Miss Charlotte

Miss Charlotte Hope arrived June 10th at 12:14pm. She was 9 lb 5oz and 21 in long. She arrived as beautiful as can be with a full head of dark hair and looking just like her sister. She has some rough times at first with a broken collar bone, pulmonary hypertension, and jaundice but after about 2 weeks she was healthy as can be.

 

Her big sister, Adalena, just adores her. Most of the time she thinks she is her doll to play with, but also reminds her often that they are best friends. 

She is now 6 months old and jabbering like crazy, sitting on her own, and getting into the crawling position and rocking back and forth (I'm sure she will be on the go in no time). She is my sweet, cuddly girl and has been just about the easiest baby I've ever been around except while she was teething :) We can't imagine what our family would be like without her she just fits perfectly with us! We love her so much!

Photo courtesy of Amy Meyerott Photography

The truth about being pregnant after losing a child.

There has been so much that has happened since the last time I updated this blog. Let's just start with the biggest news...

   We are waiting on the arrival of a new baby girl, Charlotte Hope!! She is supposed to be coming sometime around June 11th( hopefully a little earlier) Only about 7 weeks left! We found out in late October we were expecting again and were so thrilled but also so anxious to make sure that everything was going ok.

    For those of you who have lost babies or had scary pregnancies you know that one of the most awful things that comes after that experience is that it kind of ruins later pregnancies. Unlike when I was pregnant with Adalena and blissfully ignorant to all the scary parts of pregnancy I am now so very aware of all the things that can go wrong. It is especially hard in the beginning of a pregnancy when you can't see details on ultrasounds and things to be reassured that your baby is indeed healthy. 

   I am so thankful to have a Doctor who is extremely understanding and caring and who was willing to literally get me in the day I found out I was pregnant to start monitoring my hormone levels. Then schedule things like very, early ultrasounds to help ease my mind. I honestly think I would have flipped out if I had to wait until at least 8 weeks like most doctors require you to before they will even see you. After reaching the big midterm ultrasound and being able to see so much more detail about our baby and how she was growing and developing just like she should be I was much more calm about things than before. I thought I was done with the anxiety surrounding this pregnancy. 

    About 2 weeks ago I began to realize how close we were getting to the end of this pregnancy and the anxiety all started to come back. Now not about my baby being so healthy, but about all sorts of problems that could go wrong in delivery. I think this comes from the fact that I have only really been admitted to the hospital 2 times. First when Adalena was born where everything was about as simple as it could be and then second when I had lost the boys and everything went exactly opposite of how it should have. I also know that because of my complications with surgery from the twins I may not be able to have more children after this which has been quite a reality shock because I've always wanted a big family. I have been slowly overcoming this with God's help and lots of prayer and trust in Him but it's not easy.

Just telling it like it is...

     I have had many people comment on me being a very strong woman because of how I have dealt with having and losing conjoined twins, but I really am not! It is only by God's grace that I have had the strength I have and my journey with this isn't over. Recently things have become much harder for me and I feel it is only fair to share the hardest parts of my life so that you all can understand that we can't always be strong.

     For months I was use to going to Dr appointments filled with news that only got progressively worse over time. Once we found out Jude and Corban had passed away we felt like things were ending, only to have lots of complications at the hospital when we were expecting a very short, simple recovery(in the physical sense at least). After that things actually seemed pretty easy, I thought our time of struggle was coming to a close, but boy was I in for a rude awakening. I don't know if for those first 2 months after the boys passed away I was in shock or denial about how everything impacted me, but about 3 weeks ago it all caught up to me and hit me like a ton of bricks.

     While laying in my moms bed while visiting one morning, I just broke down. Not only has it all hit me in an emotional sense, but I have also began to experience anxiety and panic attacks. I get lightheaded, have hot flashes, feel like I'm gonna faint... the whole works! I also find myself worrying about absurd things that I have no reason to worry about. I have never been an emotional person or a worrier, so for me this has seemed so incredibly out of place. For a while I felt like If i just avoided my normal routine or kept myself busy I could avoid the anxiety, but it just doesn't work like that. When you are the type of person that likes to be in control of things, feeling like you are out of control of what happens at any time is not something you want to deal with. I have had to do a lot of things that I wouldn't normally do in order to help me deal with this, like actually admit that I actually need help and cannot do it on my own. It is definitely not easy and it is not fun!

     One thing that has helped me though is remembering 2 Corinthians 12:10 "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." I cannot say that I am yet strong in this because I definitely am not, but I know that over time with God's help and others I will be. I hope that through this too I am able to bring glory to God and possibly help others going through the same situation, but for now I will be relying on Jesus' strength to get me through.

Peanut Butter Pie

I made this pie yesterday for Pi day (3/14) I know wrong kind of pi, but I would prefer edible pie any day over pi.

The original recipe for the pie came from allrecipes.com. I love this website and always have great results with recipes I find there.  One tip is when searching for a recipe don't just go with the first one that pops up. Set it to sort the recipes based on the ratings and look for one that is not only rated high, but that has been rated many times. Then check out the comments under the recipe. The comments tend to contain tips about what people have added or left out to make the recipe work well for them. The top rated comments are always listed first, so they are usually very helpful!

I followed the original recipe but added some chocolate ganache to the bottom of the pie, some cool whip on top, and then drizzled peanut butter and semi sweet chocolate chips to finish it off.

No Bake Peanut Butter Pie

 Makes 2- 9 inch pies

Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese( completely softened)
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup milk
• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 2 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crusts

 Chocolate Ganache 
  Ingredients

•   2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (mini ones work best)
•   2 cups heavy cream
• 1.5 tbsp vanilla (optional)

Directions

Place the chocolate chips in a bowl Heat the heavy cream until it begins to boil and then immediately pour it over the chocolate chips. Whisk the chocolate chips and heavy cream until smooth and then add the vanilla and continue to stir until mixed well. Pour over the pie crusts and let cool in refrigerator, while you mix the ingredients for the pie filling. Mix cream cheese and confectioners sugar. Add in Peanut butter and milk and mix until smooth.  Fold in Cool whip. Add to pies over the ganache  Top with desired amount of cool whip and add whatever toppings you would like. Let cool for at least an hour before serving. ENJOY!

Blessed.

I have been blessed in more ways than I could probably ever even name but there is one little blessing that I am just so extra thankful for: Miss Adalena Kate! Isn't she just absolutely precious?! She has brought more joy into our lives' than we could have ever imagined!

At almost 14 months old...


Her current favorite things include:
Reading books with mom or dad
Spinning in circles
Learning new words or signs( sign language)
Looking out the window for dogs
Reading some more
Climbing everything
Hugs

Cheerios

Dancing to Justin Bieber

Kissing Hurley (our dog)
and more reading!


Words she can currently say:
Baby
cup (up)
momma
daddy
doggie or dog
woof
That(dat)


Words/phrases she can sign:
Eat
More
Please
Thank you
Potty
Milk
No

Not my way

    For me one of the most difficult thing about losing my babies is that I still long for a newborn baby to hold, cuddle, and care for and I just don't have that here right now. Yes, I do have a little girl who is still a "baby" at 13 months, but she is definitely not at all like a newborn baby. I'm extremely lucky if I can slow her down long enough to cuddle with me for 5 minutes but when she does you better believe I cherish that time! I know if she is anything like me it will soon be much less than even that.

      Because of my cervix being perforated, we can not attempt to have kids again for at the least 6 months. That may seem like a short period to some, but right now it seems like an eternity to me. I have always wanted a large family with all my children close in age. I am probably biased about the closeness because I came from a family where we are all close in age, me and my immediately younger sister are only 360 days apart...maybe not quite that close for my children, but not much farther than that. Honestly, when we got pregnant with Jude and Corban I had already wished things had been closer together.(They would have been 17 months younger than Adalena) I know most of you will think I'm crazy for this, but I LOVED how much me and my sisters could share growing up because we were experiencing similar things in our lives. We were/are like best friends more than sisters.

     We have been asked about how we feel about having more children and we do plan on having more children. I imagine if/when I do get pregnant again I will probably be more nervous about things at least for those first initial 8-12 weeks until we are able to have an ultrasound to check things out and probably even so after that, but we aren't just going to give up on things because everything didn't go as we had planned this time around. God has taught us to trust in Him even in times of uncertainty and He has shown us His faithfulness. For now we will learn how to be patient and will trust that His plan for our life is perfect even when it is not what we ourselves had planned.
 
^{Isaiah 55:8-9}
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Jude and Corban are at home now.

On Wednesday, February 16th, we went to the hospital to begin our full day of appointments only to find out that Jude and Corban had gone to be with Jesus.  It's kind of ironic that this was the day of appointments we had actually looked forward to because we thought we would finally have some answers about the boys. We were still given answers just not in the way that we had been expecting to find them out. I was not completely surprised to find out that they had passed away, I just had a feeling that it was going to be that day.

From the specialists office we were immediately moved to the labor and delivery floor at Barnes to decide what was going to happen next.  Friday I went in to have a procedure done to remove the babies that normally has very few complications in fact less than .5%, but I never pay much attention to statistics. My family seems to deny the odds when it comes to statistics about medical issues.  I mean we have conjoined twins... ( I read a statistic that you are actually more likely to get struck by lightening twice than meet a set of conjoined twins)

In the procedure the Doctors ended up perforating my cervix and bruising my colon,  and I was rushed to the O.R.  At the time the Doctors were actually unsure if it was my uterus or my cervix, and they thought they may have perforated my colon as well. I can't even imagine what my family was going through when the Doctors came in to tell them what was going on especially at that time the doctors didn't even know exactly what was wrong just that they needed to operate to find out. I was also awake in the operating room for all of this I had just been sedated and had a spinal for the first procedure so I knew something was wrong and no one would tell me what it was just that I had to be moved to the O.R. immediately. When I think about it, I realize I wasn't even really scared at that time. I just wanted them to fix whatever they had to, I don't think I realized how severe it all could have been.

I'm so glad my mom was there when the Doctors came in to tell them about the complications because when they said they needed to do surgery to check things out she asked if it was possible for them to do it laparoscopically, which they hadn't really even considered, because the specific doctors I had did not perform that surgery. They called down a doctor from the oncology department who was able to perform the surgery and see that there was no tearing in my colon. I am SO thankful that this Dr was available right when we needed him! 

After surgery I almost immediately started having more problems. I developed a high fever right away that pointed to an infection, but with tests they could not find where it was coming from. I also was having very low blood pressure and a really high heart rate. The craziest thing was that besides being able to tell when my temperature was going up or down I really did not feel bad. They started me on several antibiotics and different electrolytes right away and i started to improve. They still don't know where my infection came from, but as long as it's gone I'm pretty ok with that!

Right now everything is going well, I went back to the surgeon yesterday and was cleared to leave St. Louis, she was impressed at how quickly my body seems to be recovering and doesn't think we should have any more complications in the future with other pregnancies. We do have to wait longer than we would have liked to, to have more kids, but I'm sure that it is all in God's timing even when i don't like it.

As many complications that we had there were so many things that could have turned out much worse and I am so thankful that they didn't! I honestly feel blessed that things turned out the way they did. I know that might sound crazy with all the complications I had, but like I said it could have been SO much worse than it is! With each specific complication we had we ended up with the least bad outcome that we could have.

I miss my baby boys, but am so comforted to know that they are in heaven with their creator. They will not have to experience all of the pain, sorrow, grief, hate, and sin of this world and for that I am thankful!

Many people have asked if we are going to have a funeral or a memorial service. We have decided not to do this only because for us personally, even though this is a sad time in our life we would rather celebrate Jude and Corban. So, We are planning to have a time to celebrate them closer to when they were due, but we will let you all know more details about that as it is planned.

We love you all so much and have felt SO incredibly supported by everyone through out this journey. We know we could never repay you for your kind words, prayers, love and support, but we are praying that God would bless each of you because of the blessing you have been to us!

Jude and Corban's tiny, precious footprints.