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(Not) Baby Advice

It’s 5:45am and one of the babies woke up an hour earlier than the boys usually do. Adam is the Feeding Man Extrodinaire, so he is feeding Daniel right now. I woke up too, and wanted to go back to sleep, but once I was awake, my mind started going and here I am, writing a post.

The boys are five months old now and Benjamin has started to roll, both tummy to back and back to tummy. That means I have to keep a closer eye on him and he is now a ‘mover and a shaker’ as we like to call him. Rolling is normal baby development, and I am obviously ok with this, but it seems like the baby phases happen so fast. You can’t get too comfortable in one routine, because tomorrow it will change. Baby Daniel, his twin brother, weighs all of 17 lbs, compared to Benjamin’s 14 lbs, and is definitely not a mover and a shaker. He is perfectly content to lie on his back, drool a lot and eat his hands. Benjamin has turned into a thumb sucker, which at first I was concerned about, but he really only does it when he’s sleeping, tired or is trying to self-soothe, so it’s not that bad. If he was doing it 24/7, then I’d try to break him of it.

More things I’ve learning in this summer of being a new mom:

Your baby will cry. All babies cry. It doesn’t matter how happy or good-natured your baby is, at some point, it will cry.
As mentioned above, the weeks and months and phases of baby life go really, really fast. Take lots of pictures and don’t get too comfortable in one routine or schedule because it will change.
It’s harder to get into a schedule than I thought it would be. I feel like we’ve done a good job of an early morning schedule and an evening schedule, but during the day time, it seems like anything goes.
For twins specifically: I’ve heard from other twin moms that they should be on the same schedule with feeding and naps; it makes life easier. Personally, I have found that the opposite is true, especially with feedings. I am just one person and oftentimes I have the boys at home during the day by myself. It is really hard to feed two babies at the same time. And yes, when they are not on the same schedule it seems like every twenty minutes you are feeding a baby, but also, things are much calmer. One baby isn’t screaming its head off because its hungry while you feed the first baby, which happened often when I took the ‘same schedule’ advice at the beginning. There was just too much screaming and I was getting overwhelmed.
Feeding a baby (Or in my case, babies) is harder than you think it will be. It seems there is some social stigma around moms who have a hard time feeding, whether it be from a bottle or breast. And it’s kind of taboo to talk about. Socially, it seems that a mom should have no problem feeding, and if she does, she’s automatically not a good mom. I’m sure there are plenty of moms out there who easily breastfeed their children and that’s great, but I think there are just as many moms who struggle with it, don’t like it and maybe even hate it. I think feeding issues most definitely need to be talked about and judgement suspended when the issue comes up. If you have a hard time feeding, it just means feeding babies can be hard it doesn’t mean you’re not a good mom. Lots of things can factor into a rough feeding time (Nipple size, shape, flow, positioning, environment, etc). Talk about what’s going on and get help.
People will give you advice on how to parent. Whether you want it or not, it will come. Some advice is good, some advice, eh, not so much. Take what works for you and throw out the rest.
Stay away from Moms Groups on social media. But like, for real. If I could shout this from the rooftops I would. After we got the boys I was suddenly ‘a mom’ and got invited to do ‘mom things’, which included an invite to a mom group on Facebook. I took one look at the group and knew it wasn’t for me. I just couldn’t. I think with those types of things you get caught up in comparison and self-doubt and think that everyone else has the best of everything. This can be social media in general, but specifically with moms groups. Apparently ‘mom guilt’ is real and I want to stay far, far away from that. I tell myself regularly that ‘I am a good mom’ and I wholeheartedly believe that. I am a good mom. And yes, you are too.
In contrast to Number 7, even though I am not a part of mom groups on social media, I do enjoy socializing in-person and talking with other parents. It does take a village to raise children and learning from other parents is helpful. Parenting is a huge learning curve and knowing what others do and have done can be very beneficial. It’s also connecting with others and relationship building. That doesn’t mean you have to do exactly what they do, but finding others who have had similar experiences in raising children makes you feel a part of a bigger community and not isolated.
Along with Number 8, it can be isolating to be at home with a baby and also difficult to go places. For me, inviting friends over has been hugely helpful. In fact, I feel I’ve almost been more social the past few months than I was before. And of course, everyone wants to meet the babies. 😉 I’ve also learned that I can go some places with two babies by myself, mostly to someone’s house for a visit. As of yet, I haven’t ventured out shopping yet by myself with two babies. Usually, if we need something one of us stays home with the babies and one of us goes out, although there have been times we’ve gone to shopping together with kids. How this works: Adam and I both grab a shopping cart. We each take a baby out of the car, still in the car seat. We put the car seat in the back of the cart, one in each cart. Then Adam and I divide our shopping list and go our separate ways and meet up towards the end. We don’t do this often, but it’s worked a handful of times.

And that, my friends, is what I’ve learned this summer from being a parent.

Summer Update 2024

The two baby bugs are on a blanket next to me on the living room floor, talking and smiling and each other. ‘Talking’ in quotation marks because it’s really just baby babble, but it is full on baby babble and they can be quite noisy. The boys turned five months last week. They’re getting bigger, but they still tiny for their age, and still in 0 – 3 month clothing. They are developing however, as babies do, and today’s milestone was that Benjamin rolled from his back to his tummy, so that’s a big improvement. Being born five weeks early didn’t do the twins any favors as far as development goes, but I tell them all the time that I’m proud of them, so I am hoping that encouragement in the little things will help them along the way.

At the end of June I threw my back out and it took a good month to recover and get back to normal. I’ve thrown my back out before, but it had been almost a full thirteen years since I had thrown it out as bad as I did this summer. Which makes me feel like I’ve been doing all the right things as far as lifestyle goes (Exercising, using my abs, massage, etc), but what can you do when you’re thrown into a situation that requires a lot of physical activity and a big lifestyle change? My back got the brunt of it as Adam and I tried our best to adjust to parenting newborn twins. I am feeling much better though, and have been back to exercising, albeit slowly and carefully, which has helped.

At the end of July, just as my back was on the mend, I had another periodontist gum graft surgery. I had nightmares days before it happened, having flashbacks to other dental surgeries I’d had in the past. This time I only had one tooth repaired, in contrast to the four teeth I had repaired three years ago, so it was *slightly* easier, but not much. Thankfully, I had some experience with dental surgeries (Thankfully?!? Well…) and so I was much more prepared not only for the surgery itself, but for the recovery. We set up childcare for the twins on the day and Adam drove me to and from the appointment and spent the day working remotely. I spent the rest of the day on the couch, sleeping, icing my face, taking ibuprophen and eating pudding and pureed soups. It took me the rest of the week to feel halfway normal again. I got the stitches out last Monday and this coming Monday (In five days) I can return to eating whatever I want. I’ve been on a soft food diet for the past three and a half weeks and let me tell you, I am ready to eat something besides applesauce, cheesy grits, oatmeal and eggs (That is an exaggeration, I have had other soft foods, but these four have been a staple).

The market that I have been selling my soaps and body care at has been going very well this summer. I am very (Very) thankful for that. My summer project has been getting new labels designed for a product I am reintroducing to my body care line up; my ever popular hand salves. It’s been a harder project than I anticipated, as I felt I was having communication issues with my graphic designer. That being said, this week the new labels are bought, paid for and in production, as well as a new Roll & Go Oil I am adding to my collection this Fall. I am excited about how things are going. That being said, I am not planning on bringing out any new products for my biz. My plan from here on out is just to make scent variations on the products I am already manufacturing.

This is my short summer update for 2024.

Complicated Clothing

I recently finished the book How to Get Dressed by Alison Freer. Lately I’ve wanted to learn about clothing and style and really what body type AM I anyway?

How do I do clothes?!?

I have clothing and style questions, how and where can I find the answers and actually learn — and possibly solve once and for all — my clothing conundrums? Because I feel like I have many of those. In an attempt to learn and broaden my view of style and clothing I went to my go-to source when I really and truly want to learn about something: The Library. I checked out a few books on style and Freer’s book was one of them, and honestly, the only one I actually read from start to finish.

Clothing has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. I mean, clothing at the most basic level is something to cover our bodies; keep us decent, protect our skin from the elements and keep us warm in winter. Right?

Clothing can be very basic.

And clothing can be very complicated.

Kendra Adachi, in her book, The Lazy Genius Way, states that she wears black, white and denim and for the most part wears a version of the same outfit every day of the week. That’s it; white, black, denim. She keeps it simple and that’s the way she likes it. I don’t know about you, but for me, I need more variety. And I like color. Besides, barring the denim, black and white aren’t really my colors. I’m not Kendra Adachi, I’m Hannah Hon, and I like color and variety. I am a different person than she is and that’s ok. However that means my clothing automatically becomes more complicated. I realize that wanting more variety in my clothing diet it is a choice I am making and I am ok with that because that’s who I am.

I’m also not Alison Freer, costume designer extraordinaire, knowing everything there is to know about clothing, style, fit and hacks because it’s her job…plus she’s just always loved clothes.

I think that some people have a natural, God-given interest in clothing and they always look good because they invest time into something that they enjoy. My cousin Rachael was like that. She loved clothing, absolutely loved it, and she always looked good because she took the time to learn and invest in her clothes. She went to school for fashion merchandising and while the degree turned out to be different than she had originally expected, she learned all she could about fashion, clothing and how to work the system. She had a tailor. She knew about color and skin tone and body types and style and fit. She knew what she was doing. My aunt, Rachael’s mom, said recently that Rachael’s dream was to own a clothing boutique. She would have been good, very good, at it. She loved to help people find their best colors, style and make them look and feel amazing.

In contrast, her ‘best cousin’, ie, yours truly, was, and still is, the total opposite. When we were growing up Rachael was the one who was always cool as a cucumber, never seemed to get hot or sweaty no matter how much we ran around and played, and she took care with her hair, make up and clothes. I, on the other hand, sweated a lot and my cheeks always looked like they were ‘on fire’ as I was told so many times. Not to mention my hair never looked like it was brushed (Which is still a problem). My clothes were mostly hand-me-downs and sometimes had holes in them, but I wore them anyway. I had different interests in life than my cousin. She cared about clothing and I cared about creativity, playing hard and being outside. Who cares how sweaty I got, I was having fun.

Growing up I was also taught in no uncertain terms that ‘beauty is on the inside and not the outside’. Playing with Barbies’ was something my mom was reluctant for me to do because she felt they focused too much on outward beauty. I played with them anyway. But the message was strong: Beauty is on the inside. Clothing, hair, make up and style are not something that is important in life.

Now, many years later, I agree and I disagree. Yes, the ‘hidden person of the heart’, the inner man, our spirit and soul life is the most important, but clothing and style and hair and make up are also extremely important and needed and worth much. Over the years, since being an adult and living on my own I have paid much more attention to my hair, style and clothes. I will be honest in the fact that I don’t wear make up because for me personally I feel like it is a time waste — I would rather have ten more minutes in my day to bind a book or do something creative than put on make up — but that is just my personal choice and preference. Oh, and by the way, a workplace can not force you or require you to wear make up. A workplace can have a dress code, yes, but as far as requiring someone to wear make up as part of the job, it’s simply not legal (Ask me how I know. I guess the caveat to that statement would be ‘Unless your an actor or in the performing arts business’).

Back to my original thought that clothing can be simple and basic or clothing can be complicated. Even the simplicity of ‘jeans and a t-shirt’ can get complicated.

For exaple: Take jeans. Do I go with high rise, low rise, mid rise, ultra low rise? Do I go with boot cut, straight leg, boyfriend, regular, bell bottoms or skinny jeans? How about color? White jeans, light jeans, dark jeans or black jeans? That’s just the beginning; the possibilities are endless. So how about the t-shirt? Color is one thing and a personal preference, but do I go with v-neck? Scoop neck? Crew? Square? Short length or long length? Fitted or loose? Again, the possibilities are endless. One day I could wear dark, low rise, boot cut jeans with a white scoop neck fitted long length tee, and the next day I could wear light, bell bottom, high rise jeans with a soft blue, v-neck, short length loose tee. I am just saying. And I’m no fashion expert so the combos listed above may be something a person wouldn’t really wear, but the point is, even jeans and a t-shirt can be complicated.

In her book Freer outlines the rise of pants and jeans and what would look best on your body type based on where your natural waist is, which helped me to demystify what rise of jean I personally should be wearing (Mid-rise. I’ve been wearing low-rise for 20 years because I was laughed at once because I didn’t realize that wearing low-rise pants with granny panties wasn’t the best idea. I’ve also never worn granny panties since then, fyi). The whole point of me reading her book was to learn and help myself out with this whole clothing thing. So that was super helpful.

The other thing I learned from her book was fit. Fit, fit, fit. How clothes fit you and your specific, unique body type is really the most important thing for having clothes work. I feel like most of my life I have been trying to make my body fit into the clothes I buy rather than buying clothes that actually fit my body. Freer says that the main thing that separates the Hollywood actors and how they look is one, fit — they wear clothes that work for their bodies and most of them are at least altered someone to fit them better and two, they have someone — like a costume designer — pushing them and their style. Why not try this? Or that? Or how about this? And, Does this work for my body?

Freer stays away from the typical body typecasting of ‘apple, pear, hourglass or triangle’, which was refreshing. I’ve always thought that I my body was the Hourglass type simply because I have larger bust area, smaller waist, and my hips are literally the same measurement as my bust. I also don’t have much of a butt, so I don’t know where a non-existent back end factors into as far as body type goes.

Those two factors, fit and pant rise, were probably the two most helpful things I gleened from reading Freer’s book. Her chapter on undergarments was also very helpful.

My first bra was a hand-me-down strapless underwire. Yes, you read that right. A strapless underwire. I think I was 11 years old. Needless to say, the thing did not fit. I remember playing with our nextdoor neighbors and it seemed like I had to hike the thing up every two seconds because it kept falling down. I was so annoyed. I hated it. My mom did not take me bra shopping when I started to ‘bud’. She basically handed me the second-hand strapless bra and said, ‘Here. You should wear this’. Implying that, I needed to wear it because I was getting too big to go without one. I never had a training bra. And for many, many years I did not wear the right size bra. No one taught me about cup size, band size, how a bra should fit and I didn’t know how big I actually was (Uh, I’m big). Life is a journey and I have come a long long way on the road of learning about undergarments and I now wear a bra that at least keeps the ladies where they should be. I still hate underwires.

Underware too. I was told that I had sensitive skin when I was a kid, so it was cotton, cotton, cotton, always 100% cotton underware. And of course I wore the granny panty style, which, after reading Freer’s book, am tempted to go back to because she loves them. My husband doesn’t want me to, ha! Even though I was made fun of so many years ago for wearing them, what Freer says makes sense; they go with your natural curves and so eliminate panty lines…and maybe muffin tops too?

I feel like once those three things are in place, fit, pant/skirt/short rise and undergarments, style itself is just a matter of personal preference.

For me, clothing is all about comfort. I want to be comfortable. That doesn’t necessarily mean I have to wear baggy clothing, but I want to be comfortable in the clothes I wear. Which goes back to fit and making the clothes I buy work for my body, not my body for my clothes.

There are other decisions too when it comes to choosing clothing which can make it complicated.

Clothing can be expenseive. Do I shop second hand and therefore save money and also help the environment? Do I try to find deals on Amazon or Kohl’s or places like TJ Maxx or Marshalls?

Or do I invest a lot of money in more well-made garments and have them tailored to my body and therefore have a few choice garments that fit well and look good on me?

All clothing will wear out eventually. I personally go the second hand route more often. I am not saying that is better than another way, I think that’s what I do because that’s how I grew up. And there are nice second hand stores out there.

Which fabric types are sustainable and eco-friendly? What fabric types wear better? Which travel better?

I am not into fast fashion. Fashions fade, fashions come and go and apparently fashions have a twenty year cycle, or so I’m told.

There is a whole industry on style and fashion. The topic of clothing is a neverending one. These are just some thoughts I had after reading Alison Freer’s book. I will always been exploring style and my personal clothing choices and I found her book very helpful on the topic.

Walking in the Kingdom

The Kingdom of God is not like our earthly kingdoms. Being a part of the Kingdom of God means that now I live differently than I used to. It means I live in an ‘upside down’ kingdom that doesn’t make sense to my natural mind or even make sense to those around me. I now have a different mindset, a way of looking at the world that is counter-cultural.

Jesus said that we are to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us and pray for those who spitefully use us and persecute us.

This is not how we as humans typically act or think about those who hurt us. Blessing someone who has hurt me is not how I typically respond. I am angry. I am mad. I want to get even. I want to dwell in my hurt and pain and hold grudges. Lately I’ve been learning a lot about forgiveness and blessing others who I feel are doing me, or I feel have done, wrong.

If I say that I am a Jesus follower, but don’t do what He says, then what’s the point? Do I really follow Jesus then? Jesus says to bless, so I need to be active in blessing others, especially those who have hurt me.

More and more I want to walk in the principles of God’s heavenly kingdom. What are those principles? What are the laws that govern God’s kingdom? What is God’s kingdom like? How does that Kingdom of God operate? I want to change my natural mode of operation into one that mirrors and reflections the way His kingdom works. I know that I can only change my mode of operation with the help of the Holy Spirit and that I cannot do it in my own strength.

What are the things that makes God’s kingdom unique and special and different?

God’s Kingdom is one of:

Humility

Light

Giving and Generosity

Thanksgiving and Thankfulness and Gratitude

Peace (Jesus is the Prince of Peace)

Love (Love never fails)

Patience (Love is patient)

Kindness (Love is kind)

Blessing

Joy

Truth

Life (Jesus is the way, the truth and the life)

Purity

Rest (Jesus says, ‘Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest’)

Trust and Confidence

Faith and Faithfulness

Contentment and Satisfaction

Gentleness

Goodness

Self-Control

Wisdom

Healing

Restoration

Safety and Belonging

Acceptance

There is more, so, so much more to life in God’s kingdom. I’m always learning how to put these things into practice in my daily life and to have a different perspective as I walk through the world. I’ve lived too long by doing things in my own strength and it’s time to lean on the Lord and follow His leading and walk according to His heavenly principles.

Things I Know

I want to kick negativity out of my life.

I want to be free from negativity. This is one thing that I want. There are other things I want to be free from too, like people pleasing, obligation and duty, feeling like I don’t measure up, free from the fear of man. I want to be free from striving, from fear of what others think of me, free from a list of Have Tos and To Dos. I want to be free from judging others, from having to control situations, from nitpicking how others do things, freedom from pride and shame and feeling ashamed for liking the things that I like. I want to be free from doing things in my own strength, from feeling like I do things wrong all the time, from having a victim mentality.

There are lots of things I want to be free from.

Freedom from internal negative thoughts, self-doubt and self-criticism is just one area I want to see breakthrough in. That being said, I’ve been paying more attention lately to my daily internal dialogue.

A couple weeks ago I had a thought, ‘What do I know?’. The thought was derogatory in nature, a mocking voice, full of negativity and doubt. I realized that I had that thought and instead of agreeing with it like I normally would I said, ‘No. I may not know everything but THIS I DO know’. My voice, my internally dialogue shifted from derogatory and degrading to confident.

This is what I know:

I know that I am full of the Holy Spirit.

I know that Jesus loves me.

I know that I am a new creation in Christ.

I know that God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and of a sound mind.

I know that the Spirit of Truth dwells in me and that He will guide me into all truth.

I know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

I know that I have the mind of Christ.

I know that my spirit is being renewed day by day.

I know that I have everything I need for life and godliness.

I know that I am blessed.

I know that I have been justified by faith in Christ.

I know that Jesus died for me and rose again and has forgiven me of my sins.

I know that I have an Advocate with my heavenly Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.

I know that I have everlasting peace and joy.

I know I have been crucified with Christ and it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me.

I know nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.

I know that goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

I know that I am valuable.

I know that I am worth much.

I know I am more precious than many sparrows.

I know that God knows the numbers of hair on my head .

There are many, many, many things that I know. The list goes on an on. How do I know these things and can be so sure and confident in them? As my pastor said recently, ‘I know in my knower’.

And I do.

Being A Mom

My aunt came over a couple weeks ago to meet the boys and she asked, ‘Do you feel like a mom yet?’

‘I’m exhausted’, I responded.

‘Yeah, you’re a mom!’, she said with a laugh.

Apparently mothers live a life in a state of perpetual exhaustion. In a way I am finding that to be true, but also, it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. Or maybe it is? When the boys first came home I used to think that I was just tired because of nighttime feedings and an erratic, interrupted sleep schedule. ‘I’ve been tired before, but never this tired’, I would think. But the more I thought about it I realized that wasn’t quite true. Yes, I was tired, but honestly, I was more exhausted than anything, mentally and physically. So I changed my internal thought to ‘I’ve been exhausted before, but never this exhausted’ and that, my friends, has been true for me.

As a mom I’ve learned to do things with one hand. Usually I have a baby in one arm while I am doing any number of daily household activities; cooking dinner, refilling my water bottle, setting the table, doing art, cleaning, refilling the boys diaper basket or diaper bag, journaling, reading a book, eating — the list goes on.

As a mom I’ve learned that life can be an endless routine of folding burp cloths and finding binkies. I have found that my morning cup of tea gets cold much faster than before having kids and that I do things piecemeal throughout the day. Focusing on a specific activity can be more challenging because I know that at some point I will be interrupted by a crying baby boy wanting to eat, be changed or simply just held.

Being a mom has been a mental switch and shift for me after not being one for so long. I do love it though and it feels right, albeit a bit weird. When the boys were in the NICU for two weeks I had nurses asked me, ‘Are you mom?’ on two different occasions, asking if I was the twin’s mother. The first time a nurse asked that question was when my mom was in the room visiting and my gut reaction was ‘No, this is my mom’ and point to my mom, however I was able to stay my gut reaction and answer a delayed ‘Yes’ to their question. The second time a nurse asked me was when my mother-in-law was visiting the boys and again my gut reaction to the question ‘Are you mom?’ was ‘No, this is my mother-in-law’, and again was able to answer a delayed, ‘Yes, I am mom’.

I am mom. Mom to twin boys. We went to the pediatrician today for the boys two month check up and found out that they are indeed identical twins. So I now know I am mom to not just twins, but identical twins. Whether the boys were identical or not has been the question of the hour asked by almost every family member, friend we have over or anyone who meets the boys, even in passing.

Mother’s Day was this past Sunday, my first Mother’s Day as a real mom.

Read: ‘I’m a real mom now!’ in a Pinocchio voice.

Mother’s Day almost felt like my birthday because I had many texts from family and friends wishing me Happy Mother’s Day, the twins got me a massage and a card (Via my husband), my sister-in-law got me a succulent and at church they baked cupcakes for all the moms and gave them each a nice clear glass to-go cup filled with lemonade. My thought, ‘I will take mine, thank you, because I’ve now been through night feedings, unending tiredness and physical exhaustion. I will eat my cupcake and drink my lemonade and enjoy it!’. It was a nice treat.

As a mom I’ve found that I tend to feel like I’m always holding a ‘phantom baby’ in my arms. Especially the first few weeks when it felt like Adam and I did nothing but hold babies. One of the boys would cry in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t get up because I was sure, sure, sure and beyond sure that I was indeed already holding a baby in bed, even though I really wasn’t. Once I realized that I wasn’t holding a baby, I would get up. It took my brain a while to realize it.

Akin to always feeling like I’m holding a baby even when I’m not, is that I tend to hear ‘phantom baby cries’ if I’m not in the room with the boys. Is that crying I hear? I go and check. Nope. My imagination. Later: I’m sure someone is crying! I check and still no. My imagination.

We moved the boys into their own room this week, which has been helpful for me personally. When we first brought them home they were in our room, but they were so noisy when they slept that I started sleeping on the couch in our TV room since I’m such a light sleeper. The boys would keep me awake with all their cute little baby snorts and noises that it had to be the couch for me; sleep was a premium and it was imperative that I got it, so I had to do what I had to do. Moving the boys into their own room means that Adam and I are just a few steps away from them and I feel like life has returned to a new normal. Plus the boys are sleeping more throughout the night, so I feel like finally we can get some sort of routine in place. Adam and I have even started eating breakfast together and I feel much more normal and possibily more human now that the first several weeks of parenthood are over.

I am an adoptive mom. I told Adam a couple weeks ago that when friends on social media announce that they’re pregnant that it still hurts me emotionally. Because it’s true, it does still hurt. I have to say that that is ok to have pain in this area and give grace to myself. I like being a mom, no matter if I am an adoptive mom or a biological mom. I am still a mom.

Is being a mom everything I thought it would be? That’s a difficult question to answer because yes, it does feel right and like I am where I am meant to be in life, but it’s also harder and different than I thought it would be. Harder mostly because of the night feedings right now, but also it’s hard to relax. Like, really, truly switch my brain off and relax. I can’t relax because I have kids and my brain is always listening for them, watching them, keeping any eye on them. Even when I am doing something I enjoy and trying to relax, I’m always a little bit alert and in tune with my surroundings.

Those are just some thoughts that I’ve had about being a mom so far.

Yet, Part II

The first full week of March this year was a big huge whirlwind for myself and my husband. We had been on a waitlist to adopt a baby for over a year and finally ‘got matched’, as they say, at the beginning of March. We adopted not one baby, but two — twin boys, five weeks premature. Like I said, it was a whirlwind of emotions and events.

Saturday, March 9th found us in the NICU room at a local hospital meeting our sons and deciding on names for them. After deciding on names we went back to the room that the hospital had prepared for us and slept as much as we could, still trying to take in everything that had happened the past few days, from receiving the matching document from the agency, saying yes to having them show our profile book to the birth mom, having the birth mom get induced and having her chose us to raise her children while she was in labor, to finally meeting the babies and becoming parents. You can read how all that happened here.

Later that morning, after sleeping and Adam showering, we went back to see the boys in the NICU. One of the boys was off the oxygen and I was surprised at how quickly he was able to be weaned from oxygen. That was a hopeful sign. Both the boy’s vitals looked good, and they were both strong and healthy, about five pounds each, which I thought was a decent weight for premature twins. We stayed in the NICU for a while, bonding with the boys. One of the reasons the birth family wanted us at the hospital when they were born was so that we could bond with them. I had never had the experience of bonding with a baby as a mom before, but I knew how extremely important it was, especially for NICU babies. And we suddenly had two of those.

After being with the boys for a while, Adam and I needed a break so we went to a nearby food place and picked up some lunch, stopped at the cutest Starbucks I’ve ever seen (Like, no joke. The place reminded me of a quaint English tavern in a storybook or fairy tale) to get some much needed caffeine (Drip coffe for Adam, black tea for me, please) and sat in our car to eat Chinese take out. We had reached out to an adoption lawyer earlier that day and as we ate luch the lawyer called us back and we retained his services. The highlight of that conversation was that he wasn’t going to charge us extra for twins. 🙂 After lunch we took a long, long walk at the biggest park in St. Louis. It felt good to stretch our legs and talk about everything that had happened. Then, back to the hospital.

Our adoption worker met us in our hospital room later in the afternoon and she went with us to meet the boy’s birth mom that day. She wanted to meet us and we wanted to meet her. There was some trepidation for me as we walked down the hall to her room. What was she like? What did she look like? Would she resemble the boys? Would we get along? She chose us to raise her boys from a book, she had never met us until then. Adam and I were both nervous as we met with her, her sister and the two adoption workers, but the conversation went smoothly, if mostly facilitated by the birth mom worker from the agency. We discussed the boys names; the birth mom had picked out their middle names. We had some other light, friendly, get-to-know you chit chat and then took a picture together. The birth mom was super sweet. My heart went out to her, having had a traumatic birthing experience she was now doing the very brave thing of placing her adorable twins up for adoption. She knew she couldn’t take care of them and she wanted them to have the best possible life. She wanted them to have sports and education opportunities and to grow up in a Christian household, going to church and knowing Jesus.

After our first meeting with the birth mom we left and Adam said that adoption was the best thing for the boys. I agreed. The birth mom was sweet, but also truly not able to care for the boys and was understanding of that reality. Yes, as hard, hard, hard as it was to place them for adoption, she did the right thing for them, for her and even for us. I feel like saying that is perhaps selfish or mean, but it isn’t. Everyone involved in this story — birth family, adoption agency, lawyers, us — love these boys and want the best for them and we are all agreed that adoption is the best, if hardest, choice.

The next two weeks found us in the NICU every single day. We got very familiar with the hospital. The free parking garage which was a huge blessing as sometimes we had to leave and come back more than once a day. Scrubbing up to get into the NICU became routine and we got much better at timing ourselves for two minutes. We were able to get the code for the NICU lounge, which became our lunch break place. The NICU receptionists got to know us, the nurses got to know us, the social worker got to know us, the chaplains got to know us. Since we had the NICU bracelets on that they had given us the day the boys were born it gave us 24/7 access to the NICU. The bracelets really were our ‘golden ticket’ as there were a few times the receptionist was new and would double check our bracelets for the boys information and if we really were allowed in. Which, I am thankful that the receptionists were on their job and were keeping the NICU unit safe for everyone.

The twins were in the NICU mostly because they were premature at thirty-four weeks and six days. They needed to develop more, have a little extra personal attention and learn how to feed. Their feeding was really the biggest issue. They both had feed tubes in for almost the whole two weeks they were there. The boys being in the NICU though, as difficult as it was leaving them every evening, was a big blessing for us. Having been suddenly thrust into parenting and having nothing ready at home, or even of how to care for one newborn, let alone two newborns, gave us the time we needed to get our house ready for their homecoming and also to train us as new parents. The time we spent at the NICU was invaluable, both in regards to bonding time and learning the ropes as adoptive parents. It really was a gift from God.

The day before the boys came home one of our favorite nurses was on duty and she was so super helpful in giving us all the much needed tips and tricks for caring for babies and was vrey open to us asking all the questions and giving us answers. We also learned how to give babies a bath that day, so they’d be nice and clean when the left the hospital.

The day the boys came home was a Saturday and I was ready for their NICU time to be over. They were feeding very well, gaining weight and had both passed their car seat tests with flying colors. I felt I had been doing nothing for those two weeks, besides trying to get things ready at home, except hold babies. If you know me, as much as I love to hold babies, I like to be a little more active during the day than just sitting! It was kind of a challenge to be in the NICU eight hours a day, and as much as I was thankful for their time there, I was very much looking forward to bringing them home. The boys were discharged and we packed them in their car seats and wheeled them in Radio Flyer wagons down to the side entrance of the hospital, myself and two nurses while Adam brought the car around. We loaded them into the car and I sat in the back with them, to keep an eye on them. They were, after all, so, so tiny still. And then, we were off.

Real life parenting had begun.

Thoughts on Parenting

Now that the secret is out and that Adam and I are now officially parents of newborn twin boys, how do I feel about parenting? Is it everything I thought it would be? How have the last five weeks been since they were born?

Adam and I are still processing everything that has happened in the last month and a half or so. I’m currently writing this in my living room with one little boy snuggled on my chest in a cloth baby carrier snoring peacefully away and I have one baby on a play mat next to me, wide awake and looking at everything.

Babies are noisier than I thought they would be. Times two, because two babies, so twice the baby noises. Babies snore and snort A LOT; they are much, much noiser than I expected and I’m not necssarily talking about crying. They cry, yes, but they really just make baby noises; snorts, toots, burps, poops, gurgles, snores, sighs, you name it. This is not something that I was expecting, honestly. I knew that babies weren’t exactly quiet per say, I just didn’t know how loud they were, especially at night. My mother tells the story that when I was a baby and they brought me home from the hospital she spent half the night looking at me to make sure I was still breathing. I’m sure that is pretty typical of new parents. After hearing that story, I was scared, honestly, the first night the twins were home with us. Was I going to be up half the night looking at my babies to make sure they were still breathing?? Turns out that neither Adam or I didn’t sleep the majority of that first night, but it wasn’t due to me trying to see if they were still breathing. They were so noisy and cried and were only happy if Adam and I were holding them that there was no question in my mind if they were breathing or not. Yes, they were breathing…and screaming…and snoring…and pooping…It was almost funny. As I climbed into bed in the wee hours of the morning, for what seemed like the 100th time that night, it was almost funny. Almost funny except that I was so tired that I literally could not stay awake. any. more. They cried, I let them cry, and for the first time that night I slept.

And talking about the nighttime, I feel that the hardest part thus far about parenting is the night feedings. Maybe most parents would agree with that. It is the interrupted sleep. It’s not like Adam and I aren’t getting any sleep, we are. It’s just that the sleep we are getting is piece-meal and interrupted, so that we sleep and hour and a half and then feed the boys, forty-five minutes and then one cries, we hold the one twin, he calms down and goes to sleep, the other cries, he calms down and sleeps, we go back to sleep for forty-five minutes then it’s time to feed again, we get two hours of sleep, time feed, and hour and a half of sleep and they wake up crying because they’re hungry, the process continues and you get the point. I’ve never felt more like a guinea pig, sleeping intermittently throughout a 24 hour period. *smiley face*

But honestly, I’ve never been through such a period of life where time didn’t matter. It could be two o’clock in the morning or two o’clock in the afternoon and I’m doing the same thing, the only difference is the sun is shining or not. It could be six o’clock in the morning or nine o’clock at night and I’m sleeping at both times. I get tired at six forty-five in the evening. I’m ready for bed, if not in bed, at 8 or 8:30pm. I’m wide awake at two-thirty in the morning. It’s weird. It’s weird, yes, but my body has adjusted. The first week the boys were home it was rough. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. How long did night feedings last? Three months? Six months? Nine months? Because this is hard. By the second week of being at home my body had adjusted somewhat to the strange, all-hours schedule. I’m still adjusting, but it is getting easier to a point. There are nights when I struggle to stay awake while bottle feeding them, there are days I am very, very tired, but I have gotten used to it probably as much as I will get used to it.

I don’t mind dirty diapers. I don’t mind laundry. I don’t mind bottle washing and dirty dishes. I enjoy staying at home with my babies. The plan is not to send them to daycare because there is no point. I don’t have a full time job and can stay at home and love on my babies and work my small biz at the same time. I may not be able to get as much done in a day work-wise, but I am finding that I don’t really care. I feel like my priorities have shifted and that they have shifted into the right place. For the most part, I feel peaceful and much less stressed than I was pre-babies. I am ok with being home, I am ok with running my small biz, I am ok with working part time at the Studio. Life is good.

Adam has been working part time in the office and part time remotely. He goes into work in the mornings and comes home about 1:30p. This has been greatly, greatly helpful to me as I can do the morning by myself with feedings and such as needed, but Adam being home in the afternoon to help with the twins while I get laundry done or organize baby clothes or whatever needs to be worked on, is super helpful. At this stage, it’s working. Things will shift and probably shift sooner than I expect or anticipate or maybe even want to. The baby phase doesn’t last very long. As my sister-in-law said yesterday, ‘Don’t blink. Sleep, but don’t blink’. Because it does go fast and I do want to enjoy, truly love and enjoy this time that I get to be with the boys in their infancy. Their sleepy baby smiles and facial expressions and milky formula mouths and soft baby snores make me happy. I waited a long time, both Adam and I did, to expand our family, that I want to make the most of this precious time. I tell the twins all the time that ‘Babies need mama snuggles and that mamas need baby snuggles too.’ Mamas do need baby snuggles and there is something contented and peaceful about having a sleeping, squishy baby sleeping in your arms.

I may be painting an idyllic and too-good-to-be-true picture, but I truly have been loving it. I haven’t felt too overwhelmed. I mean, there have been times throughout the day where things can get squirrly (My new favorite word), but for the most part, as I was saying before, this time goes so fast and will change so fast that even in the hard parts, it’s good.

The other day I was feeding both babies at once. They were each in their bouncy seats and I sat on the floor and had a bottle in each of their mouths. ‘This is hard’, was the thought that went through my head. They had both been screaming a few minutes earlier because they were hungry and I can make up the bottles and warm them only so fast. They’re five weeks and they don’t know what patience is yet or what it means to wait. I am not expecting them too, however, they were both screaming and I was doing my best to get food and calm them down at the same time (Binkies are wonderful things and I utilize their wonderfulness on a daily basis). So bottles in mouths I think, ‘This is hard’. And I hear the response of the Holy Spirit almost immediately, ‘No one said parenting was easy’. Oh, yes, right. No one said parenting was easy. I needed that reminder. I don’t have to be SuperMom or WonderWife. It’s ok to let the house be messy and let the kids scream for a short time. No one is judging me and parenting is a difficult 24/7 job. It’s a job I love, but it is a very demanding job. I wouldn’t change it.

That being said, it has been a little difficult for me to think of myself as ‘Mom’. I have been Aunt Hannah for so, so long that that is a role I am familiar with and that fits me really well. But mom? These really are my children? These two little handsome boys in their cute little onsies that say, ‘For this child I prayed and the Lord granted me the desire of my heart’? It’s still hard for me to believe. This is part of the reason I am writing all this because, as you all know by now, writing is one way I process life and so right now I am processing this new role that I have very, very suddenly found myself in. I didn’t have nine months to prepare. We knew we were going to adopt, but we didn’t know when or what the situation would be so it was very difficult to prepare in any way besides accepting a few hand-me-down bouncy seats, blankets, clothes, changing table, car seats, diapers in various sizes, etc. Those things we knew we’d need at some point.

Here I am: Mom. Adoptive mom. Mom of twins. Boy mom. Mom of two little African-American boys (Who have very light skin so they look more like carmel and brown sugar than the chocolate babies I was expecting). Mom to two little guys who just love to snuggle at all hours of the day and are content when I hold them. Mom…I am the one who calms them down when they are screaming in middle of the night.

And Dad…Adam has been getting used to his new role too and he does wonders as well of calming them down when they are fussy. He has been a very helpful husband in all of this, making the formula, doing the laundry, keeping up with yard work, doing nighttime feedings. There is nothing so bonding with a spouse as nighttime feedings, or at least that is the way it has been with us. Sometimes we have very interesting conversations at two in the morning. We keep each other accountable. With twins you have to be on the same page, or so I believe and I am finding to be true. Twins is a whole other level of the Baby Phase. Or as my sister said, ‘It’s the Baby Phase times two’. That may make some people scared, but since Adam and I don’t know any different we’re ok with it. I am glad there are two of them. I am glad they each came with a brother. Our little family expanded from Two to Four very quickly and I am happy about this.

These are just a few of the thoughts I’ve had in my head over the past few weeks as we’ve adjusted to life as new parents. I’m sure there will be many more thoughts to come. 🙂

Yet

If you’ve been following me for awhile you know that my husband and I have struggled our entire marriage with infertility. We got married in 2016, both of us in our 30’s and we both wanted to start a family as soon as possible. Despite doing everything we could, or at least within reason (ie, we did not pursue IVF), our family remained just myself and Adam.

Over the past few years that I’ve been writing I’ve had faith, no matter how small, that I will someday be a mom, but for some reason it’s always been ‘not yet’.

I will, though not yet. I don’t have a reason or a purpose for the not yet, that’s just what it’s been.

A about a year and a half ago we decided to pursue adoption with a local private adoption agency. We wanted to grow our family and at this point we were both in our 40’s and it looked like that adoption was our only choice for making our family bigger. We went through the home study and all the legal rigmarole that comes with a desire to adopt and became officially a ‘waiting family’ with our agency in January 2023.

With private adoption and with open adoptions, a ‘waiting family’ has to be chosen, or picked, by a birth mother desiring to make an adoption plan for her unborn baby. Which basically means, a lot of…waiting. Our agency said that families were usually on the list to adopt for an average of eighteen months before being chosen. I was prepared for a long wait and the first year went by relatively fast because we were preparing, raising funds and not necessarily expecting much. After all, eighteen month is really eighteen months. Nothing can make it go faster than it will.

Once this year hit, 2024, time started to draaaaggg in regards to our adoption. Why wasn’t anything happening? What is taking so long? Is there something wrong with our profile? Why weren’t we being chosen by birth moms? Or a birth mom; because all you really need is one. I knew the process could take a while, but this long?? It hadn’t been eighteen months yet, but still, this whole adoption thing seemed to take a ridiculously long time.

January and February of this year felt like they were almost the longest months ever. I was depressed of sorts. It was grey, grey, grey outside. I had little to do and a lot of time to do it in. Time went very, very slowly.

At the end of February we started to get a string of ‘matching documents’ emails from our agency. The agency would send us an email saying, in effect, ‘We have a birth mom who is due XYZ date, here is her information — without giving details such as name, address, etc — do you want us to show her your profile book?’ If we said, ‘Yes, show our book to her’ then it was more waiting to see if the birth mom wanted to place her child with us. There were a few weeks in a row where it seemed we got a one document after the other. To all of them, we said, ‘Yes, show our book’.

There was one birth mother in particular who I was really hoping would choose us. It seemed like a perfect fit — caucasian woman, baby girl on the way. I don’t know why, but I just had peace about it. I was excited and hoping that this woman would choose us. And when we got the email from our agency saying the birth mom had chosen another couple I was, quite honestly, crushed and very, very angry about it. Again the questions, ‘What was wrong with us? Would we ever get chosen? Why not us?’. I really began to feel like I was just ‘done with this whole adoption thing.’

The next week, a Tuesday night in early March, I was taking a shower and Adam was hanging out in the bathroom checking his email (TMI? Well, it’s the truth). We had just gotten home from our church home group, and one of the ladies there had specifically prayed for me for our adoption.

‘Well, we got another matching document’, said Adam, looking at his email. He relayed the details to me. Birth mom pregnant with twins, due mid-April.

‘Great’, I thought. ‘If we say yes, we can still go to Spain’. We had been planning a trip to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago since the summer before and we were due to leave in three weeks, the Saturday before Easter.

That night we thought and prayed about the matching document and if we should let the birth mom look at our profile book. The next morning, Wednesday, I looked over the document myself and said to Adam, ‘I think we need to say yes to this’. He agreed and I emailed the agency to give them our permission. The agency said the plan was for the birth mom to look over profile books early the following week.

The next day, Thursday, I went to work at the Studio and ended up leaving early because I had a massive migraine that landed me in bed for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. It wasn’t until late afternoon that I could actually get up and function, do things and really even think clearly. In the middle of being in bed and feeling really, really crappy, I get an text from Adam. Did I see the group text from our adoption agency? I said, No, but then looked at it. The birth mom who was pregnant with twins was being induced that day, in an hour or two, due to high blood pressure. So much for mid-April. The text also said that the birth mom worker from the agency was headed to the hospital with our profile book and the profile book of just one other couple, so the birth mom could make a choice on who she wanted to place her twins with.

At this point I’m thinking, ‘Birth mom is going to make an adoption plan while she’s in labor?? Yikes. No pressure’, and also, ‘It’s just down to us and another couple? So we have a 50/50 shot that she’ll chose us??’ Again, Yikes. No stress, huh?

Our agency said that if the birth mom looked at both of the books and was torn over who to choose, would we be available later that evening for a phone call with the birth mom?We said yes, we were available.

So eight o’clock Thursday evening found us in our TV room about ready to watch a movie (Which we had decided to watch Hook, which, looking back, seems kind of appropo). We have to do something while we waited for a Yes or No from the agency, to keep our mind off things. Adam’s phone rings. It’s the agency. It turns out the birth mom didn’t need or want a phone call to help her choose because she took one look at our profile book and said, “Yes. I want Adam and Hannah to raise my babies.’

Uh, what?!? Ok…so shock. Trying to take it all in. This means…twins?? That are being born right now?? We don’t have names picked out. We have almost nothing ready for one baby, let alone nothing for two babies. Did we need to go to the hospital right then? Where do we go from here? What do we do now? All the questions, all the things, running through our head.

We had to ask the adoption worker to give us a few minutes, to let us call her back…we needed a moment — or more than just a moment — to process. We hung up and Adam cried. Full on cried. I was the practical one. No tears…babies are coming…we need to keep our ‘head in the game’ as it were.

We called our adoption worker back after a few minutes — yes, we were all in and ready for it. Come what may, let’s do this. Our adoption worker advised that we just get as much rest as we could that night. The birth mom was not very far along in her induction, so no need to come to the hospital. Our adoption worker would keep us posted.

Needless to say, I — we — didn’t sleep much that night. Wondering, worrying a bit, processing, still in shock somewhat…what did we just say yes to?? Twins??

Deep breath…deep, deep breath…

The next day, Friday, we were in touch with our adoption worker from the agency throughout the early morning and she let us know that the birth mom had not progressed any in labor so the doctors were planning a C-section that morning, could we meet at the hospital about 10a? We said, Yes, of course, and packed an overnight bag on the advice of our adoption worker and headed to the hospital.

From there, it was a lot of waiting. We met the two adoption workers in the lobby mid-morning. The hospital prepared a unused labor and deliver room for us to wait in, which was right across the hall from the birth mom. When we got to our room, the older sister of the birth mom who was at the hospital too, came in to meet us and gave us both huge hugs. She was so excited to meet us. At this point, everything had all become a whirlwind of events and emotions and we are barely taking in what is happening. Birth mom, twins, older sister, hospital, adoption…this is really happening? It all felt really, really surreal.

It felt surreal, but it also felt right, somehow. Things seemed to be lining up. My parents had adopted twins, the birth mom’s sister was fourteen years older than the birth mom, which was how much older I was from my youngest biological brother, the date was March 8th, which had been my cousin’s birthday…my cousin who had set Adam and I up and had passed on from cancer…the twins being born on what had been on her birthday seemed serendipitous somehow — there is no way I could have planned that. It all just seemed surreal.

After Adam and I got settled in our room it ended up that the doctors decided not to do a C-section at that time. So we waited. We had brought our computers to work on, so we worked and chatted to our adoption workers, the hospital chaplains came by and prayed with us, the birth mom’s sister would come in and give us updates…it was a lot of just waiting, waiting, waiting and after a few hours I felt like I had been cooped up in a hospital room for days. Adam went out and bought us some lunch; thick, hearty sandwhiches and fries from a nearby place, plus some decaf peach ginger tea for me from Starbucks because my throat was super, super dry.

The day dragged on and around 3:30ish we met the social worker for the labor and deliver unit who said she was going to talk to the doctors about a C-section. At this point our poor birth mom had been in labor for about 24 hours and was only at 4 cm. I felt so terrible for her. She had had an epidural the day before, but at that point it had started to wear off and she was really beginning to feel the pain, not to mention she was really out of it from other medications the doctors had given her. She was sleeping a lot, yet nothing was progressing as far as the labor was concerened.

The social worker talked with the doctors and they had again decided against a C-section at that time. Once that decision had been made, our adoption worker said that we could go home and get some rest, get some dinner, relax and she would keep us informed on what was happening at the hospital. So we left and went home and took a good long walk, which was much needed after being at the hospital all day. We both needed some fresh air. We had dinner, watched some television and waited.

Our adoption worker called us later that evening, saying the doctors has decided to go ahead and do the C-section. This time it was for real; the labor had gone on long enough and one of the babies heart rate kept going up and down. It wasn’t an emergency C-section, but the babies needed to come out.

So we head back to the hospital, back to the same room. The birth mom’s sister comes in to our room all scrubbed up and says the babies will be soon; she is so super excited. And then…nothing happened. More waiting. Fifteen minutes go by, twenty. Our adoption worker decides to see what is going on. Turns out that another mom was in labor and she was in distress and had to have an emergency C-section, which took up the operating room (I’m thinking, ‘They only have one team of doctors and one operating room??’) and so our sweet birth mom had to wait…some more…

Our adoption worker advised us to get some rest and she left the room. Adam and I tried to sleep. Adam laid on the couch-bench that was in the room, and I took the back cushions off the bench and put them on the floor and tried to sleep on them. Tried being key word. A bit later our adoption worker came in, waking us, and said that the hospital had another, better room for us upstairs in the Mother/Baby unit. We followed her upstairs to the new room and she left us to try and sleep again. This room had both a bed and a couch, so Adam took the bed and I slept on the couch, got as cozy as we could with the hospital pillows and thin sheet-like blankets and zonked out. We were exhausted.

Hours later, which only felt like a few minutes, we were awakened by the birth mom’s sister and our adoption worker bursting into the room, switching the bright lights on, saying that, ‘The twins are here!!’ The C-section finally happened and the twins were born just before 1am. I think Adam and I tried to show our excitement, but we were both so tired that we barely knew what was happening. Twins? We’re parents?? Is this really happening?? And what time is it? The birth mom’s sister showed us the pictures of the boys that she had taken as they were being whisked off to the NICU. It didn’t seem real. And it turns out it was 1:30am in the morning (Which I thought it was 12:30a when I glanced at the clock, but I was so tired I read it wrong). So the twins weren’t born on my cousin’s birthday, but close enough.

The adoption worker said that the hospital staff would bring us NICU bracelets in about an hour so we could see the boys and to try to continue to sleep until then. She herself was going to go home and sleep, having been at the hospital all day and half the night.

She left and neither Adam nor I slept much after that, we just laid there, thinking, processing, resting, until we had another visitor to our room, the said nurse with the NICU bracelets. She led us out of the Mother/Baby unit and across the lobby to the NICU.

This was my first time ever being in a NICU, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. We had to first scrub up at the two huge sinks by the reception station. We washed everything, hands, forearms, elbows, fingernails for two minutes and dried off with a paper towel before being allowed into the NICU. I’m pretty sure we scrubbed up way longer than two minutes, but no one actually timed us, it just felt super long and when I asked the night receptionist if that was good, she said, ‘Oh, yeah!’, like we had washed much longer than necessary. At least we were clean, haha.

The nurse led us down a hall and we were there at their rooms, meeting our babies for the first time. We went into the first room and the little guy was in his incubator, oxygen mask on his tiny face, IV tube on his arm, wires all over his small frail body, hooked up to the machines…it was a little intimidating. He was so tiny, thin and pale. We didn’t really know what to do, so we just looked at him and I felt maybe what a lot of first time parents felt when meeting their baby for the first time…I felt competely and utterly inadequte. I felt overwhelmed and completely inadequate to raise this baby; I knew I would fail him in many ways and would need lots and lots of help. Thinking this, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Adam. He said he felt faint. Uh-oh….fortunately the nurses knew what to do and they quickly led him to the couch in the room and rolled over the trash can for him to get sick in. If I was feeling overwhelmed, my husband was feeling the very same thing. I told the nurses it was normal. ‘Weak stomach’, I said.

It ended up that we were able to reach into the incubator and hold our son’s hand — or his tiny fingers — and once Adam recovered we took some pictures. Then it was time to meet baby number two. We walked over to the room next door and met our second little guy who looked very much like our first little man. Incubator, oxygen tubes, IV, wires, monitors, , the works. Also tiny, frail and pale. We got to hold his hand too and took some more pictures.

Then we sat on the couch in his room and discussed, ‘Uh, Adam, we have to come up with names, quick‘. It was about 3am in the morning, us sitting in the NICU having just met our twin boys, trying to think of names, trying to process everything that had just happened in the past 24 – 48 hours. We had briefly discussed names the night before and I was stuck on the name Daniel and Adam had mentioned the name Benjamin previously and I said no, but sitting there Adam said again, ‘How about Benjamin?’ and I said ok. So there it was. Our twin boys — Daniel and Benjamin. We were parents.

Our ‘not yet’ turned into ‘yet’ very quickly.

Rough Draft

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was starting a book project. Since it has been a month or so since I mentioned this fact, I felt like I needed to follow up and say that, Yes, I am still working on this project.

Phase One of this project, the R & D, or ‘Research and Development’, is to copy four years worth of blogs that I have written thus far. I am still currently in the process of copying all my blogs to word documents. I have given myself a ‘finish by’ date because deadlines work really, really well to keep me on track when I’m working on something (This ‘something’ can be anything, not necessarily art or creative related, but just in life). If I have a goal or a deadline, I can meet it. And I usually meet it early. So, my finish by date for copying my blogs is March 13th. I am telling you about this because I want to hold myself accountable, and if I put it in writing and tell you all about it then I am even more likely to meet that goal.

My next phase is to print the copied blogs and then read through them and expound on my thoughts. At this point I don’t have any deadline for that, but I do feel that eventually I will have to give myself one. But I need to get through Phase One first!

Not only have I started this project, but I have also started another book project, which I find myself a little reluctant to admit because isn’t one at a time enough? And how can I do one well if my attention is divided with another?

Yet, there it is. Another book project. This one though, is different. The first project I have a very definite plan and goal as to how I am going to go about this. I don’t know exactly what will come out as I write or what it will look like exactly when it’s finished, but I am working on it specifically and intentionally with an end goal in mind.

This other book project is a story of fiction and it’s more like a hobby than anything. I’m writing slowly, not super intentional, just ‘flying by the seat of my pants’ and seeing where the story takes me. I’m writing when I get inspired, scenes, words coming together, words I like and a plot and characters are starting to take some sort of shape.

And I like it. It feels fun and enjoyable. There’s no pressure. And in some ways I’m finding it to be a healing process. I don’t know where this little hobby-project will take more me or what will come of it, if anything. But at least I am enjoying myself when I do get the chance to work on it. I’m not stifiling the romantic words in me any longer. I am letting them come out and sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s easy, but in both cases, I like it. And I am being surprised too, on some level, with what it is coming out of me. I’ve never thought of myself as a writer of fiction, but as I’m working on this I am thinking, Maybe I do have a story in me after all. In fact, I know I do. It’s just giving myself time to let it all come to the surface and be shaped into something.

And perhaps I have more than one story. I am finding that I like to slow things down. To savor the story. My story (stories?) seem to be more character and scene driven than plot driven, I think.

This past weekend I read ‘Mercy Will Follow Me’ by Sarah Hanks. It deals with some really hard themes and is a very fast-paced, plot-driven story. It kept me engrossed all weekend (Staying up way too late reading, reading, reading) and yet as I was reading it I wanted it to slow down in some respects. It was good, but it felt like everything happened very, very fast.

Writers who are published authors know what they are doing. Or at least it looks that way. When I sit down to read a fictional story, I start at the beginning of the book. The story I am reading has a beginning, a middle and an end. Yet when the author was sitting down to write the story did they start at the beginning and write full on to the end?? Was there a clear cut beginning, middle and end when they were writing? Did they write by chapters? Or was it just a hodge podge conglomeration of words and scenes and did they start with a scene in the middle and then jump to the beginning and then back to the middle and then the end and then the beginning and then chapter 5 and then chapter 10 and then, the list goes on and on and on. Do they start with a shadow of a character without a face and without a name, or do they assign names and characters and plots at the beginning, before they even start to write? Is it all planned out ahead of time, or do they do like me and ‘find the story’ within them?

Are they Plotters or Pantsers?

While browsing at the library last week I was skimming a book on writing and found this quote. I apologize in advance, I don’t know which book or what author, but the quote reads like this, “So Write what you know is perhaps better write as Write whatever the hell you want to write but anytime you have a chance to bring real-world details or emotions into play, you should feel free to do so, and if there is information that you’re missing, go get that information. But that isn’t too catchy, is it?”

That quote was what I needed to hear both then and now, because I tend to keep things in a box and follow protocol and ‘how tos’….This is how you write a book and This is what you should write and This is what people want to read, etc. But the reality is that line of thinking is really crap and will get you nowhere. Not even ‘Nowhere fast’, just absolutely Nowhere.

That’s why rough drafts really are just rough drafts. They are a congolmeration of a messy plot and unrefined characters and nothing is broken neatly into chapters and it’s all just in the works and very rough.

A book that we see on the shelf at a bookstore or in a library or wherever you happen to find books went through a process of becoming. It’s all bound neatly with beautiful pictures, or just words depending on the type of book it is, and it’s all together a whole, finished package, ready for you to dive in and explore and learn and grow. But it didn’t start that way.

A book is the result of years worth of effort and learning and discovering and tears and hoping and trying and working and then reworking and finding out what the words want to say through you. A book has a purpose. Whether it is a tutorial, a work of history, of poetry, of teaching, or for simply the pleasure of reading a well-thought out story each book has a purpose for being written. The person who wrote it thought that what they wanted to say actually did need to be said and it mattered enough to them to go through the time and trouble of actually writing it, then finding an agent and a publisher and an editor to get their words and ideas into a form so that others could read what they wrote. A book is a lot of work. What we see on the shelf is the result of a lot of hard, hard work.

A book is worthwhile. Writing a book is a worthwhile effort.

I need to remind myself that as I struggle through a fuzzy plot line, faceless characters and day-after-day of copying my blogs. 🙂