Baby Mine

     It is very possible and highly likely that I may meet an untimely death by electric shock before the completion of this post.  I am going to attempt to write a tribute to my angel baby, who will be turning one this Saturday.  The inevitable flood of tears that is likely to be produced by this effort, combined with the electric charge of the computer planted on my lap could prove fatal.  If this were to happen, I suppose my family and friends would find solace in the knowledge that I departed this mortal existence doing something I loved.  Without further ado, or morbid predictions..........

   Three hundred and sixty two days ago, Ryan Daniel Stanger arrived as the missing piece in our family puzzle.  I arose bright and early, though, truth be told, it wasn't very bright at all.  It was a cold, rainy Idaho spring morning.  Dirk snapped a few last pictures of me as a beached whale, and we hopped in our red mini van and drove to the hospital to the accompaniment of Jack Johnson.  I made a conscious effort to inhale and exhale as I allowed Jack's soothing, beachy tones to calm my nerves.  This effort required to breathe normally was not because I was in labor, but because I was preparing for a second c-section. Sure, I had been through it once before, but it had been an emergency.  I hadn't had nine months to freak out about it and to study up on every rare complication that could possibly occur.  Between Jack's mellow acoustics and the rhythm of the rain hitting the van roof, I was reasonably calm by the time we reached E.I.R.M.C.  Still, the prospect of being sawed in half is always slightly unsettling. Thankfully, the panic was offset by the anticipation of meeting this little miracle who was so longed for.  Upon arrival, I was ushered into a cold, sterile room where I was handed a gown that was so large that I briefly wondered if they were going to hand me a few stakes and instruct me in the new age art of tent birthing.  After putting on the tent/gown, I was hooked up to no less than one hundred machines and monitors and was then forced to drink some liquid that tasted like paint remover smells.  Nothing calms the nerves quite like drinking battery acid while listening to incessant beeping on a stone hard bed.  My sister was a welcome guest.  She arrived bearing the day's newspaper (I always like to save a paper from the day my children are born).  She then hailed a nurse to bring me the strongest flavor of ice chips available in an attempt to lessen the after taste of the unmentionable substance.  Her company helped the time to pass a little more quickly, and before I knew it, I was being whisked off to the O.R.  Dr. Isbell greeted me like it was any other day.....just a normal visit......not like he was about to perform a surgery so gruesome that a tarp had to be placed in front of my face so I couldn't see him pulling out my internal organs.  Before I was to become a circus act (you know the lady who lays in a box while the guy with the mustache saws her in two?......c-section!), there was the small matter of anesthesia, aka, having a needle the size of a baseball bat shoved into my spinal column.  I think I held my breath for the entire ten minutes it took to get the spinal block in place.  After I was pleasantly numb, and had vomited into a plastic tub, I might add, it was time for the tarp.  My arms were strapped down and an oxygen mask was strapped to my face.  Never had I felt so much like a mental patient, or a science experiment in Dr. Frankenstein's lab.  I closed my eyes as I listened to the swooshing, sawing, grinding, clinking and sucking taking place on the other side of the black plastic barrier.  After what seemed like ages, there was one very large swoosh, pop and then a few seconds of silence, followed by the incomparably beautiful sound of a tiny, angry cry.  Then, over the top of the tarp, came Dr. Isbell's hands, holding aloft a 7 lb, 21 in. red faced wrinkled miracle.  In that one instant, every fear that had been plaguing me subsided.  I had wondered if I could really love another baby as much as I did my other two children.  In that one sublime moment, my heart, like the Grinch's, grew three sizes.  More than that, the hole that had lingered after my previous miscarriage was filled to overflowing.  Suddenly, I felt whole.  This tiny, red faced screamer was who I had been waiting for. As with my other two babies, the second he was placed in my arms, it was like he had always been there.  He belonged there.  After only moments, I could not imagine my life without him.
     As I sit here on this rainy Spring night, it is almost impossible to believe that it has been almost a year since that rainy Spring morning when a little ray of sunshine made his way into my world.  The next few months were a blur as I tried to find the balance of spending time with my older children while taking care of a helpless newborn.  It was an odd feeling being confined to the couch, watching out the window as people began their regular summertime activities all around me.  Dirk was a life saver as he took Morgan and Hyrum to fun outings and activities.  And I sat on the couch, sometimes in the basement, trying, through my sleep-deprived, post pardom stupor, to embrace each moment of tiny baby wonder.  Knowing that Ryan will probably be our last child.......our last baby, I have made a conscious effort to enjoy the little details of his infanthood.  I have held him more than he may have needed to be held, rocked him after he was well asleep, just to smell the warm baby powder sweat of his sweet blond curls a little longer.  I have tried to memorize each dimple of his chubby fingers, and will forever have a still frame in my mind of his toothless jack-o-lantern smile.  His "thunder thighs" have likewise been etched into my mind where my most precious memories are kept.  His belly laugh, so "deep and chubby", as Morgan once very aptly described it, is locked tight in my mind and heart.  His belly button has received countless kisses and raspberries, and I'm surprised his perfectly rounded cheeks haven't fallen off yet from the constancy of my lips upon them.  He is my sunshine.  As much as I have always loved and still love my other children unconditionally, Ryan brought a new kind of hope into my life.  He has helped me to believe that miracles can happen, that wounds can be healed, and that love truly knows no bounds.  How I love his soft baby curls and his smile that fills his whole face and lights up the entire room.  When he crawls toward me as fast as his chubby legs can carry him, his tiny diaper bum wriggling in the air, I am reduced to a pile of mush.  When I watch him sleep, I am reminded that angels really can dwell on earth.  When I look at him, I am complete.  I am whole.  My heart knows the deepest contentment.  When I see my three children and my husband together, I feel like the most blessed woman in the world.  Through all of the sweet potatoes spewed onto my shirt, the days of wondering when I would sleep again, the anguish of once again failing at breastfeeding, there has been God's tiny miracle smiling back at me, with a look behind incomparably blue eyes that seemed to whisper, "It's ok, mom.  I was always meant to be right here, with you."  My Ryan has made my life complete, when I didn't even realize it was incomplete.
     I have already written a post about one of my favorite memories with my little sunshine.  It's called "Dance Partners".  One day, when Ryan was maybe a month old, Dirk was out hitting golf balls with the older children, and Ryan was having an untypically fussy day.  After nursing, rocking, bouncing, and shushing had done little in the way of calming, I turned to music.  I found my Micheal Buble station on Pandora radio, cradled Ryan against my shoulder, and slowly began to dance around the room.  The first song we ever danced to, my tiniest of dance partners and I, was Harry Conick Junior's version of "Someday".  I truly will always remember and cherish the feeling of his warm baby head nuzzling my neck as we waltzed through the living room to the sound of smooth jazz and the smell of freshly cut grass wafting through the screen door on the warm summer breeze.  There is a part of me that wishes I could keep him an infant forever.  What will I do without that deep chubby laugh and that larger than life gummy grin?  I know I will always still have them, because Ryan will still be with me.  But baby Ryan, my last tiny precious infant Ryan, will always occupy a special corner of my heart.  When cloudy days come and I struggle to find the sun, I will think of my sunshine baby.  I will remember our first waltz.  And the words of the first song we ever danced to will warm my soul:

Someday, when I'm awfully low, and the world is cold
I will feel a glow just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight.
Oh but you're lovely, with your smile so warm and your cheeks so soft,
There is nothing for me but to love you
Just the way you look tonight. 
With each word, your tenderness grows,
Tearing my fears apart.
And that laugh that wrinkles your nose
Touches my foolish heart.
Lovely, never, never change.
Keep that breathless charm.
Won't you please arrange it, cause I love you
Just the way you look tonight.


My dearest Ryan- You will always make my heart glow and I will love you forever and a day.