Forgive me.....
I am an Orthodox christian, which for those of you who aren't familiar with the faith, is similar in some ways to Catholicism. I think I did just commit a sin by comparing the two....forgive me. We, as Orthodox Christians, are always aware of our sinfulness, and when writing letters we should most often close by saying....Forgive me instead of sincerely. Why? We like to cover all bases, in case we are ignorant(quite often), hurtful(probably), boring(sometimes),and selfish(always). So why not start a letter, story or blog the same way.....it seems fitting to me. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and I will continue to make many, many more. But, as I tell my kids, that if you learn from your mistakes, then they are lessons to remember and to grow from.

I made so many mistakes in my pregnancy with the twins. I felt so good, after the initial onslaught of  morning sickness, which I had morning, noon and night! I did however manage to eat  everything in my eyesight and grow very, very large. I was eating for three you know. Jim was always so accommodating with my cravings, and we really did order domino's pizza at midnight, because, you know, the babies wanted that!

I had two other active children on the outside as well. Sean and Jo, kept me busy and I was proud that I could still be a good mother and keep up with them. I was exhausted by nighttime and slept well, at least until I became too large to do anything in a normal way.

We even managed to travel with the kids to Palm Springs that summer and stay at our favorite place that had the water-slides the boys loved. I sure was a sight to behold in a maternity suit. In those days( a phrase I swore I'd never use), a pregnant woman covered her robust belly, unlike today where a mother-to be can display her wares in a too tiny bikini!We had such a fun time, and I realized with my growing stomach--this would probably one of our last family of four excursions. What the heck...I even went down the water-slide myself!

I had another ultrasound that month, which was month five and found out that baby A was a girl and baby B was a boy!Jim and I were so excited! We began to think of names because we couldn't go through the next couple months calling our babies A and B!

At this point in my other pregnancies, I had the nursery almost done, but for some strange reason I had done nothing; I really should have been more prepared. Sometimes we know more about our future than we can understand at the time...if that makes sense.Mothers have these all telling gut wrenching instincts that are hard to ignore......but I was trying.