In many ways, it feels like we’ve been married a lot longer than six years. I mean, we’ve been through a LOT in our six years of marriage, and we were so young when we got married. I didn’t feel young then, but I see it now, looking at the pictures. Plus, we’ve been together pretty much our entire adult lives, since we started dating when we were 18. I get it now, when people say that you change so much in your early 20′s. It’s true. We’ve changed a lot from the time we got married until now, and it wasn’t easy. But at the end of the day, I love Brett so much and am so glad that we are married to each other.

That said, even after being a couple for 10 years and married for six, he can still surprise me, which he did in a big way a couple of weeks ago. I’ve started this blog post over and over in the past few days; I’m just not sure how to accurately convey what I want to say, but it seems to make sense to share it in conjunction with our anniversary.

Wait, wait. Let me back up a little first.

So you all know about my heart thing. (I just had my yearly checkup, by the way, and I’m totally fine. They still have no idea what happened but I’m completely fine now. Yeah, totally weird.)

Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that when it happened, I had an defibrillator implanted into my body in case it ever happens again. It’s on my left side and is pretty prominent, honestly, and it bugs me. It sticks out into my armpit when I raise my arm, and the scar is definitely visible, although it’s becoming less so as time goes on. I complain about it kind of a lot, which, I know, it’s there for a good reason so I shouldn’t. But it sticks out and it feels uncomfortable or sore sometimes under my skin, and it’s impossible to shave that armpit well or put deodorant on right. Just annoying stuff, you know?

Okay, now back to my story.

A couple of weeks ago, Brett said he wanted to go out to ride mopeds with some friends of ours. He left and I got Elanor down, and he came home about an hour and a half later, which was much earlier than I’d expected him.

He said that he had something to show me when I had a second, so after I finished cleaning up the kitchen, he had me sit down on the couch and asked me to close my eyes.

I had no idea what to expect.

I heard him go around the corner into the dining room and rustle around for a minute. He asked me if my eyes were still closed, and I could hear the excitement in his voice.

I told him they were, and he came into the living room, sat down next to me and told me to open my eyes.

And there, in the same place as the defibrillator scar is on my chest, he had gotten a tattoo of a scar.

This is where I can’t think of the words to say what I feel. It is probably the most touching and sweet thing he’s ever done. There’s so much wrapped up in it…emotions relating to my heart event, emotions related to our relationship, and…yeah. Here’s where I trail off into not being able to put it all into words.

I do realize that he did it  as much for himself as for me, as a way for him to help process it all. As my friend Marci said, he bears scars from that day, too, only his are emotional and not physical. But…wow. He got a tattoo. For me. About me. About him. About us. I just…I don’t know what else to say. It moves me deeply and reminds me just how wonderful of a man, husband, father, person he is, and I’m so happy and thankful to be his wife.

I’m not going to delve into the specifics, but it’s been kind of a long, drawn-out process that we’ve seen coming down the pike for a while now. That said, even having known that it was, at some point, probably inevitable doesn’t exactly make it a walk in the park.

We’re dealing with the news surprisingly well, I think. Who knows, maybe it does have something to do with the fact that we knew it was probably coming and we could kind of brace for it. For the most part, we’re pretty peaceful and are trusting that God is going to continue to provide for us now as he has in the past.

That’s not to say I don’t have my moments of panic. I have had a few, and I’m sure that until we have a steady income stream coming in again, they’ll continue off and on. But that’s okay. I think it’s one thing to have peace about it, and to trust God about it, and it’s entirely another to be completely devoid of worry about it from time to time. A little panic seems warranted; at least that’s how it seems to me.

I can’t help but think that it does suck, though, to have this happen right now, right at the one-year anniversary of my heart thing. It seems ironic, really. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way, though, to let it fall within the same calendar year. Perhaps these two events are the bookends to one hellishly difficult year: near-death on one end, job loss on the other, and a whole lot of other crap in the middle. Maybe it’s not a boring and stress-free 2009 we should be hoping for, but rather a boring and stress free mid-May to mid-May. I don’t know.

At any rate, I am bummed that this means we can’t do something really special for my birthday-non-death-day. I had hoped we could go out for a really nice dinner somewhere, but alas, expensive dinners out are a pretty big no-no when there’s no money coming in.

I haven’t been blogging here lately because, up until now, I really have been pretty stressed out about all of the details surrounding this. As I’ve told a couple of people, it’s as though before last Friday, Brett and I were carrying both the weight of making ends meet and the stress of his job situation. Now that one of those stressors is eliminated, and it’s almost a relief.

I really want to write more, to blog more. I know, I know, I say it all the time, but I really do. But for me, it’s quite hard to blog when there’s an elephant in the room that I can’t talk about. I’m such a transparent person, and such a terrible liar (or truth-concealer, anyway) that it is nearly impossible for me to just blog about mundanities amid something that is, in my own heart and mind, a Really Big Deal.

Anyway, we’re managing, and we have a plan in place. It’s not a very concrete plan yet, but it’s a plan nonetheless, so that makes me feel better. Hopefully I can share more details about that soon.

Until then, part of the plan is that I’m taking in as much at-home work as I can while Brett’s home to hang out with Elanor. This week has been a little hard, trying to find our stride with Brett being home all day and me trying to do roughly double the amount of work. I know it’s only been a few days, but hopefully we can find that rhythm sooner rather than later.

That’s the update. Not exactly encouraging, certainly a little dramatic, and kind of depressing, honestly. But like I said, we’re handling it surprisingly well, thanks to God’s grace, and that is definitely something to be very grateful for.

My pregnancy with Elanor and her birth was the first hard/good thing to happen. She is amazing, and wonderful, and definitely one of the highlights of the year: the ultimate good thing. But my pregnancy with her really took a toll on my body, and her birth was long and difficult and painful and not at all the birth I had wanted or envisioned. Still, the good that came out of her birth was so wonderful; knowing her and having her as our daughter is a joy.

The second such event was my heart incident in May. Obviously, the bad part is that it happened in the first place and the good part is that I’m alive. The difficult parts of that event, though, are still echoing through our lives. (That’s another post in and of itself. It’s nothing catastrophic, just new doctors with new theories and new tests to run, following which I may have a new diagnosis. But all of that is waiting on some insurance logistics to get straightened out so it will be well into the new year before I have anything to report on this front.) The fact that I came so very close to death is something that is hard to shake, especially for my mom, I think, and for Brett, too, although he’s somewhat reluctant to admit it.

The third bad/good event happened on Christmas Eve.

As I’ve said, it’s been snowy here in the Northwest for the past couple of weeks. (It’s actually melted now, but only as of yesterday.) Anyway, that much snow is unheard of for this area of the country (I think we had about 12 inches here!), and what’s even more shocking is that it stuck around for two weeks. Generally, the temperatures rise and the rain typically melts it within 24 hours.

The roads have been pretty icky in the city, but they’ve been totally managable. I mean, hey, like I have said before, we know how to drive in snow. So despite our parents’ protests to not come down for Christmas if the roads were bad, we loaded up our friend Robbie’s Jeep, turned on the four-wheel-drive, and left our house about 8:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve, ready to get to Portland and start celebrating with our families.

We were borrowing Robbie’s Jeep because he went out of town for the holiday, and since we don’t have a car, he offered to let us use it to get to see our families in Portland to save the $200 on the rental car if we’d drive him to the airport before we left town.

So, we dropped him at the airport and we were driving down I-5 and were just south of Olympia. The pavement, up to this point, had just been bare and wet, nothing bad at all. I had just taken a break from writing a year-in-review blog post to call my mom to try to firm up our plans for later in the day. The two of us were chatting, and I had just updated her about where we were, how the roads were, and when we thought we’d arrive when all of the sudden there was some slush on the road, in the left lane, where we were traveling. Brett had only been going about 50, and he immediately slowed down. We slid a little, he slowed down some more. He put his blinker on to get into the right lane, going maybe 40 or 45 at this point, and started to get over.

The tires must have hit the snow just exactly wrong, and we started to slide sideways, then the back of the car came around and we started to spin in a circle in the left lane of the interstate.

The back of the car hit the median, bounced us off, and rolled us over.

We landed tires down, facing backwards in the lane we’d just been traveling in. Brett and I both thought at that moment that we’d jumped the median but thank God we hadn’t. We also didn’t hit any cars and no one hit us — a huge miracle.

Elanor had been asleep and she was, obviously, woken up by the screaming and crashing. Brett was able to turn right around and get her out and she calmed down and seemed fine once she was in our arms.

I somehow managed to hold onto the phone the entire time, even as Brett and I screamed and we rolled. My poor mom heard the whole thing happen and was terrified. As soon as we landed I told her, “We’re fine, we’re all fine, I have to go,” and hung up because I needed to take Elanor from Brett. She, of course, was freaked out, and I felt bad just hanging up, but I had to help Elanor more than I needed to reassure my mom.

Thankfully, an off-duty firefighter was a few cars back so he stopped and was able to help us right away, before the state patrol and firefighters and paramedics arrived. Having him there was wonderful and very reassuring. We needed someone to take charge and tell us what to do; the four minutes or so until the emergency personnel arrived seemed long enough with someone there. It would have seemed like an eternity if he hadn’t been. So, to Steve from the Black Lake Fire Department: thank you.

The paramedics said it really didn’t seem like we needed to go to the ER, and having had our fill of ambulance rides for the year since we took several around the time of my heart incident, we agreed with them. At that point we just wanted to get to our families and did not want to spend hours and hours in the ER on Christmas Eve. Brett and I are sore, obviously, but other than that, all we came away with was a few bumps and bruises (my laptop was closed in my lap and hit me in the head; I’ve got a nice bruise from that) and I have a small cut on my cheek from the glass from the windshield.

The state patrol had us drive the car off the freeway, even, which is something of a miracle: even though it’s completely totaled we are okay, were able to walk away, and could drive it off the interstate. My laptop is fine, although the case is scratched, my glasses didn’t break, our camera had been sitting in the back seat and it was fine, too. Even the French press we had in the back for Rachel for Christmas didn’t break. (I was shocked it was in one piece when she opened it!)

After we got off the highway and the car was towed away, we wound up renting a car and continuing on our trip since we were already nearly halfway there and we’d have to drive at least an hour and a half to get home anyway. Before we left Olympia, we stopped at Target and I bought a new carseat for Elanor (the same one, since it seemed to work so well before — the Graco ComfortSport).

We talked to Robbie, the owner of the car, when we were still sitting on the highway. Obviously, we feel awful about it, but there was truly nothing Brett could have done differently. He wasn’t being reckless, and was driving at a safe speed given what the conditions were.

Anyway, the whole thing was terrifying and not a fun way to spend Christmas Eve but we are all okay and we are so thankful for that, and so glad, too, that we were able to be with our families to celebrate. Once we were able to forget about how awful the accident was, we had an awesome time and are so glad we made it to Portland after all.

The bottom line is that we are just so thankful that we’re all okay. We keep jokingly saying to each other that we can only cheat death so many times in one year. It’s been quite a year, and these are only the life-threatening events. I left out all the hard but not life-threatening things: going back to work in April after my maternity leave was over and then that month where I worked full-time, Brett traveling so much this fall, being on a really tight budget, Brett and I enduring some challenges in our relationship with each other, a rodent infestation in our house (yeah, that was really fun…not) — I could go on, but I’ll stop right there. It’s just been hard, and 2006 and 2007 were that way, too: Brett being jobless, having a miscarriage, then being pregnant and so sick and miserable.

We are so ready for a change from that pattern. We both hope, along with our families, that 2009 holds nothing but routine, boring, normal life for us, or at least that the only big events are thoroughly good ones. We are tired of having these brushes with death; although we’re grateful to have been able to walk away from all of them with everything intact, we’d much prefer avoiding them altogether.

I’ll post something about our actual Christmas soon, probably mostly pictures since I took about a jillion of them. It was a very fun time; we felt very loved and blessed by our families, and so grateful to be with them on the holiday. Elanor had a great time, too, and I’m happy that we spent her first Christmas with all of our loved ones — even if getting there was not a fun experience.

This year, I feel that sentiment even more keenly. All of the major things I was thankful for still make my list this year, but topping that list is one that wasn’t there last year.

Above all, I am so very thankful that I am alive this year, to enjoy all of the other things I’ll list below. I realize more and more as time goes on how close I was to not being here to enjoy the many wonderful things in my life.

That’s a perfect segue into the next things I’m thankful for: Brett and Elanor. I said last year that Brett and I only seemed to grow closer in the previous year, and that has proven true in this past year as well. I love him more than I did a year ago, and in a more free, deep, amazing way than I thought possible. Seeing him be a father to our gorgeous daughter is incredible and wonderful.

And Elanor, oh, that girl. I love her in a way that I never dreamed possible. She is a joy and a blessing and I am so, so, so very thankful that I am here to be her mama and see her grow and change and get big and do all of the things babies do.

I’m also so thankful that I am at home with her. I’ve known for a long time, maybe about 9 years, that I wanted to be home with my children when I had children some day. I never knew how it would work, but I knew that was what I wanted more than any career. And now I am doing just that.

Again, there are many more things to be thankful for, just as I listed last yaer: family, friends, our home, our church. All of those are true blessings as well.

But at the end of the day, I am most thankful just to be here, to be with my little family, and to be able to love and care for them.

For my family, though, it’s still all too real. I know Brett and my mom (and probably everyone else) still worry if they don’t hear from me on a regular basis throughout the day, and rightly so, I guess.

I am starting to realize the gravity of what happened more and more. As I watch Elanor grow and change and become her own person, I think sometimes that I could be gone, that I would be missing all of this, that she wouldn’t know her mom. That’s when the reality hits home most strongly.

But the fact of the matter is, thanks to God’s amazing orchestration of that day, I am still here. And I am so glad.

My health is fine. I’ve been given a clean bill of health, at least as clean as it will ever be. My heart looks fine, and I have no restrictions on my activity except I have been told to make sure I don’t get pregnant for the time being. (Fine with me. I am not at all ready to be pregnant again.)

So, six months out, things look wonderful. I’m so grateful for the fact that I’m alive and here to be with Brett and Elanor and the rest of my family and friends.

Being alone with a baby for, sometimes, 18+ hours in a day is not easy. Of course, it’s what I want to be doing, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Well, maybe it makes it easier but it doesn’t remove the difficulty entirely. 

I don’t like being so worn out. For one, it makes me nervous health-wise. I do not want to get myself to the brink again, like I felt before my heart thing happened. It’s scary. And for another, being tired makes my emotional fuse very, very short. I find myself getting weepy over the dumbest stuff these days, and I find myself snapping at Brett a lot more, which is not cool.

I’m learning, though, what I need to do to get out of this tired, short-fused place. I have been trying to think through what would help me, and here’s what I’ve come up with. (I always feel better when I have a plan in place!)

1. I need to get Elanor to the place where I can leave her with someone else for even an hour so that I can do some of my at-home work, or do the laundry, or blog, or even just sleep. Right now, if I leave her anywhere or with anyone other than Brett or his sister Rachel, she flips out. Not cool. I need to change that. We’re working on it, but it’s not easy.

2. I need to relax my standards for my house and not be so focused on getting my to-do list completed every week. Part of what’s hard is that I make myself a list to finish every week, and it never, ever gets done. Ever. And then I feel frustrated that I haven’t finished it and that isn’t good. I am trying to, at the bare minimum, pick up the toys in the evenings, do the dishes every day, and keep the living room/kitchen/dining room swept. Oh, and keep up with laundry. And do my work. And blog. And, you know, be Elanor’s mama. (No wonder I’m tired. I just re-read that sentence and realized that it sounds like a lot. Perhaps I need to further refine the “bare minimum”.)

3. I absolutely need time to connect with Brett when he’s home. I hate feeling like we’re two ships passing in the night. It’s not good. So I am trying to make an effort to shut my laptop and put the cleaning/laundry/etc aside until later, and when he’s home, hang out with him. That said, I’m very excited for the next few weeks. We are going to get massages together this weekend and then are going out to dinner. (Rachel will be visiting and she’ll watch Elanor, so I won’t even have to worry about whether Elanor is okay or not.) And next weekend, the three of us are going on a family vacation to the Oregon Coast. It will be wonderful to just be together, the three of us, with no distractions, in a beautiful and significant place.

4. Instead of just snapping and flying off the handle when something is upsetting to me, I’m taking time to think it through and pray and find the root causes of my frustration or anger. I’ve been working on writing a few things, processing through some big issues, and it feels really good to be getting at the heart of things and not just be slapping another band-aid on an old wound.

Anyway, that’s me these days. Tired. Sleep-deprived. Sometimes overwhelmed. But trying, in the midst of it all, to maintain a calm, loving, Christ-like demeanor and trying to be the best mama and wife I can be.

~~~~

I’ll leave you with something lighter. Brett came home from work and told me this joke today.

What do they call pallbearers in Oklahoma?

…

wait for it…

…

Karaokes.

Get it? Carry-okies?

Badum-bum.

Yeah, okay, sorry, that was pretty bad terrible. Sorry about that…

I recently re-read the Lord of the Rings books, and there’s a part in the Fellowship of the Ring that stuck out to me as being something I could identify with.

Frodo has just arrived in Rivendell after being stabbed by and then pursued by the Nazgul. He wakes up with Gandalf sitting next to him, and he tries to recall everything that has happened to him since leaving the Shire, but there are holes in his memory, so he asks Gandalf to tell him what has happened.

‘I wish you would tell me what happened!’
‘All in good time! You are not supposed to talk or worry about anything today, by Elrond’s orders.’
‘But talking would stop me thinking and wondering, which are quite as tiring,’ said Frodo. ‘I am wide awake now, and I remember so many things that want explaining.’

That’s how I feel about this whole experience. I wish someone would just walk me through the gory details and tell me what happened, but everyone keeps telling me that I shouldn’t worry about it and that it’s better I don’t remember. But I feel like Frodo does, that thinking and wondering are tiring in and of themselves, and that there are lots of things that I’d like to have explained to me.

People are getting to the point where they’ll talk a little more openly with me about what happened. I think that up until now, the people who were there with me throughout the experience – Brett, my mom, our sisters, Brett’s mom, my dad, my friend Becca – haven’t wanted to talk about it much because the reality of what could have happened was so scary. Now that things are better and I seem to be ok, though, they seem more willing to open up, and I’m glad of that.

All of these people who are close to me – plus many who aren’t close – have been deeply impacted by what happened to me. And I, on the other hand, feel a huge sense of detachment from what happened because I don’t remember and because I seem to be fine now. It all just seems like a very surreal blip on the radar.

It’s hard for me to have the amazing sense of joy and thankfulness that all of those people have, simply because I have a hard time grasping how frightening the whole experience was.

I’m at a point now where I’m ready – at least I think I am – to start facing the fact that I came very close to dying or at least having some permanent damage.

We’ve been watching Six Feet Under again, and an episode we watched the other night underscored what I’ve been feeling.

In the episode, the main character (Nate) comes very close to dying because of a medical condition he has. He has this…I don’t know, I guess it could be called a vision, or maybe a dream, of all of the different ways things could have ended up. One scenario shows his funeral, with his family and friends all sitting at his funeral looking shell-shocked and grief stricken. Another scenario shows him with permanent brain damage, living at a near vegetable level, having to be cared for all the time by family. Another scenario shows him being completely recovered, and spending time with his wife and baby.

Throughout the episode, as he lives his life out according to the third scenario he saw – complete recovery – he has flashes of the other scenarios, just brief visions of what might have been.

That is so how I feel. Every now and then, out of the blue, I’ll have a flash of what might have been, and it’s like the feeling you get when you think you’re going to get in a car accident, or when you’re on a roller coaster and you crest the top of the big hill and start to fall – that sort of stomach-turning adrenaline rush, that taste of fear that never quite comes to fruition.

I had an experience like that while we were watching that episode of Six Feet Under. Brett’s sister Rachel was holding Elanor and playing with her, and they were both just laughing and enjoying each other. Elanor, though, would get tired every few minutes and reach over to me and say, “Mamamamamamamama” and whine until I took her.

And I had a flash: if I had died, other people would have replaced me in Elanor’s life. I would not be the one she reached out to when she was tired, the one who provides comfort to her, who gives her love, who teaches her things…it would have been other people – Rachel, our parents, our other siblings. And as much as I love and trust all of those people and want them to comfort her and love her and teach her things, I want to be Elanor’s primary person, along with Brett.

I was, well, it seems weird to say this, but in that moment, watching Elanor and Rachel play, I was at once jealous for the role Rachel and everyone else would have played in Elanor’s life had I died, and at the same time, so very, deeply grateful that I hadn’t died and that I was there to reach over and take Elanor when she got fussy, to hold her while she put herself to sleep.

I mentioned to Brett as we were going to sleep that night how the episode of Six Feet Under had affected me, and he said he thought the same thing I did. It’s scary to see all of the possible scenarios explicitly spelled out. My scenarios are pretty much the same as Nate’s were: death, permanent damage, and being a healthy medical miracle.

I don’t have a pat, neat ending for this post. It’s nothing that can be neatly resolved, and it is clearly a really ragged and raw topic for me. Like all of life, it’s messy, and you know what? I think I can be ok with that for now.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I had an echocardiogram and an appointment with the cardiologist. I’d called because I hadn’t been feeling well, and the doctor had me move my next appointment up about a month to make sure everything was ok.

Miraculously, the echocardiogram showed that my heart has regained all of its function. In the doctor’s words, it looked like the echocardiogram of any normal, healthy 27-year-old woman.

That shocked me; I was sure it would take much longer for my heart to recover. Many women who experience this take medications for years to get to the point where I am, if they get there at all. So for me to be less than two months out from the big event and to be pretty much recovered where my heart function is concerned without having taken any medications to get here…well, miraculous is the only word I can think of to describe it.

(Note to readers: We’re now moving on to the “rambling evaluation of my emotional response” segment of our program, with which I am sure you’ve all become familiar in recent months. Sorry about that. This is just what life is like these days. It seems sort of arrogant and self-centered to take all of this time to delve into my psyche so much lately, but, well, that’s my reality. My apologies…I’m sure that someday I’ll get around to posting something fun again!)

Anyway, hearing the wonderful news that my heart looks great has forced me to start dealing with all of this in a different way. Since I’ve heard my doctor say that my heart is pretty much the picture of health, it makes me feel like life should just be back to normal, like it was before all of this happened, like everything should be business is usual and like I should feel really good physically, and if I don’t then I’m doing something wrong.

The problem is that I don’t feel great physically. I’m doing much better than I was, certainly, but I still get so exhausted at times that I can barely move. Yesterday was one of those days; I was alone with Elanor all day – 9:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. – and I was out and about quite a bit, too. On top of that, Elanor hasn’t been sleeping great lately (she’s getting about three more teeth — fun, huh?). By about 4:30 or 5 p.m., I felt worse than I had in weeks – exhausted, short of breath, unable to focus on anything, just totally drained.

I’ve also noticed that my heart seems much more sensitive to stress. It barely takes any stress for me to feel like it’s going to beat out of my chest. A sudden stop in the car or any whiff of relational conflict and I’m suddenly feeling my heart beating in double time.

So to feel that way when I’m recovered – whatever that’s supposed to mean – seems strange. I have to keep reminding myself that two months ago I was lying in a hospital bed and the doctors didn’t know whether or not I’d have brain damage when I woke up since I stopped breathing for a few minutes when my heart stopped beating, if I did wake up at all. I’ve come a very long way in the past two months, and it’s perfectly reasonable that my body would be less accustomed to stress and activity than it was before this happened.

All of this reminds me of something that our pastor said during one of the meetings we’ve had with him lately. We were talking about how I was dealing with everything, and how I felt this compulsion to process everything in some kind of analytical way. He said something to the effect of, “Don’t let anyone, least of all yourself, dictate how you should be feeling emotionally right now. You are processing it, every single day, and there is no right way or wrong way to do that.”

No one else is telling me I have to be recovered, that I have to be back to 100% at home, at work, with Elanor. They’re all saying to take it easy. So why am I telling myself that I should be back at 100%?

My mom told me something a friend of hers named Kate told her once, when my mom was having a hard time and was struggling with feeling like she couldn’t keep her head above water because of the very real struggles in her life at that time. Kate told my mom to imagine that a friend of hers was going through everything my mom was going through, and that the friend was describing everything that was happening. She then asked my mom to think about how she’d respond to the friend. Would she have compassion? Would she give them a hug and say she was sorry and ask how she could help? Or would she laugh and give them a hard time for not being able to keep it together?

Kate then told my mom to think of her life in those terms from time to time, and to at least have the compassion for herself that she’d have for a friend in the same situation.

It’s been helpful to think of what happened to me in that context. Because, really, when I call a spade a spade, what happened is hard both emotionally and physically. It makes sense that my body would be tired, that I’d have a hard time doing things. I came within a hair’s breadth of dying. I think it’s ok that two months from that day I would still feel tired and overwhelmed at times.

Just like it’s going to take me a long time – years, probably – to work through this emotionally, it’s going to take me a long time to feel normal physically, too, regardless of how great any echocardiogram might look. I’m coming to realize that it’s ok and good and normal and healthy to realize my limitations and to try to stay inside them.

I’ve had many people tell me recently that I know my body best. That is true, I do know my body better than anyone else does, and right now, I need to listen to what my body is telling me, which is – of course – to take it easy.

Today you are six months old — a whole half-year!

I was just looking back at the last monthly letter I wrote, and was confronted with a picture of you on our trip to Denver. You were so little, and despite how I thought you were so big, you were still such a little baby compared to the person you are today. I’m sure I’ll say the same in a couple of months when I look back at who you are now.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a letter for you for months four or five. I was not able to write them, because on the day before your four-month birthday, I underwent what I am sure you will one day realize was a very frightening experience.

That said, I am so, so, so glad to be here today writing about the past couple of months. I’m so glad I am here to see you grow up and change from a baby into a toddler into a girl and someday into a woman.

At Magnuson Park, July 11

So, to recap, the past couple of months have been pretty chaotic for us. You, however, have weathered the chaos extremely well. Your adaptability and good-naturedness has been such a blessing to us and to those who have helped us care for you — all of our family members, and many, many good friends. Especially during the first very difficult weeks, you were so good and amazing and really just rolled with the punches in a way most babies wouldn’t.

Getting kisses from Papa on Father’s Day

And now to the more immediate past and the present. Before all of this stuff with my health happened, I went back to work. It was a hard transition for us, but we were doing ok. With help — again — from our family and friends, we were making it work, even if Papa and I were tired and a little overwhelmed by everything.

But then my heart stopped, and we had to realign our priorities. Spending time with each other and with you became even more of a priority than it was before.

Showing off how well you can sit up — not to mention your amazing fat rolls — at Magnuson Park, July 11

Your Auntie Rachel came up just after your five-month birthday to take care of us and of you. You have been having a great time with her every morning while I’ve been back at work! She takes very good care of you and you love to be with her.

Within the past two months, you’ve had lots of fun firsts: you’ve rolled over, front to back and back to front, you’ve gotten two teeth (one on June 10 and one that popped through this past week, both on the bottom), you can sit up unsupported, you’ve learned how to inchworm yourself forward (but not quite crawl, although you are so close), and you can stand up if we help you balance.

Standing up with some help from Kim, July 6

You enjoy playing in your exersaucer for quite a while. You like the orange lion because he’s squishy and nice to chew on, and you like the little flippy book part with the pictures of monkeys and lions and such.

Looking adorable in your exersaucer, June 20

When you’ve had enough of your exersaucer, you’ll now look at us and do what Noni calls uppy — you put your arms up in the air and look at us pleadingly and make little whimpering sounds, which is your way of asking us to pick you up and snuggle you.

Another important thing we’ve done lately is introduce solid — well, ok, mushy — food. You liked cereal ok, you loved bananas. Avocadoes, though, were more fun to squish than to eat. I am excited to continue offering you new things. Despite all of the new foods, you still love to nurse and I am in no rush to stop doing that. It is so good for you health-wise, it calms you in a way nothing else will, and it’s such a lovely connection that we have. I’m so very thankful that we are still nursing. It’s a minor miracle considering what I went through medically.

Avocado aftermath, July 3

Your hair is less mohawk-like these days. It sits down on top, unless it gets messed up by the wind or something. But it’s soooo long in the back. What we used to call your mullet has grown and is now your rat tail. I am not sure what we will do about it, whether we’ll let it grow or whether we’ll eventually cut it off to even things up.

Stuck under a chair after scooting yourself there, June 29

Sleeping is still not really in a schedule yet. You have a general pattern, though, and I am really ok with that. You continue to sleep really well if you are in the Ergo or sling, or if someone is lying down with you, although there are times when you will sleep by yourself if you are in the co-sleeper or on our bed. Honestly, though, even though 90% of your sleep is with one of us in bed with you or with you sitting on us, I don’t worry about it. It’s funny, though: if someone had told me that you’d be sleeping with us 100% of the time at six months, I wouldn’t have believed them. And I would have been even more incredulous if they told me that I’d love it. I guess this is just one of those things about parenting that wound up being totally different than I’d pictured it.

You still love to squeal and screech all the time. The sounds you make are starting to mimic our speech more, which is fun. You say lots of sounds like “Ma ma ma ma ma” and “Da da da da,” which is so fun to hear. However, although I was saying words at your age, you have not yet spoken any true words. I feel like that’s coming soon, though!

Enjoying your pool, June 28

The water is still one of your favorite places. Even though the water is usually freezing, you love to sit with Papa or me in your little plastic pool on our patio. We slather you in sunscreen and put your swimsuit on and you’ll splash and play until you’re shivering, but you don’t seem to care.

You also had your first media appearance this month! Papa competed in the North American Beard and Moustache Championship in Bremerton, winning second place for his moustache and beard. A photographer from Newsweek snapped a picture of the three of us while Papa was waiting for his turn to be judged on his beard. http://www.newsweek.com/id/145035 Pretty neat, not even six months old and already in the national media!

With Papa at the North American Beard and Moustache Championship, July 5

I’ve now said it every month, but I’ll say it again: you are amazing and you fill my heart with joy. You are happy, funny, adorable, beautiful, and good-natured. Papa and I love you so very much. I am beyond happy to be here on this Earth to take care of you and to see you grow.

Looking beautiful at Magnuson Park, July 11

Love,
Mama

Work is…overwhelming, both while I’m actually there as well as when I’m not there, as it tends to really sap my energy in general and leave me exhausted once I get home. And that’s frustrating, because I have very little energy for the things I need to do — see my previous post — not to mention the things I want to do, like having fun with Elanor and Brett, blogging, hanging out with friends, answering emails, etc.

I am not really sure what to do about that imbalance. We are trying to talk it out and pray and figure out what our life should look like going forward…because how it looks at this present moment isn’t practical or sustainable for us. We’re both too tired and too overwhelmed to continue as we are, but we are really not sure how to get from here to where we want to be.

My friend Carmen and I were talking today (I called her while I was pumping at work, which is the only time in the day I have to do things like make phone calls) and she mentioned how when she worked part-time, she was often really frustrated by it, even though almost everyone else she talked to seemed to view part-time work as ideal.

Carmen said that what she found was that when she was working part-time, she felt stretched way too thin: she never got everything done at work she needed to, and found it hard to be present at work when she was there, and then when she got home, there was still the same amount of work to do at home but it was that much more overwhelming because she was gone that much more. And dude, that’s totally how I feel. Even though I’m only working half-time, commuting adds about an hour (well, about 45 minutes) on to either end of my day, so I am actually gone for 7 hours, which is — I think — a long time to be gone every day. By the time I get home at about 2, the day just feels like it’s gone. I can *maybe* get a quick nap in, or a quick errand, but then before I know it, Brett’s home and it’s dinner time and we’re eating and cleaning up and there’s laundry to be done and then I have to get everything together (clothes ironed and laid out, bus bag packed, etc) to start it all over again the next morning.

I almost feel bad writing that because it seems like I’m just never content with my lot, and that I somehow think the grass is always greener on the other side, since when I worked full-time I would have given my right arm for the schedule I have now.

But I guess I’m just being honest, that part-time work isn’t all I had it cracked up to be in my head. That’s probably partly due to the fact that I am just freaking tired from all the health stuff and partly due to what Carmen and I talked about, that stretched thin feeling when you are not fully in one world or another.

Anyway, I’m just feeling in a complain-y state right now, and I hate it. I do not like being frustrated with and dissatisfied with things, and I don’t like complaining. I feel like I do it waaaaay too much. Yet here I am, whining once again to the Interwebs. Sigh.

I promise there are more fun and interesting — read: less whiny and self-centered — posts coming soon. I have a whole list of things to blog about; I hope I can get some time in the next week to just get some posts written. I guess we’ll see about that.

I’ll leave you with a more cheerful thing: a picture of Elanor. We went on a walk on Saturday morning and she was wearing her cute outfit with the bear ears, which her Noni got for her. It is one of my favorites!