So what is this thing that I stay up late researching and think about almost constantly? Well, if you follow me on Pinterest you can probably guess… It’s my garden.

Any of you who’ve known me for a while will know that I do NOT have a green thumb – I have killed (sometime brutally) every plant I’ve been responsible for. Bryan and I have had a few plants that have managed to live, but that is only because I was not allowed near them and Bryan was the one who cared for them.

But, that being said I’ve wanted a garden for a while now.

All three of my grandmothers are excellent gardeners and I always respected their knowledge of plants and their beautiful gardens/landscapes. My dad’s mom has a gorgeous vegetable garden, which has always been particularly lovely to me.

I feel like I’ve been on a bit of a journey with my relationship to plants and the dirt over my adult life and it started with my grandmothers gardens. I remember picking strawberries in Grandma Helen’s backyard and visiting her when she worked at Sherman Gardens in Newport Beach. I remember going with Grandma Bev to Rogers’s Gardens and picking out flowers for her yard, our favorite always being the snap dragons which we would pinch and play with. I remember how Grandma Bear would always send us home from a visit with a box full of fresh veggies from her garden. These are beautiful memories for me and I can’t talk about my current interest in gardening without first talking about them.

But, my interest grew from simply a pleasure in enjoying other people’s gardens to a deep determination to overcome my gardening inabilities not through memories, but through conviction. I have always been fascinated by health and the study of health and over the past ten years in particular that has brought me to study nutrition and alternative remedies and that has lead me to form some deep beliefs about food. I saw a quote recently on Pinterest that said,

“The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.”

I believe that. And because of that I desire to know where our food comes from and what goes into it. We’ve seen Food, Inc., we’ve read Plenty and Nourishing Traditions and Michael Pollans books and more blogs and articles about food than I could ever count or recall. These things shaped us. I do believe that our food should be as local as possible. I do also think there are benefits to living in a global economy though and I love my imported salt and chocolate, don’t get me wrong. But, eating local, in season, organic, well grown food as much as possible is a value for me and gardening feeds that. You can’t get more local than your own back yard.

Gardening also hits other cords. It gives me an outlet for creativity, for problem solving, for my innate love for researching. It gives me a way to try new foods that I may not be able to find easily in the grocery store. It has potential to save us money and make us more sustainably self sufficient – something that strikes a particular cord in me as we begin to come out of our own personal “depression” years.

But, gardening feeds other things for me as well, deep things, even spiritual things.

I long for rhythm. I crave the harmony of consistent patterns. It’s part of what draws me to the church calendar and high church practices (mass, etc). That regularity of practice stricks a cord in me. Maybe it’s partly because I tend to be completely incapable of keeping any kind of schedule or structure. Maybe it’s partly because I need to be continually coming back again to the same story and the same point in the story. The church calendar does that for me and I’m finding gardening does that for me as well.

Gardening forces me to get in touch with a larger cycle. It calls me to remember the same stories over and over again. The story of new life, fruition, death and life again. It gets me in touch with a rhythm that is not my own, a rhythm that is bigger than me. I always said that I deeply desired to be part of something “bigger than myself”, and I ached to find that, but perhaps all I really needed to do was start a garden. Maybe that sounds silly, and maybe it is silly. But, sometimes, especially since becoming a mother, I wonder if the little things like starting a garden, or holding my son close and letting him know I love him, or wiping a tear from a friends eye, or being there for a neighbor when they call, are really the big things after all. Maybe?

There’s just something that feels right about getting outside and working along side my husband with my children nearby, getting our hands dirty and feeling our muscles ache a little at the end of the day. I’m enjoying it and looking forward to more of it in years to come.

So, all that has led me to where I am now. So excited and anxious to start a garden that we’ve started one at my in-laws house (right next to the chicken coop they let us keep there as well – yeah, they are pretty cool). And this weekend I was feeling so antsy about only being able to work in the garden on weekends (or whenever we made it over there) that I bought some more plants and started a little garden on our apartment patio in cardboard boxes (figured with my track record, and the fact that we’ve already spent a good deal on the garden at my in-laws, boxes were a good practical choice – we’ll see how they hold up though). Anyway, whatever comes I’m excited about taking these small active steps towards turning my brown thumb into a green one.

If any of you are long time gardeners or newbies like me I would sure love any advice, tips, tricks or fellow gardener prayers you’d like to send my way!

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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We aren’t dragging our feet or looking for an excuse every week. We aren’t going just because we think we should, or just because it’s what we grew up doing. This week we didn’t even have a discussion about wether we would go or not, or which church we would go to, we both just knew we would go and where. We want to go to church.

But it’s not because we found the perfect church.

In many ways the church we’ve been going to isn’t markedly different from other churches we’ve been involved in or other churches we looked at going to. Those of you who’ve followed my blog for a while and walked with me through my idealistic dreaming about church, my ecclesiological wonderings, and my church criticisms, might find it interesting to learn that the church that I’m loving right now isn’t remarkable different from any other church in structure. But, I think I am a little bit different. I think having a year without church made me appreciate it more. I’m ready now. Ready to start new. Ready to take church for what it is and not expect too much of it.

So, if this church isn’t remarkably different, why this church over the others we tried? Why do I feel excited to go to this church, but didn’t feel excited to go to others? Well, I think there are two reasons. One is very tangible and easy to explain. The second is a bit harder to put my finger on.

The first reason is simply, and yet remarkably, the people. Our second Sunday there it took us twenty minutes to leave because people where talking to us. People remember our names and come up and introduce themselves. I usually feel awkward before and after church services, but I can honestly say I haven’t really felt that at this church. I don’t think I’ve ever found myself awkwardly standing there while other people talked all around me. Maybe it helped that we knew two families there already (one is a family friend and the other is our old college pastor who did our marriage counseling, but we hadn’t stayed in touch with). But, I think even if we hadn’t known people there we would have felt abundantly welcomed. Each week people say hello, introduce themselves and really take the time to talk to us. I feel like the people there like each other and love each other well. Bryan and I have already felt very cared for there and I think that’s really what keeps me coming back.

The second reason why I want to keep going to this church is much less tangible. The only way I can explain it is a feeling. A feeling that it’s where we should be for now. It’s a feeling I’ve had before and it’s the same feeling I have about being in Seattle in general. It’s a gentle “yes”, a calm in my spirit, a peace that we are where we’re suppose to be. I know this feeling well enough to know that I shouldn’t hold on to it or chase after it. It is a way that God gently confirms things for me and I’ve learned to take note of it. But I’ve also learned its not the only confirmation. And it’s not how he confirms every decision. It’s a gift only sometimes given and I’m learning to take it for what it is and not what it’s not.

I’ve also learned that it’s not a permanent gift. It can mean we are were we should be, but it doesn’t mean that where we are is where we should always be.

In saying that you might think I’m avoiding committing fully to a church. But, really I just want to be honest. None of us really know where God is going to take us next week or next year or five years from now. I don’t know where we will be in five years (in terms of church or anything else), but I know that I am where I’m suppose to be right now and I know that this is the church we are suppose to be at right now too. I feel good about jumping in whole-heartedly for this time and season. And I’m curious about where that’s going to take us.

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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We started the day drained after a night of little to no sleep because Sage was up crying most of the night. But, apart from that it was a pretty typical Wednesday. We had therapy for Sage in the morning, so Bryan didn’t go into work right away. Our family resources coordinator had just left when Bryan got a call. The whole time he was on the call I kept trying to figure out who it was he was talking to and what about, but I couldn’t – because this would have never been on my radar.

The call was from the dermatologists office and they were calling with the pathology report from a tumor they had removed from my husbands thumb the week before. The dermatologist had said from looking at it that it was a pyogenic granuloma and not cancerous. They told my husband on that call that the pathology report showed he had melanoma.

That first day we walked around in a daze. Bryan went to work. My mother-in-law took Thaddeus for a few hours and I was left alone with Sage. I felt a little bit like I didn’t know what to focus on. I was so grateful that my two year old was gone and I didn’t have to entertain him. I started to look up melanoma online. Bad idea. My mind couldn’t get past phrases like “most deadly form of skin cancer”. I remember sort of just staring blankly at the screen thinking, “that can’t be right.” Bryan is young, fit and healthy. I started to shake uncontrollably, the way I did after both my children were born. I was in shock. I knew I couldn’t keep reading, but wasn’t sure really what to do with myself. Then as if spoken I thought, “what were you going to do today before all this happened?” “clean.” “then do that.”

So I picked up, and I vacuumed, and I dusted, and I cleaned the bathroom and I scrubbed the floors. And as I did the numb shock subsided. I realized something right then, something I want to remember…

Sometimes when life throws something at you that you truly don’t think you can handle the best thing to do is to just do the step that already lay in front of you. Do the mundane, the ordinary, scrub the floors. I realized that there wasn’t anything I could do in that moment that would change the twist that had just been thrown in my road. I couldn’t make the melanoma go away, I couldn’t control the future, all I could do was the task that lay before me and that task was scrubbing the floors. And you know what? It helped.

Bryan came home early and the rest of the day was spend with a sort of sweet dazed preciousness. There were cuddles and tears and lots and lots of playing together as a family.

A little more than a week has gone by since then. We now know that the recommendation is for Bryan to have the top half of his thumb amputated. The oncologist is running a blood test now and wants to schedule a PET scan, an MRI, and a lymph node biopsy. The priority now is to make sure all of the irregular cells are removed and find out if it has spread and if so how far.

After the initial shock we have of course experienced a roller coaster of feelings. But, overall we are trying to stay positive and not become ruled by the fear or the what-ifs. We believe that we can and will fight this. This is not going to be an end of a road it is just a new twist. This road we are now traveling down is a road leading to life – a fuller, deeper life then we could have experienced without this twist. That is what I believe today and that is what I am choosing to focus on going forward.

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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As I’ve processed through all of that I feel like God gave me a small gift, He reminded me of the prayers I wrote for each of my children before they were born.

It’s been truly moving for me to think back over those words and prayers. And I’ve found it so encouraging that even as I’ve had to change my expectations for Sage the core words and images that I was given for her before she was born have not changed. The things I prayed most for her before she was born are still the things I pray for her now. The core desires I had for who she would become don’t need to change at all by this diagnosis.

With each of my children I had a few words that were particularly important as I thought about the person I desired them to be. And with each of my children I had a picture of who they are before they were ever born. It’s been interesting (and affirming) to me that Sage’s diagnosis hasn’t changed or effected my words for her. It has also been very touching for me that Sage’s diagnosis has actually made my words/visions for my son take on new life and meaning.

Sage’s words/images:

• Joy
• Light
• intuitive wisdom
• images of nature and particularly the sky and moon
• “she will restore to you the joy of your salvation”

(you can see how these words play out and connect to one another by reading the prayer I wrote for Sage when she was first born)

Thaddeus’s words/images:

• protector (“protect him that he might protect others”)
• empathetic
• courageous heart
• heart felt, passionate
• guard (not the soldier charging into battle but the soldier staying back, standing guard, protecting the women and children, not out of cowardice, but conviction)
• defender of the weak
• protector of those who cannot protect themselves

(read the prayer I wrote for Thad to learn more about our desires for him)

The pictures I had for each of my children were so different from each other, and I can see now how appropriate that was on so many levels. They are very different little people.

Sage’s diagnosis has changed a lot about how I think about her future and the expectations I have for her. But (so far) it hasn’t at all changed these core words/images I pray for her or for my son. If anything it has only added a new depth to how I pray over both of my children.

I’m grateful for these images and I look forward to seeing how they play out in both of my children’s lives.

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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Our first day with baby chicks had some fun moments but it also had some slightly traumatic ones and since everything I read says chickens stress out easily and don’t do well with stress, well, I’m feeling a little stressed! And in typical mother-hen fashion I find myself wanting to go check on them obsessively, which I can’t do since they are at my in-laws house down the street.

SIDE-NOTE: I have the coolest in-laws ever! We’ve wanted chickens for a while and so they are graciously letting us have them at their house and sharing in the adventure with us. They have also let us rip up part of their yard and put in a garden. So far we have strawberries and mint in the ground, more plants in their garage ready to plant, and lots of seeds germinating on their kitchen counter. Seriously, they are the coolest!

Back to today…The biggest drama we had with the chicks was over a very severe squeeze my two and a half year old son gave one of the chicks. Not a fun experience for any one involved and especially not for my sweet, tender-hearted mother-in-law who had to leave the room crying. Thankfully, the poor chick seems ok though, and we will be keeping my son out of arms reach of the chicks for the time being until he can learn to be more gentle.

We really don’t want to loose any chicks (my sweet mother-in-law would never be able to handle it), so, I’m praying tonight for happy, healthy chicks who live to be happy healthy chickens without any “pasting up” or othercomplications.

Overall, though, I feel excited. Having chickens has been something Bryan and I have talked about for years and it’s fun to see it actually happening. Honestly, for most of that time it was something Bryan was more excited about than me, but as we’ve moved closer to the goal of chicken ownership my excitement has perhaps surpassed his.

I’ve never been much of an animal lover or a pet person, but chickens feel different to me and I’m really looking forward to getting to know each of my girls. Plus, they are pretty much the most practical pet ever in that they provide food for the table. I’m definitely looking forward to fresh eggs in just a couple of months!

So, here’s to a whole new adventure – chickens. Wish us luck!

And if you own (or have ever owned) chickens please, please leave a comment with any advice you may have for us poultry newbies!

Rejoicing in te journey,

Bethany Stedman

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Last Friday we were able to see the neurologist and get the results from my daughter’s MRI.

The first thing people asked afterwards was, “How did it go?” which when you think about it is really a difficult question to answer in a situation like this. I sort of wish our family could have all been at the appointment and talked to the neurologist themselves.

In some ways I feel like some of the reactions we felt from others were more the reactions the neurologist expected from us. He kept asking how we were and at one point jokingly called us stoic. I didn’t feel stoic. I just felt calm and at peace.

There was really nothing he told us that was a surprise for us. We know Sage. We knew something wasn’t normal. We’d seen the print out from the MRI and we could understand enough to know that something was indeed wrong. We knew that she was already showing developmental delays mostly in the area of motor development. And we knew she qualified for and would benefit from early intervention services.

So how was the appointment? Well, it was confirmation of all the things we were already piecing together about Sage.

Here’s how it went…

We talked about what her brain looks like.

Sage has what they call bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria. Which means that the areas on the sides of her brain (both sides) didn’t develop the way that they should have. You know when you see a drawing of the brain and there’s all those folds and creases, well, Sage’s brain has smaller more frequent folds on the sides. Along with some volume lose of both grey matter and white mater.

We talked about what this might mean for her future.

Here’s where I feel the appointment just confirmed things we already knew. Basically the doctor told us that she will have developmental delays and that they will most likely affect her motor skills and speech. But, he was also very clear that with babies we can never really tell predictively the exact track of future development because at this early age the brain is still very adaptable.

When a specific area of the brain is damaged in an adult they can predict pretty accurately what functionality will be affected. But, that’s not as true for babies. Their brains are still developing and functionality isn’t as hard wired to specific areas as it is in adults.

Basically, he could tell us a range of functionality by looking at the literature and telling us the range that other children with polymicrogyria function in. The doctor was very honest in telling us that because polymicrogyria is pretty rare and we got a last minute earlier appointment he hadn’t had a chance to thoroughly review all of the literature. So he said we could call him later this week to find out more.

The most important thing for us to realize at this point was that each baby is unique and only Sage will be able to tell us what she’s capable of and what she’s not.

We also talked about how because of this diagnosis Sage is at an increased risk for seizures. She may never have them, but there is an increased risk that we should be aware of. Bryan and I had some questions at this point since we had no experience with seizures. We talked about what to look for, and what to do if we notice something. We also talked about why seizures are problematic and what they do to treat them should she develop them some day in the future.

We talked about the possible causes of polymicrogyria.

Part of the reason for doing the MRI was that sometimes it can clue you in as to the cause of the problem. In Sage’s case it didn’t really.

Basically polymicrogyria can be caused by an injury (beyond my toddler crawling all over me, which the neurologists said would not have been the problem, I had no known injuries), or an infection (the TORCH blood test checks for the infections that usually cause this and Sage had that test already and the results didn’t show any signs of her having had those infections), or genetics.

Before doing the MRI we were told that Sage’s condition was most likely a genetic problem, after the MRI we are in the same position of continuing to assume that this is most likely a genetic issue for Sage.

We talked about what our next steps should be.

The doctor first recommended a swallow test since I had mentioned that Sage seems to choke a lot and since perisylvian polymicrogyria can effect the muscles of the mouth and the motor skills involved in swallowing and talking.

I am very curious to hear the results of the swallow test since I have always felt like Sage had some trouble nursing, but any time I’d asked anyone about it they looked at her latch and said her latch was great and assured me she was nursing fine. It was a little affirming to have someone say that her swallowing and the muscle tone in her mouth may be the issue.

He also recommended a hearing and vision test, since she hadn’t had a newborn hearing test. He said he wasn’t aware of perisylvian polymicrogyria being particularly connected with hearing or vision problems, but whenever there’s a problem with the brain there’s an increased chance of those problems. So, we will do both of these tests soon.

He also recommended that we see a geneticist. Which was reaffirming since we had already scheduled an appointment with Dr. William Dobyns, a geneticist and neurologist who is the leading expert on microcephaly in the nation.

We also talked through the pro’s and con’s of genetic testing. As much as I hate the thought of putting my sweet girl through another blood test, we do feel like we need to do the genetic testing. And we plan on doing it before we see Dobyns since we know how long it can take to get an appointment with him and we want to be able to give him as much information as possible.

The neurologist also confirmed for us again that early intervention was the best possible thing for us to do for Sage. She will definitely need the support and help of occupational therapists and speech therapists and others who have experience working with children with developmental delays.

Overall, the appointment went well. Not really better than we had anticipated, but also not worse than we had anticipated. It simply confirmed things.

I’ve been thankful that we’ve had time to ease into our new reality. I’ve even felt grateful that there has been such long gaps between doctors appointments. It’s been frustrating at times, but I think it’s also given us time to process and ease into each deeper diagnosis.

I am anxious for our appointment with Dobyns in July, but I am also glad that we have a few months before that appointment. There’s a lot Sage can tell us about who she is and who she’s going to be in those months.

I think I’m slowly coming to peace now with the fact that the doctors aren’t going to be able to take this away and “fix” my sweet Sage. There’s nothing to fix. She is who she is and who she’ll always be. The doctors can’t just give her a pill or do surgery and then have everything be “normal”. This isn’t something treatable. It isn’t something that’s going to just go away. It isn’t something she’s going to outgrow.

Last week I read the essay “Welcome to Holland” by Emily Kingsley. It was a really helpful picture for me. In it Kingsley writes about what it’s like to have a child with special needs. She says,

“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.”

I think even though I was doing pretty well with Sage’s diagnosis I still in the back of my head thought “well, yes, I’m in Holland, but I’m not staying in Holland. I’m just passing through.” But, the past week or two I’ve started to come to terms with the fact that, at least for my little family, there are no flights leaving Holland. This is our reality. This is who Sage is and it is now who I am as well. I am the mother of a special needs child. It is and will be my reality. God has brought us to Holland and it is in Holland that he will come to us and walk with us.

All that is not to say that there aren’t things we can do. Yes, there is nothing we can do that will just take this away from Sage, but there are things we can do that can help her to reach her full potential. There are opportunities we can give her that can give her the best possible advantage. And so, we’ll keep doing therapy with her, and looking into different types of therapies. And we’ll give her healthy bouts of stimulation, and play Lots of music for her. And I’ll breastfeed long term and make sure she gets lots of healthy fats in her diet. And we’ll take each day and each year as they come, listening and learning who Sage is as we go. And we’ll see where she takes us.

And isn’t that all any of us can do for our children? Listen and learn and see where they take us?

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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Sage isn’t doing any of the things my son was doing at six months old. In fact she’s not doing some of the things he was doing at three months old. When I focus on that, or the microcephaly, or the appointments with neurologists, or all the many unknowns and what-ifs, it’s easy to freak myself out and get overwhelmed. And then this thought comes to me…

The unknown is a GIFT.

Uncertainty teaches us to be present in the moment.

When you walk in darkness, you have to be present and extra aware of each step you take and each step forward becomes something to be celebrated. That’s a little how I feel today.

We have no idea what Sage’s functioning is going to be ten years from now or even six months from now. We still don’t even have a complete diagnosis yet. That lack of knowledge is frustrating at times, it raises fears that may (or may not) be needless, but it also gives us a heightened awareness of each step in her development.

With my son developmental changes happened so seamlessly and quickly that I regularly didn’t even notice them happening. For example, I have no idea when my son found his knees and feet, both of these things probably happened around the same time with out much awareness from me. But, with Sage it’s not like that. With Sage everything is slowed down. I know that she started to “find” her knees and hold them bent in the air about a week and a half ago, but hasn’t found her feet with her hands yet.

Yesterday Sage had her first early intervention therapy session. For me, it was an amazing, truly a beautiful experience. Our FRC (family resource coordinator) taught us a few different ways to position Sage to give her the best advantage and help her to work on both flexion and extension. It was amazing to see how Sage’s little body responded to these minor adjustments and suggestions. She reached for things and grabbed at things more than I have ever seen her do before. Our FRC also did a little gentle acupressure/massage on her and it was beautiful to see how quickly my little hypertension baby responded and relaxed.

Little changes, the most minuscule of milestones, are noticed now. I have to live in this day and celebrate what she can do today, because her future development is still so uncertain. And so each time I am tempted to freak out over the unclear horizon I look at my little girl again, because when I really look at her and she looks back at me with her trusting smile, we are just mother and daughter in this moment, this day. The microcephaly melts away, the uncertainty disappears and all I’m aware of are the triumphs of that day, the little things she did today, which for her, aren’t little at all.

Having a daughter with special needs is bringing a new slowness and awareness to my parenting. And I hope that walking through this will teach me a new slowness and a heightened awareness for all areas of my life.

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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I’ve been realizing more and more lately the importance of clear communication. And the importance of asking for what you want. People can’t read your mind.

My two year old often assumes that I can read his mind and then gets terribly upset when I do something that he didn’t want me to do or don’t do something that he did want me to do. He screams and cries and acts as if I have horribly offended him and somehow violated his rights. I’m trying to teach him that the only way to truly have our desires met is to clearly communicate them. You have to ask.

I get frustrated and upset with my toddler’s outbursts over un-communicated desires, but I’m realizing that often I act exactly like my toddler. I want Bryan to do something but don’t tell him (or at least don’t communicate clearly in a way he understands) and then I get upset. I feel frustrated when my in-laws give Thad a nap and it makes it difficult to put him to bed, but I never told then not to. I feel sad when I feel like my birthday is just another day, even when I never communicated that I wanted it to feel differently. My reasons for not communicating may seem more understandable than my toddlers – I want to avoid facing the insecurities that the conversation may bring up. Understandable, maybe, but in truth no different from my toddler. And really my lack of honest communication doesn’t get me anywhere.

So, I’m trying to be better about communicating more clearly what I want upfront. One step I’m taking towards that is communicating what I want for my birthday this year. In a strange way communicating about my birthday seems even harder than other steps towards communication that I’ve taken.

Birthdays as an adult have always felt a little awkward for me. 

I don’t really like having all the spotlight on me. But, when I’m honest of course I do want a day to be celebrated, recognized…seen. We all want that don’t we? We want to be acknowledged and celebrated every now and then. Even those of us who feel embarrassed and uncomfortable by the attention, still want it every once in a while.

When you’re a child birthdays give you that attention and you don’t have to ask for it. Maybe that’s the main reason why birthdays feel so awkward to me as an adult. If you want to be celebrated you have to ask for it. You have to plan your own party and invite people to come. Or ask someone to do it for you. For me this always stirs up all kinds of insecurities and uncertainties and plenty of negative self talk…

“…don’t bother people. It’s just a birthday, it’s not really important. You didn’t do anything. Just lived another year. Everyone does that. People are busy. Even if they like you, you shouldn’t ask too much of them. Just stay in the shadows, And don’t bother people. It’s not that important. You’re not that important…”

Yuck. Don’t you hate negative self talk? It just feels…yuck. And I’m really pretty good at it. Blah, blah, blah.

This year I’m not going to listen though (…Or at least I’m gonna try not to). I’m gonna plan myself a party. I feel a little more freedom to ask to be celebrated this year because it’s a bigger birthday and a little more culturally acceptable to make a big deal about it.

July 7th, 2012 will be my 30th birthday.

Thirty. It feels both significant and insignificant all at once. I have honestly looked forward to turning thirty for pretty much all of my twenties. I know I’m an odd duck. But, something about turning 30 sort of captivated me.

It all started when I was in college. I remember having a conversation with a friend around the time she turned thirty in which she talked about how turning thirty brought her a new acceptance and appreciation for herself and her body. That was when I first started looking forward to thirty, although later I started to think maybe her deeper acceptance of her appearance had less to do with her turning 30 and more to do with other things (then again I now wonder if there was some truth in connecting this to turning thirty).

Through that conversation I somehow started to create this picture in my head that I’d have life figured out by thirty, or at least know who I am and be really comfortable in my own skin by then. The degree to which I secretly thought of 30 as this end-all-be-all age seems sort of funny now, but there it was, my love affair with 30 had begun.

When we were in Prague I got to celebrate with a number of friends as they hit this milestone. We also had some dear friends there who had already passed this hurdle. All of that took some of the mystery, fear, and the common, “30 is so old” felling out of turning thirty. My desire to be thirty grew. I wanted to be part of the club.

But during that time thirty also became a little demystified and lost a little of it’s magic. I remember one dear friend turning thirty and associating every self realization, every good bit of growth in her life with turning thirty. Statements were commonly started or followed with “maybe it’s because I’m turning thirty”, or “since turning thirty”. I remember talking with her about how excluded her statements made me feel and about how I heard in them that anyone who isn’t thirty couldn’t have the sort of growth or self awareness that she now had as a 30 year old. I somehow felt threatened and put down by her connecting positive growth with an age. I think largely I was just jealous. Jealous of an age – yeah, I am an odd duck.

I became disillusioned with turning thirty. My desire to turn thirty became even stronger (so that I wouldn’t feel like the slightly excluded young one in the group), but I also started to feel like thirty wasn’t magically gonna cause me to grow leaps and bounds, as I had previously thought. I wasn’t going to suddenly in the course of one year become a more enlightened, self-aware, godly person just because of the number of candles on the birthday cake. I wasn’t gonna have life figured out at thirty.

But, here’s the thing I realize now as I get closer to thirty myself, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, 30 is just another birthday and growth comes primarily through active intentionality, not just the year on your birth certificate. But, thirty is also not just another birthday, growth does come through age and there’s a reason that people make a big deal about thirty. It is a big deal. Something does happen around thirty that is a little bit unexplainable. The things that concerned you in your twenties don’t concern you as much anymore.  Maybe for you it happens at 29, or maybe not till 32, but around this time something does seem to change for most people. And I do think that it does have to do with a deepened acceptance of yourself.

It is a big landmark and it feels important to celebrate it and to ask others to celebrate it with me. So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m gonna take a step out of my comfort zone and away from my insecurities and start planning.

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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My daughter was diagnosed with microcephaly three months ago at her two month well check. Ever since then we have felt extremely unsure about what this would mean for her and for us and what we could do to help her. This week I feel like we began to get some answers, not answers about the future (diagnosis’s, predictions, etc), but answers about the present. We began to get the support that will help us know how to best help our daughter grow and flourish on a day-to-day basis. And (as we’re slowly realizing) those are the answers that really matter.

The whole world of early intervention and special needs services is completely foreign to me and I felt so nervous and unsure as we took our first floundering steps into this new realm. But, once we actually met with our Family Resource Coordinator I felt so relieved and encouraged and grateful that we had been directed to get this help now while Sage is still so young.

The organization that offers early intervention services for birth to age three in our area is called The Little Red School House. They send an occupational therapist to evaluate Sage and meet with us last week. Because we already had a diagnosis of microcephaly Sage automatically qualified for the program and from what I understand the evaluation was more for determining where she’s at developmentally. The whole thing was so much more comfortable and encouraging than I had anticipated. As we had been warned, there was a lot of paper work to do, but most of the time was spend just talking about Sage.

I really liked the approach that The Little Red School House takes to equip and support the parents, believing that the parents know the child best and are in the best position to help the child. I also liked that they don’t want to inundate the families with tons of appointments and lots of different specialists, instead they have one person (our Family Resources Coordinator) who will meet with us regularly (as regularly as we need). And then if their are questions or problems that are better suited for a specific specialist she can take those to her team of specialists at the school house and have them instruct her or if necessary bring them in to work with Sage. I liked that approach a lot, it seemed much less invasive or overwhelming.

I also felt a huge sigh of relief to learn that our FRC is able to offer some alternative remedies and has not only been working in occupational therapy for about thirty years, but also studied massage and acupressure. She said not all of her families want to utilize alternative options, but she wanted us to know about some of the different alternative remedies she could offer. Obviously I am very interested in alternative medicine and some of the therapies she talked about sounded fascinating. For example there was one she talked about where they use a tuning fork and different pitches that corespondent to different meridian lines (like in acupuncture – but without the needles), can’t remember what it’s called though.

Anyway, the whole experience was really positive and encouraging and I’m really looking forward to the support that this organization will be able to offer my sweet little girl over the next three years. Our next meeting will be next week and it’s when we will create our Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), which from what I understand is essentially a document stating our desire for Sage over the coming year and a plan to achieve it and what services will help us get there.

I’m excited to start this journey into early intervention. It feels good to know that there are things we can do and tools we can utilize that could help Sage. And it feels good that we won’t have to go at it alone. Someone will guide us through the process from here and help lead us to the best resources for the specific special needs of our baby.

I’m feeling very grateful for these things today.

Rejoicing in the journey,

Bethany Stedman

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Picture this with me….

You walk in to an old warehouse. It’s a large space with tall windows. Straight in front of you is an open conference room made from repurposing old windows and glass doors stacked together. There’s a long table in the middle. And you can see a group of seven sitting around as someone else is animatedly talking and pointing things out on a grease board that you can’t quite see from where you stand.

The whole place has a sort of industrial chic, creative repurposed feel. There’s a tangible energy to the space. You walk in and you feel it almost immediately. It makes you want to make something. Build something. Create.

To your left there are couches and comfy chairs set up in a sort of open sitting room. There’s a small group of four people sitting and excitedly talking over a new idea for an iPhone app they are designing. To your right there’s some tables and through an open door you can see a kitchen. You notice a man making a pot of loose leaf tea through the large open kitchen door. You also notice a chalk board behind him that has a list of community events on it – php group meeting, yoga class, community dinner, guided meditation class, open mic night.

As you circle around the conference room you notice a couple of drawing tables and art supplies. Next to big open windows there’s a woman painting and a man sketching a story board, with previous pieces of the story taped up to the wall next to him.

Out of curiosity you wander to the other side of the conference room and find a door that says “screening room” above it. A room for videographers to preview and show their work. The door is closed.

Just past the screening room there’s another door, it’s open. You can see a stack of yoga mats against the far wall and a shelf with candles of various sizes. This must be where the yoga class happens. Right now, though, the lights are bright and a young women is spread out on some floor pillows typing on a laptop.

The back of the main room has a number of desks, some traditional and some standing desks. Some of the desk spaces have a number of large monitors. You wander close to one of these and hear two men talking about a web design they are working on. At another desk there’s a women working on her first novel. On a laptop in the corner you see someone working on a logo design. At another desk you notice someone is editing photos. On a chalk board beside one of the desks you see a simple note scribbled “Creativity builds on creativity. Don’t create in a vacuum.”

In the back of the room there are stairs leading down and a sign that says art exhibition. That’s when you remember seeing the same sign on a doorway from the front street. That door had also had an explanation of the current “basement exhibit” – a mixed media exhibit from two local artists you had only just recently begun to hear about.

Next to the stairs there’s an elevator and another stairway leading up. You take the elevator. This is where you’ve been heading all along. You’ve been invited to my apartment for lunch. I’d warned you that you might get a little side tracked and distracted if you came in the front way instead of coming in the back entrance, but you were curious.

The hall upstairs is well lit with three doors each a different bright color. On the last door there’s a sign that says “Play Room” and inside you can see a variety of neatly organized children’s toys. You knock on the first door, my door. I answer and show you in. As you enter the small but open apartment you see a young women sitting on the couch holding a baby and I introduce her as my neighbor and then hurry off because there’s a bit of a ruckus coming from the other room where my children are playing. As you talk more with the young women you learn she lives in the other apartment on this floor. Her husband’s a graphic designer and she does interior decorating. On the side they run a small video production company. They helped start the co-work down stairs. I come back and my neighbor leaves to go give the baby a nap.

I suggest we have lunch in the garden since its a nice day and the kids could use a little outdoor time. I call the kids and three come running. You know two are mine and assume correctly that the other is a neighbor boy. I explain that the neighbor boy is hanging out with us while his mom is working on some projects for her etsy store and the dad is out doing a photo shoot. We all head out to the garden on the roof top.

The garden is beautiful with a number of containers of various kinds growing all kinds of produce. In the center of the roof there are a hand full of tables. We sit down at one and begin to eat as we talk.

You begin to ask questions, that’s why you are here after all. You are writing a paper about communal living and upon hearing about this place you knew you had to include it in your paper. For you the co-work is interesting and inspiring (even more so upon actually seeing it), but what is even more intriguing is what is happening in the rooms up above. Four families choosing to live in close community with each other. I explain that we call our little community co-live, nothing fancy just a simple echo of the co-work that we together created and manage.

“What does it looks like in practice? Are you just some friends who live next to each other?” You ask.

“Well, yes and no. We are friends and we do live next to each other. But, we are more than that too. We aren’t just community. We are intentional community. We are intentional about spending time together. We get together weekly for dinner and a prayer time together. We are a spiritual community, so we are intentional about encouraging one another in our spiritual journeys. We all are at different places in our spiritual walks, but we are all seeking to follow Jesus in a way that is authentic and open to how God’s voice is currently leading us. We also want to be intentional about opening our lives to one another and caring for each other. So we do things that help each other, for example, we watch each others kids now and then, we cut our costs by sharing a playroom for the kids, sharing internet, and even sharing two cars between the four families. Granted that last one isn’t as hard as it seems since all of us work just down stairs and there’s a grocery store just a short walk away.” I smile and pause for a minute before continuing. “Lately though, our intentionality has begun to take on a new measure as well – being intentional about using our space and our creative gifts to benefit the larger community. We want co-work and co-live to be a place for community and collaboration FOR the benefit and care of others.”

“Can you tell me what you mean by that? Or an example of that?” You ask.

“Sure.” I reply. “Well, a few months ago co-live started hosting dinners for all those who work in the co-work. It’s been a great way for people to get to know the people working around them and some great collaboration has come out of it. Last month we also organized a hackathon of sorts, where a group of designers and developers from co-work created a free web site for a local charity in our community. There has also been some talk about beginning to offer some classes to the community. Since co-work is really specialized towards independently contracted creatives and small creative companies these classes would be geared towards the creative arts as well and hopefully taught by members of the co-work.”

The kids run back over at this point asking if they can pick some strawberry’s. I tell them they can only pick the ripe one’s and they run off to gather as many as they can carry. You and I continue talking about intentional communal living in general as well as co-live specifically. Before you know it is getting late in the afternoon. And it’s time to go. The kids and I walk you back down stairs, but not before first giving you a small handmade cloth bag filled with strawberries.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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