Long time...

Wow, readers (if any of you are still left), I realized this week that it's been an incredibly long time since I posted about anything other than providing links to other people's thoughts or showing off my cute kiddos. And for that reason, I shall provide a small update into the life of Kristi.

1) In January I found out that I have bizarre-ly high cholesterol for a woman of my age. Online research told me that this could be due to my just having completed my second pregnancy, however, I have made some substantial life-changes since finding it out. These have included 30 minutes of exercise at least 5 times a week (on most weeks), purging the apartment of nearly ALL junk food, and cutting most cheeses, meats and dairy out of my diet. Also we're eating all kinds of heart-healthy foods like veggies and whole grains and soy milk and fish. My vegetarian husband is loving my new diet because we make tastey veggie-friendly stuff a lot. And I'm loving the new diet because since January 12th, I've lost 14 pounds, which means I'm starting to fit into clothes that I haven't fit into since before I was pregnant with Mia and that's really really AWESOME! My goal is to lose another 10-15 pounds before my next cholesterol check in June, and my overall goal is to lose at least another 15-20on top of that... but I'm giving myself until the end of the year to get there because I hear it's gets harder to lose the smaller you get.

2) Related to the whole cholesterol thing, my self-diagnosed hypochondria (which I've had for as long as I remember) is in full gear and probably as bad as it's ever been right now. I've been pretty sure I was having a heart attack on at least 2 occasions since my diagnosis of high cholest, and I've got all kinds of weird anxiety symptoms on top of that- chest tightness, heart palpitations, breath hunger, chills, etc. So most of the time I'm pretty convinced I have lung cancer, a brain tumor or some other such scary thing. It sucks royally to believe I'm dying every other day and my doc told me that if it gets too bad, we may want to consider putting me on some anti-anxiety drugs. I've decided that if I just trusted God more, I wouldn't be so anxious, but I've had quite a few friends remind me that if I've got misfiring neurons in my head, I might actually require drugs to fix it. Then EGD said it could all be related to postpartum depression (which apparently doesn't always manifest itself as sadness and can totally be anxiety), so now I'm just kinda hoping it will go away when my hormones get back into order. And her PPD diagnosis makes some sense because I remember being extra hyperchondria-y after Mia was born, too. Anyhoo... I'm working on the anxiety and trying to assure myself that I'm not actually seriously ill even though I believe I am.

3) In related news (to the PPD), my little Vince is almost 5 months old and Mia has crossed the point from baby girl to big girl!!! It's nuts how fast they're getting older. Vince will be sitting up on his own in probably the next 2 weeks. Mia sings about everything and likes to walk everywhere without holding hands. She also frequently requests to drive when we get in the car, but Andrew and I have decided that she's a little too small for that yet. ;) Here's a look at how big they're getting...



Well that's my update for now. It's been awhile since I've let you all into my head and life as much as this... maybe that's where the anxiety is coming from... I'm not using my blog as a therapy tool anymore. Frankly, I've just run out of time. It seems if I'm not changing a diaper or feeding or playing with one of the kids, I'm either exercising or working from home (or sometimes checking Facebook, of course). There's not a lot of time to just sit down and write blogs anymore. Though I do miss it!

Go Jayhawks!

My future Jayhawk basketball player would like to say "Goooooo Jayhawks!!

Also... this is unrelated... but this is what Mia looked like at 5 months. Same kid? Freaky.

Ugh

Obama Stem Cell Article

Spicing it up a bit.

Obama’s New Radical Stem Cell Policy

This just in from the White House: starting today, only farmers set agriculture subsidy levels, generals decide about going to war and the new all-powerful Czar of Tax Policy is our old friend, the IRS.

Americans would be rightly appalled and indignant if the above scenario came to pass. Yet we nod our heads like sheep in a herd when President Obama offers the same rationale in signing an executive order forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research.

“Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources,” intoned Obama during a photo op with a carefully screened audience of researchers, “…it is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion…it is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

Unfortunately, a shameless distortion of scientific facts combined with over-the-top ideology is driving Obama’s political gesticulation. Let’s step back from the fringe and examine reality.

Embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) always involves the manipulation and destruction of live human embryos, the so-called “unwanted leftovers” resulting from assisted reproductive technology procedures like IVF. If adopted and/or implanted into a woman, these same embryos—we are all former embryos—grow, are born and mature into adults.

Despite the breathless hype, not one condition or injury has ever been cured with ESCR, and even proponents admit cures are decades away—if they happen at all. In fact, the goal of the only FDA-approved ESCR study is to not cause more damage to spinal cord injury patients targeted for research. Hope for cures indeed.

Obama also denounced human cloning, but only (and this is important) for reproductive purposes. Apparently, cloning human life for the sole purpose of destroying it in costly, unproven experiments is okay.

White House handlers conveniently concealed the fact that there’s a new, easier and more cost-effective way to produce embryonic-like stem cells without creating or destroying human lives. There’s no mention of the other kind of stem cell—adult stem cells—those microscopic building blocks found in every person now being used to help tens of thousands of patients suffering from dozens of diseases and conditions. In short, there are far less expensive, far more effective and humane alternatives to embryo-destructive research.

As the father of a son with severe disabilities, no one hopes for cures more than me. But ESCR hope is empty, cruel and barbaric, destined for the trash heap of medicine. Farmers don’t set Ag policy; soldiers don’t decide when to take up arms and IRS accountants work for us, not the other way around. Why let scientists set public policy? None of this makes sense, unless you follow the money. Obama is all-too-willing to hand out blank checks and coerce American taxpayers to take part in unethical and expensive experiments to nowhere that we will all pay dearly for, in dollars, cents and human lives.

Chuck Weber is Executive Director of SaintMax Worldwide (www.saintmaxworldwide.org), a Kansas-based non-profit communications group specializing in bioethics.