Day trips

The last week has been a busy one, but fun. Wednesday we decided to take the two youngest daughters of our house help to the jungle. They love Natty and Natty loves them and they all love monkeys...perfect! So, we drove down the windy road with several thousand feet drop-offs on one side until we arrived at the Green Path- an animal rescue/lunch/hostel place. We toured around to see the various tucans and parrots, one friendly cotimundi, a ton of turtles, some guinea fowl and a couple friendly monkeys. We all got our chance to hold the monkeys- one big, black one and one tiny squirrel one- the girls were enchanted. After lunch we went down to the river, found a quiet spot, and splashed around in the water for an hour or so. Again, the girls were delighted. The ride back was a pretty quiet one with the girls sacked out in the back and a steady climb back to altitude. Friday, a friend from church who lives in the neighborhood called to invite us to lake Titicaca for the day to eat trout. Since Scotty was preaching on Sunday, we left him home to work while Natty and I joined our friends and another family from church for the drive out. Traffic was heavy since Holy Week is a big travel week here, but we made it to the hotel on the water where we enjoyed a tasty lunch and then time out in the yard out back to play and look at the gorgeous blue lake. It was a perfect day- warm enough to be comfortable but always with a cool breeze. We got a short boat ride and I enjoyed spending time with 2 ladies while Natty played with the other kids. Easter Sunday I was helping out with the toddlers Sunday school while Scotty preached. We invited our pastor and his family over for lunch and they hung around into the evening. We introduced them to Easter egg hunting, which their 4 year old and Natty greatly enjoyed, and spent the rest of the afternoon eating and chatting. It was good to see the 2 kids interacting, even though neither one had much of an idea of what the other was saying. Kids don't seem to mind these things.

Yesterday I saw my doctor. It was the first time since shortly after Zion died that I had seen her and it took a fair amount of mental exercise to not let myself slip into a dark place as everything in her office and she herself remind me of my little boy and his quick life. As I waited in one of the private rooms, I kept reminding myself of how God redeems all things and that I shouldn't expect things to go as poorly next time. However, after chatting about the strict restrictions that she wants me to be guided by and the continual reminder of medical care that just isn't up to American standards, I left a bit concerned and pensive. It's hard not to fear what next time will be like and to realize that living on the 3rd floor will probably keep me mostly housebound. Can I even get pregnant again? How long will it take? So many questions and doubts and fears. Again, I took a moment to remember that God is big and that He is capable of working in a mighty way in our lives and in my body. Fear and doubt is never helpful. Scotty and I long for more children. Natty is anxious for a sibling. And yet, we must wait. What does God have for us in the waiting? I want to learn to be content in Him, not in my circumstances, since I've finally come to understand that they can't always be as I would like them. It's a good and a hard lesson.

Five months

Sometimes I wonder if I don't have some kind of internal clock that can sense when another month has gone by since Zion died. It seems like I'll start having a clump of tough days where I just feel down and I'm thinking more of Zion and than I'll realize that another month has passed since his birth or his death. This week has been particularly difficult and culminated this morning with a good, long cry. I started missing him a lot in the last few days and began to think about him as we took a walk together with Scotty and Natty. One of the tougher aspects of all of this has been the very different ways Scotty and I have individually dealt with it and when moments arise that those differences become more pronounced, the sadness becomes stronger as well. It's hard to walk through the valley of grief with your spouse on a separate path. Anyway, there's this funny thing that happens sometimes when the bad dream feeling goes away and is replaced by that fresh, like-it-happened-yesterday feeling where I am back in the NICU with Zion, praying for him, watching the doctors work on him, riding up the elevator to see him and wondering how he'll look, and then holding him for the first time while he died. I can't make myself feel those things, even when I try, and other times I can't help but be there all over again. It nearly takes my breath away. Anyway, as rough as it is to go through that, even as I cry, I realize it's still a step forward. All that I've heard and read about grief reminds us that things can go from OK to awful in no time at all. So, I like to believe that the intense feelings of sadness are only moving me forward as I continue to work it all out. One thing feels different than it did at the beginning- the ability to believe it will be alright in the end. And, as it always has, the idea of Zion living it up in heaven, avoiding all the suffering we are going through right now, is a happy thought.

We visited a lawyer yesterday who works with adoptions. She didn't have a lot of new things to tell us but helped to confirm what we knew already about the adoption process. One, that it is very long and you're basically at the mercy of the judge to pick out what baby she feels is right for you. You don't see any babies beforehand and you only have the choice of sex and a ball-park age range. Although this lawyer said the children are screened for physical and mental handicaps and that you shouldn't be offered one that has either (what do they do with those kids??), I have heard of foreign adoptive parents finding otherwise. So, we're praying about when to start the process- whether it's something we want to try to start soon or wait a bit on. We're excited about the idea but I have to say I wish there were some things that were a bit clearer to make me feel more in control. I'm a little nervous about getting a child who has been in an orphanage that has a no-touch policy, realizing that a lack of touch can have great negative affects on a child as early as within the first few weeks of life. But, all these things we'll have to trust the Lord on since we don't have much of a choice. It's interesting how he sometimes makes it very clear that we don't have a say, other than the way we choose to respond to a situation. Maybe it's better that way...