Our days are blurry and hazy. Annabel and I spend most of our time like this:
Occasionally her daddy steals her away, and this happens:
I love sleeping with her on my chest. I loved it when Maddie slept there. Our hearts beat together, and our chests rise and fall in rhythm. I feel her breath on my cheek, and I hear her little sighs and squeaks. I am getting to know her even when we both sleep.
And we sleep a lot.
When we are all awake, we look into each other’s eyes. We sing songs, some silly, some sweet. Hands are held, hair is brushed.
Stories are told of Madeline. We tell Annabel how alike they look, so clearly sisters, but definitely individuals.
Madeline on her birth day
Annabel on her birth day
Madeline
Annabel
We tell Annie that Maddie hated to have her feet covered by blankets, just like she does. We tell her that Maddie woke up instantly, while she prefers to wake up gradually. We tell her Maddie ate slowly and deliberately, while she gobbles food down as quickly as she can. We tell her that they share a love of snuggling.
There have been lots of tears. As our hearts have expanded, so has the hole caused by Madeline’s absence. We tell Annie what we think her sister would be doing if she were here. We imagine there would be a LOT of kisses from big sister to little sister. We try to give them on her behalf.
At night, I give Annabel a goodnight kiss for her and a goodnight kiss for her sister. Then I wrap my arms around her and I make my nightly wish that her sister will come to me in my dreams.
This is Madeline, me, and my friend Desiree at the Dodgers’ spring training facility last March. It was taken only a few weeks before Maddie got sick. It was a few months after Desiree finished chemo for breast cancer (I’ve written about her before). She successfully went into remission, and over the summer she underwent reconstructive surgery. At one of our lunches, she asked me to take pictures of her when her surgeries had healed. She wanted, “I Beat Cancer” pictures. I was honored she asked me and started thinking about ideas immediately.
Over Thanksgiving she emailed me from her family vacation. She and I often had long talks and email exchanges about the more difficult things we’d faced in life. This email told me she was experiencing terrible pain in her arm, and she was afraid her cancer had come back. I told her it was probably scar tissue pressing on a nerve and to enjoy her trip as much as possible. Unfortunately, she was right – her cancer had come back, and it had spread. However, her doctors were still very confident she would beat cancer again.
Desiree didn’t feel much like visitors after her latest diagnosis so we kept in touch via our phones – lots of texts and emails. We would confide our struggles, our fears, our pain. She told me that Madeline was one of her inspirations. I told her she was one of mine.
The day Annabel was born, I sent Desiree a picture right away. Des had been going through a rough spot and I hoped seeing a picture of the baby would cheer her up. She called me the next morning. She sounded weak but so happy about Annie. We talked about the baby, we both cried, and we said I love you and laughed at each other for being teary. We said we’d talk when I got out of the hospital so we could arrange a time for her to meet the baby. But when I got out of the hospital, she went in.
Her sister updated her blog asking for prayers and I knew things had become more serious. Still, her sister said Desiree was bossing everyone around, and I laughed thinking about her barking orders to the hospital staff. But last weekend, things took a turn for the worst, and on February 1st, my sweet, strong, bossy friend Desiree lost her fight against cancer.
I’ve been in shock for the last week. I have only been able to let myself think about it in small bits. The emotions I’ve felt about Madeline since Annabel’s birth have been right at the surface, and I have worked hard, so hard, at keeping them at bay so I can be fair to Annie. I haven’t wanted her first weeks home to be marred by sorrow. But life has a way of making you think about things even when you don’t want to.
Today I will think about my dear friend all day. At nine in the morning we are going to Desiree’s funeral. It will be the third funeral I’ve been to in 2010. The third funeral of a mother and daughter whose life ended too soon.
I will remember Desiree for all of my life. She will be an important woman I tell my Annie about. And she will always be one of my inspirations.
It’s really hard to be a parent these days. There are so many things we have to consider, and so many people on opposite sides of each issue, that our minds are swimming. One of the hottest issues has been the debate over vaccines. While I am unabashedly pro-vaccine, my problem is not with parents who make the opposite decision. I hate that there has been a culture of fear around vaccines: If you DO vaccinate, you are exposing your children to autism; if you DON’T vaccinate, you are exposing your child to deadly diseases.
Last week the medical journal The Lancet retracted the article that made the link between the MMR vaccine and autism. This makes me happy because it hopefully will put an end to the fear-mongering that has surrounded vaccines. Still, it’s complicated because in the end, parents only want what they think is best for their kids.
The news of the Lancet’s retraction was the focus of the latest Momversation, and I was privileged to be a guest on the topic.
ALSO – Everyone please be respectful in the comments!!! Discussion is great; name calling and the like are not. Please don’t make me close comments, with Annie here now I don’t have as much time to police everyone!
Information is power as they say, and this is rarely ever more true than when pregnant. An expecting mother who is informed about how to be healthy when pregnant greatly improves her chances of having a healthy baby. After everything I’ve been through these last few years, I know just how important that is. So, when I was approached with an amazing opportunity to help AT&T spread the word about text4baby, a new service the White House is launching that could improve the lives of millions of Americans, I immediately pledged to help. It is a cause so near and dear to me.
The text4baby campaign is a nationwide effort to give expectant and new mothers information that promotes healthy pregnancies – and healthy babies – via text messaging. It is totally free, and once registered an expectant mother (“or father!” Mike just yelled across the room) will receive three free text messages a week with health tips specifically tailored to the stage of their baby’s development. So, if you are two months pregnant, you will be texted info about being healthy when two months pregnant, or if you have a two month old, you will be texted info about your two month old. As your pregnancy advances or your child gets older, so will the information texted to you, and it will continue to do so all the way through your baby’s first birthday.
This service is so important because, shockingly, America has one of the highest infant-mortality rates in the industrialized world. Each year more than 500,000 of our babies (one in eight) are born prematurely, and about 28,000 infants die before their first birthday. These statistics don’t have to be so dire…by literally putting health information at the fingertips of expectant and new families, we are empowering them to give their babies the best possible start in life.
As you all know, Madeline was born premature, and one of the reasons she passed away was because of “complications related to prematurity.” So if you are pregnant or a new parent, please sign up for text4baby by texting the word “baby” or “bebe” to 511411. If you’re not pregnant, please help to spread the word. (a press release with more info on text4baby can be read here.) The more parents this information reaches, the more babies will make it to full term, and that is something we can all be proud of.
Everyone deserves a healthy little baby like this:
