The One with… “The Plan”

If there is one thing I love it is a good plan. For Pete’s sake y’all, that was my major at UNCG! I like to be organized. I like to have everything together. I like to know what is going on and when. Want a better word for it? Control. Since I walked across the stage in May with my Event Management degree in hand and a sharpened plan in my head, nothing has gone according to “plan”. In “professional” terms, during an event this is when you are to have a contingency plan. Well, I have found in life it is not that simple. I imagine when we make our plans the Lord gazes among us from Heaven, and says to Himself, “Oh, you have no idea what is in store for you and a “contingency” plan won’t be the solution.” Therefore, the past five months have been a trying time of learning to relinquish my control to the solution: surrender.

As a new wife building a home with my husband and an expecting mother of two identical twin girls, it is not easy to surrender full control. Confession? I desire for my home to be “kept” a certain way. I desire for the girls’ nursery to be perfect when they come home. I desire to have this-this-and this crossed off of my “to-do” list at the end of the day. I wanted to have one more week with Andrew at home and spend the weekend with our families before Chapel Hill. I was doing my absolute best to control these past two weeks and hold on to what I could before being admitted. Surrender, ha! I had never fully surrendered or else yesterday would have been a breeze.

Lecrae puts it quite well. “I am not a Christian because I am strong and have it all together. I am a Christian because I admit that I am weak and need a Savior.” WOW. Can I get an amen? Today I am thankful that I do not have to carry the burden of being in full control of God’s plan for my life or my babies lives. Today I am thankful to admit that I am weak. I am not strong. I am not perfect. And I most certainly do not have it all together. Today I am thankful that my so-called plans are out the window, and I have a Savior who loves me so much to say, “Oh, you have no idea what is in store for you.” Today I am thankful for a Savior of grace and unfailing love.

When we left for our doctor’s appointment yesterday morning, I had piles of laundry in an unorganized and uncompleted nursery, dishes in the sink, a “not to my standard” unclean house, get the picture? In other words, I was not prepared to leave home. An unmade bed and not one thing packed. You would think at 27 weeks pregnant with mono-amniotic twins I would have my hospital bag and information ready to go for any emergency! Nope. Honestly? I was no where near being emotionally or mentally ready to be in the hospital. I wanted one more week. Just one more! To get what I wanted done… done! I wanted one more week with Andrew and I at home together. I wanted one more week of freedom to get a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch whenever I wanted for goodness sakes! In the last twenty four hours, I have realized I was being completely and utterly ridiculous because any amount of time is never enough “time” in our reality. Life happens and my friends, no matter how descriptive and detailed our plans are we have to roll with the punches.

One glucose test. One flu vaccine. One T-DAPP shot. One ultrasound. One hectic morning of cramming “one week plans” into three hours. One ride to Chapel Hill. Two complete blood panels. Two steroid shots. One 12-hour round of magnesium. 17 hours of constant monitoring. Two hospital rooms later. We are here.

It has been quite the past twenty four hours for our little family! Andrew, the girls, and I are all doing fine. We were anticipating our admittance date to be this upcoming Sunday, but with the doctor’s orders we were admitted yesterday for the health of our girls at this stage of the game. At the girls gestational age, their lungs are beginning to develop. With the risk we face to go into labor at any point of the game due to cord entanglement, the doctors wanted me to have the steroid shots as soon as possible to jump start those little lungs! Last night was “Sleepless in Chapel Hill” due to the constant monitoring of the babies heartbeats (these girls are ACTIVE, y’all!), and the round of magnesium. The magnesium helps in protecting the girls’ little brains from any significant preterm side effects. Here are a few of our praises and prayer requests for the day!

BIG PRAISES: The girls held a steady heart rate throughout the night, so I am able to do my monitoring three times a day instead of constant while being bedridden. Hallelujah! I passed my glucose test! And, my platelet count has been the highest it has been in three whole years. Praise Him!

Prayer Requests: Our girls. Amelia’s lungs are not developing quite as fast as Leah’s. We are praying the steroid shots will boost our little fighters right on up! Monitoring. The girls are extremely active and moving a lot! This definitely is a blessing, but for our rounds of monitoring it is hard to chase the girls around when they like to play “hide and go seek”. Pray for easy going monitoring rounds because they are ultimately our deciding factors! These are what the doctors read and if they see any irregular activity will act upon it. I am trying to “bake” these babies to 32 weeks at the earliest! So pray for some great monitoring results and cooperative, bake-able babies! Andrew and I. Continue to pray that Andrew and I stay strong for one another and use this time God is calling us to to grow and strengthen our marriage in preparation for our two precious girls!

Here are a few pictures to show how we celebrated our last week!

Andrew and I joined Rebecca at the Scotty McCreery concert last Monday night at the NC State Fair. It was a pure joy to witness Rebecca’s excitement for Scotty!

A casual trip to Target to grab paper towels, milk, and you guessed it.. Cinnamon Toast Crunch, resulted in finding our car seats ON SALE! It was a fun trip to say the least 🙂

 Remember that plan I told you about I had in my head at graduation? This was it! Our wedding date was originally scheduled for this past Saturday. Thank you to our friend, Austin, and everyone who thought of us on Saturday.  Andrew was so sweet to make it a fun day for us both!

We went back to the NC State Fair together on Saturday and Andrew bought these handmade rabbits for the girls from the Village at Yesteryear! A man we met there also made us whistles for the girls! So sweet!

This was our reaction to the NCSU game and the crowd at the fair– lesson learned: go on a week day. We had a great time at Randy Houser though!

It was so great being reunited with these sweet friends who blessed our girls on Sunday afternoon with a fun baby shower! See the red toe nails on those swollen feet? Thankfully, I was also able to get a pedicure on Sunday afternoon– talk about great timing!

This is for your enjoyment— high as a kite on the magnesium! Needless to say, last night Mrs. Kathy, Andrew, Mama, and the nurses were pretty entertained!!

Andrew and I can’t thank you all enough for praying with us and encouraging us as we make our way through this incredible journey! In the words of my sweet Aunt Emily, “Keep the faith. Hold your breath. Pray. Wait. We live and celebrate every day!”

Rolling With The Punches,

Mary Kate