Trying to pick the perfect tree

About a month ago, a very sweet patient who had only recently moved to the US, asked me, “Dr. Rupe, we need to talk about scheduling my delivery since I’m due near the holidays. I don’t want to go into labor while the hospital is closed for Christmas.”

“No,” I informed her, “the hospital is always open.”

This made me chuckle, and longingly wish that was the case. But, there is no way to predict when those babies will arrive, pregnant uteruses have a mind of their own.

This has been one the busiest months for me that I can remember. I normally deliver between 8-10 babies per month, but have already delivered about 20 and the month’s not over yet. I have still found time to enjoy some of the Holiday festivities with my kids: cutting down the tree, baking cookies and reading Christmas books each night. Other traditions have gotten skipped. I missed several Christmas parties and did not get Christmas cards sent this year for the first time ever. I have had to really steward my holiday time this year and that means anything that doesn’t include the family has had to be cut from the schedule.

There is stress that I can’t control at work, but any busyness that I can control, I have tried to. I am thankful for God’s grace and strength that He has blessed me with this month. That same grace is available for all of you too.

I am on call this weekend, so yes it would be nice not to have any Christmas babies and to get to spend the day at home with my family. But if I do deliver a baby on Christmas, how awesome is that too? To help be a part of the miracle of life, on the day that we celebrate the ultimate miracle of life, the birth of our Savior.

I am so very thankful for my family who has traveled from Oklahoma to be here with us for Christmas. I am also thankful to all my patients who have entrusted me with the honor of helping bring their babies into this world. I was flooded with beautiful Christmas cards at the office. It is so great to get to see pictures of these little miracles growing up. Also several lovely patients brought Christmas gifts of homemade sweets that severed as snacks as we stayed late waiting for babies to come.

I am also thankful for the blessing of my children. I, like Jess, remember many Christmases that felt not quite complete, due to the pang of loss as my heart ached for another child. 

For those who are believing to be able to share your next holiday with a child, I pray that you will find peace this season. I leave you with Luke 1:45 which describes Elizabeth as she visits her cousin Mary and recently felt her miracle baby leap in her womb:

“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

Now to get it home!

“…they found Mary, Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger…but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:16-19

Moms-to-be. . .take a moment to ponder the miracle growing inside of you. Consider Mary and the unfathomable joy she experienced knowing the life she bore would save mankind. The life you are carrying may not be the Savior but with his help, you can guide your child to an amazing destiny. Praying for him to prepare your hearts to steward the life you will bring into this world. Amazing!

Waiting mommies-to-be. . .I know that holidays can be hard, thinking about your longing for a little one to share the joy with. I remember those days. They could have ruined me. I pray you will allow the peace of Christ to dwell in you this holiday season and as you consider the awesome miracle of his life, be filled with the HOPE this tiny baby brought to Earth. That HOPE is for you.

And may we all experience true peace and joy leading up to Christmas this week. I want to honor the savior by choosing HIM instead of busyness and stress. It’s a daily choice I am trying desperately to make. Will you join me?

Today I am linking this post up with a new blog I recently discovered. Check out Imparting Grace this week to read lots of other encouraging posts about Christmas!

Merry {week before} Christmas!

Jessica

What do you believe?

{UPDATE: The winner for our What’s In The Bible giveaway is Kristy C! Congrats Kristy!}

This year we have a new stocking holder on the mantle adorning a complete set of stockings that I’ve waited to display for a long time now.

What might seem like a simple and traditional piece of Christmas decor actually means the world to me for all it represents.

BELIEVE it boldly states.

As I sit peacefully in our dimly lit living room – brightened only by the light of our tree – I am asking myself what this bold statement means to me…to our family.

BELIEVE.

I’ve asked myself a similar question a lot lately as I begin to try to instill family values in our preschooler. It’s been easy to go about our lives – just my husband and myself – knowing deep down what we believe to be true about life and faith without ever really vocalizing it. I pray that our actions and our words have expressed those beliefs and while I think what comes out of you is the most powerful expression of what you believe, I know it’s not enough. Especially when trying to teach a wee one.

I am working to put into words the truths we hold in our hearts so that daily we can live them out in our lives. Christmas is such a wonderful time to do this because after all, it all started with Jesus…he is the reason we can believe in anything.

WE BELIEVE

in Jesus

in ourselves

in each other

in others

in grace

in love

in hope

in giving

in serving

in encouraging

in forgiveness

in redemption

in perseverance

in laughter

in prayer

in miracles

What do YOU believe? What do you want YOUR CHILDREN to believe? Make a list and challenge yourself to make sure your words and deeds match up with what’s on paper. Use the list to daily guide your actions and decisions allowing your children and those around you to see that you truly believe in those values. I am challenging myself to do just that. I know I won’t live up to it 100% of the time but 5th down from the top “we believe in grace” means I’m covered and so are you.

{GIVEAWAY!} This week we have the privilege of giving away the amazing What’s In The Bible: Why Do We Call It Christmas?* DVD. If you are looking for a fun and creative way to teach young children about what you believe, this series by Veggie Tales creator, Phil Vischer is a must have. Using fast-moving, catchy animation, puppets, music and more, What’s In The Bible shares biblical truths that may even teach mom and dad a thing or two.

To enter, simply leave a comment sharing a value your family believes in. Like The Pregnancy Companion on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for extra entries. Just leave a comment saying you did so. *Visit the link above for all kinds of great Christmas printables and resources!

Believing in the joy and wonder of the season,

Jessica

Happy Black Friday! I’m sure many of you are out braving your local shopping stores and malls, eager to find the best deal of the year on just about everything. I’m saying a quick deal-lovers prayer for all of you. May your brave ambition lead you to great money-saving discoveries.

But not me. No, you won’t find this shopaholic out there in the wild today. I’m writing this post as I stay home with the kids so my husband can go golfing with his dad. He’ll be home in time for me to grab an 80 minute massage before dinner time. {Don’t think for a moment we can afford these luxuries. Both were obtained from Groupon. Oh, how I love thee Groupon!} Yes, we chose today, instead of the craziness of American commerce, to relax.

I finished my Christmas shopping last week. I’m sure many of you are closing this browser window or cursing at me right now. This is not meant to be a bragging post. I simply want to share why I purpose to finish my shopping before Thanksgiving when I can. That may not be possible for some like my sweet sister in law who has her busiest working season of the year up until mid-November. And some may love the thrill of Black Friday or the last-minute Christmas Eve hunt. Whatever method you are able to use and allows you to enjoy the holiday season is what I recommend.

I am a task master who loves crossing items off of my “to do” or “to buy” list. I’ll be honest and tell you that is my main motivation for getting the shopping done early. But obviously that is a personality trait and not a good enough reason to encourage others to do the same.

You might wonder why I am waiting until Black Friday to write this post. I defintely believe in celebrating one holiday at a time. I didn’t want to take anyone’s focus away from it. And while I felt led to share my thoughts on the subject, I didn’t want to put any unneeded pressure on your already crazy lives. Think about these reasons that I am sharing and then decide if they resonate with you and your family. There are plenty of Christmas seasons to come should you decide to adopt a similar strategy.

Three reasons for getting the Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving:

1. Avoiding the craziness of the mall, Target, Costco, etc… Crowded places stress me out. The thought of fighting over the last sale priced princess doll makes we want to throw up. For me, there is nothing like shopping stress to take all the joy out of the holidays. With my shopping done, I can use the month of December to build up all the joy and wonder of the season without having it stripped away by mall parking lot road rage.

2. Focusing on others leading up to the season… Instead of seeing me run around like crazy trying to snag gifts for our family or for them, my kids will hopefully see me focusing on others in need. With my family shopping complete, we can now focus on programs like the Salvation Army Angel Tree and volunteering for local holiday related efforts. True, shopping for an angel will require a trip to Target but let’s face it, I can’t avoid Target for a whole month. I’m bound to be there and with only a bright eyed and hopeful child or two to shop for, I can focus on teaching my children how to give to others.

3. Having the time and head space to really teach the little ones about the true meaning of Christmas… This year we will start using an advent calendar to share the story of Christmas with our children. My hope is that having this activity in the forefront of our days {instead of running from place to place to buy all sorts of things}, my kids will begin to understand that Christmas is not about presents. It is about Christ and he should be at the center of it all.

Last year around this time I did a post about our 3 gift simplicity strategy. This is yet another way we try to keep things simple and focused on others. Several people have asked me to repeat that post so I’m linking to it here.

Each child receives three gifts {plus some stocking stuffers}:
Gold – the big gift they’ve been wanting
Frankincense – something for their body
Myrrh – something for their spiritual or personal development

That’s it. Simple and purposeful.

For us, these things help keep the season merry. Less stress, a more central focus on the savior and others in need are sure fire ways to keep Christmas bright.

How does your family try to keep your Christmas merry and bright? We’d love to hear your ideas.

Praying that this next month is full of joy and wonder for you and your family,
Jessica

Things that have made me happy this week:

1.Carson waking up:
When Carson wakes up from his nap, first he starts jabbering. Then, when I walk in the room to ‘rescue’ him from his crib, he gets so excited that he stands up, holds onto the crib rail and bounces up and down. He giggles with his whole body, reaches up and says mom-ma. A heart melter for sure.

2.Russ telling a joke:
So, we’re driving along and the Pink song, “Get the Party Started” begins playing on the radio. Russ says in the most deadpan voice, “Oh. its my theme song.” It takes knowing Russ for many years to appreciate the irony of this snarky comment, but I laughed so hard my eyes started to water. In that moment I was reminded how much he is and how much I love him. Even after 17 years together, just sitting beside him laughing at silly inside jokes, is often one of my happiest moments of the day.

3.Delivering twins:
I find joy in delivering babies, EVEN the 2 a.m. deliveries., but twins are even more special. Twice the fun I guess. There’s the challenge of getting the second twin out as safely as the first, combined with all the extra energy in the room and just the fact that its not an every day occurrence I guess. Whatever reason, I love it.

4.Seeing a heart beat:
A patient’s first pregnancy visit often has a slight air of tension in the room. Especially when their is a history of loss or infertility, you can tell the patient is only concerned about one thing: seeing that flicker of a heart beat on the ultrasound. This week I was able to show that flicker to two patients who had waited a long time to see it, and then see the sense of relief wash across their faces was a true moment of comfort and joy.

5.Ryan (age 6) quote:
“Mom I’m glad we’re mammals and not reptiles, because I like living with you and dad, and reptiles abandon their young.” sweetness.

6.Anticipation of Christmas day:
I will get to spend Christmas day with my whole family this year. We will all be together for the first time in a long time and that will be awesome.

7.The knowledge that our book is actually being printed at this moment!

Merry Christmas to you all. May your holiday season be full of joy and all your travels be safe. I hope this will inspire you to take a few minutes to really count your blessing and think on the things that truly give you joy.

I will be the first to admit that I was having trouble getting in the Christmas spirit this year. When I saw Jessica’s post about Christmas traditions I was a little intimidated. Every year Christmas looks a little different to us, some years I’m on call, spending the day at the hospital, other years we travel to Tulsa. I sat there wracking my brain… what can I write about? When am I going to have time to write? We don’t do anything extra special at our house, just the ‘normal Christmas stuff’: cut down the tree, decorate it, make cookies, etc. However, slowly over the past few weeks as our family has gone through our Christmas routine my Christmas spirit has started to grow.

We usually cut down our own tree, but with the baby toddling everywhere we elected to put up a fake tree upstairs where he couldn’t get into it. I’m partially to blame for this for this initial “Scrooge-ness”. I am a hard-core real tree fan, the smell can’t be imitated. I also realized that keeping a 1 year old out of the tree was going to be quite challenging, so I caved and went for the fake one this year.

When we set up our tree, Ryan helped me decorate it. This was so much fun. He is six now and our tree is full of decorations that he has made in various art classes over the years. He was so proud of his past ornaments and I began to tell him the stories behind many of our other ornaments. One of our holiday traditions is to pick an ornament each year that embodies something special about that year. As we went through the box of ornaments it was like a trip through time.

There was the baseball ornament with chief wahoo on it (Go Tribe!) from the years we lived in Akron. The skiing Santa from the year we went skiing for Christmas. There’s an ornament from Puerto Rico which was our ‘Cruising Christmas’ (one of my favorites).

At the bottom of the box was my favorite ornament of all: The pregnant snowman (snow woman?). This was the Christmas of 2004, when I was 8 months pregnant with Ryan. My eyes brimmed with tears as I told Ran about this ornament, what an exciting Christmas this was for us as we patiently awaited his birth. He got so tickled as I told him about how we didn’t know if he was a boy or girl and how much we loved him even before we saw him or knew him. I recounted the story of his birth, how he decided to come a few days early, even though all his grandparents had already bought their plane tickets. How much he meant to us.

He and I finished with the tree. He sat on my lap and rested his head on my shoulder. “Mom, the tree is so beautiful”.

“Yes, honey it is.”

I thought about my family, how much they mean to me. I wondered how many more Christmases until he was too big (or thought he was too big) to sit on my lap. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Then I unpacked the stockings. Carson’s “faith” stocking was on top. We bought his stocking blank, many years before God brought him to our family. The same joy I felt last year when I hung it for the first time was rekindled in my heart.

Though our traditions are not overly unique, they are ours. Even though our Christmas ‘days’ often look different each year, we embraced the traditions leading up to it, realizing that family is the most important tradition of all.

Shortly before Hope’s first holiday season I read an article in a parenting magazine that completely changed the way we do Christmas. I wish I could take credit for this fabulous idea but I cannot. Unfortunately, I don’t have the information to properly credit the mom who came up with this idea. If you are out there somewhere and happen to read this (yeah, right), thank you for the inspiration! The mom explained that their strategy for simplifying the holidays and making sure their children keep their wish list under control is to give each child three gifts in line with those that were brought to Jesus after his birth.

GOLD = The “big” gift they’ve been wanting
FRANKINCENSE = Something for their body
MYRRH = Something for their spiritual development

We decided to institute this tradition very early on so it’s all our kids will know. Dave and I do the same for each other and honestly, it really helps to have focus and a bit of direction.

So this year, as we’ve done each year before, Hope is getting three gifts. I can share them with you here because let’s face it, she doesn’t read my blog. Maybe this list will spark some ideas for those that still have gifts to mark off their list.

GOLD = Loving Family Dollhouse by Fisher Price

We purchased the dollhouse back in the spring after finding it on a major sale. We then collected the dollhouse furniture throughout the year so we wouldn’t bear the full cost during the season (dollhouse furniture can get pricey!).

Frankincense = Mommy and Me Aprons

These aren’t the actual aprons. Mine are coming courtesy of my amazing friend Terri. But they will look something like this. Hope loves it when we both put on aprons while cooking or baking in the kitchen. When thinking of something “for the body” to give her, I thought this gift was both practical and meaningful.

Myrrh = Deliberate Kids CD

If you haven’t tried these amazing CDs for your kids, I encourage you to visit deliberatekids.com Phil Joel (formerly of the Newsboys) and his wife, Heather have created these awesome resources for kids. The worship is both excellent and fun! Hope loves dancing around to the first CD so I know she’ll love the next edition.

What are your holiday traditions? We’d love to hear about them this month as we all prepare to celebrate the season as simply yet meaningful as possible.

Happy Shopping!

I can hardly believe it’s December 1st. Hope was thrilled to know it was finally December. I don’t even think she knows what all is coming. She was just dying to start opening the doors on our advent calendar.

I think I’m especially reflective about the season having just witnessed a true miracle in our lives. This pregnancy has made me so in awe of the creator. I suppose I should be ashamed that I wasn’t always this awe-struck; after all every breath we take is a wonderful miracle. But every once in a while he shows up in an amazing way in each of our lives (like Dr. Rupe’s adoption story) that cause us to stop dead in our tracks, fall to our knees and offer him the recognition he actually deserves every day of our existence.

I don’t think it’s any accident that Christmas falls right at the end of the year, right before the beginning of a new one. After all the hustle and bustle – after the trials and tribulations of one season – we turn our hearts and minds towards him and the miracle of his life and we are filled up with gratitude and hope, just in time to face a new calendar of busyness and very possibly, struggle.

I’m looking forward to walking through this advent season and teaching Hope more and more about what it truly means. It’s exciting to think she’ll understand it a little better each year. Maybe I will too.

We’ll be talking about Christmas traditions in the coming weeks and we look forward to hearing about some of yours.

Enjoying the season,