Another Sunday and Reflections on Andrew's Birth

My two oldest will start school soon. It will be the second oldest son's first day of school and my oldest will experience a new school with his younger brother. I can't help but think that I was carrying Andrew at this time last year.

I pack up the only home Andrew ever knew. While I am ecstatic to finally get to l;ive in another home and not be renting anymore, I am saddened because we will say good-bye to another link to our dear son. All of his things are packed away now in a bin in our bedroom. And his form that I touched physicially now lays in the ground.

Mark wants to move Andrew's things out to the garage and I can't stand that thought right now. I even sleep with one of the blankets he got last Christmas. It's a blanket that I would drape across my lap as I nursed him in the NICU. A bit silly I guess but it is something he and I shared together. It's a reminder of him, that for some odd reason, doesn't cause me great pain when I see it.

Andrew and I often snuggled. He loved it. I loved it. We would snuggle sitting, reclining or lying down. It was something I did with him more than I did with the other boys. I think he felt so secure and loved and at peace next to me and in my arms. That was always what his eyes seemed to tell me. You see, his eyes spoke to me from the first. I was the first one he opened his eyes to. The nurses and Mark both told me that he didn't really open them for them. So that was a special thing for me. Something I now treasure.

And I lavished the hugs and kisses on him along with my encouraging words on how big he was getting to be, how strong he was, how fast he was growing and how soon he would be able to run with his brothers like he was longing to. He was small for his chronological age but he was precious to me. And growing up so fast. Getting to be so big.

Now having three others living, I am obviously an experienced mother. I have cared for other infants of my own prior to Andrew. I had carried them, labored long and hard and birthed each of them. But I never had an experience like I did with Andrew.

Part of it was that itt was hard to know what to expect when you have your water break so early. It was unknown how developed he would be when he came.And a bit scary and unsettling to be on bedrest. But it was some private time he and I had. I had few people to talk to and got so depressed in the hospital. Granted, due to my nature, I don't mind seclusion and need "alone" time to refresh and recharge. But two and a half weeks with only hospital staff, nurses, a few volunteers and short visits from my family, I found myself really struggling with loneliness and aloneness. So I talked to Andrew quite a bit during that time and would run my hand over my belly asking him how he was doing. And crying to him. And telling him that I didn't want to watch "The Santa Claus" movie series yet again for the fourth time or so.

There was also the way he was born. He was the first C-section. My belly still bears the scar of where his little body was taken out of me before he endured too much stress during labor and possibly die. And the slight potential I would bleed to death.

And then there is also how I didn't get to take him home when I went home. I had to visit him and he was like an "underdog".  That always gets me.

But there was more. Between the time of his next oldest brother's birth, two and a half years prior to Andrew's, and Andrew's arrival, I had experienced some profound inner healing. The leaps I made during Andrew's gestation emotionally and spiritually, were so significant, it was like I felt myself mature a great deal and "grow up" in a sense. So I think I was finally comfortable with the fact that I was a mother.

With my first, I was so overwhelmed and felt so unprepared to mother that I wasn't able to hardly comprehend how special he was and enjoy that time more. Then with the second, I was overwhelmed that we had two so close together. They are 15 1/2 months apart. And then pre-eclampsia almost took my life the week after he was born. Then came the third and I was in unbelief that we were having another.

I may have been hesitant and not overly ecstatic when I found out I was pregnant with Andrew, but after seeing the initial ultrasound confirming the pregnancy and its validity, I began to love him as I love the others. And I wanted him bur still felt some trepidation. But the healing God did in me was so profound and reached into such depths, I was like a new woman. A new mother.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not as though I had no enjoyment of my boys, or wasn't a good mother, no one is a perfect parent. But I have always strived and longed to be a better mother. More of a mother and felt as though I was not making the mark. I think we all feel this way at one point or another. But the experience I had had changed me significcantly and now I know how to handle things better. Not that I have arrived. No, my journey is not done yet.

Still I know that what God did in me made me better able to handle the hospitalization, Andrew's early arrival, NICU and all that came with that much better and with a greater ability to be present in the moment more than ever before. It enabled me to have a relationship with Andrew that has marked me for all time and allowed me to give to him in a way I had never been able to or equipped to with the other boys.

So I was so anxious to meet him by the time he came. And was so glad when they said it was time. And then I saw him. Tiny. Perfect. Little. Crying and breathing at 33 weeks! All body functions showing normal signs as though he was full term. A miracle! My little special, Andrew Michael.