In Loving Memory of Noah Joel Hoyt {Two Years}

How has it already been 2 years since we said goodbye to our tiny baby?? So much has transpired since those horrible days of Easter week 2008, it is almost unreal! I will never forget the short time I had with my second child. The one we tried for and longed for and prayed for – for 13 long months. Noah Joel Hoyt left our presence on this earth on March 26, 2008 to join our Father in Heaven, where he now feels no pain; cries no tears. There will not be a day where he mourns the loss of his mom or dad or sister. But why are we left here to mourn the loss of the baby I couldn’t carry to term?

There are so many questions that come with losing a child and in my case - miscarriage. My friends who’ve endured this pain know what I mean. Those who surround us can testify. There’s something missing in our lives. There’s always a lingering “what if?” or “why me?” or “what really happened?”

Unfortunately, we won’t know all the answers just yet. We’ll have to wait until the day when our Lord takes us back where we really belong. Away from this earth where we’re really just passing through. Then, we may know the answers to all those questions we’ve asked ourselves or had asked of us.

Lately, the grief has come back to me full circle as if I’d lost Noah just yesterday. When I was pregnant last year and the calendar told me it was the one year anniversary of Noah’s passing, somehow, someway, the Lord granted me peace. I guess He knew I needed it after the rough year I’d had and that I needed to be happy to sustain the precious life of Madison Grace that was growing within me. I don’t know. Maybe it was because I hadn’t held a baby in such a long time to know what I was truly missing after losing Noah. But after crying during Madison’s delivery (just knowing she’d made it to me alive was so bittersweet I can’t even explain it!) and after these past 6 months of holding her tight almost 24 hours a day, I have come to realize exactly what I’ve lost. Of course, I know that a child is a child no matter how small. I’ve said it a million times. Life starts at conception. I lost Noah at 9 ½ weeks gestation and named him even though I had no idea if he was a boy or a girl. I just had a feeling that he was a boy. But after holding and loving on my sweet girl Madison, and continuing to love on my love Caitlin, I have felt the deep sadness that I knew would hit me again someday.

I never forget that he is not here. I actually think of him every single day. Each morning, if there’s time, I listen to a few songs on my MP3 player that bring me back to when I lost him. Not so that I can be stuck in a dark place but so that I can briefly remember my baby and remember what his life and loss taught me and how thankful I am that I’ve been drawn closer to my Savior over the past two years. These are private moments that no one knows about and are just between me and the Heavens. Some don’t understand how I can’t be “over it” yet. Why I haven’t “moved on” yet. Well, I probably described it above, but let me say it again…I lost a child and will never forget. It’s pretty simple but yet it’s painfully hard to describe. Yes, I’d consider that an oxymoron, but in this instance, it’s the honest truth. With the loss of a child I don’t think you ever really feel whole or “together” again. There’s always that piece of you that is absent – that ends up causing some part of your heart to not be truly in the present each minute of every day. Maybe I just need more counseling :) but this is me and how I feel.

Something else that has been causing me to remember Noah more often than not is the fact that Caitlin brings him up almost everyday. Mind you, she was not even 4 years old when he died and yet she was so sad. It made me even more sad that day when Chris told her…to have my 3 ½ year old learn about the death of a sibling so early…how traumatic is that?? Ug. I wish it weren’t so. And yet, she’s so happy when she talks about Noah now. She draws pictures of him and sings songs about him. She tells Madison about Noah. It’s so endearing. So loving. My precious Caitlin Love – she’s my sensitive one. She can also be quite silly at times, but after going through what she’s gone through with the loss of this baby, I know she’ll forever be my sensitive one. I love her for remembering our baby. I tell her that too. It’s nice to have these everyday happy reminders of our second child. Noah is Caitlin's younger brother; our second child; our son. Years ago, when Chris and I were first dating we talked about how many kids we wanted. We both said 3. I consider my family complete now. I have 3 children. One is just not with me everyday. I know that the Lord had a plan when I became pregnant the second time. Losing Noah was not a punishment for us - it was something the Lord needed me to go through in order to get closer to Him - to allow me to allow Him to hold me. If you've ever listened to the song that plays when you first get to my blog ("Held" by Natalie Grant), you'll hear the main chorus which says,

..."This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held"...

which means that the Lord will catch us and hold us when we fall or experience something traumatic. I know that He caught me and held me for a long time. He's still holding me each day as I remember my loss and suffer that pain all over again each morning. But he has renewed me. Renewed my faith. Another verse in the same song that has meant a lot to me is,

..."If hope if born of suffering"...

For some months after the loss I almost chanted this verse to myself. Hoping against hope that if losing my baby meant something else was in store for us; if God had another plan...then I was going to wait for it. I began to hope and have hope that he would send us our third child - one to love on this earth and to raise and teach and watch grow up. My prayers were answered when I found out that my sweet Madison was on her way. I praise the Lord each day knowing that He gave me a second (or third) chance to be a mommy. I love my kids and hope to raise them up to love Our Lord as much as I do.

With that, I’ll leave you with a picture that Caitlin drew of our family at Christmas (2009). Notice who is included in our family picture :)



I love my family and am so blessed to have a husband who loves me and our kids, and two healthy daughters who are precious miracles from the Lord.

Thank you, dear friends & family, for loving and supporting me through these difficult times. I am so blessed to have met so many of you after losing Noah.

Love and hugs,
Amanda

Psalm 116:7-9 (New International Version)
7 Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.
8 For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling,
9 that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

Madison / Hoyt Family Updates and Pics from Weeks 19, 20, 21, 22 (She's 5 Months!!), 23, 24, 25 and 26 (She's 6 months this Thursday!!)

**I started typing this post almost 3 weeks ago and am just now publishing it! How sad is that? Although the time spent has been with our kidlets and my hubby :) **

I am so behind! Aaaahhhhhh!! And I miss you all in Blog Land!!!! I totally wish there were at least 40 hours in the day so I could check on everyone via Blogs, FB, Twitter, Email, phone and in person. I swear, there are just not enough hours in the day...

There's been alot going on in the Hoyt house lately. Just general busy-ness and other major issues, but for now, we will hit the high points of the past month (or more!) with some milestones (for both girls and our family) that we want to try to remember :)

- Madison is growing in general!! She's got to at least be 18 pounds by now. I'm breaking my back picking up that darn carseat everyday ;) We go to her pediatrician for the 6 month well visit on March 22nd.

- Madison has been eating like a little piggie! She eats at least 30 ounces of either all breastmilk or a combination of breastmilk and formula a day. She's now eating oatmeal at least 2 times per day with either sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, applesauce, prunes, peaches, green beans, bananas, or pears. She'll follow up with a water bottle chaser most evenings. She loves to teeth on that ice cold water bottle nipple!! :) LOL

- Madison is grabbing toys, dropping toys, reaching for her feet (we can't use bouncy chairs anymore!), touching faces of people holding her, trying to hold her bottles by herself and is starting to try to sit-up on her own.

- Madison can grip small toys very well and move them from one hand to the other! She has an orange egg that her Aunt Anya gave her that is perfect for this - she loves it! :)

- Madison can turn herself around in the Exercaucer now! Too cool :)

- Madison loves to hold my hand right before she falls asleep (and of course this goes along with Mommy being the human pacifier at the same time) :)

- Madison likes to hold whoever's hand is feeding her the bottle and move it up and down pretty fast. It's like she's pulling the handle on the milk machine over and over or something!! LOL

- Madison cut her first tooth on February 16th. It's a bottom front tooth. The tooth officially broke ground at about 11pm (she let out a different cry so I checked and sure enough there was a little pointy thing there!) She didn't really stop crying until about 2am. Not sure why - I put Orajel on her gums and gave her Tylenol but she kept on going. I'm not sure Tylenol works on this girl. It has always worked for Cait but I have a feeling that Madi is a Motrin kind of person. We can't try Motrin until she's 6 months so we'll see.

- The week before the first tooth came through, Madison projectile vomited. It was not spit-up (I was informed). I was not there. It happened when Chris picked her up from Big Mamma's. I think it had to do with teething because she was not sick before or after that in any way.

- Madison likes to look in the mirror. Hmmm, this sounds familiar. Cait could look in the mirror for hours (these days and back in the day!!) :)

- Madison loves to look at her daddy (he thinks because she probably thinks she's looking into a mirror since they look so much alike :)). She smiles usually upon eye contact.

- Madison reacts to me like someone who has not eaten in days. She makes a fast panicky fussy crying noise and kind of leans towards me until I pick her up. She always smiles with me and sometimes when I pick her up she will just laugh over and over even if I'm not tickling her.

- Madison is really babbling alot these days and she has already said her first word! She started babbling "MaMa" on Sunday, February 14th. I was not sure if I should count that since it was "MaMa" over and over again, but when Caitlin noticed it and a few others who I told about it said that the babbling counted...I officially called it - she said MaMa on Valentine's Day!!!!!!

- Madison is a night owl! She will have barely slept all day and she'll want to stay up until midnight talking!! I have to wake up to get ready for work at 4:20 on weekdays so I don't have the time or energy to stay up until midnight!! I sometimes can put her in the beanbag chair in front of the TV while I try to rest until she's ready to sleep. (She's still in bed with us, obviously...) *Since this was typed previously, Madison has not had many nights like this. For the past 2 weeks or so, she's been sleeping through the night as long as she's in bed with us and using her human pacifier. I'm not going to lie. I am going to have a hard time moving her to the crib - it will be hard on Madison and Mommy! :( But I know that we both need to be in our separate beds. I'm hoping I can move her once she's 6 months. That's in a few days!!!

- Madison lifts her right eyebrow at you when she's really happy or interested in you!

- Madison cut her 2nd tooth on March 1st and had no problem. Just a little fussyness. The same day she said her 2nd word - "Da Da!" So precious!!

- After Madison eats, if one of us talks to her, she will most certainly lose her lunch. She gets so excited (especially if Daddy talks to her!) that she spits up.

- Caitlin got strep throat on February 18th and we spent 2 days home from school. When I typed this post previously, we were still taking the 10 day pink refrigerated antibiotic that she just LOVES (not!) and trying our best not to get sick ourselves and trying even harder not to get Madi sick! Knock on wood, I'd like to keep her healthy for a few more months :) *Madison has not gotten sick yet (knocking...)*

- Caitlin and I got to spend some quality time together on President's day. We went to an art shop for kids and painted pottery. It was fun to see how excited she got to spend one on one time with me. Like old times. Caitlin is slowly returning to her "old self" and bringing back her smile. She'd kind of gone to a "different place" since Madison's arrival and she's starting to get comfortable with her now. They are going to have a great bond. Caitlin LOVES Madison. She just needed to get the hang of how things were going to flow with the new baby in the house. I think she gets it now. We are going to have time to devote to both. :)

- Caitlin had her first field day last week at school and did very well in the sack races!!

- Caitlin just got her ears pierced yesterday - it was both fun and scary watching my little girl grow up right before my eyes! But she looks gorgeous with her little pink ice studs in her little earlobes!!

- Chris's neck is getting worse. He did PT, drinks a special drink, does special exercises at home, sleeps and sits with special pillows, sits with a special massage chair cover...and it still clicks and hurts all the time. He needs your prayers. It's bone on bone. My husband is too young to not be able to play with the kids when he wants to. He got an MRI almost 3 weeks ago and we waited for 2 weeks for the doctor to call with the results. Finally I called up there to find out what the deal was. They had forgotten (of course!) and called him and basically told him that his neck is really bad but not bad enough for surgery and to keep doing his home exercises!! OMG - so they basically dropped him! After we paid them tons of money (out of network :() and trusted them to give us an answer we were dumped! So now we have to find a second opinion doc and get the films and do all that mess. All the while, Chris can't even sleep the pain is so bad! Please pray.

- Chris's company is being bought out. We have no idea how this will affect his job. We think he may have to start working different hours soon. He's had to work late a few days recently and that may continue. This will affect my schedule as well. Please pray that we will figure out how to deal with all the changes and that his job is safe.

- This has been super hard to deal with over the past few weeks. Our Big Mamma is just not feeling well. Her arthritis and diabetes are causing her great pain. She just cannot watch Madision anymore. We found a new sitter but it has been hard. Please pray that the new sitter would love Madison like Big Mamma did and that Madison would learn, grow and have fun at the new place. It is a family home where the mom stays home with her 3 kids. The kids range from Kindergarten to 4 yrs old to 7 months old. Big Mamma watched Caitlin since she was 8 months old, but just does not have the energy anymore to keep Madison. We also didn't want her to over exert herself. She still watches Cait before and after school. Please pray for Big Mamma to feel better. She is having surgery for bleeding behind her eyes (which was one of the reasons she had to stop keeping Madison - could not lift heavy things) on March 23. Please pray that the bleeding would stop and that she would get better and that there would be no blindness.

- Madison's new babysitter's husband is out of work. He got laid off the Friday before she started sitting for Madison, so the sitting job was most likely a God thing. But, this week he is in Dallas on interviews. If he was to get a job there, the family would have to move. If that were to happen, we'd have to find a new sitter on short notice again. This is always weighing heavily on my mind. Please pray that whatever happens, we would not be left without a good sitter for our baby. Please also pray for this young family as the husband looks for a new job.

Thank you if you made it all the way through that post! Thank you also for your prayers.

Love always,
Amanda

And here are the many (100 to be exact) photos (I could not choose a small number (if you know me you already know this :)) from the past 8 weeks!!