Pregnancy Craziness

I started this blog several years ago to document my new, crazy life in Sierra Leone.  I left Sierra Leone six months ago and therefore haven't had a lot of "crazy Africa stories" to tell.  But....the craziness has not left my life.  It now just seems more self-inflicted.  For some reason I am compelled to share this story/conversation that happened in my house yesterday.  Try not to think worse of me!! :)

Yesterday was a long shopping day.  I knew it was going to be long so, call me a coward but I ponied up the $7 to keep Marie in after-school care so I could shop in peace.  I made it home just before dinner and whipped up some Brinner of pancakes and eggs.  I put Marie to bed and went to brush my teeth.  While in the bathroom, I apparently had a psychotic break.  I started crying and eventually wedged myself down on Marie's little step stool between the wall and the sink and just sobbed.  The ugly cry.

Quite a bit of time passed and Peter must have wondered what happened to me because he came looking for me.  This was our conversation.  Please keep in mind that this is all with me continuing to sob, sniff, hiccup, etc.

"Emily!! What happened?"

Silence (well, crying).

"Emily, why are you crying?"

"I don't know. I think I'm crazy."

"Well what happened?????"

"Peter, something is wrong with me.  I teared up/and or cried 11 times today.  E L E V E N Times!!!  That's not normal! Even for me!!!"

(There is a debate between Peter and I about what is an acceptable amount to cry. He would prefer none, I say that once every week or two is acceptable.  He says I am "quick to cry" but after several years has gotten used to it and does't take it personally anymore.)

"Well what happened? Why were you crying?"

"It started in the lotion aisle at Walmart. I was standing in front of all these lotions, trying to decide which one is the best one for my mixed raced, baby, boy (none of those 3 do I know ANYTHING about) and how much I'll need for the next two years when I just started crying.  I have no idea what I'm doing!!"

Sidebar: I was shopping for a container that we are shipping out soon and therefore need to stock up on things that we won't be able to get or will be much more expensive in Sierra Leone.

I continued, "It got worse when I moved on to crib bedding and I spent 15 minutes trying to decide which toddler potty I should get.  I cried when I thought about the "Ebola orphans" in Sierra Leone and then when I remembered how sad the girl was who was sent home from 'The Bachelor.' (Yes, I know.  Not thinking less of me remember?!?!?)  The other million times, I have NO IDEA what made me tear up.

During all of this, Peter is just standing there, patting my head because remember I'm wedged in between the sink and the wall so that's basically all he has access to. He is totally silent because he's a good listener but also..I mean, how do you respond to this.

So I kept going.  "I went to Goodwill and tried on some clothes and Peter, I'm just huge.  And I'm just going to keep getting bigger.  There are all those cute little pregnant ladies but I just look like I had McDonalds for lunch......every day for the last month!!

Peter piped up. "Emily I've told you before! You're ok for me.  You look just ok to me!!"

In our marriage, there are little nuances in language and culture that often need some explanation and/or reinterpretation.  This was one of those cases.  Telling your pregnant wife that she looks "just ok" is not something she wants to hear.....

He continued: "My brother called today and wanted to see a picture of you pregnant and I told him that you just look ok---

"Peter. Please. You have to stop saying that I look "just ok".  That's not helping."

"Bwahahaha (that's him bursting into laughter). Is that wrong? Should I say that you look fine? (Krio for beautiful).  Would that be better?

"Yes that's better."

"Ok, you are very fine!!"

At this point we both started chuckling because the whole thing was just so crazy.

"Today I started tearing up because I was thinking about you and Marie and about how I love you both so much and then 20 minutes after being home you were both driving me crazy.  Marie asked me what "grumpy" meant and I know she knows what it meant because we talk about not being grumpy all the time. After I explained what it meant she asked me if I was being grumpy.  When I asked her what she thought she said 'Yes, I think you're a little grumpy Mama.'  AND PETER I'M ONLY HALFWAY!!!!!

The last bit was said with me laughing which provided a nice little end to my dramatic meltdown.  So thankful for a compassionate and PATIENT husband who unwedged me from the sink and told me it was time to leave the bathroom. :)

I'm excited to get back to Sierra Leone where I expect things to be crazy......not just me. 

We're Having A ......

So yesterday was the day. I mean THE DAY.  The day that we get to start buying gender specific clothes and stop referring to my ever expanding waistline as an "it."  My doctor is awesome and does an ultrasound at every appointment because, "it's more fun for you to get to see a picture of the baby instead of just hear the heartbeat."  So that's fun!  We decided to take Marie with us to our appointment.  Marie wanted a brother.  From the time we told her she was going to be a big sister it as always been "how's the baby brother doing?"  Not "whatever God gives us..." a brother. I tried to combat this by always referring to the baby as a girl, but she would just correct me.  "No, no, no....baby BROTHER, Mama."

To be honest, I was hoping for a boy as well, just because one of my biggest concerns with adding a little one to the family is the comparisons that people will make between this one and Marie (mostly in Sierra Leone).  I thought there would be fewer comparisons with a boy.

The good ole' doc put the ultrasound on my tummy and we waited.  I was preparing myself for Marie's reaction when he said, "Well, that's pretty easy! B.O.Y." I watched Marie as she was trying to figure out what that meant when he said, "That means, little one that you are having a baby brother!"  She was excited. To say the least.  It was really fun to watch her get so excited about the baby. :)  She insisted on taking the ultrasound pictures with her to school.

He kind of looks like an alien

After the big gender reveal the doctor did some more looking around and then said, "Well, basically if you gave birth right now neither you or your baby would make it."  Wait. What? This jolted me out "baby boy revelry" and I was back in the room.  Basically, the ultrasound showed that my placenta is completely covering my cervix so if Baby decided to come now, he'd have nowhere to go because my placenta is covering his exit route.

Now I've seen this before.  Plenty of times, unfortunately.  In Sierra Leone, when our only ultrasound machine broke, part of the reason it was so utterly frustrating was because when a woman came to the hospital and she was bleeding, I had no way of knowing why.

In that moment when he told me, I had zero fear.  My two emotions were thankfulness and grief.  I was so thankful for the incredible medical technology we have that allowed us to see this so clearly, so early, and allow for so much advanced planning if necessary!!  My thankfulness was mixed with grief as I immediately remembered the scores of women in Sierra Leone who give birth with NONE of the things that I have access to.  It's just so unfair!  Praying for my fellow Sierra Leonean mama's who "get belle!"

I decided that the way we'd tell my family is to bake a cake, either blue or pink and have Marie cut the cake and spill the beans.  I was SO careful when putting the food coloring in so that I wouldn't accidentally get any on my face or fingers that would give it away before the big cut!!  Unfortunately when it came time to frost the cake every time I put some frosting on it would just pull part of the top of the cake off and mix with the frosting.  The more I put on, the worse it got.  Also, it looks green.  This is the cake BEFORE we cut into it.  Not a big secret......

Incidentally I hadn't been able to keep it from my mom and sister so.....the reveal cake was mostly because I was so proud of Marie for being able to keep a secret. We pretended that nobody knew.  Oops. 

Count my blessings......

DISCLAIMER: Peter reads and approves all blogs before I post them.  Just so everyone knows. J

Peter and I went to a Portland Timbers game this weekend.  It’s been a dream of mine to surprise him with tickets to a Tottenham Hotspurs game (his favorite English team….don’t worry, I’d never heard of them either).  His birthday was last week and since I couldn’t give him Tottenham tickets, I did the next best thing.  Timbers tickets…..?  Not QUITE the same, but I was excited just the same.

The game was so fun! When I bought the seats I really had no idea where we were sitting but when we arrived and I heard all the chanting behind us I thought “Oh that’s fun! We’re sitting near the ‘crazy fan section.’”  Then I realized we were sitting right in front of the OPPOSING TEAM’S “crazy fan section.”  Oops.  The Timbers kept them pretty quiet though, with a final score of 3-0.  My job during the game was to google all the black players and see if any were from Sierra Leone.  No Sierra Leoneans, but a Liberian and Nigerian so…some good West African representation.  Peter was pretty vocal during the game and would occasionally yell things out in Krio.  I always love watching people around us watch us while trying not to look like they’re watching us. J  I always want to lean over to them and give them my stalking secret. Sunglasses.  You can look anywhere and nobody knows!!

After the game we stopped off at the hotel before heading to dinner.  We used a gift card we got for our wedding which is my FAVORITE because I love eating for free!! I love it so much that, even though we were heading to dinner, I begged Peter to let us stop off at the hotel restaurant where they were having a “managers reception” with free appetizers and free drinks!!  I just can’t pass up free Diet Coke!

It ended up being a good thing because our wait time at the restaurant was over an hour.  Thanks Free Pre-Dinner!!!  About 30 minutes into our wait, Peter looked at me and said, “I don’t know if it was the medicine I took or what, but I’m feeling really tired.”  I asked him what medicine he took and he told me he took the cold medicine….the nighttime one, since it’s evening time now.”  Ha! There’s 50mg of Benadryl in that medicine!!  He was wiped!!  I told him we could just go grab dinner and take it back to the room but he wanted to press on. J  Conversation during dinner was….not lively.  At one point I asked him a question and it took him 3 seconds to come up with “yyyyeeesss!”  You could almost see the neurons trying to connect through the fatigue.  We went back to the hotel where he walked straight from the door to the bed and was out in 2.7 seconds.  At 9:15.  I spent the evening watching HGTV….and am going to get to hold this one over him for a while! J 

The next morning at breakfast I commented how much more talkative he was when he wasn’t all drugged up and he kept shaking his head and saying he was never doing that again! J  Later we got to have lunch with some good friends who were actually in Sierra Leone soon after Peter and I started dating.  (Shout out Stephen and Pasha). Steven had had the mission while he was there to “scope this guy out” and get a guy’s perspective. 

What happened at the end of our weekend is really why I decided to write a blog.  This was just my really long way of getting there.  A friend of mine works with a Sierra Leonean woman and she called Peter to tell him about a special prayer time they were having for Sierra Leone in Portland. It was perfect timing because we were already up there.  We spent an incredible 2 hours worshipping the Lord together and praying about the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone and the rest of West Africa.  There were probably 30-40 people there and they were from all over Africa.  At the beginning of the meeting the pastor called up several people who were NOT from West Africa and had them each pray in their own language.  He remarked that while they weren’t from West Africa, their hearts were still burdened for their friends and were calling out to God on their behalf.  It was beautiful.  These people understood. They too are far from their families and friends, watching the suffering from a distance.  I shed tears for Sierra Leone, for the people who are suffering, the people that are interceding, and for my husband. 

I got to watch Peter worship in his own language, sing songs from his own country and become instant friends with people he just met.   I am intimately acquainted with the loneliness that can come from being so far from home, but was always so blessed to have a community around me from the United States.  My home culture.  Peter hasn’t had that.  And his country is in crisis.  So although I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Sierra Leoneans, speaking Krio (although I was ashamed of how bad it’s become) and sharing stories, my favorite part was watching my husband enjoy it. J  After the service we were invited to a woman’s house who had made a staple Sierra Leonean dish (cassava leaf or “green glop”) that I didn’t even know we could get in the States!  Peter was in heaven!! It was the perfect end to an incredible weekend and as I drove home I marveled at how much God had blessed us and how incredible the Body of Christ is.  Thank you so much Jesus!! Thank you for stretching us, and thank you for encouraging us!  

This virus!!

The other morning I walked into my house after a night of working in the ER and I had one of those moments of absolute bliss. You know those moments? They’re not common, but when they happen you think “There is no way my life could possibly get better.” My adorable daughter was snoozing away and I climbed into bed with my wonderful, happily sleeping new hubby.  I’d had a great night at work where I’d had plenty of supplies, tons of resources, and best of all a doctor who was WAY more knowledgeable than me.  It had just been fun! Blissful. 

Not only was my little fam sleeping, but I saw that Marie and my niece had put the.....toilet plunger to bed. Complete with blankie. 

I took a nap and woke up to the sounds of my hubby and daughter playing together.  I got on the computer and did what I do most every morning (or in this case afternoon) which is look for any update on the Ebola situation in West Africa.  The bliss was immediately gone.  The situation isn’t getting better. More new cases. More violence.  More pleas for help.   My heart was being torn in two.  Again.  I want to be there!! I’m not supposed to be here! I’m supposed to be there, in one of the space suits, fixing this whole situation!!  They need me!!!!  It’s an inner struggle that I deal with several times over the course of any day. 

Yesterday Peter and I got in an eh hem….discussion.  I was upset at his lack of……frustration.  I’m tormented about this. I’m constantly researching, talking, thinking, praying, trying to figure out what we can do. Should we go back?!? How would that be possible? We’d need new tickets, how would we pay for it?  What would that even look like? What about Marie? What about this? What about that? On and on and on. 

I see his crestfallen face when we read something new.  I see the e-mails that say they’ve added money to our Skype account yet again because he’s calling so much to check in.  Last week he stopped eating for a day and a half.  I know his heart is heavy.  So WHY ISN’T HE FREAKING OUT LIKE ME?!?!?!!? 

I realized that I wanted to see him stewing and fretting like I was.  I wanted him to be worried and constantly looking for a way for us to go “save the day.”  That’s just how ridiculous I am.  He gently reminded me that we didn’t plan for this.  We were planning on being in Sierra Leone by this time but as of now, they’ve cancelled our flights.  We don’t know why God allows these things to happen, but why fight against it?  He can see things that we can’t.  (I think I’ve heard that somewhere else before…..)  Oh this husband that God’s given me.  Such a quiet, calm and rational balance to my somewhat frantic, emotional exuberance. 

And he’s right.  This isn’t what either of us would have chosen and we’re both waiting for an opportunity to go back.  But for now we’re here.  And I’ve started counting the blessings I have in being here. There are a lot!! 

Peter and I have been brainstorming for a while about the best ways to serve and love the Sierra Leonean people from afar.  And we are getting excited!!  The details are being finalized for an operation that would involve supporting the churches in two of the districts hit hardest by the Ebola virus.  People in the church are dying and their family members are suffering.  They need food. They need water. They need cleaning supplies.  What an incredible opportunity we have as the body of Christ to stand with our Brothers and Sisters across the world and show them that they’re not alone!!  We haven’t forgotten them!!  Most of us will probably never meet them, but they are still our family!!  I get tears in my eyes just writing this!

But it doesn’t end with the Church!!  What if that was just the starting point?  We are going to help the local church reach out to its community by providing food, cleaning supplies, and other necessities to those people who need it most!  We can empower this church that is hurting and grieving to rise up and share Jesus with their community that is also suffering and grieving.  From thousands of miles away we can reach out to the Church and the communities that these churches serve.  It’s exciting stuff!! So excited to get to be the hands and feet of Jesus. 

If you’re interested in getting on board, you can make checks out to:

Willamette International

PO Box 772

Albany, OR 97321

*Just put “Ebola” in the memo line

If you’re looking for other ways to give, Doctors Without Borders is an awesome organization that’s been spearheading the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. Their website says that they can’t earmark money for Sierra Leone, but they were able to even begin working there because people had donated before so I think that’s a good option.  Samaritan’s Purse is also working heavily in Liberia and I’m sure would love any support we could give them. 

Ebola II

It’s been a rough few days.  Yesterday afternoon Peter and I decided that we’ll be delaying our trip back to Sierra Leone. It was with heavy hearts that we made that decision.  Very heavy.  Several things happened within a couple days that just made us really unsure of what was going to happen. One airline stopped flying into Sierra Leone and Liberia started closing some borders with Sierra Leone.  Sierra Leone is surrounded by Guinea and Liberia and so we started getting concerned that if things continued to escalate, travel would be really difficult. 

Originally we were going to extend for a couple weeks just so we could see where things were headed, see if they settled down or escalated.  As of this morning, we’re not sure when we’re going to be able to go back.  The president has declared a “State of Emergency” for the country which we think is good! This should provide better control and will hopefully stop the spread!  We want to go back as soon as possible. 

The hardest part about not going back is feeling like we’re abandoning our friends and family back in Salone.  “Hey good luck with that Ebola thing! We’ll see you again after it’s nice and safe for our family to come back.”  Yuck.  During all the years that I was planning on becoming a missionary, I was going to be THAT girl.  The one that stayed after everyone else left.  I was single (and not looking to mingle) so I was going to be able to do things that people who had families just couldn’t do.   I was going to be one of the ones in the space suit.  And I loved that idea! 

To be honest, there’s a big part of me that still REALLY wants to be over there in one of the space suits, right in the thick of the chaos. Part of this is because yes, I love the adrenaline. That’s why I work in the ER and ICU.  But also…..they need help!!  SOMEBODY needs to be there taking care of these patients. Somebody needs to take the risk.  Sierra Leonean doctors, nurses and other medical personnel are taking incredible risks (as are missionaries) and I want to do our part!! And these are Peter’s people! He’s thousands of miles away from his family during all of this and I can’t imagine what that would feel like.  That doesn’t even take into consideration the fact that Peter is the brand new Country Director for our NGO…and what will happen to the NGO? We have a lone missionary there right now and we wanted to go back and support him as well as all the other people working for the NGO.  But I’m also concerned for my family!!  What could happen to Marie? What could happen to us if we couldn’t get out? So many unknowns and so much to think about.

Peter and I have are from different cultures and had very different experiences growing up.  For these reasons we often approach decisions with very different frames of reference. While we have been praying for wisdom and discernment, we have also been praying for unity in our decision. We are both really thankful that as difficult as the decision to stay has been, we both feel a peace about this. 

Please pray for the situation in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.  Pray for those who are still there!! Please, please please pray that this will be resolved quickly!!

Ebola

Peter and I are celebrating our one month anniversary today. 

Woo Hoo!!

We’ve celebrated our anniversary by having hours of conversation about whether or not we should re-enter a country that is in the middle of an unprecedented Ebola virus outbreak with a 60% mortality rate.  Wow, that sounds dramatic doesn’t it? (I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic....ask….well, anyone).

To be perfectly honest though, we have spent HOURS in the last few days (many of them with me in tears….sorry Peter, can’t return me now) trying to figure out what to do.  We’re supposed to go back on Sunday.  When we left in May , the outbreak was present, but hadn’t escalated like it has now.  We’ve talked to so many different people, both here and in Sierra Leone and have received very different advice.  I think that's what we're struggling with the most.  People who we love and respect are telling us different things.  Last night  we were both utterly confused about what to do. So we holed ourselves up in our room and hashed everything out, all the while begging Jesus for wisdom and discernment. 

We’ve decided to go back.

We have precautions that we’re going to put into place.  Peter will be doing the administrative work that he can from home and will meet only with the people that he must.  I’d left my job at the hospital before we came to the States to get married, so I have no commitments at any health care facility right now.  I was planning on taking a couple months and help get our family established, help Peter in any way I can in his new role, and get homeschooling off to a good start. 

Now I’m a bit torn.  I won’t be going to the hospitals where the Ebola is, but as a health care worker, I find it difficult not to do anything when I’m sitting in the middle of an epidemic!!  But so far ALL the advice has been for me not to get involved in the health care aspect of things at this time.  Many of the Sierra Leonean people are confused about what is actually causing the outbreak and are angry with the health care workers. There have been some angry gatherings at hospitals and ambulances are being stoned.  There are lots of rumors and lots of distrust.  Any work that I would be looking at doing would be in seeking to educate the people.  I’m just not sure at this point what that would look like and what the risk versus benefit ratio would be. 

So we’ll get there and figure out what the best thing to do will be.  We’ll see. Please please pray for this outbreak in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.  Pray for the health care workers, the people risking their lives. Pray for the infected people and their families. That fear would not overwhelm truth and that trust will be built between the hospitals and the people.  Pray for the stability of the country. Unrest and violence will only make a dangerous problem exponentially worse. 

Parting is such sweet sorrow.....

I worked my last shift at the hospital a week ago.  I’m leaving to get married in a few days and when we come back to Sierra Leone Peter will be assuming the role of Country Director for our NGO and we’ll be living closer to the capital.  My feelings are mixed.  I love that I’ll get to be closer to my NGO team.  I’m excited for Peter and the new opportunity this will be for him. But I also loved living in the village. It was difficult, but I loved the work at the hospital and I loved living in a smaller community with no walls and will sorely miss the friendships I’ve made there over the last 3 ½ years.  But it's time. 

The time leading up to my last weekend of work was spent  packing up my house while continuing to try and homeschool and squeeze in some last visits with friends before we left.  To be honest, I was bone tired and hoping for a quiet, “lay on one of the patients beds and read a book” kind of shift.  Not quite. 

I was working a double shift and at about 9am a woman come in who I’d seen last weekend as well. Last weekend her complaint was pretty nonspecific generalized pain, and she wasn't sure if she was in labor or not.  When I checked her, she wasn’t in labor. When I looked at her card for her history, I noted that she was a previous c-section patient and had had FIVE pregnancies and had ZERO children alive. No wonder she was conscientious in coming quickly if she felt something.  I’ve lived here long enough to know that by now she’s been labeled a “witch” and everyone’s talking about what she’s done to her babies. 

The policy of our hospital is that once a woman has had a c-section, all future pregnancies should be c-sections. We don’t allow them to try to deliver vaginally. It’s too risky. (That’s not to say of course, that I haven’t had several patients come who had a c-section, then had five normal deliveries and are now coming back for some problems with the current pregnancy.  THEN what do I do?!?!?) 

So when the patient came in this time, I knew that she was a little nervous and needed a lot of reassurance that things looked fine.  I checked her, but couldn’t be sure if she was in labor or not.  She was dilated a little, but not any more than many women can be naturally are after multiple pregnancies.  I decided to admit her and give her some pain medicine to see if that calmed the pain down.  I also checked her blood, so we’d know that information if it turned out to be the real thing. 

Her blood work came back and she had a hemoglobin of 8 grams.  This is low.  In the ICU, we are talking about transfusing patients with hemoglobins this low.  I knew that if she was going to need surgery she was going to need more blood than that to begin with so I alerted the family that they needed to find a donor for her.  Several people volunteered to go get checked. 

When they came back a little while later they told me that one of them was a match but that the lab man told them there were no blood bags, so they couldn’t donate the blood. Wait. What?!! No blood bags?  I didn’t believe it.  I went down to the lab to talk it over with them and find out what “no blood bags” really meant. Surely it couldn’t mean NO blood bags.  85% of our pediatric patients are admitted to the hospital because they need blood!  Turns out, it really DID mean NO blood bags. I take that back. They had two pediatric bags left, but they’d reserved them for a patient they had who was actively bleeding.  Shoot.  I asked  when we could expect some more. They told me that they were supposed to come yesterday via public transport but hadn’t shown up so they weren’t sure when we’d get some more.  The town we needed to get them from was about 3 ½ hours away. 

I went back to the ward and for the next few hours just really hoped and prayed that she wasn’t in true labor.  I asked her about her pain several times that morning and she told me it was better. Awesome!  At around 2:30pm I was watching her and noticed she was shifting in her bed a lot and occasionally a little moan would escape.  Double shoot.  I asked her if she was having more pain and she said she was. Triple shoot.  I took her into the labor room to check her and sure enough, she’d was further dilated than she’d been earlier.  She was in labor.

So now what in the heck do we do?????  She needs a c-section.  But her blood count is already dangerously low and this would mean literally cutting someone open with no way to give her blood if something went wrong and she started to bleed heavily. So that didn’t seem like a great option.  But if we let her try to deliver vaginally we risk her rupturing her uterus which would mean she definitely begins bleeding a lot….and in a much less controlled situation than an OR.  And still no way to give her blood. 

I started running scenarios through my head.  What would I want done?  If Peter was giving birth to my child (yes, he thought that reasoning was weird too, when I explained it to him)  I would want to take him to the town 3 ½ hours away where there was a bigger hospital that could give her blood if they needed to.  But I was afraid.  This woman had been pregnant quite a few times and the last thing I wanted was to deliver a baby in the middle of the bush….by myself….or even worse, have her rupture her uterus and begin bleeding uncontrollably….in the middle of the bush….by myself. 

I called one of the administrators of the hospital to ask his advice. He advised that we go ahead and do the surgery.  I called the surgeon to ask his advice as well.  He said he thought the best thing would be to do the surgery.  So we did. 

I was nervous and was fluttering around the patient in the OR like a nervous little chicken.  Or something else that flutters around nervously.  Do chickens nervously flutter?  But everything turned out fine.  The baby was a BIG beautiful boy and the patient and family were thrilled. 

So that was my last shift. Not as dramatic as some, but still a heavy reminder of the obstacles and challenges of health care in the rural areas.  It can be utterly frustrating…..but also such a blessing!! I’m really going to miss living and working here!

Baby Emily and I

Marie with the nurse that helped me take care of her after I met her for the first time at the hospital

My longtime neighbor Bethany and I

Saying goodbye to my house!