Category — Life

Madeleine wakes with a stumble of pure joy. All squeals and wild giggles. Face ablaze with laughter, peering through whispers of moonlight. A toothless flurry of smiles, all for me. Mama, I see you…

I hear of newborn babies sleeping through the night and for a moment my mind flickers with jealousy, but the picture of my daughter’s saucer eyes eclipses the emotion. My heart crests. A gentle ache. Darling, I see you…

It’s our moment. This 3 AM love.

The UN announced yesterday that talks towards a new global climate deal — set to wrap this December in Copenhagen — are now in serious jeopardy. Realistically, they said, only a massive show of public support over the next few weeks can sway the outcome, showing our leaders “they have their populations behind them” for bold political action.

Could it happen? Just maybe. This summer we were approached by a remarkable coalition within the climate movement, now representing more than 200 leading NGOs including Greenpeace, Avaaz, OXFAM and Christian Aid. Together we designed a global campaign called TckTckTck tailored for just this purpose — showing our leaders that “the world is ready”.

You can check out the TckTckTck.org campaign here — and all the action leading up to Copenhagen.

Since we launched the site in August it’s grown like wildfire. Today we surpassed an incredible 2 MILLION PEOPLE ready to lobby as Copenhagen nears — and this could be our best chance at influencing a deal.

What explains the massive response? The urgency of the issue? The simplicity of the ask? The theory of change and outreach? Yes. But more than anything, it’s about Tck’s powerful model of online organizing. It’s about well-established groups setting aside their brands and egos to collaborate openly for the movement — focused on giving people a powerful platform to impact an issue they care about. That’s promising stuff indeed.

Again, you can check out the TckTckTck.org site here. 

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From the good people at Biro Creative.

We welcomed our little girl one week ago today. Madeleine Jacoba Hope.

Madeleine comes from the root ‘Magdalen’ meaning ‘High Tower.’ Therefore she is named after Mary Magdalene and also the wonderful writer, Madeleine L’Engle. Jacoba (pronounced Yacoba) is my grandmother’s middle name, common to the Dutch, which shares the same Hebrew root as my brother James’ name. Hope is a word that has particularly captured me this year (I wrote about it here.) Also, we felt the name appropriate due to to the amount of times we had to reach out to Jesus for hope during her labour and delivery. It was a long journey to meet our little girl. 

Madeleine weighed in at 9 lbs 11 oz after 81 hours of labour, start to finish. Although we laboured almost entirely at home, she was delivered naturally by our midwives at Burnaby General Hospital in the wee hours of the morning. Mommy was too tired to go anymore without a little help (a small amount of IV Oxytocin.)

Our new life with Madeleine:

In the words of Madeleine L’Engle, one of our little girl’s namesakes: “Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.”

Our prayer is that our little one will tell the story of Christ through her beautiful, adventurous, and marvelous life. 

We welcomed Madeleine Jacoba Hope on September 2 at 9:15 AM.

9 lbs 11 oz. 72 hours of labour. Mom and baby are happy and healthy. Daddy says: “God help fathers of daughters.”

We are in love.

Here are two photos of me from yesterday, at 40 weeks, which means I am full term today. Thank you Gaetanne for a wonderful afternoon.

Photos by Gaetanne Leduc of Then Comes Marriage Photography.

It’s not every day that you arrive at a party and are promptly crowned with roses. It’s not every week that you get to see a dozen of your nearest and dearest collected in a single room, smiling back at you. But that’s what happened Sunday.

This was the scene of my ‘blessingway’ — a rite of passage into motherhood, organized by my dear friends Avital and Marisa.

They read from Psalm 139: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up… You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” They each brought beautiful glass beads to make me a necklace and shared blessings for me, many written on lovely paper, cards and postcards I can treasure forever. We shared a meal. And, at the end, they laid hands on my shoulders and prayed for me, Michael and our baby — praying for a peaceful labour, a wonderful transition into motherhood, and that through becoming parents Michael and I would fall in love with each other all over again.

I am truly blessed.

Living, working, shopping, churching in my own neighbourhood has become immensely important to me.

This passion began when Michael and I were first praying about where to live when we got married. We started off living in the tiny loft of the house where I’d lived for the previous five years. When we prayed we never felt God giving us a clear answer on the location question. We had settled on living in Kitsilano, renting part of a house or an apartment, until my dad and stepmom offered to sell us a condo they owned in Burnaby. The offer was clear out of the blue and as we prayed we felt it was God’s leading. We said yes. So, since last spring, we have lived in a corner of suburbia.

I never expected it, but I grieved moving out of Vancouver. I had fallen in love with my dirty corner of southeast Vancouver. I loved the hole-in-the-wall takeout Indian, the $2 bags of naan, and the crazy Chinese lady with the wooden broom handle. I missed running into neighbours on the street and housemates on the front stoop. Now I lived in apartment-land. On the 13th floor. APART-ment. It’s written right in the name.

I suffered something of a depression. I hardly went out. It was easy to do because I was newly self-employed and was working crazy long hours. Plus Michael and I were newly wed and working on building our relationship. My life felt disjointed. All of my favourite digs were on Fraser and Main, now I was a city away. We went to church near Vancouver’s city hall, but we were paying taxes in Burnaby. Familiar faces were non-existent.

I decided to get a (very) part-time job at Starbucks to meet people in the neighbourhood. And, you know, it worked! But I was SO overworked (5-9 AM at Starbucks, 9-6/7/8 at my desk) I had to quit. No matter, the short stint at the neighbourhood coffee shop opened up relationships where I lived. Now I walk into Starbucks and meet friendly faces. They even treat me to free beverages. They ask after our baby. They make me feel welcome — at home.

Slowly, slowly this area has become home. I think, in our right-now, click-culture, we forget that things take time. Relationships are forged. Homes are built. The expectation that these things will happen overnight is our great adversary.  

We found out yesterday that Michael’s sister is moving into our neighbourhood, two blocks from the little Anglican church we have been visiting and the butcher where we buy our steak and kolbassa. On Sunday we met up with our neighbour Tricia and her son Diego at McDonalds. We talked politics over Happy Meals (she’s meeting some federal big wigs as I type). Jennifer, our neighbour on the 8th floor, greeted us at the grocery store the other day. Her two-year-old daughter Amelia is looking forward to playing with our baby when s/he comes. 

Today, I thank God. We have a home.

I am spending my last weeks writing. Combing through pages, scraps, post-its, binders and journals that make up my book. The one I have been working on for 1.5 years. 

Soon everything will change. Irreversibly. Forever. We will welcome our child into this world with trembling arms. We will mess up. Drop him/her. Give her/him all the love we’ve got. 

I stare at my growing body and marvel. I walk across the street to Save-On-Foods for the free air conditioning and walk home smiling. 

I am trying to relish every moment with Michael because I am all too aware of the fact that our relationship will never be the same again. It will never be ‘just us’ again and I love us. Yes, we are gaining the most incredible gift in the world but I am also experiencing a real sense of loss. I will never be woman — independent and fierce — again. And yet I will be more. I will be mother. 

These days feel surreal. I am slow-moving, yet I am accomplishing much. A baby is nearly ready to be born — inside my body — baking, daily. I am preparing my heart, my mind and our home to welcome our child. Michael and I are freezing fresh berries, preparing meals, and today (against better judgement) I baked dozens of oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies and loaves of banana bread, for the days when we can barely keep our eyes open. We’ve bought our stroller, folded the onesies, checked off the labour list, and now — for a few more weeks — we wait. 

My mom came over the other night. I asked her about her labours. All but one of her children (the last) came 5-10 days early. So we may be meeting our son/daughter sooner than we think. 

These are amazing — real, emotional, overwhelming, exciting, full — days.

Thank you for sharing them with me, friends.

We took to our favourite island last weekend for an overnight stay.

We arrived a little tired:

But were quickly whisked down to the promontory to read poetry at sunset:

The next morning we rose to a big breakfast of eggs, coffee, sausages and hashbrowns to sustain us for a couple hours’ kayak:

And then we were glad.