What I Need

Hello my fellow 3:30am friends.

If you’re reading this at a decent hour, hello to you as well.   I read a post recently, ”Change” that mentions the 3am hour for babylost parents.   The author describes this as her ‘thinking hour’ and tells of embracing this time where she can be undisturbed in her thoughts and grief over her lost child.  I think I’m there as well.  A few weeks ago, I found this nighttime wakefulness painful.  I would lay in bed for a long time and quietly let salty tears soak my face and pillow until finally giving up the hope of sleep.  Now I rather enjoy this quiet time.  It is for me and Will.

Tonight I awoke, not of my own accord, but because Sam has a cold and began a coughing spell.   By the time I had warmed a spoonful of honey to soothe his throat, prompted him to sleep propped up again on his pillows, and listened intently to see if my efforts worked…well, I was up.   I stared out the window for a long time as a small snow storm has landed over of us in the dark.  I turned on our deck light and watched the sugarsnow fall lightly from the sky so finely as if through a sifter.  The snow is so perfect at this hour, mounding on every delicate tree branch and twig, undisturbed on the ground in a sparkling blanket, catching on even the smallest frozen garden remnant and leaf.

3:30 is not so bad.

I got a call from one of my church pastors yesterday to see how we were doing.  There are times when I can discuss our progress much like discussing politics or some other intellectual matter and swallow down the lump that forms in my throat at phrases like ‘when the twins come’.  But yesterday was  not a swallowing down type of day.  Instead it was the opposite, as if all those lumps resurface at once and catch in my throat, squeeze up to my mouth and spill out in gasping sobs as I try to sound intelligible.  I don’t like to cry like this in front of others.  It is a private cry, my own moaning song for Will.  It, despite knowing it shouldn’t be so, embarrasses me.

Anyway, he was sweet in his awkwardness discussing the tricky aspects of me carrying around Will.  I’m coming to realize that this makes people uncomfortable.  Like they want to know the logistics of how it can be that Will remains inside me, now dead, but the act of asking almost tongue ties them.  And rightly so, I would be just as curious and fittingly befuddled.   Talking about Will’s body hurts, but conversely, NOT talking about him hurts worse.

Back to our conversation, he finally mentioned the prospect of a service for Will, thus bringing on more choking-throat sobs from me, since I have been waiting for that very question for a month.  I don’t know if it he was prompted by a few well-meaning church friends of ours.  Frankly, I don’t care.  Hearing the confirmation that my dear son deserves a funeral fills, ever so slightly, the aching hole in me who wishes Will to be recognized as a ‘real boy’.

Of course we want a service, we’re just not sure how that will look yet.  It doesn’t matter for now.  I don’t think we will know what the details will be until he comes.

Waiting on the twins is hard.  I know that the longer I wait, the better for Abby.  But the worse for Will.   Even though I know his soul is not in me anymore, I can’t help but see him trapped in some sort of in-between space, waiting for peace.

Or maybe that’s me trapped in that space.

So the last question the pastor asked me, of course, is what we need.  Normal and caring question, but how can one answer that in practical terms?  I need my son to be alive again.  I need to rewind time to the chance to keep his little heart from stopping.  I need to know that things will be ok again.  I need for Abby to be here, full-term, right now and perfectly healthy.  I need to have my twins’ nursery back the way it was supposed to be.  I need my heartache to rest, for just a little bit, and let me feel the comfortable fit of my old self again.  I need to fastforward time and glimpse that things will be ok in some  way or another.

Instead I told him this, “I need for people to know what happened.”  What I mean is that, though our close family and friends (of course) are aware of Will’s death, there are so many tangential people in our lives who do not know.  And the thought of having to tell our story fresh to every one of them, exhausts my soul.  I need people to already know when I run into them, as I surely will do.

If you are someone I know if real-life and are reading this, first of all, please let me know you’re here.  It doesn’t have to be through a blog comment, but it helps me know to whom I’m speaking as I put myself on this stage with bright lights blinding me from my audience.  Secondly, please let people know about our story.   I don’t expect acquaintances to call or send flowers or cards or anything else, I just want people to file this fact away in their heads…

“We knew Eve was pregnant with twins, but one of them has died.  His name was Will.”

And, real-life friends, if you want to link to my story, please link to my ‘public blog’, HERE.  It is not a very well-written or introspective type of blog, I surely admit to that, but I need this blogspace to remain a sanctuary for me to share my deepest thoughts and worries.  If you are here, you’re welcome to stay…you’ve come across me in a meaningful way, most likely via Daven.  But I don’t intend this place to be a place of viewership for those on the outer cusp of my life who know me  to some extent but wouldn’t feel comfortable coming in my home and sharing a good cry.

I hope that comes across the way I intend.

Saying what I need is a challenge, but surely a worthy one.

A Wonderful Gift

I continue to travel this journey of grieving as a fallen leaf being carried by the wind in unpredictable swoops and free falls and upward gusts.  There is no rhythm or predictability of when the ups come or when the wind leaves me to fall to the earth in plummeting, spiraling dives.  Hanging on is the best thing to do.

But the upward drafts have sent me aloft the past day or so.  On Thursday and Friday, I was able to spend time with friends and be comforted in their all-accepting presence to my messy and ever-changing emotional states.  My friends and I were also treated to a free lunch, compliments of a restaurant in town who thoroughly botched our to-go order.  We didn’t order the chicken caesar salads in our bag, but we happily ate them.  There is always a small speck of joy in something being free.  I also received a call from my nurse at my doctor’s office…

I passed my 3 hour glucose test.

Before losing Will, I would’ve written the above sentence in capitals followed by an obnoxious trail of exclamation points.  That was just me.  I always realized I used too many exclamation points in my emails/post/writings.  I decided that it was a visual representation of who I was, ‘Eve the Exclamation Point’.  I knew this fact actually alienated people from me at times.  I so vividly remember a rather gothic and morose high school peer of mine telling me she didn’t like me merely because I smiled too much.  This hurt me terribly, since it was never my intention to seem fake or, worse, irrelevant, but I couldn’t change who I was. 

Now I talk in periods.  Maybe not permanently, but for now.  Even when I put an exclamation (out of sheer habit) point into a greeting or cheery goodbye, I change it.  It doesn’t feel right to live the life of an exclamation point right now.  It’s not a good fit for me, living without exclamations, I’m not good at gothic and morose.  But, I suppose that I will be who I am in the end, that wildflowers may pop out my mouth despite the dark and frozen soil I chew on now.

Maybe I’m looking forward to the spring after all.

(refocusing thoughts again)

The last updraft was on Saturday, when I was visited by a photographer from NILMDTS to do a maternity session.   Amanda is a true blessing for us during this sad time.  She has been so incredibly generous to do a maternity session for me and also has offered to do a birth session as well.    She is vibrant and kind and compassionate and wonderfully talented.  And despite what I’m sure was a VERY long day for her, she let me see a sneak-peek of our session, putting in time on a Saturday to edit these photos.

I’ve looked at these pictures over and over again, studying their nuances the way one might examine their newborn babies’ fingers and toes and delicate lips and fleshy cheeks.   Thank you so much, Amanda, for giving me such a treasure to cherish while Will still rests within me and Abby kicks alongside him. 

See, gothic and morose long-lost high school person, I can taste the seeds sprouting ever so slightly in spite of myself.

See my pictures here, at Dreaming Tree Photography.

Transition

Well, I loved all the advice for renaming my blog.  I also appreciated the advice on not making too many drastic changes yet, since I’m in such an ‘unfinished’ place.  So, I decided that I would leave my address the same, and just put up a different title for now.  Not necessarily a permanent title, more like a chapter title that seems fitting right now.  If I had to look up at that old ‘Infertility Rocks’ header with my ridiculous thumbs up picture one more time, I think I would’ve pulled out my eye teeth. 

So, let me explain this chapter’s title.  It comes from a poem by W. H. Auden, which has run through my head (at least parts of it) since losing Will.  Here it is…

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I don’t think there is a truer description of pure grief than that poem – the wish for the world to stop turning and just be put away.   I’d like to tell you that I discovered that poem while thumbing through one of my old poetry books one lazy Saturday afternoon.  Not so.  I heard that poem in the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” back when I still listened to Pearl Jam on my portable CD player while wearing, quite unabashedly, wool socks under Birkenstocks.

Ahem.  Anyway, not much to say about the movie.  Hugh Grant was his well-known mix of charming and bumbling.  Andie MacDowell, on the other hand, provided my hubby and I with fodder of which we STILL make fun in her dramatically-challenged utterance of the dumbest movie line I’ve heard (maybe besides, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”): 

Is it raining?  I hadn’t noticed.

It doesn’t sound so dumb as I write it now, but trust me on this one.

But this poem is read as a eulogy in this film, and it has always stuck with me.  I didn’t realize how true it was, however, until we lost Will…sort of the way someone can describe a beautiful place in great detail, but until you actually go there yourself, you never get the smell, and the sounds, and the global view of that place.

So, I guess that’s all I have for now.  Had a few really low days but feeling stronger again today.  I get my haircut in an hour.  Seems like a very ‘normal’ thing for one in my situation to do.  But, seeing as I (at least personally) know no one in my particular situation, I guess I can just make it up as I go then, can’t I?

The Tiniest Flicker

Your support is God-sent, my blogland friends.  I think of the dank, depressing posts I’ve been churning out, and I wonder who would want to visit, dipping their toes in a such a cold lake as this.  Thanks for providing me warmth and company.  I don’t know how I would face this loss without writing, but also without all of you.

Today I awoke with a sense of propulsion.  As if, for a short time anyway, time seemed to pass at normal speed and the physics of the earth made slightly more sense.   It might’ve been because Abby kicks the underside of my bellybutton in the early morning, serving as the most blessed wake-up call that I have ever known.  It might’ve been because I listened to her heartbeat anyway with the doppler.  I like to think that it was a God-nudge, pushing me from the dark places of grief for a brief look out the window again, the way my hubby lifts Sam up on his broad shoulders to perch above the tangy air of sweaty hands and legs in a crowd.

It is with great reserve that I mention to myself or on this page the word ‘hope’.

Doubt floods in with this word and reminds me that, just a few weeks ago, I wrote a post called “24.5 weeks’ which marveled at my pregnancy, delighted in my new-found safety in the magic number ‘24′, and pointed toward brighter days to come.

It is most likely that Will was already dead inside me when I wrote that post.

Those hope-filled words haunt me like no other words I think I may have ever conceived.   I’ve considered erasing the words entirely, as if that would serve as some sort of backward time travel, eradicating all potential jinx-like powers.  But I keep the words up there, because…well probably to punish myself. 

And yet here I stand again, before you and before God uttering these words today:   The doctor told us that Abby has passed the most critical time in twin-loss, and looks strong and healthy.  She weighs 2 lbs 10 oz (that’s in the 60% percentile), and we once gain glimpsed her lovely face on the u/s.   My cervix is over 4 inches long, and I didn’t cry during the u/s today.  I even made a joke that sort-of felt like the old me, for just the tiniest of moments.

Please God, do not make a mockery of this hope.  Please, please keep Abby safe for us.  Please lift me up for more fresh air and dull my senses to the overwhelming suit of fear I wear.  She is our only daughter, and Sam’s only surviving sibling.  Please save her.  Please?

(composing myself here) 

I contacted ‘Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep’, an organization of volunteer photographers that will come to the hospital and take beautiful pictures of babies born to soon, babies born still, and babies lost to illness.  Seeing as Will’s fragile body may stay inside me for so very long, I asked if they would be willing to do a few belly-shots, since he lays perfectly in me now.  An angel has answered my request, and although NLMDTS doesn’t ‘officially’ provide maternity photos, she has kindly offered to do a maternity/family session for me this weekend.  It is the first concrete thing I feel I’ve been able to do to remember Will since he died.  I’m so blessed to have this opportunity.

It is daunting, however, to consider what one should wear or how one should smile when having maternity pictures taken with the knowledge that one of the babies is already gone.  But I trust that they will be perfect.   My belly remains perfectedly round with my twins, even though Abby is now growing when Will is not.  They are still perfect in me, together for just a little while longer.

I also decided to search out matching (or coordinating) receiving blanket sets for when they are born.  It is, once again, something I can do for Will when he no longer needs a beautiful nursery, or his coordinating car seat, or even my milk to nourish him.  But every baby, still or alive, needs a soft blanket in which to be wrapped like the gift from God that they are.

This I can do.

One more thing I’ve been thinking about and need your opinions on is this darn blog title and address of mine.  “Infertilty Rocks!” was a clever little tongue-in-cheek title when I was living it.  I always planned to change the address/title when things felt firmer with the pregnancy, though as you may have noticed, there is never ground beneath my pregnancies.

Any suggestions?

In a dark and yet lucid moment, I thought that title, “Infertility Rocks and Then You Die,” seemed entirely fitting.  But then I decided that, “Infertility Rocks and Then Your Baby Dies,” which is much more accurate to my circumstance, did not seem to roll off the tongue quite so easily (both literally and figuratively).  So, my friends of blogland, give me your advice on a new title or new address or a new blog altogether.  

I am currently incapable to making any decisions of merit.

As if this actually qualifies as a decision of merit.

The House Where Grief Lives

The other morning, early in the morning when Abby’s kicks awaken me, I lay in bed and let my thoughts scurry the way I used to run my fingers along a row of musty books at the library, randomly picking one out, reading the inside flap only to pluck another one a few seconds later.  This particular morning, I was thinking of this new life I’m in now.   Life after loss.  And the picture of a house came vividly in my mind:

my new house, in which I dwell.

It is a large house, with many rooms.  There are dark rooms and light rooms.  Rooms with windows to see out to the future, and dark cellar rooms, with locks that stick and cobwebbed corners.  There are rooms with God and rooms of great emptiness.  Rooms with music and laughter and rooms with endless crying.  There are bitter rooms and rooms with forgiveness.  Rooms with life and rooms with death. 

Each day, I wander about this house, sometimes spending most of my day in one room, and sometimes aimlessly traveling to many rooms in the span of one conversation.   People are allowed to visit my house, but they don’t live here.  I allow them into some rooms, and lock them out of others.  They find it cumbersome to visit long, as if the house pulls their life-breath away.

I think, a few times anyway, I’ve left this new house.  Ventured out into the blinding world like emerging from a darkened theatre.  The world seems to run at a different speed than I do now.  It’s overexposed, and I squint my eyes to make out the details.  The sound is not quite right.  Too loud at times.  Too quiet at times.  The people speak a foreign language.  I don’t hear their words, only the rapid cadence of  their speech.  It is disorienting and dizzying to me now that I’ve moved homes.  I knew this world once.  And though it seems familiar to me, in once-dreamt type of way, I’m a foreigner in it now.

My new house sits away from the world, deep in a valley.  I’m still discovering the hidden doors and secret passageways here.  Sometimes by accident, I open a closet and find a piece of joy or peek into a corner and see a demon’s shadow.   I hate this house in many ways.  It is my prison, but it’s also my haven. 

 It is, after all, where Will is.

As time passes, as it always does, I’ll do as all the other parents of lost children do:  I’ll learn the language of the world again.  I’ll shield my eyes from the sun and reacclimate to its pace. I’ll pass, quite well, for a regular person. 

But every night, no matter how many winters have melted and summers have cooled, (just as every child-lost parent before me) I’ll retreat back to this house again.  My house where Will is,

and remember that little boy who almost was born, and visit with him there,

giggling in his would-be room.

Grey Day

I haven’t made an update in a few days, though I have one sitting in my head to write.  I’m finding myself extremely tired and low on energy the past few days.  I’m really starting to feel down.  Not desperate down.  Not crying my guts out down.  Not like the initial post-nuclear fallout I had before…more like suddenly my life feels like it’s painted in charcoal greys instead of vivid pastels.  It is hard to feel joy today.  I can summon it for short moments in the silliness of Sam, but it fades quickly back to muted tones and the feeling that I am trapped, not only by this circumstance, but by my own body that holds such uncertainty within it.

And it’s bitterly cold outside.

And my mom leaves tomorrow.

And February is my least favorite month, save for Valentine’s Day.

And the nurse called to tell me I failed my one-hour glucose test.

Really? 

(sigh)

Figures.

(How’s that for a healthy dose of self-pity?)

Unexpected Comfort

I saw Dr. Hope yesterday.

My visit started out poorly as I caught the eye of the young, pregnant nurse who tended to me when we first could not hear Will’s heartbeat.  She was passing by the lab as I got my blood drawn for gestational diabetes and to check for clotting issues as I retain Will in me.  Her eyes darted quickly away, like I was deformed with leprosy.

Nice.

The visit did change though, quickly.  I didn’t wait nearly as long as I intended to wait (as Dr. Hope’s middle name is ‘unapologetically late’).  Instead I was heavily in the midst of reading a People magazine (the one with Kate Gosselin on the cover with her ridiculous new extensions) when a kind nurse called me back.  Different room from the ‘your baby has died’ room this time.  And, whether they flagged my chart or not, or whether God just gifted me with this nurse, I guess I don’t know.  But she was wonderfully  sensitive as I teared up when she checked for Abby’s heartbeat (that act, will forever be fraught with terror for me now), and actually talked to me about Will.

Dr. Hope came in then.  I had clenched my jaw, ready for an emotionally numb visit that would hopefully be over as quickly as it began.  Instead, he and I had this conversation:

Eve, how are you doing today?

As good as can be expected, I think…sad still.  Nervous.

You know, I’ve been thinking about you and your twins so much since you lost your baby boy.  I even told my wife how heartbroken I am for you.

(really?  I’m thinking) Thanks.  It’s been hard.

I’m 50 years old.  I’m a cynic.  But (eyes tear up, leans in closer to me as if sharing a secret) do you ever wonder if your little girl misses her twin?

I wonder that all the time (crying).

I know that, biophysically speaking, her consciousness is not fully developed yet, those neurons are not connected.  But I still wonder. (Pause)  We’re going to get her through this, you know.

And weirdly enough, he offers me the biggest, most fatherlike hug that I desperately needed in that very moment.  And I’m still a little baffled by who this man was yesterday…Dr. Hope, or some angel sent down from God with divine words to comfort my heavy heart.  It was like nothing, truly, I think I have ever experienced before.  Certainly like no conversation I have ever had with a doctor.  It sounds so cheesy in review now, like if I were watching it in a movie I would probably roll my own cynical eyes and fake a gag sign with my finger. 

But it was real, at least I think it was.

Abby looked good.  Dr. Hope said we’re moving out of the cusp of danger for her in utero now and will then ‘just’ be facing the prospect of high-risk pre-term labor.  I asked him what my goal is for delivery.  “40 weeks,” he says with a sheepish grin, but then tells me the magic number is 32.

Five weeks from tomorrow.  Seems like a simultaneous 100-yard dash and a marathon all at once.

I left feeling soothed in a way I cannot explain, soul-soothed, at least for a little bit anyway.  I still struggle to let myself hope too much for Abby.  Fully letting go in hope that Abby will be coming home with us a healthy baby, for me, is equivalent to climbing the Empire State Building, pulling  myself over the observation deck, and letting go.  I want my Abby to be ok more than anything, I just can’t yet let myself fully believe it might be so.

I don’t know how I will bear to lose her.

I’m bonding with her more every day as she rolls and kicks and wiggles in my belly.  I wonder what she looks like, what color are her eyes going to be, if her hair will be curly or straight, if she will love music and dance and art as much as I do.  The thought that I will  never know these answers haunts me at night, when the house is quiet enough I can hear it shift and creak in the cold.

Surely, a God who sends angels in place of doctors, and makes trees grow from tiny seeds, and paints watercolor sunsets, and created my glorious Sam (who is cooking me elaborate imaginary confections such as ‘chocolate pudding pancakes’ as I type this), can keep Abby’s heart beating for many, many years.  Surely he can.  Right?

It is my desperate prayer.

Pieced-Together Moments

After reading several of the comments, it’s clear to me that I didn’t differentiate between the ‘feel better’ comments that I’m worried about getting, mostly from aquaintences and the wonderfully supportive comments that I’ve received from close friends, family, internet friends and the blogosphere.  Those of you who have given me such kind words, I appreciate it so much. 

I hid from church yesterday.

Not from God.  He knows where I am and how much I desperately need him.  We have long prayer sessions together.  I hid from people, well-meaning people, who want to give me words of comfort and too many hugs and just maybe, because it is human nature, want to know the ‘gory’ details of my continued pregnancy with Will still there alongside Abby.  And I also hid from the people who will purposely dodge the other way as I waddle by, so they don’t have to face their own awkwardness at our loss.

I hid from “Well, maybe it was for the better this way” and “At least you still have Abby” and “If you were going to lose one, at least it was the boy so you can still have a boy and girl (that is a totally true statement said to my hubby last week at church, by the way)”.

I’m sure, that I will soon collect a laundry list of ‘feel betterisms’ from this experience, much like I collected with my infertility struggles.  Honestly, I’m sure I’ve uttered many ill-conceived feel-betterisms myself in the past.  It’s sad, because I know they are mostly (mostly) meant to soothe.  They just don’t.  “Maybe it was for the better,”  which I’ve run into a few times now, does not bring me comfort.  How can my baby dying be for the better?  I would not have wished him a suffering life, but those people know NO more than they know when the sun will burn out whether Will’s death was for the better.

God will make good out of tragedy NOT because it is for the better in the first place, but because he loves us and promises to ease our suffering.

Sorry, I digress.

We did return Will’s crib this weekend.  I let myself numb out during the delivery.  Better option than sobbing at the feet of the nice family who leant it to us.  I’m glad it’s not in my car anymore.   Not that it makes Will go away.  Not that I want Will to go away.  But there’s just something, well, tragic about driving around a minivan with a crib meant for a dead baby.  Sorry if that sounds blunt.  I don’t have a problem uttering the phrase ‘dead baby’, maybe because it’s as raw as how my insides feel.  I hope it doesn’t hurt any others of you out there in blogland who have lost a baby.

I’ve been out and about more the past few days since my mom has arrived.  We even got a wheelchair at a mall so I could do a little necessity shopping for Sam at The Children’s Place.  I kept my eyes focused on the toddler jean’s section and did not even let myself have but the briefest glance at the infant section where cheery boy/girl outfits hung in darling little pairs, as if ready-made for twins.  Sam rode the carousel there at the mall, and I found myself dizzy watching it spin.  I noticed that the children were not as happy as the parents maybe thought they would be on the elaborate horses and tigers and magical winged beasts.  What I enjoyed most about the trip was the anonymity that I was afforded there. 

I ate a cheeseburger and french fries and watched the football games yesterday.

I held a newborn baby boy yesterday.

He was so light in my arms with beautiful, dark downy hair and the most wide and alert blue eyes.   I didn’t cry.  I wasn’t purposefully keeping myself from crying.  The tears just didn’t come.  I wasn’t sad.  I was just in that moment, holding this precious little bundle who was so alive and so pink and so perfect.  I didn’t think about anything right then, other than his quizzical eyes and tiny fingers.  I didn’t let myself span the future of what he would be doing in a few months or years that my Will would not.  At that moment, he was my closest connection to Will besides Abby.  A child, fresh from God, with the knowledge of wonderful things he won’t remember by the time he can walk or talk.  A child who, I’d like to believe, frolicked with Will in that space between womb and earth.

I got through this weekend not gracefully or necessarily full of thanks, but just grappling for each moment as if they were pieced together like prayer flags, strung across the foothills of Mount Everest, hung to honor those who lost their lives up there,

bodies still frozen on the mountainside

under all that snow.

What To Do With a Day?

We are returning Will’s crib tomorrow.

I have no feelings about it as I type this because sometimes I honestly just need to mute the emotive button in my brain.  It sounds like a sad thing to do, just doesn’t feel sad at this very moment.  I’m sitting here in my very quiet house.  Husband still at work.  Dog napping on the rug.  Sam napping in his room.  Abby napping in my womb (I know she is napping as I listened to her churning heart but a few minutes ago).  And Will, too, resting in stillness with me.

Friends are taking us out for dinner in a few hours, and yet, I sit here in my pajamas.  Strike that, my hubby just called and asked me to cancel the outing.   Hmmm.  I wasn’t necessarily jumping at the chance to join the ‘real world’ for the evening, but thought it might do me some good anyway.   My husband has been out and about since losing Will, but the only place I’ve visited is the hospital.  It’s not that I’m so itching to be a social butterfly right now, but I do want to cross into the afterlife of losing Will and see what stands before me.   My house protects me from it yet.

It’s been a quiet day.  This morning, I had overlapping visitors who were so sweet and wonderfully distracting.  But there are so many hours in a day to be filled.  No visitor could fill them all.  Who can fill my 3:30 in the morning wake time when I pat my belly to feel for Abby’s flutters?  Or fill the time where I brush my teeth and comb my hair just quickly enough to avoid staring at myself in the mirror each morning?

Within the past month or two, as the panic of my subchorionic hemamtoma was healing, I spent my down time on the internet shopping and planning.  I didn’t really buy too much, though I did get an extra car seat.  I also had two separate sellers on Craigslist holding a double stroller and a double nursing pillow for me until I could pick them up.  The day after losing Will, I  had to write them and tell them to sell them to someone else.  I also spent time on a ‘twinsite’ learning about multiple’s pregnancy, chatting with other twins moms-to-be, encouraging others and rejoicing in their birth stories.  Now I find myself staring at the computer screen.  Where do I go?  Not to Ebay or Craigslist or BabiesRUs or any other site to look at baby things.  Not to babysites with pregnancy  calendars to look at how big my babies are or what physical inconveniences are effecting my body this week. 

I am an oddity.  I searched out the Share website today.  You know, for parents who’ve lost babies in utero or shortly after birth.  Didn’t get to the message boards there yet.  Just sort of skimmed the surface and marveled at the fact that I was, in fact, one of these parents.  I also came upon a site specifically for grieving parents of multiples called CLIMB, and read over many of their stories, which was wonderfully helpful and at the same time incredibly draining.

Yesterday, I did call the hospital about a grief counselor.  I am not lying when I say I spoke to no less than five different people in as many different departments until I got hooked up with the right person.  Her name is Maggie, and she was wonderfully supportive of me, despite my sniveling as I had broken into tears by the time I had reached person number four.  She gave me a lot of good information and things to think about and offered to have me stop-by anytime I was at the hospital.  I have, most certainly, fallen through a hole in the grief support system there, since usually the support team is called in during the pre-term labor, stillborn delivery or NICU process.  Instead, I’m still half-pregnant at home.  But she was extremely comforting and kind and said all the things I needed to hear but really hadn’t heard from any medical professionals up until this point.

The irony of the situation is that I’m a therapist, and have developed over the years a small specialty (apart from my work with kids and teens) for women and couples who have lost their babies in late-term pregnancy.  I don’t know how the specialty came about, but that I enjoy grief-work and several of my colleagues do not, so I always was given these particular clients.  I think my experience with infertility made me just close enough to the situation to get a glimpse of understanding and yet far enough from their situation to keep it all about them.  So when Maggie was saying ‘all the right things’ to me about how Will was a real baby, and that I have every right to mourn him despite still having Abby, and doing what was right for myself at any moment…I heard myself.  And it was surreal.

My mom is coming tomorrow and that will provide me with more distraction.  Help, company and comfort, but mostly I am looking forward to the distraction.  Because when I have the silence, my mind wanders into so many difficult caverns.  I know I need to go there.  But I certainly don’t want to live there.

I need things to look forward to (and this may sound horrible but’s totally true) besides Abby.  I promise it isn’t because of my lack of love or anticipation for Abby.  It’s because I’m so terrified of losing her, too.  She is more real to me now then before we lost Will, since I know her individual movements and feel her press back on my palm like a rolling shiatsu ball.

I need things to anticipate before Abby comes. I just don’t know what those things would be.

As if anything could make up for my children,

one lost and one still not yet found.

Long Day (and a long post to accompany it)

I had my first peri appointment  since losing Will last week.  It was a day stretched out to lengths I hardly had the energy to reach.  It started at 6:30am as my hubby, Sam and I all packed in the car for the long trip across town to the hospital.  It was fittingly dark, cold and foggy in the morning.  So foggy, Sam was disappointed not to clearly see the Sippee-sippee as we trundled over it. 

On the radio came a John Mayer song, “Dreaming with a Broken Heart.”  Standard break up song.  But music has the ability to drill past years and years of scabbed over hurt with but a mere few tender chords and lyrics, and so I found myself crying as John sang…

“…Cause she’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.”

“Mommy, why you crying?”

“Oh Buddy, I’m just sad.”

“Because of our baby brother?”

“Yes, because I miss Will.”

“He died?”

“Yes, he died.”

“Both babies died?”

“No, Sam, just one baby.”

“One baby’s got no heart and isn’t moving, and the other baby is kicking in your belly?”

“Yes, Buddy.”

“It’s ok, Mom.”

“Thanks, Honey.”

“Maybe you get him next time.”

My Sam, what a wonderful creature he is.  Energetic, bull-headed, loving, temperamental, beautiful and creative.  When he wants something in a store that we’ve not approved, or he fusses over the returned Redbox movie he so loved, or his precious pamphlet plucked from a store display gets dropped and wet in the parking lot, we soothe his distress with those exact words.  “It’s ok Buddy, maybe next time we’ll get it.”  Next time, in Sam’s world, fixes everything.

We arrived at the hospital and nervously waited for the ultrasound.  I knew Abby was alive.  She’d been kicking and bumping all morning, and I had listened to her heartbeat the night before as well.  But I was still so nervous for the vast unknown that now seems so clearly laid before us.  We got, of course, the one ultrasound tech who I’d never met and seemed oblivious to our situation.  She came in and started business as usual, until I asked her a few questions.  Then she stopped and started leafing through my file.  And then she excused herself.

“This,” I said to my hubby, “Is where she figured out I have a dead baby in me.”

She came back in and offered us no words of condolence, despite the fact she knew.  Baby Abby looked good.  Her heart was thumping quickly, and she appears to be growing well with a beefy weight of 2 lbs 2 oz.  We got to see the most amazing picture of her face, so clear it was almost like a 3-D scan.   She is lovely.  But tears still streamed down my face as she scanned past Abby and down to Will.  He remains there, curled up and still.   His sac is still intact, which is what is keeping me pregnant with Abby, so I silently thanked him for that.  As she printed us pictures to keep of Abby, she tried to be thoughtful and ask if I wanted pictures of Will, too.  “No thank you, ” I said, “We have a lot of pictures of him when he was still living.”  And I felt the knife of regret that I had not ever gotten a 3-D scan of his face. 

Then the peri on call came in, and freaked me out for a short time when he decided to rescan me.  He quickly looked at her delicate little heart and announced that he was pleased to see it beating so strongly and that she was not showing any signs of distress.  He was very kind, and placed his hand on my leg (which might sound intrusive, but it in the moment it was only comforting) and answered our questions.  He felt strongly that Abby has a good chance.  He said the most critical time for a surviving twin is within 24 hours of their twin’s death.  Even with his optimism, my hubby and I both felt skeptical.  There is no more assumptions that things should be ok anymore.

We had a long break between our u/s appointment and the appointment with my actual perinatologist, and as it so happened, my friend was being induced right then at the same hospital.  So we visited them for awhile.  It was surely a scene, my friend on the pregnancy birthing ball, Sam pulled up close to the TV watching Sesame Street, my hubby sitting in my wheelchair, and her hubby in the recliner.  They lost their 6 year old son a year and half ago in his sleep.  Though our losses are different, they are kindred spirits to us, and despite the fact that my friend was going to be welcoming a baby boy into her life, there was no place I would have rather been yesterday.  She did, by the way, have  a beautiful healthy baby boy last evening.  And  the joy I have for her swells my heart in a way that I haven’t felt since losing Will.  Good friends are rare treasures.  We are so blessed.

Back to the perinatologists, who ended up running two hours late.   He really does need some type of restaurant reservation blinker/coaster thing for his patients.  When the nurse called me back, I could tell, she too unaware of my situation.  I’m not sure they have a special stamp they could put on my chart for such circumstances, but I’m darn sure that there’s probably not another patient in this practice as far along as me going through this.  Seems like it might be worthy of mention to all the nurses then, right? 

It wasn’t as traumatic as I thought it would be, sitting in the same room where I learned we lost Will.  Getting another doppler of just one heartbeat.   Maybe I’m still sort of numb.  Dr. Hope finally came in and wasn’t quite as sensitive as he’d been the week before.  I mean, he was very nice and caring but he said a few things that sort of ticked me off.   Like he (in a cloaked way) gave me this lecture about taking care of myself (I’ve lost a few pounds since last week) and not letting myself fall into a ’spiral of depression’.  I do get what he was saying, or I’m hugely giving him the benefit of the doubt, because I DO have to take care of myself, not just for my sake, but for Abby’s.  But it’s not like I’m suicidal or on a hunger strike or refusing to bathe or anything.  “I’m just sad,” I told him, as if I had to defend myself.

I asked him if I had access to a grief counselor at the hospital or someone I could talk with about a birth plan, as we would like to plan what to do with Will.  I know there might not be an ‘intact’ Will for us to see.  It doesn’t make his remains any less important to us.  Dr. Hope said we could discuss those things once we were in the hospital to be induced or if I went into premature labor.  I thought, that for all the IQ that he has most likely been granted, this was the most idiotic statement, as why would we want to subject ourselves to those decisions then when we could take the time to think them out NOW?

It’s as if we’re supposed to press a pause button on our grief until we have an actual body.  It makes me hurt so badly for parents of missing children and families of soldiers missing in action.  The world wants a body, I guess.  Something concrete, that says, “This existed and is now gone.”  I’m calling the blasted grief counselor myself.

But, Dr. Hope, though flawed and clumsy in his condolences, gave me clear and basic answers to my questions…

1. I’ll be tested for clotting issues next week, as there is a very rare possibility that Will’s remains could make me and Abby sick.
2. I’ll be followed at least weekly for a month.  It is in this month that we are at the highest risk of losing Abby.
3. My uterus will not shrink, it will just not grow for awhile as Abby continues to fill out the spaces Will left.
4. I am allowed to be off full-bedrest and can slowly resume some activity.
5. My most important warning that something could be wrong with Abby is diminished activity level, perhaps giving me a chance to seek medical attention before the worst would happen.
6. If Abby can make it past this critical month, her chances of being a healthy full-term baby are actually greater than if I had a healthy live twin pregnancy.

So there you are.  My post is so long that I won’t bore you with the details of locking myself out of the house when I got home from the hospital seven hours after I left. 

Yeah, it was a long day.

I wouldn’t classify it necessarily as a ‘good day’ since it’s hard to think in those terms yet.  But it was certainly not a bad day either.  We survived it, Abby, Sam, my husband and me.  And that is enough for now. 

Thanks ever so much again, friends, for your kind words that soothe my sorrow.  Talking into a canyon, and hearing an echo back is why God must’ve had made canyons in the first place.

Little Boy Blue

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn!

The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn.

Where is the boy, who looks after the sheep?

He’s off in the haystack…

I’m so sorry that I cannot reply personally back to all your wonderful, loving and supportive comments.  I cannnot truly express to you how much it means to me to know that others are crying with me and hear my words.  Just know, that you all mean so very, very much to me.  I cannot fathom this loss without you all.

So here I am, at 4am again.  Sleep does not come easy these days.  I go to sleep quite well, as my winding maze of worries and contemplation and desperation is no competition for the overwhelming tiredness that I carry to bed.  But during the night, I wake up, and cannot seem to find my way in that maze back to sleep again.  It’s to be expected I guess.

It was a week ago that we got the news of losing Will.  One week already.  Time goes simultaneously swiftly, like water rushing down a drain, and yet also stands almost still and stagnant, like putrid water in a bog.  I believe that duality will be our lot in all of this, a part of us walking in the valley of death while a part of us sees breathtaking views from the heights of the clouds.  It is beyond words and trite metaphors to hold both life and death in me.  And yet I have no choice in this, death kindly stopped for me.  Or should I say, stopped for my Will.

My dear friend who is, as I type this, laboring with her soon-to-be born son, has transferred over her rented doppler to me.  I heard Abby twice yesterday.  The doppler, of course, will only bring comfort should a heartbeat be there.  It’s really an exercise in optimism I suppose.  I really didn’t even need to do it, as Abby has been dancing and enjoying the extra room that Will has left her.  And yet, the comfort of her kicks is fleeting.  Will used to kick, too.

I wish that I would’ve named them long ago.  Before Will died, they were ‘the twins’, lumped together in verbal convenience.  “The twins are moving right now.”  “When the twins come, we’ll figure that part out.”  It makes me sad to have not granted their individuality until after Will died.  They didn’t deserve that.  Will didn’t deserve to die, and Abby doesn’t deserve to live without her twin, and we don’t deserve to live without our Will.   I supposed no one ‘deserves’ it.  Why do I think that I should be so lucky to not be touched by death? 

Even with feeling Abby’s pops and punches and hearing her little thumping heart, I still mentally follow every ‘Abby statement’ with a clause of contention.  With all my soul, I want this little girl to be ok, and yet I cannot fully trust she will be.  Mention of her name is usually followed by ‘if’ or ‘I hope’ or ‘God willing’ or ‘knock wood’ or any other cautionary statement that partially negates what I was saying in the first place.

I cannot bring myself to consider her nursery.

It was supposed to be the twins’.  I found myself calling it ‘the twins room’ last evening.  My hubby didn’t correct me, but it hung in the air as if  I had uttered it in frozen air, my breath crystallizing in a misty cloud for a second or two.  Our twins’ room was to be a ’sheep theme’, thus incorporating Sam’s room, which was also a sheep theme, and for which we have dozens of darling little stuffed Serta counting sheep, one VERY large Serta stuffed sheep, and a myriad of other kinds of sheep and lambs in various sizes.

But the twist on their room was that it was to be a nod to the classic nursery rhyme, ‘Little Bo Peep’ for Abby and ‘Little Boy Blue’ for Will.  I was so very close to ordering those very words as vinyl letter rub ons for above their cribs just eight days ago.  I had drawn out canvasses on which I had planned to paint sweet little scenes of frolicking sheep mixed with flowers and mushrooms and other graphics from their crib bedding.  I was going to order them classic story book print posters in their corresponding characters.  It was going to be so darling, all our visitors would pine over every detail and, of course, my brilliant creativity.

(smile fades away)

I had my sister put all the sheep away.  I do not want to plan Abby’s room yet.  I do not want to search in Sam’s old baby things for blankets and sleepers and bibs and rattles and burp cloths and socks.

I want my Will back.

I want him back.  I want him back.  I want him back.

I never even had him.  Not really.

My little boy blue is off in the meadow…

forever asleep.

And we are all lost without him.

“Those People”

I hate this bedrest.

The walls around me close in like a cave.  Maybe, if I could leave, I wouldn’t want to anyway?  I guess we won’t know.  I haven’t been out from these walls since we came home the day we lost Will.  That day, we re-entered our house different people.  Transformed.  Entranced.  Entrenched in the knowledge that life is such a vulnerable flame that is snuffed out by just the whisper of  a breeze.  My friend who lost their precious son but 18 months ago described it as becoming ‘those people’.

Those people who see tragedy.

Those people, you don’t know how they do it.  Get up each day to do mundane tasks in the midst of loss.

Those people who you hear about from your co-worker’s sister’s friend.

And give the quickest shudder at the thought of standing in their shoes.

I haven’t ridden in my van since that day, 5 days ago.  I don’t want to ride in my van because sharing the cargo space of my van is a broken down crib, crib mattress and various baby things that we no longer need.  A friend’s friend kindly leant these things to us when we were in need of a surplus of baby things…just 5 days ago.

I will ride in that van again on Tuesday, when I go back to take a peek at Abby and see my perinatologist.  You know, I named him, rather jokingly, Dr. KeepMePregnant at the start of these babies.  But he didn’t.  Not totally.  It’s not his fault.  But I can’t bear to use that name anymore.  I think I’ll call him Dr. Hope instead.  Because all our hope for Abby that is not resting in God’s arms right now, is sitting squarely on his shoulders. 

I’m so scared to step foot back in that office and lay back on that same table and worry and wait to hear our Abby, thrusting around inside me.  Scared to look at the faces of the nurses who must’ve known something was wrong far before I did.  How could I have not known that he was gone?  I didn’t know.  I need to find someone to watch Sam.  He shouldn’t ever have to be the witness to life lost.  He will randomly ask me, “Our baby boy died?”.  “Yes,” I tell him, “he’s not going to come home with us anymore because he’s in God’s arms now.”  I know this is way too abstract for Sam, but I don’t care.  Explaining how Will’s body lies at the bottom of my belly is something I never wish to say to him.

I’ve heard from two of my church pastors since Will died.  They were both sincere in their hurt and concern and prayed with me.  Neither one offered to have a memorial service for him.  I have such mixed feelings about a service.  I couldn’t go to one anyway, at least right now.  And I told my husband that I couldn’t handle having to attend two funerals for my babies.  If we lose Abby, well we’re honor our babies together.  My friends, by the way, would tell me not to think that way.  But I’m not thinking it, it’s like wood grain under my skin.   It’s just there, carved into me like a permanent part of my genetics.

And yet despite this, I wanted them to offer a service.  To acknowledge that our Will was worthy of some flowers and some music and a public outcry that our precious son is gone and is not coming back.  That he was stolen from us before we even knew his eyes or the felt the grasp of his tiny hand.

I wonder if Will was not a twin if that would have made a difference.  Will would be born.  There would be his little broken body as evidence.  Or if Will had come into this world breathing, hooked to tubes and heart monitors and all sorts of terrible devices.  Would he have seemed more real to the pastors then?  He could have survived outside me, I want to tell them.  Babies born early do, sometimes.

But he couldn’t even live inside me.  Not even in the loving womb of his momma.

Don’t worry, we plan to honor Will in ritual.  We just can’t do it until Abby is here with us or there with him.  My husband, ever excited to find a great bargain, had joyfully discovered a miniature Fraser Fur tree (think Charlie Brown’s Christmas right now) on sale at Walmart for $.02 the day after Christmas.  He had proudly purchased that tree, and I remember chiding him. 

“We just cut down four pine trees in the back,”  I said.

“But Eve, this is a Fraser Fir, the Cadillac of Christmas trees.”

How could I argue with getting the Cadillac of Christmas trees for a mere two pennies?  So, it’s been sitting in our house, waiting for the spring to go in the ground somewhere in our already tree-filled backyard.  A few days ago, my husband came home and said he’d been thinking about that tree.  He said he was thinking of name it “The Will Tree” when he plants it.

“Perfect,” I said, bowing my head to think of how such a silly purchase by a happy husband transformed into  a headstone to be planted by a mourning father.

Those people.

Yes, we are.

The Ocean, Like Grief

First of all, I wanted to thank all the people who have given me such kind comments, shared their own stories, and are lifting us up during our sorrow.  It truly is a hidden blessing, and I appreciate it more than you know.  

We are getting by.  Grief is like ocean waves and the tide.  It comes in a great rush pushing feeling and hurt and loss to the surface, and then recedes away again, unveiling little hidden gems and treasures behind.  I find myself feeling almost normal at times, and then feel horrifically guilty that I can smile and feel this way despite Will’s little lifeless body in me.  I find myself more comfortable physically now, a grim reminder that I no longer am carrying two living babies.  I find my stomach muscles don’t ache and pull, and my side doesn’t pinch and tug where Will used to live.  He was always perched up high next to my ribs.  Now I can feel his little body down low in my belly like he’s resting at the bottom of an ocean.

Oh blessing, Abby has kicked me just now.

She is remaining faithful in her activity level.  The poor girl is getting prodded more than she would like, but she always does seem to answer back with a firm jab or even a gentle wriggle.  God has given me that gift.  I have prayed for peace to know that she will be ok.  God gives it to me in short sips, but I still feel times of parched panic and this unspeakable dread come over me when she is still.  I tell no one.  Words make it worse.

I  have not been alone, for the most part, since we found out we lost Will.   Being alone in grief is like floating off into outer space through the hatch of the spacecraft.  Vast emptiness of black that goes on forever.  Tumbling towards nothingness.  No, being alone is not a good thing for me right now.  I wonder when it was that Will died.  Was it when I was at Bunko having fun and laughing with friends?  At church, standing and singing glory to God?  Was it when I crabbily complained of my sore back?

I want to think it was at just the moment this weekend where I had placed Sam’s soft little hand on my belly and let him feel the thumping and bumping of his siblings.  I want to think we were holding him as he left us, and that he was not scared.  Or, maybe he just fell asleep and walked right into God’s arms.

My sister is staying with us the next few days, and nicely distracting me, giving Sam’s lots of love and attention, and helping to get our house around.  We’ve been blessed with other visits from friends and food coming in to sustain our strength.

Oddly, though I have no appetite, I eat well.  For Abby.

I meant to continue on my story of the day we lost Will, but I don’t think I can do that today.  Another time.  I need to put it away for now, dry my eyes out, cuddle with Sam who is now up from sleep.

Abby kicked again.

What a wonderful thing.

Losing Will

I wanted to write this all out while it is still fresh in my mind.  Maybe it will be therapeutic, cathartic, who knows?  This pregnancy has been a long and bumpy road, from a start via IVF and the inherent anxieties’ associated, to a surprise twin that showed up on our 7 week ultrasound. to a terrifying bleeding episode at 8.5 weeks and a diagnosis of a subchorionic hematoma, to lots of sickness and bedrest, to several trips to labor and delivery due to contractions, and finally to this drop off the cliff.

And yet it never, never crossed my mind that this is how I would lose a child.

I drove myself to the perinatologist on Tuesday, 3 year old son, Sam, in tote.  We sang unseasonable Christmas songs on the way there and marveled at the ice-clogged Mississippi (or Sippi-sippi as my son calls it).  I got into the office early and made friendly chatter with a nice woman who was also expecting twins.  “34 weeks,” she said, “and not a single contraction to speak of.”

They called me back and weighed me (up 13 pounds now finally, after a long drought of no weight gain).  Sam wanted to be weighed too, 35 lbs.  Got my blood pressure taken, and it was surprisingly low considering my frustration with Sam, who was happily spinning on the doctor’s stool.  And then it was time to doppler the babies’ hearts.  Sam knew the drill and eagerly listened for the galloping-thumps that he’s become so accustomed to during this doppler/ultrasound filled pregnancy.  Baby A, our little girl, was easy.  She showed-off her 155 heartrate near the left-side of my belly-button.  Baby B, our little boy, was playing coy.  I tried to point the nurse to his location based on my last ultrasound, which was just a week prior, showing a happily kicking babe lying tranverse up high on the left.  She still couldn’t seem to find it.  Sam was getting restless and kept asking where was the baby’s heartbeat?  He’s just being stubborn I said.  I don’t know if the nurse had a worry or if she truly felt she wasn’t in the right spot, because I didn’t catch on that anything was wrong. 

Second nurse came in while the first nurse brought Sam a lollipop and a children’s book, which ironically, was about eating healthy food.  No heartbeat, just lots and lots of static.  Call me a dunce, but I still wasn’t worried.  Third nurse came in and felt around my stomach for the baby.  I told them, “Well he’s been moving all morning,”.  He’s probably hiding up high, they said.   Then in rolls the portable ultrasound machine for the doctor to use.

Still no panic from me.  “Good,” I thought, ” I get to see my beans again.”  Read Sam the healthy food book while he chomped on an abnormally large grape lollipop that had now stained his cheeks and fingers.

Dr. KeepMePg came in.  If he was alarmed, he certainly didn’t show it either.  Layed myself down on the table and got to see Baby A right away.  She was squirming and wiggling around like always.  Then he looked for Baby B.  He said, “Is he a lot smaller than your other one?”, which I thought was such a weird question because they’ve always been similar in size.  If I started panicking, it was more of a numb kind, not like the adrenaline that pumps through your body as you narrowly avoid a car accident.  It was just, well, like watching yourself in a dream.  Dr. was quiet and seemed concerned.  Sam was constantly asking, where’s the baby’s heartbeat?  Where’s the baby?  And I guess God removed my adrenal system because I just layed there, watching.

Finally Dr. looked at me with the most gentle expression I have ever seen and almost whispered, “Eve, I think your baby died.”

Numb.

He pointed to the screen and said, “This is his heart.  And it’s not beating.”  And I could clearly see the beautiful perfectly-formed four chambers, still.  Dr. told me he was pretty sure, but wanted to send me down the Perinatal Center, where they could do a more thorough ultrasound.

But I knew.  And all the while, Sam kept asking where the babies are.  I told him, “One of the babies is sick, and one is ok.”  I can hear myself saying these words, but have no idea where they are coming from.  The Dr. started telling me more things, like that it wasn’t my fault, and this sometimes happens with twins.  I asked ‘why’ questions.  He says it was probably a problem with the placenta or cord.  I looked at my list in my hands of things to the ask the Dr. at the appointment:

• How to sleep more  comfortably on my back
• Need a refill on my prenatal vitamins
• Would he consider early steroid shots for their lungs
• What my activity level should be at this point
• Should I continue with work

I just crumpled up the paper.  He was very sweet and kept telling me he was sorry.  I didn’t cry.  I just said, “I think I’m in shock.”  And he said, “Yes, you are.”

Called my sweet husband and uttered the words, “They think our boy has died.  Please come.”  Which I later regret not being more clear, as he thought maybe there was chance as he drove over to hospital to meet me.  I knew there wasn’t a chance, but I still did not cry.

They wheeled me down to the Perinatal Center.  My son rode in my lap.  The nurse said, “You’re doing really well.”  I hoped that they would wait to take me back until my husband got there, but the moment they wheeled me past happily plump and pregnant couples, there was a tech waiting for me. 

Onto the ultrasound table.  Sam was still eating his sucker.  I was trance-like and calm.  The perinatologist came in and then began my last look at my precious boy.  I could see right away all was not right.  He was curled up on himself and obviously lifeless.  She took a measure of his heartbeat, and I stared at the straight blue line in disbelief.  He was indeed gone, they said.  Probably a few days as he had almost not fluid left, and his sac had collapsed on itself.  

Our little girl looked great, she was dancing and moving around.  They measured her heartbeat and her head circumference, though if they told me what those measurements were, I can’t remember.  The peri said he would call my doctor and be back to talk.  I sat there with Sam, wiping sticky off of his mouth and cheeks.   If I said anything to him, I don’t recall.  The peri came back in, followed by my husband.  Upon seeing him, the tears started to form in my eyes.  We asked the peri more questions, “Is our little girl safe?”  Most likely yes.  “How do we know?”  If you start to have signs of premature labor or inactivity from her, come back immediately.  “What about steroid shots for her lungs?”   We want to save those for if it really looks like she’s coming.  Take all the time in here you need.

They left us.  I walked over to my handsome, tall husband and hugged him and felt the impact of the news hit me in the gut like a hard punch.  We cried a bit, and Sam began to worry and came over to us.  Or maybe he was already there? “What’s wrong?” asks Sam.  “You baby brother died,” said my husband, choking on his words.

We left the Perinatal Center, Sam and I being pushed in the wheelchair by my husband.  In the crowded elevator, I thought, “These people have no idea that I have my dead son inside me.”  We drove home quietly, mostly, with bouts of tears here and there.   I finally said, “We should name  him,” and that statement held in my throat as I felt suddenly so sad that he has spent his entire life nameless.  Everyone deserves a name.

So we chose the name we had always like the most, though we had doubted it as we hadn’t gotten the embracing response from family and friends that we’d hope for.  William Scott.  Our Will.  Didn’t matter anymore what people thought, or he would be called ‘Free Willy’ on the school playground.  He would never get that chance.

I said to my husband, “You know, his life was perfect.  He never had to suffer, and now he is with God.”  It’s we who suffer not to see his curled little fingers around our hand, or watch his first steps, or see him graduate high school.  We would never get to know what colors his eyes were going to be or if he liked to play soccer.  He was gone and away from us for the rest of our earthly lives.

And we will always, always miss him.  And always remember him for all the breaths of our days.

(more later)

No Real Words To Say (loss mentioned)

Maybe it’s irony that I just wrote my last post.  It might even be funny in some sick way.  I don’t have a lot of energy to write this, but I wanted to let you all know that we lost our baby boy, William Scott, sometime in the past few days.  At my visit to the perinatologist, they could not find his heartbeat, and finally on ultrasound, I saw his tiny little body curled up limp and a picture of his still heart.

They cannot tell me what happened but believe it had something to do with the placenta or the cord.  I couldn’t tell he wasn’t moving because our little girl, Abigail, was moving him around in my womb.  They are hopeful she will stay put and continue on with a healthy pregnancy.  She appears healthy and is currently kicking me as I type this.  Oh how I wish she would never sleep.  The stillness is suffocating.   I would like to say that I am hopeful she will make it, but today I just feel terrified that she might silently slip away as well.

If all things go well, Will will stay in my uterus and slowly make room for his growing sister.  We will never get to hold him or count his precious fingers and toes, as he will not be the same when he is finally delivered still.  We won’t get a memory box  with his blanket or gown or his footprints or any tangible relic of his short life.

The pain hits me in waves and then recedes.  I’m so thankful to have Abby but can’t help to feel as if she may be slipping away from us as well.  The doctors cannot give us the odds of her making it at this point.

We are getting wonderful support and love.

It is just hard to understand the inequity of life and death.

I miss Will so much already.

More later.

TWENTY-FOUR AND ONE HALF WEEKS (exclamation point)

I had to spell it out.  Looks bigger and more accomplished that way.

I want to write this post and yet my brain skips ahead to me reading this post from my hospital room hooked up on a mag drip cursing myself for being so dang-on optimistic.  And yet, HERE I AM, 24.5 weeks along and down-right gob-smacked that I’m still driving my son to pre-school and waddling (oh yes, waddling) down the halls of my church on the weekend.  I feel like I’m tight-rope walking though, that at any minute I’m going to fall off this narrow wire.  Ah, but the view is nice from up here!

24 weeks has hung like a guillotine over my head since the beginning of this pregnancy.  And that is because it was at 24 weeks with my son that I found myself having contractions every 2 minutes that COULDN’T be stopped with IV fluids and procardia.  I’ve talked about it before, so I won’t go into that time right here again.  But, it was terrifying in a still and quiet way.  A lonely way.  And thankfully, my son stayed put with mag and terbutaline.  But the unexpected hospitalizations and 12 1/2 weeks of total at-home bedrest that followed was like this thick haze that clouded what should have been a giddy post-infertility celebration.

So I’ve never really let myself see past 24 weeks into this pregnancy.  But here I am, amazingly.  I still have this dreadful feeling that things could fall apart at any time, but I’m starting to see myself further in the pregnancy…at HOME.  I’m doing everything I can to help these twins:  I’ve essentially quit work, I’m on ’stay in bed with your feet up while you’re at home unless it’s a necessity for toileting, drinking , or eating for me or my son’ rest, I’m lapping up water like a dehydrated dog, eating even if I’m not hungry to keep up my calories (which is not so hard these days by the way…me hungry), and avoiding doing all baby nesting things that my brain prods me to do like wandering Target and BabiesRus, cleaning out messy closets, and painting/prepping the nursery.

It’s up to God and Dr. KeepMePg to do the rest.

Speaking of Dr. KeepMePg, I haven’t seen him in a month!  Of course, I’ve had plenty of contact with his office due to my L&D visits, but he was out of town after the holidays…so, tomorrow’s the day.  I’ll be interested to see what he thinks my activity level should be right now.  I also want to ask him about steroids for the babies’ lungs and all  other sorts of Eve’s-walking-the-tightrope-of-OKness-with-her-pregnancy type questions.  Should be fun.

Thinking…subject change…

So, getting kicked a lot these days.  It’s a wonderful gift of pregnancy, seeing inner alien waves and bumps and quivers and twitches around my belly.  I sat last night and just watched my big belly (and it’s big, I promise) waiver and contort with life, separate from me, inside it.  And I felt really, really happy.

Sure-footed in the pregnancy for that moment.

It makes up for all the worry, and backaches, and stuffy/bloody noses, and medication, and puking, and leg cramps, and split abdominal muscles, and migraines, and did I mention worry?

Wipes that ALL away in a wonder of belly jiggles and jolts.

Twenty-four and a half weeks!  What a miracle.

Status update: improved

Hey everyone!

Not a whole lot  of news to write, which at this point, is VERY good news.   Despite my fear of the jinx, I’m happy to report that my contractions seemed to have settled down some with the procardia and life-back-to normal routine that we are in again now that the holidays are over.  My cervical u/s yesterday showed a lengthy 3.8cm still, and two wiggly little beans.  I have decided to cut out stairs for the remainder of my pregnancy, along with any store shopping (it always involved more walking and standing then you realize), and even arranged pulling up to the door to drop off and pick up my son from pre-school instead of  the freezing parking lot hustle (it’s mighty cold here) followed by the long hallway to classroom walk and back.

What I have given up in activity I’ve made up for in eating.  I’m VORACIOUS lately.  Such a weird thing for me in pregnancy since I’m used to actually having LESS of an appetite vs. when I’m not pregnant.  Since getting pregnant with these babies, I’d only managed to gain 10 lbs by 22 weeks.  But, judging from the constant riding up sensation of my undies along with the sudden snugness of my wedding ring, I think I’m porking it on now.   It’s good though, from everything I’ve read, I need to gain some extra poundage before 27 weeks, since it’s mighty hard to eat full meals past that point with twins.

I turn 24 weeks on Thursday.  It’s sort of an anti-climatic milestone since I’m getting selfish and NOW want to get to 27 weeks (and then, of course, I’ll want to get to 31 weeks, then 34 and so on).  But if I stop myself for just a minute before hopping back on the worry train, I’m amazed!  What a miracle I’ve made it this far!

I’m letting myself go into major baby preparation mode, which mostly consists of mental inventories, net-surfing and some carefully thought-out Ebay/Craigslist purchases.  But I guess it goes to show that I’m actually expecting to HAVE babies at the end of all this craziness.  Brain is not always there, but mostly so.  Of course, I just visited a few fellow bloggers with the most heart-breaking stories of pregnancy loss, and then my ground starts to quake a little.  I’m so very sorry for these family’s losses.  I don’t think I will EVER make sense of them.

Anyway, that’s about it.  We’re supposed to get a snow-storm tomorrow, so I preëmptively cancelled my peri appointment (have one next week anyway).  I figured that driving a clear-day 45 minute drive in the snow would not be the best choice to keep my contractions at bay.  So glad I had some sort of forethought with this.

Only other big news is that my mom is coming for a major help-out visit in a few weeks!  She’s already got a list of things she wants to help me with to get things prepared for the twins, and just knowing that eases my anxiety greatly.

Yay for moms!

Stay warm and safe everyone.

A Naughty Ute and a Happy New Year!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the kind words of support for me and my ‘ute’!

My ute continues to misbehave, nearly sending me back to L&D again last evening.  I chose to wait it out, drink a lot of water and double my Procardia instead…figured that the 45 minute drive to L&D in addition to the manual cervical check and FUN speculum check followed by the internal u/s probably ran the same risk as just waiting these darn contractions out a bit.

It was a good call, as I had another peak up the ol’ hooha today which showed my cervix was still at 3.8cm.

So my big dilemma is trying to figure out when to be worried about these contractions and when to assume that they are just the same old annoying ones that have been doing a whole lotta nothin’ down there.  Couldn’t they transplant in some type of cervical alarm system or something?

I’m feeling very overwhelmed and stressed about the whole contraction situation right now.  I feel like, we’re sooooo close to making it to the ’safer zone’ of this pregnancy, and I just wish I had some super glue up there to garuantee these babies stick it out a while longer.  I think duct tape, however, would be a bad idea…you know, for practical purposes.

I’m 23 weeks today.  Exciting and yet nerve-wracking to me.

At 24 weeks I ended hospitalized with my son, sick as a dog on Mag and waiting for the nurse to call the ambulance to take to me a hospital with a NICU so I could deliver my VERY early son.  Thank goodness, he stayed put…but that terror has seeped into my being like sour in a dishcloth.

I think I’m going to start a ‘pregnancy chain’ with my son.  You know, like the countdown red and green paper chains you make at Christmas?  But this one will be, fittingly, blue and pink.  And I think I’m only going to do a week at a time, because seeing a chain full of 13 weeks of paper loops seems a little overwhelming to me at this point.

Nope…all I need to do is to get to 24 weeks for now. 

Just seven simple days. 

Less than a dozen,

more than a few.

My son will think it’s fun.  Every morning, he’s asks me “Are the babies done cooking yet?”.  “Nope,” I tell him, “they’ve still got more cooking to do.  It takes a LONG time to cook babies.”

SIGH.

The hope for these babies-to-be has been cooking in me since we started trying for a family in 2002.

8 years of cooking!

I wonder how long that paper chain would be?

*   *  *  *  *  *

Happy New Year’s, my friends!

Labor and Delivery last night…Again!

Hi guys!

Good news first is I’m writing this once again from home (miracle of miracles).  My ‘irritable uterus’ is living up to its name.  Grrrrrrr.  Yesterday, I started having frequent contractions again (as much as once every 2-3 minutes) despite all the ‘good little tricks’ they tell you to do (relax, lay on your side, drink lots of water, pray).  I called the exchange and my actual peri was on-call.  He had me double my procardia dose and wait an hour, if things weren’t getting better I was to go in to be checked.

Again.

So, this is where anxiety kicks my butt every time, since the more you stress with contractions, the more you get.  But having them one on top of another is just too nerve-wracking, so we made the 45 minute drive to my hospital at 10pm last night.   I was blessed with an EXTREMELY nice nurse and resident (who was working in conjunction with my peri), but it still didn’t make the speculum exam any better.

Ooooo-uuuuu-cccccc-hhhhh!

Despite my little contraction ‘hills’ on that red graph paper every 2-3 minutes, I cervix was still acting like Fort Knox.  Thank goodness.  So they loaded me up with fluids and did a bunch of blood tests.  After MUCH waiting on all the labs, the nice resident and nurse came in happily announcing, “You have a UTI (urinary tract infection)!” like I just won the lottery.

Well, having that many contractions and NO cervical change is a bit like winning the lottery.   This much I know.

So, I was given a nuclear dose of antibiotics and actually got to go home.  I’m doing much better today, but the contractions seem to hit in the evening more than the daytime, so I’m not 100% convinced.  I mean, I BELIEVE I have a UTI and all, just not sure that is the main culprit to these darn contractions.

I hope it’s at least the cause of why they’ve gotten worse.  Because these babies are NOT DONE COOKING YET!  I’m 22.5 weeks and so close to viability I can taste it.  But it’s not like 24 week babies are guaranteed to be ok.  But at least they have a chance.

So, hanging in there hoping to just keep on playing the role of ‘double slow cooker’ for as long as I can.

Cook, babies, cook.

Labor and Delivery, Ugh

Hi there and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I’ll make this short, since sitting at this darn computer causes me to have contractions…grrrrrr!

Had my first trip to L&D (labor and delivery) last evening.  I’m 22 weeks today, so I actually made it longer than I thought possible since I my first trip with my son was at 24 weeks…and I was waaaaaaaay smaller with him than I am with these twinkies!

So, VERY long story short is that my irritable uterus, which I’ve had since about week 14, decided to ramp up the action the past few days.  When I got to L&D we discovered I was contracting once every 2-3 minutes…..eeek.  However, the awesome news is that my cervix was not dilated at all and remains long at 3.9cm.  Hoping that continues!

So, although I was scared to death I’d be spending Christmas in the hospital, I was allowed to be released with a prescription of Procardia.  Hooray!   The BEST Christmas gift ever!!!!!!

So, now just trying to take it was easy as possible and keep these babies cooking for at least the next two months.  Please pray for me that I can make it at least that far!

God bless,

Eve