We find happiness even in our darkest moments.

I had high hopes for last Thursday. It was finally officially South Carolina summer (I would be finishing my Maymester the next day) and Matt was going to be there to celebrate with me… well that and we were attending our first ultrasound appointment together to find out Baby M’s sex.

Unfortunately, our day was darkened by bad news from the doctor’s office about Baby M’s right kidney. Our baby was sick and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it… nor could we make sense of the fact that our baby girl may have a genetic disease that neither of us carry genes for.

After we left the doctors office that morning at 11:30 we went back to my apartment where we called our parents and friends while searching online for fetal kidney disease. I couldn’t quit crying every time we said Baby M or mentioned the morning I fell apart. Matt was there with his big strong arms to hold me though. At one point he had to rock me like he will our baby… I felt absolutely devastated and so angry.

It doesn’t make sense; it’s all I can say. It doesn’t make sense. Why. Over and over again. Hasn’t it already been hard enough, haven’t we been good servants, haven’t we tried to be strong, courageous and believe you know best. Why.Why. Why. Why.

I started to pull myself together around 1:00 because my baby girl was so ready to eat she couldn’t stand it. Matt and I decided to continue on with our planned out celebration day, because other than her kidney M is doing great and she’s even a couple days ahead of schedule… and mommy hasn’t gained anymore than 6 lbs yet.

We had lunch and Mr. Friendly’s outside. Shrimp and grits, fried green tomatos, gazpacho… oh so good. After lunch we went to a couple stores on Devine St. where we looked at furniture and all different types of nick-knacks. We completed our stroll down (a street we’ll never be able to afford) at Little Lambs and Ivy, the most beautiful baby store. We looked at bows, dresses, receiving blankets, ohhh the works. It was magical.

After wards Matt and I took a very serious nap that was much needed.

Well, Matthew’s spirit and energy is hard to keep up with so I already had a late afternoon activity that would definitely take it out of him… strawberry picking! My future husband being the Yankee that he is had never been initiated into the sweltering fields of strawberries searching for the perfect berry for the basket. It was so much fun and I loved watching his expression every time he found “the perfect strawberry”.  Oh I couldn’t have found a better suited man, he was hankering for a milkshake so we scooted over to the Dairy bar where I had chocolate and he had a strawberry frozen treat. We took our milkshakes over to The Fresh Market and picked out chicken salad, pimento cheese (of which Mr. Matt cannot get enough of!), sourdough baguettes, cucumber onion and tomato dill salad and a big ol’ watermelon.

We’d decided to have ourselves a picnic down by the river. We went back home and while Matt did all the prep work I laid on the couch sinking deep into the cushions until he whisked me away again.

After our picnic Matt and I returned home for the final time that evening just to watch TV and talk about how we were both feeling.

I love him. I love our baby. I love God.

Baby M,

My sweet girl your daddy felt you kick for the first time Saturday night (May 28^th) while we were watching Father of the Bride. Thank you for giving him that special memory, he loves you so much, as do I. I can’t wait until I can hold you in my arms. I hope you smell as good as your Papa does!

Love you.

Do not be discouraged... do not be discouraged... do not be discouraged

Decades ago I didn’t know my 20 week baby was a girl, Eons ago I would have never imagined her right kidney would be covered with cysts and 6 months ago I would have sworn love, marriage and babies were in absolutely no way part of my future.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

So many times I have avowed I would or wouldn’t do something… so many more times I have eaten my words… I intend to contradict myself for the rest of eternity if it means I will be blessed with people and experiences like ones I’ve had with Matthew Dowdell and our precious little girl, Baby M.

This has been one of the most emotional weeks I have ever had… and mind you I told my parents I was having a baby with a man I met in South America only a few months ago.

When Matt and I went to our doctor’s appointment (May 26^th, 2011) to find out the sex of our first baby it never crossed our minds that tears, frustration and sadness would be looming when we walked out of the doctor’s office. Like most of my life God has different plans than I do.

Our nurse took us back and immediately hooked M and me up to the ultrasound machine. Oh man was I excited, I couldn’t wait to see her, it’d been so long. After one of the of the most blissful 25 minutes Matt and I had ever spent together our doctor began to explain that although she was perfectly healthy there was a reason for concern.

Concern… oh now they’re giving me a reason to be concerned as though having a baby isn’t concerning enough.

Our ultrasound technician found several cysts covering her right kidney. We were sent into the waiting room where we were still slightly under the illusion that there was nothing to worry about.

Next they escorted us back to meet with a doctor who told us that they had reason for a lot of concern. She took us from what the cysts could mean from the worst (baby M couldn’t survive shortly after birth due to kidney failure) to the best (her cysts resolved themselves over time) circumstances. She advised us to see a specialist and that I needed to have blood drawn in order to run further tests. In order to make an appointment with the specialist (there is only one located in South Carolina and luckily it’s Columbia) we needed a direct referral from our doctor and the WPA (Women’s Physician Association) had to make the phone call. Therefore, everything was taken out of Matt and my hands.

We’ve been waiting now since Thursday morning for the doctor to call with our appointment time in order to find out just what’s going on.

Have I mentioned I couldn’t detest a doctor’s office more?

Anyhow, now we’re just waiting until 8:30 tomorrow morning when I intend to begin harassing the WPA.

With all this laid out and explained, I am trying to work through what it all means. How do Matt, me and baby M fit into the seemingly tragic catastrophe I didn’t think the hurdles were over but I certainly didn’t expect to be taken over with worries of kidney disease so early in the game.

God has plans for us and he knows better. It is the only reason (other than Matt’s smile) that I have not lost all my marbles and laid down on the ground to beat my fists and scream like I hope my baby will in 1 year.

Wedding Stuff

1. https://www.belk.com/bridalregistry/bridal_manage.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302036082&bmUID=1306272656911

 

My china and a few serving pieces are at belk, just go to this website and type in my name for wedding registry. It'll come up.

 

2. http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/regHome.asp?

 

We registered together for all of this stuff, same deal just type in mine or matts name and it'll come up

 

3. http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=peanutbutterbandit

 

These are our wedding cake toppers, super quirky

 

4. http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/product/7622/signature_ecru_wedding_invitations_love_blooms.html

 

these are our invitiations, ours are tweaked a little.. we use the green and purple design to match our colors

 

20 weeks

It’s the night before we find out if M is a girl or boy, it’s so exciting. Just for documentation the night before I learned my first baby’s birth I…

Watched American Idol and Scotty won

Laid in bed and read an entire novel, Along for the Ride

Made terrible spaghetti

Made numerous phone calls to Matt as he drove from Pittsburgh to Columbia, poor baby

…. Yeah

I feel…

So excited, baby M is becoming so real to me now, almost tangible

Baby M kicks at night when he/she is tired

Relieved that I get to see my baby on the big screen tomorrow, I would love to know what M is doing in there

Hormones…

Have been raging lately, I get really mad on occasion… sorta unusual

I also cry really hard, big tears, too… honestly though I kind of like it, it’s nice to have big cries

Tomorrow,

Can’t come soon enough.

Baby M,

We love you very much and I can’t wait to experience all the heartache, love, joy, tears and whatever else with you and because of you. What a ride.

Marry Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghZt2cILcCU

Wedding

Planning for a wedding is so fun… who knew!

How many will be invited… All family, my parents, brother, grandparents, uncle, Matt’s siblings and their significant others, his parents and potentially grandparents, of course last but not least my preacher from childhood through adulthood.

What’s our plan… Ceremony @7:00 in the garden overlooking the harbor, drinks and appetizers on the boardwalk, dinner in the cottage beside the garden. It’ll be a buffet style dinner, beef and chicken with sides of salad, seasonal vegetables, and my minds gone blank.

Colors… Lilac and green but mainly lilac

There’s so much more… I’m just tired of thinking right now

Life

Cravings… Watermelon, Cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch), Salad. Honestly, I was expecting more. I have this hankering for food but then when I go to eat there’s actually nothing I want.

How I feel… my stomach muscles are stretching which can be painful sometimes, everything is getting bigger and HEAVIER. Yikes.

Weight gain… so far nada

Emotionality… not deranged, not stable, I’d argue for an unhappy medium

What’s on my mind today… EDRD 600 and how to teach my JDD student the value of caring, the fact I find out my baby’s sex next Thursday

What’s on my agenda… this weekend I am going on a Diva-fied beach weekend, passing EDRD with flying colors or just an A

When do I see my future husband again aka when do I get my belly rubbed … Thursday, May 26^th

Am I ready to be married, forever… as long as it’s to Matt I’m cool

                         Divas- a nickname my best friends from college contrived for themselves

Minus Pippi and Lauren

Baby M

19 weeks officially today.

Matt and I have nicknamed our heirloom tomato “baby M”, both of our names start with M so why not extend our little family of M’s onto baby M.

I have known I was pregnant since February 16^th. The week after the first weekend I spent in Pittsburgh with Matt. Since my body had been out of control for the entire time I was in SA, I thought my routine doctor’s appointment would be telling… but not quite this telling.

I told Matt immediately and of course he was OVERJOYED… nervous, for a split second then OVERJOYED again.

I’m more… let it sink in, roll around, FREAK OUT, roll some more, cry and then… feel okay, and then cry…
and now… OVERJOYED. Maybe not this exact order but the end point is the always the same no matter how you play-it. Happiness.

I’m still trying to figure out how this whole pregnancy thing works. I’m hungry, then nothing looks good enough to eat, then everything looks good enough to eat, then I’m sick because I ate too much… oh geez.

Everything is getting bigger. Like I needed anything to get bigger.

From the beginning of baby M I knew no matter what or how I felt one thing one never change… that baby M is my baby, our baby… and would be one of the best things to happen.

I asked God a couple times why it couldn’t have been a little easier but that’s’ not the way the couple crumbles.

My Chilean Lover

So. I’m pregnant. Totally 100% preg-go. 19 weeks and 6 days. I found out so long ago. It feels like eon’s actually. Since I found out I was pregnant I completed my first semester of grad school with a 3.5, got engaged, planned a wedding, died and came back to life, fell in love, jumped started a new life that will take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with 5 new brother’s in law, 3 sister in law’s, and dos padres.

I’m not sure where to begin. Matt would be a good start. Matt, just his name brings tears to my eyes sometimes. Did you know a human being could be a blessing; I had an idea but nothing concrete.

We met in Chile, South America where we were both volunteer English teachers. For the week Matt and spent together he was so obviously different than anyone else I’d met before… funny, I thought I’d scared him to death with my crazy people antics. We were in Santiago, Chile for training when we got to know each other living amongst 64 others in a crowded hostal.

We had strange things in common, The King of Queens, cooking, our strong familial ties… looking back I realize that the person Matt showed me that week is his through and through self. There are no games, no ulterior self hiding beneath the façade of pleasant conversations. Matt may be the most genuine and kindest people I have met.

We stayed in contact over the next four months. He was in the North of Chile with desert surrounding him. He was close to the miners that were recovered while we were there. I was in the far South, visiting would have been impossible. Regardless, we were merely friends that were facing the same difficulties and triumphs of teaching our native language amongst non-native speakers.

When the close of the program came around I found myself anticipating seeing him again. Strange, this burly man was crossing my mind.

                                                                                   

We’d planned a meeting in Charleston, Sc for New Years. It was one of the things we’d talked about 4 months earlier. Our mutual like for Charleston… Matt has a brother and sister in law living there now. He found it charming and most importantly near the beach.

New Years was set. We met-up… Matt, me and the Dowdell clan. Quite a clan they are, too. I realized while I was there I liked Matt. He’s funny, totally himself and an amazing person… what’s not to like?

Matt was my New Years kiss. 2011. I had no idea that he would be my last New Year’s kiss.  

We’ll. That’s only the beginning, from one New Year’s kiss to a fast-forwarded future that would be tied to each other inexplicably for the rest of our lives.  

mine, yours, his, her and their Jesus, too

It’s exactly one week since Easter and about 2,011 years + 1 week since Jesus arose. What perspective.

My mom and dad raised me in church, Southern Baptist born and bred. God, Jesus, Our Savior, Christ (my least favorite reference)… his life has been instilled into mine. Years of Bible stories I was taught in Children’s Church, two decades of listening to others explain Jesus’ purpose, 23 years of the idea that I have two fathers rolling around in my head.

Curiosity has for most of my life been a driving force. First-hand experiences have always been obligation, not a choice. As someone whose ideas and dreams felt necessary to attain, feel, accomplish… how does Jesus become as pivotal as he should be, how does he become the Subject and not the objectified Savior so often we treat him as.

For so many Jesus can only translate into the man we want/need to view him as. To make Jesus real most humans need to understand him in bodily form, which I believe, is why he came to Earth. Why he experienced humanity’s persecution, not just when he died on the cross but as a small child who cried for his mother, or as a teenager with the angst instilled in our molecules to make adolescence even the more difficult. When we perceive Jesus as a man, he is one of our flesh, one of our body, and one of our mind… which was the point.

Back to this idea of Jesus as our objectified Savior, what I mean by this is that we more often than not will impose what we know of the Earth and the lives we have lived onto who Jesus is. Our tangible horizon umbrellas the concepts we have of who Jesus is or was.

For example: When I think of sin, I think of the ones I have committed. The sins I have committed are real, understandable therefore they are in my tangible horizon. The commandment “honor thy father and mother” is something I can understand so when I break against this “rule” I understood I have sinned. In the way I understand what sin is, is the way I am able to perceive Jesus. The guilt I feel when I sin is something I am able to understand. We as humans want to understand Jesus in a similar way, we want Jesus to become relatable… we want to know him. Where this becomes tricky is how our ideas can skew Jesus…

Jesus is a father to me and he understands me as body and soul. Jesus is also a father to a 12 year old Asian girl that just survived the Tsunami but lost her younger brother. More perplexing (for me personally) is that her community may be for the most part Buddhist AND SHE SPEAKS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE. Her world is a million miles away from mine (physically and theoretically), the sins she commits could actually be impossible for me to even try and commit.

But God is her father, too. He understands her body and soul, too. He comforts her, too. What does this mean to the understanding we personally have of who God is? At times we place our beliefs of what is right and what is wrong onto him, we believe our world is his only world. Although, I do think it’s important that we try as much as possible to share our lives with Jesus. We do not try to make him fit into our lives, but that our lives fit into his plan. In order to understand Jesus, to have a relationship with him it’s important that we remember what he is, Creator, Savior, Father, Love… and not just to me in Florence, South Carolina but also to those in Hong Kong, China and around the world. We need to allow Jesus to shape us and show us what he is… by allowing this we give up our objectified Savior and allow him to just be Savior.