Tell Me My Choices

After having taught 3 different NFP methods over the past 6 years to about 100 couples, I have to admit that abstinence is the hardest part to sell. Couples can get on board with the natural, hormone free, organic nature of NFP. They like the increased communication, the health benefits, the awareness of their fertility. The appreciation for children, the appreciation for each other, the reverence for life and how we cooperate with God to bring new life into the world.

But abstinence. Oh, abstinence. You crazy, fun-hating beast of burden who just waltzed into the bedroom with your muddy feet, swarm of flies and hot, stinky breath.

Yes, abstaining from genital contact during the fertile phase of your combined fertility cycle can be the worst of all bad bummers. It is even harder when your fertility signs are muddled and difficult to read and you desperately need to avoid a pregnancy and the abstinence stretches on for weeks and months. It can make you ache. It can feel like it is tearing your marriage apart.

 

If you struggle with long periods of abstinence due to health concerns or obscured fertility signs when using NFP, please, please, please make seeing a physician who will support you in your use of NFP a priority. NaPro doctors (choose Find a Medical Consultant on the left navigation) are specially trained to identify and correct health issues in ways that support the normal, healthy functions of your reproductive cycle. If a NaPro doctor isn't available near you, check for a health care provider at the One More Soul website or check with the local Catholic diocese to see if there is a doctor in the area to whom they can refer you. A healthy cycle is easier to interpret and can help reduce the times of abstinence when you need to avoid a pregnancy.

And while it can be difficult for many people to abstain during the fertile phase of an "average" or "normal" cycle, there is a light at the end of the fertile tunnel.

If you are happy with your NFP method - AWESOME!!!!!  I am so glad you have found a method that works for you and your spouse at this time in your reproductive life. Keep on keepin' on.

If you are not happy with your NFP method - let's find you a new one. There are so many effective, reliable methods available today to suit your needs. Your needs may change over time and what was once your dream method may become a nightmare for you and your spouse. Don't be afraid to switch to something that works for you now - you can always change your mind later and go back or change to another entirely different method.

There are ones that are highly regimented and the instruction is completely tailored to your unique fertility (Creighton - especially for people with known health, reproductive & fertility issues). Plenty of unmarried women chart simply for the information they glean about their health status from their charts or to manage their health in a holistic manner.

 

 There are methods that combine 2 or 3 major signs of fertility to determine times fertility (Couple-to-Couple League Sympto-Thermal, Northwest Family Planning, Serena). There are methods that only use 1 sign of fertility (Billing Ovulation Method, Family of the Americas, Temperature Method. There are methods that use monitors to test for Luteinizing Hormone (Marquette Method). There is a method that uses a monitor to track your Basal Body Temperature only (Lady Comp) and compares it to a database of more than 900,000 cycles of data points to determine times of fertility. There are mobile apps to track your cycle; there are cycle beads to track your cycle; there are ferning microscopes where you can observe your saliva or cervical mucus to watch for developing fertility. There's the 2-Day Method, the Temperature Method, the Boston-Cross Check method, Marquette method, Billings Ovulation Method, Family of the Americas Billings Ovulation Method, and the Standard Days Method. Many diocese and Archdiocese teach their own version of STM or OM.

There's even a great quiz that can help you figure out which method might suit your current needs. This is especially awesome if you have no idea where to start.

There are online courses, instructors who will teach long-distance, instructors who will meet with you in person or on the phone. There are group classes and individual private sessions. There are instructors who can work with you on the cost of instruction and there are instructors who only charge for materials, and I know some dioceses have scholarships for couples who need it. There are books (Taking Charge of Your Fertility, The Billings Method). Basically, there's a way to learn that can work for you.

If you like your method, but don't connect with your instructor - find a new one! I think most of us NFP teachers understand that not everyone can be best friends and our feelings will not be hurt if you switch to a different instructor or method. A good NFP instructor just wants you to find a method that works for you and your unique fertility and circumstances and will do what it takes to help you do that.

Most importantly, if you feel like you just can't do NFP anymore because it's too hard and too much and too difficult and too UGH - don't give up. As the great Simcha Fisher, author of The Sinner's Guide to Natural Family Planning (which I cannot recommend enough) says, "It's the worst possible method, except for all the others."

Welcome to Natural Family Planning Awareness Week! I have a couple posts about NFP this week. Please know that I am not speaking with a condemning tone towards anyone or towards the way anyone practices NFP. I am not putting down anyone's experience with NFP. As an NFP user and teacher, I have encountered people in every walk of life living NFP in difficult circumstances on all parts of the infertility/subfertility/average fertility/super fertility scale. In fact, I've moved along this scale myself over the years. Please know that you and your spouse and family are in my prayers. If you are using NFP - I admire you - not many have the courage to go against the grain and commit to such a radical view of and respect for their fertility.

NOTE: These are NOT affiliate links. I do not receive any compensation for sharing this information with you. I just thought you'd like to know. 

Playing Catch Up

I have been a very bad blogger lately. Not only have I neglected my own blog, but I haven't been commenting either. For shame!

Things have been crazy hectic here. We closed on our new home and moved in a week later. It's been non-stop around here since. We started teaching a new NFP class series and also had the privilege to speak as a witness couple at a medical conference earlier this month.

Last, but not least, we are finally able to discuss publicly something I wasn't quite ready to bring out into the open back at the beginning of December. We are expecting again. This is our fifth pregnancy and it has been very emotional for all of us. We supplemented with proge.sterone until just over 12 weeks. I was allowed to stop even though we didn't run bloodwork to check my levels. Are there people who say they miss proge.sterone? I am one of them. Since going off the supplements, my all-day sickness has got much much worse and I have started having headaches. We had an ultrasound just past 12 weeks and saw the baby. S/he is doing great in there...jumping all around. We think the baby is a girl, but we don't know for sure.  I am now 16 weeks along and have another appointment scheduled with my doctor for Friday.

Please pray that all continues to go well with this pregnancy and that we will get to meet this little one in August.

I will leave you with two pictures of my new babies...first the new hardwood floors in our new home, second the baby...as if you might confuse them!

Ignore the crazy-eyed man in the top left corner.  My husband couldn't resist jumping into the frame.

This was baby #5 at 12 weeks, 2 days...measuring 12 weeks, 6 days.  I grow 'em BIG.

Miscarriage: The Feelings Post

My heart ached for the Dug.gar family when they recently shared that they had lost their 20^th child when Michelle was 19 weeks along.  This family, who has been abundantly blessed with children, has felt the pain of a miscarriage before and that is one of the reasons they traveled the road they did with regards to leaving their fertility in God’s hands.

When my SIL posted to FB that she was sad to learn of their loss, the comments astonished me.  The first friend posted…"Not to make light of something as tragic as a miscarriage, but doesn’t she have like 50 other kids?”  First of all, if you don’t want to make light of something, why did you?  Secondly, just because she has other children doesn’t make the suffering accompanying the loss any less acute.

Some may marvel at that.  After all, she has 19 other children she can hold in her arms and 2 grandchildren.  What’s the big deal if she loses one baby after all the ones she’s had?  How much pain would you be in if you lost one of your fingers?  You have 9 others.  Using this “friend’s” logic, it shouldn’t hurt to have your wisdom teeth pulled…you have 28 other teeth.

Come on. 

From the moment many women begin to suspect they are pregnant they start imagining their belly growing, getting bigger and rounder with each passing day.  They often dramatically change their eating and sleeping habits and make other radical lifestyle changes immediately.  They start making two mental lists of names.  They wonder if there’s only one baby in there or if there’s two!  They figure out the due date.  If they work outside the home, they look at their company’s policy on parental leave.  They imagine how they’ll share the news with their husband, other children and families.  They long to feel that first flutter of movement in their womb.  They start designing the nursery.  They imagine holding the baby in their arms, feeding the baby, changing the baby, bathing the baby, cuddling the baby.  They calculate how old they’ll be when the child goes to kindergarten (will I be the oldest/youngest mom there?), graduates high school, finishes college, and finally how old they will be when, if their child follows in their footsteps, the child gives them grandchildren.

And, honestly, that’s just the stuff I think of on the first day.

A miscarriage is more than just the physical pain of the loss of a baby.  It is an emotional loss of your hopes and dreams for that child and your family.  Someone unique was lost.  There will never be another child like that child.  Another baby won’t have that baby’s birthday, won’t have that baby’s personality, won’t have that baby’s talents and won’t have that baby’s possibilities.  The fact that the baby was never held and that it never drew a single breath here on this earth does not detract from the pain.

If a mother and father have other children, they probably are even more aware of what they have lost.  While holding our children may bring us some comfort and make us thankful and grateful to God for sending them into our lives, we are very much attune to what is now missing.

Then, there’s the guilt.  For the vast majority of mothers there is nothing we could have done to alter the outcome of the pregnancy.  Our doctors tell us this.  We try to believe them.  But the doubt can linger in the back of our minds and hearts, jumping out at unexpected moments.  Maybe if I had started taking the pre-natal vitamins a few days earlier, my baby would still be with me.  If only I hadn’t taken that cough syrup two days after I ovulated, my baby would still be with me.  If only I hadn’t moved that dresser to retrieve the toy car that had fallen behind it, my baby would still be here.  If only I had stuck to my new year’s resolution and lost those 15 lbs. before I got pregnant, my baby would still be here.  If only I had…

People try to say helpful things like “maybe it was for the best” or “that’s just nature’s way of taking care of a problem” or “God must’ve wanted an angel.”  All we really want to hear is “I’m sorry for your loss.”  If we want to talk about it, let us.  If we don’t, don’t pry.  Each person handles a loss like this in their own unique way.  Each couple will deal with it in their own way.

The physical aspects of a miscarriage are sometimes startling.  Once we get through the actual physical miscarriage, whether that happens naturally or surgically, that’s not the end.  Our moods can become erratic as our hormone levels return to a non-pregnant state.  Many women will experience hair loss…just like we do after giving birth*.  If the couple begins a search for answers, the poking and prodding from our doctors begin.  There’s the blood work that must be coordinated on specific cycle days, the ultrasounds and the various other sometimes invasive tests that come with searching for a “cure.”

If a couple is blessed enough to conceive again, the worry sets in.  You just want to get past the point of your latest loss.  If that means 6 weeks, 9 weeks, 15 weeks, whatever.  For me, I was monitored very closely once I had had a miscarriage.  I have to go in right away for a blood draw.  I get the results, and have to start taking the progesterone supplements (which are really expensive) because my progesterone is way low.  Then, I go back 2 days later to get another blood draw to make sure the hcg numbers are going up appropriately.  Then I go in at 6 weeks to have a viability ultrasound; that means they are looking for a heartbeat.  In my experience, those haven’t turned out well, so I usually get another blood draw that that time.  Then I go back for another ultrasound, and another until we get bad news again.  For women who have experienced a late term loss, the worry is present throughout their pregnancy.  I haven’t had this experience, so I can’t speak on it with any amount of authority.  I can only imagine that that is a different type of pain entirely from what we have experienced.

These are the feelings and emotions I have gone through as we’ve traveled this road of secondary infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss.  I speak only from my own experience.  If you’ve had a different experience, I encourage you, if you are able, to let others know about your feelings and emotions.  It is helpful to find that there are others out here experiencing something similar, even if they've experienced it differntly than you and that you aren’t alone.  We are here to support each other and pray for one another.  If you have a question I haven’t answered here or you would like me to explain more about something I’ve said, feel free to ask.  As an NPF instructor, I try to be very open and honest about all aspects of the miscarriages.

May God be with each of you and may you trust your children to His limitless Divine Mercy.  There is no one who loves you and ALL of your family more than the One who created each and every one of you.

*Over the summer when my MIL was visiting about 2 months after my second miscarriage, she commented that maybe I should see my doctor because of how much hair I lose.  I think she thought she was being helpful, but all I could sputter out was that I had just had a miscarriage and hair loss is completely normal at this stage.

Our Secondary Infertility Journey (so far)

This post has been a long time in the writing.  I joined this wonderful community of Catholic women bloggers, several of whom have struggled with primary or secondary infertility, as a way to support myself emotionally and spiritually and maybe, just maybe, to give someone else support.

After our son, Junior, was born we needed to postpone another pregnancy for a little while.  While I was ready to get pregnant again right away (well, as soon as AF returned which was only 3 months after giving birth.  I didn’t BF…there were reasons; I’ll leave those for a different post), my doctor advised me to wait until the due date for baby #2 was at least 18 months after the birth of Junior.  I had had a C-Section and she wouldn’t allow me to attempt a VBAC if the due date was less 18 months after Junior’s birthday.

Mr. Amen had been layed off from his job just days before Junior was born.  Though he had been looking for a new job, the recession had really taken its toll on our state and he was unable to land a new gig.  As 2009 came to a close with Junior past his first birthday, I longed to start trying for baby #2.  We kept thinking a new job was just around the corner for Mr. Amen, but each month passed jobless.  Finally in March 2009 we decided that we didn’t want to put our plans to expand our family on hold forever…afterall, I certainly wasn’t getting any younger.  We decided to put our trust in God and go ahead and conceive again.  After all, it had been a snap to conceive Junior.

Oh, how naïve we were.

April…May…June…July…August…September…

I wasn’t ovulating regularly; I had short luteal phases when I did ovulate.  We’re talking 7-8 days.  My doctor talked to me about starting Cl.omid to get better ovulations and help lengthen my luteal phase.  We weren’t quite ready to take that step yet.

In early October 2009, Mr. Amen landed a new job.  We were thrilled and just knew another blessing in the form of a baby was right around the corner.

At the end of October we learned that we were expecting.  Overjoyed, doesn’t quite cover the emotions we felt.  We had made it through some very difficult times over the past 2 years and everything was falling into place at long last.  We were due on the 4^th of July.

My blood work showed low progesterone, so I started Cri.none 8% (a vaginal suppository of progesterone, usually used during fertility treatments such as IVF).  When I was approximately 7 weeks along, we got home from Mass and I went to the restroom where I discovered I was spotting.  I was alarmed and told Mr. Amen who suggested I just take it easy that day, sit down and put my feet up.  I lounged around all day and didn’t have any further spotting.  Figuring all was well, I went to work on Monday.  During the morning, I went to the restroom and again found that I was spotting.  I called my (new, wonderful, amazing, Natural Family Planning only) obstetrician and he asked me to come in right away to be checked. 

Of course, when it rains, it pours.  I called my mother to ask her to pick up Junior from daycare and take him to his doctor appointment for me because I might be late.  I said I would meet her there.

I saw one of my doctor’s partners because he was completely booked (honestly, he’s always completely booked and darn near impossible to get in to see without an appointment months in advance).  She examined me and took me back to see the ultrasound technician.  As soon as the image flashed on the screen, I knew something was very wrong.  There was a sac, but no baby and no heartbeat.

I was told I had a blighted ovum, was miscarrying and that I could expect it to happen anytime over the next several days.  I left stunned, calling Mr. Amen when I reached the car to tell him the sad news.

I didn’t have time to really feel it yet though because I had to hurry to the family doctor for my son.  My mom was there with him and stayed for the appointment with me.  She was asking a million questions, as always, wanting to know why I was late.  I said I had to go to the doctor and get my blood drawn.  She asked which doctor and not wanting to get her hopes up, I told her that I had gone to my endocrinologist.

After Junior’s appointment we went to my parents’ house and Mr. Amen met us there.  We told my parents what was going on and we all had a good cry about it.  Tuesday evening, my parents invited us over for dinner so I wouldn’t have to cook or clean up.  While we were eating I started feeling more and more cramping until I broke out in a sweat.  We packed up and headed home.  Tuesday evening was the worst of the pain.  The cramping was incredible (I usually have a pretty high pain threshold) and the bleeding was heavy. 

I took a several days off work because I was so sad.  Explaining to my boss why I was suddenly off for three days with no notice was not exactly pleasant.  I did tell him the truth of why I was not coming in and he was very understanding, even sharing that he and his wife had experienced a miscarriage as well.

In our families, only my parents and Mr. Amen’s mother knew of our loss.  I couldn’t bring myself to tell my sister, brother and his wife.  They had just had their third sweet baby and we didn’t want to make everyone sad at the holidays.

After taking some time to heal physically, in January, we forged ahead with trying again.  This time, with Cl.omid.

Round 1

Dosage = 50mg on CD 3-7.  It didn’t help much.  I did experience some lovely hot flashes during the night, and my luteal phase was a whopping 10 days.

Round 2

Dosage bumped up to 100mg on CD 3-7.  Again, not much help.  Hot flashes were more intense and a few headaches.  Luteal phase = 12 days.  My doctor suggested PreS.eed, but honestly, it wasn’t needed…I’ve always had great CM.  That’s one thing my body does well.

Round 3

Dosage left at 100mg on CD 3-7.  Hot flashes and headaches continue.  Luteal phase = 8 days.

I called the doctor’s office after this round.  My doctor thought we should up the dosage and see if we got better results.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t around to provide a script for a higher dosage and their office policy is that the other doctors won’t mess with writing new/different scripts for fertility drugs for each other’s patients.  The nurse urged me not to waste the next cycle and just take the 100mg again and we could increase the dosage next cycle.

Round 4

Dosage = 100mg on CD 3-7.  Hot flashes and headaches same as before.  Luteal phase = 5 days.  Seriously, 5 days.  Awful.  The higher the dosage, the worse the results.

My doctor suggested moving on from Cl.omid to Fem.ara.  Mr. Amen and I talked about it over and over and we weren’t ready to go on to this new drug.  So we decided to take a rest for a cycle to think it over.

Rest Cycle 1, I didn't even ovulate and my "cycle" was only 22 days.  We stopped daily charting on CD 18 this cycle.  We really needed a break from the stress of it all.  I was extra emotional from everything that was going on and just needed a break.  Plus work was brutal, I was swamped and needed to give my full attention to my work instead of obsessing over my charts.

We still weren’t ready to up the ante to Fem.ara yet, so we decided to rest for another cycle and then make a decision. 

Rest Cycle 2, much to our surprise resulted in a positive pregnancy test on CD 26.  We were resting in the sense that we weren't pursuing fertility treatments, but we were still trying.  Our due date was 02/09/2012.  Again, I had low progesterone and started Cri.none 8% right away.  Just past 6 weeks, I went in for an ultrasound.  The baby measured 4-5 days behind, but we could see the heartbeat.  My doctor was happy and so were we.  At 8 weeks, on June 29^th, my husband and I went in for our nurse OB appointment.  We had an ultrasound scheduled first to make sure everything was OK with the little bean.  When the screen lit up, I knew immediately.  The ultrasound technician grew very quiet and quickly took a few measurements.  I was already crying and Mr. Amen was growing restless because he couldn’t tell what he was seeing and wanted the tech to point out the baby to him.  The tech said, “you will be talking to a doctor today before you leave.  Do you want me to just tell you what I see?”  I said yes because Mr. Amen had no idea and I couldn’t say it.  She informed us that the baby had passed away just after our last ultrasound.  She left the room and we both broke down.  The doctor we saw was very kind, told us our options and we opted for a D&C on July 7th. 

We also had to go across the street to the hospital to get me a shot of Rh.oGam since there had been a heartbeat.  I’m allergic to that shot, so we had to stop to buy Bene.dryl to take before getting the shot.  When I got there for the shot, they had to draw blood to check to make sure I really had Rh negative blood.  We waited about 20 minutes and the nurse came out and told me I didn’t need the shot because I had Rh Positive blood.  Considering my raw emotional state, I think I did a pretty good job staying calm while I explained to her that 1) I do have negative blood, 2) I’ve had negative blood my whole life, 3) the Americ.an R.ed Cr.oss says I have negative blood, 4) I have the same blood type as my mother who has negative blood, 5) I had the shot when my son was born, 6) please check your records again and 7) go get me the shot.  The nurse, then, went and got me the shot.

That weekend we went to a beach in Ontario, Canada for 4^th of July.  I already had said I couldn’t bear to be home since it was the due date of the baby we had lost in November.  Now this.  We had a relaxing day at the beach with my parents.  Junior ran up and down along the “seashore” and when we got in the car to go home, he was asleep before we got to the main road.

The day of the D&C, we arrived at the hospital, they prepped me and it was over quickly.  Mr. Amen was really glad to talk to my OB, as he helped calm his nerves and told him the procedure went perfectly.  We had the baby tested to see if we could determine what was causing these losses.  When the results came back, everything was perfectly normal.

The doctor also ran blood work on me testing for all sorts of problems.  Everything came back perfectly normal.  My hyprothyroidism is well controlled, no other clotting factors or Rh incompatibilities showed up.  He tested for several other things…I can’t even remember them all, but everything was normal.

We were told we had to wait one cycle to start trying again.  We waited the one cycle, then the very next cycle we were pregnant again.  Our due date was 05/11/2012.  Because of my history, I was being monitored closely.  My first blood draw on CD28 showed hcg of 91 and very low progesterone.  I started the Cri.none 8% again.  Two days later, on CD 30, my hcg levels had more than doubled to 219.  Things were looking up for us.  On CD 43 (6 weeks) my hcg was 13,599.  Normally, they wouldn’t have drawn blood, but we also had an ultrasound that day and the baby was measuring 5 weeks instead of 6.  They thought that maybe I just o’d later than I knew I had.  Even though we had quit daily charting back in April, I was still marking CD 1, peak day and any mid-cycle bleeding on my charts.  I knew when I ovulated and I was distraught.

We went back a week later for another ultrasound.  The baby was measuring 5 weeks 6 days with a heartbeat in the 90s (should have been 7 weeks).  They adjusted my due date to 05/18/2012.  Two weeks later we returned for our nurse OB appointment with an ultrasound.  I knew I was 9 weeks, they said I was 8 weeks.  It didn’t really matter because the ultrasound showed that the baby had passed a few days after our last ultrasound; the baby only measured 6 weeks 1 day and there was no heartbeat.  We scheduled the D&C for 2 days later on a Friday. 

This time as I was being prepped for surgery, I broke down entirely.  Three miscarriages in less than one year.  I felt like a failure as a woman.  The surgery was over quickly.  The doctor said it went well.  I needed the Rh.oGam shot again, so they gave me some Bene.dryl, then the shot.  Luckily the Bene.dryl knocks me out, so I slept for about an hour and a half after surgery and then went home.

We had the baby tested again for chromosomal abnormalities, but everything came back perfectly normal again.  The doctor informed me at a follow-up appointment that the two babies we had tested were both girls.

I was given a note from my doctor to take an entire week off work to recover.  It was more of an emotional recovery period than physical.  I asked for more time than just one week, but my doctor knows me well and knew it wouldn’t be good for me to sit at home for long.  I would just think about the losses and stew in my sadness.  He sent me back to work, and that was probably a good thing.

Our next step was to take a baby aspirin daily with my pre-natals…just in case there is a clotting factor we haven’t identified.  I wasn’t tested for MTHFR, but my doctor said that by taking the baby aspirin we can head off that problem as well as others. 

We also had a saline hysterosonogram.  For anyone who hasn’t had one, this test involves the doctor placing a clamp on the cervix, feeding a balloon and a catheter into the uterus, then pumping the uterus full of saline.  Then, they do an internal ultrasound at the same time so they can view the uterine lining better and identify any problems with the lining or any malformations in the uterus.  The worst part by far, for me anyhow, was the cervical clamp.  That just hurt.  My doctor (have I mentioned how wonderful he is?) tried to put my mind at ease, and the ultrasound technician was very kind.  Still, it was just humiliating.  During the procedure, I experienced a lot of cramping and became lightheaded.  I had to use my breathing techniques I learned for labor to get through it without fainting.  Afterwards, my pulse was really slow so they gave me some apple juice to help me perk up a bit.  The funny thing was that when they handed the juice box to me, the straw was pointing right at the sleeve of my sweater and the juice shot right down my arm.  Nice.  As the mother of a toddler, you would think I would have seen that coming.

My amazing, Catholic, NFP-only doctor is also contacting a colleague who is Crieghton trained to get suggestions on how to help us.  One of my doctor’s partners also suggested that we visit a Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist to see if he has any suggestions of things we can try or look into that we haven’t thought of yet.  We haven’t made that appointment though.  I think with everything we have going on right now with the house buying, the holidays, family birthdays, renovations, moving, switching daycare centers…we have a full plate and I don’t think I could fit in another doctor appointment.

So that’s our journey so far.  I recognize this is a little light on my reflections about our secondary infertility…I’ve given you almost entirely all facts.  I’ll try to address my feelings in a separate post.

Just Another Saturday

Today my husband and I set out to prove that we have lost our minds. 

Just kidding.  Well, not entirely.  You see, today we took our 2 year old son to a professional juried art show.

We are members of the De.troit Insti.tute of Art.s because we have always enjoyed visiting the museum to view the exhibits, attend the lectures, listen to the live music, watch the independent films at their film institute and just generally soak up inspiration.  We took our son there with us once when he was about 3 or 4 months old.  That visit went just fine, but since he’s gotten around to walking and talking, we haven’t dared to attempt such a trip again.

Our parish is hosting a professional juried art show this weekend.  We’ve been looking forward to the event for months now.  Saturday, during the day, was “family day.”  Since we really would like to instill in Junior a love of the arts, especially sacred art, we took our 2 year old to an art show.

He was so excited to go as we were leaving this morning.  The entire drive there he kept repeating over and over “I going to a art show?”  And when I say the entire drive there, I mean every moment of the entire 20 minute drive he was saying some variation of just that.  He was especially excited to see his MaMaMa and PaPaPa there as well.  (MaMaMa and PaPaPa are my parents.)

We had planned ahead that maybe being there with fewer people would help keep him from becoming too overwhelmed.  So we got there at the moment the doors opened for early admission.  Junior did pretty well for a 2 year old.  In fact, I would say he did pretty well for a 4 year old too.  He was interested in the art; looking at the paintings and talking about what he saw, asking questions about why it was raining on Jesus in one picture, or why Jesus wasn’t wearing his shirt in another.  “Why is that mama crying?”  “Look at the family!”  “Why is he in a tree?”  “A birdie flying.” “I wanna hold the baby.”  “Why he sad?  I give a hug.”

There was a high school art competition where the attendees could vote for their favorite piece.  We voted by placing little pink tickets into the envelope hanging nearby the artwork.  There were paintings, sculptures, photographs and mosaics.  Junior looked at all the pieces and decided on his own for which one he wanted to “boat”.  He kept saying he wanted to vote for the “orange” one, but we couldn’t figure out which one that was.  We pointed out 2 different paintings we thought he might have been referring to, but neither was the one he wanted.  Eventually, he settled on a beautiful mosaic of Our Lady.  He was so proud of his “vote” as he placed the ticket in the envelope.  Both Mr. Amen and I also chose the pieces that most spoke to us and we let Junior put our tickets in their respective envelopes.  Mr. Amen chose a gorgeous black and white photograph of a piano’s keyboard.  I selected a lovely, earthy, soft peach colored sculpted jar.

The show itself was inspiring.  I have never seen such a collection of spectacular sacred art.  The styles of the artists were as varied as their mediums.  There was truly something for everyone.  Many of the items on display were for sale, and I had hoped we might be able to find a beautiful piece for our home.  Unfortunately, the prices were beyond what we can afford at this time, so we’ll have to keep saving up.

There were moments it was a challenge to have a 2 year old at the art show.  He doesn’t quite have the hang of his “inside voice” yet.  Toddlers love to experience the world around them and that includes touching everything they can reach.  It was tough for Junior to keep his hands to himself, but we made it through.  How else is he going to learn how to behave in such an environment?  I figure it’s similar to why we take him to mass every week and why we sit up front instead of in the crying room.  How is he going to learn to love, appreciate and participate in the mass if we don’t take him and help him understand what’s going on?

There were two moments that had nothing to do with the art though that stood out to me today. 

The first occurred as we were sitting in the concession area eating lunch.  My parents were sitting with us talking with one of my husband’s friends.  The friend is an older gentleman that belongs to the Kn.ights of C.olum.bus with Mr. Amen.  He asked my parents how many grandchildren they have.  My mother responded that they have four grandchildren so far.  She went on that my brother and SIL have three children and want to have a large family, so she knows she’ll have several more from him.  I did manage to speak up and say, “we do too.”

The second occurred a few moments after that when Junior spotted a family sitting nearby with a baby in a stroller.  He ran right over and started talking to the sweet little guy.  He appeared to be about 8-9 months old with sandy blond hair and big blue eyes.  He smiled adoringly at Junior and Junior, in turn, stepped up the charm.  The baby he was busy adoring was #7 in the family and his 5 older brothers and 1 older sister sat at the table eating.  Junior was enthralled with the sweet baby boy and wanted to hold him.  The parents of the baby noticed how interested Junior was in their son and commented on it.  Then came the “looks like it’s time for a sibling” comment.

Ah, the famous 1-2 punch.  When you’re dealing with infertility, you never know when a stray comment will pierce your heart.  My parents know about our struggles, they know about our miscarriage and they know about the treatments we’ve been attempting.  I know she didn’t mean it that way, but it felt like she was rubbing it in that he is well on his way to having the large family I’ve always dreamed of and we aren’t and don’t know if we ever will be.  Of course, the other family had no idea that we are the NFP teaching couple at our parish, that we are so open to life it hurts.  They had no idea how it breaks my heart each time I see Junior loving on a baby knowing what a great big brother he’d be.  Not many 2 year old boys ask for a baby and my heart and uterus ache when he does.

St. Anne pray for us.  St. Philomena pray for us.