Life is a Journey ...

Theirs is the Kingdom of God....

2012-01-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

A friend posted this on facebook this morning and I had to share. For those that don't know, I work with children with special needs every day and know that I have witnessed the simplest form of faith in the eyes of those I serve. Children really do have a better grasp of God then we give them credit for...and moreover, they have a better grasp then we do because they don't question but also, I believe, because they are able to remember the arms of God around them while they rested in our wombs.
I envy my brother Kevin. He thinks God lives under his bed. At least that's what I heard him say one night. He was praying out loud in his bedroom, and I stopped to hear him say, “Are you there, God? Where are you? Oh, I see. Under the bed.”

I giggled at him and went off to my own room. Kevin's unique perspectives are often a source of amusement to me. But that night I realized something else and thought about it long after I finished laughing. I realized for the first time what a very different world Kevin lives in. He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled because of complications during his birth. Apart from his size (he's 6’2” and built like a linebacker), he’s really not an adult.

He reasons and communicates with the capabilities of a 6-year-old, and always will. He’ll probably always believe that God lives under his bed, that Santa Claus is watching and that airplanes stay up in the sky because angels carry them.

I remember wondering if Kevin ever realizes he’s different. Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life? He’s up before dawn each day to work at a workshop for the disabled, comes home to walk our cocker spaniel, returns to eat his favorite macaroni-and-cheese dinner at least 5 nights a week, and later goes to bed. The only variation in the entire scheme is laundry, when he hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with her newborn child. He never seems dissatisfied with his life and is happy every day. He trots out to the bus every morning at 7:05, always happily looking forward to his day of simple work.

He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the stove before dinner, even though it’s the same thing almost every night, and he stays up late twice a week to gather our dirty laundry for his next day's laundry chores.

And Saturdays - oh, the bliss of Saturdays! That's the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a soda, watch the planes land, and wonder loudly on the destination of each passenger inside. Kevin shouts as he claps his hands and wonders about the destination of the passengers on each flight. His anticipation for that simple trip is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday nights. And he goes through his world of the same daily rituals and the same weekend trip, every day, every week.

Kevin doesn't, and probably never will, know what it means to be discontent. His life is simple and he takes delight in it. He’s the most content person I know. Kevin will never know the complications of wealth or power. He doesn’t care what brand of clothes he wears, as long as he has some green shirts (green’s his favorite color), or what kind of food he eats. His simple needs have always been met, and he never worries that he doesn’t have “more.”

He’s diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he’s working. When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the carpet, his heart is completely in it. He never gives up on a job when he starts, and gives it his all until it’s finished. But when he’s done, he knows how to relax. He’s not obsessed with other people’s work, with what they’re doing or not doing, but just pays attention to his own. His heart really is pure.

He still believes everyone tells the truth, that promises must be kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize. Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin isn’t afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry, or sorry. He is always transparent, always sincere. What you see really is what you get with him. And he REALLY trusts God.

When he comes to Christ, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God - to really be friends with Him in a way that an “educated” person never will be. To Kevin, God feels like his closest companion.

In my own moments of doubt and frustrations with my Christianity, I envy the security Kevin has in his simple faith. It is then that I am most willing to admit that he must have some divine knowledge that rises far above mine. It’s then I realize that maybe Kevin isn’t the one with the handicap; I am. My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances, my desire for more, more, more - they all become disabilities because I can’t seem to trust them to God's care the way Kevin can.

I wonder if Kevin just easily comprehends things I can never learn. I wonder if, when it comes to God, Kevin has wisdom I will never gain. After all, he’s spent his whole life in that kind of simple innocence, praying after dark every night and soaking up the goodness and love of God.

One day, when all the mysteries of heaven are opened, and all of us see how close God really was to our hearts, we'll realize that God really hears us and always heard the simple prayers of a boy who always believed that God lived under his bed. Everyone will be surprised. Except for one person, that is. Kevin won't be surprised at all, and he’ll wonder why we would be because, to him, God was always right there whenever he wanted or needed Him, right under his bed.

Matthew 19:14 But Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children."

Such a wonderful message.

Spiritual Gifts

2012-01-18T07:40:00.000-08:00

This was the topic of Pastor Jeff’s sermon a few weeks ago and then again in the devotion book Geoff and I do a few days ago. It’s gotten me to thinking and then digging even further into it with a very lengthy ‘debate’ (that is a polite word for some words being exchanged online by people on opposite ends of the spectrum, some that weren’t very ‘politically appropriate’) about issues around what to do when you find out your babies have TTTS. And since it was a lengthy debate you get a lengthy novel post by yours truly LOL!
Pastor Jeff got me to thinking about my gifts when he said something along the lines of ‘God wants us to be a purpose driven people. He wants us to do good works and he gives us the tools so we can do this’.
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

He encouraged us to think about what our spiritual gifts are and ask ourselves if we are using them to the best of our ability and for the right reasons.
Hmmmmm spiritual gifts….I really have no idea what this means in the eyes of a church or religion. Wikipedia defines it as this…
In Christianity, spiritual gifts (or charismata) are endowments given by the Holy Spirit. These are the supernatural graces which individual Christians need to fulfill the mission of the church.

There are lists of various types of gifts and after reading them all, I think this is the one that most applies to me, to what I believe is my gift and how I use it…but I’ll get to that in a bit.

16. Mercy: "The special ability that God gives to certain members of the Body of Christ to feel genuine empathy and compassion for individuals (both Christian and non-Christian) who suffer from distressing physical, mental, or emotional problems, and to translate that compassion into cheerfully done deeds which reflect Christ’s love and alleviate the suffering."
This gift is a practical gift. Those with this gift find themselves visiting and assisting those in need, and often feel the pain of the person they are helping within themself. People with this gift find it extremely difficult not to help those who seem less fortunate than themself.

I am not really sure if this is what spiritual gifts really means or just what some religions tell us that this is what is meant… but then again I am not sure if Jesus really cares what the classification of the gif t is but rather if we are using them or not.
Until I did this research I believed spiritual gifts to be talents you have, skills you have that you can use to better the world. (Back to Ephesians 2:10 again…different version this time….
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

And I had come to believe that this bettering is to hopefully be a form of evangelism…for if you are using your gifts and praising God through your gifts then others should see this in you…and from there, they will hopefully see how our amazing Lord is working in you. This belief was highly supported by what Pastor Jeff spoke about that Sunday…that by using your gifts, by being the masterpiece that God created you to be, you will be doing the good works He intended for you. And by doing these good works you will be showing others the strength of your Christian character….maybe even making them wonder what the secret to our happiness and contentedness in life is and wanting some of that for themselves.
Before I did this research I believed my gifts to be my writing and my ability to use words to express compassion, empathy, understanding, kindness and to use my gift of expression to give hope, to show that peace and hope can come after loss. I have said this before and I will use it as a mantra for my life I think…. ‘God gave me Cole and Cameron for a great and wonderful purpose. TTTS took one of them, made me fear for and protect (forever) the other and changed me forever. I believe that I was given TTTTS and this journey I am on because I am meant to impact others’ lives with my ability to express myself about how this journey has affected me. I am very certain that one purpose for me on this journey is to help others, to support them, to lend an ear and a shoulder to cry on and be there for them when they need an understanding friend. I do that through words which I seem to have a talent for putting together well…maybe not always orally but through written word. I have been told since the day I began blogging about our journey…back about 3 years and 9 days ago that I have a gift, a talent for writing. And so I believe I need to use that talent.
And I still believe this is my gift from God, a spiritual gift of sorts. But obviously the true gift is the gift of mercy….the basis for my desire to help others through their TTTS journey, their baby loss journey, their loss of any loved one journey, their journeys through struggles, crisis and burdens … all of this ties in to the gift that God has given me to feel genuine empathy and compassion for individuals who are suffering.
Now to why this gift has become a focus of conversation for me lately….
About 2 weeks ago a mom of TTTS survivors was giving support and advice to a mom who had just been diagnosed and told her to stay away from reading the ‘bad’ stories and the ‘bad’ outcomes and the hairs on my neck stood up. I got defensive and rightfully so. I didn’t present it maybe in the best way and that ended up getting others of single survivors and double losses involved as well. The big focus of my message that I posted over and over again was this…. When a parent of mono-di twins is diagnosed with TTTS…heck when the parent of any fetus is diagnosed with a serious condition , I believe it is their job to be their child’s/children’s best advocate and in order to do this they need to be educated in all aspects of what is affecting their child. I also know, first hand, that not being informed about all the scenarios of the disorder leads to an even more intense devastation when things don’t turn out the way you expected….when they aren’t just the outcome of the ‘good’ stories. We were not prepared to lose Cole. We were told of the percentages but we were given very good odds for double survival at admittance. Things progressed but this was explained to us by another doctor (Dr. Ryan and his fellow) and even then, there was still much optimism. We learned, then, about things like velamentous insertion (the cord being inserted into muscle, in our case 11cm, away from the edge of the placenta) and placental share but I didn’t look those things up, I didn’t know I should. I had no idea how often babes with poor share and poor insertion pass away after surgery. If I had, I would have been prepared. If I’d read about fetal anemia I would have been prepared for Cameron needing his transfusion after Cole passed away, I would have understood how serious it was and would have known that the transfusion was saving his brain and maybe his life…and was not something I would want to say no to…not that I considered it.
And so I spouted off about why I believe new diagnosed families need to read all stories. And of course that got some people worked up. Every one of those who got worked up had double survivors.. which proved a point to me…they don’t even really look at all angles, even after their babies are born.
Basically we, the parents with losses, were told over and over that our stories take away hope…of course it was presented in a much more positive way but that was the bottom line. I disagreed and still do. The fact that I never lost hope, even in my darkest moments, says that my story and meeting me online, is worthwhile and might easily give someone else hope. No wait, it did give someone else hope…and someone who has double survivors I might add! It did not seem to matter what we said, these angel mommy friends and I…and tons of double survivor moms too…some of these moms refused to concede that A)it might be a good idea to be educated in all aspects and outcomes, that B) hope can be found in the story that has your worst case scenario, that C) you might save your babies lives or at least impact their outcome by reading a story of an outcome you hope you never see and that D) they have these opinions about what NOT to read because they have the ‘best’ outcome…that because they have two survivors they are unable to put themselves in the place that contains what ifs, maybe I could or should have and what else could I know about this. And this last one is the one that pisses me off. NOT AT ALL because they have double survivors…I am so past that. No what makes me so angry is that someone who had the ‘best’ outcome thinks they have the right to advice someone not to educate themselves and prepare themselves for what could be their outcome.
In the end these discussions ended up with the founder of the TTTS Foundation ‘reprimanding’ us all for talking about all of this when we should be supporting the mom who originally posted about her babies. Valid point and I feel bad about that. But the fact is this support group presents things in a light that is often very positive and very one sided. They promote therapies like drinking boost and having horizontal bedrest as a way to ‘stop’/treat TTTS . Don’t’ get me wrong, this has worked for some cases…cases that never progressed past stage 1…but still!!!! This group seems heavy into support for those pregnant with 2 living babies and the end result of those double survivor pregnancies. Ok, ok..I am not here to bash anyone and I am. STOP!!!! Anyway…in the end this founder posted a note to us all to think of what we wanted our babies message to be to the world; what did we want their voice to be and were we really singing their song.
And you know what…I am! I am so very proud of the song I sing for my children. I am so very happy that I am able to tell their story with joy and hope and with peace. I am so glad that God has given me the gift of mercy…the ability to reach out with compassion and empathy…even when reliving it might be hard. I am so glad that He has given me the strength to reach out and even more so, the writing talent to be able to put those words down that give that comfort, hope and strength.
The voice I want for my babies, especially my angel, is the voice I sing with each day. It is a voice of empathy, compassion and support. It’s a song of hope and peace after loss. It’s a song of deep and purposeful meaning of a mission I am confident that God and my angel son guide me sing. It is my song and I will continue to sing it, and pray that will help others, until the day that I day.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!
I know, I am a bit late. Truth be told, I blogged so much in December that I needed to take a break. And now I have one for today and likely another with days.
Today I want to post, publicly, my goals for 2012…not resolutions because if that was the case, I’m already busted. But instead I have goals that I believe will be achievable but I also know that I will struggle with them at times, I will be tempted to quit and I promise that I will work hard at overcoming the obstacles in my way.
Yesterday in church Pastor Jeff spoke about extreme makeovers and what that can look in your relationship with Christ. I think 2011 was the year for that in so many areas of my life. Most definitely in my faith but also, for those that have seen the pictures, in me, my size, my health and my attitude.

This was me in the fall of 2010

This was me in July...about 30lbs lighter but not really exercising yet.

And me just a month ago or so... 50 lbs lighter!!!

And although 2011 consisted of a pretty extreme makeover, I don’t think that it is over yet.
Ephesians 2:10(NLT)
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

I don’t believe that we are ever done growing and changing, that God is ever done working on each of his masterpieces. He gives us challenges, brings us new joy, creates a path for us so that we will do the things that he planned for us the day we were born. Earlier this fall I began reading a book called ‘Thin Within’…not sure if I mentioned it or not. It is a grace approach to weight loss and it really has changed many areas of my life. But I’ve slipped there and found myself unfocused, not listening to my body, to my stomach, to my head and to my heart when it came to food. Well maybe I listened to my heart and ate for emotional reasons but I did not listen to it from the aspect of the love God has for me and how much he wants me to be my God given size.
So my goals for 2012….
My first and most important goal is to learn more about the Lord and grow my relationship with Christ. When I look back at all the things that happened in this past year and at where my faith journey has gone I am amazed and yet I am also aware that many things, positive things, did not change. I was surprised by this. I thought I’d changed, grown and that before I thought differently but I realize that I am the same person deep inside , that what I thought about my life and my journey, what I valued and who I was really aren’t the same inside. The difference is, I think, on the outside. I that is what I wish to work on…projecting the love I have for the Lord in all that I do, to improve the way I interact with others, to follow his teachings in all that I do and say. To achieve the first part of this goal, to learn more about God I am planning to read the bible from start to …..well to wherever I get to I guess. I have started and am following ‘My Daily Bread’ s bible in a year guide. So far I have read up to Genesis 23…and am already about 6 chapters behind. Oh well…all in due time.

Ephesians 4:16 (NLT)
16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

My second goal is centered around my health because I know that I have been given the gift of this life and this healthy body for a reason…I just need to make the body last as long as possible! First and foremost I need to concentrate when I am eating, focus on my food and not get distracted…and therefore eat too much. I need to pay attention to my body and only eat if I am hungry. And above all, I need to remember who gave us the gift of the food we eat and give thanks for it. (A tip from Thin Within… for one meal thank God for each bite you eat as you eat it and really concentrate on how good it tastes…I was amazed how amazing it tasted and how quickly I became full because I took the time to eat and be thankful)
I want to eat healthier (boy have the last few weeks been hard on my weight loss…it’s been a gain). I finally conceded today that I have to enter my current weight into the program I use and stop putting it off until I weigh what I did a month ago or so…that isn’t being honest but moreover it’s not encouraging. I need to see the numbers coming down again on paper or the computer screen, I need my online friends who are part of the program I use (myfitnesspal.com … I highly recommend this program and especially it’s smartphone app) to be able to encourage me when I do put in the weekly weigh in amounts…which at my current weight and loss rate compared to where I was…well it would have been a month maybe before I’d be seeing ‘Jodie has lost 0.5 lbs since her last weigh in (6 weeks ago LOL).

I need to get vegetables back into my diet more and I need to eat sweets less. I need to add in healthier protein and take out more fat. I also, desperately, need to get back to exercising every day. No I need to get back to doing cardio more often and continue exercising every week day and adding in weekends too. Right now I do 20 min utes of weights each morning 4-5 days a week but never get cardio in except to walk extra steps during my work day. I used to walk almost every day for 30-40 minutes. So my goal… 20 min of cardio 2 evenings and one morning a week and 20+ minutes of weights 4 times a week. My goal for the weekends is to take as many steps as possible (chasing Cameron around the arena does count LOL) and do one 20 minute cardio workout over the course of the weekend.

My last goal for 2012 is to finish my book. It’s coming… I wrote (well took from the start of my blog and rewrote) another big section over the holidays AND I finally got it out to a few friends to have them look it over, give me their opinion on the styles I’ve written it in. I still don’t know what I plan to do with it when it is done. I am thinking my first place I will send it to is the publisher of the book that my boys story is already in…. Forever Linked.

But if anyone has suggestions, knows a publisher, has you friend…etc… you get the drift. I’d love to get some information and start looking at that aspect of it.
So 2012 looks like the beginning of another great leg in my journey of life.

Light up my life

2011-12-26T05:48:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that it was as amazing as mine and can only hope that you were as filled with love, joy, hope and peace as I was. I can only hope that it filled you with as much light too.
The final advent candle, advent theme, is light...the light of Christ. The candle is often called the Christ candle and before this year I had really never given that any thought. But then again, until this year, I had never really given much of anything in Advent much of a thought and had never given Christ in my life much of a thought either.
But this year was different for so many reasons. This year I was in a new church, surrounded by candle light, radiant images and amazing new friends (and of course a very wiggly, very loud, very energetic Cameron!!!). This year I found myself mesmerized by the flickering flame of the candle and very absorbed by what the light of Christ really means and what Christmas really means.

I've always been someone who said that we need to celebrate 'the reason for the season', I've always been driven crazy by people that want to change this time of year to 'winterfest', who want us to say 'happy holidays' and who have a 'holiday tree'. I've always known that CHRIST is the first word in Christmas and I've always thought about celebrating Christmas because of the birth of Jesus. I've even been able to well comprehend (or so I thought) that Christ is the light of the world. But this year the Christ candle wasn't just something we light on Christmas eve, the light wasn't just something that flowed from the wreath, the tree. This year that image of Christ's light was totally different.

This year I realized that Christmas is, obviously, not about presents or Christmas trees or Santa. It's not about dinners and time with family and friends (thought those are wonderful). It's not just about Jesus being born in that cold stable to a mother who was a virgin, to an earthly father who, despite knowing that this was not what he ever imagined his life would be and not really want he wanted to do with this woman he was to marry committed to being there for this infant child. It's not just about the miracle of this birth, a baby sent from God the Father. It's not JUST that.
It's about what this birth means, what was given to us in this birth...the light that the world was given through the birth of our saviour. The birth of our saviour...what a term. I mean, how many times have you used it, sang it, said it and seen it written. For me, it was just part of what I said at Christmas but now, well now it is something that just amazes me, brings me hope and makes me want to cry tears of joy for the wonderment of this gift.
God gave us the best Christmas present ever. He gave us a baby that would grow up to teach the world and to change the world. He gave us His son, knowing that this child would grow to be a man who would not live an easy life but who would build a legacy. He gave us His son knowing that man would eventually kill His child. He knowingly brought this baby into the world to die.
But what a death that would be. A death that erases all of our sin, a death that brings us to the Lord. That little baby wasn't just someone who was going to change the way that we thought of God, he wasn't just a baby who would change the world's thinking. He was a baby that would do all these things and then, when the time came for man to fear the changes this baby who had grown to be a powerful teacher brought, the power that he had over all who believed in him and his father, he would willingly die to further teach these people. He gave his life so that we could be forever forgiven of our sins. He gave his life so that we could have eternal life by simply admitting that he is the son of God, that he gave his life for us, that he is our Saviour and by asking for forgiveness for these sins and for Christ to live in our hearts and in our lives.
Christmas for me, now , means so much more than just his birth and the celebration of it. I always got that part, I always understood Christmas to be the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus. But now I get that it is the celebration of the birth of change, of a gift greater than anything imaginable. It is the celebration of the love of a wondrous God, the celebration of a joy that fills the earth. It is the celebration of the hope that our lives have great purpose even during the times that we are so unsure, so burdened. The celebration of a hope for eternal life, of salvation. It is the celebration of a peace that fills us when we know that we have this gift, this love, joy and hope. A peace that fills us when we know that we are a forgiven people because Christ loved us so much.
Christmas will never be the same for me again because I get it now, I get how amazing this gift really is.

May this light fill your life, may the love of Christ, the joy of the spirit, the hope for tomorrow and the peace that fills your heart fill you with light.
Merry Christmas everyone!

And Peace...at last

2011-12-24T08:42:00.000-08:00

I've thought a lot about how I want to end this last entry for this project I took on. I am actually not entirely sure this is the last one as I thought I might blog about light...as the light of Christ, the Christ candle is the last candle light in some faith practices. Regardless how to blog about peace...at last. I decided to pull from two blog entries from all most one year ago as that was where this peace I have felt for the last year began to happen. I am so much further ahead from even then and I know that the thanks for that falls entirely at the feet of our Lord. He has done this for me and I am so amazed by everything that has happened in my life in the last year. Anyway...

One more comforting thing I want to share. It’s personal and completely about Cole. Well not completely. I wanted to share about my intense feelings of things being okay and being at the greatest place of peace I have ever felt since he passed away. The reason... Brian, my friend who passed away a few weeks ago. Recently I have been feeling such an intense sense of calmness and peace when it comes to Cole and I really believe that is because I believe that Brian is looking after Cole...and maybe Cole is looking after Brian too. I think that in my heart I just needed to know that Cole was being looked after in Heaven, wherever that may be. That someone was stepping into the role of parent and raising my son for me. I know that God is there for him, but let’s be honest, He’s got a lot on his plate. I am sure that God has many great parents up there for Cole but it brings me great comfort to know that one of my friends will be giving the love that he had for his kids here on earth and doing the amazing job he did as Dad to them to my son. As much as it makes me so very sad that Cole will spend his life away from me and that Brian will not be there to see his kids grow up, it also makes me feel very much at peace to know that he is there for Cole and that they will have each other.

and

Something that I have stressed often though is that this is so very hard to get to, this place of peace, for some anyway. Actually it isn't the place of peace that comes first for me, it's the place of acceptance. It has taken me so long to accept that I just have no control over the major things that happen in my life. When we found out we were expecting the twins I was blown away...couldn't have seen that one coming for anything. I questioned why and how but came to a place of acceptance. When we lost Cole I questioned again and in all honesty I am not always done questioning. But right from the start I believed there was great purpose for this 'twinness' to come to my life, for Cole to be my son in Heaven and not on earth. I believed God had a plan for me, the mommy left behind. When I was in the very early stages of the loss..the first 3 months or so after he passed away...really before he was born, I was sure I knew part of the reason... I felt it MUST be to bring our family closer, to get Geoff and I working together better as parents etc. Each time that would blow up in my face, each time I would get a call from home that left me upset, angry, frustrated etc. I would question this plan or question myself. In time (okay in a very very long time) I came to realize that I just might not EVER understand fully this plan but I could accept it, I could take God into my heart and ask Him to help me get there, help me make good choices, help me be what He wants me to be...to guide me. I feel so drawn to helping others, so drawn to fundraising, raising awareness and now to writing my book. I am very certain that I was left behind for a reason and that part of this is the reason.
Incidentally, I am thinking of calling the book "The Ones Left Behind" but struggle with this since the first third of the book or so will be about the pregnancy and before the loss...but we'll see. And for those reading this who wonder what the heck I am talking about...I set a lofty goal for 2011...to turn this blog and other writing I've done into a book about our TTTS journey. So far it reads like letters to my boys but in adult tones. Some of it is conversation and interactions with others and others is just feelings, emotions and personal messages to them. I hope that it will all come together to show how much my boys have taught me and that being left behind with an angel watching out for you is a pretty amazing thing.
I'm going to leave this blog with another poem that was shared online in this same group...I really like it and think it captures just how I've come to feel about God...

No Footprints

I've listened to the "footprints" poem
a million times or more
Of how when only one set shows
upon the sandy shore
It is the Lord carrying us
and taking on our load
And His are the only set
of footprints that showed.

But what if when we look
there are no footprints to be found?
All we see is plain and simple
sand upon the ground.
No imprints showing that our Lord
is carrying us through life
Helping us when we feel
we can not handle all this strife.

Where is my Lord now that I've fallen
and can't seem to get back up?
So tired and lonely
trying to deal with what seems
an overflowing cup.
Where are those footprints
in the sand
to tell me He's right there?
Helping me with problems
and showing that He really does care.

Does He have favorites, OH NO,
please tell me that's not so!
By why does life seem easier
for some people that I know?
And sometimes I just scream out loud
although it seems in vain,
but often it gets harder each day
to deal with all this pain.

And then it dawned on me
as I realize how simple could it be.
I wonder why I was so blind
that I truly did not see.
It must have been a lightning bolt
that one day gave me light,
Cause out of the clear blue sky,
I finally regained my sight.

I saw a fluffy white cloud
shaped like an Angel dear.
That helped me to understand
and see things oh so clear,
That when I saw no footprints
and so often wondered why,
My Lord carried me on Angel wings,
when He decided to fly.
(by LyndyAngel)

There just seemed to be no other words than the ones I've already wrote to convey this journey of peace. It's an ongoing journey but one I know that I can feel confident is no longer in it's infancy. This project has kept it real for me this year...I searched for scripture on hope, love, joy and peace but more than that, I have searched my soul for these things. I am so very happy that peace is the last week because it just comes all together and the end result is peace. Even this week, that brought such sadness to me and so many of my friends, past co-workers and past students...even with that, I am still so full of peace.
May God bless you all with peace now and forever.
Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you and Happy Birthday dear Jesus...I am so very glad You came here to save us all and so filled with joy that You have come into my life and my heart.

Peace after loss...poems and messages to give hope and peace

2011-12-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Today is a sad day...I didn't want to end my last week before Christmas holidays saying goodbye to a dear friend, but I did. I wept many tears today and hugged many a good friend. I felt peace in God's house though, and I think, all in all, I am doing okay.
I decided to just put some poems here today that I found...I don't have the energy to write much...maybe tomorrow....

Peace my heart...

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.
Let it not be a death but completeness.
Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.
Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.
Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.
Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.
I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.

~Rabindranath Tagore

A Parable of Immortality

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch until at last she hangs
like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says,
" There she goes! "

Gone where?

Gone from my sight . . . that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
as she was when she left my side
and just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the place of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment
when someone at my side says,
" There she goes! "
there are other eyes watching her coming . . .
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout . . .

" Here she comes! "

~Henry Van Dyke

Path Of Peace
By Paul Mc Cann

Peace is an easy path to tread
Peace is where our fears are mislaid
Peace is beginning to restore
Peace for each man, woman and child
Peace for the troubled streets gone wild
Peace is for the old and the young
Peace in the end will overcome
Peace builds trust into a lifestyle
Peace is a friendly open hand
Peace is a place to understand
Peace in the end will overcome
Peace is for the old and the young
Peace is a legacy to leave
Peace is when we don't have to grieve
Peace is and end to all the hate
Peace is why we negotiate
Peace for all the victims of war

Peace be with you Laurie and with your loving family...you shall be missed so much my friend.

Finding your peace

2011-12-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

I decided today to write about some of the things that I have been working on to achieve my inner peace. Not all of them work, not all are my ideas or things I have done but they are things I have read about and researched and I think worth sharing.

Acceptance
As hard as it is, your life is not yours and there are things you cannot change. There is only so much we can influence or affect adn what we can't change, should not be a concern to us. I have noticed with so many people, that they focus on the things that have happened, on the things that we have no control over. Why worry about something that all the worrying in the world will not change? Why should we care about what other people think of us when we really have no idea what they are thinking anyway? Once you open your eyes to this, open your mind to the fact that there are things that you have no influence, and start accepting that you cannot change it, you immediately relieve yourself of a mountain of worry and anxiety. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted from your shoulders. Taking this path leads to a road of peace.
This has been very instrumental for me in the last few months in achieving my sense of peace. I used to live for wishes, what ifs and thoughts of change. I used to worry about what others thought of me (okay, I am still working on this one) and about things that were beyond my control. I have worked at giving this worry up, trusting in God and just living for each moment.

Meditate
I don't do this enough but I am trying. A resource I found online says that if you have a lot on your mind and you feel like your thoughts are driving you crazy, meditation can help you find peace. Simply close everything, sit back, close your eyes, and clear your mind of every single thought. Focus on the emptiness. I have a hard time shutting off my thoughts, even for just a few minutes but I am trying.

Spend time in nature

We spend so much time indoors, so much time at a desk, a computer, an office, in a car... our time often doesn't feel like our own. But we humans naturally belong in nature and that is why it feels good to be outdoors when you choose to be (I don't choose to be on yard duty and therefore, in -10 C weather, with the snow and wind blowing , I don't find a lot of peace! But when I can, I go for a walk. I often pray then or talk to God. In the fall I often take my camera and capture pictures of what brings me Joy in God's great world. If you feel overwhelmed, take a stroll outside where there are tons of trees and far from the city. Be there and just enjoy the sights, the sounds, and the peace.

Learn the power of a smile
I stole this directly from a blog....
Whenever you are laughing or smiling, something interesting happens. Not only does something happen on a chemical level to make you feel better, but it also stops all stress and negativity from entering your psyche. A simple smile can make such a difference. For example, the other day I mishandled a dish and it fell on the floor, breaking into pieces, creating a big mess. Now, I could have been angry with myself for being clumsy and thinking “here’s another reason why life sucks!”. But I did the opposite. I began to smile and kind of make fun of myself for not being able to hold on to that plate properly. As I cleaned up the mess, there was no bitterness or anger. As a matter of fact, I did it with a smile on my face…I did it with peace. So whenever you find yourself in a similar predicament, just think of the silver lining, and don’t be shy to poke fun at yourself. You will quickly realize that peace finds its way much more easily to you when you smile.
I smile a lot... so many people have commented that I've seemed so strong and so positive about the journey my life has taken. So many people are so surprised and concerned when that smile is not on my face...so I guess I do a good job of bringing peace through my smile!

Think outwardly

Sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in our own world, our own worries and fears. But looking around you, looking at the world and seeing what is out there opens our eyes to the realization that the world does not revolve around our problems. Sometimes we just need to remember how big the world is. Read up on other countries, educate yourself about other countries. It helps to humble us I think. Looking beyond ourselves is very important in finding peace and leads to....

Care for others

You can't find inner peace by looking in the mirror. You need to look around you and not only focus on your own needs and wants. When you begin to genuinely care about other people, so much goodness just seems to be everywhere. This in turn helps in solidifying your inner peace. It can be people close to you or absolute strangers, but any act of kindness and goodwill brings out personal peace. When I help other people, I stop thinking about all that is supposedly wrong in my life, I forget about what causes me to be sad or what brought me to this place and I begin to see all the amazingly awesome things in my life. And then I realize that my life isn’t so bad after all. There is great peace and wisdom in thinking and caring about other people, which we are blind to when we are too deep within our own selfish ways.

Never lose hope
I think I covered so much of this in the first week but hope is something you can never afford to lose. Hope brings, to you, a road to peace. When we get caught up in stress, worry and are overwhelmed within our own life, we forget that hope. We seem to forget that the sun always shines tomorrow, and that this is merely a jog in the road that we weren't planning to take. It has taken me a long time to come to this point of believing deep within my heart, that everything will be ok. But I have gotten there and it has brought me such peace. With hope, I know that whatever seems horrible, is only temporary and that eventually, things will be just fine.

Embrace your faith or beliefs
You obviously all know that I am a Christian and have found great peace in a realtionship with Christ but do I believe that is the only way to find peace...I am not sure. What I do know is that whatever you believe, you must embrace it with your entire being. Be within that beliefe, that faith 100% and peace will find its way into your heart. We may not all agree on what to believe, on what faith is the way etc but we can all likely admit that those that have a strong faith are those that we know that have found peace. There is a reason why research has shown that people that are deeply devoted to their faith have a higher life expectancy and are less likely to have diseases such as cancer. This is because they experience more inner peace, which is important if you want to increase the quality of your life.

Live in the now
Most of the time, what we worry about is relating to something either in the past, or something that hasn’t happened. Living in the present moment erases all of this. Can you change the past...nope! Should we worry about things that we don't even know if or when they will happen? Of course not...do we do it, of course! Today is a gift, that's why it's called the present. In this very moment, living for now...that is where you find true inner peace. In the present moment, there are no problems and no concerns. There is only stillness, and it is within that stillness that you can uncover peace. I used to be someone who worried about things that had already happened, things I had done or said etc. I worried how that would affect my future, I worried what others thought of me because of it. I realized that I can't change what has already happened and that most likely, it happened for a reason that is beyond my scope. I realized that even the best laid plans for the future are completely out of our control in all essence. Once I learned to live in the present moment, I stopped thinking about the past and any potential future, and just worried about being ever-present in each and every moment. My life is definitely more peaceful since then!

My peace I give to you....

2011-12-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

Philippians 4:6-7(NLT)
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."

I know I have blogged about this before but in light of the heaviness of my heart in the last two days, I thought I’d search for scripture on peace again and remind myself how peace is achieved…true spiritual peace.
It is hard not to worry, it comes naturally, especially to women. I try, daily, not to worry about our financial situation. It is a struggle but I am succeeding. I gave it up to God months ago and I continue to hand my worries over to him daily. I can’t believe the sense of peace I have this year about so many areas. I am aching with the loss of a dear friend and yet my heart is at peace with it too. I miss my son and yet I am feel so little sadness and NO bitterness, anger or negativity this year. Any other time we’ve been through job loss…and it’s never lasted longer than 2 months (it’s been a solid 6 now) I would be panicking daily, fighting with Geoff often and so very negative. And I am just, well not, this time.
This peace, most certainly, exceeds anything I can understand. I have no way to explain how I feel except to say that I know how much I have welcomed Christ into my life and have to give the credit, 100%, to Him.

John 14:27 (NLT)
27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”

There are lots of ways that you could interpret this. When I first looked at it I thought of the gift that it is when we do not worry, when we feel peaceful inside. That really is a gift and this holiday season is likely the best gift I’ve had. The world can’t give us this peace, it has to come from God. I had many friends, especially TTTS mom’s who journeyed this road before me, that helped me find this peace. I had tons of encouragement to raise awareness and funds and that also helped to bring me peace. But the world didn’t control that, God did. He brought those people to me, He pushed me to reach out, He planted the ideas of fundraising in my head.
But that is not all that this passage is telling us. When I began looking into interpretations of this scripture I found some great reading on the gift that ‘peace of mind and heart’ is… “the greatest blessing that God gives us is peace in our heart and the hope of eternal life. These are the things that are real. If we seize the opportunity in our short and uncertain lives to seek true peace and eternal life, then our lives will be valuable and meaningful.”

God gave us this gift, originally, in the form of his Son, Jesus Christ. True peace can only come through Jesus Christ. In other translations, the above scripture puts it in a different form "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid"(Jn 14:27). The true peace from God is not of the world, it surpasses the world. "The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"(Phil 4:7).
A person is saved by their faith and not by the act that brings them to this saving. There are many stories of people who have been ill, in an accident and even, in the case of many TTTS moms I know, grieving a loss and they reach out to a God they’ve never known, never had a relationship with. They are healed, their life becomes ‘better’, they are more at peace etc. These acts aren’t the miracle, not the gift. The gift is the faith itself. They no longer are worried about their illness or their grief because they know that God is with them and will take care of them.

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Heb 11:1).

May you be filled with faith, filled peace of mind and heart this holiday season.

Farewell to a Peacemaker sent from heaven....

2011-12-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

There is a place in you where there is perfect peace.
There is a place in you where nothing is impossible.
There is a place in you where the strength of God abides.

I found this quote today and thought that it just suited my mood... because somewhere inside of me there is peace and God abides and I am just praying that this will sustain me right now. I am feeling so very sad at the news of the loss of a wonderful person, past co-worker and friend. Beyond that, I am feeling so very shocked at this loss.
Laurie was 46 and in perfect health. There was just no way that anyone would have predicted this...not that anyone does. But heart attacks don't happen to young, thin, healthy females.
I met Laurie during my first year working in Woodstock and she soon became like a mom...despite not being that much older than me. She always had a smile, always was positive and had wonderful things to say about everyone. She listened, she offered advice and she gave me a sense of peace when I was at work... in a job and setting that had some significant stresses.Ok, who am I kidding, we had a ton of stress and someone we worked with was manipulative, intimidating, untrustworthy, and had behaviour that more than bordered on harassment. Laurie would always make me feel supported and appreciated when you would come out from one of your manipulation sessions with him. She would do her best to bring peace to you and to make peace for you.
I miscarried at work one day when there and Laurie just wrapped her arms around me, told me it would be okay and sent me on my way with a promise to look after anything that needed to be done. She was one of the first people I told when I found I was expecting the next time and she was just an amazing support person during my pregnancy with Brycen. No matter how tired I looked or stressed I got, she always had a compliment.
She was the first person from work that I showed my ultrasound to when I found out about the twins. The next 12 weeks at that school were amazing. Each appointment I had, Laurie would ask how it went, did we know sex yet, etc. She wanted to see each ultrasound picture when I came back from those appointments too. I think she was more excited than I was... and I guess that was easy in a way since I was pretty stressed out. Laurie did her best to give me confidence and in turn a sense of peace about the twins. She always told me how good of a twin mommy I'd be and offered help and support in every way.
When we lost Cole, she sent me the most beautiful email and was a faithful follower of the blog I kept during the remainder of the pregnancy.
I haven't worked with her in a few years but ran into her every so often and she'd always ask all about me, about us...never telling me things about her first... so self-less and giving. Even though it's been years since we worked together, she will be a person that I will miss dearly from my life.
I really believe that God brought Laurie to this earth of ours to bring peace to others. She was a peacemaker, a confidence booster, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on and most of all, an amazing friend. She brought peace to all who met her and I know she is the best example of a person of peace.

The most amazing account of Peace

2011-12-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

The Truce of 1914
In 1914 when soldiers in Europe marched out to the first great European war of the 20th century, they said they would be home by Christmas to celebrate their victory.

The young men were not home by Christmas. The war dragged on and on for years and Europe was never to be the same again.

In December of 1914, however, a strange thing happened on the Western front. It was Christmas Eve, and the weather suddenly got cold, freezing the slush and water of the trenches in which the men were bunkered down. In the German trenches soldiers started lighting candles. British sentries reported that there appeared to be small lights, raised on poles or bayonets and although these lanterns clearly illuminated the German troops, the British held their fire. Even more startlingly, British officers saw through binoculars that some enemy troops were holding Christmas trees over their heads with lighted candles in their branches!'' The Germans, who celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, were extending holiday greetings to their enemies.

A few German soldiers started singing carols and it was soon picked up all along the line as others joined in harmonizing. Then they began singing "Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!" The British immediately recognized the melody and began singing "Silent Night" along with the Germans.

Then occurred one of the most unusual incidents in military history. One by one, soldiers on both sides laid down their weapons and ventured into no man's land - too many of them to prevent their superior officers from objecting. An undeclared truce had broken out spontaneously, against all orders and the rules of military combat.

One eye-witness account of the unofficial truce is given in the wartime diary kept by veteran Frank Richards. In it he wrote:"We stuck up a board with 'Merry Christmas' on it. The enemy stuck up a similar one.

"Two of our men threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads as two of the Germans did the same, our two going to meet them. They shook hands and then we all got out of the trench and so did the Germans."

Richards explained that some German soldiers spoke perfect English. One, who had worked in Brighton before the war, said how fed up he was that they were at war and he would be glad when it was all over. His British counterpart agreed.

The German officers appear to have taken the lead role in the Chritsmans get-together having provided barrels of beer not only for their own men but two barrels for the British soldiers too. The Brits, however, claimed the French-made beer was barely fit to drink. They gave each other small gifts from chocolate bars and tobacco to tins of processed beef. Others joined in and as the day progressed this mass fraternisation spread along the front to include soccer matches between the two forces. Men who the day before had been shooting to kill were sharing tots of rum and showing each other family snapshots.

The men sat around campfires together singing the choruses of Christmas carols, "Silent Night" being the favorite since it was known by both sides. Before midnight they said their farewells and returned to their own lines.
According to Peter Simkins*, of London's Imperial War Museum, the Christmas Truce took place in numerous places along the battlefront.

"Along the British section of the line, about 22 miles in Flanders, particularly on and around Christmas Day (it wasn't just a Christmas Day phenomenon), both sides began to detect in the opposing trenches, certain signs of Christmas celebration (if celebration is the right word in such a setting). Germans would be heard singing, 'Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.'

People would shout messages like: 'Fritz, here. I was a waiter in a Manchester hotel before the war. How are my friends from the Lancashire?' On Christmas Day itself, the first curious, slightly headstrong people, perhaps, from both sides poked their head above the trenches, and being made aware that somebody on the other side wasn't going to shoot it off, then clambered cautiously out. Others followed suit. People stopped in the middle of no-man's-land, shook hands, exchanged buttons and badges, cigarettes. And, this went on, in some parts for two or three days. And, then, partly because the Generals didn't want it to happen, and partly because units moved out of the line and others came in, the thing died away. It was never repeated.
The truce ended just as it had begun, by mutual agreement. Captain C. I. Stockwell, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers recalled how, after a truly "Silent Night," he fired three shots into the air at 8.30 a.m. on December 26th and then climbed onto his parapet. The officer who had given him the beer the previous day also appeared on the German parapet. They bowed, saluted and climbed back into their trenches. A few moments afterwards, Stockwell heard the German fire two shots into the air and, as he said, "The War was on again."

I love this song by Colin Raye that tells this story... what a story to give us hope for peace. It really could happen again and I wish the world peace this Christmas.

Peace... a great way to wrap it up

2011-12-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

Oops...forgot to post this yesterday...what can I say, Christmas pageant at church, famiy Christmas...sigh... someday I will sleep!!!

This final week of advent is the week of Peace. As I said in my last posting, I am amazed by the sense of peace that I feel this year. This blogging project has made me think and kept me focused on the many gifts in my life. I know that a year ago I never dreamed that I’d find the peace that I have now. Yesterday at a class we’ve been taking at our church we were discussing the Holy Spirit and how it works in us. This lead to a conversation about how we don’t always see the spirit working, that we aren’t always aware of what is happening and that even more so, we aren’t always ready to accept the spirit working within us. One of the other members said that about 10 years ago she asked God for forgiveness and invited Jesus into her heart and life but it’s only been in the last year or so that she’s felt the spirit moving within her. Our group leader said that perhaps that was because she just wasn’t ready. It wasn’t that her life wasn’t changing, wasn’t affected by her newfound love of the Lord but rather that the spirit was waiting for her to be ready to receive and envelope all that was possible.
That got me to thinking about my life right now, most especially in the last 10 days or so. I realized that maybe that is exactly why I am feeling this sense of peace…because I was open to it, open to the Holy Spirit working within me to feel that peace and from there, share it. I remember the first few months after we lost Cole when I couldn’t figure out how to feel. I think of the next 18 months or so after that when I just felt so sad, lost, hurt and sometimes angry. I think of last year at this time when I was in a better place but still missing my son so very much. And when I reflect on the last few weeks of my life and the peace I have been feeling I realize that the last few months have lead to that. I have grown and changed with the guidance of the Lord and have felt and seen the Holy Spirit moving within my life. I love going to church, not for who I see there (which was really what I felt was the best thing about church before) but for what I learn, how I feel and the peace it gives me.
I am feeling just so very blessed this year, this holiday season and have such a sense of peace.

Finding joy in hard times

2011-12-17T12:13:00.000-08:00

I have a few things left that I want to share on this last day of the week of Joy. The first is a small book that was given to me by my friend Julie after we lost Cole. She was one of the first people to reach out to me in the first few days after we learned he was gone. She reached out because, sadly, she got it...she'd been there. Not in our exact shoes but she knew what it was like to find out that the bundle of joy you'd hoped to hold in your arms would, instead, be a child you can only hold forever in your heart. I had planned to share this one Tuesday but I forgot. It is a book that made me cry but then suddenly made me feel joy....

Born to Fly - An Infant's Journey to God
by Cindy Claussen
A miracle happened.
A life has begun.
"Are you there, God?"
"Yes, I am here, Nathan," the Lord whispered.
"Where am I?"
"You are in the womb of your mother," God smiled.
"I feel warmth on my back" Nathan whispered.
"Yes, she is rubbing her stomach, caressing you the best she can right now. She is speaking to me, Nathan. She is asking me to care for you."
"I'll kick her back, so she knows I love her, too," Nathan said excitedly.
God smiled
"Now what is she saying, God?"
"Your mother is laughing, Nathan."
"She is happy, isn't she God?"
"Yes Nathan. She is happy."
" I hear a different sound. What is that?"
"It is the voice of your dad, Nathan."
"He sounds strong," Nathan said.
"Yes," answered God.
"Does he love me, too?"
"More than his own life," God whispered.
"When do I get to see him, God?"
"Not for awhile, my son."

"I'm not feeling so well, God."
"I know my son, but soon you will fly."
"I will fly?"
"Yes." God smiled.
"Will my mother fly with me?"
"Someday," God said.
"I think I'm ready," Nathan whispered.
"I know, my child."
"Is it time to fly now, God?"
"Yes," God said gently and wiped his eyes.
"When will I see You, God?"
"Very soon, my son."

"Is that my mother and dad?"
"Yes, Nathan," God said and pulled the child onto His lap.
"Why are they crying?"
"They cry for you, my child," God answered as He wrapped His arms around the boy.
"Why do they cry for me?" Nathan asked.
"Because they want to hold you in their arms, Nathan."
"But instead, You hold me in Your arms, huh, God?"
'Yes, son," God said.
"Why does that make them sad, God? I like it in your arms!"
"They love you very much Nathan. It can make a mommy's and daddy's heart sad when they don't get to hold their children - I know how it feels to watch my child die."
"Have I died, God?"
"Just on earth, Nathan."
"I don't feel dead,I feel very much alive! Watch how fast I can fun!" Nathan crawled down from God's lap.
"Yes, Nathan, you are fast." God clapped.
"Now watch me fly!" Nathan said as he soared high.
"You are amazing!" God laughed.
Nathan settled back in the safety of God's arms and said, "When will my parents fly, God?"
"Someday, my child."
"Will we fly together?"
"Yes, Nathan, my mark is on their foreheads."
"Good," Nathan said. "Will you tell them I am safe and happy?"
"I will comfort them, my child."
"Will they be happy again?"
"Yes, child. They will heal."
"And someday we will all get to be with You, huh, God?"
"Yes, Nathan. Someday," God promised.
"I love you, God" Nathan said as he snuggled close to God.
"I love you too, son," God said as he put His hand on Nathan's head.
"Take good care of my parents until they fly!" Nathan said.
"I promise," God whispered.

It gives me such joy to know that my children were all connected so strongly to God as they grew in my womb. They talked to Him, laughed with Him, shared with Him. He protected them. And in Cole's final moments, God was there with both my boys. Guiding one child to him and comforting his brother as his twin and best friend hugged him one last and said goodbye. It brings me joy to know that God was and is taking care of Cole in Heaven and that He has promised him that we will be reunited again. I debated about saving this story for the end of this blogging project as it encompasses all the themes of advent for me... hope, love, joy and peace. I have such hope that I will see my son and all of my loved ones again. I am filled with love the Father God and for my children. I am filled with joy when I think of that love. And most of all, this book brings me such peace...just an overwhelming sense of peace that God is looking after all of us, that He is sad that we are sad, that He remembers what it is like to see your child die and because of that He knows just how to comfort us and that He will take care of us until we fly.

The other piece I want to share today is my own. The original thoughts and feelings occurred 3 years ago on Monday after we had gone down for an MRI on Cameron's brain three years ago today. After Cole passed away, our once healthy donor, Cameron, became suddenly very sick. They knew he was extremely anemic and weren't sure if they should do a blood transfusion to save him...they might just be saving a very sick baby, one that wouldn't ever be healthy. But they decided to do it and then had us come for an MRI to check the damage to his brain. On that day, December 19/08, two days after the MRI, we learned that our unborn son was going to be perfectly fine, there were no significant signs of brain damage. Oh the joy we felt...
an excerpt from my book based on emails and messages sent around that time

Yesterday we traveled to Toronto to meet with the special pregnancy team at Mt. Sinai. After much scanning and discussions we were given the joyful results that baby Cameron is a normal 24.5 week baby in every development area. The MRI that I had on Wednesday showed no brain damage or signs of lack of oxygen. His MCA, which is the input levels of blood in his brain that will be monitored for the remainder of the pregnancy have dropped from 60 on Sat. afternoon, to 52 post blood transfusion on Sunday to 37 yesterday....which is within the normal range. He weighs 602 grams, which makes him a viable baby should he be born anytime soon. ...though this is not likely to happen.
We are now only dealing with the very high risks of the remainder of this pregnancy. Due to the hole that was made between Cameron's and Cole's sacs this is now considered a monoamniotic pregnancy and means that the cords could become compressed at any time. It is less likely to happen because Cole is not moving around and should it happen it will not likely become an issue till after 28 weeks. So I will be heavily monitored for this and Cameron will be heavily monitored for growth, development and any further complications from the ordeal that has already occurred. But all in all, it is definitely a moment of Joy!

I am so very grateful for those journal entries, so glad I can go back and read how I was doing then and remember that there were, indeed, moments of Joy. Each time Cameron moved and kicked was a moment of joy, each day I remained pregnant was a moment of joy. And these.....

these were moments of profound joy.

I made it...I made it through this week with minimal sadness, tears or depressive moments. I made it through with absolutely no anger. I made it through by remembering, honoring, celebrating, loving and living. Boy was I wrong last year... this day will not always be about sadness!

He is our Joy

2011-12-16T07:18:00.000-08:00

What brings you the greatest joy in life? Not what brings you joy, but what brings you the greatest joy? Here’s a list of answers I have heard from many people:

-Seeing my kids succeed
-Spending time with my wife/husband/friend
-Talking with my mother or father
-Succeeding at work
-Making money
-Being able to provide for my family
-Playing catch with my son or dolls with my daughter

The list goes on and on. Some people spend their entire lives trying to achieve joy. It seems that life is all about the pursuit of happiness. I am new to the world of personal relationships with Christ, I am new to being born again and renewing my commitment to love the Lord. But even in that newness I can already sense a difference in my sense of personal joy. I am in awe some days of the joy I feel and I am starting to believe that what without a relationship with God, people will never find true joy.
Now I will admit that the previous list is full of things that can bring you some form of joy. But true joy comes from your relationship with God. This kind of joy is real. It doesn’t change and it never fails. I am learning that this should be your greatest joy because when it is, you can enjoy all of the other things in life because you have joy from God. This is the joy that was meant to sustain us. This is the joy that gives life to all of our other joys. This type of joy is what holds you up during difficult times. It’s being optimistic at exasperating times. It’s how you remain hopeful during the worst situations possible.
Joy is a big part of who Christ is. Look around you at His creations, especially us... even as fallen as we are and you will know this is true. Think of the last time you saw a beautiful, rich sunset, a tree covered in fresh snow, a deer bounding gracefully across a field, or the last time you saw the smile on your child’s face. God created us to be joyful because He is joyful. Why do you think we were given the ability to laugh? Why does it take more muscles to frown then to smile? He knew we would need joy in our lives.
But better than the ability to be joyful is that we are His joy. Just as a child is the joy of his parents. Every time a child of His steps closer to Him, every time someone commits their life to Him and works to follow in His footsteps we bring Him inexplicable joy. Our pastor says the every time a new person comes to Christ, there is a party in Heaven. (“I say to you that there will be joy like this before the Angels of God over one sinner who returns home.” Luke 15:10) What could be better than the people He created choosing Him over anything else? He smiles down on us and is flled to the top of his cup with love and joy at this child who loves Him with everything they have, every part of their being.
And He is our joy. All good things come from God. He gave them to us so that we would be joyful. And when we realize how much He loves us, we cannot help but rejoice. When we are satisfied in the love of Christ, we can willingly express the joy we have to others. With any luck others will see that joy they will recognize it as something they want, need, something and were created for.

Joyful words

2011-12-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

Joy is not in things, it is in us.
Richard Wagner
I think we lose sight of this at times…no wait, I think society in general loses sight of this. So often we are a ‘need more, want more’ society and we wish we could have what the neighbours have, wish we could live like the rich guy across town, wish we could travel like our well to do relatives.
Do those that have things really have joy? Do those that have things not have true joy? The answer lies not in what they have but what they are. Not in where they’ve been but where they are going.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
Buddha

I think I have really discovered this in my advent theme blogging project. This is the first year since we lost Cole that I haven’t found myself sinking into a dark pit when the early days of December roll in. I know that it’s not just because of the project. It helps that I have begun to build a relationship with Christ and discovered a great support group of people in some of my fellow LEMC church members. It helps that I pray, reflect and live graciously. But the project has kept me focused on various positive themes, themes of hope, love, joy and peace. Those are the thoughts I’ve had lately and I think that maybe that’s what I have become…more hopeful, more loving, more joyful and more and more at peace.

Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Mark Twain

Grief sure can take care of itself. It can consume you without a backward glance if you let it. I used to think I didn’t let grief run the show for me but I know now that I did. I used it as an excuse to not take care of myself and to hold on to years and years of weight that I really needed to release. I let grief control my free time and spent hours and hours retelling my story, crying over others stories and talking about the negative emotions that my loss brought on.
But not I find I feel joy…not just happiness, not just contentedness but really soul filling joy. I think that having Geoff accept Christ and having him work so hard at self-improvement has given me someone to share my joy with…and that just leads to more joy. In a time where things could be so negative (and in many people’s minds, should be so negative), we are optimistic, peaceful…joyful!

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
Mohandas Gandhi

Now if this isn’t a reflection that speaks volumes, I don’t know what is. I’ve been a volunteer in some way, shape or form for most of my life. I think that I usually found joy in my volunteer work but not always. But I know for sure that I have watched volunteers burn themselves out and just become, well, miserable to be around. I am sure you can all think of people like that too. The project becomes a chore, they become negative and eventually the project either flops or it is decided not to pursue it again because it just wasn’t working, wasn’t successful. If only we could find a way to do our ‘work’, to accomplish our tasks while being filled with joy…being optimistic, hopeful, approachable, compassionate…well the list could go on and on. If that was our approach then I am very certain that many more projects would go ahead, many more volunteers could be found.

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
Mother Teresa

A nice image…a net full of souls caught by the joy we emit as we go about life. When you think about your own life, if you are like me, you can think of someone who has impacted you by their joyful attitude. When you go about life with the optimism that Joy is, when you are full of life, happiness, kindness, graciousness and, well, joy, then you will draw people to you…and change their day, change their mood, change their lives.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
Khalil Gibran

So often people do not remember to pray when thing are going well. At our Wednesday night bible study our pastor always began with asking for praise items. Not prayer items, not requests but instead a time to rejoice for the good things. It seems to be easy to ask for help from the Lord but we seem to forget to be gracious. Thanksgiving shouldn’t be just once a year, we need to give thanks and praise each day. There is always something to be grateful for and there is always joy to be had…you just need to know where to look.

The Joy of Giving

2011-12-14T07:56:00.000-08:00

Before I write this post I need to kind of get something off my chest and also comment about my last post. First of all I am not even sure I should have posted it... it is sad, very, very sad...and I am not. I am not sure why I did and I think I may remove it because I am not sure that it really fits here. And yet....I just wanted to share the book abit, to share where I was and where I am now...because I am in a good place. I think some people believe I focus too much on what happened then and on what we lost. To them I say...well nothing. There is nothing to say. Most can't understand, they've not walked in my shoes, thank God. They also don't live my life and know that I am very much full of joy, hope, love and peace. I know what I lost but I also know what I gained. Talking about it and about Cole does not mean I am focusing on him or that time and not on the 'now'. It simply means, to me anyway, that I am showing where I was, remembering what happened and looking at how far I have come. Thanking God for bringing our whole TTTS journey to my life used to be hard but it really isn't anymore. Can I say I am glad I have a child in Heaven... some days yes! Living in the past and learning from the past are two totally seperate things and I am pretty confident that I am in the later group.

I am different, I am changed, I am me! I talk about it because it matters to me, I focus on it because it is my way to help others on this journey. Helping others makes the journey have a purpose, makes all that we went through seem to have a focus. I feel I am directed to help, to raise awareness, to fundraise and to offer hope to others. I truly believe that God and Cole are directing me that way.
And so on to today's post...

The joy of giving can’t be defined or measured. It can only be felt, again and again, in more ways than we can imagine. For some, the joy of giving, especially this time of year, is giving the material things, the presents and the tokens of our love. It brings great joy to see the faces of others when they open a gift from you. It brings great joy, sometimes, to shop for those things. Giving the gift of money to those who don't have is another amazing feeling as is giving money to places that can help others...the Salvation Army kettle drives or toy drives, sponsoring a foster child in another part of the world, giving money to help a family in need or pledging money to a an organization, foundation, charity etc that can be used for research, for the purchase of needed equipment or for projects that can help others in need. Those are amazing ways to feel the joy of giving.
The joy of giving of yourself is even more satisfying. It is a feeling that envelopes you and for me, gives me peace. Sometimes that giving of yourself is in the form of physical, hands on support and sometimes it is just being the ear to listen and the voice that offers support, encouragement and advice.

Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy.
Buddha

The more I do this type of thing for others, the more joy I feel. Right now in my life, most of that joy is found in giving my time to the TTTS world. Sometimes it is the form of support in online groups, sometimes it's starting those groups myself. Sometimes it is in sharing my story so that others can see that it does get better, easier...that there is hope, there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's amazing what a few words can do for someone who is feeling so lost and overwhelmed with a medical issue affecting their unborn child. It is also amazing to share where you were and where you are now with someone who is new to the world of grief.
My heart is also very much filled with joy when I work at raising funds to support the place that gave us hope, the place that saved my son, to the man who made that happen. It brought me so much joy yesterday to share those funds and that hope with Dr. Ryan. It brought me immense joy to have my whole family there and to have another TTTS mom join me in presenting it.

Sometimes I wonder if all the effort I put in is what I should be doing, is it worth it, does it make a difference?

Yesterday as I watched the joy on Dr. Ryan's face as he looked at the amount on the cheque, as he talked to us about our stories and about what we think would be the most helpful thing to other families...when I heard the thoughts I've had since the day we lost Cole regarding supporting others and being able to be there, at Mt. Sinai (atleast in spirit and then through a voice on the phone or online) to help others, I knew that it does make a difference, it IS where I am supposed to be, what I am supposed to do. And I was enveloped by such JOY!

Dr. Ryan has so many plans and ideas for offering support to others during and after delivery and is especially wanting to support those who are greiving. He wants both Dianna and I on board to help with this and that is just, well AWESOME.

He spent so much time talking with us and listening. He checked out both our survivors...here is a glimpse of the moments with Cameron....

He was just so grateful to all of my family and spent time with Zack asking him about this haircut last time and his bike ride this time.

It was just a day filled with peace and from that, with joy. I am so glad we did it, so glad that Cole's day now has so many great memories attached to it.

The joy of giving...is just amazing!

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are... Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.
R.J. Baughan

Not so much about joy...instead a glimpse at my book

2011-12-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

So today was... really awesome. I had my moments...I cried walking this morning but that was the point of my walk...to meditate, reflect, pray and feel sorrow. I came back sad but okay and remained very okay until we exited onto the Gardner and got closer and closer to Mt. Sinai. (oh wait, most of you don't know how I spent my day...well that is a blog for tomorrow but needless to say I was back where it all began) I began to feel those tears, those memories of that very first journey surrounded me and frankly I thought I might lose it. But I didn't...I let myself have my moment and then I was totally okay. Seeing Dr. Ryan was AWESOME...we spent a ton of time with him...again a blog for tomorrow. We left that part of the Mt. Sinai world and felt good. We went to the hospital, to the place where Cole's heart beat for the last time and it truly was ok. I felt peace, calm and hope. I won't say I felt joy...but I had enough of that to sustain me earlier.
I did okay til we went over to Sick Kids, where our world was shattered with the news that Cole's heart had stopped beating. I did okay, fine really, and then I saw the sign...Cardiology unit and saw the place where I sat and cried as we let people know and waited for the porter to return me to my room at Sinai.
But I left there feeling at peace, feeling the presence of my son and knowing that miracles happened at that area of Toronto.
I came home and decided that, although I am very much at peace and feeling content, I do feel like I need to share a piece of myself from that time. I have decided to share a segment of my book...the one I vowed to write in 2011...yup, no where near done LOL! It isn't the part where joy happens but I sought it out in the last few days because I do remember the joy that I felt when I learned my babies were boys, the optimism I felt about our surgery and about my boys future. Things didn't turn out the way I wanted them too but life has a way of working out okay in the end and bringing joy out of that....again, tomorrow's blog.
For now I leave you with a very unedited segment of my book. I'd love to hear comments, love to know what people think.Just a point of info..it is written in correspondence form... letters, emails, texts, IM, message board posts, chats, etc. Some of it is actually things I wrote at the time and some is a bit of a twist to the actual happenings that I did in order to tell the story. Hopefully those that I have 'used' to help me write this will be okay with that...guess I should have asked them first LOL....

Dear Cameron and Cole; Dec. 11/08
You have names and we have dreams of blue, of trucks, of sandboxes and mud, of bikes and cars and hockey and oh so much more. Boys, boys, boys...wow am I outnumbered. Daddy and I didn’t actually discuss which one of you is which...I guess we’ll leave that till later...maybe even until the day we meet you. Unfortunately I am writing this letter to you on hospital ‘stationary’...from a place that I am very certain is going to be a very important part of your stories when you grow up... Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto...and I am writing because I am just so damned scared about what is happening inside of me.. and so sorry that my body has done this to you. I never ever dreamed we would have any of these type of complications...I skipped those chapters in the twin books...I thought how can this small amount, 15-20% of all identical twin pregnancies, really be something that would happen to us.
I feel so bad for you both. You little baby B are all stuck in there with no room to move and no fluid around you. And Mr. Baby A with so much around you and your little heart working extra hard.
Dr. Whittle seems very optimistic that we’ll be leaving here in a few days with two very healthy babies safe inside me. She explained what treatments could be done to help this problem. The scariest was basically nothing other than monitoring and delivering if and when it reaches a crisis stage. Effectively that is a death sentence to both of you as we are already at a pretty serious stage of the disease and you were both too small to survive life outside the womb. Another treatment involves using a long needle, entering the amniotic sac of baby A and draining off as much of the extra amniotic fluid as possible. This procedure would not stop the TTTS from happening and had a higher chance of neurological impairments but it might buy us some time. The final treatment we were told about is the specialty of Mt. Sinai and is, in fact, the only place in Canada that successfully performs this procedure regularly. It involves inserting a laser in through my abdomen wall and into the uterus. They will use a scope to guide this laser and your dad and I will be able to see you inside of my womb. The risks for both of the last procedures involve things like infection and preterm labour but unlike the amnioreduction, laser treatment will eliminate the TTTS. The success rate on it is a bit scary for us... 50-60% chance of saving both babies and 90% chance of saving one baby. But without the surgery the outcome is the scariest.. 100% chance of losing one or both of you. And even if we don't lose you both, if a recipient baby, you Mr. A, passes away (and she was open that this is far more likely than baby B passing) that the chances of having a survivor are between 6-10% and having a healthy survivor really has a 0% chance of happening.
Daddy and I were in tears but we agreed that we wanted to do what we could to save you both and we asked to meet with Dr. Ryan, the man who will perform this surgery and ultimately be the one responsible for trying to save your lives.
Oh my little sweet boys, I pray that you will be okay. I’ve asked God to make sure everything goes well, that you are safe from this awful disease and I am safe from the complications of surgery. I asked him to give us at least another 10 weeks or more before we meet you both and tell you how much you mean to us. God is good, He’ll look out for all of us.
So much love to you, my sweet miracles,
Love Mommy

32
To: Mom
From: Jodie
Hey there! Just tried to call but am assuming you are on your way to Cheryl’s to get the boys and don’t have your phone with you. Thanks again to you for going to get the boys and please give my eternal gratitude to Cheryl for keeping them overnight and looking after the dog for us. I wish I could have found you yesterday in time.... I just needed a good chat with my mommy as the crazy crisis began.
I am feeling okay this morning. Tired and worried. I didn’t sleep much last night. I am just so damned scared about these little boys and so completely overwhelmed by all we have learned about this disease, the treatment and the health of our boys, Cameron and Cole.
We just met with Dr. Ryan, the amazing doctor that will perform this surgery today. He is such an amazing doctor... professional and yet compassionate, serious and yet casual.
There’s a lot of information to absorb but here’s kind of the rundown on what we learned about the babies, me and my placenta and the surgery that we didn’t know yesterday... or that, unfortunately has changed since yesterday.
The baby that they are most concerned about is known as the recipient or poly (some medical term that I can’t remember but is something like polyhydramy –something...it means too much fluid). Because of all this extra fluid (which is up abit more today) his heart is working hard and they can see that he is ‘stressed’ by looking at some readings in his umbilical dopplers... which is a reading of the flow in and out of his body through his umbilical artery I think. The other baby, the donor, is looking fine...no signs of any organ damage. We found out that the recipients umbilical cord is inserted 11 cm from the placenta into the uterine wall but I have no idea what the means or why it is a concern. I also have an anterior placenta which is why it’s been hard for anyone else to feel these little hockey players inside of me...but makes it a bit harder to do the surgery I think.
These little boys are very tiny, even for their age, and Dr. Ryan was honest with us. If they are born now they will not be saved, there is nothing that can be done for them. He told us that without the surgery I’ll have today that we would lose one for sure and likely both. If we don’t have it and we lose one than the other one will be severely brain damaged. But Dr. Ryan seems hopeful and thinks we caught this in time.
Oh Mom, I am so scared for these boys and for me. I can’t stop crying. Geoff has been great but he’s pretty overwhelmed too. Thankfully they are letting him sleep on a cot in my room so at least I am never alone.
Call me when you get this message okay...I need to hear my mommy right now.
Love
Jod
Sent from my wireless device on the Rogers Network

33
Canadian Parents Message Board – March mommies
Well it's me again. I am thinking it is funny that I made jokes a few days ago about avoiding cities like Toronto as often as I can. I am not avoiding Toronto at all today and am grateful the specialist here at Mt. Sinai hospital as I am here due to complications with my twins. They are experiencing twin to twin transfusion syndrome where one twin is receiving all of the nutrients and is suffering because of it...his heart is working very hard and had they not caught this yesterday it could have been fatal. The other baby is doing very well despite having no amniotic fluid around him. He has no signs of any complications to his organs at all. They are both somewhat small for their age and if things go absolutely horribly and they are born in the next two days they won't survive. BUT my body is showing no signs at all of going into labour....cervix is very long...longer than the average woman with a singleton.
I will be having surgery today to correct this problem and as long as all goes well which the dr's are very confident about and if it doesn't cause me to go into labour or cause any other complications then I should likely carry them for another 10 weeks.
I am so scared and so emotional but need to remain positive.
We now know the sex and testosterone will be flowing in our house. We finally find out their sex...I am going to be WAY outnumbered by boys...two little gents in there!!! We have tentatively named them Cameron and Cole.
Does anyone have any great success stories out there for me...I could use some encouragement.
Thanks girls!

34
Dear Friends;
Thank you for your continued prayers, texts, emails and calls. They mean so much to us and are so needed.
I am back from surgery and things went well. I was pretty out of it and didn’t get to see our boys from inside (on the camera on the scope) but Geoff did and says they look handsome. There was even a moment where baby B reached out through a hole in their dividing membrane as if to comfort his sick twin. This hole in the dividing membrane is a further complications which will mean a much more watched pregnancy and a guarantee of delivery in London or here but Dr. Ryan feels confident that he disconnected all the vessels connecting the babies and that TTTS will no longer be an issue for us.
The baby that had too much fluid, the recipient, was looking weaker and is a very sick baby. Dr. Ryan is very concerned about him and will be sending us for a fetal echo cardiogram tomorrow morning. I am so scared for my babies and ask for many prayers for all of us, especially little baby A.
I am off to eat...finally... no food since last night and unfortunately its Swiss Chalet for again...the only thing open that we know of near here.
I’ll update you all tomorrow after the echo. Thanks again.
Jodie and Geoff

35 Mommies of Multiples Message Board
Update for you guys. Everything regarding surgery went very well. All vessels that were causing the transfer have been sealed off so that problem will be fixed. Prior to surgery we learned that our recipient baby moved from stage 3 to stage 4 with there now being fluid in his abdomen as well. This is very surprising to Dr. Ryan as TTTS does not usually progress so rapidly... it is also very concerning as his heart is damaged. Tomorrow I have to have an echo cardio ultrasound on the baby to see what damage is there....hopefully nothing serious.
During the surgery another problem came up...in order to get to all areas in the placenta that were affected they had to make a small hole in the sac separating the babies. Immediately the fluid moved from the one baby to the other...which meant immediate relief for them BUT it also means that they are now not completely separated so I will be VERY heavily monitored and could end up in the hospital to monitor them to ensure their cords don't entangle. It will also mean a definite c-section and most likely an early delivery but not as early as now....at a very viable stage. I am so happy, so much stress has been alleviated.
Other than that I am good. ...tired, a bit crampy and drained!!!
Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts....keep them coming as we aren't out danger yet but it is looking much better!

36
Dear Cole and Cameron;
Daddy wants me to write to you and tell you how handsome you are and how excited he was to see you inside of me. I wish I was able to see you too but I didn’t have my glasses on and was pretty sedated so it wasn’t really possible.
The surgery seemed to go well. I am very tired and uncomfortable but I feel confident and happy that this problem will be behind us.
Right now I can’t feel you moving because they gave us some meds to keep you calm during surgery. I can hardly wait to feel you kick and punch me again so I know that all is well.
Things must seem different in there now for you both... more room for one and less room for the other. Daddy says that one of you reached over as if to give the other a high five or maybe a hug just at the end of the surgery and that brings me great comfort. I am so glad you have each other, so glad you will always have each other. What an awesome thing it will be to grow up with your best friend right beside you.
I know I’ve told you this over and over but I want you to know how much I love you and how much I want you to be in my life. I know I was pretty nervous at the start and couldn’t imagine my life with two little babies. Now I can’t imagine my life without you both. Thankfully this surgery has eliminated so much of our medical issues and we will hopefully go on to have an uneventful few months.
Time for mommy to go to sleep. I hardly slept last night because I was so scared and worried. Tonight I think I am too exhausted to do much other than sleep.
I love you both so much Cole and Cameron... you are my little miracles!
Love
Mommy
37
Text
To: Mom
Hey there! Just heading over to Sick Kids now for the echo cardiogram.
To: Jodie
How are things today? How are you feeling?
To: Mom
Things seem good today. I felt some strong kicks from the baby that is sicker this morning and am so glad to know he’s healthy enough to kick his momma.
To: Jodie
That’s great. I’ve had you on my mind all morning. Heading to St. Catherine’s now.
To: Mom
Say hi to the whole family for me. Can’t believe I’m missing Christmas...first time EVER.
To: Jodie
I think you have more important things to do today.
To: Mom
I guess. Hug and kiss the boys for me and tell them their baby brothers are doing great. Bye.
To: Jodie
Will do. Take care. Bye. Love you.

37
My dearest sweet sons;
I don’t know how to write this, I don’t know how I can express how shattered my heart is. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. I don’t want to write it, I just want to turn back time to Thursday morning and start all over again. Tell me I can do that....PLEASE tell me I can do that. I can hardly breathe right now, I can’t see this paper for the tears streaming down my cheeks.
I don’t know how you tell a child you ‘ve loved from the moment you learned they were with you that you will never get to see them take their first breath and hear their first cry, never get to see them take their first steps, never feel their hugs, kiss away their tears, never see them go to school, graduate or get married. Oh my sweet children, I am heartbroken that you won’t get to grow up together, that you will not share that twin bond and will not be the best of friends.
I am heartbroken, I am shattered. I want to scream, to rip things from the walls of this horrible hospital room. I want to run back to that doctor at Sick Kids who said “this baby has no heartbeat. I’m sorry your baby has died” and tell him he’s wrong, he’s so very wrong. I felt you move, I know I did...he’s got to be wrong.
Oh my dear sweet innocent baby A how I ache to hold you, to tell you how sorry I am that I couldn’t protect you. I have never even met you and I know I will miss you forever. The world will never be the same, I will forever be broken, part of my heart missing.
Oh Cameron and Cole I love you both so much and I am so very sorry, so very sad, so heartbroken and so lost. How will I ever make it out of this, how do I go on?
Mommy

38 Text
To: Jodie
Just got Geoff’s text. I am so very sorry and so shocked. Will call when my shift is over.
To: Charotte
Thanks. I am beside myself, can’t stop shaking, crying or feeling sick.
To: Jodie
Oh my dear friend how I hurt for you. I wish I could be there to hold you while you cry.
To: Charlotte
I love you my friend...and wish you were here too. Mom and Dad will be here soon, thank God.
To: Jodie
That’s good. How’s Geoff holding up?
To: Charlotte
He’s a mess. He keeps leaving the room in tears...going for a smoke he says. I know he just doesn’t want to upset me more but I wish he’d stay
To: Jodie
Men are a tough aren’t they. Oh sweetie I wish I could take this all away.
To: Charlotte
I wish I could send it all away. I want to start this weekend over! Gotta go, just been called to ultrasound to meet with Dr. Ryan. Pray for us and our babies, no idea if the other twin is okay or not.
To: Jodie
Will do...will send a prayer circle request out later too. Talk to you tonight after my shift. Love you!

39
Dear Friends;
This is, by far, the hardest email that I have ever had to write. I am shattered and heartbroken, lost, confused and devastated. I can’t believe I have to let our close friends know this via email but even more heartwrenching that I even have to write this. Putting it in writing makes it real and I don’t want it to be real, I don’t want it to be anything but the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. This morning, at 11:00 or so, we learned that one of our sweet boys had become an angel. The doctor has explained to us that because the fluid transfused so quickly to baby A, his heart was working very hard. They compared it to a senior who has problems with fluid retention… the heart has to work that much harder to keep up with all the extra fluids. And this morning that became to much for our son and his heart gave out.
We are, as you can imagine, beyond devastated and so very confused . So much for our dreams of matching clothes, matching toys and matching boys.
Right now, though our other baby is looking strong, he is also in a life threatening position as well. He has a very very low blood volume and they are sure that he needs a blood transfusion. It will be done tonight and we can only pray that it will have the desired affect and he will not suffer brain damage.
our doctor continues to amaze us with his compassion but steadfast dedication and we ask that you all pray for success for this procedure. We also need your prayers for us…as we deal with all that the last 48 hours or so has handed to us.
I will keep you posted and let you know how the procedure goes.
Thanks
Jodie and Geoff
Sent from my wireless device on the Rogers Network

Is there Joy is this day???

2011-12-13T05:33:00.000-08:00

Christmas in Heaven

I see the countless Christmas trees
Around the world below,
With tiny lights like heaven's stars
Reflecting in the snow.

...The sight is so spectacular
Please wipe away that tear
For I'm spending Christmas
With Jesus Christ this year.

I hear the many Christmas songs
That people hold so dear
But earthly music can't compare
With the Christmas choir up here.

I have no words to tell you
The joy their voices bring
For it's beyond description
To hear the angels sing.

I know how much you miss me,
Trust God and have no fear
For I'm spending Christmas
With Jesus Christ this year.

I can't tell you of the splendor
Or the peace here in this place.
Can you imagine Christmas
With our Savior, face to face?

May God uplift your spirit
As I tell Him of your love
Then pray for one another
As you lift your eyes above.

Please let your hearts be joyful
And let your spirits sing
For I'm spending Christmas in Heaven
And I'm walking with the King!"

By Wanda Bencke

I used this entry last year to wish my dear sweet baby boy a Merry Christmas last year. I picture him, looking at us like these pictures show, watching us with joy in his eyes as he witnesses all the amazing things heaven has in store for us. I just finished reading "Heaven is For Real" and I am so....amazed.... about the things that this little boy, Colton, tells of heaven. But more that that, I am so at peace with the knowledge that my son is there and he will know us when we get there and we will know him..instantly. It brings me Joy on this day, this third anniversary of the day we learned that Cole would not be coming home with us that he, instead, lives in a home so filled with beauty, joy, love, peace and hope. It is hard, it is sad and it isn't what I ever wanted. But it is what it is, it is my life and I am making it all that it can be with the help of the Lord. I can feel joy today because I know that my son is there with Jesus, sitting on his knee and enjoying the most amazing things. It brings me Joy to know that because I have accepted Jesus and am building a relationship with Him, that I will (well this is how I perceive it and I'm sure some will argue this with me) go to Heaven one day and I will see my son again. My heart, today on this sad day, is still filled with joy.

Incidentally I do need to add that I do not believe that Cole left us this day three years ago and went to be Jesus. I truly believe that his spirit remained with us for the rest of the pregnancy and that he kept his mommy and his twin brother safe for the 10.5 weeks that I remained pregnant after his heart stopped beating. So this isn't really the third anniversary of the day Cole left us for Heaven, just the third anniversary of the day that changed our lives forever, the third anniversary of the day we knew that our twins would be born together to grow apart.

Laying it down for joy

2011-12-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

James 1 :2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

This verse couldn't be more true, when trials come and we turn to God, He finally has our attention. We look up, with tear stained faces and ask "Why God?" Waiting, listening for some kind of answer or hope that He can give. And then we learn, we learn that trials make us stronger and teach us to rely on God more than anything else could.

Sometimes I ponder my life before our loss and wonder who I really was back then…and who I’d be today if we hadn’t experienced TTTS and the loss of one of our twins. Would I really understand the words hope, faith, peace and joy and would I know Christ. I have to think that I wouldn’t, I have to think that this journey needed to happen to bring this all into my life.
I wish it didn’t involve loss to get me there but I am so very happy with who I am, so very filled with joy!
I read this on a blog and thought…yup, this is me….
When I look back, I now see that my Perfect Storm was absolutely critical to my personal growth and my life’s work. Anything less earth-shattering wouldn’t have been powerful enough to rock me out of my complacency. It has taken over three years to reemerge from the other side of the abyss, and I am profoundly changed. With this transformation comes great Joy.
Crazy that this writer also said it took 3 years….I wonder how common that is???

I decided that I would post the words to a song that I’ve known for about 7 years. It was sung (okay over sung) at the school I was at for about 4.5 years, incidentally where I worked 3 years ago, where live changed. I am so glad I heard this song then so that I could turn back to it now…when I am really ready to let go of so many things and lay them down for the joy of the Lord.
I'm trading my sorrow
I'm trading my shame
I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord

I'm trading my sickness
I'm trading my pain
I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord
Chorus:
And we say yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord
Yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord
Yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord Amen

I'm pressed but not crushed persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I'm blessed beyond the curse for his promise will endure
And his joy's gonna be my strength

Though the sorrow may last for the night
His joy comes with the morning

That last line… I think maybe should be spelled ‘mourning’ sometimes…because I really do believe that I didn’t find joy by chance…it came with the mourning and turned the mourning into something so healing and so full of hope.

Joy... can I really write about this???

2011-12-11T18:36:00.000-08:00

When I began this project I looked ahead to what theme we had for this week, the week where the anniversary of my life being changed forever fell, the anniversary of the worst day of my life. I thought of the four themes and thought of how I could write about each of them in this emotion charged week.
If it was the week of Hope I could write about the hope we had at Mt. Sinai. The hope an amazing medical team can bring. I could write about the song "With Hope" that I shared...because although I wasn't filled with hope that fated day, I learned that I could say goodbye with Hope, it was o.k. Or I could simply write about the hope that having a child in Heaven gives you....the motivation to be all Christ asks you to be to ensure salvation. The hope I had that I would see my son again.
Or maybe it would be the week of love. Writing about love on the week we relive those days would be easy for I knew of a love so intense and powerful then. The love I felt and still feel for Dr. Ryan and his team. The love I felt for my parents who dropped everything they were doing to come to Toronto to be with me. Or the love I had for my husband, for all he was then, all he showed me emotionally and all he held back. I could write about the outpouring of love that we received in the days and months the followed those first days. And most of all, I could write about the love I had for each of my twins and for what I've learned about love from a little boy who never took his first breath.
Or perhaps it would be the week of peace and I could write about the ways I found peace, even in just a small amount then or the ways I've found peace since then. Or even about some of the things that brought me peace then and now.
But Joy, now that would be a tough one.
How could I write about joy as I remember how dark that time was. How can I write about joy in a week that has so little joy in it. Last year at this time I wrote in this blog about how, maybe one day, I'd find joy in this day... "I hate this day and I am not sure I will ever NOT hate this day. I am very certain that in time this day will have joyful memories...of things we do, of things the boys do or say. But right now it just SUCKS!!! ... "I know that in time there will be happier thoughts of this day and that I will be able to cope better with it. I have hope...I didn't lose it that day or in the days that followed. I know that Cole is in an amazing place and that he is the lucky one. He will never live with stress, with illness, with pain, with heartache. I know he lives with loss, I know that he misses us all. But he has God and Jesus to comfort him and he is very aware of what the reasons are for him to be there and us to be here. And as life continues on and I can see those reasons more clearly I am sure that it will be easier for me too. But for now, for today, I am going to cry, I am going to feel a heart wrenching sadness, I am going to wish that life was different. It's just where I am, it's just who I am.
I wondered when I started this project how on earth I'd write about joy this week, how I'd find joy this week. I even said to Geoff that I wished this wasn't the week of joy, that it would be so much easier if it wasn't. But instead of agreeing with me, Geoff said that maybe this was the point, that God had brought it to me...that our angel day falls during the week of joy on the year I take this project on so that I will be forced to reflect on the hardest of the four for that week.
So I guess we'll see how I do.
Incidentally, today marks the beginning of this three day journey down memory lane that began with an ultrasound, an immediate rush trip to Toronto and four words that changed my life forever. Today I remember my naive optimism.

Who loved you first???

2011-12-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

On this last day of the week of love I decided to really focus on the biblical word and meaning of love. When I began searching for scripture and sources online I came across the same chapter of 1 John that I wrote about earlier but this time instead of focusing on our love, human love I am writing about spiritual love, the love of God the father and Jesus the son.
1 John 4:9-10
New International Version (NIV)
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Some theologians say this is how God showed or demonstrated his love for us. Love is revealed through actions. It is not just a feeling you have when you first begin dating someone, it’s not just the feeling you get when you hug your child, parent, spouse, friend etc. Love is something you do. In the birth of Jesus, in this human being, the revelation of God’s love was revealed as being real and authoritative and personal. God makes his love aware to us through the season of Christmas and because of Christ. Christmas is love animated and breathing, dynamic and alive!
Jesus is the way God shows his love for us. He came and lived as a demonstration of who God is. The bible tells us tells us that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.”( Colossians 1:15) and says “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.”( Colossians 2:9) As Jesus lived he showed us how God loves us. He spent his time healing the sick, including the excluded, and setting free the oppressed. Not only was Jesus, his Father, God, in human flesh form, but also in the way he lived his life.. displaying mercy, kindness and compassion.
1 John 4:11-12 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
As God has proven, in the life and death of Jesus, His great love for us. If He can do this for us, surely we can demonstrate his love in everything we do and say (this is the motto of the church we attend). As Christians, God calls us to be witnesses and ambassadors for Him. We demonstrate the reality of God through the active ways we love.
We have never seen God but we have seen His work, all around us, all the time. It’s in the beauty of the sunrise, the gentle rain that falls. It is in the first smile of an innocent baby and in the laughter of happy, excited children. It’s in everything we have, in everything we are. He lives in each of us through our talents and His love is made complete in each and every person.
People always talk about the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of giving. We work at teaching others, through our actions, about acts of kindness, giving and not receiving, giving to the needy, helping, sharing…giving the gift of our joy and happiness to the world at large. People are always seen smiling and saying Merry Christmas or (cringe) Happy Holidays. But Christmas shouldn’t begin and end in December – it should saturate every part of our life all year round. The entire thing of God loving us first and giving His Son Jesus so that we can have eternal life and know Him needs to be demonstrated in our life at every minute. As God loved us we should go and do the same in every minute of every day.

Some 'LOVEly' quotes....

2011-12-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

Love is not a possession but a growth. The heart is a lamp with just oil enough to burn for an hour, and if there be no oil to put in again its light will go out. God's grace is the oil that fills the lamp of love.
Henry Ward Beecher

I think sometimes it feels impossible not to let that light go out. We can only get burdened, overwhelmed, pushed away and hurt so many times before it has a lasting effect. How hard it is to keep smiling, keep going, keep loving. But we do, we push onward and upward, we persevere and we let God and others fill our lamp. May your light shine with love this holiday season.

Faith , like light, should always be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.
Martin Luther

Kind of a great picture don’t you think… love is a light. It shines out from us and lights the world around us. When we love, we live and when we love, we spread so much tenderness and affection and a sense of contentment that others can’t help but latch on to it. Have you ever noticed that when you are feeling good, emitting positive vibes and are truly content that most others around you feel the same? Have you ever noticed that when you are full of happiness and smiling, the world smiles back?

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Mother Teresa. . .

A smile really is the beginning of love. It starts there and spreads from head to toe and then emits forth, in a ray of light, in a powerful presence and it changes the world.
May you smile today, spread light everywhere you go and share your love with the world.

Love is....

2011-12-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

I’ve been reading this amazing book lately. It’s a worldwide best seller, written in almost 400 languages (more if you count the portions of it that have been translated) and has been around for hundreds of years. I’ve learned more about love from this book then any textbook, romance novel or self-help book could ever have taught me. I’ve been exposed to it for years but only recently have I been able to appreciate what the bible teaches us.
A few months ago I began reading a book called ‘True Love Begins with God’ that explored 1 Corinthians 13. There is likely no scripture on love more known than this passage and I decided to explore it’s message, do some research on it and reflect upon it.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

My research of this scripture tells me that the Corinthians were fascinated with spiritual gifts, predominantly the gift of tongues or languages. Paul reminds them even the gift of tongues is meaningless without love. Without love, a person may speak with the gift of tongues, but it is as meaningless as a resounding gone or a clanging cymbal. It is nothing but empty noise. Prophecy, knowledge, and faith to do miracles are also irrelevant without love. The Corinthian Christians were missing the motive and the goal of the gifts and so Paul draws their attention back to love. He also tells them that a man with faith can move great mountains; but he will set them down right in the path of somebody else – or right on somebody else - if he doesn’t have love. It isn’t an issue of love versus gifts…giving away your possessions or even giving up all the talents you have. Paul is emphasizing the focus and goal of the gifts: love, not the gifts for their own sake.

So very true… you can speak all you want, say all you wish, talk the talk…but if you don’t have love, if you haven’t got comprehension of love then you aren’t walking the walk. You can have all the faith in the world, all the religion you want but if you don’t have love, you don’t have anything. You can give everything away that you own and dedicate your life to serving others, fighting the good fight, but if you heart does not know true unconditional love than you haven’t gained anything.
1 Corinthians 13:4–8a
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails …

Love is patient. Some versions list this as Love is long-suffering and kind. Long-suffering is patiently enduring wrongs or difficulties. Love suffers long: Love will endure a long time. It is the heart shown in God, If God’s love is in us, we will be longsuffering to those who annoy us and hurt us. The ancient preacher John Chrysostem said this is the word used of the man who is wronged, and who easily has the power to take vengeance himself, but will not do it out of mercy and patience. Do you retaliate as soon as you have the chance?
Love is kind: When we have and show God’s love, it will be seen in simple acts of kindness. A perfect example of kindness is to see how children receive us. Children won’t receive and respond to unkind people!

Love does not envy: Envy is one of the least productive and most damaging of all sins. It accomplishes nothing, except to hurt. Love keeps its distance from envy, and does not resent it when someone else is blessed. I think that this is an area that many, including myself, struggle with and has been an area that I have been praying about a lot lately. It is hard when you are struggling to see those who are not. But then you have to look around you and realize that many places in the world there are so many who struggle more.

Love does not boast and is not proud: Love can work anonymously. It does not have to have the fame or the attention to do a good job, or to be satisfied with the result. Love gives because it loves to give, not out of the sense of praise it can have from showing itself off. Some of the people who work the hardest at love are the ones who are so very far from it. They do things that others might recognize as loving, and yet they do them in a way that appears showy, prideful…seeking praise. This isn’t love; it is pride looking for glory by the appearing to be love.

Love . . . is not rude. Where there is love, there will be kindness and good manners. Perhaps not in the stuffy, “look at me, I am so educated, cultured and chic” way of showing manners, but simply in the way people do not behave rudely.

Love . . . is not self-seeking: This is being like Jesus in a most basic way, being an others-centered person instead of a self-centered person.

“Love is never satisfied but in the welfare, comfort, and salvation of all. That man is no Christian who is solicitous for his own happiness alone; and cares not how the world goes, so that himself be comfortable.” (Clarke)

Love . . . is not easily angered: We all find it easy to be provoked, to become irritated with those who are just plain annoying. But it is a sin to be full of anger or quick to anger, and it isn’t loving. Moses was kept from the Promised Land because he became provoked at the people of Israel (Numbers 20:2-11).
Love . . . does not delight in evil: Literally, this means “love does not store up the memory of any wrong it has received.” Love will push the memories of past hurts from your mind and your heart instead of clinging to them. I found an account of one writer who tells of a tribe in Polynesia, where it was customary for each man to keep some reminders of his hatred for others. These reminders were suspended from the roofs of their huts to keep alive the memory of the wrongs, real or imagined. Most of us do the same.

Love . . . does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth: It simply wants the best for others, and refuses to taint the view of others. Instead, love rejoices in the truth. Love can always stand with and on truth, because love is pure and good like truth.

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Often written as Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
“Love does not ask to have an easy life of it: self-love makes that her aim. Love denies herself, sacrifices herself, that she may win victories for God, and hers shall be no tinsel crown.” (Spurgeon).
He never promised it would be easy. Loves always protects/Bears all things. The word bears can also be translated to covers and this passage is reinforced with 1 Peter 4:8: And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” You have to ensure that your love does ‘cover’ all things and not proclaim, spread the news, gossip etc. about the errors of others. Love doesn’t look like that.

Love always trusts or believes all things. When we love, we never believe a lie, but we also never believe evil unless the facts demand it. We choose to believe the best of others. “Love, as far as she can, believes in her fellows. I know some persons who habitually believe everything that is bad, but they are not the children of love. . . . I wish the chatterers would take a turn at exaggerating other people’s virtues, and go from house to house trumping up pretty stories of their acquaintances.” (Spurgeon)

Love always hopes or Love hopes all things: Love has a confidence in the future, not a pessimism. When hurt, it does not say, “It will be this way for ever, and even get worse.” It hopes for the best, and it hopes in God. Lessons for all…when life gets tough it doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us nor does it mean we are ‘stuck’ with this forever. It means that He will take care of us and that we will grow and learn from this.

Love always perseveres or endures all things: Most of us can bear all things, and believe all things, and hope all things, but only for a while! The greatness of true love is that it keeps on bearing, believing, and hoping. It doesn’t give up. It destroys enemies by turning them into friends.

Love never fails …

1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

May this week of love and season of love find you full of the Paul describes.

A Doctor's Love...on World TTTS Awareness Day

2011-12-07T05:59:00.000-08:00

Today is the day set aside to make the world aware of Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome.. Click here for a link on what TTTS is and here for information on the awareness day. Although not preventable or 100% treatable, it can be caught in time to save lives. We were lucky…no wait… God intervened to ensure that ours was caught in time to save one of our boys. Sometimes that isn’t the case, sometimes it is just too late or too severe. But He loves us enough to help us, to take care of us. He held us in the palm of his loving hands during the 11 weeks that we lived with affects of TTTS because he loves us. He wrapped his loving arms around me as I cried tear after tear of sorrow in the many months after we lost Cole because He loves me. If we had lost both our boys, He would have wrapped me in those loving arms and held me up when I couldn’t hold myself up any longer because He loves me.
He loves all of us and gives us gifts and talents so that we may share them with the world, displaying this love in amazing ways. Today, on World TTTS Awareness Day, I decided to share this picture and quote because some of the greatest talents our loving God gives is to those medical professionals who are passionate about their work, who love their job.

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.
Stendhal

I thought this quote was so perfect for the picture above. For those of you who have never seen this picture it is One of the most amazing photographs that you’ll ever see . This picture of Samuel, a 21-week old baby boy, whose tiny hand reaches out of the womb and grabs the finger of the surgeon who was operating on him, as if to say, "Thanks doc, you did a wonderful job,” should be seen by the whole world.

It happened when Dr. Joseph P. Bruner, director of fetal diagnosis and treatment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center was performing a cutting edge procedure on a 21 week old fetus.
Bruner and Samuel’s parents hope the surgery will alleviate the effects of spina bifida, a disabling birth defect in one or two of every 1,000 babies born.

During the procedure, surgeons remove the uterus from the mother, drain the amniotic fluid, perform surgery on the tiny fetus, then put the uterus back inside the mother. The procedure took about an hour. There are no words to describe this incredible photo.

What an amazing story, what a huge display of love in this picture. This doctor, like our own Dr. Ryan, performed the most amazing surgery and changed this family’s life forever. And why? Because he loves his work, because he loves saving and changing lives.
And in return, this family, like my own, loves this doctor for his God given talent that saved their son, that gave them an earthly son to love. The feeling of love that this family will have towards this man will never stop. Grateful is not strong enough of a word… I’m not sure there is one but love comes as close as you can get.
I know because I have a love for the man that changed our lives and I am not alone in this. Approximately 7200 babies suffer from TTTS in the US each year. Thankfully more of those babies survive than die and everyone one of those families has a love for their doctor.
I also know that Samuel, this baby whose loving little hand embraced this talented doctor, will love their doctor too. His parents will tell his story and how him this picture because their hearts swell with love for him and for their doctor. He has grown up knowing that he loved this man before he ever took a breath and that he changed this man’s life forever with this amazing gesture of love.
Cameron is and will be well aware of the love we have for Dr. Ryan and Mt. Sinai. Cameron Cole Gregory and Cole Edward Ryan have been given lasting reminders of our love and gratitude for Dr. Greg Ryan. I am so grateful for the love he has for his job and for the loving talents that God bestowed on him.

Love is life

2011-12-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
Leo Buscaglia

I wonder how many people in the world haven’t figured this out…that in order to have life, in order to really enjoy and appreciate your life, in order to truly live then you need love.
I sometimes marvel at those people who work 12+ hour days 6 days a week or those who work for 10 and take 8 hours of work home with them. They spend their time busy with life but they miss out on time with people, time with love. There are many people who spend time with family and friends but are still missing out because they are so busy running, going to sports, dance, clubs, groups and even in religion or at church that they miss out on love. They don’t see the child who wants only to be with them, to have their attention and affection. They don’t see the friends and family that would be so very happy with just a few hours of uninterrupted time doing nothing but talking and laughing. They miss the smiles of others when they do something for someone else because they are so busy looking ahead to the next thing they need to do.
Life is love and love is life… the two go together. You can’t survive life without love.
I look at my own life and marvel and where I sought love and what I thought my life needed, the love it needed, the way that love needed to be expressed. I really had no clue about unconditional love. I felt like I didn’t measure up in so many ways and so I did what I could to find love…not to let love find me. I think I was attracted to people who I thought needed love like I did…and therefore would need me.
Needing does not equal love, needing does not make life. I did many foolish things while trying to find my life. I regret so many of them now but I also know that it was part of a journey too. I missed so much life because I was so caught up in always being ‘with’ someone, in seeking that perfect someone who would love me, need me. I couldn’t see that the love I sought was always there. He never stopped loving me and had I just realized that so many around me loved me as well, even if they weren’t always the opposite sex, even they weren’t loving me in a romantic relationship, I would have had so much better a life, better a love.
I now realize how much love it really takes to make life…. Not a lot and yet an enormous amount. It doesn’t take many people who love you to make your life, it doesn’t take huge gestures of love and it certainly doesn’t take sacrificing that risks your very being. It simply takes giving of yourself for the purpose of making another happy with no expectation of a return.
I don’t want to miss any more of my life by missing love. I have found the most amazing love in the Lord and from there, in so many other places. I am so grateful for the life I have, for the love I have and that has me.

Unconditional Love

2011-12-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

A number of years ago I attended a church camp and learned about unconditional love. This scripture sat in my head and in my heart about it….
1st John 4 7-12
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

At the time I didn’t ‘get’ scripture like I do now…though even now I struggle to comprehend just how amazing the bible is, how amazing our God is. But no, at the time I didn’t quite ‘get it’. What I did get out of the lessons that went with that scripture was that true love has absolutely no conditions put on it…and that is all types of love for all types of people… spouses, children, family, friends etc. . But, what is unconditional love? We all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasize about it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are incomplete without it. But do we really understand what it is? Do we really understand how God meant for us to love one another? And do we have any idea how our ideas of love get so messed up?
Unconditional love can be defined as a term that means to love someone regardless of one's actions or beliefs. It matters not who you are, what you do or don’t do for or to someone, it is not hinged on behaviour or morals, socio-economic status or where you live. It is just love…simple and pure.
Simple??? Well maybe not for so many, as unconditional love does not occur easily for many people and can be very delusional. Our misconceptions of unconditional love began in early in our lives, where we saw that when we did all the right things—when we were clean, quiet, obedient and otherwise “good”—people “loved” us. They smiled at us and spoke in gentle tones. But we also saw that when we were “bad,” all those signs of “love” instantly vanished. In short, we were taught by consistent experience that love was conditional, that we had to buy “love” from the people around us with our words and behavior.
So many people live on this kind of love. They shower others with attention and gifts in order to be loved. They almost outright tell children that they will love them ‘more’ if they can just behave. The damage this does is just enormous. If each time you give something to someone they tell you they love you how will you feel at the end of the day? Loved? No, because you’d know that you were loved only because you gave something tangible, that you were loved because you paid for it. We simply can’t feel satisfied by love we pay for. We can feel loved only when it is spontaneously, unconditionally given to us. The instant we do anything at all to win the approval or admiration of other people—with what we say, what we do, how we look—we are paying for the attention and affection we receive, and we can’t feel genuinely loved.
There is only one kind of love that can make us whole, complete us and give us the happiness we want and that is unconditional love. It is so different than the love that so many of us have known all of our lives. It is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for where it will get us, what we will get from it. It is also unconditional love when others care about our happiness without any thought of what they might get out of it.
This is the kind of love God has for us in a sense. He does not stop loving us if we do things that displease him or even are against his teachings. There really isn’t anything we can do to stop God from loving us. We can sin but all we need to do is ask for His forgiveness and it is granted. And even those who don’t ask for it, those who never have a personal relationship with Christ, those who are never able to see God’s love for us…. Even all of those millions of people, God loves. He only asks that we love Him and through that we can truly and unconditionally love others.

The candle of love...a parents greatest strength

2011-12-04T05:19:00.000-08:00

Today we light the candle of love. I think of the love between a parent and child and know there is no greater love than that. Isn’t it wonderful that we all have a Father who loves us like that too. Those of us who are parents know this type of love. The type where you would do just about anything for your child. You’d go without food or clothes for them, you’d fight til death for them and you’d even give up your life for them. And God has that love for all of us…so even you if you don’t have children, you can know this kind of love.

No matter what happens, we love our children. Even if they have fallen, made decisions we don’t agree with, hurt others or committed crimes… we still love them and always will. When our child is sick and throwing up all over us, we love them. When we hold that toddler who just wants to snuggle but who smells like the mess he has in his diaper…we love them. When they hit us, tell us they hate us, when they chose everyone but us to be with…we love them. Even the heart of a fallen parent or the heart of the parent of a fallen child is like that, so imagine how earnestly God wanted to love Adam and Eve though they sinned. Every parent has this kind of heart, like when you hold a baby in your arms and raise them, you whisper words of love for them as they fall asleep wish every luck for them. If you child has a fault, the heart of the parent aches to the utmost extent. But if this is settled, joy accompanies you. Even a fallen parent's heart is like this, so how else would the heart of God be?
When a child commits a crime and goes to jail, the parents would not say, "Thank God he’s there and not here," but instead they would shed tears, forgive him and love him. That is the love of the parents. That is why parents' love is noble. If the son was tried, found guilty and sentenced to die, and if the parents knew all this, they would cry. If there is any way to save their son, they would go to the ends of the earth to find it they would give up their lives for him. Since they have this everlasting love, the love of parents is noble. Is there, in the hearts of parents, the heart to forgive the son who is going to be hanged? If that parent’s love is true, do you think God's love would be no greater than that, or greater? We immediately admit that God's love is far greater. That is why it is a natural conclusion that God's love surpasses parents' love.
“Whatever they grow up to be, they are still our children, and the one most important of all the things we can give to them is unconditional love. Not a love that depends on anything at all except that they are our children.”
Rosaleen Dickson
Parents invest everything for their children. They are the same as God on this. God does not invest for Himself. God does not exist for Himself, but for his children…for us. If God says He exists for Himself, that is not true love. When you invest everything in your children and say you want to be with them, then love, life and hope will be accomplished.

Hope when all seems hopeless

2011-12-03T12:04:00.000-08:00

I had decided from the first day of this week that I wanted to end the week of hope writing about hope sustaining people through life-threatening and medically compromising times. I know that there are a great many stories of people with things like cancer who never give up hope and who overcome the odds.
I started looking for the perfect story of such a hope and really couldn't find one. I thought of my own life and where I'd seen this type of hope the most. I saw hope in this situation for the first time in the summer and fall of my grade 12 year. I became friends with a group of people, one of whom became my best friend and faith mentor. She dated a guy who had a friend... yup, classic highschool story of double dating! Only it wasn't classic because the friend of the guy, the friend I dated had leukemia. But other than having no hair and being super skinny...and not going to school and having tons of doctors appointments, blood transfusions etc you'd never know he was sick. Bill lived with an optimism and a hope that sustained us all. He taught me more in the few months we hung out and then dated then anyone else has... until Cole. He was so full of hope that when things turned bad, when the platelet transfusions became almost daily, when the fatigue became more and more evident our group didn't even really notice. I mean we did but we really never gave it much thought...he wasn't going to die, he wasnt' going to give up. He had doctors tell him when he got sick the second time that he would not see Christmas... and you'd never really know that was what he'd been told. He lived life to the fullest, we partied, we stayed up till all hours, we drank (okay we did and he always drove...we even got pulled over and charged one night though he never saw a court date). I saw him for the last time on Christmas Eve. We exchanged presents, kisses and cuddles but it was obvious that he wasn't well. The following day things took a huge turn for the worst and he passed away just before the end of that Christmas day. But he made it, he did what they said he wouldn't do and he enjoyed every day of those last few months of his life.
The other sign I have of this is obviously in Cameron. What an amazing little miracle he is. He overcame so many odds.. a good 3 life threatening conditions to start. And this made me hunt for someone's pregnancy story, someone's writing that I could take a piece from and reflect on. It took me days to find one...believe it or not. But I found this...long one.. and decided I couldn't say it as good as she could....

Many of this blog’s posts have focused on the longing for a pregnancy that brings a baby safely into the world. But what happens when that longed-for blessing no longer feels like one?
I got an incredibly honest, heartrending request for prayer today. It came in an email forwarded by a woman whose friend conceived on her 6th IUI (hurray!), and just discovered the baby has Down’s Syndrome. You might be tempted to stop reading, since the thought of such a possibility threatens to undermine your shaky confidence in a joyful future. I hope you won’t, because the note I wrote in response to that prayer request made me realize the importance of affirming God’s faithfulness in all circumstances.
That’s easy to claim when you’ve experienced effortless conception, an uneventful pregnancy, a straightforwarded delivery, and what looks to the world like happily-ever-after. But what about when it isn’t so easy, and — by the world’s standards — it doesn’t go well? Where is God in that? Where is hope? What good is faith if it suddenly seems flimsy and feeble? And where can you go for strength?
My husband and I had to face these questions. And at the time, there was no one to help us find answers.
At an ultrasound done prior to an amnio it seemed our doctor took an unusually long time. I lay on the table watching lines appear in his forehead as he scanned one area over and over and over. My husband and I sent each other increasingly anxious looks, but no one spoke. Then, the doctor said, “Your baby has a large hole in her heart.” The jolt of adrenaline made me nauseous. “Usually, that means the baby has Down’s Syndrome. Has anyone talked to you about this before?”
I wanted to scream, and my mind was racing. Who is this man? What does he know? Why wouldn’t anyone have told us? It can’t be true…. We’d already lost several pregnancies to miscarriage, but this baby was thriving. She was meant to come into the world! Why would God say “yes” to a baby, but “no” to all we wanted that baby to be?
When I received Elizabeth’s prayer request today, the memories of that day flooded my mind. And I knew God had given me an opportunity to speak the truth of His faithfulness out of my own experience. I wrote to her:

When I was pregnant with my daughter, they found a HUGE hole in her heart during the amniocentesis. They told us that, if she survived the pregnancy, she would almost surely have Down’s Syndrome. We waited several agonizing days for results of the amnio. In the interim, a couple we knew delivered a baby with unexpected Down’s Syndrome. It was an extraordinarily stressful time.
Ultimately, our daughter’s test results indicated she did not have Down’s, but she did have the largest hole they’d ever seen in a baby’s heart at this stage of development. It was hard to know how to pray about this. Still, God was — and is – faithful. Our daughter underwent open heart surgery when she was only four weeks old, and despite the odds they gave us as they took her into the OR, she survived and she’s thriving.
I realize the details of this story are different from yours. At the same time, I feel as if I have some understanding of what you’re facing, based on our experience and the experience of our friends whose son has Down’s. Neither we nor they would trade the children we have for any other. We consider all that we’ve struggled through with and for them to be a small price to pay for the extraordinary blessing they have been in our lives. The challenges we’ve faced as their parents have made us that much more passionate about being the best possible stewards of their incredible souls. And I believe that was part of God’s purpose.
I don’t in any way mean to minimize what you’re going through. But I can say with tremendous confidence, God is good and He blesses us in all sorts of unexpected ways. I truly believe this is one of those well-disguised blessings — and some day, you will say so yourself with complete conviction and JOY.”
If “God not only loves you very much but also has put His hand on you for something special” [1 Thes 1:4], take heart in the knowledge that He will not abandon you to make your journey alone. He has already begun equipping you. That was part of the purpose of the infertility journey. And He will not fail to comfort, strengthen or guide you. Ever.
He never fails.

I could not have written my thoughts on pregnancy that doesn't go as planned any better. God does bless us in all sorts of unexpected ways. He gives us the ability to find hope, to not give up and to learn and grow through our challenges, crisis and even losses. The challenges that we have experienced have been given to us by God so that we will find hope, we will see their accomplishments so much more clearly, we will appreciate them and our other children more for all they have been through and all that we have taken for granted.
So to the 4 little boys who shared my body with me for lengths of time varying from 23 to 34 to 42 weeks I say thank you for being the best lessons in hope that I could have. God has given you to me, has grown me through you and I am so very blessed!

With Hope

2011-12-02T09:47:00.000-08:00

"With Hope"
(click on the title to listen to it ..it doesn't seem to be working on my player)

This is not at all
How we thought it was supposed to be
We had so many plans for you
We has so many dreams
But now you've gone away
And left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say
And nothing we can do
Can take away the pain
The pain of losing you

And we can cry with hope
We can say good-bye with hope
'Cause we know our good-bye is not the end
And we can grieve with hope
'Cause we believe with hope
There's a place where we'll see your face again
We'll see your face again

And never have I known
Anything so hard to understand
And never have I questioned more
The wisdom of God's plan
But through the cloud of tears
I see the Father smile and say 'well done.'
And I imagine you
Where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true
'Cause now your home
And now your free

We have this hope as an anchor
'Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope

Does this song not just say it all? I found it by accident online a couple of years ago and went for awhile where I listened to it many times a day and I also have blogged about it before...and basically this is the blog from then. Each time I listen to it I feel so close to Cole, I feel his touch and his breath on my skin...it's that comforting. It's just what I need at times.
In researching this song I came across the story of how it came to be. It is written by a man named Steven Curtis Chapman. Chapman is a Christian musician who, just a few months before crisis struck my own family, was struck by his own personal tragedy. His daughter, Maria Sue, adopted from China, was struck and killed in her own driveway by an SUV driven by her 17 year old brother. This family was shattered but still filled with hope, still able to see the light of God at this sad time. I found this all in an article written by another Christian blogger. After writing it he had many followers who wrote him with questions of how this writer and this family could possibly see hope or find good in God in this. I really connected with his response.

Where is the hope in this death of Steven Curtis Chapman’s daughter? How can you say God is good?

Let’s be honest here. It is hard to say, “God is good,” during situations that bring us to utter pain and desolation. But the path to hope and healing always goes through doubt, pain, anger, grief, and mourning. To not be able to bring our honest and real anger, doubts, and pain to God makes a mockery of the veracity and the redemptive power and grace of Christ.

But there is a path.

There is Hope because Death Does Not Have the Final Say! While I clearly cannot speak for God, I do not believe this death was the will of God. It concerns me when Christians are so easily able to explain events as “this was the will of God.” But nevertheless, it is not outside the Sovereignty of God. In other words, God is in control, remains in control and will always be in control. God was not surprised. He is sovereign and He alone is God
There is HOPE – even in this tragedy – because it cannot separate us from the love of God that is the gospel of Christ:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:38-39]

There is HOPE because the Chapmans do not journey alone. For example, as evidenced by the millions that searched for their stories on search engines, the thousands [literally] of comments on the In Memory of Maria tribute and blog posts, people care. The body of Christ cares. When we don’t have the courage and strength to HOPE, others HOPE for us. No one person or one family exists on an island to themselves. This is the beauty of the body of Christ.

There is HOPE because ultimately, God cares. He has not forgotten or forsaken. And He continues to use all circumstances and situations – even tragedies – to beckon His children and the larger creation – back unto Himself. God restores. God reconciles. God redeems. There is HOPE because there is Life beyond this world. There is HOPE because in short, there is God.

God is HOPE.

Such a powerful answer. And so similar to my beliefs... tragedy isn't God's will but His response is...and our response hinges on that. Nothing can take away His love, nothing can seperate us from Him. When we can't find hope others will find it for us. When tragedy strikes it is often how we cope that is the thing of hope.

One thing this song brings to mind for me is that I need to focus on the here and now, not the past and my wishful feelings that I could live in a time where life was easier, naive and simple. I can't change the past and keep Cole with me. I also can't live for the future and worry about it. That's for God and Jesus to do...worry for me, to take my worries and comfort me. I can't change the future either though I can affect it by my actions now.
Instead I must live for now, for the love of my friends each day NOW. For the love of my family NOW and most of all for the love of Zack, Brycen, Cameron and Geoff NOW.
Now in saying that I will live for one part of my future...the Hope I have for the time when I will see Cole again, hold him in my arms and tell him how much he was and is loved. I can tell him that each day too, he hears me, I know he does. He feels my love in the extra hugs and kisses his twin gets from me. (okay so the kid might be a bit spoiled, what can I say). The life I live here on earth will reflect my journey back to him and to God. Being positive, helping others, finding a focus and purpose for the journey Twin to Twin Transfusion put us on will bring me closer to him.
I can and will live my life 'with Hope'.
Love you baby boy!

The rising of the sun...

2011-12-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

Every morning I rise and think of all the day has in store for me. In my darkest days, after we lost Cole, I would lie there, almost forgetting what had happened and would feel a sense of hope for the day. And then reality would set in and I would remember and I would cry. I was so full of despair and sadness. I did not feel hope in those moments, only hopelessness.
But then I’d feel baby Cameron moving and I’d feel hope for his future. Zack and Brycen would come into our room, climb into bed with me and I could feel nothing but hope for their future too. I worried about them and what this loss meant but I was filled more with hope, even about what losing a brother, meant for them. I knew that they would gain more from this experience then they would lose. The growth, the lessons on life, strength and the sense of peace were more worthy than they were a burden. And this was the same for me.
Maybe that is the secret to life that so many are missing out on… to find hope when all seems hopeless, the perseverance through crisis, to ability to learn and grow from our challenges. Not to look upon tragedy, sadness, crisis, loss and burdens as the moment our life as we knew it ended but as the moment our life was given rebirth, the moment we were given to grow, persevere and to find hope in tomorrow.

Romans 5: 3-5
3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us

And so today I think of the hope that fills me each day with the rising of the sun, the promise of another day to complete, the possibilities that await me

Quotes and reflections

2011-11-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

This blog is written, largely on one I wrote almost 2 years ago. I've come a long way and yet some things are still the same... but positive, amazing things. It was wonderful for me to go back and read where I was and see how much I've done, especially in the area of TTTS support, awareness and fundraising.
So much of this entry today is just a repeat of that one but based on where I am now and what I've done.

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. - Vaclav Havel
I never realized until months after the crisis that I’d been living this Hope for many months on end. I was so full of hope...certain that it would and will make sense someday. I had a lot of 'some days' that it didn’t even come close to making sense and it was so hard to accept but now I think that I am past the worst of that. It isn’t easy and it isn’t the way I’d like for me to act sometimes but I can see that amazing things have happened because of something that has turned out so different than how I hoped.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. - Martin Luther King Jr.
In the midst of crisis, tragedy or heavy burdens it is often easy to lose hope. When this happens then life becomes hard to endure and it is so very hard to keep moving forward. All you want to do is go backwards. You become afraid of each new day, of might happen next. It seems like you just can’t go on. But with hope you are able to move forward, you are able to keep going despite not knowing what tomorrow brings because you know that no matter, you will survive, you will grow and the possibilities are endless.

Hope never abandons you; you abandon it. - George Weinberg
Hope, like the love of Christ, is always there. It never abandons you and it never ceases to amaze. It may not always be the ‘amazement’ you wanted but it is always there. Sometimes this seems like an impossible task, to keep hoping for the future when each day brings more and more bad news, tragedy and crisis. I remember thinking this when I was pregnant with the boys and TTTS hit our lives. At first I thought that all was well, we’d get through this ‘little surgery’, go home and be fine. I even wrote this in an email I sent out when I was diagnosed. But when those fated words were said, when my world shattered, I wanted to give up. I remember curling into a ball on that ultrasound table and sobbing, thinking this was it, life was not ever going to be the same and I couldn’t’ possible keep going. And then just when things were looking up abit my water broke. I remember saying to Geoff ‘when will this nightmare be over’. What a way to look at my pregnancy, my sons…a nightmare. But I’d lost hope, I abandoned it. Thankfully I found it again, or it found me. Thankfully it continues to find me and I it each and every day!

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else. - Elie Wiesel
Did she read my mind??? This is exactly where I was at about 2 years ago and where I continue to gather strength from now. I figure God has given me this loss for a reason, He's given me grief for a reason, He’s given me financial stress, marital stress and parenting stress for a reason and He's given me Hope for a reason. I don't know for sure what it is. I know that I was desperate to find a focus for my grief and to come up with some way to make all that we lost and all that we learned and gained have purpose. Something that would bring attention to the need for better monitoring and testing of identical twin pregnancies as well as raising funds for research, treatment, support and care of those going through it. And I did it, twice over. And I give hope to others on this journey regularly. I have found a relationship with Jesus Christ and have begun to rebuild a relationship with my husband. I’ve gotten beyond so much of that despair and I’ve gained so much through this hope.

These are the hardest times, especially when those who are younger than you take their leave, and there are times when I forget and permit myself to think that I am in the midst of death. But this is not so. It is life that surrounds me. Life. Life that is meant to be lived, its riches to be extracted. No, the Lord's promise is not for those who give up, but for those who forge ahead... - Leonora Wood
This is so true. God did not wish us to give up and die when life gets tough. It is at those times that He is there, picking us up, dusting us off and moving us ahead. Life is for the living, we can't change who's gone before us but we change how we live before we go. My son died before his time, he died before I got to hold him, touch him, kiss him.....but not before I got to love him. There is no way that such an innocent being would wish for me to be in Heaven with him instead of here with his twin brother.

....each day of the journey is precious, yours and mine - we must strive to make it a masterpiece. Each day, once gone, is gone forever. - John Wooden
The day Cameron was baptized, my dear friend Theresa did an amazing job of including Cole in the service by giving a sermon on worrying. It is so hard not to worry, it is so hard not to focus on the future and where you are going. But you can't focus on the unknown because if you do you lose sight of the present and you miss out on what is with you right now. Once a day is gone it is gone forever. I felt my pregnancy was like that. I worried so much about how I would deal with being the mom of two newborn babies and of the stresses that brought that I didn't appreciate the miracles inside of me. I noticed all the growth, the movements and the wonderment of their little bodies on the ultrasound machine but I did nothing to remember those moments or live in them. I couldn't take that back once Cole was gone, it was too late to take pictures of my belly then, too late to start writing about how I felt about them and the dreams I had. You'd think I would have learned but when my water broke and I was rushed back to Toronto and then London I didn't live in the moment and enjoy Cameron's movements and life, I stressed and worried. I have no pictures of the places I called home for 8 weeks of my life or of the doctors that saved my son, took care of me, welcomed my boys into the world.
I needed to put those worries with God and let Him look after them...it's His job. And I am proud to say that I have come so very far in this area of my life. I do worry about things, about how I’ll pay the bills and what we are living without and what we should be living without instead of adding to our mounting debt but I know that if I spend all my time worrying about it I will miss what is in front of me. I will miss how much my children have come to appreciate simpler things, how much they’ve learned to work together and do things, like chores, because it is part of being in a family not because of what they’ll, selfishly, get out of it…like money. I would have missed the love that has grown between Geoff and I and the HUGE growth our relationship has taken…it likely would not have even happened. And most of all, I would have missed out on this amazing relationship that I am having with Christ.

And so I try my best to live in the present with my family. I try to only look at today and all the wonderful things they do today....not what they aren't doing yet compared to others and not most importantly, I try not to live in the past, in the world of 'what if'. Those days can't be changed, they are gone forever.
I have hope…do you?

Finding your way

2011-11-29T19:19:00.000-08:00

I found this picture in my search for quotes, stories and inspiration from hope. I thought it really suited.
There really is only one way to find your way in life... through Hope and faith. With the hope of things to come, you can endure all things. With the hope of a way out, a way up and direction on the path less traveled you will go far. No one said life was easy, no one said this journey would never come without bumps in the road. There is no perfect path, straight road or easy choices as to with fork in the road to take. But if we remember that hope leads us forward and that the hope we have for the wonderful things in store for us, wonderful gifts from God, promises, possibilities and things we just can't even imagine then we will achieve great things.
All we need is to remember it is a one way path to Heaven if we have the hope of salvation given to us by Christ.
It really is that simple.

It began with a baby, it began with hope

2011-11-28T09:24:00.001-08:00

As I said yesterday, this is a week to celebrate hope. To be filled with hope and expectation of the season ahead of us. To, as a Christian, be filled with the expectation and preparing my heart, mind and soul for the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. But more than that, as a Christian, I am filled with the hope of the second coming of Christ….because that is really what Advent means… a fact I just learned a few weeks ago.
‘What, you mean after all these years it’s not just a birthday party for Jesus? It’s not just a celebration of the day the Lord gave Him to all of us to save us from ourselves’? Well as I am learning…apparently not just that!
As I said yesterday, the theological Christian virtue of hope is defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help.
That is what hope means to me. In this my own personal world, filled with financial stress, martial stress, parental and familial stress, grieving and memories….that is what gets me through… HOPE! The search for future good with God’s help, the knowledge that there is good there in my future, that there is a way out of this, there is an end, there is hope…but only with God’s help. I can’t do it alone. I know that it won’t be easy, I’ve lived through difficulties before and I’ll live through them again…and I’ll get through them all with the hope I have for my future.
In the greater world though there is not always such optimism. People can’t seem to find this hope, people can’t seem to understand how there can be hope when there is so much suffering and pain in the world. But those are the times we need to most hope. And It is not just hope for a better day or hope for the lessening of pain and suffering, although that is certainly a significant part of it.
I’ve been reading about this theme and was inspired by someone who suggested that It is more about hope that human existence has meaning and possibility beyond what is going on right now for us in our personal world or in the world at large. It’s a hope the our lives are not limited, not as narrow and minimal as we experience them to be. Many people have been raised to believe that we all have possibility, that we need to strive to do things bigger and better, that nothing is unattainable but this is a hard thing for many people to live by. It is so hard not to have doubts, not to be unsure. But this hope, this Christian Hope is more than that. It is that God is a God of new things, better things, wonderful things and so all things really are possible. (Isaiah 42:9, Matthew 19:26, Mark 14:36)
In the first century God’s people wanted Him to come and bring change, to release their oppression, to set them free. They were angry when those circumstances did not change immediately. We all fall into that trap. When things don’t change, when burdens seem more than we can bear and no end seems to be in site. We doubt, we question and we get angry too. But that is a short sighted view of the nature of hope. Our hope cannot be in these types of changes, these conditions and situations. No matter how badly we want them, how hard we think things are and how important these changes are to us. The reality of our existence is God’s people experience the physical existence in the same way everyone does. Christians get sick and die. Christians are victims of crime and war. Christians get hurt and killed in traffic accidents. Christians live in oppression, in poverty and in famine.
If the only hope we have is in our lives being ‘good’ or as we want them to be so that we can be content we will always be frustrated, if things are only ever as our dream self wishes we will be sadly disillusioned. That is why we hope, not in statuses, situations and conditions but rather in God. He has shown us over four thousand years that He is a God of change, of possibility , of restoration and of a transformation the goes beyond what we can possibly imagine. The greatest example of this is the Easter story…for Christ to die on the cross, for our sins and then to rise from the dead.
And that story begins with a baby in a manger. It began with the hope that God would come and continues with the hope that He will come again to reveal Himself to us as a God of possibility, of newness, of potential and of change. And so this time of year we think of that hope in the form of a newborn baby born in the most amazing circumstances and with such expectation and hope. What a perfect example of possibility, newness and potential a baby is! We wait with hopeful expectation that God will once again hear our cries, see the circumstances of the world and know our longing for a new world and better life. We hope that as He came as an infant, so He will come again.
My experience tells me that those who have suffered and still hope understand far more about God and about life than those who have not. Maybe that is what hope is about: a way to live, not just to endure or cope, but to live genuinely within all the burdens of life with a Faith that continues to see possibility when there is no sign of it in the world we live in, just because God is God.
This is the week of Hope. So many who have suffered and yet still have hope seem to understand God and life more others. And maybe that is what hope is about… a way to live, not just to endure, but to live genuinely within all the burdens of life with a Faith that continues to see possibility when there is no sign of it in the world, just because God is God.

Advent...a season of Hope

2011-11-27T04:55:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of the Advent season. Within the Christian churches the first candle that is lit is a candle of anticipation, of hope. It’s an interesting thought, interesting word. I blogged about hope and what it means to me here a few years ago and decided that sometime this week I will go back to that entry and expand it. But for today I just want to focus on the word hope..the meaning of hope.
The online dictionary I found defines it in a few ways…
1. To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment or to look forward to with confidence or expectation
2. To have confidence; trust.
3. To expect and desire.
4. One that is a source of or reason for hope: the team's only hope for victory.
5. The theological Christian virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help.
I think we have all had times where we are filled with that kind of hope as in wishing for something, looking forward to something. For some people, their lives are filled with this kind of hope…with the confidence that it will be fulfilled. It’s an expectation and a desire and it keeps them going.
And what life that is… to look forward, in eager expectation, for the things that will happen in your life. To wake each day eager to begin, filled with the desire to complete each part of your day so that you can move on to the next part. This kind of hope sustains us, fills us with excitement and keeps us focused. But for those who are suffering, unsure of what each new day will bring this kind of hope isn’t always, and maybe even often, easily come by. There are miraculous stories of people who are suffering from life threatening illness, disease or circumstance that simply live and keep going on hope. I know, I did it. Each and every day from the time I learned I was pregnant with twins I hoped that I would continue to have an easy, healthy pregnancy. I had a confidence that more than bordered on naïve. And that was okay…because without that hope what did I have…worry and fear. I did have those things at the start and not every moment was filled with only hope but hope was always nearby, always a comforting friend.
And each hour that passed after we learned our boys had TTTS was filled with hope…and confidence. I never gave up hope that everything would turn out fine, I was petrified but I never went down that road where I didn’t come home with two babies. I just kept going, trusting all was well.
And each day after we lost Cole, especially after my water broke and I ended up in the hospital , I awoke feeling hopeful. Hopeful that a heartbeat would be detected, hopeful that there was still movement, hopeful that my boys at home would make it through without their mommy, hopeful that my marriage would survive this stress…. And I wasn’t disappointed, things did work out, hope sustained me.
But what if it hadn’t worked out, what would I have done? Where would hope be then? Well I guess the answer lies in what happened between finding out I was pregnant with twins, being diagnosed and then losing Cole. It wasn’t what I ‘hoped’ for…how can loss ever be what someone hopes for. But I did survive it just as I know that I would have if we had lost both of our boys.
Just as I know now that the trials that my life is full of now is not beyond hope. I wake each day with a confidence that I ‘won’t go down today’. I am fully aware of how tough things are for us, I live it and I know that the fallout of multiple months without 2 working parents will be felt for years to come. But I have hope, I know we will make it through, that we will learn from our mistakes…finally, that we will be better, stronger and more content. I have hope.
What more can I ask for?

An Advent Project...I hope you will join me in

2011-11-26T05:23:00.000-08:00

This year I’ve decided to take on an Advent project. I’ve thought a lot lately about what the season of Advent really means but more than that, I’ve been thinking of how I can focus on Advent and not on the sad memories that fill so much of December for me. I want change this year, I need change this year. I know that I am in a much better place and have things planned for Cole’s Angel Day that will surely bring me peace.
But that is just one day…one day in a month that contains days that bring back so much… days of loss of others in my life dating all the way back to high school. Days where ‘the world’ recognizes TTTS Awareness Day and I focus on spreading the word and sharing my boys story with others, remembering the journey we took and the treatments that were offered. Days where I remember exactly where I was when I learned of ‘a problem’, the drive, the diagnosis, the surgery, the news of the results, the waiting game. The day that became the worst day of my life. And the days that followed where I didn’t know how to cope, what would happen, if I’d make home from the hospital with any babies. The days that lead up and included a holiday that I didn’t want to celebrate, that I didn’t want to think about all the dreams I’d had for Christmases of the future involving matching outfits and matching toys. In total the month likely has about 8 days that don’t tie in, somehow, with reminders and memories.
And so it is time to have a new focus. It is a focus that may bring up some of these memories but they will contain thoughts and words of hope, of love, of joy and of peace.
I plan to use the themes for each week of Advent and to write each and every day about that theme. It might be something small, it might be a story that reminds of that theme, a poem or song I find, scripture or just thoughts of what that word/theme means to me.
I invite everyone who is reading this to join me. I think it is a great project and I plan to post a small bit of the blog post on facebook like many of my American friends did leading up to their Thanksgiving with the theme of being thankful. For example ‘This is the week of Hope. Today I think of the hope I found in each message, email, note, card or phone call I received during my hospital stay’…. Just a sample.
I will be starting an event page on facebook and hope that you will join me there too. Please comment here and please share the message too.
Thanks for your support on this much healing journey I take this year.

Challenges, Trials and Perserverence…can we really do it???

2011-10-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

In the summer I heard reading from the book of James for, what I would have to admit, the first time ever. I am sure that there is a great amount of the bible that I’ve heard before and a great amount of common passages that I can recall but I have to admit that I’ve never REALLY listened before and never really appreciated what I was listening to.
The recurrent theme in my blogs lately has been of the things that get us through life…the good things and the bad. I’ve thought a lot about this scripture when I heard it and heard our pastor speak on it….
James 1 2-4, 12
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
Wow… what a concept. To consider it pure joy to face trials. To think that we should celebrate the challenges, the trials, the burdens, the loss, the tragedy, the crisis. If you’d told me that 2.5 years ago, I would have told you to jump in the lake. And really, even now, I have a hard time with this on the surface. If you only read that first verse you would slam the bible shut if you were in crisis. But the next few verses are what make me think…it helps that I heard a sermon on this topic too LOL!
The testing of our faith brings perseverance. To persevere can be defined as :a steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement. Our pastor found synonyms for the word perseverance… to go up and through, to carry on, to endure and to maintain. The theological definition is continuance in a state of grace to the end, leading to eternal salvation. And to go up and through certainly seems like that state of being that you find yourself in when you are in tragedy. My faith has been tested many times… most certainly in our TTTS journey but many times before and since. Sometimes I just want to scream why??? Sometimes I want to say ‘I’ve had ENOUGH!!!’. Sometimes I throw my hands up and say ‘really God, you really think I can get through this’. And I’ve also been known , while tears stream down my cheeks or my heart races with the worry, stress and strain, to say ‘I give up…I can’t do this’. But I do it, I keep going, I push forward, push up and through. And I get through it. Full of questions and asking why but I get through it.
Asking questions is okay…He expects that. Last spring when the community I live in dealt with the loss of two volunteer firemen, lost in the line of duty, the minister at the service shared something very interesting and comforting with us. He told us that someone once asked Mother Theresa what she would say to God when she first met Him in Heaven. Her response was “You have a lot of explaining to do”. If she can question God then I think all of us certainly can!
But back to perseverance….. Can I really believe, in my heart, that I should be happy and filled with joy that I am being given a burden to carry and a crisis to endure??? I am not sure I always do that now but I promise you I never did it before. I didn’t give up my faith, I didn’t give up on God. But I wasn’t able to find joy in my loss or my challenges. But it most certainly does build character, give you wisdom and help you grow. It is a most challenging concept but I am beginning to understand how true it is. When you get through it, when you persevere, you know that you did it through strength, tenacity and courage. Where do those things come from? To me, I say the Lord. He gives us those gifts, He gives us the strength.
We are blessed when we’ve persevered, we have accomplished great things through faith and by not giving up, we have shown the Lord that we are ready for judgment, we are ready for the crown of life because we love and trust the Lord.
Sounds so easy, doesn’t it. It isn’t, it never will be. But then, neither was the trials that Jesus endured for us. He suffered so much more than I ever have and yet his faith never waivered, He knew his reward was the crown of glory.

Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart!

2011-10-12T12:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone! And to my American friends…this is , in my opinion, the best time to celebrate this wonderful holiday….when the harvest is coming off and the smell of fall is everywhere. It is a time to Thank God for the wonderful food we are so fortunate to enjoy and to thank Him for the ability to see, hear, touch and taste the glorious harvests.
I love fall and feel so fortunate to live in an area where we can appreciate the fall in its glorious splendor. I love that I am a farm kid and actually enjoy the dust and dirt of the combines, the smell of corn silage in the air and the slow pace that tractors and combines take. I love that my drive to work takes me past bush after bush of trees in all shades and past fields and wagons of pumpkins, gourds and squash.
We are such a blessed people and it is so wonderful to give thanks for that but thanks should not only be given this time of year….and yet it so often is. So often we can only think to say thanks when we are told to…and that isn’t right.
And so often people cannot seem to give thanks for everything in their lives.

1st Thessalonians 5:18 Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Everything thing we have is a gift from God. EVERYTHING!!! It’s not just the obvious things like health, and happiness. It’s not just the opportunities and abundance. It’s not just the people and relationships. It’s every single thing you have, every morsel of food, every button and lace, every shoe and sock,every smile and laugh, every tear and sorrow…. every moment of everyday. And even when these things don’t seem to be going your way or you aren’t sure of things in your life, you need to be thankful…you need to find things that are good and thank God for those.

Philippians 4:6-7(NIV)

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

It is just that simple…. Give thanks for everything in every situation and don’t worry about anything. I know , I know , who am I kidding. I know it is hard, impossible some days. Life hands us some pretty big challenges sometimes. It hands us little challenges too…it hands us things everyday which are often hard to be thankful for or to see past and find the things that are good. And yet it is essential that we do that, that we work hard to see the good, the peace, the hope. If we don’t, then we are giving up and letting it control us. I always find it interesting when people focus on themselves and how horrible their life is. I am know I am guilty of this at times but thankfully it doesn’t happen for any great length of time. Usually I am just beginning my poor, poor pity me rant when I see a story on the news or on my favourite social media outlet…facebook… about a loss, crisis and tragedy and I realize how good my life is. I wish everyone could operate that way, I wish people could look at those around them before they complain and realize how good their life is and give praise for that. Instead they complain about things that sometimes those who they complain to would give anything to have only that problem…or just have that problem.
I recently wrote to some other grieving parents about finding ways to peace. I spoke about trying to give purpose to your loss in order to give you hope and peace. I also, as I have often in the past, tried to get others to see what they can be thankful for in the midst of this overwhelming sadness that the loss of a child brings. But what a difficult thing this is…. How do you feel thankful for anything when your heart is broken??? My answer is simple… are you alive? Did you survive to live another day and have more opportunities, more moments to live, love and laugh? If so, then those are moments to celebrate and give thanks.

Romans 5:1-5 (NLT)

1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.
3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

I mean isn’t it really a gift, a reason to celebrate that we, as parents who have lost a child or children are still here . I know it is hard to think of it this way but isn’t it a gift to know that we have endured the worst pain ever and still survived… permanently changed but still here. We are stronger for it…despite how many of us feel every day. We have survived what many think would ‘kill’ them. We have made new friends, learned so many new things and travelled roads we never thought we would. Yes it is a world we would have never wished we travelled, it’s a world we’d never wish on anyone. But we are still here and for many of us, we have a closer connection to God and I guess to Heaven. And for that I am thankful.

Encouragement... it's what gets us through

2011-10-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.”William Arthur Ward
Our pastor quoted this a few weeks ago and I’ve been thinking of it and of writing about it since then. Admittedly I had planned to write this, oh about three weeks ago, but life, once again, got in the way. But that might actually makes the timing on this a bit better because I have had so many people encouraging me in so many areas lately, so many praying for me in various ways, and now I can Praise God that some of my prayers have been answered.
Encouragement is an interesting thing…. It can be so easy to do and yet can be done in such a way that it really isn’t encouragement at all. And the results can be just as William Arthur Ward stated above.
I’m sure we can all think of people who are full of flattery but don’t back that up with support. They can tell us how awesome we are but they never give any feedback to our deeds and actions, they never offer support and critiquing…only positive comments. That only gives us a false sense of security and eventually leads us to wonder what this person actually sees in us and our actions. When something doesn’t work out the way you wanted or your efforts backfire it is very hard not to remember the person who didn’t give you any advice but just gushed at all you were doing. You know, when you are planning something let’s say and you ask some people if your ideas sound good, really looking for suggestions and support and what you get is ‘your ideas are so wonderful, you are such a great person for doing this, everything will go great’ etc. So you go into your activity thinking that it’s going to go off without much of a hitch because that is the feedback you’ve been given. When the event doesn’t turn out as planned and you realize you overextended yourself, planned the wrong thing at the wrong time for the wrong crowd etc. you realize that you needed more honest advice, more encouragement, more offers of support and help.
And the same can be said for the opposite type of support. You know those types too…the ones who never support you, who don’t believe in you, tell you they don’t know why you do the things you do, that they’d never do it that way or never do it all. That just makes it really hard to be around that person, makes it hard to really like them because you always feel judged.
And ignoring…well that seems to come in all circles too. How many people have the kind of friends who never seem to engage in conversation, never inquire how you are, never offer to help or support you. You co-exist with them but you never interact despite all your efforts to engage them. How often have you asked for general support for something via email or facebook only to have the same people over and over again not bother to respond or reply. Sometimes all you are asking for is a few words of support, encouragement or even just someone to listen to you and yet this seems to be something that is just too much to ask.

Therefore encourage one another, strengthen and build up one another, just as you are doing.
1 Thessalonians 5:11

But encouragement…well that is truly a gift you can give someone. It makes me smile when I think of those that have encouraged me right here on this blog. Those that have thanked for sharing my inner most thoughts and my inner most grief. I feel so warm all over when I think of those people who always reach out to me when I need support, who always help when I ask for it. I think of the encouraging words I had when planning the fundraiser (and no, I still don’t have a grand total for it yet). I was in awe of all of the baking that was donated…Brycen made $300 or more on his bake stand. That is encouragement. People telling me that the cause is so very worthwhile, that is encouragement. People driving distances just to come and say hi…or to meet for the first time…that is encouragement. Random people sending us donations or donating to Zack’s bike a thon (which raised almost $1100)…that is encouragement.

And those that have checked in all summer with me about my job status…always asking if I was moving schools….if I got what I was wanting and praying for… some that never seemed to forget that I was praying for this move. That was encouragement. My new friends at church who praised God with me when the news FINALLY came that the job was mine…that is amazing encouragement. Those that rejoiced with me online when I announced my move…that was encouragement.
Without encouragement we can lead pretty sad existences. As Christians we need to encourage others all of the time. We need to love and support those around us because not only is it the right thing to do but because it will come back to us. When we need support, love, encouragement, we will remember those times when we struggled and we will remember those that encouraged us. That is how we learn, by modeling.

Bear one another's burdens and troublesome moral faults, and in this way fulfill and observe perfectly the law of Christ and complete what is lacking in your obedience to it.
Galatians 6: 2

But our biggest source of encouragement is those of our faith and most especially our Father in Heaven.

Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be moved Psalm 55: 22

Sometimes it is so hard to cast our burdens, to forget that God is holding us in the palm of his hand and that we can give it all up to Him. We are only human, we make mistakes, we forget. It is likely one of the hardest lessons I have had to learn as a Christian…that I must give up my worries and burdens to God.
Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him; fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass. Psalm 37: 7
When Cameron was baptized by our friend Theresa, she used this topic in her sermon. She spoke as a mother and as a friend of how hard it is to cast your burdens onto the Lord and to not fret. She knows first hand how hard that is when it comes to your children….she lived it in one of the same places I did…St. Joe’s.

Casting the whole of your care, all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. 1 Peter 5: 7

And I know that all of you know that I do too… for obvious reasons in regards to Cameron and Cole but also for reasons in my marriage, my family and our situation at the moment. I am working very hard to give my burdens to God and to not worry about our financial situation and Geoff’s job. I know God will provide for me as long as I believe He will. If I doubt then the chances of my worries being taken away and the outcome I desire happening are pretty small. I need to feel encouraged by the love of Christ and I need to feel encouraged by those who believe in me, who support me and who will be cheering me on as I take the journey of life.
And all of that encouragement…well that is love. That is what love is all about. It’s unconditional and it causes a cyclical affect. So I guess now I am forced to love you… and I praise God for that!

To everything there is a season

2011-09-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our daily breakfast devotion was based on Ecclesiastes 3
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A Time for Everything
1For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.2 A time to be born and a time to die.A time to plant and a time to harvest.3 A time to kill and a time to heal. .A time to tear down and a time to build up.4 A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.5 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.A time to embrace and a time to turn away.6 A time to search and a time to quit searching.A time to keep and a time to throw away.7 A time to tear and a time to mend.A time to be quiet and a time to speak.8 A time to love and a time to hate.A time for war and a time for peace.
9 What do people really get for all their hard work? 10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. 11Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. 12 So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.
It’s been sitting in my head and in my heart all day. I’ve been filled with a sense of contentment and peace in the last few days and at the same time, I’ve been emotional and filled with memories and even sadness about Cole and Cameron and how much, growing up apart, will affect Cameron. I know that my trips down memory lane will happen often but this weekend was more intense and emotional than most given that our fundraiser was all about Cole and Cameron. And given that I finally met, in real life, another TTTS mom and her beautiful survivor. Our stories are similar, our treatment, doctors and medical staff almost the same and our shock at learning one of our babies is gone is identical. It was so wonderful to meet someone who understands the shoes I walk in and understands the post TTTS me unlike anyone else…she lives it too.
And so here I am today contemplating why I can feel so content and so uncontent at the same time. As I pondered this, I kept hearing the Beatles song in my head and realized how true it is. Everything has a season and time…. The good, the bad and the ugly…it all has it’s place and it all happens whether we want it to or not. We can choose to look at it as a burden and be unable to see the whole scope of our lives…as a gift from God, as a journey with Christ. Or we can realize that there are seasons to everything in life, that not all things will go as planned, not all emotions will make sense, not all things will be perfect and happy. We can do this and go with it, embrace it, praise it and be glad in it. For it means, that in surviving it we are strengthened and in being given the tough times we are blessed by God and his love.
So I turn, turn, turn in my season, my time and I lift my hands to the Lord and praise Him for knowing that I am worth these trials and burdens.

Where am I???

2011-09-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

Where am I?
You might be asking yourself this…that is if anyone actually watches my blog and realized its been, YIKES, 3 months since I posted. I guess life gets in the way and I think that maybe I have had so much to think and talk about that I couldn’t settle on one thing to post about…or just wasn’t ready yet.
For those that know me well, you’ll know that my husband, Geoff has been out of work for a long time. It’s been stressful, for sure but It’s also been good for us as a couple and family. We’ve spent so much time together over the summer and have been working hard at being the family we want to be.
I’d be lying if I said that things have been perfect and most certainly I’d be lying if I said that nothing significant happened to bring us to the place where we decided we needed to work a lot harder on this family. The fact is we were in a very bad place and our future togetherwas very unknown, dark and scary. But then a light began to shine in us, most especially in Geoff. God found him when he needed Him most. Notice I said God found him not he found God. Many would disagree with me here but for someone who has never had any relationship with Christ I think, at times , that is the way it feels. I know because I feel this way too and I’ve had a relationship with the Lord for years. I’ve always been a believer but I’m not sure what I believed in…still am not always sure but my focus is much more intense now. When you hit rock bottom and there is no where else to go but up and this hand comes out from above to help lift you out of the pits, out of temptation, sin and negativity, you have to wonder whether its you finding God or God finding you. I know He’s always been there for me and I often turned to Him in times of struggle. But I never turned to Him in times of joy, peace , contentment and hope. God isn’t just there for me for the hard times, He is there for me all the time! He always was but I needed that push, that kick, that encouragement to really truly feel Him.
I’m going to be writing a lot in the next little while. Much of it will about my exploration into faith , the bible and my relationships. I have so much to say, so much to share…so much to give praise for!
Right now, though, I want to give praise for the many , many people who came out to support us in our second annual fundraiser for Mt. Sinai and for the wonderful gift it was to finally meet another TTTS mom in person. I am in awe of the generosity of the many people who supported us. I’ll give numbers and updates on the bottom of the next few posts but I just want to say a big Thanks to everyone!
So I guess to answer my own question…where am I? In a great place , held up in times of crisis, sorrow and strife by Jesus Christ, rejoicing at the amazing life God has given me!

A final homecoming...and what I've learned from it

2011-06-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I have a great many online friends who have gone through or are going through the struggles of TTTS. I met a new friend this past winter as she struggled to make decisions and choices. Like Cole, one of her little girls had a velementous cord insertion and a poor placental share. She hoped she would be a candidate for surgery though she was very scared of what that meant. She did have the surgery and like us, learned the next day that one of her sweet babes had gone to be with Jesus. She never referred to her as an angel though she did often say that she knew she was watching over her sister. Like me, she believed that her heavenly baby had lived just long enough to ensure that her sister survived.
Fast forward the story about 8-10 weeks when my friend’s water broke and she was hospitalized and began the regiment that all who have a premature rupture of their membranes go through…steroid shots for the lungs and antibiotics to prevent infection. All seemed well and it seemed that her little survivor would remain in utero, like Cameron, for many weeks to come. But then about 7 days or so after her water broke her little survivor arrived…at 28 weeks gestation.
She seemed to be doing well initially but then began to struggle so she was transferred to another larger hospital. She continued to struggle to clear the carbon dioxide from her body but everything else with her seemed to be going well. After a few procedures and surgeries on both her heart and her trachea it seemed that this little survivor’s battles were behind her.
And then last week we got a message from her mom that she was very sick with an infection and they had been called in to the hospital to be with her…. I assumed, just to give her comfort. I was shocked to learn the next day that her sweet little survivor’s journey was over. She’d gone to be with Jesus. I admit…I sobbed so hard I had to sit for a long time to get it all together. And I still feel that way at times. Their story is so similar to ours…and could so easily have been our outcome if Cameron had been born when my water broke at 26 weeks.
I went to her blog yesterday and read this….

We thought our homecoming would be a wonderful ending to a long a difficult road, but it would just have been continuing the race that is life on this earth for our girl. Instead, she's already won the race and received the prize. B's homecoming was the final homecoming - the one where she gets to live in the mansions and walk on streets of gold and worship at the throne of God and see him face to face.

I cried harder and marveled at her strength. I didn’t think I could ever be that strong. Later that day I read this posting from her too…

The temptation during a time like this is to ask why? Why did this happen? Why did God do this? Why me? The fact is, this is life on this imperfect earth. Many people before us have gone through similar tragedies and worse, and many people after us will go through them. The better question is why not me?

This is where the rubber of our faith meets the road of life. Sure, it is unbelievably painful. We feel weak. We are beside ourselves. We are undone. How could she have pulled through heart surgery only to be taken by a fluke infection? There are many questions. But these things did not surprise our God. He is, and always has been, in control of this situation. He is good, he loves us, and he has not abandoned us. If we are to have free will, we have to live with sin and death and suffering on this earth - but only for a while. A day will come when "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain."We are anxious for that day to come soon.

This time I cried with tears of joy and inspiration. I wrote to her and told her that I was inspired by her to strengthen my relationship with Christ so that I, too, could feel so at peace about the trials of life and of death itself.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be at this level of peace and confidence…I can only hope. I know that I can’t wait to go to Heaven to see Cole…and all the others who have been so blessed to go before me. I know that I will always have sad moments when it comes to the loss of loved ones but my friend has truly planted a seed in me.

Sweet Baby B…thank you so much for blessing your family for your 6 short weeks here with your Mommy and Daddy and brothers and for the joyful (and I know stressful too) 28 weeks inside your mommy's womb with your dear sweet sister, Baby F. Thank you for bringing such strength and hope to many. Thank you for teaching me some valuable lessons. I am so glad you were able to hold your mommy’s hand as you left this world…not to get comfort and strength from her but rather to give comfort and strength to her. Much love little one, say hello to Cole for me…I’m sure he met you at the gates with open arms and will show you all the coolest places that he has found.

Contentment

2011-06-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

Another long time between postings...I know. There's been a lot going on around me lately and sometimes I desperately want to write about it and ask for the support of my friends who read this and other times I just can't bring myself to share it with the world. It's amazing how public our lives can be...amazing how okay we are with some of that and not okay with others. This much I will say, my family could use your prayers right now as we struggle to find our way right now. Many tough things have been happening but also many wonderful things too and I think that maybe the most wonderful thing that has happened yet is beginning and will continue to happen. We've been asking God for a lot of guidance, support and love lately and opening ourselves up, together, for this and I think we are feeling and seeing the amazing way He can touch people first hand.
Last night I was reading one of my Amish Christian fiction novels..A Stranger's Wish by Gayle Roper. I was struck by something the authorwrote and felt so compelled to share it with everyone and to reflect upon it. It was about contentment....true contentment and about what we deserve...and what the reality is or how we cope with that.
Learning contentment is often coming to the realization that some circumstances are changeable and some aren't. Contentment is partially found in learning to tell the difference.
We must ask ourselves this: Can I choose to change my circumstances or are they beyond my ability to change? If I am unhappy with my car, I may be able to buy a new one. I can choose to change my situation. If I am unhappy with my children, I can't trade them in. I cannot deny the genetic strands hidden in their bodies.
I realize these are extreme examples, but the principle holds: Some situations are changeable; some are not.
"But I deserve better," you say.I deserve a better home/house, decent neighbours, a church that feeds me, to be understood. When what you have and what you deserve aren't a match, your response to this less-than-perfect situation is your choice. You can be hurt and bitter. You can withdraw. You can become sharp of tongue and manner. Or you can give up the need to get what you deserve.
I just really found that this begged me to read and reread it. So many areas of so many peoples lives seem to be filled with a lack of contentment and a desire to have that they feel they deserve. The obvious examples are those materialistic things we seem to want even if the budget isn't there or the need really doesn't exist. I know I've justified purchases with the the thoughts or words 'think how much happier we'll be or how easier it will make things.
But that's not really what spoke to me here...and not really what the author was truly talking about though I'm very certain it does tie in. That kind if contentment requires change if financial status and if you believe many business motivational speakers, we all have the ability to become financially content. But do we deserve it... do the judgements of others make us more content than the judgements of a good and loving God???
And what about the ability to change your circumstance to increase your contentment. How many people do you know that believe they can change someone... mostly a partner or sometimes a child or friend. It is so hard to learn that we can change ourselves to increase our contentment but we can't change others. No matter how hard we try, no matter how much we want change...it's up to us. And sometimes it just can't be changed... sometimes it is beyond our control.
I think this could be said for anyone who has gone through a personal crisis, a loss, a tragedy. You want to change your circumstances, you want to erase what has happened and start over, you wish you had that choice. But the reality is that you much of what happens to us everyday day is beyone our ability to change. What is not, should it make us unhappy, is up to us to change...not others, not the money fairy, not your neighbours, your church, your family...it's up to you.
And what can't be changed..what then. How do you cope with the reality that this is your life, this is the way it's meant to be? When it is beyond your ability to change it then what do you do. So many people get bitter and angry. They tell everyone how unjust things are. They ask why this had to happen and they blame God. They are unable to forgive those that they feel wronged them or caused this to
happen...unable to forgive those who can't change. Or they disappear...they go inside themselves and shut themselves off. And many times it seems to be so much easier to complain, to be negative and to be cynical rather than to accept that this is your life, this is what will make you content in time and this is the life God meant for you.
True happiness and contentment is in our control if we can only realize that our acceptance of the things we can't change is really all that keeps us from it. Life is not about what you have, who you know, where you've been or where you go here on earth. Its about the journey you take along the way and your responses to the good, the bad, the things that are given to you and the the things that are taken away.
May God grant us the serenity to accept the things we can not change, the courage to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference so that true contentment is something we all will know.

Anger...a powerful thing...

2011-05-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

I’ve been away from my blog for way to long. No real excuses except that life has got in the way and things have been pretty stressful in my life lately. Sometimes I share this stuff and sometimes I don’t…this is one of those don’ts though I know that many who read my blog might be aware of some of the things that have been going on.
I think one of the things I’ve been feeling lately is anger and frustration but more than that I’ve also been dealing with being on the receiving end of anger. In the last few days I’ve also been reading many posts from others on facebook about their anger and it’s lead me to think, to research and to write.
For me, a passive optimist… passive because inwardly I am not always so optimistic but on the outside most see me this way, I don’t let anger control me. I try to control it and unfortunately I also try to control the anger of others… A LOT! It’s not working so well… maybe a new strategy is needed???
I have a short fuse at times… have always been this way. Usually I get angry, I speak my mind and then feel that release. If I don’t do this I usually end up stewing for hours, unable to move forward, unable to forgive and forget. I plan what I’ll say the next day, plan how I’ll defend myself or let the other person know how their actions made me feel. I obsess on it and can hardly sleep. And usually I let it go after a short period…not entirely, it sits waiting to rear it’s ugly head sometimes but for the most part I move on.
But not everyone is like that. Someone close to me once told me that it’s great that I can be the way I am, great that I can blow, release, forgive and be happy all within minutes but he can’t…and it’s hard to deal with. I have such a hard time being around moody people or those who I know are angry with me. I want to fix everything, want the world to be happy and peaceful. It’s not a bad way to be but it’s not for everyone and can be pretty intrusive to those who don’t want to deal with it that way. Their way of stewing, mooding, being silent or spreading their anger around isn’t maybe the best for them but it helps them to come to grips with what has happened, helps them to find solutions.
Finding the root of anger is one of the hardest parts of a relationship..no matter who that relationship is with. I have had an epiphany lately about something that causes me to get angry over and over again and it was great to finally see that. Unfortunately it will be a long road to recovery from this root but I’m working on it. Being overly disappointed in some things that have happened over and over again, being hugely disappointed in what is the reality is very hard to take, very hard to move forward from. Again…I’m working on it.
So with this new knowledge of anger in my mind and just the fact that anger has been a big part of life lately it was rather fateful that many TTTS mom’s have been posting about anger lately. So many are justifiably angry…and as so many of you know, I was (and am at times) too. I worked through some it a few months into this blog and few other times along the way.
In some of the research I came across and found this quote from On Death and Dying, by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. She wrote that one reaction we humans have to loss is anger. She said Few people place themselves in the patient's position and wonder where this anger might come from. Maybe we too would be angry if all our life activities were interrupted so prematurely; if all the buildings we started were to go unfinished, to be completed by someone else; if we had put some hard-earned money aside to enjoy a few years of rest and enjoyment, for travel and hobbies, only to be confronted with the fact that [we are dying]. What else would we do with our anger but let it out on the people ... who rush busily around only to remind us that we cannot even stand on our two feet anymore.
Obviously this is written about someone who is dying but I think the loss of a child causes you to die inside and so many of those things you had planned for your life appear to be shattered…and really are in so many ways. And even those who’ve had drastic changes, set backs or personal losses (of a job, of a dream, of a relationship) are dying inside too.
The author of the article I found Dr. Kubler-Ross’s quote in wrote about the intense all consuming anger that some people have and how scary he finds it. His fear stems from fearing for his safety but also for his loss of control when he is angry and what he will say and do that he will regret later. Early humans needed anger the give them a surge in adrenalin that helped them to survive but modern civilization doesn’t have that same need and because of that most people work to manage their anger.
Dr. Kubler-Ross suggests that when it comes to big losses it can help a great deal if we listen to the anger of seriously ill persons. After interviews with many seriously ill persons she came to the conclusion that the small losses of our lives are the training ground where we learn the coping skills we use when we are faced with large losses. Put another way, according to this article, we tend to die the way we have lived. If we rely heavily on denial to help up cope with the small losses of life, we will tend to rely heavily on denial when we struggle to cope with the big losses. If we rely heavily on anger and indignation to cope with the small losses of our life, we are likely to depend on anger to get us through the big losses.
Wow….isn’t that a realization about how so many people deal with things. There are many people who do react with denial when things go wrong or when someone they know casually dies and they don’t really react at all. But I also know a great number of people who blow little things out of proportion and who get angry at the littlest things and can’t let go…remain so angry for so long. When a big upset happens, when a huge loss happens it’s catastrophic and throws their life completely off kilter. They get so angry, so bitter, so full of negativity and it is so hard to move past that…and so much damage can be done at that time.
After reading this article about grieving…after hearing what Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says on this topic, I realize I need to listen more and talk less. I need to be the compassionate friend more and not interject my life’s moments or compare my story. That’s not my job…my job is to listen.
I decided while I was on this topic I would do some more research…especially in how anger affects relationships (and you know I figured if I hadn’t written in a long time, maybe you’d like to read a novel LOL!!!)
What I’ve learned is something I’ve learned time again in courses I take for my job and in things I teach my students who are struggling with behaviour all the time… anger is a powerful, perfectly normal emotion that everyone feels at one time or another. Experts say that anger develops more often in the family in marriage and with children than in any other relationship. The second most common place for anger episodes… at work. Because of this, more people are injured by the violent acts of someone they live or work with than by strangers.
It is the most poorly handled emotion in society and you see it everywhere…
road rage on the roads, shouting matches and fights in the arena, violence at school and domestic abuse in homes. It is the source of many legal problems and the root of many health issues…headaches, high blood pressure and chronic pain. Science has just recently begun to recognize the contribution anger makes to these and other diseases. When coupled with workplace and family stress, unresolved anger can cause emotional, physical and spiritual health to suffer. This can lead the angry one to lash out at the nearest person.
But what so many people need to realize is that because anger can be controlled, it makes anger a choice. Anger is a learned response to a trigger in our environment. While some people may have a tendency to become angry, it's not okay to give in and simply say "That's just the way I am, and there's nothing I can do about it." Ultimately we are in charge of which behaviors we choose in response to the emotions we feel. How many times do we hear people say things like, "She/He made me angry."

That statement is inaccurate. No one is ever made to be angry. No one is forced against their will to lose their temper. Anger is a learned response to a provoking situation
And how does that all tie back into grief and loss (you knew I’d come back to this right???). As I see it, as I’ve lived it, as I’ve watched others live it I see how controlling anger can be in your life and how hard it is to just be…to just live, to love, to laugh, to remember what life was like before ‘IT’ happened. It’s not easy. I am still so pissed off at times that I have had this happen to me and to my family. I am angry that I missed out on being that twin mom, I am mad that Cameron won’t have his twin with him and I am still struggling with the changes that losing Cole has done to me…I want my old life back and yet I like the new me at times too. I know my family is forever changed because of Cole and for sure we have angrier moments and that anger has in turn affected all of us. But I’d be telling the hugest lie around if I said that we didn’t have anger issues before. Thankfully we are working at these issues and have some wonderful professionals helping us with this.
I read a lot of my past blog entries today and in reading these things I realize how far I have come. I realize that for so many reasons time really does help with coping. Unlike the saying, I don’t believe at all that it heals all thing, nor will time ever cause me to forget or to devalue. But it does help to make my heart feel more put together and not so broken and it helps me to accept and move forward. I have experienced the intense anger that grief and loss bring about and I have moved forward. A big step in that though was being able to forgive… others, myself and God.
I found this online about forgiveness and grief….

“Forgiveness is necessary here because few of us are perfect when it comes to this issue of loss and anger. Each of us can only do the best we can when it comes to expressing our angry grief. And we can only do the best we can when it comes to listening to the anger in others. We can always learn to do better, but most of us will fall short of perfection. So as we struggle to cope with the great losses that we face in this life, we need each other's forgiveness. “

Perhaps it’s time for many of us to evaluate who we are angry with, who we need to forgive and maybe then the first steps in healing can begin.

P.S. Yup…it’s a novel… I promise to write more often so there’s less to read!!!

Self-Preservation

2011-04-12T05:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder (okay often I wonder) why things happen the way they do and why I feel such intense emotions about things I see and hear. Recently I learned about an amazing miracle of multiples and began watching the blog of this family. Immediately upon reading the early posts of their blog I began to feel such intense feelings of 'caution'. I wanted to say to this family who was getting so prepared for their naturally conceived quads (two sets of identical twins) to wait, to not buy so much, not get so prepared...because you just never know what might happen. I hated that I felt this way, hated that I couldn't just be happy for this amazing miracle. From this I began to read other blogs of multiples who were connecting with this family as well. Most of them were larger order multiples...triplets, quads and even quints. I am a glutton for punishment I guess... because it did give me feelings of jealousy and even anger. I am sure this will happen for many years....I mean I couldn't even keep 2 babies alive and here are people who got to have 3, 4 and even 5 babies at the same time.
And so many of these blogs that I read began at the early stages of their pregnancy and so many of them were like the Masencups...preparing long before they even reached the end of their first trimester for their multiple babies. This led me to ponder why I didn't do this and all I could come up with is perhaps a subconscious self-preservation.
Self-preservation is behavior that ensures the survival of an organism. It is universal among living organisms. In some vertebrates, pain and fear are parts of this mechanism. Pain causes discomfort so that the organism is inclined to stop the pain. Fear causes the organism to seek safety and may cause a release of adrenaline, which has the effect of increased strength and heightened senses such as hearing, smell, and sight. Self-preservation may also be interpreted figuratively; in regard to the coping mechanisms one needs to prevent emotional trauma from distorting the mind
I wrote about some of this before on here when my FB friend, Carrie, the mom of two TTTS angels, posted pictures of tearing down her nursery and putting away all the twin clothes she had bought. I know that some of the reasons we had nothing prepared except our double stroller was that we didn’t know if we were having boys or girls and that is very likely why I hadn’t bought any clothes either….though really when I think back to that time in the fall of 2008 I do remember thinking I should/could buy some matching gender neutral outfits or some twin 1 and twin 2 shirts. I remember thinking I should get a few outfits before I got too big to be able to do it….but it just never happened. I know some of the reasons I told myself were financial… we didn’t have the money to buy new things for the twins and we also didn’t need too much in the way of ‘stuff’ because we had one of most things and so many friends offered up the second one to us. But I never got around to picking up any of those things.
At the time I looked at as a blessing as I didn’t have to ‘deal’ with any of that stuff but when I read Carry’s blog in October I was a bit, well envious seems like a horrible word but it kind of suits and, as I often have, I wished for those twin moments, those moments to think about the excitement, the wonderment of it all and the fascination I know that I had. But then when I read what the Masencups have now experienced I think, again, that I was glad I didn’t have to deal with it. I am so very sorry for their loss and am hoping that perhaps, at some point, they may connect with some of the amazing friends I have who have supported me so much and who understand how many mixed emotions exist when you lose a baby or babies in a multiple pregnancy, especially when you remain pregnant for weeks afterwards.
I think that so often in life we self-preserve. I could come up with all the reasons in the world at the time for why I wasn’t more ‘ready’ for the twins…. money, generosity of others, a firm sense that I would not go into labour early (a over-confidence, a naivety???) but in reality I think I was preparing myself to not be disappointed, hurt, emotionally traumatized. I think in so many ways we all do that. For those that make it past the crisis (in the case of many who read this, past the diagnosis and treatment for TTTS) it becomes very hard to prepare for the next stage no matter how joyful it should be. Even when it isn’t joy we are anticipating but rather just ‘calm’, ‘normal’ and ‘real’ it is just so hard sometimes to be positive or to feel 100% confident that everything is going to be okay.
Part of me will always wish I’d been less self-preserving and more spontaneous, part of me will always wish I’d written and journaled each step of the journey along the way, part of me will always wish I’d taken photos of my ever growing belly and a big part of me will always wish that I had a ‘twin gift’ from Mommy that I could save for Cameron and keep in memory of Cole. If wishes were fishes….
But then again I think that I did the best for me, the best I could, the thing that made sense, made it work and in all honesty, likely saved my sanity and my emotional stability back in December 2008. I don’t think self-preservation is a bad thing at all nor do I think the optimism that the mom of multiples, or even of singletons, feels and acts on is bad or wrong either. We all deal with things on the level that works for us and are left with the memories, the security and the comfort that is right for us.
Because what is self-preserving for some, what helps to protect them from feeling pain or fear, what keeps them from having their emotional trauma distort their mind may not be what another needs, wants, feels or even wishes upon anyone else on this earth. Coping is so personal...whether it's coping with preparation for joy or for sorrow. What matters is that we are here for those who need us in the moment when even their self-preservation undergoes a crisis.

Volunteer Heroes

2011-03-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve been struggling for days to decide what to write regarding my feelings about the tragedy that struck our community last week. In all honesty, I’ve been struggling to even verbalize my feelings about it and it takes a lot to make me speechless. It is so hard to grasp a tragedy like this, so hard to comprehend.
For those who read my blog and aren’t from Ontario or haven’t heard about the devastating news, last Thursday, March 17th, I opened my facebook page just after supper the read repeated messages from people in my local area who were thinking and praying for the volunteer firemen who’d lost their lives. I searched local media sources to find out more info and quickly learned that a fire in my municipality had broke out at a store, 6 different fire detachments were battling the blaze and it had resulted in the unbelievable loss of two volunteer firemen from the area. I desperately began to search for what detachment these 2 men were from, thinking of those firefighters from our community who I knew were there… our friends, Dad’s of our kids friends, members of our church, coaches of our kids sports teams, neighbours and fellow Kin family members and hoping that it wasn’t one of these people, not one of the North Perth Firemen, though I knew it didn’t really matter. When I learned the men were from Listowel and Atwood my heart sank and when I learned that one of them was, indeed, someone I knew of from Kin, I could feel the sting of tears.
It was a surreal experience the next day as I went to Listowel to carry on with the planned Kinsmen and Kinette event. Everywhere you looked there was media present, every corner I turned I came across barriers blocking roads, vehicles on normally empty streets and people watching for the crippling moment when the bodies of these firemen would be taken from the burnt out building.
All around me all weekend were reminders of how much these men impacted our community and how much a crisis like this affects everyone. Tears, hugs, and shocked looks seemed everywhere. How could this have happened to one of our own? How could this have happened to a volunteer fireman?
The media attention that this crisis produced was almost overwhelming. Everywhere you turned there were media vehicles, reporters, cameras, videographers. It felt so invasive and intrusive. I couldn’t believe how much I hated it and yet how much I wanted to watch the footage at home. I began to realize how much those who aren’t affected by crisis really don’t appreciate the pain that those who are experience when their lives become so public.
The other thing that became overwhelming to me was actually a good thing in a sense. It was a feeling of comradeship, of friendship and of belonging. I haven’t been in the family of Kin for a long time… 14 months or so. I haven’t participated as much as I would have liked until recently and suddenly I found myself with my Kin brothers and sisters in the midst of a crisis and knowing that we were helping each other to cope, to survive. I am so proud to call myself a member of Kin Canada.
This moment was first apparent to me as our group gathered together with our Paddyfest attire on, black bands on our arms and walked on to the stage at the dance as a family. The entire crowd, over 1200 people, were very quickly silent as we offered up a moment of silence for our fellow Kin Ray and his fellow fireman, Ken. It gave me hope for humanity and it also made me feel so connected to this group. The second time this became apparent was the following day as our Kin family once again joined together and walked the parade route in honour of Ray. It was a surreal experience….this quiet group of friends walking along as people on the streets looked on. Many had tears in their eyes as they grieved the loss of a member of their community, others had tears or looks of compassion as they watched our groups faces, very somber, many hurting. Hard moments for me came as people would clap for us as it made me realize just how much everyone respected this organization I belonged to, an organization known for supporting others, supporting their community and so in need of support right now. Harder moments though came as our group encountered firefighters openly weeping and harder yet, encountering Ray’s parents and family and finally his wife, Holly. It was at this moment that I first felt the need to cry and weep for all that our community had lost.
Later that day, at home, I did this. I cried for the loss of these good men and I cried for the loss of our innocence in a sense. We, humanity, is so naïve to the risks that volunteer firemen take each and every time they go out on a call. We seem to know the risks for police officers and soldiers and perhaps even for those professional firefighters who fight huge blazes in large urban centres. But most of us have never given a thought to those, mostly unpaid, volunteers who gather every few weeks to train to fight fires, who give their time and sadly their lives to keep us safe. I never really understood this risk, this sacrifice and I wish that I didn’t know it as closely as I do now…and I’m pretty sure all of the citizens protected by the firemen of North Perth would agree with me.
I can promise you that I will never forget it again and I will not forget to support them in the days, weeks and months ahead. Nor will I ever forget again to say thank you to these volunteer heroes.
Ray and Ken – you will be sadly missed and never forgotten for the ultimate sacrifice you made. This Irish blessing seems only fitting given the date of your passing…
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

A Parent’s Pain

2011-03-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

I wasn’t really planning for a theme but it seems I have another blog post that ties into the first song on my playlist and my final thoughts about it. They came to me at a strange time after a long and tiring day. I have recently begun reading a magazine called Guildposts. It’s a Christian magazine with stories about regular people and famous ones too….and how they’ve found faith, found hope….found God. Admittedly it’s filled with too many ads and some features I could take or leave but last night I read an article that really spoke to me.
This women was writing about God speaking to her at various points in her life. She was being treated for breast cancer and during one of her treatments she began to feel very alone, isolated and full of fear and worry.
But she also began to feel God’s love in way that she never had before and through eyes that had never seen it this way before. She remembered times that she had seen her own children afraid and hurt and remembered the times she had worried about them. She remembered those experiences and the fierce love it have evoked in her for her children.
And then she began to realize that was what God felt for her, times infinity. She’d been told her whole life that she was a child of God but she didn’t really appreciate it fully until then and she knew that God would see her through.
So here I was reading this last night and suddenly I felt a connection that had never occurred to me before either. Both the one that the author realizes but also another one, a much more powerful one to me.
There have been many moments in my life when I have worried about my kids. When Zack was born and didn’t cry, wasn’t able to breathe much at all I worried. When the doctor thought he might have cystic fibrosis I worried. When Brycen’s heart rate dropped below mine during labour and I needed an emergency c-section the fear in my heart was overwhelming. When Cameron and Cole were diagnosed with TTTS at 23 weeks gestation and we were told they were not viable if born then and that without surgery there was 100% chance we would lose one and likely both I was beyond concerned, beyond anxious, beyond fearful. When we learned Cole’s heart was very sick, that he was very sick, I was stressed beyond belief and when we learned he had passed away I was devastated. I didn’t think I could be more afraid then I was for Cameron when we went through the treatments for his severe anemia, during the MRI done on his brain or in the days that followed both of these. But I was wrong…I was shattered when my water broke and we were prepared by the medical staff to welcome our very premature, very small for his gestational age and likely very sick son.
And of course the worries didn’t stop there…for any of my kids. I worried about how the time I spent away would affect my older boys, I worried for Cameron’s health. I was concerned for the lack of transition time that Brycen especially had from being the baby to being the big brother. To be honest, that worry is still very much apart of our lives as we watch how he interacts with Cameron (not so well would be the observation). I was very stressed about Cameron’s development…okay I am still worried about this at times. I worry about social interactions with my boys, I worry about how our, crappy at times, parenting will affect them… I think I could go on forever.
A parents worry never goes away. A very good friend, our old minister Theresa, spoke at Cameron's baptism about the worry that parents have when pregnancy doesn’t go as planned and when parenthood doesn’t go as planned. She spoke about turning those worries over to God because sometimes you worry so much that you miss out on what’s happening around you. And she’s so right…I definitely feel that way about the arrival of my twins. I was so full of worry about Cameron’s health and so full of stress concerning Cole’s body condition after 11 lifeless weeks inside of me that I could not appreciate the moment for what it was, could not bring myself to hug, kiss or even touch my precious son.
But this author and her words have made me realize something even more important. For as much as we worry about our children, God worries about us. For as much as we are fearful for the crisis that our children are in, God is fearful for the crisis we are in and what choices it may cause us to make.
For me, it comes back to my heartfelt belief, God does not want horrible things to happen, He does not wish us this pain, this worry, this fear. Our pain hurts Him too. But just as our children learn to lean on us when they are in pain, are afraid or are worried, so must we learn to lean on God when we are put in situations with our children and with other aspects of our life.
We are so truly blessed to have a Father that cares so much for us that He’s willing to endure the most horrible pain so that we won’t have to. All we have to do is lean on him and let him wrap us in His arms the way we wrap our own loved ones in ours.

I Won't Let Go

2011-03-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

Over the last few days I’ve been hearing this song, I Won’t Let Go by Rascal Flatts every morning on my way to work. It’s a beautiful song…hopefully you can hear it on here and here are the lyrics.
I Won’t Let Go – Rascal Flatts
It’s like a storm
That cuts a path
It’s breaks your will
It feels like that
You think your lost
But you’re not lost on your own
You’re not alone
I will stand by you
I will help you through
When you’ve done all you can do
If you can’t cope
I will dry your eyes
I will fight your fight
I will hold you tight
And I won’t let go
It hurts my heart
To see you cry
I know it’s dark
This part of life
Oh it finds us all
And we’re too small
To stop the rain
Oh but when it rains
I will stand by you
I will help you through
When you’ve done all you can do
And you can’t cope
I will dry your eyes
I will fight your fight
I will hold you tight
And I won’t let you fall
Don’t be afraid to fall
I’m right here to catch you
I won’t let you down
It won’t get you down
Your gonna make it
Yea I know you can make it
Cause I will stand by you
I will help you through
When you’ve done all you can do
And you can’t cope
And I will dry your eyes
I will fight your fight
I will hold you tight
And I won’t let go
Oh I’m gonna hold you
And I won’t let go
Won’t let you go
No I won’t

It says exactly what I felt I had and have in some amazing people in my life and today I want to pay tribute to them and comment further on this song…. And forgive me…this is going to be a long post!!
I was and am so blessed to have some people in my life who have stood by me my whole life, in good times and bad, in happiness and sadness. The first who come to mind are my family… my parents, my brothers and their wives and kids. My parents are the perfect example of what I think all parents should be like. I’d like to think that everyone’s parents would support them through every part of their lives like mine have but I know that isn’t always the case, I know that I am truly blessed to have my awesome Mom and Dad. I know they don’t always agree with what I’ve done or do and sometimes I hear about it but most times they sit back and let me figure it out for myself. But more than that they have been there for me when my life became a crisis, when I couldn’t find my way up or down, when I needed someone to help me pick up the pieces and when I desperately needed to be held, have my tears wiped (and my forehead in the middle of a life saving procedure…thanks Dad!). I know that it hurt them to see me cry…and it still does….and I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t pretty teary right now. I am so very grateful for all they’ve done and all they continue to do for me, for my family.
I have so many wonderful friends that have held me up, dried my tears and been my rock. I am not going to mention them all and I apologize ahead of time if I didn’t include you on this post…there are so many and only so much room. My BFF, my dearest most wonderful friend who cyber held me, held me up over the phone and sent packages, money and love through the mail lives in Arizona. Charlotte and I have been the best of friends since the early 90’s and we’ve had a great many adventures together. She always knows the right thing to say to make me laugh and to make me cry. She knows when I need her and she knows just what to share and what to keep to herself. She has the most amazing faith and during our TTTS journey she sent many messages of that faith. At the time, I admit, it really was more than I could accept at times. I just wasn’t there yet, I just wasn’t ready. I’m still miles behind but I see the God she’s been telling about and I try so hard to live the way He wants me to and use her as a role model to do it. I love her like a sister…she really is the sister I never had.
I also have some dear friends in the community of Lucknow who I’ve come to cherish and hold dear. These girls and their families had become a part of our lives years before our crisis began and though we didn’t see each other often, we always seemed to be able to pick up right where we left off when we got together again. When our family crisis hit these girls amazed me. Denise had had a closer relationship with me than the others but I soon came to realize that I now had some of the most amazing friends in this little group. Kerry and Denise came to see me in the hospital, they brought and sent packages of food and treats, they called, they emailed, the commented on the blog and they were there for all of us. They came and cleaned my house, more than once (and Lucknow is almost an hour away!). They offered their help before and during our memorial service and gave us a wonderful gift to use in Cole’s garden. This group of friends is a newer one in my life, 8 years old or less (Denise and I met in triage when Zack was born) and yet I feel, and know, that I could and can count on them for anything! I feel close to them now and am so happy to have them holding me up as they do so often on my crappy days.
I am blessed with friends like this in our community too, friends who went above and beyond the call of duty when looking after my kids (as in the case of our amazing babysitter, Cheryl), friends who drove down to see me on a regular basis when I was in the hospital (Christine, Sue, Tracey, Cheryl to name a few) and friends throughout the community who remember when it is a special day or a memory day…or just a day where I look like I could use a hug.
And I am so blessed to have a huge group of cyber friends who offer support all the time. They are an amazing group of people who have struggled with TTTS, twin loss, baby loss or crisis and they have helped me get through some very dark and confusing times. Most especially I would like to pay tribute to my friends at Fetal Hope; Tammy and Lonnie, who called me, answered tough questions and did research for me and to Ali Morgan who was my first real cyber TTTS mommy friend who talked me through tough times at time when she struggled herself to come to grips with what had happened in her life. My friends Tara and Matt, parents of Cole’s namesake, Noah Cole and Jack Lawrence have no idea the magnitude of what they’ve done for me. They have allowed me to feel hope again in the TTTS world and helped me to overcome my feelings of anger and animosity towards those who were lucky enough to beat this dreadful disease. There are countless of these type of cyber friends….thanks for holding me, you have no idea what it means to me.
Really all over my life there are friends like this. I am so blessed to have people who won’t let me go, who hold me up, dry my tears, who hold me tight and fight my fight. I truly hope that I have and can continue to be that kind of person for someone else but I fear that I am selfish at times and don’t give back as much as I should. But I don’t do things for others for thanks or gratitude, I don’t offer support, hold them up or wipe away (mostly their cyber) tears for any other reason than I want to give it back. I will admit that I was touched when, in mentioning my blog post subject to Tara, she sent me this message when I said I’d write about how there are people who hold us up when we can’t stand anymore, who wipe our tears when we are too tired to do it ourselves….
… like you were doing with us! You were the one person who helped us the most out side of hospital. Even family were not as involved as you. You always said the right things. You were great!!! Matt says the same about you. Through it all, you were the one person we could be truthful with and who would be truthful back and who didnt just say 'stay positive' that and 'fingers crossed' I hated them phrases, drove me mad in the end; You listened and knew what we were going through. You were the only one who could be there 100% for that what we will always be grateful.... you didn't brush me off once. Cole lives in you still, you're both Angels.
And when I think of that way that makes me think of the words of this song from a different perspective…and that is exactly what came to me as I drove to work this morning. I was thinking of the first type of message I got from this song which lead me to think of Cole. And suddenly I just felt this strong urge to say thanks to God for holding me, for fighting my fight and holding me tight and drying my tears. I, suddenly, felt so close to Cole and felt like I was getting a message right from God. He will stand by you and help you through. When you’ve done all you can do and you can’t cope, He will dry your eyes, fight your fight and He will hold you tight. I am very certain that my little angel does these things for me too…for all of our family. We just need to open our minds to the possibilities, the places, the feelings that bring our little Cole to our minds..and that’s just where he might be.
I hope you all have someone in your life who can hold you tight and fight your fight because we all need those people in our lives..but know that you always have ‘someone’ there who does that for you…all you have to do is believe, and ask in the form of prayer. All it takes is faith.

Today You're Two!

2011-02-25T16:40:00.000-08:00

On the eve of the second anniversary of one of the most bittersweet days of my life I wanted to blog my thoughts on this day, on my state of mind, on where I am at. I guess I could wait till tomorrow but tomorrow will be filled with activities, outings (hockey) and the excitement of a little miracle turning two.
This day holds such special memories for me of both of my twin sons. It was a day of joy and happiness and a day of deep sorrow. It was a beginning and it was an end. If anyone had told me then and most especially 2 years and 11 weeks ago that I would be in the place I am, in the frame of mind I am, feeling as positive and blessed by the passing of Cole, I would have thought them crazy.
But here I sit, here I ponder where two years has brought me.
I am reading Margaret Trudeau's book Changing My Mind right now and have just, ironically, begun reading the chapter on the death of her son Michel. His death triggered a deep depression and she struggled to find her way in the world. But she wrote this poem for him and it really struck a cord in me...

Sweep, sweep, dear Mama, for your work is not yet done.
Sweep and weep, dear Mama,
For your lost young son
Sweep, sweep,
Weep, weep,
Mama, your day has not yet come,
Sweep and weep, Mama, for your dead son.

My depression has never been deep and dark like Margaret's but I think sometimes it has been hard to remember that my work is not done yet. There is so much that my twins have guided me to do already and so much more that their lives will bring me to in the future.
Cole and Cameron's life, from the beginning, was one of two. Two little beings, conceived together, growing together and born together. They have both shown me so much about life, so much about myself.
Cameron has taught me about miracles, about baby steps and milestones, about laughter, energy, intensity and love.
Cole has taught me that sadness is okay, tears are fine, communication is a gift. His life and his life beyond death have proven to me that there is great purpose in every life, in every moment, in every tear.
From them both I have learned about compassion, empathy, understanding, kindness, determination and love.
I will always miss my son. I will cry, I will be sad and I will ask why. But I am coming to accept it, to appreciate it. Maybe that seems to strange to some people, it seems strange to me sometimes. I am a different person than I was 2.5 years ago, I am a different person than I was 2 years ago too. I have moments where I miss the person I was then but I have many more moments that I love who I am becoming.
And so this day, though filled with the memories of the moments that I said hello and goodbye to Cole is about celebration... celebrating the amazing gifts that I have been given, celebrating this amazing little boy who defied the odds, who overcame so much and who brings us so much joy each day and celebrating the amazing little boy who watches over us from Heaven and inspires me to be all that I can be.
Today you are two... you will always be two, my dear sons, always a pair, always brothers, always twins... so let's celebrate TWO!
Happy Birthday Cameron and Cole!

The Son always shines...

2011-02-11T11:14:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I wrote anything. Well that’s not true…I’ve been writing a lot lately, just not on the blog.
The book is coming along well. I will admit that at times it is hard to write. Bringing back the memories is emotional for me but it is also so wonderful too. Remembering my boys together is wonderful, even in the times when both were in my womb but only one of them had a heartbeat.
I would have to say that I am amazed at what I wrote then, at how in tune I was, how well spoken I was, how open and honest. I hope that the tone of the book will come off okay and I hope that I can bring it into perspective for those struggling with the loss of a loved one, for those who have lost a baby or child and most of all, for those who have lost a child or children to TTTS.
And speaking of books… the one that I helped to co-author is finally in print. I keep forgetting to order my copies but here is a link from amazon.
At this point in time it’s only available on kindle but will be in paperback next week I think.
I am hoping writing in this book will help me to get my book published more easily.
Anyway, on to today’s ramble….
I’ve been dealing with a lot of frustration lately. I think it’s the winter blaws and cabin fever but I’m not sure. It just feels like there has been lots of short fuses lately and tons and tons of frustrations.
The other day on my way to work I was having a very bad time with it. The negativity coming from me was thick…you could have cut it from a knife. The thoughts running through my head bordered on cruel and it was just a pretty crappy day.
About 2 minutes from work there is a church which often posts unique and uplifting or thought provoking messages. That day it read “Through the storms the Son shines through”.
I read that message and I stopped…not the car but my head. My horrible thoughts drifted away, my anger resided and my mood lifted. Suddenly the reason for the anger didn’t seem as significant. Suddenly I could see the Son in my storm cloud.
I didn’t turn all of it over to God right there and then. I am human, I can’t always move on that quick. But when I left work and drove by that sign again I smiled… the Son and the sun had both broke through my storm….peace was restored!
I think this message could be used for angry moments and am most certain for sad and stressful moments too. I know I couldn’t have endured this journey without that Son shining through my storm. As I’ve read over some of the things I wrote more than two years ago I can see that, often, I did see Jesus shining through, I could feel God’s love. Grief is a difficult thing, a long journey and the loss of a loved one, especially a child, is the monster of all storms. But that Son…well it just keeps on shining through.

One last quote to leave you with…I found this on a motivational calendar…
An Irish Toast
These things I warmly wish for you –
Someone to love,
Some work to do,
A bit o’ sun
A bit o’ cheer
And a guardian angel
Always near.

Thanks to my special guardian angel..I am so glad you have helped me find my way out of some storms too...love you so much!

The Ones Left Behind

2011-01-23T08:19:00.000-08:00

Recently I have joined yet another TTTS group online within Facebook. This one is for grief support and I'll be honest, most days anyway, I think I am able to give more support than I need to receive...which makes me feel pretty good about my TTTS journey. The discussion recently came up about others views on religion after TTTS touched their lives. I've spoken on here before about the views of some, especially those who lost both of their precious babies. I always find it interesting to see how the loss of child or children changes people's views of religion. It definitely affected mine, changed it somewhat but for the most part it just secured my position that God is infinite is his love and support.
Anyway, back to what was said by some and then to what was said by me....
Some people commented that they felt like there can't be 'a God' because why would anyone want to do this to us, what did we do to deserve this 'hell' and pain. Some people believe that it is a beautiful fairytale that brings comfort to those who need it but really it's just that, a fairytale. But others felt the opposite, they felt like there must be a God, and that he must have really wanted their babies and had an amazing job for them. It made me ponder things and put my feelings into perspective and words. I think I've written some of this before but this is what I wrote to them and wish to share with you...

We are all entitled to our opinion and all grew up so differently. We all experienced TTTS in different ways too and it affected us differently. I grew up believing in a 'good' God...not the hellfire and brimstone kind, not the evil and sin sorta situation. More like God does amazing things for everyone and He has a purpose for us all. I had always wondered at people believing that God took those people home that He did because He had a special job for them. I, too, thought that it didn't seem right...why take a good person and leave a jerk here??? I have since come to believe, very strongly, that God's purpose in the whole grief and crisis journey is not about the person He takes, it's not about having a special job in Heaven for that person (though I do believe that He may give special jobs to people who are there). I believe that God is here, not for those that go before us but for those left behind and that the loss isn't about their job in Heaven but about our job on earth. I truly believe that Cole went ahead of us because there was a great purpose for me here on earth that I would need to feel this hurt, this pain, this brokeness to understand. I don't think God wants to cause us pain or wants to see us in pain. I don't believe, again, that it is about the person 'He takes from us' but rather about Him being here for us after that person is gone. I believe very strongly that I will see my son again...I believe very strongly that Cole and God guide me towards a goal...their goal. I am so very drawn to do and say things that I never was before and to me, this is my angel and my God speaking to me. I am sorry that others don't feel this way but I don't feel I am living in a fairytale...and if I am well...well at least it is a place of approaching peace and hope (I say approaching because there are still bitter moments and angry times but they grow less and less).

I've spent a lot of time talking about this subject with a few people both in person, online and on the phone lately. Some people truly support and agree with me, others look at me as if I have two heads. Some think what I say has merit (some even sent me personal messages to say thanks for this perspective) and others have shot me down. And guess what...I don't care either way. I am going to do what I feel drawn to do, I am going to be the person I feel God is pushing me to be. Do I want others to believe what I believe...no, not really. I mean I guess I'd like to think I am not alone in this thought process but what you believe is so truly personal that I don't believe we ever have a right to questions others beliefs. I do believe we have a job to share God with others and to help them see that He is there for them but is it my job to change people's minds about their religion, to convert them to mine...no way.
Something that I have stressed often though is that this is so very hard to get to, this place of peace, for some anyway. Actually it isn't the place of peace that comes first for me, it's the place of acceptance. It has taken me so long to accept that I just have no control over the major things that happen in my life. When we found out we were expecting the twins I was blown away...couldn't have seen that one coming for anything. I questioned why and how but came to a place of acceptance. When we lost Cole I questioned again and in all honesty I am not always done questioning. But right from the start I believed there was great purpose for this 'twinness' to come to my life, for Cole to be my son in Heaven and not on earth. I believed God had a plan for me, the mommy left behind. When I was in the very early stages of the loss..the first 3 months or so after he passed away...really before he was born, I was sure I knew part of the reason... I felt it MUST be to bring our family closer, to get Geoff and I working together better as parents etc. Each time that would blow up in my face, each time I would get a call from home that left me upset, angry, frustrated etc. I would question this plan or question myself. In time (okay in a very very long time) I came to realize that I just might not EVER understand fully this plan but I could accept it, I could take God into my heart and ask Him to help me get there, help me make good choices, help me be what He wants me to be...to guide me. I feel so drawn to helping others, so drawn to fundraising, raising awareness and now to writing my book. I am very certain that I was left behind for a reason and that part of this is the reason.
Incidentally, I am thinking of calling the book "The Ones Left Behind" but struggle with this since the first third of the book or so will be about the pregnancy and before the loss...but we'll see. And for those reading this who wonder what the heck I am talking about...I set a lofty goal for 2011...to turn this blog and other writing I've done into a book about our TTTS journey. So far it reads like letters to my boys but in adult tones. Some of it is conversation and interactions with others and others is just feelings, emotions and personal messages to them. I hope that it will all come together to show how much my boys have taught me and that being left behind with an angel watching out for you is a pretty amazing thing.
I'm going to leave this blog with another poem that was shared online in this same group...I really like it and think it captures just how I've come to feel about God...

No Footprints

I've listened to the "footprints" poem
a million times or more
Of how when only one set shows
upon the sandy shore
It is the Lord carrying us
and taking on our load
And His are the only set
of footprints that showed.

But what if when we look
there are no footprints to be found?
All we see is plain and simple
sand upon the ground.
No imprints showing that our Lord
is carrying us through life
Helping us when we feel
we can not handle all this strife.

Where is my Lord now that I've fallen
and can't seem to get back up?
So tired and lonely
trying to deal with what seems
an overflowing cup.
Where are those footprints
in the sand
to tell me He's right there?
Helping me with problems
and showing that He really does care.

Does He have favorites, OH NO,
please tell me that's not so!
By why does life seem easier
for some people that I know?
And sometimes I just scream out loud
although it seems in vain,
but often it gets harder each day
to deal with all this pain.

And then it dawned on me
as I realize how simple could it be.
I wonder why I was so blind
that I truly did not see.
It must have been a lightning bolt
that one day gave me light,
Cause out of the clear blue sky,
I finally regained my sight.

I saw a fluffy white cloud
shaped like an Angel dear.
That helped me to understand
and see things oh so clear,
That when I saw no footprints
and so often wondered why,
My Lord carried me on Angel wings,
when He decided to fly.
(by LyndyAngel)

Heaven on Earth

2011-01-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

I recently finished reading “Mercy” by Jodi Picoult (great author, even better name!!!). Now the book itself could leave me with a whole blogging entry of its own as it is about mercy killing. It’s a topic I don’t think I’ll ever write about but thought provoking none the less. The book is about a man who murders his wife because she is dying and she asks him to. He then spends a great deal of time trying to ‘find’ her, to find Heaven.
This passage really spoke to me...I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to guess why....
“She was sitting on top of the copier ... A million questions bubbled up in his throat. Do you miss me? Did it hurt? Are you healthy now? Do you love me? But he found himself silent, chocked by his own curiosity. ..... He thought Is she an angel? And when she nodded slightly, he grinned. Nothing had changed between them. She could still read his mind.
He understood then that heaven was what you made of it, that it differed for everyone, and that you could find it in the most unexpected places. He had been looking so hard for Maggie he had not bothered to notice when she appeared, thinking that without a requisite halo and a star in the palm of her hand, she was nothing more than a memory. But Maggie ... well, he had been seeing her like this for weeks: in the reflection of a dinner plate at Ellen’s house, or staring back from behind the bathroom mirror when he was trying to shave.
“You found me,” he whispered. .....
What a thought to ponder....Heaven is what you make of it and that you can find it in the most unexpected places...that our angels just might be around us, that Heaven might be around us, all the time. And maybe to even take it further, that we live in Heaven all of the time, we just don’t know what we are looking for or at.
I think Jodi Picoult might be on to something in a way. I am not sure about Heaven being all around us but I am quite certain that our angels are. I have a friend who has asked if I feel Cole and I would have to be honest and say, up until recently, no. I’ve wanted to, I’ve tried to envision him. You’d think that would be easy given that he looks exactly like Cameron but it’s just not like that for me. But recently I would have to say I really think I have felt, and maybe even seen him.
On Christmas Eve, amidst all the hustle and bustle and among the beautiful voices of those around me singing Silent Night I am quite certain that I felt him. I was holding Cameron on my knee with one hand and holding a candle in the other. The candle flickered and the flame almost seemed to tip sideways towards Cameron and a glow seemed to be all around him. I was overcome with such an intense feeling of longing and sadness as I pictured holding two little boys on my lap. The tears streamed down my cheeks but then I suddenly could feel warmth all over and a pressure on the side I was holding the candle with. I’d like to think that Cole was sitting on my knee at that moment too.
But I do wonder, after reading this passage from Mercy, if maybe we do look too hard for the signs of angels and Heaven and that maybe it really is right here, all around us, just waiting for us to take notice. It’s a comforting thought I think. It’s one that makes me wonder if the motivation to do things honour a lost loved one, to fundraise, to raise awareness, to support others on their journey, to speak often of that person...maybe all of those things are the ways that the loved one we miss so much is showing us that they are right here and have been all along. Again, pretty comforting. Another thought that occurred to me when reading this was about memories. The character in the book, Jamie, ponders whether the things he considered memories, the places where he saw his dead wife, the visions of her, were not memories at all but instead her angel spirit coming to him. Perhaps all it takes to see our angels is an open mind, a willing heart and the time and patience to be still.

One more comforting thing I want to share. It’s personal and completely about Cole. Well not completely. I wanted to share about my intense feelings of things being okay and being at the greatest place of peace I have ever felt since he passed away. The reason... Brian, my friend who passed away a few weeks ago. Recently I have been feeling such an intense sense of calmness and peace when it comes to Cole and I really believe that is because I believe that Brian is looking after Cole...and maybe Cole is looking after Brian too. I think that in my heart I just needed to know that Cole was being looked after in Heaven, wherever that may be. That someone was stepping into the role of parent and raising my son for me. I know that God is there for him, but let’s be honest, He’s got a lot on his plate. I am sure that God has many great parents up there for Cole but it brings me great comfort to know that one of my friends will be giving the love that he had for his kids here on earth and doing the amazing job he did as Dad to them to my son. As much as it makes me so very sad that Cole will spend his life away from me and that Brian will not be there to see his kids grow up, it also makes me feel very much at peace to know that he is there for Cole and that they will have each other.

A New Angel Among Us....

2010-12-30T18:42:00.000-08:00

Today I gathered together with many friends to say goodbye to one of God's newest angels. Tonight I've learned that God's angels now include another wee babe as well. I find myself full to the brim with emotion and sadness and I know that it is okay, that I am okay and that this is a good place to go and cry. Not to say I didn't cry today...the largest tears fell as I watched my friend Brian's daughter say goodbye to her wonderful daddy as her mom held her. Yup, it was awful.
Tonight I want to write about my friend Brian, to remember him, to share him with you because, man, did God get an amazing angel and did we ever lose an amazing man.
I think I met Brian in 1995...but I'm not totally sure. We've been friends so long that it's hard to remember where the first time I met him was. I've known him longer than I've known my husband. I know we met at some Junior Farmer function or another (for those reading this who aren't from Ontario or aren't rural farmy folk, Junior Farmers or JF is a rural youth organization that I was very active in for many years...kinda like 4-H or FFA but with older members and, well to be honest, much more alcohol). I got to know Brian over the years as we attended dances and social events when I was a member of another club. I remember our first 'serious' discussion which ironically was a bit about death. If memory serves me correctly, Brian had been in a very serious car accident and one of the passengers had been killed...though I may have this wrong and it might just have been that he was friends with this girl who had died. It was a horrible end to an exchange year for an exchange student at the local highschool... she didn't make it back to Mexico after her exchange was over. I hadn't known this girl and had only heard a bit about the accident. I remember Brian and I talking about it at a campfire after we'd had, oh maybe just a few too many drinks. He wasn't emotional per say but he let me see a side of him that guys don't always show.
After that, it seemed, we always had a few moments for each other at whatever event we might be at. And he almost always asked me (and many other girls too) up for a dance. He loved to dance, to spin you around till you were dizzy. He'd have this big grin on his face and laugh at you and you tried to hold on for dear life.
As time went on I think I actually saw more of him than less. I moved to his area and became a member of his JF club. We attending meetings and events together and watched our kids grow up and play together occasionally. Actually I remember a distinctive parenthood memory....
When Zack was less than 3 months old we were at Brian and Annette's one night. Zack was sleeping in his car seat and Katrina, their 18 mth old (or so) at the time pulled up a stuffed chair beside him and admired him all night long. She even got out her baby and looked after him/her beside our baby. I remember Brian asking me that night how parenthood was going and commenting that it was the greatest thing ever. He was and is so right.
Time went on, we continued to see their family here and there but I got older...and retired from JF. We saw each other around the community a bit, our kids skated together.
And then tragedy struck our family. In a whirlwind of events we met with a crisis, the loss of a child and a second medical crisis all within a few short weeks. And there was Brian's family (his wife, himself, his brother and his sister in law) helping us pick up the pieces. They brought food to the house shortly after Cole passed away. I think we actually came home to food from them one day after an appointment in Toronto and then more food and visits from the girls a number of weeks later.
And when that second medical crisis happened and I found myself back in Toronto again I was pleasantly surprised to find Brian wandering in my hospital room door one evening.
He'd come with another friend of ours... someone from a totally different circle of friends, I wasn't even aware they knew each other until that moment. And as these men, these farmers away from their livelihood for a dairy conference in 'THE BIG CITY' sat in my hospital room I found myself having the most amazing conversation with my friend Brian. You see Peter, our other friend, wasn't overly comfortable with hospitals and he was spending all of his time chatting with Geoff... talking farming, feed programs, sports...anything but what was going on with us, with me, with my boys. But not Brian. No he took a seat at the end of my bed, looked me in the eye and said "And how are you really doing?" And then he listened as I told him what was happening with my boys, no I guess I should say what had already happened to my boys. He listened as I talked about Cole and how I felt. He asked questions about what would happen now, what we planned to do. He told me, more than once, how sorry he was that this had happened to us and how hard it must be for me to be where I was. I remember saying to him that I knew that he hadn't had a walk in the park medically in years past (he had a kidney transplant years prior). He replied "oh that is nothing compared to what you are going through. I can't imagine the pain you are feeling right now, can't imagine what it's like to lose a child...I am so very sorry".
Well tonight I say to Annette, to Katrina, to Cole (his son's name too)...I am so very sorry and I can't imagine the pain you are all going through. Today you said goodbye to an amazing husband, amazing dad, amazing friend. There will be a gap for years to come, a place that no one can fill. My heart aches for you.
And to Brian I say thank you. Thank you for your smiles, your laughter, your zest for life, your determination, your dedication, your love. Thank you for making me feel important at times...without even trying, I'm sure. I will miss seeing your smiling face and will forever remember you. As I said to Annette, there are a great many things this side of Heaven we are not meant to understand and this is one of them. I am sure that you are sitting with my Cole on your knee sharing stories with him...stories of JF adventures with his mom and farm adventures with his dad, of things about this great community that we live in that he didn't get to be a part of and of the things that all great dad's tell kids...the things that you've told Katrina and Cole countless times. My little one needed a good father figure up there...I wish that you were here but glad that you can have that job in Heaven too.
Take care of him for me, give him a hug and tell him his Mommy misses him....
And Cole, you give a hug back to Brian and tell him that everyone here misses him too!
Today, near the end of the funeral they played 'Angels Among Us'. I had planned to comment more on this song but realize I don't need to...you can tell by what I've wrote that Brian was 'an angel among us' already, long before he became one on Sunday. He helped me in one of my darkest hours, he gave to everyone, showed everyone how to live and is in inspiration to all. And now I can only ask that the angels that live amongst us are here to help his family pick up the pieces and find peace.

Oh I believe there are angels among us.
Sent down to us from somewhere up above.
They come to you and me in our darkest hours.
To show us how to live, to teach us how to give.
To guide us with the light of love.

When life held troubled times, and had me down on my knees.
There's always been someone there to come along and comfort me.
A kind word from a stranger, to lend a helping hand.
A phone call from a friend, just to say I understand.

And ain't it kind of funny that at the dark end of the road.
Someone lights the way with just a single ray of hope.

Oh I believe there are angels among us.
Sent down to us from somewhere up above.
They come to you and me in our darkest hours.
To show us how to live, to teach us how to give.
To guide us with the light of love.

They wear so many faces; show up in the strangest places.
To grace us with their mercy, in our time of need.

Oh I believe there are angels among us.
Sent down to us from somewhere up above.
They come to you and me in our darkest hours.
To show us how to live, to teach us how to give.
To guide us with the light of love.

To guide us with the light of love.

2010-12-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

Things I wish I could forget....

2010-12-13T07:06:00.000-08:00

So today is just a truly crappy day. It's been crappy since the moment I woke up...in tears. I hate this day and I am not sure I will ever NOT hate this day. I am very certain that in time this day will have joyful memories...of things we do, of things the boys do or say. But right now it just SUCKS!!! I often hear from people when I say things about Cole and our loss that we are so lucky we have Cameron. And I know this, appreciate this, cherish this. But today the joy of having a surviving twin is so heavily overshadowed by the loss of his twin brother. Even when I think back to that day there aren't really any joyful memories of Cameron that day with the exception of the words 'baby B is alive or baby B seems to be doing okay' but the reality was that he wasn't okay and was very sick and that day was filled with stress, pain, devastation and heartbreak.
I am wishing I could forget these memories, wishing that I only had the memories of the good times in the twin pregnancy or even just the memories up until about 11:00 that day....
It went a bit like this...
The last good memories end with us going over to Sick Kids for a fetal echo. Our porter's name was Claude and he asked if this was our first baby. We explained our situation and that this was baby boys #3 and #4. He laughed and joked that we should keep going and make a baseball team...we laughed back and said no, hockey. Soon we were at the heart specialists office and taken to the ultrasound machine.
The doctor doing the scan asked which side the recipient baby was on and then sucked in his breath sharply. Without looking up at us or stopping he said “This baby has no heartbeat. Your baby has died. I’m sorry, your baby passed away”. And the world crashed around us. All I wanted to do was curl up and cry, all I wanted was to be left alone with Geoff to cry and hold each other. Instead this doctor was all business and after a minute or two he said “I’m very sorry Mrs. Tummers, this should have been checked before you left Mt. Sinai but I still need to scan the other baby... please you need to calm down so I can scan you.” The doctor told us that all seemed fine with the other baby. We asked him what this meant for the other survivor and he said everything should be fine but Dr. Ryan will confirm that. But what about the other baby…what will happen now was my question. And the most devastating (and incorrect answer) was given to me…your body will just absorb him.
And I sobbed and sobbed. Not only was I not going to get to have my twins together, not only was I now the mother of an angel baby, but I was never going to meet my angel, it would be like my baby never existed. He was wrong, this was explained to me later that day but at the time it was the most devastating thing.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity he was done. Geoff had gone and called our families and a few friends and we were left to wait for our porter to come back for us. I remember looking around at this area of Sick Kids and thinking 'if I wasn't so shattered I'd appreciate all they've done to make this place look cool for kids but I really hope I never see it again'. (ironically we ended up in this very spot 4 days later for a fetal MRI on Cameron's brain...I lost it all over again!)
I remember very vividly my parents arriving that day. Oh how we cried. I am so very grateful they were there but wished (and still do)that I didn't have to break their hearts with this horrible news. Learning shortly after they arrived that not only had we lost one of our sons but that the other was shockingly very ill was just about all I could handle. I'll never forget the doctor saying to me that they were doing all they tests on Cameron's brain to 'make sure they weren't saving a very sick baby'.

The second hardest thing, after learning that one of my children was gone to Heaven, actually occurred 2 days later when I had to explain to my two other children that our dreams of twins were shattered, that they now had a brother in Heaven. This is the memory that got me today as I lay in bed this morning. It just broke my heart that day.
I know that in time there will be happier thoughts of this day and that I will be able to cope better with it. I have hope...I didn't lose it that day or in the days that followed. I know that Cole is in an amazing place and that he is the lucky one. He will never live with stress, with illness, with pain, with heartache. I know he lives with loss, I know that he misses us all. But he has God and Jesus to comfort him and he is very aware of what the reasons are for him to be there and us to be here. And as life continues on and I can see those reasons more clearly I am sure that it will be easier for me too. But for now, for today, I am going to cry, I am going to feel a heartwrenching sadness, I am going to wish that life was different. It's just where I am, it's just who I am.
Tomorrow is a new day.

P.S. We placed this angel tree topper on our tree today. We've been trying to come up with a tree topper since shortly after we lost Cole and we thank 'aunt' Diane for this great idea.

P.S.S. For anyone who is worried that I live in a perpetual world of depression and sadness...please know that today (and a good chunk of December) is a pretty crappy time for me but most days really are filled with the joy of raising all of our boys and the miracle that they are. What I post here and on facebook are just minor moments in my world and don't reflect my everyday life. But thanks for your prayers and concerns...they mean so much to me!

Flooded with Memories, Flooded with Emotions

2010-12-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

Two years ago yesterday this journey through TTTS began. Though my emotions for the most part seem to be pretty intact and relatively upbeat, especially when I am around others, I have found myself being very reflective and, in all honesty, I think I am just sitting on the edge of an emotional cliff. Part of me just wants to go over it, get it over with and cry. The other part doesn't want to give in, doesn't want to let myself be in that sad place.
So today I decided that I would try to write about the memories that are flooding my brain and put voice to the emotions that I know I felt two years ago.
December 11th started off like any other work day except this day was filled with a bit more excitement...we were sure we would finally find out the sex of these busy little babies in my womb. I worked out that morning...really just an excuse to get up and go on the computer early in the morning LOL! I even posted on a few places about our hope for the 'sex reveal' that day.
The appointment with Dr. Hancock went well...no drastic increase in weight, heartbeats sounded good. His words about the sex of the babies..."well it's either 2 boys or two girls with 15 foot long penises... sorry I just can't tell". He also said "that some fine looking kids you got in there". Those things stick in my head as does his general demeanor...he was calm and he didn't notice anything wrong or atleast reveal anything to me. He wondered when my next ultrasound was and said it was important that I have them...the answer was that very same day.
I remember my anger at the ultrasound receptionist who told me that my appointment for that day had been rescheduled. I remember being 'assertive' and telling her that I wasn't leaving without one. The ultrasound itself didn't seem overly concerning. I spoke to the tech about the trouble that there seemed to be finding the dividing membrane between the babies but that was really about it. When she told me she needed to have someone else come take a look because she was having troubles with that membrane, I thought nothing of it. It wasn't until the second tech left and came back with a radiology doctor that I suspected something was wrong.
The worse feeling of that whole day was the 20 minutes that I spent in that room with no one coming in to see me...knowing something must be wrong. I remember so vividly when Dr. Hancock walked in. I burst into tears and said "something is wrong with my babies isn't it". The explanation was a bit vague, the solution was to send me to see Dr. Gratton in London the next day. And then basically I was sent out of the hospital and off for home.
I walked maybe 10 feet before I began to cry and shake. I pulled out my cell phone and called Geoff, gulping, crying, stumbling along as I walked, shaking and wondering what was going to happen.
My next call was to my mom and went unanswered. I think my message to her was a bit like this..."mom, it's Jod.... many gulps and breaths..."oh mom, something is wrong with my babies and well... more tears...I need my mommy right now". And a few minutes later MY cell phone rang...not with a call from my mom but from a number I knew to be Stratford General. I needed to return there immediately...I was being sent to Toronto immediately and was to meet Dr. Hancock in labour and delivery right away.
And then I cried...huge gulping, gasping, sobs. I knew that this was so very serious, I knew that I wouldn't be having an easy twin pregnancy anymore.
Other things that stick out in my mind from that day was being admitted to Mt. Sinai. At the admissions desk they printed up bracelets for my babies...twin A and twin B. I told them there was no way my babies would need those...it was far to early for them to be born. I remember waiting for a long time outside of labour and delivery for them to decide where I was going, who was seeing me and what needed to be done. I bleed all over a nurse out there when she but in my IV...funny the things you remember.
The best memory from that night was when our admitting doctor, Dr. Whittle, said these words to us..."well that's Mr. A now let's take a look at Mr. B". A few seconds later I said "did you just say MISTER???". Finally the question was answered...we were having 2 little boys who later that night were named Cameron and Cole.
And this is the last picture I have of them together...the last one of Cole alive....

My memories of two years ago today are a bit fuzzier. I didn't get to eat, didn't sleep much and was so very stressed out. I was given some medication in the early afternoon to prep me for the surgery and it really messed with my exhausted brain.
I do remember very vividly meeting the man who would save our boys, Dr. Greg Ryan. He was very thorough, very reassuring, and very humble. I remember watching our boys in the very lengthy scans I had that day. They were moving around and seemed so healthy. I could feel them kicking, feel their pushes. I could seem them on the screen and I had such high hopes for our future.
I remember parts of the procedure but, to put it mildly, I wasn't the model patient. I had a ton of anxiety and keep falling in and out of a dreamy haze and panicking as I woke up. I remember them showing me the boys on the screen... not an image, not an ultrasound but my boys, alive, inside my womb...moving, hearts beating...ALIVE. Unfortunately I also remember that I couldn't get my eyes to focus on the screen, couldn't find a way to make my brain process those images. This made me so upset and I began to cry. Thankfully, after a bit of sedative, they were able to calm me down and finish.
That procedure experience ended with Dr. Ryan transcribing notes about 15 feet from my bed and we could tell by his tone and his body language that he was very worried about our son, twin A. He came over to tell us that things had progressed rapidly from that morning and that our TTTS was now at stage 4...this meant that Cole now had fluid under his skin and in his abdomen...a lot of fluid in his abdomen. His little heart was working very hard and he was a very sick little boy. But Dr. Ryan seemed optimistic and told us that he would send us for further testing the next day to see what damage had been done to Cole's heart. He also told us of a few complications that had arisen from the surgery that gave us a guarantee of pre-term delivery and hospital bedrest but also told us that we wouldn't worry about that at this point.
And that was that...I returned to my room to finally eat, to talk to Geoff and call everyone to tell them how things had gone and to hold each other and pray.
So many memories, so much hope and optimism, our fate in the hands of medical people we'd never met. Visions of ultrasounds, of babies moving around together.
“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.” Kevin Arnold.... holding on today sweet boy, holding on...

TTTS Awareness Day 2010

2010-12-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was World TTTS Awareness Day
This day was created by the founder of the TTTS Foundation as a way to honour her sons who suffered from TTTS, pay tribute to the memory of her son who passed away from it and most of all to raise awareness about the syndromes that can affect identical twins.

Last year we 'participated' in this day...I sent a few messages out and we light candles in honour of our boys both online and here in our house but I wasn't as 'involved' in the TTTS world. It was still so fresh and so hard.
It still is hard and I know that I am going to be reliving a lot of painful memories over the next few days but I am also so... well amazed at all the joy (yes I really said that) that TTTS has brought into my life. This is what we did this year....

First we light a candle for our donor...that would be the adorable little boy checking out the candles. He amazes me each and every day. He overcame such odds and truly is a miracle. I still am not sure how we managed to escape without really any 'harm' to this sweet little boy. I look back now at all he went through and just can't believe he's here, he's fine and he's MINE!!!

Then we light another candle to stand beside the first, a candle for our recipient baby, our sweet son Cole. He did not make it to earth, he did not take his first breath here but he lives on and has given us so many moments that have taken our breath away. I light these candles together because my boys will be together forever in my mind, in my heart and in theirs too. No one can take that 'twin-ness' away from them and forever their lights will shine together.

Interestingly enough, Cameron couldn't stop looking at Cole's candle. He wasn't interested in his own at all but was all eyes for the one we light for his brother.

And then I blew out Cameron's candle for he is the a light here on earth, full of energy and life. He does not need a match to show us all his light. Cole's remained burning for hours as light seems to remind me of him and he seems to come to me in beams of light. The light of his life will burn on forever, he has given me so much.

TTTS took a lot from me but it also gave me a lot. I am a different person, I will never be the same but I don't think my new normal is a bad thing, just different. For those who wish for the old me...I'm sorry, she's not coming back. Hopefully the new me will be someone who can be admired for new qualities. Right now I am pretty proud of some of the things I've done for TTTS and for other families. Yesterday I made public a new project I've been working on with moms from across Canada and I hope this holiday season you will consider donating to this amazing charity that changed my life, the lives of all of my family members and saved the life of my dear sweet miracle Cameron. It's a season of giving...won't you think about giving even just a few dollars.
Thank you!

Tis the Season...

2010-12-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

Tis the season…. And for so many, unfortunately, it is a season filled with mixed emotions, sadness and depression. Holidays always seem to bring about so many emotions when someone you love is in heaven. We join together with family and friends and celebrate the birthday of Jesus, the blessings we have been given and show our love through gift giving, festive meals and gatherings and music and activities. And for those missing someone it becomes just one more reminder of the things that person is missing out on. I know this year will be hard for me. Cameron is now at an age where unwrapping presents is exciting, where lights and decorations produce a look of awe in his sweet face and where new words about the holidays emerge on a daily basis. How sweet it would be to be doing that with two little boys, how cute it would be to dress them the same and put them on Santa’s knee or place them under the tree like the amazing gifts they are. Remembering that he is in a place with the birthday boy, celebrating Jesus’ 2010 birthday, rejoicing at the gifts God has given us and living where there is no pain, suffering, sadness or war is…well it’s hard to keep in mind somedays.
Today I heard this song on my way to work and it brought tears to my eyes at first because the start of it is how I feel at times…and how I know many of my friends feel too….

"Where Are You Christmas"

Where are you Christmas
Why can't I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can't I hear music play

The pain and sadness really does get in the way at times and makes it so hard to find Christmas and it often does feel like it has gone away for all of us. Those who are missing someone special struggle even more to find their way at Christmas, to hear the music, the joy, the laughter and to see the happiness.

My world is changing
I'm rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too

The world changes for all of us and the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas seems to get in the way of the holiday itself. December and Christmas have been changed for me in my life a few times…. a loss of a special friend on Christmas Day 19 years ago, another loss of a very sweet little boy in December a few years later….those changed Christmas for me but time helped and I found most of that joy again. Two years ago my world was rocked and shattered in December and I know that Christmas and December will never, ever be the same again.

Where are you Christmas
Do you remember
The one you used to know
I'm not the same one
See what the time's done
Is that why you have let me go

And it is often easy to think the Christmas and it’s joy and excitement has let us go instead of us letting it go. It’s easy to blame others, blame circumstance, even blame God for not being able to enjoy something that once was so very special to us.

Christmas is here
Everywhere, oh
Christmas is here
If you care, oh

If there is love in your heart and your mind
You will feel like Christmas all the time

But no matter has happened, no matter how heartbroken you are and how sad this time of year is, there is love in your heart and your mind. Your loved one misses you and loves you and you love them. I am so very blessed to have had these special people in my life and I feel so honoured to have known all of them, especially Cole. Sadness will come and go but love stays forever.

I feel you Christmas
I know I've found you
You never fade away
The joy of Christmas
Stays here inside us
Fills each and every heart with love

Where are you Christmas
Fill your heart with love
Filling your heart with love, your life with joy and hope and surrounding ourselves with those things and people that really matter will fill you back up with the Christmas spirit all year round. It is not easy, it will always have it’s challenges. But knowing that your angel(s) love you as much as you love them and that so many people here love you, want to help you and miss your angel too will help to bring you joy this holiday season.
Hearing the last part of this song gave me hope and reminded me that I am so very blessed and that my heart is filled with love.

I was going to end my post here but decided to include some ideas below to help others find ways to honour their angel and to include them in their holiday. We have done and are doing a few things to bring Christmas to Cole and the bring Cole to our Christmas. We have made a donation to the hospital where our fetal surgery was performed as part of our teacher gifts to the boys school teachers and we will also make a donation in Cole’s name as a family present to him. Our Christmas card has many different photos on it this year and one of them is one of my mirror shots of Cameron. The year that we lost Cole, 12 days before Christmas, we decided we wanted to have a special angel tree topper for our tree and also placed an ornament on the tree for him. We will continue this tradition each year and hope this year to have his tree topper the way we want it (it is impossible to find ‘boy’ angel tree toppers it seems!). We bought (well Santa brought) a present for Cole last year…. A teddy bear for us to give him hugs….a way to send our hugs to heaven. It matched one we bought for Cameron and we will likely do that this year as well. You may want to buy a toy for a needy child or a piece of equipment (or a toy) for the NICU where your angel passed away or your survivor was after they were born. Lighting candles or perhaps having a special light on your Christmas tree will help to include your loved one this year. Light and it’s projections have always reminded me of Cole…perhaps because I feel he is guiding me and letting his light shine through me. Most of all talk about your angel, share him or her with others…find a way to help others to understand that talking about them helps you to include them in your life.
May the next few weeks be filled with more feelings of joy this holiday season than of sadness .

Bursting Bubbles

2010-11-30T12:20:00.000-08:00

Did you ever notice that when you feel good about yourself, and if you are reading this because you can relate to grief, have you noticed that when you think you are getting somewhere and doing ‘well’ with your grief, that something (or someone) always seems to burst that bubble so to speak. Sometimes, for me, it is a song, a memory, a picture, a card. Other times, in regards to the ‘someones’ I mentioned, it’s being told to your face or to someone else, that they are worried about you, that you need to move on, that you should consider getting help. There’s nothing like comments like this to make you question yourself, your motives, even your sanity. Having the confidence in yourself to know that you are where YOU want to be, doing what YOU want to be doing…well that isn’t always easy. Nor is expressing that to others.
For me, although I know I have moments of very intense sadness, I also know that I live with a certain amount of Joy and Hope from the knowledge that I have a son living in Heaven. I find peace in that most of the time. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss him or that I don’t have horribly crappy moments. But for the most part I am not crying each day or spending time living in the past and wishing he was here. I do talk about him a lot, I do mention what happened to others, I do talk about Cameron being a twin to many people. I spend a lot of time chatting with other TTTS moms, reading blogs and offering advice. I try to be a support person for those who need it…I try to be there for others the way a few moms who I met online while still pregnant with the boys were there for me but moreover I try to be there for the many families who need support in a way that I, most often, couldn’t find when I was pregnant….if that makes any sense. Those are the ways I cope, those are the things I do to find Hope. I really do feel a strong pull to be a part of this TTTS world, for others, for me and for Cole. My husband said that he thought maybe I was afraid I would forget Cole. I don't think that is true but I think I do feel like others will. Perhaps by seeing the good that can come of this kind of loss, others will find Hope as well. I don't know...I do it because it feels right!!!
Grief is a tricky thing, especially when it comes to the loss of a child. Parents were not put on this earth to bury their kids because along with burying those sweet children they are burying their dreams. You have such hopes and aspirations for your kids from the moment you know of their existence. You can’t just turn those emotions off and you can’t just move on…well not at the pace that some think you should.
I am certain that many people are further ahead in their grief process after two years than I am but there are also a great deal who aren’t. I am sure, though, that it is so hard for our friends and family to see us hurting almost and I know that they have the best of intentions. In dealing with the feelings I have had lately about the coments made about my grieving process I have, once again, done some internet searching and found this article. It is very long and filled with great insight into the loss of a child. I have cut some of the article out but I encourage everyone reading this to connect to the highlighted link and see if you can’t help yourself to understand your grief or the grief of a loved one just a little bit better.

It is frequently said that the grief of bereaved parents is the most intense grief known. When a child dies, parents feel that a part of them has died, that a vital and core part of them has been ripped away. Bereaved parents indeed do feel that the death of their child is "the ultimate deprivation" (Arnold and Gemma 1994, 40). The grief caused by their child's death is not only painful but profoundly disorienting-children are not supposed to die. These parents are forced to confront an extremely painful and stressful paradox; they are faced with a situation in which they must deal both with the grief caused by their child's death and with their inherent need to continue to live their own lives as fully as possible. Thus, bereaved parents must deal with the contradictory burden of wanting to be free of this overwhelming pain and yet needing it as a reminder of the child who died.

Bereaved parents continue to be parents of the child who died. They will always feel the empty place in their hearts caused by the child's death; they were, and always will be, the loving father and mother of that child. Yet, these parents have to accept that they will never be able to live their lives with or share their love openly with the child. So they must find ways to hold on to the memories.
Grieving parents say that their grief is a lifelong process, a long and painful process..."a process in which [they] try to take and keep some meaning from the loss and life without the [child]" (Arnold and Gemma 1983, 57). After a child's death, parents embark on a long, sad journey that can be very frightening and extremely lonely- a journey that never really ends. The hope and desire that healing will come eventually is an intense and persistent one for grieving parents.

The child who died is considered a gift to the parents and family, and they are forced to give up that gift. Yet, as parents, they also strive to let their child's life, no matter how short, be seen as a gift to others. These parents seek to find ways to continue to love, honor, and value the lives of their children and continue to make the child's presence known and felt in the lives of family and friends. Bereaved parents often try to live their lives more fully and generously because of this painful experience.

To those outside the family, the composition of the family may seem to change when a child dies. A sibling may become an only child; a younger child may become the oldest or the only child; the middle child may no longer have that title; or the parents may never be able to, or perhaps may choose not to, have another child. Nonetheless, the birth order of the child who died is fixed permanently in the minds and hearts of the parents. Nothing can change the fact that this child is considered a part of the family forever, and the void in the family constellation created by the child's death also remains forever.

All newly bereaved parents must find ways to get through, not over, their grief-to go on with their lives. Each is forced to continue life's journey in an individual manner

• Typical parental reactions to a child's death often involve emotional and physical symptoms such as inability to sleep or a desire to sleep all the time, mood swings, exhaustion, extreme anxiety, headaches, or inability to concentrate. Grieving parents experience emotional and physical peaks and valleys. They may think life finally seems on an even keel and that they are learning to cope when periods of intense sadness overwhelm them, perhaps with even more force. (Experiencing any or all of these reactions does not mean permanent loss of control or inability to recover and are usually part of the grief process.)

• Each bereaved parent must be allowed to mourn in his/her own way and time frame. Each person's grief is unique, even that of family members facing the same loss. Bereaved parents shouldn't expect or try to follow a specific or prescribed pattern for grief or worry if they seem out of synchrony with their partner or other grieving parents.

• Bereaved parents need to know that others may minimize or misunderstand their grief. Many don't understand the power, depth, intensity, or duration of parental grief, especially after the death of a very young child. In some instances, bereaved parents are even ignored because some individuals are not able to deal with the tragedy. They find the thought of a child's death too hard, too Inexplicable, or too threatening. Many simply don't know what to say or do and so don't say or do anything.

Most grieving parents also experience considerable pain on special occasions, such as birthdays, holidays, or the anniversary of the child's death. Parents will need to find ways to cope with these events and should do what feels right for them, not what others think they should do.

Grief is the natural response to any loss. Parents need to be reminded how important it is to process all feelings, thoughts, and emotions in resolving grief. Bereaved parents must look within and be prepared to deal with the past and present. They need to talk about their loss, and the loss must be acknowledged by others. They need to tell others about what happened to their child; they need to talk out and through their thoughts and feelings from the heart, not just from the head. Healing for bereaved parents can begin to occur by acknowledging and sharing their grief.

• Probably the most important step for parents in their grief journey is to allow themselves to heal. Parents need to come to understand that healing doesn't mean forgetting. They need to be good to themselves and absolve themselves from guilt. They should not be afraid to let grief loosen its grip on them when the time comes. Easing away from intense grief may sometimes cause pain, fear, and guilt for a while, but eventually, it usually allows parents to come to a new and more peaceful place in their journey. Allowing grief's place to become a lesser one does not mean abandoning the child who died.

Let Your Light Shine

2010-11-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”----from A Return to Love, by Marianne Williamson.

I just love this quote…doesn’t it just speak to you???
I found it yesterday on an posting from someone who works for the same employer as I do and felt compelled to share it.
I find that so often people do not let their talents shine out or if they do they feel self conscious or sometimes, depending on the talent, ridiculed. This is not what God wanted for us.
It matters not what your talent is but I think this quote spoke to me most about the talents that others share to involve opening up their hearts, their inner most self. Sometimes being open and honest is the hardest talent of all to share. And in sharing your talent for telling your story, opening yourself up, listening to others, giving advice based on your journey....you are liberating yourself and helping your journey go forward while at the same time, liberating others!
The same goes for sharing any talent.
So sing to the mountains, dance, paint, run, build, help, share….let your talents show. Praise God for the gifts that are in you!!!

Mixed Blessings #2

2010-11-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

After the postings I've written over the last few days I wanted to follow up with the other side of the mixed blessings that twin loss gives us. There are sad days for certain but there are so many more happy days, so many days filled with joy, love and peace.
I found a book online that I am working at reading...I've never done this before, read a book online and it's an interesting process. The book is called Awakening from Grief by John E. Welshons.
Admittedly, I haven't made it past the first chapter yet but I wanted to share a few things that I have read so far....

When death comes into our lives we feel devastated. We feel confused. We feel numb. We get angry. Our hearts ache. We feel hopeless.
The healing of these painful emotions comes through rediscovering the love, peace and joy that comes within us – eternally. We can never lose them. No matter how sad, depressed, disappointed, angry or hopeless we feel at the moment, we can never lose love, peace and joy; because love, peace and joy are the essence of who we are. In truth, we are beings of light and what we need when there is darkness in our lives is more light.

When love is the chosen remedy, there is no hurt, no wound, no sadness that cannot be healed.

If we can look at the losses in our lives a little differently, if we can change our perspectives just slightly, we may see that within this experience lie the seeds of a new beginning, a new life, of a deeper experience of love and fulfillment than we ever imagined possible.

I look forward to finding this joy and seeing our loss from this perspective. I am already pretty certain of some seeds that have been planted by Cole and I know, for certain, that my life is so much fuller with him in it in whatever presence he is than it ever would have been without him.

I also found this picture and caption online today....

One becomes two for the sole purpose of becoming one again.

I wonder if all identical twins are like this apple or just those where one twin lives on earth and one in Heaven. Someone once told me that she had it explained to her by a psychologist dealing in the loss of an identical twin that God only created one egg in these type of twins. That egg chose to split but it was always, in his mind, only one egg. Sometimes those two halfs of one whole an live together on earth and be visible by all but other times they need to be put back together again and live as just one person.
Perhaps our twins are just like this apple.... they became two for a short time just so to complete part of a journey but their sole purpose was always to be one again.

Mixed Blessings - Part 1

2010-11-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

mixed blessing

–noun
something that, although generally favorable or advantageous, has one or more unfavorable or disadvantageous features.
I wrote this post last week and then forgot to post it.... I think it's fitting today given how I was feeling yesterday and really, how I've been feeling in general lately. I am feeling better today, more at peace and definitely less sad. Anyway...

Recently I was reading a blog entry of another TTTS mom who also lost one of her sons. She was writing about ‘how one person can feel so mercifully blessed and so totally gypped all at the same time?’. It was like she was inside my head... hearing the thoughts that I try not to speak because some may seem to think that makes me ungrateful. Okay, maybe that is what I think people think but I know from the responses I get when I say things like this that people do really think I am not counting my blessings.
Trust me, I count them.. all the time. I know that I am so very lucky to have the great family I have, the house I have (heck even the debt I have as it means that some bank thinks I am trustworthy enough to loan money too). I know that for so many reasons Cameron should not have survived as well as he did, or really, even at all. I know this because Dr. Ryan told us, I know this because so very few babes survive what he did with no negative outcome, I know this because the stats on babes remaining in utero after a mothers’s water breaks are so very low.
So tell me why I can’t be happy ALL the time. Why do I have to feel so cheated, so gypped? It really sucks to feel this way. And why, after all this time, don’t I feel better about the whole thing, why am I dreading this lead up to Cole’s angelversary so much. Like Megan, I thought I was doing so much better than last year but time will really tell.
I recently read an article about a woman in the UK who lost one of her twins, actually she had to choose to end the life of one twin as there were so many complications involved for him. She wrote about how hard it is and I found myself really connecting to this article and although it’s long, I decided to cut and paste some of it for you to read... for you information, to let you other twin mom’s raising a lone twin that we are not alone in these feelings and for those who, thankfully, haven’t been in our shoes, understand a bit more... and maybe see that I am not alone in how I think too.

Is he your only child?’ An innocent enough question, but one that always makes me catch my breath. It may be that I’m at our local playgroup, drinking tea and chatting with another mum as our children play together. Do I simply say yes and feel I haven’t done justice to the truth, or do I explain the situation and risk opening up an emotional can of worms? The reality is that our two-year-old son Ezra is our only living child, but he is also a surviving twin. His brother Oscar died shortly before their birth.
When my husband Simon and I found out we were pregnant with non-identical twin boys following fertility treatment, we were ecstatic.But 20 weeks into the pregnancy, we discovered that Oscar had a severe brain condition which meant he was unlikely to survive long after birth, if he didn’t die in the womb. We were told his condition wasn’t caused by his being a twin, but was complicated by it – a singleton would probably have been terminated at 20 weeks and, although traumatic, his loss at that stage would have made it easier for us to mourn and try to move on.
I felt I’d failed them both before they’d even been born. I worried about Ezra’s lone-twin status because I feared it would affect him when he grew older and became aware that he’d had a twin. I worried that he’d feel lonely and bereft, knowing that he should have had a brother. I tried to do everything I could to collate information and joint experiences for him, such as playing the piano for them because I thought that hearing classical music in the womb would help them to feel calm and contented. I also kept a diary while they were still together inside me, telling them about places we’d been together. I wanted Ezra to know that good things happened in my pregnancy (I imagined him one day saying, ‘What did we do when I was in your tummy?’).
But whatever I did, it didn’t feel good enough, because I couldn’t give them a future together.
Oscar died on 10 August 2006 . As anticipated, the procedure led to my waters breaking and just hours later, at 30 weeks and six days, in the early hours of 11 August, our two sons were delivered by caesarean.
As I came round from the general anaesthetic, I was told that Ezra, tiny at three pounds, had been taken to the neonatal intensive care unit. The nurses brought me Oscar, wrapped in the quilt I’d made him, and we lay there together. For those first few hours, Simon and I both felt unexpectedly calm, as we sat in a room with Oscar and were able to marvel at how beautiful he was. Simon says it was like spending time with someone we felt we’d always known. We felt humbled by his presence.
Congratulations cards and gifts poured in for Ezra. Some people mentioned Oscar in Ezra’s birth cards or sent them one each, but most people didn’t mention him at all, no doubt unsure of what to say.
In the meantime, Simon organised both birth and death certificates, and made arrangements for Oscar’s funeral, as well as managing our house renovation and his new mobile-phone business.
People would tell me that I now had ‘twice the love’ for Ezra and that Oscar’s death was ‘for a reason’ or ‘meant to be’ . I now appreciate that they were making real efforts to soften the blow. To the outside world, perhaps it did seem as if I’d ‘won’, because I had at least come out of it with a baby, unlike a mother who has lost a singleton. But it was never ‘buy one, get one free’. We were expecting two babies and we ended up with one – we lost 50 per cent of our children when Oscar died.
Jeanne Kirkwood, my supportive listener at the Tamba bereavement support group, says: ‘When you lose a twin, whether before birth or after, there are terrible dichotomies between loving and grieving, all at the same time. Most people think that if you focus on the joy the grief will go away, but it doesn’t work like that.’
In her book Twins & Multiple Births, Dr Carol Cooper even says that the loss of a twin is ‘harder to bear’ than the loss of a singleton because of the need to care for the surviving twin and carry on with family life while your natural reaction is to mourn – something that has certainly rung true for us. In the weeks and months after the birth, I felt something was missing, that a part of me had died..
We often talk about Oscar and go to his grave. I frequently contemplate how we’ll tell Ezra about his brother, which we will as soon as he’s able to handle the information. I have to trust that we’ll know when the time is right.
When Ezra was about eight months old, I asked Jeanne Kirkwood, ‘Can you ever feel happy again after losing a twin?’ because I felt my joyful days had gone for good. Every good experience was tempered by memories of Oscar.
I remember people saying, ‘Aren’t you lucky you’ve lost all your baby weight,’ and I wanted to say, ‘I’d rather be fat and have them both here!’
‘You will be happy again,’ Jeanne told me. ‘You’ll still feel pain but as time goes by the pain will be surrounded by more joy.’ She also reiterated what other people had said, which was that Ezra would increasingly help us to heal. I remember saying, ‘I’m looking forward to that time because I can’t imagine it.’ Jeanne gave me hope and she turned out to be right. Ezra, who is now two, has been my salvation. He has been like a tornado, sucking me back into real life.
Living with a single twin is truly bittersweet, a constant reminder of what you’ve lost as well as what you’ve gained. When people ask if Ezra’s an only child, I generally tell them about Oscar because he is part of our collective reality.
When Ezra was recently seen by the paediatrician, I told him we felt very lucky because we have a child, and he answered, ‘Yes, but you’ve been very unlucky, too.’ We definitely feel both.
Perhaps that sums up twin loss best of all – good luck and bad luck, all in the same package. The trick is learning to live with the joy and the pain.

It is such a mixed blessing to be the mom of twins…one who survived and one who went to be with God. Learning to live with the pain and the joy is a balancing act but is one that I am trying to find my way to. Mixed blessings are something that, although generally favorable or advantageous, has one or more unfavorable or disadvantageous features. And no matter what slant you put on it, no matter what way you think of it, always and forever the lives of Cameron and Cole and twins like them will be one of mixed blessings.

After I wrote and copied the above post…but before I’d had a chance to post it here I went to church…with my kids at school. I went in with this feeling of anxiety, of anger, or bitterness almost. I know those feelings aren’t productive, I know that they drag me down. But they are part of me and of who I am sometimes. Regardless, I went feeling like that and came out feeling a sense of peace. I felt comforted, almost hugged during mass… and this is tells me that I am accepting my pain more and opening myself up to God more. My fellow TTTS mom reminded me in her blog though that sometimes I have to seek peace, especially when I am feeling the way I am lately but by doing so it means I need to open my heart deep enough to drive me to God's feet. It means I have to knowingly set aside the anxiety and anguish I feel that, despite how sad it makes me also provides me protection because in doing so I can make room for the most honest of pain and sorrow. If I can only open up my heart I can get to the other side and find peace, love and joy.

I thank her for reminding me just how damn hard this journey is at times and that sometimes it is just so much easier to be angry, bitter etc. Opening up that wound is so hard but it needs to be done to make room for the peace, the love, the joy. It will soon be the season to prepare the way for Jesus, for His birth, for the time of celebrating what a wonderful gift God gave each of us in the way of his son, Jesus. God lost his son too, He knows the pain. And I know He’ll help me with it. I know it will hurt before it heals, I know that it will be easier to not push myself to heal but I also know I can do this too.

How Great Thou Art

2010-11-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

Do you know this hymn...hopefully you can hear it playing on my playlist right now. It's one of those ones that around here seems to get played at funerals a lot...but also at joyful moments at church too. Unfortunately for me it's only the funeral thoughts it ever brings forth in my head despite the fact that I LOVE the message of it.

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

We had this very version played at Cole's memorial service and it broke my heart to hear it play. Today we sang it in the very church where we said our formal goodbyes to our sweet son and my heart is just breaking all over again today. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get past these moments that shatter me all over again. I'll be brutally honest right now, I am crying so hard I can hardly type. I likely shouldn't even post this but sometimes I just need to get it out. I HATE the lead up to the Dec. 13th... 23 months ago my heart broke, my world crashed around me and I know I'll never, ever be the same again. A new me was born that day and sometimes I miss that old me so damn much!!! I know the new me is a better person, I know that God gave me Cole and this journey for some amazing reasons...some of them have already been realized and I am filled with joy because of them. But I am, sometimes, filled with such a deep sense of sadness too.
I can't figure out why this song is so heartwrenching for me. Maybe for the brutal honesty of it. God is amazing, He is so very great. He has done so many amazing things and creating my sons was one of the best I can think of. My soul sings that He is so great...but my mind just can't always catch up I guess.
Sometimes is so hard to see and sing about how great God is. So many people question His reasons...myself included. And maybe that is the biggest reason why this song brings about such emotion for me... it reminds me that when life gives us our hardest challenges, our biggest crisis and we question our faith most, God has brought us to this point for a purpose, no matter how hard of a journey it is, and He'll see us through to the end.
I know that when Christ comes for me I will be ready, ready to go home, ready to be with God and most of all so very ready to meet my son again.
P.S. As I finished posting this I ended up chatting with this wonderful friend of mine... she's just who I needed to hear from today. She is Tara, the mom of twins Jack Lawrence and Noah COLE....the boys born on the one year anniversary of the day we welcomed Cameron and Cole into this great world that God has given us. The friend that God gave me who needed me and Cole as much as I needed her. She is the first person I could be friends with who has twins and I am so glad I have her in my life. Today she reminded me that moments like this and songs that evoke emotion like this one does are the hugs from Cole that he so wants me to have. Those moments don't just happen...they are the reminders that he is always with me... that he wants a hug from me. She has encouraged me to find a way to send my hugs to him...to find something that is my way to hug him... something to hug or hold when I need to hug him. Or when he sends me these signs that are his way of asking for a hug...when I am missing him the most is when he needs me the most. Thanks Tara!
BTW - Jack and Noah sent their 'auntie Jodie' a lovely charm for my birthday. It reads "Friends are kisses blown to us by angels". An angel brought us together and an angel reminds me each day How Great God is...

A great quote from an amazing lady!

2010-11-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, 2 days in a row!!! Just a short post today… I saw a few quotes and wanted to share. I’ve been reading a lot of other blogs lately and often see and comment on what I read. I hope that some of what I write about is as worthy to share as what I read and that my blog is worth following for some. I know lots of people read it...I marvel at the stats counter each time I look at it. Please feel free to comment on my posts now and again so I know that people can relate to what I write. If you follow my blog I’d love to know!

“I have been through a lot and I have suffered a great deal. But I have had lots of happy moments, as well. Every moment one lives is different from the other. The good, the bad, hardship, the joy, the tragedy, love, and happiness are all interwoven into one single, indescribable whole that is called life. You cannot separate the good from the bad. And perhaps there is no need to do so, either.” Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
What an amazing woman she was. Someone that we could all learn from. To survive all that she did, to endure all that she did and not to let it consume her. She was so right…it is life. The sad times, hardships, losses, devastation and the happy, joyful, love filled moments…they all make us who we are. There is no way to separate the good and the bad, there is no need to. It makes you who you are, entwines all the things that make you who you are and calls itself life.
I think I’ve had a pretty good life so far. Sure it’s had it’s ups and downs, it’s joyful moments and it’s tragedies but it is what it is. It was given to me for a reason and is mine. I am sure there are many who think I dwell too often on the tragedies…but maybe that’s just part of who I am too. I don’t live in sorrow, I live in joy but with many reminders of how I came to be who I am.

This one is pretty unrelated but pretty sweet I think and reminds me of just how happy and blessed our angels are to be living in Heaven….

Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. ~Author Unknown

May you gaze to Heaven tonight and see and feel the happiness shining through those holes knowing that you are loved and have the life that is yours.

Wounds and Scars

2010-11-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve been struggling lately with my grief and with sadness. I know that, as the days draw closer and closer to Christmas, as we begin to make lists, shop, plan gatherings….all those things bring us closer and closer to December…a month that I think part of me will hate (oh how I dread using that word) forever.
I’ve been chatting with another TTTS mom a lot lately…well texting would be more like it. She is actually the first TTTS mom that I know I will meet…she lives an hour and a half from me, only 30 minutes from where I work. We had the same medical team, delivered at the same hospital and sadly, like me, she lost her angel before she was able to see his beautiful face.
In the course of our messages I have been sharing some things that have been shared with me and also about why I am feeling so sad lately.
The recent sadness seems to come from memories. I remembered on the weekend about the excitement of the Halloween when I was pregnant with Cole and Cameron. How I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to go with the boys to trick or treat…I handed out candy and then sat with the neighbor and chatted about twins and pregnancy…her daughter has identical twin daughters. I remember thinking about Halloween costumes in the future. I think the biggest thing is that about 2 years ago I finally started feeling excited and so content with what was going to be our ‘twin’ life. I came across my request for medical leave letter that I sent to my principal (a formality) the other day…another moment of heartache and reminders. Sometimes I wish I could turn my brain off, not think of those things, not make myself feel sad. But really, in all honesty, I love that I can, love that I have those memories, love that I find those reminders…they are all that I have of Cole….memories.
So in chatting with this new friend about our sons, especially those in Heaven, I have been talking about something that was once shared with me about grief and most especially about loss of a child.
Understand your loss is a huge wound right now but it will heal... it might be red and ugly and painful at first but over time it starts to fade and smooth out and become less painful but it leaves a scar that never goes away and forever changes you and it is up to you how it will change you. You will always be the mother of twins.
For me I have taken this to mean that my wound, now, has healed over a lot. It is still very visible but isn’t always so painful. I also know that sometimes it takes nothing more than a slight bump, scrap or twist and my scar opens up again….never to the open wound it once was but still to a weeping, painful and red sore. Thankfully it never takes as long to heal over again.
In looking online for the quote (which I actually found in a message my friend Tammy from Fetal Hope posted to another mom) I came across this…
In Revelation 12:11, John wrote, “They overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” Our personal stories, like the blood of the Lamb, have incredible power.
Perhaps you’ve never thought of the wounds in your life as potential treasures. I encourage you to dig a little deeper, push aside the dirt, and discover the jewels that lie beneath the surface. Like sparkling diamonds, glistening rubies, and shimmering emeralds, our scars are beautiful to God. They help others see Jesus in us.
Scars? We’ve all got them. It’s how we view them that will change our hearts. It’s what we choose to do with them that can change the world.
And WOW…I just marveled at that. That by sharing my scar with others, by telling others about my journey with Cole and Cameron and how that has brought me closer to God, I can help overcome Satan, I can help to change the world for someone… I can make a difference in the world.
God does think this scar is beautiful, He knows what it has brought me…the pain, the heartache, the confusion, the sadness, the isolation….and the Hope, the Joy, the Peace, the knowledge, the acceptance, the compassion, the empathy and the Love. He knows that some days are hard, He knows that I don’t understand or always accept, He knows I get angry. But He also knows that if He brought me to it, He’ll bring me through it.
I think I most wanted to share this with you all, both those readers of my blog who’ve lost a child or children, a twin or twins and those who haven’t because for those that have, it’s a great analogy and may be something you very much identify with. But for those who haven’t been in my shoes, in our shoes, I hope that you can understand my scar, appreciate my scar and help me to bandage it up and care for it when it opens up occasionally….I’d really appreciate it!

Beautiful People

2010-10-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

I found this quote and it touched a cord so I decided to share it and comment on it.

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

--- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I think, so often, those who have lost a loved one, suffered tragedy, survived a crisis, endured a chronic illness and simply struggled to find their way through a very tough situation are of two mindsets or maybe more so, respond one of two ways. Perhaps the analogy of ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ would most suit here.
Loss and tragedy can often run and control your life. It can make you hard, cynical and so very angry. Those feelings, most likely, occur for everyone at some point in the grief process. In highschool, as many who know me will remember, I lost a very dear friend, a boyfriend in fact, to leukemia. I had been touched by the loss of young people before….not many who grew up in our area of rural Ontario seemed to be immune to it as it just seemed like each year a student or two were killed in accidents in our community. But this was different, this was so heartbreaking to me. It wasn’t that I hadn’t known it could happen but it still caught me by surprise and was the first time my faith was tested. I became very angry and very bitter. I became pretty attention seeking too. And in time, I mellowed, I grieved and I accepted.
With Cole it was different. Initially I wasn’t angry, bitter or cynical. I was lost, I was sad, I was devastated but I was not angry with God. That came in it’s own time though really, I would have to admit, it did not own me. I did feel a very strong sense of being lost, of not knowing how to cope with my feelings , of not being able to find my way out of the grief. At times I still feel that I am still very strongly embraced by grief.
But mostly I feel that I am like so many of the wonderful new friends that I have, those other parents who have lost a child or children in later pregnancy or in infancy, most especially to TTTS. I feel what so many of the people I have met are so inspiring as they have become so full of compassion and love and have grown so much by knowing the despair, the heartbreak and have struggled to find their way back to life after losing their child. They have learned to appreciate life, to embrace and to cherish each moment. So many people have been there for me on horribly sad days. So many of them have reached out to others to let them know that someone cares. They are full of compassion and understanding, they are my dearest friends at times.
They are beautiful people who didn’t just happen.

International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

2010-10-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

In honour of International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, Oct. 15th. I am posting this amazing song. … I will warn you…today’s post will likely be one that you need the Kleenex for….

STILL
music & lyrics: Gerrit Hofsink

I've been waiting for you
For such a long time
You're always on my mind

And I'm lying awake
Most of the night
Waiting to hold you tight

Now that I do
And look at you
My heart is breaking
This can't be true

Chorus:
Lost you before I found you
Gone before you came
But I love you just the same
Missed you before I met you
On earth we never can
But in heaven we'll meet again

Close to my soul
Close to my heart
Right from the start

Lost in time
Lost in space
Can't wait to see your face

Now that I do
And look at you
My heart is breaking
I know it's true

Lost you before I found you
Gone before you came
But I love you just the same
Missed you before I met you
On earth we never can
But in heaven we'll meet again

Sometimes I find myself wondering what to do
With this pain that I’m going through
But I know one day, God will take me away
And I’m coming home to you

And when I do
And look at you
My heart is healing
I know it’s true

Lost you before I found you
Gone before you came
But I love you just the same
Missed you before I met you
On earth we never can
But in heaven we'll meet again

In Heaven we’ll meet again.

I ask that today you light a candle and participate in the international wave of light campaign to remember all babies lost in pregnancy through miscarriage or stillbirth or the loss of infants at or just after birth. I ask you to light this candle in memory of Cole. We miss him so much each day…but especially today when it’s a day to remember these special angels.
I love this song, I love the message it leaves. I am feeling so lost today, I miss Cole so much. I know that I will see his face again, really, I guess I see it each day.
Oh Cole… I am so lucky to know what you look like wee one but sometimes I think that just makes it that much harder. I lost you before you ever had a moment to take your first breath but you have given me so many moments that have taken my breath away. We did not meet on earth, I did not see your eyes wide open, your mouth smiling, I did not smell your sweet baby smell or touch your soft baby skin. My heart was broken when I learned you had left us before you we found you. But you are with me always and I know that you are waiting for me at Heaven’s Gate…I will be there and we will be together again. I will love you just the same as I love all of your brothers. For now I hold your brothers near and dear and pray that you will watch over us all and guide us through life till we all meet again.

Making a Difference

2010-10-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you are down, when you feel like no one notices what you do, when the world seems to be crapping all over you a reminder is needed....

The Starfish Story
adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren Eiseley (1907 - 1977)

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."
.

I've been reminded lately by a few wonderful people about the differences I make...especially in the world of TTTS. My first remniders came in the last 10 days or so as 4-5 online friends sent me messages of thanks, of requests for support, of words of encouragement after I made the latest 'twin video'. I also had a request for support and connections for a new TTTS mom from right here in my area. She had the same medical team that I did and one of the doctors that I have remained friends with approached me to offer support. It really amazes me to see the difference I can make... I just do it and think nothing of it. It doesn't seem like much to me, though I am sure that when I am on the computer (too much) it seems like a lot to my family. But it is a way to help keep our son Cole's memory alive, and it pays tribute to his twin brother, Cameron.
But even more of a sign of the difference I can make can be found in this story
and this wonderful idea that my new friends whio work in fundraising for the foundation at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto came up with. I am the first person to use the 'service' and am so proud to feel Cole working through me to keep his memory alive...to help all families struggling with pregnancy complications. With any luck Cole will not be welcoming too many more angels to Heaven as with this money, this support, Dr. Ryan and his team will save more and more wee lives.

The Moments that Take our Breath Away

2010-10-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Today started out kind of like the weather...miserable, cold, achey and grey. I was tired and grumpy and full of negativity. Moments like these seem to make everything, everyone seem to be against me...and I hate it. I hate jealousy and wishful thinking...I hate wanting the things I don't have and I hate wishing I was somoeone else. It always seems in moments like this that I feel the ache of losing Cole over and over...I relive it, I often tear up....I just go backwards so far.
So as I am driving along on my way to work, feeling down and sorry for myself this song plays on the radio and I almost stopped the car. I have heard it before, even thought about sharing it here but today it just hit me...it was just what I needed to hear....

The Breath You Take"

He looks up from second base, dad's up in the stands
He saw the hit, the run, the slide, there ain't no bigger fan
In the parking lot after the game
He said, "Dad, I thought you had a plane to catch?"
He smiled and said, "Yeah, son, I did"

But life's not the breath you take, the breathing in and out
That gets you through the day, ain't what it's all about
You just might miss the point trying to win the race
Life's not the breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away

Fast forward fifteen years and a thousand miles away
Boy's built a life, he's got a wife and a baby due today
He hears a voice saying, "I made it son"
Says, "I told you dad, you didn't have to come"
He smiles and says, "Yeah, I know you did"

But life's not the breath you take, the breathing in and out
That gets you through the day, ain't what it's all about
You just might miss the point trying to win the race
Life's not the breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away

Just like it took my breath when she was born
Just like it took my breath away when dad took his last that morn

Life's not the breath you take, the breathing in and out
That gets you through the day, ain't what it's all about
Just might miss the point if you don't slow down the pace
Life's not the breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away

Life isn't about the breaths we take...breathing in and out takes no effort, requires no thought and is the easiest thing to do. Being able to breath is great, getting through the day easily...wonderful. But it doesn't make a life. Struggling to breath I guess doesn't make a life either but it sure makes you appreciate what effort it takes to breath. And worrying about how to take those breaths only distracts you from the amazing things in your life. We seem to get so caught up in runnning our lives, in breathing each day, that we forget about what makes a life... the moments that take your breath away...
the first time someone you are in love with tells you they love you
the words will you marry me and I do
the +'ve sign on pregnancy test
the sound of your baby's first cry
first steps, first words, hugs, kisses etc.
the words, for me, 'there's two babbies in there'...now there was a moment that took my breath away
seeing my babies (all 4 of them at different points) on ultrasound...wow! But even more so watching Cameron and Cole bump into each other, kick each other, hug each other....breathless
Those are all moments I've had that have taken my breath away. Like George Strait, I also had my breath taken away with the loss of a loved one. For sure one of the moments that left me breathless was with the news that Cole was gone... I was devastated and shocked and found it very hard to breath. But it still didn't compare with the breathlessness that I had at the announcement of his existence. Even now when I think of those days my breath gets caught in my throat.
When I think of the first time I held my very first child...wow, what a breathless moment.
With Brycen breathless moments have always come with words...he says so many adorable things. Some (I love you as big as the sky mom) are filled with joy and others steal my breath as they bring tears to my eyes (mom I miss Cole so much, can't we just go to Heaven and bring him back?).
And Cameron, he has made me breathless from day one. I knew, from the moment I suspected I was pregnant that this baby (babies) was different. I am breathless so much of time when I am around him, he shows me daily what miracles are. His hugs, his love, his joy, his excitement.... the life he seems to live that is full of the life, energy and love of two little boys....breathless!
I hope your life leaves you breathless!

Amazing

2010-09-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have heard this song so many times...most often on youtube video's of TTTS survivors and angels. I decided to look up the words today and share them. I'd hoped to put the song in my playlist but couldn't.
Amazing - Janelle

The morning cold and raining,
dark before the dawn could come
How long in twilight waiting
longing for the rising sun
ohoh ohoh Oh ooh

You came like crashing thunder
breaking through these walls of stone
You came with wide eyed wonder
into all this great unknown
ohoh ohoh Ohoooh Oohh

Hush now don't you be afraid
I promise you I'll always stay
I'll never be that far away
I'm right here with you

[Chorus]
You're so amazing you shine like the stars
You're so amazing the beauty you are
You came blazing right into my heart
You're so amazing you are...
You are

You came from heaven shining
Breath of God still flows from fresh on you
The beating heart inside me
Crumbled at this one so new
ohoh ohoh Oooh ooohhh

No matter where or how far you wander
For a thousand years or longer
I will always be there for you
Right here with you

[Chorus]
You're so amazing you shine like the stars
You're so amazing the beauty you are
You came blazing right into my heart
You're so amazing you are...

I hope your tears are few and fast
I hope your dreams come true at last
I hope you find love that goes on and on and on and on and on
I hope you wish on every star
I hope you never fall too far
I hope this world can see how wonderful you are

[Chorus]
You're so amazing you shine like the stars
You're so amazing the beauty you are
You came blazing right into my heart
You're so amazing...

You're so amazing you shine like the stars
You're so amazing the beauty you are
You came blazing right into my heart
You're so amazing you are...
You are

It's just such a beautiful and heartfelt song from a mother to her child...or children...especially those who've been on one heck of a journey like so many I know have been.
All of my children amaze me...for so many wonderful reasons.
But I'll be honest, Cameron and Cole will always be the children who amaze me the most. Their conception amazed me (okay it surprised me too!!!)...twins amaze me but ones conceived by the same egg and sperm...splitting perfectly and forming two identical beings...wow, that amazes me. The situation that occurred within my placenta was such a crappy thing and yet they survived it with no signs of any troubles for 21 amazing weeks...that is so awesome. When it did rear it's ugly head it was quick and vicious and the outcome was horrible yet both the boys amazed me. Cameron amazed me because he survived. He defied the odds... Dr. Ryan pretty much told us that...to have no affects from the TTTS at the time of diagnosis at all...pretty amazing. Then he went on to amaze us by surviving the anemia and blood transfusion with no issues either. He also survived my water breaking at 26 weeks (known as pPROM) and went on to amaze us with his health and continued growth for another 8 weeks. And best of all he amazed us by arriving healthy with no concerns and an amazing spirit...such a little wonder he is. He is so full of life and happiness, full of energy and mischief. Perhaps he is two little boys in one little body???
But he's not the only amazing one....Cole...well I think he's even more amazing. He hid all his medical issues from us until it was safer to do the surgery...safer for Cameron not for him. He left us when it was safe to leave and then he went on to keep us safe for the next 11 weeks...and beyond. There is no medical reasons for all that was going on to not have been more obvious...or rather to have affected him different. He had so little share of the placenta and yet he grew fine, his cord was so far from the placenta that he was barely getting much for nutrients..yet he grew and kicked. He left us on a cold day in December and yet his spirit lives on. He watched over his brother and kept him safe for 11 long weeks...8 of them in a very critical situation. He traveled with him into this world and protected us both. He watched as his brother took his first breaths, cried his first cry and was seen by his loving parents for the first time. He watched over his mom and dad as they cried over him and his silent still body. He knew it wasn't the time to tell us that he was okay, he knew we needed to cry.
He went on to amaze me as I feel him guide me to help support other TTTS families. He inspired us to raise $4000 for the hospital that saved his brother...it didn't save him but that didn't matter...he shines like the stars and amazes me with the beauty that is his spirit. He lives on in us all, most especially his twin and has blazed right into my heart....I'll always be here for you sweet baby boys and I know that you, sweet Cole, will always be here for me.
You're so amazing....

The Butterfly Part 2

2010-09-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

I wrote in my last blog entry about butterflies and how the life cycle of a butterfly…well a caterpillar really… is so similar to the journey I feel I’ve taken with the loss of Cole. That story of the journey of the caterpillar and the changes it made to become the beautiful and pure butterfly also makes me think of Cole’s journey. In a sense he was that caterpillar….hidden away inside of me with his twin brother, slowly growing and changing but still a caterpillar. Suddenly he began his chrysalis stage...before any of us were ready for it to happen. I didn’t want him to become a butterfly. I dreaded his arrival for it meant that I no longer held him with me. But I couldn’t stop his journey or change his ending…it was his, not mine. And when he was born we were left with the physical reminders of his caterpillar self but his spirit….now that was a butterfly!

And so the butterfly, in and of itself, does not just speak to me about coming out of despair to become something better but also of beauty, of life and of hope. Butterflies are a symbol of the loss of a baby (incidentally I had a butterfly on my door at St. Joe’s after Cameron and Cole were born and Cameron had one on his isolette and while in postpartum and the NICU we saw 3 more butterflies) but I was never totally sure why. So once again I turned to the internet and found this poem…....
The Butterfly
He had her there, resting on the palm of his hand for a while.
She was all he ever wanted.
Sometimes her wings were closed.
Motionless.

At other times, she spread her wings open in the bright sunshine,
displaying her colourful patterns.
He truly loved her.
She knew that.

He told her she was special and beautiful, he saw the beauty.
He appreciated her true colours.
But he couldn't keep her.
He knew that.

She was born to fly.

She had been beautiful in his hand, but in flight she soared.
In the garden amongst the colourful, sweet-fragranced flowers.
Her habitat.
Free.

In letting her go, he made her happy.
But she was always to remember his warmth and his love.
Always and forever.
For all of eternity.

And I thought, WOW… this leaves me with so much happiness, so much joy and so much Hope. My son will always remember the love I had for him and how well I looked after him. And I will remember the joy I felt to be pregnant with him, how special and beautiful he was each time I saw his tiny body moving around inside of at the countless ultrasounds I had. But he was born to fly, to soar above us all and guide us in our lives. I couldn’t keep him no matter how much I wanted to, he was too perfect for this world, he had a greater job. It was never a job I would have asked God for, never what I wanted for him. But I am so honoured to have MY son doing that job. I think part of me will always wish that he could have stayed but I feel so lucky to have seen his spirit, his movements, his life and his love. He gives me great hope….

A Symbol of Hope
A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam
And for a brief moment its glory
and beauty belong to our world
But then it flies again
And though we wish it could have stayed...
We feel lucky to have seen it.

And somedays it is harder to remember that hope, harder to feel so lucky to have seen his spirit. Somedays are still full of sadness and despair…I won’t lie to you and pretend that it’s easy, that I’ve moved on and only see the positives. But I am learning that I have to not look for the mission and the purpose…I don’t have to have the answers to the whys. I need to be still and know that he is with me, that God is with me. The stiller I am, the closer I feel to him and in all honesty the happier I am.

"Happiness is like a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you."