A Heart Made Whole: The Journey

May 21, 2016May 22, 20162 Comments

The first picture I ever took with my fancy camera, May 2013

On my first Mother’s Day Eric gifted me a fancy camera. I fell in love with the art and Nate became my muse. I quickly enrolled in classes and was in love with my assignments. As usual, I tried to be the best and worked hard at my new found passion. Once we found out we were expecting Emme, I worked harder, thinking of all the pictures I would take of her and Nate. I had planned the newborn shoot and all the props I would be using. And then my little Emme was born. The eight days of her life went by so quickly. Sometimes I feel like I blinked and they were over. Sometimes I feel like I wasn’t even fully awake. I was trying to navigate through dense fog, unable to see anything infront of me. Impossible. It took months for me to unravel the emotions of those days, even longer to accept what had happened.

Once we realized she wasn’t here to stay, we took her home but I never thought I would only have her an additional day. Often I am saddened that I didn’t take more pictures. That the only pictures I have will never increase. The photographer that we asked to come didn’t make it on time. We simply didn’t fathom her life slipping from our hands so quickly.

A blur. The whole time. It was a blur.

Emme Sophia Zurbrugg, 5 days old

Once we knew she was slipping away, I just wanted to hold her. I whispered love into her ears and kissed every part of her. I wanted to share her with no one. I remember Eric coming in and asking me to go outside with her so my brother in law could try and take some pictures of us, but I couldn’t make it. My legs had collapsed. My heart was broken. I could hardly see from my swollen eyes. All I asked was that he bring her back to me, fast. The pictures they took, they open up a part of my heart I like to wrap and gently hold. My heart has built a wall around itself to try and protect me. Whenever I see the pictures, I can feel everything. And the feelings, I welcome.

I never picked up my camera again. I didn’t have the courage. I tried. But with my Little Giant’s death, my hopes and dreams died, too. Nathan saved me.

LOVE as captured by the amazing Hannah Sons

When we found out we were expecting Elea, I tried to pick it up, but I couldn’t. I told myself once she was born I would be able to do it. But I wasn’t able to. And in my mind I would talk myself up to opening the camera bag but I was never able to go through with it. My family would ask why I never used my camera and I would simply change the subject or blame my awesome iPhone for it.

Heart Made Whole by Christa Black Gifford

But the last week I have been working on my heart thanks to Christa Black Gifford, and the awesome opportunity I was given to be part of her launch team for her new book, Heart Made Whole. I was given a copy of the book and have been going through an amazing healing process for my beautiful heart. And then a friend shared a special 4 week course that uses photography as a creative healing process after the loss of a child. It all fell into place with little doing from me. I took it as a sign.

A picture from today: GO BEARS!!!

So after two years, 1 month and 7 days of saying good bye to Emme Sophia, today I gathered the courage. In the chaos of getting Nate ready for sports day at school and wondering why Lea wasn’t up at 8:24 a.m. (she usually wakes at 6:30 a.m.), I stopped thinking, pushed my fears to the back burner , opened the closet, removed the spare chairs, pushed all the boxes to the side, pulled and yanked at the camera bag that sat full of dust in the very corner of the hallway closet. I unzipped while starring at the Swifter and pulled the camera out with my right hand. I ran my fingers over it and smiled. We ran out of the house before I realized the camera hung around my body.

Nate said, “you’re going to take pictures of me mama?”

And I smiled as I responded, “yes, yes I am baby bear.”

Big mama and baby bear by Hannah Sons

A Morning in Paris

May 13, 2016May 14, 2016Leave a comment

The main attraction: melted Eiffel towers and runneth over frosting

Elea’s birthday party was amazing. She celebrated with all her friends and family, and mommy managed to get through the morning without shedding a tear! Yay for me! Although I had plenty to cry about, my chocolate towers melting within seconds of being put on display and my homemade frosting eating the cupcakes within the hour, Nate managed to keep a smile on my face. Lesson learned! Don’t put out cupcakes until you are ready to gobble them down. In my defense, it was initially cloudy and the sun was nowhere to be found. But my sister did manage to get this picture of the few cupcakes I was smart enough to leave inside. Thank God Elea’s friends didn’t mind the melted sugar 😉

The perfect Eiffel Tower cupcakes

The homemade macaroons were a hit, making the 2 days I worked on all 80 of them completely worth it. While baking, Nate wanted me to watch him do a new dance move, so I obviously chose to look while putting my oven glove on and taking the batch of macaroons out of the oven. To my surprise, my glove was on backwards and the tray completely burned me, the macaroons flew out of my hands and onto the floor. Nate’s eyes were so wide as they followed the pink macaroons mid air and onto the floor. “It’s alright mommy, it’s alright. We’ll make some more.”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Breathe. In and out. Don’t cry.

After my breath managed to come back, we sat on the floor and ate macaroons until we could eat no more. And then we started another batch. No dancing this time.

Flying macaroons

The final product

We had a great performance by Ms. Sara from Play Music Company and Elea loved it. I have to admit, we are obsessed with Ms. Sara’s Born Curious dvd she gifted Elea for her birthday. We listen to it over and over with “louder, please” requests coming from the back seat. And honestly her voice is so incredible, I find myself singing the songs over and over…pretending to sound as good as she does.

Playing Ms. Sara’s guitar

Jamming with the music

Papa and baby JOY

The day wrapped up nicely with piñata fun and a long nice nap for everyone. I couldn’t have done it without my little tribe.

J O Y (for Elea that means food in her mouth :))

xoxo

On the Eve of Mother’s Day

May 7, 2016May 8, 2016Leave a comment

As mother day approaches, I sit here on this Friday night in Elea’s nursery, pitch black, ocean sounds blasting, and a little giant baby snuggled on my chest, holding on to my shirt as tightly as can be. I rock us both with my right toes, my left leg folded under my right leg for left hand support, as my hands hold onto a tiny bright screen that sheds just the right amount of light onto my babes face. And my thumbs go crazy, as they so carefully type this post, making sure to touch the right letter.

This has been a crazy week. We wrapped up Elea’s first birthday celebration on Sunday and had family staying with us from Dallas. I woke up feeling kinda sick so I had to make sure to give myself a break. Wednesday came along and I was starting to feel better, when Elea and Nate slid down the jungle gym slide and Elea tweaks her foot. She refuses to walk or crawl and seems to be in pain. Long story short, her foot is bruised but no broken bones. We are safe. I sat Wednesday night crying my eyes out, angry that I wasn’t able to prevent her from getting hurt. I thought for sure it was broken. My prayer chain worked.

Onto Thursday, my book club meets and we have an amazing meeting with even more amazing women. I go to bed feeling great with a full heart.

Friday morning hits me hard. Elea is up every couple hours. I resign and bring her into bed hopping she’ll nurse when needed and let me sleep. 5:50am comes around and she is wide awake. Play time comes around too soon. BUT her foot seems better so I am grateful.

We get ready for tea time with Nathan, and while he is helping me get the baby ready, in frustration that he can’t help me carry in the diaper box he says *uck.

Yes.

* u c k. The F bomb. The worst. I am completely taken aback, especially because he used it in the correct context. Where? What? How? We never. No one around him ever…a million thoughts cross my mind while I accidentally smear poop on my hand and Elea is giggling up a storm. I quickly snap back in and begin to ask questions. What did he say? Can he repeat what he said? Did he mean to say fudge? Maybe fun? Forge? Anything other than what I thought I heard?! Please. But he is pretty adamant, he assures me, that what he meant was *uck. Ok, so I continue with my questions and the story is more or less the same.

So, naturally, being that I have a marriage and family therapist on retainer (she’s my sister and she accepts my children’s love as payment), I text my sister. After discussing the whole scenario the following hits hard:

“You can’t really control what Nathan will hear, you’ll protect him as much as possible… I’m so glad that you have a great relationship with him where he’ll tell you exactly what happened. That’s what’s worth protecting and making sure it stays strong.”

I can’t and will not be able to protect Nathan from everything, possibly not many things at all BUT I can equip him with the right foundation with our Father at the center, so that he can find comfort in sharing and asking for guidance from a loved one. It takes a village to raise babies, and I can only continue to strive to teach my children about grace, love and faith. I can continue to try and surround him with people who love him and will be there when he reaches out, but mostly people from whom he will see what he should be like.

We finished the week with a yummy Indian dinner ( at Nathan’s request) and very much enjoyed each other’s company. The family sitting next to us even commended us as we left on how well behaved our children were and how well cultured they seemed. What else could we give our children, I thought as we left the restaurant, but experiences and exposure to the world to make them better human beings.

So on this coming Mother’s Day, all I want is to make some more time for long hot showers, more time to sit and take in my rapidly growing babes and to be gentle with myself as I learn to be a better versions of myself (and a better mommy, of course!) as every day passes by.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the hard working mamas out there, especially the ones who get to clean up poop more than once a day ( it’s only fair 😁).

Xoxo

A Birth Story: Elea Mackenzie Zurbrugg

May 1, 2016May 2, 20163 Comments

So before I get to the good stuff, there is some business to be discussed. Not too long ago my brother and I went into a creative discussion of a new business venture, spiritually led , bringing joy through creativity, while giving to the community. While it is nowhere near done, it was one of the reasons why my blog needed (very badly) a re-creation, especially since the last time I changed anything on it (visually) was 4 years ago! I have also listened to all your feedback, especially how most of you stopped receiving post alerts (make sure you enter your e-mail on this new site so you don’t miss a post) and other fun stuff. So please bear with me as we continue to work on my blog ( new host- same writing :)) and our shop (more details to come soon!). I would have liked to have taken a hiatus to finish this project, however, it has been my tradition to share my babes birth story on their first birthday. So without further ado, here is Elea’s birth story:

Nathan announces he is going to be a big brother, again!

Unlike Nathan and Emme’s birth story, Elea’s was very different. Her birth was perfect. She fulfilled (to a T) the type of birth you see on television, where no one screams, no one experiences pain ( including the mother) and all the tears, are tears of joy.

When you prepare to give birth, months in advance your doctor has you write your birth plan ( personally, now I think the whole thing is a joke, mostly, anyway. But that’s for another post). I had one ready for Nathan and Emme and neither one of their births went as planned. So for Elea I refused to write one and I simply told my doctor, along with all the nurses, that my plan was simple: I wanted to give birth (however that may be- vaginal or c-section) to a healthy baby. I didn’t care what they needed to do as long as she was out and healthy. That’s it. I didn’t want a bigger room, I didn’t need my husband to cut the cord, I wasn’t against a c-section of they saw it fit, I wasn’t going to wait for my baby to stress before they would take her out. So with that said, we waited for Elea to make her arrival. She was due April 26th, 2015. She was to share her sister’s birth month. But the end of April came and Elea was showing no signs of making her debut. Because Emme arrived via c-section only 12 months prior, my VBAC ( vaginal birth after cesarean) was considered high risk and everyone was on high alert. The main concern was a uterus rupture. The longer Elea cooked, the higher the risk ( good thing they couldn’t even fathom that this Wild Birdie was almost 10 pounds, otherwise they would have nicked the VBAC).

So we were told to wait until May 1st to ensure that we gave her time to make her arrival as inducing me would increase the chance of a uterus rupture. If she did not show up on her own, we would probably have to have a repeat c-section. However, my doctor felt strongly that this baby would be arriving on her own with no need for intervention. But Elea didn’t come on her own and there we were standing in Labor and Delivery, Friday morning, hoping that our doctors would still agree to a mild induction.

I sat on the bed, scared at the thought of a rupture and excited that I would soon meet Elea. The doctor checked my progress and asked on a scale from 1-10, how bad was my pain. I responded with none- 0. I felt nada. She responded with “well this baby is coming today, you are already 5 cm dilated. Are you sure you don’t feel anything?!”

I was sure. I couldn’t believe it. I was dying at 1 cm with Nathan, as my contractions came fast and hours and hours of labor dragged on with little progress. And now, here I was 5 cm dilated with no pain. Nothing. Not even pressure!

I listened to Bethel worship music in our room. My sister hung out ready with her camera and my mother in law chatted on the phone letting everyone know Elea was to arrive soon. Eric held my hand in excitement, squeezing every now and then. Each time the nurses checked in, I got closer and closer to 10cm (the goal) without feeling much of anything.

The doctor came in and advised the epidural as the time to push neared and in the case anything went wrong, I would be ready for the backup plan. So we went ahead and got the epidural. And within hours, before I could even get a second dose of it, I said “this baby is coming!” The nurses were still talking, the doctor wasn’t even in the room yet and I started to cry and say, ” I can’t hold it anymore, I’m going to push now”. And in perfection, just the way she was made, the doctor appeared and Elea was out in 3 pushes. The room went silent and everyone was crying. She was massive. Everyone was shocked. How ? Where was this baby hiding in my belly? She came in at a whopping 9 pounds, 4.7 ounces. She was perfect.

The first embrace: Mommy and Elea

Today I celebrate her perfect birth. I celebrate that I was able to bring a third baby into this world. I celebrate her life and the gift of caring for her while I am on this Earth. She is my rainbow baby. She brought joy back to our hearts. She reminded us of her beautiful sister and how without her, we would have never met this little gem.