Pregnancy Twins

I haven't chosen to talk a lot about being a mom on this blog, but today there's a good occasion.

Today this picture popped up on my social media feed:

I wanted to answer the question, but I don't like using social media as a chance to just blabber about my life to no one's benefit. But then I realized this question is actually complicated. And it sparked some grief for me, in more ways than one. Thanks social media. Instead of stewing about it all day, I'm just going to write it out and move on. That's how we writers mend our hearts.

Who was my pregnancy twin? I always dreamed of it being my best friend Stasia. But she wasn't even married when I had my first baby. In fact, none of my friends were pregnant at the time. My sister-in-law had just had her third child. Another sister-in-law had just had her first before I even announced it. In my closer circles, I was the first friend to have a baby. So my pregnancy twin didn't exist. I didn't realize then that I was actually alone with it, and I would have benefited to know some people who were going through the same things I was. Instead, I just did it.

For my second pregnancy, I had TWINS! I had QUADRUPLETS! I'm not blaming the Song of Solomon series we had in our class, but there were four weeks in a row with pregnancy announcements. One of them was one of our closest friends. My sister-in-law also got pregnant a little after that. Yay! What fun! For once I wouldn't be the only pregnant one. But five months in, that pregnancy ended, and I instead watched my friends have their babies. They were so kind and caring and they knew it was painful, but there's nothing you can do to fix it. The pain of seeing their kids growing up is mostly gone, but the memory of the pregnancy is still hard for me.

The third time around, my other BFF Bethany was pregnant with me. And we even had the same due date! Another friend at church got pregnant with her first, and we got to shop together and go walking and share the general sisterhood of it all. I'm thankful for that. It was a really, really hard pregnancy after losing one. I couldn't exactly share that with people, and I think they knew it too. It was kind of an elephant in the room.

There was a gap in my pregnancies at this point, where I watched lots of friends have their next round of babies. I wasn't super grieved by that; the third baby was a hard one and it took a long time to recover.

For the fourth pregnancy, the joy abounded. I was READY for another one. There were twins. One gal in my weekly small group was due right after me so we got to be pregnant together, along with one of the moms who'd shared that second pregnancy with me. Our kids were all born within a few months, and another close friend ended up adopting a toddler whose birthday was just days before my daughter's. So that was a time when the pregnancy twin thing worked out.

The last time around, it happened in a crazy flurry of other things all around it. The saddest part for me was that I knew it was my last one, and my BFF still wasn't able to get pregnant. I had THREE twins that time around - Two different sisters-in-law on my husband's side, and my brother's wife as well. It was a joy.

It's like I always say. joy and sorrow are tightly strung together on the tapestry of life. I'm thankful that God gave me the desires of my heart for some of my pregnancies, and I'm thankful for the friends that I've had through it all. Being a mom is hard. Being a pregnant mom is hard. And being a mom on social media is hard too (maybe dumb for me).

The Cheesiest movies of All

I love me low-budget movies. I can't help it. I grew up on old Kung-Fu movies and whatever was left on network television during the not-primetime hours my brother wasn't hogging the remote control. The 80's were a different time. We only had two TV's, one of which was black and white. We did not have cable and, living on a farm, received three to five channels depending on the reception of the antenna. They're great memories.

Sometimes, late at night when the airwaves were clear, we could get the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Later in high school it was on most of the time (and we had a second COLOR TV upstairs we could use for playing Nintendo on). TBN's daytime television is a hodge-podge of terribly made children's programs, preaching from your standard Southern fare, and Christian talk shows. But at night, after any good show had aired on all the other channels, around midnight, TBN would unlock this glorious vault of what my little brother and I just referred to as "Cheesy Christian movies". There's no better term for them, I promise. In fact, they're beyond cheesy. They're B or C grade movies with the worst acting you've ever seen, terrible filming techniques, and well... trite messages. I don't even need to explain. You probably know what I'm talking about.

Now, twenty years later, I would call it a guilty pleasure to indulge myself in those terrible movies. While there have been some improvements in the world of Christian filmmaking, it is easy to still find some real winners of the Cheese Award. I won't name any of the ones I've viewed recently, but I will tell you, in some of them, there is a message that shouldn't have been so poorly delivered. There are some script writers who are knocking i tout of the park, only to be defamed by terrible acting or directing. There are, likewise, some actors who are disabled by bad scripts or directing. There are directors and producers who don't have the money to work with to get a good cast going. And there are ideals that keep said producers from allowing the quality that they should. But that's another story. What I actually want to share are some titles that I've enjoyed in my twisted way over the years.

Homerun for Rusty - This gem is about Rusty, a bully-turned-Jesus-freak who gets to experience better baseball playing after he meets Jesus. My sister's camp would watch it every year because... "Jesus, Mama. Jesus." You'll be glad to know you can view this on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM0pmzVkCSQ

The Perfect Stranger - Jesus invites a stressed-out young married woman to dinner.

The Appointment - This is a short movie about an atheist reporter who has a messenger tell her that she's going to die at a certain time of day. She spends her whole day trying to avoid it and you think she does, but... does she?

Time Changer - A professor in the 1800's believes that teaching morals is more important than actually teaching about Jesus. He gets sent forward in time to discover if his theory holds up. I'll leave you to guess whether it does.

The Gospel Blimp - My youth pastor's favorite (he also has an affinity for the Cheese that is Christian cinema). A church attempts to use a blimp to evangelize their town, only to discover... well, I don't want to spoil it. I should add that this movie isn't actually poorly made. It is awesome. And it was meant to be satire with a hard-hitting message.

These are just a few of the classics. I wish I could remember all of the names of the ones I've seen. The list has grown longer than it should be but my memory is getting fuzzy. Also, when you're at the mercy of late night TBN, you don't always get the names of movies that you're watching.

I would be remiss if I didn't share a few winners, though. The Gospel Blimp is definitely number one on this end as well. ;) The winners are more recent, because again, my memory has grown fuzzy about the older ones I saw. But lately, there have been some really good ones (along with better-made cheesy, which I will not call out for fear of a lawsuit or getting boycotted lol).

The Song - This is one of my favorite movies. It's a creative re-telling of Solomon's story with a relevant modern message. Solomon is a country singer in this case. And the music on the show is actually good too.

Grace Unplugged - A girl who longs for the spotlight in the music world is at odds with her father, who had already lived that life before he met Jesus. The struggle is real, and the story is good. Until the end, because it wraps it all up with a perfect Christian bow. Still worth watching, and since TV actors were engaged, the acting is not cringy.

Mom's Night Out - This one was actually funny, not just Christian humor that falls flat. A good story about an over-worked mom who's wondering if her life matters anymore. She meets up with two other mom friends for a night out, only to get ushered into a comedy of errors that ends up showing how, even though being a mom is hard, it is worth it. My kids even enjoy watching this one.

All Saints - This was based on a true story about a pastor of a dying church who ends up with a flood of refugees filling up the pews. He sets up a plan to help them, and help the church at the same time. They suffer all kinds of twists and hardships, and the pastor's faith is challenged as he has to fight nature, the community, and his denomination to grow a garden to serve his congregation.

Those are a few of my favorites. There are definitely more, but consider this your introduction. And if this is a subject you enjoy discussing, join the Sacred Arts Revolution page on facebook.