Pictures of Isobel

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be.

Today, I will eat pink cupcakes with pastel butterflies on top. I will take my boys to the cemetery and we will talk about the sister they never met. I will bring a spade and a baggy of wildflower seeds, and I will plant flowers on my daughter's grave with the hope that I will see them bloom in the spring. I will love on my daughter the only way I am able in this life. And because I only knew her for a short time in my belly, and an even shorter time in my arms, I will imagine her.

In my heart, I hold several images of my daughter:

The first image I have is of her alive in our arms, and then gone. This image is all about memory. I remember her tiny micropreemie body. So frail. So skinny… except for those round cheeks that seem to mark all three of my children as undeniably mine. Her small chest rose and fell slowly, with big pauses in between each breath. When we pressed our fingers against her, we could feel her weak heart fluttering. Her tiny hands were balled into fists, and after she died, I straightened them out and counted her fingers. I want to believe that she knew we were there, holding her, kissing her, singing songs to her, but the truth is that because her oxygen intake was so limited due to her underdeveloped lungs and infection-compromised heart, she probably was aware of very little. However, when the doctor handed her to me and told me that there was nothing they could do to save her, I reached out one tentative finger to gently touch her chest, and she moved. That memory of that small, quick movement is precious to me: in that moment, she knew I was there. She felt her mama touching her. This image I have of Isobel fills me with love, longing, and regret. This is the way I knew her . . . and I hold this memory with care, so as not to let any of it go. This is the only time I was given with my daughter, and so this is where I love her most--as she was.

The second image I have of her is not a good one. It’s the one I have when the first blanket of snow covers the cemetery ground and I picture my little girl cold and alone in her tiny coffin. When she died and we were planning her funeral, I was overwhelmed by the very thought that I must dress my child for her coffin.  I was blessed to have a grandmother who thought to sew her a tiny replica of the flannel nightgowns that all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren have worn home from the hospital. My grandmother also made a bonnet, a diaper, and pair of tiny booties. My mother sewed a quilt, and Scott and I slept with it the night before we delivered the clothing to the funeral home, so that it might carry some piece of us with it. Scott cautioned me that I shouldn’t see her as she would be before her burial--that the sight of her might upset me because of all the physical changes that occur after death. So we let the funeral home dress her. And I regret that choice. I regret that I wasn't brave enough. I was--am--her mother, and I should have dressed her, made sure all was right. Now I envision my child alone beneath the ground with a crooked bonnet and an unfastened diaper. This image breaks my heart and leaves me weeping at her grave.

The third image of my daughter is that of the four-year-old she would be if she hadn’t been born early. I see her in Band-Aid commercials and playing on the playground. She is the brown-haired urchin who walks into the coffee shop with her daddy--she is the towhead in a Cinderella costume holding her brother’s hand. I see her in every little girl born in 2007. I imagine what Isobel would look like had she lived. She would be small, but she would still have those round cheeks. She would have the same brown hair and chocolate eyes that her daddy and her brothers have. Her hair would probably be wispy, like mine. I’d try to tame her hair by putting it in pigtails, but pieces would always be coming loose, and she would push them out of her face with grubby hands. He tongue would rest between her lips as she concentrated on climbing a tree or coloring a picture. She would be opinionated and busy. She would be my girl.

The fourth image is a more realistic view of what Isobel would have been like had she survived. She was so early that she undoubtedly would have some form of cerebral palsy. Whether she would walk with a limp or need a wheelchair, I don’t know. I sometimes imagine what our lives would have been like had she survived--what she would have been like, what she would have been capable of. But this image doesn’t frighten me. We would have taken her exactly as she was. We would have loved her, and we would have rejoiced in her presence no matter the state of her body.

The final image I have of my daughter is slightly more nebulous, but it most accurately reflects reality. My final image of my daughter is of her in heaven in the presence of her Creator. When I think of her this way, I don’t know what she looks like or how old she is. I do know she's no longer a frail, dying infant. That was her body as it was ravaged by the sin of a fallen world. Her body has been healed and made whole in heaven, whether that is the body of a four-year-old, or that of some ageless creation. This final image of my child is based completely on hope. I don’t know what she will look like when I will see her again, but I hope I know her. I hope she runs to me and takes me to meet her Jesus. I hope I get to hold her tightly and never let her go. I hope I finally get to be her mommy.

About Time

Today Judah is seven weeks old.

He is beginning to smile when he sees me, or when Scott tickles him. He calms when Caden sits beside him, and he loves to go to the grocery store. He is beginning to show the initial signs of who he will become. It is so wonderful to watch. And it is all happening so quickly.

I meant to continue to write a post once a week after he was born, but time has slipped away from me.

I meant to write a post about his first Thanksgiving, during which his activities consisted of eating, sleeping, and pooping -- pretty consistent with traditional Thanksgiving behavior, I do believe.

But Thanksgiving came and went. So I meant to write a post when he was one month old. But I was too busy protecting him from his big brother's enthusiastic affection.

When Christmas was here, I intended to write about how wonderful it was to be celebrating the birth of Christ with my beautiful family, but instead I spent my time just enjoying my boys.





This year, Caden really started to understand the idea of Christmas. While he mostly was interested in opening presents, we did spend some time talking about the baby Jesus and why He is so important to us. Now every baby he see in a TV show or ad is "not Judah" or "not Jesus."

For New Year's Eve there was absolutely nothing to report. All four of us crashed before nine o'clock despite our best intentions.

So, now we are in 2011, and though I don't know what the coming year will bring, I know I am blessed beyond measure to begin this year with my incredible husband and my beautiful boys. I don't make resolutions, but I do have a hope for 2011: I hope that in 2011 I won't get so caught up by the things I think I should be doing that I forget to stop and appreciate each day I have with my family. Time will pass by very quickly. All too soon eighteen years will have passed and my little boys will be men, and these days will be nothing more than a memory. I don't want to have regrets about the time I did have. I want to love on these little boys every day.

Birth Story

Tomorrow Judah will be two weeks old, and so I thought it was time that I share his birth story.

On Tuesday, November 15, I went in for a regular OB appointment. As I walked in, I got the usual ribbing about the fact that I was still pregnant. During the appointment, the nurse practitioner brought up the "I" word -- she asked if we had discussed the possibility of induction. I laughed and said that we had talked about it since the baby was measuring big, but that conversation had been based on a very hypothetical possibility since no one had expected me to go full term. After some discussion, we decided that I would be induced on Friday, a perfect day because my favorite doctor would be on call, and it was my PopPop's birthday. (If my PopPop were still alive and Judah had been born on the 19th, I would have totally been the favorite grandchild!)

I started making plans for the two remaining days I had before the baby would come, but I had this niggling idea in the back of my head that God had different plans for me.

I was right.

The next day I woke up feeling fine, but at 10:00 AM I started to feel out-of-sorts. I felt chilled and achy and lethargic. I took my temperature, and it was normal. But as the day progressed, I just felt worse and worse. I took my temperature again in the evening, and it was 100.9, which warrants a trip to L&D to make sure everything is okay with the baby. When I got there, we were checked in and then a nurse came in to hook me up to the monitors. We were delighted to discover that the nurse assigned to us that evening was Rhonda, the nurse who had been present when Isobel was born. Then the doctor came in. She told me that because of my fever, the fear was that I might have developed chorioamnionitis, an infection of the amniotic sac or fluid. The only way to determine for sure if I had developed this infection would be to do an amniocentesis, but since I was so far along, she recommended that I just be induced that evening. Since we had lost Isobel partially due to infection, we agreed.

Rhonda traded duties with another nurse, so she could be present at the birth. Since she had been with us when our daughter died, we were delighted that she would be present at the birth of our child who would live.

They started the pitocin and some antibiotics at 10:00 PM. I had heard horror stories about labor with pitocin, and I was still feeling crummy, so I assumed that I would want an epidural sooner rather than later. However, I was excited to discover that when I had the opportunity to move around a little bit, labor wasn't too bad. I decided to see how long I could go without an epidural, since I was enjoying being able to get out of bed. At 3:00 AM, the doctor came in and broke my water. She had a hard time getting the membranes to rupture. We laughed and I said, "Oh, the irony!" But afterward we wondered if the strength of my amniotic sac was what ultimately saved Judah's life back in June when we thought we were going to lose him.

After my water broke, labor was a whole different story. I thought I might die. I sent Rhonda to get the "epidural man," and the time we waited for him felt like an eternity. After the epidural was finally in place, I said to Rhonda, "I think I'm going to take a nap now." She examined me and said, "Nope, you're going to have a baby!"

Right before I started pushing, Judah's heart started to show some decelerations with every contraction. They put me on oxygen and became very intentional about coaching me to deliver him as quickly as possible. When he came out, the cord was wrapped once around his neck, but the doctor removed it easily and he started crying right away.

They grabbed him and placed him on my stomach, and Scott said, "It's another little boy!" I had a moment of what? I had been so certain that he was a girl! But let me be very clear, I am by no means disappointed! I love being a mommy to two little boys. But I was surprised.

Because of the heart decelerations and the possible chorioamnionitis, they took him away from me immediately and examined him to make sure all was well. Once they determined that he was healthy, they gave him back to me and let me and Scott have some time alone with him. I nursed him in the delivery room, and he latched on right away -- one of the ways he has already proven himself to be very different from his brother. Caden had no interest in eating until he was about three weeks old and couldn't have cared less about nursing until he was six weeks old. Judah is not quite two weeks, and he already weighs more than he did when he was born. Eating is his favorite thing!

We've been trying to settle into a routine at home. It's been great having Scott home on paternity leave -- I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do it without him! He's gone tonight, and I caved and put in a tractor movie for Caden. Those of you who know me know that I don't put the TV on for Caden unless I absolutely must. This was not an "absolutely must" situation -- I just was tired of saying no when he asked.

Caden has been showing some mild signs of jealousy, but on the whole, he's been an amazing big brother. We were getting ready to head out the door for the pediatrician last week, and Judah was in the crib, crying. I heard Caden go up to him and say, "It's okay, Judah, it's okay." I walked in, and he was holding Judah's hand through the bars of the crib. Judah had stopped crying and was watching his brother.

Tonight I sat on the recliner and held both of my boys on my lap, and my arms felt joyfully full. I feel so blessed and so grateful. It will be a learning curve to figure out how to do everything with two boys, but it is a lesson I will be glad to learn.

An Amazing Father

On the day that Judah was born I probably wept, not just teared up, more than any other day in my life. First, as most of you know, Judah's presence revealed the favor of God in resealing the amniotic sac after it ruptured at 14 weeks - nearly unheard of. Twenty five weeks of fear later, Judah was in our arms. My shoulders shuddered in gratitude.

I had just hung up the phone with Doug, the third in my family I called after Judah's 4am birth. And I was done. I needn't call 303-xxx-5000, Devon's number before she died after fighting breast cancer. I go more than days thinking about her and often think I'm cold hearted, but at that moment when I couldn't share the birth of my son with her, her memory was right there. She is my sister and was a companion in faith who understood some things very profoundly, and the spiritual joys in my life was one of those. Her absence on the other end of an uninitiated call caught me off guard.

A moment or two later, Isobel's absence was felt, a realization Heather and I shared in the moment with words. We'd already had more time with Judah than with Isobel. I began shaking my head from side to side.

I don't recall when in the hours after Judah's nativity that the next wave hit, a simple one: I have an amazing wife. Heather, we've experienced the weight of glory and the crushing

void of loss, and though I walk imperfectly with you, the penultimate lagrimas arrived with the realization that we share more than progeny, but one union. Five years after "I will" Judah's arrival that slipped a bit more into my soul. Oh. Oh my.

Some twenty five weeks ago, in the hours following the ruptured membranes that were to keep Judah safe, I was pouring out my overwhelming fears to God: "How can I help carry Heather though the death of a second child? How can I tax the brothers and sisters of St. Matthias with one more grief in my life? How can I endure the moments when, once more, my child slips from me?" Into these imprecise cries the Lord whispered to me an impression: peace. Not in words, but in as much clarity, God urged me to own that he wouldn't allow, this time, a deadly outcome. In my arms was Judah, not a wish, not a hope, not a promise awaiting fulfillment, but the very substance of the Lord's word to me. Judah is more than the miraculous act of God, but the possession of the rich food that is God's faithfulness. Here I wept and ended my weeping.

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Psalm 34.8

He is an Amazing Father.

What's In a Name?

Names are really important to me and Scott, and as a result it has sometimes been difficult to come to a consensus about what we should name our children. But each of our three children has been given a name that is significant to both of us.

Isobel means "consecrated to God." We chose that name before we knew that she was a girl, or that we would be allowed such a short time with her. We had chosen three possible middle names, and when we learned that she would likely not survive, we settled on Grace. We knew that we would need a lot of God's grace to survive what was to come.

We had chosen Caden's name when I was pregnant with Isobel as well. We had originally chosen the name Caedmon. Caedmon was a British poet who wrote praise poetry to the Lord. We eventually truncated it to Caden. When I was pregnant a second time, it seemed appropriate that if we were to have a little boy, he should be called Caden, because the name means "warrior." We were so frightened about the possibility of loss the second time around that it was good to think that we had a little warrior in there. We chose the middle name Isaac because Isaac was the son God promised to Abraham and Sarah when they thought there was no hope that they would ever experience the joy of having a child.

Judah's middle name, Kessler, is a name from Scott's family. Scott was very close to his maternal grandfather, and that was his middle name. The Kesslers were a family who took in Scott's great-grandmother when her stepfather was unkind to her, and so she honored them by naming her son after them. The name Judah was one I liked the sound of, and then when God rescued us and saved his life, it seemed particularly appropriate, because Judah means "Praise the Lord." We are so humbled by the gift of his life, and we are so thankful he is here and well, there is nothing really to say except, Praise the Lord!

It's a ...

BOY!

We are pleased to introduce

Judah Kessler Campbell

11/18/10

8 Pounds 14 Ounces

21 Inches

"The time has come," the walrus said ...

My mom and I have been getting a lot of phone calls and emails asking whether or not the baby is here yet.

Nope.

Not yet.

But very, very soon.

I had an OB appointment today, and things are definitely progressing in the right direction. I will either go into labor in the next couple of days, or I will be induced.

So many people are saying to me, "Oh, I bet you're ready to have this baby." Or, "I'm sure you're sick of being pregnant." And while my back hurts like nobody's business and is screaming at me right now, urging me to say, "Yes! Let's have this baby," the truth is that I am really enjoying just being pregnant. No emergencies. No fear of preterm delivery. No restrictions. Just normal. Sure, I'm uncomfortable and tired, but that's because yesterday I did the grocery shopping.

Let me repeat that. Yesterday I did the grocery shopping. 

When my membranes ruptured on June 1, I didn't expect to be able to do anything throughout the rest of this pregnancy. I thought I'd have the cerclage removed, get taken off of bedrest, and I'd have the baby. I didn't expect this little reprieve that I have gotten. As a result, something like grocery shopping that seemed like a chore six months ago, made me feel like a real human being again.

I am anxious to meet this little darling, and I'm not at all sorry it will be happening in the next four days, but I feel like this time I've had has been a blessing.

I mean, goodness gracious, five months ago we were just trying to make it to 24 weeks -- that was our goal. But on Thursday I will be 39 weeks pregnant. That's almost nine months. What a miracle! I never expected this. I never expected to be this pregnant in my life. I am so thankful.

And I will be so thankful to meet my baby this week.