Watching my girls grow up has been fascinating... there are so different:

Olivija:
quiet
introspective
mysterious
devoted
deliberate
cautious
dark haired/brown eyed

Sofie:
loud
gregarious - feigning shyness
extrovert
questioning
present
aware
blonde haired/blue eyed

and there's the question of motherhood...
Motherhood– the Good and the Bad

For years I was certain that I didn’t want to be a parent, because I had heard that we parent the same way we were parented. That scared the bejeezus out of me. There was
no way on God’s green earth that I was going to treat someone else the way I was treated. What would be the point? I was also concerned about bringing someone into this world of eco-destruction, pollution, war, guns, violence, pain, and confusion…how could I possibly
teach my children about nature, beauty, peace, forgiveness, serenity, wholeness, and grace without putting them in a bubble and not letting them experience this world? The thought of it was suffocating. But somewhere along the way my feelings changed. I craved some fresh air and I decided that my biological clock was stronger than the “how-could-I-parent-in-this-evil-world?” issue.

When that decision happened, the getting pregnant thing didn’t. Joe and I started right away and it took three to four years to get pregnant. After many tests, a few surgeries, a lot of pain, and a lot of luck, we were both pretty excited when I finally did get pregnant. I felt that it was a good thing, all doubts left me, everything was falling into place, and I was just beginning to feel that life inside me. I was thinking about nesting and what color I would paint the nursery. Everything was perfect and then, for some reason beyond our understanding, our baby that we worked so hard to conceive was born four months before she was due. I think the first three months of my motherhood experience was a joke…some horrible “test” that God decided Joe and Karina would be “strong enough to handle,” or that’s what some people tell me. The whole thing is now a blur except when I look back at pictures, letters, and notes. People tell me how we looked when they would visit us at the hospital: like death on wheels, in a different world, zombies. As for Joe and me, we were just waiting for our child to die. That’s what they told us would happen. All of the awkward expressions (“sorry,” “try again,” “this must be hard,” “why did this happen?”) and the constant social unawareness of people who would peep into her warming bed and exclaim under their breath “she’s soooooo small” were almost more than we could handle. People reacted in various ways—some too serious, some too goofy, some too chatty, some with silence, some with gifts, and some with invisibility. Not one person congratulated us on having a baby. Not one person. This was not motherhood…this was a test of trying to keep myself pulled together so that I wasn’t weeping uncontrollably for three solid months. And really, I was.

When we brought Olivija home, we were scared to death. It took a 24-hour constant stream of professionals to care for her just the day before, and now it was up to just me
and Joe? Right. Thank God for Olivija’s special nurse Ramona who came to our house that first weekend and blessed us with her presence. She made us coffee to drink and food to eat, and gave us help when we were too exhausted to sleep. With her help we figured we could do this. Olivija slept a lot and I just stared at her most of the day, every day. We didn’t take her out much because we were paranoid about her getting a cold and dying, or someone touching her without scrubbing their hands, or just the hassle of tubing, wires, and machines that monitored her breathing and heart beats. This was not motherhood…this was a feeling of complete incompetence—feeling incapable of feeding and caring for my own child.

Five years later…she lived and we didn’t drop her, or starve her, or drown her, or leave her in filthy diapers for more than 8 hours at a time. People are surprised when they see her because they still expect a sickly looking preemie to look back at them. She has a healing presence about her and she loves to “read.” She’s learning to tell jokes and they are awful and she belly laughs at her own humor. And I look at myself and I don’t see my parents. I look at the world around me and I see nature, beauty, peace, forgiveness, serenity, wholeness, and grace in most everything. I had forgotten that there is such a thing as a miracle. Now I can’t help but recognize that I live with one. This is my motherhood…this is a lesson in humility.

I struggle with my lack of patience when she wants me to read just one more book; to eat something other than what I have at hand; to blow bubbles and that would entail that I actually have to get out of my pajamas, get dressed, and go out in the yard; or to play with her doll house where she is the supreme ruler. (She is the supreme ruler of OUR house; she forgets that we were here first.) I struggle with having to get up at 3 a.m. because the dogs
down the road barked and woke her up and now she has to lay with momma and daddy because nothing else will appease her. I struggle with not having time to play golf without finding a babysitter and having the money to pay for both. I struggle with feeling that I am being selfish, self-absorbed, mean, unbending, and envious. Envious that she gets whatever she wants and all I really want is a good night’s sleep. That is the bad.

She has taught me about the mother bear in me and I CAN stand up for myself, and more so I can stand up for HER. She has taught me about patience and about counting to ten before saying something I might regret. She has taught me about the relationship of give and take and that children mostly take because they haven’t yet learned how to give…although, when I need to feel loved, she is right there giving with all her heart. Being Olivija’s mom has changed the way I look at everything. Nothing is the same--everything has changed. And because of this I read another book, I search the cupboards for something else that she is hungry for (or that I convince her she’s hungry for!), I go out in the yard in my pajamas and blow bubbles, I play doll house with her, and do whatever she wants me to do. Because of her goodness and her very being I get up at 3 a.m. and get mad at the dogs and not her. I have not, however, given up the idea that playing golf is possible—I just need to wait a few years until we can take her out and teach her how to play. She has kept me young and filled with hope. This is the good.

The issue of parenting how we were parented is still there…I fight that. I rely on Joe’s parenting techniques quite a bit, and we use his sister’s advice. Joe is a wonderful dad-– something that amazes me daily, because I personally have never seen it in my life. He will
be the one who will bring traditions and family vacations and things like that, of which I have no concept whatsoever. For that I am blessed. We so much want to have another child and I am afraid that it won’t happen—so I guess motherhood has left me craving more of it, I love being a mom, and love the changes that it has brought and continues to bring to my being. I am a better person because of Olivija, and she has become my breath of fresh air.

When Sofie came along we were just complete. Motherhood certainly took me by surprise... and i'm looking forward to the surprises that are yet to come.