I'm very torn about whether to write about more personal things on this blog, or whether to keep it an arms-length, "oh look at this lovely website I discovered."
Please bear with me as this might become a rambling mess.
The idea for this post was given to me by a friend, as we were recently standing in my entrance hall, surrounded by nappies that hadn't quite found their way to the bin, a crying toddler, and me with one foot out the door trying to rush off to see my babies at the hospital.
She told me about Shauna Niequist's book Bittersweet - a book that discusses that "the bitter in life is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through," while "sweet is nice enough, bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity."
This is an honest account of my experience as a mom over the past two months. Bittersweet is the ideal word to describe my frame of mind, and perhaps my life, in the past little while.
My babies are in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital where they were born.
My smaller twin became ill with NEC when he was 2 days old. Driving away from that hospital and leaving my baby there was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my life - it was gut-renching, like physically leaving a piece of myself behind.
After 25 days he came home after making a full recovery. But three and a half weeks later, where we had all been together under one roof, both twins developed pneumonia and had to get readmitted. As someone who prides herself on keeping it together in front of others, standing in that paediatrician's office and being told that they were going into hospital, I came close to full-on meltdown.
Now it's been 11 nights, and 12 days, of constant hand washing, beeping monitors, physiotherapy, doctor's terminology, drip lines and nasogastric tubes, not being able to hold my newborns, antibiotics and borrowed clothes as well as some heartstoppingly scary moments that knock the wind right out of your solar plexis. They are both getting better and are moving in the right direction.
And I can honestly and truthfully say that we are among the lucky ones.
We are lucky. And blessed.
After a pregnancy during which I constantly struggled with the idea of twins - Why me? How was I going to cope? This was not our plan, I finally know that I am blessed.
Happy 2 months M+G.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
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