How Maximum Fitness is helping save my life

(Insert cheesy infomercial music here.)

This week, I hit my first major goal. 30lbs lost, the amount I gained during the twins pregnancy. I lost the final 3lbs over Thanksgiving week, and that was thanks not to the stomach virus that my children spread through my family, but due to good old fashioned work. I smiled so big when I saw that number on the scale. I knew my hard work had been paying off. I could tell it in my clothes, feel it in my body, but damn it feels good to see it in the numbers!

When you're in a zone, you're in a zone and I'm there. Finally. This has not been an easy process, but everyone knows nothing worth the trouble is ever obtained easily. I'm finding my stride again after so long on the injured reserve list. I always knew I'd be back. I plotted and dreamed and prayed for this day so many times. The vision of what I would be one day kept me going through 2 back to back pregnancies one of which included 3 months of bed rest. Do you know what its like to be confined to a bed for months at a time with only your mind as company? It can be a lonely, lonely place. Not to mention the physical toll on my body.

Imagine all you've done over the past three months. How many times you went to work, the store, a friend's house, walked to your car, ran errands. Then imagine me, during all that time, JUST LAYING THERE. Thinking. Wondering. Wishing. Dreaming. Plotting. Planning.

After Bryce was born, I had just joined a Biggest Loser program at the gym complete with Saturday morning Boot Camp to lose the 50lbs I gained with him. Then BAM! You're pregnant again, oh and its twins. Surprisingly I spent less time on actual bed rest this time around, but lets just say the muscles in my body didn't see much action for another nine months.

So by the time they were 3 months old and I got the all clear to exercise, I was beyond ready. I'll never forget my first day of Bootcamp at MaxFit. I walked in with with a crew of size nothings who were there to work on their 'gut' and I felt lower than I had in years. I wasn't that sexy, confidant person I was two short years before twirling around in tight dresses and heels. I felt sentenced to a life in pajamas covered in spit up and raggedy maternity clothes. I had sworn to myself I would never be back in that kind of condition and there I was. The excuse I just gave birth to twins was just that to me, an excuse.

I lingered to the back of the group, if there had been a corner I could go hide in I would have. They chatted with the instructor, all blond hair and muscle bound tanned skin. I wanted to be ignored. I wanted to be invisible, do my workout and go unnoticed. I was embarrassed and ashamed at who I was at that moment, an overweight mother of three trying to get some dignity and health back.

He took off his bootcamp shades and made me meet his eyes for an introduction. He held out his hand and made me shake it and refused to let me slip into the abyss of self loathing. I'm sure he was just doing what he does with every client, but that simple handshake, split second of eye contact, changed my life.

By the time the second class was over, I was feeling more confident. I noticed their sign by the road boasted someone lost 6lbs in one week at bootcamp. I felt ballsy that day and asserted myself to ask if I lost more than 6lbs in a week if my name could be on the sign. I lost 8 and there was my declaration a week later for all to see. I started getting phone calls from my friends who saw my name. I started smiling more. I started to believe again.

I fell hard for my new routine, just an hour of me time, meditating with my eyes closed, sweat drenched days in the sun saving me from my mind's take on reality. Every once in a while when I needed a little mental boost to get me through a physical task out of my league, I would let the thoughts creep in about another upcoming MRI for my baby boy's bone infection in his spine. Something that usually made me shiver suddenly made me GO. Fight. Push harder.

In the heat of an exercise if I thought about how hard what I was doing was, that I couldn't do it, I thought of my Uncle Gary, dying in his bed at home. I hated cancer and infections and kidney abnormalities and bed rest. I kicked, punched, flailed around beating the crap out of what hurt, stomped what I was scared of right into the ground.

It almost sent me backwards into a mini-depression when I got injured. I was on such a roll, damn that King's Island trip. (See my August 9th entry... EMBARRASSING!) But I fought my way back, took a month to heal and went way easy on myself when I came back to Noon Bootcamp with a new instuctor who motivated me differently. I am in another new era of my success story and it may be corny and belong in an infomercial promoting the best 'anti-gym' around, but thank you Maximum Fitness for helping me fight to get my life back better than it ever was before, helping me change, grow, be happy.

I am serious when I say they are saving my life, an outstretched hand pulling me from my pain. Thank you will never be enough.

I like to reminisce.

The past two Halloween's I've been pregnant. That's an interesting record to hold and one I do not ever plan on repeating. On Halloween 2008, my husband made me get up off bedrest and parade around the property taking artsy preggo pics. I am thankful for them now, but cried at the horror of my swollen body of film. I chalk it up to horomones now, because they are beautiful pictures and I love them.


It was a day of celebration really, a day of disbelief. Making it still pregnant to Halloween meant my baby was going to be born in November, closer to his originally planned due date than I ever really though he was going to make it. When my troubel began the first week in August, I rememeber the numbing reality of neonatal doctors telling me all the horrible things that could happen if he were born at 26 weeks. I remember praying, pleading for him to make it just to September. Please be born in September.

Then September came and went, and when the calendar rolled over into October I felt more confidant and just knew he was going to be born in October. It was going to be perfect, he would be born towards the end of the month near Angie Day and I would no longer have a reason to get depressed and hate the month of October.

All of a sudden, it was Halloween and I was so proud of him for holding out and making it that long.



Last year I spent another Halloween pregnant, freaking out at a crowded Trunk or Treat and leaving early, not having the stamina to stand around in line for hours. I was sad and felt like I was depriving my son, who couldn't even eat candy at the time. He didn't miss a thing, and more than made up for it this year!

I also went to a friend's costume party in one of those thrown together sluty outfits you can obnly get away with in public on Halloween and Mardi Gras mask. I've never worn a mask before and it was fun! I felt incognito all nigth long. When I arrived at the party I didn't even agknowledge my friends and no one knew it was me immediatly. I think there was even a guy trying to hit on me while in line for my water and I was so tempted to say, "I don't look three months pregnant with twins do I?" just to see how fast I could scare him away!



What I will remember most about last year brings a tear to my eye and smile to my face. We took Bryce over to my Uncle Garry's on our way home. He was waiting in the living room for his boys. Bryce love those cows out at our property as much as he did and what a kick he got out of him dressed up as one. They mooed together and we took pictures and it makes me sad he wasn't here this year to see all the kids and most importantly, the three Cox Witches!

I sang, "I tip my 40 to your memory....." tonight every time I poured out a full coke bottle somebody paid money for and left sitting behind, and smiled.

October 24, 2009, our last night of doing the Fern Creek High School football cleanup. Thirteen years later, I never imagined myself back here like this, picking up nasty nacho containers and cussing at people who throw their mustard packets and Starburst wrappers on the ground. Its a dirty job, but there's good money in doing the crap other people don't want to do.

I liked being there, reminiscing and remembering under a clear sky on a cool night, not unlike the one that changed my life forever. Homecoming week 1996, sophomore year, the bonfire, us laughing and dancing, saying goodbye, watching you walk, bound towards the car. Dead minutes later. Only 15 years old, you've been gone twelve times longer than I knew you, but it doesn't matter, you've been along with me the entire time.

I smile when I think about how much you loved Fern Creek. I think about what I want to write when I get home, happy thoughts and feelings stir. The wind blows harder and a spray of confetti fills the sky. The neon lights of the field focus their sparkling splendor of refracting light on the wet leaves that dance their way to the ground. I stop and smile, halfway to the top of the student section amidst the discarded hot dog wrappers and fries. How beautiful, like a golden butterfly hello, just for me from you. Its been a while since you said hello, thank you for remembering, I love you and miss you too. I believe in signs like that.

I wrote something for you today when I realized what day it was....How come it took me so long? I suddenly don't dread this day anymore. Has time healed my wound so tightly shut I only feel the pain now when I want to? Its there, the sadness of it all, if I go digging for it. I prefer the perspective I have now after all these years, that its not so bad losing you because really I never did.

On my way home, a song drifts in and out through the radio static, Coltrane I think, a mellow dreamy melody promising 'death is just a door, they'll be waiting on the other side.' If I had watched the movie 'Paranormal Activity' I might have been a little freaked out, but I am oddly comforted by your wish goodnight, reassurance that you are really there, right there waiting on the other side.




10/24

By Leah Bomar

I let it creep up on me this year,
Too busy to be bothered by a date,
A heartstabbing stupid number on a calendar
that causes too much pain.

24. Why hate a number?
13. Why cry over how many years have passed
since you passed,
proving 1 year of having you physically in my life
was long enough to last a lifetime in angel/human years?


Denial is effective only as long as your in it.
I miss you.

I let it creep up on me,
my memories of you packed away in a box,
no longer sitting on my heart shaped shelf
that has been a permanet fixture on my wall
since when we used to do our hair and make up
under my big green mirror,
reflecting on our future,
discussing our dreams.
Adolescent innocence at its finest,
eating homemade chicken noodle soup for the soul
searching for ourselves,
listening to Bone Thugs N Harmony 'Crossroads'
not knowing that was all we had.

Hi, my name is Leah and I'm an addict.

Food is my drug of choice. I've fought this battle for as long as I can remember. Weight Watchers with my mom at age 10, being aware I wasn't supposed to eat fattening pizza at a 4th grade party, removing the labels from my Jenny Craig chicken salad cans at lunch as a 7th grader. Every diet under the sun with varying degrees of success and failure, and I always end up here, fighting for control of my impulses and feigning for a snack. A food crackhead.

Why do we self sabatoge ourselves, ruin what we work so hard for, continue the cycle of destruction even though we know better, wish for salvation while salavating over something that will never taste as good as we imagine it in our minds? I am no different from any other addict, alcoholic, gambler. I know better, want better, yet I find myself unable to say no, giving in time and time again. Its sickening.

My husband has been struggling the past nine years to 'rewire my brain.' Its neccessary to my survival. I would not live the long, full life I desire and deserve if I continue down the path I have been on the past 20 years. I can write a page full of excuses, legit reasoning behind my bulge, but still haven't figured it out yet. I'm tired of fighting myself, and losing.

I'm tired of being passed up, waking up and going to sleep with my kness aching, ankles still swollen worse than when I was actually pregnant. I'm tired of carrying around this physical manifest of my pain I can't explain or even fully understand.

Have you ever been so baffled by a part of yourself, struggled to understand why you do the thigns you do?

Some people abuse drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, gambling, cigarettes, the list goes on and on. I use food. I saw Al Roker in an interview say something like, 'If you lined up all the vices people have, the best cocaine in the world, next to a joint of the best pot, next to the finest wine, next to a stale donut, I'd go for the donut.' Me too. I can't walk past a cupcake without eating it. How can someone so strong in so many other ways be so weak???

Welcome to Parenthood

Sometimes I feel like I am not far from crazy. Not anti-depressant crazy or plain nuthouse crazy, but my kids sometimes make me want to scream and do bad things crazy. I get tired of yelling at my son. "No Bryce!" "Stop that!" "You're gonna fall!" "Get off her!" "No bite!" "No hit!" "No touch!" "Don't do that!" He hears that one so often he mimics us perfectly, down to the finger point and serious face. "Don't do that, Mommy!"

"Welcome to parenthood," My sister-in-law says with a smile. She's at the beginning fringe of fighting teenage adolescence once again with her 14 year old son's recent immersion into his freshman year, high school sports, older girls, and hickeys. I laugh at her stories but somewhere inside I cringe because as much as I want to deny it or fight the future, truth is I will be hit with a triple whammy of puberty, horomones, and a mothers heartache. A sophomore son and freshman twins all at the same time. I know the advantage me and my brother used to take of my parents! Doesn't everyone like to think they're smarter, cooler, more capable of handling the tougher issues, when really we are all just finding our way in the dark.

It seems too far away to have to worry about now, when my toddler hasn't even celebrated his second birthday yet and I am still shit deep in dirty diapers, crying fits, and countless feedings from almost 7 month old twins. It. Never. Ends. I rarely get a break, and when I do it takes me half the time I'm away to begin to relax. So by the time I'm having a good time, its time to return to my reality. Which of course I wouldn't change for all the money in the world, but God damn, I get tired and worn out.

Welcome to parenthood.

Call to Arms

Letter to My Trainer:

I spent months planning this moment. Notebooks full of visulaizations: me running the mini marathon, family and kids cheering me through the finish line. My 10 year high school reunion, sexy black dress and heels. I've been waiting so long to MOVE, now that I've gotten a taste of my potential, I am addicted.

I will work. This is no longer about looking good, its about being good and healthy for my kids and participating in a physical way in their daily lives I am not able to do quite right now. Its about living pain free, chasing children and rolling around on the floor, diaper change squats, a 15lbs, 20lbs, or 29lbs medicine ball in my arms at all times. A look down in their eyes gives me all the motivation I need. I will do anything in the name of the love I feel for them.

Walking like a 1 man army, this is my Call to Arms. Stand beside me. Push me when I need pushing. Pull me out of the quicksand of despair that threatens right under the surface to suck me back into a life of bad habits and misery. Cheer me on at the finish line, walk beside me in the sun, push ups in the rain.

I've always been good at preparation, but good at rolling with whatever too. I never foresaw an addiction to Bootcamp in all my dreaming, planning, and preparations. But it appeared in my life at the exact right time.

If success= 50% preparation + 50% execution, preptime is over. The time has come to execute.

Hazards of baby living



I know my place is a constant hazard, floor forever covered in matchbox cars, toy pieces, and discarded laundry waiting to be picke dup in the next laundry sweep. I feel I constatly live a real life version of Final Destination where doom looms around every corner. Last week my cousin tripped over a Sit 'n Spin and fell holding a baby. This weekend I- no lie- slipped in a puddle of spit-up I didn't know was there and pulled a muscle in my back. I spent the remainder of the weekend in a muscle relaxer stupor laying flat on my back oblivious to the crying babies tag teaming my husband. That shit hurt! Not to mention the unpleasant flashback it brings up of being on bedrest. What a helpless feeling. Then my husbands brings me homemade strawberry banana pancakes in bed and a fresh ice pack and I think, "If I weren't in pain, this wouldn't be half bad!'

Yesterday was one of the most humiliating days of my life.

Its been a very long time since I felt so embarrassed, so ashamed of who I was, shrunken so small, when the problem was I was literally too big to participate in normal activities. A group of 16 of my husband's family members went to King's Island for the day. I debated going at all the night before. It was the end of our big moving week and everything I owned was still in a box. I already dreaded the thought of going to the water park and being forced to walk around nearly nude with my body on display for all to see, my cellulite thighs, the leftover baby weight, fresh stretch marks on white skin that hadn't seen the sun in over a year. Not to mention not a single of my bathing suits even fit if I could find them, so I was stuck packing my mom's old lady suit with a flowery print and little skirt at the bottom that didn't hide enough. I tried to explain to my husband why it was hard for me.

"Why do you think I never go swimming when everybody else does at your Aunt and Uncle's? Its too embarrassing for me to walk around practically naked in front of them."

His family is not like mine where the majority of both my parents sides are over weight or obese. They are all normal size, not an obese one in the bunch. I'm always the biggest person around and right off the bat in any situation that doesn't feel good being constantly aware you're the fattest person in the room.

But the thought of a whole day kid free and just the prospect of having fun was enough to lure me along for the ride. Fuck it, if they had to see me in a bathing suit, I am what I am. I'd been in the family 10 years and bore their cousin/nephew/uncle three babies, I was entitled to be there just as much as them, overweight or not. Who cares if they got stuck starring up at my fat ass as we waited in line at the water park?

People like my husband have never fretted a day in their life over things like that. I've spent my entire life in the mind of a fat girl, and let me tell you, it ain't easy.

The embarrassment began standing in line for the first ride, the new one everybody was excited to ride, even myself. I love roller coasters. From behind the protection of my sunglasses I saw every body's eyes drift over my body and linger on the fat roll remains of my pregnant belly still peeking over the top of the maternity pants I wore. I couldn't find a real bra in the mess of moving, so I wore a tank top under my shirt that did no justice to my now sagging boobs that were only a few weeks ago perkier and firm and full of life force. I was happy to have lasted as long as I did breastfeeding and also happy to have weaned my babies to the point I could leave them for more than a few hours at a time without feeling like I was going to explode. I wasn't happy to see my mom boobs go! I looked down at the shapeless blob where my breasts flowed into my belly and vowed for a new bra this week.

An hour passed in the hot sun as we neared our turn at the front of the line. Immediately as I lowered myself into the seat, I knew there were going to be problems. My ass literally did not fit into the seat!!!! I tried to squeeze my hips and thighs further back and press the safety bar down but it wasn't clicking. Panic rose from the pit of my stomach. I wanted to run then, but still held out hope. Surely I could fit. I pushed harder to no avail. The attendants made their way down the line checking other passengers.

"Can you scoot back further in your seat, mam?" He asked. Mam.

"No dumb ass, can't you see the fat spilling over the tops and side of this seat? I have squeezed all of myself I can into this ride and I do not fit."

I stared up at him with tears in my eyes and didn't say a word. He tried to push harder on the safety bar and it dug into my legs. Another attendant approached and they began tag teaming the bar, trying to stuff me in like an ill fitting pair of jeans. I knew it wasn't going to work. Even if they managed to snap the bar down one time, I was going to be in so much pain as the ride jerked me around I knew I was screwed either way.

I finally looked him in the eye and saw the pity and pleaded more than asked, "Its not going to go is it?" I didn't care about the pain of being squeezed into the seat. I was terrified more of the thought of having to stand and get off the ride in front of all those people than I was ever scared of the steepest drop or fastest coaster in the park. Mainly I was mortified at all Kenny's family knowing I was too fat to ride a roller coaster.

He shook his head and genuinely felt sorry for me. "I'm sorry 'mam."

I stepped over my husband who had remained silent though the exchange until he murmured a sincere 'Sorry Baby' as I passed. I refused to cry. I shuffled off head held high and tried to avoid the looks of everyone who had just witnessed one of my worst moments.

Sad thing is, this is not the first time something like that has happened to me, but I truly thought those days were in my past.

When I was heavier before, I had trouble fitting on a roller coaster or two. I didn't fit in stadium seats at ball games or at the movies sometimes and left with bruises on my legs from sitting in seats to small. I even considered the possibility I might have trouble again before I came, but surely I wasn't that bad off again, was I? I had been riding a high from my recent success at BootCamp and encouraged that I could see my post natal body transforming in the mirror. Obviously it was not enough.

So when they asked why I got off the ride, I had my lie prepared.

"Oh it was hurting my stomach from where I had the c-section, so I got off." Most seemed to believe the story as plausible, except my husband who could tell I was fighting tears for the next hour as we waiting for the next ride as my anxiety levels spiked out of control at the fear I wouldn't fit into a single ride all day and be forced to sit alone in the hot son and cry in my beer as they all rode rides I was to big to enjoy.

I noticed a guys tattoo in front of me that read 'Smile Now, Cry Later' and I made it my motto of the day. I walked the length of the park several times over and never once complained about my injured knee that was killing me, the fact that my feet and ankles were swollen, that I wished I had never come. I suddenly preferred unpacking to the pain of realizing how far I still had to go on my quest to live healthier life and lose this weight once and for all.

So I smiled for the camera, pretended the bar hurt my stomach again as I failed to fit in another seat, and by the time I woke up today I was ready to cry later. Once the tears started, they didn't stop for over an hour. This time was different though, I could tell, because instead of spiraling down into that despair as I would have done in the past, I was already planning my revenge.

Next time I went to King's Island, I was going to ride that damn DiamondBack. I was going to wear a cute tank top that showed off my sexy cleavage and a prance around the water park in a polka dotted bikini if that's what made me feel good about myself again. I believe in comebacks. I always liked the underdog best. By Thanksgiving and Christmas, they are going to be saying, "Damn is that Leah? She looks great." Not that I need their approval, but just knowing that they will see my transformation from this low point to where I want to be adds fuel to my fire.

Damn it knee, GET BETTER! I've got things to do...

I can see my body transforming before my eyes. A month of intense Bootcamp exercise classes every M-W-F has made a major difference in my body and mind. I not only feel stronger, but I am stronger. After the first week I could already do things I couldn't do at first.



My curves are coming back, being chiseled away by countless lunges, squats, push-ups. I looked at myself in the mirror naked for the first time in a while getting out of the shower and I was so amazed at what I saw I stopped and just stood there for a while. I was shrinking! There was more definition between my butt and the top of my thigh. The bulge of my stomach was going down. And then I saw something that really freaked me out. My scars were moving! The physical landscape of my body was literally changing!



Right before i found out I was pregnant with the twin I had several moles removed on my abdomen and the stretching of my stomach during pregnancy really did a number on the healing of the dark circles of new skin. my son always pokes at the dime and nickle sized spots and says, "Boo Boo?"



So when I noticed they were suddenly more toward the middle of my body than to the side, i was shocked! I am shrinking! My stretch marks were moving, coming closer in together. Soon they will meet up in the middle of my stomach and what will happen then? I am no rooking in the stretch mark department, I've had them my whole life, but I have never seen them move! Now, if I could only make them disappear, but really, who cares? I kinda like my war wounds!

How many diapers can one person changes in a day? How long before my trash can doesn't smell like shit, no matter how many time you take it out in a day? Will my counter top ever be clear of bottle parts, sippy cups, sticky spots? Its like a reality show gone wrong; how long will Leah last before she trips and busts her ass on all the toys covering the floor???



Most days I am good at being a Super Mom, but some days I just want to beat their ass and cry with them. When all three are going at the same time and I know there is no relief pitcher coming to step up to the plate anytime soon, I wonder what the hell I got myself into.

Is the grass always greener on the other side? Do we always want what we can't, shouldn't have? Are memories sometimes sugarcoated, sucking us back into old patterns because we forget quickly lessons learned.

What is old is new again. Cycles of new life and the retired dead follow my thoughts like a determined stalker, my mind is never alone long. Can going backwards ever move us forward?

I feel like a generic version of Carrie on Sex and the City without the intrigue of sex posing all these questions. I'm going to stop now.

Break out the hot rollers and hair spray. Black dresses and suits, jackets and shoes. There's been a death in the family and we put on the front there is fun in funerals. Shopping sprees, as if I have the time, money, or energy to show myself in pubic. I have a medicine head, sinuses all stopped up, chest on fire. Forcing shallow bursts of ogygen just to the surface levels of my lungs requires too much effort. Sometimes I wish I were a computer and someone would turn me off. Or I could just spontaniously shut down. Maybe that's what happens when we died, we've finally taken enough shit in this life tiem and the mother board fizzles out fast and we finally meet our maker.


I long for a deep breath. A laugh that did not bring on bouts of coughing that sounds more like a barking fit. I used to get sent out of classrooms for coughing like this. It's a family trait, one of the many I wish I did not inherit.



Families are funny things. Your tied to them in a genetical sense that you technically have soem of the same genetic make-up to your blood. But how much does blood bond people? Does it tie us together for eternity, a lifelong witness to our sins, stories, sadness, success?

The memories bond us in insignifigant ways, flashes of an already old man enjoying life from his recliner. I am not ready physically or emotionally for a funeral tomorrow. I don't even want to eat all the fattening food that will be present and mess up my hard work at bootcamp. I miss the sweat. I want to get back to my summer of sweat where my body is what is crying and in pain, not my heart.

Summer of Sweat

There are splatters and droplets of blood on my tennis shoes. I watch the sweat drip from my nose and fall on the dirty mat, mixing with the filth of the person before. I push harder. I grow stronger, I can feel it. That's what the burn means, the progress of pain.



We are on day 3 of Bootcamp. I close my eyes and lean my head involuntarily towards the sun. For the first week of July, the 70-80 degree low humitity weather is more than luck, its a sign. I can do it. I am doing it. I kick it up a notch and force my knees higher, squat lower, punch harder, jog faster.



Blood sweat and tears.

'The summer of sweat', my husband and I named it. I could cry now from being so happy and sad at the same time, blessed beyond believe my life has turned out the way it has. Stressed from the wearing down of the back to back to back doctors appointments, co pays and perscription refills all summer. We've spent more time packing, preparing, traveling, journeying through the labryth of hospital hallways and medical building bathrooms, waiting rooms, and parking garages than I ever cared to know about any of those thngs. After x-ray treats, surprise outpaitent toys and books and stickers.

Children's hospitals have got to be soem of the most depressing places in the world. They make you feel thankfukl the only thing wrong with your kids are a bone infection in Bryce's spine, Carly's thrush, and Alyssa's vesicourteral reflux, fancy medical terms for her urine flowing bacwards from her bladder back into her kidneys resulting in urinary tract infections.

Life is good today. Burn baby burn.

I cannot remember ever being so overwhelmed. So sleep deprived. So unsure of my future. So underconfidant that I can do something. So unsure, so stressed, so sad and happy at the same time. Whoever said when you're up, you're up and when you're down you're down must have been a new parent.



On good days, I shower and smile, clean and accomplish things. Laundry, dishes, shopping lists, bills. The babies seems to nap at the right times, my son doesn't destroy anything while I'm not giving him enough attention. I'm not nodding off in some random position. My stomach, back, neck, shoulders don't hurt. I listen to the radio or watch a movie while I multi-task. I answer email, update my Facebook status, download pictures, blog. Maybe I even make time for my poorly neglected husband or even more neglected self. I am happy and alive and it feels good.

On bad days, I cry. The wave of despair washes over me and I understand what it feels like to drown. To not have enough time to take a breath, a break before you go insane. All three are hungry and crying at once. How do I pick up two screaming babies at once, let alone get them to latch on to breastfeed in a frenzyll the while my son is doing dangerous things that require my immediate attention. How do I feed bottles and fix him a snack? I have to pee too, babies! It is too much. I am hopeless and dying and all I feel is pain.

Then someone will come along, my husband arriving home from work, my dad swooping Bryce up (probably because he feels I am neglecting him) my aunts keeping him overnight or picking him up from school, my mom taking a baby or two so we can walk outside in real fresh air.

For the first time yesterday, Mother's Day, they all slept at the same time for almost two hours while I showered, pumped, read a few chapters of 'Breaking Dawn'. Happy Mother's Day! (I also went out and had a much needed margarita with a friend to truly mark the occasion!)

When things are harmonious, I think, "Wow, this isn't so bad. I got this.' Then all hell breaks loose. Bryce wakes up grumpy and hungry and I pacify him with snacks while I change and feed a baby. When he throws his food on the floor he is done and wants down to wreak havoc as I am now attempting to latch both babies on to breastfeed.

It is during this time my stress levels reach unbearable levels. When my attention is unable to focus entirely on him and I am anchored to the couch under my life preserver of a breast feeding pillow, he wreaks the most havoc.

Like an animal, he senses my weakness and pounces. Does all the things he knows he's not supposed to do because he can get away with it. Climbs on the back of the couch, dangerously close to falling headfirst into the concrete floor. Disappears into his room quietly, which is always a bad sign, where I discover him pulling off every single piece of paper off a Post-it pad. He hits, he bites, things he never does unless I am tending to them both and not him.

They all poop at the same time. Somewhere along the way, I mix up the babies and feed the wrong bottle to the wrong baby. I lose track of who ate what when. I devise creative ways to keep them safe from my son, who is bored out of his mind with all his toys and me. I ache to play with him, make him laugh, give him the one on one time and attention he deserves.

By the time my husband arrives with ingredients for dinner, they are all three in tears and he promises next Mother's Day will be better. I believe him and smile through my tears. If you can't beat em, join em!

If my twins had made it full term to their due date, today they would be one day old. They are three weeks old, and sometimes it seems they have been with me forever, and others I feel like I was just at the hospital delivering them and going through that experience.



At my first Twins Club meeting tonight after the babies have arrived, I am placed in the round table discussion labeled 'Expecting to 6 months. The mother who's baby boys are 5 1/2 months seems the expert at the table. They all assure me andd reinforce my confidence that there is hope, my milk flow will increase, pumping makes you a slave now, but is worth it for the health of your precious ones in the long run, they will begin 'sleeping through the night' or at least for longer than 2 hours stretches (at that if I'm lucky) at a time. There is hope.



I remind my self this phase is only temporary. I will not always be so physically and mentally drained. 'This phase is gonna fly by, so try and just hold on, cause it won't be like this for long.' The theme song and song on my Myspace page replays itself over and over in my head. Like a mantra.

Most of the time time I think This is great! I can handle this.. I'm doing it!

Some days it just seems crazy... HOW AM I going to do this?

Everyone is sick. Everyone is crying. Everyone needs a piece of me, my own body as well, screaming to express its milk, hungering for nutrition other than the pop tarts and frozen meals I squeeze in between a rush to make a bottle, change a diaper, pump my breast milk, nurse a hungry baby who needs food now. I need food now, yet I pass the banana on the counter yet again because they need me. My babies.

Then I get some sleep... enough sleep to matter, just a few hours of interupted sleep makes a world of difference to the zombie I have become. I wake up energized and refresh and ready to go again and suddlenly things dont seem so hard. I feel like a normal person again.

I shower and put on fresh clean clothes, a real bra, socks, shoes. I apply make up and listen to music and feel the flicker of excitment like when I used to get ready to go to the club.

Now its over a trip to the grocery.

Let me count the ways...

He lets me sleep uninterupted when I become slightly psycho from having been up for days on end with only two hours nap breaks.

Once when I was pregnant, he began my day with breakfast in bed and ended it the same way- late night snack in bed. (And he brought two spoons and the whole dman gallon of icecream to bed! That's my man!)

For our 2 year anniversary December 30th, he got me a present anyways even though we said we weren't going to exchange gifts- and what is more thoughtful and special than a t-shirt with a screen print of our babies ultrasound on it???

He brings me cappacino in bed as I sit blearly eyed and pump breast milk before a day filled with appoinments on little sleep.

For Valentine's Day 6 1/2 months pregnant he took me out for drinks after dinner- at Starbucks!

He takes the night shift sometimes. Enough said.

The babies are just over one week old and we have already made our first middle of the night hospital run. I hope there are not many of these. One of the hardest parts of being a parent for me is the anxiety and worrying over your children just being alright. It's going to be a long 18 years, and just because they reach the legal age of adulthood, I know the constant worrying and praying for their well being never ends.





Saturday night Carly, who has been the more alert one and vigerous eater from the moment she was born, refused to awake for her 4:00a.m. feeding. No amount of light, probing, stripping of her clothes would arouse her. For the first time ever she wasn't interested in food. Then I noticed her breathing seemed irregular. I took her temertaure and it was 99.9 degrees, which for a baby who struggled to stay above 97.5 was alrming. Her chest was rattling and obviously full of fluids. Strange air bubbles were coming from her mouth as she struggled to cough or cry.





I began panicing. I called the doctor, who recommended from her preemie status and sound of her symptoms I take her to the emergency room. Several hours later we were discharged with an upper respitory diagnosis and a very tired mom and dad. Good news is her lungs are free from fluid, unlike her chest and sinuses. Unfortuntly there is nothing that can be done to treat a cough and cold for a baby so small.





She continues to eat well, her pitiful cough is just the most heartbreaking thing I've ever heard. There are not many things worse than a sick baby who just reminds you how powerless we are as parents. Not much is worse than a sick baby period, but when she's already so tiny to begin with, a preemie 8 days old and less than half a dozen pounds, it is even more pitiful.

Now both babies are sick. And so am I. My son started coughing, such a sorry bunch. I muddle through the motions, even more sad knowing for as bad as I feel, this is what its like for them. :(

Bringing Baby Home

I was a nervous wreck. No pain killer in the world really makes a ride home in scrunched up in the back of an SUV after major abdominal surgery on a windy, twisty ride home to the country feel good. I was emotional. Scared out of my mind probably, but happy to be headed towards my new life. Country Hootie's new song 'It won't be like this for long' comes on the radio and I lose it. I'm so happy (hurting, terrified) I cry.

A Baby Story

Here's my TLC version of 'A Baby Story', the show I watched countless times while pregnant wondering how my episode would play out.

After my doctor's appointment last Thursday showed the amniotic fluid surrounding the girls was low yet again, they admitted me into the hospital and scheduled a c-section for the next day. Months of waiting building up to this moment! I made it 35 weeks and 6 days with a twin pregnancy, amazing!

It was finally happening and I felt surprisingly calm. It was a totally different birthing experience than with my son, where my water broke in my sleep at 4:00 in the morning and I spent 20 hours in labor before he was born via c-section 20 hours later. The day of their birth I was able to eat breakfast, walk around, even take a shower..... and best part of all: no contractions!

When the time came to prep me for surgery, Kenny's sister Tabitha accompanyed us in the operating room as a nursing student at Galen college and she helped keep us calm and laughing until it was showtime. I felt immediate relief from all the pressure my body was enduring carrying around two babies as soon as the first baby was out of me. 'Baby A' was delivered first at 6:47p.m. and weighed in as the smaller of the two at 5lbs 8oz.

The first cries of your newborn baby is the best sound you've ever heard in the entire world.

'Baby B' was delivered shortly after at 6:48p.m. weighing 5lbs 15oz. Though she cried initially, the second baby breathed in some amniotic fluid during delivery and had fluid in her lungs. They showed her to me briefly before taking her to the nursery to monitor her more. She was very blue. I could tell the babies looked different than each other, Baby B was bigger and had more hair than the smaller one, who we named Carly because her name means 'Little and Strong.' Baby B became Alyssa, which means 'Rational and Kind'.

Carly was alert and born ready to eat, sucking on her hand and rooting around from the moment she was putin my arms. I was able to nures her immediatly in teh recovery room. Proud Papa ran back and forth from the nursery where Alyssa was showing off their first pictures adn birht video to the waiting room full of family.

By the next morning, Alyssa's lungs had been cleared out and she was able to leave the nursery and I got to hold her for the first time. Carly had to be readmited to the warmer because she could not keep her temperature regulated. It was two days until I had them both together with me at the same time, which was actually kind of nice because I had the chance to spend a little time with each individually before the craziness began! I had the honor of chosing the babies middle names, a right I claimed considering I was the one carrying them for the whole nine months.

I chose Carly Angelia in honor of my friend Angie who died in a car accident when we were teenagers. I always wanted to name my daughter after her in some way and thought combining my name with hers was

Baby A: Carly Angelia

Baby B: Alyssa Gail

Bryce visited several times and loves kissing his new sisters. I missed him terribly the four days I was in the hospital and by Tuesday was ready to get home to begin our new life together.

Our New Family

That's What Families Do

Days go by.... The weeks have turned into 8 months of pregnancy and if the wear and tear is not showing, I certainly am feeling the effects all around. Not just the physical strain on my body, but time is wearing on the emotional state of all invested in this journey.

Reaching 32 weeks is a major milestone. I prayed to make it to this day because it means even if the babies are born now, 8 weeks premature, they have a very good chance at survival with minimal complications. I am surprised, estatic, scared to have made it this long without any major comlications. Scared because it also means the end of this pregnancy is near and then a whole new adventure begins. How do you ever truly prepare for the arrival of a new life to the world, let alone two at once?



My stomach and uterus measure at 41 weeks pregnant, which means my body thinks (and more importantly feels) a week over due. The physical pressure and pain is unbelievable. I am simply unable to walk some of the time and need help doing ordinary things like make it out of bed and down the hall to a frequent bathroom visit without assistance. I practically have to crawl up the stairs like my one year old, who thinks its hilarious to see Mommy attempt that task.



The hardest part is not being able to do much of anything myself while being forced to watch everyone around me pick up so much of my slack. It's a heavy load and is stressing everyone out. But my family does what needs to be done with little complaints and helps tremdously because as my Dad famously likes to say, 'That's what families do.' How blessed I am to have people around me who feel that way.

Another difficult thing for me is not being able to be the mother I was before and want to be now for my son. There's so much I can't do for him right now, like just pick him up an carry him across the room, or put him into the crib at night, or roll around on the floor to play, or chase him when he's got something he's not supposed to. I can't keep up with a 1 year old and that makes me sad.

I feel sorry for him because his life is about to change forever. His time with me, so much cuddling, taking our three hour naps during the day, just being me and him, is about to be drastically reduced. The only small consolation as my husband reminds me is he's too small to remember any of this and by the time his long term memory develops in early childhood, he will not know a life other than being the big brother to his two sisters.

I also get down watching everyone else do the smallest of things I should be doing, like wrestle him during a dirty diaper change, fix him a snack or pick up his toys after he demolishes my parent's living room. I know they are tired of us invading their space and are counting down the days until our living area is remodeled and ready for the invasion to be over.

My husband and Dad have been working so hard on building their nursery and finishing our kitchen. I am amazed by the stokes of luck we've come across to get things accomplished so fast. A perfectly timed snow storm that allowed time to complete the framework and hang drywall. My brother recruiting a team of out of work handymen to knock out sanding the walls in two days. My Dad's longtime friend setting up camp for a week of cheap labor to install carpet, cabinet, tile flooring, closet doors and countless other small blessing that have been bestowed on us at just the right time.

On nights like this when I can't sleep from watching my husband struggle with being up all night changing diarhea diapers and soiled sheets when he has to be up in two hours, it makes me believe everythting is going to be alright.

OK, so I'm not over it.


The other thing wrong with my new tendency to blog is my obsessive compulsiveness kicks in. When I started this blog, I wanted to start at the beginning of my twins order and post the events in sequential order as they happened. Even though I began my blog in December and my twins journey began in August. I was even annoyed by the fact that I couldn't predate my blogs. Hell, maybe you can and I'm just not that advanced. Then I fell into the trap of wanting to blog about current events that were happening now in the here and now, but posting on the happens my current life would interfere int he storytelling of my journey.



Besides being a journalist (which can I really even call myself that since my words are no longer found in print) I am storyteller. Are my posts are too long and rambling? Am I doing this right??? I could take a one minute episode and turn it into a three page post complete with blow by blow analyses and description. And there may not even be much dialogue included in that, which was why i never felt comfortable as a playwright. I like to describe surroundings, feelings, flashbacks, colors, thoughts. It goes on and on.



So I'll end with a very blog like ending: What do you think? (my nonexistent readers) Are my posts too long, too story like, too this or that? How can I improve my posts? What do you want to hear, know about me? Send me an email if you're feeling it. Open for suggestions!

I'm still getting used to this whole 'Blog' thing. One problem I'm having is I am a traditionally trained journalist and this is a new genre of writing. Different rules apply, and the perfectionist in me does not like not knowing what they all are so I can adhere to them or break them accordingly. The more blogs I read, the more unclear I become. I don't want to model my column, er blog, like someone else's, even though I admire many. I am me and how do I show that in such a public arena without the defined lines and confinements of the rules of the published world, like writing for a newspaper, newsletter or magazine (all of which I am familiar and comfortable with.)



This leads me to my second issue with blogging. The nature of the blog feels an awful lot like an edited, public version of my journal entries. I have been blabbing to myself in notebooks, journals,and diaries since the 5th grade. I could go back and tell you what I was doing at any given point in my life over the past 17 years. Scary, but true. But who really wants to know or hear any or all of that crap? Are my innermost thoughts, observations, and daily experiences and musing really that interesting to anyone else other than me?



Also I worry about exposing too much of myself. In such a public medium like the Internet where pictures and words live on for eternity, how much do I censor myself? I find I often want to say things or talk about certain situations, but what if the annoying friend I am referring to reads my blog and my true feelings are exposed? Don't I know I am taking that risk when I hit 'Post' so if I do it anyways, do I secretly want to get caught like a cheating spouse or serial murderer who leaves behind evidence and the experts say they obviously want to get caught? Man, I am over analyzing this! My ego is winning the battle if I actually believe people will take the time to even read my rantings, let alone give a crap! lol



LOL. Leads me to another pet peeve. Its hard to ditch the grammar editor in my head. For too many years I have been practicing classic journalism and referring too many times to APA style books to ever really feel comfortable in the lax world of Internet vernacular. Then I just decide to go with it. OMG. Get over it.

Damn medical TV dramas. I don't know if its my horomones playing tricks on me again, or the fact that I am now more sensitive to issues involving children since I am a mother myself, but crying over a TV shows really annoys me. Yet week after week I find myself glued in anticipation to the set to see whether the Dad choses to die with his daughter or watch the mother grieve over the death of her 7 year old.

I mean, I used to watch ER all the time and never shed a tear. I maybe got teary-eyed once during the episode where they played that Brother Iz song 'Over the Rainbow' and did flashbacks of Dr. Green dying in Hawaii, but never broke down in hysterical sobs followed by a night of depression and unwanted images of me holding my dead son in my arms!!!

I've been a faithful Grey's Anatomy fan since its inception and have easily walked the line of emotional reactions, clearly knowing the difference between fiction and reality. But now all of a sudden week after week of baby/parenting episodes on Private Practice revs up my maternal emotions. All I can see on the screen are images my imagination projects of me in the position of the parents (characters!) who are often in very far stratched scenarios in the first place mutter through (fake) emotional turmoil. The people on the screen are actors. The stories are NOT REAL! My son is never going to die of the Measles, but there I am crying through commercial breaks.

My husband gets mad and asks why I watch these shows. He reiterates they are not real people or situation. Duh, I know that! It's just the thought of my in the situations that break me down. I'm pregnant and scared, damn it, I tell him between sobs. Just shut up and hold me.

2009 has arrived and I find myself scared of this year. Excited, yes, but definitely scared. I haven't entered the start of a new year 100% sober since I was probably 13, but that isn't the only reason this year is so different.

I knew from the time the ball dropped and I stood amidst the drunks kissing, starring stupidly at the TV screen and trying to nonchalantly dodge my husband's whiskey breath that this was a monumental year. Not very often do you enter the realm of fresh starts knowing upfront that by the turn of another notch on the calendar year 12 months from now that my life will most certainly not be the same as it was in that very moment we passed from 2008 to 2009.

I liked 2008. I experienced my first full year as a mother and watched my son grow so fast from a pooping, peeing, sleeping, crying mass of undeveloped muscle (a very cute mass I must say) to a walking, talking baby boy. Words don't describe feelings like that. I didn't have the travel highlights of years past, but his smiles and snuggles made up for that. Even though I know the number of smiles and snuggles in my life is about to increase three-fold, I am still fucking scared. I've never been good with unknowns and that is what 2009 has in store for me. A life unlike anything I ever imagined or can prepare for.

I feel like I live in a picturesque snow globe that someone is about to shake the hell out of. My world is about to be turned upside down. Before I have a panic attack without the aide of my Xanax, I remind myself of something poetic that makes me smile. I always liked the snow globes better when they were all shaken up. Bring it on, 2009.

Me (6 months pregnant with twins) and My Husband ringing in 2009