Life: An Update

Life with twins, a teenager, and a college boy is a heckuva lot busier than I anticipated. So finding time for myself and for writing hasn't been my main priorities. Making sure everyone else is straight has been more important. In addition, I've started working in Direct Sales this summer as an Independent Consultant for Jamberry. It's a growing business for me and I'll enjoy that. I'll save that for another post. What I want to talk about in this post is how important it is to live a full life.

A couple of weeks ago, my second son
was only days from damaging a major artery and bleeding to death (this I'm not going to explain). Then last week I was just a day away from a really messy situation with my appendix. According to the surgeon, I had come to the emergency in time to keep the surgery a clean and simple operation.

I'd been living a life of servitude since returning to work after my maternity leave. I've been a slave to my paychecks, checks that were never enough to cover the financial hurt caused by having to go on unpaid bed rest then maternity leave. I don't understand a system that gives a mother 12 weeks maternity leave but provides only 8 weeks disability pay at 60% of the average income. Mind you, the disability only begins AFTER 30 days of not being at work. So I faced an eviction this February, had been served a 24 hour notice. I begged the courts to stop it on a technicality but I still had all. that. money. to pay in rent-- over $6000. That's where my paychecks and tax refund went.

But, still I owed another $1000 so every month I had to pay another $275 OVER the rent. Which

meant, of course, everything else took a back seat. My car payment fell further and further behind. Every month I had a final notice for my electricity. I lost the cable and internet in my house. My mother was a godsend because she watched my children for free while I was at work. Daycare alone was $1000 for two a month. On a teacher's salary, it became IMPOSSIBLE to take care of my family with a quality of life that wasn't constantly threatened. And so I lived with this cloud of stress. I lived a life that wasn't living.

And last week I was this close to maybe not living at all. When I was younger, my dreams of now were waaaaaay different than what I'm living. Never did I imagine being in so much debt, being so dissatisfied with life, being so far away from my dreams, dreams that I still have. But over the course of life, I've gotten so used to not reaching, to just going with the flow, I don't really now how to begin putting those dreams back on track. Oh I desire it, sure. But talk is talk. I've got to DO. See I've come to realize in that hospital that IF I had died I wouldn't have left behind a legacy I'm proud of.

I've spent my life wrapped in a bubble of hurt and fear that I'm just as guilty

of being my own dream killer as others who have diverted/delayed my plans. I don't want a life of working to a paycheck. I want a purposeful and passionate life, one that affords me the ability to feed my family while feeding my soul. And that begins with me. I've got to DO. I've got to LIVE. I've got to BREAK out of my shell, FLY out of my comfort zone. And that's. so. scary.

Gemini's Twins

 Yes, it's true. 

That word on that stick is the whole truth. Well, not the whole truth because not only am I pregnant (oh goodness!), I'm pregnant with twins (pass me the shotgun). 

I feel too old to be pregnant. Now, I know 33 is nowhere near old but you have to understand that I've been doing this mommy thing for the last 17 years; I got started about 10 years ahead of schedule. So while I am technically a 33-year-old mom; I feel more like a 43-year-old mom. I'm exhausted. And for the last four weeks I've been wrestling with what I'm going to do. 

Yes, for the last four weeks, I've considered an abortion, strongly considered an abortion. Was 98% sure that was the route I was going to take. I made that doctor's appointment with the hope that the choice would be taken out of my hands-- that there would have been a case for termination that would have sat at ease with my conscience. But, while sitting in that doctor's chair, greatly unenthused with the thought of becoming a mother the third time, I made the decision that I was going to abort no matter what was on that ultrasound monitor. 

And then I saw two bubbles. I hoped I didn't see two. The doctor moved the ultrasound wand around in grave silence and a flutter of hope entered my chest. Maybe something was wrong. I mentally prepared what I was going to say to the doctor, that this was ok, this was how it was meant to be-- a wakeup call to take better care of myself. 

Finally the doctor spoke after clearing his throat. He said the machine was too grainy for him to be clear about what's going on. I told him that I thought I might have an ectopic because I had no real pregnancy symptoms other than fatigue and a missing period. He said, no, definitely not ectopic. He said, I'm just going to go ahead and tell you what I see; I see two. I said that I saw the same thing and asked if the bubbles were empty. I mean, they looked empty, really empty. Just two bubbles. 

But he said, no there's definitely something in each. And he zoomed in to each bubble and I could see the beginnings of a baby in them both. Then he zoomed further in each one and the heartbeats patterned in peaks and plateaus across the bottom of the screen. I just stared, hope replaced by resignation. I mean, I had my mind made up to terminate the one but it just wouldn't be fair to abort two. I don't know why that changed things but it did.

And now I'm in freakout mode and it keeps hitting me that I'm starting over. I was four years away from having struggled to raise two kids to adulthood and here I am starting all the way over times two.

God help me.

QoMV

Seeing Double

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my goddaughter finding out she was pregnant and posted a picture of the tests.

Well, today, she called me from the doctor where she got an ultrasound done. Turns out that I was right; she wasn't six weeks like her LMP suggested because her periods were abnormal-- she was 3 weeks. Aaaaaaaand, turns out I was right about something else...she's expecting TWINS. So, as of today, she's 5 weeks with 2 in the belly. :D

Her symptoms (crying for no reason, crabby/moody w/ bf, sore bbs, fatigue) came REALLY early, within days, I suppose, of getting pregnant. She didn't have implantation bleeding until three days before she took the test and she was still getting pink on the toilet paper when she wiped as of this Monday. Also, her stomach had already pudged out by the time I got to see her on the 4th of July, which would have been when she was 3 weeks.

They say that twins make you grow faster.

I'm so excited. Praying for some really sticky babies.