Gratitude

I am feeling much gratitude today as I reflect on the day yesterday. It was a great Sabbath day. Clark and I had to speak in sacrament, so that definitely helped me stay more focused and prepare for church. I talked about miracles and Clark talked about Christ healing us. We then taught the youth Sunday school class about temple ordinances. I won't talk about relief society, because I still find it more comical than spiritual :) but I finally feel more welcome there. I at least recognize people and we are meeting more people, so that helps. There were many kind words said to Clark and I about our talks and how grateful people were for them and happy for us to be in the ward. I heard many times that we were prayed into the ward. I had a chance to speak to the lady who plays the organ, I have the time, I need to learn, so she is going to show me a few things. I downloaded a podcast from byu on learning the organ as well. Overall, I think we will fit in, I just need to have patience.

The men's USA soccer team won the gold cup yesterday against Panama.

I got to speak to a few family members via google chat yesterday, which is always fun.

Connor only woke up once last night!!! Pics below are of him, he brings a lot of joy in my life and I love him and am grateful for him everyday.

Attitash mountain

A few weeks ago we went to an amusement park called Attitash. The facility was located in New Hampshire. It was beautiful. There was lots of fun things to do. My favorite was the trampoline. There was also a really long alpine slide. Too bad it took 2.5 hours to get there. Connor did pretty good, on the way home He cried for about 20 minutes straight until he fell asleep. A few of Clark's doctor friends came with us as well.

Lawrence Kite Festival

One of Clark's attending dr's invited us over for breakfast on Saturday. He has 2 cute boys and one on the way. Clark told him I have been bored out of my mind and looking for things to do, so he invited us over so I can meet the kids and wife. We had breakfast burritos. The best part was the eggs were from their own chickens! They have 4 chickens in their back yard...seriously crazy, right?! We went in their backyard, and there they were, just chillin in their little cage. This got Clark thinking, he asked LOTS of questions about matenance , he thinks we should own chickens now when we get our own place; I mean fresh eggs everyday...sure hunny, whatever you say. Luckily the whole "own our own place" won't be for a few years, so maybe he'll forget this idea.
After breakfast, we went to the Lawrence kite festival. It was run by an outreach program to tell people about the free lunch program for the kids over the summer. We also got to make out own kits and attempt flying them. It was 99* degrees that day, so I mostly hovered in the shade (which provided little relief) and Clark ran around flying the kite.
There was a Dad and his son there attempting to fly a kite. It was quite comical. The boy was probably about 2 years old and just couldn't quite get the concept of how to fly a kite. He wanted to so badly hold the kite, but when he did, it always died, and then he cried. The Dad would try to tell him he needed to run and would show him, but when he ran away, the kid would just cry to hold the kite. It went round and round for a good while until the Dad finally just got so frustrated, he picked up the kid and went to the car.

Look who we caught laughing!

 

This is the best sound in the world. He's only done it a handful of times though. He has done it WAY more in his sleep.

Fourth of July

The interns (the first year dr residents) and us took a trip to Crain beach (about 45minutes from us). We left pretty early to make sure we get a parking spot, since we were told the lot fills up quickly. It was hot, and we were a little unprepared. First off, I forgot the bag with our swimsuits (so dumb), thus we didn't have towels, sunscreen, swimsuits...you know the basic stuff for the beach. It was so hot for baby Connor. I tried keeping him under the umbrella as much as I could, but he ended up a little sunburnt. Even though the water was freezing, he liked it.

After the beach, we went to the local town party. All the residents are trying really hard to fit into the community and see what it is like so they can relate to their patients. As soon as we got to the hs, where the gathering was happening, a girl said, "well we tried, we better cut our loses and move on." So comical and so true. There wasn't much there and it was really hot. We had the clown make Connor a giraffe. As you can see, he really liked it (mostly he just wanted to eat it).

Church in MA

Church in a well established family ward, is quite different then what Clark and I have been use to the past 3 years in Chicago. We went from one of the older couples, to definitely on the younger side in this ward. There are pluses and minuses to this though, both comical and sad.

Plus Side
We meet in an actual church building and not an elementary school, that has air conditioning (and how badly that is needed on days like today. It was wretchedly humid and hot) 
Since I am really the only one with a kid under the age of 1, I get the mother's room all to myself
Not really for my sake, but for the kids, there are kids their age to be friends with
There are older couples in the ward that crack me up (more about this later)
Church is at 9, thus come fall/winter I will be able to catch most football games :)
There are youth speakers on Sunday, and listening to them is quite a treat

Minus Side
I live in the ghetto part of the ward, so there are not that many people that live close to me (especially not in the same building)
I'm not sure I can contribute like I did in my ward in Chicago. There was a purpose for me to get out of bed on Sundays and make the effort to go to church. It would be real easy here to just disappear (especially since Clark will work 2 Sundays out of the month when he is working weekends)
Yes, it has only been 4 weeks, but finding friends could be difficult, we are definitely in different stages of our lives

Yet despite the differences, I'm still (mostly) being taught the same gospel of Jesus Christ, which is pretty awesome. And Clark and I are officially youth Sunday School teachers, so we can aid in the gospel teaching. We will be teaching the 14-17 year olds. Check it out here, what our topics will be every week. It will be good for me, gentle reminder to study the scriptures everyday and help me hone my skills of teaching and talking in front of groups. For those who are not members of my church, here is why Clark and I voluntarily teach in church and help with the gospel administrating.

Today was our first Sunday teaching, I wouldn't say it was a total disaster, but it was pretty wretched. I am always with the little kids and I love that, youth are not my forte. Clark is WAY excited, I have mixed feelings about it (especially since I will be teaching alone 1/2 the time). It's like pulling teeth to get these kids to respond, hopefully when they get to know us better they will open up a little bit.

I was the star piano player today (another shout out to my momma for helping me stick with the piano playing). I played in sacrament meeting and primary today. I did pretty well until the last song, I completely butchered it and the lady conducting couldn't direct it, so needless to say it was hilarious. I was trying to not make faces while playing, because I was hoping we could pull it together and not make a total train wreck out of it. Primary was much easier and more enjoyable.

I didn't have the opportunity to go to relief society today (meeting for just the woman), which is a little bit of a bummer because all 2 times I have gone, something quite ridiculous and funny have happened. Last week, somehow we got talking about polygamy. The lady teaching (granted she is at least 70 some years old) says...back in the day I wouldn't have wanted to have shared my husband, but now, go for it, if any of you want him, I'll be happy to share him...ummmm that's awkward, and no, no thanks. There were a few more inappropriate things said as well, that I'll refrain from talking about. The other time I got a 10 minute lesson on how gross silk worms are. The same lady teaching the polygamy lesson, looked at the clock, saw she was out of time, and then went on for another 5+ minutes just reading out of the book. This lady rudely said out loud, "you know you are way past time." She ignored her and just kept reading her little book. It was a little tense for a moment. I'm pretty sure no one was listening anymore.

Going home

Time finally came for us to bring Connor home. I was excited to get out of there. Even though I could barely move. I brought two outfits with us. We tried the first one, but couldn't figure out how to put it on, so the robot outfit it was. My mom came into town the day before so she picked us up.  We stopped by Portillo's on the way home to eat a hotdog. That was the first hotdog I had eaten in nine months, it was so tasty :)

Thoughts

So my posts are going to be so random and way out of order according to my life, but whatever.
Today had been a rough day. it begin with Connor crying at 5 a.m., which is not atypical. I usually bring him to bed, feed him, and then halfway sleep while he plays. Clark woke up at seven and took him for the next 40 ish minutes before he had to leave. I then fed him again and we cuddled for about an hour, which was really nice. as I finally decided to get out of bed, I noticed he exploded out of his diaper and on to the sheets. Of course, I just did laundry yesterday.
While I was changing him he puked everywhere, and so the day began. I put him down to eat breakfast but he just kept being fussy and whiney, which is so not him. he then cried pretty much for the next hour or so, and puked again. everytime I put him down he just cried, so I have been holding him all day. My back is killing me.
my plan for the day was to go to Target and grocery shop, then make zucchini bread, but that clearly was not going to happen. I pulled up my computer to try and get some stuff done, but something weird was going on. I kept getting all these errors and nothing was working. I spent the next 3 hours doing updates and downloading and who knows what else but it's still being super lame and I keep getting some weird error message. I was holding Connor this whole time, he slept a little bit but not much.
I got a text from Clark saying he has to do night float orientation, so he'll be home late...awesome. Of course it has to be this day.
At about 3pm I decided I was going to take a bath/soak, I was exhausted. I put him down and went to the bathroom and he just screamed, so my bath turned into his bath :) he loved it. He kicks so much when he is in there, it's real cute.
Afterwards I decided we should go on a walk, that would make us both feel better. The grocery store is probably a 20ish minute walk away (well that's what Google told me), so off we went. Granted I haven't been to this store yet. Hmmmm...I got totally lost and was getting super annoyed. I tried pulling up my gps but I don't know it was leading me all over the place. The 20 minute walk turned into a 90 minute walk all around Lawrence. I then just went home and got in the car and drove there. Turns out I was about a half block away before I turned back and started following my dumb GPS. Thankfully Connor slept almost the entire stroller ride.
Came home and Clark was waiting at the elevator. He said he had about an hour before he had to be there and since we live so close, he came home for dinner. I quickly handed the crying baby off to him and made hamburgers in pretzel buns and yummy black bean salsa.
Clark then left and back to crying we go. He of course started puking a lot again. After about 40 minutes of bouncing, he is finally in his bed, all mummified...please say he goes at least until midnight.
Thoughts for the day: I wonder if I ate something weird yesterday he didn't like? I miss my Chicago friends. Lawrence sucks. Can I survive living here for 4 years?!

Hospital

We were in one of the best rooms at Northwestern. It was a corner suite. Check out the view! Overall I had a great experience at Northwestern. Everyone was really nice and helpful. There was only one nurse that I got a little bugged at during labor. She was yelling at the med student that was counting. So maybe I was just a little biased but I wanted her to leave. Thank goodness she was only there for about an hour while my other nurse was on lunch break.

I didn't do the photographer at the hospital because Connor's head was still bruised and smashed. So we took some shots ourselves.

Connor James Van Den Berghe

Connor was born April 7, 2013 at about 6:30 PM. He was one week overdue. He was a little guy though, weighing in at 7 lbs. 3 oz.  My water broke early that morning. I had pretty much been up every few hours that night to go to the bathroom anyways when I felt this sudden urge I had to go right now. As soon as I got out of bed I knew my water had broke. Clark was sleeping on the couch so I called out to him. It was about 4:30 AM so he was still a little groggy.  I still remember what he said, "oh! That's exciting."  He then said call the doctor and let me know what you want to do. He then went to our bed and went back to sleep.

I tried going back to sleep, but that wasn't happening. I just went to the couch to hang out. Contractions picked up pretty quickly after that. Clark got out of bed probably around 8:30 or 9 am. I said get in the shower because we need to go to the hospital soon. By about 10:30 AM, we were in the car heading to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Labor was awfully painful. I gained a lot of respect for a lot of women I know. Going in I was epidural all the way :) When the doctor put it in it hurt a little bit, The nurse could tell I was in pain and said Dr. move it. I felt a lot of relief after it was then. A few hours later though it started hurting on my left side a lot more. The doctor came in to adjjust the epidural and give me an extra dose. He then started to explain to me the difference between pressure and pain. I wanted a little bugged but just let him talk. Yes Dr. I'm not stupid. In any case I just kept pushing the button every so often to try and ease the pain. I progressed pretty fast, especially for a first time mom. I started feeling the contractions and a lot of pressure. The nurse checked me and I was at a 10...it was go time.

Pushing was incredibly uncomfortable and awkward...not to mention painful. I kept telling them it was hurting, but they said well...as in there is not much we can do. My upper back and neck started hurting a lot. I thought it was maybe because how I was bending over to push, but learned later the real reason. Upper pain got so bad I didn't know how I could keep pushing. I was also absolutely exhausted and thus my pushing became non existent. After about two some hours, we were at a standstill. The doctor said we have two choices: keep trying or we use forceps to get him out. Both options were crappy in my mind. I asked Clark what he wanted to do and he said I could decide. I couldn't bare the thought of having to keep pushing, so forceps it was.

Baby Connor finally came out, it was incredible. I felt mad chaos everywhere and I was completely zoned. Connor wasn't crying at first so they called in for backup. As soon as they got there though, Connor peed all over them and they said, oh he's ok. I still had no idea what was going on, I just remember a nurse coming to me, patting my shoulder and saying, your baby is fine (that extra backup for 3 minutes cost $700 and I had to pay $250 of that...and they did absolutely nothing).

Everyone kept telling me to look at my baby, but I couldn't. I couldn't move my neck it hurt so bad. It took them a little over an hour to sew me up below, blah! The joy of forceps. They then realized why I was having so much pain above. It was an allergic reaction to the epidural that happens for about 5% of people, awesome. So later they told me that if I wanted to go the epidural route next time, I should talk about different dosage amounts with the anesthesiologist and maybe that won't happen again. The upper pain was worse than the lower pain I felt.

I finally got to hold my baby. It was a bittersweet feeling. I still felt I was in after shock but I was finally holding the little guy who we had been waiting for, for so long. Clark asked if we looked like a Connor and I said yes.

Graduation

I don't even know where to begin but I thought this would be a good place since I have lots of pictures. Graduation took place at Navy Pier. We were blessed to have Clark's best friend Noah with us, along with both sets of parents. It was unbelievably windy that day! Just walking to the pier was a challenge. Clark looked so good. I'm so proud of him. It is kind of surreal that medical school is over. Connor did pretty good during the ceremony, until the very end. As soon as daddy's name was called he lost it after that.

This is Ankur and Clark. He has been one of our really good friends here. We went to his house every year for Thanksgiving.  He matched in general surgery in Houston,Texas at Baylor.

This was right after his name was called and diploma was received.

Sleeping baby who lost a shoe.

The whole party. We are so blessed to have friends and family that love and support us.

Presenting Dr. Andrew, Dr. Clark, Dr. Zack, and Dr. Timmy.

Dr. Nevin college

I don't remember this guy's name, but he was the other dr who had a baby a few months before us.  There were very few in Clark's graduating class that were married, let alone had kids.

Clark loves his baby boy, it makes me so happy.

Clark and his parents.

Pre-graduation we are so pumped.

This is Dr. Andrew, Clark's best friend throughout med school. He Matched in California in radiology oncology, but is doing a preliminary year in Chicago.

View of Chicago from the pier. Despite the freezing cold, It was a great time. Chicago is a wonderful place.  We really are going to miss it.

We're open!

3 months since my last posting...eek. One of my new years resolutions was to be more open and honest about things. I don't seem to tell people much that is going on in my life. For one, I feel people don't really care and two, it's hard for me to be open about things.
That being said, I am now a stay at home mom and am pretty excited about that. Keeping that in mind, I've decided I need to blog at least 1x a week. Yes, that is not very much, but we're starting small here people. I have also changed by blog to open, thus more people can see what's happening in the lives of the Van Den Berghe's and maybe my stories/feelings will help others (hahaha, right :)