My Little Rainbow, Eliana

Ellie's Birth Announcement:

Excited to announce the newest addition to our family -- Eliana Yeh-Hong Chiang (姜業虹) born at UCSF Mission Bay at 7:00p on October 11th.  The sturdy baby weighed in at 6 lbs 12 oz and 20.5 in. long.

The name Eliana has a Hebrew origin meaning "God responds" which we paired with the Chinese character 虹 meaning "rainbow".  This is especially meaningful as we liken her arrival to being a sign of peace and fullness.  Also, both her brother and sister have names with an atmospheric motif (昇, 霞).

Mom and baby are all doing well and recovering after the long day of labor and delivery.

We hope you can meet her in-person soon,

Warren, Melissa, Alexis, and Louie (in spirit)

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Current update:  Eliana is 6 week now.  =)

Can't believe how much this little rainbow has grown.  She has been a delightful addition to our family.  Rainbow baby is a term for subsequent siblings after a loss in the bereaved community.  We didn't quite feel that full sense of hope with Lexi, so her middle name means dawn...which represented the start of hope.  Ellie's arrival has felt a lot more like a full rainbow. 

While big sis is still adjusting, lil sis is thriving evidenced by her cheeks and surviving all the hits/kicks/shoves that I trust will just make her stronger. 

We had a rough first few weeks with the flu (now known as Flu-gate 2017 in our household), but have moved towards our new family rhythm. Special shout-out to my parents who came up to help with the transition.  Lexi has particularly loved the time with Wai-Poi and Wai-Gong as they serve as her live juke box.  Side bar: will kids even know what a juke box is?!

Life with 2 "at home" has been hectic, full, and ever-evolving.  I write the "at home" in quotes as it's the language I use to talk about our day-to-day with 2 kids while still honoring that we, in fact, have 3.  Language is a funny thing with holiday small talk - I always call Lexi my oldest... never my first or I say that Ellie is our 2nd daughter... never 2nd child.  While these subtleties are supposed to be unnoticed by the other parties, it helps me to feel fair to Louie.  I go back to the fact that all parents adjust with a new arrival... and today we are a family of five. 

Wave of Light 2017

Dear friends and family, 

It's that time of year again — even in the midst of welcoming our newest addition to our family, we want to take the time to remember our beloved Louie.

We invite you to light a candle (or send "light" thoughts/prayers) from 7pm-8pm in your local time zone.  October 15 is infant & pregnancy loss remembrance day and observed through the international wave of light.  

This will be our 4th Wave of Light since Mar 2014.  We have met many more parents along the way who are also forced on this journey of grief and loss.  While life is certainly busier now (hence the late email), it’s still so meaningful to us to keep creating space for Louie. 

Please join us in remembrance of little lives that make a big impact. We wish Louie would have had a chance to meet Alexis and Eliana, so we wait for a heavenly reunion for a true Yeh-Chiang family photo.  Until then, we will always be missing our little lobster. 

Grandma's Red Cape

One of Alexis' favorite books is a Chinese one we got from a local non-profit, Tandem, which promotes early reading.  When she turned 18 months, this became her favorite book.  Several of her first words were learned as we read through the book -- like 停 (stop) and 跳 (dance).  I love this book because the basic story is about a father who takes his son to visit grandma who lives in the big city.  

At first he is scared and apprehensive about it, but with some encouragement and with the protection of a red cape she gives him, he learns to have fun and trust his grandmother as she takes him on excursions through the city.




This is particularly meaningful to me because I live with two aching losses in my heart -- my son I lost in 2014 and my mother in 2016.  When I read the story, it reminds me of what would have been a likely situation - dropping off my son to spend time with my mother.  I can imagine his apprehension at being somewhere strange and unfamiliar.  I can imagine her knitting a cape for him and feeding him snacks. I can see him dancing to music, I can see her taking him on many adventures.






When I read this story to Lexi, it's as if I'm telling her about a world that exists parallel to our own - like a window into heaven.  

Someday I will have a better way to explain to Alexis how she isn't our first child, and that she had a grandmother who loved her very much (and is similar to her in so many ways).  But for now, we read this simple story, and she calls the boy in the story, "ge-ge" (older brother) and the woman "nai-nai" (dad's mother), and I get to think about the loves in my life I have lost.  And then I proceed to hold my daughter a bit tighter.

From this survivor to the next

The last time I donated my hair, I was pregnant with Louie in 2013.  It’s hard to imagine the years I’ve lived since then.  The growth reminds me that time does not stop for anyone and we’re forced to move forward.  I wouldn’t have been able to imagine the picture of my life today during the early days, but here I am.  

If these ponytails could share memories, they would talk about the despair of burying my son, my mother-in-law, and my grandfather.  They would tell of times when I used them to wipe away my tears or could barely get out of bed to wash them.  If my hair could show you my emotions, it would also show the delight I experience from any number of Lexi’s latest antics or the peace that I feel when I'm next to the ocean.  But mostly, the distance between the top and bottom of my hair would include the spectrum of memories in between.  

In most ways, I still feel like an invisible bereaved mom who never gets to make new memories with her first born child, the one who doesn’t know how to answer how many children I have, and the mom who has spent more time in a cemetery than a school.  While those statements are still true, it’s not my only identity as a mom anymore.  I am also a mom to a #bossbaby who lights up a room and an expecting mom who is creating a home for another life to (hopefully) join our family in October. Our hair keeps growing, our lungs keep breathing, and our heart keeps pumping even when we feel like our world has stopped. And for that, I am grateful.

When Louie died on March 16, 2014, I wanted to die with him. For months, that was my daily wish and prayer. And yet, in the years since, I have learned that my next wish is to honor him through living.  These long strands for donation are a reminder that love endures in many forms.

Pantene Beautiful Lengths is an organization that makes real-hair wigs for women who are battling cancer. May this small donation bring love, perseverance, and a hope for the future from this survivor to the next in loving memory of Marilyn Chiang who lost her fight to cancer, but never stopped fighting...

Because of you...

Dear Louie,

You would have turned 3 this year...(deep breath).

Time is a weird thing.  It's both been a slow and fast few years.  My grief feels like it has gone through the stages of a child growing: first, I was barely able to hold up my head with the heavy despair, then I learned to sit and keep my balance of life and death, and eventually started to slowly crawl while carrying the weight of loss and love.  Today I can walk with you in my heart and know that the way that you transformed me will continue to shape me for the rest of my life.

Because of you, I choose to love more, not fear the loss of love.  When I miss you so much I can feel it in my bones,  I choose to experience the depths of sorrow, so I can also experience the peaks of joy.  When I worry that you will be forgotten, I choose to honor your life with gratitude for the mundane moments rather than retract into a shelter of numbness.  When I don't know how I survived, I will choose to hope in a life of brightness, not darkness.

For your birthday this year, your Dad and I are volunteering with Tandem Bay Area.  Honestly, it's hard to know how to celebrate, so we're trying it out this year.  As with all things, I want to iterate and figure out how to make your birthday work for us.  And we will continue to find ways to create traditions to honor your place in our family.

With your little sister running around, I often look at rambunctious little boys and wonder if you would have been like that. We'll never know, my sweet boy, as your 3-year old version can only exist in my heart and imagination.  What I do know is that your little life will always have a big impact.

On days like your birthday, I remember this poem that was shared with me right after you left us.

Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. 

I miss you and love you every day, little buddy.  I look forward to the day when we will see each other again.

Love,
Mom