In Pursuit of Patience

Three and a half years ago, in the fall of 2016, I got the impression it was time for Chris and me to try to have another baby. This was kind of monumental. From the time Monster was small--from the time he was born, really--I'd assumed we'd have another. I could almost hear her footsteps pattering around the house, and when I looked for my kids, I constantly looked for a fourth.

The timing had never been right. During most of 2013, spilling into 2014, I'd been majorly depressed. I felt like I SHOULD have a baby, but I didn't WANT another, which just made me MORE depressed. I'd been taught for years and years that children were a gift from God and that having and raising them were two of life's main purposes, so if I didn't want another, I was clearly horrible.

After going to a therapist once or twice a month for more than a year, I went back on medication. That put baby plans on hold, as I was under the impression that you couldn't have a baby while taking antidepressants. I was part relieved, part sad.

By sometime in 2015, I was feeling pretty good. I weaned myself off medication without talking to my doctor. (This was NOT a good idea.) Then 2016 struck. As I detailed in this post, Chris received a job transfer that really threw me for a loop. Still, I came to the conclusion I included in that post:

"I believe God was doing more with my life than I could do with it on my own. It's hard to let go, but I believe He loves and cares for us as a father loves and cares for his children. And because fathers are anxious to see their children succeed, He will help us steer our ships if we're willing to trust Him. In other words, when we let Him in, He won't ever let us down."

Three months after writing that, I was getting the impression it was time for Chris and me to try to have another baby. I was nervous but excited. As I detailed in THIS post, Chris and I had had to deal with infertility before. But this time, I was sure we were definitely doing what God wanted us to do. I was confident that meant the sailing would be fairly smooth.

I smile as I write that now. Hadn't I already learned that God carried out His plan, not what I thought His plan should be? I should have, but I hadn't. I was in for a crash course.

One month went by, then two. A sister-in-law announced that she was pregnant. I was mad despite myself. This sister-in-law had always gotten pregnant on the first or second try. Why had she never had to work? I shared some of these feelings with another sister-in-law, one who's miscarried several times. She completely understood.

Then, a month later, SHE announced that she was pregnant.

I cried a lot that winter, tried to get inside God's head. I hadn't really expected to get pregnant that first month, but what about the fifth or sixth? And why was God dispatching babies to every other family in our family? Was there something wrong with us? Were we less faithful, less deserving?

By the time March rolled around, I thought I was all cried out. Then a third sister-in-law, who'd put off having kids for years, announced that she was pregnant, too.

It was right around this time that I admitted to myself I was probably more depressed than I'd ever been before. I would go on crying jags that would, like, compress my chest and make it difficult to breathe, and my suicidal thoughts were slowly developing into suicidal plans. I spoke openly with Chris about the problems I was having, but they never went away. By April, I conceded to seeking medical help. We scheduled an appointment right away.

Chris went into this appointment thinking our window had closed. We'd tried. We'd failed. Time to move on. That said, I was less convinced. Why had I received that prompting if our family was complete? I know God sometimes allows us to take steps down the wrong path so we can pinpoint the right one, but that answer didn't sit. I was hopeful that the doctor would provide a better one.

Maybe you've already guessed what I learned at that appointment. As it turns out, I was wrong--there IS an antidepressant childbearing women can take from conception to delivery. Multiple studies have shown it has little to no impact on developing babies, and it's safe to take for days, weeks, months, even years.

This changed everything, of course. I walked away from that appointment feeling like I'd found the answer I'd been looking so hard for. And sure enough, a few months later, once this wondrous medication had had time to take effect and I was feeling good again, I got pregnant on the first try.

I could almost hear God's voice speaking softly to my heart: "THIS was the way for you to go. THIS was the path I chose for you. Wasn't it better than the path you would have chosen for yourself?"

What did I say after our house in Mesquite finally sold? "And because fathers are anxious to see their children succeed, He will help us steer our ships if we're willing to trust Him." You see, I ALREADY KNEW that God's way always works out. But when the next storm arose, I forgot and wrung my hands. What will we do, what will we do, what will we do, what will we DO? And yet I already knew: keep calm, carry on, and let Jesus take the wheel.

God allows us to pass through faith-promoting tests and trials just so they'll promote our faith. And if we let them work in us--in us, through us, and around us--then the next time we're confronted with a faith-promoting test, we'll be able to press forward and, if not rest fully easy, then at least rest easier.

Why am I sharing this now? Because I'm waiting to hear back on a non-writing endeavor that would mean the world to me. And because I've been on submission with one project or another for the past almost a year. I HATE being on submission. It's dumb and demoralizing. But as I hope I've FINALLY learned, I know how to handle it.

Have I had difficult days? Sure. Have I prayed for an end? Of course. But more often than not, I've prayed for strength to persevere, and that's made all the difference.

Introducing Gummy Bear

She's feistier than she looks

I'd like you to meet Gummy Bear, the latest addition to our biological series, which just officially got bumped from a trilogy to a saga. She was born on Wednesday, April 18, at 1-2-3-4 p.m., weighing seven pounds, five ounces and measuring twenty inches long. The delivery went really well, and so far, my recovery has gone really well, too.

Having a newborn again has been a little surreal. Even though we knew what to expect, we weren't mentally or emotionally prepared deal with a screaming tyrant who patently refused to sleep. Thank goodness for caring friends and family who've brought us meals, held Gummy Bear while we napped, ferried our other kids to school, and even straightened up our kitchen. The Christlike service they've performed will not be soon forgotten.

One thing I'm trying to do is savor this time with Gummy Bear. Though I can't say for sure that we're well and truly done, I CAN say for sure that this one feels like the last, so it's very possible that these are the last times I'll change diapers, get puked on, and bounce a baby up and down--and up and down and up and down--in the middle of the night. Hopefully, this perspective has made me more compassionate, more patient, more at peace. It's so easy to get lost in the throes of parenthood when you're down there in the trenches, but caring for a tiny person who can't yet take care of herself is one of this life's greatest and most rewarding honors.

There, that's more like it

What I've Been Up To Lately

Alternate title: "Has It Really Been Three Months Since I Blogged?"

The first thing you need to know is that I've scheduled another round of "An Agent's Inbox" for the last week in March (the week of March 26). I don't know which genres The Agent will be looking for yet, but I strongly suspect he or she will want to see various shades of YA and MG fiction, so if you've got a finished manuscript within one of those categories, get those queries and first pages polished up!

March's round of "An Agent's Inbox" will be the last round before the fall, as I'm going to be having a baby in April. Did you see that coming? I sure didn't. It's been a years-long process to get this baby here, and maybe I'll feel inclined to share the story of those years someday. For now, suffice it to say that we're extremely excited and a little overwhelmed. In some ways, it feels like we're first-time parents again, so we hope those instincts don't take that long to come back...

In book-related news, I've been revising, revising, revising for what feels like the last eight years (but was probably just the last eight months). EARTH TO DAD has a great cover that I can't wait to share, and DON'T SOLVE THE PUZZLE will be getting a new title soon, so definitely stay tuned!

Bad Mom

I'm not the best mom (or the best blogger, clearly, but that's another post). I yell sometimes. I don't always serve vegetables. I avoid combing Lady's hair because I'm tired of the screaming. On the good days, I shake my head and tell myself that I'll do better, and on the bad days, I dissolve into a puddle of self-loathing who has to convince herself that she's still worth something.

I'll be the first to admit that motherhood doesn't come naturally to me. Well, some things come naturally--I dare you to hold a screaming baby that just got pulled out of your stomach and not fall instantly in love--but before I-gots was born, I'd never changed a diaper, fawned over a newborn, or read a book to a toddler. And I'd never wanted to. I babysat as a teenager because that was what teenagers in my neighborhood did, but the one and only time I had to babysit a baby, my mom had to come over and bail me out halfway through.

Now that I have kids of my own, infants don't intimidate me--but I still won't volunteer to hold them. And even though I have kids of my own, I sometimes wonder what I was thinking. Why I prayed so hard for kids I'm so bad at taking care of. Mothers are gentle, patient creatures who always put their children's needs above their own. They're not chemically unbalanced women who occasionally wish that they could trade their children in.

And yet they are because I am.

Being a mom is the hardest thing I've ever done. Every time I turn around, someone's peeing/yelling/fighting. There are no sick days, no vacations. Even if I manage to sneak away for a few days, I spend the whole time worrying that my mom won't know how to wrestle them into the bathtub or make their sandwiches just right. But being a mom is also the most gratifying. There is no amount of money/freedom/peace and quiet that can ever compensate for two sticky hands squeezing your cheeks and a slobbery mouth whispering in your ear, "I love you, Mom."

I've never met a mom who thought she was a good mom, but then, I've never met a kid with a hard-working mom who thought she was a bad one.

A Balancing Act

Critique partner and agent sister Amy and I recently had a candid conversation about how we balance writing and motherhood, and superagent Kate was awesome enough to post our chat on her blog. Don't miss parts one and two!

Oh, Look, Another Post About a Depressed Writer

I've started this post a dozen times and never finished it. I've rewritten, rearranged, added, and deleted. In fact, I've seriously considered just deleting the whole thing. I mean, there are only so many times you can read about a writer who's struggling, and I feel like those other posts have been far more insightful.

But for better or for worse, this IS my life. It's what I'm going through, and in that way, it's mine. Besides, I've never been very good at disguising how I feel, so consider this another in the long line of posts in which I wear my heart on my blog.

Being a mom is HARD. Like, write-ten-thousand-words-in-a-single-sitting hard. It seems like it should be doable, but the pace is so relentless. You're on every single minute of every single hour for the next eighteen-plus years, no sick days, no vacation. I suppose that should have occurred to me before I got pregnant, but the reality never sank in until I was knee-deep in kids.

Lately, I've been so jealous of writers who don't have these pint-sized distractions, who can pick up and move to Singapore to finish their revisions. Or write until three in the morning because they know no little hands will tug at their covers a few hours later. I've desperately wondered what it would be like to sit down and write whenever or wherever I wanted because no one was demanding anything of me.

The rational side of me knows that this is only the depression talking. (Have I mentioned I have depression? I haven't had a problem with it since high school, but in the last eight months or so, I've noticed some of the old thought patterns cropping up: the indifference, the negativity, the overall can't-do attitude. It's great.) The rational side of me also knows that EVERY SINGLE WRITER has to overcome one obstacle or another. But knowing and believing are two completely different things.

You'd think these sorts of feelings would have come up sooner. From a writing perspective, 2013 has been a very good year for me. But it's also been stressful (something I've learned about submitting is that it often takes weeks and sometimes months for the first hints of good news to blossom into book deals (if they blossom at all)), and I didn't expect that. Add to this three crazy kids who are just starting to have lives and interests of their own, and you've got one off-kilter Krista.

I want to say for the record that I don't regret being a mom or a writer. I chose to be both, and I stand by those decisions. You don't give up on something just because it gets hard. And it's not as hard as it could be. I'm still mostly functional, still capable of writing more days than I'm not. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a handle on this before I sink too much deeper.

For those of you waiting for the inspirational ah-ha moment these posts often include, I'm sorry to disappoint. I haven't figured anything out yet. But if I don't blog or tweet as often as I used to, I hope you'll understand. I'm trying to slow down, dig deep, get back to the basics. I've got a long climb ahead.

Dear I-gots

The lovely Katrina S. Forest of Book + Baby was kind enough to invite me to do a guest post on her blog, and I really like how it turned out. She suggested that I write a letter to one of my children, so that was what I did.

My letter to I-gots, my four-year-old son, is a tribute not only to him but to the overlapping threads that make up the tapestries of our lives. I can honestly say that if it hadn't been for I-gots, I probably wouldn't be a writer today--and I'm so glad I am.

I'll share this letter with him someday, when he's old enough to appreciate it, but for now, I'm sharing it with you. Hope you enjoy!

Life, Writing, and the Occasional Meltdown

Regular reader Jer of From Methods to Madness (don’t you love that title?) recently asked me an interesting question:

I am also a mom--I have two young kids--and an aspiring author. Lately I’ve felt really discouraged about not being able to find enough time to write. I've been working on my current WIP for over a year now and only have about 5,600 words to show for it. I’m always amazed and a little envious when you post about the progress of your WIPs. You seem to whip those first drafts out so quickly! So my question for you is…what’s your secret? Since I struggle to find the time, I’m genuinely curious about how other mother-writers do it.

The truth is, I struggle with this as much as anyone. Finding the right balance between husband, kids, housework, and writing is tricky, and I’m constantly finding myself having to readjust. But I do have a few thoughts.

In the spirit of providing as much information as possible and hoping that one or two useful tidbits crop up, here’s a look at my normal weekday routine:

6:30 a.m. Run, shower (on those mornings I run), read some blogs
8:00 a.m. Dress the kids, eat breakfast, play
10:00 a.m. Put Lady down for a nap, shower (if I haven’t already), do housework
12:00 p.m. Eat lunch, play
2:00 p.m. Put both kids down for a nap, WRITE
4:30 p.m. Play, chill with Honey Bear, make dinner, eat it, play some more
8:00 p.m. Put the kids to bed, WRITE (while Honey Bear does homework)

My kids’ superpower is sleeping, so they (almost) always give me a decent chunk of writing time in the afternoons and evenings. And Honey Bear has been working on a master’s degree for the past two years--and is planning to start an EdD this fall--so he (almost) always has homework to do. In short, my life has been marvelously conducive to writing ever since I-gots was born, and I’ve taken advantage of that.

So what am I going to do once I-gots stops napping and my husband runs out of letters to add to the end of his name? I don’t know. Find a new normal, I guess, as my mother-in-law likes to say. Readjust.

But as for specifics, I have found a few habits to be helpful in turning a work-in-limbo into a work-in-progress.

First, write a little every day (or almost every day). Even if you only write a page or two, in less than a year you’ll have a good-sized first draft. There is no substitute for slow, steady effort, methinks.

Second, limit Internet time. I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut the Internet out altogether (except when you’re trying to reach a specific goal in a specific amount of time, maybe), because, if you’re anything like me, your willpower will fail you sooner or later and you’ll go on a three-hour Internet binge that will leave you feeling spineless and miserably unproductive. Also, the Internet is a great tool for connecting with other writers and agents and building your brand, both of which are essential for the twenty-first-century writer. You just can't let the Internet take over your writing time.

(It’s kind of stupid, but whenever I find myself spending too much time online, I stop, visualize receiving the much-sought-after Call--or, heaven forbid, that elusive Book Deal--and remember that I have to keep writing if I ever want to live that moment for real:) )

Now, after all that, I want to finish by saying that as important as writing is, some things are even more important. Like my husband. And my kids. A wise man once said, “No other success can compensate for failure in the home,” and I firmly believe that. In the end, it really is all about balance.

So what is your writing regimen like? And how do you keep everything in its proper place?

Happy Birthday, I-gots!

Today is I-gots’s third birthday. (I-gots is what my son called himself up until a few months ago.) Actually, his birthday probably should have been yesterday, on the third anniversary of my last prenatal checkup. When we went in for that appointment, I was already a few days overdue and my stomach was, well, shrinking. I told the doctor I felt smaller, so he measured my belly. The week before, I’d been a thirty-six; that day, I was a thirty-four.

So he fired up the ultrasound, slathered the cold jelly across my stomach. Jabbed the wand into my side and, for a whole minute, maybe two, just stared at the screen. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, “I’m trying to find the amniotic sac, to measure the amount of amniotic fluid. But there’s so little left I can’t even get a reading.”

I asked him what that meant. He said, “It means we’re going to have a baby.”

We discussed the possibility of both a vaginal and Caesarean birth. I really wanted to deliver vaginally, and he was willing to let me try. But he warned us it might not work--since there was so little fluid left, and that fluid is kind of like the shock absorber during labor, the baby might not tolerate it.

A nurse guided us through a labyrinth of stairs and hallways to Labor and Delivery. Honey Bear went out to get our bag. (We’d sort of had a feeling something like this would happen). They checked me in, hooked me up to all the monitors. Started the Pitocin drip.

Pitocin, which is manufactured oxytocin (the hormone that triggers contractions), must have been invented by a sadist. Within an hour, I was contracting every two or three minutes--EVERY two or three minutes--for about a minute at a time. After a few hours, a nurse checked my progress. I’d only dilated to about a two.

More Pitocin, more contractions. No more dilatation. The nurse convinced the doctor to turn down the Pitocin for the night, so I could get some sleep. She even brought me Ambien (which didn’t work). I passed the night in a strange place between asleep and awake. Between excited and terrified.

By five the next morning, I’d been laboring for more than twelve hours--and I was up to about a three. I was frustrated. I was exhausted. And the doctor wanted to insert a more reliable fetal heart monitor, one that takes its reading directly from the baby’s scalp. I knew I couldn’t handle that without an epidural.

The needle went in; the pain came out. It was glorious. I was certain I could go another twelve or thirteen hours--and that’s precisely what I did.

By ten-thirty, I was a five, maybe a six. I felt hopeful. By two, I was a five, maybe a six. I felt less hopeful. By five, I was—you guessed it—still a five. (Nobody really bothered to call it a six anymore.) I’d been in labor for twenty-five hours. And I-gots’s heart rate was dropping.

The doctor was amazed he’d lasted as long as he had. Still, he strongly urged us to think about a C-section. We thought about it for all of two-point-three seconds. Of course we’d do the C-section. Of course we’d do whatever was best for the baby.

It’s a strange thing to sign on a dotted line that reads, in big, bold letters, “You know, what you’re about to do might kill you, but we really hope think it won’t.” And it’s a strange thing to let yourself be wheeled to the OR, when you’ve never had so much as a broken pinky, and sliced open wide enough to let a whole person through. Still, it didn’t seem strange in that moment; it seemed like the only thing to do.

A few minutes later, at five-twenty-seven in the evening, little I-gots was born. (And he was little, or at least skinny--six pounds, six ounces, and twenty-one inches long.) And my whole world changed. I’d never been a baby person, but suddenly, I was. I’d never felt the need to protect anything before, but all at once, I did.

But of all the things I gave him, I-gots gave me something, too. He gave me naptime, three or four hours every day that were well and truly mine. He gave me a chance to write (again). He gave me back my words.

And for that I’ll be forever grateful.

It's Recommendation Week

It’s Recommendation Week here on the blog. I recently finished two great books, and Honey Bear and I discovered a new recipe that is definitely worth sharing. But we'll kick everything off with some links.

For blog surfers I’ve stumbled across a blog or two of late that I wanted to share with you. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

My Bloggish Blog Thing with Josin L. McQuein The first thing I noticed about Josin was her interesting name; the second thing I noticed was that she was winning all of the writing contests I was entering around the blogosphere:) So give her blog a look-see.

Somewhere Between Fact & Fiction with Shannon McMahon If you like my blog, you’ll probably like Shannon’s, as we share a lot of the same interests (writing, cooking, blogging--I guess that one goes without saying). Check it out.

For queriers Have you heard of Absolute Write? It’s a fantastic website, with forums on practically every topic a writer might find interesting. I especially like their Bewares and Background Checks, which allow writers to share statistics and anecdotes relating to specific agents. Want to know how long Agent A has been taking to respond to queries lately? Wondering if you’re the only one waiting to hear back from Agent B on a manuscript request? Absolute Write probably knows.

And don’t forget to register for QueryTracker. It is, in my opinion, the best online database for finding and researching agents.

For moms This past weekend, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held its annual General Conference. In addition to hearing several beautiful messages about the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I also heard this poignant message about motherhood. Enjoy:)