Molly Piper

A few weeks ago Orison and Morrow were playing so well together, I just had to get it on video. Morrow loves to copy the things Orison does (for better or for worse).

So if your weekend promises little entertainment, enjoy the Piper Family Circus! (I’m sure Orison would have come up with a much cleverer name, but you’ve got me on a Friday afternoon.)

This little guy is Morrow John. Morrow is 21 months old, and has no idea what’s coming at him in August. He is my major priority right now as I near the home stretch of this pregnancy.

In a way his cluelessness is a blessing, because he’ll never remember his life without his two little sisters. But I also want to do what I can to nurture and care for him in one-on-one ways that make him feel safe and secure as we head into this major change.

Morrow loves to play at the park. Most of the time I’m too tired to take him, so it’s a special treat right now.

Morrow loves his friend “La-la.”

Morrow loves watermelon in a major way.

I’ve mentioned before that Morrow loves babies, and I know he’ll love his sisters. But I also want to cherish these moments with him as my baby. Yesterday I watched his naked behind streak down the dock at our friends’ lake and I just want to hold that memory in my heart forever. It was so beautiful.

So for now, I’m trying to prepare for this major future event but still live in the present of being mom to little Morrow Johnner.

A few weeks ago I posted about how I was feeling like I had a lot of stuff to do before twins can arrive in my home. I called it “The Twin-Time Time Crunch.” Well have some updates for you to rejoice with me over!

I told you that we needed to:

• Buy a mini-van: CHECK! Two weeks ago we became the proud owners of a Toyota Sienna! It’s perfect for what we were looking for, and it came at the exact right price. We couldn’t be happier about it! And I’m just glad to have it DONE!
• Get stuff: CHECK! Last week we still needed crib mattresses, a double stroller, crib bedding, and diapers. Well, God seriously provided for those things (and sooo much more) at the baby shower this past weekend. I was blown away: 2 crib mattresses, a gift card for the double stroller (it’s currently sold out at Babies R Us), and TONS of diapers! Also, my friend Carol & I started sewing the crib sheets last Friday, and as her shower gift to me, she’s going to finish them–Alleluia! Oh, aaand I got my double nursing pillow last week too. That thing is like a stinkin’ SHIP it’s so huge!
• Get a bunk bed for the boys’ room: CHECK! Our beautiful new bunk bed came last week! Phil Carlson built it, and it’s amazing (which is pretty typical of all things Phil builds). Orison is now a very eager top-bunk dweller, and Morrow LOVES to run into the room yelling, “Big bed!” He hasn’t slept in there yet, though, because…
• Transition Morrow & Orison to the same room: Not yet. Haven’t done that yet, the main reason being that Morrow sleeps so well that I don’t want Orison waking him up early!
• Set up the cribs and decorate the girls’ room: HALF CHECK! The cribs are assembled, thanks to my awesome husband. My best friend Danielle is visiting this week, so I’m hoping her designer eye will assist me in making the room come together. I don’t really do a “nursery,” but I want things to be situated.

I’m so thankful for God’s provision for us during this crazy time. With twins it feels like there’s twice as much to do, but half the time to do it (since you end up getting so huge and immobile by the end). I had really hoped and prayed that all the “big things” would be accomplished by 28 weeks. I am so in awe of this prayer being answered.

I’m still feeling pretty good, all things considered. I’m 26 weeks, but at the doctor last week I measured to 32 weeks! YIKES! I also need to sleep every day. The afternoons are my sacred time to rest. Orison has gotten really good at giving that time to me by spending time on his bed with books or music, and then sometimes, say, 3 out of 5 days, falling asleep! The afternoons used to be my blogging time. So, you can deduce why things have been so quiet here.

Sometimes I can’t even believe this is happening. Even though I’m 26 weeks into it, I still can’t believe it. It’s usually a good sense of disbelief (like the pinch-me kind), but sometimes it’s an overwhelmed, scared disbelief. Our life is about to get really nuts!

Thank you all for praying for this pregnancy. I appreciate your love and prayers so much. I’m really hoping to get a picture or two up here this week so you can see what’s been going on!

I know it’s kinda late in the week to be posting about Mother’s Day, but I just wanted to share about the weekend. I had a lot of FUN this Mother’s Day!

It started on Friday when Abraham told me he’d been given 2 tickets to the new Target Field (home of the Minnesota Twins) for the Saturday afternoon game. It was supposed to be rainy and cold but we decided to be true Minnesotans and go out to the game anyway! I took my 24-week picture, of course…the twins at the Twins!

By the way, those weren’t our seats. Ours were up in the top deck, but we decided to explore a bit after the game. It was fun to just get to sit together for a couple hours, even if we could see our breath and had to wear winter hats!

Then on Sunday, we had a lovely time at church, went out to lunch with Abraham’s parents and sister, and then went home to lay down!

After naps we went out to Dairy Queen, where I got my favorite Butterfinger Blizzard. Here’s an attempt at a good picture:

After DQ, we went to the cemetery. The kids just run and have fun there, which is kinda cool. I had to bribe them to sit for this one.

I was able to snap a quick one of Morrow while he was on the run:

The only sad part was when we were driving away, Morrow said, completely unprompted, “Bye-bye, dee-dee-dee.” Translation: Bye-bye, Felicity.

Here’s a couple more pictures from recent days, just because I’m crazy about these guys:

I’m so deeply thankful that I get to mother these two characters. And I’m happy to report that this Mother’s Day brought more smiles than tears. That’s a blessed change.

I’ve written a little bit since finding out about the twins about how I’m afraid to hope.

One thing I’ve relied on a lot since losing Felicity is letting others hope for me. Seeing their faith and hope helps. It really does.

I think I’ve heard my friend Barbie say over a hundred times during our friendship, “I have great hope for you, Molly.” She’s said it so many times and in so many instances that the tone of her voice, the look on her face are burned into my memory. I need that mental tape to play for me often.

One of the ways I’m exercising hope during this pregnancy is allowing my dear friends to throw a baby shower for me. I was super hesitant about it for a number of reasons:

• I’ve only been to one baby shower since Felicity died. I don’t really do the baby shower circuit anymore.
• This is my 4th pregnancy–who has a shower for their 4th pregnancy? I thought people would think it was weird.
• I didn’t want to get excited (or get a bunch of gifts) and then have them die.

But…I’m moving forward in it. My best friend Danielle designed invitations for the event, and I love them. Even just seeing evidence that this is really happening helped me get excited. Plus, Danielle will be in town for the shower, so I’m thrilled about that!

Here’s the invite that made me so happy:

This design just oozes hope to me, for some reason. Maybe because the person who designed it designed it with deep knowledge of what I was/am opening myself up to in going ahead with a baby shower.

I have no idea how I will fare as the guest of honor. It feels very foreign and scary.

But I’m thankful that there are people willing to come around me and rally my heart in hope and faith and love for my children, no matter how this pregnancy turns out. I need their strength when I feel like I have none. I need their excitement when all I have is fear. I need their joy when sorrow is pressing in.

I need their hope, because hope is a beautiful thing.

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Also, if there was any way to transport all of my supportive, amazing readers into this baby shower, I would do it. So many of you have shared your hope and excitement with me through these years. I would love to see your faces around the circle in that room. Consider yourselves all invited, at least in my heart.

Last week I told you about Abraham’s talented cousin Sunny.

Turns out Abraham’s family brings a lot of talent to the table. This week, I just couldn’t help but share about his cousin Miriam, who is currently working on a Masters in Jewelry & Silversmithing. And she’s doing it in England. How double-cool is that? (And to add to the coolness factor, she gets to spell it “Jewellery” while in England.)

William Morris Necklace by Miriam Rowe

Anyway, she has a blog where she’s asking for quick opinions and impressions on her Masters pieces. I think they’re so creative and beautiful. She’s amazingly talented.

She also has a page for selling her beautiful wares.

If you have a few minutes of browsing time today to check out some amazing art, head on over. Feedback is always valuable for the artiste, I’m told! (Of course, I wouldn’t know, I’m an abominable artist.)

And maybe if enough of us give her traffic, she’ll agree to do a giveaway or something. That’d be cool! Go check her out already!

I’ve gotten a lot of emails from people about grief in the last two and a half years. Some I’ve been able to answer personally, some I haven’t. There’s really no formula for how I decide which ones to answer and which ones not to. It’s more of an in-the-moment thing, where I have 15 minutes and can pour my soul into a response to a complete stranger.

Many of the emails come from people who know someone who just lost a baby–someone from church, a family member, a close friend. That’s probably because the people who just lost the baby are not even sure what’s happening and are completely and utterly in shock. The people on the outside have their heads on straight enough, relatively speaking, to put an email together and ask for help, or even just commiseration.

The one thing I’ve found myself writing to these people over and over again is this: Give brokenhearted love. Ask God to give you a broken heart. That will go further with your friend than any meal or house-cleaning ever could. Granted, I think meals and house-cleaning are immensely important to offer, and some people will be particularly gifted in giving those things. But if you want to go deeper into the loss with your friend, you’re going to have to be heartbroken.

For one thing, grief is really isolating. Especially when it’s a baby who is stillborn, people can sometimes think things like, “Oh, well the baby never lived outside the womb. It’s not like they knew that baby or anything.” And when you come home without a baby, there’s very little evidence that that child ever existed. So when you’re going through the hell of grief, it can feel like you were the only one who lost that baby, and that everyone else’s life has just moved on.

And in some sense, that’s true. Most people are not marking the days and weeks the same way as you are. But there will be a few who will.

And I suppose that’s who I’m writing for, the people who remember.

In our culture, people don’t like to talk about death. And dead babies??? Forget it. That’s because it’s horrifying. I’ll never forget how terrified I was to look at Felicity for the first time. And she was my child.

But brokenhearted love will choose to take on the horror and bear it with you.

In the first few weeks after we lost Felicity, a stranger who I didn’t know (but who went to our church) was signed up to bring me a meal. I kind of had my brave face on to answer the door, get through the interaction, get the food, exchange a few pleasantries back and forth, and get back to my existence.

But there was something very different about this person. As she handed me the food, she was sobbing. I’m not exaggerating here–tears flowing down her face. I was completely disarmed. I remember eventually she asked me if she could see Felicity’s room, if we had it set up. And before I knew it, I was climbing the stairs with this complete stranger, taking her into one of the most sacred spaces in my home.

It felt kind of crazy, but it felt safe. Because she was heartbroken. Just like me, heartbroken.

And even just last week, I had someone tell me that she stopped at Felicity’s grave. And she told me, through her tears, what she was thinking and feeling about that. It’s been two and a half years. She’s never told me anything like that before. And so we stood in her back yard and cried real tears together.

This is the bravery of brokenhearted love.

People who are grieving need to know that they’re not alone. They need to know that their loss is somehow your loss too. Tell them that you visited the cemetery–not for brownie points, but because you want to remember with them. Tell them that you cried in the bathtub the other day. Tell them that when you hear a certain song it takes the breath out of your lungs.

I’ll warn you: you might cry when you tell them these things. HALLELUJAH! You have NO idea what that will mean to someone who’s grieving. Let it FLOW! What are we holding it together for anyway? So our mascara doesn’t run? So we won’t feel embarrassed or uncomfortable? There’s a reason that lump forms in your throat. It’s because you’re holding something in that wants to come out!

So if you’re wondering what you can give your grieving friend, I know it sounds totally cliche, but…give them your heart. Lay it bare. Entering into their pain and sharing your experience of the loss will be profoundly comforting.

I’ve made it through the last two years and seven months because of brokenhearted love. It’s been a gift to me, from those who were willing to give it.

My husband’s uber-talented cousin Sunny has a very informative step-by-step post about how to make this homemade tent.

I think this is so adorable, and totally want to make one. I was thinking it might have to wait until Christmas, but it’s somewhere on my radar, at least.

I just LOVE this thing!

What crafty projects are on your wish-I-could-do list?

If you jump over to Abraham’s latest post, you’ll see a very short video he edited last night of Morrow doing his latest trick.

Morrow is 20 months tomorrow, which means he’ll be turning two after the twins are born. Lord have mercy…

One of the weird things about expecting twins is not knowing my timetable. When I thought it was a single baby, I was kinda like:

Okay, baby at the end of August. I’ll stop working at the end of May, and then I’ll have the whole summer to hang out with the boys and do fun and productive stuff.

Hmmm…

I get the most stressed out right now by the not knowing. Mostly it’s not knowing when I’m going to be basically incapacitated, or functioning at a very low level.

At my doctor’s appointment last week, she told me to expect to look and feel 40 WEEKS at 28 weeks. WHAT?!?!?

So now the twin-time time crunch is on! In the next couple months I need to:

• Buy a mini-van. We started the process on Saturday, and it was exhausting! I will definitely NOT want to be traipsing waddling around car lots when I feel 40 weeks pregnant.
• Get stuff! We now have our infant car seats, some hand-me-down cribs, and a double Snap & Go stroller (which I hear is an essential for twins).

Little Morrow excitedly checking it all out.

Funny side story: Morrow loves babies. He loves to say baby. He loves to wave his hands in front of babies’ faces and say, “Hi baby!!!” So when he saw Abraham out the back window bringing this loot home, he started yelling, “BABY! BABY!” I think he thought we were actually getting 2 babies, not just 2 car seats.

Anyway, back to my twin-time list:

• Get a bunk bed for the boys’ room. Our friend Phil is going to build one for us! By the way (shameless plug coming), Phil has his own custom woodworking and remodeling company. If you live in the Twin Cities and need anything fix-it related, he’s a trustworthy man who’s great at what he does!
• Transition Morrow and Orison into the same room. This was always the plan (because I don’t think kids need their own rooms), but now the timetable is really moving up!
• Set up the cribs and decorate the girls’ room. My friend Jenna is going to help me make the bedding. These are the fabrics I’m thinking of using:

Right now everything seems kinda moved up on the calendar.

In other news, my stomach issues have improved so much! Thank you for praying for me. I’m able to eat more fatty foods now, though I’m still staying away from pork. I’m able to eat beef, though, and my first cheeseburger over the weekend was glorious! And I can eat regular ice cream, which is simply awesome! I’m very thankful for this change, too, since I actually need a good bit of fat each day to support the development of two babies.

Well, I’m sure this isn’t the last of the news on the preparations we need to make for the twins to come. Thanks for being interested enough to read this!