Bitter Sweet*

On the one hand….

I am so very proud, excited and ecstatic to announce that Alex and I are Aunt Jen and Uncle Alex times 2!

Meet

“Avery Sophia Minchey”

Born February 6th 2012, weighing a whopping 5 lbs & 1ounce!

I think everyone would agree and Julian is one lucky big sister, she actually helped pick the name Sophia for her this little peanut! Avery had a bit  of humans and experienced some breathing difficulties that left her in the NICU for a day but I’m happy to report mom and baby are doing very well now and waiting to go home!

We can not wait to meet little miss Avery in person and hopefully will do so this weekend…

So, so, so very happy for the Minchey family!!!

On the other hand….

This is when the “bitter” part of “bitter sweet” comes in…

If your a mother with an infant please stop reading now.

The night after the excitement of Avery’s birth I got a text and phone call from my supervisor around 4 am stating there was an emergency on site. When myself and the rest of our team of counselors arrived on site we were confronted with the tragic news and found out exactly what the “emergency” was.

A client’s 3 month old child had passed from SIDS.

My heart is so heavy for her, for what she went through, for the pain ahead of her that she still has to go through, for her having to tell her other children the news, for her other children who went to school that morning not knowing the news and would come home to learn they lost their baby brother, for my other clients who share a community with this mourning mother, for the clients/mothers going to bed only to lye awake counting their baby’s breathe not sleeping for days on end and living in fear of it happening to them…..

Telling the girls the awful news was one of the hardest things I have experienced so far, it was sad, exhausting and as I expected it was uplifting…. seeing how these mothers can care so deeply and mourn so badly was incredible and did my heart some good in a very sad situation.

I do have to say, for a tiny 3 month old bundle of joy, that little one sure made an impact in his mothers life before he was ever born.

His mother came to our site 8 months pregnant and more than likely, had she not been pregnant she would have never come across our treatment center. After sobering up for a month at our site and giving birth to a beautiful baby boy she returned to our site baby-less. Fortunately, she and baby tested negative at birth but the courts still wanted her to prove her sobriety before giving her her baby boy. She was quite the fighter and eventually she got him back!

Since having him in her custody she has remained a fighter in her sobriety and works everyday at getting her life back together. I know his tragic death will be the toughest test of all for her as it is for any mom, as well as for her family, her faith and her sobriety.

I will say however, I don’t think there’s a stronger fighter out there and she couldn’t have a bigger cheerleader in her corner fighting with her!

With this I have to say, hug your loved ones, hug them tight, never go to bed angry, never speak words out of anger and say “I love you” as much as possible. You never,  just never, ever know what can happen.