waiting for Declan

The journey to bring our second-born child earthside has been anything but quick with a year of unexplained infertility and back-to-back miscarriages, so a two-week victory lap just seemed par for the course-- an ironic twist to my ceaseless prayers for my pregnancy to continue each week. I anticipated that this baby would come after his due date like his older sister, but as 40 weeks inched closer and closer, I began having contractions almost daily and thought he might actually mind the clock, especially after my midwife confirmed that I was already four centimeters dilated at my 39-week appointment. 

So two days before my due date, I stopped working and began hibernating. For the next 15 days I paced my neighborhood and/or Target aisles for miles, climbed stairs for half an hour at a time, drank 60 to 100 ounces of water daily, slammed protein and fiber-filled food continuously, took naps, planted the front garden-beds, passed all of the late-term prenatal tests, almost drank a castor oil smoothie (but chickened out), and tried to inexplicably connect with my cervix, repeating "open, open, open" over and over in my head. 

Labor symptoms came and went but eventually stopped altogether. Baby's eviction by Pitocin was scheduled for May 19th, exactly 42 weeks. 

But on the morning of May 18th I woke up anxiously, staring at my belly as I sat up. Somehow it looked smaller. Was my fluid low? My mother's intuition was waving red flags, sending up smoke signals, and blaring loud sirens even though the baby kicked and jabbed with as much gusto as ever. I knew it was time. I called my midwives and asked to move up my induction. Chris and I casually packed up, I curled my hair, reviewed the Daniel Tiger episode about what to expect when mom has a baby with Mary Allison, ate an early lunch and ice-cream cone at Chick-fil-a, and waltzed right into the labor and delivery unit at 11am, just as scheduled. 

Soon my midwife, Yelena, and nurse, Esta, joined us in room 611 and we discussed how to nudge my body into labor while hopefully avoiding enormous needles, IVs, drugs, and surgery. Because I was (still) four centimeters dilated and had given birth before, we decided to break my water-- my last shot to avoid Pitocin. Then we would wait. 

So Yelena tried to break my water... but no water came. For several minutes we waited for the signature gush of fluid that would never come. Eventually a teaspoon of amniotic fluid trickled out, she estimated. Surprised, she looked back at my charts and confirmed that my fluid levels measured perfectly just two days before. Remember those alarm bells that greeted me earlier that morning? Mother's intuition is spot on. 

Thankfully the baby's heart was still thumping right along and within minutes of my "water-breaking" I began having contractions three minutes apart. I had had so many contractions over the previous two weeks that I was basically unimpressed and might not have even noticed them except that they registered on the squiggly-line machine. So I put on the bright yellow hospital tube socks with the non-slip grippies on the bottom and began my march around the L&D wing occasionally passing by a room filled with a women shouting obscenities, or one with newborn baby cries. 

After an hour or so of pacing the halls, my back labor was in full swing so we returned to my room where I knelt silently over a birthing ball, riding the waves of intensity and lightening until my legs shook.

I remembered this deep, trembling throb that rattles your mind almost more than your body from my first labor. I hoped the hot water of the bath would weaken the pain enough to refocus my mind and prepare myself for the greater pain ahead. I settled in and repeated the same short prayer that I meditated on throughout my pregnancy: "Let me remember my child-- the one for whom I suffer, the one for whom I wait, the one I already love." 

As I kept my baby boy in the center of my mind, my thoughts also wondered back to my miscarriages, wishing the temporal, physical pain of labor could have replaced the far deeper suffering of grief and loss. In some bizarre hormonal haze, this ache made concrete the last 25 months it took to get to this point. To get to birth.

The transition from (the relatively) reasonable pain level to unbearable was much quicker than my labor with Mary Allison, and right behind it came the urge to push-- irresistible and immutable. After a couple of pushes in the tub, I crossed the hallway back to my room to meet my long-awaited son.

I'm not sure how I ended up giving birth on my feet. The position was impulsive and visceral. I rooted my feet into the ground, gripped Chris' hands, and waited for each surge to bring my baby forward.  

Before his body was even born, he started screaming with his head lodged between my legs bringing a sigh of laughter into the room. Even I remember smiling. With one last push he came barreling out-- loud, huge, and red.
  
Finally. No more waiting. 

My dear son, we love you deeply. We always have. We are profoundly, and humbly, grateful that you are here and that we get to show you the world.

You are the goodness we have waited so long to meet face-to-face. 

Photography: Kristy Powell

his name

We made it to mass on Sunday. We were 15 minutes late to the latest service, Mary Allison had to use the bathroom a record number of times, and the baby was still wearing pajamas, but we made it. Several people noticed our tardy, uncoordinated entrance and welcomed us with waves and knowing smiles as they saw our full arms. The warm greetings spilled over into the narthex after the final benediction and we were able to introduce our son to one of our favorite "pew neighbors," Rose, a kind, middle-aged woman from Africa. We went through the script of questions and answers that one quickly learns with a newborn... "Declan Joel, 10 days ago, 9 pounds and 4 ounces, 21 inches, yes-- he's huge, yada, yada, yada..."

"Ah! Declan Joel," she said to us in her thick accent, "You are blessed. You are so blessed."

And she is right. Our son is finally here and he is full of everything that is good.

My double rainbow pregnancy was filled with doubt. Although I was grateful for each passing day bringing us closer to our son, I struggled to believe that we would actually get to keep him. Even once I reached full term (and then even fuller term), the fear of stillbirth was nearby-- a persistent, evil nag. So I didn't dream of what his face would look like. I didn't try to imagine who he would grow up to be. I couldn't even give him a name-- not yet. What if that name just became another engraved gold charm to add to my necklace?

But my pregnancy was also filled with hope for our son. After spending time with him, we chose to give him the name Declan-- an Irish saint's name that means "full of goodness." Declan's healing birth and the sweet rhythm of his breath on my cheek as he sleeps close, remind me of the fullness of God's goodness and His promise of abundant life. As I stare at my baby's chubby face, I pray that he grows up to be like his namesake, my dad, who is faithful, generous, humble, kind, honest-- and good.

So, my little Declan Joel, welcome to our world. You are overflowing with goodness. 

We are so blessed.

Photography: Kristy Powell 

Mary Allison's THIRD birthday

This year my tiny baby with deep, curious eyes has grown into a little girl. She spends her days doing all things pretend-play and all things artsy and anything else she dreams up as long as she can do it all on her own. Soon after her second birthday we moved into our first house which brought many adventures along with it, including emergency wild-life removal, explosive sewage, and two trips to the ER. Despite having a stay-at-home dad (the best SAHD, I would say), she continues to morph into her mother. May's opinions are definitive and important, her stories animated and verbose, and her fine motor skills are precise and perfectionistic while her gross motor skills are... uncoordinated at best. Her favorite day each week is when she gets to put on her beloved kitty-cat "pack pack" and go to Mom's school to play, teach, and learn from some of Mom's preschool students with autism. She would probably tell you that the highlights of her year include dressing up like Yoda for Halloween, moving into a queen-sized bed, anticipating her little brother's arrival, visiting her grandparents throughout the year, and wearing her turquoise and silver-glitter Frozen shirt with her bedazzled, cheetah-print sneakers complete with hot pink bows. 

Three years later and I still stare at her the same way I did when I first met her face-to-face: amazed and grateful that she's my daughter. 

"I'm so proud of you. I love you."

The day after my dad's 18th birthday, his mom passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack when she was only 55. Several years later my grandfather remarried my grandmother, Gigi-- my only grandparent who was able to watch me grow up. I know that Granddaddy married Gigi for her good heart, smart wit, and her clear blue eyes, but he unknowingly gifted me with my precious grandmother who loved me as her own, and ironically was the one who helped me get to know Granddaddy, who lost his brilliant mind to Alzheimer's when we were both too young. I know he was lucky to have Gigi as his wife, but I've always counted myself luckier to have had her as my grandmother.

Gigi passed away peacefully last night, with her hands clasped in prayer, after 95 full years of life. 

As a little girl I remember eating slice after slice of her homemade buttermilk pie, climbing up the big apricot tree in their front yard to pick all of the fruit, hunting Easter eggs in her beautiful garden, and scavenging arrowheads from the canyon behind my grandparents' home. She taught my brother and I how to play Bridge, what life was like during the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and WWII, and that eating your dessert first is always the right choice. 

As we grew up, I watched her lovingly and patiently care for my grandfather as he forgot his stories, his sweet-tooth, our names, and our faces. She loved to retell their love story, full of weekend dances at the Dalhart Country Club, building their dream home together, and weekly attendance at the Methodist church. Each time she spoke of Granddaddy she adamantly repeated that they "never shared a cross word" throughout all of the decades they were married, each time attributing the ease and happiness of their marriage to his goodness. "Your granddaddy was such a good, good man." I can hear her say it. 

She missed him deeply-- a deepness that never seemed to shrink with time. In the days before her death she had periods of lucidity-- ones when she shared in my excitement for our baby boy over the phone, and also dreamlike times when she spoke out-loud of her Hawaiian honeymoon with "Doc," as she called my granddad. The one where the 65-year-old lovebirds waded too far into the pacific ocean and the waves swept Gigi's bikini top away so Granddaddy wrapped her in a beach towel and carried her out of the waves.

Gigi lived each day fully and loved her friends and family well. I am reminded of the old Scottish hymn, "Abide With Me," when I think of her passing. "I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me." 

I'll conclude my thoughts the same way that she always ended our phone calls for her sentiments towards me and the same ones I have for her. Gigi, "I'm so proud of you. I love you. Bye-bye now."

Half Orange Photography