Who I Am

I think I have always been quite self-aware but lately I feel like I know myself better than I ever have before. I don't know why that is- maybe joining motherhood put it all in perspective for me. Maybe it's just the result of frequent reflection over the past years. Whatever it is, I enjoying 'knowing' myself and feeling comfortable with who I am. I enjoy not having to pretend to be something that I am not or wonder what I stand for or believe in. To give you just a glimpse of who I am....

• I am pro-life. I believe that everyone is fearfully and wonderfully made and created in His image. Yes, even the little fetus that is only weeks past conception. I saw Claire's heart beating when I was 6 weeks and 2 days pregnant. There is no question to me that life starts at conception and that all lives are worth protecting. I also believe in the miracle of adoption.
• My love language is words of affirmation.
• I dislike politics.
• My spiritual gift is giving.
• I strongly believe in microfinance and its ability to alleviate poverty.
• I think that we do not necessarily have a problem with 'shortage' in this world. Rather, I believe we have a problem with 'distribution'. And it is our (our, not just the government's) responsibility to distribute resources.
• I love being a mother. I really love it. I feel like it is something I was created to be.
• I believe that everything does not happen for a reason.
• I believe that God can make good out of bad situations.
• I belive that true miracles do happen, through the power of Jesus Christ.
• I believe in equal rights for men and women; and that women (and men) should be able to choose what they want to do with their life without being confined by gender roles. I believe a woman can be a 'feminist' and still choose, and love, to be a stay at home mom or homemaker. (Today we were at Target and we picked out a 'glow worm' for Claire. Josh thought it looked too 'boy-ish' because there was some blue on it and not a speck of pink. I told Josh that it's perfectly acceptable, even desirable in my opinion, for Claire to own toys that are blue and not pink).
• I believe that "it's not about me". Or you.
• I believe in the power of prayer.
• I often (and by often, I mean multiple times per week) reflect upon the meaning of life.
• I treasure friendships- new and old.
• I dislike public speaking, but am pretty good at hiding my nerves.
• I still struggle with pronouncing the letter "r".
• I believe in the importance and power of forgiveness.

Just a little bit about me. You may have already known all, most, some, or none of it. On the eve of my 28th birthday, I enjoying thinking about who I am. Because I like me. I think God did an okay job. :)

Miss Mobile!

Claire is ON THE MOVE!!! She officially started crawling on November 18th and hasn't stopped since! She can even pull herself to a standing position on her own. Now that she's completely mobile, she's getting into all kinds of trouble.






She climbs on boxes....



She eats the tupperware.




She crawls under the table and through the chairs.












She plays with electrical cords (we do try to limit this behavior).

She eyes up her nuk and chases it feverishly.

She gets stuck under the table (and like all good moms, I tell her to hold on as I grab my camera and take a picture).

And she pulls herself to standing!

Oh, how much joy she brings us each day as she discovers the world around her!

Claire at 7 months

Today is Claire's 7 month birthday! Where does the time go??? Our princess continues to steal our hearts every day. It is hard to believe you can love a little bugger with as much passion as we do.



Claire at 7 months:

• CRAWLS!!! She began crawling (officially) on November 18th. Josh thought she crawled before this but it was only maybe 4 or so steps at a time and her momma didn't think that really qualified as crawling (I know, she wasn't even 7 months old and I was already hard on her!). But on 11/18, she crawled across the entire living room because she was chasing me (while crying) as I ransacked the house looking for my cell phone. I finally caved and gave it to her that she is officially crawling! It is so fun and cute to see because you feel like a baby that small shouldn't be able to move like that!


• Loves, loves, loves to give mommy (and only mommy, which I don't mind :)) kisses. She sucks on my chin and lunges for my mouth. It's actually getting kind of painful when she gnaws on me with her gums!


• Has moved from her belly to sitting up all on her own, one time (at least that mom and dad have seen).


• Has had some formula. I am still breastfeeding but I'm not pumping enough during the day for her three full bottles and I went through almost my entire freezer stash. She now drinks two bottles of breastmilk and one bottle of formula each weekday. For some reason I had a hard time with this. I am proud to still be nursing and I am proud that she was nursed exclusively for over 6 months. She is handling the formula so-so. She's not a big fan and she has some constipation/tummy issues. But she'll adapt!


• Wears 3-6 month and 6 month clothes..... still. :)
• Drinks 5 or 6 ounce bottles and eats every 3-4 hours. She also has greatly improved her solid food eating skills. She loves the homemade sweet potatoes and peas. I mix the vegetables (one at a time) with breastmilk and rice cereal. She's not too sure about the applesauce yet. She scrunches her nose and closes her eyes because of the sour taste.


• Sleeps from about 7:30-8:00PM until 7AM, with getting up once or (usually) twice. She has been harder to get back down after she wakes up- she used to just go right back to sleep and it wasn't a big deal for me to get up during the night to feed her. Now she often cries and gets very upset. Josh has been GREAT. If I don't think she needs to eat, he'll get up with her. Even if she does need to eat, he'll sometimes get up and change her diaper (which is much harder work than just sitting down and feeding her) before I get up to nurse her. He never once complains and I so appreciate his partnership.


• Often has a tricky time going down for a nap. It is either super easy or super hard to get her down. We're trying to let her 'cry it out' a little more and it occasionally works, but usually doesn't.


• Is noticing the world around her more than ever. It's almost like a light switch turned on and all of a sudden she can see all of her surroundings (hmm reminds me of the song, "I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see..."). She loves to explore. You can see that she found the coffee table during her exploration this week and decided she should climb inside. Of course, why not?!
• She often leans backward and looks straight up above her and is captivated by what she sees (which is usually just a white ceiling but is sometimes a ceiling fan, to her delight).
• Loves her one-on-one time with her daddy. During class last Thursday Josh said that he fed Claire at bedtime but she decided she didn't want the bottle, so she just leaned against his chest and fell asleep, which caused him to cry (he's a softie and I love it). She is not very cuddly and it's very unusual for her to do this so it meant a lot to him! You can see the joy they experience together in the below photo that was taken before bedtime tonight.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, we are bursting with gratitude for our precious little family and all of the abundant blessings in our life. Claire brings us more joy than we ever could have hoped for. Even during the middle of the night when Claire is screaming and I am exhuasted and long for sleep, I cannot help but smother her cheeks with kisses. As I celebrate our blessings I remember and pray for the women and men that are still searching for their family and struggling with infertility or miscarriage or child loss. It is a heartbreaking place to be and although we are joyous I have not forgotten the intense pain we felt during our infertility journey and miscarriage. Time heals but you don't forget.

Blessings to you all on Thanksgiving! God is good, all the time and all the time, God is good.

Amazed

I love reading blogs. I keep up with, maybe, 20 or so blogs on a regular basis. Only a few of the bloggers do I know in 'real life'. Most of them have no idea who I am (I am a "lurker") but I have learned so much from these different women about parenting, marriage, love, Jesus, life, suffering, and joy, and heartache.

There is one blog in particular that is hitting me hard today. I found this blog months ago (I don't even remember how), read the first entry, saved it to my 'favorites' and didn't return again until today.

I always am longing to 'hear' Jesus speak to me. I have never audibly heard Him, but I hear Him through people, events, interactions and in the quiet stillness of my mind. I heard Him loud and clear today, and I am so thankful for that!

Remember this post I wrote awhile back about longing to have Jesus' eyes for the poor and hurting? The blog post I read today reminded me just how much I long for His eyes and how much more I am falling desparately short of loving people the way He does and the way I should.

This blogger is a 21 (yes, TWENTY ONE) year old SINGLE woman who is living in Africa and has 14 (yes, FOURTEEN) adopted daughters. Amazing. If anyone could be called the hands and feet of Jesus, it is her.

Here is the blog post that shook me today. I encourage you to read it-- I know you will be touched.

Claire at 6 Months

Thank you to everyone who offered support and encouragement after my last post. I am so lucky to have such caring friends and family. I'll be okay- don't worry! I'm quite resilient. It feels good to get out in the open that I just have a lot going on right now, although that probably wasn't a surprise to anybody! I think anyone in my shoes would be struggling a bit. Last week I got an unexpected raise at my midyear review (very uncommon!) so that helped a little- it's nice to know all of my crazy hours and hard work are being noticed and appreciated.

Okay... on to more exciting things... Claire turned 6 months old last Sunday! Wow! I can't believe our little girl is half a year. I almost feel like I need to start planning her 1st birthday party- haha.

Claire at 6 months:

• Drinks 5 ounce bottles. She still eats about every 3 hours.
• Gets up 1-2 times per night. She goes to bed about 7:30PM. She shows tired signs earlier than 7:30 but Josh and I just don't want to put her to bed yet! We get such very little time with her in the evening and we hate to put her to bed at 7PM! Especially when she can sleep as late as she wants in the morning since we don't need to drop her off at daycare.
• Is mobile, mobile, mobile. She has the backwards scoot down pat. She can find a way to get anywhere she wants to go. She'll get up on all fours and launch herself forward. She also rocks back and forth slightly while on all fours. We even had to start babyproofing!
• Pees like crazy at night. She pees through her diaper and pajamas multiple nights per week. It is not fun nor easy to completely undress her, wipe her down, change her diaper, find new pajamas, put new pajamas on and put on a new blanket at 2am with a little baby that is screaming because all she wants to do is eat and sleep!
• Drools less. I don't know why she's drooling less but she doesn't need to wear a bib like she used to.
• Loves to be scared/startled. She even waits for it in anticipation. She'll just stare at you and blink her eyes as you lean forward to give her a little shake around her chest and yell "boo!!".
• Doesn't really care for rice cereal quite yet. Her reflex to push the spoon and food out with her tongue is still pretty strong.
• Takes a fair amount of naps still. She'll nap maybe 3-5 times per day. Sometimes they're 15 minutes long and sometimes they're 1.5- 2 hours.
• Weighs 12 lbs 14 oz (3-5th %) and is 24 3/4 inches (10-15th %).
• Wears 3-6 month and 6 month size clothing.
• Has taken sips of water "to wet her whistle" as her baby doctor says.
• Is starting to be better at "cuddling". Before she didn't like being held really close unless she was eating or sleeping and wouldn't naturally lay her head on your shoulder or relax in your arms while awake. She's starting to a little bit though and Josh and I are very excited about this! Josh often says to her "I wish you liked to cuddle!" and "I can't wait for you to be able to give hugs!". She has his heart, that's for sure.
• Is a super happy girl. She is always smiley. She loves to giggle and belly laugh.
• Sleeps in her crib!!! This started on October 17th. The transition went well for all of us. Claire didn't seem phased by it and I wasn't too sad because I knew it was time!
• Is the love of my life. I yearn for her when I'm not with her. I'm always praying that I'll have an opportunity to work part-time. Even 4 days a week would be absolutely amazing!

Overwhelmed

I haven't posted in a couple weeks- bad blogger! It's been for good reason. I'm just overwhelmed right now.

I don't want this post to come across as complaining or not being grateful for the amazing gifts in my life. I am grateful. I am so grateful to God for our precious Claire that my heart just wants to burst from my chest when the thought even flutters past my mind. But I am also overwhelmed. And I want to get that off my chest because it's therapeutic and healing.

I used to think (still do probably to a degree) that I could do it all. I saw my mom doing it "all" when I was growing up and have her for a beautiful role model of a working mom that held it all together. She worked full-time, was the primary caregiver, and took care of much of the daily household details. I have always thought that I could handle pretty much anything. Work-full time? No problem. Add graduate school to that? Piece of cake. Add a baby on top of it? I can do it! Maintain my relationships with my friends and family, clean the house, manage the finances, do all the grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking? Yes, because I'm Super-Whitney!

But the truth is, I feel like I am failing at everything. And it's exhausting.

Let's take them one by one...

Work commute- I leave my house by 6:30AM and return home around 5:15PM. That's a long day. During that time, I typically do not get even 30 minutes to just sit and eat a lunch. Nope, I am working through lunch almost everyday these days. I really, really, really love our neighborhood, city, surrounding. But I also really wish my commute wasn't 1 hour on a good day with good weather and good traffic.

Job- I also wish at this point that I had a job where I could go there, do my thing (and a good thing at that), and then come home and be done with it until the next day. But I don't. My job is very demanding and stressful. I think about it all the time. The last two weeks I have worked almost every night for a number of hours after Claire went to bed. I should be going to bed after Claire goes to bed (or at least relaxing) but instead I need to work. My work is generelly the first thought in my head before I go to sleep and when I wake up. I know it's causing a lot of stress for me. I have a lot of responsibility and my boss and his peers have very high expectations of me. It's not going to get any better anytime soon because one of my two direct reports had her last day on my team yesterday (she was promoted to another team). So now we're down 33% of our team so I will have to pick up most of that slack, which means more late hours working from home. Last night when I was feeding Claire at 1:30AM, I commanded myself to NOT think about work and instead pray, which is my favorite thing to do while I feed her during the night. (I prayed for many of you that are reading this blog last night at 1:30AM!).

Grad school- I have two classes remaining (the one I'm taking right now and another in the spring) before I graduate with an MBA from the University of Minnesota. Hallelujah. My class is on Thursday nights. On those nights, I leave home at 6:45 for work and return home around 9:00-9:30 from school. At that point I have to pump because Claire is already in bed so I can't feed her. After changing out of my suit that I've been in for far too long, pumping, cleaning the bottles, checking work email, breathing for a minute, talking to Josh, and getting ready for bed, it's usually 11PM before I hit the sack. And I'm exhausted. I am sad because I didn't get to see Claire at all that day. Besides the actual class portion, I need to find time to study each week. This weekend I need to do a take-home midterm exam that will likely suck many, many hours out of my life and I just don't have the motivation or desire to do it.

Motherhood- I LOVE being a mom. It is the most amazing, fulfilling, demanding, thing I have ever done. I can't explain my love for Claire. I honestly wish I could be a stay at home mom until my kids entered elementary school. It physically hurts me to be away from Claire all day. Annie (my mother in law who takes care of her during the day) spends more waking time with Claire than I do and it honestly kills me. I am so envious and sad. I am incredibly grateful to Annie for doing this. She's making a sacrifice too and I know it's not easy. I just really, really wish I was the one at home with her, which is the way it should be. Being a new mom isn't easy, even without all the other things I have going on. One of the most difficult parts is the lack of sleep. As Claire gets older, the sleeping gets worse. Ironic, huh? From 5 weeks to 13 weeks she slept through the night, every single night. Then I went back to work and she started getting up one time per night, which lasted for awhile. Now she's been getting up two times per night. I estimate that I get about 5 hours of sleep per night, every night. It's been like that for a couple months now and while I am getting used to it, I know that I need more sleep. A lack of sleep just
compounds everything else.

Feeding/Pumping: I am proud to say that Claire has been exclusively breast-fed since day 1. This is NOT to say that I am any better than any moms that formula-feed their baby. Not AT ALL. It was just important to me to breastfed Claire and I have been blessed that it has been relatively easy (from a medical or physical standpoint) for me to do this. From a pratical standpoint, it has been hard. She eats every 3 hours during the day still so my days are really planned around that. I am not comfortable feeding in public so I usually have to go in my car, find a dressing room, or go to a bedroom if I'm at someone's house to feed her. It means that I am the only one who can get up to feed her at night. It also means that I have to pump every day at work. My original goal was to pump three times a day but lately I have only been able to do it twice, and even that is a struggle. I have had to walk out of meetings, skip lunch, literally race to and from buildings, and work from home at night in order to pump during the day. By 3 months old, only 20% of babies are exclusively breast-fed. I don't know what the stat is for 6 month old babies, but I imagine it's far less. Again, I in no way want this to come across as me sounding all high and mighty and heroic for nursing Claire for this long. It has been a sacrifice and one that I am so, so happy to make. It's been a true blessing for Claire and for me.

Marriage- a good marriage doesn't happen naturally. We all know it takes work. I would say the biggest adjustment since Claire has been born for Josh and I has probably been our marriage. We just don't have the time together like we used to and our relationship has just changed. I need to dedicate more of my time, effort, and energy into our marriage. It's the most important thing and yet it feels like it's the first thing to let go when life becomes this stressful. Don't get me wrong- we are doing well and are in love as ever. It's just different and that's been hard to accept. There are days I feel quite distant and days that I know Claire has brought us closer together.

I won't go into these in detail but other things on my plate include:
I am an Executive Director of the Midwest Global Trade Association (my term is 2007-2010)
I started a small group that requires bi-weekly meetings and homework inbetween
I am dealing with two persistant, long-term health problems that both require daily treatment. One of them is my shoulder and I should be doing my physical therapy exercises every day but I don't have (make?) time.

So that's about it. I realize this probably came across as complaining and I am saddened by that. I am tremendously grateful for my marriage, Claire, my job, my house, my friends and family, Sydney, and all of the other incredible blessings in my life.

I read an article recently (while pumping) that talked about post-traumatic stress disorder that can show up seemingly out of nowhere years after women become mothers. These women hold it together for so long (working, mothering, taking care of the household, etc) and then just snap and fall into a depression. The article made a lot of sense to me. It instructed that women must communicate their struggles and let others support and encourage them to prevent this emotional breakdown. So that's what I am doing. I have cried about this often lately- while driving to work, while sitting at my desk at work (no one was around), in the bathroom at work, while talking to my mom on the phone. On the outside I look like I have it all together. But I don't. I have had fleeting moments of the "what if I just get in my car and drive off and never come back" thoughts. But those pass quickly. I am happy. I am in love with my husband and my daughter. I have Jesus in my heart and know that He is all I really need. I have more compassion than ever for hurting and hungry children and families around the world. I am the same Whitney. I'm just a more tired and overwhelmed Whitney. And I greatly appreciate your encouragement and prayers.

Short video

You have to watch this 2 minute video. It's pretty touching. Have a kleenex handy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZtU676jA_k