Monday, April 29, 2013

Who's in jail?


Not me.

Yet.

I wouldn't place any bets that I won't find myself there if I have more days like I had today.  Went to the store and the lady that parked in front of me was someone I knew in my past life.  i.e., prior to Dec. She looked at me and I looked away.  Well of the 5 stores she could have gone in, she was in the same store I needed to go.  So I walked in, proud of myself for not running away.  She walked up to me and said, "Melissa?"  I said yea, and she just kind of stared at me and then gave me a hug and said she was so, so sorry.  I just started crying and told her thank you.  She didn't know what to say, I didn't have it in me to try to make it less uncomfortable so I walked away.  When she left she rubbed my shoulder and said again, that she was sorry.

Then I went to my next stop and a man was trying to get into the parking spot I was clearly already turning into.  He honked, he threw a fit, flipped me off and screamed.  Then I watched him walk into the Christian bookstore.  Obviously I'm not the only Christian dealing with anger today.

I wont even get into the lady that cut me off in line.  I was staring at her like, hello dimwit, but she knew what she did as she had to walk around me to cut me off.  Maybe this invisible feeling I have isnt all in my head.  Then I sneezed and a kind lady behind me said ever so softly, bless you.  I thanked her then started crying.

SO, decide that a mani and pedi is cheaper than bail or a stay in the nearest mental ward so I settled into my pedicure chair with my glass of wine, don't judge, and not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 4 pregnant ladies came in to get pedicures.  You can't make this stuff up.  The guy doing one of their pedicures asked the biggest one when she was due and she glowingly says, 2 weeks.  May 14.

Of course.  My due date.

So I was the blonde lady crying in the pedicure chair while the people working there were talking 1000 miles a minute in the language only they understand to each other but from the looks on their faces I'm assuming it had something to do with the nut job in chair number 3.

It starts raining as I'm leaving, so I run to my car in my cute pink pedicure foam flip flops and slip on the white line in the parking lot and do a near straddle and my purse goes flying.

I was looking for the people who cart off the crazies in my rearview mirror but they were nowhere to be found.

I get in my car and my iPhone starts playing "Ronan."  If you've wondered how many breakdowns one person can have in the course of a few hours, I'm at 5.






I miss Tucker and Fletcher.  Of course and obviously.  But there is also a little boy that I can't get off my heart.  Jonas has been on the forefront of my heart and mind lately.  Tucker and Fletcher weren't my first experience of losing a son.  Jonas came into my life when he was a year old.

"I remember your bare feet, down the hallway
I remember your little laugh
Race cars on the kitchen floor, plastic dinosaurs
I love you to the moon and back"


I remember his husky little voice.  I can't even tell you how many Thomas the Trains I stepped on.  He didn't play with dinosaurs, he played with trains.  On the kitchen floor.  While I made us dinner.


"I remember your blue eyes, looking into mine 
like we had our own secret club
I remember your dancing before bedtime
Then jumping on me waking me up"

He has green eyes.  It was just me and him so much of the time.  He became my world, my best friend.  He'd jump into bed with me and we'd talk and tell stories for hours.  He'd grab my face and tell me, "You are my Missy and you are beautiful."

"I can still feel you hold my hand, little man
And even in the moment I knew, You fought it hard like an army guard
Remember I, leaned in and whispered to you

Come on baby with me
We're gonna fly away from here
You were my best four years"


I remember the last time I saw him.  I didn't know it would be my last time or I would have never let him go.  We went to a japanese steakhouse, just he and I after the park, and he wanted to try my sushi.  I told him he wouldn't like it but he insisted.  I gave him a roll and he ate it, then gagged, spit it out and said, "Missy, why did you give me that?  I'm just a little boy."  We laughed!  Then I dropped him off and I told him I loved him and he said he loved me.  I asked him how much, he said "This much!" with his arms outstretched.  I didn't know that would be the last time I saw my little buddy.  He was my best 4 years.  

"I remember the drive home when the blind hope
Turned to crying and screaming why, flowers pile up in the worst way

No one knows what to say, about a beautiful boy who died
And its about to be halloween , you could be anything
You wanted if you were still here.

I remember the last day
When I kissed your face
And I whispered in your ear

Come on baby with me
We're gonna fly away from here
Out of this curtained room
And this hospital grey will just disappear"


I will never forget the drive home Christmas night with Mom and Jason in the car from the hospital.  Packed full of flowers from people who loved us who wanted to brighten our dark world.  I will never forget that it took all I had to not beg Jason to just keep driving.  To anywhere but where we headed.  Into a life without the 2 boys who had taken our hearts with them.

"What if I'm standing in your closet
Trying to talk to you?
And what if I kept your hand-me-downs
You won't grow in to?
And what if I really thought some miracle
Would see us through?
And what if the miracle was even getting
One moment with you?"


Moving and packing unearthed too much stuff.  Bibs I got the babies.  Toys we had picked for them.  Toys I had saved from Jonas that I wanted our boys to play with.   Clothes of Jonas' that I wanted to share with them.  The kids were helping us pack and found a mirror that I had hanging in Jonas' room from my old house and there were stickers he had put on it, still there.  L went to pull them off, thinking, like anyone, that they didn't mean anything.  Of course he wouldn't know that to me, they meant everything.

I really, honestly, with everything that was in me believed we would have our miracle.  After we lost Tucker, I knew, I just knew, that Fletcher was going to be our miracle.  For 10 days, he was writing our miracle story.

I have never thought of it, before today.  But what if the miracle, was the hours we spent holding our baby boys.  I had always wanted to hold my baby.  Our babies.  I wanted to know what our love would create.  What that love would look like.  We got our miracles.  2 of them.  Nothing will ever take that from us.

"Come on baby with me, we're gonna fly away from here"

Tucker and Fletcher flew away.  They took a part of me with them that I will never get back.  I loved them in a way I didn't know I could love.


Our story, it's not over.  I have to believe that God has something that at some point will be shown to us, given to us, that will make this all more bearable.  

I have loved 3 very special boys.  I don't have any of them with me, anymore.  Except in my dreams, in my thoughts and forever, for always, in my heart.  

And for me, for now, that has to be enough.  




Thursday, April 25, 2013

Things you can't control and leaking boobs

There are things you can control in life and things you can't.  I have had a lot of figuring out what you do in the times faced with things you can't control here lately.

Control- Going to the ballpark to watch L play baseball

Can't control- Seeing little boys run around and knowing you wont see your boys doing that.  Seeing a little boy with curly hair and wondering if either boys would have had that.  Seeing a baby in a stroller watching his brother play ball and realizing your babies won't see their big brother slide into home.

Control- Going on the 1st field trip you've been asked on


and having a great time with this handsome lil guy who told me last night, out of nowhere, "I love you Melissa.

Cant control- tears that followed.

Control- Making choices that you know is best for your family.

Can't control- People reacting negatively to the positive changes

Control- Watching what you eat and working out til your arms swell up like Popeye. (true story)

Can't control- hormones that make it impossible to lose weight.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

The closer my due date gets the more unglued I'm becoming.  I had a good run of a couple of weeks where I felt normal.  Well more accurately, a few days, and almost normal.  Regardless, I was doing better.  Saw some babies last weekend and it took my breath and I tasted blood from biting my lip to stop the tears but I got through it.  Then tonight I completely lost and emotions won.

This still feels unreal to me.   So many moms I know are going into labor, going to L&D, having their babies and then taking them home.  That's how it's supposed to work.  Not this hellish story that keeps going on.  Insurance calls.  Pediatric centers trying to collect money for taking care of the boys.  Not having the energy or desire to call and correct them that they never were seen by anyone other than my dr and pathology and the funeral director.

The closer May 14 gets, the bigger my sorrow grows.  And it doesn't make sense to me because I have 2 birthdays for my sons.  I have 2 dates I delivered.  I have two death days.  I have the cremation days. I have the tree planting day.  I have a bunch of stupid days that mean only one thing and that is May 14 won't mean anything other to me than 2 days after Mother's Day and the day we were supposed to have our miracles.

I don't know what all will come from the loss.  The losses I guess.  I do see good that has come.  We have a stronger, more cohesive life with the kids.  We have family time.  We laugh.  We make memories.  We do things together.  But the Fletcher angel on my right shoulder and the Tucker angel on my left always remind me that something is missing.  2 very important somethings are missing.

I get mad right now.  Really mad.  Short fuse mad.  Who do you think you are mad.  How dare you ask me where I work mad.  What business is it of yours if I have any kids mad.  I'm just broken.  And the only 2 pieces that put me together again I won't see this side of heaven.

It's just hard.  It's really freakin hard.  I want to hold a baby so desperately but I know I wouldn't give it back and would completely freak out the mother.  I hear stories of kids being abused and I want to bring them home with us.  I hear of pregnant moms that don't want their kids and I want to put a big, neon, flashing sign with one of those 30' tall dancing men to direct people to my doorstep.  I will gladly take your baby.  I will rock it, I will hold it, I will sing to it and I will love it.  I just want a baby.





I have to make it through the next month.  And I know I will.  I am seeing more friends.  I am coming out of hibernation.  Or seclusion.  I'm making new friends.  I'm testing the waters to see if the new me is welcome in the world or if I need to take some crazy pills and stay home a little longer.  I'm really trying the best I can to be the new me that the past 4 months has set in motion   It's been 4 months.  How has it only been 4 months?

"How many times have you heard me cry out
God please take this?
How many times have you given me strength to
just keep breathing? 
Oh, I need you, 
God I need you now!"

I couldn't have said it different or better.  I need you, God.  God, I miss my boys.  I miss them with everything I am.  

Aside from being a total mental case, trying to lose weight postpartum is probably as fun as sticking hot needles in your eyes.  Jason today took me by the shoulders and said "You gave birth 4 months ago, your body went through major trauma.  You are beautiful and cut yourself some slack.

Easy for him to say, he doesn't have milk leaking out his boobs.  

He's a good man.  He's a great husband.  He's a really great daddy and I just wish, for one hour, we could have our babies back. I want to hold Tucker.  I want to kiss Fletcher.  I want to tell them I love them enough to last my lifetime. 

Ebbs and flows.  Have a great day, see a baby, freak.
Have a great day on a field trip, come home to a house that smells like a dog kennel if every dog had diarrhea.  But I guess bad days come because I get out of the house and come back to reality.  BUT I am getting out of the house.  I'm laughing.  I'm living.  I'm trying. 

Tucker, Fletcher, your momma and Daddy love you and think about you every single day.  I wish i could rock you to sleep, I wish I could comfort you, I wish you were here. 




Tomorrow will be better.  If not for the whole day better, then at least for some parts better.  And right now the parts are what is making us whole again.  Slowly. but surely, we're finding our way out of this nightmare.  Friends are emailing and texting still.  Letting me know we are loved.  We are cared for.  We aren't forgotten.  

Thank you!

And if you start getting boxes delivered to your house from a unknown FL address, no need to wonder. Probably just a box of dozens of paintings I've been doing to keep my sanity.  They are taking over the house so canvas for all! 



I'm going to go lay down next to the only one who understand the pain of missing our 2 little boys, I'll let him hold me, I'll let him wipe my tears away and I'll try my best to believe it when he says we'll get through this ok. 

Crazy lady checkin out.  xo

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Evil Step Mother and humble pie

I wonder sometimes why I feel like I'm having an identity crisis.  I try to psychoanalyze myself, shocking I know, and I lean towards the mother but no babies blah blah but I think I've gotten to the bottom of it.

My typical day.

Call AT&T.
Me- Hi, I have a question about my bill.
Att-Name please?
Me- Melissa Neu
Att-Could it be a different name?
Me- Melissa Billington
Att- Any other possibilities?
Me- Harris?  Ding ding ding we have a winner.

Go to Walgreens to pick up meds
Me- Hi, I need to pick up meds, Melissa Neu.
Them- Could it be a different name?
Me- Melissa Billington.
Them.  Yes, can you verify your address?
Me- Sure, Capital dome..
Them- Could it be another one?
Me- Try Lanier Creek Drive
Them- Um, no?
Me- Touchton, Ripple Rush or Falling waters drive?
Them- Yes, that will be $20.
Give them my debit card.  Melissa N Billington
Them- It says see id.
I give them my license.  It says Melissa Neu.

Why do I feel I have split personalities?  Because I do!

In the past 5 years I have lived in 5 different places.  I have had 3 different names.  I've lived a lifetime in the past year.  Have ya seen Jason lately?  His small patch of grey in his goatee is now a grey goatee with a patch of brown.

Life's been tough.  And confusing.  And hard.  I have a good day and then see a mom holding a baby under a blue blanket and all the air is sucked out of my lungs and I can't breathe.

I have gone through great lengths to try my best to strip life down to the basics in any way I can.  I don't want drama.  I don't want chaos.  I don't want misunderstandings.  I want to live a healthy life with our family and friends.

"You find out who your friends are..."  I think some country guys sang a song about that.  Some friends email, text, fb that they are thinking, praying, loving us.  Some friends we see.  Some we never see but talk to a lot.  Some friends we neither see nor talk to.  There are a few people who haven't contacted me that have hurt.  There are a few people who havent contacted Jason that have hurt.  You find out who will still be standing in your corner when all you can offer is tears and anger and bitterness and confusion.  I mean, no idea why people aren't lined up at our door.  PS..bad luck isn't contagious.  You cant catch what we went through.  Just throwing that out there.

Some think I should have moved on by now.  Thats ok, they can have their opinion.  But how they came to that opinion is beyond me considering I havent heard from them.  It's ok.  I didn't expect everyone to walk with us through the valleys.  But there have been so many people walking with us through this valley.  People I've never met sending me cards and flowers to brighten my day.  Necklaces with the boys names.  An email telling me they love me and are thinking about me.  A text asking if I'm ok.

The majority of the people I talk to now are people I never talked to before the loss.  I dont harbor any ill feelings towards those who have quietly just disappeared from our lives.  You find out who your friends are....

I have a new friend.  Who not so long ago was kind of not a friend at all.  She was just someone that I had to know because she was the mother of my stepkids.

It wasn't an easy 3 years.  We chose not to see the good in each other.  We let misconstrued thoughts become gospel and we fought passionately for what we believed in.  We were both just kind of clueless to the fact that if we would get out of our own way, the things we were fighting about, we actually agreed on but instead of talking it out we just didn't talk at all.  And it affected everyone.  The kids were torn.  The parents were worn.  The families were split and there was a clear division.  It was fun for all.

I sent her a text and apologized for anything I had said in the past that may have hurt her.  I was sorry.  I wanted to offer an olive branch (Did I mention our boy's Olive tree now has olives growing?  No?  Well it does...) We worked it out.  We really worked it out.  We planned a joint bday party, A requested that she, her mom and I go to lunch for her bday.  So off to lunch we went.  Then we went shopping.  Then we text about a school question.  That turned into this.  That lead to that.  And before you know it, we've developed a friendship.  And it has made our life so much more peaceful. And happy.  The kids are absolutely in heaven that we all get along and talk and sit together.  That we are planning stuff together.  Really, I guess, sadly, they are glad we finally grew up.

Egos get in the way.  Hurt gets in the way.  Need for vindication gets in the way.

After posting pics of her and I at dance competition today, I was inundated with emails and texts asking who she was and if it was Jason's ex could I share my secret.

So..here's my secret.  Put it all on the table if you need to, then brush it all off the table and bring to the table forgiveness, honesty, friendship and care.  Give an apology without expecting one in return.  Choose to see the good in people instead of making up stories of bad if you cant find enough to suit you.  Smile.  Thank them.  Be gracious.  Be a friend, you'll most likely get a friend in return.  

And you'll be amazed at the changes that can come.  I could write more but I have a blended family vacation to plan.  Then need to get in bed before we go back to day 2 of dance competition.

There are 2 kinds of people in life.  The kind you need in your life and the kind you don't need in your life.  This has nothing to do with wants.  This is need, they are there, aren't going anywhere need.  IF you need them, you got to swallow your pride, lose the ego, step down off the soapbox and figure out a way to make it work.  IF you don't need them, and don't want them, delete them.

If you want someone in your life that isn't in it, that's easy to.  ASk yourself, have I tried all I can do to be part of their life?  If yes, have they accepted you.  IF you haven't tried, try.  If you tried and they didn't accept, then move directly to the "thank you for our time we shared but this chapter of my life needs to end."  And end it.  I know what fun, (And by fun, please read pathetic) it is chasing someone who doesn't wish to see any good in you, who doesn't wish to talk things out and who puts conditions on your relationship, OR if you go through a major life loss and they don't call, chances are pretty good you should probably padlock that door locked.

It's easy.  If someone wants to be in your life, they will make an effort.  If you wish to be in someones life, make an effort.  You may have to eat some humble pie, you may have to swallow some pride but just add some salt.  It's really not that bad.

It may not turn out how you hoped, it may alienate some people who dont understand, it may go back to how it was, OR it may make your life more full, more blessed and more pleasant.  Whatever you decide to do, please don't judge other's who are trying to make their life less complicated.

We did it.  And we have 3 really happy kids who tell us everyday how happy they are and how much they love us.  Nothing beats that!!

Blessed because even though my heart is aching for something it doesn't have, its overflowing with new things it does.

Thats called perspective and that lesson was free.

Next one will be $15.

Xoxo, the girl who always has a lot to say




Sunday, April 14, 2013

I just want my babies...

I had a dream last night, as I do every night.  My dreams have always been wild and vivid.  That hasn't changed.  Lately my dreams have been more of nightmares of reliving most of our 2 weeks in the hospital.  Its exhausting trying not to think about it when you're awake and then dreaming of it when you finally get to sleep.

People keep asking when we think we'll try again.  My therapists, some family, its a questions we ask ourselves.  It's something we think about.  And it's something that terrifies me.  I don't know how you make the decision to jump off a cliff when you've done it once and crashed and burned.  What makes you think the 2nd time taking a leap of faith will produce any different results?

I've been missing my boys so much here lately.  Like missing them so much I can't stand it.  I loved them both, they were growing inside me together.  We were all in it together.  It was me carrying our boys.  We talked to them, Jason sang to them.  We just really loved them.  When we held Tucker I don't know that my heart has ever been so full and so broken at the same time.  I was holding my precious baby boy.  Jason's baby.  Our baby.  And while our hearts broke, over and over again, for Tucker, we had so much hope for Fletcher.  So for a baby that was wanted more than anything, anyway, to be the son we had still fighting, he consumed me.  My heart.  My thoughts.  He was my little fighter and I couldn't wait to bring him home with us.

My heart broke on Dec 13 when Tucker passed.  My heart crumbled into a thousand pieces when Fletcher died 11 days later.

I miss my boys.  I miss the hope I had of being such a good mommy to them.  I miss my boys.  I miss being pregnant.  I miss the hope I had.  I still have trouble believing that this really happened.  That the boys we prayed so hard for are just gone.

I want my babies back.

Ridiculous, I know.

So last night when I had a dream that I was pregnant it was ok.  Because I had something that I didn't have with my last pregnancy.  I had a good pregnancy.  I felt great.  Was able to work.  Was able to eat and not throw up.  I was glowing with the glow that only moms carrying their babies can have.  I was happy.  I was healthy.  I was more in love with that baby than I thought possible.

Then I started bleeding.  I lost our baby.  Again.  I don't know how much you are supposed to read into your dreams but I can tell you that did nothing but send me into a heartbroken tailspin.  I know what it means to be pregnant then lose your son.  Then still be pregnant and lose your other son 11 days later.  Is my dream telling me I can't carry a baby?  Is it Satan trying to discourage me?  I don't know.

All I have ever wanted to be is a mom to a bunch of kids.  I just kind of always assumed all the kids would be with me, here, on earth.  So I could love on them.  Hold them.  Pray over them.  Cry with them.  Laugh with them.  I don't want a life full of babies that are in heaven.  This mom wants to be able to hold her babies on earth.

I'm not in a great place right now.  I'm just really sad.  I really miss my boys.  There is so much I wish I could have told them.  I wish I'd never let them go.  I would still be holding them if I could.  I don't feel like a mom. I feel like a broken woman who can't really find her way back.

My body is doing it's own thing.  My mind runs 1000 miles a min and never takes a break.  My emotions are all over the place.  My feelings aren't hurt, they are broken.  I'm just kind of lost in this pain and grief.

I'm a fixer.  But I can't fix this.  I'm a mom.  Who doesn't have her boys.  I'm a Christian,  who is crying out to my God for peace, for understanding, for help through this pain.

I just want my babies back.  I want to hold them, I want to sing to them, I want to love on them.  

I just want my babies....

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Water breaking and other disasters..

I just watched a tv show and it was centered around a pregnant woman.  I watched it, not upset, and thought to myself, progress.

Then her water broke.  And I lost it.

There are scents you smell that bring back memories.  A song that plays that takes you back to an event and you relive it like it just happened.  I wish this reel of my nightmare would stop playing and that reliving things I cant escape would stop.

I somehow thought the loss I had gone through in life protected me and was insurance to a life with 2 healthy babies.  I lost J.  I wouldn't lose my boys.  I went through months of IUI prep to only find out that we couldnt explore that route.  As we were in the room ready to move forward with that route.  IVF was relatively easy as far as me getting pregnant but the cost was great and I feel like the OHSS played a huge role in my preterm labor.  But never in my wildest thoughts, even when I, for a second, would worry before an appt, "what if theres no heartbeats," it never was a valid fear because I'd suffered enough and was finally getting my miracle.

Then my water broke.  I can remember the feeling. I can remember the sound.  I can remember everything about that moment.  I heard Wheel of Fortune playing in the other room.  I heard Jason and my parents talking to Nana.  I heard bells ringing in my head and I saw the room spinning as I realized what had just happened to my body.  And what that would mean for my boys.  What it would mean for Jason.  For our family.  For me...

I can't escape that.  I went through much more painful trauma with labor, with the deliveries, with the surgery, with the blood transfusion, with the fear I was going to die, with the pain of holding both of our sons, trying to find some understanding in something that couldn't possibly make sense.

In the months that have passed I've gone through a lot of tragedy.  Jason killed in a car wreck.  Me answering the door to the cops telling me.  Getting a phone call that my Dad had died.  Learning my mom has some terrible disease.  Knowing every pain, ache, rash is a terminal cancer.  You know, normal completely morbid thoughts that everyone has.  No?  Not normal?

I can't shut off my mind from going to worst case scenario.  When I went to the therapist after my divorce, after my miscarriage, getting laid off, losing my house and losing J, I had these same fears.  She said for most people it wouldn't be valid.  For me, who had experienced such great loss within a month, not so far out of the realm of possibility.

What is the point of this aside from confirming 100% that I'm crazy?  I can't escape my hell.  And it's a silent hell now because I think, for all intents and purposes, I should be better.  I should be ok.  I should be back to a normal where losing twin boys you loved more than you could have ever imagined, where a belief in a miracle is lost and a faith in a God to protect you from such an amazing pain and loss is questioned, should all be better because it's been almost 4 months.  Why should I still be crying over it.

I know how crazy I sound.  I get it.  But the crazy either stays in my head and manifests itself in to making me certifiable with 1 foot in the mental ward, or it makes its way out in my blog.

I'm going to get past this.  I know I'll be ok. I know at some point the movie playing in my head will start showing a different feature but for now I have to get thru this without a fast forward button.  

Everytime you watch a movie you see something you missed the first time.  I don't know what I'm supposed to see, I don't know if there is healing in reliving but there is certainly healing in getting it out.

So I will pop some popcorn, let the movie play and realize at some point this will end.  And I'll get to watch the next feature film that has got to have some happy storylines.

Nursing school?  Hair school?  Babies?

We'll see.  Whatever it holds, I'm ready for the sequel to get put into motion...

I hope the leading lady is hot, confident and happy!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Body issues and my baby boys

I have always struggled with my weight.  Up, down, down down, up, up, up.  I was bulimic for years.  I have never had a positive body image.  I don't know at what point it segues into an eating disorder but it happened for me.

I have never had trouble losing weight once I was ready to lose it.  Before getting pregnant last year, I'd gotten myself healthy, had lost 35 lbs and really felt great about myself.  Then the fertility drugs started and I'd gain some weight.  Then the IVF/Hyperstim/Twin pregnancy thing packed on the 35 I had lost.

Now I am stuck.  My body is doing it's own thing.  I feel like a whale.  A highly emotional whale.  My breastmilk is still in.  If anyone's keeping track, they told me that would dry up in 2-3 weeks.  Well I'm going on 4 months and it's still here!!  My body is trying to get back to normal.  Aside from that.  And the extra hormones are playing havoc on my body.  On my metabolism.  On the way I see myself.

I am just kind of all screwed up still.

Frustrating.  I'm trying to get my mind, body and soul all on the same page.  A healthy place.  Where I can feel like me again.  Where I can have the confidence to make decisions that need to be made.  To get to the place where I can start thinking about another baby down the road.  That terrifies me.  Absolutely terrifies me.  I will gladly go thru everything I went through to get pregnant again.  The shots, the surgeries, the throwing up, the sickness.  I'll do it all again.  When I'm ready.  But it terrifies me.  I can't lose another baby.  I just cant.

Life is going ok right now.  I'm feeling more at peace with where I am but I'm getting restless.  I'm trying to figure out the next few months.  School, job, new career path...too much to consider when I have no idea what to do.  I don't think I want to go back into real estate.  I don't know with the changes I've went through if it would be the best for me.  For our family.  I just don't know.  I need to pray for guidance.  I don't want to just be anymore.

The day has come that I'm not completely consumed with thought of the boys.  That breaks my heart.  Hanging family pictures on our wall of shame, I break down.  I have pictures of our boys.  But they aren't pictures we want to share with just anyone who walks in our house.  I've never coveted anything more precious than those pictures I have of Jason and I holding our baby boys.

I know I need to move forward and get to a place where this is part of me, and not the whole of me.  But I'm not ready to let that go yet.  All I have are memories.  Of finding out we were pregnant.  Of finding out it was twins.  Of finding out we had 2 boys.  My heart has never been so full as when I knew I had Jason's little baby boys growing inside of me.  Seeing for the first time what our baby looked like, as we were holding him.  Loving him, bathing him with our tears.  And then seeing his brother.  I miss them.  I miss them so much.  I still can't believe it.

My body failed me.  Failed my boys.  Failed my family.  I feel ugly.  I feel broken.  My body has always been my enemy and now even more so.  I'm angry at it.  It was supposed to protect my boys and keep them safe until my due date.  Which is quickly approaching.

I've got to do something.  Painting, projects, puppies, decorating, all well and good but once the project is over, once the painting is done, once the pup goes to bed, I'm left with this big empty hole.

I need to pray for direction.  I need to pray for guidance.  I just need to start praying again.  God hasn't left me.  He's showing himself in mighty ways in other areas of our life.  And I am so appreciative of the blessings He gives us.

Some of the anger is leaving me.  I'm thankful for that as well.  But this emptiness, when it knocks on the door to my heart, it knocks me over.

Tucker and Flecther, I miss them. I miss people asking about them.  I miss being pregnant.  Mostly I miss not being able to look forward to being their Mama here on earth.  Where I could hold them.  Feed them, smell them and never let them go.

Life sucks sometimes.  Other times it surprises you.  I'll save that for my next blog.  Right now I just want to close my eyes and not have a nightmare about what happened but see my boys as they were when I held them.  Perfect.

Blessed because for that moment, Mama and Daddy were holding their baby boys.  And as bad as the circumstances were, it won't ever take the fact that Jason and I held and loved and kissed Tucker.  And Fletcher.  We had our babies.  And we are better for it!



Thursday, April 4, 2013

Making therapists cry one visit at a time...

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." Mayo Angelou

Well, Maya, I get it.   I didn't want to get it, I fought it, I'd ignored it but I get it.

I tried a new therapist today.  I appreciated the first one I tried right after everything happened but she was hung up on me journaling my feelings out and as I blog all the time and she had no other suggestions, I decided to try someone else.  I emailed about 20 with a short, "Lost my twin boys in Dec, need someone to talk to."  After many replies, I ended up with the one today.  She worked me in.

I walk in her office and it looked like a butterfly convention had thrown up!  Butterflies everywhere.  A huge butterfly kite.  Butterfly pictures.  Butterfly every.thing!  It annoyed me more than anything to be honest.  Butterflies, for the newbies to my blog, for the longest time have represented hope.  Whenever I was down, whenever I needed a lift, whenever I felt God had given up on me, I'd see a butterfly.  One the size of my hand flew around my head when I left a church service upset.  I ignored it.  It started hitting me in the head.  I was like, Ok, God.  Got it.

2 days before I delivered Fletcher, another mom in the hospital on bedrest gave the other moms Christmas cards.  I opened mine and the message inside was wishing me a Merry Christmas but the card had a butterfly on the front.  We all started crying thinking it was a sign Fletcher would make it.  We all know how that turned out.  And that started my annoyance with the butterfly.

I'm not new to therapists.  I see no shame in talking to someone who can help you see things differently.  The therapist I saw when I was going through my divorce was a nice lady.  Who cried the entire first session as I was rehashing everything.  Thought that wasn't the best sign of how your life is going when you make your therapist cry.

Fast forward, therapist I saw after the boys died, cried.  Therapist today, before I even started talking, said she wasn't taking new patients but as she has a 15 month old, she felt moved to work me in, cried.  As I'm reliving my hell, she cries. I understand.  My story sucks.  But realizing your crap is so bad it makes professionals who deal with crap cry, makes me mad.

I told her the butterflies in her office annoyed me.  She pointed out that butterflies are a sign of transformation.  Duh.  But it made sense to me.  I am transforming.  I still don't understand why the card in the hospital had it but I'm going to let that slide.

This has changed me.  I'm still trying to figure out the depth of the changes.  But one has been a positive that has helped my family, has given me peace and has brought about a lot of good.

I sent a text to someone that I hadn't been able to get along with in the past.  We butted heads, we assumed the worst about each other and we rarely had anything positive to think about the other.  I never looked at the why.  I've done nothing lately but look at the why's.  I changed my heart towards her and opened myself up to understanding.  And it has made life so much easier.  Not just easier, happier.  Not just for me, for my family.

I sent another text to someone else that I haven't been able to get along with and it blew up in my face.  You win some, you lose some.

I am changing.  Right now I fear I'm transforming into an orange because I spray tanned but that's beside the point.  I don't understand why I lost my boys.  I don't understand the 11 days that separated their births and ultimately their deaths.  I don't understand why this is my story but I'm ready to give myself some credit.

I'm still half past crazy.  Last night as I was holding Coco, I broke down.  I felt so much guilt for taking her away from her mom.  C-razy!!

But...

I get out of bed.

I helped plan, decorate, make some cute things and collaborated with J on the cake for A's bday party this weekend.

I am trying to make myself feel better physically.  I haven't felt pretty lately. This spray tan may have been counterproductive to that.

But...

I'm moving forward.  At a snail's pace in my mind, but moving forward none the less with the orange glow of transformation.  Or spray tan.  Whatev.


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

SHOOT. ME. NOW!

I got a MacBook Air for Easter.

I hate it.

Hate.

Well not really.  I think if I were smart enough to use it I'd actually really love it. As it stands I have a really cool laptop that shows me my texts, FaceTime and 1000 icons at the bottom that mean nothing to me.  I had to set up a so many different accounts, its possible I may have forgotten the email address my activation code was emailed to.  Oh, you didn't know?  New computers don't come with programs.  You have to buy everything.  And I tried to download Office so I can have word and I don't have the code.  I can't find the code.  And the search icon doesn't respond to "WHERE IS MY ACTIVATION CODE!?!"  Let's have a little recap of the last 2 hours of my life.

I go thru all the email addresses I can remember..no email from Apple.  Or Microsoft.  I don't really even know what it should be.  So after 20 minutes of googling "I'm an idiot where is my code" I finally get a phone number.

Voice activated number.  That doesn't respond to "Coco, NO!"  "Coco, stop."  I don't understand, says the computer voice.  Sends me back to the start.  I get past the next few prompts and then my "Coco, OUCH that's my toe" sends me to a live person.

Who is in India.  And speaks no English that I can understand.  It took me saying, NEW PERSON PLEASE I CANT UNDERSTAND YOU, over and over to be transferred.

To another computer genius down the cube wall from her in India.

Sigh.

So I finally get transferred to Ben and I am happy.  He asks me what kind of computer I have.  Easy enough.  Macbook Air.  Whats the OSXVY blah blah blah.  I don't know!!  He sighs.  Prompts me to looks and I actually find the info.

Now the fun part.

"Mam, please read the 25 character code and use A for apple, blah blah blah."  Easy enough.  Until you are under pressure trying to come up with words that correlate with the letter.

Mine might have went something like this.

"D for dog, the number 2, R for rabbit, the number 8, the number 9, dash, T for tomato, Q for uh, um, Q, the number 4, the number 6" and on and on and on.

The guy sighs and repeats back to me, D for Delta, 2, R for Roger, 8, 9, T for Thomas, Q for Queen."  Then he snickers.

I'm still on hold with India while my dog runs around sniffing, so I am in the other room trying to get her to pee on the wee pad, yelling to the foreign computer nerd answers while on speaker.  I finally get transferred to a man in California who can understand me.  Then my dog finds a mirror I have yet to hang leaning against the breakfast bar, she gets freaked out bc she sees herself, she starts barking, she starts freaking, I start yelling and she starts peeing.

I still don't have my activation code and I have lost any bit of sanity I had hanging on.

Be jealous...