Their's is Worse

There is something I think I need to clarify.


Our loss recently has been a huge hit. Yes, I feel devastated that after all our effort and the hope that we put into having children failed. I am very sad for Mike and I and that our chance to be parents has been taken away. All of this is a definite loss for us. It sucks.

But what I am most sad about...what I am most hurt over is not our loss but our babies' loss.

We can try again to become parents and possibly even make that happen with a new baby. Michael and Alena will not have the chance at a life here with us. It's their loss that has me in knots most of the time. It's the fact that they will not be able to become the people they were supposed to be - that they were deprived of possibly an amazing and fulfilling life. They don't get another chance like we do.

I look at other people's children and immediately wonder if M & A would have been anything like them. When I am around babies I don't always think about what I am missing out on, but what my twins are not experiencing.

Yes, I feel bad for us and that our dreams for them aren't going to come true, but more so that Michael and Alena aren't able to dream for themselves. (I know some of you will say that they are still living out their lives somewhere else, but this life is important too).

A lot of people note the pain and heartache of our loss and I will not deny that it's a major source of my grief. I did want to be a parent in February, but what I wanted more than that was to be a mom to M & A. Once I knew them, they were my dream...not just being a parent in general. Another baby will not take their place, nor will it make everything okay. It doesn't mean I won't try for that next baby or that I won't love them separately - it just means that my twins should have been able to create a meaningful and amazing life and it's that fact which has my heart breaking.

I would have loved to see them grow and become their own little people. I would have loved to have been able to kiss their cheeks and that is a great loss for us.

Loss is hard to separate out, but the one thing I have been able to see more clearly is that the particular losses I feel are for different things. And the one that seems most unbearable is the knowledge of what my babies lost. I miss them and who they could have been, not simply missing my lack of children.

I can't change what happened and I can't bring them back for a second chance. I have to accept that and find a way to be okay with it. And I have to find a way to be okay with pursuing my dreams of parenthood when Michael and Alena can't fulfill their earthly ones.

What was taken away from them has me spitting mad I have no one to blame. I am not supposed to blame God, or myself, or the doctors, so I flounder around with the fact that life and the universe screwed us all. I won't reiterate past blog posts, so I will just say that pain comes in from different sources and for many reasons. Pain and loss coming from one place can be crippling, while the pain from another source can be manageable.

Somehow I will cope with what I've been dealt, because I know that I still have my life and I still have a chance to be a mom. It's the pain of M & A's loss that I find so hard to get over.

Other children are out living their lives and are able to dream, and hope, and achieve...while mine can't. That is why being around those kids is challenging for me. I can see clearly what Michael and Alena will miss out on. What we will miss out on, in being their parents.

I tell them I am sorry all the time. That I love them and I am sorry, because I have no way to make it better for them. Moms want to make everything better and I can't.

I saw another rainbow on Friday and the magic of them (and obviously the science behind them), had me amazed. I have seen more lately than ever and it makes me feel good to think that maybe they can hear me. So with that hope, I keep sending up love and "I'm sorry's", praying that it's enough.

And Now...A Song

This is a new music video for the song 'A Thousand Years'. It's part of the Twilight Breaking Dawn soundtrack. Although it's meant as a love song for the two main characters - the words meant something different for me.

I thought it was not only beautiful, but the lyrics had me tearing up.

I felt like they were the words that have been in my head since I started this journey to become a parent. They are what I would say to Michael and Alena and to the baby that will hopefully come to us in the future.


Please excuse the ad at the beginning, you should be able to click the x to make it go away . Please take a listen and send a warm thought to our angel twins.







Christina Perri - A Thousand Years


(Verse 1)
Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave
How can I love when I'm afraid
To fall
But watching you stand alone
All of my doubt
Suddenly goes away somehow

(Pre-chorus)
One step closer


(Chorus)
I have died everyday
waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more


(Verse 2)
Time stands still
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything
Take away
What's standing in front of me
Every breath,
Every hour has come to this

One step closer


(Chorus)
I have died everyday
Waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

And all along I believed
I would find you
Time has brought
Your heart to me
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

One step closer

One step closer


(Chorus)
I have died everyday
Waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid,
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

And all along I believed
I would find you
Time has brought
Your heart to me
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

A Letter

A Letter to my Babies – *spoken into a recorder during the first trimester, to be included in Michael and Alena's baby book. I was finally able to write it down and decided they should still have it even though they are gone.*

Hello my little nuggets, it’s your mommy.

You are only about 9 weeks and 2 days now. You are no bigger than the size of a grape. A grape with a heart beat - which is amazing because you have arms, legs, feet and toes already. You have everything that’s important.

It’s still a little bit crazy for me to believe this is even real, because right now I am not showing and you are so tiny. You feel like more of an idea than a reality for me…but I’ve seen you. It amazes me every time. And a small part of me wondered if I would ever have the chance to see you, yet there you are!

Your daddy and I love you already. We’ve known you were with us from the very beginning – in fact, we picked you out. You were the two little embryos that fought the hardest to thrive and grow. We knew you were strong and determined and that you would fight to stay with us…and we were right.

We are so excited and so proud of you already. It’s strange to be this proud of someone you haven’t even met. You fought to be part of our family until you were big enough to be put back where you belong. You made it possible for me to experience what it was like to create another human. Even though you are growing alongside each other, I know you will be completely unique and individual.

I think this pregnancy will be a very interesting and exciting road for us and I am positive you are going to be good friends. Maybe not right away.  :) You might fight and have to learn to share or maybe grow-up with the same friends. You may have to be in the same classes or may like the same guys (or girls), in which case I hope you are a boy and a girl so we have a few less ‘situations’ during your teenage years.

Either way, I know you are going to be friends and that you will love each other. You will be grateful one day that you have each other even if it’s hard sometimes. Because I know what it’s like to be at odds with your sibling for a period of your life and also how close you can become later when you come to realize how important family is. You may not know that for a while and it may take some time to grasp the notion that family is the most important and wonderful thing you have. My sister and I are different in a lot of ways and we didn’t always see eye to eye, but now we are best friends. I only have one sibling, as it’s possible you might…but we love each other and want to see each other all the time. We make each other laugh and understand each other, which is very special because there may not be that many people in your life to truly ‘get you’ in every way. The one thing I always wished for my own children is that they have a sibling, so they could possibly experience what I have. I know I would be much lonelier if it were just me.

So just a little advice from your mom; don’t take any of it for granted. Appreciate the family who love you and the friends who stay loyal and are there for you through everything. These are people who will see you at your worst and will still love you no matter what.

Since you are no bigger than my thumb, I will save some of the advice for when you are born.

I also wanted to thank you for sticking it out with me and believing in me: believing I will take care of you and protect you and give you whatever you need. I will do my best to take care of you while you are with me and make the best decisions I can make since I am who you have right now. As much as your dad loves you there is not much he can do to help you grow and stay safe. That’s up to me for these few months. I’ll do my best to give you every possibility, every advantage, before you are born into the world.

In fact, you both are really helping me do that. You are giving me the best gift, not just by being here and surviving, but also by making this journey incredible from the very beginning. So far I haven’t had a day of sickness and that is something to be happy about. You have been so good to me in the symptom department and I am thankful. I can sit out on a warm day and enjoy the sun without feeling nauseated or go about my day at work without worrying about the proximity of a bathroom. So far, there has been no bleeding or anything to make me overly worry about you. So far, you’ve made this pregnancy very enjoyable – something I didn’t necessarily anticipate. After all the pain and difficulty it took to get you here, I am so grateful that I can feel good right now and that I am able to enjoy the small changes in my body as you grow. I am able to spend valuable time with our friends before you grace us with your presence and I can get out and enjoy our short summer weather. Some women are sick for much of their pregnancy or are put on bed rest and can’t fully enjoy this beautiful phase of motherhood.

Even through this wonder of a pregnancy, I worry about you. I worry that I am not sick and think that maybe I should be since that is what seems normal. But mostly I feel lucky. Lucky because I’m not sick and because a lot of women haven’t been given the gift that I’ve been given. There are couples who are still struggling to create a baby (let alone two) and I know how they feel. We gave it everything we had and came out on the other side with our biggest wish granted.

We have a family that gave us the support we needed and every advantage that they could. One day you will see how lucky you are, to not only have two determined and stubborn parents who wouldn’t give up, but to also have three loving grandparents. You have three grandparents who have given everything they could to make you part of our family and who have been waiting patiently to meet you.

You have three aunts who will dote on you and be around to help raise you. You’ll have cousins to play with and a lot of ‘adopted’ aunts and uncles who are so eager to get to know you. You have so many loving and wonderful people in your life already and we are lucky to have such a great support system. These are all people who have been with your dad and me from the beginning and know how much we wanted you and how long we waited for you.

We’ve been rooting for you from the time you were little clusters of cells – my sweet twinnies. And now you are growing (with amazing speed) into two babies. You were exactly what we wanted and I am so happy to have gotten to this point. I am so grateful to be able to get to know you from the inside out.

I know there may be challenges to come and that carrying both of you could be difficult down the road. There could be many things to worry about in this double pregnancy, but I will try to stay calm and provide you with the least amount of stress possible. I’ll send you good thoughts, surround you with as much love as I can and hopefully it will be enough to bring you out safely.

Your dad and I will be working to make sure that your childhood will be a happy, secure one and even if there are challenges we have to face as a family, I know that we’ll get through it together.

This is going to be quite a journey and you are incredibly loved already. I can’t see much of you yet, but I can feel you. I can feel your presence and hear your heartbeats, strong and fast. And I am patiently waiting for the day that I will get to see your faces and hear you cry. I am excited to hold you and call you by your names.

You have a doggie to play with and vacations to look forward to. You have a cousin who you can learn from and a new house where we’ll snuggle each night.

I know how strong you are and how hard you worked to make it to us…and I’m confident that with all of us working together, we’ll be a family by March. Although I am also confident that you will be ready for us before then and make your appearance as February babies.

Someday you will know what it took to get you here, someday I will tell you about this unbelievable process. There are a lot of people in our lives who still don’t know the path we took for you and many who don’t even know about you yet. That will come in a few more weeks and I am so excited to tell them! I know my life will change completely, but I am so ready. We’ve been waiting for you my darling babies!

I’ve taken advantage and enjoyed our time as a single couple, but now that you are really here…really on your way to see us…I am on the edge of my seat. Take your time now! Don’t rush yourselves, but know that we are so very happy that you found your way to us. You have such love waiting for you.

Some people take their children for granted and don’t appreciate their blessing. They don’t know what it would be like if they couldn’t have it. And as hard as this journey has been, it’s made us see with more clarity. In turn, we will see you and what you mean more clearly.

I look forward to every ultrasound appointment and every milestone we reach. Getting to see you grow from a speck on the monitor to an infant will be such a moving experience and I will have pictures and videos of it all. These are things you too will get to see someday.

You are already, as the size of two grapes, draining my energy and making me oh so sleepy. But I am happy. You mean so much to us.

Thank you for making me a mom.

I love you my little ones.

Saying Goodbye

Saturday, October 29th, we had a memorial for Michael and Alena.


My husband and I, along with a few family members, decided to take our chances and hike up to Mirror Lake to say goodbye to our babies. We chose a lake in the mountains that we frequent almost every summer so that we could visit (almost) whenever we want. It's serene, crystal clear, and surrounded by trees.

We knew there was a great chance that it would rain and rain hard. It is Washington in the fall after all. But honestly, our time was running out. It could be snowing in the mountains soon and if we were made to wait until next summer, after the snow melts, I may not be able or willing to hike at all. I am hoping to be pregnant again by then and I won't take any chances. So with all of this in mind, we knew we had to try.

My mom, along with Mike's parents, sister and brother-in-law came with us for support. Luckily, we chose a spot that didn't require you to be an expert hiker because I am still on the mend and couldn't have done anything too strenuous.

On the way there, I saw a rainbow. It made me feel like this was the right thing to do and the right time. It was a sign from the world that things would be okay.

Once we arrived at the lake and I took a little while to ready myself, we prepared the babies for their new home. I held them, sent them my love, and said my goodbyes. Mike's father did a reading and then my husband read something he had written for the occasion. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and I was proud of him for having the courage to make himself that vulnerable. I certainly couldn't have made it through something like that, and I am the writer between us.

There was a lot of crying on my part and Mike had to be the one to spread their ashes in the lake. It was the one thing I was having too hard a time coming to grips with, so I sat beside him while he did the task. Afterward - we sent two red roses and two floating candles into the lake with them. The candles stayed lit longer than we expected them to.

Leaving them there was the hardest thing I did that day. It took everything I had to turn my back and walk away. It felt like I was leaving them there alone and I hated it. People kept telling me I would see them again soon and that we would be back, but that was not enough in my mind. I didn't want to come back to 'see' them that way. I wanted to be bringing my children there in the baby carriers we bought and for them to be spending time at the lake in our arms, not living there. I wanted them alive and safe.

Somehow I managed to turn away, and on the way back, the skies cleared and the sun came out. Again, a sign from the universe that they were where they needed to be and that I would be okay. I spent the rest of the hike back enjoying the sun on my face and mopping up silent tears. I already missed them so much.

Now I have mixed feelings about their ashes being gone.

I am sad because now I feel more empty than before, with few living memories to hold on to and now their bodies were gone as well. It was a comfort to be able to talk to them and spend time with them and I won't have that ability anymore.

But I am glad, because having them in the house with us made a harsh reality of the fact that they were no longer living inside me. They were dead. It may have made it harder to move on if I could see the physical evidence of their loss every day.

I am torn in two directions and it's hard to bring myself to the middle.

Nights are the worst. It's always been the time when I think about my day and everything else in my head. I get so tired in early evening, just waiting for a reasonable time to go to bed and then I can't sleep. I have always had a hard time turning my brain off and now is no exception. I go through all the stages of grief in a matter of an hour and it's exhausting and draining. And I know I will have to do it again the next night.

Sometimes I get so sick and tired of feeling down. I just want one whole day where I can block it all out and enjoy myself. One day to be happy like I was before. And I do try to be happy...but it always comes back - the loss and the sadness. I know it's to be expected, but I just want to be normal again. It seems like I am the only one who can't just 'turn it off' when I want. Maybe it's the hormones or the body changes or the simple fact that I had been carrying them with me every day for 20 weeks.

But it's just so frustrating that I have to feel the loss ALL the time, while others can laugh and talk about sports and move past sad feelings whenever they put their mind to it. I know some people can't see the point in dwelling and try to go back to normal... or maybe they just want to portray strength around me to hold me up. I get it, but HOW do they do it? I can't just turn it off or forget. I can get through a work day or other busy work if I engross myself, but it only lasts for short periods of time. I'm just tired of being like this.

I went a little off topic, but hey, that's the way my brain works right now. It's a bit of a mess.

I will leave you with a few pictures my mom took from the lake-side memorial. If only the sun had come out a few minutes earlier, the lake would have been a sight to see.

I also wanted to thank you all profusely for all the comments, love, and support you have shown in the last two weeks. It helps so much to know that I am surrounded by such wonderful people.

Crazy Town

Sometimes I feel like it was all a dream.


None of it seems real, like I was never never pregnant at all. Like my babies never existed.

And other times...I feel like I am still pregnant and the labor and death never happened.

The first week all I knew was my loss. My only reality was that my son and daughter were gone and I was without children again.

Now? I feel a numbness and a sense that I was only dreaming. It is such a strong feeling. I forget sometimes and think that maybe it never really happened.

And then I absently put my hands on my tummy or look down and realize with a sharp pain, that my belly is gone. I am thrown back into a reality that I could never imagine, let alone understand. The life I saw and felt only 12 days ago has vanished.

Was I ever pregnant with two babies?

That confusion doesn't last long however. There are signs of them everywhere. Signs that I have refused to eradicate. I won't pretend that they didn't exist or that I wasn't anticipating them with all the joy a mother could conjure. I won't erase them.

But this also means that as soon as I start to exist in a moment without the pain of their loss, I am reminded that they are really gone. That they were real and at one point thriving.

There are the flowers, candles and sympathy cards. There is the pile of baby items we collected recently stored in the garage. Their footprints and stuffed bears (that our nurse gave us) are sitting in the living room. I have a pile of ultrasounds in the guest room to be put into a memory book (as soon as I get up the courage). When I walk up the stairs, the first thing my eyes move to is the half put together nursery. And of course, the babies' ashes are usually nearby because I can't stand for them to be alone.

And those are all the things that remind me - at home - that they are gone. When I am out, my body reminds me. The cramps, the blood, the sore boobs, and the pants that no longer fit me. When my body fails to remind me, I have the teller at the bank or someone at work who is out of the loop.

I try to forget when I can. But then, I feel so guilty. We will talk about guilt another day as it's a big, long topic I can't get into now.

I think to myself at least daily...'why couldn't this have happened earlier?' Why couldn't I have miscarried at 15 weeks before I celebrated at my gender reveal party? Why couldn't I have lost them when I bled and had to go to the emergency room at 12 weeks? Why couldn't I have said goodbye to my twins at 7 weeks instead of seeing their heartbeats? What was I supposed to learn from all of this?

Not for one second did I take them for granted. I loved them the moment I saw them as a mass of cells. I wanted them before I even started trying to conceive. I waited and waited for Michael and Alena to find me.

Instead of miscarrying early in my pregnancy, I was given time to grow attached to them and get to know them. My body decided to wait until they were big enough to be delivered to take them away.

And now I am stuck in this surreal limbo. One moment I think I am still mid-fertility treatments and haven't gotten that positive test yet, and the next I think I am still pregnant.

I feel a little nuts honestly.

It's a disorienting place to be when you don't know what is real and what isn't. Granted it's only for small amounts of time, but boy does it throw me wildly from one emotion to the next.

I know that this is all part of the grieving thing and it will feel less dramatic as time goes on. I know that reality will always return to stare me in the face.

But I hate when it finds me, because it's so much easier to dream that they are still with us.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

Who would have thought that I would be joining the millions of grieving parents on today of all days?

I don't have much energy to put into today, but as I have only been without my children for 3 days, I will most heavily be remembering them.

Please join me in lighting a candle this evening for Michael and Alena. I only held them in my arms for a short time, but they have forever made an impact on our lives.

Hugs and kisses to you angels,

mommy and daddy

Our Angels

It's time - our children were born at 20 weeks gestation.

 In memory

 

Michael and Alena S.

born October 12th 2011

at 12:53 and 12:57 pm.

Michael died during birth and Alena died around 1:14pm.

Rest in peace angels. We love you.