How We Told the Kids

A lot of you asked how we told the kids about the baby, so I thought I would share.

We drove to the cemetary on a sunny, but cold Saturday afternoon.  Snow was melting on the ground from the day before.  Tonya went there earlier in the day and had tied 10 helium balloons on Anastasha's headstone (and placed the letter there too).

When we pulled up and could see the balloons from the car, the kids were so excited.  I told them that maybe one of my patients had tied the balloons there for the kids since they knew they would love them.

When we got out to look closer, we "found" the letter.  We told them the kids to read it to see who the balloons were from.  Ariana (age 11) took it and started reading it.  As soon as she realized that it was written as being from Anastasha, she started sobbing.  I (Craig) held her (now crying too) and passed the letter to Charis (age 10).  He read the rest of the letter and stopped when he got to the "big sister" part and said, "Are you kidding me?".  When they all figured it out, the kids were SO excited.

Then we cut each of the balloons off and let each child write a message (or color a picture) with a sharpie marker.  Then they released their balloons to the sky.  Except for Cauis, who hung on to his balloon for dear life until he accidentally let go.

We are excited, as you can imagine.  But it is a strange dance of joy mixed with grief that is still fresh in our hearts.  God the Father has had us on a journey of surrender for the last 10 months or so.  We feel like this is a continuation of this journey.

We always give our baby in the womb an acronym - BIB (baby in belly), BIT (baby in tummy), BOW (baby on the way), BCS (baby coming soon), etc.  This one we are calling B.L.T., short for Baby Living in Tummy (or baby living in Texas!).