins... HA. No.

I actually considered the idea of twins MORE far fetched than the idea of God working a miracle and allowing me to still be pregnant after what was very obviously a miscarriage (followed by a negative pregnancy test one week after.)

So I called the scheduling office at Bethesda North and asked the operator if they by chance had any ultrasound openings for later that day. She said she doubted it but she'd check. And what do you know, they had had a cancellation and could see me at 3:15pm. Fast forward to the parking lot at Bethesda North later that day. Daniel, Isaiah, & I were getting ready to get out of the car to meet our baby and I was reviewing the 3 options I had created. We both scoffed at the idea of twins and I reminded him of what some friends had told us when told them we were pregnant with Isaiah. They said "we hope this baby is twins so you'll never know any different. Then when a singleton (the medical word for one baby) comes along, you'll realize just how easy one baby is."

We should have seen the signs...

Once we were safely ensconced back in the ultrasound room, the technician dimmed the lights, squirted more doppler goop on my belly and very quickly our little baby appeared on the screen. Except it looked like our little baby was encased in a bubble with another white blob looking thing directly underneath it. I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at anyway, ultrasound technicians are like people who read tea leaves, they can see the future where the untrained eye sees nothing. And then came the phrase we least expected to hear. "You're having twins."

Oh. my. word. Cue the freak out session. I start crying. I'm looking over Daniel who looks like he's desperately to translate exactly what he's seeing and what he's hearing all while trying to distract Isaiah who chose that moment to exert his independence and was demanding to be put down. The technician is measuring the heart rateS (169 & 163 beats per minute) and printing out pictures. She explained that the twins are in their own gestational sacs which is a good thing. Apparently it means they're less likely to get tangled in each others umbilical cords this way. She also thought she might be able to tell if they're identical or fraternal but after consulting with her doctor she said it was too soon to tell. So she sends us on our way with a fistful of ultrasound pictures and our worlds are forever rocked and changed.

Twins? How will I ever manage?

On our way back to the car Daniel immediately starts planning how we will tell our families but says we have to wait until Christmas to do it. "Christmas?" I say. "I can't keep this from my mom until Christmas! I'll burst!" But he says "This will make such a great present! We've got to wait!" I realize it's gonna be a loooooong week and a half.

I then spent the weekend that followed in a ball of emotion, crying over the insane changes that are very quickly coming to our family, mourning the beginning of the end to our family of 3, realizing Isaiah will never remember being the only child, worrying that he'll feel like a second class citizen when the twins are born and he gets relegated to diaper fetching duty, wondering if the twins can somehow sense I am less than excited about the news of their arrival, thinking of questions and unknowns, and realizing we will need 2 of everything expensive (cribs! car seats! bikes! cars! college tuition! weddings!)

I'm still not 100% excited about the news. Every once in a while it'll hit me and I'll start to cry or worry or fear and I have to remind myself that God equips those who ask Him to. God gave us the privilege of parenting multiples, He'll supply our needs when the time comes. Give me time, I'll be excited at least by the day they're born :)

Merry Christmas Baby!

One of the BEST parts of having your own kid is that you can make your kid into your own little model/photo shoot subject. And for an amateur photographer/part time stay-at-home mom, that means fun on my off days! Well, thanks to an idea from the most awesomest invention ever (Pinterest, of course) I decided to stage a little Christmas photo shoot...

So, the first thing I needed to do was track down the little car. I put out a plea on Facebook to borrow one and Daniel came home that very afternoon with the little car in tow. The second step was to put together the lumber jack outfit. We already had the hat and the little lumber jack boots but the plaid jacket was really gonna make or break the ensemble. We had nothing even close. Well, wouldn't you know it my wonderful mother-in-law bought Isaiah a bag of second hand clothes and lo and behold this little beauty was tucked in the bottom of the bag! Step three was to wait for the perfect day. I didn't want it too warm because I knew Isaiah would not like wearing a hat and fleece jacket on a warm fall day. I also didn't want it too overcast because I'm not that good of a photographer and I need the sunlight to take the best pictures. Step four was to catch Isaiah in a good mood and head outside!

All of the steps came together perfectly today! Well, all of the steps except for #4. My plan was to take Isaiah outside after his nap, which is a prime good mood spot in his day. I laid him down for his nap at the usual time and he proceeded to roll around and play for the next hour. He never actually fell asleep. So I rescued him from his baby prison, dressed him in his 'costume' and out we went. This is what happens when Isaiah is not in a good mood and I try to make him do stuff:

Luckily, Daniel came to the rescue and got Isaiah laughing and giggling while I got the poses I needed to get the best shots. All in all it was quite the successful little photo shoot! And what did Isaiah do not 10 minutes after coming inside? He went down for a 2 hour nap of course! Here are a few more from our photo shoot:

The Church of Mary Kay

Now before you jump to any conclusions based on the title of this blog, let me be the first to say I seriously LOVE Mary Kay products. I have a special section in our family budget so that I can buy my Mary Kay cleanser & moisturizer. (My mom always said that it's worth it to pay a little extra to take of your skin and I have taken that to heart!) Also let me say that the AWESOME woman (hi April!) who sells me my Mary Kay told me (last night actually) that she reads my blog so I will not be disrespecting or dissing this fabulous company. Period. I have nothing but love and respect for April and for the MAry Kay company.

OK, now that my conscious is clear, my FABULOUS Mary Kay rep April, invited me to come to a Mary Kay event last night. She lured me in with the promise of new make up. (I am seriously a sucker for free product.) I have been to these kinds of things before. April has been my Mary Kay lady since I "won" a bridal make up consultation with her a few months before I married Daniel. Since then, about twice a year I get an invitation from April to various Mary Kay events. When I first started getting invited, April would always gently ask if I was interested in starting my own MK business and I would turn her down for a variety of reasons. So after awhile, I think she just knew not to ask. I have nothing against Mary Kay. I am always inspired by the energy and the excitement and the hope the MK women have. I appreciate the "Faith first, Family second, Work last" principle and I love that most MK women are not ashamed to declare their faith in their market place. I just don't love makeup as much as they seem to. I would probably only sell MK if I was a single woman with no children but I'm just not willing to give up my Friday and Saturday nights, being away from my family to host MK parties. The money, the cars, the prizes- it's not worth it for me.

So, that being said, I had a bit of a revelation last night. I was sitting in one of the beautiful ballrooms in the Radisson hotel in Covington. The women are all beautiful. Most are dressed impeccably, beautifully made up, all shapes and sizes and colors of women; it really is a room full of beauty. And success!  All of these successful women are parading across the stage, declaring how much money they've made selling MK, how many cars they've earned, how many carots in diamonds they've won, how many trips they've been on (on MK's dime!) and none of it with a spirit of pride or arrogance. These are the facts of their careers. It is inspiring! The room is a mix of a levels too. The guests are the ones who are not 'employed' by MK, they are the consumers of the products (this is me.) Then there are the consultants who are just starting out, then the consultants who have earned their first car, then the directors who have offspring consultants and on and on, up the chain of success. The speakers all made a big deal out of pointing out the guests, mainly because we are their targets.

Like I said earlier, the Mark Kay company makes no secret of the fact that faith in God is a huge part of the company's roots and the main speaker last night, National Sales Director Pam Shaw, freely spoke about the Lord's hand and voice in her life. She credited much of her success to her Christian roots and I felt as though I were listening to someone speaking in church. (There were even a few 'amens' from the peanut gallery.) At the close of her talk she asked the guests to stand (again! This was probably the 4th or 5th time we stood) and said something to the effect of "If you are interested in living the life of your dreams I want you to get up on this stage." Suddenly a flood of women were out of their seats and headed up front,  there were easily 30 women! After the clapping had slowed Pam said "I know there are more of you out there who have regretted not moving..." And sure enough here come a few more women! Then Pam turns to the women on stage, some are wiping away tears of excitement and all are hoping for a changed life, and asks them to mark the date, October 25, 2013, because this will be the day that they changed their futures.

Now pan the camera back to me. I have stayed rooted in my seat. The two girls in front of me and the girl who was sitting next to me are all on stage. I feel as though I have a giant spot light with an arrow pointing down on my head declaring "This one is a guest! And she's not on stage!" I felt guilty and singled out and like I was missing out on something incredible. Why would any sane person turn down the chance to be your own boss! drive a free car! work when you want to! and the myriad of other promises MK offers. The crowd mentality was really strong. In fact, the whole scenario felt like a alter call. Now, I gave my life to the Lord's leading when I was 4 years old (that moment is one of my earliest memories, I remember it very clearly.) So, I never responded to an alter call. I never had to. I have never known the guilt or pressure or urge to walk myself to the front of a church to surrender to God. I surrendered in a rocking chair on my mom's lap, before bedtime on night. So this feeling was new to me. Then I found myself wondering "I've never felt this way before when I have come to these MK things. Maybe God is prompting me to start my own business? But I don't hear Him speaking like He usually does. I haven't experienced that gut reaction disobedience followed by a sense of peace like I normally do when God asks me to do something." So I continued to sit and clap and cheer on those that are now on the road to 6 figure incomes and pretty pink cars and all the other success they'll discover.

Now for the revelation. Humans are driven by the chance to win and win big. We love prizes. We love feeling like we're getting something for nothing. (This is probably why I like clipping coupons and shopping for sales.) We love rewards. I even said it earlier, that I'm a sucker for free product. But we also know "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." How many of have been disappointed or burned by a crummy reward? It didn't take too many trips to the carnival before I realized I was spending too much on the games to win the cheap, dinky prize. 3 times in Matthew 6 Jesus says "And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." This bothers me though because Jesus never mentions what the reward is! What if my heavenly reward is a pile of a dinky carnival prizes? (Figuratively speaking of course, I sure hope dinky carnival prizes aren't allowed in heaven...) Though Jesus is clear about what we are to be doing in secret, he is never clear about what our reward will be. Though He is clear that a life surrendered to His control earns a free trip to heaven and an eternity with Him, He never really mentions if there are other bonuses involved. Eternity in heaven should be reward enough considering I don't deserve ANY of it. Yet still, I am discontent when I read Matthew 6.

(Insert whiny voice here) "What IS my reward Lord? Am I doing just enough here on earth in order to be pleased with my heavenly reward? Can you make me a sticker chart so I can my progress and know how much more I have to do to win and win big? God? Are you even listening? Sticker charts are so helpful Lord..."

Recouping at the Gorge

It's been a week since the M word. We are steadily getting back to normal. Last Sunday was awful. The worst. I would not wish losing a baby on anyone, even a person I thought shouldn't be allowed to procreate, I still would not wish loss of life on them. SO many women in my life have shared their own M stories with me. Seriously, SO. MANY. WOMEN. Too many women have endured this awful, heart rending pain. There is a sense of solidarity with those other mothers who know this pain. Women I would have described as strong, noble, faithful, passionate followers of Christ. Women who proclaim with their lives and their families and their lifestyles and their language and their humility a deep seeded love and trust for the One True God. Women whose lives have been rocked and scarred and yet still they proclaim that God is good; that He is faithful always. No matter how life on earth turns out, He is faithful. Always. He can be nothing BUT faithful. I want to be a woman like these in my life. I want my children to "rise and call my blessed" (Prov. 31:28) because of the example I set. Because of the language I speak. Because I pointed them to God. Because God's faithfulness was always on my lips. I will take what the enemy intended for evil, what the enemy thought would tear me down or break my spirit or forever break my heart and I will say "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praise." Job 1:21

This past weekend was Fall Break at CCU, where I teach. We used the extra time to get away as a family. Daniel loves camping at the Red River Gorge. He says he likes to hear the wind as it rustles through the leaves in the trees and through all of the gorge. I just wanted to get away with my boys and have a change of pace. Our plan was to head down Friday morning, hike, then set up our tent, cook some dinner, and enjoy nature. I don't know if this was a prompting from God or just Daniel being impatient, but he decided to rent a cabin, The Firefly Suite, for Thursday night. So, around 6:30pm, we loaded Isaiah into the Buick and the 3 of us headed to the Gorge. We knew it would be late and very dark when we got to our cabin. The website said the cabin is "off the grid", meaning no electricity and no running water. What it failed to mention is that driving a Buick Century up the gravely, hilly road to the cabin is not a great idea. Particularly if your husband just had eye surgery, meaning he can't see well enough to drive at night, leaving the wife to navigate GIANT Buick on the teeny tiny one lane gravely, hilly road. Add a screaming baby to the mix and you've got our arrival at the Firefly Suite.

Once we actually got into our cabin though, all the stress of our arrival was gone. This cabin. Oh my. So perfect. You can see pictures on the website (the link is above.) Thanks to the cabin being "off the grid", there was no electricity so the area we were in was pitch black, which meant the stars were so bright and clear. And to top it off, there was another cabin not far from ours and some one started to play the fiddle. It was so perfect and peaceful. Exactly what I needed.

So after a night's rest, we were off to hike the Gorge! We started out at Natural Bridge. We hiked up, up, up until we got to the top of the Bridge. We reminisced about the Geology Field Trip. We oohed and aahed over the view and God's incredible creativity. We let Isaiah crawl around in the dirt. Then we hiked down Balancing Rock Trail. Daniel found and carved a walking stick. We joked about how a man who is basically half blind should not be allowed to use a pocket knife and walk at the same time but he did it anyway. We walked down lots and lots of stairs.

Balancing Rock!

Then it was on to Miguel's for lunch! You haven't been to the Red River Gorge if you haven't eaten pizza at Miguel's. We decided that it's not necessarily because Miguel's pizza is all that good but because it's basically the ONLY food you can find in the middle of the Gorge. Isaiah helped us polish off a piece or two. That kid loves pizza.

Ale 8!
(don't worry, it was empty- no pop for this kid!)

At that point our plan was to grab a Backwoods Camping Pass, let Isaiah nap for a bit, hike to a scenic spot on the ridge, and set up camp. Except the Red River Gorge is a state park, and within the Red River Gorge is the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Which meant that the park was closed to camping because of the Government Shutdown.

Which left us with a decision. Option #1 was to ignore the Government Shutdown, pocket the $3 Backwoods Camping Pass, and continue as planned. After all, if the Park Rangers and other employees are all on furlough then there is no accountability. Camp or don't camp, no one is there to know. Option #2 was to obey the rules, bite the bullet and head home early. We kept waffling, we couldn't decide if we wanted to take our chances or have our plans ruined. We decided to hike around a bit more then make a campfire and cook our dinner (mmm... hobo packs!) Eventually we knew that the right choice was to obey the rules. So Daniel at least got to make an awesome fire, I got to practice being a backwoods chef, and Isaiah got to crawl around in the dirt some more and eat pine needles. After dinner we splashed water on our fire, hiked back to the car, and headed home. And as we passed the car of a fellow hiker, who had told us he was planning on spending the night without a pass, we chuckled at the State Trooper vehicle parked next to his.

So despite our somewhat ruined plans, we had a fantastic time. It was so healing for me to get away with my boys and have the space to be together without a to-do list, even if just for 24 hours.

The M word

I would have been 6 weeks pregnant tomorrow. Daniel & I had just found out and we were keeping quiet just in case anything went wrong. We didn't want to have to tell the world, to share the pain of losing a baby.

Yet here I am blogging about having lost our baby. Though I'm not actually blogging about having lost our baby, I'm actually blogging to publicly declare that our God is always always good. And so very faithful. Our God is personal and wants intimacy with us, wants to speak to us, wants to comfort us.While Daniel & I would so appreciate your words of encouragement and sympathy over our loss, I'd rather you walk away feeling encouraged that Jesus is so deeply in love with you and so bound to you that He aches right alongside you, as a husband or a best friend or a parent might. Whoever you turn to for comfort, Jesus is a million times better at comforting than that person might be.

Last night Jesus comforted me through a dream.

Before I tell you the dream, let me give some back story. Sunday morning I woke up with a little spotting but I spotted when I was pregnant with Isaiah so I wasn't that worried. Throughout the day though it got more and more heavy and by Sunday afternoon I found some more convincing evidence and was pretty certain the baby was gone. I went downstairs to tell Daniel (who is still recovering from a painful LASIK/PRK eye surgery. Daniel was lying on our couch with all the lights off and a pillow over his face, because he is so sensitive to light. This has not been a great weekend for the Reads.) I told him I was pretty sure I had lost the baby. He held me and I cried. He may have cried too but his eyes have been watering so much from the surgery, there's no telling. Then I got up and went about the rest of the day. I put Isaiah to bed, gave Daniel his eye drops, and then I called my parents to fill them in. There were lots more tears and my mom encouraged me to grieve the loss of this life, no matter how new it was. So I grieved some more and more tears fell. Exhausted, Daniel & I crawled up to bed.

About 4am this morning, Daniel woke up needing more pain medicine. I put his drops in and then fell back to sleep. It was then that Jesus chose to comfort me through a dream. Let me say, as a disclaimer, I am not usually a spiritual dreamer. God does not typically give me dreams that make sense, or give me dreams that have any spiritual ramifications.

In my dream I was at my parent's house (Apparently Daniel, Isaiah, & I were living in my old bedroom.) I was in my childhood bathroom and I had just miscarried but the baby came out looking like a jello mold of a tiny baby, all wobbly and see through, though I could see his bone structure through the jello-like substance. The baby was about as long as my forearm. I laid the baby on the bathroom counter and I called Daniel in so we could say goodbye. I left the bathroom to go get Isaiah and when I came back in the jello baby had transformed into a real baby. He was blinking and breathing though he was very very small. We picked him up and carried him into our room. I tried to nurse him and he drank a little. We kept saying over and over how we needed to soak up as much time as possible because we knew he wouldn't last long. We found this little blue sweater and put it on him. He kept growing too. He began to look more and more like his brother. He had the same white-blond hair as Isaiah. We called our families and they all came over to meet our little guy. Then here is where God stepped in. I asked Daniel if he wanted to name our son. Daniel said yes, he wanted to name him Reuben. My first reaction was to disagree. I wanted to say no, that people would nickname him "rube" (a slang word that means "hick") but I felt like I was just supposed to submit and keep my mouth closed. From there the dream gets hazy and the rest is inconsequential.

I woke up feeling at peace. Content knowing that there will be more babies and that this little life is with Jesus, enjoying his heavenly reward. He'll never have to go through this yucky world, he got promoted straight to Jesus' arms.

So, just by dreaming of our little son as alive and well, even if alive just long enough to love on him and hold him was such a comfort. But this morning I was still left with the name Reuben hanging on my mind. I looked it up. Initially the name Reuben (the oldest of the 12 tribes of Israel) is not that impressive. According to chabad.org, "The name is made up of two halves: "re'u" means "look" or "see" and "ben" means "son" So Reuben literally means "look, a son." But... another description from the same website says that Reuben can also refer to "a highly tuned level of Godly awareness that is so real it is as if the person actually perceives God with his own eyes. No amount of argument will convince a person that he did not see something when he did. The name Reuben expresses certainty and immediacy in our awareness of God."

WHOA.

There is no arguing with the peace and closeness I feel toward God right now. Whether He really did speak through that dream, whether that baby was a boy or not, I feel at peace and that alone is a God thing. I am very aware of God and His presence today. I am comforted and at peace. I don't understand why we weren't allowed to meet this little baby face to face or why we are now going through the experience of miscarriage. However, I do understand that my life is small in eternal significance and God has not chosen to give me eyes that understand as He understands (for that I am thankful.)

Today I am living out 1 Corinthians 13: 12, 13-

¹² We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³ But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

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