Happy mash up

On the day we did our ultrasound, we were able to meet with the same doctor who referred us to the University of Utah hospital after an ultrasound he had performed.  He had recognized that Gideon's problem had gotten very serious, and knew our baby was going to need specialists after delivery.  He also suspected that they would need to deliver him early, to attempt saving his life.  He asked if we minded telling him the "rest" of the story.  He knew from my medical file that we had lost our son, and that we were in a new pregnancy.  In many ways, it was a great segue into the ultrasound of our coming daughter.  Telling him what happened with Gideon, about the warnings we got from the genetic counselors at U of U, hearing his reassurances that, though our chances of seeing this problem were increased as compared with "normal" couples, they were still only 2-3 %, and then experiencing the conclusion--an ultrasound showing a very normally developing daughter, made the experience one full of emotion.  I feel happy and sad, excited and a little bit guilty for being so excited, because I know if Gideon had been healthy, we wouldn't be having this baby, and I hope he knows that we love him just as much, even though he was not a healthy little guy.

I appreciated our doctor and the ultrasound tech who did the initial ultrasound taking extra time to look and measure, to explain every little thing.  I know how to look for pockets of fluid now (had a little practice recognizing them with Gideon) and the tech was great about saying things like "There's a perfectly normal pocket of fluid in the developing brain."  They offered to do more ultrasounds, just for our reassurance and peace of mind, even though medically there are no flags that indicate she will need further ultrasounds.  I appreciated their consideration of my feelings and understanding how panicky and paranoid mothers can get after they have gone through a tragedy like ours.  My own OBGYN has also been stupendous at reassuring me, doing ultrasounds every time, and will be doing an ultrasound each time going forward, for my own comfort, so I can see her moving and growing and so I will have each visit to begin to make memories of her.

  Here she is just a wiggling away.

 

Even though I am thrilled that everything looks healthy, I still catch myself wondering if things are going to be OK.  I wonder if I'll have her really early and we'll have to do the NICU again, I wonder if something could develop incorrectly, if she might just stop growing.  I think that I am getting better at "breathing" (see the last post) through the difficulty and pushing forward no matter what happens, but I can't seem to completely walk away from all the doubts and worries.  I do have more hope now, and more reassurance than I have felt since the beginning of the pregnancy.

 

That day, I felt so happy, and my kids did too.  My youngest living child (age 4) was singing a mash up of several different upbeat songs as we ate lunch that day.  His sequence went like this:  "We will, we will rock you!  Let it go, let it go!  'Cause I'm so happy....happy...happy....Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!"   Then he started to mix them up like "We will, we will ghostbust you."  No kidding. 

 

 I smiled and thought that my heart felt like that in some ways.  I felt so much relief and happiness that it's like my brain was schizophrenic with happiness.  Unable to dwell on just one happy thought, I floated from excitement about another daughter, to thoughts of watching a healthy baby in our ultrasound, to missing my Gideon but feeling like he sent this child to comfort me, to loving my happy 4 year old who was singing his heart out in a mash up to beat all mash ups.  I felt so much love and support from my husband who took part of the day off so that he could be there for our ultrasound, and who has been so understanding through all the emotions of two pregnancies within a year, and the loss of our child.  He usually tries to come to that big ultrasound, because it's pretty cool, and fun to find out what the baby is, but especially after our last scary experience, he wanted to be present to hear what the doctors would tell us about our baby, and to be there for me in case we got bad news.  I felt the love and strength of many of my family and friends, who I know have been praying with us for a long time, but especially since Gideon.  My heart was mashing up all these awesome feelings.

 

Later on Monday, a friend of mine posted the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" to my facebook timeline.  That was fitting for my heart, for my emotions.  I did a dance to that song when I was in 2nd grade, and have enjoyed it ever since.  It swirled in to the mash of songs that I had heard my son sing earlier, and it made me smile to know that she was happy for me too.

 

My little happy Hyrum has been asking this week to hear Gideon's song, so today we played it and sang along and looked at pictures of ourselves with Gideon.  He loved seeing pictures with himself and Gideon together.  Here are Scott and I trying to get our happy (and somewhat jumpy crazy) Hyrum to be very gentle with his very fragile little brother.  Hyrum was such a champ, he did really well in the hospital, and was so careful when he touched and kissed and held his brother.  Hyrum still remembers, and whenever we listen to the song, he says "Awww, I'm sad for Gideon."

It is good, but sometimes hard to swim through those memories.  I don't want to forget him, I don't want my children to forget him, I am so glad he joined our family and for the precious moments we had with him.  We truly were able to enjoy time as a family with him, and that is a gift I can't measure.  Tangible gifts since then have felt small and incomparable.  It does hurt to miss him, to wonder how he would be doing now, if he'd be rolling and crawling, how his laugh would have sounded, and what would he have delighted in?  I don't like having to wait for those treasures, and looking at his pictures makes me ache a little, but I also feel joy and hope blended in, because I truly believe I will get to have those moments one day, and I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father and to Jesus for making that possible.  Since Gideon, the mash ups of my emotions have an increasingly broad range, sad mixed with hope and happy, excitement mixed with tentativeness, and I'm beginning to grow used to it.  It's part of my everyday life now, but to anyone listening, they may hear a strange sounding mash up--sort of like "Who you gonna call?  Happy....happy.....We will, we will rock you!  Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!  The cold never bothered me anyway."