One Year Later...

July 26, 2013

Dear BE,
     It's been exactly one year since I found out the best news of my life. It was this day last year that I woke up, peed on a stick, and saw two purple lines that made me the happiest lady in the world. It was this very day last year I brought home those cupcakes and announced to your father that we were having a baby. (Or so I thought...) Crazy.
     Looking back, I can say it has been for sure the hardest year of my entire life, but also my most favorite year. Being pregnant with twins brought it's difficulties and challenges, but a lot of excitement too! I gave you both a bath the other night and was sitting on the floor outside of the tub remembering back to so many times when I was in that same bathroom lying on the floor around 5 in the morning with a huge stomach ache waiting for my next "puking rally" to begin. Tough stuff indeed. But then there was all the good stuff: telling our family about you, hearing your heartbeat, seeing the two of you on ultrasound, feeling your kicks, finding out your genders. And finally meeting each of you face to face.
    Last year, I had NO idea what this day really meant or what it was going to bring about. Boy was I in for a surprise!
   This morning I woke up to your sweet cooing and your smiling faces. You are both working on rolling over. You are laughing at me and at each other. You are rolling over, grabbing things and learning how to entertain yourselves. You are chubby and adorable and growing so fast. Tomorrow you will be five months already! I can't believe how fast time seems to be whizzing by.
  I am enjoying each and every day with you and though it's hard work at times, I love it. And I love you both so incredibly much. You have made me the happiest Mama.
  Today I feel much of the same things I did this time last year: extremely blessed and extremely happy.
  I find it odd and humorous that I chose two different types of cupcakes for your dad that day in 2012. I couldn't decide between two flavors that I knew he would like. And it turns out we were having TWO little cupcakes of our own. Both ironic and delicious.
   You have taught me SO much already in our short time together. Things like patience, love, gratitude, multi-tasking, and using your feet as an extra pair of hands. I have had so much fun this summer watching you grow and develop. I am excited for our future together...especially our future summers. I can't believe how incredibly cute you both are. I can't stand it! I am finally feeling like I have the hang of this twin thing too. You are getting easier to entertain and care for. And I am very lucky that I get to stay home with you for a few more months. I am not going back to work until January when you will be a little older. I just wasn't quite ready to leave you with someone else yet. We are going to have so much fun this year! I love you both more than words can explain.

With Great Joy,
Your Mama

The First Few Months

I am just posting this letter now, but I wrote it two or three months ago sometime in March or April. I found it in my journal where I used to log your feedings but I never typed it up. Glad we don't have to do that anymore. :)

Dear Sweet BE,

 Where do I begin? The last month has been a whirlwind of sleepless nights, busy days, and lots and lots of diapers and wipes. There have been plenty of tears but also plenty of laughter. You two are making us work as parents, that's for sure. Having and caring for two babies at the same time is no easy feat. Luckily your father and I make a pretty good team, if you ask me. Well, us plus a lot of coffee.

The days (and nights) are flying by in a sleep deprived blur--much like other parents of twins said they would. I'm somewhere between asleep and awake, like I'm not really here but in a dream world. Mostly I feel out of touch with reality...maybe due to my lack of sleep, but I think also because I cannot comprehend that you are mine. And that I have not one but TWO babies.

It all seems like a blink of an eye when I look back on the last year. I remember asking your dad about having kids and praying to the Lord to bless us with a child. Then finding out I was pregnant. Finding out I was carrying two babies. Finding out you were a boy and a girl. Being HUGELY pregnant, sick, uncomfortable, having you, being in the NICU, coming home and now. It all has seemed to pass by so very, very quickly. I know I will be saying this your whole life. I can't even go that far into the future in my mind or I will lose it right now. I will burst into tears thinking about you all grown up and looking back and it feeling like now, feeling like 2 quick seconds.

As much as I love you each, caring for you has been challenging. It has required major sacrifices, extra patience, and physical and emotional energy I didn't know I was capable of having. There is a certain dying to yourself when you have children. I say this not to discourage you, or to make you feel that you owe me anything, but to share my hope that you will wait until you are truly ready to have kids before you do. It can happen so effortlessly, but once you are a parent your life is no longer your own and it will never be the same.

This letter is all piecey and lacking a focus--must be my sleep deprived brain struggling to think, write, and compose a letter with a central topic. I will leave it as is for dramatic effect.

I'm sorry to report that I must leave you during the day for the next five weeks to go back to work. I'm sure you won't know the difference, but I always planned on a maternity leave that ran into summer so I didn't have to be away while you were so little. I will think of you all day: your big eyes staring into mine, your tiny cries when it's time to eat, the cute sounds you make, and the feeling of your warm bodies next to mine. You both look so very different from that first day in the NICU. You are both close to 9 lbs now. Eleanor you are a bit bigger than Benjamin still but he is catching up. Your bellies and cheeks have fattened up, you're holding up your own heads, and I know your smiles are going to debut any day now! You are each more and more beautiful every day and I'm falling deeper in love with you by the minute.

It seems so surreal to think now to my very first letter, before I knew you. Your Daddy and I are so very blessed and very happy even though this short period of our lives is challenging us and growing us as people, as a married couple, and as parents. It's 3 something in the morning while I am finishing pumping for your next feeding. I don't really know my point or where I am going, but just that this is really hard and I really love you both. That is all for now.

Love,
Mom