Moments

There are those magnificent moments in life that are etched into your memory for eternity. Colors. Smells. Emotions. You can remember those moments so vividly. Mike's face. I can see it now. Astonishment. Fear. Joy. I can see each one pass over his eyes. Then he smiles at me. "Oh my God. Oh my God," he quickly blurts out in a praise of awe. And then the doctor hands me our son. I hear Levi's inhale and then his cry and although I can't take my eyes off our baby's face, I can feel Mike's hand touch my shoulder and I know he feels it too....love... like nothing I've known before.  Amazing.

A  nurse wakes me from a deep sleep, and says my little man can't let me sleep any longer. I take the baby from her and look at him. He is finally wide awake. His hair clean and brushed, the purple fingers pink now and he sucks on them. He's so hungry, and as I bring Luke close to me, I smell the baby wash they've used; he smells so good. I can still smell it. We stare into each other's eyes for the next hour. Sleeping daddy, busy nurses, dark, quiet room. Just the two of us, and I fall deeply in love.

Gray. It's suppose to be pink. There's one pink line but one very faint gray one too, and there's nothing in the directions about gray! Is it a yes or no? Two toddlers pull on my legs wanting to be held. I'm standing in the bathroom trying to figure out what gray means, but in my heart I KNOW we are going to need some pink for my sweet baby girl Grace.

"She's 18 months old. I just knew you would want to take her. Do you?" Two social workers and the baby step into my living room 2 days later. I've never met any of them, but my eyes are searching to get my first look at this baby. We've imagined and talked about what she could look like. She is so much smaller than I expected. Another baby. Another precious moment of meeting. Her eyes are huge. She looks terrified. I don't want to scare her, so I talk to her first. She looks around the room. Her eyes make my heart hurt for her. And that feeling of wanting to protect her is immediate because of those huge, fearful eyes.  I take her and sit down on the floor. There's paperwork at the kitchen table, so after a few minutes we get up. Are they seriously going to just hand us a baby and leave? This is crazy and sad and exciting. After talking and watching her get comfortable the workers decide it's time to leave. We leave the toys in the bedroom to walk the workers out. We close the door and V takes Mike's hand and says, "et's go," and she leads him back to her new room.

Most people only get a few of these beautiful moments in their lives. I get more. How lucky am I?

We had to say no to a newborn little boy this week. I pray his precious face is etched into someone's heart.

Waiting for our next moment....