Her Name is Emmanuelle

I feel as though I aged several years in less than one.

About this time last year we had our 2nd positive pregnancy test.  Magnus would be a big brother! We were ecstatic!

After Thanksgiving I started to feel very uneasy and worried that everything was okay with our little one - and in a few more weeks time we discovered everything was not ok.

She would have been born this past summer, instead we buried her on Christmas Day.

I've tried to write this post before, but it never gets finished.  I don't know what to say, but I know I don't want to say nothing.  As though she never lived. Because she did.  And she is now our family's own little saint in heaven, watching over us and interceding for us I have no doubt.

In a moment of peace and clarity, the day before we laid her to rest I wrote to my prayer group:

I would like to put Emma's birthday on the miracle calendar. 12/23/15.  

It is not a miracle that she died, of course, but it is a miracle that she lived,

and God's merciful love and transformation of my heart is miraculously wonderful. 

At first I was so bitter and cold.  I was unable to really enter into Advent (she had passed even though we didn't know it yet)  I tried to think of what an incredibly special thing it is to be carrying life at Advent and Christmas but I could not.  In my heart I did not feel that.  I felt very fearfully that I was not pregnant anymore.  As I waited for the news in the ER with Robyn last week, I told her,  "I just have to know if baby is alive and well or if I am just a tomb."  

Mary bore eternal life in her womb and mine was dead.  I was a tomb. My mind and heart were bitter and dark up to that moment.

But very soon God's mercy covered me and touched me deeply. 

I was still carrying a baby.  Not a live baby but I would see her through birth and bury her. What a gift to be able to be able to do that work of mercy of burying the dead.  My own dear one. 

How bitter that she was lost, but the suffering and death in our world because of sin IS bitter. This is not heaven, and it was good to feel the contrast, and that we do not live for this life. 

But God is with us. He meets us in the midst of the brokenness and offers us life. 

We named our baby Emmanuelle, "God with us"  

He truly has been with us in a deep and unique way.  He has taken my mourning and turned it to rejoicing that I am able to share in the mystery of this death and resurrection.

that our little one is celebrating Christmas in the arms of Jesus and Mary.  

That she is able to intercede for us so powerfully.  

If you didn't see it, Our pregnancy announcement had Magnus in a batman cape, with the caption "Every hero needs a sidekick"  -  it was so bitter knowing she had died and saying to myself "no sidekick for Magnus".

But God has transformed that for me as well.  She IS his sidekick, and can kick ass for him in Heaven in a way she couldn't have on earth.  I worry for him so much, as all moms do, that he will grow up to accept the faith and grow in holiness.  Now in addition to his guardian angel, he has Emma. 

God has expanded my heart through this in a way that nothing else could do.

That peace and surrender hasn't always remained so strong or tangible, but God does see me through.
How do you "bounce back" from losing a child, no matter how small that child may have been?

I guess you never really do.  You grieve. You mourn.  You continue to be and hope and trust, but you can never be the same.  Nor should you.  You have loved and lost in tremendous way.
Your mom heart has enlarged to a new size of empathy and compassion you never knew possible before...

Dear sweet little St. Emmanuelle,  continue to pray for us that we may one day get to hold you and rejoice alongside you before the face of our Lord.

Magnus Man: the light of my life

On October 10th, after 75 hours of induction, Magnus was brought into the outside world.  Born just over 2 weeks early he weighed in at 7lbs 1oz and measured 21 3/4 inches. Not bad, little man. 

In so many ways I loved being pregnant.  Sure it had it's fair share of aches and pains and feeling enormous. And Dear Lord, SO HOT.  But I loved him before I even knew he was a him. Before I even knew for sure that he was there, and every little movement delighted me to feel this little person growing.  I knew him. I treasured him. He was gentle and shy, stopping his movement every time I drew attention to it. 

All through the labor his heart beat stayed strong. I felt like he was such a patient, peaceful, sweet little guy.  And he totally is all of that.  He has been a mellow, pretty easy baby. I think so anyway - he's my only baby so I have no comparison apart from the stories.  

The last three months have flown by, as I treasured the precious moments with him, nursing and cuddling.  Now he is getting such a little personality. Smiling and cooing and playing and learning.  He still is so thoughtful. Observant. And still a little shy - often stopping his play and babble when he realizes he's being watched. He eyes the camera with great suspicion.  

He tends to "mad dog" everyone, but a little less than in the earlier months. Turning on a warm smile as people show him their love and affection.

I mostly kept him away from the CrossFit for his first two months, protective and wary of germs.  We're there almost daily now as I'm returning to working out and coaching again.  He loves to watch me lift and flirt with all the ladies.  The dropping of the barbells and the music don't seem to bother him at all.  I guess their all familiar sounds from his days in the womb. 

It melts my heart to watch him and his daddy together.  Chris had never held a baby until I was 7 or 8 months pregnant.  He was scared of them and wasn't even sure he liked kids. It was like a switch was flipped in him from the moment he heard Magnus' first cries.  He was the first of us to get to bond with Magnus; holding him skin to skin for nearly the first hour as I was stitched up. 

The labor and birth were nothing I had planned, imagined, or prepared for.  At about 34 or 35 weeks along I was diagnosed with cholestasis.  I had a few friends who had had the same.  The standard procedure is induction at 37 weeks due to the risk it poses to the baby.  But somehow it didn't process to me that that would be our fate.  I fully expected to go to full term and I never considered what induction could mean or what it would be like.  One friend had an excruciating experience and another seemed to have had a smooth and uncomplicated one.  Perhaps it's normal or at least my nature to think things would be different for me.  

I had a rude awakening at my 37 week check up when the OB suggested I go in for induction... like asap.  I didn't get it - my bile salt levels hadn't been in the dangerous range to my understanding, the non stress test showed no alarm.  My little guy (I didn't know he was a guy yet) seemed totally fine and content, and he remained that way through the whole induction process. 

I wasn't ready. My body wasn't ready. And no matter what they tried, my cervix just wouldn't dilate. Finally, we resigned to the c-section knowing that we were induced for a reason.  Every day he stayed inside increased the chance that things would go very bad for him. I wanted a natural birth SO badly, and I wasn't able to have anything natural about it. But I wanted a live and healthy baby more. 

I grieved that for a while. If I'm honest, I still do. Bitter that it went the way it did, and angry with the OB that delivered him.  She treated us as some thing to be handled, a job to be done rather than working with my body and considering my desires, misleading us at a point when we were very vulnerable which in some ways I feel led to the section. 

Recovery was rough.  I was readmitted to the hospital a few weeks postpartum as an infection developed and my recovery declined.  This was after great worry over Magnus and his readmission to the hospital for jaundice. It was a rough start that way and so wrenching on this new mama's heart. 

My sincerest consolation in all of it was how well he nursed.  I guarded that bond fiercely, fearful those complications threaten it.  

Needless to say those first few months had their fair share of trials.  I'm so grateful both Chris and my parents were able to be with us to help.  Running our own CrossFit, Chris didn't  have the luxury of taking any time off.  As I was sleep deprived and consumed with learning to care for our son, he was working 16 hr days at the box. We both have been exhausted for months, but having Magnus makes all the rest bearable - we're adjusting to our new normal as a family. It really feels real now. We're a family.  

I have admired so many moms I know. In awe of their super powers.  I'm still waiting for mine to show up and it occurs to me that maybe those super powers don't come infused with the job. Rather they are grown and born of love.  They come with the hours of work that are poured out. 

This life has been a huge transition.  The past year and a half has been a huge transition. My fitness is nothing that it used to be. I often miss that discipline, and I'm working to bring it back. I miss feeling strong and free. But again, sometimes you have to lay aside one good thing for another for a season. 

To be a wife and a mom is truly all I ever wanted. It's what I've longed and waited for the past 15 yrs at least. I wanted to find my joy and purpose in pouring out my life in love for my husband and children.  While that hope was unfulfilled for so long I turned to loving my single life and the freedom and possibility it afforded.  I haven't found that same feeling in marriage, but I've found my vocation. I'm learning to put myself aside. But trying to find the balance every day in still caring for myself.  Not losing myself in giving myself.  There's quite a difference after all. 

It's not easy, but it's so worth it. 

I have never loved so much, and though it's not always easy, I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Thank you, Magnus man, for making me a mom.  Thank you for the joy you bring. You are our life, and it's never been more precious. 

Becoming Mommy....

About 6 weeks ago, we had the most wonderful news!
Positive pregnancy test, signaling that indeed life was present and growing in my belly.
As always, so many feelings... awe, wonder, immense gratitude, disbelief, a little fear, and a little disappointment at the timing for entirely material and physical reasons, but also so much the deep fulfillment of hope.

We weren't "trying" but we were always open.  We knew OUR ideal plans, but also knew that when God wants a baby God will have a baby, and we rest in the peace of knowing who is really in charge of our lives.

We're growing a family!  On two levels really.  We have just opened a CrossFit gym, which is really a topic for another post, but it's been a labor of love pouring all our resources: time, talent, and treasure, into building something new.  It's beautiful and we are so grateful!

And behind the scenes of all that, I've been growing a tiny human.  Which is also a labor of love in a quiet way (quiet ONLY in the sense that social media has not been informed, but husband hears about daily)... with nausea and outright exhaustion and so much of the rest that goes along with the bliss of the first trimester.

But there's something else. There's something else apart from all those physical things that I've noticed. From the moment I sensed there was a life there, before it was possible to know for sure.  There was something.
Maybe you know this thing???
The down right gripping fear, which fights within me to be given credence, that something may be wrong. That something will go wrong. And it is utterly and completely out of my control.

I knew from the first moments that I have a baby. I rebelled within myself against the idea that I should wait to share this until I was "past the risky 1st trimester" - as if it's not real unless baby makes it that far.  And so we shared with friends and family.  And I talked to baby and welcomed baby and did my best to bond with baby even though I have no guarantee we'll make it through to delivery.

Geez, Kath. Why so serious? Why so negative?  I don't know. I don't mean to be. But I really did fear that we would have trouble conceiving.  Only in the corner of my heart, but I expected it. Because so many I know suffer this waiting and hoping and not realizing. And my hormones ARE sort of weird.
So then there was a hope, and knowledge, a thought that there really was a baby there... not yet even implanted. And I prayed she would stay.  I invited her to stay.  And almost every day I do the same.

And something else. It's an entirely new sort of waiting and hoping and trusting beyond my fears and worrying.  A new sort of daily sacrifice of surrender... that is heart wrenching.  I think it's the stuff of mom making.

I think it's the beginning of my heart being stretched and grown to love in an entirely new capacity.  It's the growing of a new vocation... the one I always dreamed of... wife and mom. pouring out my heart and life in love for my family. and in that, finding my path to holiness.

And so no matter whether this baby grows to live with us, or goes to live with God.  She is real, she is loved.  All will be well.


PS. I do not know that it's a girl. It's probably a boy.  I just hate the He/She, Him/Her qualifiers :)