Around Here Lately

I have about six posts in various forms of finished. Some need photos, some need words, but meh! We’ll just go with a little update for today instead. We’ve had a little extra excitement this past week.

We got a call a week ago from our agency asking if we could take in another baby for a few weeks while they arranged for a longer term foster family. Sure? Sure! Ack, are we sure? Whose idea was this anyway?! 

She arrived late at night, dehydrated, hungry and severely underweight for her age. Her eyes were swollen like a newborn, despite being over a month old, and she had a herniated belly button – both from excessive crying due to hunger. She reeked of cigarette smoke and for some odd reason had tiny, sticky red glitter in all her dirty creases.

The first night, she fed at 10:15, 11, 2, 4, and 7. Whew! When I crawled into bed at 4:30 after feeding Maya and this little baby bird, Michael mumbled, “Babe, you’re a rockstar“, grateful for his day job that gets him out of night duty during the week. And I’m pretty sure I replied, “No, I’m just a sucker!” Ha! But miraculously, both babies arranged their little schedules during the days so they slept at the same time, and Maya barely knew there was another little one around, except for the occasional squawking to be held. And held she was!

She ate voraciously and the swelling around her eyes slowly receded a bit. She started opening those bright little eyes and taking everything in, and on our last day with her she even smiled at Maya! Maya gave her the side eye, having mastered skepticism early. The baby bird left yesterday for the warmth and cosiness of her new foster home, having chunked on a whopping six ounces during her stay!

This was our first experience with a “rescue baby”, as our agency calls them, and I’m just buzzing with enthusiasm (despite a severe sleep-deprived eye twitch) that we got to be part of such an experience. We’re in a strange season of waiting at the moment, waiting for Maya’s adoption to be finalised so we can go back to Dublin, but working with our agency is such an incredible bonus. We not only have Maya, for whom we’ve never been more grateful, but now we’ve gotten to play a tiny role in another baby thriving instead of wasting away. We got to give snuggles and love and cuddles – and we got a huge reminder that we have extra to give. What an incredible privilege.

I had been worried about taking in extra babies for the last few months. I know from the number of phone calls we’ve received (seven since Maya and we’ve said yes to all, but this was the first one who arrived) that our agency has more demand than it has homes, and Michael and I both want with all our hearts to help. But I worried about dividing my time and attention away from Maya, and I worried about not having enough hands or energy or even room in our tiny apartment. But honestly, I needn’t have worried. We realized recently that while we may have a few minutes less one-on-one time with Maya in these instances, and our apartment may have dirty bottles in every room, we want to raise Maya to be the kind of child and human who will say to us later, how could you not have taken another? Of course you had to help.

But for the grace and mystery of God, that could have been our Maya, in desperate need of extra snuggles and bottles. It could so easily have been her, arriving after weeks of malnourishment and neglect. So we washed extra bottles and pulled out Maya’s old newborn pajamas, sang extra lullabies and made sure that baby bird knew she was oh-so-loved. Good for her? Yes. Even better for us? Pretty much.

So that, dear friends, is what’s going on around these parts. In between babies, we’ve been enjoying the balmy, walkable days in our neighborhood, trying to explore Houston as much as possible. I’ve been writing and being as productive as one can be on four hours sleep. And I’m warily weighing whether to join a mom’s group and possibly a baby swim class since Maya has decided she loves to splash in the bath. Big old questions, I tell ya!

I hope your week is on the downhill slide! Thanks, as always, for hanging out with me here!