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?