This morning I was composing my first “blog” entry in mind. I was thinking to myself “it is after all, a special day: Ayden and Amelia’s second half-birthday.” That’s right half-birthday. I celebrate half-birthdays, if only mentally, I celebrate them. I was introduced to the concept about 20 years ago by my friend Eric, who happens to celebrate my half-birthday as his actual birthday and vice versa. Through the years, although Eric and I had lost contact for many of them, I always remembered him on my half-birthday. He and I have another half-birthday/birthday to celebrate in a few weeks, but before we do, it’s time to celebrate my 2 ½ year old twins’ half-birthday, a day they happen to share with our Aunt Diana’s actual birthday.
This year the twins got jipped out of their birthday day. I had had grand plans of a Sesame Street-themed party with lots of fanfare, but instead mommy and daddy stayed up till 4 in the morning the night before getting the house ready to put on the market. Stupified (Harry Potter term) we drove to the lake and napped on and off while my parents played with the kids. We were too exhausted to do any real celebrating.
This morning, six months later, I looked in awe at my two little miracles. Could it really be that they are on the up-side of three now? We are, after all, still getting used to the fact that they just turned two. And it was three years ago exactly to the day, that Harold and I watched the sonogram display two, not one, but two little egg sacs. “Holy Crap!” was my response. Throughout the day (and several more to follow) I found myself saying that familiar refrain, …. “holy crap! Holy crap? Holy crap… No matter how I said it, whether in amazement, disbelief or acceptance it still meant the same thing: “life as we knew it was never going to be the same.” It meant, “holy crap.” Enough said.
So here we are three years from the day I learned I was going to have two babies. I look back and wonder “how did we get to this point?” I had a very scary pregnancy. After receiving a cerclage at the 15-week point, I spent the next 15 weeks on bedrest and delivered 10 weeks early. We then spent 7 weeks in the NICU, followed by a month of beeping monitors at home, and 7 weeks of consecutive castings to correct Amelia’s teeny tiny foot. With virtually no sleep for the first year and a half, we then endured a huge, stressful, yet unexpected move to buy a new house without yet selling the old one and combined the experience with several scares of Harold potentially losing his job. Throw in a couple major surgeries on my part and we’ve got a two-and-a-half to three-year blur.
In the midst of the chaos I’ve spent countless days overwhelmed. Overwhelmed in many ways but also with gratitude. Three years ago, I could negotiate contracts with famous speakers, I could remember what I had eaten the day before, I could memorize my to-do list without writing it down and I could (usually) actually remember to pay bills before they were due. Three years ago I was essentially my own person with a mind that was complete and in-tact.
