10 months! ah!

These angels are doing great! Evangeline is pretty much caught up developmentally as a 10 month old (aside from size), and so we have graduated from needing developmental therapy! I am so very proud of her! I really think it was Audrey who really pushed her along and encouraged her. We couldn't be happier. Thank you Jesus.

we go together like peas and carrots

mohawk monkeys

zero cost baby toys

Yay! My blog is taking a turn from family medical complications to family fun! Here is what we have been up to..

my babies are all about "new" right now. if they have seen it before, it's trash, and if the other one has it, it's tears. I threw together a little "treasure" chest for them to dig through and they love it! once a day or so I put a new item or 2 in it and they love finding it!

Here are some things from around my house, mostly in my "misc" kitchen drawer and my husband's top dresser drawer. Didn't you always wonder why you kept your blockbuster card and phone from 2009?! (the BB card is their fav!) I tried to do some different textures, colors, and weights.
 I made sure to clean everything first, and that there was nothing that they could choke on, or once contained a harmful substance.. then, I put it in an empty wipes container.

O the excitement!

I also stitched together about 8 patches of felt at the corners, and the girls love pulling the colors out of the top of the wipes container as well!

The girls also love this rattle! I just put some felt, pearls, and sequins in a mini plastic bottle.  you could dried beans, rice, seeds or whatever you have around the house too! I super glued the top, just in case..

I sometimes forget to think outside the "target toys" box, so I hope this helps your budget and baby boredom! 

9 months

This week we celebrated 9 months, and the 1 year anniversary of our fetal surgery. We are so very thankful to God to be doing great, and to have all that YUCK behind us! Im so glad to have all the surgeries and hospital stays behind us, that is so 2012 ;)!

We celebrated our life saving surgery with prayer, cake, adult beverages, and a dance partttty!

This is Audrey's foot when she was 19 weeks gestation and 9 months old! They took these photos from within the amniotic sac during surgery.

this is the teeny tiny scar that changed my whole world!

8 months

We turned 8 months on Christmas Eve!...& then at 3am we went to the ER with RSV- it was pretty miserable but we're doing great now:). Hope your holiday was better than ours!

Winter update

I am doing fantastic! I feel like a normal person, like myself. Recently, I have enjoyed sleeping through the night :D, cooking dinner for friends, making peppermint marshmallows, neighborhood runs, wearing red lipstick & heels, wine nights with girlfriends, taking the girls to see Christmas lights, & caring for OTHER people! After about a year hiatus (because I was so sick/tired/bedrest through my pregnancy), I have finally settled into a doable weekly cooking & cleaning routine, and that feels amazing. I feel like I can do my life & then some :).

Audrey is so fun. Everyday is a new skill. She is close to crawling, & is always on the move! She loves to giggle, loves her daddy, & loves bananas and sweet potatoes.

Evangeline is precious. She loves people & loves to smile. She squeals with delight when she gets excited. Her favorite is to watch momma dance :). She looooves her sister, loves touching her, loves watching her; Audrey doesn't take much notice of her though, it's cute. Developmentally she is behind, far behind Audrey. It's really become apparent in the last 6 weeks. We are working on rolling and sitting everyday, but she just doesn't have the strength at this point, which was my fear. It's all relative, right? I'm just so thankful everyday that she is alive, and while I'm disappointed that all her complications really are effecting her development, it doesn't bother me too much. I figure she will develop skills slower, but eventually get there, and if she doesn't, we will love her just the same. We have a developmental therapist coming to work with her every month, and I work with her on skills everyday. She is still eating well and happy as a clam. She is growing slowly, and I have accepted that she will probably never, "take off", as her doctors told me she would. Her body can't take on too much too fast, and so she will likely never grow like Audrey's body can grow, but that is what is GOOD for Evangeline :). It's hard for me for my identical twins to be so different, because I know it's because of that damn TTTS. At the end of the day, I rest in the sovereignty of a good, loving & personal God

...(which I am just realizing may sound confusing/idiotic in light of the recent tragedy which is on all of our minds, and I wrestle with it too but would be honored to talk more about that elsewhere if you're interested in theology).

 Happy Holidays!

7 months

Daddy says, " they look nothing like you, but I think they get this look from you" :/

beginning the road to recovery

 Yes- I love my girls, yes- I'm thankful, yes- it has been the most dread-filled and dark year of my life. Recovery from the trauma of one's story is the most important/ significant part of the whole thing. It is important to me to post my complete and true story so that my other ttts/nicu mom readers can feel less alone/ crazy in their journeys to recovery.

 I have been treading water/drowned for the past 6 months, and feel like I can just now, maybe, come up for air and begin to do some much needed self-care. I have been functioning out of trauma for too long, and am so thankful to finally have some of the mental/emotional/physical space to begin to face it. It was an UGLY summer, I mean you're lucky I never left the house ;). I have been angry, QUITE angry about it all; hypervigiliant, hyper controlling, hyper anxious, crazy, mean, hopeless, helpless, lonely, terrified, confused, and never so stripped of coping skills- depressed & traumatized. I have never seen myself pushed so far, so hard- it scared me. The sadness is coming...it is always under the anger. It is much easier to function with anger than sadness though, and man have I had to be high-functioning, no time to collapse in tears!  It is time now to grieve, engage, reflect, and accept my pregnancy story. It will impact me the rest of my life, most tangibly in my and Ryan's decision about a future pregnancy.

As a trained counselor, I believe that grief/feeling is my road to freedom, primarily feeling the loss and sadness in order to move toward acceptance. Aside from counseling, and journaling, I think returning to the hospital is an important piece of my healing. It puts a knot in my stomach to think about entering those sliding doors. I spent every day for 3 months at Baylor All Saints (ante-partum and nicu), so it is the most tangible symbol of my pain/trauma. When I think about the room, the window I stared out of, the chair I sat in, the smells, the sweet nurses, the halls I paced, the popcorn machine downstairs, the garden I walked in, my daily tv shows, going to bed alone, the sounds of the monitors, I tremble in fear and feel literally sick. If I can go back "in the light of day", I think it will become less scary for me.

Looking at pictures is another point of avoidance for me. There are pictures of Evangeline especially that I cannot look at for more than 2 seconds. I think spending some time with the pictures and allowing myself to feel what comes up when I see them will be an important piece of moving toward acceptance as well.

This is right after my c section, I hate that I had such minimal contact. Their skin was underdeveloped and so it is actually painful for them to be touched.

Growth restricted babies have that freaky alien look because all the blood goes to grow the brain before the rest of the body, it really scared me. 

I remember thinking her head was the size of a small apple, I was worried I would break her if i sneezed.

I think she had 5 needles in her when she was sick with NEC, I wasn't sure she would survive.

I thought she looked dead sometimes and had nightmares about it often

God comforts the broken-hearted. In order to survive, I have not been broken-hearted but angry and demanding toward Him. An angry and demanding person doesn't leave much room for dependence on God, and so we have been quite distant. In my humanity, it has been very difficult for me to believe that God is present and loving, and see his grace toward me. He always gives us a choice to chose Him or not, and I have chosen, not. Thankfully, His commitment to me is not based on anything I do or don't do (but is based on Jesus), and so He has not left me, and has still been merciful and patient. As I am thawing and moving closer to a place of broken-heartedness/ sadness, I hope to move closer to Him and desire Him more.

I would love to be able to use my experience "give back" and care for other nicu moms in some capacity- maybe lead a support group.

I hope this post encourages other nicu/ttts mom to engage in their stories and move toward healing. It does take take time & energy, but it is worth the freedom from depression & trauma. I also hope it helps other mom to feel less alone in their struggles.

Thank you for letting me share with you!