I'm a Walkin'...and a few more things

Henry wanted me to tell you that he is now walking. He still prefers crawling when he needs to get somewhere fast, but he can officially walk from one end of the room to the other and even stop along the way to pick up toys without falling down.

I also wanted to clarify some things for my readers, all three of you (I'd have four if my mom could figure out how to work her computer), about my angry post with the man at Office Depot. First of all, I recognize that the man meant me no harm. He is a boy and was trying to share with me the joys of parenthood and I was, well, a bitch. When you struggle to have a baby you become hyper sensitive to things like that. Every Sunday there is a baptism, your heart breaks a little, even though it should be leaping. And people who've never gone through it are idiots and say things like, "My husband just looks at me and I get pregnant," or "Gosh, there are so many pregnant women at this church--there must be something in the water!" (To which I have actually said, "You mean all I had to do was drink from the church water fountain? Why didn't you tell me this before I shelled out 30 grand to the fertility doctor?) So on many occasions I have been less than Christian to people who were really just meaning to be encouraging but didn't know what to say. To them I say, "Sorry", and next time keep your trap shut. Please.

And I definitely don't have baby fever again. It is not that I never want to have another baby, maybe it is just that I've finally gotten back into working out again everyday and Henry is so much fun, and what the heck would I do with the dang dog with me probably stuck on bedrest again? I don't know. Give me a year and we'll talk. I'd like to threaten to kill the dog less before I bring a new life into the Phillips house.

But two friends of mine have just had babies (a big shout out to Jennifer O'Sullivan and Margaret Harkness--welcome Anderson and Caroline!), and another friend is pregnant with twins, and two other friends just lost babies so I've been thinking again about how precious Henry is and all God taught me through the crazy-struggle plan of His. And I'll take out my little flip book of all of his ultrasound photos (thanks to bedrest and IVF, I have about sixty of them!). I even have a picture of him as an embryo. Pretty amazing stuff to think that I fell in love with a blob. I took the photo with me everywhere to show anyone who would listen a picture of my baby. (Remember, I'm a little crazy.) I remember leaving the embryo picture at church and going out to my sisters and then making Sloan take me back to church just to pick it up. (My sister lives 30 minutes from my church!)

And I want to put it out there that the lessons that I learned apparently didn't take. I remember learning that above all else, what you really need to pray for is faith. Faith to believe the truth that God is good and for you, no matter what your circumstances may be trying to make you believe. And yet, on a daily basis, I find myself truly believing that what it would really take to make me happy would be a maid. Or to wake up tomorrow having lost 30 lbs. And that when Sloan works late it is because he doesn't love me or because God is punishing me for being rude to people in check out lines. (Which doesn't even make sense?!) Because in the end you can get over a messy house, pants not fitting, a husband working until 8 occasionally--you can even learn to live a contented life after infertility and losing a child--but you don't recover from believing that you've been abandoned by God. It is a lie that leads to death on many levels and I just feel like I live my life strangled by that. Strangled with the fear that if I'm not good enough there are going to be serious repercussions. Strangled with the fear that it is just me and if I don't look out for myself, no one else will. That the buck stops here. HA!

Okay, okay, enough with the self-indulgent crap. My son just tried to rip a sconce down from the wall. I should probably give him a bath and put him to bed.

This is my newest favorite photo of my son.