Hannauh Esther

So I’m a mommy. 

It’s been 5 weeks.  So I’m a functioning zombie.  3 hours is not enough sleep.  4. That’s the magic number.  

When I was 19 I didn’t really plan on a career.  Which was obvious by my job choices. I was just waiting and filling in time till life started.  

I assumed I would just get married and be a mom.  That didn’t happen. 

So I determined to fill in where I could. Babysitting my friends kids so they could sleep. Working. Volunteering.  Getting in life so I would have time for babies later. 

At 26 I got married the first time.  We agreed to wait 3 years to have kids.  At the three year mark we started trying.  No baby.  Two years later the marriage ended.  The kid thing was one of the many reasons that marriage ended. I had just begun testing to see why I wasn’t getting pregnant. And the preliminary tests all came back no issues.  So I got on with life.  

Two years later I got remarrried.  

Kendall already had a kid so we knew his stuff worked.  We talked at length about having more kids.  And he knew there may be issues on my part.  

My friends all said I was lucky to not have had a kid with my first husband.   However they had no idea I was terrified I would never have a kid.  

I remember driving home after visiting friends and crying the whole way home. Wondering if I would ever have my own kid.  

When your a step parent there is a world of difference to having your own kid.  Even in how other people respond to your relationship with a step child.    It’s like your a pseudo parent. Which in some ways you are.  

Kendall would always say in my darkest moments that I would have a baby one day.  I had lost hope. 

We went to the drs again.  I thought I was pregnant the first year of marriage.  The dr felt I had lost the baby very early.  So he referred us to a specialist.  We began a 3 year journey. 

The dr gave us a 3% chance at having a child naturally.  I was a tad surprised. There were no issues. With assistance, our chances went up a couple percentages.  So we dove in.  So many appointments, blood draws, trips to the city, tears, disappointments and bottles of wine. 

I don’t expound on my faith a lot.  I don’t like people assuming things about me based on the very negative picture media places on people of faith. So I tend to keep quiet. Faith is after all a personal relationship. 

Do I feel this baby is a miracle? Yes. You can do fertility treatments for years with no results. 

Do i feel I wasn’t believing enough that I chose to have medical assistance. No. 

Faith without works is dead faith.  In my belief. You can pray for results all day long but if you don’t do anything about your situation, I don’t think you are truly ready for the results of your faith. 

I can’t tell you how many times over the years people prayed over the kid situation. 

I would have people call me in the middle of the night from over seas because they felt they needed to. More than once. Over the years those calls kept happening.   Painfully stirring up hope. This child is an answer not only to my prayers but to so many across the globe.  Literally.   

Her name.  

I had an aunt that also struggled with not having a baby. 

Like me, she was all about kids.  She was our Sunday school teacher, worked with kids and we spent many days and weekends with this aunt. I remember so many bible stories that came alive because of her.  We would spend hours naming kittens. And we discussed her babies names at length.  

When she finally did have a baby she chose Hannauh Esther as a girls name. 

Hannauh because of the story of Hannauh as well as the meaning of the name (we spent a lot of time looking at biblical names, methuselah the kitten was our favourite) 

Esther because of grandma and I recall Esther was one of our favourite stories. 

She had a boy.  So the name waited.    Her boy was the last to be born in the family.  Her son and my birthdays are on the same day 13 years apart. I am the first grand and he was the last. 

It doesn’t mean a lot but it’s kind of neat. 

It’s like waiting and holding your breath.  And finally you can breathe.  

After we announced a baby was coming so many awesome things started happening in my cousins lives too.  

What does it all mean? I don’t know.  But I do know some prayers take years and grandma has been praying for her grandchildren since the day they were born.  

So that’s the story of how Hannauh came to be.  

23 years of promise

18 years of waiting

5 years of trying

survival of the gender wars

My sweet baby has decided she needs mommy to sleep so I’m up with time to kill as I await the next feeding time. 

We discovered something interesting during the course of my pregnancy.  Equality of the sexes is none existent.  

My husband is involved.  Our first parenting journey was with his daughter from a previous marriage. In this case I play the step parent, daddy is the boss and I’m here to facilitate assistance and support. I’m not her mommy.   I’m her step mom.  It’s different in a way.  So her dad, my husband was a single parent before I came along and he’s adjusted to having someone else join the parenting team.  But he’s still the parent. So he’s possibly a tad more involved in some aspects other dads don’t usually bother themselves with. And we noticed that the rest of the public doesn’t recognize that very well. 

He couldn’t take his girl to the bathroom at the mall because there were no family rooms at the time. If he’s out shopping with her without me he gets looks. 

I noticed during pregnancy that daddies are not really included. 

All the apps and information and support before the baby is all about mom. Where is the support for dad? I get it’s only 9 months.  But a lot happens and changes those 9 months.  

When we were in hospitals trying to have this baby something greatly bothered me. 

The mom is labouring and should get a bed.  But the dad is there for support.  Not one hospital had a chair for dad that wasn’t broken or very old and very uncomfortable. Labor takes forever. It’s hard. It requires support. Dad got the floor to sleep on. Not even a cot or mattress most of the time. Dirty floor. 

Mom got meals, dad got to wander the halls In exhausted haze sore from sleeping on the floor. How are they supposed to be helpful in that state? 

Daddy filled out the forms to register our baby. Imagine his surprise when the forms flat out denied him the right to claim benefits for his child.  They gave me benefits for both kids.  Including one that I have no relation to.  Simply because I am a woman. Our government which is so focused on equality has failed to recognize our men. Our daddies. They didn’t even care about his address. 

Daddy took the baby to see the dr. And the Dr was questioning where the mom was.   If mom went they would never ask where dad was. But apparently daddy can’t even take his baby to a simple dr check up?  

He asked if that’s how a woman feels in a mans world.   I said yes. 

“So if you walked into a parts store that’s how they look at you?”

Always. 

“Man that sucks”

At least he gets it. 

But really.  Can we just get dad a chair that’s not broken? 

an update.

So I last blogged a couple years ago.  Here is an update. 

My garden grew from the little ol 9,000sq ft to about 20,000.  Meh. 

I have won the debate about cheese and milk cow and lost it, a few times over.   It will happen one day.  But I have learnt the last 4 years that Kendall has to be 100% in agreement or it’s just going to cause issues.  So I wait. 

Blister the donkey had to leave.  

He began tearing down fences. 

He was mean to the horse.  

So after much debate he left.  

It’s sad but I’m happy to not be dealing with his stunts. 

After many tears and failures I finally got pregnant. No really.   I’m not just fat.  A friend of mine keeps bugging me about how I keep bringing it up.  And I don’t really care.  I had given up on having kids.  So yeah, a huge life change and it still blows my mind. 

Turns  out the only thing that can kill my need to work constantly is being pregnant.  

So my sad garden and yard have been neglected this year.  This year it was all about growing this baby.  Pretty much everything was kind of pushed aside.  It took so long to get to this place I’ve just accepted it and the weeds. 

My step daughter is coming back for a second year in a row. I’m excited and nervous.  I always get a surge of anxiety before she comes back.  Will I do right by her? Will she have an amazing childhood? Will I be a good step mom?  I’m confident all is ready. I mean not much has changed since she was here in the spring. But I still worry, clothes? Toys? Toilet paper? Food, what do you feed a kid again?   Weird stuff like that.  Pretty soon I’ll be wondering again what I did with my time when she wasn’t here. 

We are still in limbo about farming and business.  Kendall is away all summer working. I hate it and love it.  I can work to my hearts content when he’s gone, but I miss him and wish he was home.  The first two years of our marriage were so heavenly being together working the farm together.  The house stays cleaner when he’s gone and I have a very flexible, sure let’s go shopping, schedule. But I miss his presence. And cooking. We are dreaming and planning but we take it one day at a time and will see where it takes us. 

So that’s an update.  I guess I’ll start thinking more blogging not that I have access again.   

recover password

So over the course of a couple phone upgrades due to dropping/smashing I lost the password to my blog account.  Couldn’t remember which obscure email it was attached to and could not remember the paaaword to my first Hotmail account which was the backup for said password.  

Then, the old app I was using was apparently no longer supported.  I had to get a new app. 

So.  Several hours later I’m in! 

I’ve been sitting on some blogs.  Some too close to the heart to process. Some just not ready to share.  And some just waiting for me to sit and recover passwords to a web of 4 forgotten accounts.   But I made it through the wormhole.  Whew.  Now to blog.