Tim and Olive's Blog

Yesterday, we spent the whole day at a hospital, keeping vigil by a relative in her last hours on earth.  I could not help but feel a sense of holiness in the moment.  Death is such a mystery.  A secret known only by God.

Yet even as I contemplated the departure of this relative, I also reflected on the formation of new life in my belly.  Conception, too, is a mystery and a secret known only by God.  How a human is knit together in the unseen places is hard to fathom. 

We have yet to tell our extended family that we are expecting.  Part of me wishes they could have known yesterday so that in the midst of grief, there could still be a glimmer of hope.  They will know soon enough.  My sister-in-law called it “Lion King” ish – the cyclical nature of the circle of life.  But isn’t that true though?  And isn’t that the good news of Jesus?  That in the midst of death, there is new life waiting to be born.

Today, we went to see my family doctor for our first prenatal appointment.  It seems like everything’s ok!  She referred us to an obstetrician (aka, the OB, or what T calls “the baby doctor”) in our area who happens to be female and asian (I was surprised when I heard her name – I guess I had expected a caucasian male doctor?  haha).

After giving me a thorough check-up, she sent me down to the lab to get some more tests done.  Eight vials of blood (ok, maybe it was six or seven, but it sure felt like eight!) and a urine sample later, I was free to leave.  I really had not expected so many tests.  And she said this was only half of them!

We have another appointment with the family doctor next week to finish the other half of the tests and fill in a big chart for the OB.  According to the doctor today, my projected due date is November 29, 2011.  We’ll see what the OB says.

Good news is that I’m only a couple weeks away from the end of this secretly sicky and tired first trimester.  =)

Thirty years ago today, you welcomed me into the world.  You probably had no idea what you were getting yourselves into.  But perhaps that was a good thing.

Today, as I mark 30 years of being alive, I wanted to publicly say THANK YOU.

Mom, words cannot express all the things I have learned from you and all the ways you have influenced me.  Despite the fact that you did not grow up with a mother of your own, by the grace of God, you managed to be a most excellent mother to me.  Thank you for deciding to leave your job and commit your days to rearing me starting the day I was born.  I treasure the time you invested in me, the attention you gave to me and the way you listened to me, disciplined me and encouraged me.  Thank you for discovering and learning along with me.  Some of my favourite childhood memories are of us watching our little patch of garden grow and planting different things each year.  Thank you as well for your passionate love for Jesus.  I learned from your example how to look for and see God in the everyday situations of life.  You inspire me.

Dad, I am so proud to call you my father.  You are a model to me of what hard work, perseverance and patience look like.  Thank you for providing for our family and working the long hours when I was young.  Thanks for setting time aside to come and support me in my countless ballet recitals, art shows and theatre productions.  Thank you for believing the best in me and treating me with respect and trust.  You did not have the privilege of growing up knowing your dad.  In spite of that, you became an amazing father.  Thank you for consistently seeking after God’s heart.  I will always remember the many early mornings where you would sit at your desk pouring over the scriptures.  I learned from your example how to keep seeking after God no matter whether times are good or difficult.  You inspire me.

Mom and Dad, as I continue to grow and mature, I find myself appreciating you more and more.  You are truly both quality people and I am so thankful God chose you to be my parents.

Congrats on 30 years of parenting!  I love you.

This week, baby is the size of an olive.  =) 

What’s amazing to me is that he/she already has everything that makes up a human body.  Measuring at just about an inch, the baby already has fully formed eyes, ear lobes, internal organs, fingers and toes – everything!  It tells me that God is a God of details.  I can’t imagine trying to make a functioning sculpture that small.

What amazes me more is that the olive-sized little being is merely what we can observe.  God alone is aware of this new person’s personality, likes, dislikes, and character – what we cannot see about him or her.  That is the stuff that we will spend the rest of our lives trying to discover!   

I have been pondering the mystery of God lately.  This is one of those instances that brings me into that realm of mystery.

It’s said that one of the effects of pregnancy is vivid dreams.  In the past week, I have dreamt about paragliding onto a ship, escaping from an evil witch and her minions, driving to a retreat on a First Nations reserve and one of my professors asking to take home some of my chow mien.  Haha.  With these kinds of adventures, I’m fully content living in my 2-bedroom apartment all day long!

In general though, I can identify several themes in my dreamland.  They all pretty much relate to my physical/wakeful state of being:  food (because I’m feeling hungry and need to get up to eat), trying not to tell people that I’m pregnant, telling people that I’m pregnant, and trying to find a bathroom (because I actually need to get up and go).

I really look forward to when I can tell people we’re expecting.  Four more weeks of secrecy!  In a way though, I am glad we chose to only tell our immediate family until the first trimester is over.  I feel like it gives me some space to finish up my schoolwork and do some internal spring cleaning before the next big thing gets ushered into my life.  I want to capitalize on this time of not needing to mention the baby in every conversation and remember that there are many other topics of interest out there.  For that reason, I have yet to put my hands on a single baby book.  I figure once the world knows, I’ll have books and advice aplenty.

Every day is now an experiment in what I like to eat and what I don’t like anymore.  The latest development has been hot sauce and pepper.  I discovered that if I add pepper or just a bit of hot sauce to my food, I don’t get the gaggy-I-want-to-throw-up feeling before I reach the end of the meal.  I never used to like either.

I’m still loving fruit.  Although I haven’t been as crazy about oranges as I was when I first found out I was pregnant (they were and still are pretty much the only thing I’ve found that I can stomach first thing in the morning). 

Meat is definitely less appetizing.  Sigh.

Why do you care about this?  I don’t know.  But it’s fascinating to me, how I’m changing, and so you get to read about it.  =)

I’ve never been a barfy sort of person.  Whenever I get a stomach bug, I usually don’t throw up (I’ll spare you the details as to what actually happens).  Even after getting pregnant, I’ve considered myself blessed that my nausea only shows up every so often, and that it hasn’t resulted in me running to the bathroom.  All this to say, I don’t have much experience with vomit.

Until this morning.

Today was the first time I actually lost half my breakfast.  Surprisingly, I felt much better after the fact.  And I learned an important lesson:  if you’re gonna throw up, do it in the toilet.  NOT the sink!  Makes for better clean up.  There’s a reason why people in movies are bent over toilets, folks.  And not just because it’s more dramatic.

On the bright side, I guess it was good practice for all the times I’ll be cleaning up what my baby will spit up. 

My husband and I are at the stage now where we are starting to think about starting a family and all the questions that come along with it.  One of those questions relates to what neighbourhood we might want to settle in where the kids would grow up.  Most people would advise us to think about what schools are in the neighbourhood and whether we would want our kids to attend them.

We generally like where we live right now.  It’s central in the sense that there’s a large grocery store right across the street, a great new library down the street and new developments going up all around us.  We’re also right next to a bus line and a ten minute walk from the skytrain.  When it comes to schools, however, it’s a different story.  You see, our neighbourhood is in the middle of transitioning from low-income to mid-income (which is why we were able to afford this apartment in the first place!).  This translates to schools historically filled with kids from troubled homes and broken families.  Our neighbourhood is also full of immigrant families, which means the schools have lots of immigrant kids.  [Edit: I say this with much respect to immigrant families, but also acknowledging the added challenges for immigrants in this city.]  All this to say, the educational reputation of this area isn’t exactly envied.

I was thinking about this the other day and I started to wonder.  What if staying here in this neighbourhood is a mission for our family?  What if our family is one of the few “healthy” or “stable” family that our kids’ friends would consistently have in their lives?  What if our kids’ classmates’ moms and dads need encouragement and we’re the ones to bless them?  What if it’s not all about our own children getting “the best education” and “being successful”?  What if, in being surrounded by the brokenness in the world, our children learn to be more compassionate?  What if they love justice more because they see how injustice affects friends they love?  What if God chooses to bless our kids and protect them because we embrace His people in this neighbourhood?

It’s risky, I admit.  Because what if our hopes are not realized and our kids are the ones affected negatively by their classmates?  Would it be worth that risk?

I said to my husband earlier today, if Christians moved only to places that had good schools, that wouldn’t be very Christ-like, would it?

So here it is, a dangerous and uncomfortable stirring in my soul.  An invitation to trust boldly and to choose love over fear.  We are still in the process of decision making, of course.  But this is definitely one area I’m looking for confirmation from God for.

These days, I feel like I’m living in a borrowed body.  Like someone switched bodies on me while I was sleeping.  My sleep rhythm has changed, my eating preferences have changed, and the way I look and feel have already started to change.  I used to be most productive in the afternoons.  Now afternoons are reserved for naps.  It’s a strange sensation, to say the least.  I’m learning new things about my “home” every day.  And I’m making adjustments accordingly.  There is much need for grace here. And openness to what is new and unfamiliar.

I guess for most of my adult life so far, my body has been pretty consistent.  Going through this experience helps me to appreciate what it might be like for those who are aging or ill.  It’s really out of our control.  And the best we can do is accept it, perhaps laugh at it (or cry), and keep going.

I’m supposed to write a paper today.  It is due tomorrow.  I don’t even know how long it’s supposed to be… (I just checked, 6 pages).  I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open.  Yipes.

I suppose growing a baby takes a lot of energy.  Despite the fact that it is the size of a mere blueberry this week, it is already 10,000 times as big as it was a month ago!

Lord, have mercy.

[Update:  I ended up napping for 2.5 hours, asking for an extension and settling for writing out an outline today.  I’ll live with that!]