Friday, April 25, 2014

Thought 19: Running on empty . . .

When I was 19 years old, my life changed forever. Bob Hubbard entered my story. The trajectory of my life would never be the same. I will always believe that God sent him to me as he is undoubtedly my greatest blessing. The story of how we "met" has always been a fuzzy one as I don't think we were ever officially introduced. I was friends with a lot of the guys in his fraternity and we hung out in the same circles at the end of our freshman year of college. So, we knew of each other, but our friendship did not start to develop until the end of our sophomore year. Bob will always argue that he noticed me first and that might be true. But, our connection during the spring of 1995 was mutual and the real thing. We did not start officially dating until that fall, but an all-nighter talking on the beach set in motion what I see as a love for the storybooks!

I do my best to stay positive and keep a motivating tone, but some days (or weeks) are just tough. I want to keep this blog honest and share how I am really feeling along the way. So, I must report that I am just drained. The weeks following the half marathon have just been really hard. Every attempt to exercise takes so much more effort than usual, almost like I felt when I was first starting to train. It has been so frustrating. I have put in some long runs, including an 11.5 run with my sister-in-law and a few 8 mile runs. However, those runs were a struggle. I thought I was past this point.

My fatigue has not just been while running. I have been tired most of the day. But why? Where did my momentum go? I am registered for the marathon. I have my sights set for October. I am raising money for my charity. How could I be losing momentum? Is it a physical problem? Emotional? Both? When my body starts to fall off course, I immediately start thinking the worst. Most people might look to the increasing temperatures and the high level of pollen. Or others might say that interrupted sleep or a poor diet might be contributing factors. In my mind, I immediately go to a relapse in my Crohn's Disease or I feel light headed and nauseous so maybe I am getting another kidney stone. I have my annual scan in June to make sure my cancer continues to be in remission. Let's just say my worrying goes into hyper drive when I feel unusual.



I went to the doctor recently and all my blood work came back normal. I am fine. That is so unlike me. So, I guess there is something to that pollen, higher temps, and lack of sleep that can make someone feel lethargic. Also keeping up with a feisty three-year-old can add to the fun. So, I am going with the simpler explanation until I am given a reason to think otherwise. I just get scared. I want to stay OK. I just get really, really scared. I am going to give my body some time to rest up the next few weeks with some shorter runs. I am preparing myself for the long haul. Atlanta is not going to be very forgiving with the high temperatures this summer, so I need to pull from my inner strength to build my outer strength. I am going back to see my physical therapist every month and will be getting a full physical in May. I am also going to visit with a sports nutritionist to make sure my body is getting all the fuel it needs. 



I will give it everything I have and see how it goes. I am going to cross the finish line in Chicago, but as Bob reminded me, I need to run my own race, both on and off the trail. I am bad about comparing myself to others as well as being very competitive. There is nothing like training for a marathon to increase your self awareness. The pictures above are the types of thumbnails that Bob sends me on all my long runs. I am so lucky to have him as my greatest cheerleader. I have cried a lot over the past several weeks as I have just not felt well. When I am tired, my strong emotions kick in and I cry a lot to find release. Watching an episode of Parenthood is always a good emotional release. I will move forward and take the frustrations I have felt to build my momentum back up. I am a fighter and would not be standing here if I wasn't one. So, I will end this thought on a positive note. It's time to crank up the tunes and enjoy the next 24 weeks of strength building, both inside and out. 

Check out my personal fundraising page for the Les Turner ALS Foundation -  http://ow.ly/ukTos

Friday, April 18, 2014

Thought 18: A test of faith . . .

My family loves to throw surprise parties, especially my mom. On my 18th birthday, I was surprised with a party at The Melting Pot, my favorite restaurant at the time - I love fondue! I was a senior in high school and a happy one as well. I was co-editor of my high school newspaper, finishing up my time on the high school swimming team, and excited to receive an early decision acceptance to Furman University. Life was good for me as I entered my adult years, the most carefree time of my life. My family also likes to make surprise visits. I remember when my brother Mike and my sister-in-law Cynthia surprised me when they joined my parents for a visit to me at college. I surprised them when I flew down for the birth of their first child. I can't count how many times we surprised on birthdays, including us all meeting at Disney and surprising my mom for her 60th birthday. Bob's family is as big on the surprising as well - they all flew up for Bob's 30th birthday in Michigan. Sometimes the surprises come when you need them the most, including when Bob's brother surprised me in the hospital on a difficult visit. I think my favorite one of all had to have been when we surprised my parent's with a 45th wedding anniversary party. This one means more to me for so many reasons. 



Megan on her first Easter Sunday at my dad's church in Tallahassee

My faith is not something I normally talk about.  It is no indication of how important it is to me, but more because I have always been very private in my beliefs. My faith in God is at the core of who I am as a person, but it has been a process for me. My parents both had a strong faith and belief in God, but it was not something we talked about a lot. They always attended a Presbyterian Church, but I think that was more about their respect and love for the minister and church community than the denomination. We did not make it to church on Sundays growing up too much and I never attended Vacation Bible School or Sunday School. I think they would have enjoyed going to church more, but I think it was hard wrangling their three children.

For my parents through, it was more about living a life that exhibited Christian values than church attendance. I am not here to talk about religion or what others feel it means to be a Christian. I am just sharing what I believe and where those beliefs started from. My mom told me on many occasions that she believed to be a good Christian was to be a good person. I always identified with this. Giving back was a hallmark value in our home and my parents modeled it beautifully. My mom loved all the traditional hymns and singing them when we were in church. She also loved that I married someone that shared that joy with her. I did have a stint in the church choir, but it didn't last long.  To be honest, by the time I reached high school, I did not have a lot of interest in exploring my faith. My parents continued to be models to all of us in their beliefs, but they gave us the room to explore our own faith journey, whatever that meant to us.

Through my high school and early college years, I did not think much about my faith or a spiritual world. I even had a friend that professed to be an atheist, which I didn't agree with, but I really didn't know what I believed. My friends were all at a different place with it and I started thinking more about it as I progressed into my sophomore year in college. I was never comfortable with talking about it out loud too much or participating in faith based activities. I think I was just uncomfortable in knowing what I believed that I didn't feel I had a lot to contribute. In attending a liberal arts college, I took a Religion class where I learned more about Christianity and a Religions of the World class where I learned about other faiths around the world. I have always believed that there is more than one answer out there and that they all somehow come together in the end. This education was so important to me in my faith development. Since I attended a college that was historically a Christian school, the conversation was definitely alive and well. And then I met Bob . . .

As we grew more serious in our relationship, we had a lot of discussions on faith and religion. Bob has a strong Christian faith in God and was raised in the church. The only thing Bob asked of me was that I always keep an open mind and continue to challenge myself in exploring my faith. I knew I was a Christian, but for some reason I had a hard time saying it out loud. I just did not have a lot of confidence in professing my faith. As the years passed, my faith continued to grow without me even always realizing it. A defining moment for me was in June 2001 after I had an emergency surgery following five days of living with a perforated bowel. I can now say that it is a miracle that I survived that complication and I never felt God's presence more in my life. This feeling only continued to grow.

Once Bob and I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1999 and we found our own church to attend, I started a more mature faith journey. My faith has been tested many times over the years through the challenges we have faced and not understanding why life continued to hit us so hard. But life continued and so did my exploration. We moved to Atlanta and joined Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in July 2007. Our minister in Ann Arbor recommended this church community to us, but it was especially inviting since Bob's siblings attended there too. PRUMC has been our home church ever since, but I don't think I have really felt it was our church until we adopted Megan and started raising her in the life of the church. She was baptized there and is growing up and making friends there that we hope will turn into lasting friendships over the years.

My faith journey is a process, which I think is true for many. As we raise Megan and instill in her the values of a Christian life, including her church family and education as a part of her everyday life, I will work hard to talk about my journey with her and share more about what I believe and why I believe it. Living a Christian life will always be how I approach the world and my relationship with it, but what I now realize is at the heart of being a Christian is my personal relationship with God. Letting this relationship be at my core and what I build all other relationships around is a big step in my faith journey.  It has been a healing force in my life as I work to understand the loss of my mom and the health challenges in my life. I am now comfortable and more confident in my faith and look forward to seeing where it takes me from here.

It used to make me feel uncomfortable that I was not at the same place in my beliefs as others around me, but I am not letting myself apologize for that anymore. I feel good about the way I have lived my life and the way I treat and help others. I welcome God in my heart and continue to explore my faith through education, fellowship, and service to my community. I look forward to sharing this with Megan as she grows older and thank Bob for being patient with me and giving me the room to be me and find myself in my own time. So, as we celebrate Easter this Sunday, I am proud to say that I am a Christian and have never felt better about my relationship with God. I think I will always be private about my faith, but it feels better to know what I believe and that the process of exploring those beliefs is a lifetime process. I spent this Lenten season by giving an hour of my time each week at my church to pray for others. There is nothing that makes you feel more grateful than to sit and pray for others that are facing difficult struggles. It was a challenging and beautiful experience. Happy Easter to you and your loved ones.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Thought 17: Feeling complete . . .

The summer of 1992 was an extra special one for me. I was 17 years old and my parents allowed me to take a Humanities class at the local community college during the spring of my junior year of high school. The class ended with a three-week trip to Europe over the summer. While I had such an amazing time with my friends seeing London, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, and a cruise through Greece, I was way too young to appreciate it! I am so thankful that my teachers required us to keep a daily journal. I thank my parents for giving me this opportunity to see the world and instilling in me the desire to see more.  I can't wait to pay it forward and give Megan every opportunity to do the same. We look forward to traveling as a family and experiencing new cultures together.


This was originally posted on Smyrna Parent on March 19 - a blog I contribute to every few months (http://smyrnaparent.com). 

Some decisions in life are clear and straightforward. They usually come with a choice between A and B and can be made without a whole lot of effort. While going back and forth with the “I don’t know, what do you want to do” or “I don’t have a preference” responses can be frustrating, the ultimate decision comes together pretty easily. However, when it comes to major life decisions about things like health, family, money, and work, those conversations become intensely complicated. Sometimes the decision just never feels decided.

My husband Bob and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary just after Christmas. When we were dating and first married, we had fun dreaming about how many kids we would one day have together. I usually said three while he usually said two. We both come from a family of three children – he is the oldest and I am the youngest. I just always assumed that life would bring us multiple children and that is exactly what I wanted. Then that funny thing called life happens . . .

To give you the short version (for those reading my blog for the first time), I started having noticeable health problems at 23 years old, with symptoms showing about two months after our wedding day. After years of medicine and numerous tests and doctor opinions, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. My symptoms continued to get worse, which led to numerous surgeries over an 8-year period. Bob and I tried multiple times to get pregnant during that time, but nothing was happening, most likely because I was so sick. After meeting with infertility experts, we underwent four unsuccessful rounds of in-vitro fertilization treatments. Adoption came up very early in the conversation, but we wanted to try everything we could to see if I could get pregnant first. But, as fate would have it, this is not how we were meant to become parents. We started the adoption paperwork and approval process in November 2009, were approved in May 2010, were matched with a birthmother in July 2010, and became parents to our precious Megan in November 2010. After 13 years of marriage, it was finally our turn and we could not have asked for a better experience.

We are now three years down the road and loving our days with our full-of-life preschooler who always keeps us on our toes. The question of a second child has been on our minds for a couple of years now. I had to have a hysterectomy in August 2009, so adoption was the only way we would be able to grow our family. We had such a positive experience the first time, why wouldn’t we want to do it again?

When it comes to whether or not someone is going to make the decision to have one, two, three, or more kids, everyone comes to this decision from a different place. I am here to write about our decision of whether or not to “have” more than one child.  I have several friends who are at the crossroads of this decision, and although all of our circumstances are different, our feelings behind it are similar. When I did some searching on the Internet about having one child, I actually discovered a lot of negative views. I came across words like “selfish” when talking about parents that made the decision to have one child. I am not a fan of labels like “only child,” which also seems to have a negative connotation to it. It makes me think, what would our world look like if every family were just able to make the decisions that were best for them with society’s judgments and opinions left at the door?

We actually have a lot of friends who have one child and I have spoken to many of them about their decision. For some people this is a decision, while others have had to accept it because of other reasons, usually because they were unable to have more children. Whatever the reason, it is never an easy one and sometimes one of the hardest to accept.

I have watched friends over the years have their babies, along with their second and third ones. I have been blessed with four nieces and three nephews, with one more on the way! I have enjoyed watching friends recently have babies and seeing their families grow. Every time it makes me ask the question of whether or not we will adopt again. It seems like the word “want” is always the word of choice used when people ask you about whether or not you will grow your family. Do you “want” to have more kids? Sometimes it is not as simple as wanting.

I have always felt compelled to go through the reasons with people on why we would not try to adopt again, why we would choose to have “only one child.” Each time I took the energy to do this, I would hurt more and more. Somehow I always left that conversation feeling bad about myself, like my reasons were not valid or I was trying to justify it. We had such a beautiful experience the first time, are we afraid it wouldn’t happen that way a second time? Sure. We have been though so much, are we afraid to put ourselves out there again? Absolutely. Whatever reasons and debates that come up in our mind as we make this decision is just that, our reasons. I think this is important for families making this decision to remember, as it is so personal. It is not about whether we “want” more children. It is about what is best for our family at this point in our lives.

One of the factors of whether or not to have more than one child that I know is difficult for people is the sibling factor. Will my child be ok without a sibling? This is a very difficult issue for Bob and me as we make this decision. We both have two siblings and love them dearly. It does make us sad to think she would not have a brother or sister, but we also know that we can’t adopt another child just so she will have a brother or sister. Megan is blessed with a lot of friends and we will always help her foster and cherish those relationships. She also is blessed with cousins she is very close to, including two that are within 10 weeks of her in age. The sibling factor will always be something I will revisit in my head even when we make peace with this decision. All you can do is hope you make the right decision.

Another big factor that I have struggled with a lot is the “I will only get to do this once” factor. Every milestone is a once in a lifetime experience essentially and that has made me sad sometimes. We have just had so much fun raising Megan and all the fun steps along the way, but it is difficult to know that it will only happen once. We have learned to appreciate them and always have another fun one around the corner. It sure does give me an excuse when I want to buy her another dress or another toy. I can always justify it with a “but, this is the only time I will get to do this!”

If I had to tell you right now whether or not we would try to adopt another child, I would say no. Bob and I really are at about the same place with this and I think we are feeling more at peace with it every day. Looking back at all we have been through as a couple to those fun conversations we had dreaming about our future family, I think we are exactly at the place we were always meant to be. One of the questions I have come to ask myself is, if I put Bob, Megan and I on a stranded island, would having one child be enough? My answer is always a very confident yes.  So, when people ask me “why” and “do you want” when it comes to having more children, I just tell them that we feel complete as a family and that brings us the peace we have been searching for through all these years.


Although I feel this peace, am I still able to say that the door is closed? No. But I don’t think that means we are necessarily still thinking about it, it just goes back to making a life decision that never feels decided. Am I ready to give away or sell all of the baby gear? No, but loaning it to friends helps and enables me to put off letting go even more. Am I ready to give away all the dresses and cute baby outfits? No, but I love seeing them on friends’ kids who we share them with a lot. I am almost ready to feel it but not say it. Would I ever consider adopting an older child or becoming a foster parent? I would but I’m not sure that opportunity will ever be the right one for our family. Bob and I want to raise the best daughter we can and show her the world. We want to raise someone that values giving back, being a good friend, and reaching for the stars. We want to provide her every opportunity to be her best self. This is what we “want” and we are very much at peace with that decision. But I am still giving myself space to keep the door cracked . . .