I OWN You, Endometriosis!

When I found out last week that my Endometriosis is back, I was pretty devastated.  It meant that the doctors had been right when they predicted that it would keep coming back.  So I had to accept the fact that this was not a one-time thing - that this will likely be a part of my life forever.  And that is sad.

It is also strange to know that something is inside of me that is hurting my body.  It's harder to love my body and embrace it and feel strong when I know this.

Over the weekend, I sat with the sadness, and I also forced myself to start my yoga practice back up.  My own practice at home has suffered since Douglas was born.  I just haven't done a good job maintining that part of my life.  And that means that I've neglected something that makes me feel strong and beautiful and that releases much of my stress and sadness and fear.  This is not a good thing to neglect.

So, I'm using my Endometriosis news to motivate me.  And, let me tell you, just a few yoga sessions out on our back deck and I've already felt a shift.  Hope and strength and the will to kick this thing.  I am not going to sit by and let Endometriosis get worse and worse and make me feel weak and powerless.

I'm not saying that the changes that I'm making will cure me of Endo - or even necessarily help.  That's not the point.  I am going to do everything in my power to slow it down, to be the boss of it.  And whatever happens, happens.  I will most likely have surgery in the next few months regardless of what changes I make now.  But at least I won't be sitting by and just watching it do its thing.

I feel invigorated.  I'm going to do my best to eat things that help Endometriosis and avoid things that worsen it (this means becoming a vegan who eats fish - which will be a "special" new challenge for me).  Thankfully I've already cut out gluten, dairy and eggs, all of which cause inflammation in the body - and inflammation is detrimental in general, but especially for those with Endo.  I'm going to take supplements that I know will help balance out my body.  I'm going to exercise more and make every effort to get my regular Yoga practice going again and keep it consistent.  I'm going to do the poses that I know will strengthen my body physically and emotionally - the ones that make me feel like a rockstar.

And I'm going to see what happens.  But whatever happens, I'm going to participate in this.  I will not be made to feel powerless.

Micah walked up to me the other day after I'd made this shift emotionally and mentally, and I looked at him and said, "I'm going to kick Endometriosis' ass!"

Bring it.

I found this shirt yesterday while shopping with my mom and knew that it was meant to be mine - you know how I feel about theme shirts.  Game ON, Endo!

Beauty

Lately, I've begun to ask myself two questions.  What is Beauty?  What does it mean to be a woman? As I age, the definition of beauty expands.  The misguided definition of my youth just doesn't hold up anymore.  Because with age comes wrinkles and sun spots and more scars.  So, perfect skin can't be beauty...because I know for a fact that young people certainly do not have the market cornered on beautiful.  There are people in their 90's who are the very essence of beauty.

But I've begun to realize lately that I have inadvertently bought into society's definiton of beauty.  The one that we are constantly bombarded with in ads and on tv.  One that only has to do with the surface and oftentimes has very much to do with some serious plastic surgery.  And it really infuriates me that I've just willingly and unconsciously allowed society to define for me what beauty is and, ultimately, what worth is.

I perceive womanhood to be loosely defined as people who bear children, have breasts, and have a uterus (or some combination of these things).  I never realized this was my definition until I suddenly found myself feeling outside of and separate from the Woman Group.  One of the most painful parts of our fertility struggles for me has always been feeling like birthing children is a right of passage that women go through that I have been unable to experience and take part in.  So I'm left out of the club.  It leaves me wondering if that makes me less of a woman somehow.  The current definition that I've been working under is clearly incomplete if not totally incorrect. 

I have 2 scars on my upper chest and one on my back now from making bad decisions about sun exposure my whole life.  I have scars on my abdomen from two surgeries - one for my gallbladder and the other for Endometriosis.  I have wrinkles.  Does this make me less beautiful?  If I never bear children or if I lose one or both breasts or my uterus one day, does this make me less of a woman or, worse, not a woman at all?  Clearly, it cannot be so.  So that means that what I have believed all of my life about what it means to be beautiful and to be a woman is completely wrong.

It is hard to have my vanity challenged.  And it is hard to realize how vain I really am.  I never knew it until I started piling on the scars and suddenly felt less beautiful - and I cried.  My vanity took me completely by surprise.

For the past year or two I have been putting scar cream on the surgery scars on my abdomen, and they are fading.  On Friday I found out that my Endometriosis is back, so in the next 6 months to a year I will likely have four new scars where the old, fading ones are.  And then again a few years after that.  Again and again - until I die or God heals me.  The irony of my scar cream applications is not lost on me after finding out this news.

So it seems like as good a time as any to begin asking myself what beauty really is.  And asking God, the one who created all that is beautiful.  It's easy to see beauty in the old woman, full of grace and life in her heart.  It's easy to see womanhood in a friend who has been unable to birth children or who has chosen not to.  It's not so easy to see these things in myself.  And there's something very, very wrong with that.

I know that God created me to be a woman, and he knew that I would have Endometriosis.  And I know that he wants me to live my life fully me - a beautiful woman.  So I have to believe that he has his own perfect definition of what it means to be a woman, and that it is completely different from my own.  I'd like to one day have the same definition as he does.

I don't have answers today.  Just questions.  I take comfort in the fact that at least now I am asking the questions.  This means that I'm at least challenging the status quo that I've just allowed to inform my life until now.  At least it means that I'm no longer a slave to our culture and our media.  Well, I'm still a slave, but at least I'm questioning the ok-ness of said slavery.

And that's a start.  Baby steps.  We've gotta celebrate the small victories.

Dear Adolescent Ginger

I was organizing a hall closet the other day (it's part of my "nesting" as I prepare for Timon to come - I did the same thing before Douglas was born).  I found a box of old pictures and took a trip down memory lane.  I felt like I was looking at a different person - someone familiar, but not myself.  I recognized that girl, and so many memories came into my mind as I flipped through the pictures - both good and painful ones.

I was a super emotional kid.  I think all kids who are artists at heart are extra emotional - the ones who are touched by nature, love music and photography and writing and literature and poetry...you know the ones.  I think these kids have something beautiful because they are able to see the world in a way that the more right-brained people of the world can't quite see it.  And they see more of the beauty because of that.  They also feel the pain more intensely, I think.  I am one of these people.  All teenage girls are dramatic and angst-ridden, but I seemed to fare a little worse than some at times.

Don't get me wrong - I have so many amazing memories from those years...times of so much laughter and excitement and fun.  But underneath it all there was this ache.  And much of it was the ache that is common to all teenagers - the ache to belong, to be loved, to be valued, to be special.  I cringe at the thought of our kids reaching adolescence because I can't stand the thought of them struggling with not loving themselves.  Or the thought of them feeling all alone or "less" or "not enough."

Looking at pictures from highschool got me thinking.  I wish I could have just known then what I know now.  What fun I would have had!  How much freer I would have been!  Like many (though not all) teens, I wasn't very good at taking long-term consequences seriously.  I literally remember thinking, "I know tanning beds are probably bad for me and I'll probably look like hell when I'm older, but I don't care.  I want to feel pretty right now and I'm willing to sacrifice the future for this right now."  This is where parents come in - to try to provide some long-term perspective to the madness of a child who's unable to live anywhere but right here, right now.  My parents tried - they did.  But you can only do so much.

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If I could go back in time, this is what I would tell Adolescent Ginger:

PUT THE MASCARA DOWN, Sister-Friend! You are beautiful. You don't need 17 layers of that crap on your lashes to look hot. Go to the grocery store without makeup. Stop hiding. Let yourself be comfortable in your own (beautiful) skin.  What are you so afraid of?

Get out of the tanning bed. Seriously. Get out now, take off your little heart-shaped sticker, and run like hell away from there. It is a lie that those things are good for you. They make you look nice and tan now, which I know you love, but trust me on this one - I know you're incapable right now of having a longer term perspective and you just want to feel pretty NOW, TODAY - but please trust me that this is not a good way to be spending your time.  And you will be kicking yourself over and over again in 10 years when the dermatologist visits begin.  And, with them, words like "Superficial Basal Cell Carcinoma" and "biopsy" and "scar."  Run.  Now.

Stop worrying about how thin you are.  If you had a crystal ball and could see into the future you would see that only when you stopped obsessing with how you looked and how thin you were would you become (naturally, as if by accident) a weight that you are - most days - happy with and feel good about.  Food is not your enemy.  Diet Pills are not your friend.  You are not fat.  Stop obsessing because obsessing over not eating just makes you oober hungry all the time.  Be healthy - yes.  Work out - yes.  But do it for yourself - so that you feel good, not so that you can fit into a certain size or impress a certain someone.  Food is fuel - it is not something to be feared or controlled or mastered.  Respect it and use it to give you life and health and energy.

Do yoga.  It will help you to get comfortable in your own skin.  It will teach you that your body is strong and powerful and capable and beautiful, and it is yours - respect it.  It will help you to feel your feet grounded into the earth when you feel like you're endlessly floating.  It will teach you to love yourself which, let's face it, you're horrible at right now.  Don't feel bad about it, though, you're learning - always learning.

You are lovely and funny and beautiful and special.  And it doesn't matter what other people think of you.  You won't even know the vast majority of these people in 5 years, 10 years.  They are all afraid, too.  Everyone around you is afraid of being found out.  So they are all living in a perpetual state of insecurity, just trying to manage to not be the one who everyone's pointing at while they laugh, trying to make someone else feel out so that they can feel in.

It doesn't matter which guy likes you and which doesn't, because these guys have no idea who they are anyway.  They're just babies.  They don't know how to love anyone else yet.  They'll probably learn someday, but not anytime soon, girlfriend, so don't waste your time pining.  Just live free.  Have fun.  Know that your worth has absolutely NOTHING to do with these guys' impressions of you.  Stop looking to them to find something that they can't ever give to you.  You are beautiful and you are significant and worthwhile and loved.

Now go dance!!  Be whoever you want to be right now.  Be YOU.  Because, let's face it, you are a total ROCKSTAR and somewhere deep, deep down in there you know this.

You're doing great.  And I know you won't really believe me, but it's true - you won't always feel this way.

So much love to you, you little Rockstar, you!

Love,

30-year-old Ginger (I know, you can't BELIEVE you're going to be that old one day!)

Camping

We took Douglas camping over the weekend, and lemme just say - it was COLD!  We went for it, though.  Not because we're brave - but because the weatherman (who turns out to be a pathological liar) kept stringing us along with promises of the crazy Kansas winds dying down by 5 p.m.  Oh, wait, make that 9 p.m.  Oh, you know what?  The will NEVER. DIE. DOWN!  Ever.

So, there we were, 6 adults and 3 little munchkin boys in 25-30 mile-per-hour winds and 40 degree temperatures (that felt like a million below zero) trying to make a go at camping.  Which meant laying awake all night just hoping our tent wouldn't blow away and feeling sorry for Douglas who kept waking up to the ridiculously loud sounds of our tent flappin' in the "breeze."  The corner stake kept coming loose, so at one point I woke up to see the tent attacking Micah in the face.  Silliness, really.

Our friends tied their tent to their car which turned out to be genius - only in Kansas do you see such things.

The only (sortof) respite from the wind came when we were either in the tent where the sound was deafening but at least you couldn't feel it as much or when we were huddled under the awning (high class) of our friends' tent.  This is where Douglas ate dinner. 

I was worried about his ears with all the wind, so I traded out his oober cute brim hat (thanks, Grammy!) for this truly ridiculous number that is way too small for him (as evidenced by the indentation on his forehead from the seam).  He handled it with as much dignity as he could.  Hey - desperate times, baby.

Look at him trying to take himself seriously.

I was so happy to have a warm fire that it literally took me until morning to notice that our fire was basically in a trash can!  (There's a ban on open fires right now).

Trying to warm up my feet

Thankfully, we were with people who are great at having a good attitude and just rolling with the punches.  So, in spite of the cold and wind, we managed to have a great time roasting marshmallows and eating hot dogs for dinner and pancakes and bacon and coffee for breakfast by the fire. 

We drank some wine, told stories, and made lots of fun memories.

We even got to see a gorgeous sunset through the trees.

And there was the requisite Sleeping Bag Wrestling sesh between Douglas and Micah first thing in the morning.

And, yes, those are reindeer pjs he's wearing - they're the warmest things he has, alright?!  The greatest part is that they have antlers sticking off of his little footie feet, so he walked around the campsite with the antlers sticking out of his shoes.  Dignified, I tell you.  (Thanks, Tia Beana!  Happy Birthday!!) 

Douglas was a big helper, of course.

And as always he LOVED playing with cousins.

So May 2011's Super Cold Wind Tunnel Trash Can Fire Camping Trip was totally a success - not that I would turn my nose up at Summer 2011's Warm But Not Too Hot NO WIND Non-Trash Can Fire Camping Trip...just lettin' it be known. 

All that camping fun wore the DougMan right out.  Until next time, Trash Can Fire Pit!

"Clean 15" and the "Dirty Dozen"

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) did a study that came out last year.  They tested 50 different fruits and vegetables for their levels of pesticide contamination.  From that study came EWG's two lists - the "Clean 15" list with the 15 fruits/veggies that are least contaminated and, therefore, not as important to buy organic - and the "Dirty Dozen" - the 12 most contaminated fruits/veggies...if you can only eat organically some of the time, these are the foods to make sure to choose organic over conventionally grown.

So here are the two lists.  Many of you already know about them, but for those who don't - voila!  Get to know them.  Print them out.  Have them in your wallet or purse for grocery store runs.  

And keep in mind that, although the Clean 15 list tells you what foods are least  harmful conventionally, that just means that the pesticides don't easily leech into the part of the fruit/veggie that you're eating - it doesn't mean that the farmers aren't using large amounts of pesticides (which is bad for the groundwater and the planet).  Clean 15 just means a lesser evil.  But for those of us who aren't going 100% organic in the produce section right now, it gives a direction and a focus.  And in the (sometimes overwhelming) world of Green, I say "YAY!" to that.  And, if buying anything organic feels out of your price range right now, then the Clean 15 can be your Happy Place.  Eat things on this list as much as possible and things from the Dirty Dozen list as little as possible.

"Clean 15"

• Onions
• Avocados
• Sweet Corn
• Pineapples
• Mangoes
• Sweet Peas
• Asparagus
• Kiwi
• Cabbage
• Eggplant
• Cantaloupe (Domestic)
• Watermelon
• Grapefruit
• Sweet Potatoes
• Honeydew Melon

Click here for more information on the "Clean 15"

"Dirty Dozen"

• Celery
• Peaches
• Strawberries
• Apples
• Blueberries (Domestic)
• Nectarines
• Sweet Bell Peppers
• Spinach
• Collard Greens/Kale
• Cherries
• Potatoes
• Grapes (Imported)

Click here for more information on the "Dirty Dozen."

AND, click here if you want to read EWG's "Everyday Pollution Solutions" - a list of 11 ways to Go Green.

Comfort Zones Are For Outgrowing

It feels scary to step out of my comfort zone in life.  God has been gently inviting me to do so for years.  Naming our child Timon is way out of my comfort zone.  We are entering into the unknown territory of raising a multi-racial family - also out of my comfort zone.

Last fall, several months before starting the second adoption process, in more of God's amazing, mysterious ways, he made it clear that our second child was meant to have a different skin color than ours.  I used to be very afraid of this because of my own fears of inadequacy.  Am I big enough for this?  Strong enough?  Our family will be a "conspicuous family," stared at by many, judged (positively or negatively) by others.  Will we have what it takes to help our child navigate the confusing, tumultuous waters of building a sense of self in a color-conscious world?

Now I'm not so afraid.  God took me through months of naming these fears and, eventually, letting many of them go.  This doesn't mean that I won't have many more moments of thinking "this is too big for me."  But somehow now I am more able to trust that I don't have to be big enough.  I don't have to know how to do it "right."  Just like God knew Timon before he was even conceived, he has also known me and Micah since the beginning of time, and he will give us what we need.  Because he loves Timon more than any of us could imagine loving someone.  And he wants nothing more than for him to live a life fully alive, fully himself - both black and white.

As scary as stepping outside of my comfort zone may be, it feels so very safe here - in the center of God's will for our lives - exactly where we most want to be...even if it involves letting go of our own plans sometimes.  Life is full of these opportunities to let go of our own expectations and open ourselves to that which is MORE.  This precious experience has been one of many in which Adoption has revealed this truth to me and Micah.  I love it.  My heart races just thinking of it.

But you know I kick and scream at first when I'm being asked to leave that soft, cozy, BORING comfort zone of mine.  It's not easy for a control freak to let go, people!

Thankfully - mercifully - God knows me and knows what I need and, as Cheryl said to me, "He is ever so tender with our weakness."  So he gives me my second sign - because I'm little and he knows it and he is big and he loves me - littleness and all.

And I love him right back.

"Mohn" David, Part 2 of 2

Later during our stay with our friends, a song called "Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)" by Amy Grant came on from one of their mixes (I put it on my playlist here - it's song 74).  I've loved that song on a deep level for as long as I can remember.  I have memories of laying on the living room floor in middle school, blasting it and singing at the top of my lungs...over and over.  (You're welcome, Mom and Dad!). 

I told Cheryl how the words "Do you wonder, as you watch my face, if a wiser one should have had my place" have always resonated with me...as have many other parts of that song.  The feeling of inadequacy - of being called to do something that feels way too big, way beyond you - really resonates with me.  Cheryl said that reminds her of a time when David (from the Bible) was so blessed by God, and he said "Who am I, O Lord God...that you have brought me this far?"  Not only was he blessed, but much was asked of him - the little brother, the shepherd who becomes a king.

Driving home, I was listening to Breath of Heaven and thinking of Mary and David - and about how God so oftentimes uses the least of these, when suddenly I started crying with the awareness that David is Timon's middle name.  It just hit me.  I wasn't thinking of Timon or of middle names - my mind was as far as possible from those things.  But tears just filled my eyes as I knew.

Timon David.

Timon's first lovie thanks to Aunt Heather, Uncle Buck, and Cousins!!

I am so grateful to the Father for the way that he continues to create a beautiful and lovely story for Timon - something that will remind him of the truth that God has always loved him and has a wonderful plan for him and never ever left him.  And about how he knew him even before he was conceived, even before he was born - and He knew whose belly he would be in and who would raise him...and that none of this was an accident.

We're crazy excited to meet little Timon!  (So are cousins and big brother).  Douglas calls him "Mohn."

Come join us, Timon David!

"Mohn", Part 1 of 2

I had a dream about a month ago.  I'm an on-and-off dreamer, and I oftentimes don't remember my dreams.  This one is forever etched into my memory.

I was teaching a yoga class, and in walked our baby boy.  He was young, maybe three months old, but he walked and talked (totally normal in Ginger's Dream World).  I knew he was our baby when I saw him - not as some "Aha!" moment - I just knew.  He told me his name was Timon and he wanted to take my class.  I told him I'm not allowed to let kids under 12 take my classes (sorry, kiddo!  SUCH a good, rule-abiding employee, even in my dreams!) but that he could sit and watch.  I was super distracted the whole class, and I remember feeling guilty that I wasn't doing a very good job teaching because of that.  At the end, we couldn't find Timon.  I wasn't panicked or worried, but we were all looking for him.  I knew that the reason he was gone was that it had been his spirit that was there before.  The yoga room now looked like a mixture of yoga room and day care with cribs around the perimeter.  Eventually, the students left.  Micah and I were looking around, and I (knowingly) pulled a zip-loc baggie out from under one of the beds.  In the bag were all of the pieces of a puzzle that had been taken apart.  The bag was zipped and I had written in Sharpie (as I often do on bags) "Timon."  Micah casually asked why I'd put him (the puzzle version) under the bed.

That was the end of the dream.  No doubt lots to analyze there, but I woke up thinking, "Wow!  Timon (Tih - like Tip - MOHN)."  A few hours later, more awake, I was thinking about the dream and I remembered (much to my dismay) that in Lion King - which I haven't seen since around the time it came out many years ago - there is a character with that name.  I told God that this was asking a lot, so if it was really something he was asking us to do, I needed him to make it clear by giving me another sign.  (I can be kindof demanding sometimes).  If Micah and I were choosing, we would have chosen a name that has meaning to us but that isn't super different or quirky - kids have enough to deal with - and our last name is challenging enough! :) 

A couple of weeks before this dream, I emailed my friend Cheryl about another dream (about her), and she had encouraged me to keep a Dream Journal, saying that it is a gift to be in touch with my subconscious that way.  I haven't started a Dream Journal yet, but her encouragement caused me to take my dreams and my subconscious more seriously, to be more open to listening.  Micah and I had a trip planned to see Cheryl and her husband Steve last weekend, so I was super excited to tell her about this - the craziest and most real/memorable dream I've ever had.

On the way out to CO to see them, Micah and I prayed that if God had a name for our son, he would tell us - we said that we wanted to be as open as possible to whatever he had for us.

The next day, sitting at their kitchen table, I told Cheryl and Steve about the dream.  Instantly, Cheryl said some version of, "Wow!  That's clearly from the Lord!"  I questioned her, asking what made her feel that way or if she thinks that anytime someone has a "name" dream about their child, that means it's from the Father.  She said no, but that as she heard me speaking it very much felt clear to her that God was speaking to me through this dream.  Micah, in those moments, also felt a clear sense for the first time that our baby boy's name is Timon.

We googled Timon (because what else is there to do?!).  I had googled it a couple of days after having the dream and saw that it is Greek, and it means "honor" or "honoring God."  The classic Greek pronunciation is different, but we're sticking with what was in the dream.  While doing our little search, we saw something that I hadn't noticed before...a Bible verse reference.

Acts 6:3-6

The Twelve disciples gathered the other disciples together and told them

"Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom...They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas...They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them."

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I had a dream where our child told me his name - a name that I never in my wildest dreams (no pun intended) would have come up with - and it turns out that that name a) means honoring God and b) is in the Bible (in a very subtle way - not one person I've told this to remembers reading that name - it just blends in with all the Procorus' and Nicanors) as the name of a man who is full of the Spirit and wisdom.  These are the two things that I would most desire for all of our children.  Wow.

Only later did I realize that, through Cheryl, God had given me the 2nd sign that I asked for, using someone who I respect and trust and who has spoken much truth into my life for many years.

That night, I said to Micah, "Now all we need is a middle name!"

To Be Continued...

Time Out, Schmime Out

Douglas doesn't "get" Time Out.  He really doesn't.  He has no idea what it's about or why it's happening or what it's supposed to accomplish.

We started using Time Out a few weeks ago, and it is hilarious (/infuriating) to see how clueless he is about the whole thing.

First, I sat him on a chair in the dining room.  He couldn't have loved it any more than he did!  He never gets to play in there, nor had he ever sat on the nice dining room chairs, so he was scratching at the fabric and having a grand ol' time.  He spent the rest of the afternoon saying "Chair!  Chair!" because he wanted to relive that awesome experience he'd just had.  Clearly the dining room is not going to be a good long-term Time Out option.

So then I started putting him on the stairs instead.  Slight improvement - and I mean slight.  He finds a million things to do.  Play with the banister.  Drum on his knees.  Play with the tiny hole at the bottom of the banister where the baby gate attaches.  Endless fun.

The first time I put him in Time Out there, I could barely contain my laughter as he found any way to entertain himself and, thus, avoid giving me the satisfaction of knowing that he was learning his lesson.  I somehow want him to show displeasure so that I'm certain he "gets" it.  No such luck.

I know what you're thinking - "Well, Ginger, maybe your taking pictures of him in Time Out might have something to do with why he's hammin' it up and thinks it's a fun game!"  But, rest assured, this is the only time I've taken pictures of him in Time Out.  It was just too hilarious to miss!

Oh well.  It's the effort that counts, right?  Maybe someday he'll figure out what the heck Time Out is for and it will actually be beneficial.  I have no doubt before long he'll be weeping in Time Out, and then we'll have a whole other problem on our hands.

Parenthood cracks me up. It's all just one big experiment...trial and error until you find the things that work for your family and your children in any given situation. And you just hope and pray the whole time that somehow they will end up as loving, caring, responsible adults who contribute to society in positive ways.

I'll admit I'm a little biased, but I think Douglas is off to an excellent start...even though he thinks Time Out is ridiculous.