A New Play about Prayer and Service

I haven't heard anyone talking about this new Off-Broadway play, but it looks fantastic. Playwrites Horizons is a non-profit theater in New York City which is committed to producing work from new American playwrites. Writer Heidi Schreck wrote a new play called "Grand Concourse" which is about a 40 year old nun running a Soup Kitchen who starts to pray in front of a microwave while she struggles with fatigue with her vocation.

The play deals with questions of service, prayer, and compassion fatigue. I was excited to see the playwrite cite several examples of some of my favorite Catholic writers in her work. Here is her description of her writing process. "I am not a Catholic. I am a Presbyterian-raised agnostic, but discovering Dorthy Day was a watershed moment for me and lead me to study (and revere) a number of other great Catholic women, among them Flannery O'Connor, Hildegard von Beingen, Sister Mary Corita Kent and Juilana of Norwich."

Whoa! When is the last time Hildegard von Beingen and Juliana of Norwich got admiration points from an American playwrite?

I might not agree with all the political opinions raised by the progressive nun who is the main star in this play, but I find the main theme itself fascinating.

New York City is only 4 hours from me. I might have to find a way to get there to see the play before it closes in December. If anyone has seen this play in person and has a review, could you send me an email.

St. Theresa of Avila, pray for us! We need to more good Art with these deep themes!

Thank God For The Internet!

Every so often these notes get passed around Catholic circles about the benefits of "fasting from the internet." If those notes hit me outside of Advent or Lent, I start to feel guilty. I'm a woman who spends a lot of time on my computer. I like to write. I like to read. Then there are all these other tasks that I do online from paying bills to using the yellow pages.

I never feel guilty when my kid interrupts me while I'm reading a detective novel. Yet somehow when a kid interrupts me while I'm reading a blog, I feel like I'm "wasting time." I should be spending my time in more holy pursuits like boiling carrots or ironing our church clothes. Life events have made me start to feel less guilty about that.

This past month has brought me two of the scariest moments in my life.

For 20 minutes on Oct 11, we thought my baby had died. I had a complication after my water broke while I was at home at 8 AM. I was at 36 weeks and had just gotten released from the High Risk Perinatal Unit less than 48 hours before. I lifted our Carmelite rosary of the mirror of my husband's car and we started praying together as he rushed me back to the hospital.

In the middle of praying, which wasn't even a prayer for the baby's life because I so thought he was gone--I prayed more to have something to do with my hands and my mind during that awful wait to get myself to a fetal monitor--I realized that his potential stillbirth was going to be a lot harder than my two previous late miscarriages. When I had lost both of my earlier sons, it was hard. One baby had to be born in a hospital after his death. There was still this knowledge that they died too soon for any medical help. There was nothing my husband or I could do to save those beloved boys.

This child was different.

48 hours ago, I was in a hospital. I could feel the baby move. I had a sonogram where he bounced around and 24 hours of continuous fetal heartbeat monitoring. My doctors chose not to deliver me at 36 weeks, but instead to wait until 37.

Now after my water broke and I had another complication, that decision seemed like a bad call.

The fear that I felt in that moment of praying the rosary was "Am I going to be okay with the feelings of guilt and regret that we didn't have my c-section at 36 weeks?"

I didn't know if I could live with that regret. That seemed like an overwhelming way to lose a baby we'd loved for 36 weeks.

In that moment, I remembered 2 mothers who suffered stillbirths and blogged out it. These are not women who I talk to regularly on the phone or email. But their names, their blog posts and the headers on their websites floated into my mind. It was like they were in the car with my giving me a hug.

I realized if they could do it, I could do it too. I didn't know how I could handle a stillbirth--but I knew it was possible to handle heartache with grace because those women wrote about their lives.

Then I remembered another blogger, who wrote about her son's amazing miracle after a stillbirth, Miss Bonnie. I hadn't asked God to save the baby, because both my husband and I had pretty much decided that he was already gone. The memory of Bonnie's blog, A Knotted Life, reminded me that our church is one of Hope. I said a pale, non emphatic Hail Mary to Blessed Fulton Sheen, asking for him to save my baby.

A few minutes after that prayer, I got into an ambulance.  I felt the baby kick for the first time since this drama began. The feeling of relief and hope I experienced was overwhelming.

I thought this idea of being comforted on the internet was limited to a one time, dramatic birth thing. Yet its not. A few weeks later, I was on an email exchange with Dwija from House Unseen. I felt so confused and lost about this home sale thing. She gave me comfort in that moment.  Now three days later, the situation looks so much more hopeful and optimistic.

Long story short, if you are a blogger--write. Write about the real stuff. Don't be ashamed or afraid. We have no idea how much our individual stories of heartbreak and triumph matter to others.

I think that sometimes the internet gives us a little foreshadowing of the communion of saints. We're all here to help each other, even while we are separated by geography and time.

Write on!

On Being A Leader

We got an offer on our house. Crazy! Our house has been on the market for six months. On Saturday morning, I packed off my older kids with my husband to attend their first Swim Meet of the Winter Season. They got to wear their new team suits for the first time. They were so cute! Olympians could not have been happier modeling their team colors.

Then I took care of a newborn, a toddler and a four year while preparing for a house showing. This was only our second house showing since I took a long break because of my bed rest and a new baby. My husband was so kind. He completely cleaned our house until 1 AM that morning. My to do list was so ridiculously small. I had to make the beds, clean our bedroom and pick up a few things. Yet it was so hard to accomplish. I lost all my helpers.  My toddler was crying hysterically because she was left behind from the Swim Team crew and my newborn was crying because he now likes to nurse every hour. Madness! The realtor had an appointment at 11 AM and I left the house at 10:58 AM.

I was so out of it, I forget to check to make sure that I had a house key before I left. So then I got locked out of my house! The realtor had conscientiously made sure that every single door was locked after the showing. So now I have three small kids in my car and a dog. My husband is 75 miles away from me. I started problem solving with him on the phone. "Please don't make me drive 3 hours in the car with a newborn to pick up a house key from you. What can I do?"

My husband told me how to jimmy up the one window in our place that didn't have a screen. I'm looking through my open window into my living room and thinking "What happens now?" I've recently had a c-section. There is no way I'm risking ripping up all my carefully sewn abdominal muscles to climb into my house. It's better to just stay out of my house for 6 hours than to risk going back to the hospital again.

Then I came up with a flash of insight. I got my four year old out of the car. I told her, "Tess you've got to go be a hero for Mom. I'm going to carrying you to the window. Then you go open up the side door for us!" Together we accomplished the task easily. She was so proud of herself. "I'm a hero!" she said. "I rescued the day!"

A hour after this entire mess, I get a call from my realtor. It was good that I did the house showing that morning. This was our first repeat showing and now someone wants to put an offer on our house!

It felt amazing to get our first offer. It also felt scary. In a buyers market, even a reasonable offer, doesn't cover our mortgage. We'd gathered together a savings account to cover all the expected fees and commissions connected with a house sale. Because we'd lower the price so much, I didn't have money anymore to cover closing costs. When the buyer asked for thousands of dollars to pay for her loan, it was a hard scary decision. At one point, I felt like I was metaphorically flipping our sofa cushions in our couch in an attempt to find extra cash so we could close the deal.

After 48 hours of ups and downs, we signed the contract on Monday night. The deal could still not work out for various reasons on the buyers side, but basically I'll get told on December 5 if I need to move my family out of our house by December 12. So my reward for all of this stress and hard work over the weekend was to discover that if everything works out well, my family will have to leave our house within five weeks.

Five weeks!

My realtor is so calm about this transition. She's like "Just pack a box a day until we know for sure. I'll give you at least a weeks notice before everything needs to be out of the house before the final walk through."

This is why people hire moving companies, right? I should call someone to come in and box up all stuff, while I happily sit in my arm chair nursing my newborn baby. Only the deal, when I have six kids, is that I am the moving company.

Thankfully, we have my parents and my brother. My parents are coming up this weekend to help us entertain six kids while we declutter and pack. My Mom has kindly offered to take in my large family over Christmas this year while we move. My brother is giving my husband shelter on days he needs to work in Washington DC. Even with this help, our family is going to be five hours apart. It's really hard for me to imagine not seeing my husband every day.

So the pressure is on to find a new house! We got the pre-qualification letter from a lender! That is a gift!

(A special shout out to anyone who is reading this as a renter. Three years ago, I could never have imagined owning a house.  My husband and I rented our first 10 years of marriage. We had four kids. I thought home ownership was never in the cards for us. Then one day when we really needed to move out of our 2 bedroom City apartment, we found out about a special USDA program for mortgages in rural areas that was perfect us!)

For imperfect Artists like us, this financial stuff is amazing. We now have an approval for a home loan. We have good credit. Time to go showing for a new home! Fun, right?

Except when you live in the DC Metro Area. If I want to cut my husband's daily commute from 1 1/2 hours one way, to 45 minutes one way, I have nothing to buy in my price-range. NOTHING! Monday night, after we signed the contract, my husband and I picked out 5 good potential houses in the community where we want to move. Tuesday morning, I'm on the phone with the realtor. He crosses two off our list. I crossed two more off our list because they are next door a cemetery. We were left with one house.

At 5 PM on Tuesday afternoon, I went house shopping with my family for one house. The house that I want to buy is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath 1988 ranch in a safe suburb of a cute small town that is within 45 minutes of the job that my husband has held down for 8 years. It looks horrible inside. Everything is structurally safe and sound. Cosmetically it looks awful. The living room/dining room/kitchen layout is weird. The bedrooms are small. The basement is large and finished, however, all the carpet flooring has been removed. There is ugly depressing wallpaper and fake wood paneling everywhere.

My 11 and 10 year old kids, who have been so cheerful during this entire 6 month selling process, walked into the house and said "We don't want to live here!" I got to experience a true pre-teen sulk fit for 45 minutes last night. Beautiful!

It's hard as a parent to say "This is what we can afford to give you." In this house, you can bike to the library. You can bike to the bakery. We are five minutes from the Appalachian Trail. You can now play basketball in a drive way. Your little sisters, and soon your tiny brother, can ride their trikes in a safe cul-de-sac. Your young sister can have her first lemonade stand that she's always dreamed about. Most of all, you get your Dad home at 5 PM.

I'm a little scared to buy this house. I like living in a nice, cheerful place too. Every single corner of this house needs work. I've got my hands full with a baby. I'm scared I don't have the time or energy to tackle a design project like this quickly. If we moved into a more turn-key ready house, we could go more slowly. We'd gradually make our home cozy and warm. This 1988 rancher needs TLC immediately.

This morning I got up with my husband at 4:30 AM. (Damn his super commute!) I got the baby to go back to sleep. So I had a rare moment of peaceful coffee sipping alone in my kitchen.

I thought about Leadership.

I thought about how I thought leadership was defined in college. I thought Leadership meant that I would one day run a company, or chair a task force. I thought Leadership only happened in the workplace.

I realized that God was calling me to be a leader with in own family this winter.  I'm at a weak point. I've been through so much this past fall. I'm feeling tired. I'd like to just coast. I'd like for us to move into a nearly perfect house in a new cute town where my biggest stress of the day would be to which flavor of Latte to order at our new coffee place.

Instead, God was handing me a new project. There is likely going to be a new house that needs to be completely rehabbed. There are going to be grumpy kids that need to be emotionally supported during this transition. I have a small kid that needs to be nursed frequently. I need to do all of that, while keeping myself calm and centered, because I don't deal well with transition either.

It's a project. It needs a leader.

There are thousands and thousands of awful homes like this in good neighborhoods that need to get fixed up in America. The recession has left this ugly chain. In this house, the seller took out the washer, dryer and refrigerator. Do you know how hard it is going to be add going to a laundry mat for a family of 8 immediately after a move? The house is a great price. We're not going to pass on a house just because it doesn't have a washing machine. But my life is going to be harder until we save our money and get a new machine delivered. That gap might be a week, or it might be a couple of months. When we saw a laundry mat after looking at the potential new house, I prayed "God give me patience while I feed quarters into those machines." Doing laundry at a laundrymat is going to feel like a time suck, during a time when all our daily routines are already disrupted.

I learned at college how to be a leader while wearing Anne Taylor Suits, and rustling papers, and taking notes on legal pads, and saying pithy quotes while narrating slide shows.

God has called me to be a leader in a different way. I'm a leader in my attitude. I'm a leader in my focus, and my beauty, and my organizational skills, and my emotional nurturing abilities. I'm a leader who plants flowers, and reads design blogs. I'm a leader with my "Ninja like" negotiation skills with realtors and bankers. I'm a leader when I pray.

I started out this day, coughing with a cold and telling God "I cannot do this! Find someone else!"

He gently remind me of all the gifts, talents, and experiences he gave me before handing me this task. God has given me everything, except for money. Sometimes I feel like God is teasing me during our prayer time. Today I felt him saying "Seriously? The girl who was 1 of 20 from the Smith College Leadership Program of 1994 isn't up to the challenge of calling a few people, reading a few articles, and making a few cost-projection spreadsheets. Moving into a house that needs immediate work is really beyond you?"

St. Teresa of Avila, founder of dozens of new convents, pray for us!

(I've got to tell you. In the middle of my worse stress about the financial part of the house selling process, someone at Mass handed me a stone from Avila, Spain. She had attended the 500th anniversary of St. Teresa's Birth and this was the memento she chose to bring me back--a rock from the first foundation of St. Teresa's Reformed Carmelite Order. I held this dirty, scratchy rock in my palm and felt like I was getting a warm kiss from the saint herself!)

Life With a Newborn

I'm shocked at how easily this new guy is folding into our family life. Bed rest during my pregnancy was really hard for me. I sort of freaked myself out worrying about life after the baby came home. Overall, things are pretty smooth.

Our first night home from the hospital, I nursed the baby in my bedroom at midnight. He was crying a bit because I was being a little strict with his latch. I kept making him redo it until it felt comfortable for me. I heard my two year old wake up above me and race down the stairs. "Baby's crying!" she said all concerned.

I told her "He's okay! He's just hungry because he wants to eat his dinner!"

The kid looked at her brother nursing and started laughing. She said "Baby eats his dinner!" It was the funniest thing she had seen in ages.

We chatted for about 20 minutes. It was nice to have company after doing 3 nights of late night feedings alone. I started playing a game with her. I went over all the foods that she can eat at 2 1/2 but a newborn can't eat. I'd ask "Can baby drink orange juice?"

"No! He's too little!" my toddler said with glee. "But I big! I drink orange juice!"

It was so cute. In that moment she really got that she was now a big kid and this newborn was was a peon far beneath her. She adores him. She helps me pick out his clothes everyday. She finds his pacifier when he drops him. She'll pick up his hats from the floor and gently tuck in his baby blanket around him.

I also can't believe the difference between having an almost 12 year old in the house versus having the oldest be 9 years old at the time of our last baby. My oldest daughter is now completely trustworthy holding a new newborn. My husband moved an armchair into our bedroom. Whenever the baby's fussiness starts to get to me, I'll ask my daughter to sit in the armchair and hold her brother for a moment. I can step out of my bedroom and grab a coffee or some more ice water. Just having five minutes to do a self-nurturing task without feeling guilty after hearing the baby cry in his crib is life-changing for me.

The hard part for me is recognizing how much bed rest has weakened my body. It sucks! I read somewhere online that I lost 30% of my muscles to atrophy just in the first week of bed rest. Between pregnancy and recovery from the c-section surgery, I spent 6 weeks on bed rest. Because of my placenta problems,  I was on exercise restrictions for over 20 weeks.

This has been a weird recovery for me. I'm not in any pain from my c-section. At the same time, I'm so weak. Just standing for a few minutes in the shower now leaves me feeling tired and breathless. I'm still not cleared to go back to an exercise program for another 3 weeks. I'm trying to have patience with myself.

This week was my husband's first full week back at work. That means I'm alone everyday with 6 kids for 14 hours a day, trying to do homeschooling and drive them on time to Swim Team Practice after handling the "night shift" of newborn feeding totally solo. Yesterday, I could feel myself coming apart at the seams.

Then I found an Adoration Chapel at a Catholic High School that is only a few blocks away from the YMCA where my older kids have Swim Practice every weekday. It was so amazing to do adoration again! I really haven't done it, aside from a few special feast days, in over five years. This chapel was so small and intimate. All the adults there gave me a big smile when I walked in with a 4 year old, 2 year old and a newborn. A few minutes of silence in that awesome place restored me. It is so amazing to have a resource like that after years of living in a place where all the local churches lock their doors during most of the day.

I'm encouraged that prayer and exercise are located right next door to each other! I'll be so grateful to get back on the YMCA treadmill in a few weeks. I'm promising myself a lot of good hang-out time with Jesus also. The newborn phase is not an easy time of mothering. I've got hope that a solid prayer, exercise, and writing schedule is going to make these hard days much easier.

Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us!

All Souls Day

Today at Mass we prayed for the souls of "all children lost in miscarriages, stillbirth, and abortion." God bless all the Mamas who ever lost a baby in the NICU, PICU, or High Risk Perinatal Unit.

(Visiting Leo's grave on the one year anniversary of his death on October 19, 2014).

Greater Generosity at Halloween

Our town's Trick-or-Treat Night was moved to tonight, in order to not conflict with Football Season. (Oh the joys of living in the South!) I found this great article about accepting 6 Foot Tall Trick-or-Treaters with greater charity.

I really loved this comment from a reader

Sharon Smith ·  Top Commenter · Fredericksburg, Virginia

This is perfectly said. And . . . I remember the year my son was 15, we had a foster son who was also 15 living with us and although we were dressing up to pass out candy, no one planned to trick or treat. Then my foster son confessed he'd never gone before. So my son, my 18 year old daughter and her 20 year old boyfriend all got dressed up and walked around the neighborhood. My foster son was a 6 foot tall Korean, but when my daughter, the elected spokesperson, explained that he'd never gone trick or treating before, the neighbors were delighted to help him learn the profession and were generous enough to insist the other 'kids' take candy too! It turned out to be one of our most memorable Halloweens, all because my neighbors understood that we all want to bring joy to a 'child' no matter the age! ♥

Here is my family on Halloween!

Happy Late 500th Birthday St. Teresa of Avila!

I not only missed posting about my bff St. Teresa of Avila on her Oct 15 Feast Day. I missed posting about her on the giant 500th Anniversary of her birth. Ugh! Because I'm late, however, I have delightful messages about my favorite saint from Pope Frances and the current head of the Carmelite Order.

Here is a reflection from Pope Francis:

Precisely because she is a Mother with open doors, the Church is always walking toward men to take to
them that “living water” (cf. John 4:10) that waters the garden of their thirsting heart. The holy writer and
teacher of prayer was at the same time a founder and missionary on the roads of Spain. Her mystical
experience did not separate her from the world or from people’s preoccupations. On the contrary, it gave
her new impulse and courage for action and the duties of each day, because “the Lord is” also “among
the cooking-pots” (Foundations, 5, 8). She lived the difficulties of her time, which were so complicated,
without yielding to the temptation of bitter lament, but instead accepting them in faith as an opportunity to
take another step on the path. Because, “it is always the time for God to do great favors to one who truly
serves Him” (Foundations, 4, 6).

Teresa says to us today: Pray more to understand well what is happening around you and so to act
better. Prayer conquers pessimism and generates good initiatives (cf. Dwellings VII, 4, 6). This is
Teresian realism, which calls for works instead of emotions, and love instead of dreams, the realism of
humble love in face of a laborious asceticism! Sometimes the Saint abbreviates her charming letters
saying: “We are on the way” (Letter 469, 7.9), as an expression of the urgency to continue to the end with
the task begun. When the world is burning, one cannot lose time in matters of little importance. May she
infect all with this holy haste to go on the paths of our own time, with the Gospel in hand and the Spirit in
our hearts!

“It is time to walk!” (Ana of Saint Bartholomew, Last Actions of Saint Teresa’s Life). These words of Saint
Teresa of Avila, on the point of dying, are the synthesis of her life and become for us, especially for the
Carmelite family, her Avila fellow countrymen and all Spaniards, a precious legacy to keep and enrich.
Dear Brother, with my cordial greeting, I say to all: It is time to walk, going on the paths of joy, of prayer,
of fraternity, of time lived as a grace! Let us go on the paths of life by the hand of Saint Teresa. Her
footprints lead us always to Jesus." (Pope's Letter for the fifth centenary of St. Teresa of Avila's birth).


Also there is this reflection from the Solicitor General of the Entire Carmelite Order:

How do we place at the center the way and dwelling of Teresa? To reread her works, as we
have done through these last years, is certainly a first step, fundamentally important. But we
cannot stay still. We have to move on to deeds. We are called to recognize in ourselves what
the words of Saint Teresa describe, to find our home and our way. I caution that this cannot be
achieved if we do not make choices. I do not know whether we will have to choose to turn off
our mobile phones more frequently, our computers, tablets, or even –what is much more
complicated– learn to use them differently. I am convinced, in other words, that we will not
celebrate the Centenary adequately only by doing things to honor the memory of Saint Teresa,
but rather by making ourselves into Teresa, if you would allow such a daring proposal."

St. Teresa of Avila, Pray for us!

Baby Update

I definitely have a preemie. (His weight was so large at birth, I hoped the doctors just got his original due date wrong. I didn't even have gestational diabetes or anything. I only mixed genes with a husband who was over 11 pounds at his own birth!)

I'm really blessed that my son doesn't have breathing problems. The pediatrician from the hospital called my son a "miracle baby" because he'd never seen a kid with as high respiration rates after birth calm himself down to a normal range without supplemental oxygen or a NICU stay. I hated spending time in the hospital during my pregnancy, but now I'm so thankful I got two steroid shots to help my son's lung development at 33 weeks.

My son's main problem right now is his immature liver. We've had blood draws almost every day that we've left the hospital. He's out of the "danger" level right now, but not yet in the "normal" range. So life is good, but not totally relaxed yet.

There are so many ideas I want to write about, but finding the time is elusive right now. It might be a couple of weeks before this blog is updated. Thank you for all of your kind emails!

St. Pope John Paul II's Feast Day

Today is the first Feast Day of St. John Paul II! I love this saint! I was a pretty jaded, cocky girl at age 28 in my RCIA class. I wasn't sure yet if I was up to joining the Catholic church. I had a lot of reservations. A big concern of mine was promising obedience to a weird "Pope Guy" in Rome. Why would some random guy in Rome know more details about following Jesus, than the rest of us good hearted people with a cross necklace and a Bible?

My husband and I loved going to Independent Movies at an art movie theater outside in Rochester, New York. One night we bought tickets to see a documentary on Pope John Paul called "Witness to Hope." I came out of that movie theater shaken and sobbing. I could not believe that such a brave, holy man was head of the Roman Catholic Church. I came back to my RCIA classes with a new feeling of humility. I wasn't sure that I could promise to obey all popes in the future, but I could totally promise to follow this pope. 

Since my conversion, I've had the honor of loving and obeying three different popes. I praise God for this Saint because he made a major stumbling block to my conversion, obedience to the chair of St. Peter, almost effortless to overcome.

St. John Paul the Great, pray for us!

In Praise of the Small, Common Life

This week has been incredibly dramatic for the Benjamin family. Today, I packed up my newborn in our minivan. I put Frozen into the DVD player. I added a newly repacked hospital back to my car trunk because my son came inches from needed a hospital admittance today. (Preemies are delicate creatures, even the hefty 8 pound and 36 week variety).

Yesterday, I heard about my son's bad lab reports from a telephone call at 3:30 PM.  I started panicking when I thought about going back to the hospital for the fourth time in less than 4 weeks. I was backtracking on all my bold prayer promises last week. "Lord, I know I said that I'd handle anything NICU related if the baby came early, but please, I can't handle another 72 hour hospital admission. Let me off this hook!"

I thought about telling my husband that it was his turn to go to the hospital with our kid. I'd just stay at home, pump breast milk and enjoy sleeping at night with all the lights off and on a firm mattress that doesn't artificially rock like the sea.

Today started out eerily like last Saturday morning. Our son was in trouble. We weren't sure what to expect, but we bravely set out to the ER ready to do anything we needed to do in order to get him better.

In the middle of the wait for the doctor, who would decide if we were going back home today, or spending the night in a NICU room, I sang quietly to my sleepy son.  I thought about how much of routine family life is spent in boredom. Out of love for my sick kids, I spent time in uncomfortable settings. I'm bored. I'm tired. I'm uneasy. Ever since I got pregnant eight months ago, I spend a large part of my day uncertain about the future.

Somehow family life keeps going on, even in uncomfortable settings. My newborn son still needed to eat. He needed to get changed. He needed to be soothed and comforted. My 2 1/2 year old learned the names of every African Safari animal in her plastic toy bucket. Who cares that she learned their names in the doctor's waiting room and not on our dining room table? Toddlers can have fun almost anywhere.

My husband and I got some praise today for our large family. We also got some scorn. We had some hard moments. We had some good moments. My kids amaze me. My kids annoy me. At the end of a long day, 8 people crammed together in my tiny bedroom to watched "Edge of Tomorrow" on my Xfinity TV screen. I'm so grateful for Family Movie Night on Saturdays. It's such a soothing ritual for the hard weeks.

Today was a totally average day, even though we just added a new family member.

Tonight, I read about Pope Francis' remarks after the Synod of the Family. (Thank you Leila!) I didn't follow the Synod reports this week. Instead, I lived out my vocation. I lived the highs and lows of family life intensely. Sometimes, it's easy to feel overshadowed by the other vocations in our church--the call to the priesthood, religious life or the deaconate.  More and more, I'm becoming more fond of the ordinary greatness of married life. I'm called to love this one man for life. I'm called to nurture these specific children. My life is not always calm or predictable. Yet in the center of my activity, I am calm.

My life has meaning.

Today, the doctor told me that I don't have to go back to the hospital with my son. I felt grateful.

I walked out of the ER with my newborn son in his car seat and we caused a scene. Some nurses were staring at us because he was so small. One nurse started talking about us because he's my sixth and I look so healthy after a c-section seven days ago. She looked at the both of us with an admiring smile. Her co-worker said "That poor thing!" without looking up from her computer screen.

"I'm lucky to have six!" I said boldly to the top of her bowed head.

I'm blessed! Everyone who does this marriage thing, and who takes both the lumps and the joys that our individual marriage entails is blessed. It's okay if we never get a chance to address a Pope or Bishop personally about our lives. They each know our story. They are all encouraged by our Hope.

Our New Baby!

Celebrating John Francis Benjamin, born October 11, 2014

 This party idea totally impressed all our nurses. We have a "0" Birthday party planned for each new baby. We bring a cake into the hospital room. We buy party supplies. Then each older siblings gets a present from the new baby. The new gifts (legos and play dough) keep everyone occupied during the first sibling visit. We chose to have a pirate theme to celebrate the first new Benjamin brother in 10 years. The $2 nerf swords from Target kept all the little girls happy for over an hour. Notice how much my 10 year old son is in love with his new little brother! Alex never held his little sisters like this when they were newborns.

Our New Baby!

Thank you for every prayer, every email, every phone call, and every note of encouragement from my readers!

We are happy to announce the arrival of John Francis Benjamin, born on October 11, 2014 at 10:19 AM and weighing in at 8 lbs and 4 oz.

The baby earned the nickname "Johnny Drama" for his crazy arrival into this world. It was pretty much the worse case scenario for us. My water broke at 8 AM on Saturday morning while I was at home. Within minutes, I developed a complication. My husband started driving me to the hospital in my nightgown. On the way, things got so bad that I called 911. Then I crawled out of our car into a waiting ambulance. I gave birth at a random hospital, one that we'd never seen before, which was on the way to my regular OB practice.

I felt so bad for the new OB because he had to operate on me totally blind. My regular OB doctors had been so careful to document multiple sonograms and tons of tests before my sixth c-section, but none of my electronic medical records were easily available when I most needed them.

Yet God is so cool! My emergency c-section went textbook perfect. My son was born with an apgar score of 9, despite being born before 37 weeks. He came out perfect and crying loudly. Within 10 minutes of my son appearing, the main surgeon was soliciting ideas about where to take his visiting parents to get good crab cakes for lunch. I couldn't believe it! My sixth c-section ended up being so easy that my whole surgery team started talking about food while they were still sewing my womb back together.

The baby and I are both under a microscope during these past 48 hours. So far, the baby has managed to dodge a trip to the NICU. He has some minor issues with being a born a preemie. I feel so patient with every hiccup he has because I know that the situation could have been much worse.

I'm actually having the easiest recovery ever from surgery. It's amazing how great my medical team is here.

My kids are totally in love with their youngest sibling. They held a pirate themed 0 Birthday Party for Baby John today. Yesterday, I nursed our baby in post-op, but then a nurse took him away after 30 minutes because he was having labored breathing. For about an hour, I assumed my son had gotten admitted to the NICU. Instead, he was taken back to our birthing room. Baby John was there with my husband and all his siblings when I called the nurse to check in on him. All the older kids were serenading him with the chorus of Frozen's "Let it Go!' I can't tell you what that background song track did for my heart! It's been warm scenes like that in our hospital room time and again.

Thank you again for all of your love and prayers!

(Pictures to follow when we get home.)

A Lovefest For Our Priests!

This last hospital stay completely broke me emotionally. It was awful. I'm renaming it in my head, "Abigail's horrible, awful, no good, very bad hospital stay."

Yesterday, I called my favorite priest at my new parish to arrange to receive Confession, Communion and the Sacrament of the Sick before my c-section on Wednesday. I wasn't surprised when I got his answering machine instead of him directly. It had been one of those weeks.

My parish priest called me back within the hour. My heart jumped! Because of my bed rest, I haven't been to Mass in a month. I asked Father to schedule a time for me to receive the Sacraments. Then I started asking him for some general encouragement before I return back to the hospital on Wednesday. Our surface chat about life, soon developed into a deep, friendly, and hilarious spiritual conversation about our Catholic Faith.  I learned so much in a short span of time. I also felt such a mystical feeling of Hope after our conversation.

The first thing that Father told me was that the reason I was having such negative initial interactions with new OBs, who started pressuring me to add a Tubal Ligation to my upcoming c-section, was because of fear. "We live in a litigious society," he said. "People sue doctors over everything. Malpractice rates are through the roof. People even sue when a baby has a birth defect and the doctor's didn't tell the parents in time to abort the baby."

To deal with that fear, the doctors can go overboard in the "I must give urgent warnings" department. Instead of having a calm, reasonable discussion about real medical issues-- the strength of my scar tissue, the risk of uterine rupture, the potential for a nicked bladder or emergency hysterectomy, etc.--I'm often on the receiving end of dramatic comments based on fear. Because in a hospital setting, a new OB comes on my case every 12 hours, that's a lot of stress for me to absorb from near strangers.

Father encouraged me to have compassion for the doctors. They have a hard job. He told me "The doctor's aren't used to running into someone like you." At first I thought Father meant, someone with six kids, let alone someone who needs a sixth c-section. But Father told me about something far bigger. He said "Everyone in our society is so selfish. Everything is all about them. Most people find it impossible to focus on something outside of themselves. You are walking into that doctor's appointment thinking about your baby. You are caring about yourself, of course. But you are also trying to make good decisions for your baby and even a potential baby that might come along later into your life."

Father explained to me how thinking about others, is a radical viewpoint in our modern culture. The doctors are used to giving medical advice to patients who are only considering themselves. With that vantage point, total sterilization makes sense. Who the heck wants to go back to the hospital for a seventh surgery, much less wants to pace the floors a 7th time with a sleepless newborn?

For a doctor wrapped up in fear, making a medical decision about cutting up my fallopian tubes is the same type of decision as cutting out my appendix. I'm supposed to think of myself first. My decision about my reproductive organs has no bearing on anything or anyone outside of myself.

Father is a retired college professor. He walked me clearly through the four steps of "double intention." I felt comforted that the church's position (yes to emergency hysterectomies during a c-section, no to tubal ligation that might prevent future harm from a potential uterine rupture) was based on logical reasoning. My Pope doesn't come up with decisions willy nilly. There is a solid decision making structure that is applied to each modern medical question.

I told Father that I feel like our Catholic Faith encourages us to use both our brains and our hearts. I care about my body. I care about medical advice. A good medical decision, however, is something that fits my whole person--my brain and my heart.

Father shared some interesting details of St. Gianna Molla with me. I've felt a lot of resistance from loving that Saint because I had understood her story as a doctor who refuse medical treatment for her cancer in order to save her unborn child. I did not want to embrace that high ideal of literally putting the life of my child ahead of my own. (I'd like to come out of my sixth c-section alive and kicking, thank you very much!)

Yet Father explained to me, like Paul Harvey once said, "The Rest Of the Story." St. Gianna was a female Italian doctor in the 1950s who came down with ovarian cancer while pregnant. She did not refuse medical treatment for her cancer! At the time, she had 3 options available to her. She could do nothing. She could have a total hysterectomy which would unintentionally kill the unborn child. Or, she could just remove the cancerous ovaries, and leave her womb intact for the baby. Father said, that as a doctor, she was well informed of all of her options. She chose the one that was best option for both her and the baby. (St. Gianna died, not from cancer, but from sepsis (or blood poisoning) eight days after her daughter was born.)

I felt so encouraged after learning the full Truth. St. Gianna chose to have medical treatment! She did not passively sit there and let the cancer eat up her body. She used science! I felt encouraged because that felt like a more attainable goal to me. Study the facts. Use modern medicine. But always make the best decisions for myself and my kid (or potential future kids) who I adore sight unseen before their birth.

At the end of our conversation, Father told me a story that gave me the giggles. He told me that he went to the doctor recently for back pain and the doctor turned the conversation to his sex life. "When was the last time you had sex? No seriously, when was the last time you had sex?" the doctor kept asking him.

"We're you wearing your collar at the time?" I asked him.

"Yes, I was wearing my priest collar!" he said.

Father is well over age 60. Just the mental thought of him with his shaggy gray hair, wearing one of his old man grey sweaters with a distinctive Roman Catholic priest collar poking up through the neckline and still getting interrogated from a doctor "No seriously, when was the last time you had sex?" gave me the giggles.

Father really joined in my mirth. "Abigail, everyone has a problem with sex in our culture. I'm seen as completely unnatural for not having sex. Clearly, I must be lying about not having it!"

I started laughing. "Oh Father, we are facing the same struggles. You are getting in trouble with the doctors for not having sex and I'm getting in trouble with the doctors for having sex with my husband!"

It felt so good to have a belly laugh with a priest over this subject. I feel comforted that I'm not alone. Everyone with an authentic Catholic faith has a sex life that is troubling to doctors and the wider social culture at large. I don't have to obsess that I'm facing this specialized problem of "is a sixth or seventh c-section okay?" Instead, I've got to accept the difficulty, use my head, and make the best individualized decision I can make.

Chastity is a rare virtue in this world. I'm going to take courage that many priests, Religious Sisters and Monks join me in the cross of having totally awkward conversations about their sex lives with new doctors. Jesus promised to never leave us alone in this world!

St. Gianna, pray for us!

In the Hospital Again--Update

I'm back in the hospital again. (Stuck in the hospital again?) I had a second bleed early this morning. For a while it looked like I was having a c-section at 11 AM this Wednesday morning instead of next Wednesday. The On Call Anesthesiologist  even showed up to do a full consult. After a sonogram and hours of monitoring, they are changing their tune.

Every OB seems very excited to hit the magic 37 week mark next week. (Right now, I'm 36 weeks and 1 day).  I'm a little disappointed. At this point, I'd like my son to be outside where I can keep my eyes on him. Who wants to spend another 6 days stressing out about more potential problems?

I either get out in 24 hours or need to stay admitted in the hospital for the full 7 days. Right this minute, both the baby and I are totally safe. Things even look pretty rosy for a calm c-section. I just have miles to go in uncertainty and mild discomfort before I meet my son.

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!

(Totally accidentally my regular OB scheduled my c-section three weeks ago for a major Carmelite Feast Day, St. Teresa of Avila, on October 15.)


Update: I'm home! I only needed a 24 hour observational stay in the hospital. I'm still on track for a relatively calm pre-planned c-section at 37 weeks on October 15.

Happy Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi

What a joy to celebrate a beloved Saint's Feast Day along with the name day of our beloved Pope Francis and the founder of the Franciscan Order. I've meet so many cheerful and uplifting Franciscan Brothers during my Catholic Journey. One of my favorite places to eat, pray, and party in downtown Washington DC is at the Franciscan Monastery.

Thanks to St. Francis' expert negotiation skills with a Sultan 800 years ago, the Franciscan Order is still in charge of preserving important holy sites in the Holy Land of Jerusalem. (Be still my historian's heart!)

My husband and I met while I was living in the Inter-Faith dorms at the St. Francis Student Center, an Episcopal Church Program for the students at the University of Wisconsin. I have many sweet memories of kissing Jon next all the various St. Francis images that were scattered all over the place. I remember many times when I kissed Jon, and I looked up, and I'd feel startled to see an image of St. Francis looking out of a painting at me. The contrast felt a little sacrilegious at time. My little Methodist mind had not yet connected the dots between a good kissing session with my new Catholic boyfriend and holy living. Now, however, I think St. Francis was probably giving me the thumbs up sign. "Good job Abigail! Go fall in love with this poor, sincere Art Student and stop mooning over all those preppy Law School dweebs in your Evidence Class!"

I'm so grateful to St. Francis and St. Clare, because they were the first Saints I could relate to easily as a young Protestant.  I remember having an instant connection to both saints while I was looking at my 4th Grade Methodist Sunday School Book. Living at St. Francis House for a year and following the Angelican High Mass every Sunday, really helped make my transition to Catholicism easier a few years later.

St. Francis of Assisi, Patron of Peace, Pray for Us!

Update: On the eve of St. Francis Day, the world lost Franciscan priest Father Benedict Groeschel. Just the sound of his voice on EWTN calmed me down and gave me feelings of great love and peace. If I remember correctly he was a psychologist. Early in my conversion journey, I really enjoyed learning from Father Groeschel how both psychology and Catholic theology could be united and strengthened by each other. So often as a person growing up in a more secular mindset there was this idea that psychology could somehow explain away, or "replace" religion. Peace be with your soul, Father Benedict!

Happy Little Flower Feast Day!

St. Therese of Lisieux is easily the most famous of all the Carmelite Saints. She is this true blend of the spirituality behind our two founders, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. She only wrote one book in her life time, her memoir "The Story of a Soul." That single book made her a Doctor of the Church.

Today is St. Therese of Lisieux's Feast Day! St. Therese was a real person. Even though both of her parents are on the tract for full Sainthood, she had a lot of problems in her childhood. She had a difficult anxious and depressed personality. Even after her famous healing on Christmas Eve at age 14, she still struggled as a young adult.

I laugh when some Catholic writers describe St. Therese as "a mighty oak." That wasn't her personality at all. St. Therese was someone who made peace with all her broken pieces. With God's help, she became comfortable being little, humble, ineffective and small. She really made peace with that Old Testament Psalm, "What delights God the most is a contrite heart." The most mighty thing about St. Therese is her gigantic love for God. That is something that all of us can emulate! 

It's good to remember how little St. Therese fit into the theology of her time in France. Most of the Carmelites around her were big into making constant "reparations" to a God of Fear.  They feared God's Judgement and were constantly trying to make up it to God. St. Therese comes along as a 15 to 23 year old, and she starts talking confidentially about easily approaching a God of Love and Mercy.  Her approach to God predates the establishment of Divine Mercy Sunday by 200 years!

Real Christian theology is timeless. The love that the Saints show all of us can't be ended by their death. My daughter Hannah and I are so blessed to feel a special friendship with St. Therese of Lisieux. Many of her struggles are our struggles too. We hope that her triumphs, one day, become our triumphs too!

Learning the Difference Between Moments of Stress, and Times of High Anxiety

This mothering thing is HARD! Right now, my husband is a super-commuter. I'm solely responsible for six souls while he's gone for 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Since the unborn baby needs me to be on bed rest, I spent large chunks of time managing conflicting needs from my IKEA bed. I might not be moving my body much the past two weeks, but I'm seriously over using my brain.

Today, I spent my most peaceful morning time scheduling an OB appointment and making sure the our church had scheduled a baptism. That meant I was homeschooling 3 kids, in the late morning, right while the two little girls (2 & 4) were feeling the most needy. There were a couple of moments when I thought I was going to lose my mind.

I gave thanks for my Law Degree because I used the concept of contributory negligence to settle an inter-sibling argument between two preteens. After the two parties left satisfied from "Mom Court," I gave God thanks for my incredibly expensive Legal Education. I told God "I have no idea how Moms settle this stuff without resorting to court speak." I'm sure there are these beautiful Catholic families that can settle sibling disagreements with appeals to Christian virtue and being "more like Jesus." There might even be a few families with the obedience issues so settle that all Mom has to do is say "Give it a rest, please!"

That is not my life. I have one child whose interior sense of justice, my husband and I joke, is straight out of the Code of Hammurabi. This child does not usually instigate a fight. However, once he's injured, either by accident or on purpose, he wants his "eye for eye justice." Almost every time there is a sibling conflict, I've got to walk him forward from the old school revenge code of ancient Mesopotamia into a more modern, Christian way of dealing with inter-personal conflict. It's a project.

After homeschooling was finished, I made myself a healthy lunch and then rested on my bed for a solid hour. Abigail, my 2 year old, cuddled up next to me an took a impromptu nap. I watched a cop show. I ate my food. An hour later, when I got up to get myself more ice-water, I was surprised at how relaxed my body felt.

My mothering work this morning was hard and stressful. Yet it didn't freeze up and harm my body same way chronic anxiety affects me. I can rest and recover after stressful moments in mothering. The Monday before had been horrible. We had an anxious thing happen with our house selling process. I've also been really worried about landing back in the hospital with a preterm birth for the new baby. This morning, I worked too hard to let my mind wondering into the "what ifs" of a move and a hospital stay. I simply dealt with the here and now of my Motherhood.

I'm promising myself that I will remember this idea. Even while pregnant, my body is designed to recover well from moments of extreme stress. Sometimes an hour of stress means that I'm simply doing my "God work" for the day. What God doesn't want me to experience are those ugly feelings of chronic anxiety.

St. Jerome, pray for me!

I'm In Love With St. Jerome

Today, I'm prepping before tomorrow's big Carmelite Feast Day for St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. (The Little Flower, or St. Therese of Lisieux). I was so delighted to discover it was St. Jerome's big day while I prayed my Daily Office. He is wonderful!

There is this special thing that happens with male and female saints become friends together. It can happen among married saints, like Louis and Zelie Martin, St. Therese's parents. (Who I guess are still technically blessed). Yet often this special spiritual friendship between men and women happens in a totally chase way. My own bff, St. Teresa of Avila became friends with contemporary St. John of the Cross. St. Scholastica had her brother, St. Benedict. St. Jerome had his friendship with St. Paula.

As a woman who lives intimately with her husband, I really get jazzed up by this idea that my love, isn't just my lover, my co-parent, my handyman, or a kind person who brings me chocolate and detective novels while I'm stuck in the hospital on bed rest. My husband and I have this buzzing spiritual friendship with Jesus that really produces new insights and new discoveries that I could have never gotten if I always prayed alone.

I love St. Jerome because of his chaste friendship with St. Paula.

I also love St. Jerome for his fiery temper! I am a Scot and I have a Scottish Temper.  You remember the Mel Gibson, "Braveheart" speech where he fires up his rag tag army saying "They will never take our freedom!" I can get just as fiery over my local City Hall's ineffective customer service when I pay my water bill. It does not take much to ignite my inner sense of injustice.

One of the hardest things about becoming Catholic was feeling like I didn't fit this popular notion of Catholic femininity based on Mary, the Mother of God. It could just be my imagination, but I feel like there is this notion that "proper" Catholic women are quiet, soft spoken, demur, and have perfect, flat hair tucked sweetly into their bobby pins.

I love St. Jerome because he is the antidote to all of that fake, surface-only, holiness stuff. St. Jerome is into honest holiness. He lets some things rip, because he cares. He lives passionately for Christ. Sometimes he left people in Rome pissed off because of that passion.

St. Jerome is a talent writer. He's a serious scholar. He's a desert hermit AND a posh city preacher. He was someone who served God.  I'm so grateful that he's a real friend to me.

Only Two Conditions Are Necessary For A Christian Life

This is one of the most important articles I've ever read on the Christian Life.  My buddy, Pope Francis, reminds us that the Christian life is "simple, simple." Jesus gives two conditions to be his discipline.

1) Listen to the Word of God

2) Follow it

The pope reminds us that Jesus had crowds of people following him, yet he had very few real friends. Some people follow Jesus with ulterior motives. They follow him "out of convenience" or out of a "desire to be better." The pope also said "So often we go to Jesus because we need something and then we forget him there, alone." "There are not many people who then effectively practiced the Word of God."

When I read this article, I feel energized. My duties are really simple. I need to reflect on God's word. I need to give him space in my life to talk to me through Holy Scripture. Then I need to take the personal nudges that I get while listening to the Word of God and put it into practice.

God's not looking for me to become a superhero. God already has many angels! What he needs from me is friendship! Friends are loyal! A good friend does what she is asked to do, with a little dash of joy and good humor thrown into the mix.

Meet Jen the Great In DC This Weekend!

Author, blogger, radio host, and conference organizer extraordinaire, Jennifer Fulwiler, from Conversion Diary, is coming to Washington DC tomorrow to promote her new book, Something Other than God. If you have never heard about this witty Catholic convert from Austin, Texas, take a moment to check out her blog.

Tomorrow, on Wednesday Sept 24, at 7:30 PM, Jennifer Fulwiler will host a book signing at Pauline Books and Media, on King Street, in Alexandria, Virginia. If you are a book lover who has not yet found this gem of a bookstore run by the sweetest and most media savvy Religious Sisters ever made, take $100 and go to this book signing. After buying Jen's book, the Daughter's of St. Paul will personally help you select a dozen other Catholic books that will also boost your soul.

On Thursday, Sept. 25,  Jen has a live radio show on SiriusXM at the DC Station at 1 PM, and will appear on EWTN live at 8 PM.

On Friday, Sept. 26, at 8 PM, Jen will give a talk at St. John the Apostle Parish in Leesburg, Virginia.

On Saturday, Sept. 27, from 9 AM to 4 PM, she will attend the "Risk Jesus Conference" at the Hylton Memorial Chapel in Woodbridge, VA.  Tickets are only $25.

On Monday, Sept. 29, at 6 PM Jen will talk and host a reception at the Catholic Information Center in downtown Washington DC. The event is free but please RSVP here.

If you live in the DC Metro area take a moment to share a laugh with Catholic author, Jennifer Fulwiler this week. For more details, check out her list of DC publicity appearance here.  (I'm disappointed that I'll be missing out on all this fun due to my bed rest.)