Hootie 1 and Hootie 2

One of the hardest parts in the past few days has been not having anything tangible to remember our babies. We do not have an ultrasound picture of when the embryos were implanted because the picture-thingy at the clinic was broken. All we have to remember them is just an image of a blank screen on Tuesday.

A few weeks ago, as we were sitting around the dinner table at my in-laws (like we do every Thursday night), we were talking about our babies. Our niece and nephews were discussing what we should call our babies. Our nephew, Levi, is really into owls. He suggested that we name our babies Hootie. Well, we reminded him that there are two, so then they became Hootie 1 and Hootie 2. Some other names were suggested, but they all thought that Hootie was the best name. We had to chuckle at that, yet we knew that when those children were born, that nickname would come out at some point. They were so set on calling them Hootie that when they saw a picture of Dan, myself, and Brenda, Alex (our 3 year old nephew) pointed to Brenda’s stomach and said “Hootie in there.” I have to mention too, that my niece thought she needed more girl cousins, so she suggested that a girl be born first, then a boy, then a puppy. Have to love the minds of young ones!

Well, today Levi came up to Dan and said “I have something for you.” He gave Dan these two little paper owls. Dan asked Levi what their names were and Levi said “Hootie” and then “Sunny.” Dan’s heart broke. What love those little kids have for our children! When we were ready to leave Dan’s parents, I saw those two paper owls and asked Dan what they were for and he said “I’ll tell ya later.”

As we got in the car, I realized that they represented our two children. We just completely lost it. We cried for quite some time. We realized that these paper owls were the only tangible thing we had to remember our two babies. Yet those two paper owls mean the world to us. We never thought that looking at two paper owls would bring so much pain, yet so much joy! We decided that we should frame them and put them on our piano, next to our family pictures. Those two babies will forever be a part of our family and our lives. The process it took to be able to call them our children was well worth the journey. These owls remind us of the joy we had for 3 weeks. Talking with our niece and nephew about Hootie 1 and Hootie 2. They just talked about them like it was going to be their names forever. And though we obviously wouldn’t have chosen those names, there is just so much meaning in this picture for us. Cheesy? Maybe. Out of the ordinary? Yes. Odd? Yup. But those owls remind us of God’s grace – for 3 weeks we were parents. Praise God.

So here are the owls from Levi, with the date 9-17-12, when we know the babies left Brenda’s womb. That date will forever be etched in our minds! We would love some other things to help us remember them, but not sure what that looks like yet. It’s hard when we don’t know what gender they were, but we know we will come up with some other things. But here’s our first thing: