Sept12

September 12, 2001

Week 17

So much has happened in the last couple weeks, but suddenly everything has been eclipsed by yesterday's events. Yesterday morning, I was just settling into work after an 8:30 meeting, when Nan called me and said two planes had just hit the World Trade Center towers in an apparent terrorist attack on the United States. I tried to look up the information on ANY news website, but every site I went to was so busy with traffic that I couldn't get any information at all. So I sat on the phone with Nan for about a half hour, listening to the news as it unfolded. No one in the office around me knew anything was going on, but eventually some co-workers started picking up on things I was saying to Nan. One person told me that there was a television in the workout room, so I quickly hung up with Nan and turned on the TV in that room. Before two minutes had passed, many people had congregated with me in the room to watch the horrible scene. Just before the second tower collapsed, an announcement came over our loudspeaker that the company was shutting down for the day so that we could go home and be with our families and watch the events. I am relieved that, at least at this point, I do not know anyone personally who has been killed or hurt by this, but I still grieve very deeply for the potentially thousands of souls who slipped into eternity yesterday and away from God forever; I even grieve for the souls of the terrorists. Now, a day later, it looks like this was the act of a group of followers of Osama bin Laden's, a militant Islamic terrorist who has delighted in targeting Americans for quite some time now. One of the latest things I have read said that bin Laden was quoted by a Palestinian news agency saying that when he heard about the attacks, he "thanked Almightly Allah and bowed down and worshiped him." It shouldn't be surprising to me the amount of evil of mankind, because we see it in different ways all of the time, but something like this makes me realize how truly sick it is that Satan has so convinced these people that the way for them to receive eternal salvation is through destruction and murder. Sometimes people talk about how jealous they are of the devotion of some people to their religions, but we need to remember that it is because every religion on this earth, except for a true relationship with the living God and Creator of everything, expects its followers to perform acts and works to earn their salvation. It is a shame that Christianity, in which salvation is through faith in Christ alone and not in anything we can do, can be looked on with such apathy by its own followers, people who think that since God doesn't require anything of them for their salvation then they don't have to DO anything about their beliefs. I am just praying that in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy, that the one good that will come of it is that Christians will wake up from their deep slumber and realize that we don't have much time left. Even if Christ doesn't return for ten generations or more, our lives are so short and we aren't guaranteed to live a single hour or day more. So many people waste their lives, thinking it's not their responsibility to reach others, or even those who think that they can live the way they want and not have to worry about eternity because they have plenty of time to "figure it all out". At this time of incredible sorrow for our country, I know that as Americans always do, we will pull together and get through this, but right now the issue of eternity is on the minds of so many who never even thought twice about it 48 hours ago. I just pray that as my baby gets older, that this time can be looked back on as a horrifying event that woke up the "sleeping giant" known as the Church, the body of Christ. Little baby of mine that is still growing inside of me, right now I can protect you completely because you go where I go, but soon you will start the process of growing toward independence. I pray for God's wisdom in teaching you all about Him and the love of Christ, and helping you to realize that every single day and every single soul on this earth is precious to God, including yours. I pray that you don't waste your teenage years like I did, but that you use that time to find out exactly who you are in Christ and blossom into the person God wants you to be! I hope to be a good mommy to you and teach you all about the true and living God, so that when you are old enough you will begin to trust in Him for yourself and as your grow older you grow in the perfect wisdom of God and not rely on just what "feels good". I will try to protect you from strangers and from cars and from the things that might scare you. Of everything I will ever do as your mommy, nothing will be more important than the job of teaching you to follow Christ, but I can't take you to Heaven with me. That will be your decision alone. Your daddy and I know that we will be spending eternity in heaven with Christ, and even now before you are born I pray every day that you will be there with us. Even though I haven't even seen you yet, you are very much already a part of our lives and I can't imagine spending all of eternity without you with us. Eternity is so much longer than these short lives we live here on earth!

I did have my 17-week checkup yesterday afternoon; despite all the stuff happening all around us, life goes on and so do doctor's appointments! I've still only gained three pounds (four pounds now total), but everything went well. They listened to the heartbeat twice, the first time, the nurse did it and the heartbeat was around 160 or so. Then Dr. Teague came in to listen to the heartbeat, but by then, the baby was dancing all around so much that she had trouble finding the heartbeat; she had to *push* my tummy this way and that (which did NOT feel good!!), and it also gave me a few seconds of "worry" about not hearing it. Finally she got the baby into one place and we heard it, and this time it was up to about 180! I think the baby must have been irritated that we were pushing him -or her!- all around, so the heartrate jumped up! :-) Lately I've started having lots of questions and concerns about labor, procedures, and where I'm going to have the baby. I asked a lot of questions this time because so many things have been on my mind. One of my biggest concerns was that I do NOT want an episiotomy unless it is absolutely necessary, because everything I've read says that even natural tears heal faster and easier than a surgical cut, which is the opposite of what used to be thought, so I wanted to know where Dr. Teague stood on it. She said that a lot of older doctors still do episiotomy routinely because they don't keep up on the latest studies, but she said she does them very rarely anymore. That made me very happy, because that was really the one part of labor that I was most scared about.. I also asked about epidurals and scoliosis, because I had read somewhere that they aren't recommended for people like me with scoliosis. Dr. Teague said it's possible that I could get an epidural, but there's no way of knowing for sure until you actually get in there to try it, because depending on the curvature (mine is pretty bad, about 30%) they might not be able to get it in the right place. But at least now I know that the option MIGHT be there, even though I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to try drug-free or not. Some of that might depend upon whether or not I get a room with a tub that I can use for labor. I've found with my hot tub at home that sometimes my back pain is so incredibly intense, and nothing takes it away except for soaking in the warm water and letting the jets go against my back. Hopefully I'll be able to get a room with a tub, but St. Ann's only has one room with a tub so I don't know if that will happen or not. Phil and I had a tour of St. Ann's on Sunday afternoon. They had a nice maternity floor, but it wasn't that great. They are expanding their facility right now, so by 2003 the maternity area is going to be really top of the line, but as for now it's not spectacular. Besides only having one labor room with a tub that you can use for pain relief, the postnatal recovery rooms are really tiny; there isn't even room for a fold-out bed for Phil, he'll have to sleep on a reclining chair if he stays the night with me. Dr. Teague also goes to Mount Carmel East and to Grant, so we'll have to be checking those out soon. From what I've heard, East is not any better than St. Ann's because you have to share a room with another patient. I haven't heard anything at all about Grant, all I know about that hospital was that it was where Mom had her cancer surgery, and where I was held up by gunpoint in the parking lot when I was trying to get my car out one of those nights when I left the hospital at midnight! Not good memories! We'll still take a tour though, I want to make sure I have the best hospital that I can use. My next doctor appointment is October 8, when we will have our next ultrasound! So I'm hoping that our baby isn't going to be shy and cover up all the relevant parts!

One more thing that I wanted to mention, that I almost forgot about with all the things happening in the last couple of days: about a week ago I had my first really vivid, and FUNNY, labor dream, so I wanted to make sure I wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget with the passage of time. Phil and I have the inkling that the baby is going to be a boy, not for any particular reason but we just have that feeling (we could be wrong, hopefully we'll find out in four weeks!) Because there haven't been any boys born in my family for a long time, no one believes me. Well, in this dream last night I was going into the hospital at the start of labor, and I had told the nurses "it will be a boy, his name is Nathan." Well, as it turned out, I had TWIN GIRLS, and I didn't even know I was having twins when I went into labor! The worst part was I was so panicked because I suddenly realized we'd never picked out a girl's name, let alone two!! Another part of the dream obviously reflected something else on my mind lately, which is that I really HATE hospitals (I have ever since Nan was hit by a car, when we were in St. Ann's this weekend the smell of the place was awful, it just brings back those memories) so I'm not really looking forward to going to a hospital anyway. In the dream I got to the hospital and the nurses showed me to a little triangle-shaped, closet-sized room, and then NO one else came around for the rest of the time, it was just Phil and I, no doctors or anything for the whole delivery; we were very mad that they had completely forgotten about us! :-) The last odd part of the dream was that the first baby (of the two twin girls!) just suddenly appeared in my arms (though some assembly was required, it seemed perfectly natural in the dream that I had to pop on the head just like a Barbie doll!!), but then the dream had ended before I even went into labor with the second baby. A friend of mine at church said that's probably pretty normal, because after all I've never been through labor so I don't really have any idea what it is like, so I can't really dream about it! Good point!

I'll finally end this journal entry now by saying we need to pray for this country and the entire world at this time, and I hope that someday as I read back over this day's journal that I won't have forgotten about how important it is to pray for our leadership and the people of the world. These are dark days for our country, but there is always hope and love and hope will prevail over the evil and hate in this world I know, I've read the end of the book!



	September 12, 2001 Week 17 So much has happened in the last couple weeks, but suddenly everything has been eclipsed by yesterday's events. Yesterday morning, I was just settling into work after an 8:30 meeting, when Nan called me and said two planes had just hit the World Trade Center towers in an apparent terrorist attack on the United States. I tried to look up the information on ANY news website, but every site I went to was so busy with traffic that I couldn't get any information at all. So I sat on the phone with Nan for about a half hour, listening to the news as it unfolded. No one in the office around me knew anything was going on, but eventually some co-workers started picking up on things I was saying to Nan. One person told me that there was a television in the workout room, so I quickly hung up with Nan and turned on the TV in that room. Before two minutes had passed, many people had congregated with me in the room to watch the horrible scene. Just before the second tower collapsed, an announcement came over our loudspeaker that the company was shutting down for the day so that we could go home and be with our families and watch the events. I am relieved that, at least at this point, I do not know anyone personally who has been killed or hurt by this, but I still grieve very deeply for the potentially thousands of souls who slipped into eternity yesterday and away from God forever; I even grieve for the souls of the terrorists. Now, a day later, it looks like this was the act of a group of followers of Osama bin Laden's, a militant Islamic terrorist who has delighted in targeting Americans for quite some time now. One of the latest things I have read said that bin Laden was quoted by a Palestinian news agency saying that when he heard about the attacks, he "thanked Almightly Allah and bowed down and worshiped him." It shouldn't be surprising to me the amount of evil of mankind, because we see it in different ways all of the time, but something like this makes me realize how truly sick it is that Satan has so convinced these people that the way for them to receive eternal salvation is through destruction and murder. Sometimes people talk about how jealous they are of the devotion of some people to their religions, but we need to remember that it is because every religion on this earth, except for a true relationship with the living God and Creator of everything, expects its followers to perform acts and works to earn their salvation. It is a shame that Christianity, in which salvation is through faith in Christ alone and not in anything we can do, can be looked on with such apathy by its own followers, people who think that since God doesn't require anything of them for their salvation then they don't have to DO anything about their beliefs. I am just praying that in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy, that the one good that will come of it is that Christians will wake up from their deep slumber and realize that we don't have much time left. Even if Christ doesn't return for ten generations or more, our lives are so short and we aren't guaranteed to live a single hour or day more. So many people waste their lives, thinking it's not their responsibility to reach others, or even those who think that they can live the way they want and not have to worry about eternity because they have plenty of time to "figure it all out". At this time of incredible sorrow for our country, I know that as Americans always do, we will pull together and get through this, but right now the issue of eternity is on the minds of so many who never even thought twice about it 48 hours ago. I just pray that as my baby gets older, that this time can be looked back on as a horrifying event that woke up the "sleeping giant" known as the Church, the body of Christ. Little baby of mine that is still growing inside of me, right now I can protect you completely because you go where I go, but soon you will start the process of growing toward independence. I pray for God's wisdom in teaching you all about Him and the love of Christ, and helping you to realize that every single day and every single soul on this earth is precious to God, including yours. I pray that you don't waste your teenage years like I did, but that you use that time to find out exactly who you are in Christ and blossom into the person God wants you to be! I hope to be a good mommy to you and teach you all about the true and living God, so that when you are old enough you will begin to trust in Him for yourself and as your grow older you grow in the perfect wisdom of God and not rely on just what "feels good". I will try to protect you from strangers and from cars and from the things that might scare you. Of everything I will ever do as your mommy, nothing will be more important than the job of teaching you to follow Christ, but I can't take you to Heaven with me. That will be your decision alone. Your daddy and I know that we will be spending eternity in heaven with Christ, and even now before you are born I pray every day that you will be there with us. Even though I haven't even seen you yet, you are very much already a part of our lives and I can't imagine spending all of eternity without you with us. Eternity is so much longer than these short lives we live here on earth! I did have my 17-week checkup yesterday afternoon; despite all the stuff happening all around us, life goes on and so do doctor's appointments! I've still only gained three pounds (four pounds now total), but everything went well. They listened to the heartbeat twice, the first time, the nurse did it and the heartbeat was around 160 or so. Then Dr. Teague came in to listen to the heartbeat, but by then, the baby was dancing all around so much that she had trouble finding the heartbeat; she had to push my tummy this way and that (which did NOT feel good!!), and it also gave me a few seconds of "worry" about not hearing it. Finally she got the baby into one place and we heard it, and this time it was up to about 180! I think the baby must have been irritated that we were pushing him -or her!- all around, so the heartrate jumped up! :-) Lately I've started having lots of questions and concerns about labor, procedures, and where I'm going to have the baby. I asked a lot of questions this time because so many things have been on my mind. One of my biggest concerns was that I do NOT want an episiotomy unless it is absolutely necessary, because everything I've read says that even natural tears heal faster and easier than a surgical cut, which is the opposite of what used to be thought, so I wanted to know where Dr. Teague stood on it. She said that a lot of older doctors still do episiotomy routinely because they don't keep up on the latest studies, but she said she does them very rarely anymore. That made me very happy, because that was really the one part of labor that I was most scared about.. I also asked about epidurals and scoliosis, because I had read somewhere that they aren't recommended for people like me with scoliosis. Dr. Teague said it's possible that I could get an epidural, but there's no way of knowing for sure until you actually get in there to try it, because depending on the curvature (mine is pretty bad, about 30%) they might not be able to get it in the right place. But at least now I know that the option MIGHT be there, even though I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to try drug-free or not. Some of that might depend upon whether or not I get a room with a tub that I can use for labor. I've found with my hot tub at home that sometimes my back pain is so incredibly intense, and nothing takes it away except for soaking in the warm water and letting the jets go against my back. Hopefully I'll be able to get a room with a tub, but St. Ann's only has one room with a tub so I don't know if that will happen or not. Phil and I had a tour of St. Ann's on Sunday afternoon. They had a nice maternity floor, but it wasn't that great. They are expanding their facility right now, so by 2003 the maternity area is going to be really top of the line, but as for now it's not spectacular. Besides only having one labor room with a tub that you can use for pain relief, the postnatal recovery rooms are really tiny; there isn't even room for a fold-out bed for Phil, he'll have to sleep on a reclining chair if he stays the night with me. Dr. Teague also goes to Mount Carmel East and to Grant, so we'll have to be checking those out soon. From what I've heard, East is not any better than St. Ann's because you have to share a room with another patient. I haven't heard anything at all about Grant, all I know about that hospital was that it was where Mom had her cancer surgery, and where I was held up by gunpoint in the parking lot when I was trying to get my car out one of those nights when I left the hospital at midnight! Not good memories! We'll still take a tour though, I want to make sure I have the best hospital that I can use. My next doctor appointment is October 8, when we will have our next ultrasound! So I'm hoping that our baby isn't going to be shy and cover up all the relevant parts! One more thing that I wanted to mention, that I almost forgot about with all the things happening in the last couple of days: about a week ago I had my first really vivid, and FUNNY, labor dream, so I wanted to make sure I wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget with the passage of time. Phil and I have the inkling that the baby is going to be a boy, not for any particular reason but we just have that feeling (we could be wrong, hopefully we'll find out in four weeks!) Because there haven't been any boys born in my family for a long time, no one believes me. Well, in this dream last night I was going into the hospital at the start of labor, and I had told the nurses "it will be a boy, his name is Nathan." Well, as it turned out, I had TWIN GIRLS, and I didn't even know I was having twins when I went into labor! The worst part was I was so panicked because I suddenly realized we'd never picked out a girl's name, let alone two!! Another part of the dream obviously reflected something else on my mind lately, which is that I really HATE hospitals (I have ever since Nan was hit by a car, when we were in St. Ann's this weekend the smell of the place was awful, it just brings back those memories) so I'm not really looking forward to going to a hospital anyway. In the dream I got to the hospital and the nurses showed me to a little triangle-shaped, closet-sized room, and then NO one else came around for the rest of the time, it was just Phil and I, no doctors or anything for the whole delivery; we were very mad that they had completely forgotten about us! :-) The last odd part of the dream was that the first baby (of the two twin girls!) just suddenly appeared in my arms (though some assembly was required, it seemed perfectly natural in the dream that I had to pop on the head just like a Barbie doll!!), but then the dream had ended before I even went into labor with the second baby. A friend of mine at church said that's probably pretty normal, because after all I've never been through labor so I don't really have any idea what it is like, so I can't really dream about it! Good point! I'll finally end this journal entry now by saying we need to pray for this country and the entire world at this time, and I hope that someday as I read back over this day's journal that I won't have forgotten about how important it is to pray for our leadership and the people of the world. These are dark days for our country, but there is always hope and love and hope will prevail over the evil and hate in this world I know, I've read the end of the book!