Why me?

I’ve read many posts in which ALI bloggers ask the question Why me? But usually they are wondering why they are being forced to endure the struggles of IF and loss.

I have been asking the question Why me? a lot lately, but I’m asking it for the opposite reason.

What I want to know is why do I get to have a second child when so many others are struggling to have their first or were never able to have a second… or have no living children to parent at all? Why do I get to have so much when so many others are left wanting, when they have struggled for so much longer than I have and endured so much more suffering? Why were we able to get pregnant despite two diagnoses when others can’t get pregnant when no causes are found? Why did we only suffer one miscarriage when others have lost so many more babies?

I know I will never know the answers to these questions. I try not to let the guilt overwhelm me, but sometimes I just feel horrible that I’ve been given so much when others are wanting. I feel like I cut in line, not once but twice. I recognize how horribly unfair it is and I feel guilty for being the one who is on the more advantageous side of the lopsided equation.

The truth is, my life is pretty close to perfect right now. We have achieved everything we worked for in the last five years. We had our daughter. We bought a house in the city we love. Mi.Vida got a new job that will better support our family and give him valuable opportunities in a field that interests him. We are expecting our second child. We can finally get married in the state where we live.

Why do we get to have all of these things while other people are left wanting one or more (sometimes all of them). Who are we to have so much?

On the one hand I feel like I should apologize for all I have, that I must constantly acknowledge the MUCHNESS of it. On the other hand I feel this great responsibility to appreciate it all, to take nothing for granted. Knowing how much others would give to have what I’ve been given is a great weight, resting heavily on my shoulders.

With great happiness comes great responsibility.

My therapist urges me to combat my anxiety with gratitude work, but she doesn’t tell me what to do when all that gratitude becomes guilt. How do I appreciate everything I have without feeling guilty for having it when others do not? I don’t know how to do that yet. It is a puzzle and I’m barely able to piece together the edges, let alone see what the picture is.

I know this community is a complicated place. I want to make clear that absolutely NO ONE has made me feel this way. I have only received love and support for my successes, even from those who have been left wanting while I have forged ahead with my shiny new perfect life. Everyone’s gracious support has been so appreciated. I know this is my own shit that I have to deal with, and I’m sure I’ll figure out how. Eventually.

Have you ever felt guilt for what you have? How do you manage it?

Coming to Terms

TGIF. Seriously.

First off, thank you everyone who left words of encouragement yesterday. I can’t tell you how much it meant to know that others understood how upset I was. I know that in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big a deal. I know that people have had to wait infinitely longer to try, and then get pregnant. I know this. I don’t think missing this month would have been so hard if I hadn’t put myself through so much to get ready. These past two weeks have been so hard, and I endured it all so I could give it a try this month and then we missed it and it was all for nothing. That was a hard pill to swallow.

There are other reasons missing this month bothered me and I’ve been trying to parse them out in my head. I think the number one reason it upset me so much is that I like to be in control. I like to plan for every possible contingency and when I intend to do something, it generally gets done. I sensed that Tuesday was the day and I even bought the extra Pre-Seed just in case, even though I knew there was a chance it might arrive later that afternoon (as it did). And then I got home and events out of my control–our fight and Mi.Vida feeling sick–ruined my plans. And I HATE that. There is already so much about TTC that is out of my control, fumbling the stuff that is in my control drives me batty.

My reaction to this has also inspired me to look more closely at how I feel about TTC as a whole. The truth is, I’m not in an incredibly hurry to get pregnant. In fact, if we had gotten pregnant this month, and the pregnancy stuck, the due date would have been difficult to manage. Of course I assume we won’t get pregnant on the first (or second or third tries), or that the first won’t stick, so we’re starting early.

And the truth is, this is almost certainly my last chance at being pregnant. Despite my burning desire for a third child (more on the insanity of that soon to come), it’s not financially possible. So this is it. And there is a part of me that is sad for that, to know this is it. And I want to savor it. I’m the kind of person that enjoy the build up to the vacation almost as much as the actual vacation. So I’m not in a huge hurry to be pregnant. I’m really not. So why am I freaking out?

I think the thing is, I’m not scrambling to get pregnant but I am scrambling to be done trying. Unfortunately the two are mutually exclusive. I can’t just decide to get pregnant and do it. If I could, all would be fairy queefs and unicorn farts. But I can’t. And the truth is, I hate TTC. I loathe it. And while I don’t need to get pregnant immediately, I don’t want to be trying for a long time.

I’ve been trying to determine what about TTC is so horrible for me and I think I’ve figured it out. Every cycle that we don’t get pregnant I feel like we’ve failed. I mean, we have failed, right? We’ve failed to get pregnant. We set out to do something and it didn’t get done. And while I know that it’s not the same as failing at other things in life–because I don’t have control over the luck involved in actually getting pregnnat–it feels the same to me. I don’t like failing and TTC is chalk full of it.

Also, there is an irrational part of me that feels like every time we don’t get pregnant, it means the next time we have less chance of getting pregnant. I know that isn’t true, not really. I know that it’s like rolling a die and at school I roll die all the time. I use a six-sided die to dismiss my sixth graders because sixth graders are obsessed with “fair” and nothing is less biased than the roll of a die. And there are times I roll that die and roll that die and can’t hit either of the last two rows left to dismiss. And every time I think, maybe 4 and 6 will be the numbers I need to get pregnant and I just won’t roll them for the longest time. So I get it, in my head, but in my heart every negative test means that something might be wrong, that I have even less of a chance that it will happen the next time, that my opportunities are running out.

So yeah, I’ve been grappling with all that these past 24 hours and it’s been enlightening, to say the least. I’m trying to move past this busted month because really, what else can I do? My options are to wallow or move on. I guess the latter is the more productive choice, thought it can be a hard one for me to accept.

There is one thing making me feel better, and I wrote about it here, at my new blog. It has to do with faith, which I didn’t think I had for the longest time, but now I realize I do. And it brings peace. And for that I’m thankful.

 

On the Same Page?

Last night I sat my man down and told him exactly how I feel about TTC#2. The problem is I’m not even sure how I feel. So I laid it all out and explained how uncertain and unsure all of it felt.

Basically, this is what I said:

– There is a part of me, the part I believe is driven by my biological imperative, that wants to have a baby right her and right now, come hell or high water. This voice is oscillates between a loud shouting and a quiet whisper and is fairly persistant, though frequently drowned out by the day to day.

– Another part of me, the part I believe is driven by my perpetual state of anxiety, is well, anxious. I’m worried about all the uncertainty, the myriad “what if”s? I’m scared it will take a long time to get pregnant, I’m terrified we’ll suffer another a loss (or God forbid multiple losses or a still birth). I’m worried that TTC#2 will be road we’re struggling down for years. I don’t know if I can handle that.

– Another cause of (considerable) anxiety is that a second child will be the nail in our relationship’s coffin. The way I see it – worst worst case scenario: a second child before we’re both ready would be the end of our relationship. Best worst case scenario: we’re totally miserable for one or two years and it takes another one or two for us to recover.

– Of course our financial ability (or better said, inability) to have another child is also a huge reason to put this whole TTC#2 business on hold, big time.

I said all of this very calmly; even I was impressed with how collected I was during my whole spiel. The fact is I’m feeling pretty calm about the whole thing, despite my oscillating thoughts and feelings about it. I think I’m realizing that there is no best answer, that every approach has considerable positives and negatives and we’re just going to have to make a decision and hope for the best.

The surprising part of all of this is not my new found understanding but Mi.Vida’s response to it. Turns out Mi.Vida is similarly conflicted by all of this. I assumed he thought waiting was the obviously more appropriate choice. In reality, Mi.Vida sees positives to jumping into TTC#2 sooner rather than later too. For one, he isn’t so interested in stretching the baby/toddler years out so that they span the better part of a decade; he would rather the babyhood of the second baby overlap with the toddlerhood of the our darling daughter, thus shortening the overall span. He also likes the idea of our children being closer in age so that they can more easily and appropriately play together (or course being close in age doesn’t guarantee friendship but might make it more plausible). He also mentioned being worried that it might take a while and/or that we might experience more loss, which I really appreciated.

Of course he’s terrified of the financial implication of two children, especially since we’ve determined he’s the one responsible for making more money. He also shares my trepidation surrounding how a second child might test the mettle of our relationship. This past year does seem to suggest that we might be found lacking.

So where does all of this leave us? As you know, I need to have some sort of plan so currently what we’re doing is this: In January we will start our first ever stint of “not trying but not not trying”. We originally planned that for right now but I eventually conceded I would be unable to have unprotected sex without secretly (or even subconsciously) trying to get pregnant. Now, I fully believe that I can, in fact, do that. So in January we’ll throw out the condoms and see if any of our bedroom antics have (somewhat) unintended affects. During this time we’ll also be working to increase our fertility, eating less processed foods, taking supplements, and keeping hot computers off our junk – you know, that kind of thing. Then later, maybe three months, maybe six, we’ll start going at it for realsies.

So yeah, that is our plan, and I feel strangely at peace with it. I know it’s not perfect but I realize now no option is. I feel this plan is the best mix of caution and courage that we can muster right now.

I hope I’m right.

Trial and Error (Light on the former, heavy on the latter)

So yesterday I went to a baby shower. I was lucky enough to never attend a (non-work) baby shower before this one (except my own). I didn’t know anyone there besides the mother-to-be and it was really far away from my place, requiring over an hour of travel time each way. Being at the shower meant I’d miss most of Isa’s awake hours, which was hard. But I was still excited to go because I love the woman having the baby (she is my best friend’s wife) and hope we can see them a lot when when they enter parentdom.

There was only one moment during the shower when I felt the difference between our two experiences (she got pregnant the first month trying). She was retelling the story of how she told her husband that she was pregnant and I suddenly remembered both the times I told Mi.Vida about our pregnancies. The differences between the two instances are substantial.

The first pregnancy I found out about while traveling without him in New York. When I got home I bought him a Father’s Day Card (it had just passed that weekend) and wrote, “I know you’ll be the most amazing dad” in it, or some such sentimental saying. And then I gave it to him with a positive pregnancy test. It was amazing and I was so excited. Of course we lost that pregnancy two weeks later in an ER with an MVA and two methotrexate shots in the ass.

The second time I told Mi.Vida we were pregnant it was 6am on a work day and I was sobbing with fear that we’d have another ectopic. There was so little happiness in finding out about that pregnancy. And for some reason, hearing her tell her story made me realize that for the first time. And I had to take a few minutes to mourn the excitement I should have felt when I found out about the pregnancy that brought me my daughter. It only lasted a moment though, and I rallied to play all the silly games and watch her open present after present.

On the way back I thought of how I’d tell Mi.Vida we were pregnant for number two, if we’re lucky enough for that to happen to us. I don’t want to share it because Mi.Vida reads my blog. I have to say, I’m excited about it.

Until I wonder if that will be another doomed pregnancy, and I’ll be wasting my special idea on a something I will remember later through the anguished lens of loss. There is no way to know until it’s too late, so I’ll have to take that step in faith, if the time ever comes.

Anyway, enough of that sad-sap stuff. I mean, I didn’t have to go to work today. Why am making myself feel shitty in spite of that awesome fact?!

I actually made myself feel pretty shitty earlier today too. I’m sure you all remember that I was a little over-zealous about Isa’s sleep schedule, especially about her naps. Well, the good news is she’s a great napper now, taking two 1.5-2.5 hour naps every day at consistent times. The bad news is, we’ve become completely beholden to said nap schedule, which leaves us these times to do anything out of the house: 8:30-10:00, 12:30-2:30, 4:00-6:30 (give or take 30 minutes). By the time Isa is up, dressed and fed we’ve lost 30+ precious minutes of that time, leaving less time left than most outings would require to execute.

I’ve really noticed the constraints of this nap schedule when trying to meet up with a mom who lives in the area. Her son is only five months and is still taking three naps. Which means our children are on completely opposite schedules. Whenever Isa is awake, H is asleep and vice versa. We haven’t been able to see each other since I went back to work.

So today I did a bold and uncharacteristic thing. I said f*ck it and took Isa out, leaving after she was supposed to go down for her nap. Not only did I do that, but I stayed out for 1.5 hours, bringing her home when she sometimes gets up from her nap. Oh, and I also didn’t bring a bottle.

About 7 blocks from home she totally lost her $h!t. Like back arching, shrill screaming, tears streaming lost her shit. I felt horrible. I hurried home, made her a bottle and put her to bed. She was so tired and looked so dejected as she finished those eight ounces, I felt horribly guilty. I promptly broke down when I walked out of her room declaring myself the Worst Mother Ever.

So my first attempt at flying in the face of Isa’s nap schedule did not go as I had hoped. In the end I wasn’t even thankful to see the woman that I met up with, even though I was so desperate to talk with a fellow mom that I took Isa out during her nap in the first place. Of course, I did nothing to ensure a successful outting, and I only have myself to blame for that. The next time I try this I will be home much earlier (and I will have a bottle with me, just in case).

We spent the rest of today making some homemade baby food (which I will tell you more about on Useful Tuesday) and hosting some friends for a couple of hours of adult conversation.

Tonight I’ve said I will cook dinner, as Mi.Vida has much to do and little time to do it. My pipe dream is to bring Isa downtown between this nap and bedtime so I can use an Old Navy coupon before it expires. I doubt that will happen, but a mom can dream.

In the meantime, I’m so behind on my Creme de la Creme comments, I need to get on that. I’ve read up to 80 but have only commented up to 65. Gotten shrink that gap!

Confessional Fridays: I don’t wanna (the completed version)

Turns out I posted some unfinished version of this many hours ago. I have no idea what version that was. OOPS! Anyway, in case you get my posts via reader, here it is again, in it’s completed form:

I wrote that title and then I navigated away from the page. I came back and re-read what I had written and I laughed. I could write on numerous topics for that title. Here are just some of the posts that could follow the title of “I don’t wanna…”

… clean my house.

…. go to work.

… eat my veggies (more on this soon).

… grade papers.

… do my taxes.

… ever swipe my VISA at Babies R Us again.

… be a responsible spender.

The list goes on and on. In fact, the topic of this post might seem a little strange, surprising even. Because what I don’t wanna do is, take birth control.

Queue the snorts, muffled laughter and/or down right hysterics. Take birth control? you might think. I’m my own, unintended birth control, I WISH I had to TAKE something to not get pregnant, but I can do that all by my lonesome.

I get it. I really do.

I guess now would be the appropriate time to offer some back story. In the interest of keeping this brief I will use bullet points.

– Amenorreha from 18-26. Take BCP every couple of years to jump start menstruation but it never sticks.

– Meet Mi.Vida and take BCP for 2.5 years while we’re together.

– Me: VERY eager to start a family with Mi.Vida when we realize we’re in it for the long haul. Mi.Vida: not so much; the opposite, in fact. It takes us a while to come to an understanding.

– I start acupuncture/TCM diet/Chinese herbs before we start in an attempt to keep menstruating once I’m off the pill.

– Queue TTC with BBT charting, OPK sticks and timed intercourse.

– In the space of about a year we have one ectopic pregnancy and then quickly become pregnant with our daughter.

So back to birth control. Basically, I hate taking the pill. Of course it’s annoying to have to take it every day at the same time of day. And every three months I have to remember to order it before I run out. I also don’t like putting synthetic hormones in my body, altering the way it works. But my biggest complaint with BCP is that it decimates my libido.

And that is the other confession for my post. Some (most?) of the time, “I don’t wanna” also applies to sex. But it’s not really that I don’t want to have sex, it more like I don’t really care if we do. I know that sounds horrible to say, but it’s the truth. Well, not the whole truth. I mean, I do want to have sex because I feel great after we do it and I KNOW it makes our relationship better, deeper, closer. And it’s not like I don’t like to have sex, because I do. And once I get into it, I’m into it and I enjoy it very much. But before I’m in the throes of it, almost always I could take it or leave it, in equal measure. I just don’t have that drive inside of me. And I think it’s because of the pill, because I felt this way long before having my daughter.

Lately I’ve been needling Mi.Vida about not wanting to take the pill but I’ve never asked us to really look into possible alternatives. Last night and this morning we got into a little tiff about it. Today I sent Mi.Vida the following in an email:

Recently, since I’ve been trying hard to make “our time” a more important and integral part of our relationship, I wonder again if the pill has something to do with my decreased libido… Sometimes, when I feel so much pressure to make sure our sex life is healthy and thriving I can’t help but feel resentful that I’m taking something that could potentially make it harder for me to do that.

So that is where I’m coming from. I feel really stuck in the middle. On the one hand I know it’s the optimal form of birth control for us, on the other hand I think it might be making it difficult for me to be an enthusiastic participant in our sex life, which is also really important to our relationship. The fact that this is something that physically alters the workings of my body doesn’t help much.

When I say optimal, what I mean is most effective with the least amount of hassle. My go-to family planning alternative is charting to avoid (or whatever it’s called in Taking Charge of Your Fertility). Mi.Vida’s is condoms. Neither of us feels very enthusiastically about each other’s alternative (and Mi.Vida doesn’t feel very enthusiastically about his own, quite frankly).

Mi.Vida is very adamant about family planning. He does NOT want us to have a child before we’re “ready”. I’m not so worried about it, I think it would be kind of fun to just get pregnant while we’re really not trying. A part of me even thinks it’s silly to worry about it when so many months of perfectly timed intercourse with semen-friendly Pre-Seed yielded nothing. Mi.Vida could not disagree more. I know his is the responsible way to approach things but it’s just not what I feel in my heart. My take is that we’re in the “family planning” part of our lives, for me an unplanned BFP would be the best kind of surprise. For Mi.Vida it would just be unplanned, and possibly burdensome.

So that is where we are right now. I’ve decided I’ll look more into tempting to avoid and present my case to him when I’m ready. In the meantime, I’m renewing my prescription today or tomorrow for another three months of the pill. I guess I’m fine with whatever we decide as long as we’ve explored all our options.

In the meantime, can anyone recommend some effective aphrodisiacs?

And for all of you who are here for ICLW – welcome (and sorry for the sex talk)!

 

Thoughtful Thursdays: CD1?!

Sheeeee’s baAAAaack!

That’s right people, Aunt Flo has been sighted.

So far she’s just a faint tinge on the toilet paper, some color on my panty liner, ever-present-but-in-the-background cramps. The funny thing is, I’m happy that she’s here. I was getting kind of worried that she wouldn’t show again and I’d be dealing with my fifth year of amenorrhea.

I guess my hormones are back-to-normal enough for her to make her triumphant return. I’m still breastfeeding, but only two or three times a day. I’m also on the pill, but it’s the Progesterone only mini-pill, which doesn’t have a “week off” when AF comes.

Right now I’m on the second week of the sixth month of birth control since my daughter was born. I was pretty loath to go on it – it seemed silly to think we’d “accidentally” get pregnant when so many months of perfectly timed intercourse with sperm-friendly Pre-seed yielded absolutely nothing. And I have to admit, there is a part of me that would be thrilled to get pregnant without trying. But Mi.Vida feels very differently and on this point it was his way or the highway. So birth control it was. I had to take the Progesterone-only pill because I was breastfeeding.

My unwelcome visitor arrived just when I started thinking about trying again. Not trying again right now, or even anytime soon, but trying again in the abstract, Type-A-personality-that-loves-to-plan sense. I guess I was more thinking of when we might try again. I ponder this often, because there is so much uncertainty, and yet a definite way I’d like things to go.

The question is, do we start earlier than we (read: Mi.Vida) actually want to be pregnant so that if it takes a while again, or we experience losses, we aren’t having a baby much later than we’d hoped for? Or do we just wait until we feel it would be an optimal time and hope for the best?

The truth is I honestly don’t know. I do know I want to start sooner rather than later. I do know I’m nervous about what this second round of TTC will bring. I do know I’m still haunted by possibilities of loss (though I’m doing MUCH better at sitting these aside so as not to experience undue suffering).

I also realize I’d love a time when we’re not trying but not “not trying”. I’d love the chance to realize the red devil is late without having my ovulation day and luteal phase determined by a carefully charted BPT. I’d love the chance to just have fun with my man, without the deed having a secondary (primary?) purpose, but knowing that something miraculous might happen anway. I’d love to try it like normal people do.

So maybe that’s what we’ll do. In less than a year, when Isa is almost 1.5 years old, we’ll throw out the birth control and give it the old fashioned try for a while. And then, if nothing happens, we’ll ramp it up with BPT charts and timed BMS and acupuncture and TCM diets and Chinese herbs and all the other things we spent 2009 immersed in. More than anything I want to try this time with less anxiety and more grace. I’m hoping my daughter’s presence will help me achieve that.

In the meantime, I realize I should be taking prenatal vitamins again. I took them for a full year before I started TTC last time. I also started acupuncture, a TCM diet and Chinese herbs months before we started TTC in an attempt to keep my amenorrhea at bay. I’m not going to go the acupuncture route anytime soon, but if I took vitamins a year before trying for my first child, why wouldn’t I do so for my second?

I hope this post doesn’t offend anyone. I hope I don’t sound flippant or ungrateful or presumptuous, because I’m not. I don’t assume I will have another baby. I don’t presume to plan the space between my children, nor to be sure I’ll have more than one. I am sure I need to have (at least) another child to complete my family but I don’t presume it will be easy. I hope it will, but I don’t expect anything. I don’t take for granted how lucky I am and that I might not be so in the future. I’m aware that anything can happen and that the road to number two could be rockier than the road to number one. But no matter what, I will get to number two, even if we use unconventional methods to get there.

In the meantime, I guess my monthly visitor just keeps coming (strangely) without signaling failure or wreaking emotional devastation. I have to admit, I hardly know how to register her presence positively, but the reality is, if she keeps coming it’s a very positive thing indeed. In fact, right now I only have to worry about her not making her monthly visit, because if that’s the case I’ll know something is wrong… again. Strangely now, in a complete role-reversal, her absence w0uld signal a problem in the baby-making department, not a possibility.

Freebie Fridays: Big Book Giveaway

I’m sad to post this so late (it’s barely Friday anymore!) but it’s the best I can do…

For my first official freebie Friday I want to announce the Big Book Giveaway! Next Friday I will be giving away one of my favorite books from my journey into motherhood. During each phase of my journey (TTC, pregnancy loss, pregnancy and motherhood) I’ve found one book that really spoke to me, that really helped me get through. Whoever wins the Big Book Giveaway can choose the book that she wants, be it for this phase in her life, or the next.

The four books are (drum roll please…..)

TTC

The Way of the Fertile Soul: Ten Ancient Chinese Secrets to Tap into a Woman’s Creative Potential by Dr. Randine Lewis

This was one of the first books I bought as I started to explore alternative paths through TTC. While this book is written to help women preserve and enhance fertility, it’s also about fostering creativity and cultivating passion in your life. I really felt like this book spoke to me and helped me see how my overall health and happiness could affect my chances at conception. It was a message that governed a lot decisions I made while trying to conceive.

Pregnancy Loss

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

This book touched me, during a time when I my heart felt unreachable . A friend gave me this book in the aftermath of my ectopic; each chapter helped me to accept the suffering in my life and learn to have faith in the peace of the present moment. I can’t explain how this book brought me such comfort, but I’ve given it to others in times of loss and they’ve all agreed it was invaluable. This book helped me pick up the pieces and gave me the courage to move forward.

Pregnancy

The Pregnant Woman’s Companion: Nine Strategies That Work to Keep Your Peace of Mind Through Pregnancy and Into Parenthood by Christine D’Amico

There are so many books written about pregnancy for pregnant woman, and I read most of them, but this was by far the most essencial. Unlike most books, which chronicle the physical changes of both mother and child, the Pregnant Woman’s Companion offers a guidebook for the emotional and social changes of pregnancy. This book helped me navigate the challenges of altered friendships, road bumps in my relationship and panic about my ability to maneuver through the immense transition into motherhood. It also helped me honor of the grief of my ectopic pregnancy while celebrating the joy of my second. The nine strategies really allowed me to enjoy my pregnancy more, and for that I’ve forever grateful.

Motherhood

Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood by Karen Maezen Miller

This is an essential book for all new mothers who feel overwhelmed in their new role (and I would bet that ALL new mothers apply). Momma Zen is a wonderfully honest look at the challenges of being a mother, and the opportunity motherhood affords those who are willing to experience it without judgment. This book taught me that my daughter can be my greatest teacher, if only I  don the role of student. Momma Zen doesn’t sugar coat motherhood but it has transformed many everyday “mom” moments into something altogether sweeter.

If you would like to participate in the Big Book Giveaway, all you have to do is comment on my blog! Any day this week (until, and including, next Friday) leave a comment telling me about a book that has helped you at any time in your life. If you’d like to enter more than once, leave a second or third comment (each on a different day, please) sharing more books that have made a difference in your life. You don’t have to write much, a simple sentence or two will do. On Friday, at 9pm Pacific, I will announce the winner (chosen at random) of the Big Book Giveaway. That person will get to choose which of the four books above they would like to receive and that book will be in the mail immediately.

I look forward to hearing about the special books in your lives and sharing a special book from mine!