I’m sharing the BEST faux leather leggings I’ve found in a while today on the blog, as part of a cozy and chic winter OOTD!

Happy Monday, friends! We spent the weekend in Chicago, meeting Sophie’s new cousin 🙂 He is two months younger than Soph, and I have to say: having two young babies around all weekend made me really get to thinking about my pregnancy. I haven’t shared a lot of the difficulties I had getting pregnant and throughout the pregnancy with my audience because in the moment, a lot of it was just too sad. My blog and social media was a way I could escape from a lot of that sadness, as I’m generally someone who avoids processing of those type of difficult emotions until a later date when I can get a little space and perspective on things. But now I feel ready to start sharing some of those feelings with y’all, and I hope it helps anyone else who may be in a similar situation to know they aren’t alone, and that at the end of the tunnel there is a light, regardless of how things resolve themselves for you and your life. As cliche as it sounds, God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and everything does in fact happen for a reason. It’s just a matter of whether or not we can step back in the moment and see that silver lining yet 🙂

Long before this precious little girl entered our family, we had our first ultrasound appointment in February 2019 when I was six weeks pregnant. It being our first pregnancy and with some of the fertility challenges we’d had leading up to it, I was both overjoyed to be pregnant but also nervous to be entering this next chapter of my life. Would I be able to handle pregnancy? Would I be able to handle the delivery? Would I even be a good mom? You think about all of this ahead of time, of course, but suddenly the second those two little lines show up on a plastic stick you just peed on, you’re questioning everything all over again. In this state, we found out we were expecting twins.

I’m still surprised when I think back on that appointment that I didn’t pass out from shock; I remember sort of putting the thought in a compartment of my brain as the rest of my (medically trained) brain ran through all the other issues that could arise from what was now considered a high-risk pregnancy. I went to bed at night, wondering if we’d be blessed with two girls, two boys, or one of each. Knowing that surgery was a more likely possibility now, I researched YouTube videos about other women who’d delivered twins via vaginal delivery and C-section, to see how they coped with the added stress. I Googled “how to travel with twins” more times than I can count, because I was determined for our family to continue doing the things we enjoy doing – and traveling is a big part of that.

Three weeks later, during my second ultrasound, as I lay there with cold jelly on my belly, the tech asked my husband to push a call button on the wall that would alert my OB that she was needed in the room. My heart dropped through the floor – I just knew what was coming.

We’d lost one of the twins. A part of me feels silly for writing this because it’d only been three weeks that we’d known about him or her – so many people have been through worse. But the part of me that was dreaming up names and trips and a life together with two bundles of joy still grieves over it. Three weeks was all it had taken for us to love that little nugget. If I’m being honest, it’d probably only taken those first few minutes in the room with Rob after we’d learned the news initially.

While we spent the weekend with these two little babies, we visited the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago on Saturday. As we were taking a snack break in the food court, a man came sat down nearby us with double infant stroller, one baby fast asleep in his carseat, and one in the man’s arms. I couldn’t help thinking: that would have been us.

On a much lighter note – I’ve officially found the world’s best faux leather leggings! These are the perfect camel color, and they are so comfy because they are lined with a fleece-y material on the inside! They also come in standard black for an edgier look, if that’s your thang!

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