Our sweet Annie girl

Hi, I'm three months old...today!!!

It's kinda dark in here

Sitting up (almost) by herself

Hey, I didn't order a monkey!

Annie

Thinking back to when Annie was born, it was so extraordinary, so different. Those first days with her were covered in a glow of awe and amazement. She was so little.

We held our little girl, but we didn’t know her. There she was, but where’d she come from? She was new, so new, and so fragile. Her newborn squeak was barely louder than a whisper, and we’d rush with great urgency to comfort her. How slowly we’d pick her up. How gently Joel would rock her, back and forth in his arms.

It happened so fast. I remember leaving Joel for the operating room, still dazed from a short nap I took while the nurses searched for the doctor. The Indian-born anesthesiologist told me in a voice that reminded me of Hyderabad to climb up on the cold operating table and hunch my back. Relax. A nurse held her head to mine while he stuck me…three times. It felt like a giant pin prick, like he was sticking a frozen splinter in my spine. In no time at all, that fuzzy, prickly feeling of numbness began creeping up my legs…

I stared above me at the bright surgery lights and realized with horror that I could see my abdomen reflecting off the glass. There was no way I was going to see them cut me open! While I contemplated how to get the attention of the doctors and nurses rushing around me, someone pulled a blue sheet in front of my face. Thank God.

Joel came in, all decked out in blue hat, mask, and booties. He sat beside my head while they began the cutting. Did this hurt? Did that? The doctor asked me. A minute later I moaned and groaned at this awful feeling of someone pushing and squishing my insides. We heard Dr. Ammodt’s voice, “I see the butt, I see the butt, it’s a girl!”

“It’s Annie!” Joel whispered to me, and our midwife brought her around the curtain for a quick peek.

She was huge! Eyes closed, arms flailing, she was a living, breathing being, all dark pink and spotty white. And what a head of beautiful, jet black hair! Had she really just come from inside of me? How did she fit in there?

“Oh, Melissa!” Joel said in a tone of voice I had never heard before. He rushed to where she was, on the other side of the curtain.

Annie, I remember thinking, Annie? I knew we’d chosen the name, but how did we know it suited her? We didn’t know anything about her!

How badly I wanted to touch her there in the operating room! But I could not, my arms strapped, staring at the cold bright lights. What was happening?

As if Annie knew my thoughts, she let out the most beautiful sound in the world. She cried.

I smiled and my heart filled with warmth. Our baby. Alive. Here.

Joel brought her to me again for a quick peek—she was all bundled up—and then whisked her away. After a blur of stitching me up, wheeling me to the recovery room, she was back, in my arms, making newborn noises, her deep, dark eyes staring into my eyes. Who are you, little girl?

She needed me to feed her, the nurses said, her blood sugar was low. Feed her? Who, me? Could I really do that? I pretended like I knew what I was doing, though it didn’t seem like she was getting anything. Later I was elated to find out her blood sugar had gone up.

An hour or so later, when they finally gave her to me to keep, I wanted so badly to unwrap the layers and layers of thick blanket, and look at every beautiful little part of her body, just to see if it was all there and perfect. I took off her cap, (made out of the arm of a sweater, tied with a piece of yarn) to touch her downy-soft hair, and then peeked at her tiny toes.

Unfortunately, the nurses stopped me. She needed to keep her temperature up, they said.

The next hours and days in the hospital were a blur of drowsiness from Percocet and of visitors bringing pink dresses, pink blankets, and pink balloons. All I could think about was our baby’s sweet, perfect face. At night I kept waking Joel up to go and get her from the nursery. “Just to look at her,” I said, also convinced the nurses wouldn’t bring her to me the moment she was hungry. I just wanted to hold her close to me and smell her hair.

When it was time to take her home, (we had waited and waited for confirmation of the doctor’s release) I went through the fifty outfits I had packed to find out which suited her. (It was a lot.) The nurse cut off Annie’s tracker anklet and wheeled us out in a wheelchair. We were free!

I remember first putting her in the car seat. She was like a tiny pearl in a huge clamshell. It gobbled her up. She looked so uncomfortable hunched over but she fell right asleep.

Now that seems like forever ago. Now it’s no longer little Annie we don’t know but Annie who laughs her cough-laugh when you talk to her, and likes to stand up on her legs; Annie who whimpers and whines when she’s tired; Annie blinking, resting on our shoulder, arms straight out, just woken from a nap; Annie who says Ah-goo and stares at her “power hand” (the right hand always raised, clenched in a fist…it’s her new thing); Annie listening to guitar; Annie going potty; Annie who stares at everything, coming more aware of the world at every moment…

…Annie whom I love, and grow to love, more and more every day.

<-- Isn't that funny..?

Hitchhikers

OOOOOO everyone knows you shouldn't pick up hitchhikers! Right?

Right?

Well, this must be the lesson everyone driving north on I-81 at approximately 8:44am had told to him by his mommy; and when I slung my car out of the raging torrent of the 'burg-morning-rush and patiently waited for this thin gentleman with a cane to approach the passenger side(that's right, I said he was using a cane... for walking...) I wondered why nobody had stopped for him. Maybe 35 years old, he'd obviously been through a lot in his half of an average lifetime. Aside from the cane, he was unhealthily thin, loosing his teeth and quite downcast. He'd been walking for 12 hours.

Turns out, his ex-wife had vowed to get his visitation rights with his 5-year-old daughter taken away. Determined not to let that happen, his life had become a quest to prove to this woman, the courts and his daughter that he loved and cared for his child and was willing to sacrifice everything to be something that so many of today's fathers miserably fail to be: Present.

He'd since made nine trips from from Brandywine West Virginia to New Market Virginia. Sometimes he'd get a ride for part of the trip. More often, he wouldn't, and it's a 50 mile trip. This time, he was hoofing it to a parent/teacher conference that his ex couldn't make it to. She'd taken him to court twice trying to convince the judge that he didn't care about their daughter. The judge looked at him, completely exhausted after walking all night to make the court date... and took his side.

Occasionally I realize how pampered I am. This morning was one of those occasions. I can't imagine having a background like this guy. He did acknowledge that he'd made his share of foolish mistakes... but he'd also had very few advantages (aside from the big three... being a white, american male) He'd since been "Cleaning up," Staying away from the sauce and the smoke... well... the illegal smoke atleast. And going to church "More and more."

This was devotion. This guy didn't have a penny in his pocket. All he cared about was being part of his daughter's life. Unbelievable. We had a good conversation during the 20-minute drive to New Market. I had the opportunity to share Christ with him and though he was hesitant at first, just before we parted he accepted Jesus into his heart. Praise God.

And I sat all day in my air-conditioned office where I work a job that I enjoy, and take home 2 good paychecks a month... and I wondered where he was.

I saw sincerity in his eyes when we said goodbye.

yeah.

Hurricane Katrina

Let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house.
Matthew 24:17


Our heart goes out to all the people hit by hurricane Katrina...

I saw several babies on tv--their mothers were getting rescued by helicopter, or they were sitting on a highway, or at the convention center, one mother had passed out. One baby was a newborn--so tiny! Were they getting enough food?

One special showed a preemie in a hospital in New Orleans. The power had gone out and the nurses had to pump oxygen by hand. One couple had to leave their baby boy to go and make sure their family at home was ok. They said they just prayed and left the baby in God's hands. All the infants were fine. The couple with the tiny baby boy gave praise to God.

Our pastor is going to go down and help out. A girl in my Bible study wants to go too. I am proud to live in a country that is so giving. I hope our pastor can share the Good News that can't be taken by theives, flood or hurricane.

Potty Trained

Yes, she does go on the potty.

I just finished taking her now and boy, am I glad all that went in the toilet!

It's amazing that even after being to India and seeing all the mothers holding their bare-bottomed infants, it still didn't occur to me that there was any other option than diapers. I always wondered what they did in other countries—but it never got much further than that.

I got the idea after reading To Train Up a Child, a book given to us by our friends in Charlottesville who have five kids of their own. After reading the short excerpt, I had a lot of questions. “What about night time? What do they do during feeding?” Questions aside, it didn’t hurt to try!

Two days later she had it down! (Just after A-da had left for California.) Now Annie’s gone through the night and all morning into the afternoon in town with a dry diaper. I just hold her over the potty—in IHOP, in the doctor’s office, at the market…

"You need me to hold her while you go to the bathroom?" A nice lady at the RMH Atrium offered.
"Oh no, I'm taking her to the potty."
She didn't understand. "I'll hold her for you..."
I smiled. "No...she needs to go to the bathroom."

I get some strange looks, but it seems to make Annie happy. After washing with water, she's all clean. No more diaper rash!

Infants naturally don’t like to mess their nests. We train them not to mind it. Then when it comes time to potty train around 2 years or so, we’re having to work extra hard to “untrain” them. I read about a four-week old Down’s Syndrome baby who impressed nurses with his potty abilities!

Contrary to rumor, though, Annie girl does wear a diaper…what do they do in other countries about the sneezes?

Look how big I am!

Happy times.

So far, we're seein' more of me in her than Joel

I love sittin' in my chair stylin' this hat I got from my mama's penpal Keri...

My new nickname? Baldie! (just kidding)

ohhh

ooo

This is my Indian chief look.