7 Quick Takes - Goodbye July

--1--

First, thank you to everyone who took the time this month to read the story of our crossing over into parenthood. I suppose in some ways, it read like a fairy tale, which was a big reason why I debated whether or not I should share it.  Of course, none of us gets to live a fairy tale and for every prayer answered the way I want it to be, there are many more prayers that simply leave me wondering if I am even heard.  For example, this photo that I used in the story?

It was taken the day we buried our last baby, in March of 2013.  We had just had the burial and were walking up the hill when I spotted this rainbow through the trees. I took the picture because I wanted to remember that moment.  My heart was filled with sadness at losing the future I'd envisioned having with that child, but looking up and seeing this symbol of hope reminded me that what I have lost in this world will be gained in the next.  That is what I hope and pray for most.

--2--

Prayers that yield happy endings are cherished but they are also rare.  I suppose most of my prayers do little more than lead me towards acceptance, and I got a good reminder of that this past week.  I was participating in the Sts. Anne and Joachim novena, both saints who are very dear to me. Our petition was (and always is) for God to bless us with another child.  Imagine what I thought when, four days into the novena, an adoption situation came up that sounded perfect and not only that, but the birthmother's name was Anne.  I just knew it was a sign.  But while we were in the process of getting our profile to her, we got word that she'd already been matched.  It had only been a couple of days but in those two days, I'd let my mind run wild with the idea of having a real adoption possibility in the works.  Now, we are back to waiting again with no prospects.  So no, I am not a big believer in prayer always changing things, but prayer does change me.  Even though this situation fell through for us, Tom and I had an important change of heart regarding what we'd be willing to accept in regards to the kind of adoption situation we'd consider, and perhaps that was the best thing to come out of our latest novena. Perhaps that was the answer to those particular prayers.

--3--

And so life goes on, and we've been trying to make the most of it.   I'm proud to say that the boys took first prize again in our local Fourth of July Children's Parade this month.  This year, we went with the theme "Keep America Beautiful" and decorated their wagon with recyclable or reusable materials. Inside the wagon, we placed sorted recyclables and encouraged people to "reduce, reuse, recycle".  I think Pope Francis would be pleased with our environment-friendly theme!

We've also been hanging out a lot at the local splash pad.  The Hillbilly Shower as my husband (who is not from Kentucky) likes to call it.  Next time, maybe I'll bring a bar of soap.

--4--

We kept John's birthday party small this year, just us and the grandparents. How did I end up with a five-year old?  More importantly, how did I end up with a five-year old who prefers grilled salmon for a birthday dinner?   We're raising a pretty odd kid, I think.  Apple, meet tree.  He also requested his usual cake...chocolate with chocolate frosting, same as last year.  He may be an odd duck, but at least he's consistent.  We wanted to take him and his brother swimming on his birthday, but we had yet another rainy day here, so he opted for seeing his first theater movie instead.  It was a big hit, but I think he loved the popcorn more than the movie!  Can't say that I blame him.

A few days after John's birthday, we celebrated the feast of Sts. Anne and Joachim.  St. Joachim is Joah's patron saint (you can read about how we chose Joah's name here) and so he got to have some fun and extra treats on that day. For once, we had a sunny day on his feast day, so we finally got to go swimming and then came home to feast on Joah's special request...whoopie pies!

--5--

It's also harvest time around here.  The deer were kind enough to leave a little behind in our garden for our family.  We're enjoying sweet corn (a variety called "Ambrosia" and it lives up to its name) and lots of green beans.  Okra and tomatoes, plenty of basil (which the deer do not touch, strangely) and lovely sunflowers and zinnias.  We're picking blueberries too, which I call "bear bait". I'm amazed the bears haven't found them yet but I know that day is coming.  A neighbor lost 30 ears of corn in one night to her friendly local bear last week. Twenty years ago, I helped with the re-introduction of black bears to this area.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, I ask myself "What were you thinking?"   Needless to say, the program was a success.  Ah, the irony.

--6--

We're into week eight already on kindergarten homeschooling.  I wanted to start during this summer to give it a trial run.  It has been going really well.  John loves "lesson time" and Joah mostly observes for now.   I'm very happy with how it fits into our lifestyle so far. I wish we had more support (we have none) from our family and friends but Tom is totally on-board with homeschooling and John is doing great.  Perhaps in time, the rest of our family and friends will come around.  We've joined the local home school co-op too, so maybe we'll find some kindred spirits there eventually.  In the meantime, we're just going to keep plugging along day by day.

--7--

This blog will be quiet for a while after this post.  I'll be playing biologist in the wilderness while the boys enjoy the city life with their grandparents.  With God's grace,we'll reconvene back in our hillbilly homeland in time for the "dog days" to be over and the taters ready for digging.

Happy August!

And thank you, Kelly, for hosting another Quick Takes.

The Crossing - Conclusion

For John.

Sometimes, it is the mundane ordinariness of our lives that saves us.  I can’t imagine what I would have been like during the month that followed your fetal diagnosis of ventriculomegaly if I had not had my day-to-day obligations to keep me distracted.  I woke each morning during those next few weeks focused on the tasks at hand, and filled my days with staying busy at work and at home.  The nights, however, were long, and hours were spent saying countless prayers for you before I cried myself to sleep.  Your father and I were praying for a miracle, of course, but our expectations were low.  We knew the odds, and we knew that we no more deserved a miracle than anyone else.  The fact that I’d been carrying you inside of me for nearly seven months was already more miracle than we’d ever expected. 

Four weeks after the initial diagnosis, we went back to the perinatal center for a follow-up ultrasound.  This time, the ultrasound was intended to tell us how advanced the ventriculomegaly might be so that we could begin making preliminary plans for your pending surgery and prognosis.  That morning, I worked from home on reports and file transfers and tried not to think of the news and decisions that we’d have to face later in the day.  No longer did I look forward to the doctor visits or sonograms.  Instead, each carried with it a sense of dread as I continued to wait for the other shoe to drop. 

The day was June 14.  Your father and I said a rosary on our hour-long drive to the perinatal center, but otherwise, spoke very little. Our hearts were heavy and all we could do is just hold hands.  We walked into the now familiar sonography room and the process of scans by the technician was repeated again, only this time, with less small talk.  And again, she finished and left the room and the doctor returned.  He repeated the scan, again saying very little, then put his hands in his lap, took a deep breath and exclaimed, “The ventriculomegaly seems to have resolved.”   And then he smiled.  

And that was it.   That was how we found out that we’d been blessed with not just one, but two, miracles. 

And it was in that moment, more than any other, in which I began to truly understand that you did not belong only to your father and me, but to a much larger heavenly family as well. Your life and your destiny would be guided by all of us, and I was already little more than a witness to God’s grace and mercy as it was being revealed through you.

So, when my water unexpectedly broke eleven days later, at 32 weeks, on the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, your namesake, I knew that it was no coincidence.  We had chosen your name, John, many months before, as a tribute to your father because he shares his birthday with this great saint’s feast, and also, as a way to honor the parents of St. John the Baptist, Elizabeth and Zechariah, who’d also longed for a child.  As I lay in that hospital bed in the labor and delivery room, listening to doctors and NICU nurses explain to me the procedures for preterm deliveries, I felt a strange calmness.  I knew that God was going to have the final say, as He had proven already.

And so He did.  After being informed that 90% of all preterm premature ruptures of membranes (PPROM) result in birth within 24 hours, you were still in-utero and growing 48-hours later.  And then, after being told that the risk of infection was great, and that I would most likely need to be induced within a few days of the PPROM, daily ultrasounds and an amniocentesis indicated that my amniotic fluid levels were gradually replenishing and that there were no signs of infection.  Every fetal stress test came back with the same result and nurses would exclaim, “In spite of everything, your baby seems to be doing great!” and they did little to hide the genuine amazement in their voice.  Two weeks after my water had broken, your father and I went back home.  You had beaten the odds again and once again, we had witnessed another miracle in your life.

But our trials were far from over. A few days after going home, we learned that a potentially serious bacterium, Clostridium bifermentans, had been found growing in the culture from my amniocentesis.  My doctor said he had never seen such a thing and his concerns were beyond serious.  Such dangerous bacteria in-utero, he told us, could have a devastating effect upon both your and my health, and he urgently encouraged me to undergo a second amniocentesis immediately, which I did. Three more sleepless nights passed, filled with prayers for you, as we waited for the results. All was good, we learned a few days later; for reasons unknown, the Clostridium was gone.  

And so, despite all odds, the pregnancy continued, and I anxiously awaited the ninth month.  Only, it did not turn out to be nine months, because two weeks after returning home, my water broke again, this time, at 36-weeks.  And this time, my doctor decided that enough was enough, and that all miracles aside, it was time to introduce you to the world before all our luck finally ran out.  I did not argue.  After so many tests of faith and months of fear and anxiety, I wanted more than anything to see you and touch you and know that you were real. I wanted to hold you in my arms and feel like I could protect you from anything else that may cause you harm, even if, in my heart, I knew that I really couldn’t.  But more than that, I wanted the uncertainty that had come the moment I learned of your existence, and that had haunted me every day since, to come to an end. 

Twenty-four hours later, it was finally over, and I was holding you. I looked at you, and I thought about all the years of waiting and hoping and crying and praying.  I thought about how you’d already beaten the odds not once, not twice, but three or four times, and how little control I’d had over any of it.  I thought about how you had already been prayed for and loved by so many whom you would never meet on this side of heaven.  But most of all, I thought about how I started preparing to lose you the moment I knew you’d been given to me. 

The months that I carried you inside me were the time during which God taught me my greatest lessons in parenting. From the moment I conceived you, I’d had so little control over your life and your destiny. Through every trial and moment of great jeopardy, I’d had no choice but to trust God completely with your life. When we were faced with having a child with ventriculomegaly, I learned that I would have to be willing to love you and care for you regardless of whatever shape or form your life may take. When doctors and nurses assured me that you would be born within a few hours and it turned out to be a few weeks, I learned that even when I and others believe that your life might go in a particular direction, none of us would necessarily be able to predict the final outcome.  But most of all, during all those times when I expected the worst and was sure that I was losing you, I learned to cherish having you with me in that moment, and to be willing to trust God with your future. These were lessons I needed to learn in order to be your mother, and the lessons that molded me into the kind of mother that I am today.

Some might say you are a gift but you are more than that.
You are God's treasure (Deut. 7:6).  

~ Happy Birthday ~

The Crossing - Part 2 of 3

For John.

The ultrasound technician did the run through, showed us your face, your shoulders, your fingers and feet.  You wiggled and squirmed and your father and I were filled with awe and pride as we stared at the monitor.  Without any prompting, the ultrasound technician got up and left and in her place came a doctor.  He repeated the process again, politely showing us your various features, and then he paused, looked at us, and said calmly and deliberately:

“The ventricles of the brain are enlarged.”

Of course, he said much more, but for me, all the other words seemed to just float around in the air, and only some of them came to land in my consciousness.  Words like “normal life”, “shunts to drain”, “surgery after birth”, "one in a thousand".  And then I stopped listening, and I just stared at your image, still on the monitor, still squirming and growing and full of so much life.

When we got home, your father tried to explain to me what the doctor had said.  Borderline bilateral ventriculomegaly.  It is a term that, to this day, I still cannot recall, and I must ask your father each time to tell me again.  From the moment I first heard it, I have blocked it from my mind.  Your father researched it, and when we discovered just how enormous the odds of you being diagnosed with this condition were, our hearts broke into pieces.  We were convinced that this didn’t just happen by chance; instead, we believed it was yet another way that God had decided to test us.  Never before had I felt such betrayal by the God whom I had only recently begun to trust again.  I felt like we’d just been subjected to one of the dirtiest tricks that providence could play on us.

But where do you turn in times like that if not back to God?  We knew that we must carry on, and that we would love you no matter what your future held, and we asked God to not forsake us in that moment of desolation.  We cried at night and each morning, we washed away our tears and faced our days.  We told no one of your diagnosis, for we knew that the weight that would be added from well-meaning yet careless comments would be more than we could handle.  Time would reveal all, we believed, and so we prayed for a miracle, and began our journey toward acceptance of God’s will for you and for us.

In was during the midst of this journey, only a few days after that devastating ultrasound, when your father found himself in the cathedral. It was the same church in which he’d frequently prayed for a child, and where he’d often gone to find peace during those many years that we waited for you.  As he fervently prayed that day, he looked up and noticed a bishop walking towards the sanctuary.  Your father felt moved to approach him and rushed toward the front of the church and caught the bishop’s attention.  And he poured out the whole story to this holy man, the story of our years of struggle to conceive, the loss of a previous child, and now the story of you and your miraculous conception, and our most recent tragedy of facing an uncertain future with you.  The bishop listened carefully and then he simply asked, “When can you come back here with your wife?  I want to pray with you both.”  

Two days later, we sat in a quiet room with the bishop, and we talked of our lives and our various journeys in faith.  He told us that he was going to pray for you specifically and also, that your father and I would be blessed with even more children.  He then stood, walked over to my side, and asked your father to do the same.  The bishop placed his hands upon my head while your father placed his on my shoulders, and as your father and I listened, the bishop prayed aloud using words that I did not understand.  Peace filled the room and your father, in particular, said that he had felt something come over him that he could not explain.   Unlike me, he was certain that something had changed.

We went home and for the first night since we’d learned of the ventriculomegaly, we slept soundly.  But little did we know that God would be granting us one more very powerful intercessor as we made our way on this journey.  It was three days after our prayerful meeting with the bishop that your great-grandmother died.  She had been our last living grandparent and she had been so excited to meet you.  When we had last seen her, only a few months before, she had appeared well, and she spoke excitedly about your pending arrival. She loved all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren so much, and we couldn’t wait to introduce you to her.   To learn of her unexpected death was yet another blow to us.  Why now?   And yet, somehow, I felt like I knew the answer to that.   “She wants to help us,” I told your father, “and now she can help us more than ever.” So, as we stood beside her casket and looked upon her one last time, I made one final request of her, “Please, ask Jesus to heal our son.”