This narrative is getting tired-- I'm  tired of it. I've been trying to wait it out, sure no one wants to read about it just as I don't want to write about it. I'm tired of answering questions about how I've been with words like "actually..." or "struggling" or "everything would be fine IF." I think most people are sincere when they ask. But I see their eyes cloud over when I answer. It's not what they wanted to hear. Maybe they're tired of it-- I wouldn't blame them. Maybe they feel helpless. I get that too. "Let me know if you need anything," they tell me. And I think I don't even know what to say. 

These weeks have been heavy, haven't they? There are real, seemingly unsolvable, gut-wrenching problems in the world. Of course I know that this is not that. I'll tell you what I tell them: Everything is fine. Everyone is fine-- more than fine. See that gorgeous boy over there? He is thriving. He brings us joy every time we look at him. We have what we need and then some and we are so grateful. But I am not fine and the thing I need the most no one can give me. 

I'm being dramatic, right? Seven sleepless months will do that to you, I suppose. I need that blessed baby to sleep. I need assurance that nothing else is wrong with him. I need patience and stamina to deal with the middle of the night standing, the swaying, the singing of the same tired choruses, the frustration when I put him down only for him to sit up crying, making me start all over, the desperation over my inability to fall asleep since I don't know how long it will be before he cries again.

I need more than that, too, I guess. I need prayer. I need, as Moses did, someone to hold up my arms. I'm feeling weak; my spirit and back and hips and wrists ache. There are a handful of hymns and praise choruses I have sung to Deacon from the beginning that have calmed him and me. But my heart is weary and the words feel empty. I can't bring my lips to utter them with any conviction lately; I sing Dave Matthews (#41, in case you're curious) instead. I halfheartedly hum "You Are My Sunshine" to this child whom I love with my whole heart.

I am tired of being needy, but thankful for all we've been given: For my in-laws who have doted on my daughters in my absence (perceived and actual), who made it okay for me to take the baby and join Daniel on his work trip to the beach where I still didn't sleep but where I wandered and fussed over only one child and put my toes in the sand and spent precious moments in my most favorite place with my favorite person. For the stranger who held my baby while I ate my dinner (yep, I handed him off to a stranger) at the beach, who acknowledged and embodied the sisterhood of the mothers of littles (much to Daniel's shock). For the text from a new friend to check in, the hand across the table of another who told me it's okay not to be okay, it's normal to feel the way I do; it will pass. For the doctor who asked earnestly if lack of sleep is really all that's going on (I really do believe it is, but was so touched by his concern), for my dearest friend who called and sung the words to the song of my heart back to me. I needed it all.

Because this is not all there is. I am more than the sleep-deprived shell I've been feeling like. These small acts of love help me to feel seen; they remind me I really am doing the best I can as a friend and wife and mother, even though it's not enough. I I need to hear that those who love me will forgive me my ample shortcomings of late, and that no one will be worse for wear when it's over (because really, truly, one day it will be over). I need to hear that the frustration is understandable; that it doesn't negate any of the tremendous joy that is also part of my every day. 

I'm ready to recognize the girl in the mirror. I'm having trouble seeing past the baby that is always in her arms, the circles under her bloodshot eyes, the flatness in her voice. I know she is a caring daughter and sister and a generous friend. I know she is a selfless and loving mother who delights in her children. I know she loves her husband fiercely. And I pray that those around me can hold on just a little longer, since my actions don't match those things I know, and since my new friends haven't known me long enough to see me any other way.

My prayers, once so gentle and earnest, then pleading and urgent, now sound hollow. It seems I feel them bounce off the ceiling and shatter against the nursery floor where I kneel. And yet I know that not to be true. I know I am to be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and petition present my requests to God (Philippians 4:6). I know that when I ask anything according to his will, he hears me (1 John 5:14). I know he will withhold no good thing from those who love him (Psalm 84:11); I know I can trust him with my cares because he cares for me (1 Peter 5:7). Even in the exhausted moments when I feel forgotten, I know God will strengthen and help me; I know he will uphold me with his righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10). Months ago I promised our daughters chocolate cake for breakfast the first night Deacon slept through the night. Dutifully those girls have prayed each day for sleep for us all.

I go through the motions with my body while my spirit longs for rest. I cling to these things I know when my heart can't feel them. One day I will sleep, and those sweet girls will get their chocolate cake.

There is about to be a newborn in our house. There’s already a crib, below a welcome bunting. There have already been tiny socks washed, cooed over, matched and put away. Our freezer becomes more crowded by the day and requires an inventory spreadsheet. There is a bassinet by my bed and my belly is so big that even I am a bit astounded every time I catch my reflection. 

There has been a lot of discussion with our girls about what it will be like. It will be exciting. It will be loud. It will be different. It will be messy. It will not always feel the way it does at first. It might not always feel good. It might feel a little lonely and strange. Both girls pinkie promised me at lunch today that they would tell me or their daddy if they started feeling “outside the circle” or forgotten, instead of holding those feelings inside or hurting another because of them. 

Lately we’ve talked a lot about gentleness. The sweet sisters who fill my days aren’t always sweet to each other. We’ve been working through a lot of yelling. I’ve been reminding, prodding and nagging about kind words and gentle tones with varying degrees of success and with varying levels of patience and gentleness of my own. 

We talk about having patience with our new baby, empathy at how strange it will be for him for everything to be so new. We talk about touching him gently, loving him gently. We talk about having patience and grace for each other as we will all be enduring changes.

The house we’re still settling into is the second youngest we’ve lived in as a family. The first was around 150 years old, the second 130. This one, at 35, is a mere babe in comparison.  One family occupied it for 32 of those years and took impeccable care of it. We laugh at some of the relics that clearly date back to the beginning, but there is nary a burn mark or slice on the original Formica in the kitchen. The trim throughout the entire house may be dark wood, but it’s nearly perfect, not scratched or dinged. In 35 years. The people who came before us were not impatient. They were not careless. They lived gently.

I can’t say the same about us. Gentleness, like so many of the fruits of the Spirit we talk so much about, is something we aspire to, not at all a destination we’ve reached. None of us. Least of all me. I cringe at the irony of my booming voice telling my children to speak to each other with kindness and gentleness. I shudder at the ridiculousness of my attempts to slow their clumsy feet while I carelessly ram a vacuum cleaner into corner trim that had, somehow, been unblemished until my arrival.

The truth is, we are not gentle people. Emerie went to bed in her favorite shirt tonight, a pink t-shirt with pink script from A Midsummer Night's Dream given her with love by my dad; “And though she be but little," it rightly states, "she is fierce.”

So, my sweet little boy for whom we have waited and prayed, we can hardly wait to meet you. We will love you always, but I can’t promise you will always feel it. I have cherished you since I knew you were coming, but I can’t say I will remember that in every trying moment. 

We are loud, and a little rough. We will hurt your feelings. We will be careless with our words. We will forget to be kind. We may not always remember to put each other first. 

There may be moments we don’t focus on the beautiful blessing it is just to have you. We will not always embody the principles we so desperately cling to. 

But we are working on it. We are trying. We are learning to apologize, to extend grace and forgiveness like breathing in and out. We will make a lot of mistakes. Life with us will be messy, and there will be times it all feels like a little too much.

We will not always be gentle. We will hug you too tight. I will beg you not to grow up. I will cry over you for reasons you and your sisters may never understand. 

But you will always have a place with us; you will always belong. We will love you fiercely, and we will accept you without condition. Always. 

“If dreams are like movies,
then memories are films about ghosts.”
                                        -- Counting Crows

Like Adam Duritz, sometimes I think with faint sadness of ghosts from the past. Those people  whose names conjure warmth or laughter or stories, those people I wish I still knew so they could know my husband, my children, my older self. They are people whose season in my life has passed, and mostly I am accepting of this coming and going.

Yesterday one of my most prominent ghosts said good-bye to his father. Not unexpectedly, but far too soon. And for him, and his wonderful family, I find myself heartbroken.

Though I am cognizant and accepting of seasons and their passing, there are people I used to think I’d always know. People for whom I had assumed I’d always be able to be there. I am struck by this deep sadness and loss, on behalf of others for whom I can do nothing. There is an urge to help, but to them, I am also just a ghost.

My time has passed. I can pray and will continue to. I can offer deepest condolences.  And I can use this untimely passing to inform my outlook today.

Today my little girls and I ditched the to-do list and went adventuring, through thousands of buttercups, strawberry fields, an antique café and ice cream parlor. My oldest played hooky and we wandered, unhurried, through a bright, gorgeous day.  I continue to grieve, vicariously and to no avail. But I am covered by a sense of peace and overwhelming gratitude for this family, for our life together, and for the gift of today.

There is a robin’s nest in one of our trees out back. We’ve been watching the mama gather sticks and hunt for worms, hearing the commotion in the branches. Over the weekend Daniel found a fallen baby, dead in the grass, and silently moved it to a burial place. Today I lifted the girls up to see the remaining babies, which at this point, look more like teenager robins (fledglings, I think they’re called). We could see them waiting to be fed and watched them fluttering their wings, anxious to fly.

Daniel is traveling all week, and I took the girls to Princess and Superhero night at a local fast food chain for dinner tonight. When we got home, just before dusk, we saw one of the still fuzzy-headed robins in the yard hopping around, trying to fly. He could get a couple feet off the ground, and somehow managed to clear our fence, but could not sustain flight.  His mother chirped incessantly from the fence post at him. We followed him and I tried to sneak up on him, tried to gently cradle him. I thought if only I were quiet enough, gentle enough, quick enough, I would be able to return him home.

My girls, still in their princess dresses, followed me around, nervous and excited. Mirabella thought maybe she wouldn’t seem as scary to the baby bird, since she was smaller.  We followed him through four neighbors’ yards, across the street and back several times. We stood back as his mother plucked worms from the ground and watched her feed them to him as he hopped; we watched her try to guide him home. Oblivious, he hopped away.  Mirabella prayed loudly, “Dear God, please help the robin not to be scared, and please help the Mama Robin not to be scared, and please help Mommy help him get back to his home.” As darkness closed in, her prayers became breathless, desperate.

We followed the baby across the street and up to the fence bordering the adjacent neighborhood.  He hopped into some brush and I lost sight of him.  It was nearly dark and Emerie started to cry. Mirabella started to lose hope: “Mommy! You have to save him!”

“I might not be able to, love,” I explained. “Sometimes, in nature, when creatures are small or weak, they cannot survive. I can’t help him if he doesn’t want me to.”

“But he thinks you’re a predator!” she cried, “What if there are real predators! His mama can’t pick him up; she won’t be able to get him back into the nest!” 

I bit my lip as I watched my precious girl crying in her safety-pinned Cinderella dress and cowgirl boots, heart so big and full and wide open it might burst.

“I should have found you a butterfly net! I should have gotten it right away!” She cried. I reminded her that none of this was her fault, even as I silently lamented my inability to squelch my skittishness and snatch that frightened bird when I had several chances.

I managed to get her inside before the real sobbing started. Her sadness was so big, so raw, so real. It hurt me that I couldn’t shield her from it; that I not only couldn’t prevent it, but that I may actually have made it worse.

Though she had already run upstairs to get ready for bed, she skittered down again. “I need to draw a picture right now, so I will never forget,” she wailed. I nodded.

I went about getting Emerie ready for bed, praying about how to handle Mirabella’s sense of loss, her tender heart.

She met me on the landing, eyes swollen from crying, and thrust her picture into my hands and herself into my arms. I cried at her rendering of me, setting the baby free. I marveled over her attention to detail, even in her sadness. I mourned her heartache that I could not fix.

We sat on the steps rocking; I sang her a song I somehow remembered from elementary school about a dying sparrow. I touched her chest and looked into her eyes and told her I was proud of her.

“You have a big, giant, soft and loving heart. You love all people and creatures and you never want to see them hurt or sad or scared. And it’s my favorite thing about you. Sometimes, it means that a lot of things can hurt your big, soft heart. But it makes you so special and wonderful,” I told her.

She fretted over the baby bird; she tried unsuccessfully to think of anything else. She worried its mother wouldn’t be able to help it; that it would be scared and sad and, ultimately, that it would die. She mourned it, and that she couldn’t protect it. I felt the same way.

We read Luke 12:6,“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.” She prayed for the robin’s safety and that she might dream of finding it and helping it get home.

I asked Mirabella if there was anything about this night that she could find to be thankful for. She said she was thankful for being able to see a baby robin so close up. She was thankful the robin family still has two babies to love.

I am thankful to be able to hold and comfort my own babies, safe in our nest for now, even as hurts too big for me to prevent or soothe loom.

It seems I’ve lived a lifetime in the past 10 days.  I’ve felt and processed and hurt and cried and laughed and cherished enough to last me quite some time.

Two days before Thanksgiving, we went to our much-anticipated 9-week prenatal appointment for our much-wanted third baby.   We were hopeful for a good appointment, looking forward to telling our girls, who would tell their grandparents, aunt and uncle, who would arrive later that night.

But it was not to be.

At our ultrasound, we saw the baby, but not the heartbeat.  Though we could see the baby, it was already gone.  I was in disbelief.  I sat on the couch and heard my midwife’s gentle words, saw the tears in her eyes as my own streamed.  She grieved with me. But, like our baby, I wasn’t really there.

The days that followed were a strange mélange of sadness and comfort, food and family, rest and angst. It was not the visit it was supposed to be.  I spent my days in easy chatter or silence with some of my most loved ones, and my nights in tears in my steadfast husband’s arms.  Ever so good in crisis, never afraid of my sadness, even in his.

My accommodating midwife scheduled a follow-up ultrasound to confirm what we already knew.  And by then half a dozen women it feels I’ve only just met were reaching out with kindness—in words, in offers of love and care for my kids, with food.  Daniel has a commitment that’s been scheduled for months that I couldn’t let him miss that has taken his physical self three hours west to Memphis.  The rest of him seems to be somewhere in between.  My dad was able to fly down to be with me and the girls, while family sends prayers and hugs from home, even as they are going through far more dire personal crises of their own.

Moving here, where we knew no one, was so daunting.  When I became pregnant I feared—what if Daniel is away and I need to go to the doctor?  What if I’m too sick to care for my girls well?  Who would I ever call?  And somehow just weeks later, in my tragedy, I am surrounded by love, phone calls, text messages, prayer, and casseroles and chocolate cake on my front porch. 

I spent today at the hospital, being given the most compassionate care I’ve ever had by a large medical team.  Each individual led with kindness, confident it did not diminish his or her professional prowess. I have never seen anything like it.  Everyone from the (free) valet to the admitting team, to the nurses, anesthetists and attending treated me with patience and care. My little girls spent the day playing dress up, having their nails painted and being loved by a new friend in my neighborhood and her sweet children—they were so excited about their day they forgot to kiss me goodbye when I dropped them off.  My friend encouraged me to take my time, take care of myself, and let them stay as long as we needed them to.  My dad the superhero went foraging for organic milk and humanely-raised chicken nuggets and various other sundries that are likely not on his usual list, after spending the day being confused for my husband and communicating steadily with him.  Daniel said, “I wouldn’t have made it through this morning without your dad.”  I reminded him I wouldn’t have either.

Our loss is profound.  We have already been grieving for nearly 10 days. And I’m sure it will continue.  I will never start a sentence about this type of pain with “at least” or say, “everything happens for a reason,” because, frankly, I think that’s a crock.  Whoever said everything happens for a reason?  Can God redeem everything that happens to fulfill a greater purpose?  Absolutely.  Do we always get to know what that purpose is?  Not a chance.  But that doesn’t mean that down here we aren’t subject to some brutal, seemingly random, excruciating stuff that has no apparent redeeming value.

Still, as much as I’ve felt like an emotional hostage during this week of waiting— living some shell of a life— I am grateful for it.  In this week, I allowed my family to care for me, and they really showed up.  I let myself need.  I allowed others to shower me in grace that is so humbling that I’m running out of words to thank my new friends for it. For that matter, I learned I have friends that I can’t wait to return the favor for, should they ever be in need.  I was reminded of how loving and compassionate and accepting that man I married is. This week I really saw my children.  I cherished them, held them close, breathed them in and nuzzled them and marveled over their very existence, their precious selves.   I lived every moment with a raw and bitter pain, and though I had moments of numbness that will likely recur, all the other feelings seemed to get stronger too.

I am sad.  So humbled.  And grateful for love I haven’t earned and never saw coming from just about every side.

Note: If you are a friend or loved one of mine and are finding out this way, I'm sorry.  Please know that writing this was cathartic for me, and, though I am open to sharing details, this is less painful than reliving the story again and again.  I love you all.

For a while I've had this friend.  I'll call her Nikki (because that's her name).   As long as I've known her she's been a mom, and for the first five years or so that I knew her, she was a stay-at-home mom.  When we met, I wasn't married and kids were somewhere ahead of me on the horizon but not yet in view.  I am fairly certain that when we met, I did not ask her any questions that were not about her family.  And then, I'm also fairly certain, I continued to do this for the next five or so years.

Once she decided to go back to work, I felt freedom to ask questions.  We could talk freely.  It occurred to me that the reason I didn't ask her any questions was because I didn't know how.  I didn't know how to say "What did you do before?" without making some sort of implication that she was now doing nothing.  Or that I was focused on the wrong things.  So I asked nothing.  

I felt slightly ashamed, somewhere in the back of my mind, until the prospect of becoming a stay-at-home mother became real to me.  Not long before we left Maryland, I blurted out, "I'm sorry I never asked you any questions. It's about to happen to me, and I know it's going to suck and that it must have for you.  And I'm sorry."  

A woman my mom's age approached me on my last Sunday at our home church in Maryland.  "You have to find a MOPS group," she said.  And also, this:  "You have to come up with an answer for when people ask you what you do.  Other than being a stay-at-home mom.  Because when that's your answer, the conversation stops."   I told her I had a business that I would eventually, hopefully, be spending some time on.  "That's good, go with that."  

Friends, hear me.  I love my children.  I adore being their mother.  I find myself delighting in things I never would have imagined-- in the doing, in the listening, in the witnessing. I do feel I am learning to embrace my role and this time.  I am often honored and humbled. But I've never been keen on my role as mother completely defining me.  Why should I have to stop being all the things I was before?  

Nearly five years into my motherhood journey, I am very aware that I haven't stopped being most of the things I was before. The difference I think, as a stay-at-home mom, is that often no one seems to care.  Either because they thought they knew all they needed to know or because, like me, they didn't know how to phrase it, in the two months since I last worked, no one I've met has asked me any questions that weren't related to my husband or children or non-work-or-college-related past.  

Then I went to MOPS.  Kicking and screaming.  I felt that an organization called Mothers of Preschoolers was bound to corner me farther into the pigeonhole of motherhood.  I thought we would have nothing other than children in common; I thought they would make me decorate cakes (which I have totally done on my own; I don't know why I was so offended by this possibility). And I was wrong.  (Husband?  You reading this? You might want to print it out for future reference.)  

For the first time since coming home, someone asked me what I did before-- they asked everyone.  In that room, with those women, we were all whole people with multidimensional lives.  We were all slightly disoriented, complex people who are also mothers.  I was so grateful to be seen.   I told Daniel all about it on the phone that afternoon, how I'd been wrong, how my hopes were high, how happy I was to have been....acknowledged.  

Then the next day, talking to another mom about our kids, I was asked another question.  

"So your daughter goes to school Tuesdays and Thursdays.  What do you do on the other days?"  

I stammered.  My eyes grew wide.  And I never actually answered the question.    Huh.  Not sure which is worse.

This evening while I put groceries away and cooked dinner, I told the girls they could watch a show. It was Emerie's turn to choose.  "Mickey Mouse!" she exclaimed, referring to the terrible Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  It is one of my very least favorite kid shows.  I have no idea what its appeal is; it makes no sense.   

Mirabella replied, "Mommy, if she chooses Dora or Mickey Mouse or one of those little kid shows, I won't even watch it."  

Not sure when that happened.  It was literally a week ago when they were both clamoring to watch it.  And now it's too "little kid."   Which brings me to a topic I've had occasion to think on a bit lately: The incremental process of letting our kids go.  

I have always dreaded the start of school even though, as a student, I really liked it and haven't had any affiliation with schooling for some time (aside from my halted attempt at post-graduate work pre kids). It occurred to me that this will be the last year we are mostly unaffected by "back to school," since our eldest child goes to preschool just two days per week now.  Still, we had to go shopping for a few items, had to attend parent orientation and a school work day.  It is now not unusual to have a conversation start with, "Hey, are you Mirabella's mom?" 

I feel like just yesterday we were agonizing over her name.  Was it too long?  Would she be able to say it?  And spell it?  Was it too different?  Now she's in a class of 18 that includes a Bella, Anabella, and Ella. There is so much artwork littering our house with 'Mirabella' scrawled across the top that I don't know what to do with it all.  I remember, back then, trying to envision her name on a prescription bottle, on a cubby hole or a nametag, on handmade cards in crayon.  Now it's all here, everywhere I turn, and it came in the blink of an eye.  Which must also mean that, just like that, it will be gone.  

One of the rules at Mirabella's school is that the teachers will not do for a child what that child wants to do for herself. We have been trying to follow that one at home.  Sometimes it's so easy to limit our kids to what they've done before, what's quick or less messy.  But since making an effort, we've been amazed at what Mirabella wants and is capable to do for herself-- especially now that she has us cheering her on. She doesn't need me as much as she did before.  Which is so great.  I love watching her grow and discover.  But sometimes it's sad.  I wasn't really prepared for that. 

We were talking at bath time tonight about  how, until recently, Emerie called shampoo "washpoo."  Mirabella said, "It's kind of sad that she doesn't call it that anymore, isn't it Mama?"  I agreed that it was.  "But it really is great that Emerie is learning how to say so many things the right way." So my preschooler gets it, but to me it's an epiphany.  

Seeing her lanky body, all arms and legs, on her first day of school with her lunch box and "suction-cup sneakers" was strange.  It felt like a fast forward.  I think that looking at her all the time lately.  She is not a little kid, not really.  She's sensitive and thoughtful, serious and smart. She puts together some outrageous outfits. She's imaginative and considerate, emotional and curious.  She's totally her own person.  You can't make her do anything-- regardless of whether she can-- she won't until she's ready.  

When we moved here, I tried to encourage her to practice riding her bike.  She wouldn't hear of it. "Nope, I already told you, Mommy," she'd say, "not until I'm seven."  There was no discussion on the topic that didn't end with that phrase.  Then the girl next door invited her to ride bikes out front.  All of a sudden, though she had cried about it not a day prior, she was riding up and down our (not flat) street.  Last week she asked if she could ride in the road with the older neighbor girls, and I reluctantly agreed.  I watched her ride away as if my heart was on that bike; I watch her introduce herself to a new child, aware that the child may or may not accept her.  Everyone will not be kind, everyone will not recognize the complex beauty that is my daughter the way I do; of course they won't.  And I can't do anything about that. I watch, acutely aware that this pain will return, earlier and with more frequency than I'd thought.  

I know my role is to cherish them, to enable them to grow and to teach them to believe and love and make good decisions.  I know the way all this is supposed to end and that I will have been a failure if they don't want to test their little wings. I know they'll always be my babies. I guess I just thought these happy tears wouldn't be here yet.  I thought I had more time before I'd start racking up the first of 10,000 little good-byes.