I have a new doula client. Her name is Debbie. I met her through my business card, and her therapist, who was calling to pre-screen doulas for her. She needed that buffer because she doesn't know when her baby is going to die. She was diagnosed with trisomy 18, and life expectancy is at a very small percentage-and the ones who do survive are severely handicapped. I am still shell-shocked, i think, and haven't had time to fully let the weight of this hit me. Life is so busy, and it's so important that I just be focused on serving Debbie and her needs, i have been keeping a tight rein on myself. But the tears threaten to overwhelm at the oddest moments. This lady is so brave, so loving and accepting of what God has given her. She wakes up every morning thanking Him for another day with her baby. This will be her first and last pregnancy-she is almost at the age for menopause. I can't even put into words how that rips at my soul. She's been through a lot-intense pressure to abort, a divorce, her dog died; and she is now living in a maternity home. I am writing this to beg anyone who reads this to seriously pray for this lady-to join me in praying that God would miraculously heal her baby. Thankfulness really is a state of the heart, not of situation.

Trapped

I'm in need of serious prayer right now. I don't know what changed this week, for me-or if this has been growing for awhile, and is just now noticeable, but I feel trapped. Trapped, by my beloved Santa Cruz. My home, my dream, the place i always longed to be, is strangling me. Maybe, i tell myself, it's just a mood, maybe it's because you are pregnant and scared-scared of how expensive this place is, how the price of living here just keeps rising, and rising; and the thoughts tumble through my brain, chokingly-how are we going to raise 4 kids here? How are we going to have ten kids here, like I hope? I was looking through the classifieds at rentals and realized the futility-what use would it be, to move to another two bedroom? Which is at the very limit of what we can afford. And then I come back to faith-the realization that we have never lacked here, that God has led us here, that He has used us here in mighty ways. We have touched lives and forged heartstrings and there are friends here i dearly love. I need the peace and trust to look around, to stay in the moment, to rest in the fact that right now, this moment, this month, this year, we have everything we need. We always have everything we need. Never more or less. I need to stop looking at the needs of the future and freaking out. Jesus is taking care of us.

Grammie Fix
Church on Easter

I passed my blood glucose tolerance test!
In other words, diabetes free-yay!

I thought this was funny

The Pitch *


It's late in the winter of 2005. Hillary and Obama are having lunch in the Senate Dining Room, brainstorming campaign ideas to pitch to the Democratic National Committee.

Obama: Why don't they have salsa on the table?

Hillary: What do you need salsa for?

Obama: Salsa is now the number one condiment in America.

Hillary: You know why? Because people like to say "salsa." "Excuse me, do you have salsa?" "We need more salsa." "Where is the salsa? No salsa?"

Obama: You know it must be impossible for a Spanish person to order seltzer and not get salsa. (Angry) "I wanted seltzer, not salsa."

Hillary: "Don't you know the difference between seltzer and salsa?? You have the seltzer after the salsa!"

Obama: (Just throwing it out there): This should be the campaign.

Hillary: What?

Obama: This. Just arguing. Arguing about nothing.

Hillary (Dismissing): Yeah, right.

Obama: No I'm serious. That sounds like a good idea.

Hillary: Just arguing? What's the campaign about?

Obama: It's about nothing.

Hillary: No real policies?

Obama: No, forget the policies.

Hillary: You've got to have policies.

Obama: Who says you gotta have policies? Remember when we were voting for... for that Senate resolution that proclaimed 'making good people feel good is a good thing' that time? That could be a whole presidential campaign.

Hillary: And who is running in this campaign about nothing? Who are the candidates?

Obama: I could be a candidate.

Hillary: You?

Obama: Yeah. You could run for President as a woman who is not really a woman, except when you cry, and I could run for President as a black man who is not really a black man, except when I go to church. Democrats would buy it. They really would. They're Democrats!

Hillary: So, on my campaign trail in 2008, there's a candidate following me around named Barack Hussein Obama?

Obama: Yeah. There's something wrong with that? I'm candidential. People are always saying to me, "You know you're a quite a candidate."

Hillary: And who else is on the campaign trail in this campaign about nothing?

Obama: That poof Edwards could be a candidate. Kucinich....

Hillary: Now he's a candidate..... So everybody I know is a candidate in the campaign?

Obama: Right.

Hillary: And it's about nothing?

Obama: Absolutely nothing.

Hillary: So you're saying, I go in to the DNC, and tell them I got this idea for a campaign about nothing.

Obama: WE go into the DNC.

Hillary: "We"? Since when are you experienced enough?

Obama (Scoffs): Experience. We're talking to Democrats.

Hillary: You want to go with me to the DNC?

Obama: Yeah. I think we really go something here.

Hillary: What do we got?

Obama: A concept.

Hillary: What concept?

Obama: A concept for a winning presidential campaign.

Hillary: I still don't know what the concept is!

Obama: It's a campaign about HOPE AND CHANGE. It's about nothing!

Hillary: Right. Who does HOPE and who does CHANGE?

Obama: I'll do HOPE and CHANGE because I can do nothing about them. You can do EXPERIENCE because you don't really have any. All these Republican candidates are going to campaign on something. We'll campaign on nothing!

Hillary: So, we go into the DNC, we tell them we've got an idea for a campaign about nothing.

Obama: Exactly.

Hillary: They say, "What's your campaign about?" I say, "Nothing."

Obama: There you go.

Hillary (After a moment of pause): I think you may have something there.

Diapers

I had resigned myself mentally to diaper duty for many many years. It's the only drag for me, as a parent. Well, I was wrong. My diaper changing days are OVER. Gone, stolen, disappeared forever. Well, at least until Bella loses interest. I let her change one of Abby's nasty diapers the other day, after days of pleading every time i changed one, and that girl won't even let me near the diapers now. She checks her diaper at lest 4 times an hour. In addition, she rinses the dishes for me, and does all the vacuuming. All on her own. It's so sweet. And Hannah washes the floor. I don't think I will have to change any diapers when the baby comes. I'm so glad I get to be around my kids all day-seeing them grow and bloom and become responsible.

I work on Sunday nights at my churches coffeeshop. I work pretty late, i get home around ten. Anyway-this is what i came home to last sunday night. Isabella made it for me.

Couldn't have said it better

Angelina Jolie's view of Iraq.
when i think i can't respect her any more than i do.....

"My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.

Today’s humanitarian crisis in Iraq — and the potential consequences for our national security — are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won’t explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?

What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance…

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible."

Scary

Barack Obama WILL REQUIRE YOU to work. He is going to DEMAND that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation and that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage.


Barack will NEVER ALLOW YOU to go back to your lives as usual – uninvolved, uninformed – you have to stay at the seat at the table of democracy with a man like Barack Obama not just on Tuesday but in a year from now, in four years from now, in eights years from now, YOU WILL HAVE TO BE ENGAGED.

-Michelle Obama

first of many, i'm sure!


I'm so thankful to be having another baby. God is so good.

Hello, Crompton Baby number four
we've been waiting for you

I found this picture on the internet, to show what little baby c looks like right now.......
Bella really hopes you are a little brother, but Hannah is holding out for another girl
Nathan's just pissed I'm not pregnant with twins!

Only on TV

Nathan's results


97%

Free Maine Dating

41%

Looking for payday loan?

i found this on a blog i've been reading-'wife and mom of two"
it really shook me up-it's everything i want to say, but couldn't find the eloquence to express myself. Well, here it is-my heart, expressed by another sister in the Lord

The Horrid Facts
Abortion is murder. If we believe abortion is murder, we should act like it is murder.
As of 2007, nearly 50 million innocent babies have been slaughtered in America’s killing fields — the abortion mills — in ways too gruesome to describe, and horrifying to behold. The blood of innocent souls cries out for justice asking, “How long, oh Lord?”
Perhaps more horrifying is this: this holocaust has continued because of the compromise, cowardice, and outright treachery of the Christian community. Our response to murder is woefully unequal to our rhetoric.
If those who claim to be Christians from the Catholic and Evangelical worlds would simply have obeyed the dictates of their faith, this holocaust would have been vanquished decades ago. Our Simple Duty…
We must solemnly declare that we will no longer quietly coexist with the killing fields. We vow to end the slaughter in concrete ways, such as:
By boldly speaking out for the unborn in every arena available — private conversations, e-mails and blogs, literature, letters to the editor, call in radio shows, TV shows, and any other means available.
By running for office; helping in a political campaign; volunteering at a pregnancy center; sidewalk counseling at abortion mills; and a hundred other hands-on activist ways.
By not giving money, time, or effort to any candidate, party, or organization that promotes the murder of the innocent.
By only voting for candidates committed to move our laws toward protecting the unborn, and are committed to bring an end to child killing.
By – and please forgive our bluntness – by making life hell for the murderers of the innocent — the entire of abortion industry. We must protest, expose, confront, challenge, stigmatize, and humiliate them in every legal and non-violent way possible. We treat abortion mills as they are: death camps; the portals of hell; and we refuse to let them commit their foul and grizzly deeds in peace.
We create a crisis, and replace the child-killers in power, until it is totally illegal and undesirable to murder unborn children anywhere in the U.S.A.


amen, Lord. Please let this resonate with the people that read this blog.

Christmas in Cali

Abortion at heart of stem-cell debate

John Kass
November 25, 2007 Chicago Tribune



I wouldn't dare try to explain the science of the new discovery last week that promises to shift the agonizing debate about embryonic stem cells.

But if the science is right, mature human skin cells can be manipulated in laboratories to act as embryonic stem cells and replace damaged or diseased cells in human beings.

Though I can't begin to explain the science, the politics seem clear, despite the Orwellian twisting of the language over the years, despite the political symbolism and political iconography. It's clear enough.


It's about abortion. It has always been about abortion, about the choices we make and how we fight to use or deny human embryos for research -- all of it like hands that shape our future culture.

There have been other scientific and funding aspects to the stem-cell debate, but at the retail political level, "stem-cell research" has long been a proxy for abortion rights and for the rights of human life unborn.

So "stem-cell" is code, a slogan, the fact understood by political consultants and their candidates, by the abortion rights groups and the politicians who seek their votes and by those that oppose abortion rights and seek those other votes.

Human embryos don't vote. Many Americans don't believe there is life in them at such an early stage. I do. But others don't.

Yet if left alone in a mother's womb, nurtured there, surely they'd be born to run and breathe and think and speak, and perhaps grow old enough to vote. And they'd want to survive and they'd express that desire through public policy debates, like this one.

Every creature born wants to live, many at almost any cost, and humans are instilled with the will to continue. If this means taking other human lives to ensure survival, well, hasn't that question been answered by centuries of human history?

We've killed one another by tribe and clan, over hunting and grazing land, with clubs and pointed spears, and killed over water. For the past several thousand years, we've killed one another over gold. Now we kill for energy. We kill one another for the power to live. We justify it with words. But the act remains the same.

And for all the years the embryonic stem-cell debate has dragged on, we've used words to obscure what we've been doing. We abandoned old notions of common morality to adopt a new code born of scientific rationalism:

That it is proper to take human embryos and use the human life going on inside them as a product to perpetuate other, more powerful lives.

This involves the questions I keep asking -- and have asked in various ways for years since this debate began:

What is the psychic cost of all of this? What debt is incurred by those who survive by destroying life? What of those who come after us? What world do we create for them by entertaining such choices and pretending that technology is without consequence? What happens to us in the act of avoiding these questions, so eager are we at the promise of new discoveries?

I'm sure I'm in the distinct journalistic minority on this. And I'm certain I'll feel that way when this is published. One buzzword in American newsrooms is "diversity," which I hope means more than mere differences in skin pigment.

I sure hope so, because I am opposed to abortion. I haven't always felt that way, but things changed when my sons were born. And my Greek Orthodox faith teaches me that abortion is wrong, that human life is sacred. Naturally all this shapes my view and others like me, and I know many of you differ.

Sometimes I wish that those who ridicule us for faith would acknowledge from time to time that their views may also shaped by an equally fervent faith -- the belief in modern scientific progress as the means to solve the world's problems.

But faith in God or faith in science doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. And the fact of embryonic stem-cell research remains:

Human embryos are converted into a medical product in the hopes of perpetuating the lives of other, more powerful humans desperate for a cure.

Now, though, that may be ending with the discoveries of last week. It must be unsettling to established interests. From loved ones of those who desperately seek rescue from terrible diseases and have no patience for politics; to abortion rights groups; to scientists uninterested in politics, except as it pertains to the funding of their research.

Early news accounts of the new scientific advance predictably framed the debate as rational scientists versus those ecstatic conservatives. Yet time may allow analysts to examine the discovery in the context of how it threatens the interests that have tied their politics to embryonic stem-cell research.

In a balanced news article on the new research last week, Tribune science writer Jeremy Manier quoted Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

"This approach provides medical advantages as well as clear moral advantages," Pacholczyk said. "That's an amazing development."

Another baby girl

Granmie time