Long Overdue

I chose the title of this post because it has been far too long since I sat down to try to write out my thoughtss in some kind of coherent fashion, but in my current state, the word overdue also quickly brings to mind thoughts of going past the forty week mark in pregnancy. Though I am still relatively far from my February due date, there are certainly days when I feel like I’ve been pregnant forever. I know most pregnant women say that at some point in this nine-month journey, but I feel like it is true for me in a different way. Pregnancy is a time of waiting and preparing for a new baby to join the family. Mark and I (and our families) started waiting and preparing for a baby on January 18, 2008 – almost two full years ago. I have now been pregnant for a total of almost 65 weeks and am still 12-14 weeks away from the possibility of holding my own living child in my arms. I think I’m somewhat justified in saying I feel like I’ve been pregnant forever.

All that said, I feel incredibly blessed by the time I have had with both my children so far. I thought I might have trouble bonding with this second baby, knowing what I know about the potential for loss and the inevitable pain that would be associated. However, I can’t help loving him more with each passing day. I enjoy every kick, punch and roll, even when they wake me early on a Saturday morning or come uncomfortably close to my bladder. This baby reminds me daily of all the happy times I had with Noah, and he helps me look toward the future with hope. I don’t want to wish away these precious days of his gestation, but at the same time, I desperately want to get to the point where I can look into his eyes and feel his breath against my skin.

We are now more than six weeks past the one-year anniversary of when we lost Noah, and I occasionally find myself playing the “this time last year” game. There are some parts of that time of early grief I remember as clearly as if they were yesterday, and others are such a blur I struggle to piece them together. I do have distinct memories of wishing I could fast forward time, knowing there must be some point in the future when the days and weeks would be easier to get through. As I look back on that time, I am so thankful to be where I am now. The grief will never go away, but we have experienced an incredible amount of healing over the last year.

I haven’t written much about Noah’s first birthday/anniversary since it happened. I think I will always remember it as something of a turning point in terms of my ability to make peace with what happened with my firstborn and with Noah’s unique place in my heart and in our family. Not that September 16 was some kind of magical day – I had been working toward that point throughout the year – but I think the time we dedicated to reflecting on our experience with Noah and the rituals we did helped me cross some kind of line.

On the day itself, Mark and I were on the beach by 5:47 a.m. – the time of Noah’s birth. We watched the sun rise, read some passages of Scripture that have been particularly meaningful over the last year and remembered the day we simultaneously welcomed or first son into the world and said goodbye to him. Mark gave me a necklace that has a charm in the shape of a mother-child symbol, and inside the charm are some of Noah’s ashes. We shed some tears, but in general it was a very peaceful time. That evening, we listened to a sermon in which my uncle tells Noah’s story and we watched the slideshow with beautiful pictures of our baby boy.

Noah’s birthday fell on a Wednesday, and that Saturday we scattered his ashes. Though we had never thought about what we would do with the remains of our child before we lost Noah, we knew almost immediately when we were asked what we wanted to do with the body that it felt right to scatter his ashes in the ocean. I had spent many hours of my pregnancy walking the beach, imagining the baby growing inside me listening to the waves and wondering if he would have an inherent need to be near the ocean when he was older. Because of the generosity of a dear friend who has been an incredible support to us since the beginning, we were able to release a biodegradable urn with the ashes from the back of a boat into the ocean in view of the beach I walk nearly every day. The day was cool but gorgeously clear – very much like the day of Noah’s memorial service exactly one year earlier. We had some other friends with us, one of whom is a pastor who said a few words, and Mark and I spoke a bit about Noah and the amazing blessing he has been in our lives. Again, we cried, but the whole event felt peaceful and appropriate.

This post has grown quite long, so I’m going to wrap it up now and plan to not let so much time elapse before I write again. I’ll close with some pictures of releasing Noah’s ashes.

Baby Brother

Last week was emotionally intense, and I feel like there are many topics I would like to explore in writing, but for now I’ll stick to the most straightforward news: we’re having another baby boy. We had the “big” ultrasound on Friday, sandwiched between Wednesday, which would have been Noah’s first birthday, and Saturday, which was the day we scattered Noah’s ashes. At first, I was unsure about having so many big events in a row, but in the end the timing felt perfect. We were able to mourn Noah appropriately as we also rejoiced in getting to know the new life I’m carrying a little better.

As with all things in this pregnancy, I have a mixture of different thoughts about the fact that Noah is going to have a baby brother, and many of them contradict each other. My first reaction actually took me by surprise – I felt such a sense of peace at the thought of having another chance at bringing home a living son. We found out Noah was a boy at his 20 week ultrasound, too, so I spent half of my last pregnancy imagining the mother-son relationship we would have, and looking forward to starting a new life with a baby boy in our home.

However, I am struggling a bit with the idea of being pregnant with a baby boy who isn’t Noah. Shortly after we left the doctor’s office, Mark said something about wanting to celebrate his baby boy and I started to get teary because whenever Mark has said the words “my baby boy” in the past, he’s been referring to Noah. Also, picking up our visions of a future when we will bring home a baby boy who will occupy the nursery we prepared for Noah and become part of our lives in the way we originally envisioned Noah would feels somewhat like we are simply replacing our firstborn. I’ve never wanted this baby to feel like a replacement child.

This baby is what he is, though, and I certainly don’t love him any differently because I know he’s a boy. I can’t help loving him more every time I see him wiggling on the ultrasound screen or hear his beating heart or feel him moving inside me. After a few days of processing, I’m back to feeling a sense of peace because I know he was meant to be who he is according to God’s perfect plan for our lives. I can spend hours trying to analyze that plan, or I can simply accept it and trust. Right now, the latter sounds much more appealing than the former.

I’d like to write more about the experience of scattering Noah’s ashes, but I’m going to leave that as another post for another time. For now, I’ll just end with some pictures of baby boy number 2 and (hopefully) a short video clip from the ultrasound.

Baby profile - he's got his hand by his mouth.

Hand - he's apparently giving us a thumbs up.

Feet - Mark proudly noted his "Morton's toe."

Short video clip - if it works, you can see him wiggling around.

Surreal

There have been several moments over the last year when certain aspects of this whole experience have seemed surreal. In the very beginning, my brain simply could not accept the reality of the situation. I remember lying in the hospital bed, looking at the doctor as she explained our baby was no longer alive and wondering what kind of terrible pregnancy dream I was having. I’d had so many crazy dreams in the months leading up to Noah’s birth, so it seemed entirely possible that I was going to wake up any minute in my bed at home, still feeling my baby boy moving around in my belly.

The intense dream-like sense dissipated fairly quickly, but a general feeling of unreality came and went for the next several weeks. We spent so many months preparing our home, our hearts and our minds for the addition of a new member to our little family, and suddenly we had to change our whole vision of the future. There were moments when I just couldn’t believe there would be no baby to wear the tiny clothes I had washed and folded, or sleep in the bassinet we’d set up next to our bed, or ride in the car seat we’d carefully installed. Each morning brought a fresh wave of grief as I realized again how finally separated I was from the baby who had shared my body for so long. We were living a life so incredibly different from the one we had imagined that it was hard to accept it was real.

Time continues to pass regardless of what else happens in life, though, and with the passage of weeks and months came a gradual acceptance of Noah’s physical absence from our lives. We settled back into everyday routines, and though Noah was (and still is) always at the back of our minds, the expectation that we should be parenting a living baby faded. Eventually, I got to the point where it was surreal to think of how life would be if Noah had lived. It seems like a distant fantasy to imagine him making a mess of his baby food, babbling as he plays with his toys, breaking into a grin when Mark comes home, taking his first steps. Did we ever truly believe we would get to have those experiences with them? I know we did because why would we think otherwise, but those blissfully oblivious days of my first pregnancy seem as if they were decades ago.

All that said, I’m still struggling intensely with thoughts of how tomorrow should be for us. I should be wrapping gifts and baking a birthday cake with the knowledge it would be destroyed by chubby little hands. Mark should be making sure the camera battery is charged so we would be sure to capture this milestone in photos and video. We should go to bed this evening expecting to wake in the morning to happy smiles and big hugs.

Instead, we are planning to wake early so we can recognize 5:47 a.m., the time Noah slid silently into this world. We’ll go to the beach to listen to the waves Noah heard through the wall of my belly during his short time in this world and to watch the sunrise he never got to see. We’ll read passages from the Bible, we’ll talk, and I’m fairly certain I’ll cry. Not at all what I used to imagine for my son’s first birthday, but this is our current reality. I know there will be beauty and hope in the midst of the sadness, and I will feel blessed in spite of my grief.

Scattered

Today is September 12, which means we are just four days away from Noah’s first birthday/the first anniversary of his death. The fact that we have to mark both his birth and his death on the same day seems somehow absurd to me, and I have struggled with what to call September 16 in conversation. The word birthday somehow seems hollow since we never had the chance to celebrate with him, yet going the anniversary route seems to negate the fact that Noah was born. Because of my background in English and writing, I’m hyper-aware of connotations and don’t like to use words that don’t capture my meaning accurately. I’m not sure how I’m going to resolve this particular dilemma, though, so for now I often use both terms. Please forgive the awkwardness of the phrasing – it’s just something I have to do for now.

Over the last year, I’ve assumed I would come to these days leading up to the birthday/anniversary and be able to analyze my emotions and reflect on my experiences in a sensible way. When we started this journey last September, I was at a loss for words. I had been processing my life through writing for nearly 20 years, but suddenly I was unable to verbalize my thoughts and emotions. Next year, I thought, surely next year I’ll be ready to use the birthday/anniversary triggers to write a coherent analysis of this experience. Yet here I am, almost a year later and I feel almost as much at a loss for words as I did then. My thoughts are scattered, my emotions are conflicted and my brain is refusing to process anything coherently. The difference is that now I’m willing to just take the plunge, sit in front of a computer and see what happens when I start writing. Please bear with me as there’s a chance none of this will make much sense at all.

Fall came to Maine a bit early this year, and the chill in the air has brought back a flood of associations and memories. Last year, the first two weeks of September were actually quite hot (for this area, at least), more like the weather we expect to have in August. Coincidentally, the switch last year happened on the day we lost Noah, so rather than reliving the days leading up to September 16, I have been having vivid flashbacks to the early days of our grief. Memories of walking around in a daze, wishing I would wake up from this awful nightmare in which my baby was dead. Memories of how utterly lost I felt as I tried to envision a future entirely different from the one I had been anticipating for months. Memories of the exhaustion I experienced as I trudged through interminably long days dominated by grief.

Surprisingly, not all of my associations with those early days are painful. I’ve also been remembering the outpouring of love we experienced from people in all parts of our lives. The comfort we felt from the knowledge that so many people were praying for us and thinking about us. The strength we gathered from prayer and the ways in which our faith grew. The incredible knowledge that Noah is in a place where he will never have to experience suffering or pain.

In the midst of all this remembering, the baby in my womb is becoming an increasingly solid presence. My belly has grown to the point where strangers aren’t afraid to ask when I’m due, and I frequently feel the flutter of tiny arms and legs. I’m so thankful for the blessing of this new life, especially as I remember the aching emptiness I felt in the first days and weeks after we lost Noah. As I would wake in the morning, momentarily oblivious in my half-asleep state, the reality of our situation would come rushing back to me as I put my hand to my puffy shell of a stomach and realized there would be no responding kick. I have no words to express the devastation of feeling of being so empty.

My brain seems to be finished with writing for now, so I will wrap up this post and let the rest of my thoughts continue to marinate before I try to put them into words. Spending time reflecting is good for me right now, though, so I’m sure I will write more this week.

Big Brother

Noah’s sibling is currently growing inside me, and as we move into the second trimester, I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable making that fact known to the wider world. Of course, this pregnancy is marked by the knowledge that there is no “safe” point in pregnancy, no point at which we can just assume we will come home with a baby once our nine month gestational period is over. However, I can’t help finding some comfort in watching the statistical chances of losing this pregnancy go down. A niggling voice in my head likes to remind me that we’ve been on the wrong side of statistics before (I can’t even find a number specific to cord prolapse, though I know the chance of having any type of fatal cord accident is one in a thousand), but I know I need to cling to hope instead of fear. We are praying we will welcome this baby into the world in early to mid February (the actual due date is currently under debate).

I discovered I was pregnant the morning before Mark’s birthday and I wish I could tell you I kept the secret so I could let it be a special birthday surprise, but news this significant is hard to contain, so I told him as soon as we were reunited at the airport that evening (he had been in Maine and I in Ohio for the preceding week). I also felt like I needed his support right away – in spite of my best efforts, my mind was already reeling with thoughts of the many ways we could lose this baby. When I went in for my annual exam in February and told the doctor we were going to start trying to get pregnant again, her first response was to tell me that the rate of miscarriage is 30% and ask me if I thought I could handle another loss so soon. At the time, I had confidently said we had relied on our faith to get us through the worst tragedy of our lives, and we would trust God to get us through whatever happened next. As I processed the news of our new pregnancy, I still firmly believed in that statement, but suddenly the grim statistics she quoted in the office were haunting me. Was I really ready to face the possibility of another loss?

As the days started to pass, I spent a lot of time praying for a peace that passes understanding, and we confided in others who we knew would pray for us and for the health and safety of the baby. For the most part, I managed to stay fairly calm, though I dealt with several moments of fear in the middle of the night (everything seems worse at 2 a.m.). I was also anxious going into our first ultrasound, but the tech found the heartbeat almost immediately. Hearing that sound again was incredible, especially after the silence we experienced when the nurses were trying to find Noah’s heartbeat at the hospital while I was in labor. I will never forget that silence.

Knowing the pregnancy was viable at that point helped my state of mind, but for a long time I still found myself qualifying every statement about the baby with the clause “if all goes well.” My brother and his girlfriend got engaged toward the end of June and people started talking about having the baby at their April wedding, but I always had to interject “assuming all goes well.” Even when talking about the holidays this year and how huge I’ll be, I couldn’t help saying “if all goes well.” I thought I’d be doing that for the entire pregnancy, but I’ve noticed lately that my compulsion to interject that clause has tapered off. I think I’ve made a subconscious decision to start allowing myself to simply hope for a future with this child without trying to manage expectations by reminding myself and others that we can’t assume anything. On some level, we all know any number of things could happen to turn life upside down in an instant, but we don’t say things like, “if I don’t get hit by a bus before Thanksgiving, then I’ll make the sweet potatoes.” We just can’t live with that kind of mindset, so I shouldn’t think such thoughts about my pregnancy.

We had an ultrasound earlier this week and got to see the baby really looking like a baby. Our first ultrasound was early enough that all we could really see was a blob with a heartbeat, but this time we could see the hands with their tiny fingers, the head with the nose and mouth, the little feet – it’s amazing the detail you can see even at this stage. Watching the baby on the screen was an emotional mixed bag for me. I was incredibly relieved to see the baby looking so healthy, and seeing the parts of its body made the whole thing so real. However, I was also flooded with memories of Noah’s ultrasounds and the realization that those times we saw him wiggling around on that screen were the only times we got to see him alive and moving. I think that mix of emotions is going to be fairly typical of this pregnancy as we experience incredible joy mixed with wistful sadness. I feel ready for this part of the grief journey, though, as there is certainly part of us that will heal when we bring a living baby home.

This post has gotten to be quite long, so I’m going to wrap it up now. My goal is to start updating this blog much more regularly with news of the pregnancy and reflections on this part of our journey, so please stay tuned if you are interested. For now, I am going to leave you with some pictures of baby Schuenke number two (we don’t have a nickname yet – please feel free to make suggestions).

Ceremonial Signing

Yesterday, we went to Augusta for the ceremonial signing of Noah’s Law. The weather couldn’t have been much more miserable – there were torrential downpours as we made the journey up I-95, and when we were outside the car, we had to scurry around with umbrellas in hopes of not getting soaked. I don’t think the rain dampened anyone’s spirits as we gathered in the capitol building, though. There was a general sense of accomplishment and satisfaction among all the families who came to see this bill signed into law.

We were invited into the governor’s office at promptly 11:30 a.m., and as Noah’s parents, Mark and I were instructed to stand just to the right of the governor, who immediately stood to introduce himself to us. The rest of the group gathered around the fairly spacious office, and once everyone was more or less settled, the governor said a few words, thanking us for the work we put into moving this bill forward and expressing his opinion of how important it is for the state to recognize families in this way.

After the governor had spoken, he asked the senator who had sponsored the bill to say a few words. Mark and I had met the senator several times over the course of the last four or five months, so she knew our story well, and started to launch into a little speech about her involvement in the bill. However, as she gestured toward us to say how much we had impacted her, she called us Michael and Lisa. Yep, we obviously had quite an impact. To be fair, she’s always had some kind of block on Mark’s name, and would either call him Mike or Matt, rarely Mark. She had never gotten my name wrong before, though, and the completely incorrect combination made Mark and me both start laughing. I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to regain control, but somehow I did.

After the senator wrapped up her remarks, the governor invited Mark and me to speak toward why this bill was important to us. I was caught entirely off guard, but I was closer than Mark, so I just started to talk with the hope that something sensible would come out of my mouth. I don’t remember much of what I said, though I know I tried to convey how disconcerting and painful it was for us to have a beautiful baby boy who was only recognized through a death certificate. I talked about how there is an incredible amount of pain that goes along with stillbirth, and we were motivated to help with this bill by the desire to provide some small measure of comfort to parents who deal with this kind of loss in the future.

Kathy also said a few words, and then the governor invited the other families to introduce themselves. Finally, he pulled out several pens and started signing his name to the bill. He used all the pens in the signing so each family could take one home as a memento of the bill. As he painstakingly wrote his name in parts, he joked about how having a long last name was a drag in the third grade, but certainly comes in handy now.

Then, it was over almost as quickly as it had started, and we filed out of the governor’s office with our pens and copies of the signed bill. A reporter from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network pulled Mark and me aside for an interview, for which I was also not prepared and even as I spoke, I wondered if I was saying the right thing. Finally, we all headed to a restaurant where we had made reservations for a celebratory lunch.

When the meal was over, we played a slideshow one of the women from our support group had created using pictures from people who had been part of this effort. Seeing all of the babies who had been born still and the ways their parents are remembering them really brought home again the reason this bill is so important. These babies are all very real to the people who loved them and nurtured them, and their existence should be recognized.

Unfortunately, the certificates themselves have gotten a little bogged down in paperwork, so we have not yet been able to get a certificate of birth for Noah or any of the other babies. I’m hoping that piece will come soon, and then our job will be to make sure all the hospitals in Maine are aware of the existence of the certificates, and have a system in place for telling their patients.

I wish had some grand closing statement to make, but those words are eluding me right now, so perhaps I’ll leave that for another post at another time. For now, I’ll insert pictures of the event, as well as the link to the radio story in which you can hear our interviews.

Here’s the link to the radio story: http://www.mpbn.net/News/MaineNews/tabid/181/ctl/ViewItem/mid/1858/ItemId/11020/Default.aspx

The governor talks about the importance of this bill.

The governor speaking to Mark and me.

The governor signing the bill.


Mark shakes hands with the governor.

The group poses after the signing.

An Update on Noah's Law

The committee vote on Noah’s Law was scheduled to take place on Friday afternoon, so Kathy (the lactation consultant who got this bill rolling), Rebecca (our childbirth educator who has also been involved in the bill) and I made the trip to Augusta once more so we could be present to answer any questions that might arise. The work session for our bill was scheduled for 1 p.m., and around noon Kathy got a message on her phone saying the bill had passed by unanimous vote. Unfortunately, the message didn’t tell us what the language of the final bill had been like – for all we knew, they had passed a version that simply allowed for a meaningless slip of paper be given to grieving parents. After a brief debate, we decided to finish the journey to Augusta in hopes of tracking down more information.

We wandered around the state building for a few minutes and were wondering what to do next when our senator who is sponsoring the bill happened to walk out of a doorway near where we were standing. We flagged her down and asked her to explain the committee’s decision in more detail. As it turns out, they had decided to address it early because they were all in agreement about passing the version we had submitted on Thursday evening. After the hearing on Wednesday, Kathy spoke with a person who has been involved in helping most other states create Certificates of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth, and he said the vital statistic issue wasn’t crucial as long as the certificates we receive are official state documents. Apparently, most other states use the fetal death certificate as the primary vital record and the official certificate of birth emanates from that. Given that information, we decided we could settle for the same in the state of Maine. According to the language of our amendment, the parents of stillborn babies will now receive an official Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth, and it will have the state seal on it. Also, the bill will be retroactive, so parents who have had stillborn babies in the state of Maine in the past can also obtain their certificates of birth.

Because the committee vote was unanimous, the bill is almost guaranteed to get through the house and the senate without trouble. Based on the current timeline, it could be signed into law within the next two to three weeks. After the senator had explained the situation to us, she decided to ask the committee if they would be willing to put an emergency preamble on the bill, which would mean the law would go into effect immediately after signing, instead of having to go through the typical 90 day waiting period. The committee agreed without hesitation, and then one of the legislative clerks offered to set up a ceremonial signing with the governor, which will happen toward the middle of June. Noah’s certificate of birth will be the first to be printed, and Mark and I will receive it during the ceremony.

Overall, we have accomplished the two primary goals of this bill: the parents of stillborn babies will now receive certificates of birth in addition to certificates of death, and the state of Maine is recognizing the lives that have been lost. Already, this has been a comfort to us and other families who have become involved in this legislation, and I pray it will bring peace to the people who experience this unique kind of tragedy in the future. We appreciate everyone who has supported us through this process through prayers, e-mails, phone calls and other forms of communication.

Because this bill will be known as Noah’s Law, it will become a lasting legacy for our son and we feel indescribably blessed and humbled by that fact. We are no different from any other parents who have lost much-wanted babies to stillbirth in the state of Maine, yet God connected us with the right people at the right time in the right circumstances and then gave us the strength to share our story. If Kathy hadn’t been at the hospital on the day Noah was born, if she hadn’t known how to start a bill with the local senator, if I hadn’t decided to donate my breast milk and stay in touch with Kathy – I could list a dozen other ifs that would have changed this situation such that Noah’s name would not be on the bill, but eventually I would get around to “if Noah’s umbilical cord had stayed where it was supposed to stay”…and I just can’t go there. The circumstances are what they are, and we have been blessed in a unique way.

This past week has been an emotional one, to say the least. And, well, today is Mother’s Day, but my thoughts and emotions on that front are another story for another time. We continue this journey we didn’t expect and wouldn’t have chosen, trusting in the belief that all things will ultimately work together for good.


P.S. We found out a day or two after the hearing that it had been covered by the local news. If you want to see a brief clip of Mark’s testimony, here’s the link: http://www.wmtw.com/video/19390255. The story starts at minute 1:54 and is about a minute long. The newscaster uses the information from the original bill, not the one with the amendments we negotiated.

The Hearing

The hearing for Noah’s Law was held yesterday, and overall, things went fairly well. The worst part was the wait – our bill was scheduled to go before the committee at 3 p.m., and they didn’t call us until almost 7 p.m. Since we had arrived in the state building early to ensure we had everything set, we had more than five hours of downtime before the most emotional public speaking moment of our lives. Fortunately, we had a little group of supporters and were able to keep each other fairly well distracted, at least from thinking about how nervous we were. Mark even got to play with transformers for a while, thanks to a new friend who is always prepared for moments of boredom (though I think she had her four-year-old son in mind when she put the toys in her purse).

I could ramble on describing the day, but I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty details and just say that our turn did come eventually, though not before the committee was tired and perhaps just a little cranky. Mark and I were the first to testify, and we made it through, though both of us struggled to maintain composure and neither of us was able to avoid being teary. When we were finished, four other people testified, including people from our support group and one woman who saw our story on the news.

No one stood up to oppose the bill, but the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control did stand up as “neither for nor against” because she wanted to voice concerns over the current language of the bill. She had several points, but the one that potentially going to cause us the most trouble is related to making the certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth a vital record – apparently the CDC director is worried doing so could open the door for increased identity theft. She suggested instituting a “commemorative” birth certificate, but our goal in trying to pass this legislation is to make sure our babies are recognized by the state, not just to get pieces of paper with their names on them. After the hearing, the CDC director came out in the hall to discuss the situation with us and was very sympathetic to our cause, but was adamant about the vital statistic piece. We agreed to do more research and to send her amendment language that might satisfy both parties.

Today, we have been working on finding out how the other 26 states that have passed similar legislation are handling this issue. Our deadline is tight, since the work session in which the committee will vote is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I’m hoping we can get to a place where everyone is happy, so we can move this bill on to the next stage. Based on the communications we've had today, things are looking promising. I'll keep you posted.

Below, I will paste the text from the testimonies Mark and I gave. I’m also going to insert a picture of the poster Kathy made for us to set up in front of the podium as we testified.


Mark and Lindsay Schuenke Testimony

Lindsay
Senator Brannigan, Representative Perry and members of the committee, we are Mark and Lindsay Schuenke from Biddeford and we are here to support LD 361. In the interest of this bill, we would like to tell you the story of our son, Noah James Schuenke.

I found out I was pregnant with our first child on January 18, 2008. We were thrilled – Mark had a good job, I had started working part-time from home, we had purchased a house – it felt like the right time to add a baby to our family. During the eight months that followed, I progressed through a normal pregnancy, never giving the doctors any reason for concern. We found out we were having a boy, and we both enjoyed getting to know our son as he moved around in my belly.

By the time I went into labor nine days before my due date, we were ready: the nursery was decorated, the diapers were stacked, the car seat was installed, the little clothes were washed and organized. We had also taken a birthing class and written a birth plan in an attempt to get a handle on the process of childbirth, which was as yet unknown to us. So, when we headed for the hospital, we were a little anxious about delivery and I was in quite a bit of pain, but above all we were excited at the prospect of meeting our son and holding him in our arms for the first time.

Of course, this story doesn’t have a happy ending, or else we wouldn’t be sitting here today. When we arrived at the hospital, the nurse started hooking me up to the fetal monitor, but couldn’t find a heartbeat. In that moment, I knew something was wrong, but I was in denial while the nurse brought in the ultrasound machine, and eventually called in the doctor with an internal heart monitor. The doctor was the one who finally delivered the news – our son no longer had a heartbeat. As soon as our baby crowned, the doctor could see the reason for the tragedy – his umbilical cord had gone into the birth canal before his head and become crushed as he descended. Our baby boy came into this world silently, when just hours earlier he had been kicking his little legs as I breathed through the early contractions. I have no words to describe our emotions in the minutes and hours that followed. We had arrived at the hospital anticipating the happiest moment of our lives, and instead we were faced with the most devastating.

Although Noah is almost always on my mind, there are times when this whole experience is surreal. I carried my son for nine months, feeling his every movement, getting to know his personality and imagining the future we would have as a family. I went through the pain of childbirth to deliver him, yet to the outside world, there is no evidence that I am a mother. I’m not pushing a stroller through the neighborhood, or carrying my infant into the grocery store, or chatting with other mothers about sleep deprivation and baby food. Sometimes, I start to wonder if I’m truly a mother at all.

The name Noah means peace and comfort. When we put that name at the top of our list months before Noah was born, we had no idea how fitting it would be. We hope and pray that the passage of this bill will bring some measure of peace and comfort to the parents of stillborn babies by recognizing the children they loved and nurtured, but to whom they had to say goodbye far too early.

Mark
Three of those four pictures (indicating poster) are of our Noah. To the uninformed onlooker, that’s just a sweet, little sleeping child. There’s no pain or awkwardness when those uninformed people look at the pictures. But to me, I feel love, and pride, and confusion, and devastating sorrow.

So what’s the difference between how I view those pictures and how the uninformed view them? A blissful ignorance is one difference, but to look at it from another angle, the difference is minutes. Maybe 5 minutes, maybe 30 – we don’t know exactly how much time had passed between when Noah left us, and when we arrived at the hospital. But we were close. We were just moments from being joyful parents – just moments from being ignorant to the fact that the parents of stillborn children are left with nothing, but a death certificate. We were so close, but that wasn’t God’s plan for us…

As Lindsay has already told you, we arrived expecting to deliver a healthy baby, and within minutes, we were told there was no heartbeat. Less than an hour later, Lindsay delivered our baby. Then, we were ushered off of the maternity ward to a recovery room. The two of us squeezed into one hospital bed, and there we began life as the parents of a stillborn child.

The staff at Southern Maine Medical Center was very good. They were gracious and giving. We were fortunate to be able to hold our son three times that day, including the opportunity to have these professional pictures taken. We were able to take in our son’s perfection - his ten fingers and ten toes, the gorgeous strawberry blonde hair of his grandfather, his mother’s cheeks, his father’s chin. Everything was perfect, except the silence of his heart.

Between the times with our son, there is very little time to grieve on that first day. Instead, we were forced into action – painful phone calls, funeral arrangements, whether to donate breast milk, and of course, a name for our baby. Throughout the pregnancy, we struggled to find the right name for our child. We had even joked that once we arrived at the hospital, we’d be forced to settle on a name or else they wouldn’t let us take our baby home. As it turned out, we were forced to settle on a name, and as it turned out we realized how much we had loved the name Noah James all along. So much so, that we had a moment of deliberation as to whether we should give this name to our stillborn child or whether we should save it for a future, living son. Those thoughts were fleeting, as we quickly realized that this is our son who we love, and he is Noah. That realization was uplifting, but I was quickly snapped backed to our sorrowful reality when I realized the first place I would have to write that name – on Noah’s death certificate.

Down the hall, in the maternity ward, all of those parents were writing names on birth certificates, but we were writing on a death certificate. State law required Noah’s death to be part of the vital record, because as dictated by the uniform determination of death act, adopted by the United States in 1981, anyone with irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain is dead. I have no problems with that definition of death. My issue is that the term cessation implies that the function had taken place. Noah had brain function. Noah was alive. We’re simply asking that if his death be a vital record, that his life also be vital record.

Mothers’ Day is in 4 days. Lindsay is a mother. On a human level, everyone can see that, but on the state level there is no recognition for that beautiful boy that Lindsay nurtured for 9 months. So, what do I get the mother of a stillborn child for Mothers day? I’d like to get her a nice frame for the birth certificate that you all can make happen for us. To paraphrase the poster – Noah and so many others were stillborn, but they were STILL BORN. Please pass this bill. Thank you for your time.

Noah’s Law

A few months after we lost Noah, we became involved with a piece of legislation to allow the parents of stillborn children to receive a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth. As the Maine law currently stands, a child who is stillborn (definition: born after 20 weeks gestation and never takes a breath) is required to have a death certificate, but is not eligible to receive a birth certificate. This situation seems to defy logic: how can there be a death if there was never a life?

Kathy, the lactation consultant at the hospital where I delivered Noah, has actually been the driving force behind this bill. She was at the hospital the day we were there, and was helping fill out our paperwork when she noticed the conspicuous absence of a birth certificate. After some research online, she discovered that 25 states in the U.S. have enacted legislation to allow birth certificates for stillborn babies, but Maine was not yet one of them. Kathy decided to take action by contacting our local state senator and asking her to initiate a new law.

I started developing a relationship with Kathy when I decided to donate my breast milk. She was incredibly supportive of the process, bringing me a pump and answering all the questions I had about lactation. I talked with her about how donating breast milk was one tangible way I could bring good from the tragedy we had experienced, and she tentatively brought up the idea of working on the bill as something else we could do to help Noah’s short existence have a positive impact on the world.

Up until that point, Mark and I had simply accepted the fact that we weren’t going to get a birth certificate. We were still in the early stages of grief, and hadn’t thought to explore the legalities of the situation. However, we were certainly aware of not getting a birth certificate, particularly on the day we spent in the hospital. Before Noah was born, we had been waffling between a few different names, and joked that we were going to be forced to choose one when filling out the birth certificate. Instead, we found ourselves faced with the task of choosing a name for our son’s death certificate. Filling out those forms felt like adding insult to injury, but we had no choice.

When Kathy asked if we would become the face of this bill by putting our son’s name on it and sharing our story, we didn’t hesitate before saying yes. If this bill passes, the parents who go through this in the future will be spared the sadness of seeing their babies’ names on a death certificate but never having official recognition of the birth. We know this recognition will just be a small consolation in the vast sea of grief parents have to navigate when they experience stillbirth, but it’s something.

On Wednesday, there will be a hearing before the committee that is considering this bill. We’ve been gathering support from various forms, from petition signatures to e-mails to state representatives. We’re also hoping a fairly good crowd will turn out at the hearing itself, though it’s going to happen in Augusta, which is a bit of a drive for everyone in our network of friends. Mark and I are going to get on the stand to share our story, so we are praying for strength and peace as we try to find the right words.

I will post an update after the hearing on Wednesday, including the written text of our testimony. In the meantime, please be praying for us and the passage of this bill.

Adventures at the Airport

I don't know why it's taken me so long to post this last piece I wrote while I was traveling with the Malaysians - it's just been sitting on my computer, waiting to be copied and pasted. The last week has been busy, though, with news of a hearing date for Noah's Law and catching up with life in Maine after two weeks away. I'll write more about the hearing soon. For now, here's a story from my recent adventures:

If you’ve read the posts about our travels home from the Bahamas, you know I have a bad track record when it comes to flying – more often than not, I run into some kind of trouble. So far on this trip, my flights have gone amazingly smoothly, and my suitcase has made it to each destination on time. I did run into some unique excitement when we arrived at the St. Louis airport last night, though…

I was toward the back of the plane, so I was among the last in the group to exit. I started walking through the terminal, following the signs to the baggage claim, when suddenly there was a security guard right in front of me, holding his arms out and telling everyone to stop walking. I was totally confused – why couldn’t we continue on to the baggage claim? After a minute, a guy with a headset on came over to explain to us that they were filming a movie and just needed to stop traffic for a couple of minutes.

Since I was toward the front of the group, I started looking at the cleared area, trying to see if there was anyone famous wandering around, but all I could see was several people with headsets. Finally, after three or four minutes, they let us go again and I continued down the terminal, still looking around to see if there was anyone famous in the vicinity, but not slowing my pace at all. I figured they were probably filming some kind of low-budget movie and I probably wouldn’t recognize the person anyway.

When I got to the baggage claim, my suitcase was already on the carousel since we’d been delayed. I grabbed it and pulled off to the side to wait for the rest of the group. As the others gathered, they were talking excitedly about the filming. I asked if there was anyone famous, and they looked at me like I was crazy. “Didn’t you see him? Didn’t you see George Clooney standing right there?” Somehow, I totally missed it – I was twenty feet away from George Clooney and didn’t even realize it.

I guess I’ll take that kind of airport excitement over the kind I usually have…

Traveling with the Malaysians

I wrote a few posts while I was traveling with the Malaysians last week, but didn't have a chance to post them in the midst of all the conference craziness that followed. I'll post one of the updates below - just be warned that I wrote this a week ago...

As I mentioned earlier, I’m traveling with a group of 18 people from Malaysia this week. All of them have been to the United States before, many of them several times and a few have even lived here, so they are fairly familiar with the American culture and speak English quite well. That said, there have been some moments when the cultural differences have been apparent, and sometimes amusing.

For example, many of them have been trying to figure out my story. They are having a hard time grasping the fact that I work for the association that is based in Ohio, yet I live in Maine. Perhaps the issue lies in the fact that they are not familiar with Maine. On Monday, I was chatting with one of the men and mentioned that I live in Maine, and he asked me what state Maine was in. I finally just settled for the explanation that Maine is quite close to Boston, and he was satisfied.

On Tuesday, we headed to a facility in San Jose, so we spent more than an hour on a bus. As we drove through San Francisco, the guy in the next seat started chatting with me about Coach purses. He was comparing Coach to Prada, and talking about how Coach is such an affordable option. I wasn’t sure how to respond, though I certainly wondered why he knew so much about purses.

We headed to St. Louis on Wednesday, and I sat next to one of the three women in the group while we traveled from the airport to the hotel. Shortly after we settled into the van, she leaned over and whispered “The men on this trip aren’t very gentle.” I had absolutely no idea what she meant – how were the men being rough with her? It wasn’t until she continued talking that I understood what she meant. “They didn’t even try to help me with my suitcase,” she said. Ah – she meant they were not gentlemen.

Fun times, fun times…

On the Road

I’m currently traveling with a group of people from Malaysia, playing tour guide as we go from city to city, incubator to incubator. Our first stop was in San Francisco, which I’ve always heard is a fun city, but unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to explore much beyond a few blocks from our hotel. However, I was lucky enough to be staying in a corner room on the 19th floor of the hotel, so I was able to see the bay and watch the cable cars traveling up and down the road below.

For the most part, my days have been fairly boring – I’ve been sitting in the back of the room while the Malaysians listen to presenters talk about working with biotechnology entrepreneurs. In fact, that’s what I’m doing as I type this post. The trip has had its interesting moments, though, or else I wouldn’t even bother to write about it.

On my first evening in San Francisco, I met up with M, an old friend I met while I was working in Houston six years ago. She was a weekly evening volunteer at the foster home, so I got to know her fairly well during the hours we spent chatting while holding the infants and interacting with the toddlers. M was a single woman in her early thirties, and toward the end of my year in Houston, she started thinking about adopting one of the babies who had come to us when he was just under two months old. His name was Ricky in those days, and he was and adorable baby boy with big brown eyes and the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard in an infant. After much soul searching, M decided to begin the long adoption process.

M and I kept up sporadically for a while, and I was thrilled when I heard the adoption had been finalized. I loved seeing pictures of Ricky (though M renamed him) as he grew. However, we lost touch after a couple of years. On a whim, I recently searched for M on Facebook and found her profile. As it turned out, she’s living in the Bay Area, and when she heard I was going to be in San Francisco this week, she suggested we get together. I jumped at the chance, and we met up for dinner on Monday evening.

Seeing “Ricky” after all these years was a special treat. I bonded with the babies in our house, and those are the kind of connections that don’t just disappear. I’ve often wondered how the children are doing now. Ricky is obviously quite a bit bigger and he wears a very trendy pair of glasses now, but his face is almost exactly the same as it was when he was a baby. His personality is also much the same – interacting with him felt so familiar. M had told him about our history, and warned me that he might have some questions for me. About half-way through dinner he asked me if I still lived at the house for babies. I told him I’d moved away, and now I wish I’d talked to him more about what the house was like. Now, I’m thinking about writing him a letter so he’ll have something of his infancy to save.

Otherwise, I enjoyed catching up with M, although I always feel like something of a joy-kill when I give people the update on my life. In this situation, I also had sad news to share about the others M knew at our organization in Houston – Ann is going through a divorce, and Amee recently lost a long battle with cancer. I guess that’s the way life is sometimes, though, and M was comfortable talking about the difficulties of the last year. I’m always glad to be able to talk openly – I’d rather have everything out on the table than feel like people are tiptoeing around the topic of grief in an attempt to spare my feelings (though more likely they’re trying to spare themselves any discomfort).

I have more to report from my trip in general, but this is getting fairly long, so I’ll wrap it up now with a “to be continued…”

Mud Season

I've been meaning to keep up with this blog more than I've done since our return from the Bahamas. I'd blame my lack of posting on the general busyness of life since we got back, but if I'm totally honest, I'd admit that's not the full truth. In fact, I have long been plagued by a need to make everything I write for an audience as close to perfect as I can get it, and this urge does not translate well into quickly-written posts about what is going on in life. I'm going to attempt to get past that roadblock, though, and forge ahead by giving myself permission to write without constantly analyzing sentence structure and word choice. I can't necessarily get rid of the editor's voice in my head, but I can do my best to try to work around it.

Last Friday marked the first official day of spring (on the calendar, at least - the weather in Maine apparently didn't get the memo), so I've been thinking about the seasons lately and how they can be a relatively appropriate metaphor for our experiences over the last six months. This is not the first time I've had such thoughts - I was particularly aware of the seasonal metaphor in the early days of our grief, in part because of the way summer came to such an abrupt end on the day Noah died and was born. The day before had been a perfect late-summer day, with clear, blue skies and warm sunshine. The clear skies continued through the night, showcasing the full moon as we drove to the hospital, though at that point I was too focused on the pain to give the night sky more than a passing glance. By the time we left the hospital 18 hours later, it was like someone had flipped a switch - the sky was cloudy and the temperatures had dropped dramatically. Summer was over, and so were our days of happy ignorance. We held the memorial service for Noah in an outdoor pavilion four days later and the biting wind reminded us of the finality in summer’s departure.

As I've considered the weather as a metaphor in recent days, I've decided the summer to fall transition doesn't truly capture what we've gone through. More accurately, our experience was like enjoying a perfect, carefree summer day and waking up the next morning to find subzero temperatures and a howling blizzard that has damaged our house, knocked out our electricity and left us clinging to each other in an attempt to find some sort of warmth. In the early days, the primary goal is survival, but eventually the electricity comes back on and we’re able to resume some activities of “normal” life, working around the damage we’ve sustained. It’s still winter, though, and spring seems like a distant dream as we bundle up in heavy clothing, plod through snow drifts and navigate ice patches. For us, winter started September 16 regardless of the beautiful colors and occasional warm breezes that insisted we did have a fall in 2008.

Now, I think our experience and the current weather are lining up again. Mainers call this time of year “mud season.” The high temperature for the day has started reaching about 35 degrees on a fairly regular basis (with the occasional 45-degree day thrown in there just to get our hopes up) and the slightly warmer air has begun to melt the layers of snow that have been piling up for months. The result is slowly-expanding patches of wet, muddy ground covered in brown grass and interspersed with slowly-diminishing piles of dirty, gray snow. Mud season isn’t particularly pleasant, but it brings with it the knowledge that the worst of the winter is over and spring is in sight. We’ll certainly have more cold days to endure before we get there, and we may even get another snow storm, but the cold will not cut as deeply, and the snow won’t last long.

I am in an emotional mud season. I have made it through the worst of the deep winter, and on most days, I am anticipating the hope and promise of a coming spring. I still have cold days when the happiness of spring seems far away, and sometimes it still snows in my world, but the pain of the cold is less intense, and the snow quickly melts. I look back on the winter and am amazed at what we’ve come through, and I thank God for giving us the strength to survive. I look ahead to spring and pray for patience as I wait for it to arrive. And I sit here in mud season, thankful that at least some of the snow has melted.

The writer in me is not satisfied with this post, but looking back at my first paragraph I’ve decided to just let it go and throw this out there. I don’t have time to hone each post into perfection, and perhaps some of the raw honesty would be lost if I did.

Travels Concluded

I’ve neglected the end of our travel story since life has been fairly busy since we arrived back in Maine. Obviously, we did make it safely from the Bahamas to Portland, but not without a few travel difficulties. Of course, when I’m traveling, difficulties and delays are more the norm than the exception, so I guess I should have known…

I left off the last post sitting at the Nassau airport, waiting for my missing suitcase. Our flight was at 2:45 p.m., we knew we needed plenty of time to get through customs and the suitcase was meant to arrive at 12:30. Well, 12:30 came and went with no sign of the suitcase, and as the clock approached 1 p.m., Mark decided to go to the luggage carousel at the domestic terminal and see if he could locate the bag. I sat and waited, watching the minutes tick by and wondering how long we should make before deciding to leave the suitcase behind to avoid getting stuck in Nassau indefinitely.

Fortunately, Mark found the suitcase as it was coming off a plane from Eleuthera, and we managed to get in the customs line by 1:30. The line wasn’t necessarily moving quickly, but it wasn’t terribly slow, either, so we made it to our terminal with time to spare. Our flight boarded and took off on time, so we made it to Charlotte with an hour to get to our connecting flight.

The flight from Charlotte to Portland also took off on time and all seemed to be going well until about half an hour in, when we saw the flight attendant rushing toward the back of the plane with an oxygen tank. A few minutes later, the pilot made an announcement that there was a medical situation and we were going to make an emergency landing in Richmond, Virginia. We’d already reached cruising altitude, so the descent was fast and intense – definitely a little scary. We made it safely to the ground, though, and there were several emergency vehicles waiting to greet our plane. The EMTs boarded as soon as they could, and after a few minutes they trooped off the plane carrying a woman who was moaning about something hurting. We never got a full story on it, but apparently the woman passed out while we were in the air. Mark thinks he heard the word asthma, but I’m not sure if that was the culprit or not. Fortunately, there was a doctor on board who started treating her and who advised the pilot to land.

We discovered that the only quick thing about an emergency landing is the descent – we ended up being on the ground for more than two hours while the plane got more fuel, someone restocked the emergency equipment, and the flight crew filled out paperwork. Once we took off again, we had a somewhat bumpy ride to Portland, where we landed around 10:30 p.m. Our luggage came, though very slowly, and we arrived at our house at almost 11:30 p.m., after expecting to be home by 9.

So ends the story of our vacation. We had a wonderful time, and when I have a few extra minutes on my hands, perhaps I’ll write a post with more reflections, as most of what I’ve written so far has been simply description. I’m also hoping to post about some of the things we have going on now that we’re home, particularly in terms of Noah’s Law. For now, though, I need to figure out what is going on with my work e-mail so I can achieve some level of productivity today…

Bahamas Trip: The Final Chapter

We're currently sitting at the Nassau Airport (though I'll have to wait until we get home until I can actually get online to post this), waiting on a suitcase that is missing in action. Those of you who know me and my travel history will not be surprised to hear we're already having difficulty, but I'll save the story for a little later. Mark wanted me to make sure I didn't let our frustration over the luggage trouble taint my reporting of the last few days.

On Friday afternoon, we had lunch at a deli Davida and her friends had highly recommended. The day was relatively cool again, but we sat in the sun as we ate our sandwiches and managed to stay warm in short-sleeved shirts. After lunch, we headed into Governor's Harbor, which is the closest town to the place where we were staying, and is also the capital city of Eleuthera (though you would never know it to look at it). We drove around a bit and then got out to explore the library, which is in a recently-restored historic building.

While we were in the center of town, we also wandered around an old Episcopal Anglican church and went through the cemetery, reading the gravestones. I've always been fascinated by cemeteries, imagining the stories behind the dates and phrases written on aging stones. We were particularly affected by a little family plot in which a woman was buried with five of her children, all of whom died before she did. Two were quite young - one died at five months old and the other at two years old - and died within a few years of each other. The other three were aged 29, 25 and 11, and they died within a year of each other nearly thirty years after the first two. Amazingly, the mother lived for another ten or fifteen years after that tragic time when she lost three children within such close proximity. Looking at those graves gave us a new sense of perspective. Here we are, still so caught up in our grief over our loss of one child, and there are people in the world who have suffered so much more. Such a humbling thought...

After our explorations in Governor's Harbor, we gathered our beach gear and went to Ten Bay, which is also listed in the book of elusive beaches, though judging from the number of people who were there, it's not all that elusive anymore. The sun was warm but the wind and water were still cool, so I opted to hang out on the beach with my book while Mark went snorkeling. Mark was freezing when he came out of the water, but he said the snorkeling was definitely worth the discomfort. He saw a lionfish, a blowfish, several starfish, jellyfish, and he collected a few beautiful sand dollars.

That evening, we went back to the Spanish tapas restaurant to have a drink at their bar that overlooks the ocean. We actually decided to go for a drink based on some snippets I'd overheard at the library. Mark knew that Lenny Kravitz was on the island (he apparently owns a house north of where we were staying), and that he occasionally goes to different restaurants on the island. While we were at the library, I thought I heard the phrases "Lenny Kravitz," "Beach House" (the Spanish restaurant) and "from four to six." I wasn't at all sure that those phrases belonged together, but Mark thought it was worth a try. As it turned out, I must have misheard - the Beach House was almost deserted except for one other young couple at the bar. It was a nice atmosphere for enjoying a drink, though, and we ended up chatting with the other couple.

They were from Boston, and in the course of conversation, they told us they had sat at a table with Lenny Kravitz and Penelope Cruz at a restaurant/club earlier in the week. I guess we were in the wrong place at the wrong time...

Several people told us about an event that happens every Friday night in Governor's Harbor called a fish fry, so we headed there after our drink at the beach house. We'd heard it was a great place to see "local color," but aside from the people who were selling food and drinks, the crowd was almost entirely made up of tourists. Everyone who told us about the fish fry said we should definitely try the conch salad, so we got in line at a stand where the creation of the dish was apparently as much a part of the experience as eating it. We watched as a man cleaned the conch and then chopped it along with a variety of vegetables, tossed in some salt, squeezed lime juice on it and scooped it into a Styrofoam bowl. The result was surprisingly tasty. We washed it down with rum punch and watched the other tourists milling around.

We weren't really interested in the fried fish aspect of the fish fry, and since we shared the conch salad, we were ready for dinner when we left the event. It was getting late and we didn't feel like going to a restaurant, so we ordered a pizza and ate it in our apartment. After dinner, we ended the evening by taking some wine down to the beach, though the wind made the experience a little chilly.

Saturday was our last full day in the Bahamas, so we spent the morning cleaning up the apartment and packing so we'd have the afternoon free to do something fun. We didn't have enough food on hand for lunch, so we went to an Italian restaurant called Dolce Vita. Several people had recommended it, particularly because of their homemade gelato. There were only two other people in the restaurant, so we had the deck where we were eating almost to ourselves. We split the bruschetta as an appetizer and then split a vegetarian pizza for our main course. Both were delicious and since the pizzas were designed for one person, we had enough room left to try the gelato for dessert.

That afternoon, we borrowed the kayaks from Davida, packed a bag with beach stuff, put a couple of beers in a cooler and headed down to the Caribbean Sea. We paddled out to an island we'd found during our first kayaking adventure and pulled the boats on the shore. I settled on the beach with my book while Mark went out snorkeling. Again, the water and wind were much too cool to motivate me to get in the water, but Mark didn't want to miss out on any chance to check out the undersea world. He came out saying the snorkeling was great, but he was shivering harder than I've ever seen him do before, so I didn't regret my decision at all. Once Mark dried off a bit, we had a drink and picked little seashells out of the sand.

The sun was beginning to sink behind the trees, so we decided it was time to paddle back to the mainland. The wind had picked up quite a bit, so the journey back was challenging. We were both fairly soaked by the time we pulled onto the main beach, but fortunately I was warm from the effort I had to put into propelling my boat.

Since it was our last evening, we went back to the restaurant we'd liked most, a place called Tippy's. We were both starving after our active afternoon, so we ordered a salad and an appetizer to share before our meals were ready. The salad was baby greens, arugula and feta with tiny tomatoes - delicious. The appetizer was chopped tomatoes tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette with fried onions on top - it sounds strange, but was also delicious. The tomatoes on this island are amazing, although my opinion might be slightly skewed since it's been several months since I had a good, fresh tomato. Our main courses were also good - I had a pasta dish with roasted chicken and Mark had Cajun grouper with pineapple chutney.

We ended our final evening with wine on the beach, which gave us a chance to reflect a bit on the last week as well as on the last six months. I don't think we'll know the full impact this vacation has had on our mental state until we're back home, but I think this has been a very healing time.
So, that brings us to today, which started out well but has quickly gone downhill. We remembered to set our clocks back (though we were not thrilled about losing an hour of sleep on our last night), finished straightening the apartment and said good-bye to Davida before heading to the airport. Once there, we discovered that their computer wasn't working, but they went ahead and loaded us all on the plane anyway, and we took off thirty minutes ahead of schedule. As a result, we landed at the time we were supposed to take off and everything seemed to be going well until we went to collect our luggage. Mark's bag appeared on the luggage carousel, but mine was nowhere to be found. I was not alone, though - several other people were missing bags, too. As it turned out, the pilot decided the plane was too heavy and asked to have ten of the bags taken off before we left the Governor's Harbor airport. Needless to say, none of us were happy with this news as we were all needing to get through customs with our luggage in time to make it on flights to the U.S. The Bahamas Air representatives told us they'd try to get the bags here by 12:30, and we'd just have to wait for them. So, that's what we're doing right now - waiting and hoping the bags will arrive with enough time for us to get through customs and security. We've been sitting here since 11 and it's now 12:20. Our flight is at 2:45 and the line for customs is not moving very quickly. We'll see...

Edit: I'm back in Maine and will finish the travel story soon...

Bahamas Trip Part Three

Before I begin writing about our latest vacation activities, Mark wanted me to be sure to point out that we’ve been enjoying a glass of wine on the beach every evening since we’ve been here – I may have neglected to mention that after the first time because it seemed repetitive. The evenings have been incredibly windy, but it’s nice to be so close to the crashing waves and to watch for shooting stars (we’ve seen a few – one really spectacular one and some so-so ones).

Anyway, I left off with our kayaking adventures on Tuesday afternoon, so I’ll try to pick up there. When we got to the apartment after kayaking, we had a visit from Giant (which is his nickname – not sure what is real name is), who is Davida’s handyman and is also renting us a car. When we met Giant during our first night on the island, he told us about his day job doing construction at the Island School, which is basically a study abroad program for high school students. It’s unique because they are trying to be entirely self-sustainable in terms of the energy they use, food and products they consume, etc. Giant invited us to come for a tour of the school, so on Tuesday afternoon he came by to make arrangements for the next day and give us directions.

Up until this point, Mark had been having trouble setting up a trip to go diving because the dive shop wouldn’t take one diver and didn’t have anyone else interested in going. While Giant was here, Darryl, the guy from the dive shop called, and Giant asked for the phone. Giant apparently knows Darryl fairly well, so he did some persuading and got Darryl to agree to set up a dive trip for Thursday morning. By the time Giant left, we had mapped out our next two days.
That evening, we went to Coco di Mamma for dinner. When we arrived, we asked to sit on the deck at first so we could watch the sunset. The man who was seating us led us to a table, pulled out my chair and then looked at me and asked if I was part Chinese or Korean. I was completely surprised – I had no idea how to respond. He said I looked like I could be part Asian, and then Mark, apparently trying to rescue the situation, agreed with him. Mark later admitted that he didn’t really see the Asian thing, though he wondered if it was because I have a round face – thanks, Mark.

We moved inside for dinner and were the only people in the restaurant aside from a woman eating by herself. Not long after we sat down, another couple came in, but they were silent for the entire meal, so it seemed a bit like everyone was listening to our conversation. Not that we have anything to hide, but it was a bit awkward. The food was good, though – the restaurant is owned by a man from Italy, so Mark had pasta with black truffle sauce and I had spaghetti with basil pesto.

The next morning, we got out for our beach walk early since we were planning to head to the school that morning. When we returned to the apartment, there was a message on the machine from Darryl, the dive shop guy, saying that he was moving up the Thursday dive and it would instead start in one hour. Our choice was either to postpone the plans with Giant or to risk Mark not being able to dive at all on this trip. For Mark, it was a no-brainer – he didn’t want to take the chance that he would miss a diving opportunity. We rushed around to get ready for the trip, and Mark left a message on Giant’s cell phone saying we weren’t going to make it to the Island School as planned.

Darryl had agreed to push back the time of the dive by half an hour, but it took us an hour to get to the marina, so we just barely made it in time. Darryl had found one other guy who wanted to go on a dive, and he pulled in just behind us. We all boarded the boat – I was going along just for the ride – and we headed out into the ocean to find the first of the two dive spots.

While Mark, Darryl and the other guy were diving, I read my book on the boat, though there were times when I wondered if I was going to get pitched overboard because the water was so choppy. Fortunately, I didn’t get seasick, although I was certainly glad that all I’d put in my stomach so far that day was toast and water. Mark loved the diving – he saw lionfish, lobster, a giant eagle ray, angel fish, coral of various shapes and colors, and more. If we could afford it, I think Mark would want to go diving every day.

The Island School is on the same end of the island as the dive shop, so after we returned to the marina, we decided to try to find Giant and work out a new plan with him in person. Giant’s directions were good, so we made it to the school where apparently everyone knows Giant, so it didn’t take us too long to find him. Unfortunately, we discovered that he hadn’t gotten our message and we had missed a tour he set up for us that morning as well as lunch with some people he thought we’d like to meet. I felt TERRIBLE, but there was nothing we could do. Giant was going to try to find someone else to give us a tour that afternoon, but it was 2 p.m. and we hadn’t had lunch yet, so we decided to reschedule for the next morning. We weren’t familiar with that part of the island, so Giant led us to a newly constructed resort area where there is a coffee shop/restaurant that seemed similar to something you would find in the U.S. Giant had to leave, so Mark and I were on our own to order sandwiches and enjoy a beautiful view of the Caribbean as we sat on a deck that could easily have been used in a Pottery Barn catalogue shoot.

By the time we made it back to the apartment, it was almost 5 p.m., so we decided to just relax for a little while before finding a place for dinner. When we did get up the energy to head out again, we went to a place called the Buccaneer Club, which is a restaurant that attracts both locals and tourists. The people watching was great, but the food was relatively mediocre. It was inexpensive, though, so we got what we paid for. I had a grilled chicken sandwich while Mark had a “conch burger” (basically fried conch pieces in a bun). I also ordered a Bahama Mama, in part because Mark wanted to try one but didn’t think it was very manly to order one himself. It was okay, though I still prefer wine over sweet cocktail drinks.

On Wednesday morning we headed back down to the south of the island where the Island School is located. We connected with Giant and started our tour, which turned out to be fascinating, particularly in terms of the innovative things they are doing to be environmentally friendly. For example, they take used cooking oil from the cruise ships that pass through and turn it into biodiesel fuel to run all of their vehicles and machinery. They also have a wood mill so they can process local wood to use in their building projects. The soil isn’t great for growing food, but they have some plants and trees in a garden, and they also raise pigs for meat and goats for milk. Most of the energy the school uses comes from solar panels and a wind mill, and they use only collected rain water.

After Giant gave us an initial tour, a guy who teaches there and is also working on his Ph.D. showed us the research facilities and explained some of the projects they have going on there. Mark understood more than I did, but I’ve lived with Mark long enough to be familiar with the challenges of research in general, so I was able to keep up with the conversation. Mark’s starting to think he got his Ph.D. in the wrong field, though. If he had gone for marine biology instead of muscle biology, he could get a job at the Island School and then be paid to go diving every day.

Our tour guide took us to lunch at the school – everyone eats together – and then we said our goodbyes to Giant and hit the road again. Mark had read about a beach at the extreme southern tip of the island, so we decided to try to find it. The information Mark found was in a book called “The Elusive Beaches of Eleuthera,” and we quickly discovered that the beaches are elusive because they are almost impossible to access. We drove for three miles on a road that seemed to have been constructed to discourage anyone from driving on it rather than to facilitate transportation. There were huge potholes as well as giant rocks that Mark had to try to navigate in our SUV. The beach was worth the trip, though – we ended up on a gorgeous part of the Caribbean Sea. The air was cool, so I opted to sit in the sun with a book while Mark went in the water, and I apparently missed out on the best snorkeling yet. Mark found live coral and quite a few schools of fish while he was exploring.

We did some exploring on foot, too, and found an old lighthouse, though it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a lighthouse after what we’re used to seeing in Maine. It was a rundown square building about twenty feet high – I’m a little surprised anyone could see it from the ocean. The most it does now is act as the namesake for the beach, which is known as Lighthouse Beach.

There was no one else on the beach and we enjoyed having it to ourselves, but around 4 p.m. we decided we should probably start heading back in case we had any trouble getting out. We had to use the four wheel drive for a minute, but otherwise we were okay. Once we got back to the apartment, we took a little time to relax before we went to dinner at Captain Jack’s. We had been there for lunch on our first full day here, and were pleasantly surprised to see a much more extensive dinner menu. Mark had mahi-mahi and I had grilled chicken – both were excellent.

I think I’m caught up now, and I need to stop writing so we can get out and enjoy our last couple of days here.

Bahamas Trip Part Two

Today is our fourth full day on the island of Eleuthra, and already it seems as if time is escaping much too quickly. I suppose that’s a good sign, though, in keeping with the sentiment “time flies when you’re having fun.” We are certainly glad to be away from New England right now, as we’ve heard stories of the late-winter snow storm that hit yesterday. Ah, winter in Maine – it never ends.

On Sunday afternoon, I ventured out with the snorkel gear for the first time. Mark had done some exploratory snorkeling on Saturday while I sat on the beach and watched/read. I have to admit that I also laughed as he tried to walk in flippers – he was really struggling to figure out how to get himself from the beach into the water. Fortunately for me, he’d figured out a system of wading out and then putting the flippers on by the time we went out on Sunday afternoon. Mark led our little expedition and we saw quite a bit of coral and a few fishes, but nothing too spectacular. I did enjoy just floating in the water, though it’s certainly not as warm as I expected it to be, so I was glad for the wet suit Davida lent me.

That evening, we went to a place called the Sunset Inn with the intention of having drinks while watching the sunset, but our plan was foiled by the cloudy sky. Some clouds make for a beautiful sunset, but too many clouds lead to nothing more than a gradual darkening of the sky. The restaurant was quiet, though, so we sat and had drinks anyway. We were also interested in ordering a conch appetizer, so I asked the waitress what conch pieces were like. She told me it was like cracked conch, which to me means conch right out of the shell, so I ordered it thinking we would get straight conch meant. However, to Bahamians apparently “cracked” translates as “fried.” It was not what we were expecting, but when in Rome…

The menu at the Sunset Inn wasn’t hugely appealing and it was still early for dinner, so we decided to go to another restaurant for dinner. We ended up at a place called the Beach House, though we almost couldn’t tell if it was open because there was only one other car in the parking lot. It turned out they were just having a slow night, so we got our pick of tables on a deck by the ocean. The atmosphere was great – low lighting, candles, rattan furniture with cushions – and the food was excellent as well. It was a Spanish tapas restaurant, so we ordered three dishes to share: brie with raspberry sauce and almond slivers, stuffed Portobello mushroom and jumbo shrimp with roasted tomatoes. Everything we tried was delicious, so our dinner certainly made up for our appetizer experience.

On Monday morning, we checked out a little “farmer’s market” that’s close to where we’re staying. The selection wasn’t fabulous, but we were able to get some fresh tomatoes for our lunch and homemade guava jam for our breakfast bagels. After lunch, we headed north armed with directions to a few different points of interest. I was amazed at how uninhabited the island is in some parts – in between towns, we would go several miles without seeing any houses. We saw some old silos, so we assume the land must have been used for farming at some point, but I’m not sure what grows well in the sandy soil of an island that is only two miles wide.

After more than an hour of driving, we pulled onto a road that seemed almost impassable because of the huge potholes and general deterioration. We bounced on down in our SUV, though, and made it to a place called Preacher’s Cave. Apparently the cave is so named because of the sermons given there for more than 100 years. I could imagine it as a good location for preaching – there was a large rock that could easily be used as a pulpit, and there was a circular clearing at the mouth of the cave that would have been perfect for audience seating.

We explored the cave for a bit, climbing over the rocks and inspecting the different holes in the ceiling. At the back of the cave was a hole with a rope hanging down, so of course Mark wanted to try climbing out of the cave. He made it out all right, but the getting back down part was a little more difficult than he had anticipated. I was glad we managed to make it out of there without any major injuries.

Across from Preacher’s Cave is a beach that is supposed to be good for snorkeling, so Mark pulled the gear out of the SUV and we headed for the water. I was much less enthusiastic about the idea of snorkeling as the air was actually quite cool yesterday, and I was fairly certain I’d be freezing if I got wet. I brought my book along so I could sit on the beach and read while Mark went into the sea, but as it turned out, the water was too choppy for snorkeling so we ended up just walking the beach for a bit before going back to the car.

On our way back south, we experienced the Glass Window Bridge, which everyone had told us was a “must see” on Eleuthera. The bridge is unique because it’s a narrow passage where the Atlantic is on one side and the Caribbean is on the other. As a result, you look at dark, gray-blue water on one side, and bright, green-blue water on the other. Unfortunately, the bridge isn’t a good spot to get out of the car, so we just tried to take in the view as we drove. It’s amazing to see how different the waters of the Caribbean and the ocean really are.

Mark was determined to find some good snorkeling water, so on our way back toward the place we’re staying, we stopped at a resort/restaurant called Coco di Mamma where there’s a nice beach on the Caribbean side (according to Davida, the people at the resorts don’t care if you use their beaches even if you aren’t staying there). Unfortunately, the water was choppy there, too, so we just ended up going into the restaurant for a drink. Coco di Mamma has a beautiful deck overlooking the Caribbean and is supposed to get gorgeous sunsets, so we braved the cool wind and sat outside. I was still a bit of a wimp, though, and bundled up with Mark’s jacket and one of the beach towels.

The sunset here is surprisingly later than it is in Maine – I still haven’t figured that one out, but neither have I looked at a map to see how everything is lined up. So, we were early for the sunset and after about thirty minutes of shivering on the deck we decided to throw in the towel (figuratively, of course – I wasn’t about to give up the towel wrapped around my legs). As we were driving, we decided to give the sunset thing on last go by driving down to a point right across from where we’re staying. We made it just in time – as we parked, we could see the sun beginning to sink behind a coral island in the sea. The colors were gorgeous, and I don’t think it would have been any better from the deck at Coco di Mamas.

For dinner, we went the casual route and headed to a pizza place about five minutes from the place we’re staying. The first thing Mark saw when we walked in the door was a Green Bay Packers flag, so he was instantly a fan of the restaurant, which is called Mate and Jenny’s. Once we sat down, we realized the Packer flag probably wasn’t an indicator of the owner’s loyalty – the walls and ceiling were covered with paraphernalia from various sports teams, as well as some random posters (including one of Michael Jackson circa 1985) and other knickknacks. The specialty at Mate and Jenny’s is a conch pizza, which sounded a little strange but was actually delicious.

Today is Tuesday, and Mark is beginning to feel like our time is disappearing and he wants to try to make the most of it. We spent a chunk of the morning searching for a good place to go snorkeling, but were ultimately unsuccessful. I thought it was too cold to go in the water anyway, so I stayed on the beach and read while Mark went in the water at a point all the way south on the island. He gave up after about twenty minutes, though, saying there just wasn’t much to see.

This afternoon, we loaded up the kayaks and went to the Caribbean side of the island to paddle. The water was a little choppy, but it was warmer than it has been in a few days and it was wonderful to feel the sun on my shoulders. We went out to a coral island and got out to explore a little bit, but we didn’t have the right shoes to get far, so we didn’t stay long.

So, I think I’m finally up to date, and I apologize for another lengthy post. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I have a tendency to ramble. I’m also justifying it in this case because I think there are some family members who are truly interested in all the details, and I’m hoping anyone who finds the details tedious will skim through them. When this trip is over I’ll work on being more concise.

The First Post: Bahamas Vacation Part One

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while, and I think one of the main reasons I haven't yet is because I can't think of a name that seems both creative and appropriate. In fact, as I type, Mark is wandering around, trying to come up with names he deems worthy. So far, he's come up with "What Does Linds Say," "Kermit the Blog," and "Life in the Biddo." Not surprisingly, none of those names have resonated with me, so I've put the name thing on the back burner for now while I focus on writing a first blog post.

I was finally inspired to take the plunge into blogging by the fact that we are currently on vacation in the Bahamas with access to the Internet but no phone service (at least not at a price I'm willing to pay). Blogging seems more appealing than the idea of writing several e-mails to tell similar stories to the different people in our lives. I'd also like to have something of a record for ourselves, because otherwise I'm sure we'll forget most of the stories from this week before
we even return to the U.S. When we do return, I hope to keep up with the blog as a way of staying in touch with our long-distance friends and family members.

As most of you know, my dad suggested the idea of this trip shortly after we lost Noah in September. This plan to escape the long Maine winter and to spend a week just relaxing has given us something to look forward to in the most difficult season of our lives. We are incredibly thankful to my dad and to everyone else who helped make this trip possible for us. The warm air, the chance to relax, and this time to just be together are like a healing balm for our hearts. I was trying to think of a less cheesy way to say that, but I can't come up with one and, goofy as it is, that line describes how I'm feeling.

We are staying on the island of Eleuthera, which is one of the less touristy islands of the Bahamas. One of Mark's co-workers has a step-mother who owns a house here, and she was willing to rent us her garage apartment for a really good rate. To call this place a garage apartment doesn't quite do it justice - it has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room a kitchen, and ceilings that must be fifteen feet high. We have more than enough space, and we're able to hear the ocean from just about anywhere in the apartment.

We arrived at the apartment around 5 p.m. on Friday evening, and Davida, who owns the house and apartment, invited us to come to the cocktail party she was hosting at her house. Mark and I were tired after a long day of travel, but the idea of not having to go anywhere to find dinner was appealing, so we changed into slightly nicer clothes and put on our happy social faces. Meeting other people at the party actually turned out to be fairly interesting - many of the other guests
have been coming to Eleuthera to escape the northern winters for several years, and they were all happy to give us tips on what to do during our time on the island. We had several interesting conversations, but were still somewhat relieved to get some time on our own when the party ended. We escaped down to the beach where we marveled at the number of stars that were
visible in the dark night sky.

The next morning we were awake early because of the sunshine in our room, so we decided to take a walk on the beach. Walking the beach in and of itself isn't all that novel for us - I take Syd to the ocean every day while we're at home. However, it has been a long time since I've been able to walk the beach without wearing multiple layers of clothing. However, I have to admit that it's easier to walk on our beach at home - the sand here is quite soft, so each step takes
quite a bit of effort. I can't complain too much, though - it's fabulous to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and to enjoy the ocean breezes instead of having to brace myself against the biting wind.

After our walk and breakfast on our deck, we went over to Davida's house to get the scoop on what to do while we're here in Eleuthera. She had a number of restaurant recommendations and she also pointed out the best beaches to visit. Mark busily tried to take notes, but I'm not sure he got it all down. Davida also gave us snorkeling gear to borrow, so we can explore the ocean without having to pay rental fees.

For lunch, we decided to try out a restaurant that is located on the beach, about a mile from where we are staying. It was pretty amazing to have our transportation to lunch be a walk on the beach - I could get used to that. We sat at a table near a couple from Toledo, Ohio, so we chatted a bit about Ohio, the winter, etc. Everyone here seems to be quite friendly, perhaps because the atmosphere is just so laid back in general. Our food was good - Mark had a salmon burger, I had lobster spring rolls and we shared a bowl of conch chowder. I thought it was a little strange to order something with lobster during our "escape" from Maine, but the spring rolls were among the least expensive options on the menu and they turned out to be very tasty.

We rented a car for the time we're here, so yesterday afternoon we drove around to get our bearings. We were able to find the restaurant Davida had recommended for that night because of the Bahamian music they were featuring, and we also went to a beach on the Caribbean side of the ocean where the shallows were literally covered with conch shells. We had expected to
be driving an SUV, but it apparently wasn't available yet, so we had a regular four-door car with the steering wheel on the same side as in the U.S. Mark seemed to get the hang of driving on the left side fairly easily, though it seems like everyone else in this country has trouble with it - every time we encountered an oncoming car, we practically had to stop because the other person was driving in the middle of the road.

Tippy's was the name of the recommended restaurant for that evening, and it turned out to be a pleasant place. We had a table at the edge of a screened-in porch that looked out over the ocean, so it felt like we were eating right on the beach. We went the cheap route and split a hummus appetizer and a pizza with feta, arugula and fresh tomatoes. The Bahamian music started around the time we finished our dinner, so we stuck around to listen for a little while. The band mostly just played Bob Marley covers, but it was fun to listen. After we got back from the restaurant, we went down to the beach for another evening of star gazing. We both saw a few shooting stars, which is always rewarding.

Today is Sunday, and Davida's house is located quite close to Church Street (which is so named because there are at least five churches in a quarter-mile span), so we decided to see what a local church service would be like. We chose the Methodist church since I come from a Methodist background (sort of) and because we knew the service started at 11 a.m. It was definitely an interesting experience. As soon as we walked in the door, I could tell we were going to stick out like the proverbial sore thumbs. I have never felt so conspicuously white in my life - there was not a single other white person in the room. I also felt incredibly under-dressed in my sundress and flip flops, and I think Mark was even worse in his shorts and button-down shirt. All of the men were wearing dress shirts and ties, and several of the women were wearing suits and hats.

We settled into one of the back pews hoping that if we weren't going to blend, perhaps we could try to hide. There was no hiding in that church, though, and almost immediately a man came up to greet us. We were happy to exchange pleasantries, but the strange thing was that the man seemed to think he knew us. We were tipped off by the fact that he leaned over and told me he had talked to my parents last night. My first reaction was total confusion. "Really?" I said, as if it were possible that he could have talked to my parents last night. Mark was a little more on top of things, though, and clarified that the man probably had us confused with someone else. The man apologized, though I'm still not sure who he thought we were. It's not like we looked similar to anyone else in the congregation.

The service started, and as soon as one of the ministers (I think there were two or three of them) got up to do the announcements, he looked directly at us and said, "I think we have some visitors among us today, stand up and tell us a little about yourselves." All I can say is that I haven't felt quite so awkward in a long time. Mark and I stood up, feeling like there was a spotlight making us look whiter than ever, and Mark said a few words about how we were visiting the island and staying with Davida (as if everyone would know who Davida was). I kept trying to sit back down before he was done, and as a result I think I probably looked like I was trying to curtsy. So embarrassing.

The service was an interesting mix of African-American-type gospel and traditional Methodism. The minister announced the number of the first hymn we were going to sing (Mark's convinced he specifically said blue hymnal, though I don't remember hearing that), and as we reached for the blue book marked "Hymnal," three people jumped toward us, gesturing at some battered books of hymns that were also in the seat. The man in front of us grabbed one of them, found the first hymn and handed the book to Mark, and then he did the same for me. I wonder if he thought we had never used hymnals before. After about twelve hymns and ten gospel songs it was almost time for the sermon to begin when the woman behind us started shouting that the Lord was calling her to request another song. I don't think the ministers quite knew what to do with her, but she was very insistent, so eventually the choir just started in to the song she requested. Finally, one hour and fifteen minutes after the service began, a minister got up to do a sermon. His message was a good one and I'm glad we were there to hear it, but when we finally left the church at 1 p.m., it felt like we'd been there a very long time.

The other Sunday story is about the car we are now driving. The SUV was ready on Sunday morning, so the person who is renting to us switched cars shortly before we went to church. When we went out to get in the car, we discovered a British-style vehicle with the steering wheel on the right side instead of the left like in the U.S. Mark quickly discovered that more than just the steering wheel is backwards in the car - the wiper and headlight/turn signal levers are also reversed. So, every time we went to make a turn, Mark turned on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. At one point, he wanted to signal to another driver that he could turn first, and instead of flashing his lights, he squirted wiper fluid onto the windshield. I still get hysterical every time.

I need to just stop writing and post this, or else it's going to turn into a journal just for me. Already, I'm finishing and posting this entry a day late. I think I've decided to call the blog "Mainely Rambling" even though Mark says the Mainely thing is totally overdone and uncreative - he didn't come up with anything better, and as you can see from the length of this post, I have a tendency to ramble. I'm hesitant to post this without editing it - the English major in me hates to publish anything that isn't perfect - but Mark is eager to get out and enjoy the day, so I'm just going to do it. Please excuse any errors.

I'll share more about our trip later.