Ivy had her fifth surgery on Tuesday, August 8th. She did so well. She's a rockstar in disguise as a toddler. Although it is incredibly stressful in the moment, I must remind myself during, and certainly going forward, that all will be ok. Easier said than done if you have ever sat in a surgical waiting room with me.....Chris can vouch for this.
I have thought about what I wanted to write as it has been over a year since I last posted an entry to Ivy's blog. I started this blog as a way for me to write about Ivy's journey, and express my own feelings and share experiences as they were happening. I haven't had the time to keep up with a weekly or even monthly blog post as perhaps I had originally hoped. I have had several people inquire and express their interest in hearing more and I hate to disappoint, but there is just not enough time in the day. I get so wrapped up in my busy life as a mom to four kids, a professional who runs her own counseling private practice, a passionate group fitness instructor trying to offer up the very best and custom workouts for her members, an athlete trying her best to take care of herself, a homemaker who constantly loses the battle of trying to keep the laundry clean and the bathrooms picked up, a wife whose husband at least gets the struggle - they are mostly his as well. One of these days when he and I are old and feeble, we will look back at these busy times and long for the chaos, the hustle, the life, the light, the sweetness, the love, the energy, the stress that these four incredible humans have brought to our very ordinary lives. These are good times. These are hard times. These are times spilling over with love and laughter and yes of course, short fuses and incredible frustration, but they are ours. So I have all these other personal goals, objectives, desires, dreams.....that oftentimes just slip by because a mama will always get trumped by her children. That's the natural order of life. I did by the way, distress my first piece of furniture last week, so sometimes I can sneak a moment for creativity. Eh, something went by the wayside I'm sure. So, I want to be a blogger with something meaningful to say but I just do not have time so my annual post will have to do. Insert laughter here:) I will tell you now that this post is strictly an update on Ivy. I wish I could write a metaphor for life, share a lesson learned, or offer up some amazing insight but I don't have the bandwidth at this particular moment in time.
Ivy is just shy of 30 months. She is verbal, oh so verbal. Each day brings a wealth of new words she has heard and wants to try for herself. Chris and I do not remember the boys being this verbal and expressive this young. She's sassy for sure too. She probably watches too much YouTube! She loves to sing and her favorites are the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle, Eight Little Monkeys, a Tisket a Tasket, and Johnny Johnny, to name just a few. She loves her baby dolls and has more baby dolls than one little girl needs in my opinion. She loves her brothers, and while she loves them all so very very much as evidenced in the affection she showers on them all, she continues to have such a special bond with Jairus. The truth is this, he put in the time from day one. That boy's mission on a daily basis is to check in with Ivy, to play with her, to change her diaper and pick our her outfit for the day, to snapchat funnies to me from the two of them, to completely engage her. Watching the two of them together is a constant source of pleasure. Gabe and Jade are very close to her as well and she is simply one lucky girl to have such love from three older brothers who will always look out for her. When they fight over her is the most entertaining.
Ok, here is my attempt to answer a question that I get often. Does Ivy see her scars? Does she see her "different" face? I don't know. She sees herself. She looks at herself in the mirror, she seems quite aware of her reflection. She looks at baby pictures of the baby with the large nevus and she knows exactly who that baby is. She can look in the mirror while she is playing with my makeup and I never notice anything that would lead me to believe that she has any negative feeling about her face. The other day while looking in the mirror in a dressing room at Kohl's, she did reference her scars, but not in a sad way, just matter of fact. I'm content in my knowledge that she is comfortable in her own skin. I do still see other children (and parents I might add) stare. It doesn't stop her. I get it. She looks different. Particularly right after a surgery when everything is stirred up and angry. But she doesn't seem to mind the staring. I mind it more. She might even stare right back. I don't know. Only time will tell. And in the meantime I will continue to be a role model for her that we are so much more than our physical appearance. What is in your heart matters far more to me, and I have to say with pride that I'm raising four children with compassionate hearts, kids with kind and empathic characters. I'm so proud of them all. Appearances, well, that is just surface as we all know. And there is so much privilege in having been born with a certain physical appearance. People can deny it but it's true, like it or not. So I am working on helping her be her best version of herself, just as I do with my other kids, just as I do with myself.
So before I get off on a rant on body image, etc, I am going to stop right now. Maybe I will save that for another post. Clearly it is something I am very passionate about. Maybe I will even share one of these days why it is so important to me and all the ways I see so may women violate the potential to heal our broken sense of ourselves. But for now, I'm going to post a few pics of Ivy's latest surgery and how she is looking now. Pretty good I must say!
In closing, Chris had suggested as a topic for a post. He said to talk about how neither of us ever thought we would get to this point. And what exactly is "this point." Well, I cannot speak directly for Chris, but I feel pretty confident that he and I both, from time to time, reflect back to the moment of her birth and the minutes and hours that followed. We reflect on the emotions we felt, the questions we had, the lack of answers, the unknowns, and the utter denial of what we inevitably came to learn over the weeks that followed her birth that would be our future. Then flash forward to expansion. I can hardly remember those days. I can no longer quote with exact numbers how many cc's of fluid we got in each of her expanders. I can hardly remember plunging three needles into my own daughter and slowly pressing the plunger to fill those expanders. Then to removal and nose flap failure, by far the darkest hour so to speak, one month of utter sadness, doubt, regret, hopelessness, darkness. I can recall the time period, but the fear and sadness I felt is hard to retrieve luckily. Then to the the nose graft and the moment of truth as Dr. "Power" as Ivy calls him, removed the bandage and smiled. And then two more revision surgeries which leads us to "this point." The point is that we never thought we would get to "here". Past it, past the fear, the unknown, the consumption that was Ivy's birthmark. I offer that up as some encouragement to other nevus parents who might be reading this blog. I do get told from time to time that my blog is stumbled upon by new nevus parents and that it was helpful. If just one nevus parent found my blog and found it helpful then I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with that. So, maybe that can be my parting message with this post today. The storm will be scary, and unpredictable despite the best meteorologists predicting the outcome, but stay the course, stay the course. The sun is going to break through again.
I have thought about what I wanted to write as it has been over a year since I last posted an entry to Ivy's blog. I started this blog as a way for me to write about Ivy's journey, and express my own feelings and share experiences as they were happening. I haven't had the time to keep up with a weekly or even monthly blog post as perhaps I had originally hoped. I have had several people inquire and express their interest in hearing more and I hate to disappoint, but there is just not enough time in the day. I get so wrapped up in my busy life as a mom to four kids, a professional who runs her own counseling private practice, a passionate group fitness instructor trying to offer up the very best and custom workouts for her members, an athlete trying her best to take care of herself, a homemaker who constantly loses the battle of trying to keep the laundry clean and the bathrooms picked up, a wife whose husband at least gets the struggle - they are mostly his as well. One of these days when he and I are old and feeble, we will look back at these busy times and long for the chaos, the hustle, the life, the light, the sweetness, the love, the energy, the stress that these four incredible humans have brought to our very ordinary lives. These are good times. These are hard times. These are times spilling over with love and laughter and yes of course, short fuses and incredible frustration, but they are ours. So I have all these other personal goals, objectives, desires, dreams.....that oftentimes just slip by because a mama will always get trumped by her children. That's the natural order of life. I did by the way, distress my first piece of furniture last week, so sometimes I can sneak a moment for creativity. Eh, something went by the wayside I'm sure. So, I want to be a blogger with something meaningful to say but I just do not have time so my annual post will have to do. Insert laughter here:) I will tell you now that this post is strictly an update on Ivy. I wish I could write a metaphor for life, share a lesson learned, or offer up some amazing insight but I don't have the bandwidth at this particular moment in time.
Ivy is just shy of 30 months. She is verbal, oh so verbal. Each day brings a wealth of new words she has heard and wants to try for herself. Chris and I do not remember the boys being this verbal and expressive this young. She's sassy for sure too. She probably watches too much YouTube! She loves to sing and her favorites are the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle, Eight Little Monkeys, a Tisket a Tasket, and Johnny Johnny, to name just a few. She loves her baby dolls and has more baby dolls than one little girl needs in my opinion. She loves her brothers, and while she loves them all so very very much as evidenced in the affection she showers on them all, she continues to have such a special bond with Jairus. The truth is this, he put in the time from day one. That boy's mission on a daily basis is to check in with Ivy, to play with her, to change her diaper and pick our her outfit for the day, to snapchat funnies to me from the two of them, to completely engage her. Watching the two of them together is a constant source of pleasure. Gabe and Jade are very close to her as well and she is simply one lucky girl to have such love from three older brothers who will always look out for her. When they fight over her is the most entertaining.
Ok, here is my attempt to answer a question that I get often. Does Ivy see her scars? Does she see her "different" face? I don't know. She sees herself. She looks at herself in the mirror, she seems quite aware of her reflection. She looks at baby pictures of the baby with the large nevus and she knows exactly who that baby is. She can look in the mirror while she is playing with my makeup and I never notice anything that would lead me to believe that she has any negative feeling about her face. The other day while looking in the mirror in a dressing room at Kohl's, she did reference her scars, but not in a sad way, just matter of fact. I'm content in my knowledge that she is comfortable in her own skin. I do still see other children (and parents I might add) stare. It doesn't stop her. I get it. She looks different. Particularly right after a surgery when everything is stirred up and angry. But she doesn't seem to mind the staring. I mind it more. She might even stare right back. I don't know. Only time will tell. And in the meantime I will continue to be a role model for her that we are so much more than our physical appearance. What is in your heart matters far more to me, and I have to say with pride that I'm raising four children with compassionate hearts, kids with kind and empathic characters. I'm so proud of them all. Appearances, well, that is just surface as we all know. And there is so much privilege in having been born with a certain physical appearance. People can deny it but it's true, like it or not. So I am working on helping her be her best version of herself, just as I do with my other kids, just as I do with myself.
So before I get off on a rant on body image, etc, I am going to stop right now. Maybe I will save that for another post. Clearly it is something I am very passionate about. Maybe I will even share one of these days why it is so important to me and all the ways I see so may women violate the potential to heal our broken sense of ourselves. But for now, I'm going to post a few pics of Ivy's latest surgery and how she is looking now. Pretty good I must say!
In closing, Chris had suggested as a topic for a post. He said to talk about how neither of us ever thought we would get to this point. And what exactly is "this point." Well, I cannot speak directly for Chris, but I feel pretty confident that he and I both, from time to time, reflect back to the moment of her birth and the minutes and hours that followed. We reflect on the emotions we felt, the questions we had, the lack of answers, the unknowns, and the utter denial of what we inevitably came to learn over the weeks that followed her birth that would be our future. Then flash forward to expansion. I can hardly remember those days. I can no longer quote with exact numbers how many cc's of fluid we got in each of her expanders. I can hardly remember plunging three needles into my own daughter and slowly pressing the plunger to fill those expanders. Then to removal and nose flap failure, by far the darkest hour so to speak, one month of utter sadness, doubt, regret, hopelessness, darkness. I can recall the time period, but the fear and sadness I felt is hard to retrieve luckily. Then to the the nose graft and the moment of truth as Dr. "Power" as Ivy calls him, removed the bandage and smiled. And then two more revision surgeries which leads us to "this point." The point is that we never thought we would get to "here". Past it, past the fear, the unknown, the consumption that was Ivy's birthmark. I offer that up as some encouragement to other nevus parents who might be reading this blog. I do get told from time to time that my blog is stumbled upon by new nevus parents and that it was helpful. If just one nevus parent found my blog and found it helpful then I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with that. So, maybe that can be my parting message with this post today. The storm will be scary, and unpredictable despite the best meteorologists predicting the outcome, but stay the course, stay the course. The sun is going to break through again.