Learning to be American

It was one of those rare opportunities I had to sub in an American History classroom, so it was a good day. I didn't know that it would be one of those inconsequential days that end up changing your life forever.

I was straightening the teacher's desk, putting things back in order and making sure I had covered all of the tasks that had been left for me. I almost didn't see it, a flyer for free Saturday seminars at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, hiding under a stack of papers. I made a copy of the information and was registered before the day was over.

I have long forgotten the topic of that first seminar, but I will forever remember the giant of a man with the curly white hair (and the Reese's Cup cheesecake). That was the first of many times that I would hear Peter Schramm describe his family's journey from Hungary, from the country of their birth to the country of their heart. A story that never grows old. (You can read Peter's story here.)

I attended every single seminar that Spring, and the following Fall, and the next Spring. I was even chosen to attend one of the week-long Summer courses. Before long the Ashbrook Center started toying with the idea of starting a Master's program. I knew I would be one of their first students. Not just because of my love of history, but because of the man who never grew tired of speaking about Lincoln and Huckleberry Finn and the Elephant's Child.

The atmosphere Peter created at the Ashbrook Center (and I believe they continue to uphold) is what makes the program so successful. One of the first summer session speeches I heard Peter deliver was on the meaning of "leisure" ...I never worked so hard at leisure as I did at the Ashbrook Center. Sitting in that beautiful room, surrounded by books, listening to classmates debate the finer points of the previous lecture while waiting on the next one to start, the faint smell of cigar smoke wafting in from an open office door. As much as I enjoyed it when Peter actually taught my courses, it was almost more fun when he'd be working in his office and the professor would make a statement he disagreed with. From out of nowhere you would hear his loud objection or have him suddenly appear from behind the bookcases. You never quite knew where the class discussion would go from there.

I had the privilege to be in classes led by Peter on several occasions. As much as I loved listening to  him talk about Lincoln, I think my all-time favorite was our week-long study of The Invisible Man. I had never spent so much time mining the depths of a novel for hidden treasure. But, the class that I will never forget actually has little to do with the content. A week with Peter Schramm and Steven Hayward discussing American Statesmen and I honestly remember very little of the class. What I did learn that week was that the man with the mane of a lion has the heart of a teddy bear.

It was the craziest, most chaotic week of my life. I had been subbing for several years, was starting to think I'd be subbing for the rest of my life. In that one week I found out about, interviewed for, and was offered a job...600 miles away...and I had to be there by Monday. I was instantly overwhelmed and thought the only way to survive was to drop the class. When Peter found out, he told me not to do it, that everything would be okay. When I explained that I knew I would never pass the exam because my mind was scattered in so many different directions, he assured me that was not the case.

My life has changed so much in the intervening years. Time, miles, and responsibilities have distanced my interactions with the Ashbrook Center. Just finishing the degree I have worked so hard for has become a greater challenge than I anticipated. I am no longer able to spend time at the Ashbrook Center and I miss its refuge from the busyness of life. Instead, I must take refuge in lessons I have learned, many of them from Peter, about thinking and reasoning and reexamining, but mostly about getting to the heart of a matter...to its true essence. That's what Peter has become, the essence of the Ashbrook Center. The essence of what it means to be an American.

But I Didn't Know... My Journey Into Motherhood

Saturday night when I started feeling the cramps, I wondered what was going on.

     But I didn't know.

As I would wake up in the night to use the restroom and the cramps were worse, I began to think things might be closer than we thought.

     But I didn't know.

By 5am, I couldn't stand it any longer and decided to try a cup of coffee. I was pacing the floor when I heard my mom go to the restroom; I almost stopped her.

     But I didn't know.

By 5:30 some of the cramps were about to bring me to my knees, so I called my doctor. When the answering service told me which doctor was on call, I almost said I'll wait until it is someone else's turn. That response was validated when the first question out of the doctor's mouth was "Are you pregnant?" After establishing that, yes, that's why I've been visiting your practice for the last nine months, and describing what I had been feeling, she recommended heading to the hospital to get checked out.

     But I didn't know.

Mark and Madison had just gotten in from a youth hunt a few hours earlier and Mark was exhausted. My mom had been working for the last month to help us get things caught up and prepared for the baby and she was worn out. I had been worried for weeks that I would turn into one of those over-reacting pregnant ladies that is so desperate to have their baby that they are at the hospital every 12 hours. So, I asked her if she was sure because I would have to wake everyone up and I didn't want to do that for a false alarm. Her, "Well, Maryann, you are the one who called me. I guess that's a decision you'll have to make" ....probably would have gotten her slapped had she been in the same room.

     But I didn't know.

I decided to take a shower to try to relax. Things got worse. I shook Mark's shoulder to tell him I needed a chauffeur and went to ask my mom if she wanted to go with us, still thinking that this wasn't real.

     But I didn't know.

By the time we all got loaded in the car, it was about 6:30...not a bad time for trying to make an hour long drive to the hospital as quickly as possible. They tried to keep the conversation light and distracting, but I don't remember much of it...other than the fact that telling a pregnant lady, in the middle of a contraction, that you might run through the drive-thru on the way to the hospital is probably not the best idea, even if you are joking. The pains got stronger the closer we got and, thankfully, the stronger they got the faster Mark seemed to go. We were two exits from the hospital when I heard Mark say something and felt his foot come off the accelerator.

    But I didn't know.

The State Highway Patrolman that had been sitting on the side of the road followed us for a good quarter of a mile before finally pulling us over. My first reaction was "How ironic" because my father got pulled over on the way to the hospital before I was born, but then another contraction hit and I just needed him to hurry things up. I couldn't believe it when (as I'm sitting there with the contraction timer running on my phone) he calmly walks all the paperwork back to his car to process. After what felt like an eternity, he finally returned with a warning, and we finished our journey to the hospital in laughter (in between contractions, at least).

     But I didn't know.

As they got me settled into the room to be assessed, I told the nurse that my blood pressure tends to be low and frequently pain will cause it to drop (as in I pass out on the floor). She looked at me and said, "That's interesting. Right now, it is 140/100." My blood pressure has never been that high.

     But I didn't know.

They kept telling me the doctor was on her way, I assumed they were waiting on her official say-so before officially admitting me. After a couple hours of this the pains were intense enough that I told my mom that it had better be the real thing because I wasn't doing this again.

     But I didn't know.

The doctor still hadn't arrived, but once the nurse discovered that I was at 7cm, I was officially admitted. The nurse then asked what I planned to do for pain management ...the original plan was a natural childbirth because I wanted to stay as mobile as possible during the process.

     But I didn't know.

She then explained to me something that no one, in all my trips to the doctor, had ever bothered to tell me. Apparently, the opening in my pelvis is very small (despite those hips I was always told would be great for childbirth) and it would be almost impossible to have a vaginal delivery without an epidural to handle the pain. I wanted to fight the idea, to keep going with things as planned because once I have a plan to deviate from it is unthinkable. By that point, however, the pain was getting pretty intense, and I agreed to the epidural.

     But I didn't know.

It was sometime after lunch when they told me that the medicine they used to drop my blood pressure had worked too well, and now it was too low, so they had to give me something else to bring it back to normal.

     But I didn't know.

As time kept ticking on that little bundle of energy that I had inside of me was starting to get tired of the struggle. The next several hours were spent watching the monitor to track the contractions. We would track my lines on the monitor until the contraction reached its peak and then shift our attention to the baby's heartbeat. I would hold my breath as it dipped lower and lower and if the line didn't start going back up fast enough, I would start rocking back and forth to move him into a less traumatic position.

     But I didn't know.

When it got to the point where they couldn't wait any longer they knew I couldn't do this by myself. And as things moved into motion with the precision of a well-planned military maneuver I finally recognized the blessing of a doctor with the personality of a drill sergeant. It took the strength of Mark at my back and my mom and the nurse at my legs combined with whatever little scraps I could dig up of my own to bring this long-awaited baby into the world.

     But I still didn't know.

I expected to hear the doctor finally reveal the gender of our child, to have Mark cut the umbilical cord, and to have my baby placed in my arms where I could cry for joy and spend time counting fingers and toes.

     But I didn't know.

The first words from the doctor weren't "It's a boy!" (I heard that from my mother), they were "He breathed in meconium, we need to get his lungs cleaned out." And before I could touch him, or look at this tiny face, he was rushed across the room by the ankles like a bull frog just pulled from the pond. I lay there holding my breath, waiting for that first heart-wrenching cry...

    But I didn't know.

I didn't realize the little world inside my hospital room had descended into chaos. My drill sergeant of a doctor hadn't just doubled her troops, they had multiplied by six. There were nurses everywhere, following orders barked out in a tone that made it clear you were to do exactly as you were told without question or delay. My focus was on the tiny little (now screaming) body under the heat lamp, and then on the scale, and then in my mom's arms rocking in the rocking chair, wondering why I couldn't see or hold my baby.

     But I didn't know.

Mark said later that the doctor didn't stop stitching the entire hour I lay there waiting. My mom said she had never seen so much blood.

     But I didn't know.

It was days later, hearing Mark explain to someone else, when I finally knew how serious things had been. But, at the time, once they finally placed my baby boy in my arms, I thought everything was over.

     But I didn't know.

The catheter came out the next morning, but when Mark and my mom left to go home and get things organized for the next couple days I still hadn't used the bathroom. By late afternoon I was miserable and they catheterized me again. They drained 2000ml in about 10 minutes, more than twice the normal bladder capacity (which is why I now have to bite my tongue everytime a student tries to say they have to go to the bathroom so bad their bladder is going to burst). By mid-day Tuesday, when I was still unable to void, they decided to keep me an extra day. By Wednesday morning, I was in as much misery as I had been before delivery, only this time something was blocking the catheter. After unsuccessful attempts with both a regular and pediatric catheter, I had to wait for a shot of Demerol to take effect before they could try again.

     But I didn't know.

I knew it wasn't normal to be sent home from childbirth with a catheter, but I didn't know how unusual until the next day at the pediatrician's office when she took one look at me and wanted to know why I was out of the hospital. But, for the next week, that was my life...try to feed a baby, clothe a baby, change a baby, carry a baby while being anchored to wherever the collection bag happened to be hanging. Once the catheter was finally removed I was so sick of it that the bladder spasms were actually a welcome relief.

     I didn't know so much about having a baby, some because you have to experience it, other things        that no one could have expected...but I do know that every time I look at those dimples I would do      it all over again.

The Nest

"Nesting" is one of most joked about parts of a woman's pregnancy, but really what is so funny about wanting to make sure that the world around you is ready to greet your new child? 

We got a late start on getting our nursery put together. In fact, that is what my mom spent most of her time working on during her stay. A few of the [almost] final touches were just added recently.

We didn't know the gender of the baby, so we couldn't do anything too feminine or masculine. Personally, I couldn't stand the idea of anything too pastel or cartoony. 

I had come up with a color scheme I was really excited about, but then discovered that my sister-in-law was using the same one for her little girl...we live far enough away that it would have been okay, but I didn't want to feel like a copy cat.

I started looking for ideas, and knowing that a full-size bed was going to have to share the space, I landed on stack of quilts made by my grandmother.

Inspiration x 2

My mom said she would like to make a baby quilt for the crib, so then I had to find fabric that would coordinate...I never imagined that would be such a difficult job!

I spent a couple hours digging through the bolts of fabric at the local quilt store (can you believe Orangeburg actually has a quilt store!) before finally deciding on these...

When I would tell people that our theme was primary colors with numbers and letters, I got the impression they thought I was planning to "play teacher" with the baby (as if I don't get enough of that during the work day). In reality, the theme was chosen by the fabrics. The "ABC" and "Connect the Dots chalkboard" pieces pulled the rest together better than anything else I could find and everything else came together from there.

Purchased from a seller on Etsy.

Not long after deciding on the fabrics, I found these alphabet verse cards while scrolling through Pinterest. 

I would have never dreamed how difficult something as simple as buying a Boppy pillow can be when you are trying to stay gender-neutral, so when I happened to see one in this chevron pattern I grabbed it.

I was getting frustrated when trying to figure out what to do for a changing table. The room really isn't large enough for a lot of extra furniture and I couldn't find any dressers that would work for the long term. Then, one day, I realized that the desk my grandfather had made was the perfect size for a changing pad. There is just enough room behind it for a basket of diapers and a box of wipes. The hamper fits perfectly in the opening underneath. 

This beautiful rocker was a gift from a very dear family friend. And, after spending some time in the living room, it was just moved into the nursery...something for which my back is very grateful.

Monogrammed (before monogramming was cool) with MEH and DPH...the yellow one is mine and the blue one belongs to my brother (not that he'll be getting it back anytime soon).  =)

These final touches were just added yesterday...the sweaters my grandmother knitted for me and my brother when we were little.

Of course, the best decoration is the one snoozing in the middle of the bed...