I AM an Awful Mother!!!

Yes, I am.  There is nothing anyone can say that would make me feel any different.  I am about the worst Christian mother out there.  I am ashamed and full of guilt which of course is keeping me in this vicious cycle so the only way I know to get out of it is to be transparent and let people see me, Flaws and ALL.

So here it is... well first back story... Growing up I was in Church CONSTANTLY, not that that was a bad thing, in fact, I loved being in church when I was little.  But being there all the time, learning about God was easy.  Even though God wasn't the talk of the house -we did pray before dinner but we didn't just sit around reading the bible and such- I was still surrounded by God stuff.  I remember the first day that I heard Psalty the singing song book and the kids praise kids.  I was like 4, and I was in love.  We were at our Pastor house and listening to it on the record player while it recorded to a tape so we could have a copy of it-- I still have that same tape, it is 29 yrs old but it still works.  I then listened to that tape over and over and over again then the 2nd one came out and then the 3rd and by the time I was 12 I had the first 5 tapes and listened to them all the time.  That's how I remember learning about who God was, and how much he loved me.  I would sit on the swing set in the back yard with my tape player and just sing along with all the songs and I was in heaven.  I felt safe and at home in Psalty's world.  When I was 7 or so, we started going to a Nazerene church (where my mom is still at) and I kind of remember my sunday school classes but not all of them, but I do remember the principles that were taught.  Around 12 or so I started Bible quizzing  and so of course I was studing the bible, though not in a very devotional kind of way, but the word was finding its way into me.  And there were times that Dad and I would have conversations about biblical stuff, but it wasn't until I was in my teens and beyond.  Every summer since I was 8 I was at church camp, completely surrounded by God, which is probably the other place where I learned about God and his love. 

I'm sorry if this is sounding scattered but please bear with me and I'm sure it will all come together--at least I hope it does. 

So anyway, I learned about God and I fell in love with God.  I had great big faith, I thought that ALL things WERE possible, and I could be anything God wanted me to be. (Gaither reference if you didn't catch that one- and yes, I grew up on Southern Gospel) But I didn't get that knowledge and faith because my parents constantly read the bible to me, or talk to me about the things of God when I was little, they just kind of surrounded me and even when they weren't around me they were still inside me, they filled my being- God filled me.
 
But now as a parent myself I don't know how to teach my children the things of God.  When Nathian was born I (and even while I was pregnant with him) I used to read the word to him, I used to sing worship songs all the time.  But something happened, and it just stopped. Not completely, I still sing worship songs around the house but I don't sit and read the word with my kids like I dreamed I would while I was pregnant with Nathian.  Yesterday, during what seemed to me like maybe the worst day yet, I talked to the boys about obedience.  I asked them if they loved God, and Nathian said No.  I then asked him if he knew who God was, and he said, "oh, yeah, he's an angle".  I just couldn't believe my ears.  How can I expect my children to obey me when they don't even know why they need to obey.  We obey are parents in Lord because God commands it, and we obey God because we love him, and we love him because he first loved us.  Jesus said, "If you love me you will obey my commandments", but if I haven't taught my children about God and his love then how can I ask them to obey him by obeying me. 

So this is why I'm a horrible mother.  I have not taught my children about the love of their Heavenly Father, I have neglected to live out God's love for my kids.  I yell at them when I'm angry- yes, I get angry with them- I make excuses why I can't sit and play with them, I get annoyed with them when they keep begging and whining.  I am in no way a good example of God to my children.  I want my children to look at me and want to be like me because I reflex Gods love.  I don't want them to grow up angry and bitter, because I unloaded all my baggage on them. 

So how do I change this?  How do I teach my children about God?  I did find, and bought, all the Psalty albums from my childhood on CD so we can listen to them in the van instead of constantly watching movies.  They kids have liked having them in and Nathian wants to take them to school to teach the kids some of the songs.  But I know that it's not enough, I don't want my kids to get the same kind of God knowledge that I got.  I want them to go into their marriages and parenting lives with the tools they need to give their children the love of God. 

I do know that one of our major issues is that Ben and I are not on the same page parentally or spiritually.  I'm not saying that he's not a godly man, because he is, it's more that, he wasn't raised in the church, he came from a broken home,  and he lived most of his life out in the world.  I'm also not saying that people who live out in the world can't come to Christ and become a totally different person and grow spiritually and even become preachers and teachers of the word quickly and sustain that passion for the rest of their lives.  I'm just saying that when we met, he wasn't really going to church, he had gone off and on for a few months and had giving his life to God, but he had no one discipling  him.  So we started out on uneven ground, and it's never really gotten anywhere near level.  This is probably the same reason that I have a hard time teaching my kids about God and Jesus-- I have a very hard time talking to Ben about the things of God because I'm so used to talking to fellow believers who have the same (or at least similar) knowledge of the word, so when talking to someone with limited knowledge (or no knowledge) I don't know how to break it down- of course with Ben, I'm worried that breaking it down he will feel belittled and I don't want to do that, So instead of talking, I avoid.  And of course then I get mad at him for not Just knowing what I'm thinking or talking about, and we end up in a fight and we become distant and so the cycle continues. 

So this is how I am an Awful mother.  I avoid talking to them about the things of God because it was never discussed with me so I don't know how to do it without sounding degrading to whomever I am talking to. 
I really am open for suggestions on how to begin to rectify this situation.  I hate being mad at the kids, and I know that most of that anger needs to be but back on me- but of course that brings guilt which brings fear which brings me further from God which brings frustration which brings anger which brings guilt.....I'm sure you see the picture.  I know that I need to find a way to forgive myself for all these wasted years but it's really hard when I know that I let God down.  I have asked for forgiveness from my heavenly father and I have also asked the boys to forgive me for not teaching them about God. 

I hope someone was able to follow this craziness which is my thought process and can help me bring my family into the word and love of God. 

Thank you for reading
--Jenn

Grief Stinks

Every time I think I'm fine and can move on and be a productive member of society, it hits me like a ton of brinks. There are so many people around me that are pregnant and as much as I want to be excited for them (and most of the time I really am) I just can't seem to muster up the well wishes. I see pregnant women in the store and just want to cry. When will this end? I'm so tired of being sad. I want to start Doulaing (not an actual word) at the hospital here but if I can't even walk through the hospital without tears streaming down my face How can I be with a mama as she welcomes her healthy baby.

I know that God has a great plan for all of this I just don't want to be sad anymore. I want to feel like myself again. I'm not sleeping, I'm gaining weight instead of loosing it (4lbs since the miscarriage) I'm irritable, my hormones are all out of whack, and I'm yelling at my kids all the time. This is not the kind of life I want. So when will it all end? When will the pain of this all go away? I know that it's only been 41days since we found out the Gilbert was gone, and I know that it takes time, but I don't have that kind of time. My husband works all the time, I have 3 kids that I have to be around for, and no money to go do anything even if I did have the extra time to take. I want to keep talking about Gilbert but I feel like no one is listening. Ben wont talk about it and he keeps asking me if I'm ovulating yet (I'm not on the pill and I haven't had a period so I'm tracking my LH to figure out if I'm cycling again) but I don't think he's asking because he wants to start trying again but rather because he doesn't. He keeps saying things about not being able to handle the 3 we have, or they're enough right now. I don't know how to ask him about it without it starting a fight. How can he say that 3 is too much with out me thinking that he didn't want Gilbert at all, and that he wasn't affected by his death.

Then there's the whole side of getting pregnant again. How do I move beyond the desire to have Gilbert back, to the desire to have another child. I don't want to get pregnant in order to replace Gilbert, yet so often that's what I think I'm doing subconsciously. I also feel like I'm wanting to be pregnant just to BE pregnant- to prove to myself that I can do it and that there's nothing wrong with me. But there is something wrong with me, I'm depressed, I don't want to admit it because of all the stigma that goes with it but it's true. There's no two ways about it. I have highs and lows, I get so annoyed so quickly, and I don't feel like doing anything most of the time.

Didn't want to write this post but I just had to. Since I haven't been able to talk about it, I had to blog about it. Maybe through this I can heal faster, and get over this hump, without having to go on any meds. Meds are good for some things but for this I really think that meds will just mask the issue and then if I go off the meds then I'll end up deeper in depression. Thank you all for listening to me. If you feel lead, please pray. I can't stay like this much longer.

God Bless you all

Jenn

Has it been too Long?

It has been a long time since I have posted anything. Not that things haven't been happening and I haven't been doing things but I just haven't been feeling up to posting. I've been reading so many other blogs and spending so much time on Facebook that I just haven't wanted to post and quite frankly didn't think there was much that anyone would want to read.

I so often feel like I'm a nobody doing nothing worthwhile. And even though I still kind of feel that way I figure that maybe someone will read my blog and be inspired, who knows?. But even if no one ever reads it I will have a jornaling of a that I have done and thought and wanted to do.

So for what has been going since my last post last November. . . .

Well, I made a king size quilt for our

neighbors who moved in December.

I fought with the mortgage company for almost a month because they dropped the ball on our short sale and the buyer had to finally walk and so we didn't sell the house.

Had a very small Christmas for the kids since Ben was still gone. I found a surrogate company on New Years day that I started communicating with, and in turn got connected with a woman who was wanting a surrogate to carry a child for her. Ben finally came home in the middle of January. We went home in February and also met the Intended mom in Indiana. We also spent the morning with our old neighbors who moved in December and delivered the quilt. We had family pictures taken while in Illinois and then while in Tennessee we lost our prints somewhere. In March we started on the fast track towards surrogacy. I regestared for a Doula class at the end of March here in Fresno and scheduled my first appointment with the Fertility doctor. Went to the Doctor on the 27th and had my IUD removed. Went to my doula training that night and all weekend. Met some amazing girls at the training. Our instructors were Christian women who have been in the birth world for 30+ years. Also all the girls at the training were Christians, and not just the "sure I'm a christian" kind of christians but real honest to goodness sold out God fearing believers. That basically leads us to around today.

So more about the surrogacy. Well after the appointment on the 27th I started getting this really weird feeling about it all. So I talked to Ben about it and he had not had a settled feeling about the whole thing for a while but didn't know how to tell me because he knew how much I want to be a surrogate. Well then I decided to talk to the ladies at the training on Saturday about it all and asked them to pray with me. They did and we all talked and our trainers gave me their wisdom on the subject. So when I got home on Suday night I emailed the surrogate agent and told her that we really needed some time to pray and talk about it. The next day I got an email from the mom and so I had to email the agent again because she was suppose to talk to her for me. Then the next day I got an email from the agent asking me what I wanted to do about the contracts and stuff. I didn't respond right away and so she emailed me again and the tone of the email sounded really pushy. I told her that she needed to put the contracts on hold and that we wanted to be left alone for a few days to pray and seek God's heart on this. A couple of days later I found out that the IM (intended mom) removed me from her friends list on Myspace and her status report seemed to imply that I had hurt her in someway and that she was ready to walk away. So with that and our strong feelings that this was not the right person for us to surrogate for I emailed them and told them that we couldn't continue on. (A big part of the uneasiness was that I would be using my eggs and she is 45 and single and did not have any intentions of getting married- and I did not feel like I could in all good conscience give away my child- also they were really not listening to me when I kept telling them that if I didn't get pregnant by the middle of April then I couldn't not get pregnant till September or later because of Ben's deployment schedule) So by April 5th we had completely put the surrogacy thing behind us and moved on. Well about 10 days later I starting thinking that something was up with my cycle because I had been using ovulation test to avoid getting pregnant but I didn't get a positive one till day 21 of my cycle which was very unusual. Not only that but I got a positive one 3 days in a row- again strange because you only have one hormone surge no more than 36 hours before you ovulate- however the hormone that releases the egg is almost identical to the hormone released when an egg is fertilized and an ovulation test will pick it up too. Well, so, on the 15th (day 22) I took a preg test but it basically came back neg- basically because there was no line until after the 10 minute window and even then the line was very very faint. So I waited, I even ordered more ovulation test on Thursday. I received my test on Saturday along with 5 pregnancy test. Sunday morning I bit the bullet (after taking an ovulation test everyday all with very positive results) and although still faint it was definantly positive. I had no clue how I was going to tell Ben, he did not want any more kids. On Tuesday I took Lincoln to his 4 yr physical and since we were at the hospital I went to the OB clinic and they put an order for me take a blood test. I walked over gave them a vial then took Lincoln back to the peds clinic. He had a great physical and then we walked back down to the OB clinic and got the results of the test. And yes I was indeed prego again. That night while laying in bed I just blurted out "I'm Pregnant". Ben was in stunned silence for about 5 minutes. We talked about it for a little while and then finally we said goodnight with out really making anything positive happen. We didn't really talk about it again for a few days then finally he asked me what we were going to name her. SO it is starting to sink in and he's coming to terms with it all.

Now I know that this hasn't been a very inspirational post and it probably didn't send anyone out to buy fabric and start creating something great but at least now I am up to date and I can just start posting all the stuff that I'm doing.

So till tomorrow (or maybe Sunday night since I will be very busy tomorrow with a birthday party and dinner with Ben's new boss I will be pretty ready for bed by the time we walk in the door) But I have been working on a lot of stuff that I can't wait to share.

Have a great night everyone and to all the moms that may read this have a very wonderful Mother's day. God Bless.