family

My Birthday Celebration

~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

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My 25th birthday started out a bit rough, as mentioned previously. By the time David came home I was in much better spirits, but I still wasn’t thrilled about the day, to say the least. We decided to open gifts first since our reservations weren’t until 8:30. My parents had sent a good size Amazon box and an outfit they had ordered a few weeks ago arrived as well. David loves to spoil me (be worried about our children) so he bought me a romance novel, a K-Drama that I love, flowers, a cake, and a gift card to the spa for after Brielle is born. He also got me a very sweet card. He loves me.

I opened my parent’s box and was so surprised. It was filled with things for Brielle! Happy patterns and cute newborn outfits. I was so excited by them. David said in a disappointed voice, “Your parents outdid me this year.” He was not happy about that lol. I spent quite a bit of time looking at each thing and putting the newborn outfits together. David was excited about them too, but kind of jealous that I wasn’t as excited about his gifts. Poor David. Seeing all of those things for Brielle made me so happy and cheered me up. It was so fun imagining her chubby, little legs kicking out of her onesie. So cute! David then said, “How do you put those things on and how do you change a diaper? Do you take the whole outfit off?” It hadn’t occurred to me that I needed to teach David how to do those things. We needed to have a crash course on babies.

We had a nice dinner out, which Brielle enjoyed as well. We have a bit of problem there, she enjoys expensive steak a bit too much. We’re not continuing that for her after she’s born. Mommy and Daddy are still having good steak though.

When we came home, David grabbed Brielle’s American Girl doll, Grace, and I set up a station on the coffee table to teach David how to change a diaper. That was interesting. Not because of David, but because the doll was not flexible – at all. We had a lot of fun though! David did such a good job, he’s worried he won’t do it right, I kept telling him that he will know. He’ll know what to do and he is already doing such a great job. He said he wanted to be a good daddy. I told him he was already a great daddy. Brielle loves him so much! He’s still worried, but hopefully not as much. To be fair, it is quite a bit to take in and learn when you’ve never been around newborns before.

Saturday we saw The Martian, which was good. We have read the book a couple of times and the book is hysterical, terrible language, but hilarious. The movie was not so funny. We still had fun and Brielle liked it too. After the movie we went to a Carter’s store and bought Brielle a bunch of outfits. That was so much fun! We both enjoyed that, David was amazed at how tiny everything was. I even had fun doing laundry that night. I washed all of Brielle’s little clothes and blankets. It made me so happy to fold a little stack just for her.

Overall I had a great birthday weekend. It started out really rough, but spending time with my sweet family was all I needed. I got to spoil my little girl, eat cake, spend time with David, and get dog snuggles from my sweet fur children. And we had an amazing Sunday. It was an emotional birthday, but a great one.

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Look at Rosie and Emmy. Do you think they want cake?
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My white cake with white buttercream cake.
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Look at all the gifts Brielle and I got!
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David trying his best to put clothes on the doll.
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Still trying…
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He did it!

I’m Twenty Five Today

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My Mother and I on the day I was born.

I’m twenty five today. Brielle is 37 weeks today. My Mother and I have individually spent the day thinking about how I am almost in the exact same situation she was in twenty five years ago. She didn’t know it, but she was about to have a daughter (she was expecting a boy) and I am a few weeks away from having a little girl as well. Today is a strange day, it should be a happy day.

When I was a little girl I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, a mom. When I was four I “married” Batman and we had twelve kids. Twelve. Over the years I’ve been asked to choose a profession, a degree, a goal in life. Being a mother was never an acceptable answer, but it is all I’ve ever wanted to be. So I should be happy, I’m twenty five today and I am a mother. I’m a mommy to the best little girl that could ever exist. But I’m not happy. I’m grieving, I’m afraid, I’m deep in despair, and I just want all of the pain I’m in to stop. I want to hold onto Brielle and never, ever let go. My body is ready for Brielle to arrive, my heart and my mind are not. It’s the last thing I want. But my body can’t keep up anymore. So I’m sitting at home crying, because the day she arrives is getting closer. And I just want to keep her inside me for forever. I’m spending the day mad at myself for being upset, when I should be celebrating a milestone that I share with Brielle.

Last week we had such high hopes and great news from our visit to the doctor. Thursday we went back for another scan. David and I fully expected to see improvement or complete healing. We got the opposite. My fluid levels were up to 44 cm, Brielle wasn’t breathing, and my placenta, although still in the normal range, is not doing as well as it used to. David has remained optimistic, but I am not optimistic by nature. In this way, I struggle much more than David does. It’s not uncommon for a baby at this stage to not show signs of breathing, so it may not be a bad thing. She was moving so much we couldn’t get a clear picture of her bones, so who knows if anything has changed. And my fluid levels? We’re completely confused. My body is doing better than it was at 30 cm, David can wrap his arms around me and grab his wrists, and the areas of my skin that were stretched to the max at 47 cm are flabby and loose. My body is showing no physical sign of increased fluid levels (quite the opposite), but the scan says differently.

I spent the rest of Thursday crying or sleeping. And today I’ve just hurt, pain so deep that every breath hurts. David keeps telling me he won’t give up, and that I shouldn’t either, God’s not finished yet. And I won’t give up, I haven’t. But I’m tired. The past seventeen weeks have pushed me mentally, emotionally, and physically past my breaking point. And I’m exhausted, in every way. I don’t have the strength to hope, to grieve, to even think.

My Mom raved about a Bible study she did on Esther by Charles R. Swindoll. So I bought the book and have started the study. Last night, after I had cried my eyes out talking to Brielle, I picked up the book and read the second chapter, hoping to find some comfort. It was interesting, nothing too comforting, until about eleven pages in.

“God can move the hearts of the rulers of this world wherever and whenever He wishes. And, in case you’ve forgotten, He is in no hurry. We tend to think that if God is really engaged, He will change things within the next hour or so. Certainly by sundown. Absolutely by the end of the week. But God is not a slave to the human clock. Compared to the works of mankind, He is extremely deliberate and painfully slow…This is the big picture that we need to see if we are to put our anxieties on hold. God is at work.”

I wanted complete healing for Brielle for my birthday, but that’s not what God wanted. He has a different and better plan and I have no idea what that is. I don’t know how to do this part. I don’t know how to trust or hope, and quite frankly, I’m too tired to actively learn. So I’ll wait and believe. And I’ll believe that God understands my pain and that he will be patient with me. I don’t like this, I want relief and I want things done my way. But that is a rather petulant attitude to have. And God is undeserving of this. He has answered every single prayer I have asked of him. And, in the past twenty weeks he has saved mine and Brielle’s life at least four times. I shouldn’t complain or doubt, he’s taking care of us. But I would be very grateful if he would give David and I a break from this rollercoaster we’ve been on. At least I know he understands and he isn’t angry with me for my weakness.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust…” Psalm 103: 13-14

So today I will be sad, I will cry, and wallow in my own misery. But I will continue to believe that God isn’t finished and that he will completely heal Brielle. I’ll also grieve knowing that he understands and doesn’t expect me to be strong all the time, I’m allowed to be weak, because I am just dust. And he is far greater than I could ever imagine or understand.

Brielle is 35 Weeks!

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Brielle is 35 weeks! We celebrated a little early this week. Thursday (a day early) we went and saw a Rifftrax of a horrible ’80s movie called, Miami Connection. The guys who do Rifftrax are the same guys who did Mystery Science Theater, they make fun of movies. It is really hilarious. It’s not mean, it’s all in good fun, but they are really very funny. Anyways, we had a good time out and laughed ourselves silly. At one point, David was laughing so hard I thought he was about to have a heart attack.

We also had an appointment Thursday afternoon to check my fluid levels. They were up to 47 cm, that’s a lot. I’m actually feeling better than I was at 37 cm. I can breathe and sleep fine. I’m having a lot of trouble walking and eating. There’s not a lot of room in there for food and my joints are like, “Too much weight!!” So, you know, good fun. Otherwise, everything looked great for both me and Brielle. All of our stats were perfect.

Saturday, my gastroparesis support group threw me a baby shower for Brielle. It was so kind and sweet. It was very special. We watched Jane Eyre, the 1983 Timothy Dalton version. Brielle liked it! We’ve seen two versions now and she liked both. Which is good, Jane Eyre is my favorite book. Overall, this week Brielle and I will be taking it easy and watching a lot of movies. Because that’s about all Mommy has the strength for.

Brielle did do some funny things the other day. I woke up to her dancing her little booty off. I mean flailing her arms and legs in every direction, she is quite the acrobat. I gently patted my belly and said, “Good morning sweet girl.” She froze. She stopped moving altogether and retreated deep in my tummy. I woke up again a few hours later to a new set of acrobatics, this one with lots of punches to my abdomen. So I rubbed on that spot and she once again froze and retreated. I guess I wasn’t supposed to know what she was up to. Silly girl is so shy! Saturday, David and I were watching my tummy and Brielle was kicking so hard you could see my belly jump (it’s harder to see that because of all the fluid I’m carrying). David started talking and she stopped. So I told her Daddy was gone and could she show Mommy how big and strong she is getting? Oh then she started moving again. So David had to sit there quietly and not move while she put on her little show. Later, David kept saying, “How did we get such a shy daughter?” I had to remind him, she’s OUR daughter. You don’t get much more introverted than David and I, what did he expect?

Happy Birthday Papa

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Today is my Papa’s birthday, he’d be 75 this year. We have this strange thing in my Wolford family where a lot of us were born in October, I mean a lot. Papa and I are almost exactly fifty years apart. I was born on October 16, 1990 he on October 4, 1940. I always appreciated this, because otherwise I would not have been able to remember how old he was. Numbers and dates aren’t my thing.

But they were his thing. Papa was incredibly smart and could rattle off a complex equation in seconds. He was funny, really funny. I can still hear his laugh when I think of the stories he would tell. He adored his family and truly was the best Papa I could have ever asked for or even dreamed of. Papa had his faults, but when it came to how he loved and treated his family, well let’s just say he was in a league of his own. Nothing made him happier than seeing his family come together and fill up the house. And we’d fill it. Roughly twenty of us (plus a few large dogs) in a three bedroom two bath house. Our family comes from Ft. Worth, Chicago, Nashville, and Atlanta. We travel specifically to see each other during the summer holidays in Arkansas and in the winter we go to Chicago for Christmas. We’ve done this for decades, long before I was even on Billy Goat’s Hill. We do it because we’re a family and we love each other, through thick and thin.

Papa died December 22, 2014. It wasn’t sudden. He’d been on hospice for three weeks and he had been battling stage 4 melanoma for six hard years. During those three weeks, the Wolford family gathered repeatedly to love on Papa and tell him how wonderful and amazing he was and still is. Papa was surrounded with people who loved him, old friends, new friends, and family gathered to tell him what a special man he was. What a great friend he was, what a great father he was, what a great Papa he was. His biggest concern about dying was leaving his family behind. And I have to say it has been hard.

I just want to hear his voice, when I’m struggling and feel like my world is coming down because everything is stacked against Brielle. I just want to know he’s there, but I know what he would say. He would tell me that he’s going to believe she is going to live, and why not, she’s a fighter. He would stay positive and tell me that he’s not going to stop believing in her. He’d laugh when I would tell him about the silly things she does. He’d love to see her pictures and he would love her. He’d think she was the most special thing and he’d just love her to death. It wouldn’t matter what she looked like or acted like, he’d think she was perfect and he’d tell me so too. I need my Papa and I miss my Papa. I’ll be with Papa again, but for now I, and my family, have to go on missing a beautiful and wonderful piece of our lives.

I’m thankful I got to know Papa, thankful that he fought as hard as he did, thankful that I have such a wonderful family, because of him and Grandma. He doesn’t suffer anymore and I can’t be sad about that. I can only be sad for myself. So Happy 75th Birthday Papa! I know that you are happy, I know that you are okay, and that you are not suffering or in pain. I love you and I miss you. We’ll be okay.

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This is a picture of the first time Papa held me.
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This was taken last year around October 12.

Thank You Mom

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I have to brag on my Mom. She came out last Wednesday and helped so much. She stayed Wednesday night with me so David could go home and get a good night’s rest. When we came back from the hospital she and Dad went out and bought groceries for the weekend. She made beef stew for dinner (and cookies!). We finished watching Princess and the Frog with Brielle, we had started watching it Wednesday night with Mom, Dad, and David. And then we watched Aladdin. Brielle didn’t go for Princess and the Frog, but she loved Aladdin. I guess Jazz isn’t her thing.

Friday, Mom began cleaning the house for us. I’ve been too tired and David has had way too much on his plate and hasn’t had time to clean. He already has his hands full. So she took care of us all weekend. She did laundry, dusted, vacuumed, cleaned bathrooms, deep cleaned the kitchen. It was so nice. It was uncomfortable at first, because it just doesn’t feel right to have your Mom clean your house. But David and I appreciated it so much.

I’d been craving pulled pork sandwiches, so Friday she made pulled pork sandwiches, fried potatoes, and green beans. We ate good this weekend! Friday was also Brielle’s 34th week day, so Friday night we had popcorn and watched Flywheel (the first Kendrick’s brothers film). Brielle danced through the whole thing.

Saturday we had a popcorn lunch and saw War Room, another Kendrick’s brothers film in theaters. We loved it, so did Brielle! She did lots of wiggles during the movie. It really was a very moving movie. We had a great weekend with Mom, and Dad when he was here. Dad went back Friday morning, he left at like 5 AM.

David and I are so thankful for everything Mom did to help us out. We really needed the help and appreciate it so much. Especially David, he has way too much going on. He’s being pulled in just about every direction and when I told him Mom wanted to help him by taking care of the house, he let out a huge sigh of relief and it was as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders.