Thankful.

 

I am so grateful for all of you. What an outpouring of love I received regarding my last entry. I am overwhelmed by the amount of replies and words of encouragement that came through...

I am touched, honored, and most of all, I am grateful for each and every one of you.

I feel like I have the best support system in the world, and because of that...I can take on anything.

Thank you again, friends and family.

So much love to all of you.

MindFreak.

Let me preface this entry by saying that I will be discussing things that make me sound like a terrible human being. I fully recognize that some of my feelings are controversial. But, I have to get them out. That is the whole purpose of this blog, to express myself and NOT keep my feelings bottled up inside, as I am so prone to doing.
As you may, or may not (SURPRISE!) know, two days ago I found out that we are expecting twins. This, obviously, has been a big shock to everyone but mostly to me. And, I am ashamed to say that I am not handling it well. I know that I should feel blessed and excited and I know that it is acceptable to feel scared, but I feel neither excited, nor do I feel simply scared. I am terrified, and I am upset. I am not happy about it, not even one bit. I do not like to vocalize my feelings, especially not to my husband. Not because he wouldn't be supportive, he so would be...But he's SO happy. He's so blissfully excited that I cannot bring myself to speak with him in detail about the depth of my depression.
Depression is not a new feeling for me. I've struggled with it for as long as I can remember. The last few years I've learned new healthier ways to manage my feelings, but this news has put fear into me. I wanted one more child. One more, not two. I wanted one more baby, and then I was going to schedule a tubal. I wanted to be done having children, I felt like 3 kids would be the perfect number and my family would be complete.
This pregnancy is my last. Because I didn't get to enjoy my pregnancy with Jaxon, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to get all new baby stuff, make a brand new nursery, have a nice baby shower, and I wanted to breastfeed. For whatever reason, I feel like everything I wanted to do is ruined now. Now, I will have to somehow get the money to buy double of everything. I will also have to purchase a new car, which will be impossible with our credit. Money issues are the least of my worries, though. Instead of excitement, I feel dread. 4 kids? Two babies at one time. My husband works nights and sleeps during the day. Do you know what that means? That means that I'll have double the work to do by myself at night, and quadruple the amount of work to do by myself during the day. I was apprehensive about ONE baby, but I knew I could do it alone. I did it with Jaxon, when Phill worked crazy hours. I took care of him all night, napped when he did, and took care of both he and Aiden during the day. I was lucky because Aiden was SUCH a good baby. Now I'll have Aiden and Jaxon during the day...and Jaxon is no where near the type of baby Aiden was. Please don't get me wrong, I love my son so much, but he is a difficult child. Very difficult. A lot of the time, he takes so much work that it feels like I am constantly getting on to him and leaving Aiden to his own devices. I have to make a conscience effort to spend one on one time with Aiden because of this. With one baby, I was worried about splitting my time between the three. Now I'll have 2 infants, and 2 toddlers. I am worried that I physically cannot do it.
Speaking of physically, breastfeeding feels like it's pretty much out of the picture. I knew, because of the size of my breasts (and the constant worry that I will smother my baby), that I was going to have some issues, even with one baby. But, I had never exclusively breastfed before and I have such a strong desire to, especially after seeing Jaxon pull himself OFF of a bottle and root around trying to find my breast instead. Adorable. I figured that comfort was going to be out for me, but I had some ideas as to how to get it done successfully for baby. There is no way, with the size of my breasts, that I can feel two babies at one time. So, I'll pump. Not a huge deal. But I feel like it's just one more thing that has to be different.
This last part is the hardest for me to admit and write out. I feel like...I won't get over this disappointment of having two babies rather than one. I feel like I'll carry it...and that I'll resent one of the babies. I've been having terrible, awful dreams. Things that would devastate me in real life, but in my dream I rejoice. And then I wake up feeling guilty.
All of this anger and sadness has me feeling like a terrible, ungrateful human being. I know how I should be feeling, but I can't even fake it. People at work laugh and joke about it, but I can't laugh with them anymore. I don't want to hear about "how full my hands are going to be" or any "octomom" jokes. I hear them and I get so angry that I want to scream. Most people are delighted about it...  One girl came up to me SO excited, took one look at my face and instantly changed her tone "Oh...so you aren't happy?"
No...I'm not. And I hate myself for being unhappy. Why can't I just be happy for what I'm being given? I chose to start trying for a baby, I got pregnant right away, I've been fairly lucky. And feeling this way makes me sound like I don't appreciate how smooth things have gone for me.
I feel like things happen for a reason, though. Getting pregnant so quickly and now the news of twins must just mean than I was meant to travel down this path. I'm just hoping that the path gets a little easier for me to follow emotionally.
Thank you for bearing with me. I'd love to hear your input, even if you want to smack me upside the head. Sometimes I need to be reminded that I'm being selfish, which I know is EXACTLY how I sound. So please feel free to contact me in any way and let me know your thoughts and opinions.

And twins??

Boy, when we do things, we sure do them big. I went in for my monthly check up yesterday afternoon expecting one baby, and came out expecting two.
The doctor thinks that because I was very early in my first appointment (just about 7 weeks), the second baby was hard to spot. The heartbeat at that appointment was very high (about 180!), which she said was normal, but now she's thinking it was that high because..well...twins!
Yesterday, she was trying to find the heartbeat without the use of ultrasound and was unsuccessful. So, she felt better about going ahead and seeing what was going on in there, as did I. We found baby right away, and the heartbeat was about 145. Everything looked good and I got to see baby move and wiggle which was awesome. The doctor was just about to pull away, rolled up and said "...ummm...how far along were you in your first ultrasound?" I said "Uh..pretty early? Like 7 and a half weeks?....WHY?" And she paused for a minute and said "..Because there's two in here..."
The rest of the appointment consisted of me freaking out. I said "Oh my God." a lot. I covered my face, I teared up from sheer surprise, I walked out of the room completely shell shocked. I forgot to ask any questions, I forgot to ask how second baby looked...I just went blank.
More to come concerning how I feel about this new development. I'll tell you right now, that entry is going to be a doozy.

~Jessica

Who We Are

This is all of us last Fall... I am holding Aiden, and my husband is holding Jaxon. It was extremely cold this day so all of us were having a hard time paying attention to the photographer.

 This is Jaxon Lawrence.<3

 This is Aiden Gregory <3

And this...is a more accurate description of how our family works. :)

An Introduction

Hello and Welcome!
My name is Jessica. This isn't my first attempt at keeping a blog, but it certainly is my most formal. I've never built one up from scratch before so please forgive me if I'm slow! I figured an Introduction would make for an excellent first post.
As I said before, I'm Jessica. I'm 24 (25 in less than a week...Yikes!), married for a little over 3 years and a mother of two young boys. Aiden Gregory is my first son. He is almost 4 years old, and he is my sensitive little man. For the most part, he is well behaved and a pleasure to take everywhere. He is a goofy little boy, but he's also smart and very curious about the world around him. Jaxon Lawrence is my second son, and he is almost 3 years old. Jaxon is a firecracker. He is ALWAYS on the go and always getting in to things. (Things that he usually shouldn't be getting in to.) He is full of energy and life and his smile lights up any room he's in. Where Aiden tends to be a little more soft spoken, there is no mistaking Jaxon's voice, laugh, cry, scream...Jaxon has been a more difficult child to parent. Although he is more affectionate than his brother, he is also more disobedient. I love my kids more than absolutely anything in this world. Part of my reason for starting this blog is to talk about my experiences with parenting and hopefully I can reach out to people, share some tips and tricks and learn some things along the way!
My husband's name is Phillip. We met and started dating in 2008. It was strange how natural it was to be with him. I had never had a serious relationship before him, and we've both experienced a lot of "firsts" with each other. We had a rough go of things at first, but that is something for another post. Our bond is strong, though, and we always overcome what is thrown at us.
Phillip and I are currently expecting our 3rd (and final!) child. I am due in May of 2014, anywhere between the 5th and the 14th depending on when the doctors plan on scheduling the surgery. This will be my third C-section. I am excited for this baby, and I can't wait to share this journey with everyone.
Since having kids, I discovered my intense passion for labor and delivery. I am not sure if that has something to do with my inability to have children the natural way, or if I would have discovered it eventually anyway. Since my first son was born by emergency C-section, all of my following births must be C-sections according the hospital and doctors here in my town. I had heard of rumors of a clinic in a town not far from me that allowed VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) , but I decided against it for my third pregnancy due to my not being in the best of health. Before I became pregnant with my third, I had made the decision to go back to school to become a nurse, specifically a labor and delivery nurse. The road to that is more complicated than I anticipated and I have had a difficult time in school, especially this semester. More on that in the future.
My life is full of this and that, and yet I still struggle to find what I'm meant to do. I know I want to better myself for the sake of my children. One day I want them to look back and be proud of the decisions I made and the person that I am-or the person that I want to become.
I look forward to expanding on things and keeping you up to date on my daily life.
Welcome to my journey.
Always,
Jessica