love, grandmommy

In the days following the birth of our twins different things would come across my mind and cause me to realize that our dreams were not going to come true.

My mother-in-law used to own a sewing store, she is always working on about five projects.  Over the years I have gotten to see lots of things that she has made like:  christening gowns, little dresses, knit hats/scarves/socks and even some tiny little clothes my husband wore at birth.  Because when you are premature in the 80's there is no such thing as store bought preemie outfits, there are doll clothes and hand made items by mom.  So, I have always known that she would make things for our future children, I have always looked forward to that day when we would get to design them together.  A couple of days before the ultrasound, Judy turned to me and said she would be starting to make something for the twin once we knew their genders.  Of course, that day, that was supposed to be so fun was the worst day of my life.

During the next few weeks these little things would cross my mind and I realized that just because our babies didn't survive that it didn't mean that their Grandmommy couldn't make them something/anything.  One evening, I called her up and through my tears asked her to make the boys something.  Really, it is more for us as their parents since they will never use it, but I think that we all found it to be very comforting thought.

I had no idea what she would end up making and she kept asking me what I wanted her to do.  I couldn't even think about it because I wanted her to be making clothes that they would be wearing not something to keep as a memory of the 19 weeks they were with us.

So this Sunday, Judy hands me a small white paper bag and inside it is this small light blue pocket.  She hand sewed everything you see.  I have to describe all the details because otherwise you wouldn't know the time she put into it.  The light blue rectangle background is hand smocked (I never even knew this word till I entered this family) it is where you take the fabric and fold back and forth sewing to create a raised area to then sew a design on.  If you look close you can see two hearts with their initials in them, little A and B.  Around the rectangle is tatting.  I think that is how you spell it.  This was also handmade out of thread~I can't imagine ever doing this.  Then she sewed the whole thing onto a lighter blue pocket.  When she gave it to me she said she didn't know what I would put in it, but I knew right away.

First to go in the pocket is the card from the hospital that has their footprints on it.  There are smudges from the nurses gloves because it was difficult to get their tiny footprints because they were so tiny.  Second is a hope stone.  This stone deserves its own post and I am just not able to write about it yet.

It is hard to see their feet in the pictures, but they are about the size of the hope stone...somehow I feel that it all was designed buy God.  Like how the pocket perfectly fits the card without planning it.  There just are way too many coincidences to believe otherwise.   

Thank you, mama holmes, we love it.