Tiring week

This week has been tiring. On Monday, I turned 36 years old. In general, I feel that birthdays are over-rated and this year was no different. Emmelia did make me a cute card while she was at daycare and that was sweet. Actually, 36 seems... not OLD, per se.... just middle aged. I find myself in the midst of a mini-midlife crisis. This age seems like it's suddenly too late to think of going back to medical school and pursuing my real dreams. I have a career. It's a good career and something I'm good at, but it's not the career I really wanted. I'm struggling to come to terms with that. And maybe in another 10 years I'll feel completely differently about the medical school thing - who knows?

On Tuesday I finally got the results from the MRI I had done back in December. The radiologist confirmed that there is adenomyosis in my uterine tissue. So, on the good side, we have a conclusive reason why I've been having such horrible abdominal pain over the past year and a half. On the other hand, the only treatment for adenomyosis is a hysterectomy. Add that in to the midlife crisis and you get a week that has me thinking too much about life. I always wanted to have a third child, but we hadn't decided yet if we were definitely going to have one or not. We were kind of waiting for the Deac to get healthy again and had planned to re-evaluate on Maura's 3rd birthday (April 2nd of this year). But, now God seems to be deciding for us. I am grateful for the two miracles we have, especially because seven years ago, we didn't think we could have any kids. But I guess I was also hoping for more than 6 years of total fertility in my life. As a friend put it, it's hard to move from "I'd like to have another one, but probably won't" to "I definitely can't have another one." Plus, losing a uterus seems like losing something quintessentially defining about being a woman. I know that's silly. By next week, when I talk to the doctor about scheduling this thing, I hope I'll be past most of these thought-humps.

Speaking of humps, we decided the kids need a little help getting over the hump of not wanting to go to sleep at night. Last week I bought a couple of glass jars and some marbles. The kids can earn marbles by doing things like make their beds, go to sleep without getting back up, practicing violin, etc. So far it seems to be going well. It's not the most positive method out there (most practitioners of positive discipline hate the very idea of external rewards/motivators), but I view it as a short-term solution anyway. That should help us get a little more sleep one of these days. Or, at least have evenings again.

Today is the feast of the Meeting of our Lord in the Temple. In Jewish tradition, mothers would bring their babies to the Temple after 40 days (for a boy) or 80 days (for a girl) following the birth. They would present their baby to God along with an offering and become "clean" ritually so that they were able to participate in worship with the community once again. The Orthodox church also has a tradition of the mother staying home with her baby for 40 days (we don't do the difference by gender thing) and then bringing the child to church. In the west, the prayer said by the priest became known as the "churching of women" - they are welcomed back into full church life at that point. I absolutely loved this tradition and practiced it with both girls. It was nice to have those first 40 days to bond, get breastfeeding established, and let their little immune systems get strong before we went into the world. And that time will never come again, so I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it. But today I need to get to thinking about how I'll cover this feast with the kids at Church School on Sunday!

In the meantime, here is a link to an EXCELLENT article on nutrition that was written this week. It is long, but well worth the read.

I'm working on setting up a Photobucket slideshow of the Brag Book layouts I made for my Mom so that I can share them. When I figure it out, I'll post it here.