Baptism

Addie was baptized on Saturday. How is it possible that 8 years have passed since those early, scary days of her life? We went through weeks of agony, wondering if we would even be able to bring our baby home, and now here we are, 8 years later, with a beautiful girl who is too healthy for her own good. You would never know there was anything wrong with her - and sometimes we manage to forget. What a blessing she has always been to us.


So it was with great pride and gratitude that I helped her change into her white clothes to be baptized. She, too, was very excited about the whole thing. She smiled at everyone who came to share her special day, and listened reverently to the speakers.


When her turn came to be baptized, I walked with her into the changing room, and opened the door to the font, where her dad was waiting. It was at this point that she fell apart. I don't know if she was overcome by the magnitude of being baptized . . . or feeling the spirit . . . or just plain scared. But she cried. And cried. I hugged her tight and told her how much we love her. Finally she nodded that she was ready, and off she went to be baptized. Poor Lane - it must have seemed like an eternity that he was standing there, wondering what was going on.


It is sort of a sad thing to have the last one baptized. It is such an exciting day: a day they are old enough to always remember, a day they have been anticipating since they were in nursery.


This was especially important to me because Addie never had a Blessing Day. This was her first Big Day in the world of Mormon milestones. She was blessed the same day she was born. Lane and his dad gave her a blessing and they were the only ones in attendance. We had received permission from our bishop to give her the blessing there at PCMC because her prognosis was so precarious, we wanted to get her on record . . . just in case. They couldn't even put their hands on her head - they had to do her foot because it was the only part of her tiny body not hooked up to something.


Well, after some pretty scary days and nights over the course of those 7 weeks in November and December, we were able to bring her home and she has thrived and been amazingly healthy. I think she only ever had 1 ear infection and rarely got sick (other than a few occurances of RSV and croup). She still doesn't get sick with all the stuff going around as much as the rest of us do. There is no logical explanation for it - we were told she would always be small-ish and sickly looking. My faith tells me it comes from the words of the blessing given that Halloween afternoon, 8 years ago; words of a blessing I never heard with my ears . . . but felt with my heart.