Tag Archives: premature baby

How Michael Myers Helped Me Through a Hard Time

Posted in inspiration, premature babies, The Blessings by

How Michael Myers Helped Me Through a Tough TimeNothing like a good old Halloween marathon to make me nostalgic for my days with newborn babies.

Wait. What? How does Michael Myyers make you think fondly of sweet babies??

You see when I was younger I loved me a good horror movie. The scarier, the better in my opinion. I watched that majority of it through my hands or a blanket up to my face, but I still loved it. I loved to scream at the idiot, half dressed girl, “Don’t go in there!!!” I loved to jump and scream even if I knew it was coming. I laughed and laughed at myself for being so scared. And I always liked being surprised when there was a twist in the story.  “I did NOT see that coming!!”

Eventually, I grew out of my scary movie phase. Maybe it was because I had an Ethan, Ella, and Matthew to keep me up at night. I certainly didn’t need a Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, or Leatherface to keep me up at night too. Or maybe it was just that I saw Saw. Ha ha ha ha. Saw Saw. But seriously, Saw is the scariest movie I have ever seen. Now I can’t even watch a commercial for Annabelle without losing sleep.

But I digress.

I will always get a smile on my face anytime I see a Halloween marathon on TV. You see back in October of 2006, I had 2 sweet babies that I had to leave behind in the NICU. Unlike most new mamas, I couldn’t rock my sweet babies in the middle of the night. I had to leave my heart in the NICU 20 miles away.

But there was one thing I could do. I would set my alarm for every 2 – 3 hours, and I would pump breast milk that would help my very frail babies grow strong. As you could imagine, it was exhausting to pump so often around the clock. I would wake up, call the NICU to check on the babies, then I would hook myself up to the pump like a cow. In order to keep myself awake and entertain myself, I would turn on the TV. Since it was late October, I could always count on AMC to have an all night Halloween marathon to watch. At my midnight pumping, I would watch Halloween. My next one I would catch the end of Halloween II. As the sun was starting to rise, I would catch part of Halloween IV. (It worked out well that I missed Halloween III because everyone knows that is the worst!!)

My poor husband, Eric, begged me after one night of Halloween marathon to please, please not watch Halloween at night anymore. He had nightmares and heard the theme all night in his sleep. Do do do do do do do do. After getting very little sleep myself, I only felt a little bad 😉

Thinking back, that was one of the hardest times of my life. I was exhausted. Between getting my strength back from being in the hospital for three months, to delivering twins, living in a NICU all day, and pumping around the clock; I was beaten down physically. Not to mention the emotional toll of everything! Being separated from my babies was agony.

But God. God helped me through the very difficult time. He helped me find humor in the midst of it. He healed my heart so when I think back to a time filled with Halloween and tears, I would only reminisce with a smile.

Maybe you are going through a Halloween time. Have faith and cling to God. Some day you will be able look back, hopefully, with a smile.

Two Hospitals in Three Hours – EEEKKS!!

Posted in inspiration, Matthewism, Steph, The Blessings, The Book by

Today we visited two hospitals in less than three hours.  EEEKKS!!

One visit was planned.  The other was…not.  Lemme explain.

Last weekend we had a combined birthday party for our three children.  They are all October babies, so we thought having a costume party would be a blast.  We decided that instead of asking for presents, we would ask for donations.  We asked the children to bring donations for the Centennial Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).  We did this for several reasons:

1.  The Centennial NICU has a very special place in our hearts.  My twins were preemies and spent their first 5 weeks and 1 day of their life there.

2.  We thought it was important to teach our children the importance of charitable giving.

3.  We didn’t want any of the guests to feel like they needed to buy a present for all three of my kids.

4. We spoil them enough; my kids don’t need one more thing in their room!!

Today we loaded up 48 receiving blankets,12 bibs,12 onesies, 2, sleepers, 6 of the tiniest most precious pants, and over $100 in donations for the Centennial NICU.  The nurses were over the moon excited about the donations.  We even saw a nurse that was in the unit when Ethan and Ella was there, and she remembered them!

Southern Lady Mama - nicu donations

We had such a good conversation on the way home about how God wants us to show His love and help take care of His people.  They also had a lot of questions about my time in the hospital.  Ella asked me if I was scared.  I answered, “I was but God blessed me with such a peace that just isn’t possible without Him.  We had hundreds of people praying for me and you!”  It is amazing to me that God used this situation to not only strengthen my faith, but also as a way to teach my children about His love and faithfulness. They have a very real example about how your faith can give you peace in the worst of times.

We were home from the hospital for about ten minutes when my youngest, Matthew, hit his chin with his handlebars on his Razor scooter.  Hospital #2.  3 stitches.  It was a rather uneventful visit with the inevitable long doctor wait for the stitches.  After he had enough of the waiting, he started counting (quite loudly) “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi,” then sighed loudly and exclaimed, “Oh for Pete’s Sake!  This is ridiculous!!  1 Texas, 2 Texas, 3 Texas….”all the way up to 100 Texas 🙂

I feel so blessed that God gave me these three babies to raise to love Him, care for His people, and for Pete’s Sake – laugh.  Like A lot.