Guest Blog Post from MorMor – HBJ’s Pregnancy
by Janet Johnson on the occasion of the birth of her granddaughter Meera

September
Don and I were sound a sleep at our summer cottage on Lake Winnipesauke when the phone rang at 4 am one September morning. It was Heather “Mom, I’m pregnant.” She was so surprised and couldn’t believe it. Heather and Braydon had talked about another adoption and talked about a biological child but hadn’t decided yet – they just knew three kids was what they wanted. Well the decision was made for them! We were so excited!

October
We were scheduled to watch the boys at their home for a few days so Braydon and Heather could go off on a celebration trip for her getting tenure at Lehigh in the fall but they decided they shouldn’t leave the country because she was pregnant. So we got invited to join them in AZ for a long weekend and had a really great time. Talked a lot about what the new baby would be like, how the boys wanted a baby, race, family of 3, etc.

December
Everyone came home for Christmas and Heather’s belly was showing she was pregnant. She was beaming and beautiful! Braydon was watching her every move. What a change when she couldn’t drink the traditional Swedish Glogg and couldn’t eat the raw sill and dilled salmon! Heather was tired but otherwise feeling great. She didn’t ski or snow tube with us but enjoyed watching instead.

January
I remember my visit and thinking oh my, how will Heather ever handle it all, being a professor, wife, mother of three (two who are extremely active), cook, chauffeur, and organizer of all. Braydon was showing signs of feeling extra pressure to provide financially as well as emotionally. They needed cars for 3 car seats, newborn “stuff”, baby’s room furniture, fixing up a guest room, financial planning for the future, etc.

March
I came for a few days to watch Kyle while Owen had his surgery and to generally help out. Heather was acting very normal; being pregnant didn’t slow her down a bit. Full of energy, caring for the boys, planning for Meera, all of it. A few days later we all met in Worcester for Easter and had a great weekend. Heather although visibly pregnant didn’t act any different. She handles pregnancy so well – maybe she should have more children??!!

April
After a work trip in southern PA I visited for a few days. H + B got to check off a few things on their massive list with a trip to IKEA and Baby’s R Us. I took home curtains to shorten, made a quilt, and covered a few pillows all in pinks!! The anticipation was building for baby sister’s arrival. H + B were talking a lot with the boys about what to expect with the arrival of baby sister. In the Johnson tradition there is always a lot of talking about things so everyone knows what to expect. The plan for Meera’s arrival right down to Alex coming during the night (didn’t happen she picked them up from school) to MorMor and MorFar coming when baby Meera was going to arrive (didn’t happen we came early), to driving home all together in the “black” car (did happen) was discussed completely! The boys were prepared.

May 2
We came prepared to stay a while (just in case) for the twins birthday party and had a great visit. We left for NH thinking it would be just a few days until we got the call to return!

May 10
We were able to celebrate our granddaughter Sadie’s birthday with all her friends in Maine May 10. All four of our grandchildren have May birthdays!

May 11
Don gave me a fourth emerald bootie for my grandmother necklace for Mother’s Day. We began our daily routine of emptying of the trash, buying food for one day at a time, keeping the suitcase by the door, keeping the car filed with gas, lawns mowed, house clean, laundry done, office work kept up, etc. We were waiting for a call and NO CALL CAME!

May 24
We finally said “we are coming anyway” and can at least help cook, clean and pass the time!

May 27
H + B come home from the doctor and tell us they are to be at the hospital at 8 pm because she needs to be induced. Two weeks is as long as the doctor will let her go after the due date. I felt badly because I knew how important it was to Heather not to have any drugs in her body and how much she wanted a natural birth. H + B explain to the boys what is going on and in true Johnson-McCormick fashion the twins go with the flow. MorMor and MorFar are there and they love us and feel comfortable with us. In true HBJ fashion she cooked the family’s favorite pasta dish (and doubled it so there would be leftovers) for dinner! They put the boys to bed, Heather took a shower and they left for the hospital. The baby would be coming soon now.

May 28
Braydon calls in the morning that the induction process had begun and we can come anytime. We get the boys off to school, arrange for Alex to pick them up and head to the hospital. Heather handles the contractions so well. By late afternoon, early evening the doctor says she is in active labor and the pain is as bad as it will get. He offers an epidural, she refuses it, she’s so strong it’s unbelievable. During contractions she doesn’t yell out at all, she looks at a focal point and listens and responds to Braydon’s voice. The thing I will remember most of this time is how much in love Braydon and Heather are. How together they are. How Heather trusts Braydon so completely that she did everything he asks. He’d say “Let your jaw drop Heather, relax your shoulders” and she did. They are as if just one person at times and this was one of them. It was a gift for me to watch. When the monitor lost the baby’s heartbeat and they took her off the pitosin and contractions slowed to almost nothing the doctor said she’d done as much as she could and she needed to have a c-section. It was 10 pm Wednesday night. Because she’d had no pain meds she walked with Braydon to the operating room. It was the funniest thing to see her walking down the hall to the operating room! Braydon was dressed in scrubs, camera in hand of course, walking with her. Don and I sat waiting for just about 25 minutes and out came the nurse from the operating room with Braydon and Meera. What a beautiful baby. Pure happiness, she is here, relief it is over and everyone is ok, the miracle of birth, new life, faith in God, family, mother and father, brothers, sister. Braydon went into the nursery with Meera and we watched through the window as he put his head down next to her and talked to her, held her hand, rubbed her head, cried with joy. Next came the line of doctors with Heather on a stretcher coming from the operating room. The doctor told us Heather has a misshaped pelvis and she couldn’t have given birth without the caesarean. Thank God for good doctors and timely decisions. We have a beautiful granddaughter who has wonderful parents and loving brothers who will forever watch over their little sister I’m sure. Baby Meera is here!

June 2
We leave for NH knowing Meera is a beautiful and very good baby, nursing is going perfectly well, the boys are happy to have their parents back, Braydon has family leave and can do everything and anything, we’ve left a few days food for them to eat, the house is clean, laundry done, the weather is beautiful. Life is just waiting for fun and playing and good times for the Johnson-McCormick family of five.

Post note:
At this same time of new life and pure happiness for our family my sister and her family are experiencing the worst time of their lives. My niece, Karen, age 35 with 2 children ages 2 ½ and 5 has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer. Please pray for Karen and her family. Although the diagnosis not good we believe there is always hope and we believe God is good and miracles do happen.

~MorMor

These days at the Johnson-McCormick Homestead it feels like it is all about Us, Us, Us, Us, Us (and/or all about Meera, Meera, Meera, Meera, Meera)… sometimes it is hard for us to remember… there’s a whole big world out there happening. ;-0 And a small little piece of that world is the status of life here in the country we reside in. So, just to be sure that we remember a tiny bit of what else was going on during this time…
Here’s the good news & the bad news (from our particular perspective, of course):

• Good news: Barack Obama, our nation’s sole black senator, its fifth ever, has clinched the Democratic Nomination for President!!! Folks, we just might be able to tell our boys that we have a black president… much sooner in their lifecourse than I, for one, would have ever imagined!!! This is a happy happy day with the J-M’s (at least as far as we two J-M parents are concerned)!!! read this Philadelphia Inquirer article — click here
• Bad news: Unfortunately, it is not all rosy rosy rosy. For example, read this Washington Post article entitled Black Men Quietly Combating Stereotypes — click here

P.S. Don’t worry, I plan to post about Us, Us, Us, Us, Us (and Meera, Meera, Meera, Meera, Meera) later. At 10:21 tonight Meera will be one week old and my birth experience will be one week behind me. I’ve taken some time away from the blog to bond with my baby and sort out my thoughts and feelings. But you’ll be hearing from me soon!

Other than what she heard when they rolled her by the stereo in the new born unit, Meera has not heard a lot of music. Here are her firsts:

Papi singing “Swedish Lullaby”. A beautiful version of this can be found here.

“Cherry” by Abdullah Ibrahim Trio, a great African inspired Jazz piece.

“Got the world on a string” Jazz standard by Diana Krall, apropos I think.

“Shake your tail feather” by the Cheetah Girls (with two wild K & O’s dancing like mad men).

“Stir it up” by Bob Marley. The original is still the best. This is our “Family Song” and it was exciting for K & O to play it for M for the first time this morning.

“Big brother song.” From the back of the “I’m going to be a big brother.” Heather and I did not even know this had a CD, so when Kyle got it out, put it in the CD Player, and started singing along with it and dancing to show off to Meera (he knew all the words, so obviously he has been listening to this for awhile now– unbeknownst to us), we were pretty suprised and delighted.

“Home can heal. There is healing in home.” ~Maya Angelou

We’re noticing many things about ourselves as a family in the first couple days that we’re home with baby Meera. Many emotional things. Many good things and some not so good; all just us.

There is an old Russian proverb that “only other people’s children are ugly.” And I suspect that is true. And I am sure that everyone who has had children, biologically or through adoption has felt what I heard Heather say a few minutes ago. But when you feel this way, it just doesn’t matter that every parent does:

Heather: “[sobbing] I didn’t expect to love her this much, I just didn’t. She is the cutest thing I have ever seen. I don’t want her to ever be more than five days old.”

There is infinite hope in the future for Meera, there is boundless love for this little being new to the earth. There is fear, there is joy, there is pressure and relief. It all happens at the same time. And so far, in the short years that we have been parents, we’ve realized this is what it means to love that deeply.

***

We adopted first by choice, we didn’t try to have a child biologically first. That was, and is, our belief and our philosophy (which are different things) and we do our best (not always successful) to live out our beliefs. We live our life in hope and it shapes our decisions daily.

Now that we have Meera, we’re reflecting in ways that daily life usually prevents. It makes us recall when we adopted K & O and how we felt then. It reveals our deepest inner selves about our inadequacies and wants. It makes us look at ourselves and see the flaws and strengths. When we adopted K & O I had the adoption blues and struggled, but Heather felt the same way then for them as she does now for Meera. Now we love Meera so strongly that we question our sanity.

It makes us notice the differences and the similarities in love for Kyle, for Owen and for Meera. It makes us aware of the strength of our own feelings and the power of love. I learned that love is not a zero-sum game. Heather now is remembering that as well. We have made a family in the most amazing of ways, and it has many different parts to its emotional life.

This family has newness and oldness, it has goodness and the remeberance of pain. It contains our hopes, our fears our passion, our love, healing, desires and needs. It’s also a rocking good time.

We have made this.

“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” ~Martin Luther King Junior

Mor mor and Mor far left this morning and we had our first day as a family. The boys had a great day at school and we played in the pool in the afternoon. Meera had her first pediatric appointment today and got her Hep B (we avoided this in the hospital and some would avoid it longer, but we’re fairly comfortable with it), which she hated. I mean, who loves shots? The boys rode their scooters around Hellertown.

We’re starting to settle in a bit and notice ourselves as a new family.

Things are going great! Here’s a run down of the first 60 hours:

• Heather has figured out Meera’s cries: Low pitched and throaty is hungry, high pitched and breathy is other “bodily functions”, middle pitched and more subtle is “Papi, you’re changing my diaper again?!?!”




• Meera is a very good baby. She communicates a lot, eats well, sleeps well and loves to be held. She slept for 4 hours in a row last night!



• Owen loves to hold his baby sister. He always wants to take her out of the blanket and remove the onesie. If she was a toy, he’d try to take her apart to see how she works, but that’s not happening, since he’s extremely gentle and careful with her.
• All on his own, Owen included Meera in nightly prayers.



• Kyle doesn’t want to hold her. Why? Because he’s afraid he’ll hurt her. He gets very very concerned when she’s crying and tells mommy that baby Meera is hungry.
• Yesterday when Meera was crying, all on his own, Kyle went and found the pacifier and gently put it in her mouth.
• Kyle understands Meera has different cries and is pretty good at identifying them.



• The staff at St. Lukes is wonderful.
• The staff at St. Lukes pretty much takes it in stride when K & O “walk” around the place (walking = skipping as to avoid “running”).
• K & O both love the adjustable hospital bed.
• K & O are both super sensitive with mommy’s belly.
• Meera has the sweetest baby smell and her skin is so soft.

Heather is truly a wonder. And I am not just being subjective. Heather labored for 9 hours on pitocin without any pain killers. No epidural, no codeine, no nothing. Just breathing and relaxing. During labor, the nurse asked her what her pain was from 1-10. Heather said a 6. Both the Doctor and the nurse looked askance and the nurse said: “I can’t tell you what you’re feeling of course, but most women right now would be screaming.” Heather replied: “I am waiting for it to get really bad.” The Doctor chimed in “well, I think this is about as bad as it will be.”

She wound up going to plan C (where plan A was natural, plan B was induced): cesarean. I witnessed the whole thing, and it was something no words can describe. Note, I am not posting those pictures here.

Heather is recovering beautifully. She’s up and about, dressed in her own clothes and we’re hoping to be discharged today.

So – we’re here at the hospital! The plan is for Heather to be induced tomorrow morning, and they have things starting tonight.

The next time we sign on – it’ll hopefully be with news and a picture!

No baby.

We have an OB appointment today, so we’ll see. It’s only two days until it’s 42 weeks.

Poor Heather is in a state of misery. She is beyond ready for the baby to be here. We all are, but she is the one with the baby in her belly and no control over getting this show on the road.

Still nothing.

Still no baby.
I was having mild contractions (not Braxton Hicks, but not severe/intense) every 15 minutes for most of yesterday afternoon and evening. We were trying not to get our hopes up. Good thing, because we went to bed last night… and then… nothing. As of today — 10 days past due date.

Still nothin’!

I was having contractions every 15 minutes yesterday afternoon and evening. Went to bed. And then… nothing.

Still “in mommy’s belly” with no signs of emerging any time soon.

9 days overdue and counting.

Tagged by Corey, playing because I’m 8 days past my due date and trying to pass the time.

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What were you doing 5 years ago?
May of 2003… My sister had just had her baby, my only niece, so that was very special and at the forefront of my mind. Braydon and I were in the process of selling our first house and buying our second (current) house. We were also about to leave for a big vacation — turned out to be the best vacation of our lives — a cross-country road-trip through France. We were regularly talking about the idea of starting a family/adoption. I was big into cooking (my major hobby at the time), was experimenting with lots of different kinds of cuisine, and throwing lots of dinner parties. I was finishing up my 2nd year on the faculty at Lehigh.

What are 5 things on your to-do list for today?
I’m currently guest-editing a special volume for Sociological Studies of Children and Youth— I need to take care of a bunch of stuff related to that project. Write thank-you notes for all the baby gifts. Remove the chipped nail polish from my fingernails. Switch K & O’s clothes’ closet over to summer clothes and put away all their winter clothes. Figure out what we’re going to eat for dinner.

What are 5 snacks you enjoy?
Nachos. Popcorn. Chips and salsa. Crackers and cheese. Cashews. (yep, all salty – not sweet)

What 5 things would you do if you were a billionaire?
Buy a vacation home on Virgin Gorda, large enough to accommodate family/friends at any time. Put away enough money so that K, O, and Baby Sister will be all set to pay for whatever they may want to do re: long-term education. Donate a huge chunk to organizations/people on the ground in Haiti. Pay off all of our student loan debt and financially support Braydon’s RVibe project so that he doesn’t have to work his corporate job anymore. Give at least 1 million to my parents to do with whatever they please.

What are 5 of your bad habits?
Not sending thank-you notes. Procrastinating by reading people’s blogs. Constantly letting the gas tank on the car get to ’empty.’ Dragging my feet on grading (my students’ papers/exams). Worrying about things I shouldn’t worry about.

What are 5 places you have lived?
Freedom, NH. Waterville, ME. Charleston, SC. Jamaica Plain/Boston, MA. Bernardsville, NJ.

What are 5 jobs you have had?
Ice Cream Scooper. Lifeguard. Camp Counselor. Legal Case Manager. Research Assistant.

What 5 people do you want to tag?
1. Lori from Our Journey Through Everyday Life
2. Bek from Ignore the Crazy
3. Manmi from Chapter Two
4. Malia’s Mama from Journey To/With My Daughter
5. Cindy from Ethiopian Tripletland