Been there…done that.

I have been there, I have done that and then I more than likely did it again.  I have experimented with many hair colors, styles and cuts.  I have experimented with many piercings and I have many tattoos and I also have plans for many more.  I have done drugs, I have partied all night, and I have lived like a rockstar. I have been a wife to a man who was an infantryman who jumped out of planes and I am still married to the same man who is now a police officer. I am a mother of g/b twins whose first few months were the roughest months of my life.  I have done some pretty terrible things when I was younger and I have said some unforgivable words, but I have been forgiven and I have also forgiven myself (somethings I have to constantly forgive myself for).  I have done so much that my life should have been on a TV show.  I guarantee it would have been very exciting.

Today I was thinking about how low-key my life has been since having the babies and I truly couldn’t be anymore happier.  I don’t have an itch to go out to drink or party anymore and to be honest I haven’t in a long time and it is absolutely wonderful.  On the flip side of that I understand how parents who have children young, and who weren’t able to have a “fun phase” in life tend to do so after their kids get older.  Im glad I got that out of my system when I did.

It’s so interesting that every time I planned on getting pregnant I would obsess about being a mom. Then every time I found out I was in fact pregnant (when I say, “every time”, this includes the pregnancies that resulted in miscarriages) I would immediately freakout about how many things I still wanted to do with my life.  I can honestly tell you after having the twins that thought hasn’t crossed my mind at all.  My selfish thoughts have gone out the window entirely and everything I think of from now on is how to better my family and how can I help other kids.  There is so much I want to do now but it is the totally opposite of the plans I had before becoming a mother.

Its so funny though, before I would drink and I was able to go to work the next morning… a few days ago for my 33rd birthday I had a few sips of wine, the next morning I felt hungover.  Its also so funny that how before, when I used to color my hair for fun, I now how to color my roots around the clock so people still think I’m 25, when I am already in my 30’s.  As much as I want to still get more piercings I don’t want people to think I am trying to hard to look young so I just settle for getting ink…. Im not really settling, I truly love it.

My advice to people who worry about the same things that I did before having the babies is, enjoy yourself and your husband.  Enjoy your sleep, enjoy your vacations, your hobbies, and your freedom.  When you have your baby know that your priority will be that child for the rest of your life.  Your sleep will be nonexistent in the beginning, your time will not be to do what you want, it will be to do what you need to do, and most importantly your heart will no longer be yours.  Just know that it is the hardest job in the world if your doing it right.  Just know that that person needs to depend on your for everything for a long time and it is the most special feeling in the world.  Heck yes it’s hard but it is unbelievably rewarding and you have a chance to raise your child in YOUR own way.  Just make sure your  being responsible and realizing your child has so much potential that can change the world for the better… or the exact opposite.  Choose wisely and more importantly love that little human with all of the love you are able to conjure each and every day.  Thank you God!

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September 2, 2014

On September 2, 2014, I was 34 weeks and 5 days pregnant, going in for my weekly doctors appointment when she told me that not only is baby girl still not growing and having unusual heart issues but baby boys heart is doing something unusual so today is the day were taking them out.  The only thing going through my mind at that point was after today I will officially be a mother.  A mother to possible twins, assuming baby girl does well and at this point also baby boy.

After a few hours of being monitored it was time for the whole sha-bang.  They took me into the white room, where I got my epidural and soon after where there was a white sheet covering my belly and below.  As soon as the doctor came in, I knew it was time.  Dad was able to come in and there they go cutting away.  I remember I was freezing to the point that it distracted my mind from everything that was going on and thats probably a great thing.

They were born 10:23 pm and 10:24 pm.  Our son Eidan came out first weighing 4.5 lbs and oh my goodness he was a dream come true.  He was having heart issues because he was wrapped around his umbilical cord four times.  Thank God the doctor took him out that day.  Our daughter, Eva weighed 3.5 lbs and was hauled away and I didn’t get to see her until I was in recovery where they brought her to me and informed me they would be sending her to another hospital the same night.  Comes to find out on the Apgar score she rated between a 2-3.  She wasn’t doing the best but she was alive and she literally came out fighting like a champ.

When I first saw Eva, she was in a incubator and it was very difficult to see her without wondering what her future was going to look like.  She was very puffy all over with severed edema  on her hands and feet.  Under her head there was a pillow of skin (called a cystic hygroma) that sat under her head.  We knew these things were there because it is part of turners syndrome and thanks to the ultrasounds it gave us an idea of how large it these things were, but nothing could prepare us for how it looked like in person.

When I went into my room after recovery I was left exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally.  As I look back I realized something special…  I feel like if Eva wouldn’t have survived the pregnancy Eidan would have either, and, if Eidan wasn’t having trouble with his umbilical cord and forced us to have the c-section that day, then I believe Eva wouldn’t have been able to survive much longer.  So in a way they both saved each other.

 

Eidan Knight Devereux

Eva Kirley Devereux

 

TWINS?

This picture was taken a day before the pregnancy tests confirmed what I already knew.

When we got pregnant with the babies I knew the day after that I was pregnant.  I have not a clue how but I did, and I told my husband immediately.  Then when it was time for me to take the test we were snowed in.  So after two days of being stuck inside our house, and after the commissary was FINALLY opened, I scrapped the snow off of my car and rushed to buy the tests before I had to go to work.  When I got back I took a test and it was negative… I took the second test and it was negative and then I took a third test and it was POSITIVE!  I was excited/scared and in shock.  This was January of 2014 and the first pregnancy after my corrective surgery on my uterus.  I knew this could be the one… or  in this case the two.

Because one is never enough.

After finding out about the pregnancy I ended up putting my two weeks at MAC on February 20.  I knew this pregnancy I had to take it easy this time.  Despite how much I tried to be relaxed I had some scares so I became that paranoid patient that called the doctor for every unusual thing.  And then March came along and we went for our ultrasound and as I looked at the monitor I saw two somethings, but I didn’t have the training to know exactly what I was looking at.  Then the doctor said it….. “Looks like were making up for lost time.”  I looked at my husband and his eyes looked full of fear and excitement.  The doctor confirmed, TWINS!  I gathered up my words and the only thing that could come out of my mouth was, a lot of eff words.  I mean a lot of EFF words.  I cried, I laughed so hard I sounded like a maniac.

“Looks like were making up for lost time.”

The news came as a shock because neither one of us have twins in the family.  You can imagine as we called our family members to inform them of the unusual news, we had very interesting reactions.  We also celebrated with my first craving… Popeyes.  It took us a while to accept that we were pregnant with twins, I even found out that women over 30 and that are taller than average have higher chances of having twins.  Well in my case I fit that profile and God had big plans for us.  We even took advantage that on April 1st (April Fools Day) was our last day of our first trimester so we shared only the above picture on Facebook and the reactions were priceless.

 

Abortion, Miscarriages to Pro-life

ABORTION

I had an abortion.  That never gets easier to say and it never will.  I had an abortion long before finding out that I had a uterus that would not allow me to carry any child over the first trimester.  I found out this somber news in North Carolina after having a total of 3 miscarriages.  I made a choice to terminate a pregnancy that would have ultimately terminated itself.  That is a hard pill to swallow.

MISSCARRIAGES

Was God angry at me?  Was this punishment for my abortion?  Those were the thoughts I had after every miscarriage.  Every time we told people we were pregnant, we soon after had to tell them that we had a miscarriage.  Holy crap, the look of pity from the army wives that heard from the grapevine was just terrible.  It was almost embarrassing for me sometimes because I felt like I am a woman, I should be able to do this but I couldn’t do the one thing women are supposed to do.

I still don’t think I am completely over it.  The last miscarriage I had was right before Josh deployed and I suffered in silence.  I was so far away from my family and friends, but because of the distance I felt like they didn’t know me anymore, hell I didn’t know myself.  The one person I wanted or could talk to was on a dangerous deployment and I was so scared that I prepared myself (as much as I could) for him not coming home.  I was in a miserable place that a piece of me still lives in.

SURGERY

The surgery (uterine septum removal) that was September 2013 (one year exactly before the babies were born) allowed me to get pregnant after all of these heart breaking miscarriages. It basically removed a large septum in my uterus that did not allow the babies to grow and receive the nutrients they needed to survive.  The doctor mentioned that it was one of the largest he had ever seen (of course it was).  When I got out of anesthesia I told the doctor he was my best friend and when he told me my husband was there and that my husband was my best friend, I cried.  I also woke up in the middle of the procedure and told the nurse that I would do her makeup.  Anesthesia is such a strange medication.

PROLIFE

It is still very hard to accept that blood on my hands but it is there no matter how many times I wash it.  After having my babies I make it a point to inform women that it is a decision that will more than likely follow you for the rest of your life.  It is something that can’t be taken back and that child cannot be replaced.  I realized after having my babies that my babies were my babies from time of conception until the day I die.