Thankful

Today is a day that is greeted with much anticipation. Many months ago, I wondered if I would be able to get out of bed on this day or would I be on bedrest. I wondered if I would be able to eat Thanksgiving dinner or would I be so huge I wouldn't even want to think about eating. I even wondered if Lila & Cole would have already graced us with their presence, as I knew they probably would be born early.

Then just weeks ago, I wondered if I would be able to get out of bed on this day. Would I feel like eating? How much would I miss Cole & Lila today?

The best thing that I know now is to not make plans for these sorts of things. There is no way for us to know the future and there is no way to plan for it in this capacity.

We made a new plan this year for Thanksgiving. This will be the first time in my life that I will spend the holiday with two people instead of thirty. I feel like I am a person of tradition and I will very much miss being with my family today. But also I am glad that our plan for today will not be hectic and that we can avoid the chaos and just be able to feel. That is an important part of this process for me and if I'm distracted, then it will come crashing down on me later.

A while ago, I wished that I could just rip all the holidays off the calender for the rest of the year. I certainly was in no mood to go around a table and say what I was thankful for. My mind is clouded sometimes and I can't see past what I've lost. Some days this still holds true. But I'm trying to grow and I'm trying to learn that I have lost a lot, but there are still silver linings.

So today I am tremendously missing my babies. But, today I am thankful for twenty little fingers and twenty little toes.
I am thankful for heartbeats and sweet little kicks inside my belly. I am thankful for morning sickness and heartburn. I am thankful for natural childbirth. I am thankful to be a mom. I am thankful for a God who has a plan for us and that loved Cole & Lila so much, that He brought them back to Heaven to prepare a place for us.

I am also thankful for family and friends who face awkwardness and fumble for words but do it anyway, and in their own time, because they so desperately want to show us how much they care. I am thankful that these very people, allow us to be the same way.

TNT

We made it to Texas and it didn't take long for everyone to make themselves at home.

Squirt & Elly have been playing nonstop and I think they have finally wore themselves out.



Last night we went to Monday Night Football at Reliant Stadium.

It was TNT: Texans vs. Titans. I am not really a football fan but our seats were Amazing and I didn't realize how different it was being there in person versus just watching on tv.

The Texans didn't win but it was a good game and I'm really glad we got the opportunity to go.

Beth's friend, Steve, set us up with these tickets and let us tailgate with his crew. Let me tell you, these people know how to do it right too. Thank you so much Steve for showing us a great time!

Houston Bound: Hampton Found

We are well on our way to Houston to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Beth (my sister in law)and Elly's favorite playmate, Squirt.

We wanted to split the drive into two days so we stopped last night just outside of Jackson, Mississippi and smuggled Elly into her first hotel experience. Steve figured he could empty his laptop backpack and put Elly in it and zip her up. It worked perfect!

Disclaimer: I do feel bad about sneaking her in but we are limited on our hotel choices where we are and service animals are allowed here. And Elly doesn't know she's a dog. She thinks she is a real person. And she doesn't shed and I gave her a bath before we left. And she is a perfect angel, just look at that face. But I digress...

She was such a good girl. We are so proud of her. She also did so good in the car. She has never been on a road trip before so I was anxious to see how she would handle it and she has been great!

I know she can't wait to see her auntie Beth and Squirt so we're going to get back on the road....

Fight for Preemies

I know I've been silent for awhile. I've had a lot of adjustments to survive these past couple of weeks.

For starters, we had an appointment the first of this month with a High Risk Specialist. He was the same doctor that performed our level II ultrasound just a few weeks before the babies were born. We felt good about him at that time and also received a recommendation from one of his patients.

It did not occur to me that we would have our appointment with him at the same place we had the ultrasound. I say this because that office consists of one ultrasound room and one office. I just assumed that was a satellite location, not his actual office. So once again, I had to sit in that waiting room where I had to hear the grim news about our ectopic pregnancy. And now that place holds another memory for us because it was the last time we saw Lila alive.

Unfortunately, the doctor didn't read our chart until a couple minutes before he called us back. We could tell he was very uncomfortable which didn't make for a great meeting. I'm really not sure why we were there. It doesn't seem that he told us anything we didn't already know. He said the same things we've heard before about we don't know why these things happen and there's no reason you shouldn't try again. I asked him if there were any more tests that we needed to have to make sure there isn't a problem and he said "NO".

So that's pretty much it. We don't have any more appointments scheduled with any other doctors. I think we've exhausted our resources searching for answers. The bottom line appears to be that we had strikes against us for having in vitro, multiple babies, the hyper stimulation of my ovaries couldn't have helped anything, and the fact that sometimes "these things happen and we don't know why". And these answers are what we'll have to live with.

I also started back to work. It has been harder and easier than I expected. It's been harder in the sense that the phone rang at work the other day and I saw the name on the caller id. I knew it was for me but I couldn't remember for the life of me who it was. Even as I began talking to him I couldn't place him. It was someone that I knew really well. I quickly gathered myself and did remember everything, just not as soon as I would have liked. I seem to have these brain warps every once in a while.

It has been easier in the sense that when I'm at home, and feeling terrible, and I don't feel like interacting with anyone, I go to work and I am forced to do this and it sort of breaks me out of that funk. That has pretty much been my secret in dealing with any of this. I do it because I have to.


We've read some books and attended a workshop about grief during the holidays and they all say the same thing. They say to continue your traditions that you had with your loved ones or create a new tradition. We didn't get the chance to have holiday traditions with Lila & Cole. We don't know what those traditions would have been so we don't know the best way for us to approach them. The fact of the matter is, that we haven't even remotely fallen back into our old routines. Our lives are so upside down from how it used to be that it's impossible for us to do that. We don't live in the same place, things at work have changed while we've been gone, and there is a huge void in our family that will always be there.

This is a new stage in life for us and we're doing it the best we can. Because we have to. I just want to thank everybody for being patient with us. I've learned that there is no "rule book" to follow in these circumstances. I've also learned that there is no "rule book" for those who love us to know what to do. I wish so much that one day I could write one because that is exactly what I would have liked to have. Just tell me how to do this and I'll do it. (That's a catchy title huh?)

Today is also the March of Dimes "Fight for Preemies" day. Please click on the link on the sidebar and read the short description about this day. You may also have noticed that someone set up a band to donate to the March of Dimes in honor of Cole & Lila. If you feel so led, you can click on the band and make a donation to a cause that hopefully will one day find the reason why my babies can't be here with me now and find a way to stop it from ever happening again.

My reality

This has really been a tough week for me.

A lot of changes are taking place and we've taken many small steps forward towards our future. For starters, we moved out of our house over the weekend and moved in with my parents. On a good day this would have been a little difficult for me, but now, it's magnified.

This is the home we moved into a week before we were married. At that time we were so full of hope, all the while living paycheck to paycheck. We never imagined we'd be able to afford the home and pay off our student loans. In the midst of that we'd have transmissions go out and tires blow and we struggled, but we held on to each other.

On Tuesday night, Steve and I said goodbye to our home as we reminisced through every room in the house and told our favorite memories about each one. **To those who know: The bat story came up several times...I'm so glad we can laugh about that now as one of our favorite memories**

On the night we came home from our honeymoon, I remember sitting in the rain in the car while Steve sprinted into the house for a bathroom break because we had driven straight through without stopping. I waited because I didn't want to walk through the door, I wanted him to carry me over the threshold. Because at that time, that is what I thought was important.

So six years ago when we stepped foot in our first house, we struggled and we didn't know how we'd survive and we were full of hope ....and we chose to walk through the door together. It seems that some things haven't changed so much after all.

On Monday, I had to take Elly to the vet for her annual shots. I usually have to wait a couple hours when I'm there so I took advantage of the time by starting a new book my counselor gave me to read. A few chapters in, a lady comes into the waiting room with her baby. As I sit reading my book, I hear them playing and I hear the sweet laughter that can only come from a content child. Tears begin to swell in my eyes. I'm reading a book on coping with loss while I listen to the baby laugh and realize that I will never get to hear that from Lila & Cole. In that moment I realize, this is my reality. I know that there will be thousands of these moments in my life and I have to take them one by one. In this moment, I paused from my book and took in that sweet sound, it was music to my ears.

Today I'm officially back to work, albeit from my home office. This is a step where I have really put a lot of pressure on myself. I hold myself to a certain level of achievement, and once I reach that level, I don't want to accept anything less. I've doubted myself that I could perform to the same level that I was on before. But guess what? I sat down, turned on my computer and gave it a shot. Turns out, I can still design a kitchen. Go figure.

So today we signed the papers to sell our home and tonight we will sign the papers to order our babies' headstone. Two things that shouldn't be in the same sentence but yet,it's our reality. And we're taking it one moment at a time.
*View of sunrise from our first home*

Our new address:
10907 Bardstown Woods Blvd
Louisville, KY 40291