Moments in May (Wordless Wednesday)

I braced myself for another busy May (May and December are the craziest months if you have kids who are school-age), but I was bombarded more than usual this time.  We had a great month, though:  two track meets (Joey got a personal best in the 800 and 400 at his last meet and will be going to district in the 800), one school play (Twelfth Night -- very well-done and time-consuming for Lillian), three birthdays to celebrate (Lillian's is technically at the end of April but she's now an official teenager, Michael turned 10 and Katie turned 2), an early-birthday party we hosted for Allison and Sarah who wanted to celebrate with their school friends before the year let out, a huge BBQ hosted in our backyard, my parents in town, Cami's baby blessing (such a beautiful day), going solo while my husband was out of town, and more.


I'm glad I got some photos to remember these times.

Cami's Baby Blessing

Isn't she a doll?  She's 3.5 months now, rolling over, and starting to scoot!

Michael's TEN!

 Hawaiian Luau Early Birthday Party

 Enjoying lots of critters, both the fuzzy and the not-so-fuzzy kind

And somehow, I managed to continue training for a half marathon and even lost another six pounds.

Thank you, May, for all you've given me and taught me.  And June, please be gentle with me.  I think I need a slightly slower pace, okay?

Read More

Celebrating 15 Years -- Hawaii April 2012 (Wordless Wednesday)

Read More

The Tongue of Angels (Friday Favorites)

After I posted about talking to myself last week, I listened to this talk (thanks for the recommendation, Cheryl!).

Wow, was it a powerful reminder of the power of words for good and ill -- both those we speak to others and those we say to ourselves.

The Tongue of Angels by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
(click on the "watch" or "listen" links on the right side to hear the talk instead of read it)

some of my favorite parts:

God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ Joshua spake, and the great lights which God had created stood still. Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain. … All this was done by faith. … Faith, then, works by words; and with [words] its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed.” ¹ Like all gifts “which cometh from above,” words are “sacred, and must be spoken with care, and by constraint of the Spirit.” ²

It is with this realization of the power and sanctity of words that I wish to caution us, if caution is needed, regarding how we speak to each other and how we speak of ourselves.

There is a line from the Apocrypha which puts the seriousness of this issue better than I can. It reads, “The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones.” ³ With that stinging image in mind, I was particularly impressed to read in the book of James that there was a way I could be “a perfect man.”

Said James: “For in many things we offend all. [But] if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.”

&

May I expand this counsel to make it a full family matter. We must be so careful in speaking to a child. What we say or don’t say, how we say it and when is so very, very important in shaping a child’s view of himself or herself. But it is even more important in shaping that child’s faith in us and their faith in God. Be constructive in your comments to a child—always. Never tell them, even in whimsy, that they are fat or dumb or lazy or homely. You would never do that maliciously, but they remember and may struggle for years trying to forget—and to forgive. And try not to compare your children, even if you think you are skillful at it. You may say most positively that “Susan is pretty and Sandra is bright,” but all Susan will remember is that she isn’t bright and Sandra that she isn’t pretty. Praise each child individually for what that child is, and help him or her escape our culture’s obsession with comparing, competing, and never feeling we are “enough.”

&

In all of this, I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak—or at least think—critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything.

Read More

Almost All the Kids (Wordless Wednesday)

(My oldest hates the camera)

And six girls born in seven and a half years:

How did I get so blessed?

Read More

Q&A Thursday: Health Effects of Many Pregnancies

Here's a question for you and your friends who also have big families: Have you suffered any long-term/permanent physical problems because of so many pregnancies?

I myself have been very blessed with healthy pregnancies and if I were to answer this on my own, I'd probably say something like this:

Nope! Not unless you count a stomach full of stretch marks and the extra weight I've got hanging around. The stretch marks are definitely tied to the number of pregnancies, but that extra weight would probably have accumulated anyway because I like to eat.

But I was grateful to receive this question because I was curious what my friends' experiences have been with their multitude of pregnancies.

Melanie and her cute family

First, I should post a disclaimer. There are health problems that prevent women from conceiving and carrying a child to term. By virtue of the fact that all the women in my group have six or more children, we have largely avoided these problems. The gals who helped me answer this question are a unique group who have been able to have lots of children. That's not always the case with everyone, and we all want to be careful to note that just because we've been blessed to avoid any permanent health problems does not mean that will be true for all women.

In the course of our discussion the following points were brought up:

1. Our society views pregnancy as a medical condition or something that takes away from good health rather than as a natural, normal part of life. Hence, contraception is considered preventative care. All you have to do is read the comments on any newspaper article about Michelle Duggar to get a sometimes vulgar taste of this view. Since there are fewer and fewer women having lots of children -- .5 percent of women had seven or more children according to the last census -- multiple pregnancies are seen as unusual and scary. My friend Amy had this to say to counter this perspective: "One thing that annoys me, though, is the way society believes that bodies aren't made to have babies (or at least more than a couple). For some reason, exercising your muscles by using them makes them stronger, but exercising your fertility makes you 'weaker?' This hasn't been my experience at all. "

2. There are many positive health benefits to multiple children. I was surprised as I did research just how many documented, scientific benefits there are to having more children:

• More children born means less breast cancer. Studies have shown that each birth to a woman reduces that woman's chance of developing breast cancer by seven percent. In fact, if women in the developed world had as many children as those in the developing world, the breast cancer rate would be cut in half. (source)
• Women with more children live longer. A study done in Australia showed that "women with six or more children were about 40 per cent less likely to die during the 16-year follow-up than women with no children" It also showed that the more children a woman had, the less likely she was to die. "Compared with women who had no children, those with two had a 17 per cent decreased risk of death. For women with three children there was a 20 per cent decreased risk, and this pattern largely continued with additional children." (source)
• Research shows that fetal cells from each child remain in the mother and may spur healing. It's new and it's intriguing:

  In what any ethicist might declare to be legitimate ‘embryonic stem cell therapy,’ the baby’s fetal stem cells migrate to the mother’s injured sites and offer themselves as a healing remedy, becoming part of the mother’s very body. Pinctott writes that such cells have been found in “diseased thyroid and liver tissue and have turned themselves into thyroid and liver cells respectively.”

  Pinctott calls the evidence “striking” that a baby’s fetal cells “repair and rejuvenate moms.”

  Genetics specialist Dr. Kirby Johnson of Tufts Medical Center, Boston, and professor Carol Artlett, a researcher at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University, back up Pinctott’s ideas. Their research shows that when a woman becomes pregnant she acquires an army of protective cells - what might be called a gift from her child - that remains with her for decades, perhaps till the end of her life.

  Johnson and Artlett spoke to NPR’s Robert Krulwich in a 2006 interview. In their research, Johnson found that a teaspoon of blood from a pregnant mother contained “dozens, perhaps even hundreds of cells… from the baby.” Science has shown that at the end of a mother’s pregnancy, up to 6 percent of the DNA in her blood plasma comes from her baby. (source)

Amelia's adorable family -- will all these kids actually extend her life?

More personally, a couple of us have family tendencies towards severe PMS, and multiple pregnancies and nursing in between have kept our families more peaceful and calm because they are not subject to monthly motherly mood swings. That's a definite positive!

3. Of all the comments, only three have had what might be considered permanent or long-term problems. These are their comments:

• I was glucose intolerant with the first three kids, full blown gestational diabetes with the last two, of which I needed to use insulin with the last. So far had it has gone away after the baby is born, but I'm more predisposed to develop regular diabetes some time in my life. In my mind, however, I was born with a higher risk, since diabetes runs in both sides of my family and I think pregnancy just uncovered that risk.
• Yes, but I've had poor health most of my life anyway, so I don't think my answer is a fair contribution to this poll.
• For me, I feel like the older I get, the harder pregnancy is on my body. Towards the end of my 5th pregnancy I had some pretty significant vision changes, and although it improved a bit after delivery it has been debilitating. With pregnancy #6 I again had even more problems with the same thing. My baby is now 10 months old and, unfortunately not much has changed or improved either.

4. Most of the problems we've experienced as a group are fairly common to pregnancy (no matter the number) and most resolve themselves after delivery. These include:

• Varicose veins. One mother expecting #10 says, "I have varicose veins but they started up part way into my 2nd pregnancy and by my fourth were about as bad as they are now so even if I had stopped after only a few kids I'd still have them. "
• Stretch marks (though at least one of us has none -- wow!)
  
• Low Iron
• Thyroid Issues
• Incontinence during pregnancy when laughing or sneezing
• Extra weight and more belly fat
• Pregnancy mask (brown splotchy marks on the face from hormones and the sun)
• Gestational Diabetes (just a few mentioned this)
• Sacroiliac Joint Disfunction (one person had this)
• Tiredness and difficulty sleeping during pregnancy (you think?)
  

5. Many of us feel that labor and delivery are much easier in later pregnancies.

6. It is hard to separate out what challenges we've had might be due to multiple pregnancies and what might be due to age or family history. We know women who've never had children who have bladder issues and varicose veins, for instance, and the challenges of pregnancy are tougher in an older body whether that child is your first or your tenth. In Amy's words: "Women who have had many babies get told that they have worn out their bodies, when I believe the difficulty of their pregnancies could be very closely compared to that of women of the same age having their first or second."

7. Many of us feel we are in much better shape physically because the responsibility of having so many children has made us more determined to stay in shape. Most of my friends with large families are very attentive to their own health. I've learned a ton about healthy eating from them as well as regular exercise. My own journey to lose weight and get into running the last few years was motivated most of all by knowing I needed to be stronger for the sake of my family -- if I die, I don't know who would take over! But more than that, I have got to be at the top of my game physically and spiritually to be able to take care of this wonderful and immense responsibility.

Ana exercises daily, eats amazingly healthy (much better than me!), bakes bread every week, and manages to stay sane, even with nine kids!

So there you have it -- some of the positive health benefits of having lots of kids along with some of the negative stuff that we've experienced. I'd love to hear more perspectives on this subject -- what has your experience with pregnancy been? Has age or the number of pregnancies had a positive or negative effect on your health? What do you think of the studies I discovered?

Read More

April Moments (Wordless Wednesday)

Read More

Talking to Yourself

Last year, with the help of Weight Watchers and running, I lost 35 pounds. I was on track to lose the last 25 when I found out I was pregnant and it was time to put that goal on hold for a while.

I gained 30 pounds during pregnancy, which means that even at the end of that pregnancy, I weighed less than I had a year before.
Two weeks after Cami's birth, I found I had 14 pounds to lose to get back to where I was last summer.
I lost ten pounds in March and five pounds so far in April, leaving me looking like this:
Wow, it feels great to be making so much progress!

But at the same time, this process is discouraging and overwhelming. I've had to fight stress and sleep-deprivation and ravenous, irrational hunger for every pound. Some weeks, the scale hasn't moved much despite my best efforts. Fitting in the running hasn't been easy.

But I've learned something in the process and it is this: Be careful what you say when you talk to yourself. I've had to consciously change my thoughts.

Instead of "Only ten pounds down. You've still got thirty to go. I don't know if you can keep it up that long," I've tried to say, "Ten pounds is awesome! You're one-fourth of the way there!"

Instead of "You barely lost anything this week. A half pound a week? At that rate, it will take you SIXTY weeks to lose all that extra weight. Might as well give up now." I've tried to say, "You'll do better next week. A half pound is a half pound gone and at least the scale is moving in the right direction."

Instead of "You're slowing down this month. All that work the last two weeks and you're only barely back to where you were last summer. Can you really keep this up for however long it takes?" I've tried to say, "Now, you're one-third of the way there. Look how all your smallest clothes fit you again! You didn't get very long to enjoy this size last summer, so celebrate it now. Best of all, any weight you lose from this point on is a brand-new low for you."

I still find those negative thoughts creeping in, but deliberately changing them has helped me be patient.

This morning, I saw a new number on the scale -- one I haven't seen in a decade. And hey, aren't I looking great?

Read More