Million to One

a good family friend once asked my husband and i for some advice on how to support a co-worker of hers who experienced a loss. she explained that it seemed like the woman didn't want to talk about it, but wasn't really sure.

i thought about it for a moment and then answered, she may not want to talk about it because it reminds her that it actually happened.

this conversation happened only a couple weeks after the loss of our baby isaac. and i knew i was speaking about myself.

those first few days of january are like a haze. an incredibly bad nightmare that sometimes i have to remind myself is true.

everything happened so quickly. we were "home study ready" to adopt in september, heard about the adoption situation at the end of december, spoke with the birth mother the next day, and a few hours later were picked to raise her baby. only days after that we got the call that he was born and we were on a plane to louisiana that day.

*to read more about his story go here and here.

i remember discussing names on the plane ride and feeling such anticipation. i was nervous about so much. would the adoption go through? would we be able to take him home in a timely manner? what would the birth mother be like? but, oddly enough, i don't remember being nervous about his health. because he had to be healthy.

it's hard to explain in a way that honors both isaac's life and our role in it, while also being honest. but in the weeks and months after losing this precious baby we had so much hope for, i found myself almost not letting my mind even "go there" and remember. it was just so, so painful and traumatic. the thought that this actually happened to us again. lightening struck again. i actually have held two dead babies that were supposed to be mine. i don't know. there was something in my brain that had to shut it off in order to survive.

because i was pregnant with miles. and if it could happen twice. it could happen three times. you don't play odds anymore when you've been on the one side of "million to one." twice.

i've heard people say, i have two healthy babies. should i push my luck and try for a third?

i'm not sure what that means. like, do we all have these "tragedy jars" and they can only get so full before life doesn't suck anymore? on the other hand, if nothing "bad" has ever happened to you, well...you're due.

i fell into this way of thinking while we were trying to get pregnant with noah. i figured losing my dad to cancer at 8 years old sort of gave me a pass from future hardship. so getting pregnant would be easy, right? it's a weird thing to think, because we all know life doesn't work like that. at all.

why does it seem that some people breeze through life with not a hint of tough stuff, while others just seem to get more pain than their fair share?

i don't know. but what i do know is that it's not our fault when tragedy like this strikes, it's just bad luck. nor did we do anything to deserve any of the goodness-es we receive. that's plain grace.

there's so much more i want to say about all of this, but i'll leave it there for now.

Congrats, Your Baby Died

i meant to blog about this while i was pregnant with miles,
but i never got around to it.

i noticed, while i was pregnant with miles, that apparently in our culture being pregnant is a light and easy conversation topic.

oh, you're pregnant! congratulations!

how far along are you?

is this your first?

i noticed this starkly as i wandered target one day and upon seeing my pregnant belly a complete stranger exclaimed, congrats!!

now i don't mean to sound ungrateful or just plain grumpy, because it was very sweet of her to say, but i couldn't help but wonder why this was hard for me to hear. while i was pregnant the first time with noah, i ate up these congrats and questions about the baby. why was it now rubbing me the wrong way?

but my experience with noah and baby isaac radically changed my view of pregnancy.

most pregnant women are carrying a healthy baby. most. but what about the woman who just went to the doctor to discover her 28 week old baby no longer has a heartbeat? this pregnant woman will continue to carry her child for possibly days or weeks before they induce labor. how would a congrats from a stranger feel to her? congrats on what? congrats, your baby died?

most pregnant women are carrying a baby who they will raise themselves. most. but what about the woman who has decided to make an adoption plan for her child? how difficult that must be to field questions about a baby who you may never get to know, but only have dreams for.

most pregnant women are carrying a baby who lands in a specific, straight forward sibling order. most. but for some of us, there is a gaping hole in our family. i had the hardest time answering the, is this your first baby question. because if i said, no, there would be difficult follow up questions and comments that i usually didn't have the emotional bandwidth to manage. oh, fun! how many? how old are they? you'll have your hands full with 3 boys!

but if i answered, yes, that would be a lie.

side note:  i'm so jealous of moms who can, with ease and seemingly no thought at all, answer the question, how many kids do you have?

oh, madeline is 8 and then i have emily who is 6 and little nicholas is 3. 

if only the general population knew how much time we spend in my support group stressing and discussing how to answer that simple little question, and how much guilt is associated with it. it's remarkable and something i never, ever even had to think about 16 months ago.

in closing, i'm not saying we should never engage in conversation with a pregnant woman, or to just mind our own business. but let's just not assume anything. and let's always lead with sensitivity and grace.

that's all.

Butler Brothers

my birth experience with noah was pretty near perfect, and i wanted our experience with miles to be perfect too. but perfection, in its essence, cannot be made better or duplicated, right? it's perfect. done. so i wondered how it could possibly "measure up."

however, i also wanted the story of miles coming into the world to be unique and different, just as miles is unique and different. a story just his own, yet still perfect.

amazingly, that happened.

a few weeks before miles was born i told his auntie amy that i thought he was going to arrive "fast and furious." and that, he did. even four days late. i sort of half-expected miles to come early because noah did. (noah was due on june 10th and arrived june 5th.) so when miles' due date (june 11th) came and went, the anticipation nearly broke me. i know people go past their due dates all the time, and it's hard. but i can't help but think that my anticipation held much more weight.

i had been pregnant for nearly two years and we had been trying to get pregnant about a year before that. the nursery had been set, then redone, then tweaked, then fussed with, about a million times.

my anticipation was also loaded with fear. would miles be okay? not only were we not 100% sure that miles didn't have the same condition that took noah's life, but i was also heavy with worry about anything else that could go wrong. stillbirth. heart defect. acd. i worried about it all.

so those days leading up to his birth were very, very long. i also wasn't working full time and hadn't been for about a month. my to-do list had long been completed. and then completed about five more times again. i was ready. way more than ready.

beginning about two weeks before miles was born, i kept thinking "it" was happening. my water broke before labor began with noah, so i didn't really know what early labor felt like. however, i knew i was having contractions with miles for these two weeks, they just weren't getting stronger. i would get so excited... then disappointed when they'd trail off. it was maddening.

we even went into the hospital thinking "it" was time. on the evening of saturday, june 14th at about 7pm. and after a couple hours of monitoring, we were devastatingly sent home after still being only 3cm. (absolutely no progress since my doctor's appointment the previous tuesday.)

i went to bed around 10pm that night and got a few hours sleep when i woke up to go to the bathroom. i noticed some blood and just about had a heart attack. shaking, i woke up john and we called the doctor. she said it's perfectly normal and could be that his arrival was approaching. to be safe, she suggested drinking a large glass of ice water and lying down to make sure i could feel him moving. well, it took a very long half an hour as we waited to feel those crazy, miles kicks. with a sense of relief that all was well, john went back to sleep and i tried too, but my contractions were coming stronger. i stayed awake on the couch until about 5am.

my mind was playing tricks on me. was it really time this time? if we went to the hospital, would i be embarrassingly sent home again?

finally i woke john up with an "it's happening."

we sort of non-urgently got ready, showered and were about to get in the car when john suggested we "labor at home" for awhile. i said, "okay."

about two contractions later, and all of four minutes, john said, "i think we better go."

we arrived to the hospital around 7am and i was taken into the "pre-admittance room." my progress was immediately checked.

8 cm.

john and i looked at each other in disbelief. 8 cm!! we were hoping for at least 5 cm. or just something that indicated we had made some progress. but 8 cm. i was 80% done with labor!

things happened very quickly after that. they rushed me into a room. my amazing mid-wife arrived. john called our parents. contractions kept getting stronger and stronger.

at almost 9am i was checked again. 10 cm. we were ready. but my water hadn't broken yet. our mid-wife said she could break it, to speed up the process, or we could wait and it would eventually break on its own. we opted for her to break it.

what i didn't know, was that "speeding up the process" basically meant, after the water was broken, you're going to have the most intense, painful contraction you've ever had, and it's not going to stop until the baby is born.

i was screaming like a monster. clutching the side of the bed. i was officially panicked.

it was at this point my mom raced in.

i don't think the mid-wife and nurses were entirely ready for me to push yet. (she was just getting her gown garb on.) but i remember yelling, "i'm pushing!!!!"

about three-ish pushes later, at 9:04am, he was born.

it was unbelievably intense.

i wasn't really aware when they broke my water, but apparently they noticed meconium in the amniotic fluid. (miles had a poop.) this meant that they had to have nicu nurses there to help with his breathing right out the gate, so i couldn't immediately hold him or see him. so my first look at him he was very, very gray and very silent. but i couldn't really see him behind the group of nurses.

more panicking.

i remembering crying, "i don't hear him crying!!" but the mid-wife assured me they didn't want him to cry just yet, until they knew he didn't breathe in meconium into his lungs. but as john was going back and forth between me and him, he reported back - "he has a heartbeat!"

i don't know how long miles was over on the table, couldn't have been more than ten minutes, maybe? but it felt like an absolute eternity.

then finally, i got to meet the little man that i had been waiting a lifetime for.

though he gave us some scares, he came into the world perfectly, just like his brother noah.

as i anticipated the arrival of miles, the perfection of noah loomed over my head. how could another boy steal my heart the way noah had? everything about noah, and his entrance into the world, was perfect. his dark hairline, his curled lips, his peaceful presence.

but of course, my sweet blondie-boy miles paved a new way to perfection. and though i adore that there are similarities between these two brothers, i'm so thankful they have their very own uniqueness. noah is noah. miles is very much miles.

each of my boys are wildly different, yet divinely perfect.

as is my love for them.

Morbid Thoughts

last night, as i was holding miles and getting him ready for bed, he looked up at me with his charming, toothless grin, and i found myself thinking, what if this is the last memory i have of him? 

it's a little morbid, but every so often, i have these types of thoughts and it scares the sh*t out of me. 

you would think after losing two children that i would "cherish every moment" like nobody's business. but instead, i prepare myself for the worst, which looks less like "cherishing" and more like "obsessing," causing panic and fear. two emotions that are the perfect fuel for a raging "i love my life" fire. (sarcasm.)

i guess it's completely understandable why i'd feel this way. my daily reality, and the only thing i have known up until now, has been living with merely a handful of precious noah and baby isaac memories.

a handful. that was all i got. 

not anywhere near enough. and i grip onto them like, at any second, they could slip through my fingers.

so i put unbearable amounts of pressure on myself to enjoy miles 24/7 and remember every single sweet, and not-so-sweet moment, i'm given with him. 

then i feel crazy-making guilt because i don't do it. (because it's physically impossible to do.)

yet, there's always grace. and i choose to receive it, again, today. 

because i know, i can love without the presence of enjoyment. and i can be grateful even while wishing circumstances were different.

that's life.

The Seduction of Darkness

last night at support group i was asked how i was dealing with the news of robin williams' death. i was just about to answer, "it's so sad, but i haven't really thought about it too much or been that affected." when, instead, i just started to talk. and i began to realize how much heaviness i've been carrying, but have been unable to really process it while caring for a two month old 24/7.

this is one of the reasons why support group is so healing. it creates a space, that otherwise is too mucked up with daily life, to bring the underlying hurt, fear and anger to the surface.

this is how i basically answered the robin williams question. no pre-thought. no analyzing. the words just came.

...

when i was in high school a classmate of mine killed himself and it scared the crap out of me. i couldn't imagine what was possibly going through his mind the days and moments leading up to that one, huge decision to take his life. such a permanent choice. that kind of depression, the kind that feels the only way out is to end it forever, really, really frightened me, because i didn't understand it.

i understand it now.

in those intense few weeks and months after noah died i experienced that kind of darkness. my pain was so deep, i couldn't fathom a way out. it was too much. so heavy i couldn't breathe.

my entire life, and all i ever knew, was radically shifted. all my beliefs. everything i trusted. wiped clean. i had a new life now. i lost a child and could never go back to my other self, my other life.

and this new life was a life i didn't want. it repulsed me. it exhausted me.

how could i go on living when, quite literally, a part of my very being was gone? noah was a part of me. my own dna, who i nurtured and carried for nine months. and he was ripped violently away. it's like if the entire right side of my body just up and disappeared. how do i go on?

(at this point, i'm weeping. and made apologizes for my sleep deprived emotions.)

but somehow i forged together 0.5% of hope. and i held onto what shred i had to save my life. my husband. my future children. my seemingly microscopic-sized faith. they gave me hope.

without that hope, my life was over. hope was that dot of light in the vast, eternity of darkness.

the fate of robin williams. that could have easily been me.

...

the group went on to talk about the fine line of darkness beyond hope. it's seductive. it is terrifying. one tiny step and it's over, no going back.

i grieve that robin felt that way. i grieve that anyone would feel that way.

i grieve noah. i grieve isaac.

but i made the choice to live. i make the choice, every single day and moment, to live.

this world is f'ing messed up. i know that all too well. it's absolutely not easy to exist here sometimes, when things don't make sense and fairness is extinct.

yet, we move forward. embracing the darkness and welcoming the light. sharing our stories with others and perhaps giving someone else hope in their despair. that's the beautiful thing about humans, we can bear each others burdens. we can lighten the load for another, while bringing redemption to our own soul.

don't pretend you have it all together, that your life is perfect. it's too exhausting and you'll eventually crack under that kind of pressure. be honest. be authentic. open up your heart and let others in.

we're in it together.
and that gives me hope.

Guilt, It's What's for Dinner

apparently it's world breastfeeding week. i find it a little amusing that there exists such a thing. i also find it a little ironic that, on world breastfeeding week, i found myself feeding my child outside, half dressed, sitting on the cement, in the back of a building, next to a dumpster, in the rain.

maybe our world does need a "breastfeeding week."

because as i sat there, uncomfortable and embarrassed, i wondered, "why do i feel the need to sequester myself with my hungry baby, while my husband gets to remain in the restaurant enjoying his beer... alone?"

something that really surprised me about motherhood was the guilt. heavy, nagging, irrational guilt. i felt it immediately with noah. we're not doing enough to help him. we didn't do enough to save him. what did i do while i was pregnant that made his lungs form incorrectly? i should visit noah's place more often. why am i not raising thousands of dollars for ACD research in noah's name? i shouldn't take any photos of noah down.

and on and on it goes. and it didn't stop with noah.

how is miles sleeping? is he sleeping through the night yet? (the underlying judgment in these questions, i feel is - because if he's not, you must be doing something wrong. do you have a nightly routine? that'll help. are you feeding your baby enough during the day? that'll solve it.)

weather forecast says 100 degrees. we leave the house. it pours down rain. i don't have anything to warm my child.

losing my patience with a screaming baby, because i have no idea what he wants.

not doing what i should. or doing what i shouldn't. guilt is anything that makes me feel like i'm not a good mom. i hate that it does, but it's true. we live in a world where there is so much pressure to do everything perfect... or maybe i just want to be perfect. being a good mom is so, so important to me, because that napping, tiny human is my world. why wouldn't i want to do motherhood well?

but i wouldn't be completely honest if i didn't mention the guilt i feel about not loving every second of motherhood. this emotion has been incredibly difficult for me because i have wanted to be a mom literally my entire life! and not just wanted to be a mom, like "wouldn't that be fun", but dreamed and ached to be a mother because it is the core of who i am.

and being a mama to miles is amazing and i really do love it (because i'm madly in love with him), but there are times i am so exhausted and frustrated that i want to throw him out the window. (i really just wrote that. and it's so awful - guilt - but it's true.)

i had a veteran mom say to me once, "you probably don't feel like this, because of what you went through with noah, but, for me, getting up multiple times through the night was HARD."

um?? and for me it's easy? i must just hum and giggle as i leap out of bed for the millionth time each night, tending to the mystery need of my newborn human.

yes, i lost a baby and for so long would have given anything to hear my son cry or to lose hours upon hours of sleep because of him. i still would. but that doesn't make me automatically and permanently grateful-for-every-little-moment-of-spit-up-and-scream-crying that will ever happen in my life. being a mom is hella hard, for anyone, no matter what. i'm not immune. i'm not a robot.

(would a robot cry when her husband goes to mow the lawn because she's jealous he gets some "alone time"? i don't think so.)

one of the biggest lessons i learned in the grief journey (and am still learning, obviously) is that in order to stay sane, i have to do whatever it is i need to do to survive. (besides bomb our neighbor's house or anything else destructive.) because whatever i feel is okay.

i may not love being a mom every second of every day, but it doesn't mean i don't love being a mom.
i may not feel grateful to spend each day with my little monster, but i'm unbelievably grateful he's here.

there is always grace.

so next time miles is hangry and i hear that voice in the back of my mind that says, "go hide in the shadows while you feed him so you don't make people uncomfortable" or any other time i feel ashamed of myself, i will say to that voice...

shut the hell up. i'm a mama. i'm surviving. i'm loving this little person and his daddy fiercely, with my whole self. and that takes courage and strength that is out of this world.

i'm a brilliant human making sacrifices for love left and right.

though at times i feel empty, with no energy or milk to give, i get up out of that bed again. because whatever i am, i'm enough.

One for the Books

this past month was really "one for the books."

june 5. noah's first birthday.

june 11. my husband's birthday.

the unbelievable anticipation waiting for miles to arrive.

june 15. the birth of a son.

june 18. the first anniversary of our firstborn's death.

not to mention, just plain 'ol, crazy life with a newborn. 

it's been filled with the wildest of terrors, the purest of joys, the deepest of sorrows and the highs of love.

and sleep deprivation.

there's no way i can share all the complexities of these emotions, and our experiences with them, in one simple blog post. but what i do want to say is: we are still grieving. even with all the beauty and wonder that miles has brought into the world, i miss noah.

you may have had a fleeting thought that maybe i was done with the blogging, and therefore have 'finished the grief journey.' and although i believe the harshest, most intense part of our grief is over, it's still not over. 

so i will continue to write. to share my heart. to try and make sense of a world where one butler baby is alive and the other two aren't. 

you'll hear the story of miles' late, yet fast and furious, arrival. 

i'll write about why it's so difficult to talk about baby isaac. 

i'll try to put into words the paralyzing, insanity-making fear that accompanys welcoming a living baby, after knowing only how it feels to hold two dead ones. 

we're beginning a new chapter, but it's the same story.

and the theme of this new chapter can be summed up by one unbelievable experience...

before we could go home from the hospital with miles, he had to pass some weird car seat test where they monitored his oxygen levels while he sat for 90 minutes in his car seat. so bizarre. i had never in my life heard of it. after they kind of sprung it on us, the next thing we knew we were blindly following two nurses to where it would take place. 

as we walked, i began to recognize the all-too-familiar route. we were heading to the NICU. oh my god. the last time we were there was with our noah ... when our world began to rock and crumble.

i almost couldn't breathe. the horror-filled memories flooded back. 

but not only were we back in the NICU, we were led right into noah's old room. 

i know. it's insane.

and miles proceeded to get hooked up to the very same monitoring machines his big brother was hooked up to.

way too familiar.

john and i were stunned. pissed. anxious. and about crawling out of our skin to get out of there.

as we waited the grueling 90 minutes alone in the room with miles, my husband and i had a "not from us, so must be God" type thought -

with our healthy son sleeping peacefully in his car seat, God, right here and right now, was making something new. 

yes, baby miles is, in and of himself, "something new" obviously. but it was more than that. God was taking an evil, awful situation and working good into it before our very eyes.

what happened with noah can never be erased from existance. that NICU room where we experienced hell is still there, but with miles added in, there was hope and joy that wasn't there before. and that hope and joy was sitting right alongside the fear and pain.

the very same room. two polar opposite experiences inhabiting the same space.

that's my life. 

our wildly creative God can make miraculously beautiful things out of absolute garbage. 

miles is a testimony of that. we all are.

i can't wait to tell miles that, for 90 minutes, he shared the same room as his big brother. 

the only place on earth they overlapped.