Happy grandmas

Nana and Oma overlapped a few days as they each came to meet Beatrice and help us out for a while.  (Nana made Beatrice the beautiful quilt draped on the right hand side!)

Bringer of Joy

We chose to name her Beatrice Grace because we like uncommon, old fashioned, easy to recognize names, and because the meaning of names is important to us.  

Beatrice means "blessed, happy, bringer of joy, bringer of comfort."  Beatrice has brought a new joy to our lives, similar to how God comforted David and Bathsheba after their son's death with the birth of Solomon (2 Samuel 12:24).  She does not replace Oliver or the relationship we had/would have had with him, but her presence and newness comforts us, and we are blessed to receive this gift.  

Grace has become a sustaining concept to us.  We rely on grace in each of our relationships as we flounder though traumas and the grind of daily life, making so many mistakes and offences along the way, and we utterly depend on God's free and unmerited grace as he forgives and sustains us every moment we live.

As I have written before, photography is a tool for me to help me focus on glimpses of blessings.  Unlike previous seasons during which blessings have been hard  for me see, the joy of our new daughter is so refreshing and simple and abundant.  I was supposed to be resting yesterday, but instead I pushed my post-surgical body farther than I should have and set up a photo shoot for Beatrice.  (Not that she needed any photo set-up or lace or flowers to make her beautiful, but she was such a good model and I was having so much fun!)

Not for granted

Beatrice is one week old and healthy.  When we wrote that she was "totally healthy..." in the email announcements it was not just because that is what is typically written in birth announcements - we don't take that for granted anymore.

Beatrice feels like a mix between a fourth child and a first-born. We are familiar with the basics of having babies and caring for them, but in many ways we feel like we're experiencing her so brand new with the same special awe and amazement we felt the first time with Elsa, and maybe even more so.  Every little "normal" development fills us with surprising delight.  

At first, while in the hospital, I loved holding her but didn't actually just sit and hold her that much.  When we got home it finally sunk in that, not only were we really getting to take her home with us, NOW!, but that I can pick her up whenever I want, for however long I want, and take her wherever I want, without the complications of wires, tubes, monitors, or medication schedules, and without the fear of triggering a heart-stopping vagal response or pinching a tracheostomy tube and setting off ventilator alarms.  I can pick her up and dance around the house whenever I want to.  She is pink and is already trying to lift up her head and knows how to nurse and I may never have to pump again.

And one day she will even smile back at me.  

Garden memorials

I kept the bulbs from the Easter Lilies that decorated the church for Oliver's memorial service, and they just finished blooming this week.  I have them in the container garden I brought with us to our rental, and I hope they will make it through the move to our new home in Birmingham, along with Oliver's tree.  I don't attribute an irrational sentiment to these plants, but I find them helpful, tangible props that help me process and express my thoughts, emotions, and memories.  

I think I love to remember Oliver as I garden because when I work with my plants I feel like I'm cultivating life, and it urges me to reflect with peace on the perfect vitality that Oliver now experiences while I grieve and miss him here and now.

The Peace Lily we were given for him is also blooming indoors; an elegant memorial, a single white spathe peering over lush and green, blooming just in time to greet Beatrice.  I am so proud of Oliver and how much he learned and how hard he fought during his year with us, and this flower by my desk reminds me to not feel guilty about enjoying Beatrice as I remember him.

Big sisters

The older girls' reactions surprised me a little.  I had thought that Elsa would like the baby OK, but that Nora would adore her and take her in as another of her beloved baby dolls.  

Instead, Elsa loves to hold Beatrice any chance she gets and talks to her and can't keep her hands off her.  

Nora loves her too, but is finding her arrival more challenging than we, or I think even she, anticipated.  I think it is a mix of being an active 3 1/2 year old (it is so hard to be "careful" around the baby when you are so excited about her that you want to jump and bounce around her head!) and adjusting to being a big sister again.  She has done very well transitioning from being the baby to being middle child with Oliver, then back to being the baby and now middle again, but it had not been without a few bumps along the way.  I love it that she tells us what she is feeling and thinking - she will actually say things like "Daddy, I want you to give me some attention now, please" - rather than just acting out about it, so we can try to meet her needs along the way.  She does think her new sister is very cute and loves to help out as she is able.

And Beatrice is getting used to her new situation with her sisters as well, namely the mixture of startling noises and the abundant affection they show her.  They call her Baby Bea.

At home

She's just so darling - she can even make a chunky old car seat look cute!

My mother, "Oma," arrived several days after we came home.

 

Nana was able to get both Elsa and Nora to give us their first smiles when she visited after their births.  Beatrice was still to young to smile for this visit, but she did offer up some cute yawns instead.

Beatrice Grace

Beatrice Grace Dunham

Born June 26th, 2014, 8 lbs. 2 oz., 19 inches long.  She is perfectly healthy, has the sweetest, mellow demeanor, and looks very much like her siblings when they were newborn.  

I am so glad we were able to be at the smaller hospital in town where Elsa and Nora were born.  Everything felt much more relaxed and comfortable to me (at least as relaxed and as comfortable as a hospital can be) than at the big medical center.  The c-section went well and thankfully was not quite as bad of an experience as I had been dreading - I still hated it but I wasn't a complete wreck through the whole process like I thought I might be.  I was way too wiped out to take any of my own photos for several days, but that's what grandmas are for right?  Joel's mother took plenty in the meantime.

Joel helped me get through the surgery and then held her almost all of the time we were in the hospital.  I am so blessed to have him be our family's Daddy.

The girls thought it was funny that I couldn't feel or move my legs, and I think at first they were equally excited to get to play with the hospital bed as meet their sister.

Elsa presented Beatrice with the hat she made, which is thankfully larger enough to still fit her when it gets cold.

and Nora gave her a "Pooh bear" snuggly toy - Nora's and Elsa's Pooh bears are perhaps their most important possessions (along with Oliver's which they insisted on keeping in the nursery to "help 'member him"), so it was very important that Beatrice receive her own right away.

We were so blessed to have Joel's mom, Nana, come to help with the older girls, plus it was the first time it has worked out for her to actually be in town for a grandchild's birth.  We only stayed in the hospital for two days, and we are so very thankful for her help!