Check this out, the baddest video I've ever seen....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6_yVo7q9gM



Disclaimer: It's not me actually on this video, this is from the class right after mine at 6:30am, but I SO totally would have rocked it out in the thunderstorm. I am strangely jealous because I was not there! This video inspires me so much because I know what it takes to make yourself get up so early in the morning, push yourself SO HARD to succeed.

I've fought the elements, regular rain, heat waves, and snowstorms during boot camp, but nature still ain't got nothing on my main nemesis: ME.

I always preach MaxFit makes me stronger physically and mentally, so I'm better prepared to win more battles.

See More at http://maxfitstudio.com/louisville-boot-camps

Here is my official 'Before and After' picture from MaxFit's website.

That's from my February weigh in to July- six months of hard work and another 30lbs gone forever.


But here's there 'Before and After' pics I am most proud of. I usually don't post unflattering pictures of myself online. I didn't post many pictures of myself after the girls were born because I was so unhappy with my body.

Who cares if I had just given birth twice in two years, I was FAT!!!

But this picture was taken the 1st week of Boot camp last summer July 2009. I remember it was a Wednesday night after my 1st two sessions and I had already lost 5lbs. I was feeling more confidant than I had in a long time. I was actually feeling good about myself when Kenny took this picture- until I saw myself on the little screen and was repulsed again. But I knew I was at the beginning of my journey and I had no idea a year later I would still be on it, but I felt it in the air.

Change. Hope. Something was different this time.

So here I am, 3 months after the birth of my twins, 18 months after the birth of my son, 70lbs heavier than I am right now.... Leah July 2009

Look at those thighs!!! My ARMS! My FACE!!! It is bigger than Baby Carly in my arms!

Here is Leah's thighs, arms, and face from July 2010....





I still have work to do, but after I lose these last 8lbs, all the weight gained during both my pregnancies will be GONE. What a milestone to reach. I want it bad. I feel like I say this every month, but August is my month, back injury or not.

I don't feel repulsed when I look back at pictures of me from last summer, I feel proud.

Soon I will weigh what I did the day I got married. And I'm not stopping there. My ultimate goal is to be in my best health ever when I turn 30 in April, so I have 9 months to make that happen. A lot can be done in 9 months.... I am still excited and hopeful and hungry for change.

And here's one for the road, just because I felt good about myself this day. More like the 'old' me, but as the 'new' me. Sexy and strong and comfortable in my clothes and skin again.

Thank you forever, Maximum Fitness.

Boot Camp makes me a better person, it just does.

It’s changed the way I look at things, how I feel about adversity, what I think I am capable of.

Someone commented on Facebook, "Boot Camp has changed my way of thinking about life period not just my health. It's a great feeling on the inside and out. I know that I can do absolutely anything I want..."

One of my tactic to get through a challenging workout is to transport myself somewhere else. Its not always dance parties and sex sessions in my head that get me though each set. Sometimes when I'm working out and its particularly hard, physically challenging beyond anything I've ever attempted before, I imagine I'm training for something really big, a natural disaster or the end of the world.

I imagine I have all three my babies on my back and I have to trudge through flood waters to get them to safety. There's a fire in my house and I've got to break down a door to get us out. I'm on the side of a mountain and if I don't make it up the side of that rock wall, I will never see my kids again.

I pretend I'm training for the end of the world and my life and the ones I love depend on it.

Something big is coming and I am going to be ready.

Is the return of 80's fashion really such a great idea? I mean, I just bought a dress with mini should pads and metal studs! Awesome!!!

I haven't worn shoulder pads since I used to stuff my bra with them in the 7th grade! I love it!

I've spent a lot of time window shopping the past few weeks for the perfect bridesmaid dress that didn't cost a ridiculous amount for a single time use (still unsuccessful) but I was SO EXCITED to see the return of 80's fashion!

Neon colors. Off the shoulder style shirts and leggings! Who would have thought I'd ever be excited to see leggings again, but I saw some badass leggings on a mannequin with lace all the way up the side. All my hard work at bootcamp has allowed me to feel good exposing my thighs in such tight material, so I've been rocking those bad boys!

Of course I've gotten a few raised eyebrows from my mother recently. She never did get my fashion sense.

Gasp!

Her: "Do you know there's a hole in your shirt?"

Me: "Its supposed to be there, Mom."


Phone rings.

Her: "Where did you get that Hoochie Mama outfit on Facebook?"

Me: "Which one!?" LOL



An old time favorite.

Her: "Is THAT what you're going to wear?"

Me: (Internally) Sigh.

Parents just don't understand.

So the nanny from the externship program we participate in just told me she needed a break and got in her car and left!!!!

I wanted to say, "I do this all day everyday, I need a break!"

Straight from the handwritten pages of my life.
CIRCA May 13, 2009

Last week was one of the most difficult of my life. One baby in the hospital, two more at home without me, it just wasn't right. There's nothing worse than having a hurt or sick child. It does something to the inside of you, causes a pain that's only cured by their well being. I discovered a new kind of pain, the kind that came with my family being apart.

Alyssa in the hospital for three days, her twin alone without her for the first time ever, Bryce without his Mommy. Just not right. So unnatural. We are a family and we all belong together. The 5 of us forever and that's the way God intended it to be. I never knew I could feel so incomplete.

Life is better when Kenny is together with me, us a team against whatever. But no matter how stressful it is with all 3 babies at once, I will never wish for anything else.

Looking back on my blog, I never talked in detail about my ordeal where two of my children were hospitalized last summer, weeks apart from each other, the back to back heartbreak of a mother's eternal worry and wishing that our children will be OK.

When faced with a situation where the reality is they just might not be, I found the mind and body kicks into this strange state of overdrive, a too calm desperation difficult to describe. You are so scared you become numb, in shock I suppose, until you hear the good news you've been praying for and finally get to go home.

You operate in this upper echelon of existence where everything becomes muted and miniature. Meals don't matter. If you happen to make it outside the hospital walls and the sun is shining, the light you see the outside world through renders everything else unimportant. The only thing that really matters is your immediate concern about if your babies will make it and what you have to do in order to get them there.

If that means administering the nastiest tasting medicine made to a 1 year old every 8 hours, waking him up in the middle of the night to pin him down and squirt antibiotics strong enough to kill an infection of the bones surrounding the spine, fine. If that means repeated sedation for MRI's that take a day for the drugs to wear off, whatever.

If it means doing a spinal tap on a 5 week old preemie with a fever from an unknown origin, alrighty then. Or placing her on isolation in a metal institutional crib where nurses and doctors crept into her hospital room at all hours of the night in head to toe E.T. gear, get r done. Get my baby well.

At the time I felt like I was being tested, hit with punch after sucker punch to the gut. The universe was on a roll and all I could do was ride it out and hope the story unfolded favorably my way. As if it weren't enough stress on a person to endure two pregnancies in less than two years, recover from reoccurring c-sections, while breastfeeding or pumping milk for newborns non-stop every two hours, all the while caring for a 15 month old.

Everyday was a struggle just to survive new-routine activities.

Just managing the logistics of the daily life was a constant challenge. How do you get the tiniest of mouths to two swollen massive breasts at once, or even fix and bottle feed two screaming, hungry babies? All the while still tending to the other baby 'Big' Brother needing to be constantly fed, changed, and entertained?

How do you feed yourself somewhere in there or maybe squeeze in a shower every few days or find the time to just freaking use the bathroom.... or SLEEP!? There are three of them and one of me, and even with my husband and I tag teaming, we will always be outnumbered.

Here's one way we did it!








Carly was my eater. She was ready to eat the moment she entered the world, so wide eyed, mouth rooting. She was the smaller one, but baby girl has been HUNGRY ever since!

Alyssa was whisked away to the neo-natal nursery immediately upon delivery, so it was just me and Carly chilling in the post-op room together as Daddy paced the halls awaiting news of Alyssa. Carly, so wide eyed and ready for the world. She had the biggest bug eyes you ever saw, always observing. For 5 pounders at birth, which is pretty good for twins, they looked so alien!


Breast feeding with her was more natural than it had ever been with Bryce. I quit after one month of struggling with him. Carly ate like a champ within the first hour she was born. She kept my milk flowing enough to pump some into a bottle for Sissy.

Alyssa always had trouble eating. I don't know if it was because I didn't see her again to even attempt breastfeeding until more than six hours after her birth, or if coming into the world inhaling a lung full of amniotic fluid messed her up, but she has always been my difficult eater. Talk about double duty! She preferred a bottle filled with milk I had to pump every two hours, sometimes while I would be feeding Carly on one side, I had the pump going on the other.

We were all released from the hospital at the same time and during the first few days at home, I remember just being terrified. They were so little. So tiny and fragile, and I wasn't a rookie on the parenting front, but this was a whole new challenge altogether. We had one hospital run a few days into it with Carly who had a rattle to her chest and slight congestion and this weird white foam coming out of her mouth. Turns out she was fine, her body's way of expressing leftover gunk from childbirth.

I think God might have been doing a little foretelling with this mini-hospital run, because a month later, the real ordeal began.

The weekend started off promising, even though I was missing my first Derby in a lifetime. My whole pregnancy I had always envisioned the great unveiling of my babies to all my friends at the neighborhood Derby party, all of us in coordinating outfits saying, "Look at me! Look at our Happy Family, Bitches!"

But with the babies still on home quarantine, my parents took Bryce to a party while my husband and I manned the home front. The girls had an uneventful day not watching horse races and we celebrated, breaking open a peach bottle of wine I had been saving from Huber's Farm for a special occasion and mixing frosty beverage in our honeymoon glasses, a nod to an era that seemed so far away for only being a year or so back on the calendar!

No sooner as we started getting a little loose, girl's rocking life away in their swings (God Bless those things), robe falling off the shoulder, husband's eyes straying a little lower...

Pitter patter of tiny feet upstairs, party over. Parents and Big Brother are home, even before the big race. It was still a peaceful, fleeting moment in time.

Doesn't there always seem to be a moment, the cliched 'calm before the storm'?

The next evening, Alyssa awoke from a nap drenched in sweat. Warm to the touch. Damn, I guess we had her too snug in a rug, still swaddled in her bassinet. 'Fever' never occurred to me at this point. As the night passed, she wasn't eating and became less responsive. I did the dreaded anal temp check and holy shit 101.9, that ain't good.

I called the doc on call, and they said normally that is not an alarming temp for a baby, but anytime there is a fever over a certain degree in a newborn, an immediate trip to the emergency room is required. The source of what is causing the fever must be determined quickly.

Kosair ER on a Sunday night after Derby is not the place you want to be. Keep in mind this is during the Swine Flu scare, so before we even entered the packed waiting room full of sniffling, coughing infectious children, we had to do a Swine Flu check. WTF? I was slipping into panic mode more and more. They tried to hussle us into the general public and Mama Bear came out.

Most of my family members had never even met the girls yet because I was so paranoid about them getting sick. At our doctor's recommendation, we placed them and ourselves on a home quarantine and were waiting until their 8 week check up to get the all clear for visitors. And the immediate family who came out anyways had to wear fresh, clean clothes that hadn't been infected by germs from work or school or the grocery store and practically had to bathe in antibacterial gel before handling them. I still don't think I was being too over protective and they wanted me to expose her to that crap?

Here is a 5 week old preemie who has never been exposed to other people period, and they want me to take her in the belly of the beast and mingle with the obviously ill babies and snot nosed 5 year olds? Hell no. I fought and refused to go back out there until they gave us a secluded room to wait in. And the waiting began.

A nightmare of a continuously spiking fever. By the time they got to us in the ER the next morning, an immediate spinal tap was ordered to rule out meningitis. Collected blood samples and urine specimens were sent out for a variety of tests. They took her away to insert a tiny needle in her small spine to remove some spinal fluid. I could hear her screams as I sat in that little ass room with a borrowed breast pump and expressed my milk that was statrting to painfully clog in my milk ducts from going too long between feedings. Poor Carly wasn't around to empty me out and if I didn't send some milk home for her soon, she would have to be fed formula. Alyssa wasn't eating period.

We were moved to a reverse isolation room where anyone entering was required to wear full hospital protective gear and masks to prevent her from being exposed to anything. It was a big room with this small prison crib in the middle made of metal bars and she was the most pitiful thing you ever say laid up in the middle of that big bed hooked up to wires and whimpering from pain. Into the next night I held her continuously, only placing her in that horrible contraption to pee or pump.

That was one of the loneliest nights of my life. My husband at home with the other two, watching my daughter fight off something we still didn't know anything about, the fear of the unknown paralyzing and protecting me from losing it. You find a strength that you didn't know existed during times like that. I understand now how people lift cars off the wreckage of an accident to free their children because you will do anything for them and what a horrible feeling when you can do nothing but sit there and wait.

When they finally diagnosed her with a severe urinary tract and kidney infection and began treating with antibiotics through her IV, hope crept back in. We knew what we were dealing with and it was all to familiar to me. I knew the routine all too well when they did the tests the next day to check her for the same condition I suffered from as a child, where there is a malfunction in a valve inside allowing urine to flow backwards up into the bladder and kidneys while peeing.

After three days of no sleep and missing my other child so bad it hurt inside, and not just my boobs from non-stop pumping and no natural feedings, we were finally released. What a homecoming!

And yet still, this was just another preparation for round three coming two weeks later. 5 more days at Kosair, IVs and MRIs on a 15 month old, wagon rides around a place that was sadly becoming comfortable, mention of the 'C' word and tumors terrifying the shit out of parents who just wanted their babies to all be better.

Fight!
(Alyssa’s Song)

Fight, Baby, Fight!
From that 1st night in the Emergency room
Faithless doctor spewing doom and gloom,
Fear loomed for a fraction of a second,
Before faith beaconed.

There was a legit medical reason for him to say,
“The 2nd baby won’t survive,
It won’t be alive long with no fluid in its sac.”
I wanted to smack his smug cheek.
Surely he saw your heart beat,
Even though he said it didn’t matter?
I just smiled inside
I was along for the ride,
And I already knew one day I’d meet you.

We started our dialogue on the ride home
Just me in the car, but never alone.
There were 3 of us already,
I felt you there
Always a part of me,
3 beating hearts in one body
and that’s how it was supposed to be.

Fight, Baby, Fight!
I told the smaller of the two
You’ve just got to fight and be strong
Hold on and before long
this part will be through.
There’s a wonderful life waiting for you, the best.
You’ve just got to make it here
And the rest is on me to make you happy!

We kept up our conversation,
Creeping elation as the weeks went by.
Time surpassed silly predictions of my predicament.
I was not surprised to see you doing so good,
I always knew you would be fine.

And when you were born blue
I knew you would make it, too.
I held your sissy in my arms
Barely alarmed,
And told her to use her Wonder Twins powers
To telepathically tell you to…
Fight!




By Leah Bomar Thompson

5/6/2009

I wrote this poem for Alyssa and both my other babies. Never give up because I will fight forever for you.

More Than a Mother
5/6/09

So little and strong,
I knew all along
You were destined for survival.

Revival of faith,
when fear rivals the fact,
That I believe everything’s gonna be alright.

There maybe no end in sight
But baby we will fight,
for our life and each other.

No other thing in the world
Compares to my girls
When we are all together.

Never alone again,
In me you have a life long friend,
So much more than a mother.



Enjoy a pictorial presentation of me & my girls from the moment I saw their faces until now...

July 2010

Alyssa & Carly 16 months old

4th of July 2010

Alyssa & Carly

May 2010

Alyssa & Carly, KK's Prom Night

April 4th, 2010

Carly & Alyssa Easter Sunday

March 1st, 2010

Alyssa & Carly 11 months old

January 2010

Alyssa & Carly 10 months old

December 25th, 2009

Carly & Alyssa 9 months old

November 7th, 2009

Alyssa & Carly at Bryce's 2nd Birthday Party!

Ocotber 2009

Alyssa & Carly 7 months old

June 2009

Carly & Alyssa 2 months old

April 2009

Carly & Alyssa 2 weeks old

March 27th 2009

Our 1st face-to-face-to-face

Carly & Alyssa, a few minutes old