Due Date

This was supposed to post on September 16th, but somehow the schedule was removed when I edited it, so here it is now. A few days late, but here none the less. 

*This is the letter that I wrote to Isaac and Evan and read at their graveside service. This day has been a day that I've been dreading. For weeks I've been thinking, "oh, I would be excitedly counting down the weeks/days to delivery right now", and wondering if I would actually make it to 40 weeks or if I'd opt for a 38 week delivery, and taking very large belly pictures. I miss all of that. It makes me very sad (and mad) that I don't get to experience it. By this time for SURE I would be holding two little boys in my arms and marveling at the miracle of it all.
But I did that 20 weeks ago. One hundred and forty long, sad days ago. And my boys were pretty miraculous even at that point.
I miss not  getting to experience the wonder of them every day. No sideways glances into the bassinet at night to see two babies nestled together. No moments of sitting and watching them laugh or play with each other in that special twin way.  I will miss the wonder of them every day for the rest of my life. Sometimes Heaven can't come soon enough. *

My sweet baby boys

On Friday, April 22^nd we got the biggest shock of our lives. We went in for a routine ultrasound and immediately saw your 2 little heartbeats pulsing away up on the big screen. Your daddy and I were so confused and assumed that one of those black pulsing spots was a brain. What else could it be?

When our ultrasound technician told us that was 2 heartbeats, we were beyond surprised. I had no idea that there could possibly be two babies inside me. I thought there was no chance that me of all people could ever wind up with twins. And yet, there you both were. It was an amazing moment that I will forever remember.

We decided that twins was enough of a surprise, so we asked to know what your genders were. We were thrilled to find out that you were identical boys. I immediately started wondering how we'd ever tell you apart.

We brought your brother Alex with us to be able to see the baby and he was SO excited that there were two babies and that he was going to be having 2 brothers. Oddly enough, he had been telling everyone for weeks that he was having 2 brothers. I kept correcting him that we were only having one baby, but I can't help but think that he knew way before any of us did.
I was so excited that you two would have Alex for an older brother. I knew that you all would have a great time playing in the dirt and playing trains and cars together (when you weren't wrecking his stuff that is). I bet you're both anxiously awaiting the day for him to rejoin you. It's hard to imagine that you didn't have a close relationship with Alex way before even he joined our family.

We couldn't wait to tell all of your grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles that we were having twins. We recorded everyone we told on video and Alex was very good at keeping the secret until after each person had looked at your ultrasound pictures. Alex would then blurt out “two brothers!”. He was so happy that he was indeed getting 2 brothers after all. It was so fun and everyone was so surprised and excited about both of you.

Alex and I watched twin videos on youtube for days. This became his top request and took the usual top spot of angry birds. That's a pretty hard thing to do and you two did it.
Alex was so interested in both of you and couldn't wait to have his brothers be born and come to his house. Alex would randomly cuddle up next to me and pat my stomach and ask me questions about what you both were doing or what you looked like. We'd look at pictures of how you were both developing and growing while I would anxiously look ahead and count down the weeks until you'd possibly be arriving. It amazes me how interested your brother was in you even before you arrived. It almost seems like he knew that his time on earth with you was limited.

Being me, I immediately started planning for you from the moment we saw those 2 heart beats. When I found out that we were having twins, my head started spinning. I didn't know how to do 2 babies at once! I was thinking of strollers and car seats and beds and feeding and diapers and probably at least a hundred other things. You two totally threw me through a loop. The best thing for me was that it felt like a whole different pregnancy. I was so excited to immerse myself in the twin world and learn everything I possibly could to get ready for you.

Being a mom, I of course started thinking about you and how life would be once you both arrived.

Some of my favorite thoughts were imagining you both cuddled up together in bed, Kaitlyn patting each of you on the head, the slew of baby stuff all over the house, nursing both of you, the constant juggling of babies between me and daddy, and all of the laughter you two would share together.
All of the sweet thoughts overcame the crazy ones and I knew that we could do this.

I enjoyed every day knowing that you were both growing inside me and I was another day closer to meeting you. I looked forward to my dr. appointments so that I could see all of your many limbs moving around. Every moment was exciting and miraculous.

That miraculous world only lasted for what felt like seconds before it came shattering down.

You came sooner than anyone wanted you to. It was not at all how we wanted to meet you both.

My body and spirit now feel like there is a giant hole in them where you were. I miss feeling your movements and knowing that you were in there fighting for space with each other. All the dreams I had of you were slammed into the deepest part of my heart so as to avoid the tears that remembering them brings.
It absolutely broke my heart to tell Alex that his brothers were not going to come to live at our house. It hurts that we don't watch twin videos anymore and that he asks about when his baby brothers will be alive again so they can come live with us. I wish that I could tell him that his brothers were still in my tummy and you wouldn't be coming out until August like I did earlier in the week.

I wish with all of my heart that we could just go back in time with a different outcome so that I could have brought both of you home. I wanted you both so so much. I wish that I could have snuggled you up close together and just held you for hours in those precious newborn days full of sleeping and snuggling. I will forever miss everything I dreamed of and having you both here with me and our family.

I will always cherish the precious minutes that I got to spend holding you after you were born and seeing your little hearts beating. Your bodies were so tiny, but absolutely perfect and beautiful. When I looked at you I could see the same traits that both Alex and Kaitlyn have. It was obvious that you are their brothers. I loved your tiny noses and feet. I couldn't get over how cute they were. I was happy to hold and just look at you both all night long. There was nothing else I would have rather done than spend as much time with you as I could. You are my babies.

Isaac and Evan, you will always hold a special place in my heart. It will forever ache with your absence, but will rejoice when I get to hold you in my arms again. I look forward to when those dreams that are in the bottom of my heart can resurface and I can snuggle you up close together, hold you for as long as I want, and watch you grow up together. Until then, I look forward to those precious moments when I can feel your sweet spirits with me. I pray that it's often.
I love and miss you both so much.

Love,

Mama



Today especially, I'm missing moments like these. Missing the moments that I got to hold my boys. Missing that I don't get them under happier circumstances now. My heart aches that I don't get to have them and hold them today. So I look at these pictures and miss the moments I had and the moments I never got to have.

House Projects 1 year later

Remember my post last year about all of the things we've done so far and the LONG list of things yet to do?
I thought you'd like a little update! Plus it makes me feel happy to see that we actually have been making progress on our home.

And so you don't have to go back and forth, here is the DONE list from last year:

• put in a tankless water heater (and thus pulled the old water heater out),
• new furnace and AC (was formerly swamp...so that was a project...)
• painted the bedrooms (and the molding in them) and 2 exterior doors
• totally retextured the walls and painted in the front room
• pulled out the last of the gross carpet that was downstairs
• put in new basement windows
• pulled out old sprinkler pipe, various debris, and HUGE dead trees in the backyard
• took down a ratty old over grown chain link fence from 3 sides of our .46 acre lot
• tore out and poured a new driveway
• pulled out various bushes and creeping jenny that was taking over the fence and trees
• regraded the dirt to slope away from the house in the back
• dug some trenches for future sprinkler pipe
• and added insulation to the attic.

Not bad.

Now onto what else we've finished!

• went tractor crazy on the yard and moved a LOT of dirt to give us a better back yard. We got some Adriondak chairs the other day and plopped them down where we can sit and look at the dirt and plan. It's kind of beach-esque. And I'm sure kind of amusing for everyone that drives by and sees them.
• FINISHED the basement!!! We hired someone to come put all of the molding in, hired someone to paint (umm... no, we didn't want to prep and paint a 3 tone paint job in 1000 sq. ft. of living space), and Jon picked out some fabulous carpet (which only took us about 3 weeks to decide on). 
• And since the basement got finished, we got to UNPACK!!! Yes, that counts as a project. I fully admit there are still boxes down there that haven't found a home (and a lot of it is seasonal stuff anyway), but having a room that you can actually walk into and around in is marvelous.
• Painted the baseboard and door trim in the family room
• Took out a freaking load bearing wall, re-textured the whole hallway, and did a 3 tone paint job. YAY for white doors, ceilings, and trim. So so wonderful.
• Put in a stair railing. This wasn't supposed to happen for like 5 years. But we love it and we love our sectional, so it was nice that I didn't have to wait 5 years and that I got a fabulous couch.
• Pulled out MORE fence along the back of our property and had our property surveyed and learned that we have a little more space than we thought.
• Planted some bushes in the front. Grew weeds everywhere else. 
• Finished the art room and made plans for the future bedroom/bathroom/closet/storage room that will eventually take over that space. 
• Organized my new crafty space and hung the first things on the walls. Still haven't hung any other pictures/decor. Moving and trying to find places for things that were bought specifically for spaces in the old house is hard.

So what's left?

• Kaitlyn's room. I'm itching to get started on that. I have the paint all ready and waiting. I just need to convince Jon that cutting mdf is fun. And really... we need to do that before it gets cold. 

• The yard. Oh the yard. We still need to level it out and get a final grade on it. We need to figure out just what we are doing with the massive elm trees that are riding the property line (next door to a rental). After that is a fence (next door to a rental on a .48 lot...). Then planning out where all the plantings are going to go so that we can plan out the sprinklers. And if we're digging for that, we have to consider landscape lighting. Until then, Alex and Kaitlyn like the dirt. Kaitlyn likes to sit and dump it on her legs which makes Alex freak out that she's getting dirty and putting it all over herself.

•  The storage/bedroom/bathroom downstairs. We'll get around to this when we decide we're tired of not having a bathroom downstairs.

• Hanging pictures and general decorating. It took me 3.5 years in Texas. I have plenty of time to get things right.

• Texturing and painting the kitchen. And doing SOMETHING about my cabinets.

• Taking out the hallway carpet and refinishing the original hardwood. The mismatched carpet which was fine when there was a wall and door separating the 2 was fine. Now it's a little weird. We'll see if I get crazy enough to want to refinish the bedrooms too. (shh... don't tell Jon I said that.)

• Rework the laundry room into a more usable space. Plans right now involve some wall removal, a utility sink, and possibly a shorter counter and bench. I need to use it for another year or so before I figure out the best solution.

• Texture and paint the bathroom. The drywall patching in there is horrible. And not quite sure what the deal was with the primer, but we have major paint bubbles (due to moisture getting under the paint) and paint chipping off. It's pink underneath. Bright 70's bubble gum pink. The built ins will also be painted white and may possibly be reworked. The drawers are old and don't work super well. 

• Eventually figure out how I'm going to have a bigger/more open kitchen and still have a workable front door with an actual foyer area.

• And of course a garage one day. It may start with a single by building in our carport, but eventually we'll have a real 2 (or 3...) car garage again (though it's totally going to have more clearance than our garage in Texas had so we can actually park 2 cars in there and have storage space.)
  
• And the master bath and closet are definitely on the list, but that likely won't come until we're making garage plans, so we may move downstairs into the suite that we are planning for down there before we get to the garage and possibly adding on.

What's funny is that when we moved here we thought that maybe we'd just do a total remodel/addition/total house encasement in 10-15 years and have our dream house, but I'm actually really liking my house and the house that it will be. I wish that there was a better place for my front door and a way for my family room to have large windows to the backyard without totally having to rework everything, but that's okay. I have many many years before I have to decide if I even want a huge remodel/addition/encasement.

1 year later, still writing at 2 am, still loving our house and it's awesome potential.

What we've been doing

Can I just say that it is awesome having a phone that I can upload right to photobucket from? Otherwise, you would never see any pictures on the blog!

I went to my 10 yr. high school reunion. It was at a hotel downtown and it was fun to see people that I haven't seen in 10 years. Since I liked my new outfit, here is a picture of me.

I've been scoring some awesome deals.
I got these carseats for half of their normal price. We got 2 because they were only $25 and hopefully one day we'll have another baby that will be needing a carseat. I can't help thinking that it would have been perfect if we were actually having twins. Sigh.
Anyway, awesome deal and Kaitlyn has already demanded that she have a pink seat, so we've already taken the seat she was riding in out and put in the pink seat. Occasionally it even helps her want to sit in her seat. Getting that girl to sit in the carseat is a battle we have a LOT.

I also found this adorable head and footboard at the thrift store for $35! It has a couple dings in it and no rails etc., but I love it. One of our upstairs bedrooms is big enough for a full and a twin, so eventually when we need kids to share a room, we'll have a cute bed for them. And since it was only $35, I won't feel bad painting it should I decide it needs to be red or blue or something.

Home Goods was good to me and I got these adorable nesting tables and awesome lamp. I told Jon that I want to redo our bedroom for my birthday and Christmas presents. I have a general idea in mind and have been buying things bit by bit when I find something I like.These were too perfect to pass up!

I also found a perfect box to keep all of Isaac and Evan's things in. I love that I have a place for everything, but it also makes me depressed that their short life can fit in a box and that's all I have. The box resides in my crafty closet where I can easily see it and get it out any time I need/want to.

Until I get things hung on the wall, I have their picture up here by my craft area. My sweet grandparents gave us the "Twice Blessed" statue from Hansen Classics, which we love. I love looking up and seeing my sweet baby boys. Oh how I miss them.

In the ongoing slew of projects, we got the art space mostly done. The magnet wall needs a frame and if we have leftover paint we may put some paint on the walls.
Here is Alex loving his creative space. I love that he'll go in there and color randomly throughout the day.

I organized all of the crayons cause I'm cool like that. Alex hasn't really used them too much (he's a marker fan), so I can't tell you how he's doing at keeping them where they belong, but it shouldn't be too hard to keep straight. I also organized the markers by warm and cool colors. Those are a little harder for him, so I plan on putting colored stickers on those containers so he knows what colors go where.

I still have to figure out the best way to store everything. I have to have the markers up where Kaitlyn can't reach them but Alex can. I'm trying to figure out if shelves or a bookshelf would be best for storing everything. This is what happens when Kaitlyn gets into the markers.

And another funny picture of Kaitlyn. She loves making this face.

Here she is just laying downstairs. I just thought it was cute.

And here she is swinging, which is probably her favorite thing ever. She swung for a good 15 minutes the other day at the park. I think we need to hang her swing up from our tree or get our swingset set up!

I was going to post some videos, but they aren't embedding, so I'll have to post them later.

Yard improvement!

Our awesome neighbors donated some boxwoods to us that they were taking out (because the old lady they bought their house from had them EVERYWHERE and in weird places). I finally got the little hedge I was wanting in front of my porch. The bonus is that I don't have to buy tiny plants and wait for them to grow.
We also were able to fill in our front planting area a little more. I think that planting area is going to be shrinking eventually. It's just so big and a little out of scale.

Anyway, we are loving the end result and think that the new bushes look fabulous!

Before:

After:

Other exciting yard news: we had our lot surveyed. We have a bunch of crappy (minus their age/height/shade factor) elms right on our property line. We wanted to see just how much they were on our side or our neighbors side so we can start figuring out a fence. Good news for us is that our existing fence to the side of our driveway is about 2 feet onto our property at least at where the stake is- we still need to string it to get a full line) and it appears that most of the trees are on our side with maybe 1 big one riding the line.
So we may not have any issues with taking them out without the consent of the neighbor (which is actually a rental property). We do need to see if he is okay with putting the fence on the line instead of very much on our side of the line though. Hopefully he'll agree since it will be an improvement to his property (we doubt that he will pay anything for it because most of his lot is just weeds).

The other cool thing with the property line being 2 feet over is that we could actually extend jon's little parking spot over there. That extra 2 feet would make it so that we could probably close in our carport so that we'd have a garage (!!!). As it is, his door opens into the open space in the wall. He wouldn't be able to open his door if there was a wall there, so that 2 feet would give him that space.
Just add that to the list of projects...

Pictures of our stair project

Here is our wall with the first hole in it (thanks dad).

Here's Jon working on getting the wall out. Notice that awkward lovely little bookcase niche thingy there to the left? We discovered (as we suspected) that it was likely an old coat closet. When we knocked out that section there was almost a foot of dead space between the back of the shelves and the upper part of the stair wall on the opposite side. (confused?) Anyway, we are glad to be rid of that. Having the wall space is much nicer  and that thing was just in such a weird place.

Here is the wall down to the studs and the bookcase niche thing knocked out. There was also a sloped ceiling over the stairs that got taken out since it's all going to be open.Notice the header through the studs to the left over where Jon is... that was unnecessarily low, so we raised that as well (which you can kind of see in a future picture. This is showing the low-ness)

Since this was a load bearing wall, we called in my dad's framing guy to come put in some "kickers" to redistribute the weight to the two walls on either side of where the load bearing wall was. This was so that we didn't have to have a beam and column.
Here's a picture with the wall taken down.

Next up was drywall. After we bought our house we (or maybe my dad...) began to notice that the people who were working on the house did a horrible drywall job. It appeared that they would make patches and then didn't even sand them and then used a brush instead of a roller to paint them. The result is weird little spots with brush lines on them. Not really a big deal, but something that we wanted to remedy eventually by texturing. Since we were already going to be doing some sheetrock and drywall and paint, we decided that now was as good of a time as any to texture the hall Notice the higher header in this picture to the left of the stairs/wall with the spots on it. Much better!

 And since we were now texturing the hall and thus painting, we may as well paint all of the trim and the ceiling white.
Here is a before picture of the hall (after we painted the doors white). You can see that the trim is all the same color as the walls. This was one of the things I hated about this house, so I was really excited for white trim.
Also notice the low header in the upper foreground.

We used the same color of paint that we used in the basement. It's a very gray color, but it looks yellow in our hallway which doesn't get any natural light. I like that it's lighter than the yellowy color the previous owners who did the remodel used. We also put in some can lights and added a switch by our bedroom door. Those cans are actually on 4 switches, which is kind of fun.And awesome.

Now I just need to get the railing figured out. Yes, we've been without a railing for over a month.Yes, it's a little stressful at times, but luckily both Alex and Kaitlyn are pretty good about it.

Unknown

Since it has been so long since I last posted anything about Isaac and Evan, I figured I should fill in a few details about what happened.

A few weeks ago we got the pathology report back on the placenta. My OB had suspected that there was an infection in the placenta which caused me to go into labor. When I delivered Isaac and Evan he said that the fluids looked dark/greenish and then I also had a fever after delivery.All of these things went along with the infection theory, so that's what we took it as.

Of course it was hard, but the thing that was comforting about an infection was that it was asymptomatic and there was no way for me to know that I had it.

I had come to peace with that. There was no way to know and nothing that could have been done.

I got thrown through a loop when the report showed that there was no infection. My OB has no idea what went wrong.

At this point (and I haven't met with a specialist to review the ultrasounds and discuss it further yet), I largely suspect that I went into preterm labor because of a subchorionic hemorrhage/hematoma. And I was in the 1-3% that ended up losing a pregnancy because of it.

At about 14 weeks I had a large gush of blood after walking around a trade show  for 4 hours. I was seeing a midwife at this point and I had just heard a heartbeat the same day. I came in on Monday and we checked for a  heartbeat and it was there and steady. I was told to take it easy- just do normal daily activities- and that it may be a subchorionic hemorrage, but it usually isn't a problem at all. I pretty much put myself on bedrest for about a week and only had a little brown spotting, so I thought I was okay to pick up a little more activity. We went furniture shopping and I did a bit of walking and lots of sitting. I thought I would be okay because it wasn't going to be that much walking. I still ended up tired by the end .
The next day I had a little more fresh blood, so I went back to taking it easy(ier). I didn't have any bleeding except maybe occasion spotting. 2.5 weeks later I went grocery shopping for 3 hours and lifted a couple cases and then had more bleeding. It was all dark brown that time and there wasn't a lot of it. I wasn't terribly concerned since it seemed to be old blood just trickling out. I had a midwife appointment a few days later and they didn't seem concerned about it and we decided to get an ultrasound in the next week or 2 and check things out at that point.
I wish I would have set up an ultrasound days later, but I put it off and didn't have it until 2 weeks later. At that point I had been spotting for over 2weeks.
At the ultrasound they of course found that there were 2 babies and they also see the blood. Since I was having twins I transferred care to my OB, but as it was the weekend I wouldn't have an appointment until at least Monday.
2 days later (on Sunday the 24th) I passed 2 mid sized clots, so I went in to the hospital. They found the heartbeats and said that everything seemed to be fine and to take it easy until I could get in to see my OB and have them do an ultrasound to see what was going on... preferably on Monday. I called and got an appointment the same day with the CNM there who grabbed the OB to come in and do an ultrasound. He did a quick look around and saw a hematoma. It wasn't behind/touching the placenta at all and he said it was totally fine. It's essentially like a blister full of blood and it can pop, which is probably what all of the bleeding initially came from. Then there's just been blood sitting and pooling and slowly draining out which is all the dark brown spotting and then of course clots that is old blood that has been sitting and clotting. He wasn't concerned and said that everything looked good.
We set up an ultrasound appointment a month down the road and we were good to go.
On the 26th I got a larger clot than I had before. My OB had brushed off the clots and said that I may have more, so it didn't concern me TOO much.
On the 27th I called to have my OB refer me to a MFM since my boys were mono-di (shared a placenta, but were in separate sacks) and I wanted to be sure they were closely monitored for twin to twin transfusion (where there is unequal sharing of the blood supply). We got that all set up for Monday the 2nd.
The night of the 27th I started having contractions as we were packing up our sit n' stand stroller to return since we bought it before we knew we were having twins and it needed to be back by the 30th. I thought I was having some braxton hicks and so I drank some water and went to bed. I woke up at 4 am to more
intense contractions, so we called my mom and dad to come watch the kids and we went over to the hospital. At this point I was thinking oh sure they'll give me something to stop the labor and hopefully figure out the problem and everything will be fine.Looking back, I wish I would have been more proactive/persistent in telling them that I had been bleeding and I had a subchorionic hemorrhage/hematoma. I wish they would have immediately given me IV fluids to see if that would have calmed my uterus if it was just being irritated by the blood. (I didn't get an IV or any oral fluids while at the hospital until I was getting set up for an epidural).
They gave me a terbutaline shot and it stopped the contractions for a bit and then they came back. After a 2nd shot, the contractions just slowed but never really stopped. 

At that point they sent me home and drink a lot of water and told me to come back if the contractions got more intense. I also kind of knew at that point that the contractions would not stop since they came back before. Adding to this was my OBs reluctance to do anything because of research showing that tocalyictics don't do much. I hoped and hoped, but knew that if  the terbutaline didn't work I would be left without any other options because of my dr.'s hesitance that anything would even work. I was also at that magical 19 weeks and 6 days gestational age where you're not to the point where any hospitals will really try to stop labor. 20 weeks, yes. Anything less, no. The funny thing is that if I didn't know so much about my cycles, my due date would have been a day earlier. I would have been 20 weeks in their book.. I told Jon at one point that we should go to a bigger hospital if these guys couldn't get things figured out (and I could tell them that my due date was September 15th instead of the 16th) but it was just easier to go back to where they had already seen me.
At home I laid in bed and drank what I thought was a lot of water (though maybe it wasn't enough to totally calm things down). I took a little nap, but a few hours later the contractions had gotten stronger, so I went back in. They did more terbutaline but it didn't really do anything. They did a transvaginal ultrasound to check my cervix. The tech said that my cervix was still long and thick. I was maybe dilated to a 2, but closer to a 1 at that point. So even though I had been having contractions for over 6 hours at this point without them doing much to my cervix, they kind of considered me a lost cause at that point.

My OB came in and said that they didn't know why I was having contractions. He had consulted with a MFM who said absolutely no magnesium before 22 weeks and even then it only holds off labor for who knows how long. They gave me some loratab to help with the pain along with a drug that would help calm the uterus down if it was being irritated... and said I could go home since they couldn't do anything else and the contractions didn't appear to be dialating me (there had been no change even with all the contractions I was having). I was both angry and sad that nothing else could be done and that I was being sent home with killer contractions that even loratab wasn't doing anything for every 2 minutes and there was nothing I could do about them.

After that news, I tried to muster up the energy to get out of bed and dressed between my contractions and couldn't ever do it because they got much longer and more painful. They gave the loratab an hour to work and then checked me and I was dilating at that point. Delivery was inevitable. I knew I could have my boys naturally, but they advised an epidural since in preterm labor/late miscarriage cases the placenta doesn't release. I got my epidural in and working probably 5 minutes before Isaac and Evan were born.

Isaac and Evan were born 2 minutes apart at 4:58 and 5:00 pm after 13 hours of contractions (not including the initial ones I felt before going to bed). They had many of the same features that Alex and Kaitlyn have and were fully formed and perfect. Just too tiny to live. We adored them from the second we saw them.

I still remember the look of horror/pity/sadness on the nurse's faces standing at the end of the bed. I can only imagine what I looked like to them. Instead of having a baby to happily distract me from the usual stitching for me, I held my two tiny fragile sons in the palms of my hands while sobbing and getting much more than stitches to get the placenta out.
I will probably always consider that day- that moment- to be the worst day/moment of my life.Nothing can prepare you for such an experience.
I am so thankful that we got to hold our sons and spend as much time with them as we wanted, but we were still saying goodbye to something we did not want to say goodbye to. Something that no one would want to say goodbye to.Those hours that we held our sons and tried to memorize them before we didn't have them anymore will end up being mere seconds of our lifetime. Those memories will fade with nothing new to replace them. 

I don't know how anyone could hear that story and not wishing that something more/different could have been done. It seems like there were so many opportunities to do something more/different, so I can't help but wonder if one of those somethings would have been something that would have kept Isaac and Evan cooking for even just a few weeks longer. Just long enough until something more could have been done.

Sigh. Maybe I'll understand it or at least accept it one day. It's just so hard.

Words that changed my life

                 "You guys.... 

                                Do you see that?

                                           That's two heartbeats. 

             

                           You're having twins!"

 

Longing and aching

I think the hardest part of losing Isaac and Evan is the longing and aching I have for them. There is nothing I want more right now than to be looking forward to holding my babies. I try not to imagine how life would have been like with having two newborn babies to hold because it hurts too much. That is something that I will now never get to experience. If I just imagine one, just long for one baby to hold, somehow when I finally get that one baby I won't feel like I'm missing quite as much.
It hurts that I was so ready for a baby and who knows when that will happen now. And even when it does happen I still have to wait 9 long months before I have a baby in my arms. And even then, it's not a guarantee.

So my daily thoughts pretty much run in a little circle that goes something like this: I just want twins. I just want to have them right now when I should have been having them. If only it had been 2 weeks later, something more could have been done. If I had gone to a different hospital, something more could have been done. If I would have done more bedrest or drank more water perhaps I would have had a better outcome. If I would have looked more into a subchorionic hemmorage and taken it more seriously, maybe things would have gone differently. If I had just gotten an ultrasound earlier I would have known about the subchorionic hemorrhage earlier and been able to research it more and been more proactive.I also would have been under the care of a high risk ob sooner. If it would have been 4 weeks later, Isaac and Evan may have lived.
I just want to go back and do it over. I want things to be different. SOMEHOW it could have had a happy ending and I wouldn't have ever had to know this terrible place I now know.

I know that it's unnecessary torture. But that doesn't mean my brain and heart have stopped doing it.
Every day is very surreal. At moments it's hard to remember that I was pregnant and other moments it's hard to remember that I'm not pregnant. I feel this desperation to try to fix things and put them back how they were, but feel the enormous weight of the reality that that will never happen. I will never get a redo of having twins again as an attempt to put things back to as close as what they were as possible.

So even though I may look okay on the outside, I still have so much going on in the inside. Crying is still a almost daily part of my life and just doing stuff is hard. I didn't want to be doing any of this stuff without being pregnant with twins. The thought of never having the opportunity to have twins again is the kicker that does me in every time. I don't know how I will ever get past that hurt.

A Heartbeat Away

Dreams

seem so far away

and other times

just right around the corner

and I know you're gone

but I'm amazed how close you feel

and we all hold on

the love we have is real

I close my eyes

and feel you near

in every dream

in every tear

in every memory

that doesn't fade away

and it feels like forever 





























is just a heartbeat away

mini tour of the basement + my cute plate decor in the kitchen

*this was supposed to be posted on the 21st, but it didn't ever post, so here it is now. Pretend like it's the 21st. :) *

We should call my mom The Closer. She's been great this last week at getting some of my unfinished projects done. At the rate we're going, she's going to be wanting to build the toy storage for the toy room next week.

Here is the view of my L shaped living area downstairs. Sectional in the family room, stairs, cutting table to the right by my crafting area on the left.

We hung up the pictures I'm in love with. I love how bright and happy they make my dark (see the size of those windows! At least there are windows though- some houses we looked at didn't have windows in the basement family room at all) basement feel.
If you have any cheap ideas on how to block off that nice 8'10" opening to my craft room to keep Kaitlyn out, I'd love to hear them!

Closer view. It may not be the final configuration of everything in the bookcase, but it's looking pretty good. I love my color coded fabric all stacked up on the lower right. You can only see the red/pink, but there is another section below that and to the left. It's happy.

Here is a view of the very empty closet. Guess I need more fabric and stuff, right?

To the left of the crafty space is the door to a bedroom, which we are using as the office/exercise space and then a little hallway that goes to the toy room. There is an under the stairs space that we have the little play kitchen in right before you go in the door to the playroom.

Back over by the sectional, to the side of the stairs is a doorway into what will be the kid's art area. It has just concrete floors and unpainted walls, which will be wonderful for all the art messes that will be happening in there. At the back end of that little space is a doorway to the left into the utility area and a doorway to the right into the storage room.

So that's my basement! It is marvelous. The carpet is marvelous. (sigh... I'm trying not to remember reveling in the marvelous-ness "before" with my pregnant belly). We have a few more minor (minus getting the rest of the sectional down there) projects, but I love that we've doubled our square footage and cleared out our storage room so I can find and use things again!


Next up- kitchen!


Hanging these plates was fun. I discovered that foam mounting tape would not hold plates after two of them fell down. It all worked out though since the new combination of plates above the microwave works better and the one that fell down is now being used in the corner of the counter top by the canisters. The canisters hide the two chipped corners from it's fall.

Having those up make me like my kitchen so much more. Ew. Minus that pendant light over the sink. I think that's going to be gone VERY soon.
And I still don't love the cabinet color and plan on painting the cabinets white and possibly putting in a new backsplash eventually. Ha- and knocking out what would be the last section of our load bearing wall that would be left by that time (thanks to the stair railing project) and putting in an island.
Seriously, the house projects never end. Hopefully the end result is a house that we love for the rest of our lives though!