Baby Bump

Joshua and I had fun taking pictures of my growing belly every week during pregnancy.

Welcome Mary Sophia

 On Wednesday, May 9, I woke up around 1:20am having strong contractions about 8 minutes apart. This continued throughout the night, and by morning we were confident that this was no false alarm but the actual start of labor. It was quite exciting to know that soon we would meet our baby. However, as the day progressed, the contractions didn't change much. The midwife thought this was probably because the baby wasn't in an ideal position. We tried different things to help the baby into a better position, but after 40 hours of labor and 4 1/2 hours of pushing, we ended up having a C-section. Needless to say, we were exhausted, but happy to finally meet our little girl. Mary Sophia was born at 5:51pm on Thursday, May 10. She weighed 7lb, 6oz, was 21in long, and was absolutely beautiful. Although labor and delivery didn't go as we hoped, the end result of a healthy baby and mom was exactly what we wanted and we greatly appreciated the support of our midwives throughout the process.

We spent the next few days recovering in the mom and baby section of the hospital under the care of wonderful nurses.

This picture didn't turn out, but I couldn't resist including it because Mindy and Nikki were our two favorite nurses. Mindy was the afternoon and evening nurse both Thursday and Friday and Nikki was the night nurse both days. Although all the nurses were great, they stood out as particularly good and we really liked both of them.

We returned home on Saturday. It was strange to leave the hospital and be out in the world again, but we were glad to be home. Dave and Gayle meet Mary on Thursday night at the hospital, but then they went over to the coast for a few days to take care of some things while we were in the hospital. They returned to Eugene Saturday night. They spent the next week coming by for most of the day and helping us with household chores and holding the baby.

My first Mother's Day card from Joshua and Mary with the flowers and card from Dave and Gayle to celebrate Mary's birth and Mother's Day.

Dave prepared killer dinners every night full of protein and plenty of vegetables; everything was delicious.

Mary also got beautiful flowers from Jim and Jayne and a couple plants from the neighbor.

Mary with Grandma and the quilt she made.

Mary is a sweet, generally content baby. She has the cutest facial expressions and recently began pursing her lips a lot. We are delighted to welcome her to our family and so glad she is finally here.

Pregnancy Photographs

Sarah and I have been enjoying beautiful spring days recently. This week, we took advantage of one such day by driving to Hendricks Park for a photo shoot. In addition to a pleasant afternoon spent walking around enjoying the flowers together, we took some good pictures of Sarah. These are some of my favorites.

39 Weeks

We made it to 39 weeks and could go into labor any time. The third trimester hasn’t been as bad as I expected. I started to feel more uncomfortable as I got bigger and bigger—particularly when the baby decided my ribs made a great place to keep its bottom. These discomforts have not been significant, though, and the first trimester was the hardest (at least so far). Nevertheless, I was still excited last Friday when the baby dropped. I got up that morning and things felt different: it was refreshing to have more space for my ribs and internal organs.

We’ve also had other hints that labor is approaching. The Braxton Hicks contractions are getting stronger and more frequent. A couple nights ago, I experienced a strong contraction that was probably real, but it was alone. Of course, none of these signs tell us anything we don’t already know: we’re close to the end of pregnancy and could go into labor within hours, within days, or not for another couple of weeks.

The past week has also brought a number of other changes. The third trimester discomforts have suddenly increased. I’m definitely glad they mostly waited so long to hit, but it’s been overwhelming to have so many all at once. Getting up to use the bathroom every couple of hours throughout the night has made sleep challenging. On the whole, though, I am doing quite well, and I am thankful to have the flexibility to rest during the day when I need to.

Things are more or less set up for the baby now, and we are feeling about as prepared as we can without knowing what to expect. It’s exciting—and crazy—to think that soon we’ll have a third member of the family. We sure are looking forward to meeting him or her!

Mom Visits

My mom had meetings in the Ripon/Modesto area two weekends in a row, so she decided to come up and visit us for a few days between meetings. She arrived Saturday evening and left this morning. We had a wonderful time visiting, going for long walks, and working on projects. She helped me wash and sort baby clothes, organize the rest of our baby stuff, and make snacks for after the baby is born. It was so nice to have her help and company for a few days.

We also had a quilt exchange. I gave her the blue and yellow quilt I made for her house and she gave us the baby blanket she made for baby Kerr. It is flannel and matches the flannel Mom used to make pajamas for the cousins at Christmas time.

Easter

 We enjoyed a delightful Easter celebration this year. It was the first time that Joshua's spring break fell during holy week and we took advantage of that by going to more of the services than usual. Joshua read at the Good Friday service, then we also attended the Easter Vigil and the Easter morning service. All of them were great and it was nice to experience the progression from one service to the next.

After the Easter morning service, we came home and had cinnamon rolls, deviled eggs, pineapple, and grapefruit juice for Easter brunch.

We enjoyed a quiet afternoon at home and continued our feasting with ham, Brussel sprouts, rolls, and mashed potatoes for dinner. I tried a new recipe for the ham that included a cherry sauce. It turned out well and we both liked the sauce with the ham.

We finished off the celebratory eating with angel food cake topped with strawberries and lemon curd.

Baby Gathering

Some of our friends from church wanted to have a small group of couples over for a baby gathering for baby Kerr. When word got out, the event quickly mushroomed and we ended up with quite the party. Chuck and Arlene were gracious and happy to accommodate the extra people; we appreciated their flexibility and willingness to host the party and open their home.

I made a blackberry pie for the occasion and got to use the pie box Dad made me for pie for the first time. I've used it before for cookies and such, but not for a pie.

Everyone brought something and we had a huge and delicious spread for lunch. We enjoyed visiting and eating a leisurely meal. 

Then we opened presents and had dessert.

Photo credit: Chuck

Photo credit: Arlene

A group shot of almost everyone who attended. Back row: Gary, Sally, Gretchen, Jeff, Joshua, Tamara, Brian, Dennis, Bonnie, Chuck, Andrew. Front row: Elizabeth, Shirley, me, Wendy, Sonia, Aubrianne, Agatha.

Everyone was generous and we received many great things for the baby, including this beautiful handmade knit blanket. It was a lot of fun to spend time together, and we felt blessed by everyone's excitement and generosity.

A Woman Apostle in the New Testament?

The past decade or so has seen a flurry of interest in the possibility that a woman might have held church office in the New Testament. The passage in question:

"Salute A. and J., my kinsmen and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me." (Rom. 16:7)

There are two relevant questions: first, is J. a man or a woman; second, is J. an apostle?

Man or Woman?

"Junius" is a well-known Roman surname. Marcus Junius Brutus, for example, is Julius Caesar's famous assassin. Unsurprisingly, it was also used as a personal name, although apparently not very frequently. For men, the personal version would have been "Junias"; for women, the personal name would have been "Junia." Furthermore, "Junias" (male) would also be the typical Greek way to make a nickname from other common male names like Junianus or Julilius (in the same way that "Silas" is a nickname for Silvanus, for example). Finally, it was common practice for slaves -- who were often freed in the ancient world -- to take the surname of their previous master as a personal name upon their release. Freed slaves formerly belonging to the house Junius would commonly be named "Junias" if male or "Junia" if female.

So we have two names: "Junias," a male personal name and nickname for a few different male personal names, and "Junia," a female personal name.

Because of the way the Greek language works, the form of words change when they are used in different contexts. We sometimes do this in English: in the present I "drink" tea, but in the past I "drank" tea. Greek does this constantly. One would say that "Junia greets you" but that "you greet Junian." It's a small but helpful difference that is a great feature of the Greek language (just as it's useful to be able to distinguish between "drink" and "drank" in English).

The problem is that when Junias and Junia are the ones being saluted, you spell their names the same: there is no way to differentiate between "salute Junian" (i.e. Junias the man) and "salute Junian" (i.e. Junia the woman). In Romans 16:7, Paul says to "salute Junian." Is he talking about a man or a woman? There's simply no way to tell.

You will sometimes hear that we have no records from antiquity of the male name "Junias" being used. This is true, but it is also misleading. We have almost no records from antiquity of either personal form -- Junias or Junia -- being used. It so happens that the first century documents that have survived include just one cases of the latter and one ambiguous case (viz., Romans 16:7).

Verdict: there is no way to tell whether the "Junian" Paul mentions is male or female.

Apostle or Not?

The second question is whether Paul is even calling J. an apostle. In the KJV, there is a nice ambiguity in the passage: J. is "of note among the apostles." In English, this could mean that J. is one of the apostles and in fact a noteworthy one; it could also mean that J. is someone who the apostles see as noteworthy. "My blog is of note among the blogs" means something rather different than "my blog is of note among fine readers." For example, in Romans 2:24, Paul says that the name of God is blasphemed among the nations: the name of God is not one of the nations, but rather is an object of blasphemy to them. If you look up the word translated "among" in a Greek dictionary, you will see that it will list both possible meanings. Thus, if this were the end of the story, we would have to conclude this question as we did the first: it is perfectly ambiguous, so there is simply no way to tell.

But this is not the end of the story. The word translated "notable" (ἐπίσημος) has two broad meanings, one comparative (more well known than) and one elative (well known to). If you do a systematic study of how this word is used, it turns out that the Greeks usually made a distinction between these two meanings based on what comes afterward: is what comes afterward is a genitive form (which means here a comparison) or a dative form (which means here "to"). In this passage, the dative is used: A. and J. are well known to the apostles. There is a perfect grammatical parallel in Psalm 2:6, in which the Jews are "a spectacle among the gentiles." The grammatical forms are exactly the same, and the words are even identical (ἐπίσημος can be translated "notable" or "spectacle") except the last word (apostles/gentiles). The Jews, of course, are not gentiles; rather, they are well known (in a negative sense) to the gentiles. The passage in Romans means the same thing: A. and J. are not apostles; rather, they are well known (in a positive sense) to the apostles.

Verdict: whether J. is a man or woman, Paul is distinguishing J. from the apostles, not including J. among the apostles.

Birthday Celebrations Continue

 The birthday celebrations continued this weekend with a birthday dinner hosted by one of our friends in the philosophy department. Lauren organized getting together four couples for a birthday dinner on Sunday. She and Jeff hosted at their house and took care of the main part of dinner; the rest of us signed up to bring sides and drinks. The food was delicious and it was fun to all get together for a little dinner party. We sat around visiting and played a round of Codenames, then had chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting for dessert. Lauren couldn't find her regular birthday candles but found number candles, so I ended up celebrating my 29th birthday, not a bad age.

Monday was my actual birthday and Joshua brought me flowers and made me delicious breakfast burritos for birthday dinner. We finished off the evening with another slice of the cake from last night that Lauren had sent home with us. It was a lovely and well-celebrated birthday.