Written in November of 2019. Raw and real. And 3.5 years later as I hit "publish," it is just as true. Dear one, Mamas don't forget.
I wish you were here. But I don't. I'm so glad you are where you are, missing the pain and hard that this world holds. But, man. What I wouldn't give to hold your warm, breathing, alive self. Whisper to you how much you are loved. Put your darling face on the wall with your siblings as you all smile back at me.
But, dear one, it was not ordained to be. Instead, I have the gift of you always. You, my twin I got to know so little. I'm not sure how the heart can hold so much all at once. I am so grateful for you. I am so grateful I got to know you in so far as I could. I am so broken that you're not here. I am in agony that you're not beside your twin.
But let's go back and remember our journey together, my dear one. It all started in early March, 2019...
I desperately wanted to be pregnant. I'd had "baby fever" for a while, and we had finally agreed to go ahead and see if we could conceive. I was desperate to know if we had. I researched which pregnancy tests to take, how early I could take one, and how likely it was to be accurate. I'd planned to take a test on Friday. But then, I changed my mind. I took one Tuesday morning, first thing, instead - a super sensitive one.
Two lines. Pregnant. Elation!
Well, I thought, that didn't take long to show up. I wonder if it would've mattered if I'd waited till afternoon (they say your most likely to get a positive first thing in the morning). I took a less sensitive test Tuesday afternoon.
A blue plus sign. Pregnant. It wouldn't have mattered!
I took a picture of the two pregnancy tests beside each other - one pink, one blue - and thought how great it was to know so soon. I wondered then if there was significance to the two tests, to the pink and the blue. It would be fun, I thought, if it was twins. But I wouldn't really let myself go there - twins are a dream I'd long ago retired.
By 4 weeks I was napping every afternoon. I worked to get things ready for first trimester as soon as I knew I was pregnant - meals in the freezer, projects wrapped up, house in order.
The exhaustion I began to feel was unlike anything I'd felt before. I laid in bed with 3 weeks' worth of laundry filling baskets all over our room, and I ignored them. I could hardly lift my drink to my lips, let alone care for my family. I remember making supper one evening, bringing a pillow and blanket into the kitchen so I could lay down between putting the water on, putting the noodles in, and draining the cooked pasta.
Saturdays and Sundays consisted of me getting up to get breakfast for everyone, then getting back in bed. Chase would manage the kids while I rested all afternoon. I was so exhausted I simply didn't care how beautiful the day was. I remember one Saturday in particular, Chase was playing with the kids outside on a perfect spring afternoon. They giggled, mowed the lawn, shouted encouragement, and simply were having the best time. I remember wanting to want to be outside with them, but I just couldn't muster up the strength to go to the window to look out at what they were doing.
Morning sickness wasn't bad - I never threw up - but I was queasy most of the time. Salty things tasted good. I could convince myself to eat eggs with ketchup, toast with butter, grilled cheese, and the like. Sweets were not appealing in any way.
The first week of April, I was 9 weeks along, when we went in for our first appointment. I'd intended to wait till 12 weeks, but we were concerned something was wrong because of my exhaustion.
There was a simple answer: twins. You and your sister.
Perfect little hearts beating away, babies both over the 95% for size and growing beautifully. Everything checked out well.
The next three weeks I spent trying to wrap my head around twins, grieving the loss of the freedom a singleton allows that twins don't, trying to figure out what life would look like and accept that this time things would be different. Massively different.
At 12 weeks we had our 2nd ultrasound. Perfect little hearts beating away, babies still growing beautifully. Everything checked out as expected.
I breathed a sigh of relief. We'd passed the "vanishing twin" stage. I was in the lowest risk category for twins - di/di twins in a mom who'd had babies before, over age 30 - this was going to go well.
I took it easy, not doing more than I had to, and caring for myself as best I could. I can't say energy returned immediately after the first trimester wrapped up, but I was anticipating that I would feel a little better soon.
At 15 weeks we went in for another ultrasound. We joked as the doctor put the wand on my stomach. I wasn't paying close attention to the ultrasound image, because the two babies were there, clearly, still tucked safely away in my stomach.
"Stephani. This one doesn't have a heartbeat."
Dear one, my world crashed.
"Damn."
I jumped to logistics. How does this affect the other twin? How does this affect my care? What are our next steps? What do I need to do? Could it be a mistake?
My doctor answered my questions and handed me a few tissues. "It's ok to be sad and cry," she said. "I know," I responded. "That will come."
Unsure what to think or do, we walked into the lobby and headed for the car. We decided we were simply going to tell the kids that there was a problem with one of the babies and that we'd see a specialist about it soon. We told our parents the truth - no heartbeat - and we prayed for God's healing hand to do the impossible miracle.
A week later, Chase and I went to Omaha to the specialists office where it was confirmed - no heartbeat. Baby, I don't know why your heart stopped beating. I pray it was nothing I did, and I don't struggle with guilt over it. I read every twin book that got good reviews. I followed the recommendations. I did my best to care for you. I'm so sorry I couldn't do more.
Your sister got an excellent report from the specialists - "She's an overachiever," they told me. "I know," I replied. That's the kind of babies we make - the best kind.
They told me you would likely reabsorb into the placenta. They told me there may not be much of you, if any, at birth. They told me they weren't sure what we would find when you were born.
Thus commenced the next 23 weeks of pregnancy. 23 weeks I got to carry your body in mine, though you weren't alive. 23 weeks I continually processed your loss.
I worried that your sister would know me more by my sobs than my laugh. I worried that something would happen to her too. I worried that you or she wouldn't feel all the love I have in my heart for each of you. I read about twinless twins. You're both twinless twins in different places. God, won't it be great when we're all together and you can just be twins?
People said things to try and make it better - "at least you're still pregnant" was the most common sentiment, as if I wasn't grateful for your sister and the pregnancy that continued. People meant well, and I had and have to have grace for their efforts to show love. That's what people were trying to do.
I find that seeing other twins doesn't make me hurt, exactly. I don't just want any twins. I want YOU. I want MY twins.
The second trimester I felt better. I had energy. And largely I didn't have to face hard things - I just had to do pregnancy and enjoy summer. And I got to pretend like nothing happened.
But then 3rd trimester hit. My hips and back ached. But I wanted them to ache more because I was carrying you, still growing. Instead, they ached and my heart ached because I wanted you too.
I had to face the fact that I would deliver a singleton. But not really, because I would deliver you, whatever there was left on this earth of you, anyway. Questions came up, like my obstetric history. Had I had a miscarriage? Well... not yet? Not really? Not one that resulted in the compromise of a pregnancy. And I hadn't miscarried yet. I still carried you.
36 weeks hit and I lost it. We would've been planning your induction or c-section at that point. I would've been monitored regularly to ensure you were safe. Instead, I'd nested early and had no projects to work on and grief bearing down on me. How could I do this without really meeting you in the end?
I faced it. I faced grief. The waves pulled me under yet again, and I came up on the other side. Hope rose with the sun the next morning and my battered soul breathed again. I accepted that I'd be pregnant for a while yet. It would be a while before I'd meet your sister and you.
38 weeks came last Thursday. We did an ultrasound and found I had excessive amniotic fluid - not by much, but "technically, you have high amniotic fluid." Which meant cord prolapse risk in delivery. My doctor wanted me to do non-stress tests twice weekly.
I went in the next day, Friday, for a NST. It took a long time, and I didn't get back to Central City till lunch time to get the kids from Wendy. Everything looked great. But emotionally I was back to facing the fact that I would've held you that day, November 1st, no matter what. You would've been delivered by then, via natural childbirth, induction, or c-section. I would've met you that day.
I sobbed. I so very desperately wanted to meet you that day. Really meet you.
That night, after the Harvest Concert, I was laying in bed, heard a "pop" and my water broke.
In the midst of it all, I looked at Chase and said I thought I wanted an epidural. I didn't think I could do it without one.
You, my dear one, were such a huge part of it all, are such a huge part of me. We got to the hospital, and I got an epidural. Before pain even really hit me, I got an epidural. I needed head space to think. I needed head space to pray. I needed head space to work through seeing if you were there, what of you was there, and do that all in the context of welcoming your sister with all the joy and elation that her birth built in my soul.
It's the strangest thing. It's not that my heart is split - like 1/2 was sad and 1/2 was happy. It's like the entirety of my heart could feel the entirety of emotions - relief, joy, elation at your sister's arrival; sorrow, yearning, grief at your body's arrival without you.
Ugh. Thomas. Damn. Losing you hurts. Always.
Hurts doesn't begin to encompass it. It's this can't breathe, depth of my soul, aching pit. It's overwhelming.
But I look just beyond my computer screen, and there, your sister lays sleeping, breathing, alive, and my heart soars in gratitude, love, and joy. How can my heart be both places at once?
So your sister was born, and then you came with the placenta. Dr. Crockett cleaned me up, got me settled with your sister and brought you over to me.
She told me that here was the placenta - Juliana's part. Then over here was your part. There was still a bit of you there to see - she asked if I wanted her to pull the membrane back. I said yes and she did, and there you were - little head, body, arm, leg, eye.
That settled it. My nurse, Sylvia, personally took you down to the lab with instructions about us picking you up on Monday. You were, as far as it was possible for me to know, cared for and honored by the doctors and nurses who handled you. And, I hope, that the same can be said for those in the lab.
Monday, Chase tried to pick you up, but they weren't done with the placenta, they said. Then, I got a call from the hospital. They couldn't release you to us, your parents. They had to release you to a funeral home director.
I was a mess - I'd asked all these questions ahead of time and knew that the Nebraska state statute said that they COULD release you to me because you were gone prior to 20 weeks gestation. But the fact remained that you were born at 38 weeks gestation too. After going in circles in my head for a couple of hours, I finally called my cousin's husband, a funeral home director in NE.
He is excellent at his job. He said I was right about the statue, but institutions can have regulations tighter than the statute. He offered to call the lab and see if he could get them to make an exception in this case.
He called back and they had refused. I wish I knew who decided it was a good idea to keep parents from picking up their kids and laying them to rest. It was absurd bureaucratic red tape.
He recommended calling our local funeral home and told us they wouldn't charge for picking you up. I felt kind of silly, like 1/2 the town has to help me get my child back, but there was no way I wasn't going to fight for you.
Baby, I would have fought forever for you. You are so worth the effort. I wish there was something I could've done so we could've known each other more. I would've done so much more than this.
So your dad dug your grave in the back yard. It is under the Miss Kim Lilac bushes. Your dad also bought the box we buried you in. While I've spent months grieving, he took on the hard physical tasks of facing those most tangible things.
We went the next day to the funeral home to pick you up. I assumed you'd still be in your placenta and we'd have the whole thing to bury. They laid you out carefully on a table in the back of the funeral home and let us come look at you.
The lab had taken you out of your placenta, so we just had YOU. Your little head, your precious body, your dear arms and legs, and God saved 5 perfect little toes pointed out on one of your feet for me to count. I can't wait to really hold you. Like hold your warm self, hear your heart beat, look into your darling eyes and fall even more in love.
God's handiwork from the first day just blows my mind. You were there, all of you.
I don't understand why. I will never understand why. At least not this side of eternity.
The hospital had you in a clear plastic bag, and had that bag wrapped in a hospital blanket. We wrapped you back up, put you in your box, and brought you home.
It was then that I realized what I wanted to do for you - I wanted you to have a sleeping bag of sorts. Something made out of your fabric - the fox fabric, and the white minky, and the gray fuzzy. A miniature blanket like the bigger ones I've made for each of your siblings. So that afternoon I made you the tiniest sleeping bag.
When Lily got home from school, I went to the basement where you were waiting, tucked you in your sleeping bag, covered you with the blanket Pat Loper knit for you, wrapped it all in your hospital blanket, and closed the lid of your box.
We bundled up all the kids and went out on the cloudy, cold, windy Wednesday afternoon to your grave. We stood with our backs to the wind as Chase put your box down in the grave.
The neighbor's cat peered out the vertical blinds, our only observer.
I asked if anyone had anything they wanted to say about you, Thomas.
Connor, age 5, (who had been particularly ornery lately) piped up, "I know what we should do."
Internally I just dreaded a smart alecky comment coming from him at this moment.
"We should pray."
I repented for assuming the worst. He was exactly right - we should pray.
Chase took the lead and prayed over you. We thanked God for the gift of you, and looked forward to the day when we'll get to really know you in Glory.
We watched as Chase filled in the hole and talked about how much fun you must be having with Auggie. We talked about Uncle Chet and Grandpa Jerry and how they were probably taking you fishing, and how you get to be with Jesus. It sounds so lovely it's hard not to be jealous.
We came inside and Lily was processing the deep things. I held her and we cried and talked about you a bit more. Then she took her stuffed animal and went to her room to write and cry.
Connor came near, and I asked him how he knew exactly what we should do out by your grave.
"Ramona Quimby," he answered.
In the last month all he has listened to is the Ramona Quimby Collection on Audible.
"But there's not a funeral in Ramona, is there?" I asked.
"Uh-huh. Picky Picky's," Connor responded.
Picky Picky the cat. Ramona. I laughed and in my heart praised God that He used that stupid book we've all heart a billion times now to make sure we did just the right thing as we laid your body to rest.
Dearest Thomas, I don't know how I'll do life without you exactly. I mean, I do. I'll breathe. I'll eat. I'll sleep. I'll be joyful and happy, I'll be sad and weary. I'll live. And in that living, I'll remember you. Mamas don't forget.
I'm so grateful to have known of you, to have seen your body, to have held you in my hand, to have touched your skin. I'm so grateful you're here, in my heart, and on our property.
My dear child, all I can say is that I love you.
Mom
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