The Song: Afton’s Story, Part Four

We didn’t have a name picked out yet. Since the beginning, our baby name wishlist had been sort of high-maintenance: I wanted a nature-inspired name, bonus if it ended with an “n.” Bjork wanted a short name with a Scandinavian feel. We’re “those” people.

The day before Afton was born, Bjork’s parents came to visit us in the hospital. I was coming in and out of sleep, and they sat talking quietly in the chairs next to my hospital bed. Their conversation shifted to poetry and music, and in my hazy state of mind I heard Bjork say something about Nickel Creek and the song “Sweet Afton.” I’m not saying this to be dramatic – I honestly felt like a little bolt of lightning zapped me. I snapped wide awake. Afton. With Bjork and his parents still talking about poetry, I grabbed my phone and started googling.

Afton: a river in Scotland, for my nature theme.

Afton: a Swedish word that means afternoon or evening, for Bjork’s Scandinavian feel.

Afton: a name ending with an “n,” for my weird enjoyment of names ending with “n”.

And “Sweet Afton”, one of our favorite songs.

I started crying.

Bjork looked at me, mid-conversation, and asked me if I was okay. Yes, I said. Yes, I’m okay.

That night, we talked about the name. It felt so right. “Let’s sleep on it,” we said. And then things took a fast turn – we went from bedrest to emergency c-section at just 23 weeks and 3 days. We still hadn’t picked our baby’s name.

The room emptied to give us a minute alone before the surgery, and Bjork and I could hardly see each other through our tears. We were about to meet our son, but it was way too early. Lung development, long term health complications, survival… the weight of it all was suffocating. We stayed quiet, holding hands. And then, in the silence: “Afton?” Bjork said gently. “Afton.” I said back.

Sweet Afton is called a hymn for peace, and it’s so fitting. We played this song during Afton’s birth, through his last moments on earth as we held him close, and once more as we laid him to rest in peace forever.

Flow gently, my sweet Afton. You are so loved.

I’m sharing more about life with and after Afton on my personal Instagram account. I’d love to have you follow along here.

The post The Song: Afton’s Story, Part Four appeared first on Pinch of Yum.

from Pinch of Yum http://ift.tt/2kPau4b

The Bed: Afton’s Story, Part Three

I had gone in for a routine exam when we realized that something might be wrong. It was after hours, so the doctor sent me to the nearest hospital to have a specialist take a look, “just to make sure.” The hospital we were sent to was the hospital that we were also planning to deliver at. Well, hey! we thought. This is convenient! We had already done a tour like the super eager-beaver parents that we are, and we joked more than once on our way into the hospital about how it was actually kind of awesome to have a practice run before coming in for the real thing.

We waited for the doctor in the triage room, eating graham crackers and drinking apple juice and watching the Hallmark Christmas movie that the nurse had put on the TV. The doctor came in, started the exam, and said: nope, there’s no dilation… oh my goodness, yes there is. She’s dilated and her water is about to break through. Lay the bed flat, lay the bed flat.

The nurse rushed to lay the bed flat – inverse, actually, with my head reclined lower than my feet. And there could be no more painfully perfect metaphor for our lives in that moment – the tipping of the bed signaling the tipping of our world. Completely and utterly flipped, crashing, inverse, upside down, all wrong.

The doctor took my hand. “Lindsay, if you deliver tonight…” Tonight? I stopped breathing. I stopped listening. I’m only 23 weeks. “Bedrest… risks… survival…” No, no, no. This isn’t my life.

When they left us alone for a minute, Bjork and I cried and tried to find words, something to make this okay or to reassure us that our baby would come out of this just fine. And there was really nothing, except:

This is our story now.

We said these words to each other over and over throughout the next 6 days, telling ourselves at every turn: this is our story.

Brené Brown says: If we own the story, then we can write the ending.

Even now, in these fresh and tender days after Afton is gone, I’m reminding myself – this is your story now. It really hurts. It’s not the story you wanted. But it’s not done, and you can still write the ending.

I’m sharing more about life with and after Afton on my personal Instagram account. Follow here!

The post The Bed: Afton’s Story, Part Three appeared first on Pinch of Yum.

from Pinch of Yum http://ift.tt/2kKRfZC

The Heart: Afton’s Story, Part 2

In the weeks leading up to Afton’s birth, I started reading some books on life with a newborn.

One of the things that I loved was this idea of giving your baby a comfort item – something that would help them fall asleep on their own. Sleep! Newborns! , right? Because two weeks ago, I was still a normal person who worried about things like how we would get our baby to sleep. The idea is that you (mom/dad) sleep with the item, for example, a blanket, and after a day or two, it absorbs you – your scent, your breath, your skin – and that’s what makes it comforting to your baby. “Isn’t that the sweetest idea, Bjork?” I said. “Let’s do that for our baby.”

In the chaotic hours after Afton was born, I found myself laying in a hospital bed holding a small fabric heart from the NICU. It was cut a little crooked, with a chintzy printed fabric, likely made with lots of love by a hospital volunteer. There was a note pinned to it instructing me to wear the heart against my skin for a day or two before placing it in Afton’s isolette, so that even in the days ahead when we could not hold him yet, he would be able to sense our presence. I immediately tucked it into my shirt. “It’s just like the book, Bjork!” I said. “Just like our plan.”

Except then things didn’t go as planned.

Yesterday morning, I tucked that fabric heart – the one I’ve been dutifully wearing every second of every day since the moment Afton was born – underneath my baby’s still hand. I wrapped the edges of the heart around his tiny body, and then I swaddled him nice and cozy for the last time on this earth before laying him to peacefully rest in his tiny casket.

We buried Afton with a few things: pictures of us, pictures of Sage, a blanket from his grandma, a book that his daddy read to him. But the thing that makes me feel most like a good mom to Afton was burying him with that crooked little fabric heart tucked up right against his chest.

My mind knows that Afton is gone, that he can’t feel or smell anymore. But my heart says so surely: good job, mama.  He has his comfort item. Your baby knows that you’re with him forever.

I’m sharing more about life with and after Afton on my personal Instagram account. Follow here!

The post The Heart: Afton’s Story, Part 2 appeared first on Pinch of Yum.

from Pinch of Yum http://ift.tt/2ksj49D

Afton’s Story (1): There You Are

Wow. It’s been a whole lifetime since we last met here.

Words are hard to come by, but also not. Maybe they’re hard to come by because there are so many – does that even make sense? I don’t trust my grief brain these days. 

Right now, my writing life has one Big Question: how do I tell Afton’s story? how do I document every critical moment, every raw emotion? how do I do his short, precious life justice? It’s so long and wide and deep – the thought of writing it all out feels both motivating and completely overwhelming. 

I have a vision that someday I will get his birth and his life all written out in one chronological piece. Someday. But for today, for the next ten days, actually, I’d love to invite you into some of the small stories. They tell about beautiful, important, smaller moments, and I think, even though incomplete in their scope, they are where a lot of the magic lives. They are the stories within The Story.

Recipes will come back – I can feel it in my bones. But I am forever changed, and this telling of Afton’s story is one of the ways that the blog is reflecting my newness.

So with that, I’d love to introduce you to a ten-part series that I will be publishing over the next 2-ish weeks – I’m calling it Afton’s Story.

Thank you for being here. Honestly, THANK YOU. You are lighting our way. 

Our 6 days in the hospital held a lifetime of trauma. The shift from “things are getting better” to “we need to move to an emergency c-section.” The decision to resuscitate. The hopeful sound of two meowing cries as he was born – the only sounds I’ll ever hear him make. The joy for having a healthy baby, and the desperation for him being born at 23 weeks.

The 2am call that our baby was struggling. The dark walk to the NICU, me in a wheelchair, wrapped in hospital bedsheets and shaking uncontrollably, and a terrified Bjork pushing me through deserted hospital hallways. The panic as we rounded the corner and saw room 44 overflowing with doctors and nurses and medical equipment. The sharp, stabbing realization that things were not going to be okay. That this was both the beginning and the end.

In all the darkness, there is one moment of clarity that feels bright and divine, and I am clinging to the memory of it like a lifeline: the moment they laid my beautiful, perfectly formed, 1lb 3oz sweet Afton on my chest.

His skin on my skin. My baby, warm and tiny. I felt his heart beating right over my own heart, I touched his delicate new skin, but even beyond the physical realm, I felt something lock – solidly LOCK – into place inside me, in my heart. It was beyond description. The physical and emotional feelings were SO BIG and so real. In that split second, with the two of us touching heartbeats for the very first time, my world clicked into place. It was my heart fully realizing, 12 hours after the c-section: yes, THIS. There you are. My baby. 

I stopped shaking. I was calm. I felt a literal rush of love. I whispered to him without crying. All this, even in knowing that we would be saying goodbye to our baby in our very next breath. It was the most profoundly beautiful and hard moment of my life.

It has been 25 days since that moment, and things have quieted down, which is both welcome and scary. I cuddle Sage, I laugh at a text message, and then in the next minute I feel so sure that a part of me has died, and I wonder if it might never come back. It gets literally hard to breathe.

There are no easy answers, no cliche comforting phrases, no silver linings that could make this all okay.

But our family is forever, and I am holding so fast to the hope that someday I will have him in my arms again, feeling his heart beating against my chest, in perfect peace and wholeness. 

It’s one of the most powerful things Afton could have ever given me: freedom from fear of death.

The post Afton’s Story (1): There You Are appeared first on Pinch of Yum.

from Pinch of Yum http://ift.tt/2k6uouy

Guess How Much I Love You

The post below is a note written by Bjork for baby Afton. Thank you to all who are continuing to keep Lindsay and Bjork in your thoughts and prayers. – Jenna

Our sweet Afton was born on December 31st and died peacefully in the arms of his mom in the early morning hours of January 1st.

Our grief is deep and wraps around us. It seeps through our skin and into our hearts. We feel it not just because of how hard this is, but also because of how good it was for the few short hours that Afton was with us.

We held him on our chest. We felt his heartbeat. We whispered in his ear how much we love him and always will. We gave him a bath and wrapped him in a little blanket. We told him about his family. His mom and dad. His grandma and grandpa. His aunts and uncles. We read him the book Guess How Much I Love You.

He gave me so much in the few hours that he was here. He gave me the gift of being a dad and showed me how much I love it. He gave me the chance to hold my son and tell him a story. He gave my parents a grandson.

And he gave me an image that will forever be imprinted on my mind; his mom, after being awake for 36 hours, after having her body opened up and her baby taken out, sitting on a hospital chair in a NICU room lit only by the light from monitors and flashing equipment, surrounded by crushing fear and grief but using all her strength to hold it back long enough to create a 1 lbs 3 oz pocket of peace where she could comfort her baby and make sure he heard his mom’s voice as he left this world…

“Afton, sweet Afton. It’s okay baby. Your mom and dad are here. We love you so much. We love you so much Afton.”

It was in that moment, with Afton taking his last few breaths as he laid on Lindsay’s chest, that I felt a deep and profound sense of wholeness and holiness. Never again will something be this hard and this good.

Lindsay: Forever and ever.

Afton: Can you guess how much I love you? I love you right up to the moon and back.

During this time, several readers have asked if there’s an organization or cause that would be best to give to in Afton’s name. Here’s a quick note from Lindsay and Bjork for where to give if you feel led. Click here to reach the donation page:

This experience has given us a profound appreciation for the meaning of family. We know that there are many others, both here and around the world, whose families have also been broken by tragedy.

We hope to honor Afton’s memory by pouring into the lives of hurting children who don’t have families of their own to care for them. Bjork and I lived and worked at the Children’s Shelter of Cebu orphanage for one year and saw firsthand the loving and lifesaving ways that children are cared for in times when they are most vulnerable.

Thank you for being a family to these children with us, and for doing so in memory of our precious son Afton.

Bjork, Lindsay and Afton

The post Guess How Much I Love You appeared first on Pinch of Yum.

from Pinch of Yum http://ift.tt/2j8WfK4

Sweet Afton

This is an update from Lindsay and Bjork on their sweet baby boy. Please continue to keep them in your thoughts and prayers, and thank you to all of you who are lifting them up in this time. – Jenna

Bjork and I are proud to introduce our perfect baby boy, Afton Bjork Ostrom, who was born on December 31, 2016 at 2:25pm weighing just 1lb 3oz, and who left this world peacefully, laying skin-to-skin in the arms of his mommy and daddy, surrounded by love and comfort in the early morning hours of January 1, 2017.

In our deep grief, we are so full of awe and wonder for having had the chance to experience just a tiny taste of his precious sweetness this side of heaven. We got to truly fall in love with what it means to be his parents – to feel his heartbeat skin-to-skin against our chest, to touch all his fingers and toes, to soak up his smell, to give him a bath, to be able to kiss his sweet, perfect face, to read him a bedtime story, and to whisper lullabies into his tiny little ears so he could hear and know our voices.

These all too fleeting moments we had with him are also making the ache of losing him feel all the more raw and visceral. We experienced a taste of what it was like to love him, but we so badly wanted a lifetime. It’s a depth of loss that we’ve never known – where something so tangibly a part of you is suddenly gone, and you can feel the searing hole right there in your own body. It’s our honor to wear that deep scar as the evidence that he was here and he was loved, and we’ll carry that ache with us every day for the rest of our lives until we meet him again someday.

You’re forever perfect and forever loved, baby boy. We’ll always, always, always be your mom and dad, and you’ll always be our sweet Afton.

The post Sweet Afton appeared first on Pinch of Yum.

from Pinch of Yum http://ift.tt/2iBeOq8