My Heart's In Dixie

Eight weeks after the loss of our baby, we have closure on a few things that have helped so much. First, genetic tests revealed that the cause of our baby’s death was Trisomy 18. It’s a fatal disorder, with most babies not making it to birth – those that do almost never live long after birth and suffer from severe birth defects. We are grateful that our little one went straight to heaven and never suffered.

We also learned that our baby was a boy, and we’re so grateful for that knowledge. We’ve decided on a name – Carson Jacob – but we also decided that his nickname would be Jake. It’s a good old fashioned name that makes my dear knight smile every time he says it – he says it would sound good when pro sports broadcasters said it: “Here’s Jake Thompson taking the snap in the 2035 Super Bowl!” (Dads always seem to go straight to the Super Bowl for their proud dad fantasies, don’t they?)

This knowledge helps so much. I feel like I’ve passed through the fog of grief and emerged with God’s faithful promise of hope and peace lifting me up, encouraging me to go on, enjoy every moment I have with my princesses and look forward to the day when I can hold Jake in my arms. My heart is heavier, and until I can hold him, my arms will ache and never feel entirely full, but I am better. God’s love and His thoughtfulness in surrounding me with amazing friends have ensured that I am better. And I am grateful – thank you all for your love, prayers and support. They’ve all helped more than you will ever know.

Carson Jacob (Jake) Thompson

Born into Heaven

December 19, 2009

For anyone who hasn’t met my dear hubby, let me describe him (it’s easy) – he’s a young(er) Terry Bradshaw lookalike five-year-old trapped in a 43-year-old’s body. Not all the time, mind you – he has, over the course of his lifetime to date, earned a master’s degree and been a good provider for our family with his career. He does have the ability to act his age; he just chooses not to as soon as he walks in the door of our home and/or gets anywhere within a five mile vicinity of me.

Sometimes, this is charming. The princesses think he’s the funniest thing in the world, and as goofy as he is, he usually gets me chuckling (as much as I try to hide it so as not to encourage him).

Occasionally, however, this…ahem…charming immaturity issue personality flaw trait can get a little, shall we say, dangerous – and therein lies the story of The Great Hog Hat Incident of 2010.

One of our family’s favorite activities is matching socks. I’m not kidding (and yes, we do have TV. Cable even. Not the Skinemax ones, the family channel stuff, but still). For us, it’s not so much that matching that’s fun, it’s what comes after – the sock fight. Yep, after calmly and patiently matching the socks, we dump them all on the bed, grab as many as we can for ammunition, scream “Sock fight!” at the top of our lungs, duck behind various pieces of furniture, and fire away.

(Look, it’s free fun, I don’t have to put on makeup or a bra to do it, and [most of] our socks get matched. Occasionally they end up so far under the furniture that we don’t find them for several months, but that’s a small price to pay. Don’t judge me, people.)

In the course of this fight (which can get brutal – Princess G has developed quite the fastball), we use anything available as cover – laundry baskets, books, pillows, etc. It just so happened this time that an Arkansas Razorback hog hat was in our bedroom chair (again, don’t judge me – I never claimed to be good at interior decorating), so dear hubby grabs it, puts it on as if he’s wearing a football helmet, and pounds the rest of us with a barrage of socks. Having declared himself the winner, I concede (by waiving a white sock, of course) and begin gathering the socks from the corner of the bedroom near the opposite side of the bed, while the princesses slink off, pouting in defeat, to scavenge for socks in the other corners.

Here’s where it gets weird. Heh.

My dear knight, in what I can only surmise was a misguided attempt to celebrate his victory, decides to do a front flip crossways over the bed from his side to mine. In the hog hat. (I told you he’s really a five-year-old.) Keep in mind, I’m on the floor on other side of the bed gathering socks. (If you do keep this in mind, you’ll be doing better than he did.)

You can probably imagine what happened next. He flips, impressively clears the hog hat (it has a fairly long snout) and even manages to stick the landing – directly on my foot. (That’s an automatic .5 deduction in the Olympics, buddy.) Realizing this fairly quickly (the inhuman shriek of pain from me may have clued him in), he tries to quickly step off my foot and nearly launches himself out of the second story bedroom window.

I scream in pain. He screams because he thinks he’s killed me and because he thinks he’s ending up facedown in the bushes two stories below. The princesses scream because mommy and daddy are screaming. The dog barks like we’re being invaded by a pack of German shepherds. Chaos reigns in the aftermath of the MOST BRUTAL SOCK FIGHT EVER.

Eventually, I stopped pounding the floor in agony (and wishing I was pounding his head instead of the floor) long enough to realize nothing was broken, although I certainly didn’t let him know it right away. (Oh, like he didn’t deserve that.) Needless to say, the hog hat has been put back in its rightful place (in a place of honor in my china cabinet, of course. Where did you think I kept it?), and my dear man-child has sworn off hog hat flipping forever and ever.

Y’all just do me a favor. No one send him a football helmet. The visions of the flip off the fridge while I try to make dinner are giving me nightmares.

So I’m OK. With rest and prayer and some good old fashioned quality time with my princesses, I’ve reached a sense of peace with our baby’s loss. I’m still sad – I will always be sad – about it, but I am OK. And I am curious to see what God has in store for me next. One thing’s for sure, He’s certainly never bored me!

He’s also proven time and again that He does indeed have a sense of humor. I mean, seriously, how can anyone look at a duck-billed platypus and not think that God’s a pretty funny character? Any omnipotent deity who’d create that thing surely enjoys a laugh every once in a while.

So I’m actively looking for the funny stuff and hoping to be able to share some gut-busting stories with you again soon. If you need a laugh in the meantime, search the web for more platypus images. Now I know why these guys have been passed over in the college mascot arena – “Go Playtipi!” just doesn’t roll off the tongue, and can you imagine the fan hats that you’d see in the stands? And you thought a Hog Hat was amusing.