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

I can't think of too many things more degrading than being a 27 year old woman, a mother myself, and having both my parents stage an intervention over the state of my walk in closet. Flashes me right back to my teenage years when my mom would make a day out of cleaning my room and organizing my closet. Here it is the night after Christmas and as a grown woman, 6 months pregnant, and I am at the mercy of my parents help and humiliation once again.



Granted the room off our master bedroom is really more of a laundry room/closet where the washer and dryer, water heater, and electrical box my father needs access to happens to be located. It has been a thorn in my side and source of anxiety for months. So many days I vowed to get it cleaned up once and for all, only to find myself exhausted strewn across my bed starring into the debris at the end of yet another day that has passed on my untidy existence.

We're not talking a few loads of built up laundry, the place was a full blown disaster area. I've never been the most organized person when it comes to my stuff. I have a lot of it. My mom simply calls me a slob. My husband calls me a Bag Lady. My dad just says I'm pitiful and shakes his head in disgust.



We attack bags upon bags of items containing leftover junk from cleaning out my car that never got dispersed to its proper place and put away, discarded Halloween costumes, outgrown baby clothes, pictures, old credit cards statements. OK, so I'm a pack rat. The thought of the electrician muddling his way through the forgotten items of my life was embarrassing enough to allow the troops in. After about 20 minutes of my Dad's comments on my many (many, many, many) bagged up clothes that no longer fit, depression had fully set in.



Did he not realize that each comment like "Leah, what are all these clothes?" translated in my head to "I have an entire wardrobe of clothes that I am now too fat to wear." I should just donate to them all to Goodwill now because this ass is never going to be that size again.

They mean well. When my Aunt comes over to help and ends up rewashing loads oof clean clothes left in the basket because they are too wrinkled and folding my husbands boxers, I am thoroughly humilitaed. And in no position to turn down their help, so I suck it up and accept it.

The day after my 1st negative pregnancy test, I hosted a baby shower for a friend at work. The relief that I wasn't pregnant was dwarfed by the pink dresses and disappointment that it wasn't my turn again. Not to mention the fact I still felt like shit. How could a human being be so tired? There is no word that describes the fatigue of early pregnancy. I almost puked and passed out at Kroger buying the meat tray and rainbow cupcake arrangement. My thoughts still weren't in the right place of a person supposedly relieved by the news I wasn't in for 9 more months of hell.

If I had a girl next time around, I found myself thinking, I'd like a cupcake arrangement in place of a cake at my shower! Maybe I'd decorate her room with rainbows, like the wallpaper I had as a kid! And if its another boy I would...

It went on like this all day.

Somewhere inside I already knew the test was wrong. So by the episode the following morning at the gym and the fact I wanted to throw up during an entire car ride to Fort Knox (where I actually fell asleep on the couch during a one-year olds birthday party) I was ready to let my husband in on my little nagging suspicions.


OK, so actually I tried to be selfish and hide it a bit longer. I was thinking of all these clever and memorable ways I would tell him we were expecting again as I tried to nonchalantly escape midday for an unnecessary trip to Walgreen's. I needed another round of pregnancy tests and I decided I was going to keep taking them every few days until I got the answer I suspected. He, of course, chooses this one trip to decide to get out of the house and accompany me. I try to shake him in the store and sneak towards the tests.


"Bryce likes the Hallmark aisle," I say, ducking to the back of the store. When he rounds the corner with my son on his shoulders and spots me tucking the pink box under my arm, I am busted, but he says nothing. I wonder if he is angry but doesn't want to make a scene. I scurry to the checkout counter like a shamed teenager buying contraception, even though for us its already too late for that.

In the car, I reveal my real reasons behind the top secret shopping adventure and blab my suspicions. The nausea. The unrelentless fatigue. The unknown origin of my last period.

"You bought a what!?" He hadn't even noticed my purchase. I had ruined all chances of a surprise unveiling of our new future!

At home, I pee on the stick and my hand, and wait. A plus sign pops up pink.

"I think I did it wrong," I proclaim, panic starting to spread. I am on the verge of paniced tears.

"I peed all over the thing and my hands and it said to just pee on the end, so and I'm going to pee in a cup and dip it in for this other one..." I ramble on.

I execute my biology experiment and fling myself on the bed to await the results. I definitely want to cry. Why did we let this happen? I don't WANT to be pregnant again! I do the math and realize my son is entirely too young to become a big brother. I will rob him of his childhood, my mother's voice echoing in my head already. The statement is residual effects from my grandmother's claims about my mothers phone call from the doctor during my 1st birthday party that she was indeed pregnant with her second child so soon.


I make him go to the bathroom this time. Let him be the bearer of bad news, confused at this point as to what exactly would constitute bad news. He enters the room with a smirk and I can't read his expression. 'Haha you're crazy, we're not pregnant' or 'Of course you didn't do it wrong, we're having a baby!'


"You're pregnant, " He says, handing it over. Now I cry. We're screwed. We're not ready for this. What are my parents going to think? (Will I ever out grow my need to seek approval and please them?) My brother and his wife are already pregnant again with Grand baby number 3, they don't want another one yet. I don't want another one yet!


He holds me and is the calm and reassuring all through the night. By the next morning, I am happy again. Damn hormones, making me think I didn't want this! My God, I was pregnant again!!! We were to be blessed again with another baby! I had always wanted my kids close together. They would grow up like my brother and I and it would be great. How wonderfully lucky I was!


I got dressed for work with my secret smile and set up the camera to take pictures of myself with my two pregnancy tests. I was already planning the Pregnancy #2 scrapbook in my head! Suddenly didn't mind the nausea that forced me to give away my peanut butter cookie during lunch at a work retreat and sleep in the corner of the conference room while the rest of my group took a tour of the grounds of the historic Locust Grove. It didn't matter anymore I still majorly felt like crap... I was pregnant!!!