April is usually such a happy month, full of promises of warmer weather ahead and songs of spring birds in newly budding trees. Not April 2013 in Minnesota! It's snowing today! So I decided to use this insane day to put my feelings out in the open. It's Autism month! Let's celebrate :)
Yeah actually, celebrate... It's been hard, for sure, and sometimes profoundly sad... But not all the time. Benjamin has also blessed our lives immensely. And that's what I would like to share in this blog. We are all children of God!
I started writing a family history of sorts a while back. So each time I post to this blog I will also include a "flashback" from that story. Our true story which is still being written everyday.
And here's the flashback from our Kingsbury family story... And so you understand from the get go, Bambi is a nickname I used to give Ben... He really hates it now that he's a "big grown up boy" :)
My Bambi is just like the one you know, the cute little fawn you have tucked away in a corner of your childlike heart, gliding on the ice that’s turned stiff with his friend, the impish Thumper. My Bambi is a bit of a wild animal, someone who’s not easy to get to know, but once you get past his fidgety behaviors, a pretty sweet being nonetheless.
Bambi is one of the many nicknames that I have given Benjamin over the years. I think this one stuck because, just like the original Bambi, Ben is disarming, charming and wild. And if you look deep into his great big eyes you will see a spirit so pure, you will be afraid to have an unbecoming thought in his presence.
One day, I do hope in my heart of hearts that my Bambi will grow up, just like the Bambi of the tale, to be one of the great and tremendous Princes of the Forest. A Prince who will one day reign and rule with love, wisdom and kindness over a kingdom all his own. I often wonder if I will have to die first, before I see this miracle I so want to behold. Endure to the end, Sophie, so you will deserve to see it.
A Prayer, an Answer and an Unexpected Beginning
September 1991 to June 1992
Before progressing, I should take you back a little, to the beginning of my story, and rewind a few difficult years...
I am at my parents’ home in the South of France. It is the night before my great adventure, September 16, 1991. I am leaving to start graduate school at the University of Utah in the morning, so I am pausing to say good bye to the Southern skies that I have stared at so often, wondering what my destiny was and mission in life would be.
My prayer is so simple and my heart so full, “Father let me be who Thou wants me to be...” The answer takes me by surprise, “Daughter, be ready to welcome a special child of mine into your future, one that will challenge you and be outside what the world calls the norm”...
Of course no words came from on High but that’s what the feelings were that came from Heavenly Father; those feelings, and peace, a peace that all would be well with my great adventure which was to start the next day.
Of course I was puzzled. Why would God tell me about children when I was just going away to college? I wasn’t getting married the next day. But God’s ways are not our ways, are they? Oh, the wisdom and the love of an all-knowing Father in Heaven! Little did I know that I was about to embark on the plane that would indeed lead me to marriage as well as to graduate school.
I did get to graduate school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Two weeks after I arrived in Salt Lake City and began my graduate studies at the University of Utah, three missionary friends I had made in France when I joined the Church invited me to a reunion of missionaries who had served in the Bordeaux Mission. There at the reunion I met up again with Keith Kingsbury who had served in Montpellier, where I had just graduated from Université Paul Valéry.
I have to say that, in the mission field, Keith and I didn’t get along at all. He was about to go home and I wasn’t a member yet. I was studying English and wanted to speak it all the time whereas he wanted to speak French all the time, because he was going to go home very soon. So we had a communication problem at best, and I did not like him at all!
I thought him arrogant. One day I had complimented him on his near perfect French accent; his lack of the common "American missionary twang" when he spoke French was almost miraculous! He nearly rejected my heartfelt praise and I thought he was as unimpressed with me for some reason as I was with him for what I perceived to be his arrogance. When I told him I was thinking about applying to the University of Utah for graduate school, he barely acknowledged me.
Funny because now when we reminisce about those stories, he said he was impressed by how young I was, how driven I was, and how sure I was of what I wanted, all the while not even being a member yet. I know now that Heavenly Father was protecting me, an investigator of the Church, and him, a set apart missionary for the Church, a representative of the Lord, so that we could go about the business of our lives at the time without unbecoming feelings between each other.
So in spite of our lack of personal rapport – and because it was his duty as district leader–, Elder Kingsbury set up everything for my baptism and left to go back home four days before I followed Christ through the straight and narrow gate, changing everything about my young life so far. All this without even saying good bye. I wasn’t sad; like I said, I did not enjoy his company at all.
One year later, there we are in Provo, Utah, at the mission reunion and we are talking... The thought came to me, “Oh, Elder Kingsbury is actually nice, how strange...” He invited me to attend an institute fireside at the University of Utah.
We dated for two months, were engaged for six and were married on June 13, 1992 on a blustery day in the Salt Lake Temple for Time and all Eternity... Maybe those winds on our wedding day were to prepare us for what was to come?
The First Child and The Surprise
Beginning of April 1993 to end of May 1995
Keith came home and was very surprised, since we had just missed our wedding anniversary by a few days. I made him sit, sat on his lap and told him: “Congratulations, Daddy!” Well, he didn’t understand at first so I had to say it again, and then it finally sunk in! We were so elated!
When I was just a few month along in the pregnancy, a sister that Keith home taught died a few days after childbirth. Then just a month before I was due to deliver our baby, another lady in our ward gave birth to a stillborn child. Needless to say, my first time being pregnant anxieties were working overtime with these events happening so close to home.
Camille Mariah was born December 21, 1993; she is everything a mother could ask for, beautiful inside and out, talented, mature beyond her years and she is so wanted, my Christmas baby. I was always so afraid something would happen that would take her away form me.
Camille is so precious and those events happening to other mothers during my pregnancy made me even more aware of how fragile life is and can be. One night she didn’t wake up for her normal nursing and I found her marble cold in her crib. I am convinced she might have stopped breathing if I hadn’t been nudged awake by the Spirit, which whispered to me something was amiss.
Still I knew that she wasn’t the child Heavenly Father had foretold me about before I left France... Camille was too quick witted and too fast a learner to be that child. Besides, she looked normal.
In August of 1994 I was frazzled. I had just finished graduate school, and Camille was eight months old and giving me a run for my money when I found out I was pregnant again. As he had served a two-year mission for the church, he was still finishing his B.S. in Mining Engineering at the University of Utah at the time.
We were so poor we were barely making ends meet. How would, how could we make it with another baby on the way? I was so upset when the pregnancy test indicated positive, but Keith was in class so I called his mom. I can’t remember what she said, but I recall now that I felt bad for not telling Keith first.
Keith called from the U after his class telling me he wanted to stay and study at the library. But I said, “No, I am coming to get you.” I had finally stopped crying by then. He got in the car, our precious Subaru egg beater, turned to cutie pie Camie strapped in her car seat in the back and said hi to her too.
I couldn’t utter a word. I was too afraid I would burst into tears again. The pregnancy test with the ominous red positive sign was on the dash board, but you know how observant exhausted husbands can be... Between the eight month old baby girl, work and school, he could barely see out his eye sockets, I am sure... He finally said something – I don’t recall what – and since I couldn’t speak for fear of exploding into a blubbering mess, I just pointed to the dash board, where I had set the ‘proof’ of my next ordeal...
He picked up the pregnancy test, looked at it and I saw the biggest smile grace my beautiful husband’s face. I should just have started there, I told myself. As soon as I found out the test results, I should have found refuge in his faith, I could do it with this man. He was so happy I was expecting again! I felt so much better.
Of course feeling better didn’t last. The morning sickness started with a vengeance, Far worse than it had ever been with Camille. I lost so much weight in the first few months with our second baby, I thought I actually looked good for once although perhaps not too healthy to be honest.
It didn’t help that I was still nursing the “old” baby while carrying the “new” baby inside. I needed to stop nursing Camille and stop quickly! I finally succeeded when she turned one and I was four months along.
The first time we heard the baby’s heart beat was at the emergency room because I had thrown up so much that I was dehydrated and they had to start an IV to bring my fluid levels back into balance. One day I had cooked a great Italian feast and couldn’t wait for Keith to get home from school so we could dig in; when we finally sat down and ate, I lost the few bites I was able to get down to the great porcelain throne again...I thought I knew nausea; I had been pregnant before. But this was something else entirely.
Experts and mothers who have been pregnant more than once all seem to say pregnancies are different each time around, so the only way out is the way through. That is what I kept telling myself... Little did I know that this little phrase would become my motto, my way of thinking, my life line.
We had one ultrasound during my second pregnancy, I wasn’t considered “at risk.” I wanted to find out the sex of the baby desperately. After all, this little one coming down from on high like this, “sans crier gare”, was enough of a surprise for me! The technician tried and tried without success. “Your baby is hugging the placenta!”, she said. I couldn’t believe it. Who ever heard of a baby hugging the placenta before? Well, mine did. Keith and I were very puzzled and we still didn’t know the sex of our baby...
I really was hoping for a girl so we wouldn’t have to buy countless new things for the little invader. Guilty as I may have felt, that is how I saw that little one. I just wasn’t ready to open my heart, my life again; my body? Well, huh, she (or he–I hoped not, ewww–) had taken over by storm! And I say that not because I am naive. I know what happens when a man and a woman united in the bonds of matrimony know each other, to use the language of the Bible!
But I was on birth control when this little one was conceived, surprisingly enough. So although I wasn’t ready to have another child at the time, once I got over the shock of being pregnant, I realized that God really meant for this baby to come into our lives at this time
My due date came and went. I was a week late and in despair that perhaps my body didn’t know how to start labor on its own ( I was induced with Camie) but finally after forty-one difficult weeks, I started labor. And, of course, once it started it came fast and furious.
When we arrived at the University of Utah Medical Center I was in so much pain that walking was impossible so I hopped into a wheelchair, Keith was so flustered to see me in a such a state that he walked me right into a wall, that didn’t help!
What a night! Still, at the end of the quick five hours of excruciating pain – which seemed like an eternity to me– and absolutely no pain relief whatsoever... – which made me grasp ever so slightly what our Lord and Savior might have endured in the Garden of Gethsemane– I held the most adorable blond baby boy in my arms! Now if only he would stop screaming for a minute...When he was born that little fellow let out the gustiest scream that I had ever heard.
As no two pregnancies are alike, births are often completely different as well. Camille hadn’t even whined when she was born, to the point that I thought something was wrong with her... But no, she was totally fine, just looking around, taking it all in after leaving the safety of the womb she had grown in...
This fresh from the spirit world golden boy on the other hand, couldn’t bear to be here. He was all scrunched up and red and screeching like a wet kitten... His cries seemed to say, “No, I do not want to be here in this cold world. I was late for a reason! I just did not want to come out of the safe haven of the womb which sheltered me! Where is my placenta?” “What am I in for?”, I thought... But finally he stopped, exhausted... And boy, was he cute!
That is how I fell in love with the screamer. Well, he did look just like his dad after all... And his dad was so proud! We named our beautiful golden boy Benjamin Joseph. He was born on May 31, 1995 at 2:03 a. m. Remember that time of day, or night. I don’t know which really... All I know is that I would become very well acquainted with it myself for the next few years! Heavenly Father has such a particular way of foreshadowing things to come, doesn’t He?
By then I was finally alright with the fact that my body had been shared with a boy. He was mine and mine to love and take care of. I would do this; I could do it; hold him, nurse him, adore him and teach him. In my newfound comfort – surely due to post-partum afterglow– I could never have fathomed how difficult mothering our Ben would prove to be.
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