http://adamandshana.com/the-most-beautiful-sound-on-earth/
It was two years ago today. We look forward to the day we get to see you, sweet one! Yours WAS a beautiful sound here on earth!
We love you, beautiful Noelle! Love, Daddy and Mama
It was a beautiful fall day and we met the photographer at a local winery for our first official family pictures. The plan was to take our pictures before we went to the court house with with her also accompanying us there.
We would be meeting our attorney at the courthouse before our hearing time, a woman we have only corresponded with over the phone and online. In the past ten months we have worked closely with two attorneys, both amazing women. She was just as I imagined.
While sitting in the court room she shared two things she learned through her journey of parenthood. First, rather than saying “no” when a child misbehaves she said she learned to tell her children, “we don’t do that“. When a child learns the word “no” they will quickly begin telling us “no“, which honestly becomes old very quickly! “We don’t do that” is a sentence and therefore is something they cannot repeat for quite some time. And, let me tell you, she is very correct. Even Adam and I don’t swim in the dog’s water dish, so we feel really good about saying “we don’t do that!“.
Next, she said when she got older she wished that she did not react as loudly when her children misbehaved…especially in public. We all know this to be beneficial. We know that if we speak quietly they will, themselves, be more likely (but certainly not guaranteed!) to quiet down to listen. The question is if I’ll have that self-control!
I have only ever gone to court for medical cases, for situations that I was not emotionally entangled with. To say that our emotions weren’t high would be false. We were excited for days before!
The five of us (our attorney, Lainey, Adam, myself and our photographer) went in to the courtroom shortly before our hearing time. We all stood when the judge came in. It was then that he asked for another case to be moved before us due to a translator being available at that moment for that person. It was surreal. This brief picture of this judge’s day reminded me of how family practice in medicine is on most days; it is so variable. The first case was a non-English speaking person with a large bill to a company that she did not pay and therefore was turned to collections. Her story was that she didn’t have enough money and had other bills to pay. You can imagine his verdict. Next on the docket: a nice young family adopting a child. #whocouldthathavebeen? And, then following us was a criminal case involving a sudanese gentleman. NOBOREDOMALLOWED.
The judge asked everyone to leave the court room except for us for our hearing. After being sworn in, all of the little details surrounding Lainey’s birth were discussed between our attorney and the judge. Lainey’s adoption is open….but kind of not (in a way) as there are details that are private and we want them that way for both her and her birth parents. I was so very thankful at that moment that he asked all of those people to leave that room. He asked us each what we see when we look at Lainey. He asked us each what we see when we look at each other. I saw my daughter. She is beautiful. I saw an amazing man. A wonderful father that is in love with this little girl that I was holding on my lap.
It felt much like our wedding day, some 19 years ago. We vowed to care for her physically, emotionally and financially. He came down off of the stand and congratulated us. He shook our hands. And, met the star of the show…
We literally had our two copies of the adoption decree within 15 minutes.
And within two weeks her birth certificate arrived, something we hadn’t seen yet! Adam took a picture and sent it to me at work as soon as the mail came.
364 nights ago I cried myself to sleep. Our alarm was set for 3:45 am so we could be sure to leave the house in time to be at the hospital in Kearney early enough for the D&C as our fourth child had passed, a daughter we later named Lainey Lynne’. We knew that was the last pregnancy I would ever have. We were at the lowest point of our life.
Tonight, my daughter is sleeping soundly in her room. She’s been sick this past week so I can hear a faint cough occasionally but quite honestly? It’s a beautiful sound. She’s freaking amazing. Everything about her is crazy amazing! She’s for real. It’s real. This is all real. It is December 1, 2015 everyone and Lainey Noelle is still here. At our home. She never left. No one ever came to take her away. It wasn’t a joke. She’s ours. We are her’s.
All of this, this whole journey that started on January 21st? It is forever.
Thursday is the official infant loss remembrance day. We remember.
At about six months I started to try to put together little things here and there for Lainey to play with that would engage her different senses. The first thing I made for her was this fabric box:
After torturing the poor walmart fabric lady by asking her to cut a million little teeny pieces of fabric, I made a great deal! All of this for just a few bucks!
I started on the clearance wall and then went up and down the regular aisles and simply went by feel. I tried to not pick any two fabrics that felt the same to me. I got such small pieces, making the project very inexpensive. Now, I am not a sewer. I have made many of our curtains in our home…..with fabric glue. Serious. My plans were to hand sew each little square together. After the third square….on the second day….Adam whipped out his sewing machine and finished it in a minute flat. Also, serious. Anyway, Lainey loves this little fabric box. She pulls them out feeling them as they go! As a side note…for anyone that lives in the area, I have all of this fabric left so if you’d like it to make your own fabric sensory box, it’s yours! Just give me a holla!
I then moved on to the bottles. I got almost everything for these at the dollar store….a few things came from walmart and some I already had. I initially got shampoo containers from the dollar store to use but the flip-tops pop off and I believe could be a choking hazard. I decided to go with a different type from Amazon that were also very inexpensive. Adam super glued the lids shut when I was done making them.
Interestingly, she definitely has her favorites…These only come out sometimes. They aren’t in her toy basket for her to play with at all times.
I also made five treasure baskets. These have been life-saving for Adam during the day. Most everything is from the dollar store or things from around the house.
She loves shoe strings so on a couple of them we have bows tied for her to untie. These also aren’t out all of the time. She gets them at different times during the day and literally takes each item out, checking it out, shaking it, feeling it, etc.
The last little sensory thing I will add is about shoes. I was not aware of this at all until I recently visited with our pediatric physical therapist. (Naturally), I have a shoe fetish. I wanted to make sure I don’t buy too many of the wrong kind of shoe for Lainey so I contacted her to find out what the current literature says about hard-soled versus soft-soled, etc. She was a wealth of information. Really, no shoes are necessary until they are walking and at that time it should be about 50/50 hard/soft, with the reasoning being that they feel a lot with their feet sensory-wise. If we put them in hard soled all of the time they will be missing out on that part of their development. With that said, if they are already toe-walking or severely in-toeing or out-toeing, the 50/50 may have to be adjusted because the hard-soled shoes may be necessary to help with that physical aspect. I believe she said these recommendations go at least until age two.
So, I absolutely cannot leave this post like this. With only pictures of inanimate objects. So, here you are (one of my fave’s):
October is infant loss month. It’s amazing how even with Lainey asleep in the room beside me I am, at this very moment, weeping about our lost babies. I’ve only done this a couple of times since she was born and each time there have been triggers. Tonight’s trigger was a simple reminder I saw about October and the flood gates opened. My babies. All of them. All five of them. I love you so.
