Looking back - the twins are one!

Easter this year also happened to be Blake and Bowen's first birthday!  Wow.  What a year it has been.
It was kind of an emotional day for me on Sunday.  I couldn’t help but think of so many different things.  Things that happened during my pregnancy, things we were told during the pregnancy and the 70 days following the birth of the twins.

I remember the day we went in for the ultrasound and I had this hunch, based on nothing but a gut feeling, that I was having twins.  When the gal told us 45 minutes in that there was twins, I cried.  Happy, holy crap we are having twins tears.

I remember how the slight dilation around Baby A’s kidney was downplayed that day.  I remember how a week later it felt like the world came crashing down on the absolute joy we had felt just seven days earlier.

I remember sitting with the doctor in the semi-lit room in Des Moines, him telling us the terrible news.  I remember hearing the words, “10% chance of survival...try a procedure, but there’s no guarantees and it may set-off pre-term labor and you could lose both babies...”  I sobbed in that room and couldn’t think of a single question to ask, all I could do was cry.  Thank goodness for my husband, who is always so calm in situations like that.

I remember how we had to go and celebrate Christmas with our families in northwest Iowa that same night.  We couldn’t sleep that entire night.  I remember waking up with tears flowing down my cheeks that I just couldn’t control.  I remember driving around Sioux City with just Aaron and he told me that we had two choices.  We could plan on our baby not making it or we could think positively and have the faith that things would work out.

I remember the sense of relief I felt when I heard Blake’s cry after he was born.  I remember how in shock I was that I gave birth to not one, but two seven pound babies!  I remember the call from the NICU that Blake was “fragile.”

The next 70 days were pretty much a blur.  A slew of doctors, nurses and residents that came in our hospital room like it had a giant revolving door.  I remember being at the Ronald McDonald House and getting a call in the middle of the night when I had to get up with Bowen.  There was a message on my phone that they were starting dialysis.  And, despite the fact that we knew it was inevitable, I cried.  This was going to be part of our new normal.

I remember coming home on the Friday of Rose Festival.  I remember how nervous we were that first night being on our own.  Since we have been home, life has been one giant rollercoaster ride.  Some days are great, some days aren’t, but just like everything you take the good with the bad and it’s always worth it.

I think the best part of two babies is that you get double the love, double the smiles, double the happiness.  One of my favorite things is when I bring the boys downstairs in the morning and have one on each hip, they sit there and ramble, “mamamama.”  Hearing that times two makes my heart happy.

I do have to admit that I still have a moment every single day when I look at them and think to myself, ‘holy cow...I really have twins.  I really did have two babies.’  I know it’s been 367 days since they were born, but it still seems crazy to me.

Before I wrap this column up, I have to thank all of you for your prayers and support the past year.  It has meant so much to our family.  I love when people ask me how we are doing because they’ve been following us through this column.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!
If you would have told me ten years ago I was going to have twins one day I would have laughed.  Today?  I couldn’t feel happier about our family of six.  And those twins that I would have laughed at?  They are the best things I never knew I wanted, but that’s just the way I see it.