Hitchhiker Adventures #2: Loving your neighbor is AWKWARD sometimes

I promised I would keep the interested updated on this whole process, and let me tell you this week did not disappoint in the weird, awkward but also amazing department. Surrogacy, as my one young friend put it, is weird and cool. Actually it's a whole lot of both as evidenced by our adventures this week.

This week started with the typical early pregnancy nausea and other fun. I would take a bite or two of food and suddenly feel like gagging. I took this as a sign of good news to come, and since the hormone meds had helped me pack on ten pounds, I felt okay with eating small portions. The baby and I would definitely be fine. Speaking of hormones, my mind was filling with crazy and my hips were filling with oil. I was paranoid and weepy all weekend. The injection sights on my hips were turning into large swollen lumps of unabsorbed oil, that burned like a new tattoo. All of which was frustrating, but to be expected after 88 injections. People keep asking me if it feels real, yes, it is very physically real, and has been for some time. My body has been highly involved in this since the beginning of December. The multiple pregnancy blood tests don't make it feel more real; they just give me hope that the meds will be over soon, and we won't have to repeat the process. Admittedly it all gets frustrating and overwhelming at times. I don't want it to affect my family or my work. I feel like if I am too tired, or fragile feeling to do something I will have failed. I dread the "I told you so's" from those that didn't think I could do this, and I don't want to see that knowing look of "yep, I knew this was coming". Luckily those voices and those looks are few and far between.

It's not really about me though, it's about loving my neighbor and sometimes that is uncomfortable, hard, involves failing, requires you to lay down your ego, and it get's awkward. It got real awkward. We have been talking to the Hitchhiker's parents a lot, skyping, texting emailing etc. We have only seen them once though in person. This is awkward for a lot of people. They think surrogacy is cool until you tell them you didn't know the people before, they weren't friends, then it's awkward. As one person said "is this for a friend or for a paycheck", as if they are mutually exclusive. People don't understand why you would do this for someone you don't know, and their incomprehension often leads to judgement and big fat, false assumptions. When I started calling the OB office this week, I just said I was carrying the baby for friends. It's easier that way. Truth be told, they now are friends. After all, you don't get half naked and hang out with a paper table cloth on your lap for strangers, at least I haven't. There I was though, undressed and with my feet up in stirrups for a very invasive ultrasound with the Hitchhiker's parents sitting next to me. It was bizarre, it was weird, it was so socially strange, but love looks and feels like that often.

It was in the next moments that we moved from awkward to amazing in this neighbor loving process. The doctor quickly located the teeny tiny, Hitchhiker, and you could see and hear his heartbeat. His teary eyed mom videoed the screen while his dad sat with tears in his eyes. There were whispers of thanks yous, and questions for the doctor, but it was the incredible moment. We all realized that they would most likely be parents again. There is still some risk, being so early, that the baby will stop developing, but for that moment there was hope, and redemption and love. I was still half naked with my feet in stirrups, but it didn't matter so much anymore, because we were watching a miracle of God and science, and they will soon be parents again.

Love is hard. I think that is why Paul spelled it out so much in 1 Corinthians 13. None of these qualities he mentions are easy to maintain. These are hard things to do.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.  (MSG version)

So yes, this is hard and awkward and weird and embarrassing and painful but that is what true love is, it's also beautiful, redemptive and amazing.

Why we waited to vaccinate

I have kept my mouth shut, I have bitten my tongue to near bleeding as I have watched all of the thrashing of parents who wait to vaccinate their child. I can't do it any longer though.Some of the articles and comments written on this subject are very well meaning and well intentioned, but many are sweeping, bullying, generalizations. Yes some parents aren't thinking through this clearly, and are just going on rumor, but there is a lot more to this. Beyond that, parenting is hard and scary at times. You want the absolute best for you kids, and it's not always easy to sift through everything in this world and the information overload, and decide what the best is. That is where we found ourselves when our kids were little, so the two of us, both college educated, well read, middle class professionals, decided to delay some of our kid's vaccinations.

It started honestly, with the autism link. During the period of 2000-2006 when we were having young children, the information on the link between autism and shots was not so clear. We knew a family, well educated, well meaning people, whose son didn't show any signs of autism, until after a big vaccination. We saw them struggling through therapies, and trying to bring back the son they had before. It may not have been the cause, but at the time the vaccinations looked very suspicious. We also had the makings of a genetic predisposition to autism, if such a thing existed. We had a family member on the spectrum. So it seemed to us, if autism was in our background and shots potentially turned something on inside some individuals that activated this in kids, we didn't want to take that risk.

We didn't just decide this for ourselves based on rumors, or feelings, we discussed our family history with some awesome pediatricians and they recommended a slow delayed plan of vaccines. Eventually our kids received all of their vaccines, but they were not complete until after our youngest turned three. This meant that for our oldest, we were filling out documents for daycare,preschool and kindergarten to exempt her from vaccines. The form said we were doing it for religious beliefs. As a Christian who is called to love others, I couldn't put my kids in what I thought was harms way. I also was aware that other children were vulnerable. We weighed the risks,and decided that delaying was the best option. At one point we were going on a trip and our doctor recommended the MMR before that trip, so we followed her advice and made sure we weren't giving any other injections at the time, so as not to overwhelm their systems. The vaccine we held out the longest on was the varicella otherwise known as the chicken pox shot. These decisions were not easy for us, I agonized over them, and it was embarrassing to have to fill out those forms, and to get exclusion letters from the school warning that they had to be turned in by a certain time.

And those statistics about the number of exemptions in each school, that you might be freaking out over, they probably aren't totally accurate. Our kids were fully vaccinated to the school's requirements five years ago, yet a few months ago we received a notice, saying we had to provide notice of vaccination or resign the form. It was a clerical error.

I share this all to say,  please stop shaming and judging these parents. You don't know them, you don't know the experiences they have had or the advice they have received. Don't lump them all in with the people that are being negligent and aren't doing their homework. Saying things like "is autism risk more important than risk of death", aren't fair. Calling these parents stupid is not okay. Better education is required, but just like with anything else, compassion is a better way to approach it than judgement and hate. Ultimately fear drives people to make this decision and bullying people is not going to help them overcome that fear.

Sermon: The Satisfaction of Surrender

The master story tellers at Pixar made an amazing short Christmas special this year called Toy Story That Time Forgot. In this film they illustrated one of the basic and yet hardest concepts of Christian faith so incredibly. In the film, the toys are living with Bonnie, and she has a triceratops toy named Trixie. Bonnie plays with Trixie all the time, but not as a dinosaur, sometimes she is a horse or an alien or a reindeer, but never an actual dinosaur. Trixie starts to get really frustrated by this, after all it seems like she was created to be a dinosaur, and all the other toys, even Slinky Dog and Buzz Lightyear have been pretend dinosaurs. After Christmas Bonnie takes her toys over to a friend’s house. The friend has just received a whole set of battle dinosaurs, that he hasn’t even touched because he has been preoccupied with a new video game system. Bonnie joins him playing video games and her toys start to explore the dino world and Trixie is excited to finally get to play as a dinosaur. They soon find out that these dinosaur toys have never been played with at all and don’t understand that they are toys. She thinks she will finally get to fulfill her destiny.

We often feel like there is something we are meant to be, to be happy or to be our true selves don’t we? We strive to do and get new things to make us happy and give us the life we want. Oprah even has a new tour, the Life You Want Tour.

We lose ourselves in that pursuit of comfort sometimes, in the pursuit of having the life we think we are supposed to have. Living in this country it’s easy to do, there is the idea of the American Dream that we think we have to have or deserve to have. A certain sized family, house, cars, savings account, retirement fund etc. While those things aren’t inherently bad they can at times eclipse the real purpose of our lives; who we are made to be as followers of Jesus. A woman named Jennie Allen describes it in her book, Anything. She had all those things, a house in a safe neighborhood with good schools, a full two car garage, all the little comforts, and she started to become disillusioned with it all, she felt God calling her out of it. She said this, “It’s too easy in this country for blessings to become rights, for stuff and money to become what calls the shots in our lives and before we know it, God’s gifts have replaced God himself.”

We replace our passion for God and for others with the passion for acquiring and protecting this dream. These things, these parts of our life that we do desperately want to have and want to bring us peace, can’t do that. The reality is they can all slip through our hands at any moment, really. In the last decade we have seen people that have built careers, pension accounts, equity in their houses only to have them all slip away when things crashed. None of them are as secure and as satisfying as we think they are, but like Trixie we think that is what we are supposed to have and if that is what we have we will really be happy. Jennie Allen found that she wasn’t happy. She sums it up so well in her book, Anything, “We all want joy, passion, love and peace, instead we are marked by fear insecurity, apathy and restlessness.”

In the Toy Story Special, Trixie finds this to be true as well. The Battlesaurs are just dinosaurs, not reindeer or unicorns. No one has ever played with them and infused them with imagination and wonder of something more. They are so focused though, they are missing out, and they can’t accept Bonnie’s toys. They mock them because they are owned, and have to submit to someone. The leader of the Battlesaurs is threatened by Bonnie’s toys and decides they need to be destroyed. To save them Trixie has to convince one of the Battlesaurs to put himself in the hands of a child and accept that he belongs to someone, and can be something more if he allows himself to be played with. Trixie realizes that she is more and her life is better when she submits to Bonnie. There is a pivotal scene where she is trying to convince him of this. She tells him he needs to trust his child, and she tells him all the things he can be, all those things she used to think weren’t good enough. He needs to let go, and he does. The Battlesaur says, “it’s all about surrender” and falls into the hands of a child. Surrender is a hard word for us. We don’t want to submit, or yield anything, especially our stuff, our hopes, our dreams, our will. Things are so tailored to us as individuals right now, that we have a huge problem even submitting bits of our comfort. Fights have broken out on airlines recently over little devices that prevent someone from reclining the seat in front of you. Neither person is willing to yield their personal space for the comfort of another.

In this passage of Matthew 16:24-28, Peter is restless, like Jennie Allen described. God has just told him he will be the rock on which Jesus will build the church, he should be excited, satisfied to be given this position. As Jesus begins to describe how Jesus himself will have to suffer and die before being resurrected, Peter freaks out. This is too much, this is too uncomfortable, this cannot be how things will be done. Peter doesn’t want to suffer, or have Jesus suffer, he doesn’t want to sacrifice, but Jesus tells him, we read it earlier, but here it is from the message. “Self help is no help at all, Self sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want and lose your soul? “ (Message version of verse 24).

Jesus himself sacrificed and suffered for us. He gave up his comfort, his place, his perfection. That is what he calls us to as well. He calls us to lose our lives for him. But he promises that in this we will find our trues selves. Over and over again in scripture Jesus warns us that we will have to give up our personal comfort, stuff, family, our ideas of what is right, our ideas of other people and more for him, but in return we will have life in abundance, our true heart’s desire, salvation, love, grace, purpose, the ability to be a part of something so amazing.

The Toy Story storytellers nailed this. Trixie thought her life would be fulfilled if she could finally be a dinosaur, because that is what she was supposed to be right? But she learned that it was in surrendering that to Bonnie, and playing at whatever Bonnie decided to make her that she was truly happy. It’s in the surrender, as she taught her friend.

Are we willing to do that though, are we willing to fly that white flag, and say, not my will but yours be done, as Jesus said in the garden the night before he was crucified? Are we willing to pray to God, Anything, take anything, as Jennie Allen and her husband did one day? Are we willing to spend our days pursuing what God would have us do instead of what we are worried about and what we want, even if it means we might not be comfortable? Are we willing to take that risk?

I have been thinking a lot about surrender lately as we have been on this journey toward surrogacy. I promise I won’t talk about it in every sermon for the next nine months, but it’s so raw and so fresh right now, and such a part of a big journey God has us on. This couple has surrendered their embryos to a laboratory, and now to us. They have to give up that baby, and allow us to care for it. They have to sit back right now and let us take over. I can’t imagine. It was hard enough to surrender our kids to daycare and babysitters, let alone, let them live with someone else for nine months, trusting their decisions. It’s not comfortable, yet if they don’t do this, they have no chance of bringing this life into the world, they would miss out on a child and a sibling for their son.

What adventures do we miss out on, because we are holding on too tightly or too worried about things that don’t matter, when we should be focusing on what matters most to God? Are we so worried about achieving comfort and security that we won’t take any risk with God?

When I first started telling people about my plans to be a gestational surrogate, people brought up every fear that had been nagging at my brain. A lot of them had to do with my vanity. What would happen to my body, what if I gained a lot of weight and couldn’t lose it because I was older. That was a huge fear for me. Then there were questions of the emotional toll, bonding with a baby and then giving the baby to its parents. Then there were questions about enduring the sickness and the fatigue. The more people asked though, the more my fear dissolved, because when I heard it from their mouths instead of my own thoughts, it sounded more ridiculous. It really did. I thought, seriously, I would let these things stand in the way of helping someone bring a kid into the world? I would let these stop me from loving my neighbor? They seemed so selfish, and so inconsequential. Jesus gave his life; I could give my vanity, my comfort and some emotional sacrifice.

It’s been uncomfortable. It’s hard to tell people you are doing this, it was hard to tell all of you. I am sure people are judging me, and thinking this is silly, especially when I tell them it’s my way of trying to follow Jesus and obey him. It’s hard as someone that hates medicines and putting stuff in my body to suddenly be taking handfuls of things and injections everyday. It’s been emotional already, and we just transferred the embryo on Thursday. There is huge risk still, this is not a healthy, viable pregnancy yet and it’s far from over, but we have already found so much reward, so much adventure. We have great new friends in the intended parents. We have learned a lot about our own family and how we communicate, we are connecting better and talking more. We are more grateful for the things and people we have in our life. I am starting to get less worried about the small stuff. I am relying more fully on God to get me through everyday. Instead of waking up and praying through my worries, I am waking up and asking God to give me strength to serve him better, and show me how to love those around me. I am a work in progress, but at least I am making progress. I feel tired, but I feel so alive and infused with purpose and presence. I feel inspired and invigorated in new ways.

When we step out and surrender to God, we are more dependent on him. We have to pray more frequently, we have to rely more on him then ourselves, we see him out in his word more, and we get to see him at work. We get to see him up close, and that is awesome.

There are so many stories in the Bible of people who were asked to risk it all with God. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his child, but God himself came and stopped it. Noah had to build a floating zoo and saw God’s creation close up and personal, but also saw God provide and act in big ways. Mary risked her life, to bring Jesus into the world and treasured it all in her heart. The disciples left their fishing and Pharisee careers behind and were a part of miracles. They all were mocked, they all were frustrated, they all suffered, but they all experienced the presence and power of God.

One of the people that really inspired Jennie Allen to pray and offer everything and tell God he could have anything was Katie Davis. Sylvia has talked about Katie and we had her books, Kisses for Katie for sale at the gifts fair. Katie was a Tennessee teenager that had it all. She lived in a big house in a fancy neighborhood, had a convertible, was homecoming queen, had a boyfriend. She could afford to, and would be accepted at any college she wanted to go to. She was all prepared to get herself a piece of the American Dream as an adult. Katie went on a mission trip to Uganda during Christmas Break of her senior year though, and those ideas of what she should be were shattered. Her heart broke for the poor and the orphans of Uganda, and she decided to take a break and not attend college right away and spend a year serving there instead. That year has turned into a lifetime calling now. Katie tried to go back, she tried to go to college and get her piece of that “good life” but her heart took her back to Uganda. Now at 23 she is the mother to fourteen girls and runs Amazima ministries, which feeds and provides education to thousands of kids in Uganda. She found happiness unmatched by anything she had in America, by surrendering to what God wanted for her life and allowing him to use her as he saw fit. She is the Mother Theresa for a new generation and she has grown to know God in such deep and intimate ways.



We need to start seeing our lives as less about our comfort and our success, what we think would be good, and more about what God sees, how we can bring his kingdom here to earth. John talked last week about Proverbs 3:5-6 and trusting God, putting our future in his hands. We need to put today in his hands, we need to offer up everything and see what he can do with it.

Who knows where he will take us, what he will do. Not everyone will get called to Africa, but you might get called to new people, new adventures, new opportunities that you never dreamed of. It requires obedience. It requires surrender. These things may be mocked by our society, obedience and surrender. We value individuality and fame and fortune above all else. We have to die to ourselves everyday, and in the most mundane ways sometimes to allow God to really work in our lives. We have to serve the people in our house well, before we can hope to serve others. It might be in the everyday things, that you are called to serve. Can you use your home to host your neighbors, or your car to help someone out? Your daily interactions with your kids to help them understand the love of Jesus and share that with others? At school, maybe you need to branch out and try new groups of friends or new classes, where God has a whole new opportunity. Maybe you need to spend less time on social media and more time hanging out with people, talking to them face to face. Oh the horror of small talk!! Maybe it’s a more basic car, so you can free up some money to give to something that builds God’s kingdom, or maybe it’s learning to just be content with what you already have. Maybe it’s sacrificing the comfort of a night or weekend off and volunteering somewhere. Maybe somewhere you would never have gone before, maybe youth group at the Open Door or a homeless ministry, or a hospital ministry, a prison ministry. What are you willing to risk, what are you willing to surrender?

We have to be willing to die to our own selfishness everyday. Challenge your insecurities, look at what you worry about the most or hold the most dear and see how those places, those things, those people can be given over to God. If you take them out of God’s hands and put it in God’s what is the worst that can happen? God promises you and abundant life, he promises you love, and grace, mercy, and that things will go well with you. Maybe not your definition of well, but his, and he has way bigger, way better ideas than you. After all he is the guy that created sunsets, and the platypus. And if you want to see something mind blowing I can show you a picture of a six day old, microscopic embryo that hopefully in nine months will become a seven-pound baby.

God is amazing, and he can make every part of your life so much more amazing if you just surrender to him. It may not be the life you thought you wanted or needed, but it will be the life you were meant truly meant to have with God.

Hitchhiker Adventures #1: that crazy click clack point of the roller coaster

It is beyond weird to think that next Thursday I could be pregnant. I am going to walk into a medical office and let them put a baby in me. I can't even tell you how exciting/anxiety producing/freaky that is. I wanted to give you the details though, and I have struggled about how much to post with the surrogacy stuff. Not because I am embarrassed by it, or don't want to share the details, but because I don't want people to think I am showing off in anyway or trying to draw attention to myself. This isn't about me, it's about doing the right thing. In my case that looks like following Jesus call to love others, and put my selfishness to the side. It isn't heroic, it's just doing what you are called to do to help someone out. It's putting back into the world the love that has been shown to me. I want to post not so you will look at me and go, man she is awesome ( I will list for you the 1000s of ways I am not if you say that) but I post because 1) If you were doing this, I would want to know all about it, this stuff fascinates me, and I know it fascinates some of you too! 2) Awareness leads to greater acceptance-fertility issues are hard, and a struggle that a lot of people feel they have to suffer through in silence, and there are many ways to go about solving those issues, the more we talk about them, the less stigma involved, 3) we have friends all over the place that might care and I want to keep them involved, 4) Maybe there is something you are good at, capable of doing for others that you might not have thought of before to do and our journey might just inspire you too.

So basically for those interested, I will update, I call the baby the Hitchhiker (affectionately) because he is going on a ride with us and we are just picking him up for a while to get him to his next point (or her). I won't include details about the family, but I will give you details about the process.

Right now the process is at that scary point of the roller coaster where you are slowly moving up the hill and it's clicking and clacking and counting down to your crazy decent and the start of the fast, whip your head around, maybe make you sick part of the ride. We are just days away from the FET- frozen, embryo, transfer. That is when they take the little ball of frozen human (understand that this too is affectionate and I am in no way demeaning his little cryogenically preserved life), and they thaw him out, and use a catheter to put his little microscopic self into my uterus. This week the two of us have quite the preparations to undergo. He has to thaw, get examined, washed, and chosen to be strong and worthy for transfer. I have already been chosen, but I have to kick my body into high gear with handfuls of meds, and shots. I go in next week not pregnant, after deciding we were done with having our kids, Valentine had a vasectomy we were that done, and I walk out hopefully pregnant with a baby that isn't and will never be ours, but part of our extended family of friends.

Tonight I take the meds to the next level. Now instead of one little insulin needle everyday, and a bigger needle twice a week, I have one big needle a day, and two additional big needles twice a week. The shot process becomes a little more involved, requiring more care, effort, and bigger risk of mood swings. I also go back on the antibiotics that wreaked havoc on my digestive system earlier in the process, and start a steroid to help avoid inflammation that would cause the Hitchhiker or myself to reject the other. So far, the meds have not been that bad with the exception of the antibiotic. The biggest symptom has been sleepiness. I am not the night owl I once was. I have a feeling in the next week it will get a little more intense.

I have learned so far that I am the lucky one. I was able to have two healthy kids without enduring any of this. When I go in for blood draws and exams, I sit in a waiting room full of couples that are desperate of the outcome I have had twice, with a way more fun method. I take the injection and swallow the pills knowing my body is already capable of doing what it needs to do. I don't have the pressure to perform. I am just enduring the side effects, not the roller coaster of emotions that those couples have to live through. So honestly, it has not been that bad for me, being on this side of it. It's more weird than bad.

The pressure is really on the embryo. The Hitchhiker has to be healthy, hatch and hitch on. Next week I will be on bedrest for two days after transfer to try and allow him to do just that, although there is no real scientific evidence that what I do, effects his ability to implant.

So for the next week especially, and a few weeks after, I would appreciate prayer, good thoughts etc. for the Hitchhiker, myself and our families. We won't know for a few weeks if it worked, and we will still have to make it through the first trimester to make sure he is healthy. I will continue on shots and other forms of hormone doses for the rest of the month, so pray especially for Valentine as he is confronted by a wife on waves of high dose hormones. There is still risk of miscarriage if he does hitch on. There can still be loss for our families. It's not a done deal yet.

the first time I was pregnant

I am sure there is a roller coaster of emotions ahead of us all  I will keep you posted on the ride. 

Maybe a little EW isn't so bad with your Yule

 I had to explain this concept  of the virgin birth to a seventh grade boy last week. It's hard to put into words the what and the why, and of course his response was "EW", just like Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show character, Sarah. Who could blame him, it is weird and gross this concept of Spirit pregnancy and a barn birth. It is awful, really when we stop and contemplate the details, yet it's result was something so beautiful, so miraculous, so life changing. We want things in our lives, to be so orderly, comfortable and hassle free, yet reality is, life is far from those things, our holidays are far from those things. It's in the midst of the yuck though, that God shines through the brightest. He can take even the most broken of situations and fix it in fantastic ways, all be it with some EW along the way.

There was a lot of EW for Mary. So much EW. She ran the risk of being stoned, rejected, having to turn to begging or prostitution to support herself and her baby, when she signed on for this. Her response though was, let it be so. God delivered her from that fate, and Joseph married her, but her EW times were not over, she had to deliver in the midst of animals and poop. This was God's favored woman! Yet she had to endure hardship, shame, loss of the life she probably dreamed of and all so she could deliver in a barn. How is this possible? Because of her faithfulness, because of her willingness to trust that God could bring her through the brokenness, we have Jesus.

Our God who loves us unconditionally, who shed heaven for the hurts of earth, so he could be here for us, came from EW. He came from EW, so he could take our EW and turn it into something more beautiful, more lovely than we ever thought possible.

We read that Mary treasured that birth experience and the first visitors in her heart. Did she at times, probably wish that it hadn't happened that way. I would bet so. Yet she was able to treasure some of the outcomes in her heart. God's amazing Christmas love of baby Jesus is redemptive, it takes the EW and makes it awesome.

As we tread through our own baby adventure with surrogacy, there is a lot of EW. The family we are serving has walked through an ugly road of cancer and loss. They have endured more than good people ever should have to. In small ways, it's EW for us too and it's just beginning. There are shots, and medications and tests, and there will be lots more grossness down the road. Yet, there is something so cool happening, as our two families combine, hopefully a baby will grow, but a friendship is already growing. Our family is already extending, even though my belly is not yet. Yes, we would rather the mother, get to nurture her baby to birth, but even in the midst of that loss, something good is coming. God is turning EW into opportunity, as only he can.

Often we want our Christmas season to be perfect, tidy and lovely, but always there is EW. It's okay, EW happens, but God is all over it. He takes the EW, and through it he changes us, he changes the world. After all, what's more EW than childbirth in a barn, but that turned out pretty good for me and you! Hopefully we can see, the nativity in the midst of EW , and have some peace, that as awful as it may be, it can be an opportunity for redemption, miracles and mischief even, that we never saw coming. It may not lessen the loss or the pain, but maybe it can bring anticipation instead of anxiety and hope instead of despair.

Here is Mary's amazing response, pre barn birth, but probably before she knew her life would be spared and Joseph would marry her in her knocked up state:

Luke 1:46-55The Message (MSG)

46-55 And Mary said,

I’m bursting with God-news;
    I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
    I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
    the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
    on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
    scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
    pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
    he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
    beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

May we all be so hopeful, thankful and full of anticipation in the midst of our EW

Why we are getting knocked up

Our family is on a big adventure, and things are getting serious in good ways. We have let people in on this adventure along the way, close friends and people in our community, but we hadn't really told our church. It may seem like something you don't tell, this journey, but Val and I have learned that keeping secrets isn't helpful, it's hurtful. Our church community is different too, they are connected to our family in a way, a normal workplace would not be. As someone that has grown up in a pastor's family and now is a pastor-ish person, I know that my life in some ways is of church public interest. Our church community invests in us, and I have influence over them, I am a figure in their families too. As such, I give over some rights of privacy in this community. Though this adventure is ours, our church family will be along with us on the journey, watching the changes take hold of me, and unlike other pregnancies in our community, they won't get to gold this baby when it's over. So it was decided that we needed to tell them about this journey and invite them into it, to pray for all of us. I am not normally nervous about sharing anything with our church family, but this had me quaking in my boots. Here is what I shared on Sunday: 

Our family is starting a new adventure it won’t take us away from you, but we would appreciate your prayers. I am now officially a gestational surrogate for a family in Seattle. I am not currently carrying their child, but we are in the process and on track to do that.

This isn’t something we have taken lightly, we have been thinking about it, talking and praying about it for over a year now, and we are working with a very reputable agency and some of the top reproductive doctors in the country.

This decision comes after years of watching friends struggle with infertility, with one friend asking and not needing me to carry. I joked that the compensation we will receive for pain and suffering is my Dave Ramsey get out of debt faster pizza delivery job. Honestly though the more I considered this, the more I realized I was uniquely suited to do it. I am healthy, have always been drug and smoke free, and had two easy pregnancies and deliveries. I also care for students all the time, have very powerful experiences with them and then they grow up and move on, and we have limited contact.  I am not their parent, but I am a part of their lives. I know how to love, and nurture, while not being the parent and let go when I need to.

I will say I was fearful at first and nervous about what would happen to my body, but it was then that I read Jesus words on loving others and going the extra mile. The law in his day said that if a Roman soldier asked a Jew to carry their pack, they had to carry it one mile. Jesus said as his follower, you had to carry it two miles. He demands from us sacrificial love, just as he showed in giving his life for us. I challenge you all the time to give of yourselves and be the hands and feet of Jesus even if it carries you out of your comfort zone. The truth is though that a lot of the stuff we do here together is totally in my comfort zone. So I feel called to do this, to follow Jesus in this way and help this family in a way that I can and in a way that really challenges me.

They are a great family. She battled cancer and it left her unable to carry a child to term. They have one son through surrogacy already and they would love to have another child. They are lovely people raising a great kid, and we are excited to help them have another child that will be raised to be a loving, member of society. We have had so many of our own dreams come true, and now it is a blessing to be able to help them with theirs.

We are excited to see God continue working through this adventure. He has already taught us a lot in the months of testing and evaluation we have gone through to get here. I am going to start medications this week, and more in the beginning of December, and then in early January, will be our first attempt at pregnancy.

I am willing to answer any questions you might have, this is a fascinating process and part of a journey God is taking us on, and as you know I am not shy about sharing those things. The goal is for me to be pregnant, and at some point that will be very obvious, yet a baby won’t come to our church family, which may be confusing for some of our younger members. So I also have a children’s book that very beautifully and simply explains this process for kids, with a kangaroo carrying a baby in it’s pouch for another kangaroo, and I would be happy to share that you with you if your children have questions as well.

We appreciate your prayers and understanding as continue on this journey and we look forward to sharing the joy and anticipation of helping this family with you.

Being a chick really sucks sometimes

I don't live in a country where I am considered property or a transaction. I work in a field where my options are limited due to my gender, but I still have more opportunities than millions of women all around the world. Even in these great circumstances though, it still sucks to be a woman. Today an acquaintance called me sexy,no one else was around, it was not a good friend, not my husband, just someone I see from time to time, and it creeped me out. It came with a hug, that involved a hand partially on my butt too, and it left me feeling bad for being creeped out by it.

This is something most women can identify with, and I have been struggling with for a long time. As a young girl I looked anything but young. I was five feet ten inches in middle school with curves in all the right place, as Meghan Trainor says, after I grew out of my skinny twig phase. This made me appear much older and more available to guys. So I dealt with a lot of comments, got groped on the school bus by adolescent boys and even dealt with more than a few dirty old men at church. There were comments about how I was built like a brick sh#t house, how I was sexy, how developed I was, there were hugs that lasted a long time. I was objectified often and so I started thinking of myself that way. There was an older boyfriend who asked a much too young girl if she was ready, and I didn't have the sense or understanding that my body didn't need to be that objectified sexual thing, so I didn't say no. Thankfully, my experiences were tame, I wasn't raped (I did consent), I wasn't molested, but these things were uncomfortable and they weren't things I felt like I could or should speak out about. All of these experiences formed me into this person that had a lot of my identity tied into being that sex object. Later, I learned a lot about who I was and where my value was and thankfully things did not get out of control, I have great parents, a faith that is not shame based and met good guys, so I was able to shed most of that, but not all.

It was hard and still is at 36 to understand what is and is not okay when it comes to comments from guys, and sometimes even the way they touch. Is that hug, where your hand is probably technically not on my back, and a bit on my butt, just a fluke, or an intentional inappropriate touch. Is telling me I am sexy, just your old man unfiltered inappropriateness, or is it really not okay?

You are probably reading this going, "Duh Heather, that's not okay!" But my brain doesn't do that. My brain says that grope on the bus in junior high was not great, but it wasn't that big a deal, and it didn't happen again. And that older boyfriend, that was my fault because even as a fourteen year old, I still should have just said no. These things just happen right? The one that really gets me, really makes me uncomfortable, and feel bad is the older guys. They are sweet and nice, and these comments are only a small part of what they say, right? And their hands slip right? They are just from a different generation, and they don't mean any harm when they say I am sexy. I don't want to hurt their feelings and tell them it makes me feel uncomfortable.

But then my brain says what if it happened to one of my girls, my students, or as someone pointed out, my daughter. Would it be okay? Then my brain says hell no! I would want them to be able to say, hey, that's not okay, and not make excuses. I would want them to have a voice, and feel totally okay using that voice and not worry about hurting someone's feelings.

I don't want my daughter to grow up thinking it's okay for guys that she is not in a relationship with to tell her she is sexy and she has to just accept that. Sexy isn't an okay compliment. Even if it's tossed around in the media and silkscreened on t-shirts. It is a loaded word. I don't want her to feel like someone touching her and it making her uncomfortable can just be swept under the rug. I want her to have the power to say no, to feel like her body is not a sex object and her value is not in any way tied to her sexual attractiveness.

So I am writing an email, I am letting one "sweet" older man aquaintance, know that he cannot call me sexy anymore. It is hard, and I worry about hurting his feelings, but I am not going to let my feelings be messed with just because I have boobs and a butt. If it makes me uncomfortable I can say that.

If I can't stand up in these smaller situations, how can I expect girls to stand up to the big ones?

Why, why is it still like this? Why do we as women have to deal with cat calls and inappropriate comments and just take them as "compliments"? Why do guys feel like they can do that? And why do we feel guilty when we call them on it? It's so messed up.

Why do I have to worry about what I wear and how it affects men? They don't have to worry about me. Why is it still hard to get equal pay as a woman? Why can't I preach or lead in everyone's church? Why does my anatomy define my role in society and the way it can treat me?

We may have it better than most women around the world, but ladies, it still sucks sometimes to be a lady.