This is something I wrote back in May, but wanted to include here for those that find Kali's story...

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” Maya Angelou I don't have some lifelong, sentimental, personal attachment to Maya Angelou, (although I remember reading her works back in the days) but I am going to chime in today. As you may have seen, I recently quoted her in my blog post about Kali. It was a simple quote, but with tremendous meaning to me. How Maya wrote it, and what she meant by it, is different than why I used it with regard to my own life. Nevertheless, it moved me to not only quote it on my blog, but to write those exact words/quote on a card that I left for our NICU doctor. During the weeks we sat at the hospital, we had to find words. We had to find smiles. We had to find meaning. We had to find hope. We had to find our song. God blessed us with a beautiful daughter, but it was a life that we feared for. We knew that in this life of "normals" and "easy roads" for some, she would have to find her way, in a very likely "special" way. Kali would have to write the verses to her life song in a way that doesn't come easy. We were told by many of the people that came to see us that she "won't do this" or she "may not do that". To each and every one of them, we said "BUT MAYBE SHE WILL". I pray for Kali's life. I pray that she finds her sweet song. I pray that she writes an amazing symphony, and that because of her beauty and determination, her song becomes one that everyone wants to hear. I pray that it's one that echoes through the hearts of all that come to know her. I am grateful also that God reminds me daily that I was also created to sing. He doesn't need me to sing. He doesn't even care about the words that I use when I do. He just wants me to sing. He just wants to know that I will always find the melody of a grateful heart, and lift that song to Him in praise of His goodness. So while I may not have the answers, indeed I have a song. And there in the distance I hear the voice of an angel. My sweet Kali Raine. Sing sweet Birdie Girl. We're all listening.  ♥ Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come, Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heav’n and home, When Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is He: His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. “Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear, And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears; Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise, When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies, I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Joy comes in the morning

I may or may not have mentioned in the first part of this story that I cried about a lot of things over the past month.  I actually managed to cry for 40 minutes straight on one drive to the hospital. Not just trickling tears, but soulful sobs.  The pain just came in waves, over and over and over, hitting the shores of my heart, tumbling and rolling, and crashing. I couldn't stop.

My.heart.hurt.

My heart hurt for me.  My heart hurt for my family. My heart hurt for my daughter.

It hurt because I was scared. I was sad. I was angry. I was confused. I was disappointed.

I knew the answer to all of my own questions, but I'm human and I couldn't help but wonder. Why me? Why was I chosen? What did I do to deserve this? 

I thought things, and felt things that I didn't want to think. Things I didn't want to admit. Things I was scared to talk about. 

Jason and I would just look at each other sometimes and know what the other was thinking. We took turns crying and being strong. We traded laughter for tears a few times, because that's just who we are.  Every moment was a new emotion, and we just had to feel them all. We promised each other many times in those days that we would ALWAYS talk about it. We promised to be honest with each other no matter what the feeling was, and vowed that we had a safe harbor in each other to be able to say anything that we needed to say, and trust me, we said it all. Everything you think we might have thought, we did. I don't think there's an inch of emotional ground we didn't cover...and being that we (I) cried every last drop I had left in me, it was time to shift gears.

My questions shifted.
My thoughts shifted.
My "why's" were not the same.

There was no longer that search for the oasis.  Where I thought I needed water, there was dry land. The wounds were healing. The tears were drying. I would cross through this desert and not thirst. There was no reason to keep searching for something I had hoped to see. God placed the true vision, clear as day, right there in front of me.

I was now asking the same questions, but with a different heart.  My blinded, distrusting, scared, wavering, worried, human eyes were opened again. They were opened once again to God's promises.

I urge you, as you walk this journey with me to try asking these questions one way, and then asking them again with a new vision, a new heart.

Come with me. Try it.

Why me God? 

Why ME God?

Why did you choose me?

Why did you choose ME?

What did I do to deserve this? 

What did I do to deserve THIS?

I remember EXACTLY when it was. I will NEVER forget exactly when it was. (It was Monday. Monday April 7 at 630 pm)

There in one moment was the shift.  In just one single moment.

Everything changed.

I had an amazing, beautiful, perfect little daughter. 

I had an amazing, beautiful, perfect little daughter, with Down Syndrome.

She was created for a purpose.

She was fearfully and wonderfully made.

She was woven and spun.

She was...

Kali Raine Marie Owens...

MOST BEAUTIFUL QUEEN. 

She was mine.

She was OURS!!!!

God you are so good.


GOD.  You are SO, SO GOOD.

Kali Raine. What did I do to deserve YOU my sweet love? My sweet birdie girl.

Oh my heart. Oh, my GOD.

What did I do to deserve this? Why did you choose ME to be her mom?

Oh God.
Oh God.
Oh my glorious, wonderful, all knowing, all powerful God. 

Thank you!

Thank you!

Oh sweet, sweet Kali Raine Marie.

Joy comes in the morning. YOU are my joy. You are my hope. You are my heart.

To be continued...

Why does the caged bird sing?

 

Why does the caged bird sing? 

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."

As most of you know, I spent a month in the NICU with our daughter Kali. I spent a month crying, and laughing, and wondering, and thinking about life. I spent a month thinking about words. I wondered how I would eventually say all of the things that I needed to say. I wondered how to answer all of the questions that were swirling in my head and my heart. I wondered how I would best formulate the right, and eloquent words to share that journey with you. 

What I realized, after weeks of rehearsing the story in my brain (and almost making myself crazy in the process) is that there is no "right" way to share what I have to say. We all have our own journey, and we all walk our own roads in such different, but perhaps such similar ways.  What I learned is that the only thing that is right, is to be honest and to share our journey the way God would intend us to share it. From our hearts, and from His grace.

 So here is our story, here is our song.  

A few weeks before giving birth to Kali, I was browsing Facebook and came across another woman's blog. I wept as I read their story and I wept as I imagined how this would effect me, if I were in her position.  

To give some background on the situation, I will tell you that we have never had any screenings or tests done on our children during pregnancy. I have always said that I would love and cherish and give birth to ANY child that God would bless me with. Jason has heard me plead with him for years to sell everything we own and go and be parents to children anywhere and everywhere in this world, no matter the cost, no matter the condition, no matter the cause.  I have always believed that where God would guide, He would provide.  Little did I know how God was preparing me and my heart for what was to come.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I'm at one of my final OB appointments.  Any day now, my perfectly healthy, wonderful bundle of joy would be making her entrance into the world.  The 9 months of stress and worry and agony were almost over... Just get through the delivery and bring her home, and all will be well in the world I thought...BUT....If you've ever been pregnant, or have been with anyone who is pregnant, you will know the dreaded moments of having your doctor look for a heartbeat, and not find one...I waited, I pretended to be OK, I held my breath and prayed a silent prayer.  "Let's go to the other room and take a look on the ultrasound" the doctor said.

Silence. Fear. Prayers. 

As it would turn out, he was able to detect a heartbeat, and tried to reassure me of her well being.

He offered me the option of being induced the following week if we still sensed unstable vital signs on my baby girl.  I went home from that appointment and found myself barely able to sleep for an hour at a time. I kept moving and turning and measuring kicks and movements to make sure that she was safe. I knew something wasn't right, and I knew that I needed to have her out as soon as possible. Looking back, I believe that my body reacted to my fears and anxiety, and began to labor on it's own because of this.  After 8 children (ALL late in terms of pregnancy) this one was making it's way early for a reason.  I called Jason, and my mother, and told them that they better make their way to the hospital ASAP and that I knew that something was happening. At that point my dear friend came to my house without prompting and insisted on sitting with me until the back ups arrived. (I am forever grateful to you RA). 

Fast forward again, and we were in the hospital, on the monitors, and the doctor advised that I stay there, and that I would be induced for labor the next day.

Nearly 24 hours later, Kali Raine Marie Owens would make her entrance into the world. 

9:48pm.  Thursday March 27. 

I looked down at her as she arrived and I cried tears of pure joy. 

She was alive. She was healthy. She was beautiful. She was perfect.

The doctors said that she had great newborn scores. All was well as I took her to my breast and met her eye to eye.  What would be my last pregnancy, and birth went off without a hitch. God is good I thought. Thank you for this perfect life. 

Thank you.

A few hours later Kali would begin to vomit. 

The nurses and doctors said that it was a normal occurrence due to having been born so quickly, and that her body maybe didn't process the fluids she swallowed during delivery.  We accepted this as the answer and we continued to feed her and watch her. The vomiting continued and the doctors began to consider that maybe, just maybe we needed to investigate further. X-rays were done and all testing came back normal. There was nothing they could see that would indicate any problems. We continued to feed, and we watched her sleep peacefully that first night.

2AM Saturday. The doctors woke us to tell us that because of her vomiting, they decided to do a 2nd Xray, to rule in or out the possibility of another issue. The 2nd test confirmed that she did indeed have an intestinal issue.  They told us, through our sleep depraved eyes and bodies, that the transport team was on their way, and they were taking our 1 day old baby to the NICU in San Antonio. Further tests and possible surgery were on the horizon they said, and they advised us to go home and get sleep now, so that we would be prepared for the "days" ahead.  

After a few minutes of "sleep" (yeah, not really), we met with a surgeon who told us of the possible complications and the inevitable surgery Kali was about to face.  One scenario not so promising, the other, the bright side.  After several hours of waiting for answers, we found out that the bright side was in fact in our cards, and that her surgery wasn't critical. Her diagnosis at the time: Duodenal Stenosis (http://www.webmd.com/children/duodenal-atresia-or-stenosis)  The surgeon assured us that this was a common and very treatable condition.  The surgery could wait until the morning...

But...

What came next would bring us to our knees.  

What came next...

The doctors and the surgeons gathered around and tried to make sense of what had happened so far.  The complications in pregnancy and the after birth issues...

They all scratched their heads, and doubted what they thought may be the case.

 Based on this one issue...

BASED SOLELY ON THIS ONE ISSUE...

They said the following words.

Down Syndrome.

Down.

Syndrome.

BUT!!!!!! 

We're going to do tests to RULE IT OUT they said.

We're just going to do tests to RULE IT OUT!!!!!

These amazing, certified, awesome, wise, and wonderful doctors, wanted to rule it out.

I couldn't hear anything else they said. Nothing else that came and went between us would matter.

NOTHING...
 
At the end of they day, they said those words.

Down Syndrome.

Those 2 words that we have probably all heard a million times in our lives.

Those 2 words that never meant much to us. 

Those 2 words that had the potential to change our lives. 

They said the words that every pregnant woman hopes she will never hear.

 It's true.

We don't want to hear it. We don't know how to handle it. We don't want it to happen to "us".

So there we were. 

There we were with no words to describe those first moments.

There we were speechless, because there are no words to explain what we were feeling.

We stood there in complete shock and in complete disbelief. 

I cried.
I sobbed.
I wept.
I mourned.
I feared.
I doubted.
I cursed.
I questioned.

And then, I cried some more.

My sweet, precious, perfect, beautiful, angelic baby may have Down Syndrome.

God.

Seriously God???

How can this be?

I didn't want to be pregnant in the first place (another story for another day). I didn't want another baby. I didn't want any of this.

Why?
How?
WHAT????

I cried as many tears in 5 minutes as some might cry in a lifetime. I wept with questions and uncertainty. I cried A whole LOT. A freakin' LOT.

Then, we pushed those feelings away and we waited.

Her surgery.

We cried. We prayed. We held our breath.

She made it through.  She was OK!! Praise God. Our baby made it through the surgery and she was going to be OK...

But, then we were back to that other reality.

We were back to minutes, and hours, and days that followed. 

We were in the throws of the hardest moments of my life. I sat and watched my 3 day old baby on a ventilator. I watched her chest rise and fall. I watched her eyes open for just a moment at a time. I stood by her and waited...I waited for signs of life. Signs of progress. I waited and I watched.

But in those moments of victory in LIFE, I also watched for other signs. I watched carefully. I watched every moment and every movement. I couldn't help it. It's all I could think about.

Down Syndrome.
Down Syndrome.
Down Syndrome.
 
Kali, your perfect, beautiful, amazing daughter, may have Down Syndrome.

Kali. My perfect, beautiful, amazing daughter. 

God. My perfect, beautiful, amazing maker.

Why?
How?
What?

God.

Why me?
Why?

To be continued...