Two Years, Two Stitches, and Two Weeks

If there was a CPS for Bloggers then I would go to jail :(

I would love to throw out lots of fabulous excuses like, "I have 3 children under the age of 7 and the only thing they ever agree on is to drive me crazy in as many ways as possible."

Okay, that is only one excuse but I am way too tired to think up any more, if we wait for me to get creative it will be another three months before I post a blog!

Do you see where I'm going with this?  Most nights my eyes feel jet lagged by 7pm and once the little (fallen) angels are quiet I simply want to stare at a screen, a book, or a wall.  And often I can't tell the difference between the three!

Anyway, moms are tired, call CNN.  (Maybe Donald Trump stopped being an idiot for 7 seconds so they are probably bored.) What about Max?! Today, for the very first time, instead of looking like a

First Birthday in the US!

bored CNN reporter when I walked in the door after being gone for several hours, Max looked at me, smiled, said "Hi!" and reached his arms out for me to hold him! Honestly, any one of those actions by itself would have made me just as proud as when his older sister-at the same age-correctly identified and pronounced "Trapezoid."

I know you are trying to remember which shape is a trapezoid.

But  Miracle Max strikes again by doing all 4 connection milestones in one fell swoop!  He had been sitting on his lonely little plateau for quite a while now. Not really taking any steps forward in speech, gross motor, fine motor, or even physical growth.  But apparently he decided that's for the birds and since turning two on June 6th, he has experienced a number of firsts.

*First steps (he had taken a few before but now will stand up and walk on his own, although still a bit of the drunken sailor going on.)

*First words. I had really begun to despair of him initiating communication.  Then I gave him juice. Now he asks for juice all day "Joo? Joo?" No Max, milk. "Joo? Joo?" Yeah. talking is great. He says "Hiiii" on his own too as well as a handful of other words, the rest is still pretty unintelligible although you can really tell he's trying more.  The best is tattoo (can you tell where we live?!) which he pronounces, "Gackoo." For all I know that could be the Ukrainian translation!

First bedroom!

*He's also grown more and is solidly in 18 month clothing.  Still behind where he should be, but for the first time he's on the growth chart!

*A little while after surgery we moved him into his own bedroom (this marked a first for me, first time sleeping through the night since summer of 2014.) Aside from being on his own, this was of course the first time he'd had his very own room.  That's kinda a big deal :)

*Eat. Ing. He has really made some great strides forward in this area, a fact I need to remind myself when he "forgets" how to take a bite out of a cracker.  He'll now eat most any food on his own, still doing best with bite size pieces but after months of work he will pick up food off his tray and eat it. Hard foods, soft foods, even, BUM, BUM, BUM, cold foods!  If we're Facebook friends then hopefully you've seen the video of him eating ice cream.  Let's just say it's a love hate relationship!

First boo boo :(

*And, yes, his first stitches. Okay, no, of course I have not forgotten the whole open heart surgery thing, but that was planned and I knew about it.  This was, crash, "MOM YOU HAVE TO COME NOW IT'S AN EMERGENCY!" Blood, crying, trip to the ER, stitches. After we were both suitably traumatized, and the Dr pulled a needle through my son's eyebrow, we went home.

So, good times.

But, the crazy beautiful unbelievable part of  this blog, and the reason I had to get it posted, missing creativity and all, is the milestones we will hit over the next two weeks. We already hit one milestone, the one year anniversary of when we met Max.  This whole summer is surreal because it's impossible not to compare it to last summer. Last summer we were in Kyiv. Last summer I ordered school supplies on Amazon-from Kyiv. Last summer I bought Bard's birthday present-in Kyiv. Last summer I wore this same shirt, in Kyiv (no really, I saw one of those Time Hop posts and I was wearing the exact same outfit as I was a year ago-in Kyiv.  It freaked me out so I went and changed. No, I'm not kidding.) But tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of our court date when we petitioned the judge to adopt Max (check out that blog post for way more bathroom information than you ever wanted to know!) Then, August 20th is our first Gotcha Day-where we brought Max out of the orphanage and into our family. Right after that of course is coming home. August 28th will mark one year home.

Everyone says to throw away the first year of adoption.  And although as I type this, there are certainly a lot of celebrations to remember, many of them exist alongside deep hurts and frustrations. I'm throwing out the memory of crying on my landing steps while I talked on the phone with our nurse in Seattle.  Max wouldn't eat and there was nothing I could do.  I'm throwing out the constant doctor's appointments that have disrupted our lives for months now.  In some ways Max is healthy and doing really well.  In other ways we have a future of unknowns waiting for us, just around the corner. I'm throwing out the utter and absolute exhaustion. The mental and physical drain of an internationally adopted child who has special needs. Special needs that remind you that you are weak. Special needs that you would think would make you compassionate and loving, but sometimes they just piss you off. Special needs that give you grace.

Grace

It's a name for a girl

It's also a thought that 

Changed the world

Grace makes beauty 

Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty 

In everything

Grace finds goodness

In everything

The Best Worst Scar Story Ever.

Tyler pulled the first chest tube out so easily that I blinked and missed it. Determined to see what was happening I watched closely as he began to pull the second tube out of an incision in the middle of Max's stomach. The tube emerged as a nurse stood by with bandages.  But instead of sliding cleanly out as the first one had, this tube tugged a long bloody tendril with it, plopping on to Max's stomach but with the other end still inside of him.

Hospital Rule #1: If the nurse is not worried, then you are not worried.

Tyler raised his eyebrows while Bard kept his eyes closed and I held Max's feet down. "Okay, this changes what we are going to do." Without stopping for a beat, the Physician's Assistant we had met last week on our hospital tour gave the nurse a new set of instructions, asked several questions about equipment available, and instructed her to create a sterile field. "This is very rare...Is Max allergic to betadine?" Not that we knew of, random thoughts of calling the orphanage director and translating "betadine" floated through my head as the inside of Max's stomach lay on the outside and Tyler switched gloves, preparing to strangulate it and "tuck it back in."

I guess every heart surgery has its unique nuances.

Surprisingly the first unique aspect of Max's heart surgery was how quickly it was over.  We arrived at the hospital at 5:30am, one of the first patients to check in that morning.  They showed us to our room-where Max would come back to after surgery-and where we would stay most of the week. Max was chattering away, pretty happy considering we had woken him up two hours early and hadn't given him anything to eat! He talked to the nurses as they gave him a check up and played with their stethoscopes while various doctors from our team came in to see how we were doing and if we had any questions.  Then it was time for his "loopy" medicine-that would relax him so he wouldn't mind separating from us- so they could take him into pre op. No one had any loopy medicine for me and I was a bit disconcerted to see that instead of making him giggly, like we had been told, the drug made him quiet and still.  Of course Max is never quiet or still and for some reason seeing him like that bothered me more than anything. We carried him down the hall to surgery while Nurse Kathy pushed his bed. Then we handed him over to her and she walked away, her blue gown trailing behind her as she cradled our baby. We stood in the hall. Alone.

Back down on the 6th floor we were the first people in the waiting room.  Checked in by two lovely ladies, volunteers who helped us feel at home, we set up camp at a table with a view of the mountain, TV, and a TIME magazine from October.  The clock ticked forward.

How odd, all of the waiting connected with our adoption had brought us here, to an actual waiting room.

Kathy called with the first update after just an hour.  Surgery had begun one minute early, at 7:59am. Dr Nuri's name on the monitor switched from being in pre op to "Surgery." Thirty minutes later she called to say Max was on bypass.  They had cooled his body temperature, redirected his blood to a machine, and were operating on his stopped heart.  We chatted with my dad, responded to text messages, and watched Oscar fashions on the news. My dad left for the Grandparent's Day performance at Cici's preschool, an angel with dreads came and prayed with us, and Nurse Kathy called to say Max was off bypass.  It was 10:30am, 5 hours after we had first checked in to the hospital.

While Dr Nuri monitored Max's heart to see how it responded to being back inside his chest, I finished my latte and started a book. Kathy called to say Max was in post op and the two ladies who had checked us in to the waiting room, made sure we knew where the coffee was, found us a table that had a phone, and watched our luggage while we went down to get breakfast, came and showed us to a private room. In walked Dr Nuri, smiling, and saying that everything had gone better than he had hoped for-no surprises, routine repair, and the valve looked great! Max was heading back to his room.  The nurses had to get him set up there and we could see him in 30 minutes.  It was 11:30am. A 4-6 hour surgery was done in 3 and a half hours, I hadn't even eaten any chocolate.

Reading his favorite book-1st day after surgery

Back in Max's room, we stayed with him the rest of the day as he fought waking up from surgery. He was fitful and pretty out of it and the first in a line of wonderful nurses, Carol, walked us through how difficult it was for babies to transition off the anesthesia. He was never really awake that day and stayed on pain medication.  He did sleep, although he was very restless and fought the nurses every time they had to check his vital signs-which of course was very often those first few days. I stayed with him that night and it is pretty much a blur. We had our second awesome nurse, Bonnie, and she was in and out of his room as we tried everything we could to make him more comfortable.  Unfortunately, I think it was a combination of sensorial issues and past experiences that really compounded his misery and it wasn't until about 2:30am that he drifted off into a deeper sleep.  Waking briefly for his morning chest x ray, he conked back out and truly woke up at a little after 8am.

From there on out he liked to pretend that he had never had open heart surgery at all!  Of course he wasn't bouncing off the walls, but even that first day he talked, played with toys, kicked his arms and legs around and did everything possible to rip off whatever the nurses were trying to attach to him-which was a lot. Other than a slight fever Tuesday evening-due to inflammation not infection-and his chest tubes coming out a day later than planned- due to a small air leak-his healing progressed rapidly and every day we saw big improvements. Time is everything and nothing in a hospital. Tests and check ups ran like clockwork.  Shift changes, x rays, and 3rd floor latte runs all came and went but I can't tell you what separated one day from another-sometimes the rocking chair was next to Max's crib, sometimes it was next to the table.  I'm not sure why. His doctors came in and out, all pleased with his progress and we were hopeful about coming home Friday-one day earlier than our initial timeline of 5-7 days.

Now we've been home two days and although he does have a big scar, it's those chest tube incisions that actually look more serious-they still have to be covered and his surgery scar does not! Nurse Linda prepared a "sterile field" for Tyler to complete his medical procedure, "Push Max's Guts Back Inside His Stomach So They Don't Dangle Outside Him Forever." New supplies, carts, and equipment were brought into Max's room.  As quickly as it arose, the problem was resolved because it turned the nasty little tendril was not attached to anything and just a piece of fatty tissue.  Of course that is not really fair because Max needs all the fatty tissue he can get! Tyler and Linda both said that Bard and I handled the Tendril Surprise amazingly well, that not all parents would have been able to deal with something so disturbing.

Home Again!

So, if someone could send us a gold star, that would be great.

Meanwhile, we go on Tuesday for Max's post op with his surgeon, cardiologist, and PA.  He is doing really well at home-still on pain meds, but no narcotics. We set up a pac n play in the front room to keep him contained-he is not supposed to climb on anything- and other than fighting us a bit on a regular bottle, he is eating really well. He actually seems to be sleeping less, maybe in part due to needing medicine in the middle of the night and also perhaps just plain old over stimulation. But that's okay because after a week of sleeping at a hospital, going back and forth between there and our house, the craziness of surgery, and trying to return to normal, adrenaline is all the energy I need right now.

Said No Mother Ever.

I'll just pop another chocolate covered espresso bean and fold another load of laundry. (By the way, do calories roll over? I mean, is it better if I just eat a ton of my sweets all in one day and get it over with or is spreading the calories out over a longer period less unhealthy? I really should have paid closer attention in science class.) Tomorrow the girls go to school and Bard goes to work. Yesterday marked six months home with Max and tomorrow marks one week from open heart surgery. The most interesting part of the week is just how uninteresting it was.  Maybe I over-prepared, but for some reason I thought open heart surgery, being away from the girls, endless medical possibilities, and total family disruption would be very difficult.

Silly me.

Nothing happens in a vacuum.  The surrounding forces are either positive or negative and in our case almost every single one can be chalked up to positive. Our incredible support network-see previous blog post-from grandmas flying in for the week to banana bearing friends carried the burden for us. And, although of course we were paying for their services (well, someone will pay, Hello Premera, my name is Max!) there is just no possible way we could ever repay the amount of over-the-top love and concern all the staff showed us throughout the week. Checking in on us-not just Max- bringing hand made gifts, moving services ala radio flyer wagons, and an overall attitude of compassion and and high standards permeated our entire experience.  If you're going to have open heart surgery, that's the way to go!

This week we rebuild.  I'm going to the European Store to pick up Ukrainian chocolate for our medical team. Max has his doctor's appointment and I'm planning several walks outside so he can enjoy moving while being strapped down! We'll check our spreadsheet for when his meds are due and make sure to lift him carefully-scooping him- not by underneath his arms, as that causes too much pressure on his sternum.  After I print out a bunch of pictures detailing his recovery, I'm going to mail them to Babushka, who has already enjoyed more than one Skype call seeing her grandson recover from his surgery.  Sometimes life seems so challenging, but then you blink and miss it, looking up only to find that there are many ways for a heart to be wounded and many ways for it to be healed.

Max's Journey

A young man with brown dreads and a flannel shirt approached us as we waited to hear if Max had been taken off the heart bypass machine.  He kneeled down beside Bard, held out his hand and said, "My Father told me to come pray for Max."

And I don't want the world to see me

Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

This song still stirs haunting memories in my heart every time I hear it on the radio. I absolutely adored it at an absolutely despairing time in my life.  I breathed in the lyrics. Nobody understood.  I was broken.  To this day I struggle with feeling left out, unseen, regularly in a crowd but all alone. Now those feelings are mostly lies, but somehow that does not always diminish their power.

And you can't find the tears that ain't coming

Or the moment of truth in your lies

When everything feels like the movies

Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive

Hospitals, by nature, can be very lonely places.  Staff rushing around with purpose, patients wandering around in a daze. Meandering buildings with corridors that lead off into nowhere like some twisted medical version of the Winchester Mansion.  By my fourth day I knew how to go three places and was the picture of confidence as I walked past the cafeteria, my nose in my phone. However, I have still decided that in my next lifetime I am going to design hospital interiors (surely that is a thing) and make each hall a different color so they don't all look alike-which has obviously been done to make you go insane. 

Liberian students pray for Max.

The young man with dreads had been at the cafeteria with us, grabbing breakfast with his wife (or girl friend) who was also suitably PNW with her cropped hair and tatted arms. He had sprawled, apparently sleeping, on the couch next to us as we chatted with my dad about Max being on bypass, and then had left with the girl to talk to their Dr. It was then that he came back, held our hands, prayed for Max, and walked away. We never saw him again, it was 10:00am and a half hour later Max was off bypass and being closed up, the hole patched, the valve stitched.  Perfectly.

At 4:30am, after sleeping two hours, I checked my email. Babushka Olga had emailed us that they were praying for Max. A colleague in Liberia-a country that has an innumerable amount of tragedies to focus on-had sent photos of his entire school lined up in their courtyard.  Praying for Max. Four Facebook messages popped up, Indiana, Iowa, Florida, and New Jersey-places we all know I am incapable of finding on a map-were all praying for Max.  It was not yet 5am and he was still sound asleep in his crib. 

Throughout the day, thoughts and prayers poured in from close friends to people I rarely talk to-everyone was there for us. I lost count of how many visitors we've had, my book people cast aside as I connected with real people. (My books bear the sad tragedy of this love as I've only been able to read two of them instead of the hoped for five.) We've had lattes, espresso beans, fruit, games, teddy bears (probably meant for Max), fuzzy socks for cold hospital floors, chocolate bars, chocolate covered berries, chocolate cookies, and you guessed it-Cadbury Eggs-delivered right to our room. And did I mention the six meals delivered to our home? Keep in mind we've only been gone for four days!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

This is the church. Never think that the petty ignorance you see thrown around on Facebook or the evil hatred depicted by the media is an honest portrayal of Christ's church. His church is a living breathing act of beauty. A symbiotic community, intertwined in each other's lives and strengthening each other so that we can reach out and lift up the world.  Lost.  Hurt. Broken. The church is a card. The church is a phone call.  The church is a meal, a hand up, grace when judgement is called for. The church is love, incarnate,

If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry, 
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

Then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noon day.

~Isaiah

This is Bard's favorite quote and we have lived our lives just that way, this is the church. A bit earlier Isaiah commands the church to defend the fatherless and that's what we did, adopted an orphan.

But we didn't do it alone. And I know you just want to hear about Max (unless you're on Facebook and then you've already read all about chest tubes and cheesecake) but Max is really about me and I just have to share this part of my journey with you. Hopefully Max comes home tomorrow, from open heart surgery to sleeping in his own crib in just five nightmarishly long and impossibly short days. But as I sit in my home right now and think back to how I started the week-angry that Bard and I were fighting colds, frustrated that I had only slept two hours, scared that Cici and Evelyn would get sick-I realize that none of those issues were lessons I needed to learn.  I already know that God can take care of a cold. Or Vitamin C. Whatever. But what I get to learn, again and again, as it washes over me and I drown in it, is love.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every, love the best!

Tis an ocean full of blessing, tis a haven, giving rest.

Sunrise over Mt Rainier

I saw the sun rise over my mountain Monday morning as we waited to hear about the surgery (you know it's my mountain, right, we've been over that?) The image of that mountain stayed with me throughout the week, as I fed Max his first bottle and held him while he slept. I stood by his bed as he cried his whole first night in the hospital. And I watched as they pulled first one, and then another chest tube from his little body (Next blog I promise to share what will be Max's grosser than gross story with which he will be able to win any contest with any little boy. Ever.)

As much as the Goo Goo Dolls spoke to me, so many years ago, another song claimed me and it sings truth over lies.

Your love O Lord

Reaches to the heavens

Your faithfulness

Stretches to the skies

Your righteousness, 

Is like the mighty mountains

Your justice flows

like the ocean's tides

And I will lift my voice,

To worship you my King

And I will find my strength

In the shadow of your wings

Your love O Lord

Reaches to the heavens

Your faithfulness

Stretches to the skies

Mitral Valve, Hospital Showers, and Good Coffee

No time for song lyrics people, we need to dive right in to the nitty gritty for Max's surgery.  Okay, well I already have two songs going through my head so we'll see if we can make it through without being a full on blogical and just remain a dramedy.

We spent three hours at the hospital this morning while they walked us through exactly what would happen next week for Max's surgery. I must say, we have an amazing team of people who offer every possible kind of care and support for the whole family.  We met with his surgeon first who explained all the technical aspects of what would happen to Max-from being given anesthesiology to going on bypass so they could stop his heart-and then to fixing both the hole in the wall of his heart and his valve, which is split down the middle. We'll be notified of what is going on all along the way and from the time they wheel him away, probably about 7am, he should be in surgery for roughly 4-6 hours. It's considered routine surgery and his medical team is among the top in the country.  The main "tricky" part (exact medical word used by our cardiologist) is fixing the valve.  If they don't get it just right they'll have to go back in-either right then in the operating room, later during his hospital stay, or any number of years from now. Max's heart is smaller than your fist.  Just make a fist. Smaller. That is what they are operating on.

We toured the hospital after meeting with the surgeon, completing various tests, talking with a nurse, the anesthesiologist, and a social worker. Max did really well-although he hates having his blood drawn and chest X-rayed, and I did pretty well too, although I hate seeing a big gray line on the floor that marks where I stop and he is wheeled down into the O.R.

After he comes out of surgery he'll spend a couple days in ICU, mostly sleeping, pretty out of it, closely monitored.  Then they will transfer him to a regular room, where he'll be for probably another 3-5 days. The hospital was recently renovated and it really is a nice environment.  We have our own room, super comfy sleeper couch, and even a shower, wahoo!  Bard and I will be trading time at the hospital so that one of us is with Max at all times. I'm packing yoga pants, a good book, and lots of chocolate.  Oh, and some things for Max :)

He'll be on some pain meds and various other drugs for a bit, but will likely regain his energy fairly soon. Oddly enough, since they will have just cut open his chest, he will not really be restricted.  So says the nurse. His mother on the other hand...does anyone have a giant bubble? Recovery could also be affected if his heart doesn't start pumping at the rate it needs to, which would mean he would need a pacemaker.  That sounds terrible to me, and although it is unlikely, it's still in the back of my head.

Honestly, the technical stuff bothered me the least, overall.  It's all so far out of my control and hard for me to grasp.  I was more emotional during the hands on part-seeing the room where we'll sit while he's in surgery and the little monitor where they'll display his progress. Imagining that first night and what he'll look like with all the tubes and wiring coming out of his tiny body. And if he'll be scared at being in such a different environment or if we'll be able to reassure him.

And breathe, just breathe

Grey's Anatomy ruined that song for me. On a totally medical side note...because they used it one of their more realistic finales, you know, like a moose invades the ER or the miracle of people remaining hot past their prime based on nostalgia, not actually good writing.

Wait, what?!

Yeah, so any good TV shows I should Hulu while sitting at the hospital for hours on end?  My favorite coffee shop is right down the street, so feel free to bring me a tall vanilla non fat latte and we can catch up on The Mindy Project. I have a feeling that between the beeping, nurses (watch your grammar there, oh wait, that would be "bleeping"!), and pure stress, I'll be a little exhausted. We're so beside ourselves with amazing friends and family who are watching our girls, running errands, bringing us meals, and lifting us up in every possible way.

I got my city right behind me

If I fall, they got me

Please tell me you are not surprised.

I have a lot to do between now and the surgery-put our house in order so that I don't have to be around running it. And, come to terms with the fact that in less than a week my son is going in for open heart surgery. Please pray. Maybe you believe prayer is the most powerful form of communication in existence. Maybe you think it's a right wing crutch of the crazies who believe Obama is a Communist Muslim. First of all, Obama is neither Communist, nor Muslim.  I just feel like that needs to be said.  A lot. Second of all, back to me! I don't know why people go on different spiritual paths and I don't know why they end up at different places. What I do know is the presence of God in my own life. Maybe you don't hear Him. But I believe He is listening. And, perhaps just as important, I believe God uses anything and anyone, for Good. It would mean the world to me, the absolute world and I mean that because there is nothing more important to me right now, if you would take a moment. And ask. Just ask. That as I stop at the big gray line, God continues.  That as Max is taken farther from me he is never out of God's arms. And that at the end of the day, God places him back in mine.

The Lord is my Shepherd

 I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul;

He guides me in paths of righteousness

For His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You have anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Murmurs of Peace

The heart is a bloom

Shoots up through the stony ground

There's no room

No space to rent in this town.

I've heard that song millions of times. Really, millions.  It's one of my favorite songs, by my favorite band; I've seen them perform it live multiple times. But almost every single time I hear this song, it reminds me of a particular moment in my life. I was merging on to I5, on my way to Seattle during a stressful and depressing period.  But the sun was shining, U2 came on the radio, and for some reason as I watched all the drivers, in all their cars, representing all their lives interweaving before me, I just knew in that moment that everything would be okay. Even now, though I associate it with a terrible time, whenever I hear Beautiful Day, it makes me happy.

So I wasn't too surprised to hear it on the day I scheduled my son to have open heart surgery.

The heart is a bloom

We knew this day would come.  In fact, you can go to my post from almost exactly a year ago and read through my thoughts on adopting a child with CHD-a congenital heart defect.  We knew it when we first saw Max's referral sheet, back on July 17th, in a stuffy little office in downtown Kyiv. We heard it from the orphanage doctor as we sat and waited to meet our little boy. We heard it from our International Adoption Dr when we emailed him Max's EKG from our (first, I think!) apartment next to Maidan.  Our family pediatrician told us when we took Max in, 4 days home, for a worrisome cough.  And the cardiologist confirmed it when she first met Max in November, and said that she would perform surgery when he had gained a little weight and was stronger.  

So I'm not exactly sure why I was surprised to hear her say he was ready for surgery when we went for our follow up appointment the first week of January. Maybe because you never really believe that a Doctor will look at you and say a nurse will be calling in a few weeks to schedule a time for them to saw open your baby's chest and sew up a hole in his heart.

Shoots up through the stony ground

I firmly believe that Max would not have survived this surgery had he stayed in Ukraine.  He was so malnourished, failing to thrive, refusing to eat.  To undergo major surgery and not have someone fighting for every ounce of his strength would have been a death sentence.  Now, with a little love and a lot of energy, he has discovered that he is a fighter.  He pushes through milestones with nothing but sheer determination and does not seem to realize that he shouldn't be able to accomplish big goals like learning how to play with his sisters when no one ever played with him before, and climbing onto the couch when it's almost taller than he is!  That last one may be driving me crazy...

Thankfully, although his CHD is serious, it's not as scary as it could be.  Still scary. He has a small hole in the wall of his heart, and also on one of his valves.  They expect to be able to sew him up-he'll be in surgery for the better part of the day-and then in the hospital for about a week.  Success rates are high, our hospital is in the top 20 of the country for this procedure, and he should lead a fully normal rambunctious couch climbing life. On the other hand, it's major surgery.  On his heart.

Has anyone watched Parenthood lately?!  That show is trying to destroy me.

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll 

On the day I found out that we needed to schedule Max's heart surgery, I read something crazy by Horatio G Spafford.  How I came across this reading was random, except it wasn't, and totally new, except it wasn't.  If you haven't read about Spafford, I challenge you to look him up.  You'll probably think he was crazy or cruel and you'd probably be right. I've known his story for years and often vacillated between admiration and annoyance.  If he drew peace from the greatest tragedy of his life, that is awesome, sort of. I really want to have that fullness of peace.  But unfortunately I also want to hold onto just the tiniest bit of the chaos, clutching it in my sweaty little hand.

And I just can't have both.

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

But as I read his story in the morning, before going to see the Dr, and as I heard his song, on the drive back home, I thought, maybe part of this man's story as he stared into cold ocean waves was that over a hundred years later a little boy's mama would hear and believe. Maybe he was part of something bigger. Maybe he was loved by something more.

See the world in green and blue

See China right in front of you

See the canyons broken by clouds

See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out

Of course I'm emotional.  Of course. I know that in just over two weeks I'll be sitting in a hospital waiting room and the hours of waiting will be utter torture. I know he'll be in pain and I won't be able to bear it. Five to ten days of being in the hospital, first in ICU, then hopefully getting stronger. Shifts back and forth with Bard so that a child who was once an orphan never knows being alone again. Family flying in, meals brought, back up plans. Prayers.  This will be life changing. Life giving.

See the Bedouin fires at night

See the oil fields at first light

And see the bird with the leaf in her mouth

After the flood when the colors came out

Because I've seen the other side.  This adoption journey began for me years and years and years ago. And it's not over.  I can step toward unimaginable sacrifice because in my heart of hearts I believe the promise that has already been given. To love. To serve. And Max will continue that journey, bearing his scars like the warrior he is, proof to the world of how strong he is and how vulnerable we all are. 

So when you stare at the ocean, the waves might not be there to crush you, but rather to show you the depth that lies underneath.

What you don't have you don't need it now

What you don't know you can feel it somehow

What you don't have you don't need it now

Don't need it now

It was a beautiful day.

Maternity to Family-What the Photos Show

Maternity Shoot, May 2014

Ten years ago, when I was going through an extremely challenging time in my life, a dear friend gave me one of the best-and worst-compliments I've ever received.  She said that when people are in the middle of heartbreak, walking through difficult times, really being pressed down; it's what comes out of us that shows who we really are.  Like grinding coffee from bitter beans or wine from crushed grapes, when we are really tested, it shows what we are made of, what's inside us.  And that by enduring and persevering through it all I was letting go of the bitterness and giving into the richness. Now, she is probably reading this and wondering why that would also be considered one of the worst compliments . :) Well, it's not of course, it's a wonderful compliment and I've treasured it all these years.

Cici holds a Ukrainian Pysanky Egg

But it makes me think, when maybe I don't want to.  I'll catch myself responding to someone or something - just in my head of course because I wouldn't let anyone see THAT part of me-and I see bitterness.  Anger. Ugly. And then I wonder, am I really letting goodness flow out me? Because a lot of crap comes out too.

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. ~ Jesus

And I think that is why I have hesitated to post these photos.  It also could be because I am lazy.  It also could be because I'm swamped trying to live life with three children.  Whatever. 

My point is that these pictures are just gorgeous. No really-not us-our photographer is amazing and you should check her out, you won't regret it! And I really do love them-they capture our waiting time, our expectancy, our hope and then the fulfillment of that hope.  Joy. Family. I honestly do not think there is anything of greater value in our home than our family photos, I just love them. But are they the coffee from the beans? Just the good part and not really showing any of the yuckiness that lies underneath?  What about all the challenges we have gone through this last year? Where are the frustrations and failures? Do I perpetuate an image of some dreamy perfect family when in reality I think I have broken every parenting law I created for myself at the all-knowing and ripe old age of 25?

All this earth

Could all that is lost ever be found?

Could a garden come up from this ground at all?

The "maternity" photos especially, almost didn't get posted, because I almost didn't retake them.

Evelyn's picture of our whole family-before we even met Max!

Retake because I already did maternity photos for Kazakhstan. Oh yeah, remember that whole THING?  But in the end we did take them because we wanted something new out of the old, something fresh, a new hope, something unique to be cherished, what was gained over what was lost.

And that is how coffee is made.  Maybe I've been thinking about it backwards. I feel guilty over the bitter grounds, pain from the grinding, and I allow it to taint the resulting richness. Of course.  Every morning when Bard tosses out the old coffee grounds from the day before (and yes, we live in the Northwest so of course we recycle and compost because we know anyone who doesn't goes straight to hell), he then grinds new beans and makes fresh coffee. And when I stumble downstairs, the only way I can hold a mug of steaming liquid gold in my hands is if the water has gone through, bringing the flavor, leaving the filth.  

Pitter patter.

Living Water.

Because that is the plan for grace.  I need these photos.  They remind me what is pure.  What is Love. What I  chose and what I am fighting for. I might not be an illustration of the perfect family. Sometimes I might need to crush certain areas more to produce a sweetness that wasn't there before. But I absolutely cannot live in that richness without first sloughing off all the ugliness.  And unfortunately life is not a linear experience and it is not equal.  I don't want to be reminded of the muck, I just want the coffee.  Seriously.  Any time.  Any day. Coffee. Northwest, remember?! But not only do I have to go through the grinding, see the dirty, leftover grounds, I have to be okay with it. Accept grace.  Give grace. Sure the gift of grace itself is pretty great, but the need for grace to begin with is far more crucial-and difficult to understand.

Just a few of our photos, click the links at the right to request viewing.

So when I look at our photos, our journey, I see beauty and pain mixed together because one is ever growing out of the other.  And that is not only okay. It is a miracle.

You make beautiful things. . .