What Anniversary are you Celebrating?
Our first! The premier. The maiden. The initial. The Foremost. The Ichiban.
What Will You Be Doing To Celebrate?
Um. That's kinda personal! LOL No, we're headed into 'the big city' to eat dinner. Funny enough, Will's sister called us this morning while we were still groggy and in bed to sing the "happy anniversary" song to us and asked us if we're going to do anything special. He answered, coyly, "we're doing it!" Funny, she laughed and said goodbye quite quickly after! LOL
What Significant Thing Happened This Year To Make You Fall More In Love?
Honestly, when it's the first year, EVERYTHING is significant, because everything is the 'first'. First Christmas. First fight. First trip. First funeral/wedding. (no, not at the same time, obviously) I'd probably venture to say that our trips to the states to buy appliances was a big one for me. We had no 'plans'. No time schedules. We were JUST US, and in love and it recharged me immensely.
What Do You Wish You Did This Year As A Couple?
Well, finishing the house woulda been nice, but we had sooo much of 'life' happen that I wouldn't want to miss those moments either. We talk about going away... FAR AWAY... somewhere hot, so maybe we'll get to that this year?
What Was The Biggest Fight You Had and What Was It About?
We had probably three good ones that I can recall. I mean, when you ask what they're about, it's not usually just about ONE big thing. For us, it's usually stemming from a series of misinterpretations and assumptions and hurt feelings that bottle up and then somewhat explode. One was about a sweater I owned. One was about Jeremy not going to bed. And one...sadly... is about something I can't even remember. It has a soundtrack, though, and two of our kids witnessed us being absolutely childish. Sad day.
What Did You Learn About Your Spouse That You Never Knew Before?
LOTS!!!! I mean, I go back to the whole 'first year' thing. Bathroom habits and eating preferences and which lights of the house to leave on and what NOT to say at certain times....
But, for the first time in BOTH my and Will's married lives, we told each other our 'deepest, darkest secret.' Something neither of us had ever told another spouse. It was a very scary moment, opening up a recessed corner of our pasts so vulnerably. But maybe that's why our previous marriages didn't work so well-- maybe we didn't let the other person have enough dirt on us to scare us into NEVER leaving for fear of blackmail!? lol
What Was The Biggest Challenge You Faced Together?
Raising our children.
What Would You Have Changed About This Year?
I would have changed nothing-- I am happy about where I stand today, and I am happy about the progress personally and as a couple we have made financially, emotionally, intellectually and especially spiritually. I look forward to the next year as a tough, busy year, and would want NOTHING to change about what I see. So, if changing one thing made anything else change, I don't want it.
What One Specific Thing Do You Love About Your Spouse Today?
One???? As if! Alright, alright, I'll play along. I love that he makes my happiness come above his own.
So, if someone had told me it'd be like this, I would have done it a million times over. And so we shall.
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
7 years ago, and the ever-important 8 days later.
When people ask me about a moment in my life when something REALLY made a difference, one of three things come to mind. And the first, is August 1oth, 2003.
You see, I gave birth that morning to a strawberry-blond fuzz-covered baby boy. Nameless, he was quiet and a month early, and was in MUCH of a rush to get into the world, as I NEARLY gave birth in the car. We got to the hospital at 6:20 am... but I was already fully dilated. By 6:41, my beautiful boy arrived.
We had a homebirth with our first baby, LL, so we decided to be informed of BOTH options, and had a planned hospital birth with our second.
It was a great day.
Family came to visit. Everyone adored this little munchkin. I introduced LL to her baby brother, and the pride and love on her face was as radiant as my own watching the two of them together. We received gifts.. balloons, flowers, and even a little tiny blue stuffed teddybear. Amazingly, the bear was the EXACT size of my boy. We took a picture.
Chris and I had two names we liked. It was either Ryley or "Bear". When he asked which name I wanted, I was a little afraid to admit that I liked "Bear" better, because we already HAD a family member with the same name. Looking at the baby, I told him I thought he looked more like a Bear, and Chris smiled a relieved smile-- apparently, we both felt the same way.
Bear was sleeeeeeepy. He didn't wake up for ANYTHING. He didn't want to nurse. He didn't want to play or visit the world around him. He just wanted to SLEEP.
By the end of the day, the nurses were getting concerned that he wouldn't eat. They were bringing in lactation consultants to teach me all the million things they thought would help, and then all the million things they concluded I MUST be doing WRONG...
blah blah blah.
Turns out, my boy just wanted to SLEEP!
After one nurse came in, I was past being frustrated. The rest of the family had gone for dinner, and I wanted to join my little man and take a nap. But they were relentless-- enforcing a nurse-period for 'baby'.
At one point, I had one veryannoying and pushy persistent nurse come in and try to feed him. She took a bottle of formula, trying every WITCH which way to get him to swallow it. I got up to go to the bathroom, leaving her with her futile attempts.
When I returned, Bear was back in his bassinet beside my bed. She looked at him, and asked me, "Is he always that colour?" I stared at him, thinking... Uh, I've known him for less than 12 hours... I have NO IDEA what colour he's supposed to be. I mean, when he came out, he most definitely WASN'T that colour, dumbnuts! She checked his heart rate, and suggested that he's probably tired and needs a bit of oxygen to perk up.
She didn't freak out or anything, just informed me that she was going to take him to the nursery for a second, and she left with him. Not worried, I took a minute to locate my shoes. It was then that I heard the intercom through the halls. Panic-stricken voices were calling STAT and NICU and CRASH CARTS...and feet were racing through the corridors. It was at that moment that my mothering instincts clicked in and I knew that the commotion was because of my baby.
I walked out into the hallway, watching running nurses and doctors and specialists with carts get wheeled into the nursery. I stood in that hallway, frozen. Not with fear...just..frozen. Holding my arms around myself, I looked and saw a lifeless, bluish grey body. A perfect little strawberry-blond fuzz-covered six pounds of an angel. I knew my boy was not alive at that moment.
And in my grief, I found something amazing.
I don't think I've ever tried to tell someone on paper the significance of that moment. I don't think I'll do it justice here. But, that very moment that I felt POOR ME, and asked God not to take my baby...I felt IMMEDIATELY lucky that I had been his mother for even just the day. That I was SOOOO blessed to have been given such a perfect soul that it only needed a body, and went back home to heaven to wait for me. I didn't 'convince' myself of this. In this type of moment, you don't get to "convince" yourself of much of ANYTHING. This, gratefully, was a gift that God gave to my heart, knowing I needed it most right then.
Mothers were all leaving their rooms to stand at their doorways to watch. Some holding their newborns in their loving arms, some with their terror-stricken faces just stood there, hands over their mouths in shock and pity. They weren't pitying the baby...I realized they were pitying me. They were bonding with me. Supporting me.
A nurse looked over. I must have had that look. She approached me, asking if I was "Mom". I could only nod. Holding me, she took me inside to watch this continue. I know she said lots of other things.. but I didn't hear her.
Eventually they wheeled him over into the intensive care nursery, and somehow I walked behind his bubble, supported by the nurse who literally held me up.
It was a long night.
He didn't move. He was poked and prodded. And nobody knew anything. What was wrong? What happened? What tests could we run? Will he make it through the hour? Through the night?
When Chris returned to the hospital, we stood at his bedside, crying. Bear was covered in machines. He was lifeless, were it not for the monitors that told us otherwise. I tried to sing the lullaby my mother sang to us for him, because the doctors didn't know if he would survive the night, and I knew he needed to hear that song at least once before he left. But I choked on the tears, and Chris just held me.
At two in the morning, I called my home teachers (church men). They arrived at the hospital, dressed in suits and ties, and gave a blessing to my little baby, touching his heel-- the only part of his body they could get access to with all the bubbles and tubes around him.
I went back to my room, where everything was exactly the way I left it. Balloons. Flowers. And a blue teddybear that was the exact same size of my baby. I held that bear in the crook my arm, and cried.
......
8 days is a long time.
8 days were the hardest 8 days I had ever had to endure up to that moment.
But, in the blessing, I was assured that he would grow to be a great man.
8 days after being born, my baby boy, Bear, came home. And although he wasn't healthy, and it took many months of nearly daily visits to doctors and clinics, today, he's out with his cousin, riding bikes with popcans on the wheels, making dirtpiles for their trucks, and eating whatever they find in the kitchen.
This is his 7th birthday and 8 days later. I am sooooooo glad that I have him still.
Bear is so incredibly sensitive. He's sweet, and goofy, and even sometimes a little 'slow'.. in a cute, shake-your-head kind of way. And I love him. He has had more near-death experiences than I would ever wish a mother would experience, but he always comes back to me.
He's healthy. He's cute. He's into cars and tractors and skateboards and lego.
And I am soooo lucky to sing him one of our lullabies every night, to cut his strawberry-blonde, fuzzy hair, and mostly, to be his Mother.
You see, I gave birth that morning to a strawberry-blond fuzz-covered baby boy. Nameless, he was quiet and a month early, and was in MUCH of a rush to get into the world, as I NEARLY gave birth in the car. We got to the hospital at 6:20 am... but I was already fully dilated. By 6:41, my beautiful boy arrived.
We had a homebirth with our first baby, LL, so we decided to be informed of BOTH options, and had a planned hospital birth with our second.
It was a great day.
Family came to visit. Everyone adored this little munchkin. I introduced LL to her baby brother, and the pride and love on her face was as radiant as my own watching the two of them together. We received gifts.. balloons, flowers, and even a little tiny blue stuffed teddybear. Amazingly, the bear was the EXACT size of my boy. We took a picture.
Chris and I had two names we liked. It was either Ryley or "Bear". When he asked which name I wanted, I was a little afraid to admit that I liked "Bear" better, because we already HAD a family member with the same name. Looking at the baby, I told him I thought he looked more like a Bear, and Chris smiled a relieved smile-- apparently, we both felt the same way.
Bear was sleeeeeeepy. He didn't wake up for ANYTHING. He didn't want to nurse. He didn't want to play or visit the world around him. He just wanted to SLEEP.
By the end of the day, the nurses were getting concerned that he wouldn't eat. They were bringing in lactation consultants to teach me all the million things they thought would help, and then all the million things they concluded I MUST be doing WRONG...
blah blah blah.
Turns out, my boy just wanted to SLEEP!
After one nurse came in, I was past being frustrated. The rest of the family had gone for dinner, and I wanted to join my little man and take a nap. But they were relentless-- enforcing a nurse-period for 'baby'.
At one point, I had one very
When I returned, Bear was back in his bassinet beside my bed. She looked at him, and asked me, "Is he always that colour?" I stared at him, thinking... Uh, I've known him for less than 12 hours... I have NO IDEA what colour he's supposed to be. I mean, when he came out, he most definitely WASN'T that colour, dumbnuts! She checked his heart rate, and suggested that he's probably tired and needs a bit of oxygen to perk up.
She didn't freak out or anything, just informed me that she was going to take him to the nursery for a second, and she left with him. Not worried, I took a minute to locate my shoes. It was then that I heard the intercom through the halls. Panic-stricken voices were calling STAT and NICU and CRASH CARTS...and feet were racing through the corridors. It was at that moment that my mothering instincts clicked in and I knew that the commotion was because of my baby.
I walked out into the hallway, watching running nurses and doctors and specialists with carts get wheeled into the nursery. I stood in that hallway, frozen. Not with fear...just..frozen. Holding my arms around myself, I looked and saw a lifeless, bluish grey body. A perfect little strawberry-blond fuzz-covered six pounds of an angel. I knew my boy was not alive at that moment.
And in my grief, I found something amazing.
I don't think I've ever tried to tell someone on paper the significance of that moment. I don't think I'll do it justice here. But, that very moment that I felt POOR ME, and asked God not to take my baby...I felt IMMEDIATELY lucky that I had been his mother for even just the day. That I was SOOOO blessed to have been given such a perfect soul that it only needed a body, and went back home to heaven to wait for me. I didn't 'convince' myself of this. In this type of moment, you don't get to "convince" yourself of much of ANYTHING. This, gratefully, was a gift that God gave to my heart, knowing I needed it most right then.
Mothers were all leaving their rooms to stand at their doorways to watch. Some holding their newborns in their loving arms, some with their terror-stricken faces just stood there, hands over their mouths in shock and pity. They weren't pitying the baby...I realized they were pitying me. They were bonding with me. Supporting me.
A nurse looked over. I must have had that look. She approached me, asking if I was "Mom". I could only nod. Holding me, she took me inside to watch this continue. I know she said lots of other things.. but I didn't hear her.
Eventually they wheeled him over into the intensive care nursery, and somehow I walked behind his bubble, supported by the nurse who literally held me up.
It was a long night.
He didn't move. He was poked and prodded. And nobody knew anything. What was wrong? What happened? What tests could we run? Will he make it through the hour? Through the night?
When Chris returned to the hospital, we stood at his bedside, crying. Bear was covered in machines. He was lifeless, were it not for the monitors that told us otherwise. I tried to sing the lullaby my mother sang to us for him, because the doctors didn't know if he would survive the night, and I knew he needed to hear that song at least once before he left. But I choked on the tears, and Chris just held me.
At two in the morning, I called my home teachers (church men). They arrived at the hospital, dressed in suits and ties, and gave a blessing to my little baby, touching his heel-- the only part of his body they could get access to with all the bubbles and tubes around him.
I went back to my room, where everything was exactly the way I left it. Balloons. Flowers. And a blue teddybear that was the exact same size of my baby. I held that bear in the crook my arm, and cried.
......
8 days is a long time.
8 days were the hardest 8 days I had ever had to endure up to that moment.
But, in the blessing, I was assured that he would grow to be a great man.
8 days after being born, my baby boy, Bear, came home. And although he wasn't healthy, and it took many months of nearly daily visits to doctors and clinics, today, he's out with his cousin, riding bikes with popcans on the wheels, making dirtpiles for their trucks, and eating whatever they find in the kitchen.
This is his 7th birthday and 8 days later. I am sooooooo glad that I have him still.
Bear is so incredibly sensitive. He's sweet, and goofy, and even sometimes a little 'slow'.. in a cute, shake-your-head kind of way. And I love him. He has had more near-death experiences than I would ever wish a mother would experience, but he always comes back to me.
He's healthy. He's cute. He's into cars and tractors and skateboards and lego.
And I am soooo lucky to sing him one of our lullabies every night, to cut his strawberry-blonde, fuzzy hair, and mostly, to be his Mother.
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