Spying on you

Greg set up the analytics feature on the blog so I can spy on all of you (Ha ha! Take that, voyeurs). I wish we had set it up from the beginning because I'm obsessed with seeing what search terms people use to get to my blog. A couple things strike me though. First of all, the posts of mine that show up the most are the ones where I'm being especially crabby. I know I tend to be a little crabby, but it makes me sad that people aren't being routed to my more hopeful or cheerful posts. One post, in particular, was getting viewed enough that I felt the need to add a little note at the bottom recanting a little. I had some, shall we say, bad days in the hospital. I was grateful to be there, grateful for the wonderful care, grateful to have an excuse to not be jeopardizing my pregnancy by running around after a 2 1/2 year old or feeling obligated to vacuum, and grateful to put my job aside and rest and take care of my body. That being said, I was super grouchy, tended toward a lot of crying, and was a general mess. One night I yelled (I mean yelled) at the lady on the phone at the food delivery place because they forgot my order and I was stuck with late-night hospital food....aka PB&J at 11:30 PM. Okay - so one day, my absolutely fantastic nurse practitioner caught me on a particularly grouchy day and I took it out on her on my blog. Not particularly mature, but I was in a slightly dark place. I felt terrible about it almost immediately. It wasn't her fault that I had babies inside me trying to kill each other. So now I feel sick that when people search "momo twins" they get that nasty little post. My apologies to my lovely NP.

The second thing about the search terms people use that struck me was how sad they are. They are things like:

• Momo twins dying
• Momo twin mortality
• Momo twin survival rate (catching a theme here?)
• Grade 1 hemorrhage
• How to deal with decels
• ...and so on.

They are sad because I remember those dark nights...2:00 in the morning with me at the computer typing in all of these horrible things to find any information I could about momo twins, tears streaming down my face, and praying that I wouldn't have to give birth to "angel babies" or babies with severe special needs. It was incredibly frustrating to have a medical condition so rare with so little available information. Last night at Sunday Night Dinner, Lexie was telling me about these momo twin onesies that I remembered seeing on one of those dark nights. They said "We defied the odds." Can you imagine? I remember just bursting into tears when I saw them. Now, months later, the part that bothers me about these onesies is how unfair they are to everyone with babies who didn't defy the odds. I get really upset when people say they just "knew" or had "a gut feeling" that everything would be okay - it really negates our struggle, but more importantly, it's really unfair to the families who prayed just as hard, hoped just as much, and still had babies who died.

Sorry, I'm feeling a little reflective today. I'm also much more ready to be honest about how tough the last year has been. I edited out a lot of my emotional state at the time because I didn't want people treating me like I was fragile. Now I can look back and more easily laugh about the absurd parts and cry about the sad parts. I'm not a different person than I was before, but I have developed a greater sensitivity to the struggles of others.

Take care,
Kris