40 Weeks

Today is my due date, December 21, 2012.  The day that the world is supposed to end...winter solstice...the beginning to longer days...  A lot can change in 40 weeks...


Forty weeks ago, I stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine.  I started watching my diet and taking my fertility meds.  Thirty-eight weeks ago, I had my eggs extracted and they were combined with Cam's sperm to become our embryos...they were transferred and become two little fetuses.  Thirty-six weeks ago I found out I was pregnant and had ovarian hyperstimulation.  I was excited as I had ever been.  After three years of trying, the most excited I'd ever been in my life.  So excited it was so hard to keep it to myself knowing that I still had 10 weeks before it would be "safe" to start telling people.

Thirty-two weeks ago we found out we were having twins.  We were both excited and nervous at the same time.  We knew it was a possibility, but to know it was a reality was a new feeling.  Twenty-nine weeks ago, we heard our boys' heart beats for the first time on the doppler.  So excited to know that they were alive...a new feeling of knowing I was carrying these tiny little miracles.  Twenty-seven weeks ago, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and had to change my diet even more.  Twenty-six weeks ago we were over the hump...second trimester had started...

Twenty-two weeks ago we found out we were having boys.  I knew before the ultrasound tech even told us for Sammy.  I knew he was a boy.  Then they told us that Andy was a boy, too.  Cam's face was beaming...he was so excited they were both boys.  I was actually surprised...I had had many dreams that we were having one of each.  But I was ecstatic...I've always wanted to be a mom to boys.  I still want that...

And 16 weeks ago, I was in the hospital...three days later, Samuel and Andrew were born...and my world changed forever.  I immediately had fallen in love.  I had the greatest love and the greatest fear I have ever had in my life.  And only three short days later, we lost Andy.  I watched them try to resuscitate him.  I knew though.  I knew that it wouldn't work.  And the only thing I could think of is how badly I needed to hold him.  And I did...and it was wonderful and horrible all at once.  For the first and last time, I got to feel like his mom...

And then just about 12 weeks ago, I watched Sammy go down the same road - the doctors and nurses resuscitating him...and a day later I held him while we pulled his life support.  I held him as his heart stopped beating and cried every minute...loving and hurting more than I ever imagined possible.  Three days later, Camden's grandfather passed away.

The past 40 weeks have been the most exciting, most rewarding, most painful weeks of my life.  I wouldn't change having my boys at all.  I wouldn't change becoming a mom.  I wish every minute that I could change that they were taken from me.  That they were born today instead of 16 weeks ago.  Every minute I wish that I was frustrated dealing with two crying babies instead of crying myself that they aren't here.  The past 40 weeks have changed my life forever.

This day is both a painful reminder and a relief.  I am in pain knowing that if things had gone as I had planned, I'd be cradling two beautiful little boys right now.  But at the same time it's a relief, because today is the last day of feeling like I should still be pregnant.  Now I move into feeling like I should have my boys...I'm not mourning both the loss of my pregnancy and the loss of my boys.  I'm moving forward to just mourning the loss of the boys.  Not that that's a small feat, but today marks the end of mourning the loss of my pregnancy.  I can focus 100% on mourning my boys.  And wish every minute that I didn't have to...