Working with a baby was hard. Even though we had such a flexible schedule it was still hard and buying the things that we needed was hard to. We kept slipping into debt and couldn't wait to get through school to get a real, good paying job so we could live.
We are so blessed with such wonderful family. During all of this Mike's odest brother was close by. We were able to join them for Sunday dinners and they had older girls that bacame our babysitters on many occassions. This helped out with money not having to worry about one meal a week and not having to pay for sitters. We had a family in our ward that we were really good friends with who would trade babysitting for haircuts and when we didn't need a babysitter, they would give up beef for haircuts, which helped out so much. His parents were beef farmers and had more than they knew what to do with.
When our oldest was around 18 months old I found out I was pregnant again. We were pretty excited, but they were due to be born in Sept. and Mike would be graduating from college that Dec. We had a hard time thinking that we would have two kids at graduation, we weren't planning that, but then again, can you really plan children? Obviously not, because on our first doctor's appointment we found out we were going to be having twins. We were very surprised and didn't know what to think of this.
This second pregnancy wasn't as bad as the first, but I still had sickness. I also got big very quickly, by three months in I was already in maternity clothes. During this time I was still working and taking care of my family as best I could. I knew that I didn't have to much longer to work before Mike would be done with school. He had told me that if I would put him through school, I would never have to work again. I could handle that, there wasn't much time left.
Mike decided to get a temp job to be able to help out a little with bills and food so that when our children came I wouldn't have to worry too much about work. In July I went in for a routine doctor's appointment. I told him of the pains and uncomfortableness I had been having. That day I stayed home and laid on the couch all day having contractions and pain. That afternoon I finally Mike and told him he needed to take me to the hospital that I needed to be checked out. He came home from work and took me up. They monitored me and checked me and I was in preterm labor. I was very scared and so was my husband. We called the leaders in our ward to let them know what was going on and our bishop and his counselor came and gave me a blessing. I was immediately calmed and knew everything would be all right.
The nurses called my doctor and pulled him away from his diner out with his family, I felt awful. He came and prepped me for a C-section just in case. I was only 31 weeks along and they had tried what they could to stop labor, but I was progressing so quickly they couldn't even life flight me to another hospital that more equipped for that type of delivery. Instead they decided to life flight my boys to another hospital.
It was scary and stressful trying to deal with that thought. A few hours later our 2 nd son was born. He was healthy and doing fine. Our third son was breech and the doctor tried to turn him. He would not turn so the doctor decided that since I had already had one that he would just grab the next ones feet. He was delivered breech (feet first) and had a hard breathing on his own.
They took care of me and took me back to a room. As the boys left they brought them to see me. It was so hard to see such little babies have to go through this. The first one went by air and the second went by ground. Once again we were so fortunate that we had medicaid and WIC! I did not see a single bill for any of this! I can only imagine how much this would have cost us. The boys were in the NICU for about 5 weeks.
They spent the first four weeks in Ogden, UT which was the closest town that had a big enough NICU for both of them. Ogden was about a 50 minute drive from Logan where Mike and James were. I spent the week in Ogden with the boys and would go home to go to church with Mike and James on Sunday and then I would head back. It was a long 4 weeks without my family. A lot of prayers were said and tears were shed during that time.
After 4 weeks we were able to get the boys moved back to the NICU in Logan. We didn't know how we would pay for this, they had to go by ambulance and that was a very expensive drive. We talked to the hospital staff and they said that Logan Regional was going to pick up the bill for the transfer. We were elated. We could finally be a family again. We were able to go back and the boys did really well. We were able to bring one home after another week and the other came home a few days later.
It was busy work and we were exhausted all the time. Our diaper bill just increased by tons though. We now had three kids in diapers! We had a wonderful sister who was the Relief Society president at the time in our ward, who was single. She was such a blessing to us. She took us out dinner one night and then showed up to my house one day with blankets, jammies, onsies and other things that we just didn't have, or have money for. We were so thankful for her generosity and love for us.
I never went back to work after that. I stayed home with my three children, and with a lot of help from friends, neighbors and family that came often to help, I made it through the first months of twins.
Our Heavenly Father had blessed us so much already, but he wasn't done yet. After the twins were home and doing well, Mike was asked by a fellow student to take part of his internship with Parker Hannifin (an aerospace company). He would be doing programming and working in his field. The plant was in Ogden and he traveled there when he could. The rest of the time he worked from home, which was nice for me to have him around a lot. He graduated in Dec. in computer programming and now we could start the beginning of the rest of our lives!
To be continued....
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