Finally Ready to "Bloom"

I started reading Kelle Hampton's blog, Enjoying The Small Things, when it popped up in the "Noteworthy" section of my blog's dashboard while I was looking for new blogs to follow (I had attempted to blog about my adventures in being a military family with a deployed husband, but with not much to report, the blog quickly fizzled).

I was newly pregnant, still holding my breath on whether or not the pregnancy would be viable, so when I came across Kelle's beautiful family, I began clicking through her life, one blog entry at a time. I immediately noticed that her second daughter, Nella, had Down syndrome and my initial reaction was "oh no". I read Nella's birth story with tears streaming down my face, clutching my heart, wondering how in the world Kelle managed to get through writing the beautiful story and reliving the day in such exquisite detail. I surrendered to the fact that there was no way in hell I could have ever gone through such an experience and come out the other side with Kelle's optimistic and unique view of the world. My initial "oh no" reaction quickly turned into a "go Nella".

I continued to read Kelle's blog as I grew larger and larger in pregnancy, always looking forward to the updates about her and her beautiful family's adventures in their everyday life. She was also pregnant at the time, awaiting the arrival of her third child, so we were basically friends already. Then Addy was born, and much like Kelle, my world was turned upside down. I ached, I mourned the child I had been expecting, and fell in love all over again with the child in my arms. A new world was introduced to us through Addy. We reached out for support from other families in the limb different world, needing to know we were not alone. We became part of a community, the special needs community, where we celebrated differences and hoped to educate others on how beautiful and life changing these differences are, something Kelle had been doing since the arrival of Nella. I felt like Kelle and I were now even better friends. We've never met, never spoken, never even exchanged emails, but our children made us friends.

Before Addy was born I purchased Kelle's book, Bloom, if for no other reason than to support a fellow mom. I had big plans of reading it, ambitiously thinking I would have time to read between breast feeding and entertaining a toddler. In all of the chaos, heartache, and moving, the book was packed away. I think subconsciously I knew I wasn't prepared to read the book, Addy's birth giving a whole new meaning to the story painstakingly written inside. Now that Addy has turned one, and we have not only come to terms with her difference but celebrate it whole heartedly, I've dusted off Bloom and I'm ready to read and fall in love with the Hampton family all over again. I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm going to go ahead and guess: lots of tears, lots of laughs, and lots of tugs on the heart strings.

Thank you Kelle, for not only being brave enough to share your story in the blog world, but to go through the labor of love of writing Bloom to share with families all around the world. You are an inspiration to so many special needs families, and I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that one day we will be real life friends.