A Look Back at 2018

This year has been mostly “business as usual” for my family, but there have been some big changes in my family of origin. We’ve been mostly just enjoying our lives, raising our kids, and caring for our many pets. Here’s a look back at this year for my family: 

In February, Cory and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary as a couple. 

That month, my Grandpa passed away. Although his walk with God was not always outwardly obvious, I have been assured that he did believe in Jesus, and as such I have a great hope that he is with the Lord now. My Grandma misses him, but is doing well.  

In March, we redid our backyard, adding a garden as well as a climbing structure, swingset, and sandbox for the kids.  

In May, we had our first family camping trip with just the four of us. We rented an RV and went to a local campground, and had a lot of fun.  

In June, we adopted our kitten, Leo. We also moved to a new church, and have found the most awesome new church family we’ve ever been a part of!  

In July, I turned 26.  

Also in that month, my family of origin moved to a new house, and my Grandma moved in with them. She now lives closer to me than she’s lived for many years, and I’ve been able to enjoy spending more time with her. 

In August, my older brother got married to my wonderful sister-in-law. It was a beautiful day of celebration! Cory, Cody, Abigail, and I were also thrilled to be in the wedding. 

That month, we also celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary, and Cory turned 27.  

In September, Abigail turned 1. 

My older brother joined the US Air Force and completed his basic training.  

In the fall, we also began homeschool pre-K with Cody.  

In October, Cody turned 4.  

In November, we became a Safe Families Host Family, and completed our first hosting. This is a ministry working in collaboration with our church, which provides temporary care to children in crisis.  

In December, I decided to shift my view of my {other} blog, Family on Purpose, to a hobby instead of a business. I also decided to retire my hopes for a coaching career, and instead focus on more productive things for me and my family. Even my birth education business is something I now consider more of a hobby, because quite frankly I don’t make nearly enough to cover the expenses. But I still very much enjoy blogging and teaching childbirth classes, so those are things I will continue to do. I love being able to help others through my writing, and through empowering parents to have better births.     

To end the year, we enjoyed a wonderful holiday season with our families.  

This year we also got San Diego Zoo & Safari Park passes, and we’ve enjoyed many trips to both parks.  

In 2019, I’m looking forward to continuing doing what we’re doing! Some goals I have are to pay off our credit card debt, have my dog Macy certified as a Canine Good Citizen, plant another successful garden this year, and improve and establish more routines and habits to help my home run smoothly. I’d also really like to learn how to play an instrument—and I’m leaning towards the drums!   

I want to continue to grow spiritually. I want to continue to actively walk with God, and see the Fruit of the Spirit powerfully in my life. I want to be even more consistent with reading the Bible daily, and I want to start taking time to study the word and memorize verses.  

I’ve never chosen a “word of the year” before, but this year I feel strongly about focusing on the word “peaceful.” No matter what ups and downs I experience, I want to be a person who remains peaceful, solidly anchored and resting in God’s hands.  

I hope you and your loved ones have a beautiful year in 2019.  

Happy New Year!  

Baby Fever 3.0

At the end of my last pregnancy, I declared that I was done having babies. The pregnancy discomforts were fresh in my mind, and I knew that I did not want to deal with them again. After her birth, which was both wonderful and slightly traumatic, I confirmed once again to myself that I was DONE. I had survived, and I would like to keep it that way!

But in the year and several months since then, I’ve wavered back and forth quite a bit.

I do know for sure that I want another baby. The question is whether that baby should come through adoption, or through biology.

I’ve weighed the pros and cons of. Here is my list so far:

Pros of having a baby biologically:
1. We get to make the decisions and are more in control.
2. It is a simpler process than adopting.
3. We would get to be involved throughout the entire pregnancy and birth.
4. Birth is an amazing experience, and there is a big part of me that wants to experience it again.
5. It is much less expensive than adopting. (Adopting a newborn baby, that is).

Cons of having a baby biologically:
1. I am likely to feel nauseous for at least four months of my pregnancy.
2. I am likely to have heartburn for at least six months of my pregnancy.
3. I would have to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done, again– childbirth.
4. I would further damage my body– stretch marks, abdominal separation, etc.
5. I might be risking my life. (Death in childbirth is extremely unlikely, but possible.)
6. I would have to face all of the medical stuff I hate so much (particularly things involving needles), as part of normal prenatal care.
7. We would be adding to over-population.
8. We would have to face the possibility of having a miscarriage.
9. I struggle to enjoy my children during pregnancy, because of how icky I feel.

If we chose to adopt, we would give up all of the benefits of having a baby biologically, but we would also avoid all of the drawbacks.

Even though the cons list is longer, the items aren’t all worth the same amount. I went as far as scoring each item with a number value, and it added up to -11, meaning the negatives outweighed the positives by 11 points.

Yes, I have put a lot of thought into this! And yet, it still doesn’t feel decided in my mind.

Yes, I have prayed about it, a lot. I am still praying about it. I’m hoping God just tells me what to do, because honestly, I don’t know what to decide!

This is on my mind even more lately because I have baby fever once again. As Cody and Abigail get bigger and bigger, I long more and more for another tiny baby to hold. I just love that early stage so much, and I miss it!

For now, our plan is to start pursuing adoption in 2019. As we begin the process, we will continually evaluate whether or not we should keep going. If at any point we realize we just can’t afford it, or it’s becoming too difficult emotionally or for some other reason, we reserve the right to change our minds and try to have another baby.

But my hope is that adoption works for us. It’s something I have always wanted to do, and this feels like the right time for us. I honestly prefer not to go through another pregnancy and birth.

We also plan to adopt older children through the foster system, in the next stage of growing our family, a few years down the road. But for right now, I still want one more baby. Truth be told, I would be happy with two more! But, Cory says just one more baby, so I can be happy with that. 😉

My Mental Health Journey

Back in 2016, I shared for the first time that I’ve struggled with depression. Today, I want to share more about my mental health journey and where I am now. I believe that breaking the stigma surrounding mental illness starts with breaking the silence.

My mental health journey is ongoing. I’ve never been diagnosed with a mental illness, and I’ve never been medicated for one, but I can still say I’ve struggled and continue to struggle with depression, anxiety, and anger-management issues.

My depression and anxiety began when I was a teenager. I struggled with insecurity, as many teenagers do. I often felt rejected by my peers. I constantly worried about what other people were thinking about me, and I often felt sad and hopeless about life. The normal demands of life and school felt like too much.

I developed a very close, but dysfunctional friendship with another girl my age. We became almost everything to each other. But, she struggled with her own insecurities, and she often took it out on me by tearing me down.

Then I met Cory, who is now my husband. He became my best friend. He was kind, caring, and fun to be around. We were just friends at first.

It was during that time when I started feeling more and more hopeless about life. I started thinking a lot about suicide. I never had an urge to hurt myself, but I did wish that I could go to sleep and not wake up. I just wanted life to be over.

I never made an attempt on my life, and thankfully, with the encouragement of my friends, I came out of that emotionally dark time.

Cory and I fell in love, and I started to see that I had a bright future to look forward to. At the time, I believed in Jesus, but he wasn’t the King of my life. In all honesty, Cory was my everything at that point. Looking back, I can see that God used him to give me hope and joy in my life when I desperately needed it. And after a time, I started to lean into God more and more. Eventually, I was able to lead Cory to Christ, and together we’ve continued to grow in our faiths since then. (Today, God has the rightful place as King in my life—and Cory’s).

In college, I struggled with anxiety more than depression. I would worry about the strangest things, like if I was walking weirdly, or if people thought I looked awkward. I had a very hard time sleeping at night because I became afraid of the dark and being alone. Cory would stay in my dorm room with me until I fell asleep, or I would sleep in his room, almost every night.

I began seeing a therapist for the first time. She helped me with my anxious thoughts, and I enjoyed talking to her. After I got married and then withdrew from the university, I had to stop seeing her, but I felt well enough by that time to be okay with that.

I struggled with depression and anxiety on and off in the years between getting married and having our first child. For me, depression isn’t debilitating, and it’s not all of the time. I have what could probably be described as “low-level” depression, and it comes in relatively short waves. I feel depressed for a few days, or a couple of weeks at most, and then I feel better for a few weeks. Sometimes, the depressed feelings are more frequent, like once a week. But overall, I feel good more often than I feel bad.

My anxiety is usually related to social situations, or occasionally related to fear. It’s not as “obvious” as my depression, which is why I wasn’t even able to label it clearly for myself until just this year.

With both depression and anxiety, I am able to hide it extremely well from others. I have a mask that I can put on, quickly, easily, and completely. Nobody would know unless I let them. And for most of my life, nobody has.

Anger is also very connected to my depression. I’ve struggled with anger management for most of my life, and when I’m feeling depressed, I have an even harder time with it.

After my first child was born, my anger and depression became things that I could no longer ignore. I began losing my temper with my baby. I never hurt him, but I hated that I would raise my voice and feel so frustrated with him. He was a high-need baby (both of my babies have been), and it was really hard.

My depression worsened when my baby was about 10 months old, and I suspected late-onset postpartum depression. I went to see a therapist, once again. I didn’t continue therapy for long, because it wasn’t affordable for us and I wasn’t sure it was helping. Since I was “functional,” I didn’t see it as a necessity.

This year, I finally started seeing a therapist again. Originally, I went in with the goal of evaluating my son for anxiety issues, because at the age of 3 ½ he was still unable to accept separation from us for any amount of time without completely falling apart. After the first couple of sessions, and some suggestions for ways to help him overcome his separation anxiety, I decided that I wanted to continue seeing her for my own struggles.

She was my favorite therapist thus far, and I really enjoyed seeing her. Unfortunately, it became too challenging to take the kids with me and be constantly interrupted by them, and her hours didn’t allow for me to go by myself.

Then I discovered a website called Better Help, which offers online therapy at a more affordable rate than a traditional in-person therapist. I began my message-based therapy with my new therapist, and immediately loved it. I was able to express myself in the best way I know how, through writing, and I could write to her any time I wanted. Her responses were always thoughtful and helpful. I really enjoyed therapy through Better Help.

At the end of November, I decided I was ready to stop therapy, and I cancelled my subscription (after talking to my therapist about it, of course). I’m in a place now where I feel like I understand my depression, anxiety, and anger better, and I have the tools I need to handle those challenges.

Of course, some days are better than others. I’ve learned to recognize when I’m starting a new “depressed” cycle, and remind myself that it’s only temporary. It always passes within a few days, or at most a couple of weeks. I remind myself that I can have some bad days in a really good life. I give myself some extra slack during those times, and wait it out.

My anger is still an active struggle. There are things I can do to help me feel balanced and happy, which enables me to manage my emotions better. Sometimes I do those things, and sometimes I don’t. Depression makes it harder to want to do those things, and that’s probably one reason they are so connected for me. But I can see progress, slowly but surely, in this area. I just have to keep moving forward.

My anxiety is a lot better now than it has been in the past. I’ve learned to embrace who I am. I don’t have to be the social butterfly, or the perfectly put-together mom, or anything else that I’m not. I can be the quiet one, who’s a good listener, and is kind, and helps others, and doesn’t bother putting on makeup. I can be the one who loses her temper a lot, but is always working on becoming better.

I can lean on God, knowing that He says I am enough, and that His Spirit is working in me to change me, slowly but surely, into someone more like Christ.

In the Bible, Paul wrote about a “thorn in the flesh” that he suffered from. We don’t know what it was, exactly, but this is what he said about it:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9 NIV)

My mental health struggles are my thorn—especially my anger. It’s a part of me that I have asked God to remove, and something I’ve tried to fix myself many times. This Bible verse has become one of my mantras. God’s grace is sufficient for me. His power is made perfect in my weakness.

I am not perfect, and that gives God room to work.

When It’s Time to Quit

In early 2014, almost 5 years ago now, I began a journey to become a life coach. I felt it was something I was called to do, and I was very excited about it! When my son was born, I decided to put that on hold. So it wasn’t until the middle of 2017 that I finally completed my training and graduated as a life coach. Then, I had to put it on pause yet again when my daughter was born.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working hard on launching my coaching business. I created a blog, and put a lot of time and effort into making it perfect. I did everything I was supposed to do to gain followers and eventually, clients. And yet… I’ve gotten nowhere with it.

Just like I when I tried to make this blog, I Do… Now What? into a real business a couple of years ago, it just hasn’t worked out. I didn’t gain a single follower last time, and it’s the same story this time.

For some reason, blogging as a business just isn’t working out for me!

It’s frustrating, for sure. I feel misled by all of the bloggers I’ve read about and followed who say that they make a full-time income blogging. I don’t know how they do it, but it seems that no matter what I do, I can’t make even the smallest progress towards any income from my blog. Like I said, frustrating.

But, I can accept it when it’s time to move on from something. For me, it’s time to move on from trying to make money as a blogger, and it’s time for me to move on from trying to be a life coach.

It’s a bit sad for me to say that, but it’s also freeing. Now I can focus my energies on other things!

My coaching blog, Family on Purpose, will stay alive on the internet. I’m not going to completely delete it or anything. I’m still proud of it, and I hope it can help people be intentional in their marriage, pregnancy and birth, and parenting. That was why I created it. If somebody finds it someday and it leads them to my coaching services, then I would still welcome the opportunity. But that’s not something I’ll be actively trying to achieve anymore.

As always, I Do… Now What? will still be here, a place for me to share my life, thoughts, and experiences with you, my readers. I’m not going anywhere!