By Canadian Renegade
The other day, I realized it had been ages since I had checked Steemit. Even before my last few updates, life had been getting crazy for us and my posting had started to dwindle. When I checked in I noticed that some people were wondering how we were doing, mostly old comments, but I felt like the least I should do is give an update. I also noticed that something was different about Steemit, many of the usual's were missing. Upon further investigation I realized that there had been a hard fork and everyone was over here on Hive; that is how out of the loop I have been! I never intended to just abandon my blogging but 2020 had been the hardest year of my life.
I'm going to keep it brief as there is quite a bit to cover and some of it is rather personal. If I were to share all the details it would deserve a post or two all to itself. In the last update I made, we were getting ready to move to the new house and I hoped to resume updates once we were settled. Unfortunately, that is when SHTF, for us anyway.
The timeline is a little blurry so might be off by a day or two here or there. We moved into the house about mid-March. The Covid hysteria was really ramping up and I was just glad that we were able to finish the move before any lock downs.
At the beginning of April, I was laid-off work. My boss basically said that new projects had dried up. Since everyone was unsure of how bad the pandemic would actually be they decided to wait for the lockdown to be lifted to proceed with projects. Without enough work for us he was basically just burning capital and needed to reduce expenses or risk bankrupting the company. I understood the reasons behind his move and had no hard feelings. I knew things would be tight but looked at the lay off as an opportunity to finish the house and get a bunch of the homesteading projects started.
If that sounds bad, we're just warming up. On April 9, shortly after we put the set of twins to bed Aimee went into premature labor with our second set of twins. That birth is a story all to itself and I am not sure if or when we will be comfortable telling all the details. Suffice to say, it was the scariest thing I have ever had to endure. I will say though that this was one of the few times I asked God for anything and he didn't let me down.
The next couple of months were absolutely crazy. Aimee was driving into the hospital almost daily and I was spending most of my time taking care of H and R. As you might imagine, some of the projects I had planned to tackle went by the way side. We basically just went into survival mode at this point.
After 53 long days, our second twins were strong enough to be released from the NICU and finally come home! While this was a big relief, and weight off our shoulders, it wasn't the end of our struggles. Our babies had severe acid reflux which we were told is common for preemies. They wouldn't sleep, probably due to discomfort unless they were in a seated position but having sleeping infants in a seated position isn't considered safe. We ended up resorting to propping them up with pillows and blankets on the couch. Aimee and I would take shifts staying up at night to watch them and make sure that they were safe and didn't tip over and suffocate or fall off the couch.
This went on for several months. I even went back to work during this time, sometimes getting only 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night multiple days in a row. It wasn't any easier on Aimee either. There were several other issues we have had to deal with but they are also really their own topics which I won't cover in this post.
Truthfully, survival mode continued up until a couple months ago. The sleep situation started to improve and I feel like I sort of came out of a fog. While things are still hard they're more manageable and I have had the energy to focus on a few projects other than basic necessity.
So, that's it for now. Not nearly as brief as I wanted but it is a long story. I will be posting at least occasionally again and I am excited to reconnect with everyone I knew who migrated over here from Steemit!
Been wondering how you're all doing! Great to hear from you. Big Congratulations on pulling thru the toughest year of your life!! Welcome to Hive :).
Thanks! How have you been? This last year has been pretty surreal eh?
Omg! Right?!? No babies here. More empty nest all of a sudden. But, kowabunga lol. Crazy life. Just getting back to blogging after 6 mths off.
Glad you are back too.
Out of curiosity, have you done any blog posts lately? I don't see anything in your feed. Or are you posting in a community? I know we just started using them and I noticed that they don't show up in my feed unless I reblog myself. It's all very complicated.
Ummmm, good questions!! Been blogging from Actifit app. I see my post unter the post tab but not under the blog tab. I use the Hive.blog front end to look at posts. But, actifit app to blog right now. But, ppl are making big rewards posting on Leo Finance. Yeah, lotsa change!
I also just noticed that PeakD has a toggle at the top of the post creation page that lets you add a post that is posted to a community to your blog as well. The last post we made that is what we did and we didn't have to reblog for it to show up in our feed.
Glad to see you are back.
Nothing can be more stressful than worrying about sweet little babies and family or employment either. I hope the tides have turned.
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I know what sleep deprivation does, having experienced 1o days of no sleep in December.
Glad the babies are doing better now. Was wondering what happened...
Thanks, yeah it was rough. Babies birthday is today actually! 🎉
What happened to cause you to not sleep if you are ok sharing?
My husband died on Christmas after a horrific hospital stay.....
I can't even find the words to express my condolences. Sorry to hear that.
How wonderful to see you back and that you all made it through those trying times! Glad you find your way over to Hive.
It's, @minismallholding, by the way, just in the middle of doing naturalmedicine curating, so can't change accounts right now, but HAD to say hello.
You are all looking gorgeous, thank heavens! It confused the heck out of me seeing another set of tiny twins as I didn't realise there were more on the way. I hope things will be a bit easier now and those little ones will thrive. Welcome back!
Thanks for saying hi, it is nice to reconnect. The little ones are doing well and will be having their first birthday on the 9th!
I was laughing with Aimee the other day because they are almost 6x their birth weight.
Happy Birthday to the babies! What an incredible year for you all. I enjoyed reading this post. And thank you for introducing me to Steemit and Hive!
Thanks! Can't wait to see you start blogging!