My little angel

Well, It's February again,worst time in my life 7 years ago. I have been trying to keep myself distracted, but it's still a bad time. Losing my daughter has changed me and I will never be that person I was before. With time, I am better able to cope but the pain doesn't go away. I wish I would have made the most of those last hours with her. To say we had a really rough night with her the night before is an understatement. She cried, and cried, and cried all night long. We were exhausted and as I dropped her off at daycare(still cranky), I got to work and wondered how we were going to get through this with her. I really try not to blame myself when I know I was not the one who made bad choices while pregnant with her, but I wonder if she was trying to tell us something. I just assumed she was still withdrawing, and I know bringing her to the ER for excessive crying probably wouldn't have helped, but I hated that our last bit of time with her was rough. Never did I realize when I dropped her off that would be the last time I held her alive. There was so much I wanted to say tonight, but as I sit here writing, I just can't find the words except I love and miss her so much.

Mother's Day

Tonight, before going to bed I found myself thinking back to when I started blogging several years ago about about my journey to motherhood. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have 5 children currently still living at home with me(K, the teenager moved back with his biological parents after begging for an emancipation). God has blessed me more than I can ever imagine. I prayed for a baby, he sent three(though older kids) to me to adopt. I prayed for a newborn(and yes, selfishly hoped for a girl too), and He sent me 3! I am still amazed that I found myself pregnant after nearly 6 long years of trying and then again 9 months later with twins. 17 months later, I still look at them saying "Wow, twins." Today, my heart still breaks for other ladies suffering infertility and waiting and wondering why they are going through this. I know there are few words of comfort to offer and I pray they keep close to God through their journey because He is there, just like He was there dragging me through kicking and screaming when He called my princess home. I just couldn't understand why...first infertility, then He takes my precious daughter I had waited so long for, then 9 months later takes another baby girl from me that I grew to love(moved to another foster home due to some lying workers). When Kyleigh arrived, I began to understand. She in no way replaces Princess, but I don't think she would be here if Princess were still with me because when Princess was placed with us, our family felt complete. When she went back to Jesus, it felt empty again and didn't feel complete again until after the twins arrived. Today, I also pray for friends who have lost babies in the last year. No mother should have to bury their child. So, when I think about the hectic day I had, L working on a project today for extra money so I can be blessed to stay home with my 5 beautiful children, I am grateful. I was blessed to be waken again at 2am be a precious little 2 year old who has decided to make a nightly habit of waking screaming to come in mommy and daddy's bed. I clean poo. All the time. Lots of it and it about drives me to a breaking point, but it's ok. I am at doctors' offices, therapists ALL THE TIME. I worry about what will happen to my oldest 2 with special needs when we are no longer around. I am stressed with being alone and stuck in the house with no adult interaction for 10-12 hours per day. My husband and I rarely have a meal out together and haven't been on a date in ages, but I am blessed that He has answered my prayers and even had a sense of humor about it when He sent the twins. All the waiting, heartbreak and tears were worth it. Happy Mother's Day to all ladies. I hope you had a great day. To all my friends still waiting on their children, I pray God sends them to you very soon.

5 little ones

Alex and Cameron came home after 17 and 19 days in the NICU and twins are both awesome and a lot of work. We are finally getting to where we get 5-7 hour stretches of sleep at night. It seems like I just found out I was pregnant with twins and now they are almost 3 months old! Time passes so quickly.

Twins are work, but also not as bad as I thought. It's manageable, but routine is key and I will fight anyone who wants to disturb it. Some things I've learned about twins:
1. They have learned that they don't have to both cry to get mommy's attention so they take shifts.
2. Never wake a sleeping baby...unless you have twins. When one wakes for a bottle, you wake the other and feed them both or you will be getting 30 minute stretches of sleep instead of 2-3 hours.
3. They attract a lot of attention. It's fun to count how many times I hear, "you have your hands full" or "double trouble" in one outing. I smile about it now, but I have a feeling it will get annoying soon.
4. Identical twins=identical health issues(sometimes). Both boys have almost the same heart/kidney issues. Both are mild and they are expected to grow out of them, but are being monitored for now.
5. Figuring out what to eat and finding time to grocery shop is next to impossible!

I look at my boys and smile at God's sense of humor. Who would have thought I'd not only be blesed with one pregnancy, but two, and the second being twins! Amazing! God is good.

I do have to say I desperately need about an hour away from the house of "me" time. L has been doing some side work and it's been leaving me at the house alone with the kids until past bedtime around 8pm and I'm exhausted.

More to come later. Alex is pissed off about something. Will try to return with new pictures soon.

They Have Arrived

The boys arrived on December 10 at 8:00 amd 8:01 pm via c-section. Alex weighed in at 5lbs 5 oz and Cameron at 5lbs 10 oz. They were born at 35 weeks 3 days gestation and taken to the NICU after I got a quick. Ok, I'll start the birth story and see how far I get and will continue later if needed, so here goes:

I was fighting this MISERABLE cold for about a week and a half, complete with fever, cough, congestion, but not quite high enough to call my OB. Halfway through the week, Larry caught it too and we were both miserable and non-functioning so my my took all 3 of the kids(yes, she is a saint) on Friday night and was going to return them Saturday evening. At around noon on Saturday, still feeling crappy and not feeling as much baby movement, so put in a call to the hospital and the nurse said to come in to be checked out.

After grabbing my suitcase(just in case) and picking up the house, we started the 2 hour drive to the hospital. When we arrived we waited forever and finally got called back where the triage nurse tried to quickly clear a room for me. This was around 4pm. The boys looked good on the monitor and the on call doctor wrote me some prescriptions and was about to start IV fluids for an hour and send me home. Well,I started contracting. The nurse calls doctor back to let him know and see if she can check me. I was 50% effaced and 2 cm dialated. Since I was contracting, I was transferred upstairs to L&D for the night for monitoring. Doctor was pretty sure we weren't delivering that night, but started having strong contractions about 2-3 minutes apart.

The doctor comes back saying we're having babies tonight and signed the consent for the c-section. I was quickly pumped with IV fluids and wheeled into the OR about an hour later. Things happened VERY quickly. Larry agreed to have my mom be there with us, but was kinda upset my doctor wasn't on call. Anyway, my doctor calls the hospital asking if they are delivering "his" twins tonight and told them to call when I was getting my epidural and he was coming to deliver them. He was hosting his staff Christmas party at his house and left to take care of my babies and me saying "if you're driving 2 hours to see me, I wasn't going to miss the birth."

After the epidural, I was a bit shaky from nerves but didn't even notice when he started cutting me. Before I knew it, Alex was here, followed by Cameron a minute later. They held up each baby for me to get a quick peak at before taking them to a room over to be worked on. After I was stitched up, I was taken outside and got to quickly hold both babies and then they were taken to the NICU and me to recovery.

I had some complications with toxemia after the birth and it got scary for a while. The nurse politely escorted my visitors out to try to get my heart rate down so she wouldn't have to put me on some kind of medicine(magnesium maybe?) because she said it would make me feel awful. After a few hours, I stablized and was brought to a room where I was so thirsty I drank til I threw up(sorry if TMI) and continued drinking for most of the night.

Sometime the next afternoon I made my way to the NICU for the first time to see my boys. They needed breathing assistance, but no vents, thank God. About a week later they were moved from the NICU to special care nursery and now we are waiting on them to eat and grow before we can bring them home. It's very possible Alex will be finally coming home tomorrow and Cameron shouldn't be far behind as soon as he starts eating better.

Oh yeah, doctors did bloodwork and they are identical!

Sorry for the long abscense,but hope these pictures will make up for it:



Cameron left, Alex Right


Mommy, daddy and twin boys.

House Full

Ok, I really intended on blogging more frequently, but the kids have been keeping me hopping.

The pregnancy is going well, 26 weeks tomorrow and the boys are looking good other than some fluid in both their kidneys. This generally goes away, and if not, it's easily treatable after birth. Still exhausted, but if I can get a short "catch-up" nap in the morning, I can usually make it through the day. The boys are moving like crazy and feel like they are running out of room, but still have 11 more weeks to go.

Kyleigh is officially walking. Now when you put her on the floor, she is beginning to prefer to walk rather than crawl. Of course, she is into everything.

Also, it looks like a may be getting a personal care attendant for a few hours a day to help with Nick. I hate asking for help, but I'm at the point it's going physically difficult to care for him with the lifting, dressing, and bathing, especially as he tries to wrestle me while doing these things.

Well, just wanted to give a quick update on the crew. Kyleigh is currently destroying my living room, so have to run for now.

Half way

19 weeks today and since the latest the doctors are letting me go is 37 weeks, I am just a little over half way through. Wow! Kyleigh is now over a year old and there are 2 more baby boys due to arrive late December. Things are going a little better. Nick has started school and John will on Thursday, so I generally get an hour nap in the morning which helps tremendously since I still haven't been sleeping too well at night.

Nick is becoming more of a challenge as he's made a couple escapes out of his new bed in the middle of the night, scaring the mess out of me, so everytime I wake, I listen for him to make sure I don't hear him up.

My daughter is absolutely amazing. I still can't believe how blessed I have been. She is starting to take her first few steps and is always so happy. And I'm gonna brag, because as of now, she's still a momma's girl, so gonna enjoy the time left before she becomes daddy's girl. She is attempting to press the keys on my laptop as I type this. I love being home with these babies.

Oh yeah, how can I forget, the boys now have names:

Alex Resse and Cameron Jacob.

The boys

16 week ultrasound pics of the boys. Doctor said the latest I will go is 37 weeks, so it looks like they will be here around Dec. 21.

17 weeks pregnant


Baby B, 16 weeks


Baby A, 16 weeks