History
	January 26, 2010 | Filed Under JJF, Pregnancy | 25 Comments

So, I’m sick.  I think I have a sinus infection, which is annoying because I was at the doctor’s office yesterday and thought it was just a cold but today I feel differently, like SIIIIIIICK, so now what?

Do I go back?  When I feel like all I ever do is go to doctor’s appointments?

Tomorrow I have an ultrasound to find out “just how big this baby is.”  I’m very nervous because I think he’s really big – which means a delivery before March 29th which, well, we were hoping to actually go full term this time around.

Except I’m so huge already that I’m almost always uncomfortable and out of breath.  I feel totally and completely swollen and unattractive.

And I can’t sleep.

(also….sick….do not forget about that one.)

And then I was going through some old photos and I found this one and I can’t believe that it’s actually my family, taken 11 months before I was even pregnant with James and Jake and I can’t believe how much we’ve changed.

Obviously, the kids have gotten older and well, Brian and I have, too.  But when I look at Brian and I, we look like babies.  Babies who just don’t know much of anything.  I sort of want to warn them “WATCH OUT…BE READY.”  But we probably would not have listened because, well, that’s just what people do, they don’t listen because they just don’t really understand.

I see this photo and I think “yes, I’m sick, I’m massive with a huge baby and huge ankles and sausage fingers and I’m almost always sweaty but my God, there is this baby in my belly who is almost here and there is nothing more important than that.”

NOTHING.

So, rather than warn all four of those people in that photo, instead I just want them to live just like they did, just how they knew how.  And right now I’m going to do the same.  Swollen fingers and all.

(and probably with a cookie in my hand and definitely a prayer in my heart.)

	Be glad for all that’s good.
	January 6, 2010 | Filed Under JJF, Loss | 24 Comments

It honestly was not my intention to write that post about finding out we were having a boy and then just let it sit there at the top of my blog, letting it get stale.

But things happen.  This morning, I posted over here and afterwards I was going to write a post reminding all of you to gather up your favorite photos from 2009 to share in tomorrow’s You Capture.

But then my phone rang and it was Arianne and I realized quickly that this phone call would be one we would never forget.

Her baby died, at 18 weeks.

My heart aches as I sit and think about what her heart feels like right now.  There are 50 things I want to do but I don’t want to do these things now because they all seem so trivial.  I can remember after losing James and Jake, reading a post by someone where she wrote about how she was thinking of me during our darkest moments.  It meant so much to me because I felt so alone all of the time.  And it’s not that she wrote about it, it was that she was thinking of me, really dedicating her private moments to me and my family.

It was so hard for me to hear that people’s lives went on as usual as mine STOPPED, dead in it’s track and the only real thing going on was the intense pain felt all over my body, the hot tears that flowed constantly and the pit of emptiness that sat within at every second.

After James and Jake’s memorial service, we all had dinner afterwards at my in-laws house.  I can remember my two friends telling me a funny story about how they were together the night before at Bunco (where I usually was) and how silly they were and it felt like someone had punched me dead in the face….how could life be so normal for people so close to me but so completely flipped around and horrifying for me?

I didn’t blame them for continuing to live their lives because that’s how we move on – it was just so hard to comprehend how not too long before that, our lives were so similar and suddenly, they were not.

Arianne just recently moved to South Carolina which is making this so much more difficult for so many of us.  I’d give anything to make her lasagna and muffins and bread and soup, I’d love for her to know that I could be at her house in seven minutes if she needed anything, even a glass of water.  I want to reach out and physically care for her…but I can’t.

So, I pray.  I give her my moments of peace.  I pray for strength for her and Jacob, I pray for grace and understanding and hope to creep in over time.  I want her to know how not alone she is even though that is what she is feeling right now.

Loneliness.

Fear.

After losing the twins, those precious boys that we miss SO MUCH all of the time, so many of you reached out to me with your words, your prayers, your wisdom.  You helped me through my darkest hour and not just me but many of my family members that read my blog, they would say “your comments are amazing and uplifting” or “did you read this comment from so and so?”  That’s how powerful you were and are to me – you left your words with me and they resonated throughout my entire family and continue to do so…everyday.

I hope you can take some time to do the same for Arianne.

	19-2
	November 8, 2009 | Filed Under Being a Mama, Beth Fletcher Photography, JJF, Pregnancy | 59 Comments

On February 25, 2008, I woke up, just like every other morning, took my daughter to school, came home and wrote about my then current pregnancy with our twin sons on my blog.  That day, I was nineteen weeks, two days along.

By the end of  that day, I had learned of their deaths and was at the hospital getting induced for their delivery.

I can remember sitting somewhere, I’m not sure where and thinking “I have to get pregnant again RIGHT AWAY,” I felt that desire way deep inside of me.  And although I had hoped to get pregnant again, I knew I’d never carry twins again.  That thought made me sad back then, I loved being pregnant with twins.  I loved it so much.

I’m so blessed to have known them for the 19 weeks,  2 days that I did.  Thankfully, I pushed my desire to carry again aside while we explored every avenue medically as to why this happened, especially after an early loss last January.

My fear has been that I’d never be able to carry past that time frame again, with this pregnancy I felt like 19 weeks, 2 days was nothing but a deadline for this pregnancy, not a milestone of sorts.

But yesterday, as I laid on the couch and felt this baby dance, DANCE!, inside of me, strong enough for Daddy’s hands to feel the movements, too, I was comforted.  Daddy was comforted, too.

Today we spent the day doing all sorts of things together as a family, a trip to Target, to the park, out to dinner and out for ice cream.  But in the middle of the day, we found ourselves doing a photo shoot.  It was planned for today, simply because it was 70 degrees outside, but it just so happens that this incredible weather and our new-found health brought us to capturing today.  19 weeks.  2 days.

	This moment, that fear.
	October 26, 2009 | Filed Under JJF, Pregnancy | 53 Comments

This past week has been more emotional than usual. There are times, while riding in the car that I literally have to blink to either stop the tears or blink to allow them to fall.

Other times, it’s just a tiny piece of emotion that gets lodged in my throat. I literally can’t talk for a second, I let the moment pass and then I’m okay.

But other times, it’s more than tears, it’s solid crying, the kind that brings me to my knees, the kind that brings back every difficult moment in my past and makes that cry continue on…for a really long time. When I get to that place, every fear, every single shard of grief comes racing back to me at a hundred miles an hour and I can’t stop it, it’s so raw; so real. So painful.

I feel it. I accept it. It hurts. I move on.

I try to move on.

But lately, there is something about these “breakdowns” that are increasingly difficult to accept because the thoughts that race through my mind and the pain that stings my heart continue to affect me long after the tears are dry. When I wake up, eat lunch, while playing games with my family.

My fear of losing this baby is very big, very real. In fact, I may just be waiting for the loss to occur. I lost James and Jake at 19 weeks 2 days, today I am 17 weeks 3 days. As the day approaches, as that “milestone” of 19 weeks 2 days inches its way towards us, I’m seeing it as a deadline and not so much as a day that I can breathe a sigh of relief, as I imagined it would be.

I’m frustrated because throughout this pregnancy I have been so sure that this was going to be so good and so far, it has been. But for some reason, I’m waiting for my body to fail. I’m losing faith and that, along with everything else, is making me so sad.

I believe with all of my heart and soul that I lost James and Jake because it was too much for my body to carry twins, I don’t think there was anything else, so why, as my nineteenth week approaches is my fear increasing so much?

I promise, I have faith. I have faith in God and this baby and oh, I have faith in James and Jake. I believe they are here, protecting us, I know their hands rest on our shoulders, encouraging us to TRUST and GROW and LOVE, I believe they are whispering encouraging words to Anna and Noah…”it’s okay to love the baby…we promise, it’s okay.”

But there is still that tiny voice, that voice of reason that says “IT CAN HAPPEN AGAIN, watch yourself…do not let your guard down.”

And so, I sit here, as I have been lately, a pile of confusion and emotions and all I know is that RIGHT NOW we have this baby, this baby we love, this baby created out of nothing but HOPE and LOVE and it’s this moment that I trust.

It’s this moment, that I NEED.

	I’ve been here before.
	October 6, 2009 | Filed Under JJF, Loss, Pregnancy | 74 Comments

The waiting.  The unknown.  This is familiar to me which sucks but then again, I also know that the wait will soon be over and we can begin the plan of action with our care.

In December of 2007, I had my first ultrasound with that pregnancy.  It was then that I found out we were having twins, I was 8 weeks pregnant.  I didn’t freak out, but I cried.  It was the happiest cry I had ever cried.  I couldn’t believe that I was so blessed to be pregnant with twins.  I felt like the luckiest person in the world, like the sun was shining down on me, I couldn’t believe that God felt I could do this.

I was at the ultrasound alone, my parents were in the waiting room with my kids (who had no idea I was pregnant, the kids, not my parents), Brian was at work in Chicago.  I was getting the ultrasound because I was having major cramping, it wasn’t a planned screening, otherwise, Brian would have been there with me.

I had to tell him this news, so after the ultrasound, barely dressed, in the dark room, I picked up my cell phone and called him.  I said “there’s a heartbeat.“  He replied with “one heartbeat?”

“No, two.”  I said.

He cried briefly,  silently, sitting in his cubicle at work.  He felt that same joy.

This was around 3 in the afternoon.  Just before five, the nurse from my doctor’s office called and said the doctor had wanted to see me after my ultrasound but the tech failed to let me know.  So, could I see the doctor first thing the next morning?

“Of course!”

God, I was so happy.

And then, I saw my doctor, where she grimly informed me that my two babies were in the same sac, this condition is called monochorionic and it was not good news.  Essentially, over the course of the pregnancy, it was very likely that the twins’ cords would become entangled and their risk for twin to twin transfusion was increased.  Their chances of survival were lessened greatly.

She did let me know that often, at this early stage, that diagnosis is incorrect, but we wouldn’t know for two more weeks when another ultrasound was done.

If it were correct, my care would be transferred to a specialist in Chicago.

I left and cried.  I had planned to leave my doctor’s office and go buy a book about bring pregnant with twins but I felt like I shouldn’t because what if we lost them…

I went home.

For the next two weeks, we prayed and remained hopeful.  And if the twins were, in fact, monochorionic, we would just pray EXTRA.  Those two weeks were difficult because we just wanted answers RIGHT NOW.  But it taught us patience and we made it through the two weeks.

Faith helped us through.  Everyday I woke up pregnant with twins and that’s all we knew and that’s all we focused on.

And so that is where I’m at now.

I am pregnant with this miracle, who we love and we continue to love and we have hope, SO MUCH HOPE that not only will we hold this baby in the spring but that the doctors will be able to guide us through this pregnancy with their vast knowledge and experience.

The twins, we found out, were not monochorionic, what a moment that was to have that answer!  And even though we eventually lost James and Jake to something unrelated; today, tomorrow, yesterday, we are reminded just how much we have learned from their little lives.

We are living it right now.  And we are always grateful to them.

We are going to be okay.