RAW Thursday

It's a RAW thankful Thursday. Long, Raw, and uncut.

So Aaron and I are big movie watchers, and since we've been living overseas the past 4 years, we have quite the TV series collection on DVD too. Anyway, we got the latest season of BONES on dvd, and we just finished the season. At the end of the season, Angela goes into labor, it shows her labor/delivery scene, and she has her baby. They hold him & he is a perfect healthy little boy, and they cry tears of happiness. I'm getting to a point, I wasn't ready to see that scene yet. It was beautiful, (and I've been rooting for A & H even when they weren't together) and my honest raw feelings, it hurt so badly to watch. I loved that they were having a baby and that the baby wasn't blind. But the scene hurt. Deep down in my heart, there is this wound that is healing, but it's sorta like a loss at the same time. A loss of a dream that will never come true. I'm SO blessed, and I KNOW how blessed I am. But, that doesn't mean certain things won't hurt, and it shocked me at how much it hurt to watch that scene. Aaron was so sweet, and said "I know, Brook" and that is ALL I needed. Others don't know what I've been through like he does, and it's a select few that are in this club. A simple 3 words, the complete understanding & love that came from them, I will never forget that. I just wish others were more understanding. It reminds me of one of my favorite songs by Brandi Carlile called The Story. You should listen to it, it's great.

"You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what
I've been through like you do
And I was made for you..."

I hope one day, I will be able to watch a scene like this, and not have it reduce me to tears, and that the pain will heal. Just when I think I am so strong, and doing so well, something so small can take me back to that pain. Our neighbors door recently shattered, and it puts things into a perspective. The glass door had a small crack in it & since it's a custom door, they had to wait a whole year before it could be redone. Well she drove up into the driveway, and it kicked a tiny piece of gravel, but that tiny rock hit just the right spot on the crack, and the glass just shattered. A thick double pane door with a small crack, and that tiny rock had such a huge impact. I've recently been asked to take pictures for a friend that is delivering her baby in a few weeks, and she asked for birth photos. I'm flattered, and I'd like to think I might be ready for that, but in all honesty, it scares me. I'm pretty sure I could hold my composure, and it would be beautiful, but I know it would hurt. I want to for my photography to broaden my portfolio, but I have to protect my heart at the same time if that makes sense.

When I was being admitted when I had severe Pre-E with Libby, there was another woman who had a placental abruption at 24wks. A code white was called, and the top floor was chaotic while they rushed her to an OR. Her baby was rushed to the NICU, and sadly, her sweet tiny baby died during the night. I never knew this woman, as she was a Japanese local, but I felt the grief from all of the staff, and it forever impacted how I would view having a preemie. It was two and half days later when Libby was born, and 24hrs after she was born that the NICU team was coming in to my room to tell me Liberty was fighting hard, and needed to be intubated. They have to read you all these risks of what can happen when intubating, and it's terrifying. I hadn't even seen her in person yet, and didn't get to until she was 28hrs old, but I was terrified wondering if I would be able to see my baby alive, all the while in the back of my head I know downstairs in the morgue is a tiny 24wker that didn't make it. The raw pain of the unknown, it's scary, and I can't explain it. After knowing this woman's preemie didn't make it, it forever scared me, and when I hear about a baby having to be born premature, my heart sinks & sends chills down my spine. Thank heavens for technology being able to keep both my girls alive. That day and half of being kept over in L&D side because it was to risky to move me, I listened to SO many women have their babies, and I just sobbed the whole time. I listened to mother after mother give birth, and heard them say how beautiful their babies were, and being wheeled off to post partum with a baby in their arms, or pushing a baby bassinet. Then fast forward to Presley's traumatic birth, she was worked on & intubated immediately after birth, then my c-section had complications & I heard my blood spilling on the floor & my dr yelling for clamps, and then I was put under. Then the horrible ambulance ride & plane ride being medevac'd to Okinawa. Seeing my baby in this incubator while I laid strapped to a stretcher, that is NOT what I had pictured for the birth of my sweet baby girl. I had pictured so many beautiful moments of what birthing my two precious girls would be like, and those never happened. Traumatized doesn't even begin to describe it. While my girls are for the most part healthy now, I don't know if that part of me will ever be healed completely. I don't know if I will be able to go into a L&D soon, because even though I'm SO happy for my friends and their precious healthy babies, L&D scares the crap out of me. You prepare yourself for the text book- baby on your chest right after delivery, baby in the room, home a few days later.. everything hunky dory. I prepared myself for that, dreamed of this, and what i got was completely opposite. This is why it rocks me so hard to the core. L&D terrifies me.

The amount of insensitive comments I get are insane, but I've gotten so much better at handling them. I'm thankful for that. They still sting, I just think she's the way the lord wanted her to be, after that I realized this, the comments didn't annoy me as much. She is 7 months old, and is the same size at a 3 month old, but in my eyes she is perfect. Her MRI is coming up on the 26th, and while I'm scared, I know she will be okay. A diagnoses means answers, but that's it. It doesn't change how I feel about her, it doesn't change the love we have for her, and even if she does have SWS, that love won't change. There's that raw pain again of the unknown. When I was at the children's hospital with Presley, I saw so many sick children, and it just hurt my heart so badly. Children shouldn't have to suffer, and be sick. The thing I have learned about raw pain though, is that it makes you grow. It shakes you to the core, and you may never be the same, but you grow. My little girls are the best thing that have ever happened to me. They are wonderful, amazing, and teaching me alot of patience. A pure breath of heaven. Most of new parents are anxious, scared, hormonal, exhausted, etc. but when you add the burdens of caring for a baby with medical complications, the stress skyrockets... and those burdens aren't gone for Aaron & I yet. So while some think I'm negative, and honestly sometimes I am (how could you not!?), I'm trying to be as upbeat as possible. I find that a good cry though, is good every once in a while. It was the first time I'd cried in months. Which I'm proud of myself for that, it just goes to show that you can only keep it in for so long before you break. I have become the queen of "faking it till I make it" and I'm making it!! I've done this all med free even after asking for anti-anxiety meds & was turned down, and had to really work through all this on my own. While I don't always voice how I'm feeling completely, only because I've been hurt by doing this before, I've realized it's better in the long run. It's amazing how quick I felt better after having a good cry. You can only be strong for so long, and it's good to break composure sometimes.

"All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you" (part of the song "the story")

I was made to be Libby & Presley's Mama, and I believe 100% that they were made for me. To show me that even through horrible beginnings, can become something so beautiful. I should know this by now, but I guess I keep needing reminders. My start was rough, it sorta makes sense theirs was too. In a wrong way, but it's true. I'm thankful that we made it through all that chaos. These raw moments are the sort of memories that aren’t fun to dredge up. But they’re real. And they’re part of who I am. I was told today, "how horrible to have two horrible birth stories and that's all you'll ever know." This really struck a nerve with me... I get sad when I’m with a group of moms (online or in real life), and the conversation turns to a competition. Whether it’s who had the best birth story or whose baby is sleeping best, whose toddler is the most advanced or whose preschooler has been admitted to Harvard, moms start tearing each other down. And it’s so sad. Motherhood is hard from conception on, and no one understands better than another mom. We need to support each other more. I'm thankful to know just how hard developmental milestones can be to achieve. I'm thankful to be humbled. I've cried so many tears because my kids struggle, but at the end of my tears, I know it will be okay. What makes a perfect birth story? My birth stories, they aren't your typical stories, and I've been told by quite a few that my two birth stories make others not want to have a baby. This makes me sad, because while it was scary, these "stories" brought me my two miracle baby girls. I don't want my girls to look back on their birth stories and be sad, because their birth stories are stories of triumph. They are living proof that miracles happen. When they ask, I will tell them while it was rough, it was a perfect birth story, because it brought me them. It was perfect because it was a miracle. The end result of a having a baby is what is important, not how they got here. My miracle baby girls are here, they are thriving for the most part, and THAT is all that matters. What else could I ask for? That's a pretty fabulous outcome if you ask me :)Before I had both my preemies, having a c-section was my worst fear. I was SO afraid of L&D (now I know why) but I was also terrified of pushing out a 9lb baby. Aaron was almost 10 lbs, so I figured I would have a big baby. How very silly & naive I was back then! I have never been so scared or been in so much pain as I was with both births, and so scared we were going to loose them. I believe we do ourselves and other women great harm by perpetuating the myth of the “perfect birth”. We really need to stop being so hard on ourselves. It is most certainly not what I would have chosen, but I am totally at peace that it is part of my story. They are happy and for the most part healthy.. and THAT is what makes it a perfect birth story.

I myself am adopted, and don't even know "MY birth story" so I was determined to have this great story for my girls. I feel I can say with some authority that adopted children love and connect with their parents EXACTLY the same as biological children. My mother used to hold me close and tell me that she never got to feel me growing inside her, but she could feel me growing OUTSIDE her tummy! I'm thankful for my adoptive Mom, and all she has done for me, which is more than I could have ever asked for. She brings me so much perspective, and is so humble. She has helped me see that it doesn't matter how a birth story is, but that all that is important is the child is here. I'm thankful I got to feel both my girls move, that I brought two miracles to life. I'm thankful that I got to watch them grow outside of my belly, and see miraculous changes while they were still in the NICU. To see a baby get eyelashes, to see eyebrows come in, to watch them learn to suck, learn how to breathe, and miraculously grow from something so very tiny. Miraculous doesn't even begin to describe it. Presley just turned 7 months today, and Libby 18 1/2 months, and the miracle that they are here and home with me, that is all I need for it to have been a perfect birth story. So with that, I'm thankful for TWO birth stories, perfect because they are perfect in God's eyes and mine. The perfect birth story? That my girls were birthed at all, they lived even with incredible obstacles, and that they are loved:) My birth stories may not seem like perfect birth stories to most, but they are perfect to me, because they gave me my sweet girls.