Comfort Zone

I spent a few hours of my Saturday at the park with Chris and Sarah from my Life Group providing some games at a Foster Parent Appreciation Picnic (say that three times fast!).   Our group had been asked a while back to provide some games at the picnic and until Sarah emailed the group mid-week, I had honestly forgotten all about it. (How long can one claim “baby brain” post-partum?)

I should mention that I was late because I thought the picnic was at a park fairly close to mom’s house.  I was taking Layla with me and Mom was going to come get her a little later for her nap. About half way to that park I started thinking that the name of that park was not the name of the park in the email, but I was already half way there, so I went to the wrong park anyway only to have my suspicions confirmed.  I was on time to the wrong park, but now I had to figure out where I was supposed to be and how to get there.  What did we do without cell phones ALL THOSE YEARS?  I called Chris, realized that the right park was too far away from Mom’s to take Layla, so I headed back, in the direction away from the right park, to drop Layla off with Mom.  In the meantime, my gas light came on and I had to stop for gas on my way to the right park. Unbelievably, I got to the right place only 30 minutes late!  Since I also had to leave 30 minutes early to get Layla from Mom, I officially achieved “worst volunteer ever” status.  I didn’t help with set up or tear down.  I played games, I ate a chicken tender, and I left.  Oh, and I sat by myself and cried in front of total strangers.   

After lunch, this mama got up to speak about a new association that she’s interested in starting and before she sat down, she shared something she’d written about being a Foster mom.  It could’ve been written by any one of those mamas there.  It could’ve been written by me.  She shared about a baby that, for a time, her family thought they would get to keep forever.  She mentioned, honestly, wishing the birth mom would mess up. She confessed that she’d rejoiced when things happened that prolonged the child’s stay in her care. She talked about the nervousness she felt every time she had to interact with the birth mom or got notice of another court date.  She began to cry as she shared how deeply she fell in love with this baby that was not hers but felt like hers in all the ways that matter.  She had to catch her breath before telling about watching the social worker leave her house with the little girl for the last time.  She said she’d sworn that she would not open her heart again for any other child.  She said she promised to protect herself from that kind of pain in the future.  And because she was standing there baring her soul to other foster parents, I knew she had lied.

I sat there by the potato chips and sobbed.  I’ve always known that we were not the first or the last family to fall in love with a baby and not get to keep her forever.  I know more baby loss moms than I wish existed.  But, there’s something different about this type of loss.  Being a baby loss mom is something that is totally, 100 percent out of your control.  Short of making the decision to never conceive, there’s nothing you can do to guard your heart against that type of loss.  But, you can choose not to experience the kind of loss that mama shared about and the kind of loss we experienced when Amoura’s mama took her back from us.  Who in their right mind would go through that kind of pain and then willingly put themselves in the position to potentially have it happen again?

Much to the dismay of my mother, I would.  I watched those families in that park loving on kiddos that look nothing like them, and I ached to do the same.  I watched them treat little boys with dark brown skin and afros askew with the same love as the kiddos with their own blonde hair and dimply grins. I could just picture our family there in a few years with Layla running around with a brother or sister that looks nothing like her. I honestly can’t believe more Christian couples aren’t more involved in Foster care.  Several years ago, long before I had interest or experience with fostering, I heard a statistic that only 1 in every 12 Foster parents are Christians.  Are you kidding me?  James 1:27a says that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress,” and the most we’re managing is 1 in 12?  I’m not necessarily saying that all Christians must become foster parents, but I do think all Christians should prayerfully consider it. 

So, that’s where we are.  We are prayerfully considering it.  It’s not something to rush into or take lightly or assume that since our experience with Amoura was wonderful (in that she was truly the easiest baby ever and took to us quickly and was a perfect little fit for our family) that all experiences will be the same.  We have our own child to consider and we would like to eventually add to our family the traditional way as well.  But, we think that foster care is in our future.  We know we want to be involved in meeting the needs of children without parents (whether permanently or temporarily) in some form or fashion.  I’m learning about lots of needs and ways to help through the Orphan Ministry at our church.  If you’re reading this and you’re even the slightest bit interested in knowing more, I’d love nothing better than to walk this journey alongside other families who wish to do the same. 

This little video was shared recently with our Orphan Ministry team and I thought it was a great reflection of many of our reactions when we hear about a need. You can apply the message to most any type of need presented in a church or community, this just happens to focus on foster care and spoke volumes to me as I watched. As much as I don't want to have my heart broken again by the loss of another child, I don't want to be too guarded to be used, either.  

As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for joining us in prayer!

Vignettes

Between settling in and learning to breastfeed and pump and returning to the hospital for another night’s stay and welcoming visitors and learning to hold two babies at once, and figuring out weight watcher points for new mommies, I have been WRITING!  What I ended up with was a bunch of “scraps” of blog posts that somewhat relate.  I’m calling them Vignettes, which only my English teacher friends will appreciate. (A vignette is a “brief description, account, or episode that can be read alone or as a part of a collection for additional meaning") 

Baby A

When we first got Baby A, I wasn’t sure how her mother would feel about my sharing her story.  I knew a lot of fancy/famous bloggers used pseudonyms for their own children, so I thought it best if I used one for her, too.  We called her Baby A a lot when we first got her.  Now she’s got about a million nicknames.  We call her “little bit” and Layla “tiny bit.”  I call her “Mo-Mo” and “girlfriend” a lot while Skip usually sticks to “precious” and “princess.”  More and more everyday, she’s becoming less of a baby and more of a big girl.  When I sat down to write after bringing our newest baby home from the hospital, I realized that as much as she’s learning and changing everyday, and since she is now a big sister, I should probably stop referring to her as Baby A and start calling her by her real name, Amoura. 

Just like That

This morning, I was changing Layla’s diaper and I could hear Skip upstairs through the monitor getting Amoura out of the crib and talking silly with her and telling her how loved she is, and the thought ran through my mind, “we’ve got it all.”  A beautiful, healthy baby girl who has my nose and her daddy’s everything else.  A toddler who gets funnier and smarter every day who ended up saving us in our darkest hour while simultaneously making us look like her heroes.  And just like that, the face of a tiny baby boy popped into my mind and my eyes filled with tears.  Because the truth is had Levi not died, we would’ve “had it all” last September.  What we wouldn’t have is Layla or Amoura.  It’s impossible to reconcile these two facts, and yet they’re my reality.  Had I not been pregnant with Levi last summer, I would’ve never met Amoura’s mom and had he not died, I probably never would’ve met this girl that calls me ma-ma and filled my broken heart with joy.  As much as I would love to have all three of my babies here with me, I will be forever grateful to my first baby, a boy, my Levi, for giving me the gifts of these two precious girls.

Vomit

We’ve never been lazy Saturday morning people.  We are I am a routine person and our Saturday routine involves eating out for breakfast and then running errands until midafternoon.  Since Layla is so new, yesterday was supposed to be a lazy Saturday, like the ones I see glorified in Face.book statuses every weekend.  I got up before Skip and the girls and cooked breakfast and got some cleaning done.  After breakfast, I was snuggling with both girls in the recliner and realized that I hadn’t had my picture made with both of them since we got home.  I asked Skip to take the picture below and before I could even send that beauty out to the masses, Amoura started silently vomiting ALL OVER both of us.  Somehow, Layla managed to avoid getting retched on even though she was tucked in my arms.  Skip hopped up and took Layla, put her in the swing and came back to finish watching the show.  I’ve never seen so much puke in all my life much less coming out of something so small.  She never cried, just looked confused and wanted to snuggle.  I tried to sit still and just let her finish since I had already become the receptacle.  I peeled her clothes off and then mine and started using the wet towels and washcloths Skip fetched us to clean us both off a bit.  I was soaked down to my underpants and smelled terrible, but it was past new girl’s feeding time, so I made do with a “spit bath” and came back to scrub down my recliner and feed her.  Skip held Amoura for an unscheduled morning nap, and by the time she woke up, she was good as new.  What was not good as new was my recliner.  It still smelled strongly of puke.   Before we had a chance to rescrub, we had visitors, so the smell lingered.  When they were gone, Skip took over the cleaning and scrubbed with 409, then vinegar, and we thought the smell was gone.  But after sitting in it for a while longer, Skip decided it was not and I had to agree.  He went to cleaning and digging deeper in the crevices once more and then we decided the smell was really gone that time. Long story a bit shorter, I am sitting in said recliner right now and the smell is not gone and short of throwing the darn thing out, I don’t know what it’s gonna take for it to smell clean again!

Is this your first?

I’ve read a lot about how painful and awkward this question can be for baby loss moms, and although I didn’t get asked too often during my pregnancy, my stay at the hospital is a whole other story.  Before the hospital, the question didn’t really bother me.  Depending on the person asking, I would explain the complicated answer.  At the hospital, however, it struck a nerve every time a new person would ask.  And I felt compelled to explain the last year and a half of our lives to them.  As much as sometimes “yes” would’ve been the easiest answer, I could not silently disregard Levi’s existence anymore than I can Amoura’s.  So, my answer became, “well it’s not my first, it’s kinda actually my third, but hopefully, she’ll be the first living child I’ve given birth to.” Because that is not at all confusing.  I told Skip after one person asked that I had to come up with a better response, but he assured me that the truth, which is what my long, drawn out answer was, was perfect.

There’s a song we sing at church “Christ in Me” that has the line “I would praise you with my life, let my story lift you high” and as I kept repeating our story of baby loss with Levi and baby found with Amoura and our newest little miracle, that line played over and over in my head and heart.  So, as touchy as “is this your first” can be, and as awkward as the people asking often feel when I’m done, I never want to miss the opportunity to say “you won’t believe what our last year has been like, but I’m gonna tell you anyway.”  The God we serve wrote a beautiful love story for our family and although it began with tragedy, He meant it for our good.  He gets the glory for our happiness in this chapter of our lives, and I hope we won’t fail to accept an opportunity to give it to Him.

My Vintage Pearl Necklace.  

Hormones

A few weeks before we had Layla, Megan asked me how I could listen to people talk about our loss and our faith and not cry a river every time.  She said, “What are you thinking about? Cupcakes? Laundry?” Honestly, I am not really sure.  I just know that I hate to cry in public and avoid it if at all possible.  I cannot count the times in the last year that I have cried all the way to work, dried my face in the school parking lot and cheerfully went on about my day.  I am a crier, but Skip is about the only person I don’t mind crying in front of, so I usually do my best to find a time and place when I am alone.  Many of my friends have told me about how weepy they were after they had their babies.  Layla will be two weeks old tomorrow and I can count on one finger how many times I’ve cried.  I was starting to think I was broken, and then last night at 11:30, Amoura started crying upstairs.  I was holding a sleeping newborn and Skip was trying to sleep off a terrible sinus headache.  I gave the baby to him and headed upstairs to calm my big girl. We rocked and I sang and put her back in the crib (which made her cry again) and I was rubbing her back when Skip texted me “Layla is hungry.”  Since I am literally the only one who can remedy this, I had to leave Amoura screaming, all alone in her crib, come back down stairs and feed Layla.  I asked Skip to go take Amoura some Motrin, but before he could get out of our room, I was bawling.  It was the first time I had to choose one girl over the other and it was devastating.  I know Layla NEEDED me and Amoura really just WANTED me, but it broke my heart.  I cried until my eyeballs hurt (they kind of still do) and thought of a thousand (irrational) ways to fix the situation (which was really not a situation at all, but a totally normal, easy to remedy fact of being a parent to more than one child).  I wanted to bring Amoura down to sleep with us.  I wanted to call my mom to come sleep with her.  I wanted to tote Layla up the stairs and hold both of them in the rocker all night.  Ultimately, I just cried and let Skip be the amazing daddy he is. 

After a few more tears from Amoura and a lot more from me, both girls were asleep.  I just lay there and thought about all the love in my heart that was coming out of my eyes.  When I was pregnant with Layla and falling more in love with Amoura each day, I remember thinking early on, “I wonder if I will love this new baby as much as I love this one.”  That probably sounds crazy, but it’s true.  My heart was so full with love for Amoura that I could not imagine loving another baby (especially one I wasn’t super convinced I’d ever take home) as much. As my pregnancy went on without a hitch, I started wondering if I would feel differently about Amoura once “my own” baby came along.  The answer is no.  I don’t.  As an only child, it has always been hard to imagine how parents’ love multiplies and they make room for all their babies in their hearts, and now I know, it just happens.  Ultimately, we know that Layla is our baby and we don’t have to drop her off for visitation or lose sleep at night over one day having to give her up, but my feelings for them are the same.  This parenthood thing is a trip, and I am so thankful are finally on it!

Layla, it is!

Last Friday night, in the midst of some turmoil with Baby A’s mom, I told Skip that we needed to name this baby!  I was tired of not having a name to call her and I needed a positive distraction.  We’ve been going back and forth between Layla and Shylie for a while now.  I’ve loved the name Shylie for years, but Layla is a name we’d never really discussed before.  I like L names a lot for some reason, and when I saw Layla on a baby name list, I knew it was in the running.  Skip liked it, too, but he was not ready to commit to either until a week or so ago.  When we looked the name Layla up, it meant night and/or wine, which I found funny but not ideal for a meaningful name for your child.  Shylie is such a rare name that I couldn’t even find a meaning for it.  We were disappointed to find Layla in the top 50 baby names of the year, and we thought that was going to be what swayed us from Layla to Shylie.  We were both so bummed, however, that we decided we didn’t care if it was more popular than we thought and that being bummed could mean it was meant to be.

I wasn’t in nearly as big of a rush to settle on a name this go round.  Maybe there’s some detachment strategies going on unknowingly or something, I’m not sure.  I haven’t been consciously trying to remain detached, I just haven’t been in a rush to do as much as I was the first time.  Chasing a one year old could have something to do with it, too!  Anyway, with only eight weeks  or so to go, I wanted this baby to at least have a name and Friday night, we decided on Layla.  Then, on Sunday, as Skip was on his way to take Baby A for visitation, I get this text: “Layla, it is!”  Turns out as Skip was driving, he just felt this peace about the name and like we’d made the right choice.  So, her name will be Layla June Erdman.  I’ve had her middle name picked out for as long as I can remember.  Long before I ever really thought I would be the mama of a girl.  If the first name didn’t sound right with June, it didn’t make the list.  My Nanny was such an important part of my life and someone I want my daughter to feel like she knows even though they’ll never meet on this side of heaven. I also love the possibility of initial nicknames.  LJ and LE are both really cute to me, and LE are Levi’s initials and we’d talked about whether or not he’d ever be called by them.  Having a name to call her has made this whole pregnancy feel more real, so that’s a plus, too.

I guess I am finally starting to believe in this pregnancy.  Just today I had my 30 week visit and discussed a plan for induction. Monday, I had an “unplanned” ultrasound (The MFM had planned it, I had not!) and got some adorable 3D pictures of our girl.  Everything looks good, but my new MFM is very cautious and has scheduled me for ultrasounds every three weeks for the remainder of the pregnancy and NST (non stress tests) TWICE a week starting at 32 weeks.  I have a new MFM because the Women’s Institute at the hospital recently brought on a full time MFM.  I’d met with the last full time MFM for a consultation 10 weeks after losing Levi; I really liked him and he up and moved back to Michigan.  Then, rotating MFMs from the Charlotte practice would come to my office and see patients, so I saw two more MFMs around 20 weeks.  One, I liked, one, not so much.  So, in the past year, I’ve seen four MFMs when one is more than most pregnant mamas ever see.  Dr. Bower (my amazing OB) sent me to the new one because we wanted some back up on inducing at 37 weeks.  Without prompting, she offered her suggestion: induce between 37 and 38 weeks.  I was thrilled, AND, unlike several of the others I’d seen, she is not a stickler for an amino before induction, so that’s one thing I won’t have to do.  Inducing early does mean I’ll have an increased risk of having a C-section, and there’s a 1% chance her lungs won’t be fully developed and she’ll have to go to the NICU.  Stats haven’t historically worked in my favor, but I feel good about those odds.  I feel better about not going much past when we lost Levi (37 weeks, 3 days) than the other possible risks. 

The whole C-section thing threw me for a loop for a minute because the actual act of labor with Levi was kind of a breeze.  They began my induction at 7PM on a Friday and I delivered at 12:10PM on Saturday afternoon.  I just assumed that it would likely be the same way.  Dr. Bower explained to me today that since the baby’s health wasn’t at risk the last go round, I got higher doses of labor inducing drugs and that would not be the case this time.  There’s no reason to automatically assume I’ll have to have a C-section, but it is a risk she wanted me to be aware of.  She also said since she won’t be taking any chances, she would “cut you (meaning me) open at the first sign of distress.”  And that is why I love this woman!

I’ll start the NSTs on September 29th which is also the day of my 32 week check up and my next ultrasound.  I’ll go Mondays and Thursday or Tuesdays and Fridays every week from then until delivery.  Since they don’t schedule them later than 3:05PM, I’ll have to leave school five minutes before the bell, two days a week.  When I started getting a little frustrated making the appointments today, I reminded myself of how worth it they’ll be if they help get her here safely.  If someone had said all I needed to do was spend the last five weeks of my pregnancy in and out of the doctor’s office, and it would’ve prevented losing Levi, I would’ve gladly taken it.  So, I’m not going to complain about the monitoring or the extra attention. 

In case you’re wondering, the tentative plan for induction is to admit me Monday evening, November 3^rd and begin the induction.  Dr. Bower is on call on Tuesday and I should be ready to deliver by then.  I’ll be 37 weeks, 4 days on Tuesday.  We both feel comfortable with this. I’ll work until the previous Friday and go back to school the day before Christmas break.  It’s an early release day and a Monday, so I thought it’d be best to go back when lots of kids will be taking the day off and the day will be short, too!  I love a plan, but plans like these are scary, too.  It means I’m committed.  It means I believe I’ll need a substitute teacher for 6 weeks and that I’ll have a baby girl to bring home.  And while I really do believe it, it seems like a distance, far off goal and like I might be planning for someone who isn’t me.  It’s hard to explain.  If the last 8 weeks of this pregnancy go by as quickly as the first 29 and if NSTs take up as much time as it sounds like they will, I won’t have too much time for worry or fear, and that is just fine with me.  Come on, November 4th!       

Welcome to the World

I’ve written before about the two blogs I started following soon after Levi died.  They’re so different, but so good and encouraging in their own right.  To recap, Deeper Still is by a Christian mom (Larissa) in Australia who delivered a sleeping baby girl on January 30^th, 2013 and less than 11 weeks later got pregnant with her rainbow baby.  I loved her positive attitude throughout her subsequent pregnancy and the scripture she claimed to get her through. 

This morning I received incredible news in the form of a personal email from Larissa.  Her baby got here yesterday safe and sound, and you won’t believe what she named him- Levi.  Her email quite literally took my breath away.  She wanted to tell me personally about the name before I read it on her blog.  She said they picked it out early in pregnancy and since they are those kind of (crazy) people who do not find out the sex of their babies until birth, they weren’t sure if they’d use the name or not.  She said when she heard about our Levi, it made her love the name even more.  We loved the name Levi so much that we mourned the loss of it right along with everything else we’d planned.  I’m so glad they chose it and thought of us.

As a new babylost mom, I didn’t know what to do with all of the baby stuff.  I remember trying to have conversations with mom and Skip while we were still in the hospital about the car seat and clothes and all the stuff we weren’t going to need.  They assured me I had time to make those decisions, and they were right.  We slowly sorted things to return and things to keep for (hopefully) future children.  I was the saddest about the little things that were monogrammed with his name or initials.  They were SO cute and such personal gifts and they would never be used.  I cried and cried over this and put them away in our box of memories, away from the other clothes and stuff for the future. 

As I was driving home from church this morning, it hit me.  I want to send those monogrammed things to little Levi Genet all the way in Australia.  I want his mom, my friend I’ve never met, to enjoy them as I would have with my Levi.  I want her to send me pictures of her little guy wearing a hat made for my little guy.  I’ve been so blessed and gotten so much hope for our future reading about her life and her faith. I could never just get rid of them, but I will be happy to pass them along to someone who has felt my pain and now experienced the joy I long for.  Her email filled me with hope that one day I will experience the same.

Welcome to the world, Levi William Genet.  Mamas all over the world are so glad you’ve made it!