Grief plays funny tricks

I decided I needed to buy Baby Girl some flowers.  But honestly they were mostly for me, because I am desperate for spring, and because I needed something to remind me to rejoice.  A few hours after experiencing elation at the good news of our daughter's health I thought of Oliver, the ring with his fingerprints on my finger, and the helium began to seep out of me.  I began swirling down into a confusing mixture of grief, shame, sorrow, relief, and a host of other conflicting emotions.  And so I did what I always do when I feel something too intensely for comfort - I stuffed it all down and stopped feeling.  I was ashamed of my feelings, their intensity, and even the fact that I was experiencing them instead of just being happy.  

But I have been learning, in great part to my darling son, that this is not healthy and will cause me to eventually implode.  It is not a natural habit yet, but I am learning to combat these emotional black holes with truth.  It is the only thing that gives freedom from their gravity-like pull on my soul.  

So I force myself to weed through my emotions ask God to help me discern truth from lies.

I am relieved and thankful that our daughter is well.  I do not want to experience the challenges of the Oliver's life all over again.  But then my breath catches and it feels like ingratitude for the gift of our son and the wealth of blessing his life brought into ours.

It feels like I am betraying Oliver or valuing him less when I celebrate the Baby Girl's health, though I know that is not the case.  Celebrating a new life does not mean that he is forgotten.  The truth is that rejoicing that Baby Girl appears to have perfect health does not mean that I loved Oliver any less because of his sickness, or that he was any less perfect for the purpose for which he was created.

I am not one to quote popular TV shows, but I enjoy Julian Fellows' writing and resonate with how he and Penelope Wilton have portrayed Isobel Crawley's grieving her son Matthew's death on Downton Abbey.  Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess (I confess I enjoy just about anything that involves Maggie Smith), invites Isobel to a dinner party and a private opera concert.  Isobel at first declines, explaining,

“Yes, but you see I have this feeling that when I laugh or read a book or hum a tune, that it means that I've forgotten him, just for a moment and it’s that, that I cannot bear.”

Yes, it feels like forgetting, but I know that it is not, so I tell my self the truth over and over and let it, word by word, verse by verse, fight the black hole feelings that come from shame and lies and accept those that remain in a felt paradox - I can and will rejoice with thanksgiving and remember with thanksgiving.  And the truth is that we can not possibly forget - we needed Oliver - we are changed forever because of him.

After reconsidering, attending the concert, and having a delightful evening, Isobel thanks the Countess and notes how grief can play funny tricks on your thinking.  Though I think her lines were more eloquent than that.

So here's a rosebud to celebrate our new little one.  We are thankful for you, Baby Girl.  And we rejoice that you are well, and I think your big brother does too.

Home veterinary clinic

Ms. Tabitha Twitchit is a very patient cat, er, I mean patient patient.  She really did get quite sick for two days recently and gave me quite a scare, but she thankfully recovered and is back to herself again.  After she recovered the girls took it up themselves one evening to let her in the house to conduct their own medical examination and assessment of her recovery.  

She was given an assortment of shots and bandages, and it looks like she's having her blood pressure taken around her waist?

In the end I think she just fell asleep, purring from all the attention, and was finally given the OK to be discharged back outside from the doctors, who had to go get ready for bedtime.  

Spending Spree

The girls both got Walmart gift cards for Christmas - a whole $10 each!  It was more than they could hardly comprehend, having only dealt with pennies and quarters so far.  I wanted to make sure they felt freedom to get what they wanted, but it I also couldn't let such a teaching opportunity completely slip by.  Before we went to the store I asked them to draw out a list of things they wanted to look at to buy.  We talked about the difference between things that we enjoy right away for a short time (like candy, fresh flowers, etc) and things we can enjoy for a longer time (fake flowers, toys, etc.).  We also made rows of ten boxes by their lists so they could see much the items would cost compared to their ten dollars, and so we could track how much they had left.  Then, off to the store we went, and, other than answering their questions and showing them the range of options they had, I did my best to let them make their own decisions.  They had SO much fun and I think they did a great job!  I loved listening to how they were making their decisions.  Here's everything Elsa brought home:

They both chose a combination of candy and toys, and they talked to each other about how they could play with the fake flowers longer than real ones, even though the real ones were prettier (but also more expensive).  I was quite proud of them, and of myself for not trying to control and influence their decisions! (And, in case you can't tell, the fingernail polishes they picked out are completely sparkles and glitter.  I obviously had no influence on that!)

Barnaby has such a hard life

He just looks so worn out after a long day of napping and stretching and eating.

A bit of winter color

I will miss the mature trees in our old yard and the birds they attracted.  But now that means I have a good excuse for getting out to spend time at the local parks and trails.  For everything there is a season...

I got new garden boots for Christmas

... but someone else broke them in for me.  

Frosty

The week we started moving in December the roads were covered in ice and our yard had just enough snow for an Elsa-sized snowman.  I know this is nothing compared to the blizzards back east - but it was quite unusual for us here in the southern Oregon!

We seemed to have more ice than snow, so Elsa had her first experience with icicles.  

It was also the first time she experienced ear muffs (at least that she remembered), and I think that was her favorite part of all!  She wore them almost constantly - including for baking Christmas cookies.  I promise, our house was not that cold!

They are so cozy and stylish - why don't you try wearing them next time you're baking?

The girls also invited Gideon to experience the joy of ear muffs, but I don't he shared their enthusiasm.

Rosebud

The girls are thrilled, and Joel and I are inexpressibly overjoyed and relieved to announce that our new baby girl, due July 3, looks perfectly healthy.  She wiggled constantly through the ultrasound at the specialty clinic in town, but we were still able to get very clear images considering her age.  Her long bones (femur and humerus) indicate that she is actually a bit tall for her age, her kidneys are cyst-free and had no fluid at all (which is appropriate for her age), her heart and brain looked perfect for what they could see, and there was plenty of fluid around her (in which, as I mentioned, she is CONSTANTLY moving!)

We will have another ultrasound at the end of February to check on everything again after she grows a bit more, but the specialty doctor said he was "confident" that we wouldn't see any changes or anything new at that point considering how clear we were able to see everything this time.  And even if we do find problems, whether the familiar issues Oliver struggled with or new and surprising ones, we feel so blessed and excited to be given this child.

Other than the conflicting and overwhelming emotions leading up to the ultrasound I have been feeling fine, though quite tired and craving candy and donuts like crazy (though the craving part is probably more from the emotions than the actual pregnancy!).

The girls ask almost daily how big the baby is and when she will be coming "out," and they have already named her "Rosebud," which is rather sweet but gives us motivation to decide on her real name soon!  I think she will fit into the family perfectly - here she is with her hand to her forehead, already being dramatic:

Welcome, Little One!

Moved

No, I have not given up writing and posting photos and I have not fallen off the planet - during November and December we sold the 1500 sq ft house we owned for 7 years and moved into a 750 sq ft duplex a mile down the road.  We didn't widely publicize our move because one of the several reasons for selling our house was because of rumors that Joel's division at work was being sold or closed, but the official announcement about selling his division has now been made and thankfully we don't expect for him to need to start job hunting.

I made a website for our house to help market the property (t was a challenging photography project for me, and I was rather pleased with how it turned out!  I think good real estate photography is actually pretty challenging, at least for my level of ability.  You can see it by clicking HERE), and that project helped me emotionally detach from the house early on and view it more as merchandise we were trying to market.  Even so, it has been a challenging mixture of emotions, fatigue, stress, and anticipation.  I am a perfectionist, so showing the house 3-4 times a week meant I was cleaning and staging the house 3-4 times a week.  We have been downsizing our possessions through donations, garage sales, craigslist, and gifts.  This is a wonderfully freeing experience overall, but is still confusingly painful as I relinquish ownership of things that I am accustomed to having around me though I know I will be happy without them.  Prepping the house for sale, maintaining it, and preparing to move have consumed much of my time and energy over the last few months, so I have felt torn between the time needed for housekeeping and time with the girls and time for private quiet and grief processing even more that average.

The distraction of selling the house has also helped me appreciate how much writing the blog has helped me process my experiences and feelings.  I do not consider myself a writer (outside of the scientific papers I produced in school) and have never taken to journaling.  I am an extrovert, and so I have found it immensely valuable to have friends around me (meaning both locally in town and here through my online sputterings) who want me to be honest about what I am thinking, feeling, and experiencing.  I think that is why writing the blog is more effective for me than private journaling - for me the public nature of the blog holds me more accountable to being honest, whereas in a private journal I am more apt to play games with myself and become frustrated.

We moved a week before Christmas and settled in just in time to travel east to be Joel's family over Christmas.  It was a delightful week with his family.  Being in a completely different setting with so many other people to make decisions helped me slowly let go of the stress and pressures that had built up over the last few months.  Plus, one of my Christmas presents from Joel was that he was mostly in charge of the girls for the week, which took some getting used to and was quite nice!  Sorry, no Christmas photo collections - I decided to leave my camera at home and just enjoy the time without the distraction of my lens.

We are now home and happily settling in to our new living space.  The whole transition itself was very smooth for Joel and me, the girls, and even our three cats (except for maybe Tabitha, our outdoor cat, who is still being transitioned in and out of the garage).  I'll sure I'll be getting the camera out again soon an posting more regularly.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year!