As promised...pictures of the littles on our 2 week adventure. There was lots of passing around babies and a whole lot of, "Molly, share. You need to share. Molly, he was playing with that...MOLLY!!!!!" But all in all a fabulous time celebrating our mommyhood together.
Our trip to the zoo in 98 degree weather...
Robin & Molly and Sadie
Micah-bean
Amy & Micah
This is how we felt...
Gramby and Jesse
Picnic!
Sadie and Pop-pop
Great-grandpop, Dut, comes for a visit
How we managed to get all 5 on the couch without a melt-down was quite a miracle
Our Aunt Jacque and cousin Jessica from IL came for a quick visit to meet all the babies
Robin & Micah
Cousin Jessica and Sadie
Judah!
Celebrating Micah's birthday
Mmmmm....ice cream cake.
Pop-pop and Jesse (note the matching John Deere hats)
Bubble tub! 2 more babies will join them next year...
Sadie helping Gramby with the cross word puzzle
Sadie Bug
Judah bounces
Gramby and a sleepy Sadie
This is what most attempts at pictures looked like....
Jesse singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to Sadie
Look at those eyes!
Molly just likes the top of the donut.
Hot hot hot!
Sisters! It was so good to be together!
...tired of pictures yet? I'm sure you get the idea... These were just the ones from my camera. There was also swimming, and a treasure hunt, and lots of eating, and napping, and playing with fisher price little people, and negotiating sharing and turn-taking. Turns out its a little hard to take pictures in the middle of all of that. What a joy it is to share this season of life with both of my sisters! I can't wait until Thanksgiving when we're all together again!
Apparently sleep depravity and emotional drainage has the same affect on my car as pregnant brain....
but this time, unfortunately, there was another casualty.
I could tell you that my sister chose a terrible place to park behind me ever so slightly caddy-corner so I couldn't see it out of my rear view mirror. (But I have a back-up camera on my car, so that's not a good excuse.)
I could also say that I really thought I heard her pull out of the driveway before I put my car in reverse.
Instead, I'll tell you that that's what happens when Colts memorabilia enters Eagles territory. (Sorry, Jared!)
My sister Robin said I should call my car "Bruiser." I think "The Bruised" is more appropriate. Justin was a just little upset about this one. I told him that he has golf, and my recreational activity is wrecking our car.
I'm choosing to not let it ruin my week.
Sing with me... La. La. La. Whatever. La. La. La. It doesn't matter.
Today marks six months since Josiah went to his new home. It seems like yesterday he was here with us and a lifetime ago at the same time. I wasn't expecting to feel broken today, but I do. I feel absolutely deflated and defeated and missing that boy that used to be my son. It came so unexpectedly that it feels like I've gotten the wind knocked out of me.
My sisters are still here with their sweet babies. I should be basking in the feeling of completeness and wholeness that togetherness should bring. Maybe its the fact that the last time we were all together Josiah was with us. Or that Judah is wearing Josiah's three month clothes. Or that my dad keeps saying Josiah's name accidentally when he's listing off his grandchildren to people. Or the date. Or that I'm sleep deprived. It's probably that I'm letting all of that soak it at once and letting it marinate in my mind until the tears start flowing and I have no power to stop them. And then comes the guilty feeling of missing him when I should be enjoying the fact that my girls are here with me.
I've decided that I can mentally justify that Josiah has left. He is with his brother. He is happy. He is surrounded by people that love him. I can spiritually justify it. I am closer to God because of the lessons He's taught me through loving and losing and loving again. But....and I know that this sounds really strange... my body still misses his body. I miss feeling my fingers shampooing his little curls. I miss struggling to put his little chubby toes into his orange crocs. I miss feeling the weight of him in my lap as I read to him when his hair tickled my chin. And I miss kissing that little bridge of his nose that my lips fit so perfectly in. I just ache to feel those things again, and I don't know what to do about that.
I remember my last interaction with my little man was strapping him into his car seat one last time and kissing that bridge of his nose. I remember praying for a miracle and expecting God to show up in a tangible way in that moment. And He did. Josiah never cried when I closed the car door like he usually did when he had to leave with a caseworker.
I love that I have those special places on Molly's face that I love to kiss, like next to her eyes because it feels so similar to her daddy's face when I kiss him there, or her chin when she tips her head up to look at the light at the top of the stairs when I take her up for her bath. I wonder where Sadie's special kissable places on her face will be. I keep nuzzling her close and trying to teach my lips to learn her face in the same way I knew Josiah's so completely.
Today I miss him. Today I will hold my daughters a little tighter. I will cry. I will smile and laugh at pictures and videos of my little man. I will take new pictures of my daughters and their cousins being together. I will savor how my lips feel when I kiss them. I will feel broken. And then I will feel whole again.
For the longest time, my parents only had grand-dogs. I'm sure they really appreciated the hair that accompanied their visits every time we brought them to their house. :o)
In addition to Molly and my sister's adopted son, Jesse, within one year, both of my sisters and I each had a baby. Hooray for cousins!
Jesse & Molly
Micah 7.15.10
Judah 3.24.11
Sadie 7.1.11
In a few short days, we're all going to be together, and I'm giddy with excitement. Get ready for lots of pictures, kids!
You can read the amazing story of God's provision and timing in my sister Amy's post about Micah here. I highly recommend it!
I have always liked the name Sadie for a few reasons:
It is simple
Old-fashioned
Not too popular, but not too weird (ranked #111 in U.S. births this year)
2 syllables
Easily pronounced
Won't be shortened
She will be called what she is named (Being a middle-namer (Laura Megan) and resenting my parents for it every time I'm at the doctor's office or have to sign a check, being named and called the same thing is important to me)
And just like the name"Molly," I can't say the name "Sadie" without smiling
When I looked up the meaning of the name, it is a diminutive form of the name "Sarah" and means "princess." In addition to knowing a slew of Sarah's, and loving every one of them, I also can relate to the story of Sarah in the Bible. I love that God changed her name when she went from barrenness to fruitfulness. It seemed appropriate.
It was an easy decision when we found out we were having a girl what her name was going to be. That is, until we started telling our students, friends, and family what her name was. I can understand why people wait to reveal names until their baby is born...so many people have opinions!
I can vividly remember the day when I told some of my seniors that her name is "Sadie."
"Is that like the words 'sad' and 'die' put together?" one of them asked.
"No!" I said emphatically, brows furrowed, nosed scrunched. "No, it's not!"
(I love my students, by the way, and their inability to filter their inner-monologues.) :o)
And then I couldn't stop thinking about it. All I could imagine was my goth little teenage girl one day with black painted fingernails and dyed hair and black lipstick. I didn't want her growing up thinking I shrouded her with a name that was filled with thoughts of sadness and death. Just in case, the name needed a little sunshine added to it.
...Which is why we chose the middle name "Joy." Just in case Sadie relates her name to darkness, "Joy" balances it out a little bit. I liked giving her a virtue name anyway. Molly's middle name is "Grace" and I felt like "Sadie Joy" goes with "Molly Grace" without it being too matchy-matchy.
All that being said, I felt like the lessons God has taught me through both sadness and joy during this pregnancy have made her name so sweet and precious to me. This is what I wrote about this season in a post a few weeks ago...
It is in recognizing that both sadness and joy can coexist that makes me feel like I can be a good mom to the new blessing that is our baby girl. And its not just that these two feelingscoexist, I see oneinformingthe other. I see that as God consoles, He also transforms. I think it is impossible for the nearness of His presence not to change us completely. I am a better mom, a better student of the Word, a better teacher, a better artist, a better friend, wife, sister, daughter, .... because I have experienced realsadnessand realjoy.
It is also through this season that God has been teaching me that in sadness He is close to the broken-hearted, mourns with those who mourn, and consoles my heart with the promise of His presence. And it is through joy that He teaches me He loves to bless me with knowing all good things come from Him for the greater purpose of 1- giving Him the glory for it 2- conforming me more into the image of His son and 3- giving me a glimpse into the complete fulfillment I will experience in Heaven when I am with Him.
And that is what I hope to teach you one day, Sadie Joy. I will teach you that life will be hard and sad and painful because we live in a fallen world. But life will also be filled with fun and laughter and sunshine. And through both of these times, though your feelings will change, God remains the same.
For those of you who care about birth stories, and for future me, I wanted to recount Sadie's joyous arrival into the world. (And if you are neither of those people, I'll add some photos of our sweet girl, because who doesn't love baby pictures, right?) Right now I'm at the hospital waiting for the doctors to come in before we can get discharged and I've already uploaded all my photos to facebook. What else is there to do? ;o)
Contractions began to get stronger Thursday afternoon into the evening, and by Friday morning I was convinced that that was the day Sadie would be coming. However, I had 1 more morning of Science and Art camp to teach for the week, which ended up being a blessing to keep my mind off of pain and my eyes off of the clock. By the afternoon, contractions were getting heavy but sporadic. (12 minutes apart, 17 minutes, 14, 7, 9, 11, 3....it was annoying.) By 2:45, they were every 3-6 and I called my doctor. I may have jumped the gun just a bit, but with Molly I went from having contractions every 5 minutes to every 3 by the time I called my doctor at the end of one hour. By the time I was finally admitted to the hospital with her, she came like a whirling dervish.) I ran around the house like a crazy person packing last minute items, an overnight bag for Molly, and repacking all of my bags that I had packed already. In addition to, or course, taking a few minutes to snap a few last photos...
Sadie bag all packed
38 weeks 5 days
By 3:45 I was in the hospital waiting to see if I would be staying. Because most of my contractions were in my back and the fact that I only have a right sided uterus, they hardly show up on the monitor, which is so frustrating. I kept telling Justin that I want some proof of the pain that I was feeling. He told me that when a baby shows up, everyone will know I was having contractions. Yes, thank you, dear husband.
After an hour of only being 2 cm, I was afraid they would send me home. They made me wait another hour, checked again, and I was 4. I was officially admitted by 6:00. The next hour, I was 6 cm and got a lovely epidural. This time, I got an epidural early enough to enjoy it, and let me tell you... as far as I'm concerned the anesthesiologist man and I can be BFF's. Pain was close to non-existent and I was able to have conversations with our nurses and relax a little bit. One of my student's moms is a labor and delivery nurse and came in especially for us. She was such a blessing!
At 10:00 I was fully dilated and it was time to push. 2 pushes later...1 for her head, and 1 for her body and Sadie was here at 10:07. I didn't need an episiotomy or any stitches.
I joked with my nurses that I don't know why women complain about child birth so much. They told me to be careful what I say or I won't have any friends anymore :o) I figure, my pregnancy history has been hard in many other ways. Non-laborious labor has been God's gift to me.
During "labor" the song that kept going through my head was a little chorus that I learned when I was young. It comes from Jeremiah 32:17. These are the words...
Ah, Lord God, thou has made the heavens and the earth by Thy great power. Ah, Lord God, thou has made the heavens and the earth by Thine outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for Thee. Nothing is too difficult for Thee. Great and Mighty God, Great in counsel and mighty in deed. Nothing Nothing Absolutely nothing. Nothing is too difficult for Thee.
What a great experience to have the knowledge of the sovereignty and power of God in the forefront of my thoughts as my daughter entered the world!
Sadie Joy is such a sweet baby! She amazes us with her calm spirit and eagerness to nurse and sleep when we want her too. (I hope that lasts!) Big sister, Molly, has been here twice to visit her and is quite excited that her new sister has toes and ears that she can tickle.
I can't wait to go home and start enjoying our time together as a family of four!
Thank you so much for so many of your well-wishes and congratulations. It has been a blessing knowing how many people have been praying for us!
One day last semester, my seniors were finished early with Home Ec class, and a bunch of them took out their ipods and cell phones to try to find a song that baby girl liked. (Totally against school policy to have them not "off and away", but it was so fun...don't tell my husband who is in charge of discipline.) They held their electronic devices up to my belly and saw what song made her move the most.
This is the song that they chose for her...
It makes me smile. It's perfect for a sumer baby. And it makes me excited to meet her.
37 weeks...full term! We're ready for you, baby girl!
