Welcome, Phoebe Esther Self!

As ya'll have probably already heard...Jon and I had our baby!

Phoebe Esther Self was born on July 8th at 10:39 pm. She weighed 6 lbs, 7 oz and measured 20 inches long.

The past few weeks of mommyhood have been crazy! Crazy overwhelming, crazy happy, crazy exhausting, crazy cute, crazy stressful, and crazy special. Jon and I love Phoebe to death and even when she keeps us up all night, we still want to keep her!

Here's to the next 18 years of stressing, laughing, teaching, not sleeping, and loving!

So, Tell Me More About the Cleft

Here's a 3D ultrasound photo of baby Self! The line that goes from her nose to her lip is the cleft.

A cleft lip and/or palate is a condition that occurs when a baby's face doesn't fully come together when it is forming. It can be as minor as the skin above the lip not coming together or as major as the bone that makes up the roof of the mouth not coming together. A cleft usually happens within the first 7 or 8 weeks of the baby's life, often before mom even knows that she's pregnant!

As far as what causes a cleft, doctors tell me they aren't exactly sure. In some cases, there could be some genetic predisposition that leads to a cleft, but that doesn't seem to be the case with our baby. With our baby, it just happened to happen. It's not like I did a crazy workout or ate some crazy food that caused our daughter's face to not fully form the way it should. Like I already said, it just happened. And so, Jon and I are in for a little more excitement than we thought we were when we first found out we were expecting!

The good thing about our daughter having a cleft is that it isn't a life or death condition. In fact, if she merely has a cleft lip, she'll only need a small cosmetic surgery at 6 months and then she should be good to go! If she has a cleft palate as well, we're in for a bit more of a ride. If this is the case, she'll get a surgery around 12 months to fix the roof of her mouth, and then she could need additional surgeries to help with her hearing, speech, and/or teeth in the coming years because these things are often affected when the palate isn't formed properly. Though ultrasounds suggest that our daughter only has a cleft lip at this point, we can't be completely sure until she arrives.

When it comes down to it, our little girl will be just like every other little girl. She might look a little different to start out with, but that just gives us all the more reason to love her! Now if she would just come...my ribs can only take so much bruising!

For More Info on Clefts:

The Cleft Palate Foundation:
http://www.cleftline.org/

Seattle Children's Craniofacial Website:
This is the hospital where our baby will have her surgeries.
http://www.seattlechildrens.org/clinics-programs/craniofacial/

The Phone Call That Changed Our Pregnancy

Jon and I waiting to find out the gender of our baby!

Going to our 20 week ultrasound was super exciting. Jon took the morning off of work so that he could come see the baby and we got to find out the gender...a girl!

Five hours later, however, I got a phone call that changed the mood a bit.

We found some things in your ultrasound, they said.

She has a cleft lip and possibly a cleft palate.

There's signs that she could have Down Syndrome.

And your placenta is bleeding which means your baby may not even survive.

Oh.

I thanked the lady for the phone call and hung up.

You never really expect to get follow up phone calls like that one. Other people get phone calls like that, but not you. Not me. 

At first I didn't really know what to feel. Then, after ten minutes of shock the fear and anxiety started settling in. This isn't the way things were supposed to go. This isn't what I'd wanted. Selfishly, I started thinking about the future life I'd always pictured for myself and how different it was going to be if some of the things the lady on the phone said was true. With a forever dependent child, how was I going to go and do all the things I planned on doing once my kids were supposed to have left the house? And wouldn't it be very challenging taking care of a child with such special and different needs than most other children? I knew that many parents of children with disabilities regarded it as one of the biggest blessing in their lives, but I cowered with feelings of inadequacy at the thought of joining them.

And then as I sat there, I was quietly reminded of two beautiful gospel truths, the remembering of which changed everything. Those two truths are:

1. That God is in control, and
2. That God loves us and will help us through the challenges in this life if we come unto Him.

When I remembered these things, my heart began to change. I realized that regardless of the challenges our daughter would have, that she would be the daughter Heavenly Father wanted to send us. He knows Jon and myself, along with our daughter, He knows what we need, and He loves us all very much. He would not give us anything we couldn't handle, so that means that if He was giving us a daughter with some physical challenges He knew that we could handle it.

In addition, because He loves us, we wouldn't have to take on these challenges on our own. Along with whatever difficulties the future had in store, His helping hand would be there. Jon and I and our daughter weren't in this alone.

Yes, that phone call still changed what we expected our first pregnancy to be like, but remembering these eternal truths changed that phone call and everything that has come since then. We have been to specialists and I've had additional ultrasounds and the whole deal hasn't been smooth sailing. But from the moment I remembered these things, the future has no longer felt scary, but full of beauty and determination and brightness and hope.

Today, the majority of the doctors' concerns about our daughter's health have disappeared except for her cleft, which is so fixable in today's world that Jon and I consider it a blessing. But even if she is born with Down Syndrome, or if sad of sad days comes and we don't get to keep her in this life, I know that God's hand is involved in whatever happens to her--and all of us--in this life, and I'm grateful for the phone call that reminded me of that.

Click here if you want to read my explanation about clefts!

My Mom

If I grow up to be anything like my mom, I will have lived a good life. My mom is full of life. She is happy, laughs easily, reaches out to people, and gets things done. Above all, she loves her family and the gospel. These are just a few of the many reasons why she is one of the most influential and important people in my life.

My mom grew up on a farm in Jerome, Idaho with cows and gardens and muck and fun. She says that her favorite smell in the world is that of cow manure because it reminds her of home. Today she hates fish and milk and beef because they ate tons of it in her house growing up--nice pieces of cow hair with the milk included. But whenever she talks about her life growing up it sounds like so much fun. Lots of hard work--yes! But a slower, simpler time of life.

When she left home she went to school at BYU and got a degree in public health. After she graduated she worked doing wilderness survival trips with troubled teens. On these trips, she and the kids had to make their own shelters, find their own water, and kill and cook their own food—all out in the desert! And despite the fact that my mom hates snakes, she even killed and ate rattlesnake on some of these adventures!

Between trips, she met my dad and got married at the age of 26. She worked several different jobs their first years of marriage, including helping older mentally handicapped people learn how to live on their own. When my dad graduated and got a job she was finally able to just stay at home with me and my sister Emily, and she has been a stay at home mom ever since.

People love my mom because she doesn't take herself too seriously and focuses on what matters most rather than getting caught up in the unimportant details. Once my mom was talking about how, as a seminary teacher, her students were often late to class. Her philosophy on the matter? "Even if you make it to the Celestial Kingdom late, at least you made it!" On days when I feel overwhelmed and stressed, I'll often call my mom and she'll put things into perspective, making me feel like I can conquer whatever "mess" I'm in at the moment.

On that note, another thing I love about my mom is that she listens. Every single day for the first three years I lived away from home, I called her. Literally: Every. Single. Day. Why? Just to talk. Just to tell. Just because I needed to know that someone loved me enough to listen, which she did. As I've gotten older, I realize that my mom does this for everyone in my family. My dad calls her on his drive home from work and talks about computer parts and other work related things that she can't understand. But even though she doesn't understand, she listens. All my other sisters that are away from home also call her now that they are at college and also just need someone to listen. My mom's example in this case has taught me that one of the best ways to say: "I love you" is to not say anything at all, but to just listen.

My mom loves the outdoors. Hiking, camping, biking…she does it all, and has taught us to love doing it too! I think it’s safe to say that most of my sisters’ and my favorite memories of growing up take place out in the woods. I love that my mom isn’t afraid of getting dirty and that she taught her five daughters to be the same.

Above all, what drives and guides my mom is her steadfast conviction to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the defining memories I have of my mom happened when I was a Laurel, about 17 years old, and the laurel class joined the older women in Relief Society for the third hour of church. I sat next to my mom and as the lesson was going on the volunteer sign up binder came to us. I knew my mom was already very busy--between teaching seminary and taking care of five girls, she didn't have any free time. Yet as this binder came to her, she opened it up and began signing herself up to help with different things.

"Mom," I said, "Why are you signing up? You're already so busy."

She looked at me and said something I will never forget: "If I don't sign up, who will?"

In that moment, I realized that it wasn't a matter of available time that motivated my mom to sign up for things. It wasn’t that she had time, it was that she would make time because she was dedicated to the Lord and put His work before her own. In that room, I knew there were many people less busy than my mom who weren't signing up to volunteer for things because they lacked the dedication that my mother possesses. She has always been this way. In many other instances, I have witnessed my mom sacrifice to put the Lord first and it has blessed my life immensely. My testimony is largely a result of watching my mother live hers.

More than perhaps any other individual on this earth, my mother has shaped me into the person that I am today. Her confidence in and love for me gave me the wings I needed to go forth in life unafraid and full of determination to live life well. I know it took immense sacrifice and hard work on her part, for which I will be forever grateful. Today, her love and example continue to bless my life, especially now as I’m expecting a daughter of my own. I hope I can be every bit as wonderful of a mother to her as my mother was, and continues to be, to me.