Tomorrow marks two years since the end of six weeks of bed rest, since my body's organs began shutting down and my blood pressure skyrocketed, since the emergency delivery of my perfect 36-week old twins.Two years--and I still have difficulty remembering.
It's not that the remembering is difficult because of an imperfect memory. It's that my memory works all too well.
Recalling the smell of fear in everyone's voices as they spoke as if I were deaf and dumb. Watching the frantic rush of a dozen or so doctors and nurses as they prepared to deliver the twins. Noticing my doctor's furrowed brow and clenched jaw of concern as he read my charts two days post-delivery. Feeling guilty because my healthy babies were taken away to the nursery for the first 48 hours when I wasn't well enough to care for them.
The infamous "they" say you forget pain...which is why women choose to have more babies after baby #1. But now, two years later, I still haven't forgotten.
I haven't forgotten sitting in that hospital bed, holding my husband's hand, and realizing I may not see my thirty-first birthday. As my numbers continued to increase, I remember crying, telling my husband what to do if I didn't make it, what I wanted him to tell my children.
Even now, it's so fresh, so real.
My brush with death, the thought in the back of my mind that if not for God's hand intervening, my children would now be motherless--it does something to a person.
It did something to me.
Last Wednesday night, I learned that a little girl born three days after my twins' birth is facing the possibility of a leukemia diagnosis. Her grandmother and aunt actually visited me in the hospital as they awaited the birth of baby Grace.
Since then, as I made my twins' birthday cake, as I prepared for their happy party, as I looked through the pictures--I have thought of Grace. I've never met her, but she consumes my thoughts and breaks my heart as I pray for her, thinking it could easily be my darlings.
This life--it's as fragile as the eggs my son collects from Oma's chicken coop.
Even though I am frazzled at the end of most days, even though I'm more than a little ready for the silence of bedtime an hour before it gets here, I am thankful for each day I am given...maybe even a little more thankful than before.
Praise God He was in control, Jennifer. And I feel the outcome for Grace will be wonderful too, God has His purpose in everything that happens to each of us. If we can just keep that thought! Debbie Ross
ReplyDeleteJennifer,
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful! I never knew you went through such a trial during the twins birth. Its these things in life that allow us to look back and see the abundance of blessings in front of us.
I thank God that you came through everything ok and I will be praying for little Grace too!
Much love,
Julie
Thanks Julie. God is good.
ReplyDeleteI never even knew that you had a close brush with death at the time your twins were born...
ReplyDeleteAt about the same time you were preparing for childbirth my own grandson, my first one, was born. Your babies came one week after Matthew was born.
A month later, my husband went home to heaven.
Amazing how our stories intertwine.
But I know God has something special in store for you.
I read the story about the heart shaped plate as well.
I suggest you write down that special story, and frame it, to be placed under that special piece of ceramic wall decor that has survived the fire, and came out even more beautiful that before - if only because it has a story to tell.
Just like you. I think that plate is you, dear Jennifer.
You are so precious.
Love
Lidj