Surgery - Ugh!

When Ryan and I were dating he hurt his shoulder. We are not sure how he did it exactly, but he thinks it was his swimming class, his weight lifting class, or the combination of doing them in the same semester, one right after the other. He went to talk to a doctor about it right before he graduated and was given a series of physical therapy exercises to do. He did them somewhat faithfully up until we got married 6 weeks later. He acknowledged that they helped some, but he still couldn’t do his favorite exercises, so he gave up. That was over 6 years ago. Since then his arm gets sore from doing various swinging motions – throwing a ball, playing tennis, etc. He sometimes has a hard time sleeping on it as well, and he still can’t do the exercises he likes. We put a lot of money in our flexible spending account this year in anticipation that we may have a baby, but we haven’t. So we decided to have his shoulder looked at. He did some physical therapy again, but again, even though it improved slightly, he and the doctor concluded that the only way to really fix it would be surgery.
So, Ryan had shoulder surgery. It was a long ordeal, at least for me. We got there two hours before the surgery was scheduled – they took some blood, asked him a lot of questions, and prepped him for surgery. Then I just had to wait, and wait, and wait. After about an hour and half the doctor came and told me the surgery went well, and that he did have a labrum tear (so he wasn’t crazy) which they repaired. I was glad things went well. And then I waited for another couple hours until he started to wake up and they took him to recovery. But he had started waking up during the surgery so they gave him additional anesthesia, and then when he was waking up he was in pain so they gave him more stuff, so I waited another few hours before he was finally awake enough to get to the car.
Before the surgery he had been told he would be in a sling for three weeks. We weren’t anticipating it being a big deal, he even thought he would get back to work after a day or two. We were wrong. He doesn’t have just a sling, but a “pillow” to prop his arm up. For the first two days he had to take pain pills every 4 hours, even during the night. He also had this sophisticated ice pack called an “ice man” where you have this ice chest thing with a hose that pumps ice water into the pack. So he was attached to this thing for a few days, even while sleeping – good thing we have a king sized bed. He can’t really lie down very well because of his pillow. He was quite helpless at first, but has started to use his left hand to do some things. But still he requires a lot of taking care of – I tie his shoes, help him get dressed, do his hair. Between helping him with these things and having to getup in the night to get him his pills I feel I have had a little bit of preparation for a baby. Bring it on.

Ryan two days after surgery with his pillow and ice man - and after a shower.

I'm married to an old man - not really

Ryan has just turned 33 - weird. We don't feel like we are in our 30s, but I guess we are. We celebrated his birthday last night after our adoption conference with his family - we had pizza and carrot cake and played some games. As today is Sunday we couldn't do any too extravagant celebrating, but I made him an omlet for breakfast and beef stroganoff and pumpkin bars for dinner (his requests). And we have mostly taken it pretty easy all day. I hope he enjoyed his birthday.
I am so grateful to be married to the best person in this world - I feel truly blessed. A few of the things I love about him are:
-His personality
-His sense of humor
-His service
-His work ethic
-His intelligence
-His kindness
-His spirituality
-His love for me
-His love for God
Yep, I'm the luckiest person alive.

It's About Love

One of the requirements to be able to adopt through LDS Family Services is to get these education credits. You used to have to attend I think three or four 2 hour classes, I guess on parenting. Well now, twice a year they have conferences for the organization Families Supporting Adoption, and you get your credits by attending. It was about six hours long this past Saturday. We weren’t super excited about it because of how long it was going to be, and we didn’t really know what it was going to be like. But I really did enjoy it and am glad we went. They had two couples speak who have adopted all their children. They also had two adoptive moms speak. One was adopted herself and has adopted two sons. It was interesting to hear her feelings about her parents, her birth parents, her children, and their birth moms. What I gained most from her was that her mom, from the time she was young, told her their “family story”, telling her about how she came into their family. She said she has carried this on with her sons, telling them their family story from when they are a week old. I think this is a great way to let your children know they are adopted, even before they can understand what it means. The other adoptive mom has three half black/half white kids and two Chinese kids and it was super interesting learning what a multiracial family is like. But I think what I gained most from was the panel of birth mothers that were there. Three birth moms and one birth grandmother were there (we wished there were some birth dads as well) and they shared with us their experiences. All three of them placed there babies 2.5-3 years ago. It helped me to understand much better what the experience is like for them. One of my sisters got pregnant while we were in high school, so I already had a pretty good idea of the struggles that an unwed mother faces. But my sister kept my nephew (which I am very happy about – I can’t imagine my family without him), so I haven’t known anyone close to me that was a birth mom. I was crying pretty hard as they told their stories, as my heart broke for them. I am amazed by how selfless they are, and inspired by them. And I loved hearing about their different relationships with their babies. Ryan and I have been unsure how open we would want our adoption to be, but after meeting these girls I feel totally comfortable with an open adoption. Another interesting thing at the conference was there was a birth mom, an adoptive mom, and their son there. The two women sang together, and the three of them sat at our table for lunch. It was intriguing watching the three of them interact. The love between the two women was very obvious. And watching the birth mom interact with the son was like an aunt or older sister with a nephew or brother. I’m grateful I was able to experience that. I was grateful to see and feel how much love surrounds the entire adoption process and experience.

Four Countries in Twelve Days

October was an outrageously busy month for me. I had to write and submit two grant proposals and prepare two posters for presentation at conferences. I worked like crazy the first half of the month, and then got to enjoy the second half. I first had a conference, Society for Neuroscience, to present at in Chicago. Having just been to Chicago in August it wasn't quite as exciting as it might have been otherwise, especially since Ryan didn't come this time, but last time I had almost no time for site seeing, so I spent some time this trip getting to see some stuff I missed out on. My favorites were the FREE Lincoln Park Zoo - which is really quite incredible, especially considering it is free, and I highly recommend any one going to Chicago to go there - and the Science and Industry Museum. So, my first night there I learned that you can google free things to do in Chicago and there is a whole list of things, including many days that their various incredible museums are free. One of those days was while I was there, so I went - and it was fantastic. I also ate some good food, although I don't think I am quite as big of a fan of Chicago food as some people. Oh, and I also attended my conference and learned some good things.

I went straight from Chicago to Berlin for another conference - I know, hard life right. I got there two days before Ryan joined me, and only did minimal sight seeing during that time, but I did have some good food, and I did diligently attend my conference.
But once he joined me things were much more fun. We did a walking tour of Berlin, which was fantastic, we learned a lot about the rise of Hitler, and Communism, and about how the Berlin Wall finally fell, and about life now. We saw all the main sites of Berlin, though didn't have time to travel to any of the more residential areas - but we liked Berlin. We found the German people to be super nice. We went to church and they even translated for us. I think in our time in Germany about 5 people went out of their way to help us. I like Germans!

From Berlin we went to Prague. As we were planning our trip and deciding where we should go several people told us how much they loved Prague, how beautiful it is, how it wasn't damaged much by the war and how incredible it is to see all the old buildings and such. Well, we were not disappointed - Prague is amazing. Our first night there we were amazed when we were out walking and saw how well they lit everything up, how beautiful it was. We spent another two full days there - and loved it. The old buildings really are amazing. We went through Jewish Quarter, saw the astronomical clock and all of Old Quarter Square, visited New Quarter, went to the castle and saw everything there, walked the famous bridge several times, and walked through Little Quarter. A tip from what we learned in Prague - if you are cheap like us and don't feel like you should have to pay to use a bathroom, try one of the big crystal shops or a hotel lobby.

We next went to Vienna, also beautiful. While we were there we went to the treasury, the art museum, both palaces, and the opera. We learned all about the Royal Hapsburg family. Our tip for Vienna - if you want to go to all these places and don't already know about the Hapsburgs, first go to the museum, then the palace, then the treasury - things will be much more meaningful to you then - we did it in the reverse order so the treasury was a bit of a let down because we didn't understand its significance. Oh, and even if you are not an opera fan, go. You don't need to spend money on the tour, get standing room tickets (only about $10) - you can sit on the steps, they translate the opera for you so you can read what they are singing about, and it is amazing. We saw Fidelio - by Beethoven, which was fantastic.

Next we went back into Germany, but into the south this time, to the Fussen area. On our way we had a train stop in Munich, so we decided to spend a little time there. We actually only spent a couple of hours in Munich, but about an hour from Munich is Dachua, the first Nazi concentration camp. Since learning about the Holocaust when I was in 7th grade I have been fascinated by it. I guess that may sound a bit morbid, but I was amazed that anything so horrible could happen, that people could be filled with so much hate. I have read tons of books about it and it remains one of my favorite subjects to study. I ache for those people, but learn from their courage. I have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., but have always wanted to visit a concentration camp - I can't really explain why. So we went to Dachau, and I am so glad we did. It doesn't have piles of hair or shoes or anything like that. There is a museum that contains pictures of the camp while it was being used. But I learned a lot from being there. For some reason I have always held the belief that concentration camps were pretty much all about holding the prisoners, and that almost all the prisoners were Jews. Being there I learned that only about 10% of the land of Dachau held prisoners, the rest was occupied by officer housing and building of machinery and weapons. Dachau was built I think to hold 3,000 prisoners. When the US got there they found 6 times that number. Every morning and evening the prisoners had to line up for role call, so there was a big open area for that. There were either 30 or 40 barracks, I can't remember now how many. The ones closest to the role call area were the infirmary (where the sick were held but also where experimentation occured), as well as ones where new inmates came and were cleaned and held until they were assigned to barracks. The barracks that housed prisoners that were closest to the role call area were for those individuals they held in higher regard, such as Germans. The ones farthest away were for those considered least worthy - Jews, Poles, Gypsies, etc. We learned about secret societies prisoners would form, about attempts individuals fighting in the war made to penetrate the camp and save the people, and about the electric fence surrounding the prisoner area where several committed suicide and others were shot for getting too close. We saw the crematoriums where not only were bodies disposed of, but where there were gas chambers and people were hanged. And we also saw mass graves. We also learned that very few Jews were kept at any camps other than Auschwitz, most were eventually sent there. So why would I be glad to go to such a sad place? I am grateful for the opportunity I had to experience it in the tiniest degree. Being there and hearing their stories and seeing their pictures has made the Holocaust even more real to me. I am still amazed that such a thing could ever have happened, but it did, and I hope everyone will remember it and never let it happen again. In Berlin they have a parliamentary building, on the top of which is a glass dome that you can walk around in. When you are up at the dome you can look down in to parliament. Anyone can go there when they are in session even. It is to represent that the government is being watched by the people, so nothing like the Holocaust can ever happen again. I hope it never will.

We actually stayed in Schwangau instead of Fussen, which we liked. In this area are two of the Bavarian Castles that were Mad King Ludwig’s, and the Bavarian Alps. We were there in the fall and their fall colors (throughout all of Europe really) were so beautiful. We had a lot of fun going through the two castles, and after we went on this slide thing, kind of like a luge, which was also super fun. Tip for the Schwangau area - when you buy your tickets to the castles you buy them both at the same time (they're really close together), make sure you actually look at your tickets to see what time you are supposed to be at each castle and don't just believe what the ticket seller tells you. Our ticket guy mixed our times up and we didn't think to look at our tickets. We got it all worked out, but it was a bit of a hassle. And you will likely want to do Hohenschwangau before Neuschwanstein so when you get up to Neuschwanstein you will have time to hike around.

After that we went to Switzerland to see the Swiss Alps at Interlachen. But we had major bad luck. The day we got there had been a beautiful day, super sunny and nice, but we didn't get there until after dark so we couldn't really see anything. When we were checking in we asked the receptionist what the forecast for the next day would be - it was supposed to rain, and it did, all day, the first time in 60 days. It rained so hard we couldn't even see the Alps, not the tall ones. Although it was still pretty, it was not worth the whole day of travel it took us to get there - oh well, what can you do. We spent half our day there, then went to Zurich, where it was still raining heavily, but we did walk around a bit, and got wet.

And then the next morning we had to leave. But it was a great trip, we really enjoyed it.