90 Day Fiance (Part 2)

Well life in Kansas was awkward for a while. I waited until after my brother's wedding to tell my parents about the pregnancy and our engagement.

I think what I stressed to them the most (and then to the rest of the family as I told them by turns) in those moments is that I was not making a rash decision to get married to Moses just because we were pregnant, but that when we did get married it would be a well thought out and prayed over occurrence. I'm not sure they were completely convinced.

I made the difficult decision to not stay in Kansas, but to move to Missouri with my older brother's family. We will both be forever grateful for the love and generosity they showed to me and the baby in those next few months.

Whether from pregnancy hormones or from exhaustion or just from the stress of the whole situation, I found myself crying to sleep at least once a week from the time I came back to the US. We tried to talk to each other as much as possible, to hide from the other one how bad things were, and to keep one another encouraged. It worked sometimes, and sometimes the entire conversation would just disintegrate into "I miss you"s back and forth.

It was a long 7 months carrying that little guy alone on this side of the ocean while his dad struggled to make ends meet in Uganda. I found a job, but could only work a few days a week or I would lose my health insurance that I needed to be able to deliver the baby. Carefully I rationed out what I would need to purchase for the baby. A lot of things were purchased second-hand, hand-me-downs that were generously shared, and loving friends and family showered us with gifts for Baby D (as he was affectionately called).

Moses and I had settled on a name, and then a middle name for D, but we kept it a secret until after he was delivered.

After a good after dinner walk one night in early May I went to get up from sitting and felt a pop and then liquid streaming down my legs. Little man was getting ready to make his arrival!

Moses and his mom went to the church and prayed all night for us as my labor wore on. My sister-in-law sent him constant updates on how things were going... but the long and short of it is that they weren't... going... anywhere. Water broke at 8pm; Mom, sister in law, and I went to bed around 930-10 thinking we'll have to go in sometime later. Around 1 am my mom came out and found me sitting on the couch timing contractions. They were about 3min apart at that point and she was like, "Oh my! Let's get you to the hospital!" I calmly walked upstairs and woke up my sister-in-law to go with us. But by the time we got to the hospital they slowed down to 4-5min apart and I wasn't dilated hardly at all. By 6pm the next night I still was not dilated, and starting to run a fever from exhaustion, so they opted for a C-section thinking it might be infection related. When they tried to give me pit it spiked late decels in D's heart rate as well, which I could very easily read on their in room monitor. (never underestimate a nurse to keep nursing, even on herself, even when slightly loopy on a epidural) They turned the monitor so that I "couldn't see it" but I already was asking for different intervention and told them to stop the pitocin. So off to surgery we went.

That was incredibly hard... not having Moses there with me for that. I've never had surgery before or since and it was scary, though I tried very hard not to show it since my Mom was in the OR with me. My sister-in-law was given the job of accompanying Baby D wherever he went. And I wanted no discussion on that topic. I knew they weren't going to come and ask my permission to start anything on him since I'd be coming out of surgery and Moses not being there with him, I put my sister-in-law's Mama Bear skills to work making sure my little one was gonna be safe and cared for.

The post-surgery nurse had compassion on me and took me down to the NICU to visit D before going to my floor (even though she really wasn't supposed to). The torturous amount of time that it took for them to accept my leaving the floor to go and see him was just that... torturous. They hooked up a live facetime feed for me for a little while, but then the battery died on the ipad. And I was done anyway. I wanted D to know that his Mama, the only person he really knew in the world, had not abandoned him to a unit of alarms and strange lights, lack of body warmth, missing my heartbeat, hungry, and confused by this whole big world that he had suddenly been yanked into. Hang sleep and recovery from major surgery, there was an infant that needed me!

Holding and cradling him to my chest was the absolute best feeling I have ever felt in the whole wide world.

It still is, to this day. Though he has grown a lot and Moses does come in a pretty close second on the cuddling front. ;)

90 Day Fiance (Part 1)

Someone asked me the other day if our experience was like "90 Day Fiance" the TV show. I wasn't sure how to answer, mostly cause I had never seen the show. I mean, yes, we did have 90 days on a K-1 visa, but not sure how much else was accurate.

So, to better understand in case I got asked that question again, hubby and I decided to watch the show (and because we don't always agree on shows but we kinda like reality/documentary types...)

I couldn't help thinking throughout the whole season (we got through Season 1 already) that I kinda wished we could tell our story like that. It was so easy to see the similarities and GLARING differences in the stories.

So for lack of a better intro than that, this is part of our "90 Day Fiance" story:

I had been in love with Uganda since I first traveled there back in 2008, but frankly I wasn't thinking about any other kind of love when I walked into The Sound Cup in Garden City Mall, Kampala, Uganda in early 2015. I had been volunteering with a hospital in the Kampala suburbs and was redesigning charts for them. The Sound Cup had relatively fast wifi and good coffee, so I was fixing to get some work done.

Apparently he took one look and was sold. Moses was working as a waiter in the little cafe. When I arrived he made sure that the other waiters knew that was HIS table and then promptly forgot my order as soon as he took it. This necessitated several extra trips back to my table to make sure that he had actually gotten my order right. He saw my lips moving, but he didn't hear a word I said.

He fell in love at first sight, but I took my time. Through a little careful finagling he finally convinced me to go on a date with him, and then to start hanging out regularly. Long walks, shared meals, dancing, live music, movie nights, and talking late into the night. He made life so fun and was so easy to talk to. I found myself falling a little more every time we were together.

Things went fast. In August we found out we were pregnant. Two weeks later Moses lost his job. Another week later we found out that the hospital I had been working at was not going to help me renew my visa like I had thought they would. I was already scheduled to come back to the US for my brother's wedding so we made plans for me to travel now and hopefully come back in a year's time. It was hard to say goodbye, especially not really knowing how everything would go, or really even how our relationship would weather the separation.

In the meantime, Moses and I tried to soak up what little time and energy life had given us. We went to the hospital for a sonogram and took a close and precious first look at our little baby, affectionately called "Blueberry" at that point. I was convinced it was a girl and Moses firmly believed it was a boy. This is one disagreement I'm glad he won.

We took many long walks up to the market after work to get the baby's favorite snack: popcorn. We looked up baby names together. We squeezed drops out of every day going to live music and music festivals together. We planned days out, just the two of us to go to the movies or swimming/picnicking. And we tried hard to not talk about the fact that we wouldn't be together too much longer.

In October Moses escorted me to the airport with the clothes and belongings that I might need in the next year. He was to pack up and move the rest of my things out of my apartment by the end of the month. He would keep them in his apartment and store them until I could come back. He was so quiet in the back of the car in the wee hours of the morning as we sped towards Entebbe airport. I didn't really know what to say to him either.

When we reached the gate all I could hope for was a quick goodbye without a lot of gushing. Instead he got down on one knee and asked me to make him the happiest man in the world. Let's just say that waterworks were definitely in the picture (I can blame it on pregnancy hormones right?)

The whole plane ride I sat in a state of shock and looked at this strange new shiny thing on my finger. I couldn't help but feel like my whole entire world was changing and strangely enough, for someone who had sold all her household goods to move internationally, I feel so scared that I was sick to my stomach. (And that, I cannot blame on pregnancy hormones.)

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to open your heart to another person and commit to spending the rest of your life with them. And I was scared because I was at the airport not knowing when I'd be back or even see him again, pregnant with his baby, and needed to catch my plane. I didn't even feel like I was able to say "no", even had I wanted to. It would have been so cruel to him for me to say "no" with no time to talk about it, and then just get on a plane and leave.
But by the same measure, we had no time to talk about what my "yes" meant either. We didn't have a good plan of how to even see each other again, let alone raise our child together. To top it off... I had a massive UTI setting in.

And you have never experienced UTIs until you have experienced a pregnancy UTI... during a 48 hour international plane trek... through countries you've never flown through... running to the bathroom every 5 seconds but still feeling like you are constantly about to have an accident... while the airline attendant is telling you that you need to pay an additional fee for your checked bag because British airlines is stingier than any other airline and only allows one checked bag for international travel.
In my very least exasperated voice I informed her that she could have free reign of the $10 that was on my card, but I had no other currency and had no way to get any. (By that point I was in South Africa.) If she insisted in removing one of my bags then to please be kind enough to let me tell her which one to remove or to let me repack things into my carry on bag. (At this point I realized that it was already loaded on the plane and she had no intention of giving someone the task of finding and removing it from said plane. A task that was probably nearly impossible seeing as it was a double decker Boeing 747.) After several unsuccessful attempts on her part to make me "cough up" the extra cash, she did print my boarding passes with a ominous, "I'm probably going to get in a lot of trouble for doing this."

Unfortunately, but this point it was too late. I made it into the stall, but that was all the farther I got before what we most fear to happen during a UTI, did indeed happen. Stupidly, I had packed only shirts to change into during my flight, not pants, so the only other thing I had in my carry on was my bridesmaid dress for my brother's wedding. On it went and I stepped off the plane in Kansas, much to my brother and sister-in-law's surprise, all ready for the big event that wasn't for another week.

Finally safely back in Kansas I had to deal with an even bigger issue. Telling my family and friends that I was not only engaged (to a man that they had never met), but also pregnant.

What in the World, Church??

Something that has really irritated me lately... and probably it shouldn't to the extent that it has, but this is the interwebs and basically ranting is a thing... is nativity scenes.

Our immediate family is biracial. I don't make a big deal about it, because honestly... despite what people try to tell you... its not a big deal. Its just something about us individually. I have blue eyes (gray, hazel, depends on the day actually) and my husband's eyes are black. I have a astigmatism in my right eye and I am overweight. He has amazing pec muscles 😉 and his glasses are fake! We are just different.

That much being said... I was really hoping to find a nativity set for our Christmas as a family that showed multiple races all coming together around the baby Jesus! Cause how sweet and authentic would that be, right?

URGH.

So, if you are lucky, you can find nativities where the wisemen are African, Asian, etc... but then the rest of everybody has this pasty Caucasian skin. Eww.
Honestly, probably prior to getting really involved in Uganda this never really occured to me as a problem. I mean I had heard people joke about "Black Jesus" but I thought that was just a joke. I hadn't really stopped to realize it was an attempt to make the stereotypical depiction of Christ more relevant and relate-able to marginalized people. Dang. #softlyhangsheadinshame Then I realized that most artwork pictures him with blue eyes and soft straight brown hair. Which, I am sorry, but what Middle Eastern man do you know that has blue eyes and soft straight brown hair? Like really, Christian America, really??

Okay, so that is my rant.
All this to say... if you have any good leads on wooden nativities, teddy bear nativities, or anything else that might be racial neutral and not cost a fortune... Let me know!
I'll just be over here cutting out nativity silhouettes... in a nice, neutral grey. 😒

May God Uphold Thee

So as many of you may (or may not) be aware, the political situation in Uganda has not been positive of late.

Opposition leaders have been gaining popularity among the people and the current regime (which is older than me!) has been resorting to violence and intimidation in attempts to suppress the growing dissatisfaction of its citizens.

Needless to say, I do not condone violence on the part of the current regime, or on the part of the opposition. I do however understand that desperate times often seem to call for desperate measures as we are often told by the old adage. The current situation I believe is making both parties feel pressure to promote increasingly bold and potentially violent shows of strength.

How I wish for my country that things could be different. How I wish that we could trust the results of the allegedly democratic elections process. (One that hasn't been proven to be flawed in execution and riddled with bribes and vote fixing.) How I genuinely wish we could work together to promote the health, well-being, and growth of this beautiful land.

Because there are days that I remember, not so very long ago... when I fell in love with my country, Uganda. All the days seemed bright, the vegetation was brilliant green, the sun and rain fell with equal intensity on us all, and we smiled at strangers without knowing their background or political party. We laughed and danced together at kwanjulas, we hired bodabodas without fearing robbery, we had a chapatti guy who made the best rolexes around, we walked along busy streets bound together by the red dust on our legs. I deeply long for my country to go back to that.

But perhaps I am asking for too much. Maybe I am asking for my own innocence back. Maybe its not my country that has changed so very much after all... I mean the president is the same (though the constitution has been changed), and the struggle after all remains the same. Poverty is still rampant, even in my own family. Masaka road is still dangerous as hell. Potholes still litter pavement. Thieves seem to multiply every day, from the city streets to high government offices. Bribes seem normal to a Ugandan's thinking. Every day a child goes without food. Another father hides in a bottle of waragi instead of facing that he can't provide for his family. Another mother heartbreakingly decides between her children which one to send to school because the shillings won't cover all their fees. Another young girl prostitutes herself to a "sugar daddy" for a chance at a "better life". Another parishioner is convinced to believe they need to give their last shilling to help "build God's kingdom" not realizing that they are building their "preacher's" million dollar mansion.

We see it all and we feel helpless. Its times like these that we know all we can do is cry out to God. We are powerless, but He is all powerful. And after all, its through the lenses of His love that I first saw and felt the love for Uganda growing up in my heart. He has loved these children of His much longer and much harder than I ever have. He has gathered up every tear of every person affected by the violence that has littered these streets and it is His to repay for every wrong done against His children.

So, from our hearts to yours:  Uganda, may God uphold thee.

Coloring

Coloring is the best!
(please ignore the iron in the background, and don't worry, it is not hot)

We may have an artist on our hands. Little buddy absolutely loves coloring with crayons or markers or pens. Pretty much anything he can get his hands on.

Thankfully we have not graduated to the "everything is a canvas" stage where our walls and floors are in danger.

I tried to avert this by making sure that I got him coloring books and an entire art book devoted to his scribblings. This has provided him endless delight and Mama a few sane moments for house cleaning as once he is in the booster chair, he can't get down by himself! (I know, smart, right?)

Also, ironically, some of his Mama's art is hanging above him as he is coloring away. Hmm... you never know, we may have an artist!

Working Mom

I am a working mom.

Some days I love this and some days I hate this.

Mostly I love it when I really get to do my job well. Those few and far between days when I catch something early in a medical case, or a patient thanks me for care or for not making them hurt when I do a lab draw. Every once in a while talking down an anxious patient or having someone say your are their favorite nurse. Those times when you feel like you are most proficient at your job. And the days that you come home energized instead of drained. Those days are nice too.

Mostly I hate it because I feel like I don't get to spend enough time devoted just to my little buddy. I feel guilty when his speech development is behind, that maybe I am not talking to him enough. I feel like a complete and total pile of refuse when he chooses his dad over me to comfort him when he wakes up after sleeping on his arm and putting it to sleep (and I shouldn't feel like that, but I do). And any time I try to get things done around the house and he comes and grabs my hand to pull on my finger and take me where he wants me to hang out with him I feel like the worst mom in the world.

There are usually piles of dishes on the counter. The floor doesn't get swept or vacuumed nearly as often as it should. There are generally toys littered in unexpected places all over our tiny apartment and PLEASE don't check under the couch, cause who knows what's under there!

Also, its ridiculously hard to make friends with other moms. The ones who have time to be friends with me are SAHMs and honestly, I just don't have that much in common with them usually. I can't go anywhere during the day. I don't have time to pinterest make cupcakes or arrange crafts or run to playdates for my kid. And the other working moms don't have time to be friends with me either.

I literally am doing really good if I get all my bills payed on time, balance the accounts, get groceries for the week, keep the house mostly picked up, and manage to get a semi-decent amount of sleep at night. (showers should probably be there somewhere on that list too, right? Meh, that's why they created deodorant...) This doesn't even count all the other things that I need to do: call such and such business about card that didn't work, talk to insurance about changes, file paperwork for visas/name changes/taxes/etc (it varies), work with my son on his language skills, make nutritious meals, make lunches for everyone for the next day, exercise, organize the house, general house cleaning, those dang dishes that need washed every stinkin' day, and so many more things that come up...

I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to lose weight ever since my son was born. Its almost 2 years now. I had a breakdown about it the other day and when I started listing everything that I have to get done in a week, it made me sound like I needed to be freaking Wonder Woman! I'm not saying that to be proud, in the moment it was completely overwhelming (especially when you are failing at it).

Let me just stop here and say that my husband (and I do thank God for him pretty much daily) is a huge help. But there are some things that I just need to do myself to make sure that they are done. Yes, yes, I need to stop micro-managing everything but there are some things only I can organize in a way that makes sense. Or I can not find things for 3 weeks because my husband organized it and doesn't know what it is that he organized so he doesn't know where he put it... which is always fun too!

All this to say, if you are a working mom and feel overwhelmed by all of this... I hear you.

You are not failing.

This is undoubtedly one of the hardest places to be in life and you are doing everything in your power to make it work. Its like doing 2 jobs in 1, and can I just say that being a full time mom is already super time/energy consuming. You are plus 40 hours a week. Wonder Woman ain't got nothin' on you.

You go girl!

And as my gracious and wise husband told me, there are seasons for everything. Maybe it isn't my season to be able to concentrate on losing weight right now. I can do what I can, but there will be a season coming up where that is going to be more workable and then we will tackle it together. (I know, he's a keeper). We are both responsible for this little buddy, for our house, for the bills, etc and we have to get it all done together. Sometimes there isn't enough time in the day for everything you need to do and sometimes there just isn't enough energy.
Sometimes I desperately need to just curl up on the couch with little buddy or hubby and not have to do anything but listen to music or read a book together. Sometimes we need to forget all the dishes and laundry that need done and just run off to the park together.

Don't ever let the list of things you need to get done get in the way of connecting with the people that you love the most. I can have the most pristine house, but if my son and husband don't feel loved by me, then none of it was worth it.

So if you come over to my house and its messier than it should be, I'll probably apologize to be polite, but really, I don't regret my choices for even a moment!

Proudly a Working Mom

True Love

I was just thinking this morning that you never really know what you are capable of until you are in that situation that completely tests your inner strength.

Let me take you on a flashback to when I was living in Uganda, Africa. Coming home late one night (around 4am) from a house party, that I probably shouldn't have even gone to, a friend and I boarded a bodaboda bound for home. He was going to stop when we got to Acacia Mall, and I was going to continue on to home. (I wanted to get home and sleep well so I could get up and go to church in the morning, which isn't really relevant to the story, I just thought you should know that I had very good intentions.)

He dismounted without a problem and then I proceeded to snake my way across the northern bypass and up the back way to my gate high on Kawempe-Mbogo hill. Everything went on pretty well. I  vaguely remember seeing another bodaboda light coming up the hill as I was getting off to pay my driver. Then I was suddenly yanked from behind and knocked to the ground.

Apparently the other bodaboda was 2 thugs who were trying to steal my bag. Now a few things... A.) No one has ever accused me of being skinny or slight of build. At the time I was a good 5'8+ and about 175 so pulling me backwards over on top of them was not exactly a good idea. B.) I'm pretty tomboyish when it comes to my accessories. The bag in question that they tried to nab from me was a stocky messenger bag with rivets and double stitching everywhere that was secured around my body, resting on the opposite shoulder. I think they were expecting it to rip easily, which it did not. In fact, I think the guy had a knife because when I was recovering later I found a clean cut on the back of my arm in the area where they had tried to get the bag off. C.) Never underestimate a girl who has seen too many action movies...

Instead of screaming, rolling over, and playing dead as I have heard some proper ladies do, I literally grabbed my bag and fought for it until the dude did succeed in getting the strap sliced all the way through and wrestled it away from me. Then he jumped up to run and hop on the bike behind his buddy, with me in hot pursuit.

*Now, I would not recommend trying this at home folks. Thieves in Uganda use deadly force, they usually have knives or pangas (machetes) and they aren't afraid to use them. However, these details did not flash through my fuzzy, still-slightly-confused-as-to-what-was-going-on brain. I went straight to fight or flight mode. And apparently, the flight mode doesn't work very well, so fight it was!

I nearly caught the guy too, tripped him once and chased him half way up the next hill before he could finally get his motorcycle motor revved up enough to get up any speed. I remember very clearly the look on the guy's face as I uttered some sort of guttural yell, and hurled a choice Christian homeschooler's curse at his disappearing bike. Oddly enough, that guy looked genuinely scared. Apparently a crazy white woman who isn't a lick afraid to fight lumbering after you with all her might is quite frightening.

Returning to my gate defeated I realized that my keys to my house were also latched securely on the end of my bag so I had no way to get inside. Worse still, even if I could get inside, they now could too! That idea terrified me much worse than the fact that I had just been robbed.

Realizing that I couldn't stay there all night and risk them coming back when they realized they had the keys to my house, I ran as fast as I could up the hill and down the other side to the police station. (Ironically funny that it was so close).

It was only afterwards that I basically broke down as I realized how much they had stolen from my world in one small little messenger bag. My camera, a tablet, my phone (with every saved number), house keys, favorite lip gloss even were all gone. After spending the night in the police station, a kind officer gave me a ride up to the hospital, I got a ride from there to a friend's house and tracked down the phone number of my best friend who of course came and rescued me.

We secured the house with a new padlock in case my key nappers came back to haunt me, and she made me come back and stay at her place that night. I never went back home in the dark again and moved from that house less than a month later.

To this day I still rue some of the things that were stolen from me that night. And in a large way, some of my magical fascination with Uganda was stolen as well. Its heartbreaking to realize that though you may be volunteering as a nurse, working on multiple community service projects, and being kind to people that you interact with, you will still be judged. My skin color pointed to a way for those thieves to make a quick buck (although ironically, there was no cash in my bag.) They didn't know me. Most likely they had followed my bodaboda from when I dropped my friend off. (I learned later that they were targeting foreign girls from that area and following them home to ambush them on dark streets.)

Those times when you kinda kick yourself for being so naive. This was the beginning of my falling out of love with the country of Uganda.

But falling out of love is not always a bad thing. Think about it in a relationship. Falling in love is what happens in the very beginning. You are enamored with that person and everything they do or say or text is funny, and beautiful, and wonderful, and exciting. You, in all your starry-eyed splendor, are completely naive. Then something happens: you get in a fight, he's grumpy when his team loses, you find out he's not really that awesome, he stinks up the bathroom, etc... and suddenly all those roses you were seeing start fading. I have known friends, which, bless their hearts, only ever got to this point in their relationships. Once the "in-love" blinders fell off they were out of there, carrying their disillusioned tails between their legs.

Maybe we were told that there would be more. Maybe we were scammed into thinking Prince Charming wouldn't fart or leave dirty socks on the floor or have displeasing manners at times or track mud in the house or want to adopt a dog!

But... my friend, if you are in a committed relationship this is where it gets really beautiful. If you are in a committed relationship then when you start to see every flaw of the other person (and TRUST ME, they are flawed! (as are you, but that's none of my business *sips tea*)) you can chose to love them anyway.

And that kind of love, where you've chosen to step over the discarded socks and not mention that thing that they do that you really can't stand, and you still chose to stick around and love them. Well that kind of love, my friend, is infinitely stronger than this silly school-girl "in-love" that you had in the first place.

Having had my eyes opened to some of the less than desirable truths about Uganda hasn't just made me fall out of love with it, but it actually strengthened my love for all the hurting places of my beloved country until my heart nearly aches out of my chest at times. Its a desire to see the best in a place that has experienced some of the worst and to see its young people learn to thrive in areas they have been given so little hope. Its the courage to forgive the thieves and look at the bigger picture in the economy and the justice infrastructure. Its a deep and abiding longing to make a difference in a place that I see so much beauty despite all her flaws.

For despite all the imperfections and downright messiness, I still love Uganda. And someday I hope to go home.

Snow

Happy, snowy winter from our family to yours! My husband got to experience snow for the first time ever this year. (Welcome to the US babe!) Needless to say, there is no snow in Uganda, Africa. (I am told at the very tip of the Rwenzori there may be some, but I think they are just bluffing.)

I think the novelty has worn off already as we haven't got a snow big enough to close my workplace or thick enough for some tobogganing fun. Not even really snowball weather!

Little D has been super stoked about getting his hands (and feet) in it so I went and bought him his very first sled and snow boots!

I have so many fond memories of sledding down the big hills in our town and neighborhood when I was growing up. Even constructing an igloo or two (one of them was post college in all honesty... we were the envy of the entire apartment complex! but I was technically still growing up then, right?)

My husband asked me the other day, "If you could choose one thing from Uganda and bring it here, what would it be?"

I was stumped for a long time. I finally told him that I didn't want only ONE thing from Uganda. I would rather just go there myself than bring any of it here.

He told me he would say the same, but then relented and said he would bring the weather.