Happy Birthday

I promised I would post some pictures of how we celebrated Faith's birthday. Despite the sadness, yes - we celebrate her birthday. When we received the diagnosis of Trisomy 18, we did not know if Faith would even be born alive, so getting three days felt like a miracle to us.

My parents offered to be here for her actual birthday, but Jamie and I did not know how we wanted to handle that day, so we asked them to come the following weekend and remember Faith with us then. We spent that morning with our family and close friends having brunch at our house. I have to share the peach pie that my mother-in-law made for the day.

I do love my mother-in-law. She has been truly amazing through all of this...if she doesn't know what to do or say, she simply says, "I don't know what to do, but I love you both." I cannot tell you how refreshing that is. Sometimes in-laws get a bad rap, but I have to say I've been pretty lucky. The peach pie is evidence of this, as far as I'm concerned.

We had so many people that remembered Faith's birthday...again, I was touched by so many of you. We got phone calls and text messages and cards from everyone that truly mattered. It made my heart sing to know that we were not the only ones who remembered her on that day. To have our friends and family show up to celebrate her with us meant a great deal to us - more than I can say.

We left our house and went to the Angel Statue, where there is a brick laid in Faith's memory (you can see it on the side of the page.) Our friends bought it for us when I got back to work last fall...again, we have amazing people in our life. The Angel Statue is there for bereaved parents who have lost a child...there are over 100 in the country in various parks. In each, you can have a brick laid in memory of your child. We can see her name in print there, we can feel close to her there. So, that is where we went with our closest family and friends. As is the tradition, we laid white flowers on the angel statue. Then we did a balloon release...kinda. It was incredibly hot and even though the balloons were filled with helium, they needed some "encouragement" to fly away. Most eventually made it out of the park, but it took a little effort. We have some different ideas for years in the future that may prove more successful. Nonetheless, everyone let a balloon go in memory of Faith - and some of my favorite pictures are below:

The thing I enjoyed the most from the day was watching our nieces and nephews and our friend's children chase down the balloons that were stuck. Most of them are so young, that we simply tell them that Faith is in heaven and they are sending her a balloon to Heaven. I watch them now and sincerely hope that Faith is someone that they know in their life, even if all they know is her spirit.

So, happy birthday to my dear girl...may your birthdays in Heaven be glorious and filled with joy.

Erica

A Full Plate

So, school has begun. Faith's birthday has passed. Her angel day has come and gone. And life marches on.

The title of my blog today reflects my feelings - about everything, lately. It is also a reference that only my dearest teaching friends will truly understand. : ) As I was saying...my plate is full.

Today I sat through a meeting about insurance costs...ugh. I won't bore you with the hideously cost-prohibitive details, but needless to say I will definitely need the insurance soon because it's going to give me an ulcer paying for it. Enough said.

It is difficult to explain to someone what this life is like. This life where my life doesn't actually feel like MY life...if I could tell you how many times a day I think, "I can't believe this is my life..." I was talking about Jamie's cancer this afternoon (the lovely and expensive pre-existing condition that it is) with the insurance lady and when I said he'd been cancer free for nearly five years, my dear friend sitting with me said, "Wow...it's been that long?" Yes, it has...five years, almost, since we heard those dreaded words: "You have cancer."

Jamie was 28 years old when he was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer - a disease that occurs 90% of the time in people over the age of 50. He was 28. Yes, you read that correctly - 28. It was not a typo. No family history - just a fluke of nature. Kind of like Trisomy 18...no rhyme or reason or cause...just a fluke of nature. We're getting really tired of hitting these odds in this life. We can't hit the Mega Millions or the Powerball, but give us crappy odds and we'll hit them every time. Without fail. Every. Single. Time. Can I tell you how little, "Well, the odds are against it..." mean to us? Really....

I have thought a lot of Faith recently, for obvious reasons. Her birthday was August 14. She would have turned 1 year old. We should have been planning how to cram too many people into our tiny house and taking pictures of her frosting-covered fingers and hair. Instead, we visited her grave that Saturday. And we went out to dinner that night - just Jamie and I. And as we sat there waiting for our dinner to be delivered to our table, the staff broke out in "Happy Birthday" - at the table directly next to ours. Jamie and I shared a wry smile - because to us, clearly, the angels were singing Happy Birthday to our sweet girl. We left dinner and went to Marc and Sarah's house and shared the apple pie I'd made for Faith's birthday. And we ate pink cupcakes that Mason and Sarah made for her birthday. So, while I didn't get any pictures of Faith eating her birthday cake, I did get pictures of Mason eating cupcakes for her. With Sarah's permission, here are a few pictures...

I hope to post some pictures soon of our family celebration and balloon release that we shared just last weekend. My plate's a little full right now, though, so you will have to wait a few more days!

Erica

Countdown

It is almost the end of July. I got the "Wyland Letter" in the mail yesterday...the signal that school really is going to start again soon. It's the letter that welcomes the staff back for the start of the new year and tells us when and where we have to show up. It actually included a couple of nice surprises; 1) late start on the two teacher days - I don't have to show up to work until 9:30 (insert cheer here!) It will be the only time until next June. 2) Lots of teacher time in our classroom and a cancelled annual "rah, rah" meeting that no one really appreciates. That is a positive side of budget cuts, I guess. : ) The letter spurred me into action - something I have definitely been lacking this summer. I actually pulled out the "school stuff" that I haven't touched since I brought it home in June. Plowed through it, started working on a website for my classroom and began to try and think about going back. Next week I'll actually have to show my face in the building and begin trying to put my room together for the year. Next week I'll have to face change again...Kathleen really, truly won't be there. She'll be in another building. Yes, she'll still be my friend, but she won't be down the hall and that's a tough thing to absorb. So for most of the time since we got that bit of news I've kind of been living in denial. I'll have to face it soon enough. Like many things in my life...

Faith's birthday is in a few weeks. August 14 will mark the day we should be planning for a birthday cake and too many pictures and grandparents arriving and stuffing too many people into our house for a first birthday party. Instead, Jamie and I are struggling to figure out how to celebrate a day that feels rather hollow. We will likely go visit her grave; maybe we'll release some balloons. I'm working on a photo book that I hope to have finished for us by then. I know it's not what we always envisioned, but it's what we have. I might make a pie. Neither Jamie or I are big cake eaters, but I want us to do something that will become a tradition to mark Faith's birthday. We'd eat an apple pie...

Life is not what I thought it would be. I have lived an incredibly blessed life, for the most part. I have my family, including my two 86-year old grandparents that live 15 minutes away. I have a husband that I love dearly (even when it's difficult) and who loves me and adores me. I am healthy and have friends that are the definition of incredible. I love my job, as jobs go, and work with a group of people that have made the last year possible. Life may not be turning out how I pictured, but I still think I'm pretty lucky. That says something.

Erica

A week in my life

So, this has been a difficult week. I can hear my mother now, "Why?" And frankly, there is no particular reason. It just has been...a difficult week.

Maybe because we are getting ready to go out of town for the weekend. We are going to Denver for a friend's wedding. And among my friends, Brett is one of the longest-standing relationships I have. I have known him and been friends with him since 1991. Yikes - that's a long time. Almost twenty years. I have known all of his girlfriends and I know many of his secrets. And I definitely have some amazing blackmail pictures. : ) You wouldn't think that planning a trip to see an amazing friend to see a place that I love would cause stress. But for anyone that's walked this path, well, you know...and for those that don't know - I hope you never know. Anxiety comes as part of the "normal" life I have now. See, I started packing and getting ready to go out of town this week, and this is how it went...

1) I immediately thought, "We were supposed to be going to Denver this weekend with a 10-month old in tow...finding good friends to baby-sit; complaining about how to have a 10-month old in tow on this trip." Instead, it's just us.
2) That led to a few-too-many glasses of wine and watching a DVD of our beautiful baby...and a lot of tears.
3) That led to "I want to visit Faith." So yesteray, we took a drive to Vandalia and visited Faith's grave...and J.R.'s grave...and Grandma Mable's grave...and Uncle Earl's grave. The Largents are all buried near each other. So, we took flowers and spread them out. We also visited the Carlson's grave...the parents of a friend that I admire greatly, who coincidentally is buried just a few short steps from Faith and the rest of the Largent clan.
4) Now, I'm recovering. I'm packing a couple of suitcases, checking us in online, and writing this. I just read a new blog...from a woman who goes by Gitzen Girl. (http://gitzengirl.blogspot.com/p/contact-me.html ) (By the way - I can't figure out how to shorten this, so here it is.)
She lives with an autoimmune disease that leaves her homebound, living in physical pain more often than not. Yet, from her writing, it is clear that she has chosen JOY. I read one of her more recent posts, coming just after her father unexpectedly passed away. Healthy as a horse, he had an unknown anaphylactic shock to an insect sting...and died. She writes about what "should" be...and how, essentially, we are given no guarantees in this life.

It touched me.

Though we do not know each other's stories, we are both living lives we never envisioned. This is not the life I thought I'd be living at the age of 33. Or at any age, for that matter. No one "should" ever have to live this...but when people look at us and tell us, "I don't know how you have survived," I guess it's because we've chosen to. With intention. We do not know what tomorrow will bring...and because of that I know that we have made the decision to live life now - right now. So - we do what we can to find joy in the moments we are given. Because we don't know if we will get anymore moments. That's not to say life isn't hard and we don't have sad moments full of sorrow. We do. It simply means that we aren't going to let sorrow and sadness lead us - we are choosing, instead, to have hope. And we are going to let that lead us.

Erica

Summer

Summer is half over - which is very hard to believe. I've done virtually nothing to get ready for the school year - which isn't so hard to believe. I know that the time will come to do that, but right now, I'm enjoying the time off. In fact, I've decided that if we win the lottery, I could definitely enjoy that life. I would, of course, have to find some way to be a little more productive, but I would manage.

July has been a bit difficult. It is the month when everything changed last year - the beginning of the roller coaster that our life has become. Last year, on July 7 (our anniversary), we went in for a follow-up ultrasound, knowing some things were wrong. I had sensed from the beginning of the pregnancy that something was "off," but I was a first-time mom and had nothing to compare it to, so I just wrote it off as that. So, we sat with the perinatologist as we looked at our baby on the screen and he said, "I see a hole in the baby's heart. I want you to see a pediatric cardiologist to confirm it." I laid on the ultrasound table and proceeded to burst into tears. We were shuffled to the cardiologist's office, who confirmed that our baby had a ventricular septal defect (VSD) and went through all it could mean. Then we shuffled back to talk to a genetic counselor who recommended an amnio, which we set up for the next day. We went home and cried and prayed our baby didn't have Down's Syndrome, the likely problem all the doctors thought we could be dealing with. We decided that July 7, 2009 will be the worst anniversary we ever have.

July 8 we had an amnio. Jamie sat and held my hand and the doctor told us, "If you come back positive for a chromosomal abnormality, you will be the first I've ever seen that has that and had normal bloodwork." We left that day with a little bit of hope. I'm pretty sure that we're written up in some medical journal somewhere.

July 9 is my birthday, and last year I went to work and had a normal day trying to wait out the longest days of my life.

July 10 I went to work again. I came home from work and had barely walked in the house when our phone rang. Jamie was working at a friend's house about 40 minutes away. The genetic counselor said, "It's postivie for Trisomy 18." I literally fell to my couch as she asked if we knew anything about it. I told her, "We've been told babies with it don't survive." She said, "Yes. That is usually the case. I am so sorry." I fell apart and I think I hung up on her. Then I paced my living room, hysterically trying to figure out what to do next. I called Jamie and simply told him I needed him to come home - right now. Which, of course, he did - knowing something was wrong. And then I called my poor parents, who live six hours away in Ohio. I didn't want to tell anyone before I told Jamie, so I called them. Catatonic, hysterical, barely able to speak, my dad answered the phone, got my mom - he called my best friend, Sarah, that lives a few miles away. She swooped up their 2-year old and was in my house in a matter of moments. Together, we cried and cried and she simply held me in her lap until Jamie got home. And then I told him.

We made a few phone calls - to Jamie's parents and older sister, all of whom arrived to spend the evening with us. My parents dropped everything and drove into town, where they stayed for the next week. Mom went to the doctor with us the next time to discuss what happened next.

July was not a fun month for us last year. This year, our anniversary was better. We spent it floating the Jacks Fork river in southern Missouri with family and actually enjoyed ourselves. My thoughts this week have been filled with reliving moments, as I'm sure the next month or so will be. It is not easy to do, but it is what life is about.

Fathers

Jamie's dad...that's always been an interesting phrase. It certainly doesn't seem like it should be, but it is. Let me explain.

Jamie's dad - the man that has raised him, put a roof over his head and been there - is Tom. He's the one that raised Jamie into a man of value and substance. He taught Jamie how to build a house, how to fix a car, how to do just about anything requiring tools. He's the one that was at our wedding. And he was at the hospital with us when Faith was born. He has been an amazing father to Jamie, particularly considering that Jamie (as most children) didn't come with an instruction manual. Jamie and his older sister, Gina, came as part of a "pre-fab family" (Jamie's phrase) when Tom married their mom, Dorothy. See, Jamie's dad - his natural one (hence the confusion), died before Jamie was even born. Long before. About 8 1/2 months before. I write about this today because Jamie's mom pointed out to him yesterday that it was the anniversary of his dad's death. She told him, "Your dad died today."

Of course, when he came home and told me that, it took me a second to realize that they were talking about J.R. - his natural dad. For just a brief second, I did look at Jamie in shock and say, "WHAT?!" I heard "dad" and thought, "Tom." I have learned over the years that context is an important part of interpreting which dad we are talking about! Anyway...

June 26, 1976 - James Richard (J.R.) Largent died. Jamie (yes, James Richard Largent II) was born March 2, 1977 - you do the math. Gina was about 4 years old and remembers snippets of life with J.R. and when he died. I thank God everyday that my mother-in-law had the strength and courage to continue carrying her precious baby when she discoverd that she was pregnant - probably just weeks after her husband was killed. There she was - 20 years old, widowed, a 4-year old to raise, and newly pregnant. Having been pregnant and being married to the love of my life - I cannot imagine how she did that. Except that from my own experience I have learned that in the throes of grief, you just do the next thing. So, I thank my mother-in-law for being stronger than she has ever believed she is. Thanks to her, I have my husband. And because of her, he feels a connection to two fathers - including the one he never knew.

Jamie has relationships with extended family from every side of his family. He is especially close with aunts and uncles from the Largent family - J.R.'s family. He has one cousin that I have seriously mistaken for Jamie in photos because they look so eerily alike. And I have learned about J.R. I have seen photos and see the red hair that Jamie inherited. (Okay, Jamie won't admit he has any red hair, but take one look at his beard.) I look at Jamie with the Largents and it's easy to see whose genes he inherited. At 6'3" Jamie isn't even the tallest of the Largent cousins. I look at Gina's children and see how strong that Largent gene is. I even look at pictures of our precious Faith and can see in her features pieces of her dad. I am constantly amazed at the connection that Jamie has with a father he never knew.

Jamie has talked over the years about J.R.'s presence in his life. How he knew his dad was watching over him because it's the only explanation he has for escaping serious trouble or harm over the years. All of this has become more important to me since Faith was born. We have struggled a bit with how to include her in our life and how to include her as the "big sister" when we have more children. Jamie has demonstrated that clearly a physical presence isn't necessary to feel connected to someone that is a part of you. I have learned a lot from a relationship that doesn't actually physically exist. I have my husband to thank for that. And I have an amazing mother-in-law to thank. She has not had an easy way in this life, but she is an incredible person who has never stopped fighting her demons, determined to beat them back into submission each and every time. Maybe I don't tell her enough, but I admire her tenacity and her strength.

I also have to thank Jamie's dad for these lessons. Not J.R. - but the father I wrote about first. Tom. Without Tom, Jamie's life would have been very different. Don't get me wrong - the relationsip Jamie has with his parents is very different now than it was when he was growing up. Jamie wasn't easy and Tom came in to a situation he was unprepared for, taking on the job of dad to two young children with no instruction manual, no training. He just loved Dorothy and Gina and Jamie came with the deal, so he did an amazing thing. Despite the struggles over the years, he figured it out. And he is every bit a father to Jamie and Gina, no matter what biology says. Jamie's admiration and respect for his dad is immense. So, when Jamie talks about his dad, I usually have to pause to get the context and figure out which dad we're talking about. But no matter who the discussion is about, I know that he is talking about a man he loves and admires.

I know I haven't blogged in awhile - mostly because I know that no one is actually reading this yet! But, maybe one day.

School is out for the summer! And, for the first time in five years, I am not teaching summer school. What a nice break! : ) Though I'd like to say I've been all sorts of productive, that would be a lie. What have I done this summer?

1) Cleaned the house and mopped the kitchen floor. Sounds small, but it feels good to have a clean house.

2) Read. Finished The Girl Who Played with Fire. Currently working on The Lace Reader and The Battle of the Labyrinth.

3) Cross-stiched my fingers to the bone for a secret project. Sshh....

4) Met my sister in Chicago for a sister weekend.

5) Went to Montauk State Park with my husband and Josh (Jamie's cousin) for a trout fishing trip. Josh was far more successful than Jamie and I were!

6) Planned our trip to Denver.

So, haven't done much, but I'm enjoying myself. I'm loving the fact that I have no schedule and can do pretty much whatever I want, whenver I want. To add icing to the cake, Jamie has finally gotten back to work! In just a few weeks, he has made as much as I would have made teaching summer school, so it has worked out quite well. We have officially paid off the second mortgage on the house that had a piddly amount sitting on a low-interest credit card! That is an awesome feeling...we have one measley credit card left to pay off and...voila! We will owe no one for anything except the house and the car! Who can say that? After a lot of hardship, we are beginning to feel like maybe we are turning a corner. Maybe, just maybe, there is hope on the horizon after all.