Four months ago (with pictures)

Four months ago we met our son.  I cannot believe how fast time has passed and how different this December is from last one. 

A son that we had longed for  over 4 and a half years of marriage and in my case for the many years I was single.  The biggest pain of being single so long was knowing I could not be a  mother.  At least 10 years I longed to be a mother, yet I could not because I had not met the man I would marry

A year ago exactly  I was living my dark night of the soul.  Pain I thought would never end. 

Such a stark contrast between this December and last.

Last year in August we  had become pregnant after years of treatment and just 4 months after my operation with Dr.  H.  an operation that people told us we were crazy to do without insurance in a foreign country.  

 We were ecstatic, yet a few weeks later  and just one day after telling our whole families  during a routine U/S we found out there was no heartbeat at 9 weeks. 

 I have never ever experienced pain as that one.  I still cry from thinking about it right now.

This was our first son.  Miguel after the archangel. 

The next day I had to have a D&C and 4 days later began to have the worst pains of my life,  I actually had contractions like giving birth.  I had a horrible complication from the loss,  "corionic" roots which the placenta attaches itself to the uterus. 

 I spent 4 days in the hospital with only some pain medicine waiting for my body to get rid of the roots , in the maternity ward hearing babies cry.  I do not know which pain was worse, the physical or the spiritual one. 

Why did I have to lose my baby after such a long and difficult fight? We  had done so much.    I actually did all my Napro testing on my own with the help of the Catholic IF Ya.hoo group and sent it to Dr. H pleading for help.  Nobody near me  had ever done it nor knew about Napro.

And then... God had not only  asked me for my baby, but asked me to spend 4 days from hell in the hospital with birth pains hearing babies cry.   I was so mad at Him.

But it did not end there.

Three months later in December  I began to experience bleeding like no other,  it started one afternoon and I thought it was my period, but no. 

Blood was flooding out of me, so bad that I even soaked a chair in a restaurant.  We began to panic and called the doctor again.  I was sent to an U/S and the doctor there determined it to be another miscarriage.

Another D&C...

I learned weeks later that it had not been a miscarriage, but actually a polyp.

Yet I spent all  December thinking I had lost 2 babies in a row. It was my personal Hell.

Such an unbearable sadness, grief, anger.   I could barely move from all of it.     

This December we have Josemaría and just his presence  is the light of our lives.   The pain of IF is still there,  but it has been transformed into something else. 

More compassion, more understanding when people are mad at God, the deep understanding about the value of life in all its stages, the  strenght to defend it.   I do not wish it on anybody, yet I recognize it did make me a better person.

We met Josemaria just 4 months ago and I cannot imagine my life without him. 

how can you love somebody you just met not born from your body so much? I now understand the meaning born from the heart.  I can attest to that.

After a call at 9 p.m at night on the day of the Assumption we met our son 11 hours lateron August 16th..

Four months in which he has transformed us completely.

My DH has a fire I never thought I would see in him. 

  Here are some pictures from his baptism. In the one below he is wearing the baptismal gown worn by all members of my moms family for the last 140 years.

Just seeing him smile and his amazing brown eyes each morning make my heart soar.

Yet I have no forgotten my IF journey and that many are still waiting.  I still cry from reading in the blogs about miscarriages or unsuccesful cycles or treatments. I think I will never forget and I think I never should.

I  keep praying for all of those waiting and those grieving. Praying your Josemaria comes very soon.

 

Can you be fearful and stressed but also happy?

I finally think I have nailed what has been keeping me from sleeping well the last month  or month and a half.  It has a lot to do with my personality and with all that has been going on at the same time.

I could not name it,  but  I now I got it and I need to see it from a different viewpoint since its mostly good or very good, yet my stable side feels like the floor has moved from underneath. 

 I have two very distinct sides to me: I love to travel, try out new things, meet people from all walks of life .  My dad says the moment I walked I almost ran to see the world and they could not grab me.  This is the adventurous side to me. 

But on many other  aspects my life has been extremely predictable and stable and I have loved this also. 

I like having these 2 sides: the one that grounds me and the one that lets me fly.  

But now I feel on shaky ground like everything is new at the very same time.   

Let me try to explain with a few examples of my  "stability".   

I lived with my parents until I was 33  which is probably scandalous in most Western  (very common here to live with your parents until you marry and  attend the local university,  I only left because my job was too far away not really because me or them wanted it)  

I went to the same school my whole life from kindergarten up to high school (the same school my fathers family has attended for 5 generations, over 125 years).

Lived on the very same house where I had been born for these 33 years with my parents.   My parents only moved 3 years later after the children  left and   when my father retired from the same company he had been working for over 45 years. He never knew another job.

I had 3 or 4 very long and stable relationships.  One even lasting 5 years with the person I thought I would marry, but then I ended up knowing it was not the person.    I was known as a relationship person that seldom dated.  

So to me the last  4 months have been major in terms of change and I know deep down in me its the reason why I am not sleeping well and have been so stressed although I have been very happy also.   It just goes against a part of me that really likes stability. 

My German side likes order, plans,  but the last months have brought unexpected changes one after another.   Mostly great or good changes, but so many at the very same time  that I am feeling ungrounded.   

My parents for the very first time faced a grave illness.    My dad has cancer and  when we thought all was finished the doctor informed us that   the operation did not take all out.   His prognosis is very good right now with radiation, but  I lost my innocence in thinking that they would live forever.  This is major for all of us where  my parents have been pillars of health their whole lives.  I am as most Mexicans very close to them and see them as a major force of wisdom in my life.

We became parents at 43 and 40 in less than 10 hours and even if we prepared for months with courses, prayer and by  speaking to others  its a dramatic change and I think its even bigger because of our ages.  We had become settled in our ways for sure.    I do not want this to sound as a complaint  (it has been the biggest blessing and happiness of my life) but my head spins in  thinking about it. 

I went from working full time in a regional position for Latinamerica and being out and about all the time to being a stay at home mom  for 5 months with a small baby in just one day.  For days on end not seeing or talking to  anybody and while I have been very happy its  a complete change to my routine.

My DH also in these last 4 months basically changed professions completely unplanned  from being an industrial engineer that always worked in factories managing logistics to  following his dream and also vocation of working in education.   This has meant a dramatic change in terms of the time he can spend with me and Josemaria and also from the glamour of the corporate world to something far more fitting to his heart, but with less than  stellar economic prospects.   One of the reasons why we need my job  (the other one is that we had to spend so much on health issues the last 3 years including Napro, three hospital stays for my miscarriage, health crisis of my DH, etc.   We had to dig deeply into our savings which were meant for me to retire when the time came to be a mother) .

And I am about to leave the company where I have worked for 12 years, a lifetime in our industry ( actually I am one of the 3 oldest employees of a company of hundreds in Mexico)  to move into another one without looking for it.

Yesterday I talked with the person that would be my boss and he explained in detail to me his way of working, what was to be expected of me and also the flexibility I could have.   This last part was the crucial part for me to be able to accept due to Josemaria.  I would never in a million years give this up and would rather stay again 4 more years in a  job I did not like rather than sacrifice this,  

Well he is offering me almost the same flexibility as I currently have (work from home a lot, flexible hours,  some days all day in the office to others not being there at all .  etc)   and I was able to speak to several people that work there and that confirmed me this.    This was the last part in my decision making process and this means I will officially accept in the next 2 days after I let me company know.    

Last night I did not get a lot of sleep, like most of last month and today I saw what was happening.    I should be shouting from the rooftops, we are parents, my DH has found his vocation  and it seems I can both be a mother and have a great job, yet....

Can you be fearful while knowing what is to come its very good?

Can you be happy yet stressed?

Should you not have complete peace when things you dream about have become true?

Maybe again I am a Martha at heart and this time I  really do not like it. 

Today´s amazing gift from Our Lady

Today on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe I was blessed with the most  amazing experience of spiritual direction. Perhaps the best one in my life.  I truly felt the Holy Spirit was present.

On Saturday I received the call from the priest that my parish had sent to PPVI last October and the one designated by their community to  help out with Napro.    The secretary had told him I was looking for him  on Friday and he wanted to speak with me.   So we set an appointment for today (which is a holiday for most people here) to meet after 9 a.m solemn mass for Our Lady.

He is Canadian and is learning Spanish still so the spiritual direction was in English.  I had never spoken to him other than an  intro session to Cre.ig.hto.n and why it was so important for him to go to Omaha.  I had never had confession with him, nor spiritual direction. 

After Mass he stayed in the church for a long time praying which gave me great peace.

He belongs to the Brothers of St John community, a community of brothers and sister  founded in 1975 by a Domincan Priest from France that was great friends with JPII.  If you ever have the chance to go to one of their communities do so.   They are in Quebec., Texas, Illinois and NJ and in many countries. http://www.stjean.com/english/eng/index.php  They are the ones that helped me by opening complelty the doors here when nobody knew about Napro.  They have been the biggest blessing ever

They have a deep interior life, adhere completly to the Magisterium and have a special devotion to Mary so I know I can trust them on their insights..  

The spiritual direction started with me telling him the complete story of how I was called to Napro for my treatment,  but also to do something with it here  (I mentioned the crucial role the blogs were to me), of my IF struggles, our miscarriage, my deep fears after it and what our current situation was.  He listened in deep thought and then he asked me:

Of all that you are telling me what would bring you deep joy? Which role?

I did not know what to say.  I was completely blank. I never  thought the question of joy would come up.  Actually I expected that he say: you have the responsibility to do this and this because you have been given so much.   To give me concrete instructions to leave the world and dedicate myself to Napro. 

Then after a few minutes I said: 

Motherhood

Then he told me: 

I know that you cannot entirely devote all of your time right now to motherhood due to the job situation of your husband and you might not be even called to be a full time mother  even if your calling is this one  so which of these roles would give you the most opportunity to be a  mother? Which one resembles motherhood the most?

I said all three,  given the conditions of flexibility that all 3 could have.   Tomorrow I will know exactly what  this new company can provide after I speak in detail with my future boss at 10 a.m.  It might well be that the conditions are not there and I need to remain in my job since my priority is Josemaria.    

He said then.

The Holy spirit attracts  via joy, peace.   Of course there is subjective joy and there is deep joy.  A subjective joy is when for example you are on vacation enjoying the scene which is not bad, it can actually be very good,  but deep joy comes from God and doing what He has intended for you.

I then told him:

I feel deep joy with motherhood and also with Napro.  When we did not have children I felt somehow fertile through it.  In a sense I felt that a practitioner was a spiritual mother to her clients.   But somehow I do  not feel its the right moment to dedicate myself completely to this .  Yes like I have been doing by giving a lot of my time, yet  not completely. 

I know there will be a time, but somehow I am not ready, yet I feel  very,  very bad about it.   I feel this huge responsibility about it. Maybe I am not a good enough Catholic to leave everything behind and follow God? Maybe my Marthaness is winning? Maybe I am a coward? Maybe I just want to be comfortable? Maybe fear is winning?. 

I am also confused because I also felt great peace with the call from  the new company.   My very first thought when I got the call was that it was a great opportunity to learn about the online world from the very best, to  have the flexibility to be a mother and then retire to dedicate myself to Napro.,  

I saw it as a means towards an end, never as an end in itself yet I did not have this clarity in the last days, but this was my very first thought after the call  As a means to learn all that I could so then I could later apply it to pro-life work and while there also to do good.

I also was amazed the call came right after my consecration to Mary and that it was completely unexpected.  I took it as a sign.

Tomorrow I will speak with my proble future boss and if the conditions of flexibility are there and it was something that I saw in spiritual direction as good  I was really considering it .   

He said then:

There are sensible signs that we sometimes needs like dates, meeting people in unexpected places, yet the more important signs from God are deep  peace and joy.  

God is actually using Nap.ro to attract you to Him.  Nap.ro is just a means.  Of course you can do great good with it, but the good you can do does not matter to God if you lose yourself.  Each one of us is so valuable that  God wants each and every one of us to be closer to Him and uses good causes , people , painful situation to do this, but they are just means.  What He wants its  you, not what you do.. 

I do not see you right now ready nor with the peace to leave everything and dedicate yourself fully to this.  It does not mean there will not be a time and it migth be very very son, but you must follow peace and joy.   Both come from God and are the first steps in discernment .  If you are not feeling peace,  nor joy in this decision its not the time to take it.  There might be a time soon, but not yet.  

You must be silent and ask God for your path to holiness.  He calls all of us to this and the means towards it will be there.   We are all called to be light for the world either by  being a mother, in a corporate job, doing social work.   Many times God uses the world like a corporate job, to give you time to prepare for something else or as a means to sanctify the world.. 

I want you to seek a way to be silent each day, to ask Him directly how you can be a mother in your different roles which is what brings you joy.

I also want you to tell the donor this.  Ask him for money for the project because its important for it to move forward and you can be sure that if he gives you funding there will be the means to use it well for this since Napro is so important for God. Tell him also  that you are seeing that you might be called.   and wait for him to tell you his viewpoint.  I believe he is a very spiritual person and he could give you great insights and if you speak with the heart he will listen,  You are not saying no to God, but actually truly listening to Him.  He is preparing you.

We spoke about several more things, like that he believed Napro was crucial to the world.  That he not only saw that is was a moral way to treat infertilty, but far more.  That it helped build families and marriages which was in the end what God wanted.   But it the end what it really was it was a way of  restoring the dignity of the person. 

I left after 2 hours amazed at his deep insights and clarity.   I felt such peace.  

About an hour ago my meeting with the donor was postponed to the 20th of December since he had a personal problem to deal with tomorrow. 

When we meet I will speak with him from the heart. Where I am and where I think God is directing me with complete sincerity.  He is a man of deep prayer and I am sure he will understand and also help bring this here when he thinks its the right time,.

Major decision time

I need to write this here so I can make  some sense of what is going on since yesterday.  I hope this post makes sense for others , but mainly is to help me reach some discernement.

I most probably will hide it after a few hours. 

Yesterday as I was coming out of the church after my simple Consecration to Mary and after the Hour of Grace I received a call.    I had been praying about many things including this one and   I saw the call as a sign. . 

In summary after 2 months of interviews  I have been offered a dream job with amazing company. with the added bonus of the promise of tons of  flexibility to be a mother.    A  dream come true  for any marketer. 

This would mean leaving my current job at a company where I have been 12 years (a lifetime!)  and starting fresh there. 

And as I have written about it I need to continue working.    I  really have  no choice, but to continue to contribute financially to my home.

Its not a matter of luxuries or having extras, but me not working would mean putting at risk many essential things.   

For the last  4  of these 12 years at my current company  I have not enojyed working there  (actually getting up to work has been a struggle all these years), but  staying has  permited me to work mainly from home and give a lot of my time to Napro and to my own IF battle.     It was a sacrifice worth doing for something greater.

Also I knew when the time came to be a mother the company would offer me a lot of flexibility and I could combine both if needed.   Years passed and I remained doing something I did not like in hopes of this. 

Looking at things this way my decision to say yes to  this new company and switch jobs would be an easy one. Move from a job I did not like to another I probably would love and still be able to be a mother.   

Yet I am torn.

Not about leaving my company , not about starting a new job  (if the promise of the needed flexibility is there so I can spend a lot of time with Josemaria), but what this would mean to my work with Napro.

You see at the very same time this comes when we have a meeting next Tuesday with a major major donor.    

He knows about Napro and loves it, actually he speaks very,  very highly about it to others.The bishop that has been helping us here has said he will help us for sure.   

We know its a very strong possibility we could get his financial support.

Today I spent the whole morning in a planning meeting for this with B and her DH, both experts in  development of social projects. 

As we prepared the presentation many important questions came up: .

"What would be my future role in all of this?  How much time could I devote  with the reality of a baby and my need for a job?  I would be asking for money but what would my role be" 

I am at a complely different point in my life and all my time needs to be devoted to my baby and a way for me to have an income.  

Then  B´s DH asked me point blank:. 

"You will need to make a decision soon.  tjhe offer  is amazing , but Napro is a mission.   

With a new baby, a new job you will not have time  to give to Napro and your reality is that you need to continue earning money.

Why not ask Providence for a sign?

Have you ever thought about asking this donor for a salary so you dedicate yourself to this?

 this donor who is a billionarie can do it and has done if many times with other projects"

He hit the nail on the head.

 I never thought about this seriously even if I know this is possible,  because I am so afraid what it would mean. 

Put my complete trust in God.

Dedicate myself to this leaving behind the security of a corporate job.

On the other side I was so sure that the call from this great company was a sign from the Virgin, but now not anymore.

You see,  I had prayed so hard yesterday and almost imediately I had the call from them when they still were not supposed to call after 2 full months of waiting (they had told me they would contact me in a week)   Also  I felt so much peace.

Right now I do not know what to think.   What is God asking me to do about Napro?

 I tried contacting my spiritual advisor to consult with him but could not reach him. 

Should I ask this donor for this next Tuesday as part of the project (me becoming officially the project manager?

 Stay at my current job and devote any remaining time to Napro?

 Switch jobs and leave in the next months all my work for Napro?

My heart and head do not know what to make of all of this and top of it all. Tuesday at 10 a.m I am to meet with my future boss  and a couple of hours later with the donor to present to him the plan to bring napro here.

I spoke about this with a dear friend tonight and she told me to do as the Virgin

Pray, trust and wait.  

I have to do this so I can listen to God´s voice, yet its so hard.  

Why is it that everything  happens at the very very same time?

Today HOUR OF GRACE with the Virgin, Brazil and awards!

So many things to blog about!!!!! 
The hour of Grace today at noon promised by the Rosa mystica apparitions, the Consecration to Mary, the liebster awards, etc.

  For some reason the Consecration to Mary keeps appearing in the most unexpected places since my talks last weekend with Chris.topher West about my fears and his suggestion to do it in the simple format as soon as possible and then do the big one .
I am amazed that it keeps poping up every sintle day, like not letting me forget. 

 I really think God is this way with me since I am a very hardheaded person and I am also sooooo Martha and also so fearful.    He needs to be very,  very blunt with me!  Also I am amazaed I learned yesterday of the HOUR OF GRACE TODAY AT NOON. 

I had no idea. I really am a complete novice in things Mary.   =)

The Consecration has been appearing  through other bloggers that have been thinking about doing it today,   http://blessedbelord.blogspot.com/  and lavished with lemons i n Febraury . http://lavishedwithlemons.blogspot.com/http://lavishedwithlemons.blogspot.com/   via friends and even cooking classes!  

And I even had the Secret of Mary book in Spanish right here at home that the nuns had given me to read many years ago due to my marriage on St. montfort´s feast day and had forgotten about it completly.  Well I looked and in seconds I found it.

 Out of the blue I found the exact book West told me to read!! Not the consecration to Mary, but the Secret of Mary!

But more things happened  yesterday and  I was simply amazed.  For the last weeks I have been taking a baking class once a week in the mornings.  With the coming of Josemaria and my life changing from one day to the very next from being out and about all the time to staying home all the time in just a few hours I needed some time out of the house without leaving him too much time.   So during this morning nap I go to this small place very near my home and learn how to bake bread, do cookies and cakes for 3 hours.  It has been God sent.   I also have been able to speak with other mothers, learn about  the many resources for us near my house and in general develope my female side that I had long forgotten due to my work. 

Well I always knew the owners of the store  were very Catholic since they have this big image of Guadalupe in the store (here its very common) and it always has flowers  and the lady that is at the front desk has all this medals.   Well out ot the blue yesterday we ended up talking.  She had been on the phone and she was telling somebody that she was going today to the Basilica.  

As I was paying for some special flour I needed to bake some bread we ended up talking about many things for the very first time and she told me she worked with unwed mothers so they do not abort.

 Well one thing led to the other and I told her about Napro.  She was very excited and told me she could introduce me to many many people that would love to help.  I was amazed.

But then I told her I was fearful and that I was thinking about the Consecration, but was still unsure of the commitment.  Well..... she told me she was doing it today and told me here is the way to do it and pulled a pamphlet in Spanish with the whole consecratoin of Montfort!  Right there in the cooking store.     I had such a face that I think she was laughing. 

She also told me do it.  Many things will happen still,  but you will have pace and strenght.

I spent all afternoon in awe and sure that I needed to do it today. 

Then came something also incredible.

As I blogged some months ago in May I spent some time in Brazil for work and in a series of miracles ( a letter from Dr H right before I left, a person from Rio de Janeiro being at the very same time in Sao Paolo, the meeting with the head of the life commision of the latinamerican bishops, etc)  I met with a client that has changed my life. .

Its simply amazing:   Brazil is farther away from Mexico than Europe  (its like 11 hour flight) and  it the country in Latinamerica that speaks a different launguage from the rest (we speak Spanish and they speak Portuguese and while they are similar we Spanish speakers have a hard time understanding them) so that we met in person and have been able to  talk is amazing (we speak in English and when needed she in Portuguese and me in Spanish)

So Carolina became my client  (she allowed me to put her name here).  She is a medical doctor,. who had a conversion some years ago and works very strongly for life there.  Well she and her DH have been facing IF for a very long time and she does not have his support 100% in not doing IVF and has a lot of pressure from her political family to do it. 

It has been an increible cross and she would welcome all prayers.   She has not read this blog but I told her about it yesterday and said I could write about this here. 

And Napro does not exist in Brazil.  she has NO options!     So we have been skyping for a few months  and she is now in Omaha.  Tomorrow will be her lap with Dr. H.    If you can spare a prayer .

I cannot even imagine traveling from so far away without the support from your DH and his family  to a strange country  in another language in the middle of winter to stand strong in your values. (i ts Summer in Brazil and very very hot in Rio de Janeiro) so the winter in Omaha is an added cross for her.    Simply amazing. 

Well she told me also about the consecration last night also, but not only this....

She told me about the    HOUR of GRACE TODAY AT NOON.  I had no idea but I have been reading about it and its a promise by the Virgin on the day of the Inmaculate Conception that if  at noon you spend this hour at Church or home She will grant you many graces.   Here is more:

The Hour of Grace, celebrated on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, was given to us by Our Lady Rosa Mystica. She said of this Hour: "This Hour of Grace will produce great and numerous conversions. Hardened and cold hearts resembling this marble will be touched by divine Grace, and they will become faithful to Our Lord in loyal love." We are asked to intercede for all in our lives, without interruption of any kind for one hour, after reciting Psalm 51 three times, the Miserere


If you put hour of grace immaculate conception noon you will find tons of articles.   So today I will be at church doing this and later do  my simple consecration to Mary.

She had been doing it for the last 3 years and had been asking for the opportunity to become a mother and have a diagnosis.   Well today she in in Omaha.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How about that for a sign!

 I almost cried when she told me the story.  and while we were there in Rio de Janeiro we went to the chapel of the bishop and right there was Our Lady of Guadalupe which is not common since the virgin of Brazil is Aparecida. 

Well we asked Her for help for Carolina and ...... she will have her operation on the Feast of San Juan Diego and she will be still there waiting for her diagnosis on Her Feast day next monday December 12 day of Guadalupe!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and last but not least I was bestowed the amazing honor of a Liebster Award by 3 bloggers!!!

Alive in hope! 
Joann from Rise and Shine and Give God the glory!  http://storethings.blogspot.com/
Lavished with lemons!

I am having a hard time linking and doing it so I will practice tonight and do it for tomorrow!!  I am a complete blogger ilitearte so these things take me time.    I promise to do it!  


Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
 

Simply amazing how Mary speaks

I am still trying to understand what happened this weekend.   I am sure the Holy Spirit and Mary were there.

The course by Christo.pher West on the Theology of the body was amazing.  I feel peace that I have not felt in the last months. 

When I met him I thought he was very serious and kind of aloof.    We asked him some questions and he answered in very short phrases.   He seemed to be somewhere else and I was kind of disappointed.

Then the course started.  I was very nervous because I had a very 7 active month old to take of both Thursday and Friday all alone and also participate actively in the activities.

Luckily  Josemaria behaved very well and although I had to lose parts of the course to take care of him, in the end it was a very big blessing he was there. His very first trip ever in his whole life and it was to take a Theology of the body course!

Well I can only say if you have the opportunity to read We.st or listen to him or watch him in video do it.  It will be worth every penny.

 Pope Benedict and many others say Theology of the Body has the potential to change the Church and I truly believe it does.  One marriage at the time.

The couse spoke deeply to my heart and I think to most participants. I am still digesting what this will mean to my life, but it stirred my heart deeply and its very,  very much linked to IF and Napro..

I was also very blessed since he had just been to Guadalupe and spoke in many of his examples about Our Lady.  He was very,  very impressed by her. spoke of many many sybmols in her image that even I did not know as a Mexican  and said her image spoke volumes about the TOB

He will begin some work soon about Her and TOB and JPII  since he says the 3 are key to the reevangelization. 

(JPII very first international trip as Pope was to Mexico to see her, in his desk he had 2 images: one of Guadalupe and one of the Black Madonna of Poland and did several pilgrimages to see her)

I needed this couse so much.   I have been very physically and spiritually  tired of many things, actually exhausted in part related to my month long flu, then Nap.ro Mexico and that things in some aspects seemed to go backwards, then my coming back to work and many work related decisions, etc.   All on top of a lack of prayer life and my DH having to work extremely long hours.  

On Friday night I had the opportunity to speak during dinner with West.  He sat right beside me and we had an incredible dialoge.  Just because of this the trip and the expense and everything was worth it.

I had heard he was part of something having to do with St.  Montfort and wanted to ask him about it.

He asked me about the coming of Josemaria into our lives and I told him it was very much related to the Virgin and St Gianna.   I told him about all the amazing dates; us married on St., Giannas feast day, Josemaria born on the day she had given birth, our permision to adopt in the day of the Visitation and his coming on the day of the Annunciation, 5 years after we had gotten engaged on the very same day , etc. 

He smiled and said it was simply amazing and that God had plans for us for sure.

 I told him I was afraid. Terrible things had happened to us since we became involved in the prolife movement.  That perhaps I was destined for a partime  corporate job together with motherhood.   It was far more comfortable. 

I asked him directly about his relationship with Montfort and told him I had married in his feast day even not knowing who he was and even confessed to him  I had been very disappointed about the day.

April 28th,  since I had wanted to get married on St. Patricks day,  but could not.

Actually I had been very mad!

Then I told him I has found out later if was Montforts feast day  (the nuns that I go to told me and laughed when I told them I do not know who this guy is!!! )  and also St Giannas (this one I found out  2 years later in Omaha since in the saint calendars here she does not appear)  and that for years and years it did  not make any sense.

We both  laughed hard about my lack of Marian knowledge. 

Then I told him I was very tired about many things and that since starting our work with na.pro we had had many horrible struggles and that I was afraid of what God was asking.  I told him with tears in my eyes about my miscarriage, that I had gone into labor pains several days later and then 3 months later was told we had miscarried again.  It had been my dark night of the soul)

I am not sure why,  but I felt I could tell him. 

Well he said that nobody could work for life and not consecrate him or herself to Mary.  That the bad guy wanted to kill our spirits in this battle and that it seemed that its what was happening to me.

He told me to consecrate myself to Mary and also this project and that all would be well. There would be still many struggles,  but that Mary would put the evil one on a leash. 

Put myself and all of this in Her womb. We would be protected.

There would  be struggles, deep ones but the bad guy would not be able to touch us at all.

He then told me he many times also had struggles  and just the night before had one very bad one, a dream from the evil one one , yet was not afraid since he consecrated each day to Her.

I felt such peace after this talk and could feel his sincerity.

He had spoken in the morning about the intense pain of IF and had said ask anybody that has struggled with it or lost a baby to miscarriage the inmese worth of each and every human life  .

 This is why many people that have faced IF work for the prolife movement.  They get it!

Well just in the course out of the maybe 12 couples there 6 had struggled with IF!!! one woman had lost 5 pregnancies and had 6 living children, another just one son  after 20 years of marriage, another had also just one  after many many treatments, us, etc.  

Then he told me to offer everything to Her and asked me to read the Secret of Mary by Montfort. He said read it and do what he says.

Then he mentioned that the TOB is really the culmination of what the Pope Paul the VI had started with Humanae vitae.  We could  not try to bring Napro here without understanding TOB and since JPII had put his work under Mary we could not put this not under Her!

That night I could not sleep and downloaded in my Ipad the kindle version of the book.  I started to read it and then remembered....  how could I have not seen it before?

We had consecrated to our lady of Guadalupe this project on my wedding anniversary together with a couple that had donated a traveling image of Her with a priest named Juan Diego.

The reason we chose this day  really was that  St. Gianna as a doctor that had given her life for her child  and was very popular among napro practitioners.   

yet  I never ever made the connection with the  Consecration to Mary.  How stupid of me!!! 

We had consecrated this to Her  on the day of the Saint that had written the Consecration to Mary. Wow! Yet I saw it for the very very first time!

We had not consecrated us., but the project yes!!!

And now must come the consecration of us..... 

West explained that this was crucial moving forward and that She must want something of my DH and I, we just did not know it .

Actually She wants something of each person and specially of those struggling to conceive. She speaks in signs and in God incidences, yet we do not see it. 

 We got engaged on the Feast of the Assumption and our son had come 5 years later on that very same day and also we got unknowingly married on the Feast day of St, Louis Marie Gringon de Montfort who was key in speading the Marian devotion and also gave JPII his motto: "Totus Tuus".

He recommended we read his book "Heavens So.ng" where he links Montfort, JPII and the  mystics with TOB.  I started last nigth and is simply beautiful!

 Since my DH is a carmelite is specially important for us  since several of the ,mystics (Sta Teresa de Avila, San Juan de la Cruz)  are carmelites.  My DH knows their poetry by heart and I did not even know it!  

Then told West I read in the book that is recommended that you consecrate yourself on a Marian feast. 

Several important Marian feast days are coming up!!!!.

West  said the traditional consecration takes more than 30 days, but you can also do the short version and later start preparing yourself for the big one.

So we will  begin again under Mary.  Just like JPII did.     I just found this Spanish video which I have always loved. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtxsuYY5wLg&feature=related

Intentions and amazing news from the retreat

Sorry about the typos but learning to use an ipad =) I am now at the TOB retret site. I traveled early since my dh could not come with me today and the organizers offered to follow me. Today early I met Christoph.er west and a few hours ago had lunch with him and his team and the local organizers. I am really so blessed and inspired by these people some of the best of the Church Now i am 100 % sure we needed I be here. So many signs First one of the representatives of the TOB in mexico tells me. I need to speak with you. Just yesterday we had several issues in our classes with some of top people from the prolife movement saying that nfp does not work in the perimenopause and that actually is like playing russian roulette. It got realy bad and we need statistics from crms that it indeed works. We have already scheduled a meeting and he wants to establish some way of working moving ahead. Imagine: what better combination than napro and theology of the bo.dy ? Then one of the first persons I meet from the participants is the amazing bishop. I had been thinking all week about him since he prayed for josemaria in jerusalem during his ordination pilgramage and they had not met. I had no idea he would be here. He comes to me and smiles and goes directly to josemaria and calls him his name without me having to remind him and givesmhim his blessing. This from one of the best men i have ever met and a bishop that is the most amazing one i have ever met. Then I find out that the person we have been trying to meet with for several months now for napro here ( maybe the biggest possible ever supporter for us in latinamerica)'and who has promised to help, but our agendas never match will be here with his wife for the whole time. Never in a million years could I have planned it. We will get to spend 3 days with the person that can truly help launch this here. Please pray for this specially. The intentions are: For all of those still waiting For b,her health and that of her family, her company, their foundation, for fertilitycare latinamericaible and her clients. Fort those in her familynthat do not believe, for openess tonlife, for her familiy to be open to God,s plans, For JB and a prompt recovery and all the intentions of her heart. For amanda and a short wait for her adoption and patience. For polkadot so that they conceive and for discernement of Gods will for her family For maria so they can adopt soon For blessed with the lord so that they can be blessed with a child For ks to conceive and have patience as God unfolds his plans for her For susan m for her dh and her to have children of their own normal, happy, healthy, and holy. For healing for her dh, and her physical, mental, spiritual and emotinal, for joy instead of sorrow and freedom from fear. For a very special intention. For c in brasil and her coming operation with dr h and for guidance and peace in her possible adoption. For maria fernanda whose future is being decided right now by a judge. So that the judge places her with the the besr family formher For my dh and i, for his job, for discernemenr on gods will for my job and my work for napro, for our future children biological or adoptivr, for napro in latinamerica, for my dad and his cancer. For the sisters of st john For this retreat

International Novena to the Immaculate Conception and our Lady of Guadalupe

I am  sorry for organizing this so late,   but after praying about it here in  Mexico we decided  to start an international  Novena to the Immaculate Conception (Dec 8th) and we will continue it 4 more days  in prayer  until the Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec 12th) .

We will use this one:
http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/novena/immaculate.htm

People from different countries will participate with us in this Novena praying for each others intentions and hopefully we can have also others join us.    

Many historians and theologians state a very strong correlation between both feast days (http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/Articles/Marian_Private_Revelation/our-lady-of-guadalupe-and-the-immaculate-conception.html) and many here believe its a very special Marian time full of graces. 

 Guadalupe is the only apparition where she left her own image imprinted  and one of the three most important Marian appariations in the world together with Fatima and Lourdes and her iconography is very much related to the Immaculate conception.  

Lets pray  very,  very specially for  those that are waiting since these times are sooo hard.  I know it from experience.  Maybe the hardest of the year. 

If you need prayers send them our way and we will include you here.   I will print the list.  We are also asking a contemplative convent to join us.

 We will also deliver all the intentions at the Basilica of Guadalupe  here in Mexico after the feast day.  (its imposible to go to the Basilica the very same day since its soooo packed.   Millions, some say up to 3 or 4 million go there during these days) But I promise to deliver them all afterwards right at Her feet.

I am leaving tomorrow early for my retreat with Christ.opher We.st  (thanks so much for the  prayers baby and mother are doing well enough to go), but I promise to  connect and put the  intentions here.
 .


.  

Health update and Chris.topher We.st retreat

Thanks so much for all the health  advice and prayers.  I have been using the neti pot and it has been great and trying to rest as much as possible with a very,  very active 7 month old that wants to start crawling any minute and also was sick.

The 3 of us now have a diagnosis ( 4 doctor appointments  Friday and Saturday and 100´s of dollars later in medicines ) and are being treated for what they found

Josemaria has laringitis and pharyngitis (not sure of the name in English) but something like inflammation of the whole throat which explain some of his screams during 2 whole nights.

   Luckily it did not go to the lungs and his only outwards symptoms area runny nose,  that  he seems to cry at the drop of a hat and needs me to hold him a lot, but still smiles all the time and is very,  very active. Babies are really remarkable. It seems he will begin to crawl real soon, so I will need to  prepare the house for this.  

My DH has a  sinus infection that will need to be treated with antibiotics for one week and anti. inflamatories for 2 months.  He had a nose operation about 3 years ago due to sinus issues and is always extremely sensitive to colds.   He has had allergies all his life and after the operation his issues really got better and this is the very first time they came back in years.  The doctor is taking an aggressive approach so it does not develop into something else.

Me: sinus infection from a very,  very bad infection  and I had a very bad reaction to the antibiotic which basically destroyed my stomach and gave me many of the symptoms. 

   My throat had been hurting like crazy which I thought part of the infection,  but no.  It was the stomach acid from the bad reaction to the antibiotic, as well as the inflammation of the lip and the extreme fatigue. 

I had used the antiobiotic before and no problems, but last week after 3 shots of antibiotic the doctor switched me to this oral one  and all went down hill from there. In  3 days I was much sicker.

 So to get rid of the infection which the doctor believes is a different one from the first one almost 4 weeks ago I need to get shots of antibiotics, also an antiflammatory (my backside is all bruised by now, but I am already feeling much,  much better) and medicine to fix my stomach .

 It seems I got out of one cold that was very bad and was very weak and then caught another which is the same one that now my husband and Josemaria have.   The major issue was by bad reaction to the medicine.  

We expect to make a full recovery, but I know it will take some weeks for me to feel 100% since it was so bad this time. 

Regarding  Napro this is the very first cycle I did not use HCG injections in 2 years. I was so tired of medicines that I did not have it in me to use them.  Also the expense on top of all our medicines and doctors. I am now on P+ 13. which I  normally do not reach without help (I have luteal defect nr 3)  I only had some VL a couple of days ago,  but no PMS, no painful breasts, nothing and my period is not in sight.

 On HCG the last cycles I have had very painful PMS and my breasts start to hurt almost right after P+5.  I also have not been doing cycle reviews since Josemaria came.  I will need to make a decision soon on my next steps with this.   Do we keep with the full program? search as actively as when I got pregnant? Slowly leave most medicines and only focus on adoption and my thyroid and adrenal fatigue?  I do not know. 

Now on the exciting part:

I did not mention it here before, but my DH and I have been invited to a four day course on the Theology of the Body with Chris.topher We-st himself for this weekend.  I did not know if we could go due to the expense and also due to our health issues of the last month, but I am praying hard that all sorts itself out. 

 Now we have an 80% chance of attending, me starting  Thursday night and my DH would arrive Friday evening due to meetings. Josemaria is also invited =)  It really all depends from our health.  

 Its a private course for only 20 couples all working for different pro-life causes.  All were chosen due to their work.  

The amazing bishop that has been supporting Napro here  from the beginning ´suggested us to the organizers and we received an invitation about one month ago,  but then I got sick and did not have it in me to even consider going. 

I am now  trying to catch up (I have several books by West that I bought in Omaha at the amazing Catholic bookstore there famous among bloggers,  but loaned  them all and would like to take them to get signed and also so I can at least read the most important parts), get our health in order so we can go and all the logistics of traveling with a small baby for the very first time to a city 3 hours away .

 I will go alone with Josemaria  the first day and a half if we are all better by Wednesday.   The doctor said to wait until then to make a final decision. My first trip with the baby all on my own (actually his very first trip)-  I will probably travel with another couple in their car since I really am afraid to drive 3 hours with such a small baby on a highway.

I am really looking forward to this.  My DH  and I  have been through so much in the last 4 years (his mother´s death from cancer, my dads cancer, several deaths, our IF, several major health crisis for both of us, major job issues and  a devastating miscarriage)   I really feel we need the time to focus on us.  We really,  really need it and God has provided the perfect vehicle for this. 

If you can spare a prayer so we can go,  specially that the medicines do their work and we are all healthy by Wednesday.  I promise to write a summary on the experience. 


Thanks!! happy Advent season!!!!


  

when the whole family is sick advice needed and napro questions

I have been sick almost 4  weeks now.  I have never  in my whole been sick so long with adecuate treatment,  got better., then I got sick again, Josemaria got sick and now my DH.  

I am offering all of this up for all of those still waiting or pregnant.  It really has been a difficult time.

I am at my wits end and would love to read about any advice you can give to break this cycle  and to feel better.  Old wives tales, practical advice from mothers of young children, etc

I know that I have been under a lot of stress (my dad starting radiotherapy for cancer, me going back to work in a  month, my DH with lots and lots of work and not being able to help,  work and childcare decisions), yet I have been trying to take it easy  and have  followed doctors advice perfectly to no avail.

 I really think this is something else.  Like a super bug.

It stared a month ago when  I was sick for one whole week with a cold  and took the natural approach. Rest, water, lemonade, chicken soup, wore a mask around the house, washed hands like crazy, and etc.   Went to acupuncture and used magnets (a type of alternative medicine to fight virus and bacteria) Well I just got sicker and everything that normally works did not and I had to go the the western doctor which after my years of IF I do not like doing anymore.

Well she said I had a  nasty infection  with sinus inflammation and gave me a 10 day antibiotic dose. pain medicine and to take it easy which I did.  I hated it since I had started to have cabin fever,  but knew I had the responsability of a 7 month baby and my DH just started a new job with very long hours.    I even spent a couple of days with my parents who helped with the baby so I could rest. which I did.  

Then I got better and for 4 days felt fine.  Then again same symptoms with a vengance.   Pain in the sinus area, mucus,  dry coughing, a general state of extreme fatigue.

I called the doctor in panic and she gave me  injections of very very strong medicine for 3 days and more antibiotics for 7 days.. 

Josemaria started also at the very same time with his first cold ever.  I almost lost it.

 Screaming at night from not being able to breath, the doctor gave him some medicine for the symptoms and  told  to just let his system fight it and keep a very close eye on him.   It seemed to work perfectly  and he was better each day until yesterday when I did not like his cough anymore.  So today I am taking him after my appointment with the ear, throat and  nose doctor to his pediatrician.

And last night.  I could not sleep from the throat pain and today I wake up not feeling my lips.  They were extremely big!!!   So I called the doctor again who wants to see me in a couple of hours.  It seems I have developed an allergy to the antibiotic.


And last night.  My DH started with a sniffles, throat pain and fatigue .

 I really tried my hardest not to spread it around, yet it seems I have failed and have now a sick baby and DH.   I  also called the magnets. It has worked very well each time so I will give it another try.

This is what we have done so far:

• Changed toothbrushes and the ones that we use we put in sodium bicarbonate for at least 2 hours not to get reinfected again,
• Put all the bed clothes and the dishes  in the sanitary cycle of the washing machines. 
• Put lysol in all the areas where we spend time (beds, living room around josemaria´s toys)
• I have sterilized all the things that I can that are used by  Josemaria.
• Changed  pijamas each night
• Taken out the pillows into the sun
• DH and I are taking high doses of Vitamin C
• I have started to take tons of green tea, chicken soup and ginger

Anything else that you can advice?  any advice to make things better for a sick baby?


And some Napro questions:

I have heard from one of Dr. H patients that he has begun recomending tran.sfer fa.ctor plus.  anybody out here has used it?  the research is very very interesting and it helps with the inmune system which we really need here.

Then I have read about somehing puriens for men that he also recommends? anybody has used it?

Any other new protocols out there?


Thanks for any advice.  All is welcome!

A young mother and newborn baby in crisis

As I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago I never in my life imagined being part of a crisis pregnancy and seeing the other side of the adoption agency coin.  Well  the saga continues and its such a hard reality that my heart aches.  It makes teen pregnancy all the more real for me. 

As you might remember working at  my home  a few days a week is "E" an amazing woman born into poverty that cleans houses for a living.  She is married and has 2 children for whom she has given her whole life.   She has worked for me for 3 years  now and has become part of our family.  

Without even suspecting it her 15 year old daughter Diana was pregnant and had been hiding her pregnancy from them until the 7th month when her father confronted her.   Her plan had been to run away.

They had no clue other than she did not want to study anymore and was far moodier than normal.  she had been wearing a girdle and oversized clothes the whole time.   Even taking Karate classes!

We found a place for her at  same crisis pregnancy center where Josemaria´s mother  had been, yet she  did not want to go.  She refused. 

What I did not know is that the next weeks she just sat in her room.  Not venturing out, not doing anything.    Just staring at the walls and coming out to eat and helping her mother in just the basics.

After many,  many talks with her parents she accepted to go and we took her 2 weeks  ago.  In the last month of her pregnancy.    They took her in and proceeded to give her therapy, medical assitance and all the help they could.  The birth was to be around the week of the 21st of November 

On  Friday 11th in the  afternoon  E  received a call while she was working here.  Her 15 year old daughter was going into labor.  

In panic  she came to me not knowing what to do and  I started making some calls.  We printed the map where the hospital was located, we called the agency and we left with Josemaria in tow to leave her nearer her home so she could pick up her son and leave for the hospital. Time was of essence.

On Sunday night she called.  The baby girl  named after the Virgin of El  Pilar from Spain  was born Saturday morning  very healthy and both mother and daughter were doing OK.  They were released Monday early. 

Finally E could breath.

But it did not end here.

The crisis pregnancy agency provides after the birth a temporary home where the pregnant women can recuperate and think about the future.   In order to remain there they need to adhere to a stric schedule.   They can stay some 2 to 3 weeks and afterwards go home or to another agency now open to women with babies.

On Tuesday E´s daugher called.   They needed to pick her up this Friday since the agency said so.   One week after the birth.

E was in shock and asked me to call the agency which I did yesterday.

The news were not good. 

E´s daughter Diana was not cooperating with the agency´s program.     Before the birth she had stayed in her room and done little,  but be there in silence.  She did not participate in the many activities including schooling, therapy, prayer, etc.   She just sat in her room.   Just like she had been doing at home.

Then after the birth the very same.   She has  just stayed in her room doing nothing,  but taking care of the baby (who sleeps most of the time) and not participating in anything.   the program motivates the girl to take the baby to everything and get up and working very soon after the birth, yet she did not do any of this.  Not really rebeling in a direct way, but more in a state of indiference.

 The director of the agency said that under these circumstances she is breaking all the rules of the agency and causing issues with the other girls since they were seeing her slack off..

I had to tell E this.  It broke my heart.   She could not believe it.

E is the hardest working woman I know.  She has worked since she was 16 cleaning homes and at  her home from a very very young age taking care of her siblings. Her parents were very,  very poor and did not let her continue with school.  She writes with many mistakes and can do basic math, yet is so inspirational due to her work ethic.   She is also wise beyond her 38 years, has a happy marriage and until now never had issues with her children.  For one year she came to work with her son who was not yet in school and I can attest to the great care she took of her children.  The boy was extremely polite, clean, well behaved. etc.   A very sweet sweet boy. 

She gets up every day at 5 a.m and cleans her own home, wakes her children up, gives breakfast and cooks lunch and  takes them to school and leaves to get to work at 8:30.  

Then works from 9:30 to 5:30 cleaning houses and then leaves again to cook dinner, do schoolwork with her childen and wait for her husband and give him dinner  until 9 p.m .   She is able to get to bed after 11 p.m day in and day out.   They go to Mass each Sunday and are devout Catholics.

I really do not know how she does it. 

After telling her the bad news I  asked  her to talk directly to the agency director  for more details and she did.

More of the same.

She said that Diana was not cooperating with anything and therefore had to leave earlier than anticipated.    They said the doors were open to continue with weekly therapy and that she could come Tuesday and Thursdays to  take beauty school classses, yet could not remain in the home. This from a girl that had never given problems who had always helped out at home and who until a few months ago was in high school with average grades, who wanted to become a teacher or a beautician.

and worse news: None of the other homes for women with children had space.   They had to give priority to girls without parents and had a very,  very long waiting list.  E and Diana would be on their own.   I made several calls yesterday and the same story.  All the good ones, mostly run by nuns,  are packed.

E asked for more time and she will pick Diana and Pilar up in one week.  I might drive them home.

This Saturday both E and her husband will speak with Diana and have her face reality,  she is now a mother in charge of a little baby who depends on everything from her.

Diana will need to stay at home while her mother leaves for work each day and face the reality of being a mother at 15 and in poverty with both her parents needing to work. 

Her parents need the money to survive  and I am not sure it would be wise to offer  a place for Diana under these circumstances while her mother works at my home.   I am praying about it. 

Adoption in not in their radar and I need to respect this.

Both E and I are very worried about this little baby girl and her 15 year old mother, yet we are not experts.  

Can you please pray for them?

Any advice for those that have faced these types of siuations would be welcome.

The unexpected gift of adoption

Adoption has so many gifts its almost impossible to list them all.


But I have been thinking a lot about one quite unexpected one. That once you open your heart to adoption many times you also become a participant in other adoptions.


The gift amazingly multiplies. Just like other thing from God.


Its like a domino effect.


Let try to explain what I have experienced now over 3 times.


The seed in our hearts to adopt came first mainly via the Catholic IF blogs. I read nights about others adoption path . I celebrated each adoption with tears of joy and shed tears of pain when adoptions did not go trough. I still do . Its amazing the universality of our faith.


Me alone in Mexico speaking another language facing the same fears and hopes in my IF struggle.

I did not know people that had adopted. My family was new to this and I was afraid. I had heard terror stories. Over the course of one year reading about it in the blogs I began to see it as an option for us. The joy people shared over adoption


Our road to adoption was a 3 year one. The first year all alone yet hoping through the blogs and the next year asking questions, speaking to other couples, reading, praying and starting the baby steps of opening our hearts. We were also in the midst of getting a diagnosis after almost 2 years of IF and me feeling very sick from hormonal issues that were wrongly diagnosed.


In this second year out of the blue we met 3 couples that were on this path: One (a Mexican and a Mexican / Colombian) who had adopted internationally from Colombia twice, another who was wating to adopt here who had left Europe (Belgium) and were waiting and another had also left Europe (Spain) where she was Mexican and had adopted here and in El Salvador and were waiting for their 3 rd adoption in Mexico. All of them opened their hearts to us.


We can say in part they were responsible for us adopting as well as the Catholic Adoption blogs. Without all of these testimonies we would not be parents today.


And amazingly my DH and I can say the same now. A quite unexpected gift. More than 3 times this has happened to us. We have been witnesses of the same thing.


The first time we saw this was about 1.5 years ago. A dear friend called me and wanted us to meet with a couple facing IF. The wanted to learn about Creigh.ton.

My dear friend also asked me to invite the Belgian couple along so the 3 couples facing IF could talk. I would have never envisioned where this talk would take us all.

We met at a cafe and conversation was easy. They asked tons of questions about Napro and were extremely interested. They wanted to learn ASAP. ´

Then they asked me about its uses in IVF and IUI. This was their main interest. How it could help them make it more successful.


I was a new practitioner and this was such a charged question. I prayed to my guardian angel for guidance. I did not know their issues, but began to explain the importance of diagnosis and treatment. And then they told me their reality.

He had had an illness as a boy and he was no longer producing any sperm. They had been using donated sperm for IUI´s for several months with no success.

I could see this man´s pain. His wife was so eager to have a baby that she was not seeing what this was causing him. It was obvious his heart was broken not only by their IF, but by the way she was not seeing that she actually was bringing a 3rd party into their marriage.


Out of nowhere I felt I could tell them the truth directly.

I told them point blank they were breaking the marital bond by using a another mans sperm. He smiled and she quietly began to cry.

He said yes with his head. He was thinking this all along!!!

Then I mentioned that there also must be also something off with her if after many attempts doing IUI she was still not pregnant.

She said: "But I want to be a mother any way I can.! She was even considering egg donation or surrougacy"

And both the Belgian couple and my DH and I asked them: "Do you want to be pregnant or be parents? and what is first your marriage or motherhood?"


And so began a lenghty discussion about adoption. The Belgian couple gave their testimony (they had left everything behind in order to adopt here) and we gave ours. both filled with joy.

They had never met similar people to them that were eager to adopt. We broke all their preconceptions. I even told them to check out the blogs.

We discussed that adoption was a first option, not a second class one.


We left as the restaurant was about to close and the day after the friend that had introduced us told me: "They spent the night talking , did not sleep anything at all and feel that they are called to adopt. Just like that".


The husband finally was able to tell her how he felt about the IUI´s and she never again brought the subject up. From what I know adoption became their sole pursuit.

I lent them all my books on adoption in the next weeks and a few months later they were in the process to adopt. It was such a miracle.


A few months ago they became parents. Of a healthy baby boy. Called Juan Pablo in honor of the Pope JPII.


My friend called me excitedly the day it happened. She said: "Because they saw the happiness both couples irradiated and that both of you were so sure of this and not doing IVF or IUI for the very first time they thought adoption was an option. You never know what your words and example might do to others."


I still have tears in my eyes thinking about it.


Later in 2010 I had the pleasure of meeting an amazing couple. She was over 42 and both had several issues related to IF, but no definitive diagnosis after 15 years of marriage . They were refered to me by a US doctor who had watched a TV program on Catholic TV about Napro.

They did not want to do IVF, yet they knew that they were running out of time. She desperately wanted to be a mother.

She was open to adoption, he was not. Actually he was complelelty closed to it. He believed he would never be able to love an adopted child.


Over the time we became friends. My DH and I also openly discussed our adoption path.


Very slowly he began to ask questions. Tons of them. His wife and I began to share information.

A few months ago they called me. They had begun the adoption journey! with our same agency!!!


In a whirlwind of God incidences they were accepted (nothing short of a series of miracles) and just 2 weeks after we became parents I received the most amazing message late at night.


I still have it in my phone. It said in Spanish:

"An unexpected miracle: the Virgin and Our Lord gave us our son last night and we are happy parents."

Below he included a picture of mother and son.


We were the first to find out after their own family.


It was complelty unexpected. They became the first parents to adopt with our agency in their state. Due to the health of the baby he was placed in emergency mode with them. The baby could not have better parents.


The baby now shares the same name as his father.


We met the baby at Josemaria´s baptism. We called Josemaria and this little baby : cousins by love.


And on Monday of this week.


I receive the most amazing message.


Let me tell the story.


I met E. at an investment course about 2.5 years ago.


She was facing several health issues and slowly began to tell me she had stage 4 endo and had lost an ovary in the course of a laparoscopy. She had decided to stop working and focus on IVF.

She was keen on doing it and was slowly preparing herself for it. I am not sure if she did it or not. .

Well during the following months she kept calling me asking me about endo, diets, acupucture, etc. never doing Creig.ton. Just checking in with questions.


During these calls I always asked her if she was not considering adoption. She said yes, but was afraid. And she wanted to give IVF one or 2 tries before giving up. She was obsessed with the subject.


Later she began asking me questions via chat in skype. It was like she was opening herself up to adoption, yet did not do it openly. Little questions here and there between questions about vitamins, alternative therapies, etc.


One day she asks me to meet. Could they come to my house?


They came and met with my DH and I. She wanted me to explain to them about Napro, but the talk ended up being about adoption. We spoke over 5 hours and they left with all my adoption books. Several recommended by the blogs.


I did not hear from them in the next months.


Then one day she calls me. They needed the letter of recommendation of a priest. What???

They had started the adoption proceedings in her home town. A city in the north of Mexico.

She went every Sunday to Mass, yet since they had begun to live in a new neighborhood and did not know the new priest.

Could I help her?


I called my priest friend and explained the situation. He offered to help them after having a talk with them. They met with him and he gave them the letter of recommendation.

Over the next months she again began contacting me by leaving me messages in Skype.


Questions about our own process in adoption. Costs, dates, how to tell family.


Then one day she asks me for a letter of recommendation.

And then when Josemaria came, she began contacting me weekly asking me about what I felt, did I love him the same, etc.

And then this past Monday via Skype again. She tells me she has become a mother. Of a baby boy.


After her family we were the first to know. I shed tears again of joy.


I was so happy for her. I still have not seen pictures of the baby, but she is now with him.


My take from all of this is that we need to share in any way we can the joys of adoption. We never know whose hearts will be changed by it .

Exactly like the bloggers did with me 3 years ago.

Overwhelmed

I am having a hard time defining what I need to focus on. I feel completly overwhelmed right now. So many things at the very same time and so many changes in a very short time do this to you. And lets remember I am a Martha at heart. I worry and do too much.

Parents in health crisis, new jobs, a new baby, the start of an amazing project, all at the very same time.


I am currently home facing a horrible cold. I get colds when I am confused or over tired and both conditions I have right now. I did not take good care of the cold when I needed to and I ended up with a bad, bad infection. But its also a good time to think. To put some order. To pray about things.


As an excercise mainly for myself here are my current roles and what is going on in them. I feel overwhelmed just reading through them:

I am a new mother:

I became one 11 hours after an amazing call on August 15th. Josemaria is a baby, he needs me and I want to be his mother. Be there for him 100%.

But I am feeling I can´t in the perfect manner I would like due to all that is happening at the very same time (more about it below) and the end of my maternity leave in January.

I know its my perfectionistic nature which is telling me that I am not doing a good job when the facts say I am doing a good one. (all that know Josemaria say he is thriving. He smiles all the time, has never gotten sick, has a great schedule, is far more advanced in motor skills than most boys his age, is right or ahead on schedule on everything else and in general seems like a very happy, healthy boy). I think that having to face that I will need to return to my job in January is what is conflicting me so very much.

I am a wife:

A and I have a great relationship, but with the baby, his new highly demanding job and family stress we have not been focusing on our relationship as much and I need to make it a priority before it becomes an issue.

With DH comes as a package his family which is a nice, but highly demanding one at times one.

His father depends a lot on my DH (he is the good son. the one that is always there for him ) and is putting a lot of pressure on him and I to spend time with him and specially in the last months when he has been feeling alone and his health is not doing well. We have become his cargivers of sort.


My DH is the 3rd of 5. 4 men and 1 girl. Two live abroad and while they are in constant contact there is not the same closeness, nor can they help in the practical aspects. The oldest who also lives here has a very difficult family life and needs help rather than what he can give and my sister in law (the other local one) is very close to her dad, but has a family of 3 children and a difficult husband to focus on and is also not very good with the practical aspects of an elder parent.


So this leaves my DH and I who have always been there (my father in law calls me the resourceful one so when he needs help with practical things he calls me!). We are also the ones that sit and listen to him , something that his other 4 children do not.


Yet for some reason we never ever fufill his expectations even when we try our best, but at the same time we want to be close since we love him. A lonely parent in frail health needs us , yet we need to live our lives. .

How do we participate and be there for him, when its clear the other siblings are not and most probably will never be there, without giving him all our free time? Where is the balance? What is the Christian thing to do?


I am a daughter:

at the very same time my dad is facing cancer and both him and my mom need me there. I have not blogged about it, but after his succesful prostate cancer surgery they found more cancer a couple of weeks ago which was not taken out in the 3 hour surgery. The doctors, several top ones. have recommended he start radiotherapy for the next 7 weeks. Daily for 1 hour each day, including Sunday´s . My parents tought that they could postpone it until January, but the head of the oncology clinic said no. Do it now. They also suspected something in the colon, but gratefully nothing was found.

My mom is going to have to face cancer again. Her only brother died of cancer at 37, a horrible death . I see the fear in her eyes and even if my dads prospects are very good with this treatment, going to an oncology guard everyday for the next weeks will be incredibly hard. I need to be there for both.


I am a provider of my family:

My DH has just started a new job, a highly demanding one that is a much better one than before, but until end of January he will be freelance and until February his end salary will be defined. He is leaving home Monday´s at 7 a.m and the rest of the days at 9 a.m and coming home at 9 p.m. He will need to take several courses, take many business meetings during lunch and participate in many committees to get ready for this new position. He is very happy and future prospects are good, but we need to adjust to the new reality that he will see Josemaria only in the early mornings and weekends for the time being.

We are almost certain his salary for the next year will not be enough for me to leave my job. After a lot of discernement I need to continue working for now. I have 2 options: my current job where I have been 12 years which is changing right now a lot or a new job at a great company who supposedly had great family practices (in the USA they pay for adoptions in part of their employees and give extremely generous maternity time)


Last week the amazing company contacted me yet again and sent me a letter congratulating me.- I had passed most of the hiring process and asked me to to send tons of stuff their way (from my university grades, SAT scores, language diplomas, all my social work, etc) and now my file is under review by a global hiring comitees. I have an 85% chance right now of being offered a new job.


I will know if I have a job offer from them in about 3 weeks and I will need to make a decision.


News from my current job are not good. People are fighting to appear in the picture due to all the changes (2 maternity leaves, my boss leaving, etc) I have the offer to take my bosses position (with tons of travel) and thinks are chainging dramatically after my boss left. If I come back to my old company things will not be as I expected.

Yet I know the job like the back of my hand, could still have a ton of flexibility working from home, but I do not like it anymore. I dread going back.

This coming back to work is perhaps what is most adding to the stress. as a mother I want to be there also, but how? one of the conditions for me to accept this new position is flexibility so we will see if I can get it. Yet I will not be home all of my time, but only part time. Can you be a good mother under these conditions?


I am a practitioner:
I love this part of my life and feel a vocation. I have tons of clients right now that need my attention. I have some 35 active ones and a waiting list of some 10. Since there is no infrastructure here things sometimes get out of hand and PPVI does not have the basic resources in place to help development. We do not have offices, materials in Spanish, doctors, etc . So I get late calls to my cel phone, tons of emails for translation help, etc and its crazy. We need the infrastructure soon or this will continue to be unmanegable. Yet how do I develop it with everything else going on?


I also have to continue with the certification of my center. The first official one in Latinamerica. Omaha has asked me if the other practitioners can depend from this 1st center like satelites so we work all together. I am doubting I will be able to do it with all that is going on right now. Yet I know the inmese need. I am so torn.


I am a promoter of Napro in Mexico:
I do not know how I ended up doing this. It was not my intention, but I work in marketing so I love marketing something that I love, yet how do I balance this with everything else that is going on right now? Somewho people now know me and ask me all the time to meet with them about this. Just yesterday 10 different emails on this. Dr. H sends me emails with things to consider for future work, the bishops ask me to present, the head of the largest prolife organization in Mexico asks me to meet, eetc.


how do you reconcile your duties as a mother, wife, daughter, daughter in law, family provider, and your service to God and others? (I see my work as a practitioner) Where do you draw the lines?


I probably will not have a perfect answer, but I need to establish some sort of balance during these uncertain times, times of complete change (new jobs probably for both of us, our parents needing us, motherhood) and specially pray for God to guide me.

Never in a million years

Never in a million years I would have thought I would be on the other side of the adoption coin.

Helping in a crisis pregnancy of a 15 year old girl. Abandoned by her boyfriend.

With a family in panic.

Who hid the pregnancy the first 7 months from the world. By covering herself up, trying not to gain weight, by using a girdle, by doing all her normal life, crying at night so nobody would now..

As I have mentioned we have an amazing woman who helps out at home a few days a weels. She is the one that hugged me on mothers day recognzing that even if I did not have a baby in my arms, I was a mother of a baby that had died in miscarriage.

A faithful Catholic that worked from the age of 15 supporting herself cleaning the houses of others. That had left her little town to make a life for her and her family . The mother of a girl and a little boy. Wife to an amazing husband that also worked like crazy to make life better for their 2 children.

A few months ago she came to me telling me that in her small town women were abandoning babies. I gave her brochures about the association where we had adopted. She took the posters to the churches there and gave the brochures away.

We never imagined she would need it.

About a month and a half ago she came to me crying. She was devastated. I will call her E.

Her husband had come home much earlier than expected and had found their 15 year old daughter washing her clothes in the sink with her belly uncovered. What he saw he could not believe.

It was the pregnant belly of a 15 year old. They thought she was some 4 months along. Well she was 7 and was thinking about running away, having the child somewhere since the shame that she had disappointed her parents was so, so great. She had been hiding this from the world.

She had been using special clothes to hide the belly. They ran to the doctor and the doctor said the baby was fine and their daughther was 7 months along. They were devastated. All their dreams shattered. Afraid. Angry. and much more.

The father: a 16 year old boy, it had been their first time having sex. When he found out about the pregnancy he had run away to another city. Left her all alone.

E. did not know the father`s parents. They did not have a way to contact them. They were on their own.

She came to me asking me for help and we found a spot in the same house where Josemarìa`s mother had gotten help. They were willing to help E`s daughter.

She did not want to go. Refused. And spent the next weeks at home trying to think what she would do when this baby came. At 15 years of age. With no skills and very very little money.

All seemed OK on the medical side. The belly of their daughter like magic became more rounded, the baby descended (it seems due to the lack of space the baby was nesting somewhere below the lungs and the belly seemed much smaller) and they had begun to name the baby: Marìa del Pilar. The name of a very famous Spanish Virgin.

What devastated E. the most was that her daughter had done this to herself and the baby. She is very prolife and could not believe her daughter would put the baby in such danger. She knew she would never ever abort, but this was as bad in her eyes-

Well a week ago E comes to me crying. For some "·$%%$&$% the city governement had put a new rule in social security. They would not longer be offering pregnancy services to women that had gotten pregnant before the age of 16.

This is the same Mexico city goverment that had made abortion legal. Please do not get me started and all with U.N money and international funds (a lot coming from the US). A governement that had done to greatest attempt to kill he family structure and unborn life now was taking away the simplest rights.

E. was desperate. What would they do now? where would her daughter give birth? Get the services now in almost the month 8th of her pregnancy. Also her daughter was now so scared, did not know what to do with her life. They did not know how to help her. REality had set in,

We called the association where we had adopted Josemaria.

They are offering to help them in EVERYTHING at no cost to them,

So today we are going there (Josemaria, E and her daughter) so her daughther can meet with them and start the process to stay there. I offered to take them since they are afraid.

Today I will go the same house where Josemarìas biological mother probably stayed for all her pregnancy. Meet with the woman that helped her make the hardest decision of her life. I will see how she lived. Know what her life must have been like.

I am nervous. I will see a side to adoption that I did not know.

E.`s daughter wants to keep the baby so this most probably will be a complelty different story. She will be able to stay a couple of weeks after the birth, but before all is the same.

They will provide her with everything. Psychological, medical and spiritual help. During the remaining 4 weeks of her pregnancy they will teach her all they can so she can have a job (they have a technical school where they teach beauty school). give her the emotional tools so she can be the best mother possible at 15 years of age.

Teach her loving parents how to help her.

When I hung up yesterday making the appointment I felt such an admiration for this association. A Catholic one. One that regardless of your circumstances helps you out.

Can the abortion coallition say the same? will they be there if you need it?