Heather Spohr was one of our very first editors, joining our Overcoming Adversity channel before our launch thanks to a “bloggy” friendship we struck up while her daughter Maddie was in the hospital. Heather’s husband, Mike, was one of our very first bloggers, sharing with us a post he wrote about what it’s like being a stay-at-home dad caring for a preemie baby daughter. It was, to say the least, hilarious.

A strong sense of humor defines the Spohr family. It bonds them. It defined their daughter, Maddie.

Madeline Alice Spohr, daughter to Heather and Mike Spohr, passed away on April 7, 2009. As bloggers, all we can do is rock collectively in disbelief and then scramble to do what we can to send support across the ether that is our relationships.

So Blog Nosh Magazine is filling our table with the bounty that was Maddie. What follows below is what I consider to be the definitive Maddie post, written by her mother about a man that Maddie and I both felt belonged to us. Yes, that’s right: Matt Lauer.

I officially bow down to you, Maddie. Your smile was always brighter and your eyes always more mesmerizing than mine anyway. Enjoy watching him shower naked from now on. You win.

PS- Below every post about Maddie that will appear, you will find links to a PayPal account set up for the Spohrs. In addition, in lieu of flowers, the Spohr family ask that you donate to the March of Dimes. We’re doing what we can to send a little support their way, with a cherry on top from Blog Nosh Magazine.

***

Mad Lauer {Originally published on The Spohrs Are Multiplying}

When I was seven years old, I got my first crush – David Witherspoon from the TV show Our House (and yes I now know Chad Allen is gay). I eventually moved on to Kevin Arnold from The Wonder Years, then Johnny Depp from 21 Jump Street, and the list goes on from there. I knew Maddie would eventually have a crush on a TV personality, but I figured she would be around seven years old like me – not seven MONTHS old.

Madeline has a mad crush on Matt Lauer.

We started to notice it a few months ago. In the mornings she’s fussy, but the second she’d hear Matt Lauer’s voice, she would stop whining and turn her whole body toward the sound of Matt joking with Meredith. We’ve even recorded The Today Show on our DVR so we can play it when she’s especially wound up. It works every time.

Hilarious photos of Maddie follow, so be sure to continue reading…

{Originally Published on Lizzie’s Home}

When I was nineteen years old, I found myself taking a front-row seat in an honest-to-God, wish-I-could-bottle-that-feeling miracle.

After a twenty-eight hour labour, an ugly, red, scrawny mess of arms and legs was twisted from my body, four weeks before his due date. The conehead my son sported from his prolonged journey down the birth canal was very pronounced and truly awesome to behold. His Apgar scores were low. He was whisked away for some oxygen.

At that point, I didn’t care where he went, as long as he was being cared for appropriately and I could cover up the bits of my person that in any other circumstance would never be displayed. It is amazing how the most prudish of women can become the most liberal when in the throes of childbirth. There were bits of me that were irreversibly altered by the birthing process but in the end those particular battle scars would fade, and new ones would take their place.

On the second day after his birth, J turned an alarming shade of buttercup yellow which had the doctors scrambling for the big scary humidicrib with fancy lights and cords. You know, the type with holes in the side where distraught parents are permitted to insert only their hands to stroke babies they should, by rights, be cradling in their arms.

My little six-pound-nothing imp modelled a hastily cut blindfold of black vinyl almost every moment of the first week of his life. We were allowed to remove him from the phototherapy unit for feedings and changes only. The rest of the time he was to lay naked and sunbathing, save for his Zorro mask, under special lights designed to speed up the expulsion of the bilirubin from his blood. There’s a reason why babies are meant to be covered up. Meconium poops are legendary, and more so for babies undergoing phototherapy…

{Originally published on Hope4Peyton}

I lost a child already.

When I was 21, before I met Peter, I miscarried a baby that I hadn’t even known that I wanted until the moment the choice was taken away from me. My first instinct was to get rid of that baby, that I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t prepared. I spent days planning to make this inconvenience go away. Then the clarity came that I might never BE ready for a baby, but I had one now and I was going to do my best to be a mother. I told the father. I cried when I told my mom. But I was sure I was making the right decision.

Three days later I lay in the hospital, as the child I was just starting to anticipate was lost to me forever. I cried tears from a place inside me I never knew existed. I mourned the baby that was never to be in my arms. I spent weeks laying on my bed, unable to make myself get up, move, bathe, want to live. I felt the most incredible guilt I think a person could feel because I knew in my heart that I had wished that baby away in my days of uncertainty. And now it was gone.

I spent years waking from dreams of a crying baby, me wandering halls, searching frantically for that child. I spent months unable to even bear looking at a pregnant woman or a baby snuggled in its stroller. My best friend had a newborn and I was angry and resentful that she got to have her baby. There aren’t words to describe how I felt after my miscarriage: devastated, destroyed, incomplete.

And this was a child I’d never even seen. Let alone cuddled in my arms. I’d never stared into its eyes, felt it’s silky skin against mine, soothed its cry with the touch of my lips to its brow. I still grieved for that child with every fiber of my being.

{originally published on Because I’m The MOM}

When I started this blog I wanted it to be about my family, one of whom has special needs. What I didn’t want was a Special Needs Blog. I realized though, that to ignore Thomas’s story altogether means that there are things I can’t say because they wouldn’t make sense. So here you go.

When I got pregnant with Thomas I was considered high-risk because I was 36. My ob-gyn suggested that I have the 11-week Nuchal Translucency Test. No problem, I thought, this just goes along with being a little older. I have to say though, that every time someone said “advanced maternal age” within earshot I wanted to smack them sideways and shout “I’m not FIFTY for God’s sake. I’m 36! I’m YOUNG.”

About 2 minutes into the test I saw the sonographer’s face go still and she got very quiet. Not a good thing. She summoned the doctor, a very kind man with a very serious face, and he told me that there was a 50% chance there was something genetically wrong with my baby. Probably something like Down’s Syndrome. My husband and I were devastated, of course, and thus began my running of a veritable gauntlet of tests for the next 24 weeks. The thing is, EVERY SINGLE TEST came back normal. Chorionic Villus Sample? Normal. Multiple in-utero echocardiograms of Thomas’s heart? Normal. Ultrasound after ultrasound? Normal. The doctors were elated, but deep inside I knew there was still something wrong.

{Originally Posted at Mom to the Screaming Masses}

Holy Ground

By sparksfley | September 11th, 2008 | Category: BN Channel Overcoming Adversity, Wednesday 1 | 7 comments

{Originally Posted at Bring the Rain}

Take off your sandals, for the place
where you are standing is
holy ground…

Exodus 3:5

The funeral home called a few days ago (7/8) to tell us that Audrey’s grave marker was in.

This
week has been hard, and for some reason, this pushed me over the edge
emotionally. I don’t even know if I could say it was sadness, because
I have been waiting for weeks for this call. I wanted her to have more
than the little plastic placeholder with the piece of paper in it. I
was relieved that it was finally there, but it took my breath away to
hear the words. It feels so final.

Immediately,
I told Todd I wanted to go over and see it. We only have one car right
now (I kind of wrecked the other one a little bit, but I contend that
it was the pile of cement’s fault. It practically jumped out and
ripped off my bumper) and the twins had a friend over, so I started out
the door. Kate saw me grab my keys and she started screaming and
begging to come with me. I told her that I was going to see Audrey and
then to the grocery store, and that I didn’t think she would have as
much fun as if she stayed and played with all the girls. She
protested. And then she started putting on her shoes and saying over
and over, “Ona go, momma. Ona go.” When Kate says she “wants to” go,
she is pretty persistent. I didn’t have the strength to fight her, so
I told her she could come. She ran to the playroom and grabbed the back
page of a princess magazine they had been reading, wiped her eyes, and
said “let’s go, momma. I go wif you, just you and kate, momma. just
us, right?”

“Just you and me, Kate. We’re going to go see Audrey.” She climbed in her car seat, clinging on to the magazine page.

The
whole way to the cemetery, I watched her smile in the rear-view mirror.
I love taking each of my girl’s out for “alone time,” because we get
to connect in a different way than when we are all together, and I
think it helps them to know they are each so special to me. Kate
really needs this time, especially lately.

We
got to the cemetery and I grabbed my camera to take pictures so Todd
could see Audrey’s marker. I obliged when Kate asked to take off her
shoes. She loves the feeling of grass in her toes; she is the kind of
kid who wants to “feel” everything fully. She wants to touch the
flowers (pluck mercilessly), sort my purse (turn upside-down and use up
my new lipstick), and to enjoy her food (shove fistfuls of it into her
mouth while closing her eyes and purring “mmm-mmm.”). She doesn’t know
how to do life halfway, and I love that about her.

She
grabbed her little page and started walking around the cemetery with
this big grin. I spent some time talking to Audrey, and then asked her
if she wanted to come over with me (she had discovered the joy of
stealing the little flags from several vases….don’t worry, they have
been returned…).

She looked up at me, confused.

“Ona see Audrey.”

“She’s
right here, honey. They just gave her a special new plaque that tells
about her. It has her name on it.” I ran my fingers along the letters
and she took a step in my direction, then stopped.

(click title for more)

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