Emotions

Well, I said that that was all for tonight but apparently I lied. Now that I have dealt with the last post I feel the urge to write about something else. Something more to do with Georgia and her baby sister that we hope to meet in May.

As news has spread that we are expecting another child we have been met with nothing but excitement and enthusiasm. People have looked at me since we announced that I'm pregnant and tell me that I look happier. When people ask us if we're excited and we don't immediately reply with the appropriate amount of spunk the response is, "Well, everything's fine right?!!"

Now I don't want to make anybody feel bad here. We love that you're excited for us. We love your enthusiasm and optimism...but...while as far as we know 'everything' is fine with this baby, 'EVERYTHING' is not fine. While we feel truly blessed to be expecting our fourth child. She is our fourth child not our third. We have still lost one of our children and continue to feel her absence everyday. There is no moving on here, only moving forward. The happiness that we feel about this baby does not replace the grief of losing Georgie. I think that anyone who is a parent would agree that once they met their child for the first time their lives were altered forever. Well, the same is true of losing one... even when you're expecting another.

This pregnancy has been a roller coaster of emotions. I have the pleasure of watching two of my daughters grow and play everyday and I have another that I get to feel growing stronger everyday. I am hopeful that the life growing within me will bring some healing into our lives, especially Calla and Maya's. All of this however, is tempered by fact that there is one more of my children that I will never watch grow and play again. The pain of knowing this does not go away even as I feel our youngest roll around and kick me.

All that I ask is that if Mike and I don't show the 'appropriate' amount of enthusiasm when you bring up our pregnancy, that you try to remember we really are excited. We are thrilled at the idea of having a fourth daughter. Sometimes however, our excitement doesn't come across too clearly because we are still missing our Georgie and we will continue to miss her long after we have welcomed daughter number 4 into our lives.

Love to you all,

Kristen

Resolutions Con'd

A few people have commented or left questions on the last post so I just thought that I would quickly address some of them. The name of the meat shop where we have found local meat is The Carver's Knife. It's on Regent across from the mall. It doesn't have a huge selection but it serves our needs. It even offers free range, hormone free roasting chickens. The best information that I have found on local eating has been by googling 'local meat' Winnipeg. The 100 mile website for Winnipeg has some great links listing businesses here in the city supporting the effort. The also have information on farms here in Manitoba that deal directly with the public. One of them even invites the whole family to come and check them out.

If you're looking for a little inspiration I highly recommend the documentary Food Inc. I also love the book 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a very entertaining and inspiring account of her family's efforts to live locally for one year. She and her husband along with their grown daughter co-wrote the book and they all have something to share from essays to recipes. She is not a purist and offers a very real idea of just how much work and dedication goes into growing your own food. I've recently read it for the second time and am pretty sure that it won't be the last. I now keep it in my kitchen where I can access the recipes quickly.

That's all for tonight.

Love to you all,

Kristen

Resolutions

With the new year comes the idea of resolutions. I don't really ever make them. I think that they are a great idea but I just believe that there are 364 other perfectly good days to start something new. This year however, Mike and I have decided that we should try harder at becoming more responsible human beings when it comes to food choices. Some of our decisions are only an extension of things that we have already been doing but have still lead to some adventuresome shopping.

The first part of our plan is to only buy 'real' food. This means avoiding pre-packaged foods that contain colors and any of those preservatives that one can't pronounce. It also means avoiding products that contain added sugars, corn or soy ingredients that aren't actually corn or soy products. Because of Calla's allergies we already do a lot of this anyway but we're just trying a little bit harder. The other day Maya asked for a granola bar and I told her that we don't have any. I offered to make her muffins or oatmeal bars and she was perfectly content.

The second part of our plan that I thought would be the most difficult was to buy local meat. This actually turned out to be the easiest. Turns out that there is a meat shop not far from here that carries %100 Manitoba beef, poultry and pork products. They also carry local bison and cheeses. Shopping there is easy.

The third and most difficult part of the plan was to choose foods that were locally grown. Now, I am not a purist or a sucker for punishment. It is January and I live in a city that is snow covered for half of the year. I am also pregnant and feeding two small children so by 'local' I had decided to stick to the continent of North America, at least for the winter months. Easy right? After all, California is still on the North American continent. Well... not so much.

Turns out that the Wild Pacific Salmon I have been buying is a product of China. Huh? B.C. is still one of the Canadian provinces isn't it? In fact, frozen products leave me the most baffled. One time I went to buy some frozen carrots only to realize that they had been shipped in from Israel. Carrots from Israel! Manitoba is famous for its carrots and it is one of the easiest vegetables to find on the shelves year round.

Not long ago Calla requested asparagus for supper. I told her that it was out of season but I would check the frozen aisle and see what I could find. I was thrilled to find it until I read that it had been shipped in once again from China! This year I plan on buying tons of it from the Farmer's Market and freezing it myself. Calla absolutely loves it.

It's funny what you can learn as you pay attention to the items getting thrown into your grocery cart. We still have stuff in our pantry that I am not particularly thrilled about but it's all part of the process.

Georgia has taught us to continue moving forward and making the best choices given the circumstances. We continue to embrace this philosophy in all aspects of our lives even if we have a long way to go!

Love to you all,

Kristen

New Year's

We ended up having our neighbors over for dinner last night. The girls had a blast playing with their friends, eating pizza and helping to design the giant cookie that Calla made. We woke up this morning to frigid temperatures, -26 degrees celcius and with the wind chill it was down in the minus forties! We plan on spending our day indoors today. Sigh... At least we spent quite a bit of time outside last week. The girls are currently 'helping' Mike put together a closet organizer upstairs! : ) The girls just love tobogganing so as soon as it warms up we'll be back outside. Walking up and down the hills is also good exercise for the mommy with a growing belly.

As promised here is the picture of the cookie Calla wanted to make for New Year's.



Happy New Year!

Love to you all,

Kristen

Christmas Pictures

We ended up having a pretty great Christmas despite missing our Georgie this year. The girls woke up and walked downstairs to find a new dollhouse from Santa. Calla will tell anyone who will listen that it's taller than her! The elves were up a little late on Christmas Eve putting it together but it was really worth it in the end. My parents came over in the morning to watch Calla and Maya open their presents and have breakfast with us. The girls were really into it this year as they both understand the concept and still believe in 'Santa'.

We headed back over to my parents later on in the day to spend time with my brother Kevin and his wife Melissa and of course partake in our annual steak and lobster Christmas dinner! Christmas day has always been quiet around the McDowell house and we're not big turkey eaters so years ago my mom starting doing something a little bit different. There are absolutely no complaints! : )

The last few days have been busy catching up with friends and getting stuff done around the house. Mike has been home since the 22nd and we're loving it. Technically, nobody has to be anywhere until the 4th!

We have nothing big planned tomorrow. We're looking forward to Mike's homemade pizza and movies. Calla has made me promise her that I would make a giant happy face cookie with her. Not sure where she got the idea but she seems excited to do it for New Year's. I'll post a picture of our creation tomorrow.

Here are a few pictures from the last week.



Oh, the excitement!


The girls admiring their dollhouse from Santa.


Mike helping the kids to release the balloons for Georgia.


One of the pictures on our Christmas card this year. We didn't get them done until really late this year so most people didn't receive one unless we saw you in person. My apologies but I will try harder next year.

Love to you all,

Kristen

Merry Christmas to All...

We have had a very busy few days. On Saturday we attended my mom's family Christmas. There were approximately 40 people there and I figured that that is only just over half of us. My mom is one of 11 children so it doesn't take that many of us to fill a house. Needless to say there was tons of food, lots of laughter and 'Santa' even made an appearance. Calla and Maya had a blast playing with their cousins and of course receiving gifts from the big guy in red.

The next day was the family brunch and then we had some friends for dinner. We are so grateful to have so many loving and supportive people in our lives. Our friends showed up with gifts for the girls, flowers for me and the most touching gift was balloons to be released in honor of our sweet Georgia. This meant bundling up after supper in our toques, mitts and boots but it was so touching to see the little ones let go of their balloons and wish Georgie a Merry Christmas. The even chased them into the backyard where we all watched them as they slowly disappeared.

The last few days have been filled with a play, a movie, playing in all of the new snow and of course finishing up all of the Christmas stuff. It has been much harder to get into the spirit this year but Calla and Maya's excitement is quite infectious.

We had thought that we wouldn't hang Georgia's stocking this year. What were we going to put into it anyway? Well, this year there will be a picture of a little girl who is two years old. The other day as Mike and I walked through the mall to a movie he was drawn by the World Vision booth. I actually had decided that we were going to separate for a few minutes so I kept on walking. My very thoughtful and generous husband eventually called me back over and asked me if we could sponsor a child this year and place her picture in Georgie's stocking. I immediately scanned the pictures of children in front of me and picked up an image of a little girl named Gloria. Her eyes, while not blue, are huge and expressive and she has that round face and chubby cheeks that remind me of all 3 of my babies. "This is the one". I said.

The girl working at the booth was so excited. She told me that so many people had picked up Gloria's picture but they always ended up putting it down. She couldn't understand why the little girl had been waiting so long for a sponsor. I just smiled. I have no doubt that we were meant to sponsor her. So this year in honor of the child we lost we will help to keep another alive. Given the circumstances this is one of the best gifts that I could be given.

We hope that tonight you find yourself surrounded by people that you love and love you in return. For those of you mourning a loss we hope that you find comfort in memories and that feeling that only comes with Christmas, some would call magic.

Merry Christmas!

Love to you all,

Kristen

Wish Upon a Star

There have been many questions since I announced our pregnancy. From how am I feeling, (just fine thank you) to what is CVS testing anyway? The simplest one to answer is, do we know if the baby is a boy or a girl? The answer is yes. The testing we had done was genetic and therefore had to figure out the gender because some diseases are carried on the X or Y chromosome. When I received the results I also asked to know the gender. I couldn't help myself.

On the afternoon of April 3rd of this year I uttered 5 words that altered my girls' childhoods forever. "Georgia is going to die." There were many questions as you remember. They so desperately wanted to keep her as we all did but when they found out that that just wasn't going to happen they asked us if we could make them another sister 'to keep'. This request has come up many times over the last 7 months but we have explained to them that life doesn't offer any guarantees. Firstly, we could give them another sibling but that baby could very well be a boy. They weren't thrilled about this but seemed willing to accept that possibility. : ) The second thing that we told them was that if we had another baby, that baby may very well leave us and go to Heaven too. In the beginning, this lead to silence on their part but as time went on they continued to request a baby sister anyway.

I, on the other hand was convinced that even if we had another child it would be a boy. I can't fully explain why except to say that I felt like I had been granted my quota of girls and even if I had 10 more babies (which I won't) I'd have boys. Please understand that I consider boys every much a blessing as I do girls but somehow being granted another daughter would be too good to be true.

Often in the evening, Calla will spot the first star and make a wish. She does this very seriously as only a 5 year old can. I know that she often wishes for normal 5 year old things like toys but every once in a while I see a look come over her face and I know that she is wishing for something way more meaningful than a Webkinz. She never tells us her wish, afraid that it won't come true but last night she told me that she thinks that Georgie is up there in that first bright star of the evening. I love the idea that Calla believes that Georgie is up there helping her dreams come true because in this case that is exactly what happened.

Calla and Maya are thrilled to be expecting another sister. She has no name yet only 'baby'. They kiss her goodnight every evening right after they have sent kisses up to Heaven for Georgie. I guess sometimes wishes really do come true.

Love to you all,

Kristen

The Bump

Two and a half months ago I sat in a public bathroom and stared at a stick that would change the course of this family. Dozens of emotions ran through me before I did something that I didn't know I could do. I took all of those emotions, shoved them deep down inside and then disposed of the evidence in a garbage can. In order to understand this you'd have to go back to August.

Sometime while we were on holidays or shortly before Mike and I decided that if the only reason we chose not to have another child was due to the fact that we were scared then that really wasn't a reason and certainly no way to live. Georgia taught us this and we do our best to live it. And so, at the end of September I stared at the stick in awe.

While I say that we do our best not to live in fear that was the one of the overwhelming emotions that set in. The idea of waiting nine months to find out if this child would even have a chance was too much for me to bear. And so, we decided to go ahead with the CVS testing. It is a test similar to an amnio where they take a piece of the placenta and then test for everything under the sun, including SMA. Because we decided not to tell anyone, this meant that on the morning of November 16th I woke up and 3:30 and snuck out of the house to make a 5:00 am flight to Toronto (CVS testing is no longer done in Winnipeg). The test went smoothly and I returned home in time to eat a late supper with the girls. We weren't ready to deal with everybody's questions, never mind opinions so we kept our pregnancy quiet.

11 Days later we received the good news. The baby does not have SMA or any of the other conditions that they apparently tested for. Mike and I were thrilled and relieved and thought that we were ready to share our joy with others. We managed to tell immediate family and a couple of friends before the shock and the reality of the situation started to really set in. There were also still a lot of 'What if?' feelings. After living in denial for weeks we realized that we needed time to let he news truly sink in. It has now been two weeks since we received the results and we are starting to accept the idea that maybe we really have been granted another chance.

We wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret much longer as I am now 16 weeks along. Being that this is my fourth pregnancy and I am a rather small framed person there is definitely a bump starting to make itself known. The bump continually reminds me that living in denial is no longer an option. At times I think that it even mocks me and asks why I would consider something so miraculous worth keeping a secret. The bump is a growing hope for our little family. Underneath the bump there lives a being that we hope will join us. We hope to watch that being learn to sit up, walk, run and grow up. We hope to hear this being laugh and scream in delight with her sisters. We even hope to hear her scream her lungs out when she scrapes her knee.

Saying all of that there are still some things that I want others to understand. Bringing another child into the world DOES NOT make everything better. While it does offer us another chance, s/he will never replace our Georgie. In fact, it is quite difficult at times to feel totally happy about bringing a child into the world when we only just lost one. Bringing another child into the world DOES NOT change our commitment to finding a cure for SMA. Georgia's Journey of Hope will go as planned. In fact, I view this child as another warrior to add to the ranks.

Love to you all,

Kristen


PS Within half an hour of hearing the good news I had to pack up the girls and drive them to dance. We all screamed in delight (well, I actually started to cry) as we passed the Blues' house. For the first time since the day after Georgia's funeral the twinkling stars were shining. I almost jumped out and banged on your door Lorna! Thank you for making our day that much more special.

Songs

I know that 'they' say that our sense of smell has the longest memory but I also believe that our memory for music, particularly certain songs and melodies, is amazingly long as well. Isn't it amazing how only the first few notes of a song can take us back to a different time and place?

Sometimes at the girls' dance class the instructor plays a hauntingly beautiful instrumental version of 'Land of the Silver Birch'. It doesn't matter what I am doing whether I'm reading a story or involved in a conversation, I am immediately distracted and holding Georgie in my arms if but for a few minutes. If Maya is feeling sad and missing her little sister she often takes out Georgia's musical seahorse or her aquarium and sits down to listen to the music.

Now that we have started to listen to Christmas Carols the flooding of memories only gets stronger. Calla, Maya and Georgie's favorite Christmas song last year was "Do You Hear What I Hear?" Calla and I could sing the whole song from memory which we often did for Maya and Georgia. The week leading up to Christmas last year Georgie was not very happy (quite gassy) and I can't tell you how many times we sung that song to her. It didn't matter how miserable she was feeling or how off key we sang, she ALWAYS smiled! As I have said before Georgie was just a musical baby and in turn she made us all musical.

The other day we heard the song "Do You Hear What I Hear?" for the first time this season. As I started to have flashes of Georgia's smiling face, Calla's lit up with a grin. She kind of got a serene look on her face and she said, "Hey mom, I know this song!"

It makes me sad to think that Calla and especially Maya's memories of Georgia will fade as time goes by. The other day as I watched Calla start singing the song softly to herself however, I realized that she was remembering. And, as long as we keep talking and singing they will always have memories of their baby sister that they can hold in their hearts.

Love to you all,

Kristen

Holiday Spirit

Earlier this week we passed the deadline for the Unite for the Cure Campaign. I am so pleased to tell you that the families involved have raised over $95 000 and that Dr. Keirstead is already receiving some of that money. Even better news is that November 30th was only a soft deadline and the families involved are still planning events to continue raising funds. We are expected to surpass the goal!!

November 22nd marked my friend Emma's birthday and this year she and and her husband Bruce planned something special. They hosted an evening where they provided the food and fun and asked all of their guests to consider making donations to FSMAC. Not only did they raise much needed awareness about SMA, they also managed to raise an incredible $1000! What an awesome birthday party! Thank you so much Emma and Bruce for being such generous people and part of our amazing support system. We are so grateful to have you in our lives. Thank you as well to all of the birthday guests that took part in the event. Your generosity is overwhelming. Sorry Emma, I have yet to figure out how to post that picture.

Here at home we have started to get into the holiday spirit. Last Friday Mike set up the Christmas tree only to take it down again (lighting issues) and run out on Saturday morning to buy a new one. We then put it up on Saturday evening and finally managed to decorate it on Sunday morning in our pyjamas (at Calla's insistence). Calla spends her days dancing around singing Christmas carols and Maya tries to join in when she can remember the words. Next week both Calla and Maya have Christmas performances at their school that they both seem really excited about. Christmas is so much fun when the little ones are around! : )

Love to you all,

Kristen