My mother might have aborted my brother because she was a college student and having a baby would cause financial hardship and make it harder for her to get her coursework done.

My mother might have aborted my sister because my mother was unhappy with her marriage and having another baby would make divorce and post-divorce life as a single mother more difficult (not to mention the  additional financial hardship).

My mother might have aborted my youngest brother because she was 39 and the risks of having a child with Down Syndrome were higher, not to mention the fact that hers was considered to be a "high risk" pregnancy (risk to her and the child) because of her age.

My mother might have aborted me, or my other 2 brothers because we were all "unplanned".

I might have aborted my son because he came "too soon" after my daughter...I would have preferred to have my children more than 15 months apart.

I might have aborted my youngest daughter because I was 41 years old and unmarried, in less than great health, and in a poor emotional and financial situation.  Her father strongly encouraged me to exercise my right to kill his child (which he didn't even see as a child early in pregnancy), but he is SO GLAD now that I chose life for his daughter even though at first it seemed like a bad choice that would have a very negative effect oh his life.

I am a Christian. I have sinned, and I think I can safely say that I struggle to avoid sin on a daily basis, and  I occasionally give in to sinful desires. I must say that I don't know of ANY time that I have been tempted to sin that part of me didn't think the sin was the EASIER thing to do. If it is easier to walk away, it isn't much of a temptation, is it? I really think most women who choose abortion see it as the easier thing to do. They might, in their hearts, think it is not the RIGHT thing, but they want to think that it is morally neutral (after all, how could it be illegal if it was immoral?). If it is easy and "morally neutral" to have an "abortion" (killing your unborn child)...why not? It gives us a sense of being more  in control of our lives. But we don't know how a child might, if given the opportunity, make our lives BETTER or EASIER in the long run. And we don't know that the child we "plan for " and "long for" and "welcome" or "want" will not bring us grief. Shouldn't EVERY child have a chance at life? 

Just because I am not guilty of the sin (I believe it is sin) of abortion does not mean that I am "without sin", and I am not speaking out to "cast stones" at others. . I certainly do not believe I am morally superior to some women that have exercised their LEGAL right to have an abortion. I am guilty of PLENTY of MAJOR offenses against God. However, on the subject of abortion, I do see myself as "more informed" than people who think that it is okay to kill unborn children. I am on a mission to share information that might save a child's life.  Hopefully, I will help save MANY children.

I feel that I must speak out and be a voice for those who have no voice. Proverbs 31: 8 "Open your mouth for the mute...". Who has LESS of a voice, especially in America, than the unborn child? And other Christians should remember that cowards don't go to heaven.  (Rev. 21: 8). So, we should never be AFRAID to speak out or do what what is right. And we also need to always remember that it is not our place to JUDGE.  I feel sadness and compassion for the mothers who have had abortions. I have met plenty of mothers who have regretted the decision. And I still feel compassion for those who have no regrets....I honestly believe "they just don't know any better."

I want all women to exercise their right to THINK for themselves....really....think.....why should any woman REALLY have an abortion?

While thinking about how I control my feelings, I came to this conclusion:  There is my reality, then there are my beliefs, then there is my behavior that supports my beliefs, then there are my feelings (which follow my behaviors which support my beliefs). My beliefs or my perception of reality are subject to change. I spend a lot of time wishing my reality conformed (or will eventually conform) to my beliefs of what my reality SHOULD be rather than what it really IS. I spend even more time trying to figure  out how to change the parts of my life that are totally within my control so that they are more in sync with my beliefs and desires. I hope I don't spend more time that I should trying to influence others (I am a mother, after all, so it is my job) to conform their beliefs to be in sync with mine, so that we can all work towards changing reality to what I think is best for all of us.  My mind is always in a whirl and there are so many things I think are wrong with the world, it is hard to know how to prioritize.  But I do believe that happiness is a decision (overall...of course, it is a struggle sometimes and the Bible tells us there is a time to mourn) and love is a decision (also a struggle at times). I hope and pray that in 2012 and forever after, I encourage people to love God and other people more every day and to be happy.


Some other things I am working on:
-I want this to be my most physically fit year EVER. I want to lose all the rest of my excess weight and buy a whole new wardrobe from the thriftstore for $25 or so (not counting bras and underwear... I will probably just try to buy those on sale). I should be able to get my extra weight off by my birthday in May, but we'll see.  I have so many "off" days due to migraine or fibromyalgia flareups or mini emotional breakdowns that drag me down. Exercise is so important and I really have made a habit of it. Exercise, good sleep, and healthy eating habits help so much.
-I want to become conversant in Turkish AND help Dilara to learn along with me.
-I want to get the entire upstairs of my house organized (without further cluttering my basement and garage) by mid-May and have a nice room set up for Callie in the basement by the end of June.

I think I have a pretty full plate.  Basically, these are continuations of things I have been working on. I guess it is smart to not ad NEW things to the list until these are checked off. 

(this is actually from a couple of months ago--was saved as a draft and not published till now)

I have been thinking today about how different my life is with my surprise baby than how I was afraid it would be when I was pregnant.  Really, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was horrified and spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that I hadn't just destroyed my whole family's lives by my actions, taken while I was pretty much in a state of "temporary insanity" following my ex-husband's decision to get a new wife.

God is so incredibly good! I also was remembering how frustrated I was with God during that time....wondering WHY he didn't intervene and turn my husband's (I thought of him as my husband even though we had been divorced 5 or 6 years at the time) heart back to me instead of to another woman's.  I KNOW God intervenes at times in our lives, otherwise I wouldn't bother praying to him.  And I prayed SOOOOO much during that time, and I read my Bible SOOOO much and I felt like I was really hanging on by my fingernails to my sanity and my faith.  My mantra was "God is in control," and Romans 8:28  "All things work together for good for those who love God..." helped me to get through this difficult time, as all other difficult times I have had.

I have to stop here and say that I feel like MY problems pale in comparison to what many people I know have endured. I know I'm not the first woman who has endured a divorce and seen her children end up with stepfamily. And there so many even more stressful situations I have been spared.  For instance, I have 2 precious little girls in 2 different young families on my prayer list, whose parents I know from church. www.shoutoutforscout.com is the McCauley's newsboard and www.kenziesbrokenheart.com is the Crawford's.  These children have serious health issues and I can't even begin to imagine how I would be able to deal with the stress if one of my children was to undergo a major surgery, much less SEVERAL surgeries. But still, my problems are my problems and they hurt even if I see that someone is hurting worse than me.

So, I found myself single, with a 9 year old and a 10 year old at home with me, and here I turn up PREGNANT at age 41 with a man who was my very best friend at the time, was a tremendous source of comfort for me in my loneliness, BUT whom I had only known for 3 months and who had no plans to have a "long-term relationship" with me and most definitely did not want to have a child with me!

It was a really scary and stressful time, but now our daughter is 2 1/2 years old and is an absolute joy to all of us.   My situation is not ideal and I am not sure what the future holds, but I have hope that we'll get through it.

Second  Corinthians 3 and 4  reads:  "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." WOW!  Pretty amazing promise.  I know that we sometimes bring our problems upon ourselves (although I was in a very vulnerable emotional state which clouded my judgement, I made the sinful DECISION to engage in extra-marital sexual activity which God used to bring a child into this world and which I have seen as a natural consequence ) but everyone, no matter how wise and godly will have plenty of troubles in this world.

I know that I will likely be in a position at some point to provide understanding and, hopefully,  strength and encouragement to another woman who has felt rejected by her husband after trying with all her strength to be a good wife mother. Someone who is tempted into a sinful relationship to soothe her loneliness. Someone who is faced with an unexpected pregnancy and who feels abortion is the only option. We really can't TRULY understand what a person is going through unless we have been through the same thing.  It is so easy to judge others harshly when we don't understand what they feel and why they act the way they do.

I am so thankful for my surprise baby and  having a baby at 42 wasn't as terrible as I had expected. Of course, it would be better if I were not struggling as a single mother, but my children do have fathers who love them and that is something not all single moms can say.

When a woman is pregnant in her 40's, there are lots of things to worry about if you're looking for them. My only real complication was having to have a c-section. I think my daughter really wanted to be born Oct. 13, but my aged uterus couldn't cooperate, and since my due date wasn't till Oct. 16, the doctor didn't oblige with a c-section when I first went to the hospital thinking the baby was ready to come out.  We ended up with meconium stained amniotic fluid, several tiring and stressful hours waiting for my cervix to dilate and efface and for the child to descend before, finally,  deciding upon a c-section. Thankfully,  there was no aspiration of the meconium and my child seems like she couldn't be any more perfect. I did get pretty much every test made available.  Anmiocentesis and ultrasound brought comforting news, and we did watch my blood pressure when it seemed a little high,  and I failed my first gestational diabetes test, but the second was okay.

Ultimately, I believe everything is in God's hands.  Whether or not a child is conceived, whether a pregnancy progresses to delivery, the health of the mother, the health of the child....We do of course need to do what we should--all that is in OUR power-- to bring about a good outcome, but there are so many women doing everything "right" who can't conceive, or who have health problems themselves, or who have children with health problems. Ultimately, all we can do is all we can do and when things are out of our hands, we trust that GOD is in control and "if he leads us to it, he'll lead us through it."

My mother was very worried about me during my pregnancy.  My father even made it sound like she was afraid I wouldn't live through it! But there is as much good news as bad when it comes to the subject of advanced maternal age. I tend to read all I can and cling to what sounds good and take what sounds bad to me with a grain of salt.  There is so much information out there and it's easy to find on the internet.

One thing I was glad to see when I was pregnant was  The New England Centenarian Study conducted by Boston University Medical Center found that women who give birth after 40 were four times more likely to live to 100 or longer than were women who gave birth at younger ages http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v389/n6647/abs/389133a0.html

I also had heard about a study that showed that children born to older mothers scored higher on IQ tests. http://www.livescience.com/3375-children-older-men-suffer-iq.html

It is interesting to me that most of the women I know who have had pregnancy complications or children with congenital health problems are not the ones who had children after age 35. I even know a woman who, after 2 miscarriages, had her first child at 45, and her second at 47, and the children are , beautiful, bright and healthy.

I have always been "anti-abortion" and I believe that every child conceived is specifically given life by God and that nobody but God has the right to bring that life to an end. No matter what screening tests show, I feel that it is wrong to abort a child because it isn't "perfect". I know that women have been encouraged to abort children based on test results that showed problems, yet the child was actually not  afflicted.  And other times, a child is born with severe problems that were not foreseen. And  often, mothers know they are having a child with severe issues, yet they accept it and choose to not only choose life for their child, but determine to learn, grow, and inspire others as they face the challenges as they come, and get through them. 

To me, a child is a child at the moment of implantation if not at the moment the egg is fertilized. The moment the egg is implanted, it is totally dependent upon the mother to sustain it.  I know that people who think abortion is okay don't feel that an embryo is a very immature child, but rather they think of it as just a "mass of cells". That is a profound difference in viewpoints.  And I know that if I had been raised up in a different environment, I might have the opposite viewpoint of what I hold now, so I don't judge others. The FACT is, that at the moment the egg and sperm fuse and start multiplying, a new human being is created. When my youngest daughter was even not recognizeable as a human being, everything was determined.  Her eye color, hair color,shoe size and height as an adult and even her crooked little toe--just like her father's-- were all developing even at those earliest days, All that was needed to continue the process was time and nutrition (provided by the mother). The early prenatal stage is just as much a stage of a human being's life as infancy, adolescence, and old age. To me, a 6 week old "embryo" is as much of a human being and as deserving of love and care as a 6 week old infant or a 6 year old child. I could not bring myself to deprive this child, who God has entrusted into my care, of LIFE.  But I have plenty of friends who have had abortions and who obviously don't see things the way I do, and some who even thought they were doing the child a favor by ending it's life prematurely.  And I do think it is interesting that someone at one point might be willing to abort an unwanted pregnancy, but later on, if she has a deeply desired pregnancy end in an early miscarriage , she will acknowledge that she "lost the baby" not "lost a mass of cells".

Yesterday was a great day. Church, lunch at Captain D's (love their coupons) then rushing to the Adventure Science Center for about 3 hours with all my kids, then church again, then a cookout at friends from church (whole congregation invited). They had a swingset, a trampoline and "cornhole"--which I always called "beanbag toss", but it seems to be the alternative to horseshoes.  Apparently, my 12 year old son is quite good at it.

I have been picking a handful of strawberries every day or two. These are Tristar Strawberries and I don't know why they do so well.  I have never divided them (renovated) but have potted up the trailing baby plants, so I have several plants.

This is my garden spot. In the back is a earthbox with 2 tomato plants I need to stake up, an earthbox of Heritage raspberries, a (slightly) raised bed of Heritage and Logan raspberries (picked about 10 yesterday--our first ones. Dilara (2 1/2) ate them all), a 4 x 4 square foot garden with asparagus, mint, dill, green onions, and strawberries, and a few empty squares. I have other earthboxes with cucumbers planted; an earthbox of 8 bell peppers; one of lettuce and radishes; one of green onions.  Behind those is peonies, a butterfly weed, a rose, some phlox some stargazer lilies, an earthbox of assorted flowers (which desperately need dividing) of which daylilies seem prominent right now.In the front, there is romaine lettuce which has bolted and I need to get out; swiss chard--which I am growing for the first time and I love it; a squash plant (I just pulled out a bigger one that was actually starting to bear, but which squash bugs had killed and I am going to get some spinosad or other organic insecticide to deal with those before I replant. And a box full or strawberries which I planted 7 or 8 years ago with a few Tristar strawberry plants and I have hardly done anything besides topdressing with some fertilizer and pulling out dead plants. To the left I have a pile of bricks that has 2 window boxes full of strawberry plants and one of Autumn Joy Sedum which I need to get in the ground.  In the very front, I have 3 blueberry plants, to the left I have a fence with 3 triple crown blackberry plants, and lots of wild stuff growing. I should probably clear it out so the blackberries will do better.

This is some of the wild grape. I have been stuffing the leaves. Last year I also noticed this flower, or immature fruit or whatever it is that looks like baby grapes, but we never got "real" grapes. I keep hearing that grape leaves only can be picked when they are young, in the spring (like May and early June), but the vines seem to grow till frost, and so there should always be young, tender leaves.  I guess I'll be experimenting.  I would like to forage and pick lots of leaves to store, but I haven't had the time.

In the left corner of this picture is some poke weed.  I picked a huge bag a week or two ago before I cut my grass, but I finally threw it out.  I was going to blanch and freeze it, but I finally decided I wasn't going to get around to it. 

Poke Sallet is a bit of a pain to cook--I boil it 5 minutes, three times, each time changing water. Then  I put it in an iron skillet with butter and salt and add some eggs and scramble it all up and eat it with toast. You have to pick the poke that doesn't have red in the stems--usually you pick the tops, because the stem near the ground may have some red. Supposedly, poke is poisonous, but the poison is in the red parts, which I think eventually becomes red veining in the leaves, which is why you are only supposed to eat the young plants.

This morning, I made Dolma (stuffed vegetables) with wild grape leaves and swiss chard leaves from my garden. I am playing around with recipes.  I did rice and lentils (no meat) filling this morning.

After 3 years plus of being either pregnant or nursing, and many more years of not having good health insurance and drug coverage, I was hopeful that starting medication last week would be a turning point for me.
I had 3 good days last week on the Adderall XR, and thenI don't know what happened.  I kind of don't think it was a placebo effect, because the first day I took 10 mg. I felt nothing, but when I went up to 20 mg. I immediately noticed a difference.
I will spend the next week keeping more careful notes. I need to make sure I'm eating enough (the Adderall XR killed my appetite, and although I was eating, I need to write down what I eat to make sure I am getting enough food), and I need to make sure I"m sleeping enough.  I got GREAT sleep last night.. Dilara spent the night with her father, so I had the house to myself.  She is sometimes a restless sleeper and I get much better sleep when she's not here.
I also seem to be coming down with another cold.  I am sure that can effect my energy and stress level.
We also had a big storm front come in when I noticed I started feeling more poorly on the medication. It isn't consistent, but I sometimes do see a connection between my mood, my pain levels, and the weather.
I know it sometimes takes a while to determine the right dose or combination of medications to bring relief. But I started off so well and was so hopeful a few days ago, it is disappointing to see that it's not smooth sailing from here on out.  My struggles continue....