A selfish post...and perhaps my most honest one yet.

Every morning I hear my precious little twins crying from their bed. It is a sound that signals many things: the start of the day, the reminder that I lucky enough to have three children, and the start of a day where I will do my best to move through incredible pain and stiffness as a result of my car accident, and be a mom in as many ways as I can.

This picture was taken on a day when I was able to push the double stroller and walk up to the park at Claire's school.

The worst part of it for me, is that there is a tinge of guilt when I hear that cry, and that just devastates me. It signals that I will shortly be required to be in pain, just to get their adorable warm sleepy bodies out of their cribs. Something that my husband and I used to fight to do because it was so precious. What a complicated feeling, bordering on grief, to have.

To say I look forward to the day when I can hop out of bed and grab my babies as soon as they need me, lift them up, carry them downstairs, change their diapers while they fight me, and do it all pain free, is a huge understatement. Then lift them into their highchairs myself, feed them, clean them and change them again then get them dressed. 

This morning Claire asked me if I would play with her while I was flat on my back on the floor, trying to stretch and lie on heat so I had some fighting chance of being mobile enough today to do the bare minimum for my children. I took a short bath to try and loosen my muscles – it was a bit of a hail mary after my stretches, heat pad, and medication and I was still in pain. After my bath I fell to my bed in tears and cried into my towel. I sobbed. 

I sobbed because I am angry that this happened to me.

I sobbed because I'm angry this is happening to me. 

I sobbed because I am stressed about what this is taking away from my husband’s life as he is working from home and my job is to run our house. 

I am devastated that I cannot meet all of my children’s needs the way I used to… and if I can do it, it’s hard to do it with a happy face on, because of the pain.   

This weekend we had fun – for the first time in ages. We went out to dinner with friends and laughed for three hours… at the end of the night my back and tailbone hurt so bad it was all I could do to crawl into bed, because I had sat still for so long. I don’t know if the mental health benefits of going out with friends outweigh the physical pain that I’ll be in during the coming days or not… I’m torn. 

I’m tired of crying frequently. I’m tired of the stress level my injury has added to our home. I’m tired of Claire having to worry about what I’m able to do for her and with her. A child should not have to think about that... she has nightmares about my body, and parts of it missing that keep me from engaging in family activities. It is affecting everyone around me. I have to ask for more help from so many people and they have been wonderful, but at the end of the day there is only so much you can ask from someone else… my family has to be able to rely on me. 

As always, I do not believe everything happens for a reason, but I always believe that there is something to be gained from traumatic experience if you look for it. I'm still trying to answer that question and I'm looking for what knowledge I'm gaining from this... all I have come up with so far is this:

I'm truly learning to "listen to my body" and attempt to slow things down and be patient and wait for help to get things done.

I'm learning about imperfection... in a big way. 

I'm learning about what is just good enough... and that is how I live. Paper plates for meals, easy dinners, and piles of clean laundry that sit in a heap for days, getting further wrinkled, but guess what... I don't get to care.  I can't get a load of clean laundry out of the dryer, because bending over and lifting is one of the most painful things for me. Matt is still working full time and he does everything in his power to help me, but I simply have to learn to wait for things to get done, not do them or be comfortable relying on others for help (a lesson my twin pregnancy and birth prepared me for… little did I know that was the just the tip of the iceberg.)

Sweet Claire guiding Sammy out of my room.

Last, but not least, my sweet little Claire is learning a lesson in compassion, and how to take care of others, right at home. I hope it ends soon, but the exposure to this concept is not a bad thing, and it is beyond heartwarming to see her take care of the twins and be my little momma.

Claire does her best to bathe the kids for me.