Avoid = A void that is permanently in my heart

Lately I find myself avoiding anything that has to do with Eli and Hunter. I dont want to talk about it, write about it, think about it....I just avoid it.  Maybe its part of the healing process or maybe its because I have let what other people think get to me.  I have a hard time keeping my emotions in check when this subject comes up, I feel all over the place.  Happy to hear their names and think of them, sad that I will never get to watch them grow, but most of all it just makes me angry.  People dont understand the way I grieve, someone has a mean comment to make, nobody feels the pain like I do(aside from my amazing husband).  I struggle with knowing what is right and what is wrong.  I want to believe that they were our babies, I want everyone to see that loving them has nothing to do with who gave birth to them or not.  I dont want to believe we were just part of a failed adoption, I hate having to defend how I feel.  I hate wondering if maybe those people are right, its like a constant battle inside me.  Always wondering if I should speak up for them and keep their memory alive by talking about them or if I should just keep it to myself? It just seems easier to avoid it all together, but by doing that I feel like I am failing them.  I just wish I could make the world see the pain this has caused us, I wish I could make them understand how we think, how we feel....Its not like we are asking anyone to understand why we committed a crime, all we are asking is for everyone to understand why we feel the way we do, why we fight so hard to defend our right to be their parents, why we will continue to fight for the rest of our lives to honor our sweet baby boys.

Healing

It has been almost a month since the boys passed away.  I feel like we are learning to heal and to cope with this life changing tragedy.  I just want this whole experience to mean something, I dont want it to all be in vain.  I want to be a better person because of them, to re evaluate myself and my life and change what I feel could be better.  Our boys taught me that life is so very short and that everything can change in an instant.  I want to be someone they can be proud of.  I strongly believe they are our guardian angels and are watching over us.  There have been several instances where we have both felt like they were trying to show us they are still here and watching over us.  On Super Bowl Sunday, just a few days after they passed away we both one right after another pulled crackers out of the same box that had been made together, almost like twin crackers.  One day Tom woke up late for training, only to call and find out it had been pushed back one hour later......when all week long it had been at the same set time.  Tom was riding his bike home from work one morning and the peddle broke off.  He nearly fell into morning rush hour traffic on base, but he caught his balance just in time.....if he had not been able to catch himself he would have been hit by several cars.  It has been super nice out lately so I decided to turn the heat down.  I checked the weather this evening to find out that we are going to be getting some cooler weather so I decided I should turn the heat back up so we don't freeze at night.  The thermostat was set to 70 degrees when I walked over to it, I pushed the up bottom to make it go up and it jumped down to 68 instead of going up...then I pushed it again and it jumped all the way up to 75.   I guess they are just trying to show us that they are always around.  We like to think that when we see a beautiful sunset that it was just the boys painting us a beautiful picture from heaven, or when the wind blows its just them wrapping their arms around us, or when it rains and rain drops fall on our cheeks its just precious little kisses from our sweet angel boys.  We decided to take a vacation in May, when they should have been born to celebrate them.  We are going on an 8 day vacation to Fort Lauderdale Florida!!! It's as close to Heaven as we will ever get on Earth!!  We are looking forward to getting away for awhile and just enjoying eachother. 

One week down

I would give anything to go back in time to a week ago.  A week ago we were excited to be finding out the sex of our baby, to be picking out nursery decor.  All of that was ripped away from us in just a few short words.  I still can not believe they are gone, sometimes I catch myself getting excited about bringing them home and then I remember.  I have so many emotions going on in my head, I dont know what to think.  I am so incrediably sad that I will never hold my baby boys.  I will never get to teach them new things or watch them grow.  I am so angry that this has happend to us, we have been through so much and now this on top of it all?   Why would God allow us to even know about these babies if it just meant we would loose them before ever seeing them?  Happy that they dont have to live on this Earth and experience all the hurt it has.  I try to tell myself that they were to good for Earth, they were so special that God needed them in Heaven more than we needed them with us.  But there are moments of weakness when I just break down and cry because I miss them, I want them back.  People say there are other children that need to be adopted, or not to give up on adoption because there is another baby out there for us.  I dont want another baby, I want those babies.  I struggle to know if Im grieving to much, not grieving enough, being to sad, laughing to soon.  How do you know what is the proper way to grieve? The pain is real, it hurts like a knife has been perminately stabbed into your chest and sometimes it hurts to breathe.  I scheduled us an appointment with a grief and loss therapist.  Hopefully she can help us make some sense of this. 

We have plans next weekend to go up and meet the birth mother to the boys so we can have our copies of their birth and death certificates as well as hand and feet prints.  I think that all of us need to do this to help us get closure.  While we are up there we plan on getting tattoos in memory of the boys.  Somehow I feel like this will help me feel closer to them, like a part of them will forever be on my body. 

Broken

The numbness is wearing off and underneath it is the worst pain I have ever felt.  I feel so broken, completely shattered.  I might not have grown these boys under my heart like most mothers do, but I did grow them in my heart.  It does not matter how you go about becoming parents, the natural way, IVF, adoption.  It's all the same, not one person loves their child more or less because of the situation.  It makes me so angry when people try to down play how devastated we are because they seem to think how could we be so devastated when they were not even our children.  But they were, we loved them from the moment we found out and we always will.  These little boys were born alive they fought for their lives, and had they lived we would have became their "LEGAL" parents.  The laws seem so unfair when it comes to adoption.  Because our boys passed away we were not able to legally adopt them.  The laws state that the child must be alive in order for an adoption to take place.  It all just seems so unfair......not only for us but for the Birth Parents as well.  Sometimes I feel selfish for feeling how I feel, for feeling completely broken.  I am not the only mother in this.  Our boys Birth Mom chose life for them in the beginning of all of this.  She chose to give them a better life than she knew she could provide for them.  She was not giving her babies away because she simply did not want them or did not love them.  It takes a very strong unselfish person to place their child into the arms of someone else.  We will forever be thankful for her gift to us, even if it was for a few short months.....the love felt for these precious babies will last us a lifetime.  She gave us our dream, a dream to become parents.   Even if our babies are in heaven, we got a chance to feel what its like to love a child....your own child. 

Our little Warriors

On January 21st our twin baby boys came into this world fighting so hard.  They were just not strong enough to survive.  Eli Thomas was born at 11:49am and passed away shortly after birth and Hunter Luke was born at 11:54am and passed away at 5:00pm.  Our little Warriors will always be in our hearts and will forever be loved.  Words can not describe how heart broken and devistated we are.  Were just taking it day by day and praying for the strenght to get through this. 

Pink or Blue

Pink or Blue??  That is the main question in our house lately!!  We are so excited to find out if our precious baby will be a boy or a girl!  Just two weeks from today and we find out if we will be decorating a pink girly nursery or a blue sports themed nursery.  Either way, this baby will be so very LOVED.  It does not matter to us what the sex is, we just want to be parents. We have picked out furniture, bedding, stroller, carseat, pack n play, high chair, ect for a boy and for a girl.  We are just waiting to find out if it will be PINK or BLUE before we buy anything!! I finally feel like our dreams are coming true,  all either one of us ever wanted was to have a family of our own.  A child to love and cherish, to create memories, and start family traditions with. 

This is the nursery we have decided on for a boy.
 


and this is the girls nursery we have decided on.

A blank Page

Apparently blogging is the new black, and it looks fabulous on everyone else, so I'm dying to try it. I'm SO inspired by the creativity of my favorite bloggers, and I've been wanting to do it simply because it looks like SO much fun, and it gives me the opportunity to share my creativity and update friends and family about our life.  It's like an empty scrapbook that is begging to be filled, a trip to the beach on a hot sunny day, catching up with an old friend over a cup of coffee.  SO......here it is, MY blank page.......I plan to fill this with the latest happenings in our life, our journey to adoption, our relocation to another country, and a place to share my paper crafting addiction!