Life of Advent

What a lovely view to wake up to! I love snow. I really like winter time. The air is brisk (ok sometimes sharp) the snow is so clean and sparkly looking (ok freezing) and I really like getting all bundled up in layers. I love getting into the seasonal mood of winter, but was reminded today that this season isn't about celebrating the traditions of the Christmas season, wintery-ness or even family. Of course those things are fun and great. But its about how God loved us enough to send Christ. Oh how easy it is to say 'oh right, yes of course its about Jesus, He is the reason for the season', and yet we remain to really only get excited or happy when we're wrapping gifts, baking awesome pumpkin-y goodness, or watching snow fall with a Christmas movie in. What we get excited about it, what we focus on, during this time of the year is merely a reflection of where our hearts are at. Its kind of odd, after Thanksgiving I was having a hard time getting into the 'Christmas mood', I threw in some Christmas movies, found my Pandora Christmas station and even baked some-all in attempt to get into 'the spirit'. I mean thats what you do this time of year-you get excited and snuggly with warm fuzzies in anticipation of tradition and the joy of the season. Well there is no joy without Christ. This time of the year means nothing without Him. Baking, snuggling, hot chocolate and warm fireplaces are fleeting 'nice' things that can't possibly fill one with the ultimate Spirit of this season. I've been listening to Redeemer Church's (in Kansas City) advent series sermons and have been very encouraged. Links here:
http://www.redeemerkansascity.org/wp-content/uploads/sermons/20121209Cawley.mp3
http://www.redeemerkansascity.org/wp-content/uploads/sermons/20121216Cawley.mp3
In this week's sermon Kevin said something to the effect of living a life of advent. How true. Loved that.
On another note: Jarrett and I had our 1 year anniversary this past Monday.

It was a busy day of work, had a sweet friend come through town, and community group that evening. Looking pretty large and in charge these days <--
But we spread our celebration out over the weekend, seeing The Hobbit and eating out over the weekend. Here is what I made for Jarrett:
                            

I tried to rust-ify it, its not exactly what I was thinking but it got the idea across :) It also ays Ruth 1:16 at the bottom, which is what the verse is from. For those who don't know, Jarrett has applied to Teach for America, we will find out January 7th if he is accepted into their program, where he will teach and what he will teach. We're excited to find out.
 We did just find out yesterday that we're cleared to celebrate Christmas in Greensburg! We're pretty excited, we haven't been able to leave town for a while, and after staying home for Thanksgiving due to bed rest we're really excited to get out for a few days. We're at 34 weeks and the doctor has said if we go into labor they won't stop it-so to start making the drive back to Wichita if we need to over the holidays. So, I'm officially off bed rest! It'll take a while for me to get back into fighting (walking) shape since I've been pretty sedentary for a while, but I'm more than ready to get out and about. Also very ready for out little guy to get here. But we're ok with him gaining a bit more weight before making his appearance.
Since being put on bed rest a little over 4 weeks ago, I learned to knit (thank you Whitney Cox for the beginner's lesson!) I have since youtubed a few techniques and after making several scarves and infinity scarves, I finally got down my first hat! Its actually my 2 week old niece's Christmas gift, so sshhh! don't show her! Its absolutely tiny and I have no guarantee that I did it accurately but after 4 failed attempts and 3 days on the final product, I've convinced it'll be good.

birthdays and gallbladders

Well I got to share my birthday with my brand spankin' new niece! Congratulations to Cody and Carissa Schaef! She was a healthy 8 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long.

Jarrett holding Lily a few hours after she was born!

Mom has recovered well after 3 days of prelabor and over 12 hours of active labor. Miss Lily has to stay a bit longer in the hospital until her jaundice clears up. Grateful for a beautiful healthy baby and a smooth delivery though! Pray for the new family of 3! We have their shitzu Mack keeping Koa company while his parent's prep to bring Lily home. I think he hates us and is ready for his real parents.

After cheating my bed rest and visiting the hospital we came home to sleep and relax for the rest of the day. I had family come visit that afternoon who brought some dessert and lovely presents. My splurge present: 

My excuse is that I'm soon to be surrounded by boys and its ok for me to remain girly.   :)

I also got some yarn and a knitting pattern magazine, which I entirely plan on utilizing over the next 2 weeks!

Yesterday I had a meeting with a surgeon and he has confirmed that I have a very irritated gallbladder. While he thinks I should be fine (in pain, but not in danger of it rupturing) for the next 4-8 weeks he definitely recommended having it removed soon after baby Atlas is born. He seemed surprised at how early the irritation set in, usually its the 2-3 pregnancy and closer to the end of the term. Until we have our son and get it removed I can avoid 'attacks' by restricting my diet. For anyone that has information on gall bladder friendly recipes-share them!!! So far we've discovered I can't eat any meat, dairy or fried foods. And that carbonation after I eat helps the discomfort pass sooner. Regardless of what I eat the skin in front of where my gallbladder is is very sensitive to touch and I generally have to sit awkwardly to allow it space so its not getting kicked/smushed.

We're at 32 weeks this week and getting excited to meet our dude. We know patience is a virtue, because the longer he is inside the less likely an extended stay at the hospital will be. I'll admit I get discouraged easily, especially after the past 4-5 weeks of already having a very painful gallbladder-makes it difficult to look at 3-7 more weeks of it. Bed rest is going well. I cheat often but have been trying to listen to my body and keep a sane mind :) half way done!

thanktitude

We have made it to 30 weeks and I am so glad.
We ended up in labor and delivery again this weekend, but we continue to not dilate or have any cervical change, and sweet baby Atlas remains active with a great heart rate so he gets to stay inside longer. Yay!
We are on bed rest for the next 4 weeks. Which means no Thanksgiving. Well, it means a different Thanksgiving.
The age old tradition has been to drive to Winfield, KS and visit extended family for several hours, eat too much, and drive home in a food induced comatose state. And the next day always had me putting up the Christmas tree and decorating, usually with a little help from curious pups.
This year will be different, quite possibly to prepare us for a lifetime of different once the little man arrives. While I am not looking forward to bed rest, I know it will be well worth it. I imagined myself running around getting things ready for the month of December and enjoying putting all of his tiny baby things together and in perfect order, you know being that awesome pregnant lady that goes on brisk walks, meets up with people at coffee shops and goes shopping for her bump. But the good Lord has a different plan. A more important one. And I'm ok with that. As Jerry Bridges says, "the Lord maneuvers our lives in such ways that we have to trust Him more."
I recently listened to a sermon that talked about the glory of the Lord, and how glorifying, or giving glory to something can be seen like introducing someone to a new song or band that you think is awesome. You talk and talk about how great it is, all the awesome parts of the chorus or bridge, the acoustics and harmony, that you finally just get out your phone, you tube it and play it for them. Say half way through the song, even though they've never heard it before, they try to sing along, or anticipate whats next. Or worse they just start talking while the song is still playing. They're not actually listening. They're not soaking up what is happening at all. I've been doing that. I've been trying to ascribe reasons for why our pregnancy has been so difficult, why our baby seems to want to come early, why my physical health has brought down my emotional health. Trying to anticipate whats next and why its next, and theres got to be a rhyme or reason that I can get insync with so I can be in tune for the next trial or joy. Thats not how it works, God doesn't need a rhythmn or a rhyme. He is. He is the one thing that remains. My life purpose is to display his abilities. His power, healing, sovereignty, goodness, Gospel. There is surprising freedom in that. Aaaaaaand I often forget it and don't live out of that freedom.
SO this Thanksgiving will be different. It won't be homemade foods and extended family. But it'll be Thanksgiving. Thankful for another week of the little booger growing inside, thankful for my sweet husband Jarrett, who has had the short end of the stick for far too long, and for family and friends who have been so supportive.
Our baby blinked at us when we last saw him. It might've been a wink. I'm not sure...

An Eventful Weekend

So we have had an eventful weekend.
Friday night we had some sweet friends come over for dinner and ended up watching hilarious youtube videos and playing nertz. It was great. I laughed so hard I was questioning whether shaken baby syndrome can happen in the womb. We love you guys Seth and Ali!
We stayed up way too late friday night, and had a marriage conference at our church Saturday 8:30-3:30. Needless to say we arrived fashionably late. It was a great conference, had 4 sessions of mini sermons and recap/question and answer time with your significant other following them.
After nill sleep and a long (but nice) day Jarrett had work at 4:30, and I went for a short walk.
And then I thought my water might've broke. Which I was surprisingly calm about, I waited over 30 minutes for the doctor on call to call me back (ends up the operator gave her the wrong area code-oops). I was informed I should go to the ER asap. Amidst waiting for her call I noticed my Braxton hicks getting much harder to handle. They weren't really easing up at all and were back to back.
Within the hour my mother picked me up and we headed to Wesley. By the time I got there I was having real deal contractions. They hooked me up to a monitor, baby was doing fine (great heartbeat, no stress, lots of movement-Praise God!) but the contractions were not letting up.  Also a blessing was my blood pressure and heart palpitations-both were in normal range and staying steady even with the pain and adrenaline rushes.
After going through different tests and scrapings (no fun when you aren't pregnant-living hell when you are) we found out that my water did NOT break (Praise God!) but the contractions were up to 2-8 minutes apart and were getting worse post taking Tylenol. I found out when you are in preterm labor there are certain steps that are taken to get ahead of contractions, because if you aren't in active labor (dilating) these steps can actually halt preterm labor. Tylenol was the first step, and they got worse. IV fluids was the next, and didn't put a dent in them. Morphine was next. Then we found out I'm allergic to Morphine...and when I say allergic I mean the IV site turned bright red and crawled up my arm and itched like crazy within a minute of starting the injection. She was already 3/4 of the way done putting it through my IV when we found out I was reacting to it, so she pulled the needle out of the IV site and immediately followed it with Benadryl. Benadryl is also a step they take to stop contractions. Up until this point in my pregnancy I haven't been allowed to be on Benadryl because I have super low blood pressure and tend to pass out. :) Luckily I was on a bed and all was safe and sound. After about 4 hours of contractions the Tylenol, 3/4 a dose of Morphine and Benadryl did the trick.
Throughout this entire process of trying to get the contractions to stop or at least slow down they wouldn't allow me to eat and they also had to check periodically to make sure I wasn't dilating. Yes, they were preparing themselves and me to go meet baby Atlas early if I had cervical change. At 27 weeks. Eekers.
Scary? Yes. Strange sense of calmness through out the whole ordeal? Yes. God thing? Yes.
PS-Thank you to some sweet friends (Dave and Tat!) that freed my mom up to wait with me at LDR until Jarrett got off work.
We are eager to meet our little man but have a renewed vigor to have him grow and 'bake' just a bit longer. There have been a lot of restrictions with this pregnancy, unexpected complications and a lot of unanswered questions but we know that God is in control. And we are grateful. Because if I was, I would've given up a long time ago and missed out on some really hard lessons and sweet blessings.
Since then, my doctor has confirmed that my braxton hicks will probably be intense and I may still have contractions here and there up until the end. We're now on kind of hyper 'alert' to what to do if the contractions last up to an hour and what the process will be for our little dude if he comes early. We're also being recommended to do elective csection at 39 weeks (if we make it there! we just might!) because of my height (more so lack of birth canal length) and his size. I meet with a specialist (hopefully before Thanksgiving-just in case) who will perform the surgery if that is indeed what needs to happen for him and myself to be in the safest shape. Until I reach 34 weeks they see no need to do full on bed rest (I'm on modified, again) or steroids (grateful for both) unless I go into labor again.  Which we don't anticipate, but we know God is sovereign and good.
Will all of these posts be about pregnancy? No, but for now, probably. It has kind of taken over my life.

confessions

It has been a while. Probably because the past two weeks have been miserable.

But alas, the silver lining (that was there the whole time, I just wasn't looking up)...

Being pregnant is the hardest thing I've ever done. It affects everything. The show, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant", is impossible. There is no way they couldn't have known!

Since Jarrett and I were only married 5 months when we found I out I was 6 weeks pregnant, it all came pretty quickly.

The hormones that is. Had I ever given thought to the idea of my body not being my own source of physical living and that my reaction to it would affect my husband during the almost year that one is pregnant? No. I figured you get a cute belly, a few cravings and some foot rubs and some tiny not cool side effects that fade to the glow and joy of a baby coming. Combatting the anxiety that carrying a tiny life inside you can put a toll on you. And if you can't combat it-everyone around you suffers. Because you aren't only dealing with anxiety, you're dealing with physical soreness, abnormalities, lack of sleep and a plethora of other things that you can't control and sometimes can't manage-from bleeding, bedrest, 2x on modified bedrest, unanswered bleeding, rashes, and antibiotic rounds its more to handle than I ever imagined. Add to that our puppy dog is confined from the house until I'm healthier and better equipped to handle him. We've been married and pregnant longer than we've been just married. And trying to convince someone that this isn't your norm when its the majority of what they've seen can be difficult. It can be difficult to convince yourself of it too.

I had some difficulty accepting the reality of it as well. Up until probably a week ago, I had zero confidence in surviving this pregnancy and quite frankly was pretty well convinced the baby wouldn't make it. I couldn't see a baby in the new year, I couldn't imagine being pregnant over Christmas, or changing diapers over Valentines. It just wasn't something I could visualize, so I feared all of the changes and adaptions I was making were for..well nothing. And if it did end up not happening, how could I ever come back from it? I've been changed {scarred} for life. I would take turns on different days just crying at night because the day seemed so long and there was seemingly no progression.

Pretty depressing. And thats exactly what I was. But I wasn't happy giving up no matter how tired I was of trying. I had to find answers to the whys and whats.

Answers are found in Jesus.

He was waiting, patiently as always, for me to give him my questions. Funny thing is, a lot of them aren't answered. Like carrying full term, not answered yet, we're only 23 weeks. Why there was bleeding, not answered. Will this medicine work to make me physically feel better? Not answered. Will Jarrett's car completely fall apart by this weekend? Probably (sorry different situation). But He said He was with me. That He hasn't abandoned me. That He loves this baby more than we do and ever can. And He foresaw this sweet baby and his timing before we were even dating.

See, I had kept asking the Lord to help me trust Him more. If you are worn out or tired-I don't recommend this prayer. Because the Lord answered it by giving us one thing after another that we can't handle, He is forcing us to trust Him more. I mean, hey, I asked for help in trusting Him more: what better way than thing after thing being more than we can handle, fix or even digest? We have nothing in us to tackle each one. We have to continuously offer these things to Him asking for help to believe that He is good, that He is sovereign over their outcome, that He will provide now and in the future.

In about an hour I'll forget all of these things. And I'll be tempted to look around and see no progression and no silver lining. But it won't be worth it, I must look to the author and perfecter of our faith to be free. Free to hope, to laugh, to be joyful, and to relax in this current situation.

I used to get so upset when I couldn't sleep at night, tossing and turning, letting frustration build. But last night, Baby was up with me. And I was grateful for each kick, punch and stretch. We are so undeserving of such a gift, and so grateful that though its been painful, it has grown us up in ways that only God can construct.


Last Saturday I bled for a little while, so to the ER we went (not the first time). And we were blessed to find our sweet baby doing great, his home unaltered and healthy. We don't know why or where the bleeding was from but we have a sovereign God watching over our little 1 lb miracle:

Baby Boy

To all who don't know yet: ITS A BOY!

We're pretty excited.
We had a few people over to participate in the reveal. We got some great baby name suggestions in our baby name jar, the overwhelming vote was for a boy (its like everyone already knew) and we had some pretty fabulous lips and mustache straws for our lemonade.
Out of the 15 cupcakes with white vanilla filling only one had the blue colored filling. And wouldn't you know, Grandma Julie was the one with the lucky cupcake!

How to make tailor-made cupcakes with a filling you ask? Its super easy!

A container of vanilla icing
Food Coloring
A box of chocolate cupcake mix
Marshmellow fondant ingredients: Crisco, 1 lb Powdered Sugar (usually bags are 2 lbs) and 1 bag Mini Marshmellows

After baking the entire box of cupcake mix, I let them cool. Take a 1/2 or 1 tspn and scoop out a small hole from the top of the now cool cupcake. I dropped vanilla icing in each one, and the one that was blue I set a small bit of the vanilla icing aside and mixed it with the desired food color, and placed it inside the cupcake just like all the others. Keep the tops that you scooped out and place them back on each of the cupcakes. I then did a very very light layer of the vanilla icing on top (it helped the fondant stick to the cupcake).
The fondant was easy to make: Melt the half the bag of mini marshmellows in the microwave with about 2 Tbsp of water. (30 secs, stir, 30 secs, stir, until creamy). Once melted pour about 2+ cups of powdered sugar into the mix and stir, until the melted mixture isn't as much sticky as it pulls apart and is powdered well. Lather your counter and your hands with crisco. Knead your ball of fondant like bread for about 8 minutes. If you need to set your fondant aside for a while crisco up your plastic bag before putting your fondant to the side.  This fondant recipe made enough fondant to cover  30+ cupcakes.
Once you are ready to put your fondant on your cupcakes, roll it on your crisco'd counter to about 1/8". Use cookie cutters to cut it into your desired shapes. Its got an elasticity to it so you can cover and press it as the topper on your cupcakes or cakes. Waa-laaa!

I think I had just as much fun planning our reveal as I had at it. We loved getting to celebrate with a small group of family and friends. And we're glad our baby boy will be surrounded by familial and friendly support. Here are just a view iphone photos of the event-More to come as I get them!

Our sono-tech kept giggling because our baby boy was a pretty obvious boy. We were glad there wouldn't be any confusion since we had already invited everyone to do the reveal. :) He'll probably be embarrassed if this post still exists in 10 years. Oh well!

Ooo Weird. I'm blogging. I am so behind the times.

But alas I will catch up.
And I will catch you up!

Jarrett and Veronica were headed to law school at Washburn as of May 2012, within a few days of moving it became very evident Topeka was not where we were suppose to go. So, in a spur of the moment decision mixed in with some heavy prayer, we decided to not go to law school. But we were out of our lease agreement and without a real plan-so to Wichita we went! Which, after looking at Topeka, was a pretty great option!

The day before we moved (to now Wichita, not Topeka) we got another surprise-a Baby Schaef was in the making! Jarrett handled it much better than Veronica...and still does handle it better. After 2 months of job hunting, working at odds and ends things and living at Mom and Dad Boyle's house in Wichita, Jarrett landed his full time job and an apartment was decided on.
To the west side of Wichita we went. As some say, west side best side.

So now that we are in Wichita, not Topeka, and Jarrett is working full time, not going to law school and I am staying at home, not managing a jewelry store, I decided to do the things I never did before because I didn't have time. So I bake. I actually make meals and feed my husband now. And in the midst of being a 'homemaker' if you will, I am finding out all the nuansces of being pregnant. Which, by the way, is still totally surreal to me. (Theres a real baby in there?)

A few of the things no one told me about pregnancy:
Leg Cramps
Constipation
Nosebleeds
Horrible Acne
Dry Skin
Sore Hips
Excema rashes
Dry Skin
Overprotective Dog Syndrome
Sad, very sad, maternity pants.

And now to jump out of that depression; Fun things about pregnancy:
Gender Reveal parties
Cute onesies
Putting a crib together
Arguing over names, ridiculous ones
Waddling
Maternity Shirts-cute!
Bows and Ties
Countdowns

We're rolling with the punches, and enjoying the blessings that are surfacing. We'll post pictures of the gender reveal after this weekend!