The Call of the Baby

I was shocked how draining the death of my dog was. I had all these ideas for blog posts and I have just recently been able to sit down and work on them at all. Strange how you can think you have a hold on things but if you look close enough you can see the tiny differences in your actions or mood that something like that can cause. Anyway, point being, I'm finally feeling like myself again.

So recently Mira has decided that bedtime isn't for her. We have a routine that we try to follow to help things along. First off, she is still in our room. She will probably be moving to the nursery soon but for now she is in the Pack n' Play about 2 feet from my head. I'm sure there are those who would disagree with the fact that my 8 month old still sleeps in my room. I have recently started to be ok ignoring all those people because frankly, we gotta do what works for us and Mira has 2 parents, neither of which is you. I think most moms can agree with that sentiment.

Ok, to the routine. She usually gets a nice, full, 6-oz bottle first. She never eats this much during the day, but apparently she is starving by the time we go to bed so she sucks that thing down in 2 minutes flat. Then we cuddle and read a book. Usually it ends up being one of the "If You Give A" books. Her favorite is "If You Give a Pig a Party", mostly because there is a page where we have to find all the animals and I make a big deal out of it. More than likely, she has no preference for that particular book but since I like it, I've decided she does to. So after we read we call in Papi (aka, Jonny) and we turn off the light and say our prayers. When I first started doing prayer with her, I felt like a complete idiot. I would mumble something about thanks for stuff and keep us safe and then quickly say Amen. I don't pray out loud, like ever, so it was definitely a learning process. When I was little my prayer in my head included keeping everyone in the world alive tonight and making sure I don't wet the bed, so I was never really an ace at it but I like to think that I've improved slightly over the years....at least I don't have to worry about wetting the bed....much. So we say our prayer and we say goodnight. I give her a kiss, Papi gives her a kiss, and that's that.....

2 minutes later the screaming starts. At first its a "Hey, so I don't want to be in here anymore, kindly remove me from my current location" whine. It's that cranky noise that is manageable but foreshadows doom. This soon transforms into the fake cry. Sometimes the fake cry gets so ridiculous that I start laughing which only causes the fake cry to increase in volume. There are no tears here, it's not real pain or sorrow, it's straight up manipulation. It should probably concern me that my 8 month old is so devious, but with me as a mother it's really not a surprise. Next step is the talk-crying. Mira has a very limited "recognized" vocabulary. She has said "Hi" twice and just this morning said "Papi" for the first time. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't talk. When fully awake and happy, she has full blown conversations with me, the cat, the couch, all involving words of her own design. Mostly it's "Bababababa abu huhuhuhu papapapapapa eeeeeee" which I've decided means "Mommy, you are the most beautiful lady in the world. No one will ever notice your love handles." When the talk-crying starts, she uses every "word" she knows. It's completely pitiful. This is usually the point when I give up and hold her and rock her to sleep. Mind you this whole thing has only lasted about 5 minutes at this point.

The other night I decided to try to ignore her. She was tired and I expected her to wear herself out pretty quickly. Oh was I wrong.

The talk-crying evolved into full on torturous screaming. I've tried to explain to others what this level of crying does to me, both physically and mentally. The only thing I can compare it to is when you are sitting in your house, minding your own business, and your smoke detector goes off. Pure panic. You start running around like a crazy person trying to figure out which one is going off. Once you find the culprit, you frantically wave your hands around trying to disperse any possible smoke particles that must have set it off even though more than likely it is because you let the dang battery run out or the electricity went out for a minute and set it off or something else completely not fire related. When you finally get the thing to turn off, you are exhausted. I've taken a nap after a similar incident because it was just too taxing. The funniest part is, I never thought to search for the fire. I was so focused on getting the loud blaring to stop that I completely ignored the possible cause. It's exactly the same when Mira cries at night. The big picture stops being important. I suddenly don't care about whether she will ever be able to put herself to sleep. It seems totally reasonable for me to follow her to college and rock her to sleep every night in her dorm room because WHATEVER!!! MAKE HER FEEL BETTER NOW!!!!

I think some parents are made for the "cry it out" method with their children. I also don't think I am one of them. I'm currently pursuing a different method that a friend recommended and we will see how it goes. It may totally bomb and we may be right back in this situation of me sitting in the bathtub with the fan on so I can't hear her crying while Jonny keeps watch. Or maybe it will totally work for us. Along with the realization that you can ignore the 1000 words of advice you get from everyone you know, you can also carve your own path when it comes to parenting. I'm pretty sure if you walked into a 3rd grade classroom and looked at all the kids, you wouldn't see a child paralyzed with fear, sitting in the corner, eating paste, all because their parent decided to rock them to sleep at night. I'm also sure you wouldn't see children feeling dramatically depressed and unloved, laying on the floor contemplating their existence because their parents decided to let them cry it out. While there is going to be underlying effects to everything you do with your children, I feel like we all usually make it to the same general place in the end. Do I think it's nice that people share their experiences and words of wisdom with me? Of course. Can I take pieces and parts and go my own way? Absolutely. Does that mean that I am not completely scared out of my mind that I will do something wrong? HAHAHAHAHA of course not. Because I worry, that's what moms do. But hopefully, just maybe, things will work out.

P.S. Mira naps in her crib like a champ, which is how I'm writing this. She just woke up though and is doing what she does every time, STARING at the monitor until I go get her. It's pretty hysterical.

Brooklyn

She was different than the other ones. Not only was her coat completely unique compared to all the other puppies in her cage, but she was the first one to figure out she could jump over the others and stand in the food bowl when no one would let her squeeze in. She was smart, she was sassy, and her birthday was the same day as the day Jonny and I started dating. She was the one.

I had gotten the job of Nature Center Director at my summer camp that year and I decided that it would be cool to get a puppy and have the kids help me raise it and train it over the summer. Jonny had come to California with me (even though we had only been dating a few months) and he was there at the shelter to help me pick up my puppy. I told everyone that I would find her a home at the end of the summer but from that first car ride home when she cuddled into my neck, I knew she was mine. We named her Brooklyn.

From the start she knew how to get me. At night, she would whine in her kennel unless I stuck my fingers through the gaps so she could lick them and rest her face on them. I spent every night of those first few weeks with a crick in my arm from the weird angle it was in to keep her calm. We woul bring her out to the grass to go potty and she would roll around and run to us on her short little legs. We got her a red collar that perfectly complimented her black and grey splotches and a shiny tag with her name on it in case she escaped up at camp. Soon it was time for Jonny to go home and time for me to head up to camp. Another counselor had brought some puppies up to camp as well, so Brooklyn spent the summer playing with her friends, licking campers, and unfortunately eating a chicken that strayed into the dog area. By summers end, she was bigger and rowdier, but still completely adorable and absolutely going home with me.

Over the next few months I started going to the local community college and trying to maintain a long distance relationship with the still Texas dwelling Jonny. I don't remember a lot during this time for one reason or another, but I do remember that Brooklyn was a great cuddler when I was sad. She licked my tears during my and Jonny's breakup that lasted a whole 20 hours, and she sat with me with her head in my lap while I talked to him endlessly on the phone.

I moved to Texas in October of that year. My dad brought Brooklyn out to me along with the majority of my belongings and I started my new life as an independent  "adult". Brooklyn got a playmate (Madison) and the dogs and I lived together in my tiny apartment in the bad part of Denton while I tried to figure out what I was going to do with myself.

This was all in 2005. In the last 10 years Brooklyn has been a constant in my life. Just like with a human child, there have been bumps along the way. There was plenty of destroying of property, massive diarrhea explosions, and a hole in an apartment wall (the cost of which is still on my credit report). I wasn't always the best pet mom I could be either. I know that and it rips me apart inside when I think about it. She's also had her fair share of medical issues and 2 major surgeries but like the tough girl she is, she always pulled through.

Brooklyn is an awesomely entertaining dog. We have to put peanut butter on the wall to get her to stay in the tub for a bath otherwise she will streak out of the bathroom and shake water and soap all over the house. She loves to lay on her back in the grass and wiggle back and forth with her tongue hanging out. Her ears stick up at all times and her tail is a deadly weapon. She makes hysterical noises when she yawns and talks on her sleep. She eats her food before the bowl has hit the ground and she polishes off the birthday cake we get her every year in 25 seconds flat. She is goofy, loving, loyal, sassy, stubborn, and one of a kind.

On Wednesday, Brooklyn is going to sleep for the last time. I will hold her as the pain she has been fighting for the last 3 months finally eases. We have spent the last week filling her with tasty treats and feeding her table food for the first time in her life. We got her birthday cake early and celebrated her life this evening. I also took some pictures today while we chilled outside in the beautiful weather.

We will spend the weekend cuddling and kissing her, scratching her favorite spot, and telling her how special she is. Then it will be time to say goodbye. I am utterly heartbroken.

Brooklyn, you will always be my first child, my company when I was lonely, my comforter when I was sad, my goofball that could always bring a smile to my face. You will always be my mine and I will never forget that tiny puppy at the shelter who stood out from the rest.

Too Many Tabs Open

So I find myself in a strange predicament. Instead of having no ideas for blog posts, I have too many. I have 5 drafts sitting in here waiting to be finished because I can't seem to focus my mind on just one. I will prevail though, and while you wait, here is something that I think is super awesome.

I love Jade's photography and the message that it sends to all woman who have brought babies into the world. She recently was pretty hot in the press after Facebook took down a picture she posted of numerous woman breastfeeding in the nude together (nipples were censored in accordance with guidelines to protect people from the evils of boobs) and then banned her for a day. Whether you support breastfeeding in public, breastfeeding in the nude (which I totally did because I was too lazy to get dressed for the first 2 weeks I was home), or if you are a cover it up or rock the bottle kind of person, you hopefully can still appreciate the fact that this is a form of art expression as well as a depiction of real woman being proud of themselves. I support the mindset of if celebrities can walk the red carpet with their nipples showing, why can't a mother breastfeed in public so these don't bother me one bit. I think it rocks that this woman is raising the self-esteem of not only her subjects, but of other woman who are having trouble adjusting to their new outside self. Below is a link to a Buzzfeed article that was just done on her, check it out if you'd like and let me know what you think.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/this-is-what-post-pregnancy-bodies-actually-look-like?s=mobile

Sisterhood of Mothers

This. This video makes my life. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it and then continue to this blog post.

When I was about 3 months pregnant I started researching how to be a good mom. It's not like I put that exact phrase into the Google search bar, but I wanted to get easy answers on how certain things should be done. Should I use cloth diapers? If I do, does it mean I have to use cloth wipes too because that sounds gross. Also will the people at the cloth diaper store be able to smell if my kid is wearing a disposable diaper and kick me out? What about feeding? Well of course I will breastfeed! My boobs are good sized so I'm sure it will work perfectly. Also my mom was successful with it so it runs in my blood. I will breastfeed, but with a cover in public or maybe not because I'm a woman hear me roar and boobs are food and I don't see you covering up your cheeseburger buddy. And then there is what toys to get and where to buy clothes. Should they be organic? She will only have organic clothes touch her skin obviously and none of it will be pink because this website says that pink is sexist. 

Everywhere I looked, there was someone else telling me that their way was the best way and that all the other ways were complete foolishness. It was like if you didn't do it their way, you were essentially being okay with putting your baby in complete and utter anger and possibly killing them slowly with some sort of strange poison that was inside of a disposable diaper or hiding inside of that namebrand baby food jar. And then there was the birthing process to consider is well. If I had an epidural didn't really count is labor? If I didn't do it in a bath was Ireally a good mom? What if I ended up, gasp, having a c-section and not even pushing at all?what I be able to sit around with the girls and complain about the woes of womanhood and having to have a baby and push them out of parts unknown?

I hadn't even had the baby yet, or even hit the halfway point, and I was already feeling judged for decisions that I was going to make or had already made. Why do we do this to each other? Are he decisions other mothers are making about how to feed their babies or what to dress them in life threatening enough that we feel we must rescue them from their horrible situation by guilt slapping their mothers? 

Here's the truth people. Every mother, and father for that matter, worries they aren't doing it right. What if I'm not doing enough? What if my baby is not getting all they deserve? What if I'm a bad mom? It's the hardest part of the job, never really being confident that you are succeeding in this epicly important task. 

Can you imagine if you were a child drawing a picture with crayons and wondering if you did a good job and everyone you asked told you how they would have done it differently? You should have used colored pencils. You should have tried harder to stay in the lines. You used dollar store paper so you obviously don't care about your picture. It would crush the child, make them feel inadequate and worthless. Here's the thing, moms are the exact same way a lot of the time. Especially new moms. We want to feel like we are maybe not totally screwing up our job. That we are good, worthy of praise, and that our baby loves us no matter what. 

You, right there, breastfeeding your baby, you are awesome. You, with the bottle full of formula, you rock. Cloth diapers, disposables, puréed food, baby led weaning, strollers, carriers, stay at home moms, working mamas, however you do it, whoever you are, just know that you are doing an amazing job and that your sweet baby is lucky to have you worrying about them. 

Whose Body is That?

This morning I was laying on my side on the bed with Mira. She has started this non-crawl crawl where she will rotate herself all the way around while on her belly so she can see what mischief she can get into in 360 degrees around her. So there I am, checking Facebook like the awesome morning person I am, when I feel a jab to my stomach. I look down and Mira has started attacking my gut. She seems to be enjoying the fact that she can grab the skin there and pull on it and is giggling to herself while trying to pull it to her mouth.

This is one of many situations I could never have gotten into pre-baby, because when I gave birth I was gifted this new and improved mommy body. It has extra tummy skin for grabbing and stretch marks to help Mira learn how to count...to 100....it is larger so you can't lose me in a crowd and its achy so I remember to take life slowly. My new bladder is so excited about peeing that it can hardly wait for me to sprint to the bathroom and just goes completely crazy if I sneeze or jump up and down. Don't even get me started on my breasts, I don't know who these puppies belong to, but they are definitely not what I'm used to. This is my new me, and some days it isn't an easy pill to swallow.

I actually really enjoyed pregnancy. 

 

It was suddenly completely socially acceptable to be a round whale and no one could make fun of me for having  kankles (I have included a picture of my kankles to the right. It is small so it doesn't scare small children that might walk by while you are reading this). I spent 39.5 glorious weeks being totally ok with my slowly expanding waistline and knowing that every pound I put on was keeping that baby cushioned and safe.
After Mira was born, I lost 25 lbs in like a week. I was certain it was because I was breastfeeding (never mind the 15+ lbs of baby and amniotic fluid) and that the rest of the 43 lbs I gained during the pregnancy were just going to fall right off over the next few months. Unfortunately I was wrong, and I slowly started to realize that my 20lb friend wasn't planning on
going anywhere anytime soon.

So what do you do when your body is not your own and yet, really it is? There is a grieving process. It took me a while to accept that my c-section scar was a very permenant part of me and that my feet would forever be a half size larger than they used to be. But then there is an acceptance process. I'm not saying that I am chill with my current poundage, but we are working on that (lots of baby wearing squats and a lot less chocolate cupcakes). What I'm talking about is when you look in the mirror and instead of seeing scars, stretch marks, and wider hips, you see your baby in your arms and somehow it makes it all ok. I still have moments, and I probably always will, but I think it's ok to mourn the loss of our previous selves as we continue our journey to full acceptance.

So stretch marks, though you make me embarrassed when my shirt rides up in public, thank you for being there so my skin didn't explode while I was growing my tiny human. Breasts, you worked hard friends, you deserve some time to relax (just don't hit the waistline, that's too relaxed). And hips, though your wider girth makes my old pants cry, you are pretty useful for holding Mira on when I am carrying things. Hello new me, let's be friends.

Baby Cheese and 9 Other Things

People give you a lot of info and advice before you have kids. They tell you what to buy and what to not buy, how to deal with practical situations and what will happen during each month of their life. They give you advice when you want and, and seem to never shut up when you don't want it. So it's amazing there are always things that people forget to mention. Lucky for you, I'm here to fill in the gaps. I present to you 10 shocking things about babies you should know:

1. When they come out they don't look like you or your spouse, they look like a slimy potato. Everyone pretends that bran new babies are adorable, that when they are squeezed out or pulled out, that there is some bubble around them that protects them from the process. But the truth is, birth is not just hard on mom, but also on the tiny human. They have been living in fluid for the last 40 weeks and their skin has never been touched by air. They either were pushed out of a very small canal over a number of hours or were suddenly pulled from their home into a blindingly bright room with a bunch of masked people staring at them. Not really a luxury first class seat on their trip into the world. So when they come out swollen, looking like a boxer in the 7th round, and a new mom is under the false impression that babies come out looking like movie stars, it's quite a shock and may even stress a lady out. So let's be honest people, it's not pretty at first, and that's ok! The swelling will go down and you will start to actually recognize your features in their face, but let's all accept the potato phase and embrace it.

2. They make cheese. Babies, even skinny babies, have crevices. The chubbier they get, the more crevices they possess. Babies are also the sloppiest eaters of all time. They dribble, they spit, they drool, and because of the magical forces of gravity, all that extra milk ends up pooled in those precious little crevices. And then, because science, this milk turns into something amazing. By amazing, I mean the most foul smelling paste you've ever encountered. The craziest part is that you don't smell it or notice it until you lift the adorable folds of fat in your baby's sweet neck and then it's like releasing the kracken. Don't ever underestimate the cheese, and never skip bath time.

3. Boys aren't the only ones that can pee long distances. My daughter has soaked me on numerous occasions. My husband tells me to use the changing mat, but REALLY, who has time to pull that thing out. Our trade off is, I don't have to use it every time, and in return he gets to say "I told you so" whenever he comes home to a 3 foot wide pee spot on the couch. That's another thing, don't let the size of their tiny little bladders fool you. They are capable of storing at least 10 gallons of urine in their bodies. They also will not always release it all at once but will wait until you have a bran new clean diaper under their butts or, even better, until you are digging in the diaper bag for a new one and have foolishly left them naked for 1 millisecond too long. If you are one of those people that will gross out if pee gets on you, parenthood will smack that right out of you. As for me, if she pees on my pants I usually shrug and go about my day because frankly, I will probably pee my pants a little at some point from sneezing or jumping too high so there's that. 

4. Just because their eyes are open, doesn't mean they are awake. Mira has popped her eyes open during a nap and looked straight at me, all the while continuing her rhythmic breathing of deep sleep. It is the creepiest thing of all time, but you get used to it. I know a lot of babies sleep with one eye open (....Metallica song stuck in my head for the rest of the day....) so at least she usually has them both shut for the majority of her resting hours because I am too anal to allow such shenanigans. 

5. Toys are nice, but NOT toys are way better. We have a ridiculous amount of baby toys that we were gifted or specially picked out for Mira. They are adorable and make cute noises. They are designed for her exact age and have specific colors that stimulate her brain. But if given the choice between her age appropriate name brand baby toy and an empty water bottle, the bottle wins every time. Her bin of current favorite toys includes a gift certificate tin, a baby shoe, bottle lids, small tupperware, and of course many empty water bottles. She spent 5 minutes at a sushi place last night attacking the menu and when I put a colorful toy on top of it to distract her, she looked me straight in the eye and flung the toy out of her way so she could continue her menu endeavor. So if you are shopping for a baby shower, go no further than your recycling bin.  

6. Sometimes, you bump your baby's head on things. You obviously try your best not to. You certainly don't do it on purpose. But inevitably that tiny cranium will find it's way into a door frame at some point. Mira doesn't even react anymore when I bump the top of her head on the ceiling of the car when I'm putting her in her car seat, and I don't know how I feel about that.  Luckily she won't remember any of it....unless she reads this blog someday....dang it.

7. Poop. No matter what you think you know, you don't know the half of it. I'd go into detail, but some things are indescribable.

8. Babies have perfect timing. You woke up on time and actually took a shower. By some miracle, you were able to do both your hair and make-up and are dressed in a moderately cute outfit. You dress your baby in their most awesome outfit and make it out of the house before lunch. You are feeling awesome. While you are out you bump into an old friend who hasn't met the baby yet. Awesome! Your friend picks up your baby and cuddles them close. And then your precious bundle farts the loudest adult man fart you have ever heard. This happens to us often. Most often while the dermatologist is about 2 inches away from Mira's face. It simultaneously fills me with embarrassment and a strange sense of pride.

9. You will wear a bag if it means getting a cute outfit for your baby. This might just be me. I've never really enjoyed shopping and have clothes in my closet that I purchased in 2004. But I still occasionally like to go out and grab a few pretty things for myself. Not anymore. If I have any extra money lying about that could potentially score me a cute skirt or top, instead I scurry off to Carter's to browse their newest items. It's like a drug habit. I can't walk through a department store without accidentally walking straight to the baby section and seeing if anything looks good. In my defense, I usually wait for sales and often shop at the consignment stores, but the addiction remains. Most of the time I go out, I look like a homeless person or like I just got out of bed, but Mira looks like a fashion model with matching headband, socks, and useless baby shoes.

10. BFFs forever. I don't know how it happened, considering my child has no vocabulary and doesn't have any clothes I can borrow, but somehow she is my best friend. I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is lay in bed with her and talk about what we are going to do that day. I spend almost every waking moment with this child and when I leave her, I start to miss her right after I kiss her goodbye. She's actually on a walk with my husband right now and I don't really know what to do with myself. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy hanging with friends or going out with my husband on a date, but I'm never sad to head home to that adorable little pea head. This was certainly something I didn't expect to happen. I knew I would love this child, but no one told me that I would 100% like her and her incredible personality. It's pretty cool.

Today the family took advantage of the beautiful weather and we had a dinner picnic in the backyard. I suddenly had the urge to grab my big camera and snap some of the fun. Below are a few of my favorites (yes I had a lot of favorites).

SuperBaby

This is her new thing. She lifts her chest up really high and then gets about an inch off the ground up on her knees.

Spot on, Grey's Anatomy

It's not every day that a TV show turns into a time machine. Most of the time I only play the TV in the background while doing other things and rarely actually sit down and focus on what is on the screen. But lately, I have been strapped to the couch, tears streaming down my face, as I watch 2 characters on Grey's Anatomy go through something that throws my mind and emotions back to February of last year. If you don't watch the show, these 2 doctors have recently discovered that their unborn baby has OI (brittle bone disease) and they don't know the severity or what the future holds for their son.

Jonny watching our 20 week ultrasound.

At my 20 week ultrasound, I was giddy with anticipation over seeing my baby again. We knew by now that she was a girl but now we would get to see all her pieces and parts like her heart and her spine and everything else that makes up a human. My mom and Jonny came with me, just as excited as I was to see her. The ultrasound tech wasn't our usual lady. She was helping out and had been doing ultrasound for years on general body stuff so it was cool to have someone who was happy to be looking at babies instead of tumors. The ultrasound was so neat, we got to see her beating heart and her hands and fingers and toes. She was absolutely beautiful. I noticed towards the end that she was spending a lot of time on the baby's head. She kept telling me that the position the baby was in was making it hard to see the back of her brain. She tried for about 10 minutes and then decided to move forward and finished up. When I saw the other midwife at my office afterwards, she told me that since they couldn't really see the back of the head, that they were going to send me to a specialist that had better equipment so they could hopefully catch a glimpse just to make sure everything was ok. I didn't think anything of it at the time, which is weird now because I consider myself a pretty intuitive person. I figured the baby was just being stubborn and that we would see this specialist sometime in the next few months as a precaution and then be on our way with our perfectly healthy child.


The next day I was at the preschool I taught Spanish at part-time. I remember I was cutting out paper with the days of the week in Spanish on them and my phone rang. It was the specialists office, they wanted to see if we were available to come in the next day and have our ultrasound done. After I made the appointment, I sat for a minute in silence as the realization hit me that something may not be right. Why would they call me so soon? When I got home I looked up "problems with fetus cerebellum" to see if anything would pop up. After about 2 seconds of reading the list, I closed the window and walked away. I read 2 or 3 things and thought to myself, there is no way any of this is relevant, they just couldn't see it so they are covering their bases.

Jonny was planning on meeting me at the hospital where the specialist was. I got their earlier than he did and headed towards the office and texted him directions on how to get there from the parking structure. I got into the waiting room, checked in, and sat down. As I sat there in the quiet, I looked up and saw one of those decorative motivational plaques. I don't remember the exact wording, but the gist was to not worry about things that are out of our control and to pray about them. Holy crap. Something is wrong. They sent me to a specialist who has motivational freaking plaques on her wall. Something is wrong with my baby. Holy crap. By the time Jonny got to the waiting room I was holding in a full blown freak out. Right before they called us in, a pregnant woman and her husband walked out and her eyes were puffy. I almost lost it right then, but by some miracle I kept my cool.

Mira waving hello :)

When the doctor started the ultrasound, I had one last moment of convincing myself that maybe this wasn't what it was slowly starting to seem to be and I was just overreacting. They the she goes "oh yup, right there". She turned to me and said "So from what I can see, it looks like your baby has something called Dandy Walker". I knew that name, it was on the list of terrible things that could be wrong with a baby's cerebellum that I had dismissed the day before. I told her I had read about it. She started talking about it but I wasn't listening. The room was shrinking and all I could feel was Jonny's hand tightly grasping mine and warm tears rolling down my cheeks. It was like my ears were ringing and I couldn't hear anything. I'm assuming during this time she was telling us that Dandy Walker is a malformation of the cerebellum and the vermis between them. The side effects can be barely anything to developmental delays in motor skills and speech, to not being able to walk or talk ever. Then she told us a story about another anonymous family who found out their baby had spina bifida. They decided that their lifestyle would not be the right fit for a special needs baby, so they terminated the pregnancy. It took me a second to realize what she was doing. She was gauging where our thoughts were in reference to a special needs baby, possibly one that would need medical and physical assistance their whole life. We asked if she would be in pain or unhappy. She told us that there isn't evidence of chronic pain and the happiness depends on her environment. Then we agreed, we were 100% in this, no matter what. She talked to us about how often she wanted to see us and printed off some shots she took of the baby's hands and face, and then she left the room because she knew what was about to happen.

I have cried a lot in my life, I'm a pretty emotional person. But I have never cried like this. It's the full body, clinging to your spouse, clutching your belly, deep within your soul sorrow. It was a mourning cry. I was mourning the loss of the perfect child I had imagined. At the time it was like someone had hurt her or damaged her. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that she was always this way, this was who she was. Jonny held me and cried with me. I will tell you what, God knew what he was going when he gave me Jonny, because at that moment, when I was in the deepest pit, Jonny knew exactly what to say. He said a lot of things about how it would be ok and how blessed we were to have her no matter what, but it was the last thing he said that started me on the path of acceptance and peace about what we had just been told. He said "it's funny, but I feel like I know her now. Like we didn't know anything about her before, but now we do and it makes her more real."

That was the beginning of a long and hard journey that we are still on. We didn't know what to expect with Mira, which was by far the hardest part. You have to let go of the need to have control over a situation and just be adaptable. Whatever comes, we work with it and make it better. So far we have been ridiculously blessed. While Mira's issues have evolved into a whole different bag of worms, all the concerns we had about the effects of her Dandy Walker have disappeared as she continues to hit all her developmental milestones on time and even a little early on a few. We have also been blessed with the lessons we have learned because our situation. I have learned that I am never really in control and sometimes you have to let go and go with the flow. I've learned that my strength can run out and that the people you choose to put around you will be the ones who either keep you floating or help you sink. I've learned that my husband is even more incredible than I originally realized and that without him I would be a hot mess. But the most important thing I've learned is that God has my back. He has Jonny's back. He most definitely has Mira's back.

So as I sit and watch people going through the lowest of the low times, I am reminded how far we have come and how much we have to look forward to. Oh and also, Mira is the most awesome kid ever. Here is proof via her 6 month pictures we took today (yes, she is almost 7 months, don't judge me):