March is Pregnancy After Loss month. This is a month that we celebrate our pregnancies and birth after pregnancy of infant loss. A baby born after a loss is often referred to as a Rainbow Baby. At first, this is what I used to call my baby when I was pregnant, but now I have a love-hate relationship with calling him my Rainbow Baby.
When I was pregnant after my loss, I downloaded a pregnancy tracking app. I was more than paranoid and anxious throughout my pregnancy. When I signed up for the app, it asked me what I wanted to name the baby. Because I didn’t know the sex, I named (him) Rainbow.
Until my subsequent pregnancy after loss, I had never heard of the term “Rainbow Baby”, but I liked it. It was positive and I hadn’t had much of that since my twins’ death. As I got further along in my pregnancy I began to incorporate rainbows in his nursery, in his outfits, and I often referred to him as my Rainbow Baby.
I was still grieving my twins’ death. They were everywhere to me. But my living baby was my happiness. He was my pot of gold after the storm and at the bottom of the rainbow. My baby was going to survive. I held on to hope that he would be lucky and make it to the earth-side.
He arrived, healthy, strong, and beautiful beyond any imagination. My baby, my Rainbow Baby was absolute perfection and he was here. When we brought him home, he was wearing a custom onesie with a rainbow pattern, he had rainbow diapers, and his nursery had a few nods to rainbows. It was rainbow overload. When I look back at it now, it was ever-consuming.
After a while, my Rainbow baby and I grew attached to each other and the guilt began to rear is ugly head. My baby who had a name started his life in the shadows and past of his dead siblings. How would he feel growing up and knowing that he was “after” them.
Then began the love-hate relationship of calling him our Rainbow baby. When someone would mention the term Rainbow baby, I would correct them and remind them that he had his own identity. He is separate. My baby who I gave birth to after my devastating loss is a gift and an absolute blessing.
There is a place for the term Rainbow Baby, I whole-heartedly believe this to be true. This term of Rainbow brings hope and we pray for luck, especially after a a death. We need something to look forward to, something positive, something that brings us peace and love.
But I want to be clear, his life has nothing to do with their deaths.
He WAS my rainbow after the storm. But now he’s my sunshine, my little lover, and life is so much brighter with him in it (and coincidentally, his name means happy-go-lucky).
If your little Rainbow Baby gives you peace and hope and you will continue to call your little sweet your Rainbow, I encourage you to do so. If you feel the same as me by having a love-hate relationship with the term Rainbow Baby, I’m good with that too. It’s a constant internal fight to understand and organize your feelings of having a baby after your child’s or children’s death. There is no clear answer. This is your path and your journey, I wish you peace and love as you find your way.
Through my healing journey of grief (yes, it’s been 3 years and I am still grieving), I look to stories, authors, and self-help books that relate to grief, growth, feminism, and social justice. For Christmas, I told my husband that really wanted a book called “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle. He had never heard of her. I only knew her through Instagram and listening to a few of her TedTalks. As I was eagerly reading her inspiring words, there is a story about Mona Lisa. It screamed to me. A story of a woman who lived over 500 years ago who I now connected to through our grief.
Untamed
As I was in bed reading, there was a part in the book about the painting of Mona Lisa. Glennon Doyle said that while she was looking at the painting in France and a woman approached her and said, “do you want to hear a theory about her smile?”. She was told that Mona Lisa and her husband had “lost” a baby. Then after the birth of their second child, her husband commissioned Leonardo Da Vinci to paint her. But Mona Lisa refused to smile.
I read that story over and over again.
Finally, I felt seen, I felt comforted, I felt connected because of grief.
I see you, Mona Lisa.
I am intrigued by her story.
There are many conflicting stories and theories that go along with why she isn’t smiling. But the story that resonates most with me is that she refused to smile because she was grieving.
Apparently, while she was being painted, she had jokers, jugglers who tried to make her smile wider for the painting. Finally, Leonardo asked her why she wouldn’t smile. She had apparently told Leonardo Da Vinci that she did not want the joy she felt of having her living child to erase the pain of losing her first.
I get it…
Wow, do I get it. I get the guilt of being happy to have a living child that you love so deeply. But I also understand how the death of a child (or in my case two) is a pain that never seems to subside. It does something, almost physical, that makes you stand out from other mothers. The grief sets you aside. But the grief also connects you to other mothers, like Mona Lisa.
Of course, I had to look at other sources of this. An article from The Globe and Mail suggests that the painting was altered. It was alleged that originally Mona Lisa was wearing a black veil, suggesting that despite celebrating the birth of her child she was still in mourning. The story goes on to say that because the painting wasn’t paid for, Da Vince changed it. Taking away the veil but keeping the emotion stoic. Today, this image is one of the most recognized paintings in the world.
How I see the Mona Lisa Today
Before I looked deeper into her portrait, I just saw a woman unamused in a painting. What I see now is a mother’s grief. Her pain (notice the word “pain” is in painting). The guilt of feeling happy while her heart was torn into pieces trying to repair itself with the joy of another baby. This is a painting that countless mothers like you and I can relate and connect to. A feeling of incredible pain, while holding on to gratitude. It’s confusing, yet it makes sense.
I feel like I am connected to the famous Mona Lisa through our grief. As her life continued, I hope she was able to find some peace amongst her grief. Even 500 years later her grief is seen and admirably respected from one grieving mother to another.
On my Instagram Page, someone messaged me and asked, “I’m confused….are you about food or about miscarriage?” I simply stated that while I was feeling my grief, I’ve learned to feed my soul.
Ask yourself, when someone dies, what do people usually offer? …. food.
OF course, sometimes it’s flowers, cards, gifts, but almost always people love to give food. I have found that food is a way of evoking sympathy and emotion without having to speak a word.
The History of giving food when someone dies
In the time of the Egyptians, when a loved one died, family members and friends offered bread, beer, and the deceased’s favourite meals to the tomb in which the person was being placed in. It was thought that even after death, the spirit needed to be nourished. In other traditions, bringing food to the grieving would ward off evil spirits and allow the deceased to rest in eternal peace. However, it began, it seems to be somewhat customary to show love and affection to a bereaved person when you bring them food.
What happened to me during my grief.
Cooking started to be a creative way that didn’t require me to be physically or emotionally present or have to bring my family into my dark place. I was able to nourish my family, show them my love, and bring my emotion for that day into my cooking. For example, a good day would be a fun meal like homemade pizza, chili dogs, chicken picatta. Whereas, a difficult day might look like a quick soup and grilled cheese, which is a tad less exciting for my family. During this time, I began to heal and take time for me.
Grief can mess with more than your emotions, it can also affect your appetite and your hormones.
According to Dr.Wendy Trubow, the stress of grief can have differing affects on your appetite. Grief can either increase your appetite or shut it down temporarily. This has to do with the fight or flight internal response. This affects not only your adrenals, but can alter emotional response as well. So often when someone is offering your food, they are taking from their own emotional space of grief, while offering you a space to nourish your soul.
Food can remind you of grief.
On the day of my D&C, my parents came to take care of me, and my husband. My dad doesn’t say much. I didn’t realize that I am more like him than I thought. Like me, he shows emotion through cooking.
I remember after my surgery, coming in and out of the anesthesia, he was busy in my kitchen. Finally, he came to me. He brought me a bowl of homemade Italian Wedding soup. As I think about this now, his offering of soup was like a warm hug. A place of refuge. Someway to take my pain away by filling my belly. It was a way for him to make me feel better. It was his way of offering me his sympathy. Now, Italian Wedding soup is my go-to when I am missing my babies, or when I need a warm hug from my daddy. I will be sharing his recipe with you soon.
After their death, my closest girlfriend brought me a meal of stuffed pasta shells. I remember when she dropped this off, my security doorbell camera notified me that someone was at the door. When I looked, she had dropped off the meal and ran away. Not a word. I knew that she didn’t want to see me in pain. Or maybe didn’t know what to say, but this meal was like a big “I love you” without the words. I knew what she needed me to feel.
Since their death, I have spent so many hours in the kitchen. Sometimes with my children and there are times where no one is allowed in that space with me. Depending on the day, this is what I need. In the kitchen, I am always in my thoughts where I can address my anxieties. It’s where I mourn my babies and count my blessings. I continue to process my grief and nourish my soul while I feed my family. This is a journey, and I am in it for the long haul.
New year’s eve doesn’t bring me excitement or even hope for the upcoming year, at least not like it used to. It’s not that I don’t have anything to look forward to, but it’s that I am one more year further from having my babies with me. I never understood grief to be this way. I had always heard that “time heals all” and it makes me cringe. I don’t believe this. I think it’s what someone with good intentions says when they don’t know what to say. I’m going into my fourth year of grief and I can tell you for certain that grief, trauma, and losing the lives that you love so deeply has not been healed. Walking into a new year doesn’t end the grief.
A little story
When I was a naïve 15 year old teen, my grandmother had passed away. We were close. I admired her. Her death was unexpected and it was the first time that I had anyone close to me die. A month later, brought New Year’s eve 1998, moving into 1999. My extended family always got together over the holidays. We always had too much food, the parents usually had too much “fun” and it was a time to have a fun sleepover with my cousins.
So that year, we went to my grandfather’s home (today he is almost 97!) and I remember when it was close to midnight, we all congregated into the den to ring in the new year. I was excited, “A new year means a new start”. Then I noticed that my aunt was crying. She left the room. Being the empath that I was, I was concerned but mostly confused. So I asked my mom why she was crying. My mom (who is very wise), explained that she is moving into the new year and it’s the first time she is going without her mother.
That hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt so stupid to not understand what that had meant. A new year doesn’t mean a new start. Grief doesn’t end when a new year begins.
So in further New Years, I was very cognizant of this and it always brought me back to that memory.
“…Then I got it”
I never fully grasped that feeling until the New Year’s 3 months after my babies died. Then, I really got it. I feel like I understand what my aunt could have been going through it. Maybe it wasn’t the same, maybe it was similar, maybe she was in a whole different place than me. But I was in it, I was so deep in my grief that it was consuming my all-being and going into a new year was not going to change that.
I remember that we had all gathered at my parents’ house. My son had not had time to process the grief that a 5-year-old could acted out at the dinner table. My brother-in-law scolded my son, embarrassed him, embarrassed me, and I and I completely lost it. I couldn’t come back from that moment to enjoy myself. It pushed my emotions to places I didn’t know existed. So when we were close to midnight, physically nauseated, I excused myself. I was in the washroom, hyperventilating while crying a deep sorrowful cry. Unsure how I had made it these past few months and unsure how I could make it another year.
My attempts to help people understand my regret for the years past and the creation of anxiety for the future remains difficult to explain and perhaps difficult to understand. Until, perhaps, it’s a lived experience.
Sometimes other grieving mother’s say what you can’t…
Without having the right words, I came across this quote from another grieving mother:
“Some people may not understand why those grieving are reluctant to move into a new year. For them, they see a fresh year, a new season…but for the bereaved, it’s moving into a new calendar year which their loved one will never reside in.” Zoe Clark-Coates
In the years ahead…
Can following years bring joy and excitement? I think so. Can you find happiness after a part of you dies? I still think so. Can you still grieve and miss the future that you could have had? This is it….YES!
If you are reading this and you are the bereaved, I hope you feel understood. If you are reading this and you know someone who is grieving, I hope to bring you some understanding.
As much as we as bereaved mothers and parents want to look at the new year as a new start, we sadly recognize that a new year doesn’t end our grief.
So even though time does not heal all wounds, time just might make the sorrow slightly more bearable.
I wish you peace in your journey. I wish you love in 2021 <3
There are specific days, memories, or events that seem to conjure up a memory that seems to bring me moments of peace. The one I am going to tell you about is pretty unusual. This is a story of a time when two grieving mothers found each other.
In November of 2017
It was less than 2 months after the death of my twins. I was not in a great place. But I did my best to put one foot in front of the other and to still be there, be present for my son. It was right before Remembrance Day (also known as Veteran’s Day for my American friends) and my county museum displays a marker for each person who was lost in service during any of the combats that Canada had participated in. There are over 200 markers on the lawn of our museum and archives.
I feel that it is especially important to teach my son about the sacrifices that have been made and are continually made so that we can live peacefully in our beautiful country.
He was newly five years old at the time and we walked through the rows of markers. We paid our respects and had a meaningful conversation about what it means to be in the forces in the past and currently.
As we were walking, I noticed that there was a woman standing at a marker. She looked to be in her late fifties, maybe sixties. For some reason I saw her. I kept looking at her. I wondered about her. As we walked closer, I saw her. Like I really saw her. Her face, it looked like mine, just defeated. Obvious signs of grief covered her face. I knew those cry lines, I recognized the puffy eyes, I could see past those dark sunglasses that she was hiding tears. I felt her crushing pain. She was grieving.
As we got closer, she began to smile. She smiled at my son and sparked up a conversation. My little oblivious five year old began to tell her about the markers he had found and spoke about guns and tanks (because what five year old doesn’t think that’s cool). She was so kind and expressed interest in what she was saying. She then began to tell my son about her son. He was in the war and when he was small, he wanted to be in the army. My boy was listening…like really listening. He then asked, “Is he still in the war?”. Her face softened and she knelt to his level, I remember her saying as she pointed to the marker “see this?”, my son nodded. “This is his name. He never came home”.
Those words hit me in the gut. I couldn’t hold back. I began to cry. No, I began to sob. She put her arms around me and said “I’ve been watching you walk down these rows. I don’t want to pry, but you look very sad”. My son piped up, “my mom misses our babies”. I nodded and I told her about my story. As I was telling her about my babies, she began to cry. She pulled me in for a hug, held me and said, “no matter how old or how young our babies are, they’re always our babies”.
By this time, my son was getting anxious to keep moving. I thanked her and thanked her son for the ultimate and devastating sacrifice. With a smile, she said she was grateful for this memory and I agreed. It was one more quick hug, and we parted ways.
When grieving mothers find each other, it makes life a little more bearable.
I am not sure if this was some magnetic forcefield of grief that brought us together or something else, but on that day, we needed each other.
I am not sure if this was some magnetic forcefield of grief that brought us together or something else, but on that day, we needed each other. This was a time when two grieving mothers found each other, a time that made the grief feel just a bit more bearable, even just for a moment.
I am forever grateful for this day. I am so grateful for that moment. That day we grieved together. We finally felt understood. She gave me something I had never had but always needed. I think of her and her son every November. I thank them both for the gift of that day.
I feel that anniversaries are important, but they can also be so hard! Most anniversaries celebrate a life. Sometimes, an anniversary can celebrate a death. When you lose someone or a part of you, it is crushing. It never leaves you. The deep pain that never seems to subside, the self-doubt that something could have been done, or the regret that the moments during that time weren’t appreciated. These all haunt me. As time goes forward, sometimes I am brought back to those days when I am least prepared. I’ve learned through several years of therapy and self-awareness that anticipating the days of grief can be changed to days to celebrate. It takes a lot of mental capacity and preparedness, but as a family, we stand together in the days remembering the life and death of our twins.
The Anniversaries of Their Life
I choose to recognize and celebrate the magical day that I found out that I was pregnant. In fact, I do this with all my children, living or not. My reasoning, I want to go back to that part of my memory and remember how happy I was in that moment. That day. And the days following. The feeling of being on cloud 9 and just in a space of hope and excitement. The days of having an inclining that I had human life growing in me and a future that I was going to help shape to be. Planning, I’m a planner…. after I saw that + I immediately went into planning mode. I was planning the future of our family. I was planning a life, only to later realize I couldn’t grasp the inability to be prepared for something that is unimaginable, like death.
Their “Could-Have-Been” Birthday
I choose to recognize and celebrate their “could-have-been” birthday. Despite not having a specific day, I chose their due date and we celebrate them. We choose to have a mini party. Typically, we have a fun meal together as a family. My husband and I will share a special bottle of wine. We talk about them as a family. We light their candles and my eldest son will talk to the flame as if they were alive. It is something that continues to bring on pain, but at the same moment, it brings us some peace. We choose to celebrate their short life and not focus on their death.
The Anniversary of their Death
I also choose to acknowledge the days that they left us. This may not be a conventional choice. There is also some discrepancy in it. In fact, we didn’t know exactly when our first baby died. As well, when I had my D&C procedure, our second baby was dying and hadn’t actually passed away. This is always a hard day. This is the day that I have to relive the trauma. It is a day that will be forever etched into my mind and a day that cannot be ignored. I will forever grieve on this day.
..But Their Death is Not in Vain
But there is something special to the anniversary of their death… on the one-year anniversary of my miscarriage, my babies gave me the best and most brightest gift of all. They whispered to me that I should take a pregnancy test.
On that morning as I mourned them, I was blessed with growing another life. Did this make the day any less painful? I am not sure. But what I do know is on that morning, I woke unusually early, I was given a push, and felt a strong urge to take that test, and it was positive. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, it wasn’t what I had planned. That morning, I cried in the bathroom by myself, feeling their love wrapped around me, missing them more than ever. I needed that time alone to thank them. That time to embrace their memory and to gather my gratitude for the gift I know they had a part in. Because without their life and without their death, I wouldn’t have my fierce, loving, strong-willed, son, whom I am forever grateful for.
So, this is why I choose to celebrate all the anniversaries, even when they are hard.
If you need further or specialized support, reach out to The Pregnancy and Infant Loss Network through Sunnybrook Hospital. They have so many great resources and support options for you.
Death cannot be compared. Grief cannot be compared.
My babies’ death will always be mine. For as long as I am alive, my miscarriage will always be my biggest loss.
The way I see it, grief is like a snowflake. There are similarities but there is no two the same. Grief is a slow descent; it hits the warm ground melting into a water droplet creating space. But sometimes the water freezes making it difficult to move, becoming stuck like ice. So this is my grief , it’s the ice, and it’s stuck.
Pain is not meant to be compared, it’s meant to be shared
-Ashley Stock
I saw a quote from another grieving mother on Instagram, her name is Ashley Stock. She lost her three year old daughter, Stevie to DIPG, a form of relentless cancer. In an Instagram post she writes, “Pain is not meant to be compared, it’s meant to be shared”. This struck a huge chord in me because she’s right! I have a right to be in pain. It’s ok for me to grieve. I don’t need permission to be sad over my twins’ death. I want to share my story. They mattered, so did their deaths. It all matters when we walked down this path of parenthood that didn’t happen on the earthside. We have to stop comparing our grief.
For so long, I had guilt about missing my babies and compared my grief to other stories. I buried it. I always wondered, “how can I hang on to pain for so long when I didn’t feel them?” , “people must think I’m crazy because I talk about them so much”, “maybe they’re right, I am lucky I wasn’t too far along”. But then I come to and realize that thinking that way is crap. Complete and utter crap. We shouldn’t compare our losses because we should be comforting each other. Comparing a loss is just cruel. It’s minimizing life. It’s lessening the importance. Regardless, if your miscarriage happened at 3 weeks or 30 weeks, that child is loved, wished for, dreamed of, and so important.
I have a right to grieve. It’s ok that I will never get over my children dying before me. I should be able to talk about my miscarriage and not worry about comparing another miscarriage and wondering “oh, they had it worse off than me”. It’s this type of thinking that’s toxic and I am over it. I should be able to miss the four hands I never got to hold. The two voices I never heard. The two faces I didn’t get to kiss. This is what I miss. It is what I grieve. This is my loss.
My story is mine. It is unique.
My hope for you is that you give yourself permission to cry and find the opportunities to miss your child or children. I hope that you grieve your loss as long as you need to. I really hope that you stop comparing your grief. Stop comparing your sadness to mine, to someone else’s, or allow anyone to minimize your loss. Your grief and your loss matters. Feel it, embrace it, and heal with it. Use your experience to do some good in our world.
This is your story. It is unique.
A Short Story
I am going to tell you why my miscarriage matters.A few weeks ago, I was out for a walk with my 8-year-old and 1 year old. An elderly neighbour couple stopped us, and we spoke for a while. After several minutes of talking about my boys (older people love talking about the kids), they asked me about the age between my boys. They continued to ask why there was such a large age gap. I always dread these questions. I take a deep breath and tell them that we lost twins in two separate miscarriages.
They looked at me with empathy. Almost, embarrassed and unsure of what to say next…or so I thought.
I thought that would be it for the topic, but then came the dagger, “….how far along were you?” I let out a big sigh and though I didn’t need to, I explain that we suspect 8 weeks for our first baby, and we estimated 10 weeks for the second twin. She replies “oh, that’s good you weren’t far along”. It felt like a lightning bolt sending a shock through my body. I can feel myself get fired up with anger. I take a deep breath unsure if I wanted to scream, walk away, or explain myself. In that moment, I chose to end the conversation…though I wanted to tell them my painful story.
My Miscarriage Matters
My miscarriage matters, despite what she thinks. Despite what anyone thinks. My babies were special. They were loved. They mattered.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time this situation has happened to me. In fact, it happens often that my miscarriage isn’t important because I wasn’t “that far along”. You know what, screw you and your opinions. Because, I. DON’T. CARE. ANYMORE.
My miscarriages happened. It happened to ME! They happened a week apart. There was pain, there was devastation, there was hurt, there was heartbreak. There was trauma. Don’t YOU tell me, “at least you weren’t that far along” as if your words are going to make me magically feel better, because you know what, they actually make me feel one hundred times worse!
I wonder if her reaction or sympathy would have been different if my babies were further along?
My babies had heart beats…both of them. Then one didn’t. Then a week later, they both were gone.
If You Want to Say Something…
So here is what I really want to say, if you are reading this and haven’t gone through a miscarriage, please don’t ask the gestation of their loss. Be there for her. Listen to her story. Tell that mom that she is so strong. Don’t make it about you or your comfort. Don’t try to justify the loss or death. Just listen. Be empathetic. Offer a hug. Show compassion.
If you have suffered a loss and someone asks your gestation, ask them if it matters? Tell them what you need. Or don’t say anything at all. I have learned that people don’t respond well when they don’t know what to say. Or when they are put on the spot and don’t have an answer. People want reasonings and justifications. But most of all they want to fix it. I usually tell people that my babies were loved so much. Even if I only had 2 months with them, the love my family and I have for them is enough for a full lifetime. When my time is up earthside, I know that they will be waiting to greet me at the gates of heaven.
Please know that your miscarriage matters. Even if it happened twenty years ago, it mattered. If it happened yesterday, it mattered.
It will always matter.
I have lived through some pretty traumatic times in my life. I have seen and experienced things that have affected me. There have been times where it has impacted me vicariously. But as I persevere and come through, there is always something to be learned, or to be thankful for. I like to think of it as the rainbow after the storm…always look for that rainbow.
Normalcy is Not Happening Right Now, But Positive Things Are…
These times are not normal and most people will tell you that this is HARD! What I can tell you is there is a lot of kindness. There is a lot of empathy. There is a community that cannot come together in person, but make up the distance with giving selflessly to others.
Even before the isolation began, we received a letter from a family. They pledged to bring some happiness to our neighbourhood. Their three boys (12 year old and 10 year old twins) would hide (pre-packaged/pre-cleaned) treats in Easter eggs around our neighbourhood. Not only did this get the younger ones excited to go outside to find the treats, it was like a trickle effect. When we found an egg, we felt strange to return it empty. Instead, we filled them with some of our own treats or kind words and re-hid them (we washed the plastic eggs and hid prepackaged treats as well). It was a game that kept going.
On Facebook right before St. Patrick’s Day a friend who lives 5 hours away re-posted the idea of a Shamrock Hunt. I shared this on a local Facebook mommy’s group and it went VIRAL! The idea was to make a shamrock and place it in your window and encourage the children to walk, get outside, avoid physical contact, but still encourage socialization. All over social meida people posted and it encouraged the littles count how many shamrocks they could find. The community banded togther. It was so great and my big guy enjoyed painting and displaying his work of art, but he also felt a sense of inclusion. Because this shamrock hunt was so popular, someone locally created a Neighbourhood Window Walk.
The kindness inclusion continued with an idea of a “Chalk walk” (sidewalk chalk drawing or encouraging words or phrases), while still keeping the social distancing practices in check. To see all of the heartwarming messages on our street and on social media could take anyone’s not so great day and turn it into a new perspective. Perhaps, stopping, taking a minute to look for the rainbow after the storm.
I also have to mention the countless businesses online that are offering free exercise classes, meditation, art, music, and activities. Not only is this keeping the children engaged and learning in this demanding time, but they are giving parents a chance to breathe, relax, and not stress about what to do while their kids are stuck within the four walls.
Take a Look Around and You can See The Good In Everything
Yes, this is such an odd time in our lives. I just can’t help but to look around and feel so thankful with all of the kindness that is surrounding us as parents, and especially our children. We will get through this, but with all of the positivity around us; it makes it much more fun…from a distance. Always look for that rainbow, it’s there!
They were both gone. I lost both of my babies. The space between my children became bigger.
The D & C procedure was happening the next day. The next morning, my husband and I took our son to school together. I had to say good-bye. That was so hard. He didn’t know what was about to happen. He was just happy to have his mom and dad with him taking him to school. Just so happy.
The Space Between My Children was about to widen
We arrived at the hospital. Waiting, we sat in silence and saw other people prepping for their day surgery – wondering “why they are here?”, wondering if they thought the same. Then it was my turn. I changed into those beautiful hospital gowns, moved to a bed where I had to wait. My husband was brought in where he could wait with me. He sat with me, holding my hand.
I didn’t want to do this anymore, I didn’t want any of it. All I wanted my babies. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye.
Then I heard a baby cry.
A baby!
A beautiful baby has just arrived and mine are being taken away! This wasn’t fair! It felt so ironic. But weirdly enough, as much as I was so sad, I was comforted to know that this new mom has an amazing new blessing and I was so incredibly happy for her.
The doctor came in to see me and was aware of my reaction to the new baby that was born. He turned around and I heard him in the hallway direct the nurses to move new mom into recovery. Avoiding any contact in the hall because of a “pregnancy loss”. Yep, I was sad, but he had it all wrong, though, later I had an appreciation of what he was trying to do.
My Turn was Next
It was my turn. The nurses had to say goodbye to my husband, they started to wheel me away. I kept my gaze on my husband, I could tell he was trying to keep it together, I finally saw the affect this all has played on him.
The panic set in, like full-blown panic.
“Nope… I don’t want to do this…”, he kissed my hand and I was wheeled away. I wasn’t in control, once again.
When we got into the room before surgery, I laid there. The nurse seemed nice, she had kind eyes behind her mask. I said, “I need to ask you something…”. She looked at me and said “sure”. I asked in a whisper cry “what happens to my babies?”. She knelt beside me and told me (this would not comfort me, instead, the fact is they were considered “tissue” and not babies), then wheeled me into the operating room, where the fate of lengethening in the space between my children awaited.
There, I laid on the table and people moved around me. I tried to see what everyone was doing, but there were too many. My arms were put out straight, they secured my hand to the table. I began to cry, big tears were streaming down the side of my face. I felt constrained, like I was being punished. The kind nurse came by my head, held the top of my head, and then she put the oxygen mask on me. I am claustrophobic and said, “I don’t want to do this…don’t make me do this…I want my babies…I am not ready to say good-bye”. There was a coolness in my left hand and then nothing…
That was it.
What happened next…
I woke up and couldn’t get out of that hospital fast enough; I needed to be at home. They told me to take it easy and rest. I didn’t care what they wanted me to do. Nothing about me mattered at this point.
On our way home, I asked my husband to stop by my son’s school. This part of the story is a regret of mine. We stopped at my son’s school so I could groggily watch my son run laps for his local Terry Fox run. A teacher must have sensed something was up, she came over to us and asked if I was ok (later on, I was told that I was swaying as I was standing), she brought me a chair. I was still high on medication; she asked if I was ok. I literally blurted out, “I just had surgery to remove my babies”. Her face was shock and sadness. She held me and began to cry. She had to walk away to hide her own emotion. We left not too long after. I felt shame, embarassment, and regret.
As soon as I got home, I became sad. I missed my little bump, I missed my babies, I rested as best as I could. But I felt empty, I felt hollow, I felt alone.
The Space got Longer, the Gap Became Larger Between my Children…
The days went on. I continued to have friends check in on me. I received beautiful flowers. Phone calls. But those all faded. The time and space between my children still exists, along with the heartbreak.
I still have my sad days, the days of wonder, and “what –if’s”. Although, life is different, I still miss my babies.
One gift that I hold special to me is two silver pendants of baby angels. I took them everywhere with me and had blessed by our priest. These pendents and my ultrasound picture of my twins together is all I have. These are the two things that I cherish, still to this day.
My girlfriend said something to me that offered me the most comfort during one of my dark days, she said:
“…Through this storm of sadness there will be light. You will be a different mother from this day forward. Moments never taken for granted. Your precious angels still had a profound impact on your life and will never be forgotten”.
This is true, I am different. I am trying but I am so different. My losses changed me as a mother, it changed me as a wife, it changed me as a woman. Forever, I am different.
I am a Statistic, 1 in 4
I never thought that I would be a 1 in 4 statistic. This number is so high and I had NO idea that my experience and loss is so common. There are so many mom’s out there who feel empty. Those who feel hollow. Those who do not get to see or hear their baby’s heartbeat or take their baby home from the hospital. The mom’s who longs for her children but the space becomes wider and wider, with no closing in sight.
My heart breaks for all the fathers who just don’t know what to do or how to grieve. I feel so sad for those who have to face the sadness that comes within the space of tragedy of losing their children before they can be “ok” enough to be “ok”.
I wish I could give you any ANYTHING to help make this pain any easier, but I know first-hand – there is A LOT of good intentions offered during this period, but nothing will make it any easier. What I have been saying to people who do not know what to say or maybe unintentionally say the wrong thing was, “Thank you. But nothing you say will make me feel better.”
This sucks! I wish I had the answers, I wish I knew what went wrong; I wish I had my twins. No one should have to endure this emotional pain. I wish I knew how long it would take to heal. I wish…
Here is what I can share with you:
Take your time. Cry. Write. Sing. Grieve unapologetically. Do whatever you need to get to tomorrow. Hold the love for you babies and all of our babies! You won’t forget. You won’t fully heal. That scar will be there forever, but you will learn to smile again. You will learn to laugh and be happy. Give yourself the space. The guilt and shame is normal, but you have to know that your children want you to be happy. They want you to remember them. They want you to hold them tight in your heart. Be ok with how you feel today, then decide how you want to live tomorrow.
