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!

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!

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.

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...

It's Friday... (Well actually Saturday)

But Sunday's comin!

This time last year I was sitting at the beach with my family, listening to the ocean, wind whipping around me, wondering about my baby story and where it would take us.

The past few days I've been sitting at the beach with my family, listening to the ocean, wind whipping around me, wondering about my baby story, missing Tucker and Fletcher more than I can say and wondering where this road is taking us.

It's Friday. But Sunday is comin.

People who don't know, don't understand. I'll never forget 2 years ago when we had the kids at the beach for Easter and I was reading an Easter book to Landon and I got to the part that said Jesus died on the cross. Landon freaks and says, "Jesus is dead?!" I told him to hang on a few pages, Sunday was coming!

I was sitting on the beach today and when the sun was out it felt wonderful. When the sun was hidden by the clouds it was cold and miserable. It was amazing how quickly you can go from feeling great to shaking.

Kind of like having a wonderful day with the family and parents flying kites, riding bikes and just enjoying each other to walking straight into anxiety when faced with 2 babies at the pool.

It's Friday.

Right now I'm still broken. My heart aches every day for my boys. I dream that they are with me then wake up to the reality that they aren't. The guilt kills me. Satan tries to make me think I didn't deserve them. Or I did something to cause this. Or God changed his mind and decided I couldn't take care of them.

It's Friday.

God sent Jesus, his son, to die on a cross. To save us. How can I be mad at a God who more than understands my pain?!

He knew Sunday was coming. He knew Jesus wouldn't stay in the grave and he knew what good would come from the pain of Friday.

I'm trusting that He has allowed Friday in my life with the understanding that Sunday is coming. It won't ever erase the pain of what happened on Fri or Dec 10th or Dec 13 or Dec 24 or or or....

I'm blessed knowing that the sun still shines, God is in control and Jesus is no longer in the grave! And I'll hold onto that until my Sunday comes.

It was the worst day, and the best...

I'm struggling. I'm trying my best to keep moving forward but I'm just struggling. I'd be close to having my boys in the next month. Our life would be total chaos with 2 screaming baby boys, we'd never get a good nights sleep and I'd be holding my babies. Crying tears of thankfulness. That's a change I need to work on.

I'm sure I've lost some readers along the way. Who wants to continually read from the heart of a grieving mother. But I can't stop writing. If I don't get it out I will for sure implode.

Was watching the Voice the other night and one of the guys trying out told his story. His wife was pregnant with twins and she lost them at 5 months. He said that it was the worst day of his life and the best day of his life.

I get that. I totally get that. I held and saw what my love created with Jason and they were beautiful. They were my babies. I was holding my boys.

The guy also said something like it was like seeing a glimpse of heaven but not being able to stay.

I'd do it all over again. The puking. The bedrest. The drainings. The time off work. The missed time with family and friends There isn't anything I wouldn't have done to just have my boys here with me now.

They are in heaven. They are with people I loved so much. I know they are ok. But holy crap, I miss my babies.

This puppy that has already shown to be a blessing to our family is getting more attention than she needs. She's our baby right now. She needs love. Attention. We have to feed her. Take her out and house train her. I can't be mad at her that she's a cheap (actually expensive) substitute (an adorable, precious substitute but a substitute none the less) for what my heart cries for.

I miss them. I miss Tucker and I miss Fletcher. I know the pain will never go away but I'd be really ok with this feeling of total emptiness making its exit. Any day now. Like now. Seriously.

Going to spend 4 days camping with the kids, parents, in laws and Coco at the beach. We will be together for Easter this year.

My Sunday is out there. I know it is.

Coco Belle Neu

We've added a new lil gal to our family, Coco Neu. She is pretty much the cutest dog I've ever seen. We made the decision to get a puppy to give us something new to focus on. Wasn't sure if it was the best thing to do or not but oh. my. gosh. We are in love. She's already brought so much joy into our lives.

I'm sure we'll probably end up with an unhealthy attachment to her, and that worried me. But when we picked her up on Sunday she was just so loving and cute and cuddly. We had a 3 hour drive home and she laid on my lap most of the trip. A few times she crawled up my chest and laid her head in my neck and I covered her with a blanket and rocked her.

And then I completely lost it.

It's a dog.

Not a baby. Not Tucker. She's not fletcher either. Now it's like I went thru hell and all I got was the dog. But I really do love her. I picked out a really cute outfit that is blue and has a tutu and on the back has a big silver high heel. I mean, c'mon. Melissa before Coco- hates animals dressed as people. Melissa after Coco- trying to decide between puppy tutus or puppy onesies. It's a little ridiculous.

For such a little dog she sure does carry a big burden. She's going to help us heal. Help us get back to who we were. But I get so angry that other friends are having their babies, pregnant with babies, holding their babies and I'm holding a dog.

So frustrating.

We have gotten to spend more time with the kiddos lately and it means so much to us any extra time we get together. Jason and Landon went and did man things. Kaylen, Ash and I went to Starbucks then tried smuggling Coco into Target and Home Depot. It was a comedy of errors and I'm sure they thought we were shoplifting or something, anytime we saw a worker we ran the other way w a wiggly dog in an oversize bag covered by my jacket. And all 3 of us laughing so hard. Not at all obvious. It's their spring break and we had them some last night, they wanted to spend the day with us and all night and we started putting our new place together. It's starting to feel like home.

I'm trying really hard to focus on what I have. I have a beautiful husband who makes me laugh more than I ever have. I have a funny stepson who says the funniest stuff, who is loving and witty and makes me feel like he really loves being here. I have a preteener who makes me so proud in so many ways, so talented and kind. And one about to turn 10 who is smart, sassy, and kind. I have 2 little sons who I carry in my heart and one 10 year old boy who is celebrating his birthday as I pray for him, wherever he may be.

I am blessed. I really am. I think the tears running down my cheeks are just some leftover disappointment, fear, anger and frustration leaving my heart.

I'm healing.

Never been more appropriate timing. It's Friday, but Sunday is coming!!

Easter, camping, new pup, kids, parents, in laws, beach. Can't be mad about that!

Going to make sure these 3 kids that I love so so much are nice and warm in their new bedrooms then crawl in bed with the other part of me.

Blessed!