Christmas

My dear Sawyer,

It has been too long since I have shared my thoughts. There have been many, many times that I have crafted letters to you in my head. I have to believe that you have heard every one. I have to believe that you are out there somewhere, waiting until we can all be a family together.

Christmas is approaching, a very difficult time for me. Christmas used to be the only time of the year that really reminded me that I had a family. Most of the very few memories I have growing up that were good and included my whole family was around the holidays. Maybe that comes from the excitement kids get when unwrapping presents, but it's really all I have. My family is so broken in so many ways that sometimes I just can't make sense of it all. Until June of this year I had three kids, the oldest being 14. Yet, I haven't had any of my children with me at Christmas for the past 8 years. I haven't seen their faces light up when they see a Christmas tree with presents. Where we live the firefighters put lights on their fire truck every year and drive around passing candy canes. I'm sure that you would have been really excited to see that this year. I would have loved to have Kelsey and Kaiden up for that as well. It was really hard this year but a blessing as well. I'm glad that Sullivan was there, even if he didn't show much of a reaction. I know next year will be better.  This will be the first year in so long that I've had at least one child with me during Christmas, I don't know if that will make it easier or harder. Sometimes it is easy to put things out of your mind when there is nothing physical there to remind you of them. While I'll be glad that Sullivan is there I'll be hurting for those that aren't. I'm glad that Sullivan will be here, and to celebrate Christmas with him, but I will be also glad when the decorations get put away and I no longer have to hear Christmas music. I hate being so conflicted, I would do anything to have all four of my children with me for just one day...

Love,

Dad

Introducing Sullivan Sawyer Keith

Yesterday morning Stephanie and I (mainly Stephanie) delivered a healthy baby boy. What an amazing and humbling experience to go through. Now we can stop being concerned about whether or not we'd get to this point and start being concerned with normal parenting stuff.

Stephanie had been having contractions off and on for about a week. We knew that things were getting close so on Friday we went out on our last date where we wouldn't need a babysitter (at least for awhile.) We went to 5 guys, and then to a self serve yogurt shop. It was kind of funny being in line and Stephanie started having a contraction, we let people go around us. They looked a little confused.

I had a strong feeling I wouldn't be sleeping all night. We went to bed and I was able to sleep until about 3:00. The contractions were fairly regular at that point and so we called the midwife. She wanted us to wait to see how things progressed and at about 4:30 I knew that it was time. The contractions were much stronger and pretty regular. At 5:30 we met at the birth center and settled in to one of their birthing suites. Each of their suites has a large tub, ours was being filled when we got there. When it was time to shut the water off, Kyla, our midwife couldn't get it to shut off all the way. Apparently one of the handles was tricky to get shut off. Thinking that we were in danger of flooding I grabbed some tools and went to work to try and figure out what was going on. I could get the volume of water to decrease quite a bit, but nothing I did would shut it off all the way. I reassembled the handle, and was close to admitting defeat. I wanted to turn the other handle on and then shut it off to see how a working one worked. I soon discovered that the other handle had been turned on the whole time. Unfortunately by that time we were already draining the tub to prevent an overflow. There was no hot water left so Stephanie had to wait awhile until she was able to get into the warm tub.

Let me tell you something, I am saddened and appalled how a lot of men treat women as the weak or inferior sex. You see it everywhere how the man, being "stronger" has to come to the rescue of a woman. I hear stories quite often about men being abusive to women, probably an effort to keep "control." Well, the secret is that women are much stronger mentally and physically then men. Sure, we might be able to lift heavier weights on average, but that's only one aspect of physical strength. Watch a women go through natural child birth and you will have a whole new outlook on which sex is the weaker sex.

Stephanie was amazing and handled the delivery like a champ. What an amazing experience to be apart of. Sullivan was a hefty 8lbs 13oz and 21" long. Completely healthy and absolutely beautiful. We decided to give him Sawyer's name as his middle name. I have had a lot of conflicting emotions however. I was on facebook posting Sullivan's picture and I thought about changing my profile picture, which is currently a picture of Stephanie, Sawyer, and myself. I felt guilty that I had that thought, I don't want to diminish the memory of Sawyer by replacing them with Sullivan. It'll be a balancing act, and I don't really know how it is going to work. I am glad that Sullivan is a boy however. When I first found out we were pregnant again one of my first thoughts was how I would react to a new baby that was using Sawyer's clothes, stroller, and car seat. There still is a sense of attachment to those things, what else do I have to attach Sawyer to?

Scott

A year...

A year ago I received a call no parent wants to hear. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was down in LA, about to visit my kids. It was around noon. I was sitting in a hotel parking lot, I wasn't checked in. I sat there, praying for everything to be OK. I remember the challenge in finding a last minute flight home, sitting in the airport noticing the small kids. My heart was broken for Stephanie, who luckily had some family and friends around her. I have a hard time saying it was the worst weekend of my life, although most of it felt that way. I've never felt more alone, waiting to get home, and I never felt more surrounded and supported by friends and family. I've never felt such sadness before or shed as many tears. But that was the weekend that I saw my daughter for the first time, and was able to hold her. How can that make a weekend so horrible? I guess saying that it was a weekend of contrasts and severe emotions would suffice.

I'm sure the next couple days will be hard, the last week has already been.

Stephanie is pregnant again, with less than 2 months to go. We are having a boy who will be named Sullivan Sawyer Keith. He's been incredibly active, which has been a huge blessing, a constant reminder that things are going OK. We have a heart beat monitor, which we can use whenever we want to double check. A couple weeks ago there was a time when Sullivan wasn't as active as normal. We of course both were worried. but a couple minutes later we were listening to his heart beat.