East Coast Chica

It's funny how you can struggle so much to attain something in your life, and then knowing what to do once you get there.  For almost five years I struggled with wanting a baby.  With infertility, then IVF, then adoption, mixed again with a little IVF.  But I realized that after we had attained our goal, and our beautiful girls came home with us, it was time to heal.  Time to just "be" and enjoy my babies, and learn how to be a mother.  Now they are almost four and half months, I am feeling somewhat healed and perhaps ready to shed the skin of all that we went through. 

There were so many mixed emotions once we came home.  So happy and feeling SO lucky that these babies came to us.  But also so exhausted, a little overwhelmed and being thrown into the fire perhaps a bit unprepared.*  So during my four month maternity leave, I not only learned how to care for newborns on very little sleep, but also that I was healing myself.  It's true I didn't go through the physical pain of delivering these babies, but what I came to realize is that I had to heal emotionally.  I'd have random more frequent thoughts of Nicholas, and could not help but think he might have brought us these babies.  I sensed that even though I dealt with our pregnancy loss, the failed adoption and countless IVF's that perhaps the roots of these feelings were kept deep within.  But little by little I dug inward to pull out the sadness, while grasping my babies a little tighter and knew I was healing. 

With that came the realization that I don't need to hold onto that pain anymore.  That I don't need to be a poster child for infertility and adoption and "good things come to those who wait" stories.  That I could move on, and that I should move on.  That I could go back to work, and not feel guilty about needing a little break from crying twins.  I'm just a normal mother now, in the trenches with the rest of the moms...paying my dues with getting up early in the mornings, changing a poopy diaper to only see/hear/smell 5 minutes later another one is getting made, and dealing with a baby that is hungry or tired, but doesn't want to eat or sleep...because, well, she is a baby and don't know what the hell she's doing either!

My main point, its probably time for me to focus my energies on these babies and not how they got here.  To get back into work and running and other interests that have been put on the shelf.  Funny thing, I thought I'd have all this time to keep running and working out, because you know, we adopted.  I didn't carry these babies so I should be able to keep going on runs like when they nap or something. Ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho.  Funny.  But recently I've tried to get back out there and even though I've been running less, my minute/mile has dropped significantly.  Before the adoption I was struggling to get under 10 minute miles...which is high for me.  But just couldn't do it.  Post adoption?  I'm now around 9 min miles...just like that. It's amazing the weight lifted with emotional baggage.  The emotional pain is PHYSICALLY leaving my body.  What a phenomenon I tell you. 

So I'm not sure where I go from here.  The world is my our oyster and I can't wait to dive in and explore it.  And just for some eye candy, here are the trophy babies themselves.  All slim and svelte :)  



*I'm an avid reader, but didn't want to read any "what do with a baby" books because I was so scared the adoption would fall through.  Once we had the babies I had no time to read the books, and now, I do have time, but feel that using my common sense in certain situations is better than most books.  Whenever I read something I feel I'm already doing it, so what's the point?

Sometimes, I look down at these beautiful girls, and still can't believe they are in my life.  Other times, I look at them, and it hits me...OF COURSE they are with me.  This is the way it was supposed to be.  This is how it was always going to work out.  My girls literally feel like an extension of me.  An arm I had been missing, or a leg I never really knew I needed, but now, I couldn't live without. 

I think of our journey, and sometime after we brought them home the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place.  All the little naunces as well as the life changing events fit into a greater puzzle that all suddenly made sense.  It's amazing how that happens...how so many people in your life can tell you it will one day work out, but until it actually does you'd never believe it.

Around this past fall, we started to question adoption as a whole.  We started to think of other options, but in general we were just trying to keep an open mind.  But we had been burned by adoption, and knew it could very well happen again.  In spite of this when things started to pop up on our calendar for the Spring, and I would tell people we weren't sure we could go in case something happened with adoption.  Which is funny in itself, because we were being so picky with getting our profile shown, and had yet to have our profile shown to any birth mom's because they weren't feeling quite right to us.  But then a wedding came up for April (which we found out about months before). I told my friend we might not make it because something could be happening with adoption.  In another instance, my sister and her family came into town around my birthday in early February.  She said she wanted to squeeze one last trip in because I had been telling her we might get close on adoption.  I felt like a liar and hypocrite.  Here we were telling people we might be close on something, but we had yet to have our agency show our profile to anyone, and might not even be really pursuing adoption anymore...

But in the back of my mind I knew this Spring would be a perfect time to bring a baby home.  Kevin is going to back to his accounting firm in July (he's currently doing a fellowship, which is why we moved to CT).  He will be back to working those grueling hours, as opposed to the country club life he has been living for the past 2 years.  Also, we might have an opportunity to go to Europe this fall, and if I had gotten pregnant I wouldn't be able to go.  Which in itself doesn't sound like a great sacrifice, but for us, for me, it's a big one.  We started trying for a baby in the summer of 2006 when we got home from Greece.  We knew pretty early on, we were going to need IVF, which is a pretty big cost.  So we have not been back to Europe since that summer, and for me it's one of the greatest things about life.  Learning new cultures, seeing foreign sights.  We had already sacrificied so many things in the past 4.5 years, how much more would we give up?  Our lives felt like we were no longer living them, but just waiting. 
Kevin kept saying he wasn't sure about adoption, and I was right there with him.  But I felt as a mama to be that if we held a baby in our arms we'd be sold.  But I wasn't so sure either!  It still felt so far away for us.  But in February an extraordinary situation came up.  One we could not turn away from, and thank goodness we didn't. 

Now as we look back, it all happened as it should have.  Sure, the road was rocky and filled with Chicago sized potholes.  But here we are, with our 2 greatest blessings.  With our baby girls who are smiling up a storm.  One that is mellow, laid-back, and that stereotype of a perfect baby who eats her whole bottle and takes great naps.  Who seemed shy to smile at first, but now gives them away for free. The other, who is feisty, kicks a lot, cries the hardest, and seems to take it personally when I leave the room.  But her smile could soften the hardest criminal.  It's official, I have fallen in love. 

There are so many surprises with this whole "parenting" thing.  I was at my in-laws last night because my mother-in-law watched the babies while I got my hair did and nails painted.  We are heading to Chicago this weekend for a shower/party and I want people to think I'm not hanging on by a thread.  So, at dinner my father-in-law asked me what was most surprising about the babies that I hadn't expected.  I blurted out that the lack of sleep has been the most life transforming.  I knew I'd be tired, I knew life would change, but this rock bottom tired...has been so unexpected.  And I got to thinking, why are some things such a secret in motherhood?  So, without further ado, the 5 things I've learned that nobody tells you.

1.  I can be in another room, and hear a baby cry, and go to check, and both are sound asleep.  No baby cried, or even fussed.  I'm always hearing fake cries, at night, during the day.  It's very strange.

2.  When I do sleep now my dreaming is surreal.  It's gone from horrific, to scary, to gross, it pretty much runs the whole gamut.  I have not really dreamt about the babies yet, but I do wake up in the middle of the night and think there's a baby in the bed (we do not and have never co-slept, so not sure where this comes from).  I have gone as far as to check in the covers for a baby.  K has even caught me doing this.  Now, he has started to have those same dreams.

3.  The lack of sleep.  People tell you, "get your sleep now, because you won't sleep for 18 years!" I always wanted to smack those people.  Or "your life will never be the same."  No kidding?  When you've tried for a baby for over 4 years, I DIDN'T want my life to be the same, that's the point!  But the roughness of not getting enough sleep.  It's been brutal.  And I have pretty good sleepers, for the most part they only get up to eat once a night, but when you are spending your sleeping hours looking for babies in the bed, having weird hallucinating dreams and thinking you are hearing a baby cry out...well sleep is just not the same. 

4.  The amount of stuff you accumulate with babies.  And with 2!  So I've been spring cleaning to get rid of old stuff, and in honor of one of my favorite blogs (who did something similar before they moved) I am getting rid of 100 items.  Books, clothes.  I am not a pack rat, but it's time to get rid of the stuff that is just taking up extra room.  In that same breath, the quickness of how quickly the girls grow out of things.  Every day I'm adding the pile of things that no longer fit.  When they moved on from newborn diapers to size one, I had a mini-breakdown.  Well, not really, but you just think they will never grow, and when they do, it's pretty amazing.  Not only are we keeping them alive and thriving, but they are actually growing!!  Funny how that works. 

5.  Here's a secret.  Before we left for Utah I was scared.  I was scared of twins, scared if I would love them, scared of the unknown.  But these little ladies?  I feel like I birthed them.  I hold them late at night and they just feel like they have always been here.  That they have always been ours.  And maybe in a sense, they have.  I couldn't love them more.  They are starting to smile now, and I know only more fun times are to come.  We are starting to see little personalities come out, Reese is more fiesty, Kendall more laid back...so it will be fun to see how these personalities develop in the coming years!

Well, things have changed around here for sure.  It's hard to put into words, my feelings, my emotions, my thoughts.  Mainly because I'm so dang tired I can't see straight...but when one of my little ladies snuggles into my neck and falls asleep...well it's indescribable.  It makes all the sleepless nights worth it. 

Not only has life changed in a short time for us, but Bailey has been having a rough time.  She is nice to the babies, giving them the occasional lick on their bald heads.  She has been getting many walks and love, but she knows our attention has shifted drastically.  She seems to be coming around slowly, and even watching the babies when they cry seemingly concerned. 



But this life, is all that I hoped it would be.  The other night we were both in the nursery feeding both babies, with Bailey at our feet.  My mom popped in to see if we needed anything and Bailey gave her look like, "my family, I got it covered."  I just had a feeling of love and gratitude, and don't know how we got so lucky.

We have been through a lot, we know that.  But we really felt like this year, was going to be our year.  I'm not sure what it was...maybe getting over the fear of adoption again.  Maybe realizing that we have tried every way till Sunday to get pregnant, and just nothing seemed to be working.  But we weren't letting that get us down.  Sure, there were days when I felt hopeless, and that we would never have our family.  In fact, the past few months I had really started thinking about not having kids at all.  The walls around my heart were turning into cement, and I was starting to think that maybe nothing could get through them.  It was actually a scarier feeling to me than the desperation of infertility.

About a month ago, our adoption agency posted a birth mother situation on their website.  This is how they operate, you have a password and you can see what situations are coming up.  Since we signed on with this agency in October, we called on a few situations (to see if we wanted our profile presented) and nothing felt "right."  We never had our profile presented.  But we kept checking the site.  One morning in February after Kevin left for work I padded to my office to get to work.  I looked at the site that morning and saw it.  I had to read it a few times because I wasn't sure it was true.  I mean, twins?  For adoption?  Female twins for adoption?  I had a Charlotte York moment from Sex and the City when her hubby brought home the picture of the little Chinese baby they were going to adopt.  After failed attempts at pregnancy and a failed adoption, Charlotte looked at that photo and said, "that's our baby!!!"  When I saw that posting, I said out loud, alone in my office, "those are our babies!"  I immediately called to get the details and make sure it was a situation in which we wanted to be presented.  Kevin came home that night, and asked if I saw the website...I replied yes, and I had already called on it.

A few days later we were in the mix to get our profile shown to the birth mom.  Our case manager at the agency said they were getting calls like crazy from everywhere...people who weren't even registered at the agency wanted to get their profile shown.  So I felt like maybe this might not happen.  I pulled out a copy of our profile and looked it over again.  I wanted to see it through the eyes of a birth mother.  Reading it, I felt pretty good about "us." 

A week went by and we heard nothing from the agency.  Really, we had kind of put it out of our minds.  My walls had gotten pretty thick, so it wasn't that hard.  But after a week, I thought maybe the agency just hadn't gotten around to telling us, so I called to check in.  She said that the birth mom was still deciding but we were still in the mix.  I took that to mean that she had already said no to some.  So I waited patiently. 

A few days later, on March 1st, after carrying my phone around like it was my oxygen I left my phone downstairs and went upstairs to nap in bed with my pup.  It was the end of the work day, so I was just resting until I needed to get up and make dinner.  I heard the phone ring and looked at the clock.  5:41.  I knew it was the agency because this was generally the time they called around.  I ran downstairs in my nap haze, my heart beating...hard.  I grabbed the phone and saw the Utah number, but missed the called.  UGH!  I waited for my voicemail and the agency had called and said to call them back.  That was it.  I called back got her voicemail and just sat down and waited.  Within minutes my phone was ringing again, and I clicked it on. 
"Hi Joelle?"
"Oh, hello, yes (so nonchalent I am)!  This is Joelle! (Screaming probably)"
"Well, you better go shopping because you have twins coming in a few weeks!!"
"NO WAY!!!! (i said no *effing* way when Kevin asked me to marry him, so this was appropriate) ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!"
"Yep, she picked you and she's getting induced on March 17th"

After some more details I hung up and called every number I have for Kevin and he wasn't answering any of them.  I decided to just take the dog for her walk and let the information sink in.  It was surreal.  I felt tingly all over...really?  We finally were getting our twins?  But also in that instant I made myself put those walls back up.  She could always change her mind.

Kevin pulled into the driveway just as Bailey and I got back and I just threw the news out at him like a baseball.  His face went from normal to complete and utter shock...it was pretty great :) 

As for next steps, there weren't many.  The BM had no desire to have a conversation with us.  She didn't want to have dinner the night before the delivery, something the agency likes to do.  We heard it was because she didn't want to jinx anything, she liked us, and didn't want to not like us.  She is a little bit older, and so much more mature than our last "situation."  It felt different immediately.

We booked our flights for March 16th to be in Utah for the March 17th delivery.  I spoke to our agency that day and gave them our flight information, and she was trying to get me excited, but really, I was just too scared.  Twin girls has pretty much always been my dream team.  I was not dealing well with the anxiety in those 2 weeks before the birth.  Add to that that we told NO ONE except parents that we were going to Utah.  I didn't even tell my parents it was twins!

So the night of March 15th we thought we were all set when I get a text from the agency saying the BM is going to the hospital with contractions.  I just knew she was going to have those babies that night because if your carrying twins and already at 38 weeks, they aren't sending you home to wait to get induced 2 days later.  This threw me into another panic, because I know from first hand experience, adoptions can go wrong if the birth is a little different than expected.  Last time, the baby boy we were supposed to get got sick, and I'm 99% sure this is what made the BM change her mind.  I just felt if we weren't there, she might think we didn't care or something. (When you're in the thick of it, it sounds rational).

Got another text that she was having a c-section because the heart rates were all over the place.  Now I wasn't worried about the adoption, but the babies.  Well the babies turned out just fine...healthy, happy, and big!

We bumped our flight up to the first flight out on March 16th and starting a grueling day of travel and no sleep from the night before.  After a 5 hour flight, we landed in Utah and were greeted by our case manager.  She took us straight to the hospital and said the babies were doing well, that the BM had seen them once just like she planned, and she wanted us to stay in the hospital with them.  Things were sounded pretty good, and I breathed a sigh of relief, just a little one though.  We got to the hospital and went straight into the nursery...and I saw the most beautiful baby girls I have ever laid eyes on.  One was bigger, 6 lbs 13 oz, and Baby B was 6 lbs 2 oz.  Our case manager picked up Baby A, and plopped her right into Kevin's arms with a bottle.  I went for Baby B and just stared at her.  It's a surreal moment, one we will never forget, but still strange because they are not yet OUR babies.  I had shared the names with our case manager beforehand and she said, ok, who's who?  Kevin and I looked at each other and I said Baby A is Kendall, while Kevin nodded.  We knew.  Baby B was of coure Reese.  The nurse wrote the names above their heads in pink writing and I felt my heart catch. 

We spent the night in the hospital with the babies, just as if I'd given birth and after a little while, we started to think I did!  The told us that we were going to do all the paperwork the morning of March 17th.  I felt pretty calm actually.  After a pretty sleepless night and finally putting the babies in the nursery so we could actually see the paperwork I started to lose my mind again.  The case manager came in, and starting showing us all the paperwork (kind of like buying a house).  She said we would sign after the birth mother signed...she'd get a text when she signed the actual reliquishment paper...the big one.  Her phone kept beeping and I jumped every time.  No, not them.  Not them again.  Another beep, and she looked down and looked back and said, "she signed. They're yours."  All those walls, all those fears, all those sad days came out all at once.  I just cried.  They were OURS.  In Utah once the BM signs, it's done.  After I found the tissues and I dried my eyes, Kevin dried his, and the case manager dried hers, we then hit the paperwork and started signing our lives away.  It felt so so so good.  I couldn't wait to call my mom. 

So, without further ado...my daughters!
Kendall Grace & Reese Alexa Brower

We are so blessed, and so in love.  And we feel like the luckiest people on earth to raise these beautiful girls. 

I've seen on many blogs people coming up with their "word of the year."  I've seen this in the past and I've never really been a huge fan.  Only because how can you come up with a word that is you are trying to achieve for the whole year?  Well, I read another of my favorite blogs today and she came up with three words, and after reading it, I realized what a great idea it may be.  Coming up with one word is hard.  I've seen people say Joy, as in only doing things that she finds joy in, and saying no to those things that she doesn't.  I've seen Action, as in she wants to move forward with some decisions and see somethings come to fruition. Grace, was another.  And my personal favorite Balls; meaning she wants to have the balls to take on bigger challenges.

My word?  Persevere.  I plugged the word into MS Word dictionary and here is the first definition:
steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks

I wish I had a better word than WOW.  But wow, and it really rings true with my New Years Resolution.  The reason I'm being so tough on myself with this is because it has now been four and 1/2 years (long period) since we started trying to grow our family.  Friends that got married after we started trying for a baby, now have a child or two to speak of.  Time is of the essence folks, and I'm not going to be taken prisoner by it anymore.  This year, I intend to jump through hoops.  Not that we haven't, but maybe the difference comes in my attitude this year.

So there it is.  Perseverance...in so many aspects of the word.