It’s interesting how this journey has evolved so far. In the past it would seem just the mere mention of my baby could send me into unexpected tears. But now I can have normal conversations without awkward pauses or sideways glances as people ask me when I’m due and if I’m excited– are we ready–now we have one of each and so on.
While those questions and comments are still a little hard to swallow, I made a choice awhile ago that this baby was a blessing. There has been heartache associated with this pregnancy for sure, but I can honestly say that there have been very, very few times when I had wished this hadn’t happened to us. In fact, in many instances I feel honored to be this cute little baby’s mama. I know Aaron feels the same way. It’s comforting to the both of us.
At church Sunday, the lesson was titled “Living Joyfully in Troubled Times“. I felt like this lesson was orchestrated just for me and seemed to mirror all the lessons I have been learning this week. I guess the Lord was really trying to pound something into my head.
Our teacher did an amazing job and I could write an entire blog post about how cool I think she is (starting with the fact that her mother is french and so she was raised french. Right in Paris–so she speaks fluent french, which is pretty darn cool). But I’ll just start with her contagious testimony of our Savior and her talent for teaching made the lesson riveting.
The lesson follows the teachings of one of the former LDS prophets Ezra Taft Benson. The lesson spoke about his character and how he learned to find joy in troubled times. One of my favorite quotes was this:
“Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles described President Benson as a “careful watcher of events, [who] maintains a certain buoyancy and cheerfulness we would do well to watch. Such buoyancy,” Elder Maxwell said, “comes not from ignoring enveloping events, but from noticing these and yet looking beyond them to promises having to do with how the kingdom will finally prevail.”
I loved this!! The buoyancy did not come from ignoring the events, but from acknowledging them and looking beyond them. It’s ok to recognize that you are indeed having a crappy go of things. It’s ok to say you are having a bad day. It’s ok to acknowledge the fact that loosing a baby is hard thing.
It’s so easy to get weighed down by our situation. In fact I had a moment the other day where I realized that my body would need to recover from having a baby. I don’t know why I had skipped this step in my head. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t “nesting”. I wasn’t buying onesies or a crib or other fun/cute boy accessories. So I guess in my head I skipped the step where I would need to recover from having the baby too. All of a sudden I realized I would have milk–and if it’s anything like when Audrey was born, I would have lots of it. I hope the birth and delivery goes better than it did with Audrey, but I could still ended up in bed literally too hurt/sore to move for two weeks. When I was recovering from Audrey’s birth, seeing her sweet little face seemed to help with the pain and weight gain and all of it. But losing the baby, but still having all the physical evidence that I just HAD a baby–feels overwhelming. Of course, I won’t know until I go through it, but it started a whirlwind of thoughts in my head and it made me wonder how birth moms of adopted babies fill that emptiness and void.
But according to President Benson, while acknowledging it is fine, I must look beyond this one event. There will come a time when my body heals. There will come a time when his passing will be more of a memory than a daily emotional and physical trial. And maybe it will be time to have another baby. To get to these places I must find the joy. And I do believe the joy is there. There will come a time when I get to hold this little boy in my arms again and raise him as my son. I must look to the future, because there is a future.
“Without faith in our Heavenly Father, we cannot be successful. Faith gives us vision of what may happen, hope for the future, and optimism in our present tasks.”
This helped me find so much peace in what needs to happen with our baby. Heavenly Father has a plan for our little one. I am not sure what that is quite yet, but I do believe that He is so very much aware of our situation.
On another, but similar topic of finding joy, Aaron and I have been trying to decide on a name. We have wanted to name him since we found out his condition, but we are SO bad at being decisive that we just could not come up with anything that we LOVED. Because you have to LOVE the name you choose to name your child, right?
One of the deciding factors for us is what the name means. We like the name to have more meaning than just liking the sound of it, so we usually look things up and try to find a name that fits our child.
When Audrey was born we took like 3 or 4 names to hospital with us. I don’t remember them all now, but I am pretty sure that Audrey was lower on the list. Well, Audrey’s birth and delivery was so hard, long and painful–that being reminded that Audrey’s name meant noble strength just seemed to fit her.
One of the names that just seemed to be a given for our little boy was “John” or “Jonathan” for many reasons.
1. It’s Aaron’s dad’s name (John)
2. It’s my daddy’s name (John)
3. It’s Aaron’s middle name. (Jonathan)
So the family connection seemed perfect. However, we couldn’t decide if we wanted a first name or middle name.
Then someone brought up the name Isaac. Aaron and I have always been fond of bible names. In fact, we were pretty sure that we would probably go that route.
So I looked up the names Isaac and John/Jonathan.
Isaac means: Laughter
Jonathan means: Gift of God
John means: God is Gracious
Laughter. Isaac meant laughter. It seemed perfect. When I made the title of this blog, Laughing through tears the point was to find the joy in the heartache. I had every intention in finding things to laugh about. I didn’t want this sweet little boy’s life to be completely associated with sorrow. His life is more than that and he has indeed brought us so much joy–and he has Audrey’s nose and lips!!! For sure those lips would bring us so much laughter.
So Isaac seemed like a good name. But now what? Isaac John? John Isaac? Jonathan Isaac? Isaac Jonathan? I am sure everyone reading will have their favorite, but in the end I really like the idea of what Jonathan meant, “Gift of God”.
God was truly giving us a gift in this sweet small baby and I have no doubt that we will feel his love and personality as strongly as if we were able to raise him into adulthood. The biggest problem we faced now was committing to a name. I mean, it took 3 days for us to name Audrey after she was born. We just couldn’t really commit to a name. I mean naming a kid is like carving out their destiny right? What if you name your child the wrong name and now they can’t be president?!? 😉 In fact my friend wrote an entire book about that. (Well, about how your name is your destiny–not becoming president, incase you were confused).
The other night, when we were saying our evening prayers with Audrey, we prayed for Isaac. It felt a little weird calling him by name, but a relief as well.
So I am putting it out to the internet world. Aaron and I are attempting to make this official. This post is to help us commit to the name. Haha. If I put it out there to the Internet world, then it makes it somewhat official right?
So I would like to announce to the world that our baby boy has officially been named:
Isaac Jonathan Isom
Eek. That is scary.
But I can assure that I do believe that this little boy is truly God’s gift of laughter to us. I believe that he will indeed help us to find “joy in troubling times”. He will help us to “Laugh through the tears”. He is a blessing and sweet miracle. We are so grateful to have him in our lives, no matter how long that is.
But I might always just call him my baby boy.
Laughing Through Tears 