Dodging a Bullet Today and Some Other Stuff

This morning, I woke-up and headed to bootcamp to workout. I look forward to working out with this wonderful group of people and our fearless leader David. David is a true man of God. He knows so many scriptures and he gets so excited when sharing God's word. He prays with us every morning and he encourages me so much. I left feeling great! But, on my way home, I was in a bad accident. I am afraid my dream car may be totalled, but we will wait to find out later this week. I am so happy to be okay. I do feel like I have reached my limit of what I can handle. I spent the majority of the day at the Emergency Room. I had to be checked out due to my liver condition and the fact that I could very easily bleed to death, per my transplant team. I was hit while driving through a green light and a man turned left into me. I am extremely sore, but I  have found the silver lining. When I was pregnant with the twins, I really wanted a mini van and everyone thought I was crazy. Well, I am proud to say that my rental car is a brand new mini van, it has less than 100 miles on it and I love it. I love my insurance company and I had a great nurse taking care of me. My sister and Karen got more done at the ER than if they had gone to work. My sister took care of a bunch of bills for me, Karen worked steadily on the Softball Tournament Fundraiser, and I was able to write out all our other bills to send out. It was nice to get to spend time with them, time has taken on a new meaning for me, it is such a gift. Paul called the insurance company and took care of all of that during his conference period. Thomas had picture day today at Mother's Day Out and I can't wait to see the pictures. I realized that even in the midst of chaos, there was order in my life. A very nice man stopped to help me out and helped me find my glasses that were knocked off my face and my phone that was also thrown back. I wish I had pics, but it was still dark out and my old Iphone does not have flash, so no luck.
     After being discharged today, I went to the Enterprise place to pick-up my rental car and a lady there recognized me from all the fundraiser stuff. I was so humbled by a stranger telling me that she knew I was a former teacher, she had been praying for me, and she had donated money. I mean, people I have never met REALLY are praying for me. I am so blessed, God is so evident, so real. After leaving the rental car place, I had to go grocery shopping. I was lucky to get one of the baskets with a steering wheel for Thomas to drive the cart with. I wish you all could have seen how cute he was. He was talking and waving to everyone we went past. I talk a lot to him and he kept throwing stuff out of the basket, so we were playing while shopping. A lady walked up to me and said, "It is so nice to see a mom that loves and enjoys her child, I can tell how much you love him." Of course, this made me cry because then I think about how I don't want to leave him, I want to be here for him, I want him to know me, I want to see him come to know Christ as his Saviour, I want to see him fall in love, I want to see him hit a homerun, I want to see everything. I shared with this woman about my twins and how, yes, Thomas was the biggest blessing, he restored my hope, he brought so much joy back into my life. When I was loading groceries after checking out, this same lady came and told me that she would be praying for me and that she just knew that everything was going to be okay. People are so good, this I know.
     Speaking of joy, it was a long time after the boys had died that I laughed, I mean a belly laugh that makes you cry because you can't stop. I felt that if I was joyful and happy, I would be letting them down somehow. I know that sounds crazy, but it isn't to me. People rarely speak of them and if I stayed sad, I was honoring them somehow (Grief makes you think a little different, it is a roller coaster). I can remember the day I finally let loose with my laughing. I was driving home from work in May of 2010, pregnant with Thomas in my belly. I was listening to 104.1 and they were talking about this lady that called CBS and left a funny message, then, they played the message. I had to pull over because I was laughing so hard, I was crying. This lady was really mad because there was a severe weather warning during the Season Finale of Criminal Minds, which is one of my favorite shows too. She really let them have it and explained what shows they could interrupt, but not Criminal Minds. You would have to hear it to appreciate it. After laughing with tears, the real tears came and I cried for a long time. I felt guilty for laughing, guilty for enjoying it, and guilty for feeling guilty. It has been six months, I deserved to laugh, right?
     I guess I should finish the rest of the story....After handing Ben over and realizing that they were going to wrap him up and put him in a bag, a bag like I had placed patients in before, it broke my heart. I still wanted to hold him. I needed to kiss him one more time, I needed him. I soon became very demanding. Dr. Rowe wanted me to stay in the hospital, but I told him I was leaving, I didn't want to be around all these pregnant people or the people that just had their babies, I wanted to be home. He agreed if I promised to go and see my liver doctor in one week and if I let him check my labs one more time. Sure, do whatever, can you ask the girl who draws my blood to hit an artery and let me die, death would be easier. I also had to make an appt with him the next week to have my staples removed. By this time, my soulmate best friend Priscilla (whom I call Pree) had arrive from Los Angeles and she made me feel a little better. I think this was hard for her because she had never seen me so weak and vulnerable before. She came and stayed with us until after the funeral, and she will never know how much that meant to me. No matter how much time goes by that we don't see one another, we pick right back up. I met Pree in college, we played the same position on our softball team at ULM, so we were unlikely friends due to our competitiveness over our position, but we were meant to be friends. I could say and do absolutely anything in front of her and she accepted me. I drug her to church with me most of the time and we went to numerous Bible Studies together. We had so many things in common. We recently visited her when we went out to California for my brother's wedding. She makes my heart happy. She has been here for every important event in my life, she never lets me down.
     Being discharged from the hospital without my babies was hard, I mean unbearable, I wanted to steal someone else's baby. I know, these are crazy thoughts, but my arms longed to hold a baby, my breasts longed to feed a baby, and my heart longed to love a baby. God, please raise my babies up, I know You are capable of doing ANYTHING, You could do this if you wanted. Please give me my babies back, turn back time, please do something, this is not my life, this is not my life. Someone, wake me up! Why? I want to know WHY? TELL ME, SPEAK TO ME, DO NOT LEAVE ME, WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME? Yes, I was screaming at God, crying out, begging, pleading, I was completely pathetic, I had hit the bottom, no, the bottom was ripped out from under me. Someone help me, someone pick me up, someone explain this to me. I am such a fool, I told everyong I was doubley blessed by having twins, but no, I was in double pain, double agony, double heart-break. I wanted to sleep, sleep forever really, I didn't want to deal with a funeral. Paul had already started making plans, music was being downloaded by people on both sides of our families, my cousin Kea Shawn wrote the most beautiful obituary I had ever heard, Aunt Joanne had done my Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photos and she made an amazing slide show, printed out pictures and framed them with the help of Karen and my Aunt Tricia. I treasure those photos so much, photos are a gift, they are so important to me. My sister bought decorations, my Aunt Kim and sister made their little burial gowns. Paul's family relatives own Rosewood and they helped us so much financially and with all the details. His sister Mary's church paid for the motorcycle cops to escort us from the funeral to the graveside.The llist goes on with all the kind things done for us. I was able to spend time alone with my babies and hold them again, this was the first time since leaving my womb that they were together again. It was good that they were together, they were twins, they were brothers, they were angels. This is where you will really think I am crazy, I was checking for a heart beat, I still believed God could give me my babies back. I believe every word of the Bible and I believe my God can do anything, absolutely anything. Paul had asked Dr. Rowe to do the eulogy and it was spectacular. The service, singing, the pictures, all the flowers, all the people, they were a blessing, but to be honest, I didn't want any of this, I would rather lose all the people I love, all my friends, I would trade it all for my babies to be back with me. I wanted to love these babies like my Momma has always loved me. The graveside service was so final, I mean, they put my babies in the ground, they would for sure suffocate now and there would be no hope for resurrection. These are the thoughts I had. I did not know what tomorrow held, how was I supposed to move on from this? What would I do in the morning? I mean, for the past 7 months, I had been planning for babies, then I was busy planning a funeral with Paul, and now, I had nothing to plan for. I needed to start working on Thank You cards, but I really wanted to be back at the hospital taking care of my babies. I was afraid of the future for the first time. I was scared to leave the house because I didn't want to bump into anyone I knew, I didn't even want to get dressed, I didn't want to take a shower, I didn't really want to do anything. I really didn't want to be "the lady whose babies died." I just wanted to be Katrinia again. I was already dreading the upcoming holidays, this is a big change for me because I used to look forward to the holidays all year. I love family gatherings and shopping for others, but not this year, I wanted the holidays to go away and stay away.
     So, I went back to Dr. Rowe's office the next week and this is when my relationship with Dr. Rowe's amazing nurse Kim starts. She had always been wonderful to me at all of my appts, but her heart of gold would make such a difference in my life. No woman wants to go and sit in the waiting room of her OBGYN after her babies die. I couldn't stand to look at all those pregnant bellies, and all the questions. "When is your baby due?", "Is this your first baby?", "What are you having, a boy or girl?"  These questions hurt me, but I never had to say anything. Kim showed me a back entrance to the office to use and told me I could check-in with her and I never had to go to or wait in the waiting room. How did she know I couldn't handle it? I guess she must have been listening to God and He guided her to be so caring and kind to me. She was gentle and soft, and she cared. She is absolutely beautiful on the inside out. I soon felt like she was my friend, afterall, she seemed to know how to treat me and talk to me better than some of my own friends. If one more person had told me about this being "God's Plan," I was going to let them have it. I would ask them if they wanted to switch places with me, or if they lost their child tomorrow, would they just say, "oh well, it was God's plan?" Note to the wise, don't tell a grieving person about God's plan, deep down I understand that He is in control of all and He knew this is what my life would hold, but I did not want to hear it, not now. Kim and I grew even closer when I started visiting Dr. Rowe when I was pregnant with Thomas. That is what my next post will be about, Thomas, I don't know if you see any correlation with my Thomas and my wonderful Dr. Thomas Rowe....