New Year's Eve

Writing a blog with a baby in the house is impossible.  That is my excuse for the dearth of posts lately.  Norah is growing up so fast.  At her two month check up, she weighed 8lbs 12oz and was 20 3/4 inches long.  That is more than double her birth weight!  It's crazy.  I look at her and ask, "Where did my little baby go?"  She is holding her head up so well and on the day of her two month birthday she rolled from her belly to her back.  I was shocked.  We were at my in laws for Christmas that day and I was just speechless and kept trying to explain to them that this was the first time, the very first time she had ever done that.  Of course, I realize it was probably just that she was so mad I put her on her belly for a round of "Angry Baby" (calling it "Tummy Time" it too cutesy for me and since she gets so mad we call it "Angry Baby".  Norah always wins).

I wanted to post today, the last day of 2012, just to reflect on what a crazy year it has been.  Those of you will autumn born babies can relate.  Jay and I started off this year with a few drinks at home, just the two of us.  We were just us still, just a married couple.  We are ending this year with a daughter here and a daughter in Heaven.  Our girls didn't even exist last New Year's Eve.  Their souls had not yet been formed by the Creator.  In the span of one year, we found the most profound grief and the most brilliant joy imaginable.

I miss my daughter.  It's just the truth.  I miss Aislynn terribly.  I ask Jesus everyday to tell her that her mommy loves her and misses her and to give her a kiss for me.

I adore Norah and being her mom.  It is so daunting to realize that I'm the mom now.  I'm the one who has to kiss boo-boos and shoo away monsters and rub away tummy aches and fix tears with giggles.  Hopefully, I can be to her what my mom has been to me.  I always knew that my mom could fix it.  Even in my very difficult teenage years and into college, even when I didn't act like it, part of me still believed Mom could fix it, Mom could help.  Even after I got married, if something was wrong, part of me still wanted to go home so Mom could tell me it would be okay.  I call her now to blather on about Norah and being tired and it always helps, always fixes it, to hear her tell me that I'm doing fine.  That she went through this same thing and my siblings and I were always fine.  (Now, now.  Don't be mean.  My being nuts is not my mother's doing.  At least, mostly not her doing.)

Jay and I have started going to the Vine Church in Carbondale.  I really like it there.  It is relaxed and lacks so many of those "what you do at church" things that makes me pull back from organized religion.  The people there are really nice, too.  I am rediscovering this side of myself.  I'm going to be honest here and admit that I shied away from the church stuff because, honestly, it all sounded lame.  The phrases, the "things you say cause you go to church", all made me roll my eyes.  It probably stems to how much we all see of others just playing church.  We all know the type.  I never wanted to be that disingenuous person.  So now I'm striving not to.  I'm striving to let go of my preconceived notions and just be.  I know this is going to get a lot of reactions from readers of this blog and all of them will be positive and meant to be uplifting, but please, just let it be what it is.  Like I said I'm still struggling with the gut reaction to hide this stuff because I don't like to talk about it.  Sharing it is a big step, right?  So please don't shock my system by flooding me with encouragement.  I know that's totally screwed up that I want the encouragement toned down, but I'm a little messed up.  We really like going to church there though.  There have only been a scant handful of times that I can say I felt "moved" and that seems to happen regularly there.

Of course the events of the past year have changed me.  Probably made me more open to God than ever before.  I have been praised for my faith in God through what Jay and I have been through, but to be honest, I probably didn't deserve the praise.  My reaching out to God and having faith was a little reactionary.  What else could we do?  What other reaction could we have had to this horror that we faced in losing our precious baby girl than to turn to the Creator of the cosmos and believe that He would care for her?  If I couldn't believe that Aislynn was healthy and happy and playing in Heaven and our goodbye was just goodbye for now, I would not have survived this.  I don't know why He had to have Aislynn so soon, why she had to take the "short path".  But it is not mine to know why.  It is not mine to know His plan.  It is mine to obey and believe and have faith.  I will have joy that my baby girl got to worship at the feet of the King this Christmas.  I will have peace and pride that she has seen the face of her God.  She has touched the hem of Jesus's robe, she has laughed in his arms, she has heard and sang with the angels.

I miss her but the God I worship knows that too.  So He can play and laugh with her there, and cry with me here.  He knows she is happy because He has seen her but He also knows that we miss her so much here.  My God shed tears for my pain with me while reminding me to be joyful because with faith, I will see her again.  The dichotomy of the God we worship is awe-inspiring.  We worship the creator of everything.  The all mighty, great, I Am.  The King.  The God who can snap his fingers and make galaxies.  He sits on The Throne.  But you know what, He also sits on my couch with me at night when I hold Norah and cry because her smile looks like Aislynn's would have looked like.  He also stands with me when I'm so tired at night because Norah's acid reflux makes it hard for her to sleep so we have to walk to calm her down.  When we need to be reminded of His awesome power to feel safe, then He is the all mighty King, ruler of all, Lord of Lords, Great I Am.  When we need the tender comfort of the Savior, He is the one holding our hand or carrying us in His arms, whispering words of comfort and peace.  This amazing dual role that God plays for us is something that I have only understood since going to this church.  I underestimated the role of church in faith.

So that's what's in my head as this year ends.  I will celebrate the New Year with a glad heart.  It might not be at midnight because, God willing, my child will sleep a bit more tonight, but I will celebrate it certainly not long after midnight.  Happy New Year everyone.

Home

Life since the birth of our girls has been kind of wild.  And I know, I know you all are nodding and saying, "Well, yeah," but it has been a crazy ride that neither of us expected.

As you all know, Norah was in the NICU after she was born.  But not for as long as anyone thought.  They told us that most preemie babies go home just before their actual due date.  Our girls were born at 32 weeks gestation.  We told the NICU nurses that we were hoping to have her home around Thanksgiving and they told us that was a very reasonable goal, not rushing her or expecting too much.  This child was home in exactly two weeks.  Two weeks!  Crazy.  We knew she was doing very well but everyone, even the NICU nurses and her doctor, was surprised how well she did so quickly.  Most preemie babies have a hard time with the Baby Hat Trick which is to suck (to eat), swallow and breathe at the same time.  Norah did not.  Not ever.  Her first time with a bottle she took like a third of her feeding, which according to the nurses, is insanely good.  In just days she was taking every other feeding by bottle (versus her feeding tube) and then every feeding.  I will admit, I got a little teary when we bottle fed her for the first time.  Not just because it was exciting, which it was.  It was because she was growing up.  I know most normal babies eat their food without a feeding tube but my baby didn't and when she did, it was her getting bigger and growing.  

We brought her home exactly two weeks after they were born.  And, I gotta be honest, we were not ready.  Not like the whole "you're never really ready" thing but like really not ready.  Her room wasn't ready.  We didn't have any clothes or diapers for her.  The only baby stuff we had was what we got for the baby shower just days before they were born.  So while the news was good, our reaction didn't really show that.  We had to look like deer in headlights.  But what are ya gonna do?  You make a trip to Wal-Mart and buy what you think you have to have and find out later just what you needed.  As it turns out, we didn't do too badly on that.  

About breastfeeding....I tried.  When she was born and since she was in the NICU, a lactation nurse brought me a breast pump and I pumped.  And it worked.  Worked well, in fact.  I was able to pump so much that she didn't need any formula in the hospital.  I pumped in the hospital and took it to the NICU and I pumped at home and at first we took it to the hospital when we went to see her but eventually they told me they had plenty and then what I pumped at home went in the deep freeze.  A couple days before we brought her home they let me try to nurse her and she did really well.  I struggled but she seemed to know exactly what she was doing.  After she was home I started to integrate nursing into our feeding schedule but since she was still so little I was supposed to nurse and then offer her her "expressed" breast milk and then record how much she takes in addition to nursing.  This is kind of an exhausting schedule and I just didn't feel like I could really regulate how much she was getting.  I needed to know that she was eating enough and trying to breast feed her just stressed me out.  In case anyone doesn't know, I'm a bit busty (yes, understatement) and I was having a rough time with this experience.  So I decided I would just pump and then bottle feed her.  

And then my milk volume started to decline.  We still had quite a bit in the freezer so I thought I had time to try to work on that.  But there was no fixing it and eventually I had to start giving her some formula along with the breast milk.  I thought that would work.  But the amount I was pumping went down so fast that she was getting mostly formula.  The act of pumping and getting no milk was starting to be damaging to me emotionally.  It was like having the failure shoved in my face every three hours.  This failure that I couldn't provide for my child.  And that along with every thing else we were facing was too much.  I took my mom's advice from what she went through and finally just had to move on.  I had to accept that pumping just wasn't for us this time and move on.  Formula may not be "so natural" and "liquid gold" and "made best for baby" but it still makes healthy kids.  My siblings and I all had formula after Mom breast fed us as long as she could and I think we turned out just fine.  

She does have acid reflux which is so hard to watch her deal with but I know it's common.  I hate to see her have to work so hard to keep her food down.  She is so tough and does such a good job, but I still hate that she has to be tough.  I hate that she spits up and that sometimes it comes out her nose.  I hate that she looks so uncomfortable sometimes and coughs and gags and grunts cause her belly is upset.  I think that it may be extra tough for us because of Aislynn.  Not to be a downer, but we saw her die.  We held her little body.  We know what it is to hold our child after she was gone. And that kind makes like aftershocks when Norah is not completely fine.  

Grief is odd.  I thought I had worked through more of the grief in preparing to lose her.  There really is no preparing for that.  Yes, we knew so we were over the shock part of losing her but the rest of it, nope.  And yes, having Norah is amazing and it is so, so wonderful that she is so healthy but I miss Aislynn just as much as I rejoice that Norah is so healthy.  I miss my baby.  Mourning Aislynn will take time and my love for Norah may soften some of the edges of the grief but that absolutely does not mean that I will "get over it" faster.  

There is a quote from an unlikely source that fits exactly how I feel:  "The way I see it life is a pile of good things and a pile of bad things.  The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant."

Aislynn Marie

Our daughter, Aislynn Marie Heininger.  Let me tell you about her.  Because I did know her.  We did get to know her while I carried her and her sister.  She was my early riser.  She kicked earlier in the morning than her sister did.  She was the first to reposition herself if I rolled over in the night.  Her movements were usually less sudden than her sister's, more fluid, like she was leisurely turning over instead of the jerky kicks and punches Norah was known for.  She carried low in my belly so when she did decide to really haul off and kick me, it often felt like she was kicking me directly in my lady parts.  That made me jump every time and amused Jay to no end.  She seemed more affected by my rare soda splurges and was most active in the afternoon.

She took care of me.  I know it sounds odd that my still in utero baby took care of me but she did.  She kicked whenever I was hungry.  She let me know I had missed lunch if I got busy at work and she kicked if she decided I needed a snack in the afternoon.  I always said she took care of both me and Norah by making sure mommy got enough to eat and drink.

She moved in that gentle way of hers every time I cried about her.  It was so strange, I could cry about a silly commercial or cry about some work stress or just cry because I was full of pregnancy hormones and she would let me.  But if I cried about her and how hard the thought of losing her was or how unfair it was that we had to let one of our girls go or cried about how I was so afraid, she would move.  She let me cry for a bit, kind of letting it out, but after several minutes she would move as if to calm me down.  It was like she was saying, "It's okay, Mommy.  I'm still here now."  It would never fail to make me smile and remind me that she was right, we still had time to celebrate her.  The mourning could wait, now was the time for joy.

She took better ultrasound pictures than her sister did.  It was like she was showing off her pretty face for the "camera".  She turned for profile shots and moved her hands so we could see her suck her fingers.  She also, somehow in those last few ultrasounds, managed to position herself so that the ultrasound picture showed not just her bone structure but her actual nose and lips and chin.  How they were shaped and how pretty they were.  She held still for the heartbeat images to calm Mommy down.  Don't get me wrong, Norah took good US pics, too, since she's so pretty, she was just more stubborn and would not turn for the US tech to get good pictures.  Aislynn knew we needed as many pictures of her as we could get.  She knew how were were trying so hard to just be happy we had her with us and so she posed for pictures to help us.

My only thought on "that Monday" when I woke up and went into preterm labor was that I wasn't ready to say goodbye.  I was scared for Norah, too, of course and I suppose a better mother would have been equally worried for the daughter who had the chance to live a long life, but I could mostly only think of Aislynn.  I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my girl; it was too soon, we were supposed to have more time.  We were supposed to get her arrangements done and already have her dress picked out.  There was supposed to be more time.  But she and God must have known something we didn't.  All day, laying in a hospital bed having contractions, listened to Norah's heartbeat they had on the monitor but I thought of Aislynn.  And I prayed.  I prayed that we would have time with her, that she could hang on and keep her and her sister inside for a bit longer to give time for the steroids to work on Norah's lungs.

Aislynn gave us all the time she could and my labor progressed and Dr. Meyer said it was time.  He gave her a big loud "Happy Birthday" just the same as Norah and just the same as he probably gives every other baby he delivers.  You may be thinking its odd or cynical of me to be pleasantly surprised by that but I am well aware that many other doctors consider Aislynn as less than a whole baby because of her defect.  That all she would have been to them was a "non-viable fetus" and would have encouraged us to selectively abort her.  We had one high-risk OB doctor who kind of made me think he felt that way.  Luckily he was not our primary, Dr. Meyer was.  Dr. Meyer saw her as we did, as a beautiful strong little girl and just as much our beloved daughter as Norah.

We had talked at length with Dr. Meyer about the kind of intervention we were willing to do with Aislynn.  By intervention I mean what we were medically willing to do if she were not born breathing.  We decided not to subject her to anything to invasive like intubation or chest compression   It would be cruel to hold her soul here if it was time for her to go Home.  But some babies, even regular, full-term, healthy babies need a few breaths with a bag mask just to get started.  So that is what we agreed to, breaths with a bag mask for less than five or so minutes.

Our strong girl only needed a few breaths to get going.  She just needed a tiny bit of help so she could see her mom and dad.  I saw the nurse standing over her with Jay.  I watched her place our baby girl in her Daddy's arms so he could show her to me.  Jay said she was the first little baby he has ever held and I must say it didn't show.  He was just a Daddy proudly holding his first born.

We talked to her.  We said hello and told her how much we love her.  We told her how beautiful she was and marveled to each other how pretty she was.  Her little lips were so perfectly formed and her nose was the cutest little button.  She had long beautiful fingers on her little hands.  She had shapely little feet.  She was a perfectly, lovingly made little baby girl.  I sang a little to her as best I could from my position on the operating table.  We told her over and over and over again how much we love her and how proud we were of her and how strong she was.  We touched her hands and feet and stroked her little cheeks and lips and nose.  We thanked her for being ours and for protecting Norah.   Eventually, there was some slight change that I don't even think I could describe and we told her that if it was hard, if she was tired, that she could go Home.  That she should go with Jesus and run and play in Heaven.  That it would just seem like moments to her in Paradise till Mommy and Daddy were with her again.  A wonderful nurse had been checking her heartbeat every several minutes checked her one last time and then shook her head.  She was gone.  Jesus had gathered her up gently into his arms and carried her to Heaven so she can rest and play.  Our Aislynn, our beautiful, beloved baby girl, could dance and run and laugh and play because I know that the instant Jesus held her, she was made whole.  Nothing was hard or hurt.  She gave us the most perfect and beautiful 25 minutes I will ever experience in my entire life.
Jay was holding her the whole time.  I thought later at the beautiful symmetry of Aislynn going from one father's arms, her earthly father, to her Heavenly Father's arms.

After surgery in the recovery room, I got to hold the little body where my baby's soul lived.  A nurse lovingly washed her and put her in a pretty little dress and hat and gave her a stuffed bunny to hold.  A giving photographer with an organization called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep donated her time and took so, so many pictures of her and us.  Nurses found a way to wheel my hospital bed all the way into the heart of the NICU right after surgery so that we could take pictures of our girls together.  We took pictures of their hands and feet together so that someday we will be able to show Norah that she really did have a sister.  I held her all the way back to my hospital room so we could show her to our families.  Her grandparents held her and her aunt and uncle (my sister and brother) got to see her.  Eventually it was time to let her go.  I knew that the pretty little body was just the vessel my Aislynn had occupied for a time but the reality of letting her go and never holding her again was so terrible.  Jay and I laid in the bed and held her and looked at her.  Then he got up and went out to tell a nurse that we were ready.  Were we ready?  No.  But I don't think you can be ready for that.  I knew I wouldn't have the strength to hand her to a stranger; thankfully my husband, her Daddy, was strong enough for both of us.  I handed her one last time to her Daddy and he kissed her and handed her to the nurse.  Then I sobbed.

I had cried hard in the operating room when she died and the tears had never completely dried up.  But after we let her go I really sobbed.  I sobbed for the months of pain and fear we felt as we carried her not knowing what would happen.  I sobbed for the shock of realizing that we were going to have to say goodbye to our daughter.  I sobbed for the loss of our first born child.  I sobbed for the loss of this dream, this vision of twins that I had when we first found out about them.  But mostly I sobbed for my girl.  I sobbed for the loss of my daughter and the holidays we wouldn't celebrate with her and the birthdays we would miss with her and the arguments we would never have and the late nights cuddling we would never have.

I miss her.  I miss her so much.  That may seem impossible given the short time we had and her defect but I do.  Just because she was cognitively lacking changes nothing.  Her soul was here and a part of our family.  Jay and I and Norah and Aislynn were a family and I firmly believe our souls knew each other.  And now we miss her here with us.

I know she watches over us and is the reason that Norah did so well and got out of the NICU so fast.  I know she felt the love we have for her.  I know she knew her Daddy was the one holding her and that her Mommy was singing to her.  And I know she loves us, too.

People may think that because this is so painful, that not mentioning her and not bringing up the topic is more gentle because they don't want to upset us.  But for me that seems to hurt worse.  I need to talk about her.  I need for people to know she was real and here and that we will celebrate her as we mourn her.  We are really mourning for ourselves, for how we will miss her.  She is dancing in paradise.

Thank you for reading this story of our daughter.  Thank you for sharing in her life.  Thank you for supporting us through our joy and grief.

To Aislynn - Your Mommy and Daddy think of you every moment of every day.  You will be talked about and remembered always.  Norah will know how much you love her and how you protected her.  You are so loved, baby girl.  We will see you some day soon.  You can show us the best spots in Heaven to play and take us to see all the people you've met.  Fly with us, angel.  Mommy and Daddy love you.

"How very softly you tiptoed into my world.

Almost silently; only a moment you stayed.

But what an imprint your footprints have left

on our hearts."

Woah, this is really happening Part 2

So now for Part 2 of the day our girls were born.  Warning: this is gonna be a very long one because I can't break it up as easy as the first bit.  And it carries the same Gross Disclaimer as Part 1.

Monday went by kind of strangely after the crazy, terror-filled early morning.  They had me on the magnesium sulfate (known hereafter as "mag" as the nurses called it) which made my face burn like I had an insanely high fever.  Which, of course, I did not have because they were also fast pumping me full of antibiotics and checking my temp rather often.  I explained to Jay that with the membranes around our girls broken, my womb becomes like the perfect breeding ground for anything and everything.  I think he may have already knew that but let me tell him.  The mag made me feel strange.  I got a cool new bracelet to add to my collection of hospital bracelets that was bright yellow and said "Fall Risk".  I may have asked someone at some point who told them I was clumsy and that person smiled gently and said the mag can make people fall down because it is a muscle relaxant.  Ahhh, I said, that explains why I feel like I can't move, too, huh?  Yes, this kind nurse said.

After the sun came up and things were more quiet, my parents came back from taking my brother home (he was at the hospital because it had looked at first like the babies were coming right then) and Jay and his mom went to run some errands since we could have babies at any time and would have babies in less than 48hours.  Jay had seemed so calm, making sure I was okay with him leaving.  There was so much to get done that we thought we'd have more time for.  He packed some clothes and took a shower at the house while his mom emptied our dishwasher.  Yes, folks, my mother-in-law saw my messy, messy house and did some cleaning while she was there.  Thankfully she must have pretended she never saw anything amiss because I didn't hear anything about it.  He went to Wal-Mart for some other supplies that for some reason I decided I had to have, like house slippers and a robe and a nursing bra.  He also picked up our little recorders for our girls, more on those later.  My parents sat with me while Jay was gone.  My mom was her normal self and handled me having contractions during our conversation very well.  You see, the contractions never really completely stopped.  They diminished greatly and were not too frequent or regular but they were still there.  I would just need a moment to breathe and be quiet and then the conversation could keep going.  I can't completely remember exactly what we talked about but it was delightfully normal mixed in with my fears of not being ready for this, not being ready to say good-bye to our Aislynn.

I only had two monitors on by that point, too.  There was a monitor for the contractions and another for Norah's heartbeat.  It was so hard to keep a monitor on Aislynn and there was not way of knowing if her heartbeat became abnormal if that meant something was wrong or if it was just her.  So she didn't have a monitor.  They spot checked her heartbeat when they did my vitals (or anytime I asked, really).  I did understand that from a medical standpoint, Norah was the focus.  Did that make it any easier to feel like my daughter Aislynn was being overlooked?  No, of course not.  And I probably would have protested if we had any other doctor than our Dr. Meyer.  I knew he knew how we felt about Aislynn and I knew he didn't view her as anything other than our beautiful daughter and that is how I could accept the lack of monitor.  I trusted him, we both did.

My parents left after a bit, with lots of reassurance from me that it was fine they had stuff to do.  My mom said she had to go clean.  She cleans a few houses along with her bus route and I thought that's what she was going to go do.  But it seems that the conversation we had about how our house wasn't ready and my kitchen was a mess and the laundry needed done was only forgotten by me and that is what she left to do.  I was alone for a bit and I tried to sleep, I really did.  But it was bright in there and Norah kept moving away from her monitor which stressed me out trying to keep it over her little heartbeat and its a hospital with noise and stress and who can really blame me for not falling asleep.  Then my nurse Patty came in and said they were moving me to another room in ante-partum (I was still in labor and delivery at that point).  I can't remember if I asked for my phone to text Jay or if I didn't think of that.  I do remember the nurses moving me asking me to hold the slack in my IVs as they moved me and I am glad I did.  It is lucky that tubing is so stretchy.  I was stressed out in the new room because I wanted to lay on my side to see the door so I would see when Jay came back but it was so hard to get Norah on the monitor on that side.  But then Jay was back and it was okay.

The afternoon passed.  I don't remember if it felt quick or slow.  From my stand point now, it was too, too fast.  I did keep having contractions but they were still not too terribly bad or regular.  Jay and his mom, Karen, were in there and I guess we talked.  I don't really remember.  I remember trying to keep the washcloth on my face cool because my face was hell-fire burning from the mag.  And I remember Nurse Patty's awesome idea to get a hospital pail filled with ice and several washcloths and keep changing them out of the ice bath.  That was wonderful.  I may have dozed a bit but it was so, so hard to calm down to sleep while being so afraid.  I spent so much time that afternoon just praying that God would let our girls wait a bit longer.  Just a bit longer so the steroids could work on Norah's lungs and begging him to postpone the time that we would have to say goodbye to our Aislynn.  The girls didn't move around much since they had no fluid to move in that afternoon.  I had some guilt about that too; my poor babies stuck in their drained home.  Eventually, after some last minute Amazon.com baby shopping for which I am ever grateful for, my mother-in-law, Karen, went home.  And Jay and I were left to just wait.  I don't know what he did that evening.  I know my contractions were getting stronger.  I remember the nurses changing shifts and us getting our night nurse Margie.  Margie looked kind of tough and no nonsense which scared me a bit.  Turns out she was tough and no nonsense but that is exactly the perfect kind of nurse we needed that night.  She was also incredibly kind and calming and knew exactly what to do always.

The contractions eventually got so, so painful.  Like above what I could stand.  Margie would feel my belly during them and assured me that they didn't feel like they were too strong for the girls, it was just the fact that they were in my back that made them so painful.  She told me a few tips for breathing that really helped.  I may have sounded silly "sighing them away" like she told me but it worked and I handled them for a few more hours.  Eventually pain and despair started to overwhelm me and I just was so tired.  Dr. Meyer had said that morning that the decision to give me pain meds needed to be monitored because if the contractions were causing me that much pain, something may be happening.  Margie checked me and just kind of said okay with a little calm smile and left.  It got dark sometime around this time and Jay turned on the TV to watch wrestling like he does every Monday.  I was vaguely irritated by this as I was having his babies and he was watching is progr'm but he said he spent the evening staring at me and freaking out that I was in so much pain.  Margie came in after a bit with a wonderful syringe of morphine.  And that did work, for a bit at least.  It made me relax and super woozy.  I vaguely, vaguely remember laying on my side kind of floating and feeling the contractions but it was like they were both not quite as bad and I just couldn't work up enough energy to care about them.  Eventually the pain relief of the morphine started to wear away but not the woozy bit.  Then I was feeling the full contractions but not able to express how bad they hurt again.  Jay and Margie would talk every now and again and I do remember her asking him how often I was moaning in my sleep but I don't remember his answer.    Jay just told me as I was writing that she came in at about 11:50pm or so and checked me again and said she was going to call Dr. Meyer just to check in with him.  He believes that was her wonderful, perfect nurse was of saying "Holy crap, time is up" but she didn't express any of that to us.  She popped in one more time to say Dr. Meyer was back on call (he is unavailable on Monday nights) and he was going to go ahead and come in to check on me.  I don't remember her saying he was coming, I just remember her saying I was back under his care.

[Oh, the babies recorder things.  I was going to talk about those and this a good time.  A wonderful woman a friend connected me with has been through this same thing with her twin girls and watching one of them go to Heaven.  She and her husband recorded each girls' heartbeat on a little recorder thing and the put it inside a stuffed animal.  This seemed so perfect to be able to show Norah someday that her sister was real and this is what her heart sounded like.  So sometime during the evening, Margie helped Jay record both of our daughters' heartbeats on their own recorders.  Norah's was easier to get than Aislynn's because we were getting Aislynn's from a hand held Doppler thing and not the big monitor.  Margie was patient and understood how important this was to us and stuck with it until we got a good strong recording of our brave girl's strong heart to have always.  Okay, now back to the story.]

Suddenly, there was activity and the room lights were turned on and there were people.  Dr. Meyer was standing by the sink and Margie was in there and he was saying that I had dilated more.  The decision he had reached with the doctors at Barnes was that if I progressed at all, it was time to deliver.  And it was time.  He said there was a woman in the OR then and that it would be about 45minutes.  Jay started calling our parents to tell them to hightail it to the hospital.  Meyer called Dr. Crews to assist him and was in and out of the room getting everything arranged for us.  I did keep having really painful contractions around being prepped for surgery (my first ever surgery, let me mention).  Anesthesiologist came in, different from that morning, (Dr. Sing, my memory provides for some unknown reason) and had me lift my head and open my mouth and then proceeded to scare me to death saying that if the spinal didn't take, he would have to put me completely out and what he would use to do that.  I panicked about that.  Being put completely out would mean that I could potentially miss Aislynn's whole life.  I would be unconscious while Aislynn was here and not have the chance to tell her how much her mother loves her and how proud of her I am.  And because I'm me, I blamed it on my weight; I know that being so heavy can make the spinal block not work.  I fretted about that while a nurse gave me yet another hospital bracelet (this one a just in case for any blood I may need to be given during surgery) and made me drink something so horrible tasting to prevent me from throwing up too badly during surgery.  My IVs were changed and I was pumped full of fluids.  Dr. Meyer came back in and, because he is a wonderful doctor, asked how I was feeling about everything.  After his understanding nod at my telling him that I was so scared because I wasn't ready to say goodbye, I told him about my fears regarding the spinal block not working.  His reply is one I don't think I could forget.  I didn't tell him I was worried about it because of my size, I just said I was worried but he knew why I was worried.  He said, "Destiny, I know you think you are very big but women heavier than you have babies here and have no problem with the spinal block."  There is some paraphrasing there, but I know he said that heavier women that me have spinal blocks.  This meant something to me, not only for what he said but for the matter of fact way he said it, kind of like I was being ridiculous for focusing on that.

My inner monologue kicked in one unforgettable moment while Margie was shaving what needed to be done for surgery and I was having contractions at the same time.  I kind of thought she should take note of that and maybe leave my pubic hair alone while I was being ripped in half.  Of course, now I see that with each progressing contraction she needed to hurry and not wait, but I wasn't terribly rational at that point.  There was a moment where Jay stepped into the bathroom to change into the scrubs that they had had ready for him since that morning.  He came out and the scrubs were way too big for him and he made some wonderfully, typical Jay comments about the hospital only having small and three-X for scrub sizes and telling a nurse that he had lost one of the shoe booties.  This was what I needed to distract me.  Then I had another contraction that was super bad and super long and I felt something move.  Like something move down inside me.  I told every nurse around me and was getting very panicked and the Margie was right in front of me leaning over me and told me that now with every contraction I need to concentrate on not pushing.  I may have kind of angrily told her that I wasn't pushing and it was just happening and she said calmly back that then when I had one I needed to look up as far as I could and pant.  Surprisingly to me, this did help with that pressure feeling that had come back.  Probably shouldn't have surprised me since Margie is a super-nurse but I was distressed at the time.  When Dr. Meyer came back to the room (in scrubs which scared me a bit and made it sink in a little more that I was having surgery in minutes) I told him about feeling, well, Aislynn actually, move down.  He calmly nodded and said that we shouldn't check and just kind of let her alone and just keep moving.  Inner monologue said this was insane and don't we have to know, but I know now that there was nothing that could have been done for it so he was perfectly right.  There were more people in and out and I had more contractions that were more frightening than ever and Dr. Meyer left one more time.

Then my bed was being moved and Jay was walking behind me and suddenly we were in another room that was super bright and Jay was stopping at the door and I had to look terrified.  Dr. Meyer was sitting down waiting wearing a surgical cap thing and mask hanging from his neck and gave me a kind of small smile.  I know my eyes were the size of dinner plates and I was close to hyperventilating.  My bed was raised and a nurse who I don't remember except that she had a nice voice told me that I was going to scoot myself over to the other bed and I could take my time.  It was so hard to move with the mag and laying in bed all day and having contractions but I got over there.  It was a tiny, skinny bed with some padding, which surprised me once it sunk in that I was on an operating table.  They had me sit up, which I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do.  In fact, I asked Dr. Meyer while still in my hospital room what would happen if she came down so far that I wouldn't be able to sit up for the spinal block procedure and I think he just told me that we'd see what would happen.  I was able to sit up and a nice nurse, maybe the same one from before, stood in front of me.  Most everyone of you probably know how she had me lean forward on her holding a pillow.  I felt like I was going to fall and she did such a good job making me believe that she had me and I would not fall.  The needle for the numbing did hurt a bit but not as bad as they had warned me it would.  The most memorable thing about the spinal block was that just as they were starting to inject the meds, I had a sharp, painish, coldish feeling in my hip.  I was so distracted by the fact that the contraction I had been having was fading away that I forgot to mention my hip to them.  Instantly my toes started to tingle and they had me lay back.  Then I just waited.  This part seemed to last a while and my mind kind of wandered.  I thought about how wild it was that the lights look like the OR lights on TV.  I marveled at the feeling of ascending paralysis setting in to my legs.  I looked around for Jay and probably asked where he was.  Someone extended arms on the surgical table and I panicked that they were going to strap me down.  But they didn't and for that I am/was so thankful.  A nurse laid my arms where they wanted them and told me to keep them there.  I had commented to Dr. Meyer at my last appointment that one of my biggest fears about the c-section was being strapped to the table like a mental patient even if I knew why they did it.  He laughed then but it occurs to me now that his intervention may have been why I wasn't strapped down.

Then Jay was beside me, finally, and I teared up a bit because I knew this was really, really it.  They started poking my belly and asking me if I felt it and then they started.  It was only minutes before Dr. Meyer said with a happy voice, "Happy Birthday!"  and Aislynn Marie Heininger was born at 2:05am, October 23rd, 2012.  Jay looked up just in time to see her being lifted from me.  He said there was nothing more beautiful.  But I guess there was equal beauty two minutes later when Dr. Meyer said again with his happy voice, "Happy Birthday!" and Norah Hazel Heininger was born at 2:07am, October 23rd, 2012.  Jay got to see both of their births.  They were both taken by nurses over to warming beds and Jay went over to see his new daughters.  I remember looking over at them, just barely seeing their feet around the swarm of nurses.  I said to a nice nurse (Donna, my memory miraculously supplies, who was the anesthesia nurse) that I didn't know how to react and I didn't think I was reacting right.  She said I was fine and I could react however I wanted to.  I was surprised that I didn't cry but I really was feeling too much to emote much of anything.  I saw them using the bag valve mask on Aislynn but my strong girl only needed a few breaths before breathing on her own so her daddy could hold her and introduce her to mommy.

Aislynn and her time here deserves her own post so that is what I am going to do.  Stay tuned for that.

But during our time with Aislynn, I was in pain.  Like lots of pain.  There was some small pain with all the pressure when the girls were born but while he finished surgery and put me back together, I hurt.  It hurt so much more than I was ready for.  Dr. Meyer said later that he was aware I was in lots of pain just because of the contracting of my abdominal muscles and intestine but he didn't really know why.  The nurse Donna during surgery said that anything more they gave me for the pain could make me woozy and not remember everything and I couldn't risk that.  Then surgery was over and I was lifted via sheet back to my hospital bed and wheeled into recovery.

There is obviously so, so much more to this story but that is it for my bit of it.  This is the story of what I have been referring to as "that Monday".  That Monday that I went into preterm labor and spent one last day pregnant with both of my girls.  That Monday we looked forward to and dreaded and celebrated and feared.  And we made it.  We may have not felt ready but we made it anyways.

Woah, this is really happening Part 1

So finally, I am getting to post the first part of the story of the birth of my beautiful baby girls.  In our last episode, I was just over 30weeks pregnant and feeling surreal about it.  On Oct. 20th (and 32 weeks pregnant) some wonderful people gathered for my baby shower.  I will admit to feeling apprehensive about that day.  But it was really good, just a normal, regular baby shower with cute baby things and laughter.  We talked about both girls, Aislynn and Norah, but then there was no awkwardness or sadness at opening baby gifts for just Norah.  Aislynn was definitely present and celebrated and Norah was just as celebrated, just in a different way.  So thank you to those of you who were able to make it and thank you to those of you who were thinking of us.  It was so good to just feel like a normal, expectant mommy for that day.

Okay, now on to Monday morning.  (Grossness disclaimer:  I can't find a way to tell this story without the gory details so I'm going to tell them all.  I think I need to tell the whole thing just for my own sake.  So if you are squeamish you may want to find someone to read the post and then tell it to you while leaving out the bits that make you barf.  Thank you.)  4am saw me in the bathroom trying to decide if there was a problem or if I had just peed a little.  I woke Jay and we decided I would just call the doctor when their office opened.  At 5am I woke up to feeling some kind of strange pressure-ish sensation and feeling a small puddle where I was laying.  I got up slowly and went to the bathroom.  It is kind of embarrassing but I kind of thought maybe I just had to poop.  That was probably a bit of denial.  After a few minutes of trying to sit on the toilet without feeling like my innards were going to fall out, I panicked a bit and called for Jay.  And my voice had enough terror in it to wake him instantly.  After some discussion, I reached down to feel what that strange sensation was and I felt something there.  Like something that shouldn't have been there for at least 6 more weeks.  We decided that we just had to get to the hospital.  I dressed, even brushed my teeth, and off we went.  Just a bit into the drive my lower back started to hurt in pulsing waves of agony.  Even then I couldn't call them contractions without feeling a little silly or like I was just overreacting.  I couldn't sit still and they were happening one after the other.  There was never a longer ride to Carbondale in the history of the universe.

We pull up to the ER and Jay got a nurse to get me inside.  (At this point I must tell you that while my conscious brain was fully focused on the terror of having all this happen at only 32weeks and on how much this all hurt, I had this kind of running sub-conscious internal monologue that I will express here in italics.)  We stopped at the registration desk with me in a wheelchair and the lovely white-haired nurse trying to keep me calm.  Seriously, I have to check in?  I am obviously in some distress people!  They finally get that done and the nurse was happy that it was some man named Michael who would be coming from OB to get me because he would hurry.  Why do you employ people to transport in labor pregnant women to OB who would not hurry?  I do not remember the ride to OB.  I have no idea how we got there, we could have apparated like in Harry Potter and I would not know.  I do remember getting to the room and the wonderfully nice nurses having me stand up and put a gown on.  I actually asked if I needed to take my bra off, I guess I was still hoping this would stop and I could go home.  I do remember just dropping my pants and my slippers and kind of scooting them under the bed a bit.  This was a thought later that I just stripped naked in front of the pretty and skinny nurse like it was no big deal.  I guess this tells me how scared I really was.  There was a flurry of activity and Jay asked if I wanted him to call my mom, I did and I even told him to call his mom, too.  Nurses were everywhere.  I heard someone ask if Dr. Meyer (my wonderful doc) was still here of if he went home.  Someone may have taken my blood pressure and drawn some blood and I distinctly remember a nurse (the same one I stripped for, actually) apologizing for blowing the IV she was trying to start.  I may have remarked that the IV sticks were distracting me from the fast coming and super painful back contractions I was having.  There was another pair of nurses wrapping me in elastic bands to attach monitors to my belly, three of them.  Then there was a grey haired man with a grey beard in green scrubs and a mask hanging from his neck standing beside me asking me if I was allergic to anything and asking me to open my mouth and lift my head.  The nice nurse trying to start my IV was still blowing veins so he kind of volunteered to start one.  I use "volunteered" loosely; he was kind of gruff and kind of started ordering them to get him the stuff he needed to start the IV in my left forearm.  Sometime around this point I may have realized that he was from anesthesia and this was getting very real.  I did look around for Jay periodically and could usually see him standing somewhere near the back of the room with his arms crossed or sometimes one hand over him mouth looking very serious and a bit freaked out.  Suddenly Dr. Meyer was standing at the foot of my bed also looking serious and talking to nurses about dilation and contractions and monitors.  A nurse spoke with him and he checked to see if I was dilated.  He said four, maybe.  The maybe bit threw me but I was mostly focused on how bad being checked hurt!  That hurt almost as bad as the contractions!  He moved away at one point to speak to another man in scrubs with very long grey hair in a ponytail and then I needed to throw up.  I had been a little nauseous from the terror and pain but this was beyond the point of no return and I was going to throw up.  The nurses didn't seem as worried about it as I was at I kept trying to tell them I didn't want to throw up.  They told me if I had to just do it and handed me one of those nifty round throw up bags.  At the first gag, I felt this strange sensation "down there" and some pressure and then a huge rush of warm fluid.  With each consecutive gag, I flooded the bed; hearing it splattering on the floor and seeing the nurses jump back was pretty embarrassing, I must say.  It occurred to me at that point that my water had broke.  A nurse yelled that they had meconium and thus started the frantic scramble to mop up so that no one fell and try to let me sit on some dry sheets and bed pads.

Then the pains stopped.  No more contractions.  Things seemed to slow down.  Ultrasound got there and started to try to check to see which baby's bag had broken or both.  Both was the answer.  The tech took a picture of each baby for me. Some time around there I realized that my clothes were still under the bed and now soaked with amniotic fluid.  Dr. Meyer came back in and remarked on how different the scene was now.  20 minutes ago I looked ready to deliver and now not so much.  He decided to pump me full of antibiotics because of my water breaking, he reassured us that the girls would be fine with just what little fluid was left, and gave me a shot of steroids to boost their lung development.  He also started me on magnesium sulfate to stop my contractions or at least slow them down.  Dr. Meyer said best case scenario I would make it till Wednesday because the steroids work do their best work in the first 48 hours.  But he was very honest with us and said he doubted very much I would still be pregnant on Wednesday.  He went ahead and booked an OR for a Wednesday c-section (c-section because Aislynn was still baby A and head down and it was best for both girls to be born that way).  He told me to rest as best I could and that the nurses would call him the moment he was needed.  He said he had talked to both Dr. Bishop, another OB-Gyn in his practice (and the grey long-haired ponytail man) and the doctors at Barnes and everyone agreed that what he was planning was best for all of us.

And so the waiting started on what was both a very long Monday and the shortest day of my life.  I would like to say that the nurses at Carbondale Memorial in the Labor and Delivery side of OB did a wonderful job taking care of us.  They were efficient and moved extremely fast to get things done to make sure we were safe while not making us panic and keeping me calm.  They helped me deal with the pain of each contraction when they were bad.  They kept me smiling between them to make me relax.  They were kind and wonderful and the best examples of L&D nurses in the whole world.      Part 2 with the rest of that wild day to follow.  :)

Surreal

30weeks and 4days.  That's how pregnant I am as of this morning.  Crazy.  Really crazy.  When I was a child, I was fascinated with the idea of pregnancy and as a young(er) adult I wondered like crazy about what I would look like and feel, but mostly how being pregnant would feel.

The answer?  Surreal.  I look down at my ever expanding (by the second it seems) belly and get this kind of out of body, "holy crap this is really for real" feeling.  Watching Jay work so hard to refinish the dressers we are going to use and then fill with actual baby clothes for an actual baby, a spawn of Jay and Destiny is kind of surreal.  Of course, in our case, real life intrudes with the thought of how I need to call and make sure we have arrangements in place for when Aislynn's mission on Earth is finished and God takes her Home.  And that sucks.  But I think we have thus far been successful in our goal of keeping the pregnancy joyful.  In fact, I know we have.

Every so often Jay will press his ear to my belly just to see what he can hear.  Usually it is a kind of whooshing noise, he says, like listening to some one move under water.  But on Sunday night our Aislynn was pressed just so against the outside of my belly and Jay got to hear her little heartbeat.  Norah was too far away but Aislynn was showing off to her Daddy.

Jay cracks up laughing at me when I pout when I hit my belly with a door because I thought I had enough clearance to close it.  And it is pretty funny.  Watching me heave myself off the couch is pretty darn funny, too.  I bump into things and bounce off of them because I thought I had just that one more step to take.  And this is too funny.  Norah is our Baby B so she usually is the one up high under my ribs.  When I try to fold my hands and rest them on top of my belly or rest my cup there (cause I can), Norah kicks it.  She kicks what ever is pressing on the top of her "house".  And she does it so consistently that it can't just be a coincidence.  She is gonna be trouble, I just know it.  And I can't wait.

That brings me to my next battle I'm facing.  I am getting a tad uncomfy.  My hips are protesting this whole expanding thing but most of all it is how my belly just aches because I'm growing so very fast.  I get out of bed earlier than I want on the weekend because it hurts too bad to lay down any more.  And by the time I get home during the week even finally getting to lay down takes a bit to feel better as my super sore, achy belly tries to relax in a better position.  This of course brings up the standard "I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore" feeling.  But in our case it is so, so much more complicated.  Every time I have that passing thought of how much longer I have, I am wracked with guilt over wishing away the time our Aislynn has here.  If I could be pregnant forever to keep her here with us, I probably would take that option.  While she is inside me, she is safer and I can help her.  But once she is born, it's like an hourglass gets turned over and her time with us here becomes so limited.  I know Norah will get to stay with us, but I am going to miss Aislynn so much.  So I'm struggling with those feelings right now as my belly expands and I learn how to cope with my achy pregnant body.

But we are still managing this and even though it is getting harder as the weeks to our girls' birth get shorter, we are determined to feel just as much joy as we do sorrow.  Jay keeps threatening to buy some ping pong balls to toss at me just to see if they'll stay in orbit around my girth.  Just thought that was a nice visual for you on this Tuesday morning.  :)

Awe

Hmmm....  so I had this thought this morning, "I should write a new blog post so I feel important!"  And now that I'm sitting at a keyboard and my fingers are doing typing things, I find I don't have too much exciting to say.  We did choose a color for Norah's room.  It is a lovely shade of periwinkle.  And I do love it.  I had my freak out moments.  Like when I got home from work and Jay had painted the color on the walls as a surprise to get it done and up for me.  I had a freak out because I was not emotionally prepared to see the walls change colors.  I know, completely mental but I'm pregnant and for now the crazy must be accepted.  He even had to prove to me that it wasn't "too purple" by getting a couple of my purple shirts and holding them up to the wall to show me that if we (or she someday) wanted to hang purple stuff on the walls, it wouldn't look like just an obsession with purple.

My lovely boss at work is getting us the tree decal we wanted for the wall as a baby shower gift.  She is a unique kind of hippie-ish artist, engineer-type person and is just so thrilled that I'm doing something "so out there for me" like putting a tree on a wall, that she insisted that got to be her gift.  She has also been commenting on how being pregnant has introduced more color to my wardrobe and walls and wouldn't believe me when I told her the clothes are because they don't make preggo clothes in drab.

As we get Norah's room ready, there is so much joy at the idea of this little person Jay and I made getting to see the space we have created for her.  But as a counter point to that joy, is the aching pain of knowing that my other daughter, our Aislynn, won't be there.  The grief comes in these kind of gut-wrenching waves sometimes, kind of like standing in a storm.  The wind picks up and is so hard to stand against that you just have to give into it for a bit and grieve and cry.  And then the wind shifts and is almost calm and for a moment it sounds like the earth is sighing and lightening ripples through the clouds and slices through the grief with this beautiful, majestic brilliance.  Those moments are when my girl kicks and moves and reminds me that she has a task here, a task given to her by her God himself, and when that task is over she must obey and go home so that she can watch over us from afar.  She has given us so much joy, our Aislynn has.  She and Norah have already made us stronger and more committed and better.  These tiny girls have already made us parents.  Aislynn reminds us its not the number of days you are given but the impact your life can have that matters and the joy you can show others.  Norah helps me see that life will go on, it may not be exactly what we imagined it would be but it does keep going.  We will keep going in joy and hope and laughter for Norah and for Aislynn.  For Norah, to teach her that with those things you can survive anything.  And for Aislynn, because, well, someday when it is my turn to go home, when I get to see her again, I want her to be proud of me.

Wow, okay then.  So much for the not having much to say.  I want to say thank you to those of you who read this for giving me this outlet for my words.  Sometimes, like today, they are words I didn't even know I needed to release.  Back to some lighter-hearted stuff, can I get a "Whoop-Whoop" for having our dishwasher installed this weekend?!?!?  Awww-yea.  My dad and Jay are going to put in our new dishwasher so I don't....wait that's not true.....so Jay doesn't have to do the dishes any more.  (He really has been good about the dishes.)

That's all from the Heininger front for this Friday morning.  Have an awesome day, people!!  (And by "awesome" I mean it in it's true definition.  Find something that inspires awe today.  Mine was my kicking babies as the sun came up and painted the sky in orange and pink.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find awe.)

Rooms, Baby Showers, and Orbits

There haven't been too many dynamic changes in the Heininger world lately, thus the lack of posts.  We are trudging along on Norah's room.  Well, I say we, but the balance is about 10% me, 90% Jay.  We are nearly to the "finally decide what color to paint the walls, for real" stage.  That, dear friends, is a frightening stage.  I get so nervous choosing paint colors.  Not really sure why.

My mom (with my input because I am picky and crazy and hormonal) has been planning my baby shower.  The baby shower plans are a little bittersweet but not as terrible as I had envisioned.  The real thing on that day may be a bit harder but I hope I can just let joy win out over sorrow that day.  My fears and nervousness about it really come from the probably irrational fear that someone, somehow will forget what's happening and get us something that is for twins.  That I don't know how I will handle.  But I know that it would be just an honest mistake so hopefully I will have enough grace to keep going.

We also completed our first baby registry.  This had its rough moments.  Like looking at cribs.  At first we had thought we were going to get two mini cribs so there would be enough room for them both.  But now we are down to trying to decide what kind of regular crib to get.  That hurts a bit, the thought of that empty space, but we take a deep breath and move on.  We did decide to get a crib that only converts into a toddler bed or a day bed, not to a twin or full bed.  I have this wonderful hormone-fueled, sentimental dream of having a guest room someday occupied with grandchildren sleeping in the same day bed that was their parents' crib.  Fluffy, huh?

I look super pregnant all of a sudden.  It was like in a single week I went from "rockin' the beer gut" to "dun' got knocked up".  It's not a too terrible look for me, if I do say so myself.  Jay got to feel his daughters move for the first time about a week ago and they have been trying to outdo that initial display since, I think.  The joy on his face is a look I have cataloged with the moment he saw me walk down the aisle to him and the smile when I handed him the positive pregnancy test as something I will never, ever forget.  My girls have even gotten strong enough to have their kicks be visible from the outside.  That is super alien looking.  The first time it happened I was sitting in a waiting room wearing a purple/white striped shirt I really noticed my belly move.

My back and hips can certainly tell I've gotten more pregnant.  And any day now the round ligaments in my abdomen are going to send up white flags in surrender just so they get left alone.  But no such luck.  I'm 26 and 1/2 weeks now.  With them wanting to deliver a bit early, I've got about 10ish weeks left.  And in that 10ish weeks I need to go from moon-ish sized to Jupiter-sized.  I'm gonna have my own orbit!! :)

Bye for now!

Random update-type things

Rarely do I have: "Oh crap, my nail!" girly moments.  And if I do, they only happen when particularly impressive or painful.  This morning falls slightly in both categories.  My pregnancy nails are apparently strong enough that when one is bent back too far it will not break or tear or do anything to preserve my finger.  It will just bend and then make a lovely and vaguely sore bruise-y thing under my nail.  My only regret is that I have a red shirt on today and I just don't think the purple bruise matches it well. 

Its raining today!  I adore the rain and lightening and thunder and storminess.  It is like a balm to my soul.  And its funny, it seems like the girls respond to it as well.  When ever it rains, they seem slightly more active but in that pleasant sort of way that just feels neat.  I realize that it's probably their response to the increase in happy serotonin hormones that the rain provokes in me, but I choose to think that they love the rain like their momma. 

At about 14 or so weeks, my doctor started asking me if I had felt them move yet.  I will admit, I kind of obsessed about it for a while trying to make sure that I wasn't missing them moving by mistaking it for various gastrointestinal events.  I asked people what it felt like and looked it up.  The most common answers were little wings like birds, butterflies in you belly, or bubbles bursting.  Those are lovely, poetic answers that invoke happy rainbow mommy bonding feelings.  But I have to say that feeling our daughters move inside me feels like....something moving inside me.  Sorry to sound so blunt and maybe I have just been a science fiction fan for too long but it just feels like something moving.  It is so unlike any other sensation I have ever experienced that it renders all other comparisons useless.  It is vaguely alien perhaps, both in the sense of it being completely different and feeling like there is an alien nesting in my abdomen.   At 22 weeks, I look more pregnant with each passing day and I am really looking forward to moving completely past that whole "is she pregnant or just rocking the beer gut" stage. 

I do adore feeling them move.  Especially first thing in the morning when I lay on my back for just a few minutes.  After all night of being on one side or the other, they seem to protest this the most and I get an adorable baby head or bottom pressed against my belly button.  That is another sensation altogether.  I mean, messing with your belly button from the outside feels weird enough, and it feels almost the same when being messed with from the inside but with that surreal backwards feeling.  It makes me giggle every time. 

At our last ultrasound, they were complete wiggle worms.  Aislynn moved around a bit during her pictures and measurements but then when they moved to Norah, Aislynn decided that would be a good time to show off her legs and kick her sister in the head through their membrane separating them.  It was too funny.  And Norah decided after being good during Aislynn's pictures, that she didn't feel like her photo opp that day and did everything she could to protest it.  At one point even pressing her arm/hand up against where the US probe was pressing down on my belly.  Lemme tell ya, that hurt!  But we couldn't help but laugh at our contrary children. 

We did get a small bit of really good news.  At our Barnes appointment, the doctor warned us that Aislynn may not be able to swallow any of the amniotic fluid which could lead to increases in fluid pressure and could cause me to go into preterm labor.  But our brave girl found a way.  We saw her swallow and her tongue move and she even got the hiccups.  She is doing everything she can to protect her sister and make sure that Norah has all the time she needs to grow and develop to be born safely.  Aislynn is growing at the same rate as her sister, reassuring us that she is tough and will be our little superhero and stay with us for as long as she can. 

We are doing well with our girls and our new reality.  I think we are, at least.  Progress on the room for Norah has slowed but not completely stopped.  We are determined to get it ready and painted and a new door and ceiling fan fairly soon.  The baby stuff will probably wait until after my baby shower.  I am still just not ready to pick out baby stuff for one daughter when I can feel both of my precious girls.  And the fear that we will not get to bring anyone home still plagues me often enough that I just can't bring myself to get baby stuff.  I don't think I could handle having a bunch of baby stuff in our home and then lose them both.  This is a process, this weird kind of grief/joy/heartache/celebration, and we are doing what we can to take each step each day.  Jay is an amazing dad already.  Not that I had any doubt of that, but to see it in action is kind of breath-taking.  Its hard to describe how he does this already but I guess its just in the way he talks to them both and rubs my belly.  The look on his face when I had him hurry over to feel that head/bottom pressing against my belly button is something I will never ever forget. 

So that's us for now.  Bye!

Our new reality

I guess everyone has that moment where they feel like a parent.  Not those moments where you realize that you are having a baby, but that moment where your heart fills with an entirely new kind of fierce love and determination and it hits you suddenly that is what being a mom or dad feels like.  Jay and I have experienced this moment in one of the most painful ways anyone can.

On July 11 we had an appointment with our high-risk OB in Cape Girardeau.  And he found a problem with one of our beautiful babies.  One of our babies is perfectly fine, looks healthy and growing fine.  Our other beautiful child has Anencephaly.  This means that when the place where the spinal cord grows was closing, it didn't close properly at the top and the brain and skull were not able to develop.  This means that while our beautiful baby will grow and move and live while inside me, the baby can't survive outside of the womb.  We will bury one of our children soon after they are born.  We will raise one child, not two.  We will treasure one child here with us and treasure the memory of the other.

This is by far the most painful thing I have ever experienced.  The emotion I felt when the doctor said something was wrong and told us what it was was pure horror.  There is no other word for it.  we ranted about it not being fair.  And it's not.  It's not fair to buy a crib and a casket.  It's not fair to say goodbye so soon to this beautiful dream we had been having visions of.  Don't mistake me, we are unbelievably thankful for our healthy baby.  But that joy had a hard time competing with the idea of burying our other child.

Then we took a deep breath.  And the car ride from Cape was silent for a bit.  Then we started talking about telling our other child how they were protected from the very, very start by their very own superhero whom God called home when the job was done.  We talked about our deep need to still enjoy being pregnant and becoming parents.  We talked about our love for our children and our desire that they both know that even now.  How we need our Heaven-bound baby to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were loved and treasured and that the little life was celebrated completely and with abandon.  And we promised each other that we would do this together, not letting grief or pain separate us.

And we decided we had to embrace the joy that we felt when we first saw that positive pregnancy test.  We had to start this new journey as we meant to go on: in joy and celebration.  They are our children, both of them.  They are our twins and we will enjoy that.  We will laugh and marvel at my changing shape and not let the pain dampen our wonder.  We will work to enjoy buying baby stuff even if it is for one baby.  We have joked that we are only buying baby gear for one because God already has everything ready for our Heaven-bound baby.  We decided that I get to enjoy my baby shower; that I don't have to be subdued for that because our children deserve to be celebrated.  We are their parents and no matter what, no matter how this hurts, we will be strong enough to celebrate both of their lives and love them with a fierceness that we had not previously known was within us.

At our next doctor's visit, we went to Barnes in St. Louis because those guys have more experience with this type of thing.  And there we found out that our Heaven-bound baby will most likely make it to full-term along with our other child.  We will be able to deliver both babies and have our time to say goodbye to our Heaven-bound child and fill the little life with as much love as we can with the time we are given.  They will be checking closely for growth of them both to make sure nothing else is happening.

We also found out that our beautiful babies are GIRLS!  We have two beautiful daughters.  And they have names.  Our Heaven-bound baby we are naming Aislynn Marie Heininger.  Aislynn means dream and Marie is my middle name.  We have joked that giving Aislynn her momma's middle name will make sure God knows she is a handful right from the beginning.  Our other daughter we are naming Norah Hazel Heininger.  Norah means honor and Hazel is the name of a tree, but it's really something we both just really liked.  So those are our girls.  Aislynn and Norah. Norah will be able to be here with her mom and dad.  Aislynn will be called Home when her job of protecting and caring for her sister is finished.  And we will always be thankful for both of them.  We will not let grief dampen our joy for both of our daughters.

We would appreciate prayers that our girls will keep growing and that Aislynn will stay strong and stay with us until her sister can safely be born.  Please keep prayers and thoughts for our strength and peace close to your heart.  This is our new reality.  Although it is not what we imagined it would be, we will keep going and love our girls no matter what.  So please help us celebrate our daughters, both of them.  Please rejoice with us at each milestone I hit in the pregnancy like the flutters of movement I can feel now and how I'm really starting to look like a pregnant lady.  Please talk and joke with us about how our little girl, Aislynn, is going to take Heaven by storm.  And how Norah will always be able to tell people about her superhero sister who protected and sacrificed for her to keep her safe.

Thank you in advance for your love and support.  You will be so needed as we go through this and as we raise our daughter with our other daughter in Heaven.  I found a Proverb I have been reciting when I get overwhelmed with all the information and decisions and hurt:  "As I go forward step by step, the way will be opened up unto me."  Proverbs 4:12

Now Re-introducing: Original Recipe Destiny

One of the first lessons my dear parents had to help me understand and accept when I got my first job is that not everyone is going to like me and that's fine and I still have to find a way to work with them and do my job well.  That was a hard lesson even for someone like me who did not have a massive group of close friends.  The hardest part was finding a way to work with and be pleasant to those who just simply had no use for me as a human being.  And I thought I had learned that lesson; I really truly thought I was doing well with it.  6 years at a grocery store will teach you quite a lot about people (and on some days leave you thinking the zombie apocalypse would be a good thing for humanity).  However, for better or worse, I am being given an opportunity to better learn that lesson lately. 

One of my biggest struggles is being concerned with what others think of me.  And not the just important others like my hubby or parents.  All others.  I have struggled my entire life with being very concerned about what everyone thinks of me and whether they like me or not.  Being with Jay has helped me become more of myself.  I believe that if my four year old self saw me pre-Jay Heininger, she would have been horrified.  But post-Jay Heininger, she would be pleased with how I've turned out.  But I still have those insecurities of wanting, nay needing, approval from all around me.  At my job, I have a co-worker who I believed to be kind of a friend.  Not like a hanging out on weekends friend, but a friendly at work friend.  She is a few years younger than my mom and has three kids so after I told everyone about being pregnant she had stories about her own pregnancies and kids when they were babies.  I thought things were good.  Now, granted she thinks I'm weird (and she's right) and there are topics I avoid with her and I even try to curb my vocabulary a bit (this is at work in general, though) but we were friends, right?  Turns out, not so right.  During some recent changes, she told our boss exactly what she thinks of me.  She feels I am condescending, impossible to work with, unhelpful, and generally hard to get along with and since I am pregnant if any lay offs need to happen I should be the first to lose my job.  *reels from kick to gut*  Ouch.  Unexpected.  *checks mirror for knife in back*  Right, deep breaths.  That stung.  But I believe in the truth.  I believe in knowing the truth no matter now much it hurts.  And if that is the truth about what she thinks of me, then I feel I am better knowing it.  But still, ouch.

So after spending some tearful soul searching and prayer yesterday on my drive home (my favorite time to pray and cry, if I need to), I think I am making peace with all of that.  She is entitled to her opinion about me.  Obviously my trying to get her to like me and be friends is not really working so I will stop that.  Not that I will stop being nice, no, no my mother taught me better than that.  What goes around, comes around, people, and I want niceness to come back at me.  I will just stop trying to alter myself to what I think she wants.  She gets original recipe Destiny; non-diluted Destiny; Destiny now without artificial colors or flavors.  And I think it's going to be fun.  On my end at least ;)  I do still need to work on (and pray about) my tendency to be bitter about what she said to the boss.  I have a vindictive streak that makes me extra mouthy that is not pretty.  And I will conquer that.  I will be pleasant and peaceful and goofy and happy and curious and, darn it, I will use four-dollar words a will because I read a lot and I know what they mean.  I have been given Grace and that means I can give grace to others and let them just be and forgive them for being just as not perfect as I am. 

This is all made easier by the fact that my now apple-sized babies have stopped parasitically sucking all my energy away.  I am still a teary mess at times and battling some nausea, especially when hungry, but I no longer want to take a nap every two hours. 

Well, that's all from me today.  Thank you for reading all of this.  And for obviously accepting me, big words and all.  I will leave you with two of my favorite little sayings, from my desk at work.

"Do not let the behavious of others destroy your inner peace."

and

"Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another."

Squirming Lemons

Second trimester!  I hit 14weeks yesterday making me officially in my second trimester.  I told Jay yesterday that it makes me like officially pregnant with real babies.  We are past the first trimester where people still hold their breath and hope nothing happens and safe and growing.  I almost can't wrap my mind around being that pregnant.  I am officially in maternity clothes, well pants at least.  I can still wear my stretchy yoga pants to work but if I want denim, preggo pants it is.  Jay and I can tell how my belly is changing shape and sticking out a bit more, but to the casual observer I probably just look like I've had a big meal.  And at 14 weeks, the babies are the size of lemons.  I get such a kick out of comparing their sizes to food.  So this week, we are lemons and learning facial expressions and we can pee.  Say what you will about me being happy for my peeing lemons, but these are big deals for us.  

We had an ultrasound yesterday because we have a wonderful doctor who wanted to see for certain (read: reassure freaked out first time parents) both little heartbeats.  He tried to get them with the office Doppler (actually Dopplers, plural, he was trying to hear them both at the same time) but, as we learned, that is very hard with them being so little and moving so much.  And moving they are!  At the ultrasound, that is the thing I was most struck by.  The last time we saw them at nine weeks they moved a bit and you could see little flippers/future arms and legs move.  But this time, they were like little people.  Arms and legs stretching and moving and flailing about, turning around and flipping over.  At one point Baby B literally spun in place; we could see the little top of baby's head spin around.  Baby B was good for the US tech.  She (the tech) was able to get head measurements, belly measurements, and femur measurements without too much trouble, only quite a bit of squirming and ninja moves.  Baby A, on the other hand, is definitely my child.  This baby was comfortable and not willing to move.  Oh, contrary baby showed off with legs moving and kicking and arms stretching out in front so the tech got belly measurements and femur measurements, but that head shot was not in the cards.  The tech leaned the table back so the blood rushed to my head, flipped me onto my left side, then my right and still Baby A would not move so she could get that head measurement.  Well, I take that back.  Baby A did move but this child went from pressing a head up against the membrane between the babies to flipping over and pressing a head to the side of my uterus.  See why I say this is definitely a child of mine and Jay's?  The tech even got the radiologist who told her that skipping that measurement would be better than making do with a side (or trans) measurement that would skew the growth measurement results.  So she took lots of pictures of Baby A's face to show that it was our stubborn child's fault that she couldn't get her measurements.  

But she got us some neat pictures of our alien babies.  I know that may offend some, but be honest people.  At this age, a face picture of a baby looks like an alien.  Cute, miraculous, amazing aliens, I'll grant you, but aliens none the less.  And one of the pics of Baby B shows the child in mid fist pump, probably because the US was about over.  Having that thing pressed on my belly for so long was uncomfortable for me, so I can only imagine my affronted children were tired of having their warm, watery home poked and prodded.  

Father's Day is this weekend and I am so proud that my husband gets to join in this year.  Pride seems and odd emotion to have about it but I am proud.  Proud of him, this wonderful man I married and am creating life with.  Proud that I get to carry his children, that I get to be, for a little while, the home for his reasons for Father's Day.  It's weird, to point out to Jay that it's his day, too,  after so long of just thinking of my dad and his, but probably no more weird that it was for him to point out that this past Mother's Day was a bit for me, too.  So (because he reads this) Happy Father's Day, Jay.  I would never have the courage to make it through this adventure without you.

Grown-upi-ness

Every so often it hits me and I look around or at Jay and say something to the effect of: "This is like real grown up stuff."  Like going to a home improvement store and buying paint and room molding.  And then using said paint and molding to completely transform a room.  (Side note: how neat is it that you can transform a room with a new color?)  Jay and I will be giving up our long upstairs bedroom for the front bedroom downstairs in our house.  It is to the left of the bathroom (proximity to that room is important these days) and is across the hall from what will be the babies' room.  Giving up that upstairs spot was kind of grown up because neither of us really wanted to.  It is a cool room.  The dimensions are something like 13feet by 42feet and the walls are slanted with the roof giving it this cave/den/hideout effect.  But it is too far away from the bathroom, will be too far away from the babies, and Jay has valid concerns about his soon to be heavily pregnant wife navigating the rather steep stairs.  So we are grown ups and move downstairs.  We painted the room a lovely deep royal blue color and I think I'm going to like it.

Another grown up endeavor I have recently undertaken is my goal to become good at freezer meals.  My dearest friend swears by them.  She goes on a mad cooking spree every so often and stocks their freezer with lots of yummy soups and casseroles and other goodies and then gets to relax some nights while supper defrosts in the fridge awaiting baking or heating up.  I made one of those casseroles for supper two nights ago and made a second one at the same time to freeze.  I have this grand Idea that I will continue doing that for several weeks and then by the time I really start to show I will have supper waiting for me in our deep freeze.  When those run out, I have another Grander Idea that I will go on my own cooking spree (most probably with my beloved mommy's help) and prep for being unable to cook or too busy with babies by filling our freezer yet again.  Only time will tell how these theories will work out.  I have hope for them.

Today I am 12 weeks pregnant.  That's like three months in normal people terms (when pregnant and, as I have noticed, a new parent your life seems to get broken down into weeks; its not quite normal).  Which is almost, very nearly a long time.  I can't help but think back to sitting in the ER with a diagnosis paper reading "Threatened Miscarriage" and thinking that getting to 12 weeks when they might be safer was impossible because it was an eternity away.  And now its here.  I'm in my last week of my first trimester with no current complications, no spotting for like three weeks (light as it was), and feeling pretty dern pregnant.  For those who say God doesn't to miracles like He used to back in the day, I would like to politely disagree and enter Heininger Exhibits A and B.  This may not be a miracle to some but it is the most amazing miracle I have ever witnessed, even overtaking being given the chance to marry Jay. 

My symptoms are manageable.  The nausea is only hard to deal with in the morning and when I'm hungry.  The tension headaches are becoming quite bothersome but I will live, especially once I learn how better to sleep in this new body that is being invaded by welcome and beloved human parasites.  Emotionally, I feel something akin to a mine cart that someone has broken the brake handle off of (thank you to those of you who flashed an Indiana Jones movie pic in your mind, you are my favorites).  I've not had the angry mood swings (unless hungry, I will admit) but I have developed the ability to go from rational to gasping, lip-quivering, tear-drenching sobs.  Honestly, its like a superpower its so powerful, albeit the worst superpower ever.  And often, there is no trigger for these fits of tears.  I just lose my ever-loving mind for a short while and then recover a few minutes later.  Heaven-help Jay if it gets any worse.  He may need medication. 

But that's about it.  We should be in our new bedroom, hopefully, this weekend and then we start some hardcore cleaning out our junk from the kiddos' room.  We are enjoying this front row seat to the biggest miracle/roller coaster/acid trip we have ever been near let alone a part of.  Maybe, just maybe, being a grown up isn't totally lame after all.   

Farewell to French Toast and Hello Gladys

Before becoming pregnant, I did know about weird food aversions and/or cravings mommies to be can have.  My mom couldn't handle the smell of most food while pregnant with my brother and if, heaven forbid, she got cake icing on her hand she flipped out.  Which was actually rather funny, from an outside perspective, to watch her stiffen her hands and shake them all while making a weird, freaked out noise and scrambling to the sink to get it off her. 

But I was unprepared of the battle I would have with food during my own pregnancy.  Suddenly, I'm hungry all the flippin' time.  Sounds great, right?  I mean getting to snack all day with baby-makin' purpose all day, that's like a plump chick's dream come true.  Ahhh...but there's a catch.  "You will be hungry all day long," spoke the muses of pregnancy, "but nothing will ever sound good ever!  Muahahahaha!" 
Well, 'nothing' is not entirely true.  I've been pretty lucky that the few things that do sound good are pretty healthy.  For example, I can't get enough tomatoes.  Sliced raw or whole raw, cooked, made into V8 juice, with crackers, on a sandwich, love me some tomatoes.  

Oh, sandwiches.  And my beloved sandwiches.  I can't eat sandwiches unless they are tomato sandwiches.  That's it.  The bread makes me gag unless paired with tomatoes.  This includes grilled cheese, PB&J, and even toast.  Let me repeat that slower so the horror sinks in: I...can't ...eat...toast. *le sigh*  But hamburger buns and hoagie rolls I can handle.  Weird right?

I look forward to the day when these little babies have grown and are eating food so that I can see what they think about french toast.  Cause the other night they wanted nothing do to with the french toast.  I'll spare you the delightful details and just say that I wasn't even done eating the french toast when it got violently vetoed by a joint decision of my stomach and lovely almost 11 week old darlings. 

Beyond my food rantings, I am doing rather well I think.  Tired as all get out, and a few mood swings that usually just leave me weepy and apologetic and a tad sulky.  Jay is amazingly understanding when I lose my ever-loving mind.  And he usually realizes that when I'm really being a grouchy, stark raging *beep* that I'm actually just hungry and he lovingly suggests that a glass of milk would be good or just hands me the glass of milk.  And my mood swings are cut down with the good night sleep that Gladys has given back to me.  On Monday, I bought just a regular body pillow at the Wal-Mart and a pretty blue cover for it.  This thing is like 54" tall, leading us to remark that it will be like having someone else trying to sleep in the bed with us.  And leading me, cause I do this, to name the body pillow.  Her name is Gladys and she is my new true love.  Jay is not even all that jealous of our new relationship because he has woken up after I leave for work leaning or cuddling up against Gladys. 

We are still very excited to be having twins, although I promise that is tempered by the right amount of terror at having two infants entrusted to our care.  But I will believe and I will pray and I will be happy and I will remember that being pregnant doesn't even really last very long in the grand scheme of things.  And I will make french toast every weekend of these children's lives just cause it will make me laugh.

Happy, happy, joy, joy (cue happy dance)

So us Heiningers had our high-risk OB appointment today at Cape Perinatology Services in St. Francis Medical Center.  The idea of going there was pretty nerve-wracking; just the "high-risk" part sounds so ominous.  But, praises be, it all turned out okay.  We were there primarily to check what kind of twins our little darlings are.  Turns out (info for us common folk) there are three types of ways twins can exist in the womb.  DiDi twins have their own everything; they have their own placentas and their own outer and inner membranes to grow in.  Kind of like living in a duplex, you have your own kitchen are are just basically aware of your neighbor (all fraternal twins are DiDi).  MoDi twins share a placenta and the outer membrane but have their own inner membrane space all to them selves.  This one is like having a bedroom next door to your sibling; you get your food from the same kitchen, but you get your own sleeping space.  MoMo twins share it all, placenta, membranes, everything.  They are completely together, like having to share a bedroom with your sibling and them getting all up in your stuff.  This last type is the most dangerous because of the risk of the umbilical cords getting tangled and potentially cutting off food/oxygen/blood supply to the babies.

So that's where our fears were coming from.  That and my crazy terror that one or both would be gone because I love them and I worry about everything.  But I got my fears abated there.  We got to hear lovely, thumping, exciting, most-beautiful-sound-in-the-cosmos heartbeats from both Thing 1 and Thing 2.  We even got to see them move around a bit.  It was so weird/neat to see them and know that they are inside of me, living and growing and thriving.  And as for their living arrangements, they are MoDi twins!  They share a placenta but they have their own bedrooms to grow and move around in without fear of disrupting their sibling.  We are so thankful and excited and relieved.  Because they share a placenta (calling it a kitchen makes me giggle), there is still some risk of what is called Twin-to-Twin Transfusion where blood from one baby goes into the other baby but not back out.  It can be risky but that is not something we worry about now.  The OB said he has seen two of those in five years at St. Francis which was a bit comforting.  It is something that just needs more prayer and happy thoughts and I know there is a Plan for it all.

A big thank you to everyone who sent up prayers for us about this.  I know without a doubt that our MoDi twin diagnosis was a divine gift.  Oh, the MoDi twin thing also means that the OB is pretty certain that the Heininger babies are identical!  So they really are Thing 1 and Thing 2.  I am not as upset over that as I thought I'd be.  I used to always say I never wanted identical twins but I must say the idea has grown on me and now I can't wait.  Can't wait to see how they develop into their own people and attitudes and likes and dislikes even while sharing identical genetics.  Can't wait to laugh with them as people mix them up and have to guess and watch them exploit that just for fun.

So that's all from our batcave for the time being.  I'm going to get some much needed peaceful sleep knowing that my babies are safe and healthy in their own rooms.  Oh and it must be said that I am being taught daily that Jay was really chosen for me because he is awesome.  He does so much to keep me calm and centered and is so excited about twins and is so amazing about distracting me from my worries with joy and laughter.  Tonight I am the saved citizen and he is the superhero in our house.