Well we are back from our visit now. Josh and I plus Laura’s Dad rode back to Illinois from Nebraska. Her Dad had a church event and different work things he had to get back to. You know how dads get, they’ve gotta keep moving. Laura’s mom is staying for a couple of days since she does not start her preschool school year until after Labor Day. Laura, Ethan, and Baby were discharged from the hospital sometime in the afternoon. Laura wanted to get home and not stay there another night.

The hospital beds for baby rooms have what looked like a queen sized hospital bed so dads can sleep in bed with the moms. That is something that is different. Before the dads had to just sleep in a recliner in the labor room or they would sleep in the empty bed on the other side of the postpartum room. It always felt so good to be able to sleep on your belly again.

Gosh, maybe someday I will have more words for all of this. It was a sweet time today and yesterday of visiting the hospital and being around for these days. We said a prayer before leaving thanking God for his provisions and kindness. We dropped off Laura’s dad at the church and then drove to my mother-in-law’s house about twenty minutes away where they were having supper. We joined up and ate with them and talked about the unfolding. It was emotional to leave but there was peace.

Baby Lila Kate was born at 7am this morning.

I am having difficulty saying anything other than this.

It was a wonderful day.

It was very hard to rest or concentrate throughout the day. By mid-morning I asked my son if he would like to go to the beach to swim. We decided to eat lunch and then head down. The program director was already down there enjoying some time off after running the singles retreat over the weekend. I told her I needed something to do to get my mind off the fact that this baby hadn’t been born yet. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for late August swimming (picture is from another day)

By supper time I asked Laura if she was hanging in there. She replied that she’d been having a lot more Braxton Hicks contractions during the day and that she was beginning to wonder if they were real. They’d been happening for over an hour and were currently ten minutes apart. This was a fantastic and promising sign.

By 7’o clock she had been having contractions for three straight hours. I told the boys they were going to grandma’s tonight as was the plan for when we left for Nebraska. The boys had to do a two mile run on the bike trail so everyone had left at one point to do that. I tried to stay and sleep but again was unable to relax fully into sleep. Earlier in the day I had finished straightening the other side of our room and had my clothes fully sorted. I slowly packed our bag to be ready to leave soon.

Josh and I drove with a plan to at least get halfway. We didn’t say much on the first 3 1/2 hour leg of the trip. We snacked and commented on things here and there. We both were looking forward to getting to the hotel and not being up the entire night if such a thing could be avoided. We had not heard any updates from Ethan.

But at about ten minutes to midnight he texted and said they were getting ready to go to the hospital. Laura’s parents were about an hour ahead of us on the trip and were planning to drive all the way to Lincoln where the baby was to be born. When we heard they were going in it was decided that we had to keep going into the night to make it to Lincoln. I had gotten about ten minutes of sleep before his text and was greatly refreshed knowing that the process had been set into motion.

“‘Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?’ says the LORD; ‘Shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?’, says your God.”
~Isaiah 66:9~

Zorro and I took a few walks in the afternoon. We came down to the beach and heard the rumble of a canoe dropping onto the ground. Two adolescent boys were taking it out. There were other girls there also unloading the kayaks. I didn’t know who they were but I assumed they must have been from a group who is staying here. Zorro was fixated on the kids and this process. He sat down in the sand and when I realized he was going to be there for a while I sat down in the sand next to him.

It was a perfect day to be out in the water. I would’ve swam myself if not for my canine companion. I did not track the time but we were there until the kids came back. After the even longer process of them loading the boats back onto their boat holders, and then watching them disappear into the beach trail, I snapped back into the leader mode and told the dog it was time to go. Not ten seconds later, before we’d even left the beach, a van drove down and parked. A family was here for the day.

It made me happy to see this man, a junior counselor from former days, being intentional with his wife and kids and bringing them down here every Sunday for the rest of the summer as long as the weather allows. Kids filed out with their fishing poles and toys wearing nothing but swim trunks and swim suits. “You’re back”, I said to them, trying not to show whatever it was I feeling at the thought of likely starting over again with the interested dog. I did know patience before but this is truly something else.

The boys had their opening meet in Clinton tonight. We took two vehicles. Dad and the boys went early since they had to be there approximately two hours before race time. Elianna was working in the kitchen so after she was done with that then she and I plus Miles and the littlest rode over and arrived about a half hour before the boys’ race. This invitational has grown significantly since the last time I was here three years ago, having missed the others because I was working or likely too tired.

The boys did great again, this time each shaving off 74-77 seconds from the race they ran a month ago. The younger one shocked everyone by running sub-17 and placing third on the team over the two seniors, including his older brother. Both of the boys have beat out their oldest brother’s high school xc PR now. He had a race this morning as well and did not do what I know he can do but just can’t seem to unlock for some reason. He’s got five scheduled races left in his college running days.

The night had perfect running conditions. I’ve decided to keep with the memory making and see if I can figure out how to make capcut videos of the meet and running footage. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Before the meet I had taken two afternoon naps, the first being ineffective but the second really helping. The family is attending a Cardinals game in St. Louis on Sunday afternoon. I have to save my energy for whenever it is this baby comes. It was incredible and wonderful to have the energy for tonight.

I saw the baby deer over by the indoor chapel this evening. There are three of them that have been hanging out together for months. They are just about the cutest things and I always say, “Hi babies” when I see them. Today they didn’t run away until I got to the edge of the grass. I’ve been trying to walk at least once a day but just cannot seem to move much more than that. I am grateful to have gotten through this week without having to cancel any sessions or call off any work days.

Today I had a man confess romantic feelings for me. For some reason I was not surprised. They talk about how we are supposed to handle this in school. You’re supposed to, as always, be understanding and under no conditions shame them for it. This is supposed to be one of those opportunities where you can work in the here and now and explore their emotions, to ask more about how his analytical side says one thing and his emotional side says another.

We haven’t seen the kittens around for over a week now. I suspect they have moved on to other grounds off of camp. The other gray and white cat has been around more recently and was found sleeping on our deck on one of the mornings. He was fed a couple of times but it has been a couple of days now.

Something has wounded me at work and I don’t know how to explain it. It started with a couple who had a very emotional session at the beginning of the summer. There was a plan for next steps including a visit again in two weeks. When that time came the appointment was cancelled. I waited a little while before reaching out to them both, eventually two times via email. As time went on I reached out to him via text as the listed client in the records. Then via text I reached out to her.

I have a text line specifically for work correspondence. None of those times produced any response. Nothing to say they were not coming back. Nothing to update me on the outcome of this particular situation. Nothing to provide me any feedback on what had or had not happened. And all summer long I’ve had repeated versions of this in one form or another, a steady trickle of disappearances slowly wearing away invested parts of my heart and soul. So I don’t know. I can’t keep going like this.

I’ve changed the way I do my intakes. When we get to the informed consent section where we say that having a good fit and feeling comfortable with your therapist are important parts of the process, and when we tell them that they are always able to end at any time or leave or request to find a different therapist, I now say that we just ask if you’re going to do that you let me know and communicate with me your intentions. I know this is a job but I say that we are also people too.

So we’ll see if that helps. I never did feel like individual therapy was my strong suit but I do still feel the calling with couples to get better though the thought right now makes me feel slightly down and physically ill. I want to keep moving on from the severed ties with the former supervisor and throw up the toxicity that was my mind hooked on him. I almost asked him to explain to me why he didn’t hire me last summer and blindsided me instead with another girl. I knew then that wound was fatal.

And it is a similar feeling now. Like I am stumbling along and will be able to last a little longer. But something about the summer, with other things, has made an irreversible and lasting altering. It’s pretty to awful to think that this can happen with people in therapy too. I do not want to wound people, and I am not talking about those kind of necessary wounds that we all must experience if we’re ever to walk straight again. I mean things that hurt people in ways that didn’t have to happen.

No baby tonight. I’m trying not to be a pain bugging Laura about it but I told her maybe bathing in the moonlight would help. She was already out for a walk as well but their moonrise is later than ours so she couldn’t yet see it. I still have very little energy these days so I have enough to go to work and that is about it. I am trying to rest up for the eventual traveling and thankfully have been getting good sleep.

The Lutheran High School sent out an email that they received a $6 million gift from one of the local churches. Me and my negative mind, my first thought when I read the amount was “that’s it?” I don’t know all of the exact details, but somewhere around 20 years or so ago a man donated money to a church to be used to build a school there. We’ve known about this money since college because it’s been tied up in a specialized fund that hasn’t been able to be used for anything else.

So it’s just been building up interest all this time. I know they have at least double that but I’m trying to see this as a positive thing. I can’t even imagine all the money that is just sitting out there. But anyway that was something. The boys had a parent youth group meeting tonight so came home from practice, ate supper, and turned around toward Auburn. My son and I went for a short walk and talked.

Today was the first day of school for the boys. Their grades are 12th, 10th, and 8th this year. The older boys left around 7:20 to be there a little earlier with it being the first day. After they left Elianna started packing her bags and car to head back to my mother-in-law’s house. Before she left Josh and I sat down with her and talked about something that had been on our minds. We told her if she decides at some point that she wants to go to school somewhere that we would keep keep Zorro here so she’d be more able to do that.

My son and I did our homeschool things for the rest of the morning. I plan to work with him or next to him on the days I am here. This year the subject I am doing with him is reading. I bought the workbooks to also go through the 8th grade reader Where Roads Diverge.

This morning the story was about a boy who went out with his dog to clear brush and trails. He was bit by a rattlesnake when he reached out his arm to block the snake from biting his dog. He had just had a conversation with an older male character who had taught him to cut his arm and suck out the venom if he or his dog would ever get bit by a snake.

We haven’t had a chance to discuss the story. It ended by the boy telling the man he didn’t want to go out again to where the brook was because of the snakes. But the man told him he couldn’t let his fear get control of him. It made me pause because I didn’t know if the boy was being fearful or simply learning or becoming wiser because of his experiences. So the man wouldn’t let the boy be afraid and they were going to go out again the next day and clear out the snake den.

The other part of the lesson started with reading Robert Frost’s poem The Road *Not Taken*. One of the questions asked if we thought the sigh at the end of the poem was a sigh of regret or a sigh of pleasure. I had to go back and read it again. I ultimately decided that it was a sigh of relief after having looked into the future and believing that he would ultimately come to a place of seeing that the outcome and destination of the road he took would be worth it.

My mind has shifted with the baby stuff to getting through the rest of the week. I have a full three days of client sessions and after that then the baby can come. I know it isn’t up to me at all but I do feel like I’ve settled in to being able to think about something else and have it feel like if it happens next week that is not that far away. My laundry is caught up and the groceries are purchased.

Tonight we watched The Princess Bride. We’ve had this planned for a couple of days wanting to make sure we do it before school starts. Last night it was too late to start a movie and I was not in the mood so I asked if we could switch to tonight. Instead I watched a Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac documentary. She seems to have had a really sad life and they used a lot of drugs.

Josh and the kids think The Princess Bride is great. They insisted I try to watch it again. I tried to explain that I don’t really like it because for some reason I can’t take the movie seriously. Something about it seems like a joke. I tried to have an open mind, but in the end my opinion remained largely the same and I gave it a 5/10. It did serve the purpose though of having us spent time together.