mommy time

Every time he has a couple of minutes alone with me, J says, "I have some mommy time, right, Mom?"

It's a great reminder to me to be intentional about my time with him, especially when the younger kids make louder and more insistent demands on me than he does.

So amidst the craziness of managing three kids this weekend, I sneaked out with J yesterday afternoon while the younger two were napping. I had to run a mundane errand for the new house anyway, and thought that I might as well redeem the time by having J along.

We were walking hand in hand at one point, no noisy cars to block out my voice so I reminded him of how special he is, how wonderful God made him, and how much I love him even though I may be busy amd occupied with the younger two.

I was glad for it, that mini-date with my son.

moving

We should be moving in a matter of weeks to a new home, with more room for everyone.

Josh has always been quite adaptable, so he should do ok. Emma needs a little more reassurance than he does, but since I'm her security blanket, she should do fine. Noah is the least adaptable one so far. He is so used to his space that travelling with him last month was hard.

Nonetheless, it's a move I look forward to getting over with.

The kids will have to change schools too, and I have mixed feelings about it. I'd like for the kids to not have to deal with so many changes, but our new place will be too far for me to drive them up and down every day, especially after Lucy arrives.

Today I mentioned to Josh's teacher that we would have to leave soon. She told me that he'd be missed, in particular by one of the girls in the class a year younger than his. She apparently moped around last month when Josh was away, so much so that her mother asked his teacher when Josh was coming back!

Sunday

thankful today

1. for a little three-year-old girl who slips her hand into mine every time we walk together.
2. for a grown up five-year-old boy who, when asked where babies come from, said, "The Lord gives the baby to mommy; He puts it in her tummy."
3. for a little baby boy who wanted me to give him his last milk feed before bed.
4. for a little baby girl who has kicks hard enough to give new meaning to "belly dance".
5. for a box of tiramisu from Da Paolo to share with my man.
6. for answered prayer.
7. for a community of ladies to study the bible with, and the relationships that are growing within this community.
8. for help in finding a lost pair of slippers at church today.

club med bintan

Of note:

- This was Noah's first holiday. And our first with all three kids in tow. There were many moments when I felt like I needed an extra pair of hands. Or two. Or three.

- Noah's first taste of sand. Bleah.

- Emma started and ended well, but was down with fever in between. So she was stuck in the room a lot. She vacillated between feeling too lousy to care and feeling sore about missing out on pool time.

- Joshua was so excited about the pool, he forgot he didn't have his floaties on. K had to haul him out of the water. He was shellshocked, as was I. It was hard for me to let him out of my sight after that. After the coughing, spluttering and catching of breath, the first words he said, "Daddy, you saved my life." Looking for swim classes for the kids is now a priority, especially since our new home will have a pool that's a minute's walk away.

- Joshua had two goes on the trapeze. He did great, even if he refused to try to hang by his legs.



- Free flow of drinks. Free flow of food. But the two older kids sorely missed noodles and have only eaten that since coming back home.

Waterfall Restaurant, where we had all our meals

- Josh managed to ask the wait staff for a table for all of us, with the required baby chair for Noah, all by himself.

Playing petanque

Beach time was fun once they got used to the sand

to be changed

Yes, it's been a while since I've blogged. Even through the silence, things have been moving along though.

It feels like Lucy is growing well - she's got a very good kick. Being able to feel her move is incredibly precious to me. Just as precious - seeing the look of delight on Joshua's face and hearing him giggle, as he held his hand to my belly and felt his second sister move.

We have also been busy gearing up for another move - our fourth move in as many years. This move was as unexpected as Lucy, but we need the space that our new home will provide. Along with that, we've also been trying to get a handle on renovations, get new stuff for the new home, look for a helper (I am finally caving), and look for a new school for the kids. I am eager to have this transition over and done with.

Amidst all this movement are moments when I stand still and wonder. About the paths we had to walk down in the last few months. About the fears we had to face. About the miracle that we received.

I still don't know why God led us down that path. But I do know this.

We are changed.

Oh, it may look like we simply picked up from where we left off. It may feel like we've moved on. But like a broken cup that has been glued back together, I bear the marks of what we have gone through. And I want to remember.

The pain and fear and worry that could only be assuaged by God.

The feeling of being held up with hands other than my own, when all of me was too weak.

The gift of a miracle that I was afraid to ask for.

And the light that shone in my darkness.

Sunday

Words of a father

[A rare post from Keith]

This year, Friday the Thirteenth fell on March 13. I was out with my staff that day, at a cooking class at Fort Canning. Midway through learning how to prepare an Asian-style roast chicken with Vietnamese spring rolls, Fiona called me.

She was in tears. The results from the pregnancy screening had just come back, and, as she has recounted in the blog, were bad. Parlous. Devastating.

I went through the rest of that morning in a fog, going through the motions of what I was supposed to do, but with my mind elsewhere, or nowhere at all. A few years earlier, I was in the middle of a dinner I was hosting for a visiting academic, when I got a phone call telling me that someone in my youth group had died, unexpectedly, after a game of soccer. I hung up, went back to dinner, barely made it through in a fog, and then went home and cried with Fiona that night.

It felt similar this time. And later that evening, when our gynaecologist called to tell us about the possibility of Edward's Syndrome, things came crashing down on us.

Fiona has recounted enough of our shared experiences through the last seven weeks, so I will not go through it all again. But let me recount three vignettes.

- The Monday after, March 16th, I had to drive to work as I had something on that morning. I really didn't want to be at work. As I drove and listened to the music, this song came on. At first, the tears just came, unbidden, but then I just yelled and howled like a terrified animal in the car, stuck in the morning jam on Nicoll Highway. I did not want to lose a child.

- One of the thoughts that kept coming to me was: What would I say at the funeral service of my daughter? (For I was quite sure that this was a girl.) One of the things I would have said was this: "My dearest princess: I pray that God will give me dreams of you, of who you were meant to be, in all your beauty and loveliness and health. So that at the Great Reunion, I would know, without a shadow of a doubt, who you are. And you would know me too. And we would dance together at that great Wedding Feast, finally." Each time I went through these words, as I rehearsed this scenario in my head, I would start to cry again. Even now, as I type these words, tears are streaming down my face. Tears of gratitude. Tears of solidarity with every parent who has lost a child in an untimely way.

- There were nights in bed, when I turned to Fiona's sleeping, grief-wearied form, and I wondered: Would we ever be happy again? When we our feet find normal, solid ground again? And I knew that we would, even if we had to walk through dark and murky waters to get there.

*

Miracles happen. I am so grateful for how things have turned out, and at the same time, as I read the blogs of many others who have had children with Trisomy 13, 18 or 21, I grieve with them. My heart knows only a tiny, tiny sliver of their grief. Fiona and I are well aware that we dodged a bullet. We will spend the rest of our lives finding out, and living out, the reason why.

And even now, more than a week after the good news, the phone call, I still go to this blog, to Fiona's post, at least once a day, as a reminder and a marker of the new reality that we live in (and also, so that I know that I'm not dreaming). We've alive. Our children are alive and well. Lucy is alive and well! And even before her birth, people from all over the world, some of whom didn't even know us, were praying for her, and us. What a privilege and blessing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

lucy says hello

Everyone, meet Lucy.

Lucy says: Thank you for praying for me!

lucy

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
Genesis 2:19-20

There is something powerful and life-affirming in giving a name.

In one of the blogs that I read religiously, the writer tells of being in an orphanage in India. She sees a tiny newborn baby and asks the nun what the baby's name is. She is then told the baby doesn't have a name. The Lord takes some of them so quickly that they aren't given names.

There is something heartbreaking about that.

When this all started, I wrote that I couldn't see God's light in the midst of everything that was happening. I wrote that I knew in my head that it was there, but I couldn't see it, I couldn't feel it. It was too dark.

I wrote those words straight from my heart.

In the days since then, I have walked down paths I never thought I would. The worst part was having to contemplate the idea of possibly burying a child.

In the days since then, I have had to examine my faith, what I believe in. I have found that I cannot do this - do life - on my own strength. I simply am not strong enough.

In the days since then, I have come out on the other side. We have gotten the miracle that we asked for, the same miracle that we were afraid to believe in.

We are not out of the woods yet. I think that every expectant mother never feels completely safe about her pregnancy until the baby is born and in her arms. And even then...

But at least there is this for now: there is light.

If it had been a boy, his name would have been Luke, which means bringer of light.

Because it's a girl, her name will be Lucy, which means light.

To always remind us of how God showed us His light, when we thought we could see nothing at all.