Hidden

Hidden

There are too many stars in the sky tonight
poured from the curve of an unfull moon
while midnight fantasies lie
shrouded in the sliver of shadow.

Mine though is a swelling tide
and some secrets are best
when they crash, salty, at your feet.

So...
I saw you today,
standing pale and silent
against a blue noon,
watching as I gardened.

My hands busied themselves
with weeds and bulbs and dirt,
while my mind traced tender fingers
around your sad eyes and smiling lips
and no matter how I tried
I couldn't dig deep enough
to bury the ache.

I tried to leave you a moment
sheltered in the curl of the Canna
and for another,
safely swathed in Gardenia perfume
but found you,
again and again
where you've hidden for weeks -

warm against my chest like
a seed inside my shirt pocket.

remembering - a year later

It's been a year since I started saying goodbye



























It's been over a year since the last time I held Nova, whole and well, alive and alert, just minutes before his open heart surgery. In roughly six weeks, I will commemorate the fact that a year has passed since he died. It's hard to believe sometimes that's it's already been a year. And yet, other times it seems like so long ago that I last buried my face in his chubby little neck.

It has been a year since he was last mine, completely mine. I relinquished my son to a team of physicians, in hopes that they'd return him in better condition than when they received him. Of course, surgery and more surgery, medication, complications and infections... They took my beautiful vibrant baby boy from me before death had a chance. In a way, the 21st is the one year anniversary of the day I let Nova go. That was the day I had chosen to kick off my American Heart Association Charlotte Metro Heart Walk 2007 fundraising campaign. Unfortunately, it was not a day that I managed to do much of anything... so today is now the day.

I know that this last year has weathered my grief, smoothed it just a bit, made it more possible to run my fingers along its edges without drawing blood. If that's true for me, then I know it is exponentially true for the Poetic Acceptance readership, especially with my recent absence, and shitty habit of not returning emails or comments.

But somewhere there is a mother struggling to survive her first day without her child, and somewhere there's a mother whose child will die tomorrow... because as many as 40,000 children will be born with a congenital heart defect this year - making it the #1 birth defect, and nearly 4000 of those children will die, making CHDs the leading cause of defect related infant mortality in the world.

It is for those children, and those mothers, that I ask for your support again this year. Last year, thanks to your unbelievably generous support, I raised $3623, and Team Nova's total topped out over $5000. I sincerely hope that I can meet and even surpass that amount this year, because there simply isn't enough money allocated annually to Congenital Heart Defects research. I want to do my part to face that challenge, and to change those statistics.

So... Support Team Nova 2007, please!

2 years

In loving Memory
Alexa Miranda Neihart
12/5/1998 - 2/13/05

I missed my 2 year blogger-versary on the 9th... but this one, I'd never forgive myself for missing

appointment at the adoption agency.

appointment at the adoption agency

So we just got home from our appointment at the adoption agency.

I am frustrated and relieved, all at once. We were told last week that they'd do the DNA test, and that they had to order a DNA kit that would be in by the middle of this week. Then she called us on Wednesday and set up today's appointment. Does it seem that out of whack that we assumed that the DNA kit came in and that he'd be donating his genetic material this morning? We were greatly mistaken. Basically we went in to discuss the situation, more, again.

 Well, I've explained the whole deal, beginning to end, till I'm ready to explode. I don't know what else they thought there was to say. But one thing they said was that we were mislead about the DNA kit and that if there was going to be a DNA test (get that... 'if' there was going to be a DNA test) that we'd have to pay for it. Yeah, back to square one. Only this time we're in the office, and my ugly was starting to bubble up right out of me -because we were, again, lied to.

Well, she must have seen the ugly coming because she called the director in. I don't like to get ugly, but sometimes, you have no choice. So he came in and we explained the situation again, and we explained the possible health issues again, and we had to emphasize the levity of that situation, again. And I told him, point blank, that the bottom line was that we just cannot afford $500, and that if we had to pay it, it just wasn't going to be done.  

You see, their point of view is that Tommy is most likely the father (and we've come to agree that he probably is) and that with that in mind, they saw no justification in footing the bill for paternity testing they didn't feel was really necessary.  Well without the DNA test, there's a very real possibility of one of two things happening.

A.) The baby is his, but since they don't know for sure, they dismiss the possibilities that are inherent in our family, which could lead to serious ramifications for the child and his adoptive parents.

or

B.) The baby isn't his and they worry unneccessarily for the child's entire life over heart issues that should never have been more worrisome for them than for any "normal" family.

Neither of those choices seems fair to the child or the family that adopted him.

Realistically speaking, although I think Tommy deserves to know one way or the other, the only real risk posed to us by not knowing is that we may spend the next 18 years getting pictures and updates about a baby who isn't really a part of our family. There is no real danger involved in that, other than some emotional hell if we were to find out in 18 years that Tommy is in fact, not the father. But for the child, and his new family, the risks are more concrete, and that is what I needed him to comprehend. I have moved beyond the needs and rights of my son, and become more concerned about what's best for the baby. Tommy screwed up, the consequences of his actions have already been put in place, and he'll have them to deal with for the rest of his life. What we need to do now is ensure that the baby's best interests are served - and to do so, there needs to be concrete information as to paternity. Period.

Well, an hour and a half into our "discussion" he finally agreed that the testing needed to be done, and that if we couldn't afford it, that the agency would absorb the expense.

So I am relieved -unspeakably relieved- to know that we filled out all the paperwork needed to initiate the testing, finally! 

The agency uses a lab out of Burlington NC and they'll coordinate a day that both Tommy and the baby can visit a doctor or lab near them (seperately) to have the testing done. That should happen within the next week. Doing it this way, the results only take 2-3 weeks, so in reality, it will be a shorter wait than it would have been the other way.

I'm just flabbergasted by how hard this has been, and how much we've had to fight, and that we've had to overcome all the obstacles that have been placed in our way by the biological mother, and by the agency, and by human nature (and society's predisposition to side with the mother) and by our legal system...

I cannot imagine how many fathers there must be that have not been able to overcome it all, or how many children that have been hurt in the process because of the lack of an accurate medical history.

A to the B to the...

A. Tommy goes in for the paternity test tomorrow. 3 - 6 weeks later, we'll know something one way or the other. It can't come quickly enough for me. I am still disheartened and frustrated by the amount of work that's gone into simply finding out if he's the father, let alone actually getting his paternal rights. Which, by the way, will be long gone by the time we know whther or not he should have had them in the first place. I'm trying not to obsess over that fact, since he didn't intend to try to stop the adoption anyway.

B. It snowed. NC doesn't get snow. I mean, hell what we got today doesn't really qualify as snow in the real world... we got 2 inches, followed by sleet, then rain. We now have slush. It's yucky. But this morning (knowing the lifespan of snow around these parts) we got up and went out to play in it. 8am and we were having a freezing good time. We built a snowman - 6 feet tall. Then 'transgendered her' by putting her in a bikini and giving her a beach umbrella.

The rain has already reduced her to an unrecognizable (toppled and melted) mass in the yard.