Grateful

Most of you have already heard via emails or prayer requests or facebook that I had to have my gallbladder removed about two weeks ago. It wasn't necessarily how I wanted to spend a week, but looking back at the whole experience, I am so grateful for so many things. I thought I would share some of them with you . . .

1. The doctors were great and as soon as a real Dr. saw me (it was a teaching hospital so the first Dr. to see me still had braces and looked like she might have been 12), he knew right away what was wrong with me and got me scheduled to have a sonogram to confirm, which did confirm that i had a gallbladder full of infection and stones.
2. I am so thankful for good hospitals where we live. When the first hospital we went to couldn't admit me because it was too full, I was transferred to a hospital that has some kind of relationship with Johns Hopkins in the states and I am telling you this place was NICE! In the bathroom they had big fluffy robes like we were in a nice hotel! And oh, the water pressure! And a view of the sea out my windows.
3. Great nurses. They were mostly male nurses, which could have been weird, but they were very kind, and one even wanted to go on a double date with Matt and I and he and his fiance by the end of the week. He also wanted us to take his picture with his i-phone holding Maya. Any time he walked in the room and Maya wasn't there, he would ask, "Where is your baby?"
4. Speaking of Maya, we were able to have her with us in the hospital almost every afternoon while our dear friends Jason and Kelli kept her at night. This was really good for my mama-heart that was really struggling with not being able to take care of my baby!
5. Maya had formula for the first time and took it without any problems for the whole week, then was able to switch back to breast feeding (after I was all drug free) without anything worse than a little constipation.
6. The surgeon was great and he not only took out my gallbladder, he found and repaired a hernia while he was at it.
7. We have medical insurance and the close to $12,000 in bills will not be coming out of our pocket--praise the LORD!
8. Friends here visited and brought me things to do to try to assuage my boredom during the week that I had to wait for the stone to pass and for my inflammation to go down before they could do surgery.
9. At the beginning they were concerned that the stone I had passed was lodged somewhere, which would have required a second procedure, but the stone ended up moving on it's own, which simplified the whole treatment process to one surgery, "Giddy up, giddy up, get a move on--raw hide!"
10. Matt was wonderful, and unless he was going to get Maya or take her to our friends or run to our house to send and receive email, or doing dishes and picking up our apartment, he was by my side, taking great care of me.
11. My recovery has been SO fast and SO easy (i was only on Tylenol starting the day after surgery) and I've been able to resume just about everything I was doing before, and aside from a few digestive issues, I don't seem to be missing my gallbladder one bit! Who needs it anyway?

What Can I Say?

I haven't blogged much lately. Things have been busy. I had a baby. She is awesome. She fills my days and nights with feedings, diaper changing, laundry, holding, rocking, thinking. Not much sleep. Not much that is high and grand and blog-worthy. The stuff that is on my mind these days is very simple. Like yesterday she smiled at me for the first time. And although it doesn't feel like it's very high or worthy or grand, it was to me. It was beautiful. And amazing. It was very simple, but my eyes are filling up with tears right now just thinking about it.

The big things on my mind these days seem pretty shallow. They are things like when will I lose enough weight to fit into the mountain of clothes that I own, so that I can stop wearing the same 4 pairs of pants that I have been wearing for months? And how can I get organized so that this apartment doesn't feel so small and crowded? And how on earth can I make a place for everything so that we don't constantly have piles everywhere? And how can I remember all of the stuff I need to remember if I put it away in it's place? And what on earth can I cook (that even resembles healthy) from the few items in my pantry and fridge?

Maybe all of this doesn't feel very blog-worthy because I don't know how to find Jesus in it all. What is the relationship between the piles on our dining room table and Jesus? Or the revolving door of laundry and Jesus? And speaking of Jesus-how on earth do I continue to have some semblance of relationship with Him when I can hardly find the time to shower? And this is the hardest part--how do I chose Jesus when all I want to do is collapse on the couch and watch TV, or climb into my bed and sleep?

Then this voice of reason says to me, "Hey, cut yourself some slack!" And then when I stop and think about it, I realize that I am only about 2 months into a completely new job called motherhood. There is a learning curve. Maybe some of you old pros can tell me how long the intense learning curve lasted for you. Maybe this will help. In the meantime, I am so scared that in the time it takes me to figure out how to keep up with the laundry, or how to fix healthy meals, or how to make time for exercise, I will fail to do the important things with this new baby we have been entrusted with. Like read books. Sing songs. Play patty-cake. Pray for her.

I have spent so much of my life believing that if I could just perform better, then I would have the relationship with Jesus that I want. The intimate prayer life. The outreach and ministry that touches lives. The organized and clean (and therefore welcoming) home. That if I could be more self-disciplined, then Jesus would love me more. That if I could have the hour long quiet time then I wouldn't feel like such a failure. That if I even knew where my Bible is right now, then I might have something grand and noble and worthy to blog about. But then again, maybe the fact that I feel like a total mess makes me a good candidate for the deep deep love of Jesus. Maybe my struggle with failure and perfectionism makes me a great candidate for unconditional love and a huge measure of grace. Maybe I can somehow learn to hear the still small voice of God in the midst of my mess, instead of hoping to get it all cleaned up and under control in order to find Him. In order to know Him. In order to love Him. Maybe in the midst of so much newness in my role and my responsibilities He can be the One who never changes.

So as it turns out, I did have something high and grand and blog-worthy, after all.

Maya These Days

She is changing so fast . . .

Calling All Cameras

Hey friends. we have this beautiful little girl in our lives now and she changes every day, i swear. now, i feel an overwhelming need to document all of the little changes. the shape of her chubby cheeks. the rolls in her thighs. the way she sleeps with her arms sticking straight up like you hold your arms if you're getting arrested or scanned at the airport. enter the problem. the problem is our digital camera is crap. now that is me over-reacting, but i am frustrated. every picture i've taken of her lately is blurry b/c the camera can't take close up pictures. but she is little and her details are little, so i MUST get close! Now, i have an SLR camera, but it is from the dark ages of pre-digital photography. now that digital is "it" i find it atrocious to actually develop film and have pictures printed, you know? how did we justify spending so much money on pictures before? so this is a 2 part question that i need everyone's help with. the first part is: what kind of camera do you use? and i only want you to tell me about your camera if you LOVE it, because we've got to get this right on the first try, right? We are shopping. We probably can't afford a new digital SLR (although I confess I covet them). i can't decide to get a bigger digital camera that is a step up from a small point and shoot but a step down from the full-on SLR, or whether to stick with the compact point and shoot and somewhere down the road go for the SLR.

Secondly, do any of you still take film pictures and mail your film somewhere to get it developed where they will scan your negatives so that you can then have digital images from your film camera? Then you can chose what to have printed and not get the whole roll printed if it's not awesome? If such a thing exists (i'm sure it does, i just don't know who/where) i would like to try this, that way i can capture some of these little bitty baby details that i am just itching to photograph with what i have.

Thanks in advance for all the help i trust you are all going to offer (we've got to decide QUICK because whatever we buy has to be ordered ASAP so matt's mom can bring it with her when she comes at the beginning of Feb!!).

(and can anyone tell me why blotter won't let me attach pictures to my post lately? i was going to show you all of my frustratingly blurry pictures!)

Christmas Eve

Just a random pic of how we celebrated Christmas Eve. . .