The gift that keeps on giving

Having children makes you do thing you never thought you would. I mean, all sorts of bodily fluid that you never wanted to be in contact with, EVER, become the norm and something you don't give much of a second thought to. It is one thing to experience it yourself, but another to watch your husband experience it.

This is my second marriage. I came into this marriage with a child so I had already been versed in the bodily fluids experience. My husband; however, was a virgin in this territory. I am happy to say that 2 years and 3 kids later, he is as nonchalant about these things as I am. Case in point:

A few days ago I was holding both twins, rendering me fairly helpless, so I asked my husband if he could wipe our daughter's nose. Without hesitation, he grabbed a tissue and proceeded to wipe her nose and wipe her nose and wipe her nose. At one point he gave up and used his fingers. Then he said, "Man, this is the gift that keeps on giving. I mean, it is like an iceberg. What you see is just the tip of what is actually there!"

I thought that was a truly entertaining description and oh so true. If you don't have children yet, just wait, when they arrive you too will no longer find things as gross as you thought you would.

NICU experiences

I have mentioned before the fact that I have recently had twins. They have only been in my life a short while but I already have so much to say about it. I will periodically post my thoughts and experiences as they come to me and as I feel the need to express them.

My first inkling that my twin pregnancy was probably going to end early was when my gynecologist expressed his worry about how petite I was and how that could affect how long I was physically going to be able to carry the babies. He said he figured the furthest my body would go would be 34 weeks. He was dead on, the boys were born at 34 weeks 2 days.

Not only was my small frame against us, but the boys were diagnosed with TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome). It was incredibly scary and I will go into it further in another post. Needless to say we were lucky to make it to 34 weeks. I first went into labor at 32 weeks but they were able to stop it. I spent the next two weeks in physical agony as my body protested the prolonged pregnancy. I was literally in pain 24 hours a day. When I went into labor again, I knew I couldn't hold on any longer.

After the boys were born and I was more awake following the C-section, they rolled my bed into the NICU to see the boys. All I remember about that were bits and pieces of terrifying news. One of the boys had to be resuscitated, they were both having help breathing and were so tiny. I was terrified. I just laid there and sobbed.

The next day I was determined to get down to the NICU to see my boys. I remember being in so much pain from the C-section but not caring because I wanted to see them. I had worked so hard to get them here and come hell or high water I was going to see and touch them.

When I got there I was completely overwhelmed. They were so little and I was so scared. I remember sitting there with them and just crying, feeling like a total failure that I hadn't gotten them further and wishing I could take all their pain. They had so many needles and tubes going into them. It was awful.

I will never forget the walk down the long hallway, scrubbing in next to other shell shocked parents, swapping brief stories of why we were there and expressing sincere concern and hope for each other's babies, walking to my babies rooms and seeing them hooked up to so many monitors, jumping at every alarm, terrified something was wrong. Then there was getting over the fear of touching and holding people so little and frail, dealing with the fact that the nurses knew my babies better than I did and I had to ask them how to take care of my boys, and then having to leave my sweet babies night after night and go home alone.

I used to smell my hands and arms after I got home because they still smelled like the soap we used to scrub in. It made me feel somewhat connected to my babies.

The NICU staff was wonderful. They were very understanding and sweet and answered every question we had. The boys spent three weeks there and then were able to come home. I am still haunted by this experience. I am haunted by the memories of seeing them there and the pain I felt. I have new respect for anyone who works there and anyone who ever has or ever will have a baby in the NICU. It is something that can only truly be understood by someone who experiences it.

We are so very lucky and thankful that our boys are healthy and home with us.

How Embarrassing

My entire family has been sick with a cold again this week. That combined with us having been cautioned to keep the twins away from large crowds has kept us home from many of the weekly activities we used to attend. Weekends are nice because my husband is home to help with the kids, but bad because the housework seriously suffers. (I need a break too right?)

Last Sunday around 4:00 in the afternoon a young man from our church stopped by to see how we were doing since we hadn't been in awhile. At the moment he rang the doorbell, my husband and I were sitting in our pajamas in our living room, which looked like a tornado had just blown through it. My hair was disheveled and I had no makeup on and neither of us had managed to shower yet. I had one baby I was trying to feed, my husband had the other that he was trying to feed, my 18 month old (also still in her pajamas) was throwing a tantrum, and my four year old was jumping up and down as though high on some sort of unknown substance and asking repeatedly for a sucker. You would think that the stranger at the door would slow some of this down; however, it had the opposite effect. Everything became louder and more chaotic.

The poor guy, who has only been married a few months, had a look on his face like he wanted to get away as fast as he could. He stayed a few moments to complete the reason for his visit and then he hightailed it home. As soon as I shut the front door, my husband and I just looked at each other and started laughing. We could only imagine what he thought of what he had seen. We are sure he went home to his new bride and informed her that they were not going to have children any time soon.

Oh well, most days we are presentable and the house is semi-clean, but no one is perfect. I think it is the imperfect moments that create the most memorable memories.

EMBRACE YOUR IMPERFECTIONS!!

Confession of the week: I want to run away

My confession of the week is that sometimes I want to run away. I mean get in the car and drive to Mexico and not look back. Sometimes I sit and think how jealous I am of my single friends or my friends who don't have kids. They get to go out to dinner or a movie or read a book or take a nap or most of all SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT whenever they want to. They are free from diaper duty, tantrums, constant illness provided by the four year old in preschool, and never ending worry about people so small they can't tell you what is wrong.

After the twins were born, there were days where I longed to trade lives with any one of them. Surely their lives were so much better than mine. I felt completely trapped and chained to my house and my life. My twins were preemies and needed to be kept home and protected from germs. It was lonely, scary, and depressing.

Now three months, the swine flu, and one cold later, I learned that there is only so much I can do in the way of protecting my babies from the germs their sister so generously shares on a regular basis (We bathed in hand sanitizer and even wore masks for pete's sake). I began to return to normal life and the renewed realization that I am so grateful for my kids.

I wouldn't trade my moments with my children for a billion dollars or a million nights of perfect sleep. An unsolicited hug from my one year old, a smile and a coo from my tiny twin boys, and a hug and I love you from my four year old are so priceless and are worth every personal sacrifice I have and ever will make. There are times when I want to run away, yes, but after a few minutes locked in my bathroom with the fan on, I return to the chaos, my chaos, and feel so blessed to be a part of it.

Mom identity

I have been doing a lot of thinking about who I am lately. For the past few years I have been a mother and that became my identity. After spending the last two years pregnant then nursing, then nursing and pregnant then so pregnant I wanted to die then nursing preemie twins I started getting really depressed. I felt bad that I was depressed because I had been blessed with four beautiful children. What did I have to be sad about? This got me thinking about the fact that being a mother was only a part of my identity and in order to thrive personally, I needed to also seek out and nurture the other parts of my identity.

I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend. I am a free spirit that loves adventure, music, writing, reading, singing, dancing, hiking, traveling... Once I started remembering all of the things that make me me, I started to feel better and be more patient in my daily life. One of the simplest things I have found to do is to listen to music and dance and sing with my kids. It is hard to be sad with an upbeat song playing. I love listening to songs from my college days because it reminds me of the hope and carefree attitude I had before life got to me. I am wiser now than I was, but that doesn't mean I can't live with hope and a more carefree attitude.

My goal now is to not forget me. Motherhood isn't the end of my journey, it is just the beginning and I can't wait to see where life takes me.

Confession of the week: I listen to Miley Cyrus

Some experiences in my life have left me closed and unwilling, if not afraid, to open myself to other people. I used to be carefree and open to experiences and letting people know the real me. The last decade left me scarred in many ways to the point that I have a hard time even letting my husband in. This is not how I want to spend the rest of my life so I am going to start letting people in. I figured that an easy and not so serious way to do this is with a weekly confession. I will celebrate making it to the middle of the week by posting my confession every Wednesday.

My confession for this week is that I listen to Miley Cyrus when I am alone in the car (ok usually there are kids with me, but not always). Not only do I listen to her, I know most of the words to her songs on the radio. When I am around other people I say how much I dislike her and I don't divulge my guilty secret that although I dislike her for various reasons, whoever markets her and picks her music does a really good job. The lyrics to the song The climb spoke to me and ring true for my life and her current song Party in the USA although written for a younger group of people than me, is upbeat and happy and I can't help but turn it up and sing to it in the car.

Stay tuned for next week's confession.

Four children 4 and under

If you would have told me when I was younger that I would have four children under the age of four and half I would have laughed at you. I would have become hysterical if you would have told me that three of those children would be under 18 months of age. That's right...two years ago I was pregnant with my second child. I went from one child to four in 2 years. My 18 month old was a surprise albeit welcome, pregnancy but even more of a surprise was when she was 7 months old and I found out I was pregnant again.

I had become one of those women I judged and whispered about. "Don't they use birth control? Did they plan that? What were they thinking?" Now I know, accidents happen and perhaps there was no thinking involved.

10 short weeks later I found out that I was carrying what they call spontaneous twins. Twins that were conceived without the help of fertility treatments. I could hardly believe it. We had only planned on having three children and were now going to have four. This is just a small glimpse into how my life did not turn out at all how I planned or expected it. The good news is that I have learned that just because life isn't what you expected doesn't mean it isn't or can't be great. The challenge is finding joy in what you have been given and making peace with any decisions you made that got you there.

The Beginning

I am entering the realm of blogging because I have something to say. I intend this blog to be an outlet for things I am thinking and to talk about things that have happened. So far life has not turned out as I planned it, but I am learning to deal with that fact and try to find humor and joy wherever I can.

It seems as though everything I have ever judged someone for or said I would never do I have done or had happen to me. Maybe I am so stubborn that that is the only way I will ever learn.

Now I just have to figure out what topic to start with...