O is for...

O is for OCTOBER

October means lots of things for me. I've been rolling the memories around in my head all morning, so here they are...

My childhood October memories include the church 'fall festival', choosing a halloween outfit, making it (or, rather, MOM making it), dressing up for school, trick-or-treating on Garden Street, and the Family Home Evening phantom.

In my adult years, October has included most of the same, minus the trick-or-treating (except for that one time...). In college I came up with cheap, easy halloween outfits (freshman year w/the roommates: RAINBOW). My 2nd halloween in Portugal, my companion & I dressed as each other. That was a crazy trick. We really couldn't do it all day since we were meeting people & needed to be able to introduce ourselves properly, but I think we still kept on each others' clothes & accesories (jacket, umbrella, watch, etc). Hilarious.

Fall is my favorite season, so October has become extra-exciting as it seems to beckon the fall into its full flavor. We have been burning candles with names such as "mulled cider" and "pumpkin spice" in anticipation of the scents of the season. The leaves will soon be changing and we smile as the night air has started to be cooler, crisper.

And last year, October was given another meaning: BABIES.

October 1st 2007 was our due date with Poppy.
I don't remember if I ever blogged about Poppy. I don't think I did, though most of our close friends & family know the story. "Poppy" was the name we gave to our first baby...which ended up really being more like our first pregnancy. "Poppy" because our first dr. visit they told us the baby was approximately the size of a poppy seed. The pregnancy only lasted 10 weeks. It was a challenging experience and we learned so much. We learned about our capacity to love and the realities of loss. We learned about the details of our mortal bodies' ability to heal and what it means to rely on each other and the Savior to carry us. It was a molding time for both of us...but I think I was left with most of the emotional attachment.

I used to dream about where I'd be in the pregnancy (which was pretty easy since I had signed up on certain baby/pregnancy websites that sent weekly updates on the stages of pregnancy)... and after October 1st, what it would be like to hold our newborn Poppy in my arms. I worried that we would continue to experience this type of loss with future pregnancies.

It was the first or second week in OCTOBER last year that we found out we were pregnant again! We were excited but cautious. At first it was easy to refer to this baby as "Poppy", it was just habit. I didn't want to use that name twice so we spent several days thinking of an appropriate name for our 2nd little star. We chose "Pumpkin". Something about the P theme seemed nice and also since we found out about the baby in the month of October, it just FIT. From then on, the new baby was our Pumpkin.

Thankfully everything went well with my pregnancy with Pumpkin. At each dr. visit we had small fears of bad news, and every visit proved us wrong and left us with brighter hope. Of course you know the 'rest of the story'--our darling Pumpkin joined our family in June. We are so grateful for him and the absolute pure joy he is in our lives. Trevor & I have changed so much in the last 3 1/2 months, it's hard to articulate.

So today, October 1st I am thinking of past halloweens, traditions, costumes, and babies. Feeling grateful for our Poppy who taught us how to rely more fully on God's Plan for us, and grateful for Pumpkin who teaches us every day how to love and be more than we thought we could the day before.