God IS Good - part one

From the minute we told the girls (waaaaay back in the fall - seems so long ago :) that we were going to have a baby, some of Kerrigan’s first words were, “I hope it’s a brother so I can STILL be the baby girl!” Her words; not ours. I was worried from the get-go with that attitude. We kept telling her since I was so sick that it would probably be a girl but she was adamant that it needed to be a boy. After we heard the heart rate, we were more insistent that it was probably a girl but she wouldn’t hear it. When it was confirmed on the ultrasound last Friday, Tony and I were totally fine with it (I actually thought I’d be more disappointed but once I saw her squirming and wiggling on the screen, I instantly fell in love with her!) Our biggest concern was how to break it to Kerrigan and how she would take it. We didn’t know whether to take her aside or to go ahead with our "reveal" plan. We decided to play it by ear and go with the original plan and see how she reacted.

When Tony got home from work that day, the girls had been home for over an hour and were chomping at the bit to know what we were having. We gathered them in the living room and I gave them each an envelope. Britnee opened hers to find a photo of sugar pouring from a spoon. Janae opened her envelope next and it had a picture of a spice rack with these spaces and words below it “& _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ nice.” Then Kerrigan’s read, “That’s what little _ _ _ _ _ are_ _ _ _ of.” The other two girls figured it out after Janae’s was opened and they looked at each other and said, “Uh oh,” in quiet, hushed tones. Kerrigan read hers and finally said, “that’s what little BOYS are made of?” I said, “Are boys made of sugar?” and she looked up at me with hopeful eyes and said, “SOME boys are.” So I suggested we look at the spaces and see what fit. We spelled B-O-Y-S and of course had one space left over. I suggested we try the word girls. She spelled it with me and when she got to the “S”, she looked up at me with the absolute saddest eyes and said, “Gir…..” Then her face crumbled and she buried her head in my side and cried and cried and cried. It was awful. I started crying with her (and am crying as I type b/c it’s a moment I don’t think I will forget for a LONG time!) We did our best to console her and tried to explain that God knows best. She watched a minute or two of ultrasound and then went and cried on Tony’s lap and wouldn’t look at the rest. It was so heart breaking.

Each girl was supposed to call one of my sisters, but even Britnee was disappointed to the point that she wasn't ready to share. So I ended up calling two of the three. I told Aunt Barb that Kerrigan was supposed to call her but didn't want to in case that gave her any hint as to what we were having. I asked all three sisters to pray for Kerrigan as I didn’t figure we would have a positive turn around until the baby actually arrived. She was so full of anger and sorrow all mixed together. I told my oldest brother, who was disappointed for us as much as anybody, and he simply suggested that we sympathize with her. It was good advice. And that's the approach that we took.

Over the course of the next few days, I would be watching our little girl on video (Tony put the ultrasound to a song off my lullaby CD and put it online for our family's to view) and Kerrigan would come sit by me. Each time, I would point out that baby's different movements and her arms and legs or smile or nose. Just being very casual about it. And each time, I would see a little more warmth creep into Kerrigan's eyes.

Yesterday, she came home from school and handed me a drawing as she often does. But this drawing was different than the others. In the center of the page was an image labeled “Mommy, Me (Kerrigan) and Baby”. She is HOLDING the baby. I had to smile really big when I saw that! I passed it off to Tony and he grinned really big too. Whew! Prayer works. God IS good!