Alone, and half-dead, while everything rests on my head.

I’ve joined a few facebook Mom’s groups. They were especially helpful when I was too tired to think for myself. There were questions I had in the moment that needed to be answered right now. I would have called and asked my mom but it seems I remember more about my mom’s pregnancies than she does these days. After the seizure episodes, diagnosis and medication, she’s forgotten a lot of things.

Since there’s always new Moms on the group a repeat question comes up, whenever a Mom is about to be left alone with her twins for the first time. That moment leaves most with anxiety and many with outright panic. I too remember too well the “go home” date on my hospital board being repeatedly changed to the following date. I was admitted for a C-section on a Tuesday and released the following Monday. I was coached through the hospital birth by a good friend, Maureen, who had been my prayer partner and companion on a spiritual journey for a couple years prior to my marriage. She kept tabs on the babies along with my sister Kim, while I spent time in surgery and the recovery room.

I spent a week in the hospital while my babies stayed in the special care nursery. We stayed at the hospital so long because of me not because of their pre-maturity. First, there was the C-section, then the huge blood loss. Then there was the HELLP syndrome (skyrocketing high blood pressure) to deal with. I was on Mg for about a week. Then there was complete constipation induced by the pain meds which left me in horrendous pain for 3 days. I hadn’t eaten for 2 days and was trying to function, while on Mg and while in horrendous pain. I didn’t succeed in feeding my babies every 3 hours and a few nurses were cross with me for not keeping up. I was easily confused by the bad charting of the feedings and mostly felt lost and neglected by the staff.

Sunday night or Monday night I knew I was being discharged the next day. I was quite frightened inside but too sick to make much of a fuss about it. A few friends and relatives were lined up to come over and help arrange the house and bring food. One friend spent the night with me, for the first night. After that, things went silent at my house. I slept in the couch and put the twins in the crib my friend donated to me. I got up to breast feed, then laid back down to rest. Everything was quite a blur. I didn’t even care that the crib still had the unwashed sheet that came with it from my friend’s storage unit. I had two preemie outfits on the babies and they wore them constantly. I didn’t give them baths. I had tunnel vision toward fulfilling absolute needs. Baths were unnecessary because unbathed babies don’t die. Unfed babies die.

After the first day of stop-ins and moving home from the hospital, things fell silent till the first weekend. The 4 hour feeding rotation stretched on and on broken only by the heavy truck movement outside in the morning and the hour or two in the evening when people stopped by here and there, after work. There was a lot of alone time. The house seemed to go completely silent. My computer didn’t work, so there was no distraction from the large silence. But with the silence came a song of comfort. It was an old hymn we used to sing at church, “God will take care of you. Through every day, ‘or all the way. He will take care of you. God will take care of you.” If it were not a song that came from the Spirit and spoke to the depths of my soul, it would have been the words of a trite excuse, from some stingy soul, for withholding a gift that would have ministered to a desperate need.

In the silence, I heard a song, a song that the Lord spoke to me. I was in no position to proclaim to everyone the goodness of God. I could barely put one foot in front of the other. Some may have described this as the low point in my spiritual life because I didn’t read the Bible, nor did I make any effort to seek out God. All I did was lay on the couch and sleep and feed my babies, while listening to the song and the vast silence of the Spirit, which enveloped me. There was a peace and a calm that stilled the worry. There was a quiet decision about what I would attempt to accomplish and I did only that.

House Projects Update

So, before all this snow arrived and somewhere close to a month ago, I decided to be the early bird one Saturday. I woke up with the sun an began my sidewalk crack-sealing project outside, while the twins slept. I bought this compound that consisted of tar and other chemicals that smelled like a newly paved road. You were supposed to melt it on an campstove and pour it in the cracks. Just my luck the campstove ran out of fuel so I brought the pail inside and put it on the kitchen gas stove. Then I went outside and in my sleepy stupor I stayed outside too long. I got occupied with the stuff I was working on.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that the strange noise I was hearing was the fire-alarm inside my house. I ran inside. The house was full of smoke and the fire alarms were wailing away. Coughing, I ran to the stove turned it off and began opening windows. The can on the stove was still on fire. I didn't quite know what to do to extinguish the fire, so I just grabbed the can with a hot pad and threw it out the open window, where it landed in a brush-pile and started it on fire. The alarms continued to wail as I ran around coughing and setting up in-and-outs for air movement. Then my babies began to wake up and wail. The door to their bedroom was closed so they weren't breathing the fumes like I was. I went in to hold them and soothe them and get out of the smoke. Eventually, the fire-alarms quieted and the smoke cleared but the stench remained.

To this day, the soot remains. I've not had time to attack it and I've been trying to finish the last project. However, as I considered the horrendous soot that first week. It was everywhere! I resign myself to call the insurance company for assistance in the damage clean-up. It's taken a month for everyone to do their numbers but finally, I think this week will be the week the cleaners come out and clean everything. I just have to pull all the stuff out.

I guess this goes to show how stretched I've become. These kinds of accidents don't happen to well rested people. I guess nearly burning down my house has become a blessing in disguise. I've needed the help for quite some time. Now, I'm getting it in a way I hadn't expected.

Immigration: an ongoing case.

Mom of 3 pending deportation.

I was directed to an article today. A mom of 3 is ordered to leave the country.

A number of issues are involved in this case. Naturally, the broken immigration system is an issue. Second, is the issue of slavery/prostitution/exploitation and trafficking of women as sex slaves. Third, is the IJ's, ignorance--as representative of the population--of the previous issue as being a legitimate issue.

A few comments:

1. The comments to the article are always appalling and representative of the common ignorance to immigration issues and other horrendous living conditions that exist across the globe.

2. People repeatedly refer to the other illegal immigrants out there getting away with being illegal. Often reference is made to how come all the hispanics are not being deported. This only goes to prove my previous comment. Anyone how makes this comment, has never known or been close to this "typical hispanic immigrant."

The logistical reason why illegal Hispanic immigrants are able to stay is that they have purchased a new identity--the identity of someone who sold his identity on the black market. That identity, a ss#, is used by the "illegal immigrant" for work and for staying purposes. Taxes are collected off of it. Social Security tax in particular. Generally, when an "illegal immigrant" uses this ss# they have to use it in a particular way because if it is used in such a way to attract attention such as an accounting issue, it could be discovered that the ss# is with the wrong person. So, as it works with any business, there is no issue with regular deposits. The Social Security Administration, for example, has no reason to scrutinize, incoming funds. They would rather scrutinize out-going funds and therefore to avoid even the smallest chance of that, the "illegal immigrant" holding a valid U.S. identity does not collect social security or often they don't collect tax refunds. So really the people who are mad about "illegal immigrants" not paying taxes don't know what they are talking about.

What this Mom does not have is a fake ID. She has her real ID and a denied petition for asylum. That is why she cannot stay and all those "illegal immigrants" can.

3. No matter how heartbreaking this case is...ICE, Immigration and the IJ do not care. Politicians in Washington cannot do anything unless the law is changed to provide a permit for people to stay or a path toward citizenship. Families are torn apart every day on account of immigration laws. Numerous "illegal immigrants" get deported their children get processed through CPS and are adopted out to American families. Citizens are the only ones who can use their representative power to urge their representatives to vote and put new laws in place, and to repeal old laws that don't work. Here is a list of repealed laws. However, most citizens have turned their power of representation over to the law as it is and becomes, and large companies and those who hold large dollars dictate any new laws.

A Paid Vacation

How marvelous! I received two days of paid vacation. I finally feel human again.

After 3 years of working for every hour of payment received and sometimes not working for a paycheck at all, I finally have made it into the paid vacation club. It's a very exclusive club. I even left a better job, just for the added benefit of getting one or two more paid vacations more than I would have otherwise, for the next two months. On Black Friday, I dropped my twins off at daycare and came back to the house with hopes of tackling a project. However, I was so exhausted and with the weight of constant responsibility lifted off my head, I collapsed onto the couch and slept for 5 hours. I'd been struggling with a cold and other sickness since the beginning of the month. Finally, I was able to catch enough of a break to do some damage to the grip of illness on my body.

Today, Sunday, I have finally reached the end of washing clothes and cooking and cleaning out the things growing in the fridge. Everything is washed. The floor is cleaned. The toys are put away and the dishes are caught up. Rarely, is this all accomplished at once.

I never thought this would ever happen to me but housecleaning is the last thing on my to-do list these days. I keep my job, first. Second, I work on resting so that I can keep my job. I then wash clothes. After that it is a toss up between making food and washing dishes. Everything else gets neglected. I've even at times neglected bathing the babies because it was too much work. I certainly have neglected bathing myself. I don't even have the presence of mind to remember my longest stint of not bathing.

If you see me on my couch too often for too long--I am resting. Interestingly enough, I have also been recovering for much longer than I realized. It was a bit deceiving when I went to my ob for a 3 week post par-tum check-up and my ob said, "Clean bill of health!" At the time it didn't ring true in any shape or form but I thought to myself, "I must be well because she says I'm well." Then I tried very hard to be well. But I did notice how I did not feel like doing anything. I felt very lethargic. I just sat on the couch. I remembered that I had preemie clothes for my babies at the bottom of the steps but could not conceive of putting forth the effort to go down to get them.

Then I got better and better. And I thought, "huh, it feels like I can climb a ladder now." And it feels like I can maneuver this power tool." This has been more recent than I care to admit. Last year a friend invited me to Zumba, I couldn't conceive of it. Now, it doesn't feel like such a mental block.

I am still recovering it feels. Just doing so in bits and pieces as I can.

Suddenly, they speak.

Two weeks ago I had the girls evaluated because they were not speaking. Two ladies from St. Paul Public Schools came out to evaluate. The twins did really well with their motor abilities but not so much with the speaking. They are 21 months and they really should be calling me Mama and be verbal in other ways.

Yet it seems the holiday weekend was their breakthrough. Today, at nap time I asked them if they wanted to go night-night. They both said, "No," repeatedly and plainly. I then asked them if they wanted to eat. "Eat they repeated and went running to the kitchen. "What shall we eat?" I asked. "Apple," they replied.

No issues in comprehension there.

Today, Glory was exercising her climbing ability. I was in the other room when I hear something that sounded like what I've said to her repeatedly, "Get down." I hear it again and I go to inspect what is going on. There she is climbing onto the couch arm and up the shelving unit, saying to herself, "Get down." It was my turn to say, "Get down."

Cute things Glory and Gracie are doing now.

So, I have this made up word that I use with the girls.

Aye, aye—official definition: to soothe, by patting gently or cuddling.

When they are rough with the kitty, I tell them, “Aye, aye, kitty,” and they pet the kitty nicely, instead of slapping. Last night Glory fell over backwards on the floor and Gracie stood there watching her cry in surprise. I told Gracie, “Aye, aye, Glory. Go say aye, aye Glory.” Gracie toddles over to Glory, bends down to rub her belly, then grabs her hand to help her get up. So, sweet!

Both the twins like to slap their own belly when I strip off their shirt. It’s really cute.

The girls are using the word “owie,” a lot. When I change their diaper it’s, “owie.” When I change their clothes it’s, “owie.”  Their food is owie. The cold is owie. So, last night as I was changing Glory’s clothes it was owie again. And since she was bare, I slapped her playfully and said, “owie.” Then, I slapped her hand and said, “owie.” Then I slapped her belly and said, “owie.” She caught on right away and giggled contagiously as I slapped her bare skin everywhere. Glory has a very acute sense of humor and a contagious giggle.

Along with the owie theme, Gracie has been batting her mouth and crying, “owie” for the last 3 days. The drool is running like a river. She is teething something fierce. Almost nothing will relieve the pain of teething bicuspids.

Last weekend, my sister Kimberly offered to run to the Just Between Friends sale, in my stead to score snow pants, winter coats and snow boots. She saved me much time and headache. I was so grateful. I was also surprised by my little girls’ reaction to her purchases when she got home. Glory and Gracie were all eyes and ears when we got the purchases out of the bag. They very much knew that these were their clothes. Gracie lifted the hangers of sweaters and tops, inspecting the items and talking about them. We put on their new coats and they walked around the house looking down at them, talking in their baby chatter. Even the next morning Gracie went to pick through her new clothes again, holding them up, looking at them and chattering about them.

On occasion I have had the battle of the wills with Glory about what she should and should not be doing. She looks at me. I look back at her. She looks back at me and I stare her down, evidencing disappointment in my face. Sometimes it is just too much to stare back at in defiance, so she just closes her eyes.

The days when it is easier to switch to autopilot.

There was the day, my first Mother’s Day as a mother. I didn’t want to think about it I didn’t want to celebrate it. I just wanted it to pass like any other day. While I loved being a mother and loved my newborn twins, I didn’t want to commemorate—which was only a few small steps from—commiserating my predicament as a new mother. Yet, I felt a spark of joy when my sister-in-law came over and delivered flowers.

Days like today when I’ve got a fierce headache and just want to sleep. I will go to daycare and just pick up the twins, go home and feed them whatever they want to eat and will try to sleep on the couch as they play around me throwing toys and household items alike onto the floor and into the garbage.

There are the days when I miss my husband so badly, I could turn into a mournful wail. Instead, I quickly divest myself of the longing dreams and visions of companionship, pop some ibuprofen, drink a tincture of cramp bark and count the items on my to-do list and the money in the bank. Two nights ago I called him at 2 am, after waking. My thoughts spinning in circles, next to two babies snoring through noses full of mucus. I paid $2.50 for a 5 minute call. I told him I just wanted to hear his voice but really, I wanted so much more.

New developments

1. My sister might be moving into my upstairs in like a day. I am entirely unprepared for this since I am in the middle of two projects and have entirely neglected housecleaning in a way no Mennonite ever would. The fear of someone seeing it feels not so great. Honestly, it's like when you read the tragic stories in the newspaper, where some child gets forgotten in the car and the police come to find the parents at their address and they report the cleanliness of the house to be substandard to filthy. It's not ideal. But I'd rather keep my job than to clean my house. It's a shame that it has to be a choice between the two.
2. I got a new job starting on Monday. Yes, I know. Why am I starting a new job when I'll be so soon leaving it. Well, that is the cut-throat in me coming out, looking out for myself and not so much the company. (Hey, it's time for punching it out like the big companies.) I want benefits for the next few months and I would like a paid vacation to use for a packing day or something. My temp company was giving me paid holiday for Christmas and Thanksgiving Day. 2 days--that's it. I was considering skipping family Christmas and Thanksgiving just so I could work on packing and or a house project. I was grateful for the nearly $3/hr raise my current company was willing to pay me to keep me. But the new company was offering the same payrate and they are located a mile from my home and they have benefits and perks and all that good stuff employees get. I also got the job with a cold application, 20% chance of this occurring. 

Basil, chicken and cheese ravioli soup

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• 1 sweet red pepper
• 2 carrots cubed
• chicken broth
• chicken
• 3 pieces bacon, chopped
• sweet cheese ravioli
• 2 T. flour
• lots of finely chopped or puréed basil

Fry the bacon or finely chopped salt pork. Grill the garlic, onion and red pepper. Set aside. Boil the carrots, chicken, in the chicken broth and water till soft. Ensure broth is seasoned with a pinch of paprika, salt and pepper. Add ravioli, bacon, grilled onion, garlic and red pepper. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Mix a cup of cold water with 2 T. flour and add to soup. Add puréed basil till soup is a nice green color. Simmer till thickened. 

Aesthetic tip. If the color isn't green and the basil flavor is sufficient, likely the "grilled" aspect/color of the soup is overpowering the green basil color. So, don't grill your veggies in the soup pot and add the grilled aspect of the soup as late in the process as you can.

Other thickeners can be used. I will be trying green split pea or potato flakes.

To add flavor, my "cheater" ingredient for soups is this bullion I get from the Asian store. No MSG in it. I'm not sure what it is called.

My twins approve this recipe. They were born with their father's palette. It must be savory before they eat it. They ate a few pieces of chicken, then protested. So I fed them the broth and they loved it. I even slipped them the veggies in the broth!

Another weekend.

Recently, Ibuprofen and Advil have become my friends. I can't seem to deal with the muscle pain otherwise. After a long weekend of very physical activities, my body feels like its been hit by a truck. I got a lot of crack sealing done this past weekend. And since I was using the caulk gun, I decided to finish caulking the windows on the west side of the house. The weather was great for it. The caulk was super hard to squeeze out of the tube. Therefore, I'm having some difficulty typing.

The twins loved the outdoors for the most part. While I was sealing cracks in the back yard, they ran around playing and inspecting, while a Hmong ceremony took place in the house immediately adjacent to my back yard. The rattles, gongs and chanting, wafted down to us like the smell of lemongrass and barbecued meat. Their kids played hide and seek all around us while I caulked and the twins played, until they cried in protest.

The have's and the have nots.

Last year at about this time I was working at NMDP. I was a bit unambitious. It was a contract job, purposed for replacing a maternity leave. And I knew I didn’t have it quite made yet but I had little energy at the time to pull all the heartstrings and impressive feats for the company, while I breastfed two infants and kept the household running. I landed the job at the interview and I knew I had. I charmed the socks off of the two ladies that interviewed me and I intended to. But because of the overload outside of the job, and likely the level of wellness attained after birthing twins, I wasn’t impressive enough to stay with the company.

Such is the nature of finding a good company to work for and keeping your job with it in today’s market.

As I have just learned a good Seminary education no longer needs experts in hermeneutics and Church History. That seems about as foreign and bizarre to me as eliminating the Old Testament department at a Bible Seminary. It seems that is the nature of today’s economy. Everything, gets worked over and cut. I have come to see and understand what positions in a company are the “fat” and will get cut. I see it through more calculative eyes and I toss aside my emotions, when looking at company practices and structures.

All that is to say that I have, as an employee, become more calculative as well, not to the point of cruelty but to the point of survival. I think it will take more than 3 years of suffering to bring me to cruelty.

In today’s job market, cut-throat does not describe it fully, although that is the case also. There is this element of the “haves” and the “have nots.” Once you have a job or your spouse does, you rule the world and the have nots have no impact or argument toward you. There is no obligation to the have nots as they struggle and toil away. There is a sense of entitlement for the haves, concerning all that they have. A salary. Benefits. Paid vacation. They feel they have earned it and the folk who’s jobs got eliminated or downsized—well, somehow the don’t deserve the salary or benefits of everyone else.

Somehow, this mentality feels really OFF to me. A bit like the silence about the disparity between a CEO's annual compensation and the lowliest worker in his company. Sure, that is an extreme disparity, begging for criticism. However, I'm not so sure those who currently bask in their benefits on a 5 figure salary, would behave much differently than the CEO, with an 8 figure salary.

Pushing their weight already.

Glory didn't even need instructions. She just picked up the shovel like she knew what she was doing. Wow, baby! Who needs to fight to get a handyman out? For me it's proven to be more expedient to birth children then wait a year. LOL.

Chutes and ladders.

Before twins, I would have gotten these projects done in a month. It's not that much to do--for the Mennonite me anyway. But now with twins, I've been struggling the entire summer to complete them and it is now the middle of October. Last Friday I left an hour early from work and did a marathon on a project for about 2 hours before I picked up the girls from daycare. That was an amazing accomplishment.

For the past month or two, I've been trying to hire a reliable handyman. By the looks of it (below) my twins have been more reliable.

Gracie climbs the ladder while Glory looks out the door. The "snow" in the photo is the evidence of sanding plaster.

House project progress

So it didn't really work to hire the handy man of a friend. So, the project goes on...

Here's the evidence.

This is how we started off...
My all too willing helpers got barricaded into the kitchen.

They destroyed the kitchen. There was a lot of screaming when the highchair got tipped over.

The barricade didn't last long. 

To people that keep saying stupid things about welfare…

… welfare is where the government pays all your bills while you sit on your lazy ass and do nothing but eat food stamps.

… there is government assistance that is out there that people become dependent on and that the taxpayers slave away to pay

… or those who say that before you put people on government assistance; they should be subject to a drug test.

I used to be as ignorant as the next person when it came to knowing what kinds of government assistance there is. Then, I got laid off, became pregnant with twins and immigration refused to allow my husband to enter the country even for the severe emergency that became my birth experience.

I knew things would be rough, even with my husband present. But I knew I would at least survive, if he was with me. However, the chances of having him get a Visa were slim and I had to make alternative plans if he was denied. I drafted a plan and a budget for before and after the twins were born and I handed it out to family members at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was met with kindness and some skepticism but largely, I don’t think anyone realized the true health risks I faced in birthing twins. My family only started to realize how serious things were, when I began to end up in the hospital repeatedly. Everything climaxed when I finally had an emergency C-section and had to stay in the hospital because those in charge of releasing me wouldn’t because they knew I would be going home as the sole care provider, and I was not well enough to do it. By then it was too late to move in with a brother or sister, as it would have required moving across the country.

Needless to say, if the sole care provider of preemie infants is still laid off and too ill to work or look for a job, there is no money coming into the household. Who is going to put a roof over their head? People helped here and there and gave baby gifts and that part was all good. I was tremendously grateful. But nobody was paying the mortgage or the utilities but myself. As things progressed and I began searching for jobs and applying, I saw the writing on the wall, when stumbled out the door to an interview and I nearly passed out. This was just the beginning of the day, not the end. How was I supposed to work to my fullest of potential and keep a job if I was exhausted at 10 am before I even got to the interview? Needless to say I didn’t get that job, nor the next and the next.

I had begun to research state assistance (welfare), while I was working, even before I gave birth. I researched it as a last ditch option and a worst case scenario. And for The Visa application for my husband, I spelled out how much it would cost the government to support me in my husband’s absence. It may be a shocker but the truth of the matter is that to go on the maximum benefit, government program, for my family of 3 it would cost the government a direct cash amount of $1,005/month. I am quoting DHS’s 2013 informational flier. Note that this number has increased ever so slightly from the 2011 number I was quoted before my babes were born.

A family of three — two children, one adult — with no other income receives $532 in cash and $473 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program support monthly. https://edocs.dhs.state.mn.us/lfserver/Public/DHS-4737-ENG

This might be another ingenious observation but there is no housing available for $532/month. Further, this is assuming you buy nothing else but housing with your cash grant. Diapers, clothes, shampoo and any other baby items as well as energy costs and car insurance all need to remain in that $532/month budget or things will start looking pretty dismal really fast. This is 100% of what a person is eligible for.

Wow. Thank you Uncle Sam and Obama!

Me an my po’ babies be gett’in sooo hungry with’ ot yo’ kandness. I be mighty ‘appy wit dis dime u gave me. Lemmie, go un buy me a drop a milk at de gas stashon. Mebee I kin sneak some papa’ towls out de ressroom to rap ma babies in from de co’d.

…oh, and by the way, the food assistance kicks in right away when you apply but the cash assistance begins 2 months after your income drops to $0/month. So, to clarify, you need to first live on $0 for 2 months then you will get help. 

Another ingenious observation here but if your income drops to $0 for two months, whether you rent living quarters or pay a mortgage, you quit paying for 2 months and you are evicted by the end of the 2nd or you have a foreclosure happening. And no you can't pay for the 2 months with your savings because the application for assistance, ensures that you "really need" assistance by disqualifying you for assistance if your savings exceeds $1000.

I wonder how many people, if forced to live within this budget, would call this kind of existence, “sitting on your ass and eating steaks bought by food stamps?” If you were so unlucky to have found yourself in the $0/month situation for 2 months, your ass would be sitting in a homeless shelter or the street. I don’t call that easy living. I don’t call that desirable living. I certainly wouldn’t begrudge someone for living off a “government handout” in this situation. How could anyone in their right mind become dependent upon this lifestyle?

There were a number of people that encouraged me to apply for government assistance during this time. The way in which they encouraged me to do so, seemed to indicate that they thought my basic needs would be easily met. When you do the numbers, it simply doesn’t balance out and it’s not because I can’t do the math while I’m on drugs. The only drugs I was taking were the Mg and the other pallette of drugs they had me hooked up to at the hospital.

It’s time people started to see the truth about welfare and government assistance. When I saw the borders of this picture being framed in front of my very eyes, I began to panic a little inside my head, as I felt my leaden limbs and looked at my teenie tiny twins cuddled closely to me in my twin bed. I saw images of me homeless, on the street with my babies in the middle of winter. I began to fear they be taken away from me. I considered giving them to foster care for a while but was afraid they wouldn't be returned to me.

How did somebody with such aspiration and promise and spirit end up like this?

I'd like to remind you, gentle reader, we are all only a couple mis-steps away from the same fate. Lets say an accident and a job loss happened to your family. This will immediately put you in the same situation I am describing above. I hope you don't become one of those lazy ass welfare recipients.

Modern Slavery

I believe slavery is one of the biggest problems we need to address in the next decade.

Slavery: global comeback.

There is also the book I recommend

A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery by E. Benjamin Skinner. The book is gritty with details of a harsh reality.

Amish avoid Obama-care

I think we could take a lesson from this.

Here's an article about an alternative to our current healthcare system. It would benefit us greatly if we could avoid the healthcare middlemen.

http://news.msn.com/us/as-us-struggles-with-health-reform-amish-go-own-way

The Amish system doesn't always work perfectly. I remember the church I grew up in. During the time my mother was having babies, she seemed to be the only one having babies. Traditionally, birthing babies was done through a mid-wife who didn't incur great expense. However, when people began giving birth in hospitals, the church began to assist with the hospital bill for every child born. With our church, I happen to remember how, it wasn't until my mother quit birthing children that someone thought this practice should be adopted.

Unfinished work

I woke up at 3 am last night in a panic. I couldn't get back to sleep as I looked at the unfinished walls. How am I going to get this done? Sending out a universal request for help didn't have good results. Asking individuals to help with certain projects helped a little. There is so much more to do. I began looking online and found some carpenters and handymen. That might work. I also remembered by morning that a family friend had told me of a young man who was looking to do handy man work, while his case for asylum gets processed.

I know if I were still in the Mennonite community I would just hire a young Mennonite to come over and do this and that. I'd trust him better than the handymen from the Yellow Pages. Further, I recalled the days when my parents were overwhelmed with more work than they could handle. The church would arrange a "shaf taug" (work day) and a bunch of people would come over and the camaraderie would help the work get done in short order.

I feel like a fish out of water in my current situation. After some plumbing disasters by professionals, I've avoided contractors and opted to fix things myself. One expensive disaster could have been avoided had the plumber read the directions listed on a large sticker posted on the product.

The void that stands beside me.

It might not be so bad if I could pick up the phone and call him at any time or skype. I could at least have an emotional connection on an as needed basis. I could work with that. But as things have been going, $5 buys you 20 minutes of phone time to Uganda. The rates used to be better but anymore this is the best they get. I’ve spent a fortune on phone cards. Then we’ve switched to skype and used google voice both of which are dependent upon a decent internet connection and on power. Needless to say those two items have infringed greatly on good communication with my husband. Sometimes I can’t speak to him for over a week.

It’s been a super hard week. I’ve missed him so much. I’ve been sick with a feverish cold. The babies are so much bigger now than before. And I’ve blown through another deadline for leaving the continental US. It is definitely fall now. My low wage job is not helping me save much for our flights to Uganda. I’ve been interviewing all summer here and there, trying to get a higher paying job to no avail. I work hard every weekend to get the house into shape and to pack up my life here. The items on my to do list get done very slowly. Perhaps if I would have started working that list a year ago, I’d be done now. But I still remember how sick I was last year about this time and how needy the twins still were at that time.

I have my strength back now. I remember being too weak to care. Perhaps that is the difference between missing my husband and caring that he is not with me. Last year the loneliness didn’t hit me because I didn’t have the strength to feel much. I remember a lot of things fell behind as I lay on the couch last year. One evening I had fallen asleep with the lights on. I woke and saw a portly mouse walking across the floor and squeezing under the closet door. Normally, such an incident would have roused me from slumber to clean out whatever it was that drew that mouse to be in the closet. Instead, I simply lay there. I remember making a mental note to do that later. By morning that mental note had completely disappeared. Months later, I re-discovered the closet mouse remains.

Now, time eats away at our lives together. Hard work helps but a little. I’m weary with trying to keep up but know that if I don’t put in a brute effort, I will eventually be stranded here in the US and this painful separation will go on and on. The sadness settles like the cold before dawn. Like the death of a sister, I’ll remember it less and I will only weep occasionally. I want to call out for help but like the last cries of a mouse caught in a trap, I know I am near the end.

The difficulty with life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“It’s really difficult.”

The blithe response people have at times given to me in response to hearing about my husband’s deportation and bar from entering the U.S.

How do I respond to that? “You have no idea how difficult that is and was while I was giving birth to our twins and so close to death’s door I nearly tripped through it.” And “no,” people do not come back from death in a day or two. It takes months to a year. Oh yea, and your bills don't pay themselves just because you are sick.

Or do I respond? “Really, it’s not difficult unless one makes it difficult.” What is so hard about getting a husband a Visa to come be with his family during a medical emergency? Are the laws difficult? Yes. Certainly! Are you trying to decide whether my husband should or should not be let in and that is difficult? “If that is difficult, you are sick and have no soul.”

A Visa is a simple small piece of paper that seems to move heaven and earth for some and destroys the lives of others. The stakes of one Visa has destroyed my life. I haven’t allowed it to break me forever but it tempers how I see life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the American dream.

Life. It is only important if you align yourself with the invisible elite of the world and become one of them. If you don’t know who the invisible elite are, we have one similarity: I don’t know who they are either, hence the descriptor “invisible.” Yet they will be revealed once everyone else has lost their wealth to these chosen few. It will be a little like the Venezuelan “ruling class” of time past. Their lives are sacred. But your life and mine will suit their needs and ideals as will our deaths. That you are American will matter little more than the American children living abroad who’ve been killed by drone strikes.

Liberty is a farce in this world. Those who are truly free are dead. In this world of surveillance and technological manipulation, no one is free. Not even the elite.

Pursuit of happiness. Usually, the pursuit of happiness is lived out as the attainment of a comfortable lifestyle. How has that been working for y’all since the housing bubble burst? The number one comfort of millions across the U.S. has been taken away with a slight of hand.

The American dream. I don’t see an American dream. Now, I hear people from the far right yammering away about closing our borders. They’ll likely get their wish. But fences are fences. Who is to say that those fences aren’t really constructed to keep people in? The Berlin Wall was erected to “protect” East Berlin from the not-yet-de-fascistized West Berlin. So, which direction did the traffic flow over that wall?

Help and hospitality.

One of the most scary pregnancy moments was not being in the hospital or anywhere near there. I just remember having returned from work and I was laying on the floor in my bedroom. I think it was on a small mattress. Why on the floor? Because I had given my bed to someone else. Why was I still working? Because I had to.

So, I was laying there tired beyond belief. And all I could do is think. No energy left for anything else.

“I have to eat,” I thought. Yes, but how will I do that? I can’t get up. I am too exhausted. I can’t even walk to my car to drive someplace to get something to eat. But I have to eat, I haven’t eaten for hours. I felt a bit of numbness come over me. I was slipping into a lethargy and had to think my way out before it overtook me.

I thought to myself, “Better I call my sister and ask her to come cook some food for me.”

I rarely called on anyone for help. I was putting all my energy into putting up a good front and I couldn’t buckle under the pressure of the toll my pregnancy was taking on my body. I remember in the last week of pregnancy. My slacks felt much more loose. I was losing significant body fat. The twins were sucking every bit of nutrition out of me. But I wouldn’t allow myself to dwell much on how poorly I was feeling nor on the toll it was taking on my body. I had to fake it till I made it.

My sister came over and cooked. She asked me if I needed to go to the hospital. I told her that I didn’t need to go to the hospital but rather, I needed to eat so I wouldn't end up there.

Since then, I have come to realize with a greater awareness, that the number of people who are helped by dramatic rescue is small in comparison to the number of people who only require small mundane acts of help. Dramatic rescues happen when things have gone wrong for too long.

As in the story of a foreign national. He had been going to university and had been rooming with a bunch of average American guys. It was winter and he had somehow caught an illness that was making it very difficult for him to breathe. He stumbled home from class in the cold, collapsed on his bed and asked his roommates if they could bring him to the doctor. They heard him but somehow ignored him and continued with their Friday night revelry. So he called a friend and the friend decided with him that he should go to the emergency room. He called the ambulance from his bed and when they came to the door the roommates couldn’t figure out who had called an ambulance to their address. He was in the hospital for a week recovering from a respiratory infection.

Please remember to help people in little ways this week.

Home repairs.

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in home repairs. So little by little I’ve been chipping away at it. Last year I was too sick to work on things physically but I went out onto the internet and put in an application here and there for some neighborhood home improvement programs. I’ve been slowly finding out some repairs are better done by someone else. I have a tendency toward my father’s blanket statements, “If you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself.” I’ve also inherited his opinions about what is a job well done. Cover-ups are never a job well done. So those bathrooms that are custom fit and go over the top of your old bathroom—absolutely no!

I didn’t think those programs would ever amount to anything. But this year, they’ve come through and I have a new roof and some electrical problems fixed in my home and some plumbing. It’s awesome to come home and it’s done and I didn’t have to scratch my head and do a bunch of research and groan and sigh before putting in a brute effort to cross the item off of my list.

Angie’s List has helped a lot. I’ve also learned a bit about being writing tasteful reviews. I thought I would never join but did just recently. I’ve learned I’m a hard grader. I didn’t like how one guy decided to fix the plumbing. In my idea of things done right, I would never have Jerry-rigged a pvc pipe between two pieces of 100 year old lead pipe and then strapped the top-heavy contraption to the studs so it won’t fall apart. Obviously, somebody’s gotta go in and fix that again some day. So, I mentioned this odd fix as the only drawback to a job well done and gave the guy a B. I was shocked to learn that he wants to come back and redo it, in the event that I give him an A.

Wow! Angie’s List has already paid off.

Enjoying life in transition.

Sometimes it’s a little hard to enjoy life and be happy with huge tasks hanging over your head, when things are very much in a state of not-ideal and working toward making them more ideal.

Not living with my husband is probably the most not-ideal thing I could imagine. Raising twins from birth makes it 3x more not-ideal. And ever since I’ve accepted the fact that he’s not going to get a Visa to come to the U.S. I’ve felt an enormous pressure to do the impossible: pack up my life and our babies and go to Uganda.

This sort of, task of the impossible, never used to daunt me. But after a few set-backs, I have to fight the urge to succumb to failure. Can’t I just sleep through to the deadline and somehow hope when I wake up all things will be done and in order? Or there’s the opposite urge. Can’t I just work so hard, that even if life is beyond miserable for several months, I’ll just continue to work till it’s done. I’ll get two jobs. Work 80 hours/week. Never see my babies awake. I’ll just shut off the water in the house as well as the AC and electricity—never go out, save every dime there is to save for those plane tickets.

Transitions are hard. I haven’t seen many people do them well or without noticable agony. Pre-birth bliss suddenly turns into a pushing and prodding or pulling into the world. There is lots of screaming, usually. You stay with Mom until you are jolted into daycare or pre-school. There is happiness and tears. Then there are the progressive levels of schooling with not much relational continuity throughout. A quick goodbye at graduation and you never see that teacher again. Transitioning from singlehood into marriage with children is likely the most alienating transition of all. Suddenly, you can’t just go have a late night cup of coffee (or other beverage) with your single friends. There are lots of feelings on both sides.

I feel like I’ve been living in transition for the past 2 years. It's like the transition of birthing from one world to the next. I wish I could just rip the band aid off. I could just get up one day and walk out the door, drive to the airport with babies and never look back. That would hurt a lot of people though. I’d best close down my life here well and enjoy it while it’s going on, because I can never regain the time with my growing babies.

So, every once in a while I do what I did last night; the second time in a year. I went out for dinner--two kids in tow. We practiced using crayons and not climbing on tables. The twins ate very nicely, so everyone else said. Only, one blood curdling scream from Gracie. We even got oreos and lollypops from our waitress. And we had fun! And the bill was under $10. Woohoo!

They love children...thank God.

As I dream about Uganda, there is one big welcome relief that washes over me. I hope it isn't a myth. I hope it isn't that I'm the exception because I am white.

In Uganda, people love children and they adore babies. They especially fawn over twins. From what I've been told, often a twin mom is so well taken care of, she is barely allowed to hold them. The relatives old and young will come to help with the babies. Mom nurses them and soothes them only when others can't hush the baby.

When I was there and discovered I was pregnant, I was speaking to the nieces who lived at my home, telling them I'd come back after giving birth. 

"You will have twins," they said. "Girls!" they emphasized.

Not wanting to discourage them I said, "Maybe."

They clapped their hands and danced with glee and spoke of how they would each care for one.

Here, children are seen as a burden and a restriction, as something to be contained. No children allowed her. No children allowed there. Children don't go to church they go to the church's nursery. All children must be belted into the cart at Target. Thank God they don't enforce those rules because what would a mother of multiples do? 

I can't tell you how many times my brothers and sisters and I were the target of people who wanted to restrict us. There were 10 of us going here or there and we were a very gentle crowd but people wanted to saddle us and reign us in. We rarely went out. We rarely booked a hotel together or rented a car together because we always got the management's 5th degree about how should this work and overuse of amenities designated for a limited amount of persons. For us, there was no excessive use of anything, we had already figured out the teamwork necessary to ensure efficiency. So, we used that teamwork to outwit the management.

We were at a campground with cabins, appropriately housed in a cabin our size, however, the managers limited the family of 10's towels to 6 only. We distributed two hand towels to those who didn't have bath towels. And at the next hotel, we pretended that half of us were not with the other half, when requesting extra towels and by walking down the street, while my father requested 2 rooms. We also pretended we were not all in one group at the airport, when my father was booking a rental car.

Raising children in the U.S. is one of the most alienating experiences I have ever encountered. That there is two has but aggravated the situation. When my babies were 5-10 lbs. I would go downtown on the bus with them. One in the stroller and one in a strapped on frontal carrier. I was still weak from the birthing ordeal and once the stroller almost got away when the bus careened around a corner. The bus driver hollered at me and the sign grimaced at me to, demanding all strollers be folded and child and stroller be carried aboard. They forgot, some don't have a choice about being one or numerous. 

"Only, two infants per adult, under 18 months!"

Shucks! Somebody should have told God about that rule when there appeared more than two in some Mom's belly.

Today, my twins were banned from an apartment building. It was not because of their behavior. It was simply because they were children in the care of my friend and that by all definitions is a business, generating profit. I cried for an hour, while my girls looked at me, confused. Here, I work my tail off to provide for my babies and all my friend's landlord can see is a profit generating daycare. What do I do now? Leave them in their crib and go to work? Can somebody please stop this madness. Sounds like there's a good portion of nightmares coming out of America also.

Buckle it up!

So, there are currently two things that the twins must do constantly: wipe things and buckle buckles. They get great satisfaction from buckling their carseat buckles. All the buckles on all the rockers bouncies and swings are buckled unless Momma un-buckles them.

It's no wonder they think life is about buckles. Every day by 6:30 am, I buckle them into their carseats. Snap. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap. Snap.  We get to daycare by 7:00 and I un-buckle them from the car. Snap. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap. Snap. I snap them into their stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap. I take them in and we un-snap them from their Stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap.

If they go anywhere. They must be snapped into their stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap.

Once I go to pick them up, I snap them into their stroller. Snap. Snap. Then repeat. Snap. Snap....

And we continue the series of snaping and unsnapping. 20 in the morning 20 in the evening at basic minimum to get to and from daycare. Is there any wonder that they believe that life is about snapping buckles?

Once we get home we eat and wipe. And change diapers and wipe some more. Then if we have time we wipe the floor and wipe the counter. The only confusing thing about all the wiping is...Crazy that with all the wiping, things aren't more clean around here.

Maternal Care in Uganda: Stories from Kiwoko Hospital and other thoughts.

While I was pregnant with my twins, I began researching maternity care in Uganda. I was working on compiling a case for Stephen's Visa. I had a few options. I could go to Uganda to deliver. There, I would have the help of my husband and the benefit of rich organic food. I could deliver here in the states, and depend on help from family and friends, with the benefit of modern medicine. It was during this time I reached out to people around me for help. Some stepped up and a number of folks who were complete strangers helped above and beyond the call of duty. A few, who may have been overwhelmed by my prediciment, advised that I should go and let my husband take care of me.

No pregnant woman should have to read what I read, while knowing I was in the middle of a high risk pregnancy. But then again, no woman should have to deliver babies in the conditions that I read about. The statistics are aweful. It scars my soul, and brings the reality of these adverse conditions right into my back yard, to think that anyone would wish this on me or on any other human.

Below are links to an article published in The Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing. It is about the building of a NICU at Kiwoko Hospital. You can also follow Kiwoko Hospital on Facebook. Kiwoko Hospital

This isn't the only nightmare of a story I had run into. The largest hospital in Uganda, Kampala's International Hospital along with other hospitals in Kampala, were closing their doors to the public during a week long power outage in January of 2012. I delivered here in March 2012. Protests ensued after a member of the MP's staff, went to deliver a child at that hospital and died of excessive bleeding and a ruptured uterus. (See link below.) Entirely, preventative! A newly set up NICU, had just placed their newest set of twins in the donated incubators. But one twin died during the night because the incubator was not staffed and the power had gone out. My husband told me just recently, he had been speaking periodically with one of his customers about her twins and his twins as parents so often do who find themselves in the same situation. Just recently, he had inquired about her twins only to find out that one had died. The mother didn't really know what had happened but just that the child had developed a cough. According to the article below, malaria, pneumonia, and diarreha are among the main killers of children.

Now, instead of fretting over the stain in my child's onsie, let me just go and cry instead.

Actually, I'm not a nurse, nor was I ever in the medical field. But I do know that diagnosing pneumonia and diarreha is a very simple thing and administering the remedy is even more simple. But my thought process goes to the moment when I am there in Uganda and my child or some neighbor's child catches diarreha or pneumonia, is there some way I could have the remedy with me? I would have to get the remedy now, while here in the states.

Devlopment-of-a-Neonatal-Intensive-Care-Unit-in-Uganda-Africa.-Lester-D.-2002..pdf

Maternal Deaths on the Rise in Uganda