Wednesday, May 4, 2016
With a first baby, the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” book sits on your bedstead as the “bible” on daily survival. There are apps for tracking your pregnancy and websites alert you as to the size of your growing sprout….an apple seed….a pinto bean….a cumquat….etc. You post weekly selfies of your growing bump and savor the hilarity of your pickles and ice cream cravings. Not as much with number 7! The months sped by with undeniable intensity of the swift kicks to my ribs and pressure on my bladder, but hardly time for the nightly read on babycenter.com about progress. Life and hands were full with school and ministry and my work as a doula and photographer. The awe and wonder of those flutters and hiccups and somersaults inside of me is my favorite part, but Ill be honest that pregnancy is hard on me (….yes, I know….the irony)….but I vowed to try and document it better this time as I cannot find more than a handful of pictures of me pregnant after a grand total of 54 months of pregnancy!
As would be expected for a baby of our little gypsy family, his life even in utero was anything but boring…..
3 months pregnant
In Bali on my 35th birthday
5 months pregnant
Riding elephants in Chiang Mai – girls trip with Abi
6 months pregnant
On the Great Wall of China helping my friend with her adoption
7 months pregnant
Christmastime
9 months pregnant
Little baby-moon getaway
Ready to pop
A few days before delivery
I protested, but Abi insisted I let her take some ‘pretty’ pregnancy pictures.
…and now, looking back, Im so glad she did!
Never expected to be so spoiled and celebrated with baby #7. Once you’ve passed half-a-dozen babies and pregnancies, there is a fear that you’ll be met with the “what? Another one?” raised eyebrow from people at the announcement that another munchkin is on the way. But not with my lovely friends! They rolled out the red carpet, threw open the doors of their hearts to love another of my littles, and lavished on us so much support in the days and weeks leading up to (and recovering from) the birth of our little Eden!
Shower in A Suitcase
Even from a million miles away, my sweet sis and mother can throw a party! My brother who was coming to visit arrived with a “shower in a suitcase”….dozens of beautifully wrapped gifts from friends and family stateside all coordinated and packaged up by them. What a fun Saturday morning surprise to walk out to breakfast already prepared (blue waffles fixed by Abi and Britain) and celebrate our little man’s anticipated arrival “virtually” with girlfriends and aunts and sisters and a mother who love me well even from so far away!
The Bangkok Bunch
A very dear friend here in BKK insisted that #7 deserved just as much pomp and circumstance as #1 and coordinated a morning brunch in Eden’s honor. Another dear friend opened her apartment for 20+ friends to come for a fun morning of yummy food and some practical gifts for the little boy who desperately needed a “blue” wardrobe after a string of big sisters with useless hand-me-downs! So touched by these ladies Im blessed to call friends….women from my bible study group, neighbors, clients and team members. And thanks to them, Ive yet to buy a single diaper even with little guy being nearly 2 months old. We are stocked!
My Doula Tribe
Abi was included in my doula “blessingway” as she was ushered into her role as my birth attendant and encouraged by these ladies who have supported countless women through their passage into motherhood. My sweet team of birth-workers here, gave me a wonderful, meaningful morning of pampering and commissioning for the blessing of bringing a life into the world. These wonderful women also coordinated dinners for my family for the time I was in the hospital and a few welcome home meals!
Ready or not….here he comes!!
So grateful for the dear friends in our life who helped us anticipate and celebrate Edens arrival even as we navigated packing, and moving 2 days before he was delivered!!
Saturday, February 20, 2016
What to do with those snuggly worn baby clothes, and the loveys your child has carted here-there-and-everywhere? If your the sentimental sort like me, you know the threadbare outfit your toddler scuffed the knees out of are not “hand-me-downs” that your BFF is really going to want to dress her new little tyke in. And yet, it pains you to think of parting with them!! The mounting pile in the attic of the outfit you brought “junior” home from the hospital in, and baby’s first Christmas pajamas remains a cluttered cove of memories collecting dust. And worse, if you’re a southern momma, everything has a monogram on it anyway, so your options for who to pass things on to is limited.
My ever so talented friend Kathleen of Creative Stitches has a beautiful solution to collectively immortalize those precious tangible memories. Hand made quilts that piece together the scraps and sentiment of your little ones childhood wardrobe.
I recently had quilts made for Izzy and Evie from bags of dresses and blankets and adornments that Ive been saving for years, unable to part with.
There are countless memories attached to these textiles. Of course I could never part with the shirt that Evie wore to announce that she was going to be a “Big sister”….Or the Make A Wish T’shirt that represents her once-in-a-lifetime Disney Cruise….or that first birthday outfit from when we seriously wondered if it would be her last birthday….or the Warrior Princess shirt that she and her best-heart-buddy Maggie wore to match for pictures.
And sweet Izzy’s quilt comprised of green square polka-dot patches from the birthday dress that Abi sewed for her one year….and her sweet smocked sundresses with her initials that she modeled for Dayspring….Cupcake appliqués for our “cupcake girl” and festive 4th of July flair that she and cousins wore for the fireworks show.
The girls LOVED opening their quilts on Christmas morning and “ooh-ing” and “aah-ing” (just like their momma) over each square and recollecting the time I wore “such-and-such” for a date with daddy or “remember how we sisters all had this dress to match with our own initial on it?”….They hold the memories dearly too and Im so thrilled they have this treasure to carry from their childhood and one day, display in their nursery of their little ones with stories to tell and memories to share!!
Kathleen also made a Christmas themed quilt at my request. My kids have long outgrown their “Cousin Christmas” T-shirts from when all 17 cousins spent time at my parents over the holidays together (epic fun for our kids), and yet I couldn’t see passing on the shirts to Goodwill. And there is that pinafore dress that my mother smocked little gingerbread men on that each of my girls have worn. Gigi snagged a tear in the back of it last year, but the smocking plate perfectly fit on a quilt square to savor the handiwork of my mother. The kids Christmas pajamas from over the years have lovingly been stitched into this quilt which now will be a snuggly throw for the holidays in years to come.
I shared Kathleens work a few years ago when she made a quilt for Gigi and had several people respond inquiring about her making quits for them as well (apparently I am NOT the only crazy melancholy momma who cant part with this stuff). She additionally has made beautiful Memory Quilts for precious friends whose children have not been long for this world. What a beautiful way to treasure the tiny clothes which maybe have never been worn, but that still have been carried in the hearts of their grieving mommas!!
Check out Kathleens INSTAGRAM
Her FACEBOOK PAGE
Her WEBSITE
You can contact her at: kaitshel@aol.com
Friday, January 29, 2016
Today we celebrate 8 years since your heart was repaired.
You my child, are my biggest answer to prayer.
We prayed desperate prayers in those early hours of shock hearing that your heart was failing and that your prognosis was grim. We prayed for survival as you were life-flighted to Charleston and dozens of machines kept you alive.
God answered.
We prayed that the doctors would be able to repair your tiny, broken, strawberry-sized heart and that it would beat again on its own when they took you off heart/lung ECMO bypass. We prayed your heart would be strong enough to function in a way it wasn’t intended to in its transposed design.
God answered.
We prayed for circulation to your left leg when the shunt they’d had to put in caused so much swelling that they couldn’t get a pulse reading in your toes and we heard scary words like “amputation” if circulation didn’t return.
God answered.
We prayed healing for the infection and collapsed lungs in the tough recovery as you struggled to breathe on your own again and had to repeatedly be intubated.
God answered.
We prayed through dark days seeing you crying, gagging, and throwing up in pain with no noise coming out of your mouth because of the tubes paralyzing your vocal cords. We prayed for the ability to one-day hold and comfort our hurting child and to hear her cry.
God answered.
We prayed for a miracle when your arrhythmias skyrocketed your heart rate to dangerous levels and extreme and painful measures were taken to restart your heart multiple times and correct the electrical damage.
God answered.
We prayed that you’d learn to eat and that we wouldn’t go home from the hospital on a feeding tube.
God answered.
We prayed for months as you lived hooked up to a Pulse Ox Monitor, and slept with an apnea monitor regularly alarming because you couldn’t breathe efficiently. We lived with tanks of oxygen in the house and gadgets always hooked up to you. We prayed that you’d live a normal, healthy life free of wires and monitors.
God answered.
We prayed for answers as doctors tested for asthma, pertussis, RSV, Cystic Fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, AIDS (a risk from all the blood transfusions)….all scary prognosis as your fragile immune system battled for the first two years of life.
God answered.
We prayed for God to redeem your story. Your pain. The heartache and suffering. We prayed for strength to praise Him, no matter what the outcome and for our faith to be built through you.
We prayed for your life to be a testimony….come what may. We prayed that God would teach us peace, shalom, through so much uncertainty and fear.
God has and continues to answer! We celebrate you my girl. Today I watched you run in your relays at school and marveled at how far you’ve come from the baby in the ICU 8 years ago today whom we didn’t know if she’d survive or not. God has done this. Your life is our biggest answer to prayer and we say thank you Lord!!!
