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Layla Grace

I learned about Layla Grace’s battle – and her mother’s blog about that battle – from my sister and other friends on Facebook. In recent months, mothers from coast to coast and beyond have been following Layla’s battle and her parents’ struggle until the end came yesterday. Layla’s mother’s blogging and Twitter posts were eloquent and brutally honest. By bravely sharing her family’s heartbreaking journey, Layla’s mama helped raise awareness about Neuroblastoma in a way nothing ever has before. Through her sensitive blogging, Layla’s mother also led other moms all over the world to rethink their frustration with that day’s toddler tantrum or the sleepless night spent nursing the baby or the preschooler’s crayon masterpiece on the new sofa. After hearing of Layla’s latest day spent in the hospital or declining at home in her parents’ bed, a little mess in our own homes or another fit at the grocery store seemed like a blessing rather than an annoyance. Reading Layla’s mother’s posts, we knew she would give anything to have just one more “normal” day with her beautiful two year old daughter, frustrations and messes included.

There but by the grace of God, we all thought as we read about little Layla.

Parents who followed Layla Grace’s illness and passing also bonded online, becoming a real, vibrant community of caring around this lovely child and her parents, demonstrating what I’ve known about social media for a long time now. While I make my living helping companies use online tools and platforms to reach out to consumers, I approach my job with HUGE respect for the “community” and “social” elements of the work that I do. These relationships we forge online are real and meaningful and can change lives; they aren’t just vehicles for marketing. The online community that grew up around Layla Grace’s journey demonstrated that. It’s a beautiful thing, and the reason I’ve been singing the praises of this thing called social media for more than a decade now; online community and relationships can be a truly meaningful part of our lives if we approach them with the same respect and honor that we accord to our “real” relationships.

I didn’t know Layla Grace in person, and I’ve never met her parents. But I can tell you right now that the sadness I feel about Layla’s death isn’t “virtual” in any way. It’s very, very real.

Rest in peace, Layla Grace.

And to all of you reading this, I hope you give your babies – no matter what age they may be – an extra hug today.

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This was a good reminder to me to do what I am always advising students to do when I speak to journalism and PR classes, which is “own your own name.” So I just asked Jon to take care of buying “GeorgiaLastname.com” for the baby’s future use, and to add URLs for the other kids’ names as well. They each need to own their own identities online, even if they aren’t ready to claim them yet.

The primary reason I’ve moved from using my kids’ full names when I blog or write essays for publication to my current practice of instead using their first initials is so the kids can own their own identities online. I have no illusions that people don’t already know my kids’ names – after all, I wrote about them using their real names for years before making the switch – so that change wasn’t about privacy, per se. No, I just think that when my kids get old enough to have their own, grown-up accomplishments and interests and careers, and someone Googles them (or whatever it is we are doing at that point to retrieve digital content), the info that comes up front and center should be stuff they themselves have created or written rather than years and years of my blogging about them. So yes, I stopped using their whole names to make them less Google-able, but not for the reasons some folks might think.

But back to my current digital nesting for baby Georgia. I am definitely reserving her name-branded URL, and probably setting up a Google alert with her name (because it would be good to know if some other Georgia LastName has just committed mass murder in the Ukraine or something), but I don’t think I will bother with claiming Facebook, Flickr or Twitter real estate for her, since the odds are low that those specific online brands will still be relevant platforms by the time she is ready to use them.

What about you? Have you done any online nesting before or soon after your baby(ies) have arrived? Or do you think I am a complete nutjob? Tell me in the comments below.

(Cross posted over at AckermannDigital)

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Snapshot #2 – Me, checking out at the Fellini Kroger, two or three blocks from our house. As the check out guy bags up my purchases, he complains vociferously about the raw chicken juice that apparently dripped all over his hands from the last customer’s leaky meat purchase. As he complains, he alternately wipes his greasy hands on his shirt and then runs them through his hair.

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….Georgia.

Georgia Allison LastName

We love it, and can’t wait to meet our sweet little Georgia this summer.

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So I called my doctor’s office, and they recommended that I come in and get checked out. This wasn’t what I’d hoped to hear, as I was very busy that morning, but I knew they were right. I didn’t feel like I should drive, so I called my sister, who picked me up at my office and ran me over to my doc’s office. They hustled me back to be examined. It was determined that I was indeed having pretty noticeable Braxton Hicks contractions (duh), but that’s all they were. There was no change to my cervix; in fact, I was told that my cervix looked so excellent, that on a scale of 1-10, it was a “wow!” (I’ve always wanted to have one of my internal organs described in such glowing terms). The baby was wiggling around on the ultrasound, but of course I couldn’t feel anything because my placenta remains anterior, muffling any kicks that I’d be feeling otherwise. This was all very reassuring, so I soon headed back to the office for a full day of meetings and projects. The contractions continued on and off all day, but I tried to ignore them.

At 18 weeks, I can’t believe I am pretty much halfway to birth, since E was born at 37 weeks and C was born at 36 weeks. While I’ve gained 22 pounds, and I now have a belly the size of most 6 month pregnant bellies ( I always get huge in pregnancy; In fact a drunken relative actually cornered Jon at our wedding to warn him that “she always gets HUGE when she’s pregnant.”), I still can’t quite get my mind around the fact that I will be having an actual, real, human infant in just a few months. While my ambivalence about the pregnancy seems to have faded away as the last of the pregnancy nausea has over the past three weeks (praise Jesus!) – I am now full-on invested in this – I still just can’t believe that the pregnancy means a real baby at the other end, or that there is a real baby in there at all.

As I’ve pondered my very different (from previous) feelings in this pregnancy, I’ve realized that my inability to connect is mostly due to all of the pregnancy losses that Jon and I experienced prior to this; when you’ve been disappointed time and time again, it’s just incredibly hard to expect anything other than the worst in the same situation. And I keep asking myself “why?” Why did this pregnancy “stick” when all the others didn’t? I didn’t do anything differently this time, and in fact wasn’t taking particularly good care of myself when I became pregnant. I was recovering from a nasty virus, working too hard, drinking a few too many glasses of wine in the evenings after work, and not getting enough sleep. And yet, I somehow became pregnant despite efforts to prevent that from happening, and the pregnancy somehow hung in there past the first trimester. And here I am; 18 weeks pregnant with a seemingly healthy baby girl, our Mr. Darcy.

We’ve begun talking about the baby more with the other children, something I’d avoided until now. E has taken to talking to my belly and giving it the occasional smooch or poke, just as he did when I was pregnant with C. And C likes to ask me again and again what’s in my “big tummy.” The other day, she told me that she already has a sister, J, and “that one” should stay in my belly “forever.” I think we still have some prep work to do to get C ready to be the big sister instead of the baby of the family, doted upon by three much older siblings and numerous cousins.

Despite my inability to completely come to grips with the pregnancy, there finally came a point this week when there was no denying that my belly (and yes, the rest of me, too) has become too big for any of my clothing, particularly when it comes to getting dressed for work each day. Nothing at all fit any more beyond two turtleneck sweaters, one wonderful pair of hand me down Japanese Weekend maternity pants from my friend Julianne, and one stretchy black skirt. That was it. I made these four items last as long as I could, but this week I finally threw in the towel and invested in several cute dresses and a new cardigan that fit well, show off my tummy – meaning they allow me to look pregnant and not just fat – and they should be wearable into summer when I give birth, and even beyond into the “fourth trimester,” after Mr. Darcy arrives. As I shopped, I realized that I’d been putting off buying anything for the same reasons I’ve had trouble getting attached to the pregnancy; I didn’t want to jinx anything by buying maternity clothes too early. But the time had come, and I was able to find a few things I really liked. None of the items I bought are actually maternity dresses, but are instead empire waisted frocks that would suit my tastes well even if I weren’t knocked up. While I hated spending the money, it felt good to know that I could avoid the turtleneck sweaters, black skirt and black clogs when I got dressed this morning. For someone who really likes cute clothes, that situation was getting old, fast.

The most fun thing that’s happened this week is that yesterday, for the very first time, I felt some baby taps, kicks, pokes and wiggles off and on all day long. They were still very faint – if I hadn’t been pregnant before, I might not have recognized them – but they were definite. I sure wish that pesky anterior placenta would get out of the way so I could get to know my baby girl a bit better via her internal gymnastics, but I guess that’s just not in the cards. I hope I get to feel her moving some again today.

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As in, “That’s freaking awesome.”

I’m leaning toward yes on this one. But I am something of a prude about kids and language, which I tend to observe as a southern thing.

Anyway, what are your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below.

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