Mom Expectations-No Thanks

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Yesterday I got out of the house AND took a shower! Double win!  I spent my time out getting myself a 2018 planner because I’ve been without one for over a week now and I’m barely surviving (type A personality problems). When I am out on my own, I feel like I can breathe again. Lilah needs so much from me that sometimes I don’t even realize that I’ve neglected myself until there’s someone else watching out for her and I can just take a minute to be fully in my body. I don’t know whether it’s my own personality, or the pressure of our culture, or just this overall sense of fear that these moments will disappear and I won’t be able to get them back, but I often feel mom expectations strangling me.

It started when I was pregnant. The pressure to adorably capture every single week with a bump picture was suffocating. I never remembered, and part of me just didn’t care about doing it. But I would see other pregnant friend’s posts on social media and I would immediately panic because I wasn’t doing that. Was I missing something? Was I neglecting to capture these memories for my baby girl? And now she’s here, and the pull to capture every little moment, and document every smile, is even stronger. Sure I take a lot of pictures (have you seen that sweet little face?), and I journal most days and include Lilah milestones in that, but not a lot of planned memory capturing going on here. Of course I had high hopes going into this mama thing that I would create an organized online photo album and write all about Lilah’s day every single evening. But instead, our pictures of Lilah are hanging out somewhere in the cloud, and sleep is much more important to me at night than anything else.

Yesterday afternoon, after a particularly panicky moment in regards to my failure to organize my daughter’s memories, I found myself thinking about what is important to me from my childhood. My amazing mom kept journals and calendars for us and it really is fun to see what I was doing 2 weeks after birth, but honestly I can count on one hand the amount of times I have looked at those. But that picture of me running down the beach in my duck bathing suit? I look at that all the time. And that blanket I slept with until I was 10? It houses more memories than I can even explain. And above all else the most important things have been the things my parents taught me. The hours and hours a day my mom spent teaching me to read and write my name. The evenings when my dad would come home and wrestle with us until we could barely breathe we were laughing so hard. Those things above all else, I hold onto.  The other stuff, while sweet and fun to look at, isn’t a must. I don’t have to do it, and Lilah will be okay, I will be okay.

When wrestling against a certain expectation, I always ask myself if this would be important to the Ingalls family (you know, Little House on the Prairie). And what I mean by that is, was it something that they needed to survive or be happy? It’s my favorite way of bringing myself back to the basics. What do I need here? What does Lilah need here? Is this thing I am obsessing over really all that important? Did Ma and Pa keep endless memory boxes for Laura and her siblings? Nope. They didn’t even have photographs then and yet no one cared that they didn’t know what they looked like as a baby. And I bet that Ma spent way more time experiencing and way less time documenting. And hey, that’s not to say that I’m not going to bask in the beauty that is modern technology, but I’m sure I can learn a few things from the way that they lived their lives.

While I know I will forever battle these expectations of momhood- which bottles to use, or if co-sleeping is safe, or should you really give an infant Tylenol before shots-I am working every day to  create experiences whether I capture them forever or not. Documenting events will not be my obsession, but experiencing them. Lilah may not have a neat little picture album, and the journal of her first year of life may be filled with her mama’s own struggles and insecurities, but I will make sure that she has beautiful, challenging, comforting memories to hold onto for her entire life.

The Birth of Lilah Grace.

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My blog has been under construction for over a year as I’ve been working to reset my heart and soul. I needed some time of silent reflection, and in many ways still do. But so many of you dear people have been asking me about Lilah’s birth story, so I’ve decided to share it here.

I used to find new mamas to be a little obnoxious-sharing their birth stories, posting a zillion pictures of their babes on social media, complaining about how nothing fits anymore. And yet here I am, wearing 1 of 5 pairs of oversized pants I wear in rotation, taking yet another picture of my little girl for instagram, and writing about my birth story! Who am I? But it’s true that once you become a mom your perspective really does change. The entire act of bringing an itty bitty human being into the world is humbling and amazing.

September 28th, my due date. No Lilah Grace. I had yet another doctor’s appointment. I was 4cm dilated and yet no sign of a baby. Going over your due date is like some special kind of torture. It is completely depressing. By 39 weeks you’ve been trapped inside your own body for long enough, your stomach hangs out of pretty much every shirt you own, and forget about tying your shoes.

DISCLAIMER: I had an annoyingly good birth experience and some of you may want to punch me as you’re reading this, so be prepared.

On Saturday September 30th I woke up at 4am with a new kind of discomfort, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But by 6am it was clear that I was in labor. I woke Eric up so he could help me get into the shower (because that’s what the birth class taught us), but having a contraction while standing in a slippery shower totally sucks, so back to bed I went. I called my doctor around 7:30 with contractions 3 in a row, every ten minutes. It was a weird pattern and he felt that I should wait to go to the hospital. But my body doesn’t really ever do anything conventionally, so around 8:30am we started preparing to go to the hospital anyway. I was afraid they were going to send me home, so I would scream “WE HAVE TO GO NOW” during a contraction and then sit on the couch and suggest we wait a few more minutes. Finally, when I was sure I was going to die, we decided to go. We arrived around 9:30am at the local hospital. It took us a good chunk of time to even get to labor and delivery because I insisted on walking, but had to stop every 2 minutes or so as my contractions got closer together. People passing in wheelchairs and rolling hospital beds looked at me with pity as I groaned my way down the halls.

When we made it into the initial exam room, the nurse began asking me questions about the kind of care I wanted, etc. I think I would have said yes to selling my child to her at this point, I was in no state to be in a conversation. The initial exam showed that I was 5-6cm dilated. My goal had always been to wait until 7-8cm for an epidural. Knowing how my body doesn’t follow the rules, and that it might take the anesthesiologist a while to get to my room, I elected to call him right away. No sooner were we up in my delivery room, he arrived. I was at 7-8cm.

It’s funny how much you don’t care about your own disgustingness during labor. I mean, it crossed my mind when I was sitting with my butt out towards the doctor, but he has the drugs so you get over it. After 3 minutes of complete and total hell, the epidural was in. By this point I was 9 1/2 cm dilated, it was 11:30am. Within another half hour, I was 10cm dilated (see, I told you it was annoying). However, my water had not yet broken, and I still needed antibiotics since I was strep B positive. So they started my IV and told me to hang tight…UM K? At this point my blood pressure started to drop and so did the baby’s, so in they came with an oxygen mask and some medication, speaking in doctor lingo. i remember tearing up a little bit, looking at those nurses hovering over me. I’ve never quite liked being a patient, and dislike even more not knowing what’s going on. But they were able to stabilize us and all was well. The transitional shakes started to set in. Eric said it looked like I was freezing cold, and was hard for him to watch.

For the next few hours we watched Home Alone 2 and waited.

2:30pm, my water breaks.

4:00pm, I begin to feel the urge to push.

4:30pm, In comes a midwife and off we go! I remember saying to myself “it’s just like a long run, just keep going”. I can’t even remember how many times I pushed. I had requested a mirror and so not only did I watch my baby girl’s head begin to crown, but I saw myself from a totally new and horrifying angle. Anyway, eventually she was close to being born and so I no longer was paying attention to the mirror and was pushing with all my might to bring this little thing into the world. And then at 5:18pm, out she came. Our little Lilah Grace. I wasn’t overcome with emotion like so many people say-I was kind of in shock. I remember thinking “what just happened?” “did that just come out of me?” “oh my gosh she looks exactly like Eric”. I couldn’t believe that she was mine.

When they put her up on my chest, I noticed how blue she was, and when her little body wasn’t pinking up, they took her to the table in the corner to examine her further. I watched as they put a little mask on her face. I felt uneasy, scared, sad that I wasn’t holding my baby. But I kept repeating to myself, as I have the entire 6 weeks she’s been alive, “she is a gift, not yours but God’s. have faith. deep breaths”. As the midwife stitched me up, I watched as a series of NICU doctors came in to inspect my baby. it was decided that she needed some help breathing and so off she went down the hall to the NICU.

A few hours later after I was fed and cleaned up and sewn together, Eric and I went to the NICU to see her. I had been there many times before, not as a mom, but as a social worker. It is a hard place to be. So many little lives fighting. So many mamas and daddys overwhelmed with sadness and fear. As they wheeled me over to my little girl, I was so humbled. So humbled that my little girl was okay. That she was born full term, healthily plump, and that she would be leaving the NICU in just a few hours to be reunited with us up in our hospital room. My heart ached for the mamas who would spend months visiting their babies in this sterile room, and ached even more for those who would never bring their babies home.

When the wheeled her into our hospital room a few hours later, I felt like I was really seeing her and holding her for the first time. Studying her little features, watching her chest rise and fall. This was the baby I had carried all this time. The little girl I had prayed over, sang to, talked to in the car on my way to work. Finally here she was.

So far on this mama journey that I have just begun, I am realizing that I will never survive raising my daughter if I cannot rest in the truth that God is in control and I am not. That no matter what may happen in this lifetime, no matter how much time I am given with my sweet baby girl, that God is good. I am doing all that I can to cling to that and to rest in peace and joy.

 

Nothing is done and I don’t care.

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It’s not in my nature to turn projects loose unfinished. I obsess over the little things until I am so tangled up in my own thoughts and feelings that I can barely function. So it is quite out of character for me to publish something on this blog of mine that’s still a major, slow, work in progress.

Yet here I am.

This morning when I woke up, it just hit me. I don’t care if this thing is perfect. I just want to write. I want to write for that piece of myself that needs to share my heart. I want to write for my baby girl, who will always know that her mama has dreams and hopes and stories. And I will write for all my friends out there who suffer in silence. Who carry burdens without saying a word. Who feel alone in a scary world, alone in the midst of a faith they can’t make sense of, alone in this world where expectations feel so high and grace feels so low.

What I am learning about myself is I am incapable of pretending. Of course there are times when I fake it-we all do. But in the general sense of the word, I just can’t. If I don’t live with my heart on my sleeve, something inside of me starts to shrivel. It’s always been one of those things that I could barely stand about myself. I always felt like the annoying girl who was prone to word vomiting all her life experiences. But then one day, Eric told me that is one of the things he loves most about me. My bravery with my words. How he never has to guess what’s going on in my heart and mind.

That changed everything for me.

So here I am. Messy blog, messy hair, messy house, messy life. I vow that this will be a safe place. Not only for others, but for myself. No expectations. No standards to live up to. Just a blank space to write it all down.

An Open Letter To Myself On A Wednesday In February

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You are enough. You are enough. You are enough.

Hold onto that truth.

I know it feels like the world is spinning too fast and you can barely see straight in front of you. But keep moving forward. One step at a time. Moment by moment.

Deep breaths, baby steps. You got this.

Give yourself SO much grace.

Love yourself in every way you know how.

You can do hard things. You’ve always been able to.

You are not alone. Never have you ever been. The God of the universe is holding you in His hands. Can you believe it? He’s got you, there is nothing to fear! Lean into Him, let Him take it all from you.

Rest.

You are okay.

Nothing that you do or do not do defines you.

You are enough, just as you are.

Now snuggle into a million fluffy blankets, breathe deeply, and rest.

For you are so loved and you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

 

 

 

Resting In The Arms That Won’t Let Go.

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I opened my computer today to finish an article for Deliberate Magazine, and I couldn’t. I sat for an hour with my fingers on the keys, willing myself to remember how to string words together, yet I couldn’t remember how.

That’s always how I know that my heart needs to write about something else.

My heart is heavy today.

I have always been pretty good at tricking myself into thinking that I am in control of my life.

And then every once and a while, life hits me like a ton of bricks and I realize, once again, that I am not.

The heaviness that reminds me I am not in control, has become so beautiful to me.

I know it sounds odd. Heaviness is painful, not beautiful. But for me, the heaviness leaves me no choice, but to surrender. I cannot hold it on my own, and so I no longer am able to pretend that I am in control. I can exhale into the truth that I cannot do it on my own.

I prefer it this way really.

I don’t want to run through life on adrenaline, caffeine, and pride. I want to sink into the arms of my Savior. I want to release all that life hands me to Him.

So as I sit here, saddened by the pain of a suffering loved one. I am clinging to Jesus in a way that I have not for many months. And I am so thankful for the heaviness that reminds me of His presence, His goodness, His love for me.

Maybe one of these days, It won’t take so much heaviness for me to rest in the arms of my Savior. But regardless, I know He won’t let go.

 

 

 

Let It Snow.

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It seems as if time has stopped and everything is on hold.

The snow is still falling steadily outside my window. The few objects left in the storm’s way have taken on obscure shapes as the snow piles on their surfaces.

On most snow days I would bake some ooey, gooey cinnamon rolls for Eric and I, brew up some coffee, and enjoy a late breakfast. But today, I have made yeast free, sugar free, grain free blueberry muffins that may or may not be edible when they come out of the oven.

I have been on a strict diet for a few weeks now and will be for a few months. It’s main purpose is to rid my body of some bad bacteria that got out of control and is taking over. It’s nothing serious but it is a royal pain, not to mention a first world inconvenience. So for now, no cinnamon rolls for me.

It’s always quite interesting when you have to monitor what you eat. For someone with a history of an eating disorder, it’s like walking a tight rope. Monitor every little thing you put in your body, read and re-read packaging to make sure you can eat that. But don’t become too obsessed. Life, once again, revolves around food, and I am suddenly very aware of how different I am from that girl 8 years ago. Stronger, wiser, gentler with myself.

These past few months have been a series of triumphs and setbacks, medical bills we can’t afford, treatments that did nothing, a spirit crushed with fatigue and hopelessness. But it has also been filled with the grace of God, the power of His goodness, the blessing of His people surrounding us.

Life hits all at once. That’s just how it works. No sooner have you begun treading water again after a near drowning and another wave hits. But i’m learning that it’s not about getting out of the way of the waves,  it’s about learning to ride with them. And I have found the only way to keep afloat when riding gigantic waves is Jesus.

And so I praise Him today for his goodness, his faithfulness. I praise Him for the times life is beautiful and for the times it is too messy to untangle.

I thank him for this snow, this forced break.

It’s His permission to us to stop trying so hard and to just be for a little while.

All we can do is sit and watch it unfold all around us. We can’t control it, we can’t stop it. It’s out of our hands.

So let it snow.

Let it snow.

 

Who Am I?

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Is that not the age old question?

And although I hoped against all hope that I would escape the baggage that question brings this year, I am slowly realizing that I have not. In fact, as the years pass, the stronger the question:

Who Am I?

As a Christian I know that I am a child of God, prized, loved, pure, perfect in the eyes of my savior. But the resounding truth is often muddled with the noise of the world all around me.

Who Am I?

I am a wife, a daughter, a sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin, friend. I am a writer, a teacher, an actress an athlete. I am sweet, I am sassy, I am thoughtful, witty, sad, happy, angry, and a thousand other things.

And yet, I am none of them.

Whenever I let one of those things define me, I falter.

Sometimes I have to remind myself,

“if you were none of those things you would still be enough.”

Some days I believe it and some days I don’t, but I keep saying it to myself over and over. Because, I don’t want to live a life searching, chasing down identities that I can hide behind for a while.

“Who am I?” isn’t really the question. And while I know that i’ll continue to ask it in some form my entire life, I will not let it define me. Because who I think I am in any given moment, isn’t really who I am at all. All these things I think and say that I am, barely scratch the surface of who I am in the eyes of my King.

We Are All Falling Short.

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You know what I’m talking about, right?

On December 31st we are giddy with the excitement for the resolutions, the diets, the hope for the next year. And now here we are, a week and a half in and we are starting to realize that all the baggage we were carrying with us last year is still trailing along behind us.

Wouldn’t it be great if the new year was a door that closed tight behind us, locking all the pain of the last year behind us?

But it doesn’t work that way.

All the yuck comes with us until we work through it.

Some might say we just need to leave the past in the past. But if we haven’t worked through the hard things weighing us down, is it denial to try and walk away from it?

It’s not as simple as just forgetting the pain and moving on. That’s not how our minds and our souls work. We must address the hard stuff, or it will sneak into every part of our lives and take control.

The hardest thing I have ever had to realize is that there is darkness inside all of us.

We don’t really want to go there.

We want to believe that there are bad guys and there are good guys, and that we are the good guys. But we could just as easily become the bad guys if we aren’t honest with ourselves and aware of who we are.

So here is a new year. Same old struggles, same old baggage. We entered January skipping and now midway through we are shuffling along, remembering why last year was so hard.

Let’s look at our lives holistically. Let’s eat right, and exercise, and go to counseling, and meditate, and journal about the really scary things we can’t tell anyone else yet.

Let’s honor ourselves and be honest with ourselves. Honest about our struggles, our addictions, our downfalls.

The places where we feel we fall short are often our greatest gifts.

Allow yourself to fall short. That’s so much more than okay. You don’t need to pretend. We are all falling short. Awesome, right?!

WE ARE ALL FALLING SHORT!

What a relief!

New year my friends. Are we going to live bold, vulnerable, beautifully messy lives?

YES we most certainly will.

 

 

 

 

Saying No To The Typical New Years Resolutions.

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I love the new year as much as the next gal.

I love the mentality of a fresh start, setting goals, moving forward.

But I always seem to put a lot of pressure on my new year’s self. Like it’s the job of new year me to pick up the slack on the last year. Okay self, you kind of sucked this past year, so in this new year you need to do all of this stuff, ok? 

Oh my gosh it makes me tired just thinking about all that pressure.

Every year, listing the things I need to do better, do differently. It’s not very encouraging. In fact, I often feel burnt out before I’ve even begun. My expectations set so high, come crumbling down at the first ounce of failure. And then comes the shame. Well, Lizz, you’ve done it again. Another year of failure, missing the mark.

I won’t do it another year.

So this year I wonder how different it would be if maybe we partnered with ourselves a little bit more. Gave ourselves a little bit of a loving pep-talk instead of a strict diet, or an out-of-our-control achievement, or expecting things from ourselves that we are not ready to give.

I am going into the new year with baby steps, not leaps and bounds.

I am going to partner with myself on this life journey instead of expecting myself to move mountains just because the date changes.

Our resolutions don’t have to be a list of things screaming “You’re going to do better this year!”. 

Instead they can be gentle encouragements to ourselves. Set structure, sure. Join the gym, get a new water bottle, carve out an hour every day to work out. But give yourself a few set days off as well.

My old resolution voice might be saying to me this year, “seriously, you have to publish a book! Get a better job. You need to be doing devotions more. You definitely have to be in more plays. Run another half marathon. Blog every day, no matter what, no breaks EVER. Do better! Be better! Love better! Create more! It’s not enough, it’s never enough, Lizz. YOU MUST BE BETTER!

 Oh Good Lord, no more!

This year my new year’s resolution is to pursue my own physical, emotional, and spiritual health by listening closely to my own needs. I will chase after my love of creating no matter where that takes me, letting go of lofty expectations, and stepping into the fear. I will continue to love, learn, and humble myself in all of my relationships. I will give myself grace, and speak kindly into my fears and moments that feel like failures. I will take it all moment by moment. I will work toward trusting myself to know what’s best, remembering that the Holy Spirit is with me and flows through me. Above all else, I will love myself and give myself grace for all of life’s hard moments.

Happiest of New Year’s to all of you, my faithful readers and friends. It is a privilege to share life with you. I pray that as we move into what next year has for us,  we will all be so very gentle with ourselves.

 

 

The Gift Of Giving.

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if you’re anything like me you experience those twinges of guilt around the holiday season. We know that there are people all around us in need, and we’re stressed about getting all the cookies baked in time, and finding the perfect presents for everyone on our list. My mantra for this season is “moderation, moderation, moderation. Everything in moderation”.

Actually, that’s my mantra for all of life. I am an extreme thinker, and so I often get stuck in the all or nothing mentality. But moderation is key to so many things in life, and Christmas is no different. We don’t need to drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out how to do Christmas right. How many gifts we should buy, how many gifts we can receive without feeling guilty we have too much, how many cookies to eat a day, whether we’ve given enough to the needy this year. There is no quota to reach.

Take a deep breath.

I want to tell you a story of the greatest gift that I ever received.

I was a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, when I saw a pair of clogs in the Stride Right store at the mall. We were there buying sneakers for my brother, and I put those clogs on and walked around and around the store wearing them. They were a mini version of a pair of wool clogs my mom used to wear all the time, so that might have been part of my draw to them. But whatever it was I had to have them.

I left the store that day in a cloud of disappointment. I so badly wanted those clogs, but Christmas had passed, and my birthday was not for another few months. They would be gone by that time. And so life went on, and I forgot about the clogs for a while.

The morning of my birthday came. I ripped open every package with excitement and joy, littering the floor with paper. And then in came my brother, a package in his hands. He handed it to me gently and as I lifted the lid, there were the clogs from so many months ago! The ones I had hoped for and waited for. And even though I was still young, I knew how much my brother had sacrificed for those clogs, the allowances he saved, the things he didn’t buy for himself.

I will never forget the kind of love that sacrifices to buy a pair of clogs for his little sister. Never in a million years.

While Christmas can sometimes be an overwhelming time of money spent and pointless gifts, we can reclaim it. Gift giving doesn’t have to be guilt-driven, or last minute, or even expensive. It has the potential to be such an act of love, and a blessing to those around us.

So don’t get caught up in that twinge of guilt over what Christmas is becoming or how you’re not doing it as well as you could be. But reclaim it in little ways. Give modest gifts to the ones you love, ask for a little bit less for yourself this year (I’m working on it..), give generously of your time and money to those in need.

And in case you were wondering about an opportunity to give to those in need this very moment, I have something for you. Firstly read this post by Glennon Doyle Melton and as you scroll down, through your tears, you will see a link to The Compassion Collective. This is a movement to save the lives of people just like us, who are refugees right now. This is a call to action, a chance to love deeply and bravely. You will be surprised by what your gift could provide a family right now.