Fourteen Blossoms
It was just a little less than a year ago that I purchased the "store" orchid for Baby Ezra. You can refer back sometime in June/July to get the full story.
Mid winter this year the orchid sent a shoot out of what should have been it's dying stock from the previous years blossoms, the ones that caught my attention that warm summer day in Safeway. I was sort of confused being a fairly new orchid enthusiast, but thought to give the new shoot the attention of a stock that is soon to blossom. Sure enough it began to put on small buds, snowy white, in the months of late winter, first just a handful, then 10, 11, 12, 13....
Somewhere around blossom 11 or maybe 12 Abe and I began to have the discussion about vasectomy. It has seemed that after each child we would make this consideration, asking ourselves the questions; are we done? family balance? and so on. It seemed that Hazel was a good finish to the child bearing years, a healthy cantankerous little girl, and so Abe began the process of phone calls and appointments that would be the finality of it for us. My job in this process was crying. It just seemed that no matter the number of children I had, the closure of what has been the inception of the most meaningful endeavor (still) my life will ever hold should be mourned. So I did. I gave Abe my full support through blubbering tears, imagining the things I could move on to now that I was done nursing and would be moving into a different stage of mother hood.
Appointment one, consultation, left Abe feeling slightly unsettled. He tried to text me about it from work and I told him it was a conversation that would have to wait, I needed to HEAR what he was saying. He felt a little presumptuous, possibly we should wait in making such a finite decision. To me the only reason we would not do that is because we were to have another child, so we took a few days to reflect and then each of us wrote our conclusion on a 3x5 card and slid it ever so cautiously across the table to the other. Both cards affirmed that we would have another. I counted the buds on the orchid and thought hmmm? 13 buds and 13 grandkids for Papa and MarMar #grin
It should be well timed, this pregnancy. Abe's career as an outdoorsman is really picking up, the seasons are specific and if we time things right, everything could work harmoniously. So we thought that time would be our friend, and we would wait carefully and have a baby sometime Spring 2013. Or not! Ooops! pregnant right away. Took a pregnancy test the day after Valentines and it was positive, bad timing for hunting, total surprise. In the mean time the orchid sent out one more tiny little bud, 14. I thought to myself, silly Jess for thinking Ezra's orchid was telling me a story.
Fast forward to Thursday April 19th. The blossoms on the beautiful pure white orchid have somewhat carried me through these long last days of Winter. I water it and dust the leaves and it sits right in the window where I watch the weather and do the dishes, the last 3 blossoms hanging on to make sure I am fully into Spring and vitamin D bliss. Our appointment to have an ultrasound reveals that I am carrying twins, and 14 blossoms all of a sudden makes perfect sense.
Sometimes it's difficult to maintain a relationship with Ezra and not feel categorically crazy...and I feel confined by what I know of spirituality, but I'm grateful that my heart remains open, and I get these glimpses of him and God collaborating to love me back. And if that was all not enough, I was caring for this amazing orchid this morning and discovered that it is sending out a new shoot to put out buds this summer in the time of Ezra.
Mid winter this year the orchid sent a shoot out of what should have been it's dying stock from the previous years blossoms, the ones that caught my attention that warm summer day in Safeway. I was sort of confused being a fairly new orchid enthusiast, but thought to give the new shoot the attention of a stock that is soon to blossom. Sure enough it began to put on small buds, snowy white, in the months of late winter, first just a handful, then 10, 11, 12, 13....
Somewhere around blossom 11 or maybe 12 Abe and I began to have the discussion about vasectomy. It has seemed that after each child we would make this consideration, asking ourselves the questions; are we done? family balance? and so on. It seemed that Hazel was a good finish to the child bearing years, a healthy cantankerous little girl, and so Abe began the process of phone calls and appointments that would be the finality of it for us. My job in this process was crying. It just seemed that no matter the number of children I had, the closure of what has been the inception of the most meaningful endeavor (still) my life will ever hold should be mourned. So I did. I gave Abe my full support through blubbering tears, imagining the things I could move on to now that I was done nursing and would be moving into a different stage of mother hood.
Appointment one, consultation, left Abe feeling slightly unsettled. He tried to text me about it from work and I told him it was a conversation that would have to wait, I needed to HEAR what he was saying. He felt a little presumptuous, possibly we should wait in making such a finite decision. To me the only reason we would not do that is because we were to have another child, so we took a few days to reflect and then each of us wrote our conclusion on a 3x5 card and slid it ever so cautiously across the table to the other. Both cards affirmed that we would have another. I counted the buds on the orchid and thought hmmm? 13 buds and 13 grandkids for Papa and MarMar #grin
It should be well timed, this pregnancy. Abe's career as an outdoorsman is really picking up, the seasons are specific and if we time things right, everything could work harmoniously. So we thought that time would be our friend, and we would wait carefully and have a baby sometime Spring 2013. Or not! Ooops! pregnant right away. Took a pregnancy test the day after Valentines and it was positive, bad timing for hunting, total surprise. In the mean time the orchid sent out one more tiny little bud, 14. I thought to myself, silly Jess for thinking Ezra's orchid was telling me a story.
Fast forward to Thursday April 19th. The blossoms on the beautiful pure white orchid have somewhat carried me through these long last days of Winter. I water it and dust the leaves and it sits right in the window where I watch the weather and do the dishes, the last 3 blossoms hanging on to make sure I am fully into Spring and vitamin D bliss. Our appointment to have an ultrasound reveals that I am carrying twins, and 14 blossoms all of a sudden makes perfect sense.
Sometimes it's difficult to maintain a relationship with Ezra and not feel categorically crazy...and I feel confined by what I know of spirituality, but I'm grateful that my heart remains open, and I get these glimpses of him and God collaborating to love me back. And if that was all not enough, I was caring for this amazing orchid this morning and discovered that it is sending out a new shoot to put out buds this summer in the time of Ezra.
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