I wish this was a post about how we spent hours gazing into each other’s eyes and finally it hit me that everything was going to be okay and that it didn’t matter that my heart could break at any moment from losing him. This is not that post.

Tommy turned 3 months old in the hospital. He got RSV (respiratory virus) and was hospitalized at CDH before they remodeled. It was Hell. We had the absolute worst doctor I have ever dealt with. This man should never be allowed to practice medicine least of all with children.

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Yesterday and today were absolute chaotic days so I didn’t have time to think about the continuation of our medical issues. For those wondering, still no word on the results of Tommy’s tests but the leg welts are back and ironically there was a note about strep in the classroom in his backpack. Why won’t the doctors listen to me?

This is going to be a very short post that is really aimed at the men that read the blog. I have already mentioned in a previous post that I love to have discussions with questions that provoke deep thought out answers. Leo doesn’t really love this game. I love when people play along with me. I am going to give you men some advice. When your wife asks you, “When did you first realize you loved me?” or “When did you know that I was the one you wanted to be with forever?” if you don’t have an answer, just lie. I promise you that if you come up with a story, your significant other will relish it and appreciate it and will not check whether it is true. At least I wouldn’t. A movie that I always enjoy watching is “Housesitter” with Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin. She plays this eccentric woman who tells stories to make her life more interesting and she encourages Steve Martin to do the same to win back a lost love. I, for one, would be impressed if Leo came up with a story for when he knew he loved me.

I think as women we need to feel connected. We need to feel like we matter and that there is a reason why we were chosen over anyone else. Maybe it is because I write romance novels (I use that term loosely because one is finished but really bad because I wrote it when I was in high school and had no clue, one is finished but it is more like 3 books in one and I can’t stop editing it or let go of the characters and one is hard to finish because I have been writing scenes instead of straight through) and I write those big moments all the time and I just want to know my own big moments even if Leo has to make them up.

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Isabella was the sweetest baby. She only cried when she was hungry or needed to be changed. I would stare at her and think, this is why people have a lot of kids. She was so easy. Or at least she started out that way. Not to be outdone by her brothers, one night when the twins were 2 months old, Isabella was sleeping in between Leo and me. She made a pitiful cry and when I felt her, she was on fire. I took her temperature and it was almost 104. After a brief argument with Leo on whether to go to the ER, I raced her there. I knew it couldn’t be good to be that small with a fever that high. They did a spinal tap which broke my heart to hear her scream like that (they wouldn’t let me in the room). That came back clean but her urine test came back positive for an infection. She was admitted and her little arm was tied to a board to keep the IV steady and one of the nights when she wouldn’t stop crying from what I was afraid was pain, I had to crawl in the crib with her and let her sleep on me (one of the only benefits of being 5’2). It was the week before Christmas and I cried when carolers came to sing to the kids that were there. No child should be in the hospital at Christmas. They ran a bunch of tests and it was a good thing I was already on antidepressants because it was very hard being there that week with them trying to figure out what was wrong. At one point, Leo looked at me and said, “Please can we be done having kids? This is too hard.” She was released the day before Christmas Eve with the diagnosis of a bladder infection.

She was seen in the ER two more times, once at 18 months and again at 2. Both of them were for bladder infections. After the urologist ran some tests, he found that she had bladder diverticulum with urinary reflux. She had to be on an antibiotic indefinitely so at home I had to have a big chart of who got what medicines at what time. I had new appreciation for nurses which I had never aspired to be. If you read my “Florence Nightingale” post, you know this already. The doctor kept calling it a defect which made me just want them to fix it but that was not recommended at that young of age. Had the boys not had CF with all of what that entailed, I probably would have felt differently but I was in the frame of mind where if she had something that could be fixed, why wouldn’t they just fix it?

I remember crying to my mom that was it too much to ask that one child not have a medical condition and how I lived in fear of any of them having to go back to the hospital. I felt like all three kids belonged to the medical community and that no matter how hard I took care of them, they still ended up in the ER. There were so many appointments with various specialists. Belle also had a functional heart murmur so that meant more tests and more appointments. I hated the hospital and the chaos that was left behind with the other two kids when I had to be gone. I felt torn between the child that was sick and the two that were at home but was so lucky that I had family close by because they either went to my house to be with the two kids that were at home or relieved me at the hospital so I could go see the other kids. It was a very stressful time for everyone and it seemed that from December 4, 2001 until the twins were 5, that someone was in the hospital.

At one of the frequent appointments for the boys, there was a woman and her teenage daughter sitting in the waiting room. I am sure I looked like I was on the edge because she said to me, “Don’t let them scare you. This is manageable. Your boys will be fine. Just don’t treat them any differently. Handle things when they come up but it doesn’t have to be your whole life.” I bet that woman doesn’t know how comforted by her words I was. I bet she also doesn’t know that she couldn’t have been more wrong at that time. As far as CF went, we were about to find out how daunting it really was.

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I am still going to do the post about Isabella tomorrow but I couldn’t help myself tonight. I am just catching up on all my shows and finished watching James sing on Idol and I might be a little in love. OMG! I love Carole King and his version of one of my favorites gave me the chills. LOVED IT! I still like Scotty but he needs to hold his microphone differently or not sing out of the side of it or something. It’s starting to bug me. I really like JLo and Steven (he cracks me up). I haven’t watched to see who gets voted off and was in the middle of the episode when Leo came in and threw a fit about not seeing yesterday’s.

Celebrity Apprentice: I cannot stand Donald Trump. If I hadn’t invested more than half the season, I’d stop watching it. Glad to see Gary Busey go and looking forward to the Star and Nene showdown. Still love the men’s side and Marlee from the women’s.

Housewives (all of them): Not liking Sonja from New York and still think Kelly is a loon. Jury is still out on the new one. Orange County: Tired of Gretchen and Tamra. I think I miss Laurie. Jersey one is starting soon. I am afraid it is going to be reduced to the Bravo version of Mob Wives. Glad Danielle is gone but did they trade her for ones that are worse?

America’s Next Top Model: Molly has the worst, most negative personality but man, she can model. I can’t help like her when she is modeling. So glad that Hannah is still around. I think she is a good model and has a good personality which means she will probably be gone next week so they can continue the drama that they think pulls in ratings.

Mob Wives: I am not actually watching this one but happened to catch it and it is a train wreck. Between all the words bleeped out, I could only make out that all of the husbands but one are in jail. All of the women need anger management classes and I have a hard time imagining their husbands are scarier than them.

The Voice: This is the show that Belle and I are going to watch together but since we haven’t had time to watch the whole thing, I have only seen some of it and I can’t tell you anything about the singers. I can only tell you that I think Blake Shelton is hot. He is funny too which makes him even hotter. I don’t care if this is the worst show on television (as long as Mob Wives is on, this show is safe), I will continue to watch for Blake Shelton.

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I think I have been scammed by eBay. I love eBay and have bought many things and have only had a problem twice in ten years but this one makes me mad because it was an impulse buy that seemed too good to be true and now probably was. Gia is teething and has been up in the middle of the night for several nights. I was flipping through the channels and before I knew it, I was sucked right in by the Insanity one. The workout that promises to be a new you in 60 days. I am actually shocked that I was that brainwashed into thinking I had to have it. I was watching the people do the exercises and thought, I could totally do that (even though one sit up leaves me with an aching back and squats hurt my knees). 45 minutes a day? No problem (even though I can’t seem to find 15 minutes to shower). 3 easy payments of $39.95…hmmm…for something I wasn’t sure I’d like, not sure about that. So the next morning I went on eBay and found it for $48 with free shipping. Before thinking twice, but after making sure that it was what I thought it was and the seller had a 100% feedback rating, I clicked “Buy it now.” Immediately, I thought something was odd. It never took me to an eBay page, just a PayPal one. When I went back to check on the purchase, it was gone with a note that said “This seller is not a registered eBay seller.” What? I had never heard of a seller being able to sell without being registered. I tried to send him a message and that was when a note came up that said, “This seller is from another eBay site and might not speak English. Your message will appear just as it is below.” Buyer’s remorse! Buyer’s remorse! I was going to send a message but I am just going to wait and see if I get it and if it is what it is supposed to be. If not, I’ll open a claim and try to get my money back. Ugghh…why didn’t I just order the Wen Haircare System for $29.95? I am also a little shocked that I bought the Insanity one since I hate working out longer than 20 minutes and Zumba is really a workout I like and it has its own infomercial out there. What possessed me to impulse buy like that? Probably the same thing that caused me to buy Jillian Michael’s 30 day Shred at Target (each workout is only 20 minutes)…I’m desperate to find some sort of exercise that I’ll stick with (so I can continue to eat the strawberries and chocolate) and get fast results. On that note, why can’t I take my own advice to my kids: If you want something, you have to be willing to work hard to get it?

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Taking a small break from the heavy posts. Hoping to continue with what happened to Isabella in Friday’s post.

Where I live, you have to buy garbage stickers to put on each can or bag of garbage. I really hate this and for the last almost seven years, it has been a constant argument in this house. Every week, garbage day is the same day and yet, Leo will say to me on a Tuesday morning, “Are you going out today? We need stickers.” It is one of the most infuriating questions only rivaled by, “Is Nico’s uniform washed?” or the sister question of “Have you seen Nico’s uniform?” fifteen minutes before Nico’s game. I don’t know why he doesn’t understand that for me to go out, I have to lug Gia out and he is only one person so it is easier for him to do it than me. If Target sold them, it wouldn’t even be an argument because it would just be another excuse for me to go but Target doesn’t and so it is easier if he just goes. While he is at it, why doesn’t he buy 20 of them instead of 2 so we won’t have to have the argument every week? Anyway, yesterday was free garbage day and while I didn’t get everything that I wanted to throw away on the curb in time, I got most of it. We are finally stepping out of the white trash stereotype with Leo throwing away the rusted fire pit that has been sitting in the middle of our lawn for the last two years and the rusted, white, plastic lawn chairs that I swear I don’t know how they made it through the move from Bartlett. If only he could have parted with the empty propane tank. My favorite part of throwing things away was Leo looking at what I was throwing away and saying, “Is this garbage?” or “Are you sure you want to throw it away?” I painstakingly went through several corners of my house throwing things away (think kids’ art projects, writings and so on). I am SURE I want to throw it away! I even begged for him to bite the bullet and put all the mail from the mail corner in a black bag and throw it away right when the garbage men came so that no one would rifle through it but he couldn’t do it. I know…there are crazy people out there that are just waiting to steal your identity but I dream of an empty corner where that mail is so for a moment, my judgement was clouded.

The funniest part of the free garbage day is that we threw away our old couches from the basement. I saw several vans and trucks drive up, get out, look at the couches and then get back in their van or truck and drive away. Our couches were gross enough that even the garbage pickers wouldn’t touch them.

On another note, thanks to the blog I have made some dear friends because after reading it, they have told me they feel like we are old friends (J.P., I’ll be thinking of you on Saturday), prayers were said for a cure for the boys (thanks, J.L.) and a dear friend found Black Cherry Propel and the chocolate I like at her Target and is sending it with her husband when he sees mine (thanks, S.N.). I have to say the best part of the blog is the comments and when people tell me that they can relate. It makes me think that I am not alone in the chaos.

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On October 18, 2001, the twins made their entrance into the world by planned c-section. It was not nearly as traumatic as Nico’s but I was afraid of complications since it was a twin birth. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Everything went smoothly and we even got to take them home with us when we left 4 days later. I was even nursing them with lots and lots of help from the nurses. One of my favorite Leo stories is when I wanted to bottle feed and he wanted me to breast feed. For the first two nights, I never made it into bed. Someone was always eating. On the third night home, Leo promised he would help me and he did. I stayed in bed and slept and he got up when a baby cried, changed them and brought them to me to feed. Just when his head would hit the pillow, the other baby would cry and he’d have to get up and do the same routine. That went on for the whole night and then in the morning, he woke up and said, “You should just bottle feed. It’s too hard to breast feed.” Then my sister had twins and proved me wrong. I just had too many issues to be any good at it. One being the depression I was fighting against since finding out about Nico. I can honestly say that despite that, I was happy. Tommy was a hard baby. He was fussy right off the bat. He just could never settle himself. He loved Leo and Leo was so good with him that we were partners in taking care of the babies and in taking care of Nico. It felt like we could handle it. It still hurt but it stopped feeling like the end of the world.

I felt like I was bad luck so I told our doctor to call Leo with the results of the CF test but I really felt like the twins didn’t have it. I think because they didn’t have the same NICU experience, I naively believed it would be different all the way around. I remember it was November 4th and Leo came home from work to find me on the couch with both babies asleep on me. He said he had good news and bad news. I wanted him to stop talking. I didn’t want to hear anymore news. He said Isabella didn’t have it…wasn’t even a carrier but Tommy had it. What???? He said, “It’s going to be okay. Nico will be able to help him. They’ll have each other.” I didn’t care. I handed the babies to Leo, got in his car and left. I cried all the way to my parents’ house. I remember screaming, “I hate You, God! I freaking hate You! I will NEVER believe in You again!” I remember feeling so lost and so alone with the thought that God didn’t care about me or my family. Both the thought of losing both my boys and the thought of losing the God I loved and believed so firmly in was devastating to me.

After we found out about Tommy, I became someone that is very hard for me to look back on and say was me. I immediately wanted a way out of the guilt of having given this to our boys and the hurt I felt everyday just being in the house so I told Leo I didn’t see how we could stay married. I remember telling him, he could leave and start all over and not have this be a part of his life. I was the one that was infertile, not him. I felt like I was the one dragging him down and making his life full of things he didn’t want. It got so bad that I imagined leaving and getting out the way so that Leo could marry someone that embraced taking care of a family with kids that had medical needs. Some women are so good at making it their life’s fight and they wear it as a badge of honor. I am not that kind of woman. I am a “hide in the sand until it goes away” kind of woman. It wasn’t fair to my kids to be that kind of mom. I imagined his new wife would be a great mom and love cooking and cleaning and she would even have blond hair so they would all look like they fit together (I was the only brunette in my family). Just having those thoughts would reduce me to tears because I loved my family and just couldn’t understand how we ended up where we were. How could Leo and I have given them a deadly disease? I completely underestimated how strong and loving Leo could be. He assured me when I would cry that he didn’t want to leave and didn’t want me to leave and that we would get through it somehow. He even said, “Maybe God gave us Tommy and Nico because he knew we’d be the best parents for them.” I wonder if Leo knew then how close I was to ending our marriage? I am so grateful that he saw my weakness and at my worst and loved me anyway. That thought brought me some comfort but not enough to battle the depression that consumed me.

The worst part of looking back is how I was with Tommy. I had a very hard time bonding with him. He preferred Leo so it was easy to hide but my heart broke when I would hold him because I was so afraid to love him only to lose him. I was afraid to go anywhere because I was afraid he’d get sick (the irony of that is that I brought Nico everywhere). I remember having a CF appointment for Nico and refusing to bring Tommy. The doctor was shocked that I didn’t bring him but I wanted to keep him untouched by them. I didn’t want to hear that anything more was wrong. I knew I was having a hard time so at my 6 week appointment with my doctor, I cried to him. He put me on antidepressants and gave me the name of a therapist. Immediately, they both helped. At the very least, I wasn’t imagining me leaving and Leo remarrying.

I lived in fear of the boys getting sick. I scrutinized everything the boys did and was so relieved that CF might have been there but it was hiding at the moment. I even felt like with therapy and the meds, I could handle it. I could be a good mom to them. Just one day at a time and not focusing on it was how I got through the days. Then, while I was so busy worrying about what could happen to the boys, I had no idea that the chaos about to happen wasn’t going to be caused by them but by Isabella.

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I felt like a terrible mother. There I was worrying about the babies I was carrying and right under my nose, there was something wrong with the child that was already here. How could I not know? While we were sitting in that meeting with the doctors, they said something that stuck with me taking me years of therapy and the wise words of a favorite uncle to get over. They, in an attempt to make things lighter said, “It was just bad luck that you found each other.” They told us that CF is caused by a recessive gene that each parent carries. I am a carrier and so is Leo. Of all the people in the world, we fell in love with another carrier of a deadly disease that we had no idea we were at risk for. One different choice and Nico would have been spared this path. I get it that it wouldn’t be Nico but when you are in that position and your heart is breaking, all you can think of is how could I have prevented it and all answers pointed to, “We must have made a mistake. We weren’t supposed to get married. I fell in love with the wrong guy. I chose the wrong guy.” It all seemed to click for me: the infertility and now this. I was being punished for something and the only thing that I could think of was that God gave me signs that Leo and I shouldn’t have gotten married and I didn’t listen to him. So many obstacles and we took pride that our love overcame them, but by not listening to the signs, this was the ulimate punishment…we were going to lose our son. Our marriage was incredibly strained. We handled things so differently (still do). I withdrew and couldn’t stand that together, because we fell in love, we gave Nico a deadly disease and he wanted me to stop crying and look at things logically (he had it, we’ll give him medicine, we’ll fight it and he’ll be fine). Then there were moments where I leaned so hard on him and felt so lucky that I married a strong man that could weather some of the things I was spewing out in a hurting rage. He would hug me and tell me he loved me and that it was going to be okay and that the twins were not going to have it because lightning doesn’t strike twice (everyone told me this). I loved him and wanted to believe him. I questioned God but still held on strong to my faith. I remember crying out to God and begging him to not let it be true. Begging for Nico to be okay. Asking to please spare the twins because I couldn’t live with myself if we gave another one of our children this disease that in such a short time, I already hated.

The weeks that followed were filled with doctor’s appointments and the blame game. Nico had to learn how to take the enzymes and do the vest and we had to learn it all along with him. He hated doing both and would cry each time. He had to take the enzymes with every meal so there was a lot of crying. The only way he would do the vest was if I told him he was just like Jack Hammer (he LOVED the Rescue Heroes). It’s funny but our parents couldn’t wrap their brains around where this came from so they were either blaming each other or saying things that were so completely ignorant that it made the situation worse (Leo’s mom saying it must have come from my mom because she smoked). It wasn’t their fault…they loved Nico so much that they were hurting too but I will tell you how evil I was. I got so fed up with Leo’s mom saying it couldn’t possibly have come from her side of the family that when she said it again, I meanly said, “Oh, didn’t we tell you? They did a test and found out that it is traced back to your side.” See…a little bit of evil lurks there.

I became a basketcase. I stopped eating because I was nauseous all the time and I stopped sleeping because my dreams were riddled with me asking every guy I ever dated or had a crush on “Are you a carrier?” I would cuddle with Nico like I always had but I would end up silently crying when he would fall asleep. He was this normal, rambunctious, loveable, seemingly healthy 3 year old that only had a nighttime cough and they were telling me he was sick and would only get sicker and have to be in the hospital and might need feeding tubes and home IVs. I wanted to trade places with him. I could’ve handled it if it was me but my child? I could not get a grip. If I wasn’t numb, I could actually feel the crushing of every dream. Nowhere, in any of what I imagined my life to be, was this scenario.

My family threw me a shower a month before I had the twins. I think they really wanted to show me that life could still have happy moments in it and though I got to see some very dear friends from the support board (T.S, T.L and C.V., I will never forget what you did for me that weekend…getting on a plane less than a week after Sept. 11th), I remember just going through the motions. Of the shower, of being a mom and of being a wife. I just kept thinking that everything I knew to be true wasn’t anymore. I felt alone and cursed with bad luck and the fear that he was going to suffer was paralyzing. Nico’s diagnosis threw my obstetrician and the CF doctor in a panic about whether the twins had it. Even the geneticist (another professional that I hated because she LOVED her job and at the time(though I am sure she didn’t love that part of her job), her job was telling me that my son had a genetic disease) kept pushing me to run tests but I didn’t want to know. It wouldn’t have changed anything and I wanted to live in ignorant bliss that everything was going to be okay. I agreed to a level 2 ultrasound where they said they saw no sign that either twin had it. I remember feeling like God was listening and maybe everyone was right and it would be okay.

Again…so naive…

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Happy Easter! I am going to take this time to reflect on the Easters of the past. I miss my Grams all the time but I especially miss her on Christmas Eve and Easter. Both of those holidays were hers and everything about both of them are tied to the memories I have and can sometimes still feel. Growing up Catholic, we usually went to church on Saturday nights and Easter was no different. There were a few that we went to on Sunday and I remember hating having to stand the whole time. In those days, we went to church every week so I resented the “holiday Catholics”. We endured church thinking about going to Grams’ and Gramps’. There were images of the long-awaited calzone (that I went years thinking it was pronounced galzone). It isn’t what you think it is. It is a delicious egg and cheese and sausage dish that my Grams and my Auntie Jean would only make on Easter. She would have the normal appetizers out but it was the calzone that I remember most. Every year, my uncle who was a retired butcher would try and pass off the lamb that my Grams was having as roast beef but we all knew and I am pretty sure the adults were the only ones that ate it. We filled up on everything else. The funny thing is that besides the calzone, the food wasn’t what made that holiday special. It was the blue colored eggs with everyone’s name on them that Grams used for place cards, it was seeing relatives that you didn’t get to see very often, it was playing word games and answering thought provoking questions with favorite uncles and it was being in my grandparents’ apartment imagining all of the Easters I would spend with my kids (naively thinking they would be in that apartment). I wish my Grams was here to see all of my kids. At the very least, I wish she had the chance or my kids had the chance to know the Grams that I loved. Nico has little memory of her before she got sick with Alzheimer’s and the twins only remember her when she was in the home. I think she would have gotten a kick out of Gia.

We are headed first to church (which if you read previous posts about church, you’ll understand why I have a new understanding for holiday church-goers) and then to my mom and dad’s where there will be good food (my mom now makes the calzone that is every bit as good as my Grams’ and Auntie Jean’s), good company and thanks to my mom, traditions that my children are lucky to be a part of. My mom started a tradition of the week before Easter, my sisters and I, along with our families and my Gramps, get together to color eggs, take pictures with the Easter Bunny and exchange Easter baskets (the godparents buy one for their godchild). It’s a wonderful tradition that I need to make sure nothing gets in the way of (Nico and Leo missed it because Nico had a game) and I hope my mom realizes how much we all appreciate how hard she works to make it special. I know that when we walk into my mom and dad’s today, my kids will feel that same feeling of family and love that I felt walking into my grandparents’ when I was their age.

Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease and I am sad that Grams suffered from it but I am choosing not to remember her like that and instead I will remember her on Easter with her prettiest blouse, with her fancy jewelry and her bright red lips flitting around making sure everyone felt the specialness of Easter. Love and miss you Grams!

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First, I want to say that I would like to go back to the posts where I am complaining or poking fun at Leo. I would even welcome posting about the chaos that my kids cause. I would give anything not to post about this but I don’t see how you could understand where I am coming from if you don’t know where I’ve been.

Second, I refuse to name this post “Things that Shaped Me Part 4: Cystic Fibrosis. Even typing it makes me feel a little sick because it might have changed me but it will never define me.

On July 16th, we took Nico, who was 3 1/2 at the time, to Children’s Memorial for the sweat test to “rule out” Cystic Fibrosis. They put gauze on both his arms and taped them and we had to wait a few hours for them to remove them and measure the sodium levels. Kids that have CF (which is how I will refer to it because I hate the actual name) have high sodium levels. I still lived in the land where bad things only happen to other people so I thought nothiing of Nico doing the test. It didn’t even register that my child was being tested for something that had no cure. That was all I knew about it. I was assured by two doctors that it was going to be asthma which I had and so did Leo so I figured at the very worst, he’d have to have an inhaler. Looking back, I was so dumb. I had a very good friend whose twin boys passed away and I was worried about her so I would check how she was doing on the loss message boards of the website I frequented. I remember thinking how strong she was to have survived losing her sons. My heart broke for her because what was worse than burying your child?

I remember exactly where I was when I got the call. It’s impossible to forget the moment your life changes forever. I was in the basement on the computer chatting with Leo over the instant messenger. The doctor sounded like she was crying and that she herself was in disbelief. She was talking and I stopped listening. Something about having to call a doctor at Children’s Memorial. Something about needing to do it right then and that she was sorry. She said more but the only thing I remember is typing to Leo, “He has it. Come home.” Do you believe that? I told him over the instant messenger. I made his life-changing moment in an IM. As if on auto-pilot, I called and made the appointment. The woman said we had to come the next day. Before Leo could call me, I looked it up and all I saw was “life-shortening” and “fatal” and I started sobbing. Nico was upstairs watching Tarzan for the 100th time and so he wouldn’t hear me, I buried my face in a pillow. Leo called and I sobbed for him to come home. I called my sisters and all I could cry was, “He has it.” My parents were out of town and I remember wanting them to come home and tell me it was going to be okay and they were wrong. I stayed in the basement until my sisters came over. Luckily, Nico had a big supply of juice and goldfish crackers and didn’t have to go to the bathroom until they got there so he didn’t even notice that I wasn’t upstairs.

That day was a blur of people coming over. I didn’t know how it was possible. I remembered a time when Nico was a baby and having a formula issue (he had reflux and wasn’t gaining weight) and I was changing him and I remember asking God not to take him from me. I have NO idea what would prompt me to pray that. Mother’s intuition? Nico walked at 10 months and talked at one and I remember asking my sister if God was letting him do things early because He was going to take him from me and He wanted me to get to see him do those things? She shrugged it off saying I was crazy but on that day I wondered again if that was true. (If that really is true, Gia will be with me forever because she walked really late and still isn’t saying much.)

I didn’t sleep at all that night. When I finally did, I dreamt that I was in Barnes and Noble picking out books that on the sides had one title but on the front had Cystic Fibrosis written on it. I would throw them down and yell, “I don’t want this!” Explaining to Nico what was going to happen the next day was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I knew that they were going to want to run tests and I was scared and I had to act like I wasn’t. I didn’t want him to be scared. My three younger sisters went with me. Two to stay with Nico while we talked to the doctor and one, that was a nurse to be with us because I knew I wasn’t going to hear a word they said. I sat in with that doctor and I hated him and I hated the nurses. I hated anyone that believed he had it. I was belligerent when they asked questions. I disagreed with everything they said. Whatever I had to say to make them go away, I said. At one point, I heard Leo agreeing with them and I hated him too. The doctor cheerfully said, “With all the advances, the life span is now mid-thirties.” I burst into tears and said through gritted teeth, “Sorry if that doesn’t bring comfort to me.” He said that he had a lot of women I could talk to that were in my same shoes.” I bitterly asked him, “Really? There are other women that are 6 months pregnant with twins that could possibly have this life threatening disease that you just said my 3 year old has?” His answer was no. Nico had to give many vials of blood that day and he was so scared that he wouldn’t sit still. Leo had to hold him down and he was screaming to me, “I’m afraid I am going to die! I don’t want to die.” He meant from the blood test but I cried right along with him because that was my fear too.

I am going to stop here for now. That’s enough heaviness for today. I will continue this in Monday’s post. Tomorrow I want to do a post about Easter.

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