Happy Birthday...

Its a Wednesday, August 27th, 2009.

My Dad's 51st birthday, and I am pregnant with twins.

Life doesn't get more surreal than that. I am a writer and I would have never written the script of my life like this. 27 year old mother of a 9 month old and pregnant again with twins. Does life even get better than that? Its mind numbing. I am elated.

We planned to keep the new pregancy a secret for a while. Something special, something ours to smile about across the room, something intimate between husband and wife before all the questions, and gossip and judgement by family members who were bound to have an opionion on the subject of our rapidly expanding family.

All that went out the window after the news. How could we keep something like that a secret. We kept our afternoon appointment for our son's 9 month pictures and incorporated our announcement into his photo session. We had him sit on top of big blocks labeled A and B, just like the two labled embryos on the ultrasound. I had a greeting card printed to give my Dad for his birhtday with the words "Big Brother says, 'It's Twins!!' " printed across the bottom.

We planned our big reveal in increments. I replaced the pictures in the three slotted frame I used to display my son't ultrasound throughout his pregnancy with a fresh ultrasound printout of Baby A and B. I wrapped it up and handed it to my Dad. Camcorder rolling, digital camerapoised.

This was a once in a lifetime announcement.

Surprise! Happy Birthday, Dad! I'm pregnant again..... Oh and this time its TWINS!

He didn't say a word for hours, days maybe. Literally not a word. He cried. There were actual tears. I am still unsure as to what those tears meant!

I told the rest of the family via airbrush t-shirt. It's become a tradition in our family. Haha tricked ya! Bryce's said 'Big Brother to-be...' on the front and 'of twins!' on the back!

Surprise gotcha again! It's TWINS!

Acceptance.

I’m moving into the ‘Acceptance’ phase of grief and didn’t even realize I was mourning.

At first it was ‘Denial.’ I hurt my back on a Sunday night before week two of Phase 5 Boot Camp. I was still sore from Friday’s ass kicking and decided a little yoga would loosen me up for another round in the morning. I turned my DVR to Wai Lani yoga and after about 15 minutes I was there. On all fours in the living room floor, I was on vacation in Hawaii.

The ocean was roaring, the sun was coming up over the water, the mixture of Hawaiian music and the lady’s accent had me right on that beach with her. My breathing was right; my blood was flowing. Then bam! Just like that my back is out.

First stage of denial. Suck it up, you will be aright.

I still went to Boot camp Monday (not a good idea in retrospect) and barely made it through Wednesday’s workout. It was official, my back was hurt and I needed to take some time off. Weeks went by and things were not better.

July comes along and even after the help of a chiropractor I am still in pain from the moment I come into consciousness each morning until I drift away into dreamland. If I awake during the night or roll over, I am in pain. It’s like being miserable and pregnant but there’s no prize at the end.

I begin missing Boot camp so bad I get sad. I still think, “Maybe next week I can come back. Maybe next Phase, maybe next month….”

Next phase comes and goes. I am still in my bed every Mon-Wed-Fri at 5:30am.

If only I hadn’t done that stupid yoga. If only I had given my back rest right when it happened, I would be better by now. If only hadn’t been pregnant and on bed rest all those years, I would be stronger. If only I had been active earlier on my life instead of sitting on a couch reading or in front of a computer working …. If only.

Oh shit, I’m ‘Bargaining’.

So when August rolls around, I feel better than I was 6 weeks prior, but still can’t bend over to put on my shoes, get dressed, change a diaper, pick up a baby without a stabbing pain in my lower back. I decide I’m going to get back in Boot Camp and just do what I can do. I want to be there that bad.

I cried my way through the workout, not feeling strong or empowered anymore. Not marveling at the barriers I was breaking or the endurance I built. I feel weak again, less than I was, broke and beaten down. The women around me suddenly made me feel even worse about myself instead of inspiring. Boot Camp became no longer beneficial to me physically or emotionally and I was heart broken over it.

I stayed in my bed for two days and cried. I let myself get it out and admitted I was hurt and didn’t need to push myself so hard physically right now but focus harder on my eating and getting better.

I had a mini-counseling session over the phone with my trainer where I know I just sounded pitiful. He didn’t understand why I needed to be there so bad, why I depending on those 45 minutes three times a week to make me feel good about myself.

I wished someone had a magic wand and could poof my pain away, but I know life doesn’t work that way. There was only one way out of the hole I was in and that was to heal and get stronger so my body isn’t as vulnerable to injury

I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time until I finally came to grips with myself and just admitted I had an injury. Boot Camp is over for me (for now). My back needs time to heal and if I don’t give it that time, I was only going to hurt myself more in the long run. Damn it! I had been on a roll. I found something I LOVED, a rush of adrenaline like I never knew.

I don’t know where else I can feel like that and I am simply depressed over it.

Working Mother's Guilt

I have to work tomorrow.

Wow, its weird saying those words. The past year of my life spent technically ‘unemployed’ was still the hardest working year of my life. Cleaning toilets at the church on Thursdays barely counts as working. I work harder than that on a daily basis changing babies’ diapers. Other people’s shit in the toilet is nothing for me. I actually look forward to the calm of the place as I clean the quietness in the sanctuary, the solidarity and sweat.

Tomorrow ushers in a new phase. I’ve been fighting it long enough. Change of any kind is cause for resistance to a Taurus, I believe. Boot Camp is over for me and I’m going back to work. Nights at the new Kohl’s up the street designing displays and styling mannequins. Sounds like fun to me! Time away from home being productive, interaction with others over the age of 3, a little money in the bank. (Emphasis on little, I’ve never worked for such a measly amount in my life, but the discount alone will probably be worth it as much as I shop at Kohl’s.) And access to HEALTHCARE.

What more can I say? I have to work tomorrow!

I was feeling all positive and excited, kind of like back to school jitters where you are excited to see all your friends, but know work is involved. I was packing the kids lunch for Parents Out, planning what I was going to wear in my head, and next thing you know I’m on the phone to the pediatrician on call discussing whether I needed to take my son to the emergency room because his diaper rash from the water park was suddenly swelling to unseen proportions all around his groin area.

Panic over calling in on my 1st day, mind racing over how to rearrange everyone else’s work schedule to take him to the doctor in the morning, the pull to just want to stay at home with his pull-up off all day and cuddle on the couch with a pallet of towels and his 2 (almost 3) year old naked butt all day like Mommy’s are supposed to do!

Working Mother’s Guilt already!? I haven’t even started and now I’m questioning my decision. This sucks. Who needs to work to buy more things? Why can’t we all just live on the prairie and be self sustained like the good old days where family was all you had and all that mattered?

OK, so I’ve been watching too much Hallmark movies on TV. I definitely need to get out of this house. Here’s to the real world where we have to work and leave our children and be thankful and tortured by it at the same time.

Breakthroughs are painful. Usually what you are ‘breaking through’ is years of negative thought patterns, bad behaviors that are not beneficial to you anymore, crusted over scars of emotional wounds to the psyche so deep you don’t want to think about the pain, let alone face it and deal with it again. Going through it once was hard enough; forget rehashing what hurts to ‘heal.’ Stuffing the pain away seems like a much easier choice.

Once upon a time I was crying so hard outside a Bed, Bath, and Beyond begging my husband to leave me on the side of the road because I was having such a ‘breakdown’ when he said the most profound thing to me.

“Leah, this doesn’t have to be a breakdown, make it a breakthrough.”

Damn, he’s good. Why didn’t I ever think of that?

I’ve been doing some hard work lately, not of the Boot Camp variety, but soul searching. Expanding my spiritual realm, trying to figure me out. It’s hard. Harder than the physical demands of Boot Camp actually.

I’ve been out with a bulging disk on my back since the second week in June. I attempted to return against the advice of my chiropractor and that didn’t work out so well. I cried my way through the session because my back was in so much pain, because I felt weak from going to banging out full sit ups and burpies to not even being able to get up and down off the ground without wincing. IT SUCKS.

I listen to the soothing voice of Eckert Toole’s ‘New Earth’ CDs in the car when I’m alone. I read self help book from the library. I write again when I can, reflecting and rewording my experiences for the world to see on a blog. That alone is scary enough.

So how come it still hurts so much? How come I don’t feel any closer to the truth? Obviously if I am still ‘trying’ to get there, I’m not there yet. Or am I and just don’t know it???

We aren’t entitled to a life without pain or suffering. I just wish I knew how to break through the pain to reach the other side sooner.

It’s August already and I am saddened by the passage of time, days slipping away into the past as simple memories void of sensory sensations. I hold my babies and I want to remember forever what this feels like, right here, the sweetness of their forehead against my lips. How small their waist is against my hips, spooning style, cradled comfortably in the crease of my stomach that once held them inside.

The way Alyssa tucks her arms beneath her body and furrows her face in the nook of my neck. Her long ballerina legs prancing around on tip toes, her funny fast run, arms bent swinging side to side. The way she grabs and dashes away with a toy or item she knows she’s not supposed to have. How she tired to sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ the other night.

Big Baby Carly, at least 30lbs by now, stretching past the length of my torso when her small size used to get lost in my chest. Her sloppy kisses and open mouthed smile with such a beautiful gap between her two front teeth, an unsymmetrical row of three Chiclet teeth on the bottom. Her insistent pointing in demand of another ‘Bite!’

Bryce’s sweaty head and for being such a big boy, how he still wants to hold my hand when we walks and cries for his Mama when I’m not in sight. The hilarious stories he makes up or repeats, revising actual events filtered through a two year olds practicality and prose. His heart stabbing stutter. How he claps his hands together almost involuntarily when he gets happy and excited about something. How when he sleeps with me we fit together in perfect synch, his leg thrown over mine.

I want to freeze these simple moments in time, not let them grow any older where they might not want me anymore. Its exaughsting and at the price of me, I am the center of their world and I selfishly like it that way. They are my babies and nobody loves them the way I do. Nobody loves me the way they do.

If I could change anything about the rapid succession of their birth, it would be that I got to spend more time with each of them as an infant. I wish for a whole year or more of their infancy and transition into toddler years spent individually. What a treat that would be, to have each of them all to myself in a way that doesn’t neglect one of the other’s needs. It happens rarely, when we carve out a special trip or day for one on one time, but it doesn’t happen enough.

Sometimes I feel cheated, like my baby years went by in such a whirl of sleep deprivation and struggle to survive. Now it’s closer to being over than beginning, just when I am getting a handle on things and enjoying it. I worry that they are being cheated of me. Each one cheated of being the baby with 100% of me, which is now fragmented into so many smaller percentages that I have to steal moments back for myself. A quick stop by the library where I wonder aimlessly down aisles just admiring the quiet knowledge of the place. Lied about adventures to Kohl’s and JC Penny spending money I don’t even have. I am spent and they are rich with me and want more.

I get annoyed when their early morning cries splinter my sleep like a bullet shot into a peaceful night. I bargain with them in my head.

“Just sleep til 7:00am….. 15 more minutes.”

I get annoyed when I have to change yet ANOTHER dirty diaper. Pissed off for no good reason other than I am tired and in pain and this is my life and there’s nothing I can or want to do about it.

I love how they interact with each other, how Alyssa and Bryce both will bring Carly her Teddy if they find it on the floor or if she’s crying. How Alyssa will run to pat Carly or Bryce’s back in concern if they are crying or hurt. Their head tilt hugs and kisses to each other. Bryce explaining, ‘We were waiting for you Lyssa’ when she is the last one to awake from an afternoon nap and asking, ‘Did we wake you?’ Him telling Carly it’s Ok when she has worked herself up into a fit.

They are just so happy, so, so, so, so, so happy and I want it to stay this way, before the outside world intrudes with reality.