It's My Birthday!

Well, technically it was yesterday, the 30th, but I never got around to posting. I've been on an unintentional blogging break. I'm still unpacking and my in-laws are still visiting until next Monday.

So I guess all is fair and I should announce my age and post pictures since I did that to Hubby. I'm that icky prime number like him now for the next year, 43. I'll actually be happy to have another birthday and get a year older just to get a nice number next year. Sad, that OCD thing.

My natural father was in the Army, and he and my mother were stationed in Germany when she became pregnant with me. He was sent to Viet Nam and she came home to the states to live at my grandparents' house. That's where I was born, in the hospital though, and lived for the first three years of my life. My father saw me one weekend of my life when I was six months old prior to me meeting him when I was 18 years old. Jump forward many years, and now Santa is my stepdad. Here's a semi-recent picture of him, my mom, and my grandma.

And to make Hubby feel like I wasn't picking on him on his birthday, here's the ode to Kayren...I'm only going up to 6th grade. Next year I think I'll do the ode to big hair. Now that should be fun.

I just realized in this picture that I'm holding a little toy giraffe. Giraffes are my favorite zoo animal. I'd never noticed that in this picture.

Early attempts at colorization. The photographer's directions are still penciled on the back.


I'm almost three years old here.


I'm probably about five years old here. I hadn't lost a tooth yet, so it was somewhere in the four to five year old changeover. Look at that hair! How many cowlicks must be in there.


This was actually my make-up first grade picture of some kind. I forgot to tell my mom about picture day and wore a nasty old white shirt with a little road-runner logo on it. And that crazy hair was a little messy after recess. I mean, why bother at that point.


Second grade...they must have taken it early in the school year because my hair was still bleached out from the summer sun.


Third grade...I have bad posture, and someone forgot to remind me to sit up straight. This is the last time you'll see the teeth that way though. I got my braces young.

Fourth grade...the closest thing I ever had to Marcia Brady hair.


Fifth grade


Sixth grade...if you'll notice, those are probably the same hairclips I had in my second grade picture. I also got my braces off not long after this, but I ended up with glasses as the trade-off.

Next year, definitely the big hair edition!

The In-Laws Have Come For Christmas

And look what happened the day they flew in to town!

Hubby's parents flew in to town last Friday, the 19th. Who would have ever imagined when tickets were purchased this would be when the first really big snowstorm would hit. They drove up to St. Louis the night before to icy conditions and were delayed leaving early Friday morning. They had to change planes at Chicago Midway and their flight to Detroit was delayed there as well.

Fortunately they were able to make it in without any flight cancellations. We do live about an hour from the airport, mostly north, and we got more than six inches of snow. It was treacherous out there, but it wasn't like Hubby couldn't go pick them up and then come back home. We are certainly thankful that we have a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

This is what the kids did the next day:

Cute, isn't it?

The blustery wind a few days later that made wind chills -12. Hat's gone. Not to be found.

And the snow yesterday, and the day before for that matter, the snowman is getting buried and his face is getting covered up. We have more than 12 total inches out there, and depending on what weather report you listen to we are supposed to get more.

My kids' first white Christmas since 2000 in Illinois. Tickled pink is an understatement!

Our Christmas Tree...Finally!

This has been a process of a couple of weeks. First we had to get a new tree from Wal-Mart. It's the "W" tree — a Donner Fir in case anyone wants to know — no jokes necessary. Apparently it was popular, because when my mom went to get one, she had to call three Wal-Marts and got the last one.

Then we had to find all our ornaments. I thought I had them with us. I was wrong. Don't tell Hubby I admitted that or I'll ruin my reputation. We had one box of three that I thought were with us, and the movers from Virginia had the rest. So once we had the tree up, we could only put the lights on. By the way, we didn't have lights either, so when we bought some we went ahead and got the LED style they have now. They are totally awesome and I would recommend them if you are thinking about them. They are much brighter than typical lights and they don't get hot, even if you leave them on for days. They don't even get warm.

So once we had all the boxes of ornaments it took us a few days to actually get around to putting them on the tree. Like two days ago on Sunday. Then I realized that we were missing a lot of them, so we had to go on a garage hunt. That took another day. Hubby finally found them in a cardboard moving box that the movers from Virginia had brought. They were already in plastic storage boxes, and that's what I was looking for and the reason I was unable to find them.

And finally last night we finished our beautiful tree. Please ignore the fact that there is no tree skirt. I think you know the whole missing-in-action theme we have going on at our house. We have a variety of ornaments, so our theme is whimsical, if that is actually a theme.

I wanted some of those sticks Mari talked about to fill in spots and make it a little sparkly since we don't use icicles or garland, but I never found any. I looked everywhere but Michael's, which is probably the one place that had them. Oh, well, there's always next year for sparkly sticks.

We have another pre-lit tree with white lights and a large box of white, silver, and gold ornaments that we never got put up this year. But there is always next year for more than one tree!

Merry Christmas, everyone, and I'll be by to visit and catch up soon!

Part 3 — Happy Birthday, Girls!

If you need to read the prior story, Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.

I never had any pictures taken of me while I was pregnant with the girls. Well, there was one. I had my second set of braces (first set from nine- to twelve-years-old) taken off the day I ended up getting put on bed rest, and while I was there they took a picture of me with the doctor. It was a Polaroid, and I do have it somewhere, but you can't really tell anything much so I don't count it. That's how I'm able to basically remember when I got put on bed rest, because I had those braces three days shy of one year. I remember things by association, and Hubby is stunned at the things I can recall. Usually they are inconsequential and have to do with what I was wearing, but I can tie it all back in to a date to figure something out.

The pregnancy had complications from the beginning, and then it was so high risk and there was no guarantee I could carry the girls long enough that they would live, so I didn't want any pictures to remind me visually. Crazy, maybe. And now that they are here I wouldn't mind having one, but I don't really have any great regrets. When I was expecting Buddy I didn't take any though because I didn't want any of him if I didn't have any of his sisters. I thought that wouldn't be fair. Well, I was so magnificently huge at the end, we took a picture the night before I went to the hospital with the girls standing by me and then a side view. We would have definitely had huge regrets if we had not taken those. Once I was pregnant with Caboose, we didn't care anymore and there are plenty of pictures, including one right before I left to go to the hospital. I look more like I needed a two-week vacation.

Chatty was 2 lbs 4 oz and 14 1/2 inches long. Here is one of her very first pictures, maybe even her very first other than the Polaroid the ICN staff took.

Sparky was 2 lbs 2 oz and 13 1/2 inches long, and ditto on her picture.

If you aren't familiar with preemies, they put iv's through their belly button area, so that's why you see little wires there. They are often in a warming bed as opposed to an incubator when they need to be accessed often or possibly quickly. If they are ventilated their heads need to be kept still so the tubes don't get dislodged from their throats and so the nurses will strap their heads down to the bed with cloth diapers.

The first night brought a bubble outside of Chatty's lung, but I never completely understood it. The doctors "helped her resolve it on her own" without putting in a chest tube, so that worked for us. Sparky had to have packed red blood cells since she'd lost so much blood during the delivery. It was a little bit of a traumatic first night for them.

Another thing is that preemies often don't produce a hormone that term babies will produce that closes off a valve in the heart. It has to do with breathing in the womb in a liquid environment versus breathing in an air environment, and it has to close off for the baby to breath properly. The baby can be given a synthetic version of the hormone to close off the valve if the doctor detects a heart murmur. After the three doses, Sparky's closed and Chatty's didn't. They gave her another three doses, and when it still didn't close, they had to send her to another hospital for surgery. We had two options, and since St. Louis was a straight shot on the interstate and we knew the city pretty well, we chose it. They flew her by plane, and since she had a twin they flew her back once she was stable (which was actually only a day after the surgery). She was two and a half weeks old when she had the surgery. We had one of my childhood friends who lived in Springfield go by and see Sparky as the surrogate parent while we were in St. Louis.

Normally the ICN staff would not let you hold your baby while they were ventilated. Because of this procedure they were flying Chatty off for (it was called a PDA Ligation), they decided to let us hold her. Here is one of the pictures:

She was mostly a bundle of blankets and tubes. This was the only picture where you could really see her face.

Now one of the things Sparky was known for was her 'Jane Fonda's', seen below. I would occasionally get a call across the street at the Ronald McDonald House asking me to come over and talk to her. It seemed that my voice would calm her down, almost immediately. They didn't call during the middle of the night, and when she did it then they usually gave her Demerol or morphine.

One of the girls' nurses made them Christmas dresses. They were from some kind of doll pattern. Chatty is in the first picture here, and I think that is my finger on the blue tubing (for perspective).

Sparky is in these next two pictures with her dress on. I also forgot to mention that these were taken on Christmas Eve. Let me just say that I was very nervous holding her head in that second picture, but I'm glad I did because you can see that we will never forget how small she was. All I have to do is hold up my hand like that. I mean, look at that nose, and look at a fingernail. Amazing...


I had Chatty hold one of the dresses for me so you could get an idea of how small they are. It's hard for me to remember how small the girls were, and I was there, so I know it's hard to try to see it in a picture with nothing to use as perspective. I also had her hold up the dress and one of her American Girl dolls in the second picture so you could get an idea on the size. I don't know if you can tell in the pictures, but the dresses actually went past their feet, and their legs were straight.


Well, you know why Sparky was doing those Jane Fonda's? She was trying to tell the doctors and nurses she wanted her ventilator out. They took it out on Christmas Day! We were warned several times not to get our hopes up and that it wasn't unusual for the babies to get tired easily and have to be reventilated. Not our little exerciser. She was finally able to get all cuddled up since she'd been so rudely yanked from the womb.

And a few days later her sister followed in her footsteps, although different personalities were already being exhibited. Chatty had been given a diuretic, so she's even a little tinier than before. She was at her low weight of 1 lb 14 oz here. That's my hand up above her head blocking the light (for perspective again).

And Chatty at 2 lb 8 oz below. I'm showing you this one because of the way the picture happened to come out. Look at my thumb compared to her legs. They are pretty much the same size.

I have failed to mention that Hubby got to stay until after the first of the year with me at the Ronald McDonald house before he had to go back to Virginia. They let him start the class over again with the next group. He was at least able to be there through the PDA Ligation and both girls successful getting off the ventilators.

Well, believe it or not, there was much more excitement after this, including surgeries. I think I'll have to quit calling it their birthday story though and figure out something else to call it. I'll also have to finish it another day. We have company coming for the weekend, but I'll get back to it as soon as possible, and house pictures too. Promise!

Part 2 — Happy Birthday, Girls!

Hubby had driven from Virginia to Arkansas for Thanksgiving. I didn't feel well and was at my contraction threshold the whole weekend. I'd never been there consistently. He left on Saturday night and drove all night to arrive back in Virginia on Sunday afternoon. By Sunday evening I felt really funny and decided to call in and send my monitoring results (instead of waiting until the normal morning call). I'd had six contractions in an hour, and my threshold was four. They told me to drink water, which I always did anyway, and remonitor. The next hour I thought I had two. I was wrong. I had nine. I was told to go to the hospital and they would call ahead.

Of course when I arrived at the hospital they thought I was a full-term single delivery at first. Then they got me in a room, checked me, and put me on Breathene for the night along with a contraction monitor. That monitor registered nothing, but overnight I went from no dilation to 2-3 cm by 7 a.m.

Now let me just say that my family and I had decided the night before not to call Hubby and tell him what was going on because he needed his sleep. Nothing was really happening at the time anyway. Well, now it was, and fast. A fast ultrasound, which city to go to, helicopter to coordinate, and he's already in class because he's on the east coast...it was a little crazy. This was before cell phones, too. At least for the general American population. Well, remember I'm a number person. I recalled the number to the housing office on the post where he was. They found him very quickly, he called the hospital, and then got to work on getting a flight.

I chose Springfield, Missouri, over Little Rock, Arkansas. It was one hour closer to where my family was in Arkansas, and the roads were much better for them when they traveled. We also knew a few people there. To this day when I see a helicopter, especially a medical helicopter, I nearly hyperventilate. I get that little shudder and my breathing changes. All the feelings just rush back. I stared at gray quilted diamonds on the top of the helicopter ceiling that was just inches from my face for 45 minutes or so. I have that picture imprinted on my mind forever.

By the time I arrived, I was dilated 4-5 cm. They put me on magnesium sulfate and had the perinatologist and neonatologist come in and talk to me. My mom, aunt, and grandpa all drove up and met me there.

First, the perinatologist said he expected me to have the babies by that night (it was Monday and I didn't have them until Friday, praise God!), and that my Hubby needed to get there as quickly as possible. He gave me options — regular vaginal delivery, vaginal delivery of the first baby and leaving the second one, or going ahead and doing a cesarean right away. My aunt and I talked it over and decided to let God handle it, let the babies stay in as long as possible, and have a vaginal delivery, cesarean only if necessary. The doctor told us they had never done this procedure at that particular hospital — the delivery of one twin and leaving the second one until a later date — but we chose that option if possible. The neonatologist came in next and gave all the gloomy news about percentages — chance of survival, chance of problems if they survived, chance of significant problems, etc. Gloomy! You know, she ended up being one of our best buds.

And then last but not least, the magnesium sulfate. If you've been on it, you get it. That stuff is nasty, but it works. It made me not be able to focus, even with my glasses on, affected my sleep, made me moody, and in general just made me not care about anything. Granted, I was laying in a hospital bed upside down, which is called Trendelenberg position, my lungs were getting a little fluidy, and by Friday I hadn't washed my hair since probably the previous Saturday. And you know what...didn't care! When the nurse came in on Friday and wanted to wash it, I told her I didn't know how she was going to do it because I couldn't lift up. She was going to hold me off the end of the bed or something. I told her to forget it and that my mom would just french braid my hair. It wasn't really long enough for all of it to go back well, but as icky as it was, that helped.

Then she asked me about my toothbrush. I told her I didn't have one. She told me they would have given me one when I got there. On Monday. This was Friday. I'd been in a hospital somewhere since Sunday night. Told you I didn't care. I know it's gross, but I'm over it now. I'm sharing it with you, aren't I?

So back to Monday. That evening around the shift change time the new nurse came in and checked me. She said I was fully dilated. That certainly got things moving quickly and got everyone in a huff. I was rushed to a delivery or operating room (I'm not even sure which) with my aunt by my side, and the doctor met us there. They dropped the table, he checked me, and said in a firm enough voice for everyone to hear that I was dilated exactly like I was when I got there and to get me out of there. I was shaking like the proverbial leaf, and I remember them throwing some warm blankets over the top of me as they wheeled me out. (Hubby was not flying in until almost midnight that night.)

Once I was back in a room, the nurse came in and you could tell she'd been crying. She apologized and said that she thought I was fully dilated since the baby's head took up the space. You know, I never saw her again the rest of that week. I spent it in one of the four perinatology rooms for obvious reasons, but also because I needed to be close to the delivery room. They were afraid my water would break and Baby A would just come flying out.

So when Friday rolled around I knew this was the day I would have my babies. I felt it. I had been on a suppository that helped stop contractions along with the mag sulfate, but it was only a short-term medication, and I received the last one on Thursday. By 3:00 in the afternoon I was in a delivery room with tons of people. I had no epidural or local anesthetic because they didn't want to relax any muscles since they wanted to try to leave Baby B after Baby A was born. (Baby B was breech and very high up...they were pretty sure it was a girl, but not absolutely certain.) I was also on the magnesium sulfate to stop the contractions while I was in the delivery room having contractions and pushing. Weird, I know. It was to hopefully help as soon as the size of the uterus shrunk after one baby was out, since they assumed my early labor was due to this being a first pregnancy and the uterus thinking it was time to deliver.

6:03 brought Baby A, Chatty, and a small cry. Of course she had to be ventilated when they got her over to the bed since she would not be able to expand the lungs back out on her own. Things were sort of relaxed for a brief moment, and then I heard the doctor say the words, "Distress, hook, you're not going to like me very much." I then had the worst 20 seconds of pain in my life. I thought I took part of the nurses arm off, but she had gotten my hand down to the table handle, although I'm not really sure how. Hubby saw them lose Baby B, Sparky, on the ultrasound and then the heartbeat was about 80 when they got her back on it. The doctor reached in and broke my other water sac and pulled her out by the ankles. She was blue. The neonatologist had her so fast that he didn't even know if we'd had another girl or a boy. This also explains why we think that maybe the birth time of 6:10 was when someone had a chance to look at the clock.

About five minutes later the anesthesiologist comes rushing in and throws the oxygen mask back on my face while exclaiming, "We're prepping for a c-section." Hubby says, "We already had the baby." Anesthesiologist says, "You had one. This is for the other one." Hubby explains, "No, we had both." I'm glad my perinatologist was able to take care of things on his own.

Well, you know that she survived. A few minutes later when things calmed down the doctor explained that the girls' placentas had grown together on the edges. When Chatty's started delivering, Sparky's did too. Not good. So she didn't get to stay extra time in the womb. I might add that when he did this he had the big giant silver bowl in front of him and held the placentas up for us to see. Another picture emblazoned on my photogenic mind forever.

more tomorrow, with some pictures of teeny, tiny girlies...

Part 1 — Happy Birthday, Girls!

Happy Belated Birthday to my two girls! Can my excuse for being nearly a week late be that they were three months early?

Yep, three months and one day to be exact. They were due March 4, 1994, and were born on December 3, 1993. They were born on the exact day I turned 27 weeks pregnant. It was a Friday, one week and one day after Thanksgiving.

So now I'll backtrack and fill you in on all the details. This will definitely be my most personal post I've done to date.

When Hubby and I were dinks (double income, no kids), we always said that if we had kids, we wanted twin girls and then we'd be done. Well, little did we know how prophetic that would end up being — at least for the first half of our family!

And no, twins do not run in the family. I took Clomid. At the time I had the girls, the only ones I know of were my grandpa's brother's non-identical twin girls (my mom's cousins).

My cycles had always been irregular, and it appeared to the doctor that I wasn't actually ovulating. The Clomid was to make my cycles regular and to make me ovulate properly. I actually had someone very close to me tell me at the time that children were a blessing from God...basically that I wasn't supposed to have them since I wasn't on my own and that I shouldn't be taking this medication. This was very difficult for me to deal with on top of having to deal with all the feelings of infertility, and unless you've experienced this personally, it's very difficult to understand or explain so that someone can comprehend the complex and varying emotions.

Well, the Clomid worked the first month that I took it. I went to the doctor a couple of days after I missed my period and took the pregnancy test. He told me not to get my hopes up because it looked like there already might be a problem. The little blue dot wasn't very dark, and it registers at a minimal hormone level, so being a few days late it should have been plenty dark. They drew blood, called on the phone a day or so later and called Hubby and I in for a meeting with the doctor. Like we really needed to go at that point because you know it's bad news. Kind of like getting called to the Principal's office. He told us that the pregnancy wasn't going to be viable and I would miscarry, and that if I hadn't been on Clomid and trying to have a baby, I probably would have just thought I was a few days late.

So then I start taking the Clomid again. This time it worked the second month I took it, and this pregnancy lasted about eight weeks before I miscarried. I had no warning this time. It was devastating.

The doctor referred us to a fertility specialist in St. Louis for special testing and further treatment. I had an HSG test done, which stands for hysterosalpingogram, and it was not much fun. They shoot dye into your uterus and fallopian tubes to check for blockage. I didn't have any. When they say, "This might make you cramp a little," that was just a little teeny understatement. I thought I was going to throw up the nausea was so bad from the cramping. They put a tube through your cervix without giving you anything anywhere. Your body wasn't made for that, and it cramps.

So this doctor (whose name was Dr. Pineda and we just loved) doubled my Clomid dose and had me take it on different days. I took it for three months before it worked. Hubby and I had decided that it would probably be the last month even if it didn't work, because around the time I would ovulate it actually hurt to walk. Every step I took caused a dull throb because my ovaries would 'bang' against the side of whatever is in there. I guess the uterus is closest. Made getting pregnant a little difficult too.

So when we knew my period was late, like I wasn't taking my basal body temperature like some freak of nature and thought I was anyway, the doctor had me come to St. Louis for blood testing to check my hormones and then back again two days later to see if the levels doubled. Well, they more than doubled, so they told me they suspected twins. When we went for the ultrasound at just prior to six weeks, they found a third sac that didn't develop. They also found the girls' heartbeats.

At about seven and a half weeks I started spotting. We were terrified. An ultrasound showed that everything appeared to be normal, so I had to lay on my back with my hips elevated for three days. I spotted again a few weeks later, so they put me on progesterone for a few weeks. After that, everything was fine...for a few more weeks anyway.

Around fourteen weeks (maybe a little sooner) I would have tightening in my lower abdomen. Never having been pregnant, I didn't really know what this was. The nurse at my general practitioner's office said that she'd had three babies and it was nothing. Nothing turned out to be contractions that were softening and thinning my cervix. By sixteen and a half weeks, my cervix was completely softened, and depending on which doctor you talked to I was somewhere between 50 percent and 100 percent effaced.

We were about a week from the end of September, and a little over two weeks away from moving to Virginia for Hubby to attend a school for several months. Guess what? I was put on bed rest and told I couldn't go. It was too far away. So Hubby put me in the back seat of our vehicle and drove me three hours south to North Arkansas. I stayed at my grandparents' house since they were home all day. I was put on a home uterine monitor and had to check myself twice a day, then transmit it over the phone once a day. I was able to get up to eat three meals at the table, go to the bathroom, and shower twice a week. Other than that, I was in bed on my right hip or my left hip. They were bruised within about 36 hours of being put on bed rest.

it's too long, so continued tomorrow...

Memory Monday

From memory:

Psalm 1:1-3
"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers."

My goal was the entire chapter of Psalm 1 and I only got through half of it. I could give you all the reasons why but I'll just show you a few pictures that might help explain it.

Saturday morning's forecast called for about an inch of accumulation. Let's just say that Hubby couldn't keep the snow off the driveway or sidewalk, and there was more than enough for the kids to play in later in the afternoon. This was the truck from Virginia. These three men didn't know what hit them. They didn't look at The Weather Channel before they left and weren't really prepared. This truck had the 4,000 pounds of things that the military moved and stored for us, which was mostly our heaviest furniture, front porch/shed type items, and about 15 boxes.

Last week also brought our girls' 15th birthday, and I am so tardy in posting their birth story! I am going to do it tomorrow. I might have to make it a two-day story because I think it will probably get lengthy. Then when I'm done with it I will post some house pictures — actually inside! We still need to get our tree up, and Buddy's best friend and his mom are coming in from Virginia on Friday. I'm a little overwhelmed.

For next week's Memory Monday I will finish up with Psalm 1. I love Joanne's idea of memorizing the Christmas story from Luke. We used to read/quote it on Christmas at my grandparents' house before opening gifts in the afternoon. I am pretty sure it was in the KJV though. I don't have it completely memorized, so maybe after Psalm 1 I'll move on to it, but it will probably be the only thing I don't do in NIV.

Memory Monday

Sadly, I've missed the last couple of weeks. The big move took priority and I didn't have any time to get on the computer. I had my verse memorized for last week and was lazy and didn't do another one. With Thanksgiving, and knowing I had lots of unpacking and furniture assembly on my plate, I decided that I would just work on keeping that one and the first one I learned solidified in my brain. So here is my newest one, from memory:

Psalm 4:4
"In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent."

I've known the first part of this verse for years and used it with my children. Letting them know it was okay to be angry was important; letting them know it was important how they handled it was even more important. Something brought me to look at this verse and I happened to read the rest of it, and that's when I realized there were a lot of truths to be found there. There are times when I must send my children to their rooms to think about what they have done, how their attitudes are affecting either themselves or others in the household, and while they are in their rooms, the second part of that verse is so meaningful and wise. I thought it was an important verse for me to memorize in the training of my children, not that it will hurt me in the least either, and I want to pass it on to them now and have them memorize it. I think if they can come up with it as second nature like they do some of their Awana verses, it will have a real impact on how quickly attitudes turn around.

For this next week I am going to be terribly ambitious. Honestly, I've always been great at memorization. For the short-term. I could always memorize something for a test in a subject I didn't care about and then just trash the information like I never knew it. But this is obviously very different. So for next week I'm going to memorize Psalm 1. The whole thing. Feel free to pray for me. I will probably need it.

To join in Memory Monday or see how absolutely wonderful Joanne is doing, go visit her over at The Simple Wife.