As some of you already know, Kevin got the Mohave Community College (MCC) teaching job and is so excited about it.  He is currently finishing up an online course through Univ. of Phoenix (from home) and then will start teaching a Biolgy summer session at the other Mohave Community College in Kingman, AZ starting 6/2.  It's at night 4 days a week and goes until 7/24.  Then on 8/4 he starts teaching Biology full time at MCC in Bullhead City where we live.  It's great because Sammie will be here by then, and he'll be working closer to home.  No more 35-45 minute commutes or killer miles on the car every day.  Less money out the window for gas.  Just about every doctor we have is here in Bullhead so that makes it easier to keep appts.  Not to mention the increase in pay is significant.  He finally after all these years (since even before I met him) is going to teach what he loves...Biology.  I couldnt be more happy and more proud of him. 

Me...I'm getting big, but basically just in the belly now.  Just went for my most recent check-up and the doc said i grew 2 centimeters since last he saw me and i was 158 pounds (wow!!).  He said baby's heart beat was real strong and let me tell you so are her bones.  Kevin calls her Muhammad Ali because the other night it was like she was boxing in there!!!! 

I'm starting to have dreams of holding her, like the other night.  In the dream, my stomach skin was paper thin and I could see her tiny skeleton through it, and could really feel every line of her face and arms through this thin wall between us.  I stroked her face and she smiled.  It was a really great dream. 

Still waiting to hear back from disability.  That would just help so much right now, in sooo many ways you just don't even know.  If you feel up to it, say a prayer for us.

I mentioned in my previous post that I was going to take placenta pills (my placenta) to help with PPD.  The woman who we bought the at home kit from (Kevin is gunna do it actually) said that these pills are not to be used in place of anti-depressants, if our doctor feels I need them, but in conjunction with.  I guess I was under the wrong impression.  So I will take the zoloft starting day one and still try to breast feed that same day as well and after if i can.  And then once kev gets the placenta pills ready I will take them until they run out and by that time the zoloft should be in full effect (about a month and half later) so hopefully there will be no really bad dips in my hormones with this plan of action.  I told my primary care physician about the placenta pills and he obviously didnt agree, because three days later I received a letter stating he could no longer see me as a patient.  WOW!  I called up and they confirmed that it was because of my choice with the placenta.  I have a new Family Doctor and don't plan on mentioning this to him.  I get it, you know.  If they don't agree, they dont HAVE to see me as a patient, but I have a right to my own health care whether a doctor agrees with it or not.  You live and you learn.

I also went to the dentist about 2 weeks ago and it turns out that I also have peridontisis now in my right upper gum and they want me to go see a specialist to find out if I need a root canal.  "They can do root canals while your pregnant.  It's ok."  NOT ON THIS PREGNANT WOMAN, IT ISN'T!!!!!  So that is something I'm not to happy about, but what can you do.  Recently also had a drop in my sugar (my own fault)...I was craving ice cream, ate it and then two days later almost fainted outside the damn grocery store.  That sucked. 

I also forgot to take my Zofran the other day again.  Thought i really took it and by morning I was like why do i feel so sick?  This feels so familiar, like when I first found out I was pregnant and started throwing....CRAP!!!!  I forgot again".  It took two days to come back up to some kind of functioning level.  So the HG is still there.  I could literally feel something buidling up inside my body, like when you are well on your way with getting the flu...except the medicine, if taken right away, brings the levels back down much faster with HG than the flu!  THANK GOD FOR ZOFRAN!!! 

So yea, there are still ups and downs, good and bad days, body pain and OCD things happening, but I'm getting further along and closer so I guess the hormones that are there now, are less because the stress of the down times, don't mess me up so bad right now.  Now the lower back and sciatica pain, that's another story!!!    :)~

To close, Kev is at Saturday school, I'm in my pj's, Roamin is laying in the sun on the floor, and Sammie is quietly nestled in my tummy asleep it seems.  Tonight we are going to dinner with a small hand full of people to celebrate the fact that Kev and I are about to become parents, so today is a nice slow, easy day.  Tomorrow, I will be 29 and it will be my first Mother's Day. You dream about moments like this, but they never fit the reality.  I don't really know how to react I guess.  I'm moving so far away from just being this person who is married, to this woman who has a family.  Being married is one thing and something I had experienced already, so when Kevin and I got hitched it didn't feel out of place or scarey. But with raising a child...that's like....that's like a whole new world.  I'm the baby of the bunch so I've never even had a younger sibling to practice on.  It will be interesting, that's for sure.  

Well, gunna go fold the laundry and maybe make kevin some kind of dessert to say thanks for being an awesome friend, father and husband.  Maybe Butterscotch pie.  (Apparantly Sammie thinks that is a good idea cause she just woke up...!)

Bye for now!

Lisa

Just felt like writing a quick entry.

Kevin and I have thought about it and decided to cancel the SPECT scan.  We are going to try some other measures since this procedure is not covered by insurance and would be quite expensive to do right now. 

We are however hiring a doula to attend the birth whetehr that be in the hospital as we currently have it planned, or if we decide to hire a midwife that particpates in our insurance and would do a home birth at our doula's house or her own. 

We are also going to take our placenta home, dehydrate it, grind the dried placenta up, put the pwder into capsules and take the capsules twice a day in an effort to stave off post partum depression.  The method is that your hormones are in that placenta and taking the capsules put those vital stabilizing hormones back into your body and helps stabilize your mood.  I am all for it if it helps.  Kev is going to do it here since we have everything we need.  we found out about this through our doula Allyson who knows of a woman who suffered with her first baby through horrible PPD.  She was an amatuer herbalist (like Kevin) and used this ancient technique with her 2nd baby and didn't have PPD the 2nd time around.  Im still going to keep a zoloft prescription on hand but this would allow me to breastfeed and stay normal without meds for longer.  So Im all for trying it!!!!

Here is the site if anyone is interested:  http://placentabenefits.info/

Also, I've added new pics in the photo album since my sister sent me maternity clothes for my birthday.  Thought I'd share them on here. 

I'm getting big.  It's about time!

Lisa

So this passed Saturday, Kevin and I went to a birthing class and it scared the hell out of us both.  We got to see all the joys and all the seriousness that comes with having a baby.  These are things that people don’t tell you when they talk about how wonderful having children is and being pregnant.  I sat there saying to myself, it is a wonder people go through this 3 and 4 times, but I will only understand why once Sammie is here.  I can’t know that kind of joy and love from where I am now.  But I’m excited about meeting her more and more as we get closer.  I’ll be 30 weeks this Saturday.  10 weeks goes fast and I guess as scared as I am of what the instructor told and showed us, I feel more prepared if something should go wrong.  Kevin walked out of there feeling overwhelmed and scared about losing me on the table.  Not because of anything I said, but because he saw how much can happen.  I have already come up with a plan for him if something should happen that is beyond anyone’s control, so that he is not alone and can move back to NJ if that is what he wants.  It’s not that either one of us wants that, it’s just that we love each other enough to take care of each other on the deepest levels.  And sometimes that means looking at the morbid things.  Looking at the painful realities that can happen.  It’s ok in my eyes to just look at it, handle it and then put it away, with a hope you never need it.  Until that point though, I’m usually pretty freaked out and anxious and upset.  But once I stop running from the fear of it and just give it the space to be, something inevitably calms down, even if for just a while, and then it’s ok again.  

I used to hide and try to bury those painful thoughts of dying, as well as the ones that begged for death when things got psychologically too painful to withstand.  I know that thoughts of dying based out of fear of it, are normal when you are pregnant, because the process of birth is a lot like death.  When you look at the suffering and the body changes, and the breathing, the amount of light that comes into the body in both cases…it’s very similar.  I don’t think that killing yourself is a good thing or being in so much pain that you want to die is healthy either, but I think we are all human and we all go through those feelings at one time or another (we just don’t admit it usually or openly).  I think that when you do realize though somewhere in the mist of the feat and pain just how fragile life is and you come to terms with the inevitable fact that you are not going to live forever…it is a humbling moment in time.  And for some getting to that point is even necessary for their growth as a human being.  Because inevitably everything changes from one form to another or dies and that’s just how it is.  Though rain doesn’t die into air, it does become something else…some other form we can’t see.  I think the spirit is a lot like that.  It’s just that in this human experience we all get attached to the forms and become ignorant and asleep to the truth behind the form, the part that lives on.  I feel in touch with that place inside myself and then again at times I forget and get wrapped up in the sadness and confinement of relating to myself as this body, or the thoughts and feelings that this body produces.  When I wake up to spirit, then I don’t feel desperate to die or afraid of death.  In those moments, there is just awe at the life that is all around and inside and throughout everything.  Then I can just be.  There is no where in the world you can go to find your individual awareness and once you see your own, the presence of ALL things are right there too.  Harder to see in people and things, and easier in nature, but all still just as present. 

I’ve known this. I’ve seen this place before and now looking back over this year, I see how easy it is to get lost inside the form, no matter how much witnessing and awe you felt in some other moment.  It’s not to say that events and moments, and sadness and pain don’t continue to happen, but when you stay present to your spirit, you don’t get as lost and wander so far from yourself that you can’t remember how presence feels, now.  

I started to remember again when a friend told me about Eckhart Tolle and Oprah doing these web cast classes for free about two weeks on her site.  Every Monday they discuss a chapter of Eckhart Tolle’s new book:  A New Earth:  Awakening to your Life’s Purpose with callers, people on skype and via e-mail all over the world.  Something like 11 million people tune in every Monday.  I was amazed.  Echkart also wrote the book called, “The Power of Now.”  Both books are about living in the present, in the now, but not as a concept.  How does it really feel to live in the now?  I’ve been on the spiritual path for a while, glimpsing what that meant and I have come to find from listening to these classes and hearing people ask Eckhart to answer the same questions I have, that no matter what is happening or what is going on in your physical form, you can always come back to the present moment.  When you do that your experience may or may not change, but there is more freedom around whatever the experience is.  A deep surrender that can take place when you don’t resist or argue with what is happening now.  Even if you were dying…even if you’re giving birth or you’re in the midst of your anxiety, there is always the present moment of what is happening that you can just say yes to and stop fighting.  And though the body would still be dying and the pain of childbirth happening or the reaction of anxiety already in progress, there is a space inside all of it that remains untouched and still.  That is the spirit.  That is your pure consciousness, your pure awareness.  That is what never dies and is never born.  When you look into the eyes of a baby, that is what you are seeing and that is what is looking back.  Total presence.  Echkart Tolle has a way of showing me that place within myself by taking away the misunderstanding, by pointing my attention in the right place.  It wasn’t until I started to listen to these classes, that I remembered how to get back home to that place.  It doesn’t mean anxiety doesn’t still happen or that I don’t have thoughts of dying or fear, it just means that I’m more present in my life and there is less judgement about how I should be thinking, or feeling or being, which then allows the thoughts and feelings and fears to be seen for what they are, a passing moment.  And it’s slowly changing my perception at a pace that only I can go at.  No one can force that pace or hurry it up.  It’s just me and myself and the constant practice of presence that I am learning from him that is making the difference for me now.  It doesn’t mean my body wont make hormones that cause a chemical depression once the baby is born, but it does allow me to worry less about it now and take action from a place of calm, rather than a “oh my god, I can’t believe this is happening” state of mind.  And I still forget that place and go right into reaction, but in this past week, I’ve noticed I don’t take as long to come back from the reaction as say even a week and a half ago.  

If anybody cares to see what they see for themselves, then I’m including the links to download the special player you need and where to go afterwards to watch the classes.  They really are quite amazing and for me, so desperate for peace, it has been a great reminder on how to find that peace again and how to deal with my physical body as well as my spiritual self, as I go through this unknown and difficult experiences.   

http://www2.oprah.com/obc_classic/player/install_launch.html - to download the special media player.  

http://www.oprah.com/obc_classic/webcast/archive/archive_watchnow.jsp - where to go after you download the player to watch the previous classes (if it doesn’t direct you there automatically).  

Though nothing has changed on the outside, I feel a difference inside and I am grateful no matter how small, for it.  

Love,

So it hasn’t been light years since my last post.  I guess maybe because Kevin is now a track coach, has a meet tonight and won’t be home until about 10:00 p.m., I don’t really know what to do with myself.  I’ve caught up on everything I could in the house and paperwork wise, and I can only watch so much TV.  So…I decided to write another journal entry. 

Since I had to let go of the work at home job and I received about 3 or 4 days ago,something in the mail from social security that tells you how much your benefits would be if you ever became disabled, I decided to see if I can qualify for disability benefits under anxiety.  It’s rough but when I look back I see more things now about myself than I ever have before.  I have one or two family members writing a letter of observation for me and a close friend as well about what they have seen over the years in me, so hopefully my case won’t be denied the first time.  When I had panic attacks back in 7/2006, I went to talk to a therapist about it, and so she is also writing a letter for me and Im getting stuff from doctors together from NJ and here in AZ.  I don’t want this to be a long-term thing.  Just until I can find out what is going on inside my brain that causes me to not function in a high, reliable and consistent way and get back on my feet again.

There is one who would say, “Lisa, I told you so”, “You shouldn’t have moved so far away”, “I think it’s all in your head” and “Hey you chose to get pregnant.  You put yourself in this predicament.  Don’t go crying the blues now about how hard things are for you.”   Of course the irritated and impulsive side of me would want to give a BIG F…U out loud on the top of my lungs, but when I think about it, when I’m not just in a reaction and I can be reasonable…my true feelings are that in some ways I was told that things (maybe not like this) but similar could happen when you try to deal with really hard things by yourself.  No harm in trying new things though like natural medicines, but i guess now it's just time to try medication instead.  I also didn’t realize a lot of what my issues were until I got pregnant.  It’s just how it is.  The baby made me more conscious of myself, my body and my issues.  As far as moving so far away, well I don’t regret that.  I think that the job Kevin had was killing him slowly and NJ is too cold for me (emotionally and physically).  Though just about all of both our families and friends are in NJ, it still would not have addressed my inner issues.  For all I know, the rushing in to help from others, may have hindered me from looking deeper in myself and getting the right kind of help.  Help with the baby would’ve been easier, absolutely.  But I don’t think I would be on my way to being able to get back on my own two feet, you know, if I were home.  So being here kind of forces me to do that.  It forces Kevin to grow too.  Sometimes your deepest suffering is when you do the most inner growth (not that most people care about their growth from the inside, but I do.)  And growing is a good thing.  So, I don’t regret the move or living here in AZ. 

I am starting to see that it most definitely is “all in my head” (meaning my brain).  I really think that the Change your Brain, Change your Life” book has taken the fear out of the labels for me.  I think that someone with a brain that is misfiring because they are genetically pre-disposed to certain brain patterns (like ADD, OCD, and depression which runs in our family) and someone who has had head trauma has less stigma to it than just saying…oh I/She must be crazy. Once when I was 9, I walked head first into bleachers at my friend’s big sister’s softball game and it really knocked me for a loop. I got hit in teh back of the head with a swing when i was about 12, and I was also in a car accident where my head spidered the glass of the windshield, at the age of about 14 or 15 cause I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt.  I never told my parents about that one at the time for “boyfriend” reasons and never went to see a doctor or to the hospital, but when I go for my brain scan it will be interesting to see if those areas of injury show up as "underactive" on the scan.  I’ve had a lot of head trauma’s actually. I also sneezed pretty damn hard one day when i was about 19 or so (in TX) and was too close to the sink, and ended up hitting the front of my head, yet again, on the counter top of the sink.  That one made me pretty dizzy.  So I think that perhaps, it’s a bit of genetics and a little bit of "knocks on the noggin", as well as outside stressors that have pushed me to this point (and possibly all the coping mechanisms and self medicating I did).  I don’t blame anyone for that, and so there is no reason for people to feel pity for me or sorry for how things are.  I look at myself differently now.  It’s just the way it is and I have a choice.  Now that I am realllyy aware of everything, I can either continue handling my life without proper care, or I can try something new like monitored medication and talk therapy and maybe even a support group for people with anxiety.  Maybe my issues get worse or the meds don’t work…but you know what, I feel a bit more at peace knowing that there probably is a medical reason for what is happening.  A physical one…And as far as me getting pregnant, yea that was a big thing to do on a whim, and of course I never had any clue I would get sick or imagined I would have all these other issues.  Financially and emotionally, it was not the best time logically for me to get pregnant.  That I will admit (though its kind of late to have 20/20 hindsight).  Here I sit with that decision almost 27 weeks pregnant saying to myself, this is it Lisa.  You do it now, and you do it full on or you are not worthy of this baby.  Maybe its wrong to someone that the baby should be what wakes me up and that I should have been able to see myself more clearly sooner or should have listened sooner.  Maybe the people or person who feels that way has their own issues about life and human behavior and how things should look. That it should be perfect and their should be no mistakes or confusion and everything could then be peaceful.  I often have had the same complaint and ideology about the world myself.  But there is also something called humility.  Acknowledgment of the imperfectness, the room to grow, and the reason for being human and erring – to learn forgiveness, love, and increase ones awareness of a higher order that doesn’t always look like our ego’s think it should.  The things we think should be happening, don’t always bring the deepest growth.  I don’t know why that is and I too look forward to the day when I am in sync completely with that higher power and all my actions are peaceful and loving and done with total awareness.  Maybe that looks like a world with no mistakes and everyone is happy.  But I know that isn’t where “everyone” is yet and so I can forgive myself for not being able to listen, or see more clearly.  I say, I’m doing the best I can.  

And for anyone who doesn’t think so…THEN...I do offer up a big F…U!