Day 3: Every Ounce

This morning Mary Brooks went to the doctor to be weighed. Two weeks ago, at seven months old, she had fallen off the growth chart and her weight gain was slow, almost stagnant. 

After hanging around twelve pounds all summer, MB had gained just two ounces from August to September; we were disappointed. It was puzzling, even troubling. She is a great eater and we'd confirmed the volume of milk she gets each day is more than sufficient. So what did this mean? How could we fix it?

As her mom, and the source of her nutrition, I felt pressure, frustration, heartache. I hate dealing with the reality of what happened earlier this year; I like to pretend Mary Brooks has floated through her life without a care.

The stakes felt high. Babies with intestinal malrotation sometimes see long-term issues with weight gain or nutritional absorption after surgery, but to that point it had seemed Mary Brooks was going to avoid such issues.

We hoped she'd continue to thrive without intervention; for a number of reasons, I was eager to continue breastfeeding her exclusively. I nursed Mac his first year and didn't want to introduce formula to MB's already-manhandled insides unless we were certain it was necessary.

I wasn't ready to quit nursing. It felt wrong to give up breastfeeding when we could do it; so many other moms can't but desperately want to.

I consulted Mary Brooks' pediatrician, her surgeon, a nurse, two lactation consultants and a pediatric dietician. I sat on other moms' couches and clogged up their inboxes with questions. I listened to my gut, no pun intended.

MB is happy, strong, exceeding her developmental milestones, smiling constantly. I just knew she was well and didn't need anything to make her grow but time. Having set a date to follow up, we had just fourteen days to see a difference before things escalated.

And boy did we work hard these last two weeks.

I've been fighting off the same nasty sinus infection for a month, and nursing has kept me from the 'good' drugs. Besides popping thrice-daily antibiotics, getting steroid shots and hacking like the Marlboro Man, my top priority has been fattening up Mary Brooks.

Extra feedings, longer mealtimes, fattier additions (avocados galore!) to her homemade baby food - we did it all. Her nutrition was my full-time job, and despite her medical history and the unlikelihood of success, we saw a little miracle. A greatly appreciated little miracle.

Terrified that another two weeks without significant gains would mean a dire diagnosis or a series of tests, I plopped MB onto the scale this morning, naked as the day she was born.

The verdict? About 19 ounces gained in two weeks. The largest, fastest gain since her surgery. She's back on the growth charts at a whopping 2.35%. So, so very proud of our little bundle!

We're thankful for every ounce of you, Mary Brooks. May you remember this when you're 16 and "just want to lose three pounds." Your health is all we care about; your cuteness is secondary. And, for what it's worth, we happen to think you're physically perfect, scar and all.

Thank you, Lord, for insides that work and a baby who's growing!

*This post is day 3 in my 31 Days of What Matters.

The Road Home

If you are new to our story, you can catch up here:
MB's Arrival
Emergency
Her Sickness & Diagnosis
Her Surgery
The Longest Week
Hitting a Wall, Rounding a Corner

By Sunday morning Mary Brooks had been in the hospital seven days.

I left to visit a despondent Mac, who'd woken up hourly in the night screaming. I couldn't drive fast enough between the places that held pieces of my heart. The comforts of home were lost on me but the hospital was torturous, too; there was nowhere I felt fully at ease.

Each of our children legitimately needed me, and I finally understood I needed them just as much. In the same place. Suddenly what had been stressful to me - a pile of unfolded laundry, a loud toddler, a needy newborn, a messy house - seemed absolutely picturesque. I wanted our life back.

In the hospital I could pretend that nothing else existed outside our 10x10 piece of the universe, but leaving the sterile, scrubbed and fluorescent peds floor made it clear: life is carrying on. People are going about their daily routines, blissfully unaware. Life-or-death situations playing out for hundreds of families within the hospital's walls, but someone on Facebook is still complaining about lukewarm Starbucks or standstill traffic. How many times had I been that person before?

I tried to blend into those 'normal' people as best I could and took Mac out for pancakes that morning. Carbs cure everything. Since he wasn't old enough to determine his love language, we just used mine: breakfast foods.

(True story: If I'm ever a bit blue, a nap, sweet tea or a fresh stack of pancakes are the best gifts you could give me. All three and I'm ready to face about anything.)

I'm puffy-eyed and smiling like a loon; he is not won over by my mania.

Mac looked like a forty-pound giant compared to his teeny-tiny sister, but he wasn't yet two and a half years old. He still needed the security and schedule of his old life, as did we all. Each day we were gone he seemed more and more baby-like, and we just didn't have much of ourselves to give him.

Unsurprisingly, Mac wasn't cheered by my steely perma-grin or coos over his every forlorn expression. I was forcing myself to project Pollyanna-level happiness to our lovesick boy, but he didn't want kisses. Like me, he just wanted his family back together. It was enough to put me off pancakes.

Added to that was my knowing Mary Brooks was taking her first ounces of milk just miles away. Any signs of GI tract trouble and we'd be in for a longer stay and significantly larger problems. The surgeons wouldn't spell out much besides that, and trying maniacally to engage Mac in everyday conversation kept my mind off those crucial ounces.

MB kept every bit down, so I left Mac wailing at our house post-pancakes and floored it to the hospital. The relief in her room was palpable, but the echo of her brother falling to pieces in his too-quiet bedroom rang in my ears.

A friend came to visit bearing sweet tea while Bradley ran home briefly, and I marveled at the simple mom things (swaddles, schedules, sleeping) we discussed. It was a welcome distraction from the thoughts I'd been wading through all week.

Then, after nine full days without a full meal, Mary Brooks was able to nurse again. No measuring, no bottles. I rejoiced at the ease and simplicity of that moment - the answer to more than a few fervent prayers. She took back to breastfeeding seamlessly, and thus I sidestepped every contingency plan I'd prepared. She snuggled into my arms and I felt equally calm and exultant. Finally feeding her was heaven for the both of us, for different reasons.

I promised never to groan about such a privilege, no matter how constant feedings felt or how 'busy' I was with other things when she needed to eat. Unlike many other commitments in my lifetime, I've held to that one.

After Bradley returned, we decided to attend an elder-led prayer service our church holds once or twice a year.  We'd always wanted to make it, but had never been able to do so; it's the one service without childcare offered. It seems ironic now, finally having the ability to leave our children, but for such an unexpected, unhappy reason. Nevertheless, we had more than enough to pray about, and we desired the company and comfort of other believers.

My mom stayed at our house with Mac and my dad came to sit with Mary Brooks. In all the days since her surgery, MB had never been without her parents; we took turns leaving. We felt it was worth the hour apart and tore ourselves away.

Mary Brooks' wires had gotten fewer by the day, so her Grandpa was overjoyed to hold her for the first time since she became sick. We left him, after a jumble of bottle-related instructions, staring googly-eyed at our little bean, calm and quiet for the first time in days. (Food has that effect on MB, a girl after my own heart.)

Pulling into the church parking lot, B and I both fought the urge to run, to hightail it back and pretend we'd never left. Surely everyone expecting us would have understood.

Just being near the church brought a lot to the surface, things there's no time to feel in the hubbub and heartache of a hospital room. (And heaven knows I'm far better prepared for an onslaught of emotion than my even-keeled husband.)

Opening the doors to the lobby, I took one deep breath, effectively gasping for air, and we followed a small group friend to the row saved for us. I pulled a box of tissues out of my purse and waved it about, attempting gallows humor. Turns out"laughter through tears" isn't just my favorite emotion - it's a beloved crutch.

What Bradley and I experienced in that time reflected exactly where we were. Torn down, shattered and still crumbling. Raw. Real. It was unlike any other hour of worship in my life.

I'd heard the phrase "come alongside" before, but I'd never lived it. We shuffled into that service of our own strength, but were both physically and emotionally supported by friends experiencing this week with us. We weren't the only ones broken, and that sense of being bound together overtook us.

I looked around, making eye contact and smiling weakly. I felt utterly empty inside. It amazed me, as our pastors talked about the many struggles and hurts in our congregation, to think that mine wasn't the only pain in the room. If I could just get through this, I thought, nothing could ever hurt again. It was delusional, but life seemed problem-less, even idyllic, outside of hospital halls. As we all know, that isn't true.

Our small group stayed for a bit of worship, then walked hand-in-hand outside the sanctuary. I'm crying, four months later, as I write this. I have never been so carried. So absolutely held up. We were gathered around, arms around one another - a kind of intimacy that typically makes me uncomfortable.

I'm a hug-and-runner. Let's get "close" and then retreat back to our quiet, private lives. Let's pretend like we let it all hang out but really hold the ugly bits back, the worst parts, the stuff best kept behind closed doors.

There were no doors that night. There were no reservations and no boundaries. I wept, truly wept, in public for the first time in my life. I didn't cover my face or turn my back. I only stopped to hear the prayers of our beloved friends crying as they spoke our daughter's name to her Creator.

I have known since their births that others were praying for our children; I've comprehended that intellectually without question. Hearing our child's name wept aloud as I stood, propped up against friend upon friend, brought home meaning of 'community' like no impassioned sermon ever could, though. I wasn't just in community; I was surviving because of it.

And then a minor miracle: I prayed in public. Aloud. Sobbing and hiccuping and shaking tidal waves of tears off of my face as I spoke. Not worrying about syntax or the "right"' things to say or if people thought I was "Christian" enough or if they saw right through me. The fears of two decades were drowned out by my need for community with other believers. Please don't make me walk through this alone. We can't do this, not for one single second, by ourselves.

I asked God to hold me together. I praised Him for keeping our girl alive and for the people who were taking care of her that very minute. I told Him I had prayed so passionately for a baby, that I knew she was the baby I had prayed for. That I hadn't wanted a miracle baby, just a normal, nothing-more-to-it story. I didn't want to be in this situation. I wanted OUT of it. There's nothing pretty about that sentiment, but I felt far more connected to Him then than when I have prayed with pretty platitudes.

I listened to people pray for needs I hadn't even anticipated myself. For our families, for Mac's tender heart, for our marriage, for Mary Brooks as she grew, that she'd learn her story and come to know the Lord at a young age because of it. That we would be drawn closer together and closer to God through this, and that we would ALL be healed.

Bradley and I have never experienced a sweeter time with other believers than when we were at our worst. As our group wrapped up its prayers, our internal alarm clocks were screeching. We said our goodbyes and left service both emptied out and filled up; it was equally cathartic and replenishing, exactly what we needed.

We called my mom and heard Mac crying in the background, begging for his dad and asking not to go to sleep. I dropped B off at home and rushed back to Mary Brooks before the new shift of nurses arrived.

I found Dad singing to Mary Brooks, rocking back and forth with his face just by her ear. I was told later he'd asked the nurses if they wanted to "look" at MB when he unwrapped her for a diaper change. Thinking he was worried about her incision or her wires, they assured him they didn't need to check a thing - she wouldn't be harmed by him. My dad said, "Oh, I know that. I meant - isn't she beautiful? Don't you want to look at her?"

Nurses relayed that story several times, as they'd never seen a grandfather left in charge of a patient's care. I love that my dad was the exception to that rule; it sums up his approach to (grand)parenting perfectly.

After Dad left, the three of us were spent. B caught a catnap snuggling with Mary Brooks and we took turns lying next to her in the crib, something we'd just found out we could do. It was the closest thing to cozy I could imagine in that room.

We had a relatively easy night; B even left for a bit Monday morning to check in at the office. Word had come in around dawn that, maybe just maybe, today would be the day. I couldn't bring myself to speak the words aloud, but I could have run the Boston Marathon on adrenaline alone.

Nurses and doctors filtered in and out; our surgeon went off call and an unfamiliar face checked in. Phone calls were made, messages exchanged and charts reviewed. A friend brought Chick-fil-A and I could barely swallow it for the butterflies in my stomach.

Mary Brooks was eating and calm, so no matter what the call was I knew I could survive another day. That had been our game plan all along - survive another day and don't look beyond it. Finally that tactic felt doable.

Our nurse pushed a few slow-to-respond residents for answers while I started packing, folding, sorting and pacing.

When the official word came in, our bags were already at the door. A nurse boxed up the "traveling dairy" she claimed I'd produced while MB was there. The only way to transport our things was a little red wagon, so B stacked it high and we got out of there so quickly I'm sure it was illegal.

All those days, all that waiting and praying and breath-holding. Then the elusive call comes down and we're just...gone?

I stopped to snap a picture of our room and hurried out before they thought better of things and readmitted us. It felt like pulling off a bank heist.

Homeward bound

Every time I'd played this moment out in my head, I fought back tears. I anticipated tears. A theatrical, heart-rending scene and some joyful hot-stepping out to our car. It wasn't that way at all.

We rode down the elevator in ecstatic silence, Mary Brooks sleeping in my arms. Bradley pulled the car around and before I knew it we were walking into our house, Mac's exclamations wafting over us like a chorus of angels.

My mom stayed to let us get a delicious nap, and then we were awake and alone, diving headlong into long-awaited "normal" life.

First up was a visit to the after-hours pediatrician to address an eye infection that seemed more pitiful-looking by the minute. What was a slightly puffy eye in her hospital crib became so swollen it couldn't open by suppertime. 

After that, and the ensuing pharmacy trip, we were home for days, doing only the bare minimum and surviving the home hurdles (yes, Anne, problems do exist outside of hospital walls) that kept coming our way.

Back to the doctor we go.

(A nurse told us before we were discharged that it could have been a side effect of having her eyes taped shut during surgery. The parents in us winced instinctively. We were blindsided by the thought of our girl on the table, anesthetized and strapped down, being cut open with her sweet, sad eyes taped closed. It was an image I fought for days. The surgery saved her life, but I'd have slept better without that last detail.)

For a while it was pure survival mode, just the meeting of basic physical needs and setting aside anything more challenging.

None of it mattered, though. We slipped under our own covers and slept (in little snippets) as though we were on a cloud. Our family, all four of us, lived under one messy, loud, disorganized roof. Praise God. Nothing had ever felt better.

March 12 began the rest of our recovery, the piecing back together of things. It was tougher than I'd anticipated, but I can handle just about anything in my own home. Mac and Mary Brooks both went through a great deal in the coming weeks, which I hope to record here for posterity's sake.

The miracle in the story is in more than Mary Brooks' healing. It's in me and Bradley, in our hearts and in the absolute change we have seen in our lives. In the way we saw the body of Christ come together and live out the Gospel before us. In the understanding of our real purpose here. In the power of being Jesus' hands and feet (or ears and shoulders) for troubled friends. In the lives of others who were affected by our experience and, Lord willing, in the spreading of awareness about intestinal malrotation.

I plan to talk soon about the practical ways we were helped and the best advice I can give to friends and families seeking to support loved ones during a crisis. That's one of the most tangible, immediate rewards of walking through this fire - learning what we can do when a family is in a similarly difficult time.

Later today I'll publish a brief (yes, I can do brief!) post touching on the signs and symptoms of MB's dangerous condition - what to know about it. The more medical professionals I speak with, the clearer it becomes that intestinal malrotation is unfamiliar to many even within their field.

That's devastating, because malrotation is deadly without surgical treatment, and it affects one in 500 newborns. It's a silent killer, and I am overcome by the desire to help other families avoid such heartbreak.

I am thankful every moment that our daughter survived, and am so grateful that you have graciously allowed me to record her story here. It's not over yet. Praise God - it's just beginning.

In Repair

I've taken an unintentional month-long break - not for lack of things to say, but because I keep thinking of what our mamas told us in the first grade: If you don't have anything nice to say...
What I have to say isn't unkind or even untoward, but it isn't the motivational reading or guilt-free cupcake recipes we coo over on Pinterest. (Though I have found a Greek yogurt cupcake worth chatting about - stay tuned!)

Instead my thoughts and words, like the rest of me, are wrapped up in the slow work of recovery.

This afternoon I got my third steroid shot in six weeks; at this rate I'll be the Incredible Hulk by Labor Day!

Steroid shots are to 'open' me up. Not quite sure what that means specifically, but so far, so good. Nursing means I can't take some of the 'good drugs' for sinus and ear infections, which I'm rocking for the second time in a month, so I'll take what I can get. Add in some breastfeeding-related symptoms (and another steroid shot for a $exy batch of stress-induced hives earlier this month) and I'm a ball of good times.

Or should I say a balding good time. The baby bald spots are back with a vengeance; ponytails make it uber-obvious, so this is my only cute off-day option.

Thankfully the balding came for a purpose: this gal. Totally worth the carpet of dark hairs on my hardwoods.

Wearing her sleep sack but SO not ready for naptme.

Mary Brooks turned five months old on July 14. She is an angelic, rolling, giggling ball of sweetness from the moment she's awake until we grudgingly put her to bed. She is an exceedingly happy baby, lovely in every way. I honestly could spread her on a biscuit and just eat her up, this bean of mine.


She's also tiny. Itsy-bitsy-tee-tiny and gaining weight very slowly. For the most part, praise God, there are no health concerns. There are, however, lingering questions about her growth, size and occasional digestive tract-related symptoms that could be side effects of her surgery.

 
The last six weeks have included many a call to the surgeon, pediatrician and lactation consultants' offices. And about a million lost minutes of sleep. Gone is Anne-the-champion-sleeper of old. Gone is Anne-the-girl-she-used-to-be anyhow, so I suppose it makes sense.

(If you'd told me this time last year that my daughter would sleep through the night at five or six weeks but I'd still be sporting dark circles of my own doing, I'd have questioned your sanity. I've come to realize why people say, "When you lie awake at night..."  It never quite clicked because I never did lie awake. My head hit the pillow and I slid off into dreamland. Blissful.

There's a lot of time in the midnight hours for contemplation and prayer. If you'd like me to include you in those prayers, please send me an email. The Lord has put several friends on my heart during that time, and always for good reason. I'm happy to lift you up in those moments, and I'm finding God is using these times, undereye bags and all, to draw me closer to Him.)

As far as Mary Brooks goes, I remind myself that a happy baby is a healthy baby. If only there were percentages and growth curves for happiness! I tell myself that, as before, I'll know if something is wrong. 

Her cries, rare as they are, still stop in my tracks, though. On some level I picture her in a white metal hospital crib every time she makes a noise of a certain pitch - yesterday it was a squeal and some practice 'talking.'

Those one-off cries send my pulse skyrocketing, put my guard up and have me hanging around MB like a hair band groupie, which amuses her to no end. She thinks the stare-down is part of a really fun game involving the two of us and Sophie the Giraffe, so clearly I'm the only one here with a panic problem.

Macky and Mary Brooks remain utterly besotted with one another, beginning what I hope will be a lifelong friendship. It's a joy to see. Mac has taken to calling her "my Mary Brooksie," which the rest of us have picked up.

My dynamic duo accompanies me everywhere this summer, so the baby Bjorn has earned its keep for a second go-round.

On July 4th I (yes, I!) whipped up four dozen muffins, wrote the world's longest thank you note and brought the whole Yankee Doodle family down to the hospital.

Stepping back onto the peds floor was a big moment for B; he hadn't been back since she was discharged, while I had visited friends whose daughter stayed doors away from our old stomping grounds.

Heading back to the peds floor.

I've also paid several visits to the lactation consultants in the same building, so the smells and sights of the hospital don't knock me off my feet as much as they once did. No more flashbacks, just an odd sense of comfort in being back.

I brought before and after pictures so our nurses would recognize the beaming, tubeless girl in our arms.

Before and after: March and July

We were happy to see a few familiar faces and I hope the gesture expressed one iota of our indebtedness to their tremendous care. Plus, anyone working on America's birthday deserves a few delicious carbs, don't you think?

If I sound like a broken record (treading water, recovering, worrying, waiting, praying, grateful, tired...) or it seems as though our life revolves around 'what happened' (our euphemism of choice) in March, you're probably right. I'm working on it, I promise.

There are a few heavy external stresses on us as a family, things I will be able to share shortly, that have monopolized whatever brain cells aren't kid-focused lately. It's been a battle to stay or try to stay joyful in some of the tougher days, to be candid. Some days I don't win.

Thankfully I feel the tide turning, but I've decided my best path is to be gentle with myself, as easy as I am with everyone else.

Time, rest and grace are the only prescription I know for picking up the pieces and resuming the new life ahead of us. If it's not mandatory or life-giving, I'm trying to take a break from it and tone down the 'do everything' desire so many of us have.

In short, we're all recovering - Mary Brooks from the surgery that saved her life, me from the trauma that came with being a helpless bystander, and  Mac from the slightly lesser indignity of wearing too-small tighty whities (read: potty training perma-wedgie) earlier this summer.

Adventures in Potty Training, size 4T

In my defense, the train-themed briefs had been in a drawer since last fall. How was I to know he'd need a 4T before he'd want to wear them? We're still a little stuck on the, er, more difficult half of the process, but hooray for being mostly done with diapers!

I hope to finish MB's story (the miraculous part has yet to be told) and carry on with chatting about normal, non-medical things.

I plan to reveal a big change, an upcoming challenge, a leap of faith and the many ways God has shown His hand in every facet of this wild year.

I hope to share what I've learned about helping others, how my heart has been broken for hurting families and what we can all do to be of immediate, effective use to those in our community. It's a concrete lesson I'm thrilled to be figuring out as a result of our own unexpected, unavoidable crisis.

Thank you for checking in on us, friends, and for always being here. xoxo

Rounding a Corner

In an effort to get this out of my head, I'll pick up where I left off. It wasn't the best place.

By Thursday evening Mary Brooks had been sick for nearly a week and in the hospital four days. She was on post-op day three but surgeons had little to tell us - we were in limbo. There was little progress; there was a lot of crying.

Thursday, as you know, was rock bottom. I was utterly beside myself, desperate for something to change.

At this point Mary Brooks hadn't eaten for a third of her life. She cried on and off with an empty, helpless moan; the sound was like shards of glass. Our go to means of comforting her were made impossible by the machines she was hooked up to with an intimidating number of tiny wires.

The nurses encouraged us to hold her, and we were able to in short, infrequent stretches, but there was nothing natural about it. We weren't snuggling her as much as awkwardly placing her in our arms as we sat unmoving, speaking softly and rearranging our bodies with the utmost care.

With every effort a wire came unlodged, a tube became occluded, an alarm screeched with a pitch that could wake the dead. (And did, if you consider the number of times those sounds wrested me from the coma I called 'rest' each evening on my makeshift cot.)

She'd had two bad nights in a row; we were up eight or nine times an hour during the midnight to 5am stretch we reserved for sleep. I'd say Bradley caught about thirty minutes of sleep that night in insanely short bits and "eight and a half hour Anne" didn't get much more. You could say we were running on empty, but the truth is we weren't running at all.

The week before the surgery, less than 48 hours before her first symptom, I snapped this:

Two weeks post-partum, I was blissful. I reveled in the quiet sweetness of our expanded family.

I look back at that period as a golden haze, the two weeks between when we brought her home from the hospital and when she became ill. It wasn't what I expected from my first few days as a mom of two. The Lord blessed us with a tremendously peaceful, recuperative time that strengthened me to walk straight into the wall that was March.

What does one look like after she's walked into that fiery, what-on-Earth-happened-to-our-life wall? Something like this:

Yes, this is me. Showering in a tiny stall, lying wet-headed under a stiff sheet on a faux bed next to my daughter's cage of a hospital crib, fighting tears at every moment I wasn't staring dull-eyed at the digital read-out of some beeping machine.

I normally wouldn't post such a horrendously unflattering shot of myself, but I know no better way to illustrate my point. Only six days separate these two shots, and a whole lifetime.

Sadly, I had attempted to fix myself up. I took the elevator, applying lip gloss and wiping my eyes by the mirror on its ceiling on my way to the mom & baby hall. Three weeks earlier we'd been doors away, giddy as schoolchildren over our own newborn.

The friends we ran into while MB was on the surgical table had delivered their darling boy, and I got to meet him not nine hours afterward. Five more friends came in while I was there, a virtual tailgate of some of our favorite folks.

I smiled, cooed, listened, laughed and briefly answered their questions about Mary Brooks with, "Thank you so much. She's going to be fine."

I didn't know that; I didn't feel that. But I couldn't imagine welcoming a new life in one second and spilling my guts in the other. That newborn deserved a room full of happiness.

(And he deserved better than a pale-faced, puffy-eyed, panic-stricken Anne holding his tiny, swaddled self. Bless his heart. It's a wonder I didn't scare him to pieces.)

By Thursday, worn out from faking it and exhausted from the weight of waiting, I collapsed. That night was another tough one, and Friday morning Bradley asked me to go home and nap while the doctors rounded. I didn't want to miss a word the surgeons might say, but I could barely comprehend the words coming out of my husband's mouth; I would be of no use to an M.D. in my state.

I drove home, hugged Mac and headed toward the twin bed in Mary Brooks' nursery. I searched her room for a blanket, a onesie, anything that smelled like her - but there was nothing. She'd been so sick all weekend that anything within three feet of her had been washed.

I crawled in bed, clutching a blanket she'd never used, and pulled the covers over my head. I missed eight phone calls in the next two hours with the phone just inches from my face; I slept harder than I ever had and woke up just as hard, wondering what I'd missed and how long I'd been gone.

My best friend had driven up from Atlanta that morning and was with Bradley as the doctors rounded. She translated their med-speak for me, arranged for another friend to bring Chick-fil-A meals to my house and we had a little girls' lunch, plus Mac. It was perfect.

I drove back to the hospital ready to push every car off the road, seeing each as an obstacle between me and my girl. I had never left her that long, especially not there.

Walking in and seeing our bundled-up little bean gave me a surge of happiness and genuine excitement I hadn't had all week. There she was! Those hours were just the break I needed to regain a few much-needed brain cells.

While we didn't get game-changing news about Mary Brooks that day, I felt so bolstered by a little rest and non-medical conversation that I knew I'd be able to hang on.

The doctors' main focus at that point was seeing MB's bowels "wake up." Her urine output was still low, but she was having both gas and dirty diapers (no small feat for a baby whose intestines have been manhandled), so we weren't sure what to think.

The tube pumping liquids up from her stomach was being monitored every four hours, its output measured and recorded for the doctors. I held my breath six times a day as the nurses measured in ccs whether Mary Brooks' GI tract was holding its own.

Every time it dipped, I rejoiced. Overall, though, we were never given a number to hit, a goal for getting that dreaded tube out and allowing MB to have her first nutrition in a week.

One resident let it slip that day that Mary Brooks' tube output was three times what they hoped to see. I was gutted. Three times too high after four days? Were we going to be here forever?

MB had unexpectedly (and providentially) sidestepped the devastating complications doctors anticipated from her surgery, given the time that elapsed between her first symptom and the surgery. Sadly, that didn't guarantee smooth sailing afterward.

If she wasn't able to decrease that tube output significantly, and fast, we'd be entering a new territory of 'what ifs.' What ifs so big that the surgeons wouldn't even spell them out for us, likely knowing that MB had a mother who could take a kernel of fear and run with it.

In my daily email updates, the tube output was my major prayer request. I didn't miss many meals that week, thanks to kind friends and nursing mom meal trays, but I knew our girl had to be hungry and suffering greatly from the intestinal "rest" she got with no IV nutrition or milk.

Every day I told myself this would be the day, but in truth I had no idea when the tube would come up. I thought pinning my hopes to a particular number would be encouraging, something to work toward. Then that resident absent-mindedly revealed that we were so far off the mark no hoping would be involved. Just prayer.

With a few more days before her treatment would change course, and not in a positive way, I finally had numbers to crunch. Scary numbers. A goal I felt we could never meet. So we prayed. Our hearts stopped as the nurses poured out her tube contents, and we saw slight improvement but knew her output was still twice what it should be.

In the hours and days after the surgery, most of Mary Brooks' pain was from the incision and the general shock of things. Much like us, she wasn't quite sure what was happening or where she was.

After that initial discomfort wore off, her hunger really set in and a host of new concerns popped up. She was doing fairly well, but not wonderfully. Looking stable, but not pushing ahead. Her sleep habits were spotty, and she spent her waking times alternately sucking furiously on her pacifier and choking on her tube.

I'll never forget the sound that came out of her mouth when the tube moved in ways it shouldn't have; she would wince and open her lips, sounding like a vacuum cleaner was within. The tube needed regular adjustment to work properly, and the suction made her feel like she couldn't catch her breath, it seemed.

Friday had been an easier day, but the facts and our situation were unchanged. My grandmother and her husband came up to visit, and my in-laws took a break from watching Mac to see their granddaughter. That night Bradley went home to eat dinner and put Mac down. The day both crawled and flew by.

That night, after a difficult day for her, I expected Mary Brooks to be up crying again. In a tiny miracle, she wasn't. She rested. We rested. We woke up before dawn confused - what time was it? was she ok? how had the nurses come in to check her hourly without waking us, those nighttime ninjas?

Sunday we were finally filled in that you can nap with your baby! 

Crib sides drop and you can actually snuggle these sweet patients!! 

How is this not standard 'welcome to your room' info?

There's nothing pleasant about waking up on the peds floor, but that morning was the happiest we'd had yet. And the best part was the report we got from our nurse - MB's tube output had dropped big time. The difference was HUGE.

Can you imagine that I, the queen of all worriers, caught a few hours' shut-eye and the world kept spinning? And, most inconceivably, our situation improved without my being awake to force it to happen? Color me surprised - I don't in fact run the universe. And I've never been more pleased.

Residents popped in and out early that morning, all very positive about the progress but reticent about next steps. Our surgeon came in and, in the span of thirty seconds, gave us the best gift (sorry, care package givers) we'd seen all week: an order to clamp the tube and, if no complications arose, take it out later that day.

I texted everyone I knew. I praised God and had visions of Mary Brooks eating up a feast of Pedialyte and milk that weekend. I very nearly peed my pants with excitement. PROGRESS!

The tube was clamped at 8:00 am, and Mary Brooks was to wait four more hours before the tube came out altogether. So long as there was no vomiting, she was golden. The anxiety and anticipation was more than I could handle; I'm so glad I had a reason not to watch the clock.

I put on my toddler mom hat and left to take Mac to a bouncy house birthday party, filled with joyous children and their casually chatting parents. I was a zombie-eyed, phone-checking, jumpy mess of a mother, but I was there. And Mac, having been through the wringer as much as anyone that week, stuck out like a sore thumb, too. Fun as such shindigs are for preschoolers, we just weren't in celebratory moods.

At noon our girl was tube-free. I returned a crying Mac to our home and flew, sniffling myself, back to MB's bedside. I found our girl resting and at peace. Hallelujah.

I peppered the nurses with questions and, once a surgeon was tracked down, finally got an answer: If no issues came up Saturday night, Mary Brooks could have clear liquids on Sunday, ten full days after her last real meal. Praise God.

Once the good news started, the week-that-would-never-end seemed to pick up a bit. Grandparents came and went, quiet moments were tolerable (not punctuated by suction and screaming) and we saw that we might not reside in room 6507 forever.

Saturday was another relatively easy night. We probably got five hours of sleep total, which is about as much as you can ask for under such circumstances. Sunday dawned to what had become our routine: Anne awake to pump, quick shower, hospital breakfast tray (the only standard issue meal I could stomach), med students, residents, a lactation consultant and, whenever they could get in, a surgeon rounding.

Our surgeon surprised us by coming in early. Super early. I was still pumping under a blanket, it was so early. He asked if I was ready to give her some milk and skip the clear fluids. Uh-hunh. Did I have any milk available? " Like what I'm making right now?" He'd had no idea.

There was genuine laughter, a joke about a tip jar (from me, mind you, as punchy as exhaustion makes me) and a confirmation that, yes, this was happening.

I had to get away and take care of Mac (another story for another day), so the Lord again spared me from the anxiety of waiting after those first two bottles. Would she vomit and get the tube placed right back in? Would there be signs of further GI tract troubles?

Happiest baby ever - milk coma from 1oz.

Mary Brooks got half an ounce first, then two hours later an ounce, then two hours later, when this anxious mama returned, she was able to nurse. And boy did she. Ten days apart and she acted as though it was any other meal on any other day.

Lactation consultants had filtered in and out for days mulling over how we could make breastfeeding work if she couldn't nurse after all this time apart. How to keep my supply up and avoid giving formula to a baby who needed the simplest, most basic forms of nutrition after her trauma. I was so concerned about how this worked and....it just did. Bless her famished little heart.

Someone asked how I was that night and when my "I'm well, thank you" rolled reflexively off my tongue, it was true for the first time in a while. I knew that no matter how long we had left, we'd be okay. We were getting there, wherever there was in the scheme of the healing process. Home was a heartbeat away.

Treading Water

We've celebrated a number of meaningful occasions since I last posted: a year in our house, Mac turning two and a half, a month since Mary Brooks' surgery, our inaugural dinner out as a family of four, our return to church service and, of course, MB's first Easter.

Truth be told, I've been exhausted lately. It's hard to put my finger on why, as our little champion has been sleeping through the night most nights fabout two weeks now. (Can you believe it? So thankful, even if it never happens again. What a gift.)

More than a physical sense of tiredness, I feel spent emotionally. I'm trying my hardest to finish up thank you notes and send out Mary Brooks' birth announcement, and I realize now it's a task I've put off for a reason.

I adore sending notes and pride myself on doing it well, and in a timely fashion. These thank you notes, however, have been the exception. I rely entirely on scribbled lists, names hurriedly written into my dayplanner, notes I kept during times at the hospital when my heart was barely beating and my brain had left my body.

Reliving the week has been emotional as I recall what people did for us and, honestly, I'm not that great at accepting help. Especially the kind of help we've had.

How could I ever repay anyone? Or truly thank them in a way that reflects how deep and consuming my gratitude is? I struggle to find the words.

This day has been a flurry of activity. At one point I was nursing Mary Brooks, taking a phone call and unloading the dishwasher at the same time. Life can be something like a sitcom on occasion, can't it?

Today was work emails, last-minute accountant phone calls, errands, pro bono work I shouldn't have agreed to do, picking up produce, catching up on thinking about catching up on laundry, despairing at the disarray of my house, sifting through medical paperwork, making arrangements for Mary Brooks' dedication and, at the top of my list, visiting the surgeon for MB's one month follow-up.

Hearing our surgeon's voice brought me back to last month in a heartbeat. I was glad to get a good report (our growing girl gained nearly a pound in ten days!) but a little thrown off by the fact of the matter: Mary Brooks' birth defect and the life-threatening condition that resulted from it were both repaired. There are, however, issues to monitor and aspects of this that need to enter my brain on a daily basis.

I was so on board with the 'signed, sealed, delivered and done' mindset that it never occurred to me we'd need to come back for a six month visit....or more.

Bottom line: Mary Brooks is recuperating beautifully, but she is recuperating. She did have major surgery. It was a scary time.

There's no sweeping that under the rug, no matter how many thank you notes I put off or how many details of last month I choose to forget.

If I repeat the same stories to you, or forget we've spoken entirely, or appear in public remarkably unkempt, please forgive me. I'm forgetting things left and right, receiving reminder emails about things I've already been told three times, and generally feeling like I'm underwater.

I took a moment to come up for air and now I'm choosing to tread water. I may not make much headway this week, but I'm still moving.

I can't wait to catch up on things outside of my own rattled brain and I promise to do that soon. For now, I'm thankful I'm in my own home with Bradley, our two sweet children and a dog who is quite certain he's the smartest one here. He just might be.

I'm planning to wrap up MB's hospital story this week to get it off of my chest and out of my head.

After that, there are SO many things to discuss. I keep reading and seeing things I want to share but putting them off 'til I wrap up this "season" of frenetic activity. That wrap up may never come to be, so eventually life will have to continue as normal. I'm starting to wonder if normal is just a thing we tell ourselves exists.

Do you ever feel this crazy? I'm surprised I'm stringing words into sentences these days!

Catching You Up

This month has been a full-on blur; I have little idea what day or time it is at any given moment. (Thank goodness my iPhone is velcroed to me at all hours.)

So much has happened at breakneck speed, and yet I feel like these most difficult days of my life have lasted for ages. I can't make sense of that dichotomy.

A month ago I would have told you, while silently patting myself on the back, that I'd survived the impossible: natural childbirth. I barely even consider that when I look over recent weeks. It's certainly not the accomplishment I thought it was; it was a cakewalk compared to what came next. I'd relive that night - the excitement, the nerves, even the pain - and the happy days that followed a million times over.

Having Mary Brooks on Valentine's Day seemed like a defining moment in our lives, but something bigger has happened. Life is measured now in "before" and "after" for us - but it's not centered around her birth.

Our world came to a screeching halt two and a half weeks later, and out of that has come a fresh start. The weight of it still sends me spinning. I have put it out of my mind to survive lately, but the more I process things and think them over, the more I realize it: We've survived something that will always define us. We've survived.

Not alone and not by our own strength, that's for sure. But that's another story for tomorrow.

Mary Brooks, Bradley and I have been home with Mac for a week now exactly; last Monday at this time I was praising God and high-tailing it out of the peds floor, MB snuggled in my arms.

I said goodbye to the shoebox room that had been our home for eight full days (as B says, an eight-day, seven-night getaway we never wanted) and snapped this shot of my giddy guy carting our belongings out.

Heading home sweet home, March 13

I started this post two weeks ago tomorrow, the morning after her surgery, but I couldn't finish it. I'm still not sure I can. There's so much to say and a great deal I don't want to tell you, pieces of our experience I hope no one else ever has to know or understand. But the Lord is telling a story through us, through our girl, and I feel called to record it.

To catch you up, help me keep my facts straight and potentially help someone who stumbles across my blog with a similar diagnosis (intestinal malrotation and volvulus), I'll start at the beginning and take it in pieces. Don't feel compelled to read every word, but know that I'm pouring this out both to record it and to make sense of it.

From birth, Mary Brooks has been a tiny angel. We hesitated to talk about it for fear that she would turn on a dime and become a fussy, high-maintenance little thing, but that's the furthest worry from my mind now.

MB only ever cried out when she was unswaddled, undressed or having her diaper changed. We must have checked her breathing hourly since birth, just in awe of her peacefulness. She nursed like a champion from the first moments of her life and ate every three hours during the day and every four (or more) hours at night. You can't ask for more from a two-week-old!

On Friday the 2nd, our gorgeous girl had a projectile vomit incident during what was meant to be a newborn photo session. Thankfully our photographer was a sweet friend who kept Mac (and took some fabulous pictures of him!) while I ran MB up to the pediatrician, utterly terrified. I'd never seen anything like it - so much, so forceful, absolutely awful.

MB at the doctor an hour after she first got sick, March 2

There were no real answers at the time, and that continued when I called on Saturday morning after the vomiting continued. It was just too soon to tell if it was a stomach bug, a fluke, the start of reflux or a potential lactose intolerance issue.

Regardless, I just felt like things were off with her - but what did I know? I'd only had her for two weeks; we were just getting to know her.

My parents came up that Saturday to help and let us get out of the house for a wedding; during that time Mary Brooks seemed better. Sunday she seemed more hydrated and, numbers-wise (diapers, etc.) she was picking back up - but I still felt like she wasn't herself. I wanted to speak with the on call doctor but knew I'd hear the same thing: quantitatively, she was improving.

She gathered her strength and stayed awake Sunday evening (a rarity during her sickness) long enough to have a full meal - and I sobbed as it came back up through her nose and mouth simultaneously, as violently as I'd ever seen. I prayed for morning and the opening of the pediatrician's office doors.

Mary Brooks slept all night, something you don't want your two-week-old to do under such circumstances; Monday morning I took her in to our favorite pediatrician across town, hoping he would "get" it. He did - and we could never thank him enough.

While MB was technically fine (looked well, had wet and dirty diapers, wasn't severely dehydrated), he believed she was ill. Hallelujah, someone listened!

Just before becoming sick, our overachiever of a daughter had blown the doctor's "return to birth weight" goal out of the water by a full pound. I believe now that the Lord must have fattened her up before the symptoms of her volvulus started.

In the six days between her two-week well visit and her surgery, she was on track to gain another pound; instead, she lost nine ounces and couldn't keep down an ounce of clear Pedialyte. I was desperate for an answer and afraid we'd be sent home to "wait it out" again. I just couldn't stomach watching any more lethargy in our baby, much less any sickness. It ripped my heart out.

The doctor was concerned he'd send me into a panic by suggesting an ultrasound at the hospital. He told me he was probably being overly cautious and could go either way on the decision, but just felt that her abdomen seemed guarded and tense, as though she was hurting.

I knew she was hurting. Instead of fear I felt overcome with peace - Yes. We will get an answer. She will get some relief.
We were told not to pass go or take our time in getting from that suburb to the hospital minutes from our house. I guess the receptionist didn't get the "don't cause panic" memo? We called a friend who lives near us and dropped Mac off on our way.

After an hour in a waiting room full of hacking, foul-mouthed, body splash-spraying future hospital patients, we were thoroughly irked and scared for our girl finally registered, processed and ready to...wait more.

We went to the radiology waiting room, then the pediatric waiting room. It's amazing how calm things were there, looking back, because once we got into the ultrasound room, everything went in a different direction. The ultrasound tech took her time looking around for what our pediatrician suspected was the problem - only not to find it.

The diagnosis I was most hoping for, odd as it sounds, was pyloric stenosis. The words "laparoscopic procedure" had dropped my heart into my stomach days before, but at this point I wanted a definable, fixable issue.

Her pylorus looked normal and we were mentally heading to the next step (giving her dye and an x-ray of her GI tract) when the tech caught something small, easily missed - just a vein and an artery placed a little differently than most.

The head of pediatric radiology, hard of hearing and speaking loud as all get out, swooped in to confirm her thoughts, told us Mary Brooks had intestinal malrotation with volvulus and that it was life-threatening.

He described it to us briefly - it was essentially a twisting of her midgut that could cut off bloodflow to her bowels - and emphasized that any time spent discussing it further would only delay her much-needed surgery.

Next came the tailspin.

B made arrangements for Mac while I stayed with Mary Brooks and focused on not falling apart. I texted a friend, asking her to inform another that we wouldn't be home to receive the dinner she was delivering. Because that seemed so dire at the time. I tried to call my dad (because I didn't want to have a mutual meltdown describing things to my mom) but hung up on him three consecutive times as new doctors rushed in.

I opened the Bible app and asked Mary Brooks if she wanted to read the verses I'd prayed over while she was forming. I couldn't get them out of my mouth, though, and instead just silently prayed over her and told her how much we loved her, what a good, beautiful girl she was.

Soon Bradley and I were scrubbing up to walk Mary Brooks through a labyrinth of halls and elevators into an OR. We answered a few questions and handed our sweet beauty to a nurse who would put her to sleep. They told us they'd remove her appendix permanently, then take both her large and small intestines out of her body, untwist them, and put them back.

That was the best case scenario. They'd only know once they got inside her what her prognosis was. I'm glad they didn't give us the worst case or discuss the mortality rates or the chances of survival for babies her age who had complications or any necrosis (dead portions of her intestines). We learned later how grave the situation was and how much heartbreak could have been ahead.

MB in her room, days after surgery

I'm glad my parents rushed in and our dear friend Matt left work just to sit with us in a waiting room, no questions asked and no need for conversation.

I'm glad friends came out of the woodwork to call, text and email for news and I'm especially grateful for the friend who brought me an iPhone charger because my one lifeline to the world was dying.

I'm glad for the people who passed along updates so we wouldn't have to and who listened to my manic I'm-totally-fine-my-whole-world-isn't-cut-wide-open-on-a-surgical-table-right-now attempts at humor and conversation.

As we tend to do, Bradley got quiet and I stayed busy. Finding the lactation office, getting a pumping kit, hunting down a room with a door to just stand, thunderstruck, and fight back tears. I just knew that if I let the waterworks begin, I'd be useless to Mary Brooks and everyone else. I fought hard.

When I left that small lactation room, the only private spot in the hospital for parents who have just kissed their babies goodbye with a moment's notice, we ran smack into two precious friends coming to deliver their son.

That bright spot - the hugs, the excitement, the mutual promises of prayer - was God carrying me through. I saw it in so many ways that Monday and in every hour since.

I'm getting long-winded and ahead of myself here. See why I'm dividing this up? Feel free to read or not read as you see fit, but know that your prayers and love are a huge part of why we're still here, still functioning. The food, the calls, the support.

I'll write more about the surgery, the longest eight days of our life, and how we have learned more about compassion, love and community than we knew in our decades on Earth before this.

The happy end of the story is this: our Mary Brooks is home and well. We four are back under one roof and, although we're still walking through some challenges, we are more grateful than you know to face them in our own home.

Thank you for letting me clog this space with my rambling, ridiculously incoherent thoughts. I haven't allowed myself much time to work through them until now, just typing this out. I look forward to making sense of it all.

They took great care of us, but a terrible day at home still beats the best day in here.

"Let all that I am praise the LORD;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!"
Psalm 103:2-5

In the Tunnel

Have you ever read something that put a lump in your throat immediately, that spoke to just what you were needing to hear? I just had one of those moments. Someone on Facebook posted a link that has changed my day.

The truth is, I'm in a tunnel. The last three weeks have been some of the hardest I've had as a parent.

Newborn exhaustion I understand. I seek to encourage friends with small babies - bring meals, send notes, write long emails answering questions about nursing and schedules and taking care of yourself amidst the very steep learning curve of those early weeks.

A month ago, I would have told you we'd hit a great stride as parents. We knew Mac well, we understood his needs, we had a successful routine and when we hit a roadblock, we figured out a way around it. Gold stars all around!

I suppose pride always comes before a fall, and the last three weeks have been a disastrous tumble. Mac, my sweet sleeper, has screamed through naptime eight of his last ten tries. He's not a child who can do without sleep, much like his mama, and has taken to screeching, "Mama where are you RIGHT NOW?" while I wonder exactly how miserable he'll be the rest of the day without his much-needed rest.

And "rest" is not what he's getting. He won't read, settle or even sit down for the duration. It's torture. We NEED that sleep - but more than anything I need not to hear and see my child so unhappy.

There's a lot being neglected in the meantime: work, the house, the Y, carefree chit-chat with friends, non-essential activities, a long to do list and, worst of all, my mental health.

Mix in Mac's birthday double ear infection, recovering from hand/foot/mouth, currently cutting four incisors and two school "holidays" and you'll find a schedule that's unrecognizable and a household that could use a serious do-over for the whole month so far.

Mac, ever the overachiever, has taken a flying leap into two-year-old behavior; our days must be two-thirds discipline and one-thirds waiting for discipline. I feel for him, as this must be difficult for him to understand, and I unabashedly feel for myself as we navigate new, pretty darn murky waters. Where did our obedient little guy go?

As many challenges have come these last few weeks, there have been just as many sweet moments. Fleeting moments, sure, but they give me a flash of the Mac I'm used to and it's a comfort. I remind myself that this is just a phase - because it is. (Right? Please!)

It's my job to be consistent, calm and loving to Mac in every season of his life. I can't expect him to work through unexpected emotions and make good decisions no matter his impulses unless I do the same. But this is tougher than I anticipated.

Hand me a breastfeeding problem, a baby with reflux, a nighttime routine in need of reshaping or a "when to start cereal?" question and I'm prepared(-ish). These new issues, though, have thrown me into a tailspin - and have me making the ultimate rookie mistake: feeling like there's no end in sight.

Just as I felt as a new mom, when I presumed "this" must just be what parenthood is, I can't see the bigger picture right now. I'm too entrenched in the "getting through" part to realize how quickly this stage, like every other, will pass.

This morning someone gave a name to my season: the Tunnel. The power of naming something can't be overstated; it's the very idea that someone else has been where you are, that it's real, that you aren't alone, that you're not crazy.

In addition to naming it, this post reminded me how different parenthood looks from just a few years away. I can already feel how swiftly the calendar is flipping past; we're nearly done with 2011 and I can barely believe we're past Easter. But that kind of perspective and reassurance from a mom who's been there, several times over in fact, is invaluable.

If you're a mom who's in the Tunnel of the first five years, when physical and emotional needs change constantly and you're wondering if the Lord has entrusted your sweet munchkins with a mother capable enough to cope, let me point you in this direction.

If you have a newborn and you want your hand held and your eyelids propped open, please call me. I'd love to encourage you.

If you've been squarely in the toddler tunnel, bouncing between gratitude for a healthy boy and a growing baby on the way and sheer panic about this is all going to work out, feel free to impart your wisdom on me. Or just excuse the circles under my eyes and four crumbled up Kleenexes in my hand at all times.

Wherever you are, "they" say every stage just gets better. I believe that, I do. I see the developments and I hear the new phrases every hour. I wouldn't go backwards for the world, but I'd sure love a little sunshine in our rainy week.

If you need some too, let a blogger who isn't throwing herself a pity party this mom encourage you today.

The good news: the Tunnel doesn't last forever. The bittersweet part: we'll miss being needed this much when it's all over. But that's another issue for another day.

Honorable mention: This post, for the "weary mother," has stuck with me all week. No matter what I'm facing, I'm reminded it's an act of worship to let the little children, including my own handsome, sleep-deprived, teething toddler, come to me.

Happy Thursday, friends. Thanks for being there!

*Disclaimer: Despite what might seem like a whine-fest, let me be quite clear that I'm tremendously thankful and in love with our little family. I wouldn't trade my Mac for the world, and I'm grateful for the sweet, silly big brother our baby girl will be getting. I would, however, love to get a brain transplant with a wise, more experienced, totally laidback and fully confident mom. And also I'd like a long nap. But I said I'd stop whining, so let's go back to the lovefest. Wouldn't trade my challenging, wild and utterly adorable little man, currently saying "So-ee, Mama" for a headbutt/nose kiss combo, for all the tea in Charleston. The end.*

An Unexpectedly Fond Farewell

This is only slightly relevant, but it does make me laugh!

In the Smith house, October 5th means more than just birthday cake. It means a transition to whole milk and sippy cups. It means Mac's bottles are put away and my trusty Medela pump, and all of the delightful gear that goes with it, is packed up. It means I have accomplished even more than I set out to do: I breastfed my son for a year.

I don't speak publicly about nursing often, as it's a pretty personal topic and I don't want to be found by keywords that bring out the crazies. (Remember when boys typed 58008 in their calculators and giggled while reading it upside down? Some haven't outgrown that instinct.)

That said, I remember googling "breastfeeding encouragement" at 4am last October. I recall reading and rereading a list of 101 reasons to nurse - it was all that got me through a particularly trying day. I slept with ice packs and heating pads and Advil by my side, scrounging the internet looking for ways to make a go of this nursing thing. I'd love to encourage even one woman who comes across this blog.

Late last summer, when asked, I said I'd try breastfeeding and see how it went - no pressure. If it worked, great. If it didn't, we'd try formula. (But, and I remember this so clearly, I'd never breastfeed "for a full year" or anything. I knew so few women who had done that; it almost seemed odd.)

What I didn't account for in my lackadaisical "we'll see how this goes" attitude is myself; I'm far from laidback when it comes to even the most vague commitments. I put tremendous pressure on myself to make it work in the early weeks, when I hit almost every bump in the book. I couldn't quit unless it was on my terms; I knew my problems were only superficial, not the "my baby isn't getting enough food" or "my body physically can't do this" kind. I felt bound to make this work until I really knew I couldn't anymore.

My first goal was two weeks, which I considered a legitimate try, but I really wanted to make it to six. For a hundred reasons, exhaustion not the least of which, those were some of the most challenging weeks I've ever lived through - but I did survive, and even enjoy the overall experience. Just not every last moment.

There were nights when Mac and I both cried out of frustration. There were prayers said about my inability to do anything right and about, shall we say, my 58008. I laughed with a neighbor that I hadn't prayed about my bust for 15 years, since I wanted desperately just to have one. My neighbor was right - those moments are humbling in the extreme, but they serve to give us perspective, to make us entirely reliant on the Lord and thankful for those who support us.

The early weeks of breastfeeding felt harder than labor because they were a choice. Labor was definite; it was going to happen whether I got on board or not. Breastfeeding was a choice I made eight times a day; it was taxing physically and emotionally.

After I made it to six weeks, a weight lifted and things got much, much easier. I wanted to nurse for the remainder of my maternity leave (12 weeks) and see how things went when I was back in the office.

Had I remained at my full time job, I would not have been able to continue breastfeeding. I was fortunate to have a "mothers' room" on site, but pumping four times a day was not working out well for me; I dipped into my frozen stash more than I liked. I might have made it to my (big, shiny, overall, please let me get there!) six month goal if I'd stayed at my job, but it would have been a stretch.

After reaching that "far off but finally here" six month mark in April, I really did commit to see how it goes. We'd stop nursing when it stopped working for us. It never did, especially when I thought of the money I was saving, of the ease, benefits and convenience for both me and Mac.

Being home with Mac more made breastfeeding much easier than the ordeal it felt like at the start. The irony is that once you're more rested, once the baby sleeps longer and you know him more and understand more about nursing, he starts eating less often. And you start feeling more sane, a funny side effect of longer stretches of sleep.

Once those stars align, it's all downhill. Meals take less time. You fumble less and succeed without nearly as much effort. You feel more confident and prepared and know what to expect. The beginning is a perfect storm of exhaustion, hormones, ignorance, confusion and panic. Once I pushed through the rough start we had, though, things got easier. Enjoyable, even.

Many react with surprise when they find out Mac has nursed this first year of his life. Truth be told, I'm surprised, too. Surprised that our difficulties last fall went away. Surprised that I chose to do something for a full year that caused me moments of heartache and discomfort early on; I'm a person who tends to run from such things. Most of all, I'm surprised at how sad I am to see this part of my life come to a close.

We're phasing out nursing times and praying that Mac learns to drink from, not just chew on, sippy cups. By his first birthday, we will be done with breastfeeding.

Mac nurses less in a week now than he did each day of his early months. (Eight times a day x mom and baby who are new at breast feeding = a lot of time getting the hang of things. In his twelfth month, Mac's three mom-based meals a day totaled less than 30 minutes daily.)

Many days, mealtimes are the only moments I get to hold a still, silent Mac, when he's not pushing off to get something he wants. They're fleeting, sweet times - and they're almost over.

I know some women choose to nurse past twelve months, but for us now is the time to wean. It's the start of a new chapter and the end of a bittersweet one.

It's another milestone in a wonderful year. Eleven months ago you could have knocked me over with a feather to hear that I'd be sad to give up what was such a difficult part of motherhood. And yet I am.

If Bradley and I are blessed with another baby one day, my goal (again) would be to nurse for six months. In the beginning, this goal will seem impossible, but I'm armed with experience and hopeful that I can be successful again. I hope I can start with small mini-goals and give myself the time and freedom to truly see what works for us. I know every situation must be different.

For now, I'm trying not to feel nuts for wistfully ending something that has had its ups and downs. How can I miss what was once so hard for me? Maybe that's the magic of motherhood - it's hard to explain, but even the tough stuff can be sweet.