My Vida.

 

You have been here for three and a half weeks.  I’m not sure how that’s possible, and at the same time, haven’t you always been a part of this crazy family?  Sometimes it seems that way.  We’ve been anticipating you for so long – especially your sisters, that I think when you got here, it seemed you were just returning from some long trip somewhere and that we all already knew you.

 

 

You were born in my bed.

It was a very difficult, strenuous labor.  Even having been through two prior labors, yours was the hardest.  And still, so very, very worth it.  Worth every moment, every cry, every thought that I couldn’t do it a second longer.

And now, when I take you off to bed in the evening, and all your sisters are sleeping and the house is quiet, my room feels like this special place for you and I.  Last weekend I changed the sheets for the first time since after you were born, and put the sheets back on the bed that were on it when you came. 

Every night I lay down with you in the very spot where you first cried.  Where I first met you and kissed your cheeks.  Where I laid, thanking Jesus that you were here, that the labor was over and that I was laying there, in that very bed, holding my daughter that He had knit together right inside of me.

You are a miracle. 

I look down at you frequently and think, “I can’t believe that I’ve been blessed with another daughter.  That I’ve been given another little soul to love.”  Of course, I’m not the only Mama around here.  Nope, you’ve got five Mamas.  Your other four are always very eager to help, kiss, smother, sing. 

Bella loves to hold you, and it’s the first thing she asks to do when she gets home from school each day.  She is always eager to help – changing diapers, picking out clothes, giving baths – you are her favorite new little doll.

Naomi is head over heels for you.  And I was a little worried about how she’d react to you joining the family.  She gives you about 500 kisses a day.  Anytime you cry she makes sure that I don’t miss it.  She runs to me pointing at you saying, “She crying! She crying!”  She sings to you in the car.  The look on her face when she gets to hold you is full of pride, joy, and excitement.

Tootaw randomly comes up to you several times a day and says, “I just love you baby Vida.”

But Sylvia.  Sylvia seems to have some special bond with you.  She is constantly holding you, touching you, singing to you, kissing you.  Last night you were crying while I got ready for bed.  I climbed into bed with you to nurse you, and Sylvia was not five seconds behind me.  She climbed in on the other side of you and snuggled up just as close as she could possibly get to you and whispered, “Oh Vi-Vi (her name for you), it’s ok now, I’m here and you’re safe.”  After you stopped crying she added, “Oh, is that what you wanted, you just wanted your Mommy and your Sylvie?”  She regularly tells you that you are “the best gurl in the wuld.”  She loves you so, so much.

 

There is so much love for you here.

As my belly begins to return to normal, and I can see how you’ve begun to grow, I snuggle you close not wanting to let go of this sacred thing that has just happened.  Not wanting to forget your kicks, not wanting the relief of you being placed on my chest to fade, treasuring your newness – a soul so recently and intimately crafted by our Father.  But I am also so anxious to see, as you grow, just who it is that He has created.  Who you are and what you love and to find how you will live out your purpose here.

You are treasured.  In the rare moments of quiet that we get together each day I whisper to you, “You are treasured.  You are so loved.”  And I whisper to Jesus, “Let her know you, let her find her purpose in Your glory.”

I love you Vida Elizabeth.  I ask you now for grace when I stumble.  I cannot wait to watch you grow, and to grow with you.

 

Love you, love you, love you,

                                  Mama

Life is Sweet.

  Our little Naomi Rahab Popp joined our family on Monday, April 18th at 12:22 p.m.  She weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 18 inches long.  I can’t get over her, I can’t stop staring.  She was in my belly just two days ago.  She formed inside of me.  She is perfect.  Thank you Lord for your incredible, unfathomable blessings.

 

  My midwife kept telling me that this was going to be a birth of redemption.  My experience delivering Sylvia did not go smoothly, but here we were, giving it another try.  Redemptive, she said.  It will be different, your body can do this, we are going to listen to your body, and you are going to have a beautiful birth and have a beautiful child.  Amen.

 

  I had random contractions all night Sunday night.  Around 2:30 a.m. they became very consistent and very strong.  I breathed through them and tried not to wake Brian until around 4:00, when I let him know that this was it.  At that point there’s really no going back to sleep – I mean – we’re having a baby!  We labored quietly, Brian coaching me through each contraction, until around 8:00 when Sylvia woke up.  At that point I became pretty distracted between Sylvia and calls to the grandparents, and my contractions began to slow down.  I was feeling frustrated because now, 5 1/2 hours in, I just wanted to get this show on the road.  We decided to go ahead and go to the birth center so that we would be somewhere quiet and peaceful to really focus on the labor. 

  We left the house at around 10:00, my parents got there just as we were leaving, and they followed us to the birth center.  We made a stop at Panera to get some bagels for the midwife and nurses, and while in the car my contractions really started to pick up.  We got to the birth center at 10:30 and went to our birthing room, at which point I was relatively sure I was entering transition.  My midwife checked me and I was dilated to a 6+, so I figured we had quite a bit more laboring to do.

  They filled the birthing tub and I got in – immediately better able to relax between contractions.  My midwife left to let us labor alone, but told us to get her should anything happen.  She let us know that I would have to get out of the tub for a little while in around an hour and a half, but that she thought we’d have a baby by then.  My thought was – there’s no way she’ll be here that soon!  However, it was only several contractions later that my water broke and we got my midwife.  Almost immediately I was having very, very, very strong transition contractions – which of course is when I start thinking, “I can’t do this!”  But I had my wonderful, strong husband there telling me I could, and coaching me through each breath, my mom reassuring me, and my midwife praying over me, reminding me that God would provide my strength.  It was beautiful.

  It wasn’t long before I was pushing.  I was so nervous to push.  With Sylvia, I pushed and nothing happened and I was afraid it would happen again.  My midwife helped me with encouragement and by allowing me to push when my body said to.   Half way through pushing my midwife said, “Look how long that hair is!” which was all the motivation I needed to get my baby girl in my arms. 

  Not 20 minutes later, she was born.  Caught under the water by her Daddy and put directly on my chest, the first words out of my mouth were to my midwife, “It worked!”   I held her and talked to her until her cord stopped pulsing.  There was no rushing and no one taking away my baby.  I held her and loved on her until my heart’s content.

  My dad came in to see his new grandbaby – all of us in awe over that head of hair!  She was beautiful and perfect.  After getting out of the tub and getting to the bed, Brian and I were left alone with our baby girl to treasure the first hours of her life with no one worrying about her weight or length or whether she was perfectly clean.

  After a while Sylvia arrived and came in to meet her baby sister.  She was excited and kept saying, “Mimi, mimi!”  That is what she calls Naomi.  Brian’s mom visited with her grand daughter.  Not five hours after she was born, we were getting into the car to go home, to rest and bond where we are most comfortable.

  It was beautiful.  It was redemptive.  I can’t believe she is here.

  We are so in love.

 

 

 

 

 

The birth center makes each family a birthday cake during their labor to celebrate!

 

 

 

All ready to go home – just 5 hours after birth!

 

Proud Daddy.

 

PoppSecret #2

  I can’t claim the fame on that name. (Whoah.  Just call me Dr. Seuss.)  Our friend Matt called Sylvie PoppSecret before she was born (since we don’t share names prior to the big introduction) and it stuck.

  Anyway, so I’m on my way to being 31 weeks pregnant.  I’m really not sure how that happened – this pregnancy has flown.  I hear it’s because of Sylvia, but we had kids 6 out of the 9 months of my last pregnancy and it didn’t go this fast!  The belly is definitely making it’s presence known in the way of running into unsuspecting passers by who underestimate it’s giganticness (probably not a word.) and by moving around violently like someone inside is doing the cha-cha.  I thought Sylvie was active in utero – but this child’s got her beat for sure.

We could be in trouble folks.

Not feeling gigantic, just, you know, 30 weeks pregnant.  After looking at comparison pics from the last pregnancy, I don’t feel too off the charts.  We’ll see, I have an appointment with my midwife on Friday where I will hopefully be told that the baby is petite like her mama.

Giving the baby kisses.

Sylvia points at my belly all the time and says, “baby?”  Of course, she also points to her own belly all the time and says the same thing.  She might be confused.  We’ve been reading lots of books about babies and talking about her baby sister, but I’m pretty sure she’s got no clue what’s coming.

 

Huugggss.

 

  After some of our good friends had a very scary experience with their little girl, Sylvie’s BF, this weekend – I spent Valentines Day so incredibly thankful for the loves that I’ve been blessed with.  It always sounds so cliché to talk about how things can change so quickly, but I will treasure every second.  Husbands don’t come any more valiantly on white horses than mine, and motherhood has been, by far, the greatest blessing in my life.

  Being a parent, the joy in it, is beyond my explanation.  Before Sylvie was born, my brother said, “It’s kind of like this huge party that you’ve always heard about, but have never been invited to.  And then you become a parent and you’re like, ‘holy cow, no wonder everyone shows up!’”  It’s like this secret that you can’t know until you find yourself holding your child – however they may come to you – and you think, how could I have not known this love before?  Incredible.

 

  Little baby in my belly, I cannot wait to meet you.  I cannot wait to see what changes you hold for our family.  I cannot wait to see what you look like.  Soon you will be here, and I will think, how could I have not known this love before?  We are anxiously anticipating your arrival.

                           Love you, love you, love you,

                                                              Mama

Thump, thump, thump.

  The most beautiful sound in the world.

When you’re at your midwife’s office anyway.

 

Baby Popp #2 will be rearing their head (too graphic?) sometime around April 23, 2011!  One of the many reasons I haven’t been blogging much as of late – I’ve been completely nauseous for the last six weeks.  Luckily it seems to have subsided, and now, just like when I was pregnant with Sylvie, I’m just sure I could be pregnant forever.

This little one snuck up on us.  Apparently already very stealthy – I’ll have to watch that once he/she becomes mobile.  But surprise or not, we are very excited, and feel so very blessed.  Besides, now we will have our own little one to call ‘boo boo’.  (Just joking.  We probably won’t.  But it is true that my parents called me their little boo boo until I was old enough to understand what it meant.  I may or may not have been scarred.  Ha!  Not really – I think it’s hilarious.) 

 

We got to hear the heartbeat today.  Nothing in the world makes me marvel more than the creation of a little baby inside their mama – God’s work is incredible.

 

It may seem very silly, but I am also excited to have a reason to be back at our birth center!  I love my midwife.  I love the experience that I had there with Sylvia.  I love their attitude, the homey atmosphere, the down to earth people.  Anyway – did I mention I love our birth center?

 

Sylvie and the new baby will be just 18 months apart.  At first it made me a little nervous.  But then I remind myself that there isn’t any way it will be harder than it was with Sylvie and X-man.  I want to rejoice in every minute of it!  I refuse to take any of it for granted.  I know there are so many women who struggle with infertility or losing children – and I will not take for granted the blessing that is this little heartbeat inside of me.

 

Little baby, we cannot wait to meet you.  I can’t wait to see what you bring to our family, how you will change us, stretch us, and bring us such incredible joy.  You are already loved.  I will nurture you in my womb, and you will be smothered in love when you arrive.  Are you a boy or a girl?  Will you look like your daddy or me?  Will you be like your sister, or completely different?  Oooohh, I just can’t wait.  See you in 29(ish) weeks love.

    Love you, love you, love you,

                                           Mama

 

We are Family.

In June of 2009 our membership to our community recreation center expired.  No big thing.  At the time I was going every day anyway (this was prior to giving birth to a child.  Now…not so much:  a.they don’t take kids under 6 months old at the childcare center.  b. I’m pretty sure my stomach muscles still don’t even connect in the center.  But I’ve started back…slowly).  So during one of my trips, I stopped by the front desk to renew the membership. 

I was making small talk with the man at the desk while he clicked away on his computer, occasionally asking me a question regarding our membership renewal, and our faithful attendance to the rec center every day.  In the shuffle, he asked me how many children we would be adding to the membership.  “None right now,” I said, “but we’re foster parents, so our kid status varies.”  From the look on his face you would think I had just said that I’d be bringing my two cats in to take dips in the pool every so often, but not to worry, they’ve never pooped anywhere but the cat box.  He looked at me like I was crazy. 

He asked me to wait a minute, and turned around to whisper on the phone like I had just caused a code red.  When he came back, he told me very politely, that my foster children would not be welcome at the rec center on our family membership, and that if I ever wanted to bring one of these foster children with me, I’d have to pay the $8 they charge non-members.  I was confused.  I’m paying for a family membership, I explained.  “Yes, I’m aware,” he replied, “but your foster children,

they don’t fit our definition of “family.”

Cue livid, boiling anger rising.  Steam out of the ears.  Seeing spots kind of angry.

I kindly told him that I’d be looking for another place to exercise, and that I’d let all of my friends know not to go there in case they didn’t “fit their definition of family.”  (After cooling off I wrote a very pointed e-mail to the head of recreation for our city.  I suggested that they change their definition.  He let me know that we could attend the rec without issue, but that their definition of family suited them just fine.)

 

All that to say – this kind of thing happens a lot as foster parents.  Projects at school that are about family get a lot more difficult.  People (well-meaning people) say things that make it sound like your foster kids don’t count.  When introducing your family, people make distinctions between your foster kids and your biological kids.  Before Sylvie was born people would tell us about parenthood like we had never been parents before.  When we have our second child, I’d place bets that we get comments like, “Just watch out, two is a different ballgame.”  It’s frustrating.  I don’t fault the individual though, I think it’s our society.  Why do we define family so narrowly?  Adoptive Mama Of Two posted on this a while back, and she quoted,

"Losing ones family obliges us to find ones family. Not always the family that is our blood but the family that can become our blood." - Sean Connery in Finding Forester

 

Some people have to find their family.  Our family grows by the year unlike most.  But these kids are my kids.  And we are family.

Support

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to my wonderful husband and my beautiful mom. They were most definitely the best labor coaches I could have ever asked for, and I would not have made it through my labor naturally without them. (And I wasn't even nice to them the whole time, but they've forgiven me.) With that said, I so look forward to the day that I get to help coach my baby girl through her own labor experience.
Love you Bri.
Love you mom.

Can't believe you're here now...

Tiny dream come true...

Sylvia Esther Popp joined our family on October 6 at 9:26 p.m. She was 7lbs. 12oz. and 19 3/4 inches long. Her daddy and I could not be more in love with this wonderful little baby that was formed inside of me. After a long wait, and a long labor, she's here and (in my unbiased opinion) she's perfect. :)
I still find myself saying to Brian, "I can't believe she's really here.", "I can't believe she's OUR daughter.", "I can't believe she grew inside of me.", or "I can't believe she came out of me, check out the size of her head!". It's a pretty surreal experience, but definitely the most exciting and blessed thing I have ever experienced.
At 4:30 in the morning on October 6, I woke up to contractions that seemed stronger than those I had previously had. However, for anyone who read my two previous blogs (which I deleted, due to the nonsense I was spouting!), you know that I had previously had around 60 hours of contractions already that lead no where. I wasn't going to get too excited. However, at 5:30 after a trip to the bathroom and realizing that the contractions were in fact getting stronger, I woke Brian up just to give him a heads up. It was not long after that when I told Brian to go ahead and call his mom and my mom, that this was the real thing. I got up and took a shower, and by the time I got out the contractions were strong. They were consistently 4-5 minutes apart and at least 1 minute long from the very beginning. Brian called the midwife just to let them know, and to get some advice as to when to come in. She said to give it a while and to call her back. Brian coached me through contraction after contraction, and made sure I was eating as much as I could, while I could. Our friend Amber came down and got Xzavier and watched him until Brian's mom got to our house around 10:00 and took over with Xzavier, so that we could really focus on the labor. My mom ran into three accidents on her way here, so she showed up rather anxious at around 1:30. At that point the contractions were very strong, and some were even reaching 2 minutes in length. We called our midwife, and she said to go ahead and come in. We got to the birthing center (which I would recommend to ANYONE!) around 2:15 and I was 7 centimeters dialated. I used their bathtub, and their expertise on labor positions, and by 5:00 I was fully dialated. This is when the fun began.
I started pushing at 5:30, and by 7:30, had not really made much progress on her grand entrance. I was getting very discouraged, and VERY worn out. I kept pushing and pushing, changing positions and the whole deal - and while she did come down some, she wasn't even crowning by 8:30. At this point I was exhausted. Completely. I've never worked so hard in my life as I did in labor. A call had to be made, she wasn't coming down, and she couldn't stay in there forever. To the hospital we went.
Unfortunately I opted for the ambulance instead of taking our car. The EMT in the ambulance had obviously never seen a woman in labor or something, because he just sat there and stared at me. And two or three times in the middle of contractions (that I was still pushing through) he asked if he could check to "make sure I wasn't having the baby." Wow. That was not the right thing for him to ask me in the middle of third stage, un-coached contractions.
In the back of my mind, I was thinking, I'll get to the hospital, and they'll make it stop! They'll make it go away!! Now! But, to my surprise, I got to the hospital, and they told me to push. I tried to explain to them that I was done, there was no more pushing in me - this baby was coming out without my assistance at this point. They didn't listen. And I'm glad now. I ended up with an episiotomy and she needed a little help coming down, but then there she was. Perfect.
Brian imediately took off his shirt so that she could be skin on skin when they handed her to him, and he brought her to me and laid her on my chest. That was the best, most relieving moment of my entire life. They stiched me up and got me taken care of - which I didn't even notice, because I was holding my baby girl! At that point I asked what I could take for pain, since she was out, and I hadn't had any medication for the labor.
It was the best day of my life. And while I haven't forgotten the labor, as some women say you do, I would do it all over again. She's incredible. And I can't believe she's here now.


Can’t believe you’re here now
Tiny dream come true
The answer to a prayer now
I’m so in love with you
Couldn’t wait to meet you
Hope you like your name
I get the funny feeling
Life will never be the same

Safe and sound
You’re here with me now
Like I hoped you’d be
Safe and sound
You’re here with me now
And that’s all I’ll ever need

The world’s a scary place here
But baby it’s alright
I’ll make sure the coast is clear
So you can just sleep tight
But if you’re afraid of monsters
Like everybody is
I’ll be right beside you
Closer than a kiss

Safe and sound
I’m here with you now
And you will always be
Safe and sound
I’m here with you now
And that’s all you’ll ever need

Someday I’m gonna teach you
The reason why we pray
So that heaven’s love may reach you
Every single day
So, baby close your eyes now
And say a prayer with me
Lord, I lay me down to sleep now
But I know I will be

Safe and sound
You’re here with us now
And we will always be
Safe and sound You’re here with us now
And that’s all we’ll ever, all we’ll ever need
You’re all we’ll ever need

-Matthew West