Today is Saturday, and my last post was just a few short days ago. It feels like it was forever ago. The trial and pain of being a ripe-for-the-harvest pregnant woman left me reflecting on "pain" and how that mini-trial, and its grouchy self-imposed symptoms, left me suspecting that should I really endure a major trial like cancer, there was a risk I might be in the bitter category (as opposed to the sweet communion category).

So yeah, a real trial that has the risk of life, or perhaps the risk of financial suicide. Maybe both. A trial (and I can see more clearly now: a blessing) that came to the earth just a few short hours after clicking "publish" on the hypotheticals of pain: a beautiful blonde boy, born at 7:55 a.m. on Tuesday April 5th, weighing a staggering 9 pounds 10 ounces.


Since that time I have pondered the ironies of this crazy week.

How The Mister of the House and I chose a birthing center, so we could receive professional treatment outside the annoying protocol of a hospital birth.

How this decision was also based on the fact that a normal safe birth at a birthing center would cost considerably less than a normal safe birth at the hospital.

And how, apart from the terror-inducing screams that bellowed from the innermost parts of my soul as this giant baby passed through the birth canal, I enjoyed a childbirth that was quick, healthy, attentive, and safe.

It's no wonder that we were shocked when just 5 hours after giving birth, during which time I enjoyed a full one-hour cuddle session immediately after his arrival, a time when I nursed him twice, a time when we cooed and sniffed and laughed at the unforseen odds of getting another blondie, well were just a little confused and shocked to be following an ambulance whisking our offspring to the NICU at the hospital just a few miles away.

Ironic that such a big healthy boy is so sick! Infection in the lungs, attending rise in blood pressure in the lungs, putting undue work on his little heart, and a seven day run of IV antibiotic fluids.



Ironic how we relished the thought of not being in the hospital, and how I now live there. Ironic how the hospital staff, and their annoying protocol, saved and is continuing to save my son's life.

Ironic that we planned on returning home the same day for an informal birthday party, and we haven't been home since (well at least me and the babe).

How my sweet and thoughtful blessing way necklace is around my neck everyday, but with another accessory: a NICU PARENT badge.



And more importantly, the irony that this pain is so much more real when compared to the pain I complained of on Monday (although valid: come on! I had a nearly 10 pound kid in my gutt).

And the sweet revelation that God is ever mindful of our family, and especially our little boy, and how we feel lifted up by his spirit through this unexpected detour we are taking. Through the tears, and the heart-to-heart conversations, The Mister and I have felt a sweet communion as we reflect on the possible and shocking changes this may bring to our family.

And ironic how we feel so blessed! Our family has been amazing and supportive. Our little giant is making A-MAZING progress in the NICU. He is growing stronger and is now getting all of his sustenance from me (yay!).

We are hoping to go home on Tuesday. Please keep baby Gideon in your prayers for a quick recovery.

** I have so many pictures I want to post! I will update them as soon as I am able. Thanks for all your prayers and concern for our family.**

Today marks the first time I have ever been over my due date. I cannot believe I'm still pregnant. This conversation sums up my existence right now:

Friend arrives to my house last week to pick up eggs. I haven't seen her in two weeks:

Friend: (freezes in her tracks and stares) Oh. My. Gosh. You have gotten so much bigger just since I saw you two weeks ago.

Mrs. Olsen: Oh. Yeah?

Friend: Yes. How are you feeling?

Mrs. Olsen: Like I want to have a baby.

(2 minutes later)
Friend: So are you retaining water?

Mrs. Olsen: Nope. Not really. My wedding ring still fits me fine.

(10 minutes later, after friend is gone)
Mrs. Olsen realizes that the water retention question is relevant to the concept of How in the crap did you explode like that in two weeks? Mrs. Olsen subsequently teeters between blog-savvy women empowerment and unnerving esteem dips that make her want to hibernate away from the general public.


Basically I'm bi-polar right now. I've been super ornery and feeling sorry for myself. Then I listened to General Conference, where a speaker (who happens to be a surgeon) talked about the role that pain plays in our lives.

Pain, aside from the obvious physical ailments, can also be acquainted with spiritual pain, the tough times we all go through in our life but never saw coming. He spoke about how as a surgeon, he had to inflict pain oftentimes to alleviate pain and how people responded to pain very differently.

A) The pain (aka trial) makes them humble, more compassionate, and closer to Christ.

or

B) They become bitter and resentful towards loved ones, and God.

I basically realized that I have a tendency to fall into category B. I thought that if I ever had a real, life-threatening, prolonged physical challenge like cancer or something, there would be a high likelihood I would be an ornery bitch. Sorry Norma. There's no other word for it.

This realization was super lame, and also a little humbling.

I also realized that no one wants to hang out with someone who stinkin' complains all the time! So I've stopped answering my phone. It's to protect all the people checking up on me, loving me and worried about me, who might discover that I'm absolutely no fun to be around right now.

However, I occasionally will reach out during one of my "highs" to say hello, go to a matinee or eat out. So thank you for thinking of me, and don't take it personal.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to channel The Mister's sweet Grandpa. He has had fried nerves since he had shingles several YEARS ago. He falls into category A. He always talks about how my little Vanilla Wafer looks like he did when he was young.



The Mister's eloquent poetress cousin, sums it up nicely in her poem Persimmon. It's about Grandpa Jack, and her first poetry book is available here.

Persimmon
By Dayna Patterson

Wait for the first frost,
he said

The limbs sag with fruit
hundreds of green shiny eggs

Wait for the frost
and they will be pure
sugar in your mouth

The word persimmon
a parcel of liquid semivowels,
already sugars the mouth.

The persimmons slowly ripen
to tangerine brightness.

They're not ready
till they swell like water
balloons, skin splitting,
almost rotten.

She waits for the frost,
the kill cold to tame
tannic acid, to trick
out the sweet.

She thinks about
persimmons and people
mellowed to sweetness
by adversity's cold clap.

Grandfather's shingles
blowtorch his chest;
he pins a sock roll to his pocket
to keep shirt from flesh

Yet folks feel like kin
and kin like kings
in the fountain
of his kindness

She waits for the frost
and hopes her mouth
will welcome cold fruit.


P.S. Any ginormous pregnant woman gets a free pass for being ornery. For the record. But still, I have had much to think about. Just want to make sure any prego friends are feeling the love. Bitch and moan to me anytime :)

This past Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a full-length, embroidered on the edges, flowing nightgown.


To be honest, I had NEVER worn a nightgown. I'm more of a workout pants and t-shirt kindof girl when it comes to bedtime. But I noticed the tag had a Dillard's sticker, and felt the soft brushed cotton, and took it home to wear to bed.

Enter Mrs. Olsen in nightgown. Rainbow Girl stops and stares. She says, "That's pretty" and the next day asks if I'll buy her a nightgown. The Mister of the House comments how cute it is. I wonder if they are serious.

The thing is, when I was a newlywed, I heard a tale (supposedly true) of a Hawaiian woman that ran on the beach every day for exercise. Once she became pregnant, she continued her daily jog. She jogged every week of her pregnancy, and even ran 3 miles the day she gave birth.

She was woman! Nothing would hold her back! She stayed in charge of her body and worked through the discomforts of pregnancy to provide good health to her new addition!

This was the woman I was determined to be. Tough. Resilient. In shape. Fitting into her skinny jeans 4 weeks postpartum. This is the woman who would have thought nightgowns were for grannies and not tough young mothers who jog the day before and the day after giving birth.



But then when I became pregnant, I felt like I was being overtaken by Alien Body-snatchers. Why does my favorite food make me ill? What's with the leg cramps? Why am I so freaking tired?

There's a beautiful (and necessary) loss of control when you incubate another human life. Because no matter how hard I try (and let's be honest, I have NOT tried as hard as the "Hawaii Lady") I can never seem to not get pregnant in my arms, butt, and sides.

This reality has been disheartening at times, and has later served as ammunition for victim-hood that only chocolate cake could understand.

But now, I am older and wiser. Offspring #4 is coming to earth soon, and while I am determined to skip church the next couple of weeks if I haven't gone into labor, there's a letting go that I am trying to embrace...A letting go without a grudge.

In my crunchy hippy birthing center, I am happy to announce that there exists the pregnant women apparently friends with the Hawaii Women. They usually have blogs and have gorgeous black and white photos of their bare tummies, sans stretch marks, showing thoughtful and/or exuberant images of their blossoming motherhood. I snuck this photo at my last appointment, check it:



La La La! Three, maybe even one pregnancy ago, this picture would have ticked me off just a bit. Now? It's just slightly annoying. Yay!



I am woman. Hear me roar!

I am 35 and love my nightgown!

My arse is a rectangle starting in my middle back, but I grow 'em gorgeous and strong. So it's okay.

And even though I'm going to skip church the next two weeks if I haven't gone into labor, God loves me and I think He's awesome. I recognize my blossoming as a blessing from Him.

Signed,
Thirty-five is the new 50 and it feels good...

Back in December, before I became an inflatable raft, The Olsen Gals had a little beebee party for the expecting Olsen Mommies. We ate great food, had a contest to see who could suck the water out of a bottle the fastest, and pretended to be fortune tellers stringing crystals above Mandy's belly to find out if she's having a boy or girl.


It was at this party that my creative sister-in-law talked about a cool birthing tradition from the Navajo Indians. It's called "The Blessing Way".

Boils down to this:
* Circle of women find a bead for the expecting mommy.
* With the bead, they include a "blessing" for the mother and child.
* All of the beads are strung together in a beautiful necklace.
* When it's GO TIME, screaming women in labor somehow texts, facebooks, or sends primitive indian vibes to her ladies that she needs their energy/prayers/love.
* Circle of women respond to labor vibes by lighting a candle, and keeping it lit during labor and delivery.
* Beautiful happy baby arrives and has loving and caring women already invested in his future.
* Mrs. Olsen is kicking herself in the pants because she forgot to send this request to all the women on the other side of the family (i.e. her side), as well as to her close friends.



But here is the finished product, waiting to go in my birthing bag, and asking for continued energy/prayers/blessing/love because that will have to be my epidural and I desperately hope it will work!

Thanks beautiful Olsen Family. Love the necklace!

Signed,
38 weeks + 2 days prego and wishing I had this kid yesterday...

Because we chose to hire a Certified Nurse Midwife with a Birthing Center over 100 miles from my little valley, I have taken lots of little day trips to The Great Salt Lake. One of the bonuses of these trips, and because I rarely leave home otherwise, has been reconnecting with old friends.



Here's Paula with her latest offspring {insert longing female sigh here}. When I called my old high school buddy Paula and said I'd be in the neighborhood, she offered to make me lunch. "Oh, you're doing your salad thing! My husband made some awesome smoked salmon...does that sound good on a salad?"


"YES" I said truthfully. Though excited, I felt a little guilty.

I hate salad right now. Wait, let me rephrase that...

I ate an entire package of Girl Scout Cookies yesterday, and the thought of rinsing, draining, chopping, & layering fresh greens seems like an undue chore most days.

What with my blogg-y pronouncements of keeping up with the greens until the end of this pregnancy; with my holiday sugar buzz leaving me resolute to walk (not even jog, skip, or run) the 3-mile-loop three times a week during my last trimester; my intent to infuse this child with a love of vegetables in the womb and because I was already on a roll...I'm not sure why I have turned into my own worst enemy. Perhaps I'm finding a reliable scapegoat in these hormones. The truth is, I stuck my middle finger to my green leaf resolution and I feel awesome/horrible about it.

And yet, fix me a salad, especially like the delicious one Paula gave me (with a golden fork no less!) and I'm in heaven. It tastes delicious to me, and deep down I know that I still crave it.



What is up?!

Not only did Paula's visit give me a guilt trip about not keeping my word, it gave me clarity that salad is still a huge part of my future. More importantly, the visit gave me some cute, clean, non-stained hand-me-down baby stuff for the little mutt growing in my gutt. Check it.

Paula is super creative. I had no idea she could sew in high school, but she seriously makes the cutest stuff! Check out her craft blog here.



The outfit and bib she embellished with fabrics from the awesome custom car-seat blanket. The reversible car-seat blanket is in place and waiting for my baby son.

As a bonus of going through bins of baby stuff, I found the doll that was crocheted by my Grandma Anderson. I'm pretty sure every granddaughter received one. I remember her invitation to come and pick a doll, where there was an array of color combinations you could choose from. I used to love to wrap this doll up in her never-to-be-lost blanket.

For now, this little doll, a labor of love, is a place-holder inside the soft, clean, and longing to snuggle my son blanket from Paula.

A little over 3 weeks to go!