Happy Birthday, Eliza!
Hi, there, precious. Happy 5th Birthday!!
I can hardly believe this is my fifth such letter to you! I know you’ll think it makes me sound old to say this, but it honestly is like I blinked and you were big.
Really… look at this when you were a year old … or this when you were two … or this from when you were three … or this from just last year! I’m astounded at how quickly the time is passing. I want some days to scoop you up and hold you so tight, to pull all of the energy and love out of my time with you that I can. I want to surround your little self with all of the love that your daddy, Griff and I can give you.
You are amazing, you know. You’re strong and brave and powerful, even if all that force is squeezed into a tiny package. You drive me crazy, of course, pushing all of my buttons. I can only imagine what we’re going to be like together in another decade. Your daddy dreads it already. Think of it, by then, Griff will be away at college & it’ll just be the three of us. Two strong-willed girls and Mike. Makes me smile, little chickie.
But to tell you the truth… the things that drive me crazy about you now are the things that I want you to really embrace when you’re older. You’re independent and determined to do things your own way. The fact that everyone else is doing something has little bearing on your decisions, which will serve you well as you get older if you can hold onto that.
You make me smile, Eliza. These last couple of years have been hard on us, me and your brother, especially. Last night, Griff told me that when he is angry or sad or upset, he thinks about you and he feels better. You don’t know it now, but that’s a really groovy thing.
As for me, I look at you, and you take my breath away. You are so beautiful. And you are so strong and spirited. And I am proud of you. When people say you look or act just like me, I remember that I should be proud of me, too. So I thank you for that reminder of the woman I am apart from just being The Mama.
I’m quite sure you know already that you’ve got your daddy wound around your little finger. I’m pretty sure he’s ok with that.
You crack us up these days. You like to sing everything like we’re all in some weird non-school version of “High School Musical.” You could live on sausage, popcorn, cheese and chips. You could eat your weight in sausage, frankly. Grosses me out. You have to take a stuffed animal or baby with you EVERYWHERE you go. You push that darned baby stroller all over the house with any number of babies in it, making such a racket! You like to pretend you’re a cat… drives your daddy bonkers, which makes Griff and me laugh.
I’m glad you’re still little enough to be sweet and give hugs and kisses and first-thing-in-the-morning snuggles.
We are endlessly blessed to have you. We are ever-thankful for Dr. A for seeing what needed to be done for you and for me and for doing it quickly and without hesitation. He’ll be getting birthday goodies himself today. Some day, when you’re bigger, we’ll tell you all about how he saved us. For now, just know that you are dear to us beyond words.
We love you, sweetie.
love, mama
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Menu Plan Monday - Eliza’s Birthday Edition
Here we are … celebrating a big birthday. Eliza’s turning five on Tuesday, and she’s so excited. I have to admit that it’s pretty cool.
I’m still tired of my regular meals, so this week, I’m using several new recipes from last week’s Org Junkie’s MPM entries. I’ve linked to the recipes if you want to see them.
Sunday - lemon pepper chicken sandwiches
Monday -Chickpea Stew over rice
Tuesday -going to Sonny’s for Eliza’s birthday… my little meat eater
Wednesday - Chicken Enchilada Soup (I know, I’ve got a ton of Mexican soup recipes, but this one looked good.) with fruit on the side
Thursday -chicken and cheese ravioli with alfredo sauce and steamed veggies
Friday - leftover soup
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She said, he said…
This is the first year since Eliza’s birth that the days of the week are the same as they were that year. Her birthday this year is on a Tuesday, and she was born on Tuesday. I always think a lot about her birth and the events surrounding that time in our lives. Makes me a little sad, brings up some latent guilt. But mostly, it makes me so grateful for the little sparkly birthday cake stickers on my sheets and for the fact that I’m here to see them and she’s here to stick them.
Most of you haven’t been reading my blog long enough to know what happened, so I thought I’d give you a bit of an Eliza history lesson tonight. And it seems like it’s only fair that you hear about it from both sides… (now’s the time when you hum a little tune while I try to convince Mike to play along… shouldn’t take long, he’s usually pretty agreeable).
Here goes…
She said… Five years ago yesterday, I had this horrible pain in my stomach. I was seven months pregnant, and Eliza hadn’t been exactly easy to carry to that point. At first, they were concerned that I had placenta previa and would have to deliver a couple of weeks early. At various points, they thought she was going to be too big or too little. Given that, I wasn’t just real surprised to be hurting. More annoyed.
I finally called the doctor and he suggested some options, and we tried them, eventually going to sleep.
He said… When your wife is seven-plus months pregnant, you get used to a certain amount of “I feel like crap.” That wasn’t what Chel was doing Saturday night. More like “It feels like something is stabbing me with a steel sword that has been sitting in a white-hot fire for an hour.” It was frightening, concerning and an awful feeling when you don’t know what to do about it. Thankfully, the doctor gave us some advice to get us through the night.
She said… Five years ago tonight, Mike and I were sleeping in separate beds. I was lying in a hospital bed being pumped full of IV fluids of undetermined strength or intent. I was huge and swollen, happily watching the first few moments of the Trading Spaces $100,000 make-over before falling into a sedative-induced sleep.
Mike was home with Griff.
He said… When we went to the hospital, things didn’t seem too bad. I recall we just sort of stayed in a room with a monitor on Chel and hung out. They wanted to monitor for a certain amount of time, which meant Chel had to stay over night. Given the previous night, I was not all that crazy about leaving her. At the same time, I didn’t want to leave Griff at Mandy and Josh’s because I was concerned he might begin to worry himself. But leaving Chel was one of the more difficult things I’ve done.
She said… By Monday morning, I had enjoyed a good night’s drugged sleep and was waiting for my doctor to release me to go home. They had run a ton of tests while I was there and finally let me go early afternoon. After hearing that I’d been admited to the hospital, my mom decided to drive down from Arkansas to see us, so she arrived at our house not long after Mike and I got home. We spent what I recall to be a very pleasant evening with my mom and Griff.
She went with me and Mike to my regular appointment on Tuesday. I have to admit that it’s all a bit fuzzy for me from here. I remember snippets of things. I remember my doctor insisting on an ultrasound (which I now know was to determine if she was big enough to be viable). I remember him asking me to go get some bloodwork done and to then come back after lunch.He said that the Sunday bloodwork showed a few things he wanted to check further.
I was really completely detached from reality at this point. Mom and I went to lunch (shrimp bisque with cornbread) and she was kind enough to overlook my refusal to see what was going on. I had even sent Mike back to work to teach his classes.
When we went back to my doctor’s office, he asked to see me in his personal office. Never good. I never wanted to see his office. he asked if Mike was with me & then had me call his cell and tell him to meet me in labor and delivery immediately. Still, not convinced this was happening.
I was so swollen the nurses couldn’t get an IV in me, and the anesthesiologist had to come take care of it. My doctor came in and told us Eliza weighed about three and a half pounds and that she was going to be fine but that I had HELLP and my platelets were falling to dangerous levels. He said they had to take her right away or I would bleed to death on the table. Nice, huh?
So they took me to the ER, and they laid me out there with all of these people milling about… and I had my gown around my neck. I remember being completely humiliated. And some precious, unnamed nurse came over and covered me up. Bless her for trying to give me a bit of dignity in that moment.
And I don’t remember anything until later, when I work up. I remember vague things… my friend, Linda, coming over after her son’s first birthday party. How weird that Eliza, Harrison and my dad share a birthday? I introduced her to the nurses as my boss, and that seemed to upset her. I remember the meds they were giving me hurting. I remember asking everyone if they had seen Eliza. I remember Josh and Mandy keeping Griff, though I never remember asking anyone if that was true. I just accepted that it was.
After about 11 p.m. Wednesday night, I finally got to meet my daughter. The time between the two points not so clear for me.
He said… Everything seemed great on Monday. I dropped Griffin off at school and went to the hospital and Chel was released. Chel’s Mom left Monday morning early (really early) after hearing that Chel was having to spend the night in the hospital. When she got there, we all kind of laughed that she had driven six hours and now everything seemed fine. But Chel had a regular appointment the next day and Chel’s mom decided she stay a few days since she was down. Chel and her mom went to that appointment, I think I met them there. After waiting a bit, Chel came back and said the doctor wanted Chel to get some blood work done and have lunch, and the come back to see him and he’d have the results. I went to teach my class while Chel and her mom had soup. I worried that I should get back, but there was no indication that there was anything up. As I was driving to pick Griffin up, I got a call on my cell phone. Chel said that I needed to come to the hospital and meet them in labor and delivery. It was then that I got worried. I think the whole time I was worried that something was wrong with Eliza. When I got there, the doctor came in and everything seemed to get serious. I was sort of confused until Chel tried to tell the doc that Eliza was too little and she couldn’t give birth this soon. Then the doctor explained that her platlettes were so low that if they waited much longer, her blood would be unable to clot and she would bleed out on the operating table. And I said, “Go Now. Shut up Chel.”
The doctor had said the baby would be fine. But, in all honesty, that wasn’t my biggest concern. As awful as it sounds now, at the time, I didn’t know Eliza. I loved my wife. I couldn’t live without my wife. Do the surgery now, doc. And he did. And they wheeled Eliza by me in an incubation chamber, pausing long enough for me to look at her, before they rushed her to the NICU. And when I saw her, she was so tiny, so helpless. Then I worried about both of them. This wasn’t my first C-section, and it took longer than it was supposed to for Chel to get out of surgery. I kept asking what was taking so long, and to this day I don’t know if it really did take long or if I was panicked, but it seemed excessive. When she finally got out, Chel was on serious drugs. Lots of people came by, I went down to see Eliza and so began several days of treking around the hospital from NICU to labor and delivery and back. And feeling awful every time I left either one.
Today, I am grateful for both of them, that God set in motion a bizarre set of circumstances that allowed the doctor (who is fairly close to divine, in my book) to know what needed to be done, for a mother-in-law who just happened to be there and helped calm my stressed nerves and for my wife for whom I am more grateful each day.
Eliza’s first day, a 3 lbs, 10 oz.
Eliza and her daddy in the NICU.
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Planning my own…
One of my favorite “Designing Women” episodes was “Killing All the Right People,” not for its social commentary (though I do agree with it) but for the jazz funeral at the end. If you don’t know the episode (and geez, shouldn’t you? I mean, it was an amazing show!), one of the girls’ young friends - a man in his 20s - came to them and asked them to design his funeral. He knew he was dying and had the funds to redecorate a room in one of the local funeral homes. He knew exactly what he wanted, and when they showed a short scene from his funeral at the end, it was just as he had envisioned.
I love the idea of people gathering, not only in sorrow but in joy, to celebrate a life. Right before Eliza’s birthday each year, much to Mike’s chagrin, I tend to think about my own funeral, what it would be like. (For those of you who haven’t been reading here long or don’t know me in real life, Eliza’s entrance into this world was a bit sudden and completely due to her mama being too sick to continue carrying her.)
When I think about it, I have the usual Chel worries… would anyone but Mike and the kids show up? I mean, sheesh, my grandparents won’t fly anywhere, and my brother hasn’t left Arkansas in years. … would Mike think to tell those people I knew and loved so long ago in high school? would he even know who they are?
But most times, I just think about how non-traditional I would want it to be. Cremate me. Skip the church. Have everyone meet in Central Louisiana at a great Mexican restaurant, drink margaritas and tell stories about me. Have someone not a minister give my eulogy. Let everyone tell how silly and obssessed and whatnot I was. In my head, people make Mike laugh.
My sister-in-law, Nicole, is expecting my newest niece. I’m praying about her so often these days because I’m just terrified for her. Mike reminds me that the number of women who die or nearly die in childbirth is incredibly low these days, to which I respond that both Mandy and I nearly did, and that’s pretty much my frame of reference. He hugs me, smiles, and tells me to get over it, that Nicole and baby London will be fine, even if I’m still gonna be crazy.
I’ve pretty much, mostly given up the guilt associated with Eliza’s untimely entrance into this world - on my dad’s birthday - and now I’m just so very grateful to have been given this second chance at life. I am grateful to spend more and more days with Mike, to be able to love these kids, to be blessed by the best of friends. I’m grateful to have a soul-sucking job that I am only moderately good at… to be close to family and cousins for the kids… to have the chance to love and hate all of the little and big things of life.
In the end, I hope my funeral would be full of people who have loved me, who have felt touched in some way by my life (you know, preferably a positive way). I think we can’t possibly know how many people that might be… two or 10. But I know that I’ve been blessed by countless folks through my life. Around Eliza’s birthday, I tend to want to make sure those folks know how wonderful they are & how much I appreciate them. But they probably get tired of the ‘i’m glad i didn’t die & geez, you’re wonderful’ email every year.
So, to all of you… I’m glad I didn’t die, and geez, you’re wonderful.
And at the funeral, you’re gonna have to buy your own margaritas. Try the salsa. It’s yummy.
(My brother, who didn’t comment, sent me this song, saying it was perfect for this post.)
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Dream me a little dream…
The nightmares have begun. They usually do around this time of year. I’ve had two nightmares so far about Eliza. They’re always about Eliza. In each dream, I’m doing something and turn to find myself surprised that Eliza is there with me. Soon after, she’s either taken from me, leaves me or is in danger of being taken from me. Thankfully, each dream ends with her being returned safely to me or with me finding her or the danger going away… or all three.
I’ve sure it’s some weird psychological thing having to do with her upcoming birthday.
Nearly five years ago, we were done celebrating Mike’s birthday and anticipating Josh’s as the next birthday in the family. I wasn’t feeling well, but I never felt well during a pregnancy. We were all more than a little surprised that she arrived within a week.
And I know that if my dreams were a reflection of reality, it would be me fading away, drifting from those I love. But they aren’t reality. They’re my perception of reality, and one of the things I remember about those first few days was my fear of something being wrong with Eliza.
Blessedly, the dreams end like both true reality and my reality… we get to keep her, and she’s fine. The dreams are pretty horrid while they’re happening, but they are reminders of how blessed we are to have her.
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