This is part 2 of my story of the pregnancy loss of my twins, describing the the hope, then pain endured within the space of my children.
My follow-up ultrasound was scheduled one week later; until then I would sit, wait, pray, hope, and wonder if my second baby would survive.
We came home from the hospital.
Home…
It felt empty.
The air felt cold.
I felt lonely.
I put on my brave mommy face and tucked my son in for the night. He knew something was different. I told him that I was fragile and I couldn’t lift him (he didn’t know his mommy had babies in her tummy). I had to protect Twin B and I was going to save my baby.
That night, I called my parents. This pregnancy was going to be a Thanksgiving surprise, but I needed them to know NOW. They live 4 hours away. This conversation was heartbreaking. My mom wanted to come to me that night, but I stopped her. But I kept telling myself everything was going to be ok. That is what I believed.
My husband was awesome. He took time off work, he sat with me in silence; we talked about how awesome it would have been to have two babies. About how awesome Twin B will know that he or she has their very own angel. We spoke about our faith, our life, our future, our children.
Following the doctor’s orders; I slept in, napped, binged on Netflix, no more running and exercising, I ate healthy and took short walks, I prayed so hard, I grieved my lost baby.
Within the Space of waiting…
That week went by painfully slow. I noticed the spotting stopped, so did my pregnancy symptoms. No more nausea, my hair was falling out, I was not as tired. But I kept the faith and thought it was my head playing games on myself…because Twin B was going to be fine. I read online that sometimes with twins one baby does not have a heart beat and the other does…then at the next ultrasound both are beating. Strong beats. Two healthy babies. I told myself “that was going to be my story”; I just knew it and I had to believe it!
My close friends checked in on me, brought us food, texted, all the love helped melt some of the loneliness away. But sometimes I didn’t want to talk, or didn’t reply to texts. Sometimes, I just hid in my room. Sometimes I just stopped being a mom. I didn’t feel worthy of the title “mom”. How could I?
Life went on and I was numb…
My son’s 5th birthday party was that weekend, we had 18 kids gracing us with their squeals and energy. We HAD to be ok. But I wasn’t. The party was planned, it was happening, so we got ready, and we were distracted. I was there in body, but my soul was dreading what was to come…
Ultrasound Day…
It was a Tuesday. The day I had my ultrasound. My husband came with me, despite asking (and knowing the answer), he was not allowed in. Not being able to help it, I cried during this ultrasound as well, this time the tears fell silently.
Without being able to help it, I stared at the technician who was taking a lot of pictures. She didn’t look at me one. She didn’t speak. Never asking how I was. She did nothing. While she was finishing, my crying became louder. Between sobs I asked…no, I pretty much begged, “is there a heartbeat?”. She said that she is not able to disclose any information and would need to have a radiologist look at the results. She quickly left the room, she just left. I knew…I just knew. Just before the door was closed behind her, I collapsed. I fell to the hospital floor. I cried and I cried loudly. From the floor, looking at the screen, it was blank. The computer was off. How cold she was that she couldn’t even give me a picture of my baby?? Literally, I have nothing from that day.
Never given the chance to say good-bye.
I ran out of there, sunglasses on, my husband knew. I needed out of there…again, having to run through a mass of people waiting in the Emergency room witnessing the second biggest loss of my life…I just wanted to be invisible. Inside I was screaming at everyone to stop looking at me. Panic, fear, so much immense pain.
Running to my car, my husband was a stride behind. My faith left behind.
It was over…when it had only begun…
In the car it was more crying…until I couldn’t cry anymore. We drove….just drove in complete silence. My husband called our doctor’s office, they booked me in immediately and we were to be seen in 2 hrs. We got there an hour early. My eyes were puffy and my sunglasses left on. We waited. More people looked at us while we waited. Babies, pregnant women, sick pre-teens, the elderly. We sat in silence. I have never felt so obvious, yet invisible at the same time.
Now, it was our turn. Our doctor told us the news we already knew. We are so damn lucky, we have a husband-wife medical team. They have empathy, compassion, and show comfort. On this day, we saw the husband. He offered his condolences, that’s when I realized, they were dead. Without any rush, he listened. He explained that we will never know why this happened, he told us that the baby appeared to grow further, but sadly died too.
We discussed what we would need to do. He stated that I had the option of a D&C (Dilate and Curretage) or let the miscarriage happen naturally. He explained that allowing myself to miscarry naturally may come with complications. Continuing to say, that I may only pass one baby or neither naturally. He left us with the information and stated that we would have another consultation with an OB who would explain the procedure, if we chose that path…there would be more waiting.
Our son needed us. He needed me.
After the appointment, we picked up my son from school. My husband went in (sunglasses still on) and my little guy came skipping to the car “hi mama!”. I could barely muster “hey baby”. We got home and I rushed to my bedroom. I held on to the ultrasound from the first scan, crying. Unable to do anything else.
While I was crying into my pillow, my little man came in with his daddy. Together we sat on my bed. I wiped my tears and my husband and I told him that mommy had babies in her tummy, but they died.
He was puzzled, this must have been so confusing for him. He asked where the babies were, we told him that they are in heaven. My son saw a painting of his hand that is hanging in my room he had given me the first few days of school. This picture is to represent the book “The kissing hand”. He kissed his palm and put it on my belly and said “my love will bring the babies back, right?”. We told our little, innocent, loving, happy-go-lucky, (almost) 5 year old that once you go to heaven; you can’t come back. It stung to tell him this truth. Looking at us, he said “ok…” and off he played. I am so grateful that he did this.
Another day, the same reality
Unfortunately, my nightmare wasn’t over. The next day was my consult with the OB to again discuss my “options”. When I arrived at the Dr’s office, I saw one of my closest friends, in the waiting room. She had no idea that ANYTHING had happened, but she knew something was up. She said, “you don’t look impressed…” I sat beside her and told her why I was there. She held me and we cried together until she was called in for her own appointment.
Then It was our turn. Meeting with the OB he was as good as he could have been; he explained the procedure and I stated that my husband and I had decided on proceeding with the D&C. The Doctor was very patient and answered my questions about the procedure and about the twins. He was confident that my babies were fraternal (which means there were two separate fertilized eggs). He also reiterated something that I had heard many times during this ordeal (though, not believing it) that “there was nothing (I) could do”. Sorry, but no matter how many times I heard that, it still doesn’t make me believe it. Of course, this didn’t make me feel better.
Continued to Within This Space Between My Children part 3…
Can we talk about post-partum after you lose a baby in pregnancy? I mean, how do you live after the loss of a baby?
When I was home after my losses, I found NOTHING on the internet that was remotely helpful when going through the post-partum grief. NOTHING. Friends or family didn’t know what to tell me. Or what they said wasn’t what I needed.
It was extremely frustrating. I knew that millions upon millions of other women have gone through similar experience, yet no one wants to talk about it. Well, I’m going to talk about it.
Let’s talk about the hormones
Let’s talk about the pregnancy hormones for a second…despite losing one of my two babies; I was still pregnant with my second baby. Pregnancy hormones + grief. Let’s try an organize that first. But wait, I was told and I knew that this second baby wasn’t going to survive, so let’s throw on a dash of hopelessness and a sprinkle of hope that the doctors are wrong! Let’s see what happens. Then, I was encouraged to stay calm, stay positive, stay healthy for baby number two…which they had already told me wasn’t going to survive. Talk about being absolutely confused in a place of already immense confusion.
Then my second baby died.
Here come the post-partum pregnancy hormones crashing down on an already overwhelmingly, oversaturated, immense feeling of guilt, grief, and shame.
It is so messed up. There I was, bleeding, crying, cramping, doing all the things that a woman who has just delivered a baby does. Then comes the leaking of the breasts. The hair loss (yep, that still happens). Then those post-partum hormones do a nose-dive. It was exactly like I had delivered baby, but without the babies.
Here’s what happens next…
Then about 4 weeks after that, Flo shows up. Yep, she’s a bitch! So just before that I was PMS’ing hard! You know, trying really hard to see how good things are, when really it’s complete shit!
By this point, my body doesn’t know up from down. I went from pregnancy highs and hormone lows, to grieving a baby and hanging on to hope for the survival of #2, to then post-partum hormones with the loss of two babies, to getting my period about a month that the ordeal began.
Riding the wave of emotion
To this day, I’m not sure how I walked out of it. What I want from writing about this is for anyone who has had to go through or is going through this to know… it sucks. This whole up and down wave riding sucks! Let it suck. Don’t let anyone tell you “it’s for the best”, or “you’ll get over it”, or whatever other “reasoning” someone wants to say to make themselves feel better… the roller coaster of emotions is real and it sucks!
Feel it.
Live it.
Survive it.
Once you come out of it, you will be a new person. What that looks like, I’m not sure. I just need you to read and know that it’s real. But mostly, you aren’t alone….YOU. ARE. NOT. ALONE! I am proof that you can live after the loss of your baby. It may not feel like you can, but yes you can and you will!
