Back to Work & Losing my Shit...Twice.

Warning: I consider this a sacred space where the four of us are together as a family, and so I normally try to steer clear of any offensive language. However, this post, as indicated by its title, has broken this "rule", I hope justifiably so. Profane language ahead.

Tomorrow, I return to work full time after having the entire summer off. And I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. Most of my anxiety stems from thinking time is really going to start flying, and then suddenly the one year birthday of our twins will be upon us, and nothing will have been planned or organized because I find it all to be extremely overwhelming for a number of reasons. Let’s face it; it’s only a little over three months away.

I still cannot believe this.

I cannot believe that in a little over three months, I will be a mother to a one-year-old daughter.

I can not believe that in a little over three months, it will mark one year since saying goodbye to Elias and all our dreams of raising twins, one boy one girl, same-aged siblings with names specifically chosen to go perfectly together.

I don’t know what’s more difficult to believe, honestly. I can’t decide which part of my reality is more difficult to process, as I still to this day find it hard to believe I have a living child. Is that messed up?

The mind, it performs some very mysterious tricks to protect itself, doesn’t it? I think mine is still recovering from my traumatic miscarriage in 2009. Some days I wonder if I have PTSD from my miscarriage, and if that’s why Elias died. Because I never got help when I needed it, and then I got pregnant again eight months later. I just pushed on with life after hearing, “Oh, miscarriages are SO common!” Why was that relevant? It wasn’t. I don’t care how common something is, if I’m fucked up from the experience, I deserve some fucking help. I will always feel partly to blame and wonder if my stress during my subsequent pregnancy caused something to go wrong, even though I have heard that women who lost their husband on the WTC attacks on 9/11 went on to all have healthy living babies despite their overwhelming anxiety, stress, and grief.

So tomorrow is my first full day of work. And just to clarify – no, this is not my return from maternity leave. I already did that, back in February, and yes it was brutal but also a blessing for me at that time. However, I welcomed summer when it came, and literally left work at work for over two months. Never even checked my email all summer long.

I figured I had a lot of other things to focus on, like my grief.
And spending quality time with my daughter.
And not being pregnant, which for me at the moment is a very good thing.

The past two summers have been horrible. Last summer I was pregnant and felt very isolated, depressed, anxious, and lost. The summer before that, I was pregnant, then I miscarried, and my world was literally painted black for a few good months before I even saw a sliver of light.
So this summer, while there is darkness in that I miss my son, I wanted more than anything to just revel in the normal pleasures of life. And I chose to do that as much as possible, I believe. I grieved, I blogged (though not nearly enough), I cried, I sobbed, I screamed, I went to therapy, and I even went to a pregnancy and infant loss support group that I had previously written off.
But more often, I went for walks with my daughter, I went shopping with friends, I laid out in the sun while she was napping (ohhhh, how I missed doing that the past two summers), I met people for lunches, I chugged iced coffees all day and sipped wine at night when I felt like it, I planned and coordinated get-togethers and parties at our house. I LIVED.

And what an odd feeling, to be missing someone so terribly, more than I ever have before, and to have a greater pain than I ever imagined myself knowing…and yet feel more alive than I have in years.

At any rate, inevitably, summer has come to a close, and I've had to get some work done in preparation for the upcoming school year. Leaving my daughter with my dad while I went up to school to prepare my classroom was brutal, for a number of reasons. First of all, I realize that this is going to be far more difficult than returning from my maternity leave. When I returned to work back then, the opposite would have about killed me. NOT getting back to some type of “routine” or new normal would have literally landed me in the loony bin or worse. I had to get back to work, I was desperate to keep busy and distract myself, not only my well-being but my very life depended on it.

Now? Not so much.
My therapist says that work will be good for me, as it will keep me from “ruminating” too much, and I think she does kinda have a point. But. What she’s not understanding is it’s different now. My daughter is a little PERSON now. She’s a child. She interacts with me, she lights up when she sees me, I can read her like nobody else can.
This wasn’t so back in February, when she was only two months old and I was in a complete daze most of the time.
I also worry more now than I did back in February. So much more. I know the SIDS risk goes down after six months, but Evelyn has been crawling since July. She wasn’t even seven months old yet and started crawling, which brings about a whole new set of fears. Just today she demonstrated her ability to crawl up two steps to get into the kitchen level of our home. Thanks, babe, just what I needed before returning to work, another “milestone” for you to hit and for me to worry will get you into something you shouldn’t be into.

This is just so hard.

Driving to work last week in order to prepare my classroom, my mind drifts to our loss and more sick ironies. The irony of my having “the perfect body to carry twins – nice and tall, thin but not too skinny”. No one was worried; my long torso meant I would not likely have them too early. We made it so damn far. DAMN IT. We overcame prematurity, damn it, that should have been the only thing we needed to worry about!!!
But no. So terribly naïve.

A green light becomes yellow, then red, so I stop and decide to stop obsessing and focus on the day ahead of me. A bright flash of color catches my eye, and I immediately notice that the car in front of me has a yellow sign hanging in the back window, “Twins on Board!!!” FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!! Are you fucking serious?!?!?! I pull closer, peer in the back seat, and see two car seats…The same ones we have. Er, HAD. I literally start yelling at this woman, “FUCK YOU!!! YAY YOU HAVE TWINS, YOU WANT A FUCKING COOKIE? DOES THAT MAKE YOU SPECIAL SOMEHOW?!?! FUCK!”

Not a proud moment.

(I had the windows up, and there’s no way she heard me or even noticed, so relax.) Yeah the sign she had was tacky, and I never would have flaunted my mother of twins "status" so blatantly as to hang a sign in my vehicle, but she didn’t deserve my anger directed at her.
But then again, it wasn’t at her.
It was at the universe.
The universe that handed us this hand, one that I didn’t deserve, my husband didn’t deserve, my daughter didn’t deserve, our parents and sisters didn’t deserve, and my son certainly didn’t deserve. The universe that decided that all of this loss wasn’t enough and decided to place a car with that stupid freaking hangtag right in front of my van.
A tiny compact car full of twins, while I drive my empty minivan to work with one car seat in the back.

At work, more triggers. I go to sign out a video from the library and notice I signed out the exact same video on the exact same day one year ago, to the day. I remember last summer and all the anxiety of having to set up my room (I had moved classrooms) while five months pregnant with twins. I was TERRIFIED that something I would do would trigger preterm labor and I’d lose them. Or I’d have incompetent cervix and randomly lose them like some women do, no warning.

Sure, a year ago, when I moved classrooms, I had people helping me move things around and lift heavy books, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough to keep me calm and feeling like I was doing everything to protect my babies. I was fiercely protective. Overprotective. And then one died, and maybe, just maybe, if I hadn't worried so much about the logistics of moving classrooms, Elias would be here. ((See the shit that runs through my head? Why do I do that to myself? It doesn't even make sense!))

Needless to say, my classroom was not properly organized during its move last year. I had been SO excited about finally getting a new classroom and being forced to actually go through all my stuff and make it clean and nice and neat (I had signed up for the task well before knowing I was pregnant with twins, btw), but that wasn’t going to happen with other people moving all my stuff. And it wasn’t going to happen when all I wanted was to go home and lay down on my left side and keep my babies safely inside where they could grow, grow, grow, and I could just be left alone from a world that didn’t understand what I was going through psychologically, being pregnant after a loss. They say with twins you worry times two; I say you worry times twenty. Factor in a previous loss, and, well, you get my point.

After signing out the video, I went to my room and saw how messy everything was. Materials strewn around haphazardly, no rhyme, no reason, no organization, period. And I just got pissed. I got so freaking angry. Resentful, even. I should have been able to get all of this organized before, but I couldn’t, because I was stupid and thought I could control things and chose to stay home and be a hermit to keep my twins safe. Then, when I came back from maternity leave, I should have been able to get all of this organized, with all my happy new mommy vibes and renewed zest for life, but I couldn’t, because my son died, and I was a freaking mess myself. I could barely remember to shower or brush my teeth much less go through file folders at work and alphabetize my materials.

A few days later, my husband had a day off and came up to work with me to try and help me get organized, and I just lost it. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and he just stood there looking very confused and frustrated. I said, “I shouldn’t have to DO this!!! All of this stuff should be organized already, but it isn’t, and I don’t know why this is such a trigger for me, but it is. I feel like I’m repeatedly being slapped in the fucking face, and I just really need to get out of here and go home!"

Sigh.

My classroom is still not the way I would like it, although I made progress on my subsequent visits there after those two extremely difficult days. Please wish me luck tomorrow as I venture back there. And please, please, please universe, if you’re listening, don’t let any students ask me about my “twins”. I realize there are some students who probably don’t know what happened, who only knew I was having twins but didn't hear about our outcome, and I have no faith in prayer, but I PRAY that none of those students end up with me as their teacher this year.

And please, just this once...No twins in any of my classes. I've had about enough of your cruel jokes, Universe. You owe me a break after that whole hangtag thing. Capiche?

Waves of grief, expected, unexpected, accidental, and self-inflicted.

So, overall, things in my life have been improving. My husband and I have had some recent epiphanies about ourselves and our marriage, and I truly think if we both put forth the effort to fix things, we will be fine. More than fine, because if we can get through this, then we can get through anything. Right?

So I’ve been feeling hopeful for the future, and I’ve been feeling good. I’ve even had moments of what I suppose they would call “acceptance” of what happened and of our reality. (?!?!)

However, yesterday I had what I would call an intense wave of grief that came on, but thankfully lifted within a relatively short period of time. I wanted to share it so that those of you who feel intense grief most of the day may have hope that some day you will have days that are mostly good but with a wave of sadness mixed in.

So I met my friend M and my sister-in-law A at Panera for lunch, which was great. I had some fleeting moments of sadness, like when I said, “We’re outnumbered” counting the kids and the adults, as my friend and I both had our daughters there and my SIL had her two girls there with her. I thought to myself, Every day I should be the one outnumbered. I should be at home with my two babies. And here, we should be outnumbered by even one more. Then, I looked over to see M and A’s girls (both two years old) jumping on the booth together and having fun, and my grief wave grew a little taller when I thought about how Evy will have to jump on the booth by herself when she’s two. How she won’t have Elias holding her hand to walk through life. How even if we have another child or children, she will still be lonely. Even if the “twin bond” thing isn’t real for all twins, even if it's usually something twins impose on themselves to feel even more “special”, and thus something she won’t “miss”, she will still be lonely, because she won’t have her same aged sibling to move through each milestone with.

It was rough, and it sucked, and it made me wish I could be M or A and not feel the pain I was feeling, obviously. It made me wish I could just eat lunch at Panera and enjoy the company of my daughter and friends.

After lunch, we went to Carter’s. I glanced over at the boy’s section and thought, “Nope, you’re not making me upset. Screw you, boy’s section.” Obviously there will be boy’s clothes at a clothing store for babies, and I know that, and I decide to not let it bother me, as obviously there will be baby boys being born and without them the future of our population would be gravely endangered.

I went immediately to the girl’s section and glanced around, feeling so grateful that I am a mother to a living child and can buy cute clothes for my little girl. (This reminds me of a rant I have for later…A Babies R Us rant…I’ll save it for now.) So I walked around looking at all the clothes, and chose very selectively, as money is a bit tight. I decided to try and find a rainbow onesie for my IRL BLM friend who is having a baby girl any day now (in April 2010 she lost her fullterm baby girl to a placental abruption). I walked all around the girls’ section, all the way to the back and then to the front, and I couldn’t find anything. Disappointed, and some irrational thoughts creeping, like “Us BLMs always get the short end of the stick, why can’t there just be the perfect onesie just waiting for me to buy it for this woman who absolutely deserves the perfect gift?” I went to go find my friend M and my SIL A.

Except there were customers literally standing everywhere I went to turn. I tried going this way and that way, until I was FORCED to walk THROUGH the boy’s section.

Are you for real?

Yup, the Universe hates us BLMs.

I managed to walk through staying calm, but of course in the back of my mind wondered if I would ever have a boy of my own to shop for (although I do realize girl’s clothes are way more fun to buy). I got to the clearance bin and started sifting through, and I found onesie after onesie that said “Grandpa’s buddy” and “Grandpa’s little slugger”, and it literally felt like knives going into my chest.

Flash back to the early weeks after we came home from the hospital and the day we decided to go through Elias’s things. My MIL had packed up his portion of the nursery (with our permission, of course), because we wanted our “homecoming” with Evelyn to be focused on her. Well. Going through his things wasn’t really too emotional for me, because let’s face it – he hadn’t USED any of those things. Plus, I was already a wreck, so how could it be any worse? Sorting through his things left me feeling angry, ripped off, robbed.
We decided to keep some clothing for a potential future son (it felt comforting in a way), and donate some of the other things to a store that raises money for cancer research (not any relation to our loss, but a good cause no less). The “Grandpa’s buddy” onesie someone had purchased for our boy about broke me in half when I came across it. I literally lost it.

The unfairness that my father will never get to hang out with his grandson still breaks my heart every single day. My dad was so proactive during my pregnancy. As my appointments became frequent and I was on bedrest, my father drove me to my weekly (and sometimes bi-weekly) ultrasounds. He was there every step of the way and bonded with those babies more than any other family member. He was the worrier, and even when doctors said things looked normal, he thought something was really wrong. It kills me, to this day. To think that my father spent the last days of Elias’s life pacing his home worrying about his grandson, and he was right. Elias needed saving. But none of us knew that. None of us really knew that. If we’d known that, we would have gone to the hospital. If he’d known that, he’d have done more than just pace. Of course none of us knew. We worried, but I’m sure there are countless families who worry or feel that something is wrong and everything turns out perfect.
Just not this time, but that doesn't mean anything.
I hope in my heart of hearts that my dad doesn’t blame himself for anything. One day we talked about it, and he told me that he doesn’t feel guilty, and that I shouldn’t either, because we did what we were supposed to do which was get things checked out. Even if we had begged for a c-section, which would have been irrational at the time considering the nurses said the tests were all within normal ranges, it wasn’t our decision to make. We weren’t the doctors. We weren’t in control. I could tell he meant it, and I was relieved that he wasn’t wrapped up in guilt. Anger, yes, but not guilt. I wonder if I will ever get to that point. I still feel like maybe I chose the wrong doctors, and that's why my son died, so it must be my fault because I chose them...but then we consult with others who say they would have made the same decisions based on the data. And at the end of the day I know my OB went above and beyond for me during the course of my pregnancy. If I had chosen different doctors, what are the chances they would have seen something wrong or guessed that I would be experiencing a one in five thousand pregnancy complication? And even yet, what are the chances we would have brought him home after the fact?

F*CK, the cards were stacked against my boy from every direction, weren't they?

I have tried to help my dad with his anger by explaining how fast FMH is and that either the doctors were right that everything was okay at that point or they were wrong, and a c-section might have meant he would have been born alive but with a massive bleed wouldn’t have likely survived. What we don’t know and will never know is if the bleed was happening at that point, how much blood had been lost at that point in time? Just impossible to know. But if it was acute and massive, as it was described to be, and as all the evidence points to, then I have to believe our end result would have been the same. The heartbreaking thing is to imagine that things may have been fine, and if they had done an emergency csection he likely would have been fine, but then why would they do an emergency csection at 36.5 weeks without an emergency being present? Why would they put me through major surgery with many risks without having a clear reason to do so? This is the fight inside my head of rational versus irrational thinking.

And all the woulda coulda shouldas are quieted for the most part when I pick apart rational from irrational. But oh, this battle is messy and painful.

I still get sad when I see my father. I love him so much that it hurts, and when I look at him and think of how this impacted him, it kills me. For awhile, it was really impacting our relationship. I felt I had failed him. I still do sometimes. I want nothing but happiness for my amazing parents, and I am so glad that they find such joy in Evelyn, because at least I know I did something right. See? There I go again, clearly still blaming myself. I fear I will always feel that sense of failure in that my son isn’t here, that he isn’t napping upstairs with his sister like he should be.

So Carter's basically sucked, and that's why. That stupid clearance bin full of triggers.

Today, because I apparently like to torture myself, I visited the “December 2010 twins” club on Babycenter. I felt like I wanted to see how my old “friends” were doing, the women who I’d connected with for all those weeks while we all feared preterm labor and whether we were eating enough, what we would name our twins, should their names rhyme or start with the same letter or not, should we dress them similar or not, what kind of sleeping arrangements and childcare we would get for two, and what impact multiples were already having on our marriage even before their arrival outside of the womb.

Mistake.

Those women, although wonderful and lovely people, weren’t really my friends. They were just ladies who were scared sh*tless like me. And now, they’re on one path, and I’m on another. A few of the women had left the group after miscarrying one or both of their twins. One had left the group when at her 20 week anatomy scan she discovered her boys had both died after tangling in their cords. I don’t know where those women went, but why would they return? And similarly, why should I? I made one real friend in that group, a woman who lost her girl a week or so after birth, and I still talk to her on loss forums. So really, why should I “check in” on the rest of them? I admit I was curious about whether they were still posting there, and I wondered what their babies looked like. And yes, they were still posting, and why wouldn’t they be? They need each other; they need others who “get it”, as I said before that moms of multiples is a subculture and support group in and of itself. I didn’t stay long but saw posts about napping, schedules, feedings, upcoming birthdays. I thought, “must be nice to have THAT be what you’re worried about instead of dealing with this New Normal.”

I remembered many moms whose pregnancies seemed so easy compared to mine. I remembered that while I was on bedrest for Halloween 2010, many of them were painting their tummies for the occasion and handing out candy. I had been so resentful at the time, and here I am. Nothing has changed. I am still resentful. I get to be the one who had a rough pregnancy that impacted many of my relationships as well as my self-esteem, and I get to be the one to lose one of my twins to something completely unrelated to my complications, something I had never even heard of despite the countless hours I spent reading up on potential complications, while they breezed through their pregnancies and painted their tummies like big ol’ pumpkins to be ooohed and ahhhed at, and most importantly got to bring home two healthy living babies.

I clicked on one profile and saw a photo of b/g twins sitting in a wagon on the 4th of July, and the tears came so easily. In fact, I was sobbing. The girl had an adorable dress with stars on it, and the boy sported red/white/blue plaid. He had his hand clutching her dress, and for some reason that killed me. I cried so hard and so loud that I can’t believe my daughter didn’t wake up from her nap. I looked at the ceiling through my tears and cried, “Why did you have to leave us?! Why couldn’t you just stay?! We need you here with us, Elias. I need you here to be a big brother to your sister and hold her hand through life. I need you to protect her and watch over her. Your sister needs you here!!!”

And I allowed myself to just be sad, devastated, for her. For her loss. To entertain the notion that she may feel broken not having him here, even though I hope with everything in me that she doesn’t, that she feels whole.

I don’t believe in the guardian angel thing, but in my own way, I do hope he is still looking out for his sister, watching out for her, making sure good things happen for her.

My sweet boy Elias.
My forever baby, my son.

Introducing: My daughter Evelyn.

The title of my blog is JOY and sorrow, and yet I rarely come here to share my joy. I am sorry for that. I think I was worried that sharing my living daughter here would upset other women who lost their daughters around the time Evelyn was born. And, well, it might, and if so - I genuinely apologize for any triggers my sharing her may cause for you. Yet I feel that if I only talk about my loss here, then this blog doesn't even come close to representing my complicated life which is full of horrible pain but also overwhelming happiness at times. Another blogger pointed out that my loss is not too terribly different from the loss of any baby while having to parent another living child, and that mamas who lost their first born singleton baby would eventually be in my shoes when they have their next baby...Grieving a child while raising another. Her comments made me feel much less alone in this community. The twin aspect is secondary, but I do think it makes everything seem heightened because the loss and the gain are simultaneous, the major life changes are all corresponding and make the waters of each other murky. At any rate, I can't deny that I am a mother to a living child, a girl who came into this world the same day we said goodbye to her brother. This blog may be focused on my loss, but from time to time, Evy deserves to be shared as well. I know my life and my grief would be very different if she wasn't here with me. And maybe, just maybe, seeing her smiling face will help to make somebody's day just a little brighter.

So here she is! My baby girl, Evy. (Rhymes with Chevy).

She was tiny when we brought her home, and we were afraid we'd break her. Now she's this little person, and I find myself saying, "Where's my baby?!" because she's growing so fast she makes my head freaking spin. 8 months old, she's now sportin' two emerging teeth and loves to crawl, pull herself up to standing and then freak out because she doesn't know what to do next, make farting noises with her mouth, and other such awesome.

A Literal Parade of Triggers!!! Yay!!!

So, my rant on the twin thing partly (but not wholly) was sparked by the fact that this weekend there is a friggin' FESTIVAL devoted to twins not far from my home. (Aren't I oh so lucky?!) In fact, one of my friends/coworkers lives on the parade route. When she moved there, she did not realize what she was in for. Soon, she grew to love living on the parade route (or at least did a good job making the best out of an annoying situation).

Obviously, if we lived there, we’d be moving in a split second away from this PARADE OF TRIGGERS. I can’t imagine much else that would be as horrific to me at this point on my grief journey as seeing droves of parents flaunting their twins and putting them on public display.

My friend has a party at her house every year on the weekend of this parade.
Every year we have gone, mostly to humor her. It is the one big party she has every year, and we don’t get out to her house often.
I remember the first time saying, “Well…I feel kind of odd attending a party for Twins Days when I am not a twin.” What place was it for me to go there and just stare at all the twins?
Seemed incredibly voyeuristic, no?
She said it was her party and anyone was welcome, that there would only be one or two sets of twins at the party. Basically, it was a good excuse to have people come over. She explained that people from all over the world come to Twins Days to participate in the parade and/or see all the twins and that it would be fun to “people watch”.

So, every year, we would go. Mostly to visit with our friend hosting the party.
To be honest? It always made me uncomfortable, but I don’t know if I ever thought through the “why” outside of feeling like a tourist. We just kept going every year as to not disappoint my friend.
When we conceieved twins, this friend was over the freaking moon, obviously. Going on and on about how Twins Days would be so much fun. In her mind it affirmed we would definitely be attending every year. She was so ecstatic.

Immediately, I started to feel even more uncomfortable than I had in the past about this spectacle devoted to twins. I was so incredibly in love with my children already, but in my heart I couldn’t bring myself to get excited about including them in any of it. It really got me thinking about how different my children would be treated simply on account of being conceived during the same ovulatory cycle, and I already started to kind of resent that. I didn't want the label, the extra attention, the early categorization of them as "different". I related so much to the women with living twins who said they hated the very word, that they just wanted their children to be treated as separate individuals.

A parade and festival for twins?
I didn’t get it.
Would I ever get it? If there was a time to get it, it would be at that point when I was expecting twins and could fully participate in these festivities for years to come after their births.
But I felt more annoyed at the idea than anything else.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to the parade that year. I was halfway through my pregnancy and wanted to take it easy. My friend assured me that I could lie down or just do whatever I felt was best once there. My parents were invited too (but never attended in the past as they thought the whole thing was odd too), but suddenly it seemed more “relevant” as they were expecting twin grandchildren. I thought it might be fun to go and bring them. My pregnancy was not only stressful and taxing on me and my marriage, but on my parents as well, who had seen their daughter endure the trauma of miscarriage and would worry until the babies were both here kicking and screaming, understandably. I thought, maybe if they see all these healthy twins, they will relax a bit.

Hell, who am I kidding, maybe I would relax a bit.

I chose a very understated dark gray maternity dress to wear and was mostly uncomfortable the entire day. For many reasons. One being, my friend kept pointing at my stomach, taking photos of my little bump, bragging to everyone that I had the youngest twins there. She even told me I should have worn a sign or something to indicate that I was carrying twins.

As I said before, the whole thing just didn’t sit right with me. Sometimes I wonder if I “knew” something horrible would happen, but then I realize that’s ridiculous. Yes, I was worried about my pregnancy, but that's true of most women who are told at their first ultrasound (after already suffering a traumatizing loss in the past),

"This means you are high risk. But don't worry, you are the lowest risk of the high risk."

Oh, ok. *whew?*

And honestly, even if my twins were both napping in their cribs at this very moment, it still wouldn’t sit right with me, and I wouldn’t want them to go. So I don't think my feelings on this point have anything to do with our loss.
In fact, last year during my pregnancy, I was already trying to concoct reasons why we wouldn’t be able to go to future Twins Days.
Wouldn’t the parade be too loud for the babies?...Wouldn't it be too stressful bring two infants out?...Wouldn't we just want to stay home and spend time with them?...

Having living twins, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of the feelings of obligation to go. And here I would be, dreading the party and all the ensuing awkwardness. I probably wouldn't be blogging about it (I wouldn't have a blog) but would be feigning excitement and wondering what my problem was. Which would be a hell of a lot better than sitting here missing my son so terribly.

Another point that really bothers me is that my cousin will be bringing her twin daughters in from out of state just to participate in this circus. No one has mentioned to me that they are coming into town, but I figured it out (Facebook makes detectives out of all of us). Am I crazy for thinking it would be really nice if they would just skip Twins Days this one time? (They've only gone one other time!) I feel like it's somewhat disrespectful toward me and my family. Maybe I am just oversensitive. (My husband thinks so. He says they should just live their lives and not worry about ours, basically. And an added point he throws in, is that as much as he would rather have his son here, he must admit feeling relief in that we have a "free pass" getting us out of ever attending Twins Days ever again. For me, it still stings to even hear about it, even though I never liked it to begin with. I know, I'm a hypocrite. Guilty as charged.)

I think what bothers me even more than my cousin bringing her twin daughters to the parade (I mean let's face it; it's their choice and their right...) is the thought that they will silently slip in and out of town without even so much as stopping by to meet my daughter. They are staying at my aunt's house who lives literally three minutes from our home. I'm assuming this is what will happen, as no one has said anything to me about their visit, and they are in town TODAY.
Do they not care about Evelyn now that she isn't a twin?
Does she not matter as her own person?
Is my cousin's family forever going to tiptoe around me simply because they have intact twins while I lost one of mine???
Do I deserve feeling like such a freaking outcast?!?!

*sigh.*

At any rate, now that my grief is so intensified by the whole “twin thing” being built up by society, this parade of twins literally sickens me. I think back to before we were pregnant and used to attend, and I remember hearing some people talk about how seeing so many twins in one place was “just so freaky”, which really drives my point home, no?

If the festival was about celebrating how much adversity the twins and their mothers had to overcome just to exist, now THAT would be a different story! To be fair, at Twins Days, sometimes I would see twins wearing signs/shirts that would say “32 weeker”, or “Twin-to-twin transfusion survivor”. If in the parade, these people were passing out pamphlets about the risks of a twin pregnancy or something educational / spreading awareness, then I would whole-heartedly agree with the concept of a parade. The subsequent festival after the parade could be a celebration of their lives.
However, not many wear such shirts or are looking to spread awareness.
Few people even realize that at the festival there are tables where people hand out information on some of these issues, because those tables are hardly a main focus.
There are also booths where researchers offer your children a candybar or a free eraser if they agree to be poked and prodded or have some type of testing done.
Mostly, there are vendors trying to make money on overpriced merchandise and food sold to people in attendance.

It would comfort me to know that the proceeds they make for entry into the festival went toward some kind of fund toward improving outcomes for multiple births (and maybe some of it does; I honestly don't know), but what I do know is that some if not all of it goes toward prizes for twins after they compete against one another in front of an audience on stage for "cutest", "most alike", "most different", and a whole host of other categories.

Two years ago I noticed a few people at the festival wearing shirts that said “Twinless twin”, and “Surviving twin” on them. It made me incredibly sad. So deeply sad. I thought, why would they want to come to this festival? I guess to celebrate their twinship? (And, what does that even mean?) I decided that maybe some of them simply wanted to attend in memory of their lost sibling. However, weren’t there other ways to honor them? And what were the parents thinking? Were they there for the “shock factor” of seeing people’s reactions?

I kept asking my friends, “Did you see that girl’s shirt?!”, but no one seemed to notice but me. It really troubled me, and I wondered what their stories were, but everyone else seemed more focused on ogling all the look-alikes swarming around.

I felt rattled, unsettled, and lonely in those moments.

Oh, what horrible foreshadowing.