So yesterday was a tough day for me. Probably the toughest actually. Nothing “major” happened or anything like that. Life was just catching up to me. My Love wasn’t here yet, I missed my big kids something fierce, my babies were still in the hospital and it was their 3 week birthday.
Many of you encouraged me that crying is okay and good and helpful, and I appreciated all of your validation and kind words. Confession: I absolutely HATE to cry!! This is a long time thing with me. I can easily “tear up” when I’m touched or upset, but I very seldom actually cry. I just don’t like it. In fact I think that the boys have seen me cry one time, and Myles doesn’t even remember it because it was when I was pregnant with Ella and felt like everything was falling apart. My parents came over and “rescued” me shortly thereafter, so it all worked out. 😉
All of that to say that tears just don’t come easy for me. But yesterday I couldn’t seem to stop them. I wasn’t sobbing or anything like that, but the tears would escape despite all of my attempts to dissuade them. 😉 It started early in the morning and I knew it was just going to be one of “those” days where I struggled a LOT. So I posted on FB that I needed prayer, and several people told me they were praying for me! I can’t tell you how much that means, but I will tell you that I probably cried over each comment! Ha!
Fortunately my Grandma had invited me to the “Senior Ladies Luncheon” that day. It was fun! I’m not a “senior lady” yet, but I’ve gone with her several times in the past and always enjoy it! It was good food, fun conversation, and everyone oo’d and ah’d over the picture of the girls that I passed around on my phone. 🙂 So that time with sweet Christian ladies helped me a lot.
Then I got to the hospital and felt awful sinking in my stomach that I get every day when I arrive there. I wonder what happened over night, how the girls did with their feeds, if they had any Bradys and such. I don’t like leaving my babies overnight. It’s getting harder and harder to put them back in their separate cribs and kiss their downy heads and then just walk away. I don’t like it! Not one little bit! When I arrived our bustling nurse filled me in on all the particulars, more bradys (no surprise) and Claire had a red mark on her cheek where they had replaced her feeding tube, somehow got mixed up, thought it needed replacing AGAING and pulled the tape off. I wasn’t pleased at all about that! She’s had feeding tubes changed plenty of times since being there, and I happen to know they have stuff that they can use to loosen the adhesive so it wouldn’t do that! It was upsetting. And on a day when things were pretty close to the surface it didn’t help. So I sat there in the ugly hospital chair alternately rocking my sweet peas, and wiping tears that would trickle out now and then. The baby therapy helped a bit. Still I was very obviously (because I couldn’t stop it!) crying as I changed Claire and took her temp before her feeding. I knew the poor nurse was looking at me in a concerned way, but I wouldn’t make eye contact. I knew the dam would break for sure if she said anything or asked if I was “okay.”
I probably would have been nothing but a puddle pretty quickly if my cousin hadn’t shown up to see the girls. I had to walk to the front of the NICU to escort her back and that gave me a little time to pull it together. 😉 I passed the resident in the hall, but I ignored her too. She didn’t hunt me down, but she DID find me today to ask how I was doing. 😉 Nice of her really.
Anyway, Jenny got to snuggle with my Claire as I rocked Gabby and we chatted and laughed together and it helped a LOT! I’m so thankful for God’s good timing!
After she left I was only there for a short time before Stuart arrived! Boy did I ever need to see him!! We don’t function all that well apart. 🙂 He hugged me, which actually nearly started the tears AGAIN, but I got a grip pretty quickly and then we spent some time loving on our girls.
After they kicked us out of the ward for shift change we decided to have a little adventure and visit The Melting Pot! I’d seen friends (Allie!) post pictures of the fun fondue place on facebook before, but I had never been. It was a little difficult to convince Stu that it would be a fun place to go, because when I mentioned fondue the idea he had (well both of us really) was that revolting cheese fountain that they are advertising at Golden Corral, ick! I actually knew it wouldn’t be like that, but didn’t have any experience to back it up. Let me just say… Stu is going to have to get a second job to support our new fondue habit! 🙂 It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!!! I never knew what I was missing! Wow! 😉 The dessert…. well, lets just say if I hadn’t been so full from the other 3 courses, I’d have been licking the bowl!
So my day started poorly. I felt week and beaten. God was still so good! The prayers of friends were so encouraging! The fellowship with godly ladies, and my cousin really helped! FINALLY being back with my Love was just awesome! And the fondue was simply icing on the cake! I’m so glad that even on the hard days when we are really struggling in our own weakness, God shows us in SO many little ways that He’s got this, and it’s all okay…. really!
Photos! (I know why you really put up with all the words on this blog! Ha ha!)