Nuggets,
This time, every year, is emotionally exhausting. It's complicated and powerful, and devastating, and magnificent all rolled in to one bundle of...stuff. Nine years ago (in just a couple more days), Lolli came in to the world. That pregnancy was wrought with extreme joy, extreme grief, and immense love. I learned what love felt like as you grew in me. I learned what sacrifice looked like. I learned. Growing you was like growing something I couldn't conceptualize. Growing you while Daddy fought a war, and his friend died, and we were surrounded by loss, injury, and death... was immense. But we got through it. You and me. We came out of it stronger, incredibly bonded. To look at you is to see the most astounding of individuals. I can't even write about you effectively because my words become fuddled and retarded. So I do my best to say how fiercely I love you, how proud I am of you, and how grateful I am for every day that I get to share with you. Don't ever lose sight of the magnificent calling that has been placed on you. You were chosen to be the big sister to three siblings, all born at the same time. You were selected for this great calling, because only you could handle it so beautifully. You are a beacon of strength. You take my breath away.
It was one year and a little less than six months later, when my whole sense of my "life picture" was shattered. My confidence in my body, my confidence in what I understood about my own capabilities were destroyed. I walked in to a hospital, believing I was experiencing the death of the child I knew myself to be pregnant with, and walked out with the knowledge that we had an insurmountable amount of babies growing in me. I was sent home to rest, and take it easy. A week later the unimaginable pain led to bleeding, which led to a doctor's visit, which led to strict bed rest until I could see the perinatologist. There is a lot about that entire endeavor that my mind has chosen to forget, but certain snippits, certain images and sounds stand out in my memory like explosions. The moment when the ultrasound tech went to "get the doctor" during the ultrasound. When the chatty, friendly, welcoming tone disappeared and silence entered the room. When the questions stopped being answered...
Into the office we went, and he laid it all out. You need to put your affairs in order. Do you have a will? Who will care for your child? Am I dying? You could. You very well could die. Are you serious? You could lift a gallon of water and your placenta could completely rip off... two minutes until you bleed out... the weight of sitting up could cause it to rip off...
I remember sitting there and thinking about Lolli... my beautiful, magnificent daughter that I had just spent two years being completely and whole heartedly bonded to. I remember thinking What the hell is going on???? I remember all of the feelings of nervous excitement about these beautiful babies about to come in to our worlds, washing away and being replaced with fear. I remember joy being replaced with dread. I remember freedom being shackled away, and being confined to a couch, or a bed. I remember all of the thoughts of having the next several months to prepare Lolli for this next chapter of our lives, being ripped away, and replaced with having to let other people care for you while I watched. I remember hating my body, hating my uterus, hating myself. I remember feeling like I couldn't win, no matter what I did. I loved the babies growing in me, and the baby growing outside of me. I loved Daddy, and I loved God, and I wanted all of this to not be happening. But it was.
At the time, I had to push everything aside. I had to ignore it and suppress it. I was told not to allow myself to be "overly emotional" because stress could cause contractions and contractions could rip off the placenta. So I did. I tried to be grateful (and I was grateful to all of the magnificent people that helped us!!!!), and cheerful. I tried to prepare Chief for the possibility of a life without me. I wrote letters to Lolli and Chief just "in case". I had a file on the computer full of all of the music, scriptures, and things I wanted them to know if I died. Daddy refused to look at it.
Please understand, my beautiful ones, that I loved all of you. There was never a concept of not loving all of you. I adored each of you for your individualities and I was so honored that I could be the vessel from which you all came in to the world. I was willing to die for your lives. But I was so scared that I would. I was so scared of not being able to keep you alive, and myself alive, and all of us together. I was so helpless and trapped by my stupid, fragile body. I was so scared of all of the scenarios that they laid before us. So when they wheeled me in to the operating room, I could barely breathe. I couldn't stop shaking and sobbing and aching. All of the feelings that I had bottled up, and put on a shelf, under a box, wrapped in barbed wire came flooding out. There I sat, in the arms of that nurse (whose name I don't even remember) while they gave me five million spinal taps so that I could be awake while you were born), for two hours, crying uncontrollably. And even that wasn't meant to be. I was not numb, and I had to be put to sleep. I didn't even get to hear your beautiful entrances in to the world. Even that was wrought with immense physical pain.
It was all so traumatic. It was entirely devastating. And I hate that. I hate that Lolli's birth was beautiful, and immensely powerful, and you triplets' was so defeating for me. I hate that your birth was agonizing and filled with grief and loss. I hate that immediately after your birth, you were intubated, and IV'd, and stuck with a thousand different things on your body, because my stupid body couldn't hold you any more. I hate that you were born in to a room where you didn't get to hear my voice telling you how I love you, and how I prayed for you, and how much your Daddy and I love you. I hate that I didn't get to touch you when you came out of me. I hate that you were born, I was asleep, and you were immediately whisked away.
So, every year, I bawl my eyes out. Every year I walk down memory lane, and reflect back on that most difficult of times for me. But you know what else I reflect on? All of the miracles and beautiful gifts. My God, there were so many of them. The hospital policy was that C section mothers were not allowed to go into the NICU until they could go in a wheelchair (24 hours after surgery). My doctor made it so that I was wheeled to you right after I left post op. They wheeled my entire hospital bed in to your room and I got to touch every single one of you. Someone took pictures of my fingers holing your tiny, tiny, hands. I remember them being yelled at to stop using the flash. I remember the red lights and them explaining that they only use red lighting because that's what the babies see in my belly. I remember the horror of what looked like three coffins, and you babies in them. I remember crying and saying that I had killed you. I remember the nurse telling me that I didn't and that you were all so strong and doing so well. I remember feeling the most helpless I had ever felt. I remember the nurses trying so hard to be comforting. But it was a waiting game, and we had to see what your bodies would be able to handle. All of it was out of our hands. It was up to God and you, and we just had to see...
I didn't know that night that I wouldn't be allowed to touch you three again for days (and for Brun it was three weeks). I didn't know then that I would spend the next five years in and out of hospitals with each of you for various sicknesses and ailments. I didn't know... But in that moment, I felt so many conflicting feelings that I couldn't communicate, but most of all I felt broken. I felt like I had killed you all.
Your birth broke me. Thank God it did. That's the thing I can see the most clearly as the time has passed. The wounds are still ever so fierce, but the beauty of it has emerged. You three changed the hell out of me. And you three, were the only force strong enough, to have done it. I was so freaking self involved, controlling, egotistical. I knew it all, could handle it all, and could solve any problem. And here you came! Something I couldn't control, or solve. I finally learned the lesson of complete and utter Heavenly reliance. I finally saw a God who was ten thousand times bigger than I could ever understand. I finally broke so badly that I had to be rebuilt. You three saved me. And you four keep saving me, over and over again. Every time I think I've got something figured out, you throw a wrench in the picture and I learn something new. Every time I think I understand self awareness or psycho babble bullshit concepts, you show me that all of that "I just want to be happy" stuff is shit and it doesn't work. You teach me, over and over and over again, that happiness is loving you and your Daddy with all of the messy heart wrenching stuff it entails. You save me from the stupidity of the world and launch me in to the constant daily reminder that I am nothing without Ehyeh. You move me to be better, to learn more, to keep. on. growing. You teach me to say "I'm sorry". You show me what humility looks like. You never allow me to think that I am better than I am. Not because you bash me, quite the contrary, but because you ask me things like Why is water clear? Why are sweet taste buds on the back of our tongues and not the front? Have you ever wondered if porcupines just want to be hugged? I'm glad I'm not a porcupine, because I like hugs.
You four are more wonderful than the sweetest words. You four are more magnificent than any thing I could ever describe. You are my pieces of Heaven. You are my delights. To say I love you is an understatement. I love you is too simple of a concept. It's too over abused in our society. I would offer you my pulse. I would give you my breath. I will continue to go to the One who can keep you safe all the days of my life.
So yes, these days are hard and tearful for me. But hard doesn't only mean ugly and tears don't only mean hurts. You are my miracles. You are the outcome of my most difficult journey. And raising you has been the greatest pleasure of my life. I can't wait to see what will happen in your astoundingly beautiful lives over this next year. I can't wait to walk alongside of you, and hear your thoughts and questions. I can't wait to continue to grow as you grow.
I love you my nuggets. More than I could ever say. I will continue to attempt to show you this fact, with all that I am, every day that I have breath in my lungs.
