Grace

Thank you so much for your prayers.

Yesterday I was the recipient of far more grace than I deserved.

After waking up ill shorty after midnight, I became so nervous -scared, really- of what the next day might hold.

Being a parent of infant twins is hard. Being an ill parent of infant twins is so difficult I could cry. I knew David would not be able to miss work the next day. He teaches at 3 different colleges, and finding subs at the last minute (let alone 3) for college classes is near impossible. So I knew I would be on my own.

As I sat up nauseous and vomiting from midnight until 3:15am, I prayed a lot. I prayed for healing, peace, comfort, and grace to make it through whatever the next day (or few days) held. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to nurse. I was worried that nursing might pass the bug to the babies (thank you ladies for encouraging me through that!) and also I was so scared about my supply taking a major hit due to dehydration. That fear nearly brought me to tears. This month I am already watching my supply very closely since I have begun a new bc pill with some estrogen in it (since the babies are on solids now), and that has been known to reduce your supply. Also, for about 3 weeks now Abbey has been on a bottle strike. She absolutely refuses to take one. So on the afternoons that I work, she will cry and scream if anyone tries to give her one, and just chooses to go without. I was praying so hard that I would be able to continue to nurse and provide for my babies through the flu. And I asked you all to pray.

Miraculously, it went well.

Luke woke up at 1:40am, and I was able to nurse him and put him back to sleep with ease and without puking on him or needing to put him down so I could run and puke.

Grace.

Abbey woke up about 3:00am to nurse, same thing.

Grace.

When I went to bed at 3:15am, I put earplugs in and fell into a deep sleep.

When the babies woke up at 5am, my husband jumped out of bed, turned off the baby monitor and went and entertained them until he had to start getting ready for work, buying me an extra 1.5 hours of sleep. I love that man.


When I got up at 6:30am, I felt terrible. Every bone and muscle in my body ached.

David prayed over me before he left for work.

I wanted to cry when he walked out the front door, but knew that no good would come from it. I tried to focus on the grace I had been shown during the night.

I called a friend from Church and asked her if she wouldn't mind running to the store for me and bringing me some Sprite on her way to work. I couldn't keep water down over night, but I knew I needed to get some liquids in me and Sprite was something that didn't sound awful.

She arrived at my house 20 minutes later with 2 bottles of Sprite, encouraging words, and the offer of her husband to be "on call" for me all day since he didn't need to work.

Grace.

I fed the babies breakfast, we played, they took turns taking naps, played, lunch, played, then while simultaneous nap time occurred (that friends, is extreme grace), I just laid on the couch and watched sitcoms for 45 minutes.

The babies were in good moods all day long.

I didn't throw up once all day long.

Grace.

We all 3 stayed in our jammies the entire day, and not a single chore got done, but I didn't care one bit.

While changing Luke's second poopy-but-not-wet diaper, I started to worry if he was hydrated properly...and in the middle of my worrying, he proceeded to pee all over me, all over himself, and all over the floor that I was changing him on.

Ironic grace.

They seemed to nurse well every time, and without any problems.

Grace, grace, grace.

In fact, they didn't start to really have fussy time until shortly after David walked in the door at 4:30pm. But then we were running a man-to-man defense, so it was manageable.

Dave fed them dinner while I laid on the couch some more. We gave them a bath, got them ready for bed, I nursed them, and we put them down.

I had some toast for dinner and then went and took the hottest bath my body could tolerate.

I was in bed by 8:00pm with a heating pad on around my stiff,tired neck, and David turned off the monitor and told me he would stay up in the living room watching TV until about midnight, and deal with any wake ups that happened. Have I mentioned I love that man? (turns out it's a good thing he did, as apparently each baby woke up at least twice between bedtime and midnight...don't know what that is about). I didn't wake up until 3:00am when Abbey woke up to nurse, and Luke was right behind her. That means I got over 6 hours of consecutive sleep last night. That has only happened a handful of times since the babies have been born. It felt so good.



I feel better this morning, and food is starting to sound ok again, so I think I am well on my way to recovered. So far neither Luke nor Abbey has shown any signs of feeling sick.

Grace.

Thanks be to God.