Anniversaries

April is a month with a lot of difficult memories for me. This Sunday, the 17th, would have been Noah's 5th birthday. The 20th is the anniversary of his death and the 22nd is the anniversary of Abigail's birth and death. She would have been 9 years old this year, which is so hard for me to believe. Even though we miss our children more than words can say and still grieve the loss, we like to take time to celebrate the brief time they both spent on earth and the impact they've had on our lives. On Sunday we will get a birthday cake and send some helium balloons into the sky as a tribute to our love for them. We usually like going to the cemetery to visit their graves, but we may have to wait a little while since the weather's not supposed to be very nice this weekend. I prefer to go on a warm, sunny day when I can spend some time cleaning up their graves after the long winter. Every year when these anniversaries roll around I wonder how I'll handle it, but I've found over the years that grief is a weird thing and it usually hits me the hardest when I'm not expecting it. I can pretty much guarantee a meltdown if I choose to get out all the pictures and the mementos of their lives that I have, but I don't always choose to do that. Sometimes I just don't feel like I can handle going there. Even as I think about looking at the pictures I feel myself ready to cry. For years I've thought that someday I will frame at least one picture of each of them to display, but I don't know when I'll be ready to see the pictures on a daily basis. As it is I think it's been at least a year and a half since I've gotten everything out. I know it's healthy to take the time to grieve, but I feel like I've grieved so much that it's o.k. for me to not go there all the time.

I still struggle with a lot of guilt about Noah's death. None of it is logical and I've prayed about it many times, but it's still there. The guilt stems from the fact that I didn't get to spend much time with Noah in the 3 days he was alive. I had to have a c-section and he was taken into the NICU immediately after he was born. I wasn't able to see him until the next morning just as an ambulance had come to transport him to another hospital where he would have his heart surgery. I was only able to spend limited time at the other hospital since I was recovering from my surgery. I had to be at my hospital frequently for the nurses to check my vitals and to get my pain meds. I don't think the hospital handled our situation very well, but at the time I didn't have the strength to advocate for myself. It was horrible having Noah at a different hospital. My heart breaks that I couldn't be with him every moment and I feel horrible that he had to spend a lot of time without his mommy. I just don't seem to know how to get past those feelings.

On a happier note, Libby's doing so well I can hardly believe it! Her language is growing by leaps and bounds and she's physically able to do more and more. She's climbing up and down the stairs constantly and is finally able to get up on chairs without our help. She's getting less reserved about showing her displeasure, which is a good thing since it tells me that she's very comfortable with us. After months of prompting I've started getting unsolicited "thank yous" from her and it's so sweet. She is definitely our little princess and I've come to the conclusion that she's just going to be spoiled. I feel like I can't help but spoil her. Her dad and her brothers are also contributing to that. Jon says if she looks at him the right way he'd give her just about anything she asked for and Gabe can't say no to her either. God has really blown my mind with this whole adoption experience. I didn't realize it would be this wonderful. I can definitely see us taking this journey again. We are open to another adoption if God leads us in that direction. If not, we definitely want to be involved in orphan care on some level.

I feel kind of bad that I haven't mentioned a lot about Gabe and Josiah the last few months. I just feel so blessed to have all my kids. This year has been a huge transition for Gabe. Not only did he get a new sister, but he started public school after 4 years of homeschooling. Public school is going really well for him. He hasn't made any new close friends, but according to both him and his teacher he gets along with everyone. I was really proud at his last parent/teacher conference when his teacher told me that he's very kind to all the kids in his class. I'm hoping that next year he's able to find a good group of kids to hang out with since junior high can be such a difficult time. One of his best friends goes to the same school and I'm hoping maybe they'll be in the same class.

I've really loved only having one child to homeschool this year. Josiah just makes it easy. He never complains and is a hard worker. Yesterday Jon took Libby to school with him so Josiah and I had a special day together. We did school, ran some errands and had Chinese for lunch. We also took the cat in to get spayed and were able to confirm that she is a girl, so we won't have to change her name. I was hoping that her surgery would cause her to mellow out for a few days. She has mellowed out, but she wasn't even home a half hour before she was up on the kitchen table again. I've never seen such a stubborn cat!!