This Small

Brian: I can't believe how little he is.

Me: I know. I can't believe Judah and Addise were once this small.

Brian: Me neither. I wish I could've seen them that small.

Me: Me too.

tears...

13 Days Later

Lucky 13. It's been a ride these past 2 weeks.

Asher continues to spend his first weeks of life in the NICU. I've grown to love his nurses, especially Sherry who's been a NICU nurse for 39 years (!!!!), and adore his attentive doctors. They call us regularly with updates on his progress and are always concerned about how I'M doing, too. Asher's wearing itty-bitty preemie clothes which seem more suitable for dolls and wrapped in his aden & anais muslin blankets. He sleeps 23 hours a day. He poops like it's his full time job. His facial expressions are too many to count and change in a millisecond. He now weighs 5 lbs, having gained 11 ounces in his first 13 days of life. But my best news is that he's taken 5 full bottles since yesterday!!!!! He still needs to finish 8 bottles in a row (1.5 ounces/feeding in 24 hours) in order to be considered to come home. We have a ways to go. All I want for Mother's Day is for Asher to be home. I'm being told it's unrealistic and not to get my hopes up...but what else is a momma supposed to do!?!? Once again we find ourselves waiting...

I can't keep from thinking about how my Ethiopian babies were born on a hut floor with no doctors, no monitors, no prenatal care, and no medications. And yet they are perfectly perfect. Then there's my newest baby born with all the first world privileges and needing every one for survival. It's mind boggling how in spite of where Judah and Addise were born, everything went text book for their pregnancy and birth AND how if Asher was born in Ethiopia he wouldn't be alive. All babies are miracles straight from the sweetest place in heaven...

In love...

Judah was circumcised on Friday morning. I'm still at the "what in the world have we done to our son?!?!" stage. For the most part he's loving watching movies all day and being fed whatever he wants. Mommy guilt. He's had a handful of excruciatingly painful moments that have left me near tears. Overall, he's doing great. We keep saying together "brave and strong like daddy" to get him through the difficult moments.

All groggy after surgery watching TV.

As if we have nothing else going on in our lives, this morning Brian ran his second half marathon of 2012 (he's signed up for 2 more). By 9:30 this morning he'd already run 13.1 miles after barely training. I don't know how he did it, but I'm way impressed he did! He's also been wrangling contractors and construction workers desperately trying to get our master bathroom finished. We are praying it's completed this week.

"May gray" before the race began.

Addise has been bouncing off the walls and has been showing signs that she understands she's no longer the baby of the family. Today she did the impossible and peed in her potty FOR THE FIRST TIME with grandma. Grandma may be a miracle worker and she can stay forever. Her hair is also getting neglected in the craziness of our days. Sorry baby girl. She's talking, singing, and screaming every moment of the day. She even wakes up singing.

Grandma, aka my mom, is here for 3 weeks to love on babies and pull all kinds of weight around our home. She's sleeping on an air mattress, making food, chasing babies, changing diapers, keeping the kitchen clean, and attending to our beck and call. She's also planning on coming out in June and July to keep helping. She loves it and she's exhausted at the end of every day. A most excellent grandma and momma we have!

Someone got in momma's make-up. Safe to say we have different coloring. :)

At the end of the day, I'm doing better than I expected. I keep forgetting I had major surgery and that I left my baby in the NICU. My recovery is going so much better than I was told or anticipated, which for a girl who's allergic to pain is a huge answer to prayer. My incision pain has been declining most every day and I'm getting around pretty darn well. My figure is coming back (YIPPEE!). Pumping has been a pain in the butt but going super well, which makes me abundantly happy that Asher's getting my milk 8 times a day even though I can't physically give it to him. Though I'm so very tired at some point every day, I'm grateful that I can recover from surgery and transition into our new life while Asher's getting stellar hospital care. The highlight of my day is holding my littlest baby. I could not be more grateful for my family of five.

Miraculous. Redemptive. Hope-filled. This is our life these days - bursting full of chaos and drama and oh-so good.

Pain Remnants

Even though Judah and Addise are home forever and we delight in being a family, pockets of pain surprise me and still sucker punch me from time to time.

Let me state my deep belief - every part of the adoption story is painful. Every part. The part where a child lost her biological parent(s) to death, sickness, abandonment, or in order to survive. The part where [some] adoptive parents suffer through the unimaginable pain of infertility. The part when the adoption process take five thousand more years than you signed up for. The part after you receive your referral and still wait endless weeks and months for governments to do their jobs. And yes, even the parts after your child comes home.

The current pain puts Judah on center stage. We were matched with Judah when he was 2 years and 1 month old. We entered into his story soon after he turned 2 years old and received very limited information about his family of origin, health history, and first home. We gleefully received about 10 pictures of our new son. And we so happy that HE was the ONE that God chose to be our son. He was a perfect match in every way and beyond our wildest prayers. He still is.

But this month Addise is 2 years and 1 month old. We met Addise at 9 months old and brought her home at 11 months and definitely grieve missing her first days of life. But one day this week it hit me like a ton of bricks that we have hundreds of pictures of Addise from the past 14 months and millions of memories of our life together as a family.

Yet it was at Addise's age this month that we first were introduced to Judah. Sucker punch in the gut. Hot tears knowing how much we don't know about his first 25 months of life. As his mom, I have no idea how to become okay with this other than trust the God who brought us together.

Without hesitation, it was worth it. The ongoing pain is worth it. Judah needed a family and though we've missed out on hundreds of pictures and millions of memories, we are creating them now and would do it all over again. Judah is worth it.

First time on a carousel. At Disneyland.