Surprises were in store in days to come. More surprises than we ever imagined. When Aaron and Connor were 18 months old we found out we were expecting again. We had sadly lost a pregnancy 8 weeks prior and did not think we would conceive again so quickly. You would think by now we would realize that our days of infertility were over, but I guess I have always been pretty hard headed. My first post twins pregnancy was more than a surprise, it was honestly a stressful idea. I did not want to go through the same kind of pregnancy I had with the twins and I felt like there was no way I could parent four kids. When we lost that pregnancy however, I was sad. It was a sadness that told me I really did want more. When we found out 8 weeks later that we were expecting once again, I was filled with mixture of panic and excitement.

As Scott and I did the math we realized that we would have four children aged four and under. We were nervous to tell people we were expecting for a variety of reasons. One, we had just lost a pregnancy after telling people we were pregnant and didn't want to go through that again. We also had received such negative reactions with our first announcement, we were not ready to hear those comments again. Many people, out of concern for my health, expressed their feelings quite clearly when we told them were were expecting. Most of the comments were, "Are you crazy?" The best one was said by a close friend of ours who is a therapist. His comment? "Wow, that is what brings people into my office."

We knew we had to tell our family first. I was planning a trip to Minnesota to see my parents when I was around 8 weeks or so. I knew it would be better to tell them face to face. I knew my Mom would have reservations. She had been there in the hospital watching my life sit on the brink of death with the birth of the twins. I knew she did not want to go through that again. I was very nervous about telling her. I almost felt like I was 16 years old having to tell my Mom I was pregnant and not married. Here I was, 30 years old and scared to tell my Mom I was going to have my fourth child.

My parents picked me up at the airport and I sat in the back seat the whole way home wondering how I was going to tell them. I knew I couldn't hold it in for too long. I have never been one to keep personal news from my family. Once we got home we ended up standing in my Dad's office for some reason. I knew the news had to break. I looked right at my Mom and told her I had some news. I am not sure how much she understood right away, but her face looked a bit panicked. I smiled the best smile I could muster for the moment and said, "Well it seems like God really wants us to have four kids."

Now normally when children break the news of a new grandchild there are hugs, smiles, maybe even tears. Not this time. As soon as I divulged the news there was an awkward stunned silence in the room. I felt like the air had been suddenly escaped from the room and I desperately needed to gulp some in. After what seemed like an eternity, though was most likely only a matter of seconds, my Mom smiled and said, "Well congratulations. I hope this time it goes well."

I knew my parents would support me no matter what. I knew that they were happy to add another grandchild to the mix. I knew that they would love and adore this child just as all the others. I also knew, though, that they were filled with a sense of anxiousness and maybe slight fear. The wondered not only if my body would be able to carry another baby but whether my mental health would sustain the raising of four kids so close in age. I knew they were right on the money about my physical health. The mental health issue was the one that was unknown and little did I know how much it was going to be tested.

Life was getting more and more hectic everyday. Scott and I felt like our family was complete with our three boys. We were busy going to the lake, pushing on the swings, singing silly songs and giving countless baths. We felt blessed that we had three more children than we ever thought we would have and even though there were days where my hair was on the fringe of being torn out, I knew that I was blessed beyond measure. We had our challenges: Joel being overly active and impulsive and the twins learning how to work as a team to get into as much mischief as they could. They learned the famous, "distract and destroy" method many twins learn early on. One twin would distract Mom with something while the other climbed on the table, raided the pantry or found toilet paper to be a fun diversion as it clogged the toilet. Yes, life was busy and I ended my days collapsed in bed wondering what surprise the next day would hold.

There is a part of this story that I didn't share. I felt that it was unnecessary at the time, but after thinking about it, I realize it needs to be told. It is an event that will hold paramount implications in the future of my parenting.

During the first part of my pregnancy, my Mom was dealing with pain in her back and pelvis. She tried all sorts of things to help with the pain to no avail. If any of you know my Mom, she never complained. She kept going on as if she was fine. We made our annual trek to Beaulah Beach to stay in the "refurbished" cottages, where one wonders where the refurbished actually starts and the original cottage ends. I was pretty sick, pregnant with the twins, completely oblivious of the true pain my Mom was suffering. My self absorption is embarrassing to remember.

Upon our return home, Mom continued with her life as usual. We knew she was hurting, but we all assumed she just had injured herself and would soon get better. As time went on, Mom knew that she needed to be seen by a physician and so she made an appointment. I am not sure the ins and outs of the time frame here, Mom and Dad were living in Minnesota and I was stuck in bed in Illinois.

I do vividly remember the day I got the call. I was sitting in bed, once again placed on bed rest. Mom called and I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was not well. For those that know my Mom, she is one of the strongest women I know. She rarely shows emotion and is a stereotypical German stoic. Hearing her voice shaky on the phone alarmed me.

Mom was quick and to the point. She had cancer. Again. The Dr.'s had done an MRI or CT scan, I can't remember, and found that her cancer had returned. Mom had fought and won her first battle with cancer when I was a teenager. It had been 20 years since her first fight. This time, however, the end result was already determined. Unless God intervened with a miracle of physical healing, Mom would not win the fight this time. The cancer was already stage 4 and in the bone.

I remember at the time that I didn't really process the information well. I remember that in my puny mind I assumed that since she beat the odds the first time, she would obviously do so again. I refused to read online what the prognosis was, since Mom had never followed any medical norms to begin with. Mom did fight, for much longer than the doctors believed possible. Mom tried every treatment and lived long enough to see her last grandchild be born, whom we named Joy after her.

Mom fought for 7 years, 5 more than most patients with her cancer live. She lived for her family and showed us that by battling on and on until it was obvious that there was nothing else left to do. Mom and Dad moved to Illinois 2 years before her passing in order to be near family. She passed away on May 14, 2009 with her three girls and her husband near her. It has been so difficult to continue on this journey of motherhood without her here. She was my sounding board, my source of wisdom and my fountain of strength. I am now mothering motherless. This trek through parenting is now much more challenging without my Mom to help me forge ahead.

I thought I would find some pictures of our life at the time. Life was full of busy days and long nights. The boys kept us on our toes. They seemed to have boundless energy. Joel began going to preschool a few mornings a week and Aaron and Connor were still napping twice a day! On those days I felt like a new woman! It seemed like months would pass before we knew it and suddenly the twins could walk and Joel was riding a tricycle.

Days slipped into weeks and then into months. Aaron and Connor were healthy and strong. Their issues with prematurity diminished before our eyes. They kept us up all night, they chugged down formula like some kind of starved ape-like mammal, and kept us in the poorhouse with the amount of diapers they required on a daily basis. That being said, they were still a source of great joy.

Joel struggled with all the changes. Suddenly he was no longer the center of attention. He decided the only way to counteract the lack of attention was to go on the attack. I mean, negative attention is still attention right?. He decided he would do everything he was not allowed to do until someone cared. He drew on the walls, took a dozen eggs and broke them all over the floor, would throw himself on the floor screaming, you know typical stuff. I decided something needed to be done.

I hired a teenage girl to come over and help. She would either watch the twins while I took Joel out or she would take Joel to the park to play. It helped, but Joel still demanded more than I could give. I was starting to feel pulled in so many directions and would collapse on my bed at night frustrated and near tears. This motherhood thing was way over-rated and I was not at all living the sweet life I had planned. It was too hard. I started crying daily, losing my temper and snapping at Scott over every little thing.

After a lot of long conversations with Scott and other close friends, I decided to seek help. I had always felt that I could do it. I believed I was strong enough to withstand whatever came my way. One meeting with the therapist led to a quick diagnosis: post partum depression.

For those that boo-hoo this issue and stand next to Tom Cruise and his drivel, I challenge you to spend a day with a woman with twins, a highly energetic two year old, countless bouts of rotovirus and overactive hormones. Trust me, the issue is real. It certainly was for me. I was in over my head and needed some kind of break, or a nervous breakdown was inevitable. The therapist recommended hiring someone to give me some much needed respite. My parents had always taught me to follow doctor's orders and this was no exception. When Scott realized that the help would ease my constant sour spirit, he was on board.

God brought a wonderful woman into our lives who helped me more than I could ever share here on this blog. She helped me stay sane. She cleaned my house, took care of my kids and just let me leave and sit at Panera for two hours reading a book. My kids called her Nana, but she was more than that. She was an angel sent by God. She helped us celebrate the twins' first birthday, saw their first steps and loved them without reservation. I look back and realize how my life would have collapsed around me if she had not stepped through the door of my disheveled mind. She stayed around for almost two years, until she moved to help her daughter care for her children. Whatever sanity I have left, I owe to her.

The drive home was surreal. I sat in the back staring at these two little ones who were so tiny they're bodies were secured with rolled up towels so they would be sure to not slide out of their car seats. All I could think of was how now I really was a mother of three. Three boys no less. I woman who had been raised with only sisters, now had to figure out how to mother three boys. I really didn't know if I was up to the task.

As we pulled into the driveway, my stomach was in knots. I had wanted this for so long, and now I had a sense of impending doom. Scott helped me out of the car and took both car seats. As we walked in, my sister had her video camera. I can not stand those things, but I guess these momentous occasions catapult one to freak show status. I gave a half hearted smile to the blinking red light shining in my face, and tried to dodge the paparazzi as I made my way into the living room.

Joel was asleep upstairs, which in and of itself was miraculous, since that child rarely slept. My friend Liz was there, a woman who herself struggled with infertility and whose pain that night was sadly far removed from my mind. I should have known better than to ask her to watch Joel. Why in the world would she want to be there when I brought home two newborn babies? It shows how self absorbed one can become when dealing with stress and I have always felt badly for having such an attitude. (Liz is now the mother of a beautiful little girl name Aliyah)

As we set the twins down on the ground and began to unbuckle their straps, Connor began to wail. Well, for us it seemed like a wail. Little did we know how loud that little one would truly become. I went into the kitchen and made the first of thousands of bottles which would become our daily morning ritual. As I walked back into the living room, my sister was holding Aaron and Liz was holding Connor. I looked at these two new little lives and hoped they would bring me all the joy I envisioned. How tiny and perfect and beautiful they looked, that is until Connor decided to wail again! That was when reality set in.

We entered the hospital and scrubbed our hands for the last time. The smell of iodine and disenfectant were becoming tiresome and it seemed to stay on my hands for days. As we pushed open the doors to the ISCU, we knew we were ready to end this chapter in our lives. As we walked toward the twins, a nurse approached us and mentioned that one of the car seats did not pass the test. The straps were not adjustable and since the boys were so small, they needed to be supported in their car seats with rolled up towels. The straps were too high on the car seat and we would not be able to take one of the twins home if we did not buy a new one.

It was already late, and we had no idea what would be open. I started crying, thinking we would have to leave one of them behind because nobody thought to call us ahead of time and tell us about the car seat. Scott said he would go to the closest mall and hope something was open. I told him money was not an issue, to buy whatever he could find. As he rushed out the door, tears were streaming down my face.

I walked over to the twins and picked each of them up. I sat on the rocker and held them close. I loved to smell their little heads, which seemd to almost fit in the palm of my hand. They now were back to their birth weight, around 4 pounds each. They had lost a bit of weight the first week, dropping them down to a little over 3 pounds. They were still so tiny.

As I sat there, the nurses started to pack up some of our things. The boys were on a high calorie formula, which was very expensive. The nurses found a case of unopened formula and told us to take it with us. It would last a few days. They also gave us a lot of bottles and nipples, since the boys still needed little ones. The store bottles were still too big for their little mouths. They also gave us preemie diapers, diaper rash cream, preemie pacifiers, and the little hand made quilts that covered their bodies while they lay in their incubators.

It felt like an eternity waiting for Scott to return. I was so scared he would not find a carseat and we would have to leave one of the boys behind. How could I decide who would stay and who would go? It didn't seem right to me that they were created at the same time, spent 7 months inside my womb together, three weeks in the hospital together, just to be separated the day they are discharged to go to their forever home. I was not going to let that happen. I decided to put their "coming home" clothes on their little frames. I had purchased them 4 months prior, in preparation for a dual homecoming. They looked like little clowns, the brightly colored fleece clothes drapped over their tiny bodies.

Scott came in smiling holding a big Graco box. He had found one. A Graco no less, which would also work on our new double stroller. I was thrilled. The nurses looked it over and adjusted the straps. They gently took Aaron out of my arms and placed him in the carseat. He was so small, the car seat seemed to consume him. The nurses than showed us how to take towels and blankets and roll them up so they could keep him snug and stable. They did the same to Connor. Once we had them all snug and warm, we knew it was time to go.

We took pictures, hugged a few nurses and took all the pictures and papers we had taped to their incubators. The nurses checked our wristbands and compared them to the twins and then the moment arrived. One of the nurses took a pair of scissors and cut the wristbands off, smiled and said, "Congratulations, they are all yours." With that, we pushed open the doors and walked away. We were ready to leave that place. We were ready to be done with the roller coaster of emotions, the dinging of the monitors, the constant worry about weight and eating, and the days of seeing other parents in anguish over the impeding loss of their newborn child. It was too hard. The grief seemed to often outweigh the joy and we were ready to begin a new joyous chapter. We were done with grief.

A very tired Mom! Aaron and Connor are about 6 weeks old

Mommy and Daddy with Aaron and Connor on December 20th



Joel meets his brother Aaron for the first time


We were slowly getting into a routine. I would stay home with Joel during the day and Scott would go to work. I would call the ISCU in the morning to see how the twins did through out the night. I would call again around 3:00 while Joel was napping, and then Scott would come home. We would eat dinner, get a babysitter, and drive an hour to the hospital to visit with the twins. The days started to blur together, since my recovery was taking a long time and my heart was torn between the needs of my 2 year old son and my inability to care for my newborn twins. It was a difficult time in for me. I felt I had failed as a mother, incapable of carrying my twins to term, and unable to meet my son's emotional needs. I spent many hours crying while Joel napped, not wanting him to see my fear and grief.

Joel seemed to sense a change and we decided it would be a good idea for him to go see his brothers. We had yet to take him to the hospital, since we did not want to expose him to the noise and chaos of the ISCU. His sensory issues made him extremely sensitive to sound, and the ISCU is not a quiet place. There are monitors, nurses and lots of babies. Yet Joel knew I had been pregnant, and couldn't figure out where the babies were. Once the doctors said that Aaron and Connor were well enough to visit in the "family room" we decided to take Joel with us one night for a visit.

It was a sweet moment, one I will never forget. After scrubbing our hands and making Joel washed his longer than we ever have, Scott waited in the family room with Joel. I walked into the ISCU and let the nurse know I wanted to take the twins into the family room for more privacy. We took all the leads off Aaron and Connor, wrapped them tightly in blankets, and wheeled them into the family room. They loved to lay together in the basinett, and since that is not the normal policy of the hospital, we tried to do it as much as we could.

As the nurse re-attached their monitors in the family room, Joel just stared at the boys in awe. He was a bit unsure. Once their monitors were back on, Scott picked up Aaron and sat down. I motioned to Joel to go and meet his new brother. Timidly he walked over and leaned across his Daddy's chest, staring down and his new little brother. He was scared to touch him and asked about the tube in his nose. He then leaned over and gave him a kiss on the forehead. We knew then we were going to be okay.

Aaron and Connor spent a little over three weeks in the Intensive Care Unit. Their primary problem was their inability to suck on a bottle. They could not be released until they were able to take all feedings with a bottle. They would suck for about three minutes, then were so tired they would fall asleep. It took too much work to drink all of it. The bottles were so small and they really only had to drink less than an ounce, but that alone was too much for them.

We were surprised when I made my daily call on December 20th and the nurse told me they were scheduled to go home that day. We had no warning. I was scared because Aaron had an apnea episode the night before. I did not feel they were ready to come home, but we could not afford the $3500/day it was costing to keep them there. Once the doctors okayed their homecoming, insurance stopped paying. We had to bring them home.

We needed to bring in two car seats for a car seat check and hopefully bring them both home if they could tolerate the car seats. Some preemies have trouble breathing for a long time sitting up, and that is a concern with a car seat. The nurses place the preemie in a car seat in the hospital and keep him in there for about an hour. They monitor the child to make sure he can breath without difficulty. We knew the twins would be fine, since they had never had respitory problems. In a rush, I called Scott to tell him the boys were coming home and we had to get things ready. They day was mayhem and my excitement could not be contained. We were finally bringing our little boys home!