Better days are yet to come

I turned the BIG 4-0 in April this year, and much that followed has proven true to be the typical events joked about when becoming "over the hill"...

*extreme womanly bleeding month after month (started in January)

*crown to help deteriorating fillings from youth, turned into a double root canal
(might I add that this was the first crown and first root canal for me)

*first car accident for our first teenage driver

*more extreme bleeding, followed by intense pain, almost passing out, which led to 911 call and ER trip

*tube removal surgery for one of our daughters

*pulling out the "big guns" (hormone replacement therapy), to help keep me alive, which I've been so utterly against as a practicing Catholic and open to life throughout our whole marriage

*hysterectomy next, and saying "goodbye" to my womb that has held and nourished and was the first home to my nine beautiful Young ones

*pain in side and ovarian blood clot 2 months later

*blood thinners to dissolve such clot (to keep me alive, once again)

*not being able to hold my LAST baby for 12 weeks to allow myself to heal from my hysterectomy

*needing to "play it safe" and try to avoid a head injury (to stay alive) these next 3 months (not that I'm the crazy adventurous types, but the clumsy type that can get hurt with the most stupid things)

And those are just the physical sufferings.
The emotional sufferings have been just as present - rejection, loneliness, gossiped about, being judged, forgotten, left out.

So one may ask...  how can a loving God do all this?  I'm a good person, right?  Why must I, one who loves and follows Christ, be continually knocked down both emotionally and physically and allowed to suffer like this?

A good friend reminded me through this all, that I am bearing the wounds of Christ and serving as a suffering soul for Him.

So, although I'm feeling weak and tired and fragile and broken and a big MESS,....
I know that Christ loves me.  
I know He's with me.  
I know He will give me the grace to take one day, one step at a time.
I know He knows the bigger picture and why all of these things are necessary.
I know He will take my sufferings and help ME bear and carry them.
I know He knows.
I know He sees.
I know He loves.

And, I love Him back.  I trust Him with all this.  I pray for all those who has sent intentions and offer these sufferings up as prayer for them.  I have faith that better days are yet to come.  And until then, I will choose to smile and do my best to find JOY in these days of suffering.

++Jesus, I trust in You++

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**I wanted to share this post, not to be a downer, but to show the reality of suffering and pain.  With social media, people can fall into the trap of only showing the fun, celebrations, joy and fluff, but we all know that life isn't all that.  There are definitely "lows" in life.  And this is just a look at my sufferings and lows and my take on them.  Life could be much much worse.  I am alive and breathing and walking right now, and so are my hubby and kids.  God has been so very good to us, so stay tuned to the 1000 Gifts he has continually sent our way this year too...**

"Tempting God?" -OR- trusting God??

I've wrote and shared our story with all my c-sections and most recently had my 8th c-sections a little over three months ago.

You may ask why I am bringing this up again.  If you have read or watched the headlines on the news today, then you know why.

The bunny breeding comment, I can laugh at.  I've already been laughed at and joked about being a "good breeder" by family and friends.  With my nursing issues and needing to pump for 6 weeks with my last two babies, I can laugh and refer to that as "milking myself".  I can laugh that comment off and not take it personal - that's no big deal.  In fact, I kind of do see what he means - not every family is called to the same family size.  As long as Catholics are in line with the faith and not contracepting, then you will most definitely see God blessing families in varying and different ways. That is His call to choose our family size, not ours.  To have fun with this comment of his and all the fun on the internet about it, I had the kids draw bunnies today for art class.  Here's some of their drawings in progress....  (I will post the final products later)

It was this comment that most shocked me, because the situation of the mother is extreme just like my situation - having many c-sections and risking her life...

"That example i mentioned shortly before about that woman who was expecting her eighth (child) and already had seven who were born with caesareans. That is an irresponsibility (That woman might say) 'no but I trust in god' But God gives you methods to be responsible. Some think that, excuse me if i use that word, that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No. Responsible parenthood! This is clear and that is why in the church there are marriage groups, there are experts in this matter, there are pastors, one can seek and i know so many, many ways out that are licit and that have helped this. you did well to ask me this"  

(~Pope Francis' translated words)

I am feeling a bit punched in the gut today, or maybe even another momma being pierced in the heart. We've already received much persecution and questioning from friends, family, church family and community, homeschool community, and even priests.  Now today, I'm feeling somewhat scolded by our pope.  I hope and pray this is just a bad translation, but if not it's a good reminder that we are ALL human and have our opinions.  And, that's exactly what this is- his opinion, not church teaching.  

What bothers me the most is the mom who has 3 or 4 c-sections and is reading these comments and the pressure she will now feel to do something permanent to prevent another pregnancy.  It is a cross and it is hard to trust, but you just gotta do it!!  I am so thankful for the solid teaching and faith-filled examples of good priests, deacons, and friends that we had to guide us with our cross of multiple c-sections and high risk pregnancies.

Here's my beautiful little guy who was born via my 8th c-section.  

Was it a risk?  

Absolutely!  

Is it a miracle that I am here today?  

Absolutely!  

Was I "tempting God" -OR- trusting God?

Trusting God!

And that is exactly why we have faith....

to do our very best at loving and following Him, and then put our lives in the hands of God and trust Him to do what He wills best.  

++Thank you, God!!!++

On Choosing to be Open to Life: Worth the Risk?

Nancy's blog, Do Small Things With Love, was having a "Choose to be Open to Life" series and I was blessed enough to take part and share our story on how God has walked with us in our journey in being open to life.  My post is below, but you can also view my story over on her blog along with many other momma's who shared their story!!  Be sure to head on over there to take a peek at all the beautiful ways God blesses and gives life to those who are open to His plan.

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Making a Cursillo weekend 7 months before we were set to be married was the “kick in the butt” my fiancé and I needed to understand the beauty and responsibility we had in living out our Catholic faith.  Beginning a life of piety, study, and action, the biggest change we needed to make was related to our intimate life.  You see, we had been intimate for many years and were not even married.  Not only that, but I had been on the birth control pill for quite some time as well.  Both of these were big “no-no’s” in our newly appreciated faith.  So, we signed up right away for an NFP class to learn this method to plan our family – either to postpone pregnancy or to achieve a pregnancy, whatever God was calling us to at different periods of our life.  Also, since we were not yet married, we were called to hold off and save ourselves intimately until we were married.

We began and established our family of 3, of course – me, Neil and Christ at the center, on May 20^th 2000!  Not seeing any grave reason to postpone pregnancy, we let God take over from the start of our marriage.  We became pregnant after a couple months, but we lost the baby in the first trimester.  Our hearts were broken when we realized this could have been part of the side effects from having been on the pill for such a long time.  

After our first loss and really wanting to have children, LOTS of them, we were getting anxious to start having babies!!  We would be happy with 1 or 4 or 7 or even a dozen or more, whatever God had planned for us!!  And, our prayers came true once again and I become pregnant pretty much right away.  Our first son, Fone, was born via an emergency c-section because he went into fetal distress and my blood pressure shot up.  We were absolutely thrilled to have our son in our arms, despite the need for an unexpected c-section and harder recovery.     (first c-section)

Our second young one, Mario, was born 18 months later, and despite the fact that we were really wanting to try a VBAC, it was called off just weeks before delivery and a c-section was scheduled instead.  I was having a lot of pain near my incision towards the end and doctors never want to mess with incision pain because of the unknown source of it.   Again, we were okay with that and accepted God’s plan in it all.  After his birth, we were given all the risks about continuing to have c-sections (not a choice after 2) but continued with using NFP and being open to life rather than turn to artificial birth control or sterilization, like the doctors were suggesting.  (second c-section)

We continued to be open to life with the next 3 births – Melody, Ariel, and Max - as my uterus seemed to be doing okay after the previous births.  There was a warning with having windows where they could see the baby peeking through, but we still felt God calling us to be open to life using NFP.  For Max’s delivery though, there were many more windows and the doctors strongly encouraged us to “do something”.  We knew we would not turn to anything unnatural and would continue to use NFP to prevent pregnancies and would do our best charting and understanding my cycles from here on out.  It was during all of these pregnancies that many strangers, family, friends, and even some in our church family spoke out against our openness to life and their concerns with the fact that “my children need a mom and we should do something so another pregnancy doesn’t happen”.  Again, Neil and I held tight to our faith and our plan to continue with NFP in our marriage.  NFP is allowed and can be practiced “with grave reasons” and we were given the okay to go ahead with using it to prevent pregnancies from here on out.  The beauty of NFP is that it does not do anything unnatural to your body, so God clearly has the final say of the outcome.  So, we knew another pregnancy could happen, but we would do our best to prevent them.     (third, fourth, and fifth c-sections)

Well turns out, God did step in and we found ourselves pregnant once again.  Not only was I pregnant, but my doctor who delivered the last bunch of kids had moved farther away and we would need to find a new doctor – a doctor who was confident in taking on a high risk pregnancy and would be willing to do a 6^th c-section.  I was turned down by the first seven doctors that I called, who said I was “too high risk” for them, including our local pro-life doctor.  One doctor even called me back and wanted to personally share with me that me getting pregnant this time was the same as lying on a train track with a train on its way to hit and kill me.  Oh boy - can you imagine the emotional mess I was in??  Thankfully, God did provide- and I found a doctor!!!!  Our sweet Pookey was born and safely in my arms, but the c-section was definitely a scary one….  I had so many windows and open spots in my uterus that it was the bag of waters holding him in and my doctor barely had any uterine muscle tissue to cut.  Talk about a miracle that my water didn’t break!!!!    (sixth c-section)

We were okayed by our spiritual director once again that we had grave reasons to continue using NFP, so again, we would give it our all and do our best to postpone another pregnancy.  We learned to use Billings/Creighton (which is very similar to NFP and just another natural method used to plan your family) because the signs it uses are clearer and stronger for me.  Just as we had experienced earlier, many people judged us for living out our faith in being open to life and not “doing anything” to prevent another pregnancy.  We were even told by a local priest that we had the “okay” to use contraception or be sterilized – ouch!  We knew he was misinforming us but were grateful for being grounded in our faith to see through his advice.  Again, God’s hand can easily take over since it is natural and surprisingly we found ourselves pregnant again after clearly following my signs and abstaining when I thought I was fertile.  C-section number 7 was going to be happening – God had planned and okayed once again for this to happen.  My doctor, having seen my uterus from the 6^th c-section, turned to a larger, more experienced hospital with high risk pregnancies and got permission to take my baby one month early.  Sweet baby Rose was born a month early, breathing all on her own (thanks to the planned steroid shots for her lungs) and perfectly beautiful and healthy!!!  And, amazingly, there were less uterine windows and she actually had to cut the muscle to get baby out!!   (seventh c-section)

So, here I am today and guess what??  I am pregnant again - surprise, surprise!!!  ;-)    We again were trying to postpone pregnancy and used Creighton, but were caught off guard when I had only had 2 days of infertile days when we thought my signs showed 5 days that were infertile.    I went to confession midway through this pregnancy and shared my anxieties and fears and the priest, whom I had not been to confession with before, actually told me that “God will forgive me for becoming pregnant and we should have used common sense so this didn’t happen in the first place”.  WHAT!!!???!!!  I went to confession the next month with a true and devout priest, and shared my experience with the last priest and things went much better – he suggested I pray for the Divine Mercy Chaplet for the priest who misguided me as he is probably misguiding others as well.  So, here we are waiting and praying for Venerable Fulton J. Sheen’s intercession for a safe and healthy remainder of the pregnancy and 8^th c-section delivery, which will be early next week!!!  Can you join us in prayer for our little guy?? 

As a side note on using NFP/Creighton, as I said before, my husband and I were really hoping for a large family – we would love a dozen or more young ones to love and chase and take care of.  We clearly have reasons to use it, but that doesn’t mean it is easy to do – many months we find ourselves saying to each other “we HATE NFP”.  This is a heavy cross to carry, not to mention that the times you need to abstain to avoid a pregnancy is when you most want to be intimate with your husband.  I have many years of fertility left and know that this will continue to be a struggle for us - not wanting to use Creighton but definitely having a need to try our best at it.  We will continue to pray and listen to God and take this month by month, as He is the best planner for our families.   

What do you think?  Is being open to life and using NFP worth the risk??

If we would have listened to the advice of my doctors and many others, this picture would be missing half the children in it.  Instead, we took the risk, put our faith and trust in Our Lord and would absolutely say without a doubt….

“YES, being open to life is worth the risk!!!”