I am some what surprised to announce that I finished not one, but two albums this weekend. Not only that, they are two baby books for two babies that are now four and seven, respectively. Ahem. Life hasn’t been crazy, at all. These are both albums from the now defunct Creative Memories line that are specifically made for 4 x 6 photos and are pre-formatted with spaces to write and record and the decorations already provided. I had not been very interested in these in the past, but after this weekend, they definitely have an appeal. I finally told two stories that had been waiting years to be told- total win in my book. I don’t even know if there are any companies that make albums like this now…the whole scrapbooking industry has collapsed since then. (le sigh.) I sat and did most of Josiah’s while watching football on Sunday. (My beloved Broncos won, hurrah!) I might have to find more of these, honestly. As much as I love the artistic side of making unique layouts, sometimes you just want to tell the story without worrying about the details, and these definitely fit the bill.
On a quieter note…
Scrapping Josiah’s birth was hard. Even seven years later. It is only now within the last year or so that I have realized how much trauma we underwent when we lost our baby, how traumatic and scary my pregnancy with Josiah was- so much so that I couldn’t really enjoy the pregnancy for what it was- an uncomplicated, beautiful, lovely pregnancy. I found it very difficult at the time to even be around pregnant women, so fresh the loss of our child was to me, and yet I was pregnant again, Glory to God…but everyone was terrified. My OB, my husband and I…we were all so uncertain. I had people telling me I should abort Josiah because obviously, coming so quickly after such a horrendous loss, there would be so many problems. He hid during many ultrasounds, making diagnoses uncertain…I think that is still what shocks me now. Josiah was born so beautiful and healthy and whole. No medical issues at the time. And had I done what everyone demanded I do…my word…this beautiful lovely soul, our monkey boy, who giggles like a maniac and lights up our whole home with his joyful exuberance, even now, as he suffers….it just. He is a gift from God, truly. He is our miracle child and continues to be so.
It was tremendously healing in ways I didn’t even expect to finally pull these photographs together and tell the story of his first year. I used to think I’d never be able to do it, so painful it was. It feels wonderful to be able to hand these books to their owners now, watch them discover their story.