Fructus Ventris

For the last two years, John has been taking classes through the diocesan Lay Ministry Formation program. Today, along with about 90 folks, he was comissioned and was given his certificate. Bishop Doran presided over a wonderful liturgy (not a mass) and gave a great homily, and then we went out to dinner courtesy of the $$ I won last night in the 50/50 drawing.
Doesn't he look cute in a suit with carnation?

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Now for the next step - God willing, in 5 years, ordination to the permanent diaconate. Prayer muchly appreciated!

One of his classmates went through a pregnancy and birth during the program and brought the baby to every class with her - the director issued the toddler a certificate of 100% attendance!

I've been undergoing some stresses lately and have been discouraged, sad, angry and a lot of other very uncomfortable feelings. I'm not ready to talk about the details of the underlying causes, suffice it to say that it is not a minor set of events that has triggered this. On top of it all, my asthma has been majorly flaring up and that means coughing spells and lost sleep, not that I normally get as much sleep as I would like to anyhow. I finally broke down today and went to the urgent care, I am now on a couple of medications that I know from experience will help me a lot but that I also know from experience will have other, unpleasant, side effects. But as I tell my patients, breathing is not optional.

In the midst of the stress, there have been many small events that have let me know that God has not forgotten me and that there is a meaning and purpose here. I am very thankful for these small blessings.

Friday is my half-day in the office. If I don't have a mom in labor to sit with, John and I try to have Friday lunch together. There is a Japanese restaurant in town that we go to quite frequently on Fridays, and there is a waitress there that knows us and will have our tea on the table pretty much the moment we show up. Yesterday, we were partway through our meal when she informed us that the restaurant owner would be buying us dessert - wonderful fresh pineapple.

Today was the diocesan Respect Life seminar for PRLCs and also the NFP community. There was a great speaker on perinatal hospice. We have attended this event every year since we moved to Rockford, and it is always a blessing. This evening was the annual support the military dinner in our parish, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. There was a USO style show as entertainment, and one of the skits featured 4 knights in hula skirts over shorts (very funny). And.....I won the 50/50 drawing! Just a small gift from God to remind me not to fret or worry about things. Remember the lilies of the field.

Which reminds me, that earlier in the week in a parish study group, we had been talking about that passage from Matthew 6:
25 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,* or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?* 28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? 31Therefore do not worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God* and his* righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 'So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

So thank you Lord for the little gifts and help me to put my concerns in their proper perspective.

behold the baby barista!
Emma has been growing so fast, I wish that we could see her more often. She and her mom have weathered the flu, and after recovering from flu Emma had an ear infection, then a sinus infection, then another ear infection. But now she seems to be doing well. She is a great conversationalist on the phone and loves it when her Grandad reads her stories over the phone.

I gave her that dress!

I don't know why I haven't blogged for such a long time. I will think about it and then just not get around to it. Lots of stuff has happened since my last real post.
Emma turned two in June. She started nursery school, she is walking and is her usual happy self most of the time. She's had a few more trips to the hospital but no overnight stays for a long time.
Its been so long that I've forgotten how to do some basic things like post pictures to the blog. I want to show the 2 or 3 of you who will stumble on this just how cute she has gotten!
I'm still the only midwife in my practice. I've been on pretty much 24/7 call now for nearly 2 years. Not at all what I expected in the move here. It's tough because if I take a vacation or get sick I feel guilty about 'abandoning' my patients - but I do need to get away both physically and mentally.
For example, in July we went out to Oregon for our son's wedding. I would post a picture or two if I could find my notes on how......
Lately life has gotten even more complex. My husband was accepted into the aspirancy phase of the diaconate preparation here in the Rockford diocese. This means that he has a class basically 4 times a month, and I am required to attend about half of the classes with him. That at least forces me to take some time off call to be with him.
Another issue is that the chaos in health care is making life more complex for just about everyone in the field. The hospitals are all updating their computer systems and that creates more work for us in the field, since they all are using different systems.
We were able to attend one of the town hall meetings this summer, but I finally gave up waiting in line to comment. I am concerned about the powerful interests behind the scenes.

The Catholic Medical Association is having their annual meeting in a few weeks and we will be going, I am looking forward to that. We now have a local chapter and there have been a few really good meetings including one on theology of the body.

Our parish just started doing the Epic series on Church history. So far I've only had to miss one class due to a birth - and we've started RCIA again, and this year we have a fairly large group. Keeping busy.

We grew some nice vegetables this year and I have a freezer full of rhubarb for winter cooking. It is supposed to freeze tonight, I suppose that I will have to harvest all the last tomatoes, even though they are still green. It was not a warm summer, and the tomatoes suffered. The CSA came through but they had some of the same problems. It's at times like this that I miss living on the West Coast.

If any of you are still paying attention, put a comment in the box so I know you are there. Let me know if I should try to get back to blogging on a regular basis or just let it go.

Consensus emerging on universal healthcare
One of my concerns about universal health care is that it might force providers to act against their conscience and/or force taxpayers to fund procedures that they find personally abhorrent. Another concern is that a medical bureaucracy might decide to not fund certain classes of provider (midwives, nurse-practitioners, chiropractors, dentists, optometrists, osteopaths) due to pressure from the AMA and other health care unions. Will parents be forced to immunize their children to protect the herd? (I am not saying that immunizations are bad, here, but rather looking at the parent's 'freedom of choice'?). Will the Amish and other plain communities be forced to buy into commercial health insurance? Lots of questions, no clear answers. On the other hand, our current system is not very functional either. Very few persons are paid well enough or have sufficient savings to pay for routine health care, let alone a hospitalization for a major illness or a complicated childbirth or an accidental injury. And since for the last 50 years we have focused, as a culture, on high tech specialty care rather than high touch primary care, health and illness care costs have spiraled out of control. I just don't know.

I do hope and pray that whatever changes there are will help persons like my patient who was just told that her insurance won't cover care from a midwife. No matter that I am certified, licensed, work within the system and have hospital privileges. Midwives as a class are categorically excluded. And it is perfectly legal.

Church, state, and the apocalypse

John and I are part of RCIA team in our parish. Last year, we gave the talk on marriage, but this year we are a full part of the team. Monday we are giving a talk on the papacy and the magisterium. Writing the talk has been interesting because I am never quite sure where the Holy Spirit is going to send me. And it is also interesting because we tag team our talks, and I also need to write so that if I am unavailable John can still handle it. The main reason that I am doing the initial draft and most of the research and writing is that John has so much homework for the Ministry Formation program that this seems to be a fair division of labor.
I am feeling blessed that I will probably be able to be there Monday for the whole class. I had a string of births over the last 10 days, and now I don't have anyone due until the 16th - that doesn't mean that a baby couldn't happen, but just that it is less likely. I've had some tough births lately, too. And it isn't always predictable which ones will be tough! I've had an 11 pound baby be pushed out in less than ten minutes, and a mom push for 3 hours for an 8 pounder. In the last few months I've seen a couple of really scary post-partum hemorrhages, but also moms who barely lost a drop of blood. I don't really know how some folks do what I do without the prayer support I get.
I know that when I leave the house in the wee hours of the morning, John is praying for me, for the mom in labor, for her baby and for the rest of her family. I know that he is lifting up everyone involved. I know that when I am so busy doing what needs to be done that my prayers are no more than "God, help me get through this and help this mom and babe", there are others out there who are praying too.
I really do need to get my garden settled for the winter. We have had a few snow flurries. We had a nice crop of tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. I have jams and pickles canned and some veges in the freezer. The only thing left in the garden is the last couple of Brussel Sprouts plants and they will be eaten soon.

After I finish working on the Pope talk (or maybe inbetween revisions) I need to start working on the next talk we will be doing - on the Holy Spirit.

I am SO GLAD that so many resources are now available online! For example, the Bible, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Catechism and the early Church Fathers (among many other public domain Christian writings). Of course, I am still surrounded by my other reference books from the Didache to the didache high school textbooks!
Any suggestions on the Holy Spirit?

A very recent (just before Halloween) picture.
Emma is doing well, and we are looking forward to seeing her and her mom at Thanksgiving.
She has been through a lot since her birthday. She suffered an injury and was in a cast for a while, she has been back to the hospital for tummy bug for which she needed IV hydration and an overnight stay. But as you can see, she really is thriving.

This link is to a computer generated copy of Mr. Obama's birth certificate from the Los Angeles Times blog. It is not a photocopy of the original birth certificate. It is impossible at the present for most Americans to get an actual copy of the actual birth certificate with the signatures etc. As a matter of fact, most birth certificates are no longer actually signed by the person who delivered the baby!
The Los Angeles Times blog entry from which this link was taken has some other interesting commentary about citizenship including a clarification on Mr. McCain's status.

My sister was born abroad to American parents. She was born in a military hospital. However, she was required to obtain a certificate of naturalization and to my knowledge would not have been eligible to become President due to her birth status.

My concern in posting the letter below was that I did not want there to be a constitutional crisis should Mr. Obama be elected. I am still concerned about this. I would be more reassured if I could see a copy the actual Certificate of Live Birth that was filed with the local registrar. Alas, computer generated abstracts are simply that. GIGO. But the computer generated form is what you would likely get if you were to try to get a copy of your own birth certificate from just about any state in the Union.

I broke one of my own rules by not doing more assiduous fact checking. I sincerely hope that somewhere there is the requisite proof that all candidates for public office do in fact meet the requirements for that office as spelled out in the consitution.

What follows is part of an email just in to my inbox. I am hoping that we can avoid a constitutional crisis. I am very puzzled that a public figure would be reluctant to produce his birth certificate or at least the public portion that shows date, time, and place of birth.
******************************************************************************************************

A prominent Pennsylvania Democrat, Phillip J. Berg, filed a case in Federal Court on August 21st, demanding that Barack Obama produce evidence that he is a natural born citizen of the United States. Only a natural born citizen of the United States can serve as President. Sen. Obama could have put the matter to rest by producing a valid birth certificate. Instead, he and his lawyers fought tooth and nail to block access to Obama's birth records.
Here is a video of Philip J. Berg talking about his case.

Since that video was recorded, the Federal Judge assigned to hear Mr. Berg's case, Judge R. Barclay Surrick, a Bill Clinton appointee, ruled that an ordinary citizen of the United States does not have the right to file a case in Federal Court to challenge the credentials of a candidate for President of the United States!

Why would a Federal Judge go to such lengths to protect Obama?

Berg has now filed a request for an immediate injunction from the U.S. Supreme Court, to review his case before the election is allowed to take place.

Today's headline on WorldNetDaily is: "Constitutional Crisis Feared over Obama's Qualifications"

Evidence exists to substantiate the claim that Barack Obama is not a "natural born citizen" as required by the U.S. Constitution. His own paternal grandmother claims that she and two of Obama's half brothers were present at his birth in what is now Kenya, in 1961.

If elected, Mr. Obama may be the first candidate to win the election and be constitutionally barred from taking office. This would be an electoral disaster of epic proportions.

Courts in Hawaii have denied the public access to Obama's birth records by finding that the American people do not have "a tangible interest" in Obama's birth records. In addition, Barack Obama and his lawyers have stopped the release of his records at Columbia University, Occidental College, and Harvard Law School, all of which should include his birth information.

People hide the truth because it will hurt them. A candidate for President has an obligation to the American people to produce valid proof he or she is a natural born American citizen. This is what the American people want. Instead, we get nothing but stonewalling from Senator Obama and millions of Americans believe he is hiding the truth.

Senator Obama, we demand you produce a valid birth certificate that proves your birth in Hawaii. As a would-be President of the United States, you should provide a certified copy to every journalist who asks about it and to the Courts and plaintiffs in all the lawsuits seeking it. You must make the original available for inspection by any expert or news agency. Come clean and end the speculaton!

We must not let this issue corrupt, compromise or destroy the Constitution just because Senator Obama and the media want him to win the election.

Why won't Senator Obama produce a valid birth certificate for the court?

Why is the media silent on this issue?

In the absence of valid proof, the only logical explanation is that Barack Obama cannot produce evidence that he is a "natural born citizen" as required by the U.S. Constitution to be President.

says Australian study - Yahoo! News
So they say.

Also in the Sunday LATimes.

I don't know if you have to register to read this from today's LATimes, but if so it is worth it. Mr. O'Rourke has been for years the token conservative on NPR's news comedy show "Wait, Wait, don't tell me" and he is a truly funny and thoughtful man.

I used to have to deal with a dictation/transcription service that was probably outsourced. We had some choice typos, but we usually managed to catch and correct the most egregious. My favorite was the misinterpretation of "She hit a deer with her car" which somehow became "She had a beer with her car"
The choice selections below were sent to me recently. Enjoy!

* The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
* The baby was delivered, the cord clamped and cut, and handed to the pediatrician, who breathed and cried immediately.
* Exam of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.
* She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until 1989 when she got a divorce.
* The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed.
* Rectal exam revealed a normal size thyroid. (Long fingers?)
* Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant.
* A midsystolic ejaculation murmur heard over the mitral area.
* The patient lives at home with his mother, father, and pet turtle, who is presently enrolled in day care three times a week.
* Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.
* She is numb from her toes down.
* Exam of genitalia was completely negative except for the right foot.
* The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as stockbroker instead.
* When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.
* Examination reveals a well-developed male lying in bed with his family in no distress.
* She has no rigors or chills but her husband says she was very hot in bed last night.
* She can't get pregnant with her husband, so I will work her up.
* Whilst in Casualty she was examined, X-rated and sent home.
* On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it had completely disappeared.
* The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1983.
* I will be happy to go into her GI system, she seems ready and anxious.
* Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing.
* The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
* Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
* The patient will need disposition, and therefore we will get Dr. Blank to dispose of him.
* Healthy-appearing, decrepit 69 year old male, mentally alert but forgetful.
* The patient has no past history of suicides.
* The patient expired on the floor uneventfully.
* Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital.
* Patient was becoming more demented with urinary frequency.
* The patient's past medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days.
* She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December.
* Patient has chest pains if she lies on her left side for over a year.
* He had a left-toe amputation one month ago. He also had a left-knee amputation last year.
* By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped, and he was feeling much better.
* The patient is a 79-year-old widow who no longer lives with her husband.
* The patient refused an autopsy.
* Many years ago the patient had frostbite of the right shoe.
* The bugs that grew out of her urine were cultured in the Casualty and are not available. I WILL FIND THEM!!!
* The patient left the hospital feeling much better except for her original complaints.

I know, I've been missing in action for a while. But this article is worth reading. And I'll work on updating the blog. Blame it on summer. Blame it on a new laptop and having to learn a new OS (Vista - the logic is beyond me). Blame is on the shift to MT 4.
The election scares me and I am not sure quite why. Noonan puts her finger on a few items, and I heard a news report yesterday that right now the electoral college votes would be split 50-50 if we were to vote now. And that would put the election into the hands of the Congress.......that is a scary thought too. But there is more to it than that. Something about the way things are going remind me of the opening chapters of some of the more apocalyptic fiction I have read in my life, and I am just not ready for that.

"By any standard typically used by environmentalists, the pill is a pollutant. It does the same thing, just worse, as other chemicals they call pollutants."

it seemed unthinkable to many observers 40 years ago that "Humanae Vitae" would still be in vigor well into the 21st century.