"We are programmed to focus on what we don't have, bombarded multiple times throughout the day with what we need to buy that will make us feel happier or sexier or more at peace. This dissatisfaction transfers over to our thinking about God. We forget that we already have everything we need in Him." - Francis Chan in Crazy Love

Wanna go ride bikes?

I'm having a lot of trouble focusing so far this week. More than last week. Maybe because last week there was so much to do, and it kept me busy? I could certainly be busy right now if I wanted to be, but for some reason I cannot make myself do anything productive. I feel very unfocused. Even if I decide to do something productive, five minutes later I'm doing something else. Hmmm.....

It has snowed a TON over the last two days. It's fun to have nice, new snow, but my car could not make it up the hill this morning. I got about halfway up once or twice, but always got stuck at the steep part and had to turn around. A lady in a Lexus was doing the same thing, and a big garbage truck was stuck at the bottom, too. So I didn't feel quite so dumb. But I had to call a coworker for a ride in to the office.... sigh. Can't I get a break?

Oh yeah, and last night J and I had a fight about... sledding. Yes, sledding. It was one of those "I realize this is not a big deal, and that it's ridiculous that we are arguing right now, but I can't stop" kind of fights. Lovely. Just what we need right now. Honestly it has been getting more difficult to be extra-nice to him and give him grace lately, as we get further away from the "panic mode" we'd been living in for so long. The combo of grief, winter, my stupid birth control pills that might as well be called "J-can't-do-anything-right pills"... we both have a lot on our minds lately. I don't want our relationship to suffer on top of everything, but I realize that is a very real danger. Luckily we have a super-awesome Valentine's Day weekend planned, so hopefully that will get us both in better spirits.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is... I guess it's a good example of how unfocused I am today. I hope it gets better.

Where do we go from here?

There have been a lot of questions floating around our house lately. Lots of soul searching, wondering, dreaming.... It feels like we are kind of directionless right now, and overall pretty dissatisfied with how things are. We thought that our "next step" was to become parents. Well, we became parents, but not in the way we planned. Now that we won't have two new babies at home in April like we thought, (and we can't try again for at least 6 months) we are adrift. Unfocused.

We had a good talk today about some of this, and hopefully will be working to set some real goals in the near future. Honestly, goal-setting has not been our forté in previous years, and I think it's led to some mistakes, and overall lack of direction. Maybe this "in-between time," as I keep calling it, is our wake-up call and opportunity to get it together.

Specifically, the GIANT questions that follow me around are:

What the heck am I/are we supposed to do NOW?

What should we be working toward? How can this time be POSITIVE and worth something, instead of simply treading water?

I really, really want to make something of the next 6 months–year. I don't want to simply live through it, get to the end and say, "well, that was a waste of time." Yes, I am heartbroken and a dream of mine has died, or at least been put on hold. Yes, I am grieving, and healing will take up a lot of energy in the months to come. But I don't want to waste this time by just being, just surviving. I think that would make things worse, almost drag out the grief. And although I have no idea what God has in store for me/us, I know for certain that He doesn't intend for me to waste this time. I know that there is a purpose in it. I just need to find it.

Welcome to the World, Toby!

Michelle had her baby this morning. I called over there to check in (today is her due date), and when Russ handed Michelle the phone, I heard sweet little baby noises in the background.

I have never in my life felt such intense happiness and sadness at the exact same time. I can't wait to meet him! But I hope I can do it.

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.
  

Ode to Mocha

Throughout this whole terrible experience, I have been so glad that we have our cat. That sounds silly, but he has been a source of levity, comfort, entertainment, and affection to both J and I (although J wouldn't be quite as willing to admit it, I'm sure). Before we got pregnant, there was talk about getting rid of the cat. I certainly didn't want to, but now I am even more glad that we have him around.

When I got home from the hospital, the cat was a wreck. He was unkempt, and easily startled—obviously very stressed out. But he was SO happy to see us. He was a bright spot to come home to. That entire weekend he cuddled in bed with us, so happy to have us both back home. It was somehow comforting to me that, for at least one creature in our lives, the world was absolutely as it should be. It's also been nice to have some bit of activity in a house that suddenly seems too quiet. Mocha provides a little bit of humor and joy, in the midst of our great pain.

Not thinking positively today....

I told myself that I wouldn't blog at work.

But right now it feels like I can't make myself do anything else. Work has been "good" overall, but it is SO stinkin' hard to not have the luxury of thinking about my boys whenever I want to. I can't think about them any old time, because I have other things I should be thinking about, projects to work on, deadlines to meet. I can't just cry any time I want, either, so the thinking has to be kept to a minimum.

I am impossible to please. When I'm crying, I am so sick of crying. I want to be distracted, to have even a moment where my mind is not consumed with grief and pain. Now that I'm back at work, all I want to do is go home and think about Asher and Evan all day. I miss them.

Really what it boils down to is that I am SO. TIRED. So tired of feeling this way. I am trapped in my own life. Not that I don't want to be alive, because I do, and I am happy to be here still.* But I am trapped in a really sucky version of my life. There is no escaping your own circumstances.

*Side note: Every time I complain about my life, I feel the need to have the disclaimer that I'm really still glad to be here. I realize that I should be thankful to be alive, and I recognize that I probably sound very ungrateful for it. So I have this need to offer a disclaimer to God, that I'm aware that He saved my life in all of this. It makes me feel like a jerk, that I can't be more grateful sometimes. But this is a topic for another day.