I have wanted to write more often, but I've been busy, and overwhelmed by the sheer number of thoughts that go through my head each day. Literally from joy to panic and back again, with some grief thrown into the middle. Such is my "new normal," I guess. I'm going to attempt some coherent updates, but be warned... this will be a long one!

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Christmas was really good! We enjoyed seeing family, watching our nephews and niece run around like maniacs all weekend, opening presents, resting, and soaking in the joy of Christmas. Christmas Day itself was a bit tough... I was concerned that I would lose it during the marathon two-hour gift-opening that morning (I had visions of me crying while trapped in the room by piles of gifts, forcing me to sob in front of everyone), but I was OK. I was OK until we (inconveniently) were at someone else's house. And then I lost it. And spent over half an hour sitting in a bedroom and crying. I couldn't even put into words what I was feeling... my tears were the only way to express how much I missed Asher & Evan. I am lucky that our family is more than understanding, and no one made a big deal of it. And I was fine the rest of the day. I think I just needed some time to acknowledge and feel the pain, in the midst of all the happiness.

J kept asking me if I "had an OK Christmas" like it really sucked but I managed to get through. I tried to emphasize that Christmas was actually really good. My new normal means that I can spend an hour sobbing, and still have an OK day. I'm (sadly) used to it. If that weren't the case I would be completely insane by now.

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I'm slowly catching up on blog reading—and will be even slower to catch up on commenting—but I am so thrilled to see all the rainbow pregnancies lately! I am praying for happy, healthy, normal, uneventful pregnancies for each of you.

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So, the "joy-to-panic-and-back-again" thing. Of course this has to do with Baby 3, who is happily growing in my belly and giving me all kinds of digestive issues. :-) I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled, and so thankful to be 16 and a half weeks pregnant with this little one. When I am able to focus on the joy I am moved to tears by how thankful I am. However, it's a daily struggle to focus on the joy over the terror that sneaks into my mind. I've had so many thoughts that I would never voice aloud, but have wanted to share here, as I'm sure many of you can relate. I worry how much time I have left with this baby, and feel like a ticking time bomb. Quick refresher: I was admitted to the hospital at 21 weeks, delivered at 22 and a few days. I was most definitely showing signs of pre-e at my 20-week appointment. So, yeah. Did I mention I'm approaching 17 weeks??? As we get closer to 20 my blood pressure will probably rise just from the stress.

I had lunch with my mom yesterday and we talked about being nervous. She commented that I have to try not to be too nervous, but then said, "But how can you do that? How is that possible? Meditation, what? How do you do it?" I shrugged. I just do. What choice do I have?

Aside from praying and surrendering my worries to God, I haven't found anything else that really helps me calm down. Honestly it helps me to remind myself that I have absolutely no control over how this turns out. I. Have. No. Control. This helps because it allows me to stop dwelling and worrying so much about things. It's wasted energy. All I can do is enjoy each day that I have with this baby. I hope and pray that I will have years with this child, but even if it's only today, I'm striving to be thankful just for that.


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And lastly, I know that many babyloss moms out there have "goals" that they want to reach in their pregnancies. Whether or not these dates mean anything, it somehow helps to have small victories to reach. Here are the dates I'm praying for. I will be ecstatic to reach any/each of them:

• January 22: the week of my birthday, 20 weeks pregnant.
• February 9: 22 weeks and 4 days pregnant. This will be the most pregnant I have ever been, and past the day when we lost the boys.
• February 19: 24 weeks pregnant

I can't even think beyond 24 at this point. If I get to 24 with no pre-e I will be crying and puking and sobbing with joy. (Seriously. Thanks to Baby 3, if I cry too hard I start gagging, and you know what comes next....)

This is silly, but I somehow feel like I'm tempting fate by listing these days. Isn't that weird? I mean, I'm a Christian, so I believe God is in absolute control, and He doesn't work that way. Yet every step I take to "commit" more fully to this pregnancy, I feel a little nervous that I somehow jinxed myself. As Mich.ael Scott would say, "I'm not superstitious... but I am a little stitious."

Talking about my kids

Several weeks ago I met up with a new and dear friend who lost her baby daughter around the same time we lost Asher & Evan. Of course we instantly connected over our losses. It was wonderful to see her again.

As we walked and talked, various circumstances and details surrounding our babies, and losses, came up over, and over, and over again... which is only natural when talking to another babyloss mom. But it struck me, because we weren't specifically talking about our children or our losses the whole time. We would chat about something entirely different—HGTV, the park we were in, food... and our grief wove in and out of the conversation, naturally. Neither of us felt the need to qualify any of our statements, or to dance around the subject. I cannot have that kind of conversation with anyone else in my life except someone who has lost a child. It was such a gift to talk in that way. To fully acknowledge what we've been through, how it affects our every breath... and not worry that the listener will recoil or get uncomfortable.

And it also made me sad, because what we were doing was simply talking about our kids. Like any parent, one's children come up often in conversation. We were just a couple moms chatting about life. But it's only with other babyloss moms that it is socially acceptable to casually mention our (dead) children. When I speak with others I probably only mention Asher & Evan 1 out of every 10 times they cross my mind.

I wish I could describe how freeing it was, how good it felt to talk this way. For a short time, I felt almost "normal."

MFM appointment update (ttc)

Well, the appointment with the MFM went well! It went as well as it possibly could have. I’m so thankful for that. A part of me wants to be able to point to something and say “It was because of that. If I fix that, next time will be fine.” But so far it looks like that’s not going to happen, so I need to learn to accept that I absolutely cannot control the outcome of my next pregnancy. There is nothing I can do that will guarantee a positive outcome. (On the flip side, that also means there’s not much I could do to completely doom a pregnancy either….)

The biggest challenge of any future pregnancy will be learning to let go. Let go of control. Control that, actually, I have never had in the first place.

The biggest challenge of any future pregnancy will be acknowledging and accepting my lack of control. There, that sounds right.

Anyways, here are the details and highlights:

• I had the same nurse that I’ve had at all my visits to this particular office. I never visited this location until after we lost the boys, so in some ways it wasn’t as hard to go back, compared to my regular OB.
• I had a new doctor! This is saying something, because there are 15 doctors in this practice and I’ve seen most of them. I collect perinatal doctors like playing cards.
• Dr. LS was a fast talker, but very understanding and informative, with a good sense of humor. He even copied things out of medical books for me. I appreciate doctors that will explain things in layman's terms, but also aren’t afraid to give you all the information.
• Dr. LS’s best quote of the day: “If anyone tells you to relax, you can smack them.” Thank you (and I may take you up on that if needed)!!
• They are redoing some of my blood work to check for any changes—specifically, looking for any clotting disorders or autoimmune things.
• Dr. LS instructed me to take baby aspirin, starting when we begin TTC.
• My blood pressure was a bit high when I first arrived, but by the end of the visit it had gone down to normal. That was a relief! I seem to have developed a case of "white coat hypertension." :-)
• Another quote: “If things stay normal, we’ll treat you like you’re normal.” (What I wouldn’t give to have a pregnancy be considered “normal.”)
• Also, Dr. LS said that in early, severe cases like mine, if the woman gets past the time when pre-e appeared last time, many times pre-e will not occur again.

That’s about it! We are very, very thankful for a (nearly) green light from the docs, pending blood work. We are thankful for their optimism, wisdom, and the chance to try this again. I have some hurdles to face, and I anticipate a future pregnancy being very stressful and difficult. But I know that there are so many women who are facing, and have overcome, obstacles much greater than mine. Those women will be a source of strength and inspiration in the months to come.

I'm Back!

Ahhhh......... (relaxed sigh) We are back from our vacation, and I cannot fully express how good it was. It was everything that we needed for it to be, and more. Even though I knew we needed a break, I don't think I realized how much we needed it. Wow. Thanks to everyone who thought of and prayed for us and this trip. We are so, so grateful.

I'm busy catching up at work and home (it is amazing how much havoc a cat can wreak on a house in 2 weeks!) but plan to write more about our trip later this week. I have so many, many thoughts in my head that I need to get into writing! I'm working on it! I'm also catching up on a lot of blog reading so I can be up-to-date.

You Should Read This Book!

We all grieve differently, and we all hide portions of it in places we wouldn't dare let others see. I have been reminded that I am daily battling an enemy who would love nothing more than for me to shove all my baggage into the crevices of darkness, slam the doors, and pretend I have it all together while I secretly fall apart. As I lie in bed at night and wonder what I could have done differently, he laughs victoriously. He looks on while my marriage suffers and I play the role of happy homemaker because everyone else seems to have their act together.
-- Angie Smith, I Will Carry You

I am just about finished with the book "I Will Carry You" by Angie Smith. Angie's daughter, Audrey, was given a terminal diagnosis during Angie's pregnancy. Angie chose to carry Audrey to term and this book chronicles her experience, her journey through grief, and how Audrey changed her life.

Although my situation is different from Angie's, our journeys through grief have had many similarities. I really admire Angie's faith and authenticity as she shares her story. She is honest about her doubts, her questions, her wrestling with God. She has struggled with many of the same questions I have, and dealt with many of the same emotions. This book could also be good for anyone who knows someone grieving a loss, and wants to better relate to their friend. This book says things I would like to tell others about my loss, and how to relate to me in light of it, but in a more eloquent way than I ever could.

I really admire Angie's daily efforts to learn how to live in this strange place of loss and redemption. I identify with her struggles to daily choose faith over fear, hope over despair. I share her "clumsy" (she said it, not me!) dance of grief and joy, as I learn how to exist in this world without my children. And I really admire how many lives she has touched through her experience, and the amazing impact her daughter had on this world during her short time here. It's a powerful book, and I hope you'll pick it up! (cue Reading Rainbow music)

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On an unrelated note, we're about to go to a graduation party for our neighbor's daughter. The panic is setting in... will anyone ask if we have children? I can almost guarantee someone will. And I still don't know how I want to answer this question. Perhaps I'll just throw up on their shoes... that couldn't be any more awkward than telling them I have two dead babies, right?

Today

Today, I was able to go to church.
Today I chatted with a close friend while fawning over her baby.
Today I looked at their pictures and felt more love than sadness. I even smiled at their precious little faces.
Today I went shopping, bought lots of clothes (a lot for me, I'm so picky!), and didn't have a breakdown.
Today I feel the slightest bit of hope, like maybe things will be OK. Maybe some things even are OK. Not everything, by far, but today I can recognize that my life has both good and bad.

I don't know if tomorrow will be better or worse, but I am thankful for Today.

Thankful Thursday

For Mother's Day my friend D sent me a Mother's Day card. It would have been more than enough that she remembered me, and even took the time to find an appropriate card (several people have told me how hard it is to find a Mother's Day card for a BLM, which I understand, but I also appreciate the extra effort). But she did more than that. She crocheted two tiny little hats and two precious little blankets in honor of the boys.

When Asher & Evan were born, the nurses found cute little knit hats and blankets for them to wear. Someone I didn't know had taken the time to make those tiny little things for my boys. It touched me so much that someone else thought of me, and other women delivering very premature babies with nothing for them to wear. The grace of that gift was immeasurable. Those blankets and hats are some of my most treasured possessions. When I need to be with my boys I hold the blankets, and feel their softness. It's as close to them as I can get.

I am so thankful for D, and her thoughtfulness with this gift. I am eager to send the blankets on to the hospital, so they can be given to another family. I hate to think of anyone going through the same thing I did, but sadly I know that it happens. And I hope these blankets from a dear friend will provide a tiny bit of comfort to someone who needs all the grace they can get.

Encouragement

I've been having a lot of trouble lately with my emotions. I've even been questioning God, and doubting His faithfulness. If I'm being 100% honest, I feel disappointed with Him for how things turned out with Asher & Evan. That is a terrifying thing to admit. But I know that God already knows how I feel, and He will be with me through my doubts.

This morning I had a follow up appointment with my eye doctor, and I was reminded that God is there, and He is faithful to me. I have some damage to my retina because of the pre-e, and it has resulted in the loss of a little bit of my central vision. This sounds scary—OK, is scary—but I still have 20/20 vision (with contacts) and the distortion to my retina is very mild (says the doctor). I was reminded today how much worse things could have gotten. How very, very much worse. While I am complaining that I have a couple of spots in my eyes, I should be thanking God that I am not blind. Seriously. I can still read, drive, do my job, etc. Praise God for saving my sight through all of this!

Another encouragement came this morning from a blog I read, by a girl (Kerry) who recently lost her baby girl. I don't know her personally, but I have felt a connection through our similar experiences. She had a great video that lifted my spirits, and reminded me that GOD IS GOD. No matter where I am, no matter my circumstance, God is God. That will not change. I am thankful for the reminder this morning, and the encouragement to keep pressing on. I really needed it, and God knew exactly what I needed today.

Well, it's Thursday again. Sometimes I feel myself waiting, just killing time each day. I catch myself in the evenings, just kind of "waiting it out" until I can go to bed. Often times I would be perfectly content to sit and do nothing until the day is over. I don't often have any particular excitement or anticipation of the next day, it just "is." This is a feeling I do not like, and when I notice it I try to make myself do something, to make the day worthwhile. But I've noticed that feeling cropping up more often lately. Something to watch out for, for sure. I don't want to let the months just pass me by, without feeling or enjoying anything in particular. A quick look back through my entries on this blog shows me that, yes, I do in fact have days that I feel joy and happiness. So that's good. If I ever get to a point where I have this feeling for weeks, I will know there is a problem. If nothing else, this blog will be useful to keep track of/monitor my spiral into insanity—ha.

In honor of Thankful Thursday, today I am thankful to be alive. No further explanation is needed, I'm sure. But I read some preeclampisa stories this morning, and it is breathtakingly terrifying how similar some of the stories are to mine, except those women died. God was surely watching out for me and preserving my life, because there were many, many opportunities for my illness to get out of control. I could have had a seizure while driving to the clinic to check my BP. Heck I could have ignored my instinct and not even had it checked! Then what? I shudder to think of it. I could have gotten much, much sicker, much, much faster. I could have bled to death. Honestly, I know I've talked about this before and I don't want to be a broken record, BUT I am so lucky to be alive. SO LUCKY. Surely God saved my life for a reason. He must have a plan and a purpose for me. I will praise Him as long as I live!

I will never be the same

This blog post is so achingly true, I had to save it forever. It really touched my heart to read. And it is true that it is SO comforting when someone acknowledges that I will never be the same, and that is OK. It's probably only genuinely happened once or twice. I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin sometimes, like the elephant in the room. I want so badly to be "back to normal" so that I won't feel like I'm making others uncomfortable, so I won't feel so awkward in group settings. For someone (even an internet stranger) to tell my that I will never get over this, and that is just fine, is such a calming reminder. I can feel my anxiety lighten a little bit. I often feel like on top of "getting over" the death of my babies, I am also "expected" to "get back to normal" and become my old self again. The truth is, that person is gone. I really appreciate the validation that it's OK to stop looking for her, and the reassurance that someday I will be comfortable with my new self.

Reprinted from Glow in the Woods, a site for babylost parents (bold mine):

Even in the first, fresh few days, I knew that I would feel better some day.

But I didn't want to feel better some day.

The first time I didn't feel absolutely beaten down by the fact of my baby's death, I felt terrible. I was the mother of a dead child, and that was wholly my identity in those first days and months. I wasn't a daughter or sister or a writer. I was a wife—wife to the father of a dead baby.

That dead baby, my son Gabriel, was my whole world. I couldn't believe it. I could not wrap my head around it. I thought it was a dream. I would wake up at night with aching breasts, expecting to hear him cry. I simply could not fathom how this was my life.

I did not want to feel better. But eventually, I did.

I can't tell you if it was six weeks or six months later, but I started freelancing again; I went to a concert or two (which was extremely disorienting); I made love to my husband; we traveled to San Francisco with his family, including my pregnant sister-in-law.

I was still the mother of a dead baby. How could I be more than that? Despite my best efforts to not move forward, I was. It was not easy—it was terrifying. But it was forward.

+++

The kindest thing someone said to me in the days after Gabriel's loss came from my uncle, my father's brother, who had lost his 22-year-old son in a car accident years and years ago. You will never get over this. It was such a balm. I didn't have to try to get over my loss, put it behind me, pretend to "be okay". It was never going to be okay.

You will never feel as good as you did before you became the parent of a dead child. That woman, that man, is lost to innocence, lost to the pure joy and miracle that is making babies. Even sex will be fraught for some time. I suggest wine. Not too much.

Every pregnancy you hear about—even (I hope) your own—will be shadowed, sometimes so darkly you will wonder what you are doing in a world where people want to have babies. It's madness. Madness you may recognize someday as your own.

Though you may need help to heal from such devastation—therapy, medication, a vacation someplace far from everyone you know—you will never get over it.

But you will feel better.

~ Red Pen Mama

Happy Valentine's Day!

We just got home from and absolutely FANTASTIC Valentine's Day/Getaway weekend in Minneapolis. Fantastic. It was so good, and so good for my heart. I have felt more happy this weekend than I have since we lost the boys.

We started out on Friday with a 60-minute couples' massage... can I tell you how much I needed a massage? Wow. It was so relaxing, and made me feel good to know that J was being pampered and relaxing at the same time. Then we checked into our hotel and relaxed until dinner. Dinner was at Zelo on the Nicollet Mall. I had an amazing whole grain risotto, with asparagus and peppers and goat cheese. Mmm..... We shared a blueberry cobbler with lemon sorbet for dessert. SO GOOD.

On Saturday we slept in, then went the the Guthrie for a play at 1. We saw "Brief Encounter," a romantic comedy/drama/musical, put on by a touring company from London. We had selected this play on a whim (and because it was the only thing worth seeing all weekend), and it turned out to be really impressive! It employed video and other multimedia effects to make the play much more conceptual and interesting than a simple read-through. The acting was great, the story was compelling, and it was all-around very entertaining. It was one of those plays that you talk about for a while afterwards. I like that.

Saturday afternoon after the play was wonderful, just hanging around the hotel, relaxing, etc. Then we had dinner at the Nicollet Island Inn. I was a little worried when we arrived, because it was really busy, and they were only serving their Valentine's menu, which included ahi tuna (ick) and mushroom bisque (gag). BUT, it was really an amazing meal! I never should have doubted the Inn. I even tried and enjoyed the mushroom bisque! The entrees were salmon and tenderloin, dessert was various choclate petit fours. The menu went together so well... every flavor in each course seemed to bring out flavors in the other foods. I couldn't get over how well-conceived the whole meal was. Of course, that's what they pay the chef to do. :-) Over dinner we talked about past Valentine's Days, and our past... including when I liked J sooo much and he had no idea. Dinner was very romantic and sweet, and it was fun to reminisce together.

Today has been completely wonderful from the time I woke up this morning! J has been so sweet and romantic. We had brunch at Hell's Kitchen, which was really yummy... their potatoes are insanely good! There was some live music, and the atmosphere was very entertaining overall. :-)

And now we are back home, and my heart feels so full. More than it has in a while. This weekend has reminded me of God's love for me, and His faithfulness. My marriage to J is one of the biggest examples of that, and one of the best gifts God has given me. J gave me a card that made me cry. It said something about for better or worse, and sticking together in the hard times. I feel very blessed. And I feel like God had been saying all weekend, "Remember how great your life is? Remember how much you love this man? All is not lost, because I love you, and I will not leave you." God is good. I know that is true. What a wonderful weekend.

Tonight we are going over to meet baby Toby. I hope that my high from the weekend can sustain me enough to be happy for the entire visit. I am really, truly, excited to meet him. I hope that my joy for them can come through, instead of my sadness for our loss. But I'm feeling really great right now, so fingers crossed that it lasts!

Thoughts of the Week

So many thoughts have run through my head this week....

• My first week back to work went... surprisingly well, actually. I didn't cause a scene or burst into tears in front of my coworkers. No one said anything insensitive. Any comments I received were genuine and kind. I felt very missed and needed, which made it easier to get out of bed each morning. It is difficult to focus, and I'm certainly not working at 100% yet. I want to think about Asher and Evan all day long, and I just can't do that and get any work done. But overall, I feel good about how the week went. I feel so very blessed by my job, and my boss. He paid me and kept me on regular health insurance the whole time I was gone. I will always be grateful for that amazing generosity.
  

• We had a visit from our pastor on Tuesday. I was kind of dreading it, but it was really good. I cried, of course, but I felt better afterward than I had all day. I'm thinking more and more that J and I should see a counselor, because sometimes it's so helpful to have a third party asking the questions, so we can focus on simply answering them. We are very blessed by Dave.

• My blood pressure has been pretty good this week. It was high on Monday after work and wouldn't come back down, so I took a small dose of labetalol. But since then it's been fine. Still not perfect, but much better.

• I thought a lot on Thursday about how things turned out. Despite how unbelievably, tragically awful our situation is—the kind of thing that only happens on TV dramas—it takes my breath away to think of how much worse it could have been. The thing that leaves me breathless it that yes, this actually happened to us. Bad stuff does happen, and it did. And it could have been even worse. Even worse than this, the worst pain I could ever imagine. Obviously, I could have died, too. Or I could have been permanently disabled by my illness. Specifically, I've thought about the TTTS that my babies probably had. If I hadn't developed pre-e, we would be dealing with TTTS right now. Which means they still may not have lived. The only treatments for TTTS are fetoscopic surgery (so risky) or sacrificing one of the twins. THAT terrifies me—to think that, had things gone differently, I may have been asked to choose between my boys. That is a decision I could never, ever make. To me, that would have been even worse than what we've been through. Just thinking about it paralyzes me with fear. As odd as it sounds, I am thankful that (although I will NEVER understand why something bad had to happen AT ALL) if something bad had to happen, it was not something that would cause us to make, or not make, a decision that we would question for the rest of our lives.

• Speaking of decisions, I am thankful that we don't really have any doubt that we did what we had to do. I admit that I feel very defensive about it, because I feel that some people don't understand our situation, and that the "choice" we made was not really a choice. That if I had been any sicker, there would not have been a "choice" to make. I feel that we are probably being judged by some who are misinformed. But I feel a peace surrounding everything about the babies' birth. I got to see my babies alive, and talk to them and kiss them. They died in my arms. That is more than many women get with HELLPS. If it had to happen, this awful thing happened in the most "perfect" way possible. God's timing is perfect, and I believe that if He had wanted us to wait longer, we would have known that.

• I talked to Grandma Dee recently, and she told me that a friend of hers donated money to the Ronald McDonald House in our babies' names. This woman does not know us. Her daughter-in-law recently had twin boys, and I was going to meet her and talk about "twin stuff," but that never happened. I cannot explain how touched I was to hear that Asher and Evan are being remembered by people who don't even know J or I. That their names are being spoken and written by people who didn't even know them. It brings me to tears. That woman blessed us more than she will ever know.

• Melissa told me something kind of eerie the other night. She said that when we first told them we were pregnant, at that moment a thought popped into her head. The thought was that my baby would not make it (this was before we even knew it was twins). She said she felt horrible for even thinking such a thing, and pushed it out of her mind. As we started having complications, she worried even more. And once I was in the hospital, she had the worst feeling, of almost knowing that it would not turn out well. SO WEIRD. I have to believe that God gave her some kind of premonition, so she would be prepared to help us deal in the months to come. She said that for her, it is added assurance that we did the right thing, that this was how it was going to turn out. It's so sad, but sometimes I think to myself that Asher and Evan were never meant to be here for long. (I would punch anybody who tried to comfort me with a trite saying about how it "just wasn't meant to be," yet that may actually be true.) All the days ordained for them were written, before one of them came to be. I just wish I could figure out what the point of it all was. What meaning and purpose their short, precious little lives had. I know that I am forever changed, but I hope that I can find some sense in it all... eventually.