delighted to be » baby amelia

ready or not / may 5, 2013

image above by gail pomare

Some days I think I’m absolutely ready to have a baby again. I read articles on breastfeeding and sleep training without shedding any tears, and I actually keep up with the baby trends (leggings and head wraps, please stick around for a while). Tyler and I talk about baby names and birth dates and car seats.

To me it seems like it’s a pretend subject in the far, distant future. We talk about a pretend future baby and a pretend little sibling for Jack to dote on. Some day it will happen, but who really knows when? We’ve still got forever to “wait” for it, right?

I sometimes feel like I’m ready because the cravings are there. I crave those squishy cheeks and chubby thighs. I crave that newborn whimper in the night. I crave those darling dresses and soft, leather baby moccasins.

But when I actually see a newborn, my mind begins to race and my heart starts pounding uncontrollably in my chest. I shudder at the thought of holding, touching, and feeling that baby cradled in my arms. I don’t want to see its tiny toes and clenched fists. I don’t want to see those gas-induced sleepy smiles. I don’t want any of it because it’s yours, and not mine.

Will I feel differently when it’s my own? It sounds strange but I just don’t want to grow another baby where Amelia was. That’s her spot, her territory. I can’t accurately explain it, but to me, it’s hallowed ground in there.

Over the past month, I’ve been desperately trying to find a balance between all of this. I don’t want to raise just one child in this life, but yet I still can’t quite wrap my head around getting pregnant again. I’m so scared I’ll never commit and if I do it will all go wrong. It’s so hard to have faith and have that hope in a plan that’s not your own.

I just can’t quite figure out what I was supposed to be doing with this past year, when I wasn’t raising a second child. I feel like a failure; so many other moms with careers and PhDs and multiple children and have done more than me and my stay-at-home life with one. I’ve decorated bits and pieces of our house, kept too many crumbs from accumulating on the floor, and instituted a plant-based diet: nothing I couldn’t have done without another baby.

I want a baby but I just don’t get that overwhelming feeling of “it’s the right time” yet, and I fear I never will. Do I pray for readiness, to be prepared for another child? Am I ignoring the promptings or pushing them aside? Because Tyler is patient and kind but wants to get this show on the road. (And I get that – I do too.) But I feel guilty that my own internal issues and struggles are the ultimate thing holding us back from the happiness of another child joining our family.

I’m exhausted and so emotionally drained from thinking about all of this. We had a plan, and this wasn’t it. So what do I do now?

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beauty / april 25, 2013

(The photo above is from March 2011. Jack was five months old, and we were so close to graduation!)

Yesterday evening I looked around and realized, Man. We are such a beautiful family.

I don’t mean that in a literal sense of the word beauty. We’ve got plenty of flaws, inward and out. (Don’t even get me started on my big Greek nose.)

I just realized our family, in my own parameters of beauty, is indeed perfect.

In the evenings there’s a cool cross breeze that blows through our house. I am able to catch glimpses of Jack playing outside so contently with his water table, pouring the water back and forth, back and forth. It’s rhythmic and he’s so focused on that one small task that forty five minutes go by until he finally comes inside to see Tyler and I are reading serenely on the couch, soaking up the last rays of the evening sunshine.

Minutes later, Jack has provoked his Daddy off the couch. I catch Tyler chasing after Jack from the family room to the kitchen and around the table, with wide smiles and loud giggles. They get in a tickle fight until both of them fall together in a heap on the couch, exhausted from laughing so hard.

We take a family walk. With just the three of us, we fit perfectly across the sidewalk holding hands. Jack jumps over the cracks, and gently strokes the colorful, blooming flowerbeds. He runs ahead of us to point out trees and dogs and cars, because there’s so many, mama!

Our family is beautiful. We’re happy. But I can’t shake the thought that something – someone, perhaps – is missing. Why wasn’t I trusted with a baby? Why couldn’t I handle it? I’m alone and drowning in a world of why nots.

I can see now why people want a dog after they’ve lost a child. You’re in this state of vulnerability and were so ready to love, and then it’s been ripped from your arms and you’re emptier than when you started. You’re back to square one, trying to find enough room in your heart to love again. It’s there, the love is there. But where is the baby?

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for the beauty of the earth / april 19, 2013

Her tiny grave marker finally came, and it’s beautiful.

I didn’t know these things took so long, but I knew I wanted to get it right. I designed it myself, and it was worth the wait.

My heart is especially heavy today, as last summer is still so vivid in my thoughts. I remember driving to cemeteries and flipping through the grave marker books thinking, this can’t be happening, not to the thriving baby girl inside of me. I remember being hesitant to pick out a design, because they aren’t us, my spirit said. Teddy bears and roses and angel illustrations just didn’t make my heart sing.

I wanted to capture the beauty and grace with which my daughter quickly entered and left this world. I wanted to beautify the earth with her legacy. I wanted it to be perfectly imperfect in the most beautiful way, just like Amelia.

To capture the imperfections, I knew I wanted to hand letter her name and not use a font. Though I don’t do calligraphy (yet), as a designer I’m pretty good at hand lettering; it’s definitely one of my biggest strengths. But after what seemed like dozens of hours, hundreds of revisions, and many, many tears, I still couldn’t get it the way I wanted it. I was close to calling it quits when I stumbled upon Anne Robin and her beautiful calligraphy work.

I worked with Anne to get the initial lettering and cursive done, and she was so kind and patient with me! I am so grateful for the beauty she brings to this world through her hand lettering, and let me tell you, that woman has a big heart. :) I ended up having to tweak it quite a bit from her original, painfully letting go of all of those beautiful thick and thin lines a calligraphy pen creates. (The thin gaps would have been too small to sandblast.)

My sweet Amelia, I hope your cemetery neighbors are nice. I know your grave marker is just an earthly thing that doesn’t matter in the big picture, but right here and right now it matters to me. This is the sacred place where we’ll meet again someday.

I hope you love how excited Jack gets to touch the flowers and spin the pinwheel he brought you. I hope you’ll forgive me for the past months you spent alone, without a visitor in sight. I hope by now that you’ve stopped counting the tears I’ve shed driving away from your little place.

I hope we helped beautify the earth, even just a little bit. I hope that to you, your marker is perfect.

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calmer seas / april 8, 2013

It’s always a solemn, quiet drive to the cemetery and back. It’s funny how awkward a fifteen minute drive can seem when you sit there in silence.

We don’t go very often, but I’ve been trying to visit her more. For so long I tried to block her out of my thoughts and feelings, because remembering means crying.

I don’t like to cry.

I feel like I was doing really good for a while. And I’m still doing fine – recovering, but fine. Every once in a while there are waves of emotion that hit me hard in the chest and knock me over for a few days. Then I get back up and block it out again until the next wave overcomes me. I’m learning to live in this rough ocean, but I long to go back to the calmer seas I once knew.

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