Picking up my cross

I am so thankful for my doctors up here in Massachusetts. Since I almost died from an ectopic pregnancy about a week before we left Texas I was a bit scared of finding a doctor I could trust. Per the advice of many solid people I found a strong Catholic doctor who is well versed in the Creighton Method of Natural Family Planning, completely pro-life and anti-contraception with a sizable Catholic brood of his own. He is amazing. I was so scared of not being able to have kids after I lost one of my tubes and he helped me find specialists who could determine the underlying causes to my ectopic pregnancy and if I could achieve more pregnancies without risking losing my other tube or if I would need surgery.

After many sessions with him, lots of blood draws, and much more confidence than I had before I had met him I became pregnant with Madeleine. He was too far away to deliver my baby but I saw him through the first trimester. He did weekly blood draws to make sure my HCG levels were doubling properly before they could make certain that the baby was in my uterus by ultrasound. He got me on progesterone because of my extremely low levels and my family history of miscarriages due to low progesterone levels. Even after I migrated to my new (and also fabulous) doctor for my second and third trimesters he kept up with me to make sure I was doing well.

I had an appointment with him today as has become customary after I start to get my cycle back (over share, I know) after I give birth. They monitor my hormone levels to make sure that they don't detect any signs that there could be any problems with my remaining tube. Praise God, so far everything has been perfect.

We talked for a while about the gift that Natural Family Planning is. He gave an amazing analogy that I just wanted to share. When you achieve a pregnancy while doing Natural Family Planning you are aware of your fertility and therefore able to make a decision to receive a new life inside of you. It is like when you go to receive the Eucharist, you walk to the priest or Extraordinary Minister with the intent to receive Jesus inside of you and you are able to prepare yourself. When you use Natural Family Planning you are aware of the holiness of the act of creating a child with your spouse and you are able to prepare yourself for that new life. He said when you don't use Natural Family Planning and you aren't aware of your fertility it's like receiving the Eucharist in your sandwich. All of the holiness and grace are still there but you aren't aware and so you cannot prepare yourself as fully to receive it. It is such a gift to be aware that you may have just made a child and to reflect on that and it is a blessing to make the decision, "Yes, I want to bear new life." A child is always unequivocally a GIFT and a BLESSING but why would you not want to understand your fertility, embrace it, and know and receive the blessings of that gift right from the moment of conception?

We also talked about having large families. He says that he gets frustrated when the mother of many kids complains about hardships and people say to her, "Well maybe you shouldn't have had so many kids." Someone could be stuck in traffic and complaining about that but you wouldn't tell them, "Well maybe you shouldn't have a car." Sometimes mothers get "stuck in traffic" so to speak and struggle but that does not mean that they shouldn't have had their kids. The overall blessings from their child outweigh any hardships greatly. In fact, I would say that the hardships and challenges are what purify us and make marriage and motherhood a vocation that increases holiness.

Back in the day at Franciscan people would talk about "paths". Obviously your vocation is your path to God. Most of the time when I think about paths in a spiritual context I think back to the road Christ had to travel to the cross. That journey was His purpose and he bore His cross along it because of His intense love for the people we would die for.

I relate that to vocations. Until I found Kyle most of the time I found my "path" to be a rather easy one. I felt like I could carry my cross with no issues and was dancing along to God. It wasn't until I loved Kyle that I began to feel the weight of the cross I was carrying, my sinfulness. I could feel how my sins weighed down on me because now that we were one they were also placed on his shoulders. I could clearly see the effects of my sinfulness on him. If I was selfish, it hurt Kyle. If I was vein, it hurt Kyle. That clarity allowed me to see how I also hurt so many other people around me. Suddenly my cross felt more weighty. At the same time however I found new strength to carry it because I had found something I would die for. I'm not really talking about actual martyrdom because that seems like a no-brainer, dying for my faith, but someone I was willing to die to myself for.

Each day in marriage is a day to carry the cross of sin, of illness, and then to die to yourself for the ones you love. I imagine it is the same for a priest, wanting to carry your cross out of love for the Church, the bride of the priest, and being willing to die to yourself for Her. When I became a mother this conviction was taken to an even more intense level. My sins are weighted down on my daughters as well. I don't think that Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light because the struggles you face as a Christian are negligible. I believe He says it because He gives you the ability to truly LOVE and that love gives you the strength to carry your cross. Ultimately in order to love someone you have to be willing to die to yourself.

I don't want to ever look at motherhood or being a wife and say, "I have no time for myself. I can't afford XYZ." There are times when I struggle with those things but if I ever complain I'll tell you now, I'm glad I have the car even though I am stuck in traffic.

Tonight it is two in the morning but I am not asleep. Juliette is having one of those nights where she thinks bed time is nap time and wakes up at 11 refreshed and ready to go. Which, of course, is always fun.

Tonight after she had been put down on the floor to burn off energy she took off for the clean laundry basket, put my underwear around her neck, and walked off screaming for "Na" which is what she calls Madeleine. Sometimes it's "Nani" but usually it's "Na".

So she eventually realized that "Na" was not in the living room or the play room or the kitchen so she beat down the door to the nursery and made her way to Madeleine's crib in the dark as she called out for her. I scooped her up and removed her before she could wake her sister, she cried, and I told her she would just have to settle for playtime with momma.

She fell asleep again just a little while ago and while I am exhausted I wouldn't a trade single smile. Motherhood can be hard, and I'll stumble and fall far more than the three times Christ did, but it itself cannot ever be a cross. It's what I carry my cross for.

9/11- 10 years later

I don't want to write about where I was or what I remember. That day is still far too painful. Today is the ten year anniversary of the terrorist attacks to September 11th, 2001. It was a day that changed me and changed my world forever. I've tried watching the footage but I have to turn it off. I don't need it anyway to remember. The images of that day are burned into my brain. Ten years later I remember every detail.

Today I am remembering the the victims, their families, the heros of the FDNY and NYPD, the military, the survivors, the flight crews and passengers, the politicians like George W Bush who encouraged us to stay strong and united as a country, and all the people who lost their sense of security that day. My husband works at Boston Logan where two of the flights departed from and I had a hard time letting him go to work today.

Life is fragile and I can't spend too much time today dwelling on that day because I have two beautiful daughters and a wonderful husband that need me to live in the present. Their innocence hasn't yet been tarnished and for them I need to focus on celebrating life and enjoying each moment I have with them. If that day proved anything to me it was that life is unpredictable. It also proved that people are capable of great evil and great good. The greatest good I can do today is to love my husband and children for all the people who lost their family and wish that they could be loving them right now as well.

The images above are from the gate that American Airlines flight 11 took off from. The flag is flown at half mast every year in tribute to those people who lost their lives. The flag remains there all year as a reminder as well.

The other image is of a memorial near the Catholic church in our town. There is a flag for each person who lost their life that day. It's overwhelming to behold.

Eternal rest grant unto them o Lord and may the souls of the faithfully departed by the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

On quiet nights

It's been a long time since I mourned the loss of my first pregnancy. For some reason, tonight I am mourning. I wouldn't let myself since I have two beautiful babies now. I wouldn't have Madeleine if things didn't go the way they did. But my heart aches when I think of the baby we lost.

It's common, most people go through it. My mom went through it four times, all relatively late in the pregnancy. I lost my baby early on and I lost my fallopian tube too. Half of my fertility. People like to ask questions, make comments about how I can get pregnant with only one tube. They have no idea how scared I was before I had Madeleine. That I would never hold a baby of my own. I thought it would go away after I had Madeleine, that fear of not being able to get pregnant, but both times after I have given birth it comes back. What if it happens again?

It pushes me to get pregnant. It allows me to realize that our fertility is a gift and I should cherish it while I have it because I don't know what the future holds.

I am luckier than so many people. I have two beautiful daughters. Sometimes I feel guilty for wanting more, like God hasn't blessed me enough. He has blessed me more than I could have ever imagined. I want more children because they fill our house with love and laughter. They make me a better person, they bring me closer to God.

I want more children for my daughters. I want them to have siblings, best friends, people they can count on in life to always be there no matter what. I want them to learn selflessness from loving their siblings so they can be prepared for their future vocations. I want them to learn that God first and then family are the priorities. Not money or cars or stuff. They can learn that from a house full of siblings.

I want more children because they strengthen my marriage. They bring my husband and I closer to the Lord and closer to each other. They fulfill the vows we said to each other. I want more children because of what they do to my husband. Because of the man they make him.

I want more children for God. More eternal souls to worship and adore Him. More people to be a light in a dark world. More people to love the poorest of the poor.

Sometimes I feel selfish for wanting more children when God has given me more than I ever imagined so it helps to remember why I am called to be a mother. In order to be a mother you can never be selfish. The vocation demands dying to yourself on a daily basis.

I am twenty-five and I have two children. I could, possibly, have three before I even turn twenty-seven. That makes people uncomfortable, even the best Catholics seem to ask me why. Worry about it being too much. God will never give me more than I can handle. If I have another child, it is because God knows me better than I know myself and He knows I can handle it. I pray that He blesses me with many more in His perfect timing.

For now my job is to enjoy my daughters, to love and teach them and to not focus too much on what the future may hold. Tonight everyone is asleep and so I'm going to quietly allow myself to mourn for the baby we lost for the first time in a long time. Then I'll probably sneak into the room where Madeleine and Juliette sleep just to look at them and remind myself why my sorrow has been turned into dancing.

Still, I am glad we have a little saint in heaven interceding for us. I remember praying to him right when I got pregnant with Madeleine so I know he is interceding before God for me and for our family. And I'll get to meet him someday. That fills me with joy as well.

Little David Behrend, pray for us.