LIFE'S HOPE: Julene's Blog

Because Jessica and Rachael spent the first three months of their lives with noisy machines and under bright lights, the quietness of our home was not very comforting for them. For the first several months, we had to put them to sleep by tuning the radio to static and turning it up full blast. One of our other biggest dilemmas was finding clothes small enough for them. In this picture, just before they came home, they were wearing cabbage patch clothes….

If it weren’t for the records I kept in their baby calendars, I wouldn’t remember their first year. When they came home, the girls were drinking only 4 ounces of milk every three hours so I had to keep track of how much each of them ate and when they ate throughout the day and night. I did not worry about training them to sleep long periods of time since they still needed so much nourishment. Therefore, they did not sleep through the night until they were seven months old. Needless to say, I didn’t go back to that career I mentioned earlier. Not only because the girls required around the clock care but because their fragile lungs couldn’t be exposed to germs in a day care setting.

Jessica and Rachael had been in the NICU at the same time as two other sets of premature twin girls who had also received blood transfusions. One year later, we saw the parents of one of those girls on the news saying their daughter had contracted aids from the blood transfusions she received during those first days in the NICU. The girls were born in 1984 and the state of Minnesota had not started testing blood for aids until 1985. As soon as we saw the announcement, I called the doctor and he said he had been expecting my call. We brought Jessica and Rachael in for testing. Again, God protected the girls and they had not contracted aids.

After the first couple years, I wondered whether I should take the risk and try to get pregnant again. Instead of worrying about the “what if’s,” I told God it was up to Him whether I could handle going through something like this again. This is when I came to know Him as my merciful Father and He gave me another little girl who was this time 8 lb. 11 oz. The experience was so different from that of the twins. I was in labor for four days and she was born two days after her due date. Christina was so healthy and happy that her daddy actually said “she smiles too much” and I wrote in her baby calendar “if she cries, there is a good reason for it. At 14 months, she still doesn’t cry when left in the nursery.”

The twins love Tina. When they came to visit us in the hospital, I held out my arms to hug my little girls but they ran straight for Tina! It was a feeling of sadness because I wanted to hug my little girls, but also a feeling of joy because they were so excited to see their little sister. Here they are trying to hold onto Tina…

God used this experience to start the process of breaking down the protective walls I had built as a child. He gave me an appreciation and understanding of the kind of love I had never experienced before. I didn’t realize until this point in my life how little I used to cry.

Being a 27 year old mother with three children ages three and under was very stressful. Not to mention living on a single income. I will share some of those struggles next time.