Update on the five of us

Hello!

It's been quite a year for us. One that I'll never forget and one that I know the Lord is using to teach me and refine me with. My last blog post (almost a year ago -yikes!) we had just found out we were having twins. Well, we had them! :) And in this amazing moment today where all three of my kids are asleep at the same time, I thought I might share as much of the story of the last year as time will allow (until a baby wakes up). I have no idea if anyone reads this blog or if anyone is interested, but its fun for me to reflect.

The pregnancy was such an amazing blessing for us! As we've shared before, it's very hard for us to get pregnant. I know we're able to with the help of drugs and I don't take that for granted. I'm grateful that God has answered our prayers for a family with our children. And frankly, I'm astounded and so excited still that He chose to answer that prayer for us by giving us a two for one! ;) Practically the moment I became pregnant my body went crazy. I'm a lady that gets super sick when prego and this pregnancy was really bad. By 8 weeks I was already looking pregnant and feeling very sick - so much so that I had to go to the hospital and get 3 liters of fluids pumped back into me to get me out of the danger zone for dehydration. My Dr. put me on anti nausea meds and I was a new person (still sick every day but not all day every day). Until about 28 weeks I did really well and at the end of 28 weeks I went into pre-labor. This happens to a lot of twin pregnancies and actually happened to my Mom with my brother and I at 32 weeks. The difference is that we were able to manage my contractions and my Mom wasn't so she had Kyle & I two months early. I can honestly say the deep fear I struggled with in that first 24 hours of being in the hospital was one of the hardest 'moments' of my life so far. It's right up there with the night my brother and Dad were in a car accident and we didn't know if Kyle would be ok. It was hard but the Lord is good and after trying 3 different types of medications one finally helped "calm" my contractions a bit. I was sent home after 2 days and told to come back if anything changed at all and from that day on I was on modified bedrest until further notice.

Anyone who has endured bedrest can tell you it's tough! It may sound like a vacation but for me it was very difficult. I felt so angry for those weeks. I had lost control of being a hands on parent, I had very little control over what was occurring with my body and I lost the ability to leave my house except for the doctors appointments. My WONDERFUL Mother in Law dropped everything and came 6 weeks early to essentially take care of me and Campbell while I was unable to. What a gift she gave us! I love her so much and am grateful for her willingness to endure me (angry controlling pregnant lady) and Campbell (angry defiant confused-about-life 3 year old). We had a lot of rough spots peppered with great ones and long story short - we made it through! I'm convinced that if it weren't for Janet coming to help us, we would have had premie babies.

Lets skip to the labor/delivery part! I'll say that never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we'd have a labor/delivery like we had! It was "one for the books" my Dr. said! I was scheduled for a c sec or induction depending on the position of the boys for Oct. 11th. I had been having contractions for months at this point and they always hurt so I didn't really think I was going to go into labor any sooner than our due date. I should mention that despite my pre labor issues, I was able to make it to full term - 39 weeks! The night before our due date I gave Campbell a bath & put her to bed. Then I sat down on the couch with a bid bowl of ice cream and laughed and said wouldn't it be funny if I went into labor early? The funny part being we had to get up at 3am to be at the hospital by 5am anyway so I thought that would be very ironic. Apparently God has a good sense of humor. Around 1am I woke up with harder contractions than the ones I'd been having for so long. We timed them for 20 min and the intensity was building quickly. We decided to get ready to go to the hospital. I was told to take a shower with special soap before coming in for the c sec and thought I still needed to do that. In hind sight - maybe not the best decision. So I took a shower - Jeff is timing contractions, I'm stopping every 4 minutes to get through the painful contractions and then we got our stuff and left. My thought as I got in the car was "this is going to be the hardest car ride of my life!" I really had no idea that would be so true.

We live 45 min. away from the hospital. Jeff made it in 30 min. because about 20 min. in I was screaming, my water broke and I felt like pushing. Jeff yelled at me, "fight that urge!" and hit the gas. Praise Jesus there were no cops out that night. We got to the hospital and I had a hard bearing down contraction so the lady at the registration window put me in wheelchair and practically ran us up to maternity. From that point on I remember parts of things. I'm sure they checked me - don't remember. I did have another bearing down contraction moments after getting up to maternity that triggered a lot of people running around getting things and a nurse helping rip my clothes off and getting me into a delivery bed. I told the Dr. that I felt like pushing and he (awesome guy and happens to be my Dr.'s Dad ) told me, "well, push Honey!" He was very calm despite the chaos going on around him. So long story short I had 3 contractions and pushed out Everett who was screaming mad. My OB Dr. got there in time to catch Rett. One of my favorite parts was her sticky up bed head! She got to the hospital fast! I had about 5 minutes relief before hard contractions started again.

This was the scary part. We didn't know what position Titus was in. We were coming in at 5 am to have an ultrasound to check that but since we got there early and I was fully dilated and crowning there wasn't a option to check position. We also had the boys at a small hospital so the OR wasn't ready for us - essentially we had no other option than vaginal delivery for both boys, no matter if Titus was feet first or head down. Scary. My Dr. told me to PUSH to get Titus down far enough to figure out which direction he was. It was harder to get him down & out than it was Everett. I felt like I was pushing from my tonsils! God ROCKS though and Titus turned head down and my Dr. yelled "there's a head! We can do this! PUSH!" and I had him 14 minutes after Rett. Everett was 6lbs 6oz and Titus was 5lbs 13oz. By the hospital paperwork we had Everett 7 minutes after we got there and Titus 14 min after that. Two healthy boys! I had no drugs, not even a monitor on the babies. They managed to get an iv in me between babies being born so I felt really great and alert after they were born. We had our boys! Our second and third miracle babies!! God took care of every single detail of this entire process and I am eternally grateful. My heart will hold so close the events of the last year. I can't really express how much it has meant to me, but it has changed me.

Now I have three children. A three & a half year old and two three month olds. My life is full. My husband is amazing and gives 110% all the time and we are busy! Some days are incredibly hard, some are easy and all are a blessing. I've been helped by so many people and I've learned so much about the value of community in this.

That's most of our story! Now my days are feedings, naps, changing, trying to get some loves in for Campbell and so on. I don't leave my house much and I don't sleep much but I'm glad for my babies and I know it'll get easier soon. I'm try to find the moments each day to cherish and I can't get enough of my kids -they're amazing! Thanks to the Lord!!!