Number Four? No, This Is Number Six

What's in a number?  Years, pounds, feet, inches...children.  We are now a visible family of six.  Two parents and four girls.  Which of course draws many good-natured inquiries when we are out and about.  People tend to ask if baby is a girl which is then followed by comments, many of which are surprisingly pleasant from other parents of three or more girls about how much they enjoy their daughters.  Some are teasing, especially when my poor husband is around.  Depending on how the comments are made, some lead me to mention our two invisible sons.  You see, there are really eight of us, there are also two boys.  We will never know what it's like to show them off or simply just observe them as we do our daughters while out walking in the evening.  I will never have the privilege of hearing them say "I love you, Mommy", not even once or seeing just how brightly a smile could light up their faces.  I honestly don't mind the questions or comments, I am immensely proud of my daughters and wouldn't trade any one of them for anything.  I no longer cringe or pause before answering, my responses are finely tuned to the question, the person asking and my own feelings that particular moment.  I no longer feel guilt in the times that I acknowledge only my daughters and I no longer feel guilt at the reactions I get when I acknowledge my sons.  It is what it is and nothing I can say or do changes my reality.  I own my feelings, my family and my love completely.

Drinking in the Bittersweet

Let me start of by saying baby and I are doing wonderfully.  She has already gained one pound since leaving the hospital (where she lost 12oz after birth)!  For having had my 6th c-section I am recovering fabulously and feeling better than ever before- I guess all of those mornings I was up at 5:30am exercising have paid off in spades!  :)

Love and happiness (as well as a healthy dose of sleeplessness) are abundant in our household these days.  This is what I envisioned a year and half ago while pregnant with Eli before finding out about his Potter's.  I dreamed about his sisters cuddling, snuggling, hugging and kissing him.  I saw the smiles and wonder on their faces as they watched their baby sibling interact with a brand new world each and every day.  My visions were so clear that the Potter's diagnosis hit that much harder.  This is what should have been.

That is what I find myself thinking now and then.  It stabs my heart to hear our 3 1/2 year old playing baby dolls and talking about how one of them died.  Or when they tell me that they hope their baby sister doesn't die like Eli.  Again, what can I say?  A crystal ball is not part of my toolbox so I can only respond that she is healthy and we are taking good care of her and that I hope she doesn't die too.  These are conversations I would just love to erase, or at the very least forget.

Perhaps this is life at its fullest, abundant joy tinged with the deepest sorrow, hand in hand.  One there to make the other shine brighter, impossibly intertwined.  I don't know that I could experience this purest of joy having not lived through our sons' lives and deaths.  My husband  has asked me many times since baby's birth if I'm happy.  Which is funny, because when I say "yes" he responds with "I know, you seem happier than ever", and that is the truth.

She's Here!

As some of you probably expected based on my last post, our littlest (and biggest, but more on that in a moment) girl has arrived safe enough and sound enough.  She was born on Wednesday via c-section at 39 weeks and weighed a very hearty 9lb 5oz (at 39 weeks!)  In my case, thank goodness for c-sections  :)  It's a little nerve wracking when your OB is using the word "enormous" when delivering your baby!!

I crocheted this hat after the girls picked out the yarn and only later realized it is a true rainbow hat for a rainbow baby.

She has developed jaundice serious enough to require bili lights so that is a bit worrisome but we trust our ped and will faithfully keep her under the lights in the hopes that tomorrow's level is much much lower.  Thankfully she is able to be under the lights at home so she can remain under our watchful eyes.

We are all extremely relieved and excited to welcome her into our fold. Life is super busy around here right now and I wouldn't have it any other way (though I could do without the jaundice).

Life is truly beautiful.

Down to the Wire

I now have less than a week until my c-section date.  So far so good.  The heavy umbrella of last spring's delivery memories has lifted slightly and allowed excitement to creep in.  Like any good athlete, I find myself visualizing the best outcome, a healthy baby girl in my arms at the end of the day.  My youngest daughter accompanied me to my last OB appointment this week and while we were listening to the heartbeat I was talking to her about it and she asked if that meant that this girl would not die.  What an awful thing for a 3 1/2 year old to think about.  But for us it's real.  That's really the one thing our girls are worried about, that this baby will really get to come home with us - that she won't die.  The more awful thing is that it doesn't feel right to give them a 100% guarantee that she won't die.  Instead I find myself telling them that she appears perfectly healthy and everything should be okay.  It's the same thing that I tell myself all the time.  It is what I have to believe to get through the upcoming days and in my heart of hearts it is really what I believe.

I Found My Voice

Only within the last few weeks have I noticed myself singing again.  Singing to the radio, carefree just like I did well over a year ago when I was living a different life.  After Eli was diagnosed that voice was silenced.  I just didn't realize for how long until now.  Even now it's not what it was, I hear myself singing on rare occasions, but it's better than the silence I've lived in for so long, it's progress.  It was just another thing missing from my life which I hadn't even realized was gone.  So small in light of what I know is gone, forever, but a significant find nonetheless.

Good Friday

My Sunday School class and I have been discussing the Easter season and how Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday and then we celebrate his resurrection on Easter Sunday.  The children were very interested in talking about these days and what happened and through the course of our discussions they asked me a very good question to which I did not have the answer, "Why do we call it Good Friday when it's the day Jesus died?"  I believe in honesty and honestly I did not know that answer at the time so my  response was that I didn't know but I believed it was a very sad day because Jesus died and died so painfully.

I happened to get an answer to this question which makes sense:  Jesus' suffering and dying for all of mankind imparted the greatest gift of love and the opportunity for repentance and salvation.  It is a reminder that to find happiness we must first go through sorrow.  That goodness can emerge from suffering and even death.  I can see that and I believe to an extent, I have lived it.  I have suffered through the death of two sons, neither by choice, but both loved greatly.  I have watched them die and seen what happens in the after.  There is great opportunity to for good to emerge from such dark times.  Unlike God, I do not get to resurrect my beloved children and have them live at my side for eternity, my three days last an earthly lifetime but I live it knowing that one day when this life ends another will begin for me and my precious boys.

Again?

I'm sure many people thought or said this very thing when they heard or saw that I was once again pregnant.  Six pregnancies is a lot for any family I think, especially when two of those babies died on the days of their birth.   I've been pondering this, why did we take this enormous leap of faith again?  I know why I did it the first time (after Wyatt was born) - because I was told his Potter's Syndrome was a fluke and because we were given a low chance of recurrence.  Aside from statistics, I still had some faith and believed that I had paid off whatever debt I had incurred that caused such a horrible thing to happen to me and that it simply would not and could not happen again.

Obviously I didn't have any of those assurances or confidences after Eli's Potter's diagnosis.  So why did we do this again?  Especially knowing this time there was a very good chance that our genetics (mostly mine I think) could result in yet another Potter's Syndrome baby doomed to die on or before the day of his or her birth.  I can only speak for myself, though I suspect some of my husband's desire is simply to bring a smile to my face and heart again, but I also know his reasons run deeper as well.  For me though it goes back to a letter I wrote to my Sunday School parents before Eli's birth last year in which I revealed that the baby I was carrying was not expected to survive and that I had carried a similar baby eight years prior.  I went on to say that my presence in church and the classroom each Sunday was a testament to God's great love, even during our darkest times.  It is that love and goodness that gave me the courage and faith to try again.  I can see the goodness in our daughters, in my husband and in the world around me when I look.  Even as Eli lived his short life and I was left to sort through his death's aftermath last spring, so many good things happened, so much love shared. I knew that no matter what the outcome of this pregnancy that there would still be love and goodness, from above and right here and that ultimately I would see it again.