Heading towards the holidays

As we get closer to the holidays I find myself really thinking about last year. Much like I dealt with the death of my father, I find that some of the emotions that I had about this time last year are actually coming out of me this year because in some ways I'm reliving what I couldn't face at the time. The difference between this and the death of my father was that this had a happy outcome.

By "this" I guess I mean my pregnancy. I didn't expect to have the pregnancy that I ended up having...I thought I was going to be miss-fit-pregnancy, not miss-bedrest-pregnancy. I have a hard time remembering any thoughts of "what will they be like" during the pregnancy because most of my time was spent wondering "would they even BE?" 24-28 weeks was the worst because I knew they could survive but they could have major problems/complications. Anyway, I don't think I can explain myself very well other than to say that lately when I go out on a run I burst into tears midway through the run--I think I'm both overjoyed by my life and allowing myself to remember a little of the fear that gripped me for so many months.

About the only thing that makes me sad is that so much of the girls first months of life are a blur. I think I was truly in shock. Some of my most distinct memories are very odd...I remember bringing colostrum to the NICU about the third night I was there, and hobbling in to find Dylan naked and laying on a very cold scale. A very petite nurse was weighing her, and I remember thinking how odd it was that this thing, my baby, this scrawny little thing who previously was with me 100% of the time, was doing things I didn't even know about... Sometimes I wonder if we lost a lot of bonding during those weeks in the NICU (and for this reason I loathe Dr. Sears because he basically makes preemie moms, and twin moms, feel as if they are never going to bond with their babies). But I have no right to complain about anything because I could not be more lucky today.

So why is this all coming out of me now? Well like I said, mainly because it was about a year ago that things got dicey. But I think it is also because I have been reading a fellow NICU mom's blog again lately. One of her amniotic sacs broke during her amnio, and she spent 10 weeks on bedrest before she went into labor at 26+ weeks. She delivered two beautiful daughters but only one of them survived. The surviving twin has a lot of complications, one of the main one being that she vomits all the time. My friend Mackenzie read her blog after I told her about it, and in an amazing gesture she offered to donate breast milk (the mother had stopped pumping before realizing that breastmilk was the best thing for her daughter). Mackenzie really started the donation trend, and recently I was able to give some of my own milk. (It feels like the end of an era because I now have freezer shelves filled with something other than frozen breastmilk). Anyway, I have been reading her blog and so much of what she experienced I did as well (willing your body to keep your babies in, being frightened, not excited, to be wheeled in for delivery, being wheeled into the NICU to see your babies in the isolettes) and yet our outcomes are so different. I read her blog because I want to keep up on how her daughter is doing, but I also read it because she is the strongest, most amazing mother I have ever seen and I can only hope to be half as good. I only wish that she didn't have to be a role model to the rest of us. This is her story if you'd like to read it.

I have been asked to join her preemie mom's group here in Marin and I have mixed feelings. I feel guilty because in general my babies are fine, and our "followup" is minimal compared to hers and several of the other mothers. At the same time, I know that I "get it" more than most mothers will... I know how often people say things that are insensitive to me, and so I can only imagine what some of these other women have to put up with... So I think I'm going to go, if only because I can understand 1/100th of what these women are going through.

I know, I'm rambling and I'll stop. I just spend so much of my time in awe of these two little things rolling around my house, and I can't imagine having gone through such hell only to suffer even more later. I promise not to go on and on about my pregnancy anymore, but I have been thinking about these things a lot lately and I just had to get them out.