Four!

 I can't believe it has been over four years.  When we decided to add another baby to our family this one is not what we anticipated.  After two difficult pregnancies we were excited to move forward with a newborn adoption.  We did the home study, signed stacks of papers, wrote a lot of checks, signed more papers, decorated a gender neutral nursery (just in case!) and waited.  We were prepared to wait for a while.  We weren't in a huge hurry but we were anxious to get the call.

Instead we got a shock.  We discovered that God had another baby in mind for us.  We were pregnant.  I was convinced she was a boy.  I reminded the doctor and tech at every ultrasound that we did NOT want to know the gender.  But I knew it was another boy.  In fact I bought a closet full of boy clothes.  I threw in one tiny little lavender dress just for the fun of buying a dress but I left all the tags on and kept the receipt.  We talked boy names & scheduled our c-section.  Our due date was December 10th.  I tried to talk the doctor into scheduling the c-section in November.  I have a December birthday and always hated it as a child.  Pretty sure I remember him laughing at me.  Our big strapping baby boy was scheduled to arrive on December 2nd.  

Instead I woke up her father in the middle of the night whispering "I think it's time to go to the hospital."  We drove to Labor & Delivery with contractions 3 minutes apart.  I wasn't convinced I was really in labor though.  I was sure they would send us home.  And they did, three days later with a tiny baby girl who weighed a full two pounds less than her brother had at birth.  She was just barely 6 pounds.  She wore all blue for the first week and has been making up for it ever since then.  

If Andrew saved us.  This child healed us.

At the moment they placed her in my arms I was filled with peace.  And she barely left my arms for the next six months.  At four she still likes to be carried in the backpack when she overtired or just overwhelmed.

She is cuddly, sassy, full of smiles and self-confidence.  She hates to be messy and loves anything pink.  She stands in front of her closet and sighs that she has nothing beautiful enough to wear today but will still spend hours playing in the bean bucket.  She is terrified of thunder and convinced her big brother is a real superhero.

Her birth announcement read, "Our hearts whispered her name and God answered."

She is our miracle.  Our fifth and no less a miracle.  We are overwhelmed with gratitude and love.

Twins...triplets!

That's what heard almost nine years ago.  We were finally pregnant after a long journey & many bumps in our road to parenthood.  Our first early ultrasound showed two babies forming and the doc was sure we were having twins.  When we went back to check for heartbeats, he found three!  I joked that I may not go back for another ultrasound if they kept finding more babies.  Our doctor who at that point was like a close family friend wasn't amused.  He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and referred us to a maternal-fetal medicine specialist as quickly as possible.

Yes, we were a little overwhelmed but we had already been through hell right?!  This pregnancy was going to be easy after 4 1/2 years of invasive infertility treatments and two foster children who were reunited with their birthmother.  A triplet pregnancy which could mean months of bed rest, possibly in the hospital, guaranteed c-section, three premature infants and a likely NICU stay.  Easy.  We could do it.  We were thrilled.  We were ready.

We had no idea.

A second trimester screening ultrasound (with trips you get lots of these) revealed that our Baby C had a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia.  I'll never forget hearing the doctor speak those words to us and how he repeated them over and over throughout the rest of our conversation.  I know why, of course, he said it repeatedly.  We needed to know.  He needed to be sure that we knew.  Our situation was serious.  It was life-threatening.  We would over the next few weeks get more information.  Get a second opinion if we needed it.  We didn't.  He was the best.  That's why we drove two hours to see him and why we trusted him when he said that he didn't think our baby would be going home from the hospital with us.

In that instant as he spoke those three words to us, life changed.  The life we had been so carefully planning ended.  In a breath, the amount of time it took to say Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia we shifted from being expectant parents of triplets to just parents.  That's the moment we really became their parents.  Not at birth but at the moment where you realize you will do anything, be anything, make any sacrifice, for your children.

We grasped at the one thing we could do besides just wait.  We searched for a hospital where we could deliver and keep all three boys together in one NICU.  Sounds easy but we found exactly one hospital in the state that could do.  I would mean delivering them hours from home, from friends, from family.  And I was told that I may spend many long weeks in the hospital on bed rest due to complications from the birth defect.  That's ok.  We had a new plan.  We could do it.  And maybe, just maybe, our Baby C had a chance.

And still, we had no idea.

Because life doesn't always unfold as we plan.  No matter how carefully we prepare.

One quiet evening, without drama or chaos or anticipation, I realized I was in preterm labor.  We rushed to the hospital to have our worst nightmare confirmed.  This time it didn't happen in a breath or in a moment.  Instead, it was hours.  Hours spent praying that contractions could be stopped, that my water wouldn't break, that infection wouldn't set in, that our babies could be saved.

On April 2, 2004 at 7:38pm our firstborn son, Jack Matthew, was born still.  He had died cradled in his mother's body when my water broke.  He was 10 inches long and weighed 11.7 ounces.  His foot was the size of my thumb.

The contractions stopped after his birth but by that point it was too late.  An infection had taken over my body.  My life was at risk if we didn't deliver our other two sons immediately.  We were out of options and out of hope.

On April 2, 2004 just after midnight, Grant Isaac and Samuel Luke quietly entered the world.  They too were each 10 inches.  Grant weighed 10.8 ounces and our little Samuel with the birth defect weighed 10.5 ounces.  Though their hearts were beating, they never took a breath and they passed into heaven as quietly as the entered the world.

We never heard them cry or saw the color of their eyes.  But we held them and told them how very much they are loved.

Sometimes love is for a moment.
Sometimes love is for a lifetime.
Sometimes a moment is a lifetime.


October, 2015

I've read before that if you lose a spouse you become a widow.  If you lose your parents you become an orphan.  There is no word for what happens after losing a child.  Maybe because you don't become anything different.  You are still their parent.  How do you survive what I would have thought was unsurvivable?  We spent weeks in shock.  I distinctly remember tucking our boys into their tiny casket all together and wrapping their blankets a little more snuggly around them because I didn't want them to get cold.  It was rainy and cold on the day we buried them and I was worried they weren't warm enough.  I couldn't comprehend that they were really gone.  I used to think that part of me shut down because I wasn't capable of coping quite yet.  But really I was broken.  I still am.  We do not heal from the loss of a child.  We do not move on.  We spent months learning to be happy again and what it meant to find happiness in daily life and to live a contented life.  We feel their loss profoundly every single day but now that loss coexists within us with joy.

As Grace and Andrew get older, I feel their loss more profoundly.  I see our little diva and what it would mean to her to have all four of her big brothers here to play babies with her, watch her ballet recitals and one day send her off for her first school dance.  I see Andrew as an amazing big brother and grieve what it would mean to him to have his big brothers there to watch over him, play basketball in the driveway and build crazy Lego creations with him.  My heart shattered every time one of them asked for a brother or sister as kids normally do.  I struggle to protect them from the anxiety that I carry every day, an anxiety that I know is outside the normal mommy worries but instead the legacy of such a profound loss.  I fight panic attacks some mornings as I drop them off at school and have to constantly remind myself of normal milestones in their gaining independence.  I have to force myself to be ok with letting them spend a weekend at Grandma's.  But I do it and they come home tired, spoiled, and happy and I am confident that every minute of anxiety was worth it.  How do we do it?  How does anyone survive the loss of a child?  Everyone copes in their own way and finds comfort in different things but we all do it one breath at a time.

Just a Small Project

We didn't start small with our first remodeling project.

The house had hardwood floors in the entry and adjoining dining room.  The family room had beige carpet, always my favorite (said with much sarcasm but with two kids carpet never stays beige in my world).  The kitchen sported whitish/beigeish tile with grout that was very light.  Again, grout in my kitchen especially never stays white.  Given our fondness for hardwood and DIY projects, we decided to rip out the carpet and tile and put in new unfinished hardwood.  We could strip the existing hardwood and finish it all at the same time.  And we could do it all in the 10 days between our closing date and the new tenant moving into our rental house.  Easy peasy lemon squeezey as my 7 year old says.

Oh, the best laid plans.

It started off great.  Until the Hubs discovered a sheet of linoleum under all that tile.  And approximately 10,000 nails through the linoleum that had to be pulled up.  He even broke an indestructible crowbar pulling up all that tile.

And he has some amazing friends who stayed up into the wee hours of the night to help lay some of our beautiful new hardwood.  They did an amazing job!

This helper didn't get to stay up into the wee hours but I think he's the cutest!

You can see the existing hardwood through the doorways and our new unfinished going in.

The stripping of the existing finish wasn't quite as easy as anticipated until we rented the second big floor sander.  Even Andrew got in on that action!  

Grace however was less than impressed with the noise of the sander and hammer.

Then it was time to stain and seal the new gorgeous floor.  That's when it went horribly wrong.  We plan to replace all the upstairs carpet with hardwood as well and thought we had a brilliant plan to install pre-finished hardwood upstairs.  So, we picked out a gorgeous chocolate brown floor that would look great with soft white trim and warm walls.  Again, the best laid plans.

This is the dye stain that the oh so helpful Sherwin Williams guy claimed we needed to match the finish we liked.  This is an in-progress shot of the first step.  There was a reddish toned wiping stain to go over the top after this dried completely.  The problem?  When it dried, it was BLACK!  It turned my love open family room/kitchen into a cave.  I hated it.

So, we quickly came up with Plan B.  One that involved moving everything into the upstairs, basement and garage.  A plan that led to renting no less than four additional sanders.  That's in addition to the 3 sanders we had already rented.  Because apparently newbie DIYers and dye stain don't mix well.  When they say deep penetrating, they mean it.  That stuff did not come up without a fight.  In fact it didn't come up 100%.  But we added a medium, neutral brown stain on top and we love it.  It's a little rustic, hides dirt well and transitions seamlessly between the new and old hardwood.

Did I mention that we couldn't move our new appliance into the house until the floor was finished?  I didn't?  Probably because I'm still traumatized by the two weeks we spent without a single kitchen appliance.  The only thing that saved my sanity was a 20 year old fridge we've stuck out in the garage of our last 4 houses  It's now my best friend.

We ate meals like this:

The kids thought it was a grand adventure.  Of course, being able to spend a week at my sister's house while we sanded, refinished and sealed was the best part for them.  And, really, the reason we made this trek back to the Midwest.  The kids had a blast playing with their sweet cousin and were relatively oblivious to the chaos going on in their new home.

It ended up taking about three times longer than we first anticipated, which we're discovering may be a trend for projects in this house.  But we did it!  And I still think it will look great with our soft white trim and new wall paint...

Home

Yes, my blog is sorely neglected but our household has experienced a few changes in the last few months. Apparently moving cross-country wasn't enough for us. Mommy went back to work, just part-time but even that was a big adjustment for a household used to mommy home 24/7.  This mama couldn't be happier. Yes, I miss my babies when I work but Grace was ready for preschool, Andrew is in school full-time and really, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I feel like I'm enjoying my family time more now that I have a little time away to remember who I was before kids and renew my passion in social work. Finally putting that masters degree back to work!

Our big news is that we found our home!  We told ourselves we wouldn't be in a hurry (really, we tried) and we would get to know the area to figure out where we wanted to buy. Well, we did get in a bit of a hurry but we didn't want to move the big kid mid-school year again. Our search was a little discouraging at times but relatively easy. We found a great house in the country, in a great school district. It was a bit out of town And needed some major renovations but it was going to be worth it, right?!  As I obsessively searched houzz.com for ideas, Kendal called the realtor. Less then 24 hours earlier they had gotten a contract. After sitting on the market for well over 6 months.

Being the glass-half-empty kind of girl that I am, I immediately decided we had lost our dream house and would spend months searching for a home to move into this summer.  Really I'm not a pessimist I just tend to jump to worst-case scenario on occasion.

Then we saw it.

 What...you're not overwhelmed with the awesomeness of the inside of this house?  Yeah, neither were we.  But we had traipsed through many other houses and more importantly had driven through a ton of different neighborhoods.  We researched schools and timed the drives to our offices and shopping.  When we drove through this neighborhood we saw trees...and kids playing outside...and a park within walking distance...and sidewalks...and couples walking their dogs...and close to shopping and work...and, well everything we said we were looking for.  We fell in love with the neighborhood.  We liked the house but didn't really fall in love with it until we started realizing the potential.  And realizing that it was just what we were looking for.  It's big enough for our family of four and a guest room but not a overwhelming amount of space.  We wanted a house we could DIY.  We love projects and wanted a house we could work on as a family and really make our own.  This house is a huge blank beige and honey oak canvas just screaming for our woodworking and painting skills.

We haven't wasted much time with the projects either.  Stay tuned for and update of our first remodeling projects but for now, we are glad to be home!

Craftin'

Ah, Pinterest.  Like a siren's call, it beckoned me to create a wreath for my sister for her birthday.

We both love how it turned out.  Just a little orange burlap...

a stack of felt...

a few random buttons...

and there may have been a glass of wine or two involved.  Oh yeah, and a bag of chocolate.  Drinks and snacks, that's what sister bonding time is about right?!

Motherhood

Motherhood is hard.  And not, "OMG trig hmwrk is HARD."  But, bring you to your knees hard.  Panic and second-guess and make your heart stop hard.  I knew things like watching my little ones suffer with a fever or get hurt would be hard.  I anticipated that letting them go to school would be heart-wrenching.  What I didn't anticipate was how hard making decisions for my family would be sometimes.

Before kids, I wouldn't have said that I have a particular difficulty making decisions.  I'm a fairly practical person.  I gather knowledge from so-called experts, compare & contrast ideas.  Then make a decision based on my priority of needs and wants.  Simple, right?

Except, suddenly I'm the expert and it seems like what I decide to feed my kids for lunch will directly impact whether or not they are accepted into Harvard.  Don't even get me started on the big stuff like what school to send them to or how exactly to go about teaching them integrity, altruism and loyalty. 

But, I'm the perfect mother for my children.  They are meant to be mine and their father's and we know them like no one else in the world.  So, we know the right things to do for them, we do.  And I believe that, I really do.  Until sometimes, for a little while, I don't.  And I stumble to my knees.  And I spend a little time there.  When I stand up again, I know it.

Resolutions

Do you set New Year's resolutions?  I don't usually bother.  Really, who needs one more expectation that demands time and attention I don't have and then the guilt that comes with my lack of follow-through.

I made my first real resolution two years ago.  I resolved to declutter.  Original, I know!  But what started as a simple resolution to clear out some closets and the playroom evolved into selling our house and moving cross-country to start a new career.

Two years ago we welcomed the new year in what should have been the perfect life.  We were raising two healthy, gorgeous kids in a huge house.  The hubs had just gone back into what is a very sought-after position in his company.  I was a stay-at-home mom with days full of music classes, soccer, playdates and preschool.

Perfect, right?!  It was really except that...it wasn't.  Life felt cluttered and chaotic.  I spent too many days scrambling to meet expectations from other people and obligations that pulled me away from my family.

As I cleaned closets, I realized that we needed to declutter more than the house.  It wasn't a dramatic lightbulb moment but rather a series of events and conversations.  And through each of these, God began revealing his path for us.  A path that would lead us to a feeling of peace.  Peace in knowing that we are raising our children with the values we intended.  A life focused on family.  A life at a slower pace with plenty of time to stop and play.  A simple life.

So, here we are, two years later.  We sold our huge house and downsized.  We moved cross-country to be closer to family.  But we've changed so much more than that and our family is ever-evolving through this process to reprioritize.  And, it was all worth it.