I cry every year on my birthday. I don't know why. It's not because I'm getting older – or that I'm not happy. I guess I cry because it is a yearly reminder that life is changing. When I was younger my biggest fear was watching my parents grow old. I didn't want to leave the security of my childhood home…with all my siblings, pets and school routines.

It's midnight and I just came home from the hospital.  Every night this past week has been shared with my mother in her hospital room. Last week she was re-admitted due to abnormal lab tests. After treating her for a week, they found another indication that her body is rejecting the new kidney. So instead of coming home, she will be in the hospital for the next couple weeks undergoing more treatment.

It's been a very stressful time for my family. Besides personal problems, last week was probably one of the most stressful weeks of my life. I had two articles due.

November 17, 2009

My mother had a kidney transplant last week. Hours following the surgery she had a heart attack, in which they had to perform an
emergency stent operation. It was one of the hardest days of my life. Exactly one week ago, I was rushing to the hospital with tears down my eyes, clutching my rosary and sobbing the
entire devotional prayer. My whole family sat nervously in the waiting room that evening… crying, praying and hoping the doctor came out with good news.  

You don't know how much little control you have over life until you experience a situation when all you can do is give it all up to
God.

And God was good that day. My mother survived and is slowly recovering now.

In addition to my mother's surgeries, I have been non-stop working. Managing employees, interns and programs are showing its ugly sides right now. I'm
trying to stay above water with my tasks but feel very overwhelmed on a daily basis. The only time I find true peace is when I fall asleep while staring at Christian sleep every
night.

As I type my desk is cluttered with paperwork, mail, random snacks and notebooks.

I don't take un-planned events well. In truth, I'm the type of person who hates dishes in the sink, messy beds, dirty
laundry, full trash bins and cars with gas tanks close to empty. Those things are probably on the top of my list…I haven't even gotten to the rest.

Yesterday was one of ‘those' days. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep next to Christian around 7:30pm and didn't wake up
until 6am the next morning. Today I was unmotivated to complete the list of 20 things I had planned to accomplish since we are leaving town tomorrow. In fact, when I become too overwhelmed,
I do what I always do: I lay in bed and do absolutely nothing. I stare at the wall.

I
have written anything in two weeks. Usually when I don't update my
journal it's because of a single reason: I've been extremely,
incredibly, unbelievably busy. 
There has not been a single day when I am able to take a meandering
stroll to the park or idlely spend time watching an entire television
show. There is simply too much to do and too much to think about in my
current life.Right now I'm not only preparing to host a
Halloween party this upcoming weekend, but I'm making costumes, writing
articles, meeting people, tending to the baby, working at the care home
or operating the house.  The biggest thing
occupying my personal time is my plans to extend one of my business',
which of course is creating more meetings, more financial planning and
more sleepless nights wondering, thinking, forecasting….and praying.

I'm a visionary, a planner and a goal setter….but more than anything – I'm a goal achiever. I like to get things done.

However,
before I go out to pursue anything, I put a lot of thought, planning
and preparation into my project so that my execution and ability to
adapt to unexpected changes will be easily tackled.

In
the next year I am focused on creating a life that will support a large
family and allow me to continue working in my passion as well as be a
stay-at-home mother. I'm focused on raising a healthy son, delivering a strong baby and building a resilient family.  My
desire to achieve a level of personal, professional and physical
success burns in me so heavily right now, which is why I choose to
write on this today.

Years ago one of my mentors told me that one day my life will ‘settle' down. As
a successful business owner, he knew that his life didn't truly begin
until he had a family and became responsible for people outside of
himself. My mentor knew that my greatness always laid in
my precocious desire to become responsible of managing employees and
helping people. He also knew that I enjoyed to spontaneously travel,
take risky adventures and quit my job whenever I felt like it.

I'm not a big fan of weddings.
I enjoy the ceremony and get flutters in my belly when vows are
exchanged, but after that, weddings aren't on the top of my list of
things to do on a Saturday afternoon. Receptions are usually long,
unentertaining and filled with monotonous speeches and traditions that
don't carry over to the present time. Since I don't heavily drink and
rarely stay long enough to dance let alone the cake cutting, you can
imagine my angst when sitting around waiting for another meal course to
entertain me.

I'm terrible, I know.

During weddings, I focus mainly on the commitment and ceremony of a marital union versus the pageantry of the reception.

When
I attended my friend Kandice's wedding this past weekend in San
Francisco, I purposely delayed my flight leaving for the east coast
because I wanted to witness her special day. When I hired her at
24 hour fitness five years ago she was young, bright, ambitious,
beautiful, and I just knew that she was someone special. Whenever I
visited her club, we would spend quality time during her break
discussing religion and relationships. We dreamt about the
kind of man we wanted to marry and encouraged each other to never
settle for less than what we both knew we deserved.

Five years later, we are both in different places in our lives. We
both met men we envisioned when we were younger women and we are both
continuing to build lives off our good and willful intentions.  Last Saturday, Kandice married a wonderful man and I feel blessed to have witnessed their holy matrimony.

Marriage
is a serious commitment...an act you must critically contemplate, for
it is a lifetime pledge to never give up on a person.

Throughout me and David's engagement I've mulled over every good and bad aspect of our relationship.
I've thought about how we fight, how we forgive and how we forget about
things that have hurt us. I think about potential problems and possible
predicaments.  I think about our faith and our commitment to our family.

I
look at the reality of the marital obligation and not just the
whimsical idea that you get married, have kids, and enjoy a beautiful
suburban, perfect life together.

I get so tired throughout my days.
My first trimester always leaves me fatigued, sleepy and tired. It's
tough right now as I'm trying to complete a lot of different tasks
every day.  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with
being a stay-at-home working mom. While I'm on a conference call, I'm
trying to keep the baby from crying. When I run errands, have
appointments and meet people, I bring Christian with me. When I have an
article due, trying to concentrate on a full sentence is challenging
when there's a baby fully crawling and standing against any piece of
furniture in arms reach.

A
working day never truly ends for me….for if there is a computer
available, there is a program that needs creating, budgets that need
re-drafting, people that needs contacting and sites that need updating.

I'm not the best television buddy.

But.

Despite my busy-ness…

I know I am the best mother to Christian.

We
have an absolutely wonderful child.

We celebrated David's 32^nd birthday last week.
I made him his favorite breakfast, baked him his favorite cookies and
took him to Dream Xtreme and the movies. After a full day of activity,
we spent the evening with family at our home. While his birthday this
year was toned down from the surprise birthday I planned for him last year, it was absolutely perfect since our lives have been busy with projects and preparations for things to come.

Right
now I'm watching Christian play with his activity table: laughing,
making noise, spitting and saying: ‘da, da, da, da'…. He loves his dad. I knew he would when he existed inside my tummy.
Every morning David ‘pretend wrestles' with Christian in bed…making him
giggle, scream and laugh hysterically. Ever since he was born, David
has taken a very active role in engaging him with nature, caring for
him when he's sick and teaching him how to become more independent.  When his girls visited us this summer it was wonderful to see him interact with loving discipline.