Hope Found

The little face that gives me renewed hope each morning.

Two years ago, nearly two years to the day before Lily was born, I wrote this post about the pain of losing hope in a future I had always dreamed of. I think about that post often because the walk I describe in it has been such a symbolic one for me throughout the past two years. I have walked around the paths surrounding our neighborhood while grieving the pain of a miscarriage, while celebrating the prospect of a new treatment cycle, while feeling the discouragement of another negative pregnancy test, while talking quietly to the growing Button in my belly. And today, with the burst of spring weather at long last, with the bright sunshine that has come after such a long, cold winter, I finally walked while pushing Lily--our miraculous little daughter.

Right now, I am struck by how many of my dear friends are in places where hope has failed them before. One is today meeting with a specialist to go over the plan moving forward from her most recent miscarriage, two are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the treatment cycles they're currently in the midst of, others are patiently walking through the next steps in journeys to adoption or fostering. All of these women and men deserve to be parents--have hoped and prayed and longed to be parents--and yet are in a holding pattern of waiting, wondering if hope will find or elude them this time.

If you're reading this today and feeling a dearth of hope, please don't think for one moment that I'm writing platitudes, telling you that it will all work out perfectly, that the job/house/spouse/baby will arrive exactly how you want it to and the way you've always dreamed, that bumpy roads lead to the best outcomes because they're so much more worth it, that Lily's smiley face at the top of this post should make you feel all better. While some of those things may be true, all of them aren't--and certainly not for all people in all circumstances. However, the only story I can tell--the only story this blog can tell--is mine. And this story--happily, joyfully--is one of hope found after hope lost, one of hope renewed after hope shattered.

I hope and pray yours is, too.

Dear Lily: Your daddy sings off-key.

Dear Lil' Lily,

As I type this, I'm watching you squirm on the monitor screen next to me. You've been inconsolable for more of the day than is normal for you (a period of time which, I imagine, is infinitesimal compared to many infants your age, but it still feels abnormal to us). In particular, since we gave you your bath this evening, you've been crying. It breaks our hearts even more than it ever has before because you now cry real tears, salty droplets that well up at the corners of your big, round eyes, then spill down your soft, chubby cheeks. Real tears that we kiss and rock and shush away--but tonight to no avail.

But your daddy hasn't given up on you yet.

For nearly an hour now, he's been holding you. He's rocked you in big swings and bounced you in small hops; he's patiently taken a half hour to feed you three ounces from your bottle and offered you back your pacifier each of the times you've spit it out. And, with a soft, gentle voice, he's sung you everything from Billy Joel to Oklahoma to Elton John (via Moulin Rouge).

And he's sung every single one slightly off-key.

But here's what amazing, little girl: you don't know and you don't care. That voice is daddy's voice, your daddy's voice, and it means that you're safe, that you're cared for, that the world around you is suddenly a more familiar, less scary place. And even though you're still tossing and turning, even though we doubt we'll ever sleep tonight, you're no longer crying inconsolably--because you seem to understand, to know and to trust, that your daddy loves you. And that makes everything alright.

Your daddy loves us a whole lot, my sweet little girl.

(Now could you please go to sleep?)

Love,
Your mommy

Lily's Duckies--Here They Come: A Bathroom Makeover

We love our townhouse, and, when we found it over two years ago, we were delighted to realize that so many of the rooms were already move-in ready for us. For example, we loved the bright yellow walls and adorable drawer pulls (they are little pieces of silverware!) in the kitchen, the red accent wall surrounding the fireplace in our living room, the finished basement complete with a chair rail, and the (laminate-but-it's-better-than-wall-to-wall-carpeting) hardwood floors throughout. In fact, the only things we really didn't love were the paint colors in the master and guest bedrooms and the state of the three and a half baths.

Two years later, we've Jeff has painted the master bedroom, and you know all about the guest bedroom that turned into Lily's nursery. But the bathrooms have fallen by the wayside, in spite of our best intentions. The same sky blue is in our master bath, the heinously ugly gardening wallpaper is still peeling off the basement bath walls, and the half bath on the main level lacks any kind of beautiful pedestal sink or eye-catching wall color that we've been drooling over online. However, Lily's arrival gave us the perfect reason to focus on the upstairs guest bath!

With basic white walls when we moved in, the bathroom worked fine with the pre-existing bath set we had. However, the French bistro / wine theme didn't seem so appropriate for a newborn, so we set to work.

The process began months ago, right around Christmas, when Jeff finally removed the 1980s-esque make-up lighting fixture (that still graces our bathroom) and got creative in replacing it with a new one we liked much better.

Now that we'd established a brushed bronze for the fixtures, we set to work on the faucet. The original one was just a silver basic one...

Which Jeff worked hard to replace...

With a pretty brushed bronze one that looks like an old well pump!

Inspiring the rest of the bathroom makeover was an adorable Pottery Barn set of towels, shower curtain, wastebasket, and tissue holder, kindly given to us by friends at church who were done using it for their daughters.

Because I knew Lily's bath supplies would require extra storage, I found a white cabinet on Amazon, then painted matching ducks on it.

But, before we could continue the project by choosing a new paint color for the walls, someone decided to make an early arrival into the world! As a result, it was nearly a month later when Jeff finally stayed up until 1am one morning, painting the "accent wall" a crisp Mediterranean blue.

After that, all that was left was the finishing touches, completed during Lily's afternoon nap earlier this week!

It was months in the making, but that's pretty perfect for our daughter who was years in the making, right?

Up next: the basement bathroom of topiary terror...

It's a good thing I didn't write this post yesterday.

Yesterday was a horrible, very bad, no good kind of day.
Yesterday, I wondered why God had chosen me to parent this little girl.
Yesterday, I couldn't stop crying.
Yesterday, I kept thinking "I hate being a mom."

But today...

Today, I've realized that 4 consecutive hours of sleep can work wonders.
Today, I've learned that reaching out to other moms and being honest about what I'm feeling is beyond reassuring.
Today, I've figured out that "sometimes I hate being a mom of a newborn who can't tell me what she needs."
Today, I know that I am not perfect and neither is Lily, but I am the perfect mommy for Lily and she is the perfect daughter for me.

It's hard to explain how much guilt is tied up in being a new mom, especially for me, especially given my personality, especially given the journey it took to get here. It's a challenge to admit that it's a huge adjustment to be home all day yet to accomplish seemingly nothing, that I can get to a point where sleep eludes me because I'm too exhausted, that I believe that I'm failing my tiny daughter. Thankfully, I'm surrounded by friends and family--both long-distance and right in the same room--who reassure me that everything I'm feeling is normal and that this phase will be over soon enough.

While Lily is the same newborn today that she was yesterday, today is much brighter, much more manageable, much more joyful. Today, I looked down at her sweet little face as she nursed and reveled with delight in holding my daughter in my arms. So, while there will be more yesterdays in our future, I'm writing this today to remind myself that the todays will come after the yesterdays and that joy does come fresh with each new morning.

I'm doing my best, little Lily. We'll get the hang of this yet.