The Double Stroller

Twinlostmamas know what I'm talking about.
I know I'm not the only one.

The dreaded double stroller.

Even though I push one now, with my toddler and my baby in it, every time I see one, I stop for a second, just to see.

I try not to gawk.  I try.

The other day, I saw this gorgeous bright red double stroller going down the sidewalk on our street.  I thought to myself, "There goes twins."  Then, immediately, "I hope they don't live on our street."  Then, more rationally, "Just because it's a double stroller doesn't mean it's twins."

A few days later, same stroller, same lady, passed us in the park by our street.

I quickly glanced into the stroller as they went by and saw them.

Four bare baby feet sticking out.  Clearly twins.

I kept walking, but my heart was breaking, and that anger was bubbling.

WHY?  Why couldn't that have been US?  Why did it have to go SO WRONG for US?  Will the self pity party ever end?!

Today, same stroller, same lady, walked by a path near our yard.  Her bright candy apple red stroller screaming, "LOOK AT ME!  LOOK AT US!"

My heart started racing, and I wanted to go inside immediately.

My single twin yelled, "HI!"

My heart was smashed into pieces.

"Hello!" the lady responded.  "When they're older, we'll have to come over and play!"

No.
No.
NO.

No, you won't.

You won't, because you can't.

You won't, because I can't.  I can't take it.  I just can't take it.

You won't, because your pity for me will make me ill at ease.

You won't, because I can't have my daughter watch what should have been.

I can't have all that I wanted flaunted in front of my face.

You won't, because just seeing your candy apple red double stroller makes me want to vomit.

Tonight, the tears fall.  Of course they fall for my boy.  My first born, the twin I never got to raise.

But they also fall for the friendship that could have been mine, that should have been mine, had Elias lived.  In an alternate world, my perfect gorgeous first born son came out kicking and screaming just three minutes before his sister.  There was no Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep taking photos of precious moments I couldn't have possibly let soak in.  Rather, swarms of visitors came with bouquets of pink and blue balloons, just the way I envisioned they would.  In an alternate world, I got to experience raising twins, a dream of mine since childhood.  In an alternate world, I am not a broken person.  In that world, my heart isn't gaping, shattered, confounded, obliterated.

In that world, I jump from my chair when I see that candy apple red double stroller.  I jump up to greet this woman and offer her help.  "I know what you're going through!" I say, and we swap stories about sleepless nights, about having no time to cook or work out, about how misunderstood we are as twin mamas, about how we wish people could just treat our children as individuals and not sensationalize them due to the simple fact that they were born at the same time.  We exchange numbers, and make plans, and my twins are thrilled that another set of twins lives so close by.  They stare, unable to believe they themselves were ever so little, and offer to give the babies their bottles.

In that world.
The world where double strollers don't have the power to shatter my heart.

The world where double strollers are just double strollers.

Broken and Elated

The other day, I had one of those moments which happen several times a day.  One of those moments where I look at my daughter Evelyn and feel flooded with emotion. 

I was buckling her into her car seat, and I kissed her on her forehead, looked into her sparkling blue eyes, and said, "Do you have any idea how much I love you?" not really expecting a response.

And then I hear this adorable toddler voice respond, "Two."

I froze, because something in her response was triggering something deep within me.

"What, honey?" I asked her.

She looked at me, holding up two fingers, and said, "You love me this many, mommy."

Suddenly, I was back in that funeral home, identifying Evelyn's twin brother Elias's body.  People had said I didn't have to be the one to identify him, but it was one of the last (and only) things I could do to parent him, so I went.
I stood there, trembling, with my husband and my father, peering down at my perfect boy.  Hot tears flooded my eyes, spilling down my face, and I told him how much we all loved him.  How much we wanted him here.  How I would have done literally anything to bring him into the world safely.  How sorry I was.  How I was going to show his sister twice as much love, shower her with twice as many kisses and hugs, since I couldn't do those things for him.  How I hoped he'd be able to see all of this from heaven and rather than be jealous of it, know that we were loving him too, through his twin sister.

My heart felt broken and full all at once.
I blinked hard, smiled, tousled Evelyn's hair, hugged her tightly, and said,

"Yes, honey.  That's right.  I love you times two.  You're absolutely right."

Quick Question - No more Google Reader???

Now that Google Reader is no more, what are all y'all bloggy peeps using?

Right where I am 2013: Two and a half years and one day. Or, 914 days.

This post is a part of this incredibly inspiring project, in case you're curious.  This is my third year contributing.  Here's is last year's post, and here's the post from the year before that, in case you're even more curious.

Two and a half years and one day.

914 days.  Being back there at day one doesn’t come as readily anymore.  I’m not thrust there unwillingly as often as I used to be.

Most days, it seems like it’s been a decade.
 

But some days, it seems like yesterday.  I can see the doctor staring at the ultrasound screen with a perplexed expression.  Moving the wand over my stomach back and forth, up and down, a look of panic rising in her eyes.  Leaving the room to get another doctor, who also goes through those same motions, shaking her head, “I don’t see anything.”
 

That’s how I learned that my son had died.  “I don’t see anything.” 

 Like he just disappeared into thin air.

Like there was nothing left of him.

Like he’d never been there in the first place.

Like the entire diagnosis of “twin pregnancy” had simply been a mistake that they only realized at the 37 week mark.

I have fought tooth and nail to make sure that my son’s memory hasn’t disappeared into thin air.  To be sure that there’s something left of him, that his legacy is a meaningful one.  To be sure people know that he did exist.  That I am a mother to twins: One in my hands, one in my heart.

I’m so tired of fighting.  My nails are dirty and bloody from clawing my way through the turmoil.  My mind is dizzy from denying my grief, from fixating on grief, from not knowing grief’s proper place.  My mind is frayed from the post traumatic stress of losing my baby at term and subsequently carrying another child to term.  My heart hurts from holding my dead child, from not feeling like a good enough mother to any of my children, from losing people I thought would never leave my side much less kick me when I’m down, from feeling so isolated at times in my type of loss.

And yet, a corner has been turned, and in the shadows, a gleam of light shines brightly.

I may be tired, but I’m not empty.  I don’t feel so much like I have anything to prove to anybody.  I know my son was real, that he was real even when his heart stopped, that his surviving sister will always be a twin, that I will always miss my first child.  I know that, sadly, yet comfortingly, I am not the only one to lose a twin at term.  I know that I am not a freak in losing my son to something that claims the lives of one in five thousand.  I know that I did the best I could with my subsequent pregnancy, that it was in my best interest to hide that pregnancy for my own very personal reasons, that most people don’t understand because they simply can’t understand, and I wouldn’t wish loss or post-traumatic stress on anyone, so I must forgive them their ignorance.

This war?  It isn’t mine.  It never was.  It’s so much bigger than me.

I will continue to love my first son.  I will express that love unashamedly in ways others may deem as odd.   A blog.  A balloon release.  A candle.  A memory shelf.  A kind gesture to another loss mama.  These are the things I do to quietly parent him.

But I’m not fighting any more.  I used to literally feel like I was fighting for my very life, just merely trying to survive.  There’s no me versus the world anymore.  That anger has simmered some.  I am surveying the damage, the fallout, from the grief and trauma that has struck my life, taking stock of the casualties, the friendships that did not survive the blows to my life.  Silence has spoken volumes to me these past two and a half years.

But I’m not angry about that anymore.  It’s okay.  I don’t want people to be anything other than who they really are.  And I mean that sincerely, at last.

I cry harder than before.

laugh harder than before.
feel the sadness of the world more than before.
grasp onto moments of happiness more than before.
stand up for myself more than before.
set healthier boundaries than before.
embrace spontaneity and challenges more than before.
love more genuinely than before.
breathe each moment in more than before.
feel more than before.

 

I am more than before.

This gleam of light I see shines in many forms.

It shines in the form of so many epiphanies that have come my way.

It shines in the form of such incredible new friendships I’ve embraced, both in and out of the loss community.

It shines in the form of a marriage that has been to hell and back and has survived and strengthened through the course of weathering the storms.

It shines in the form of my beautiful daughter who will always carry part of her brother with her.

It shines in the form of my miracle rainbow baby boy who carries his big brother’s name as his middle name.

It shines in the form of this love I carry for my first son, a love that no one could ever snuff out.

It shines in the form of signs from above, such as this incredible 22 degree halo rainbow ring around the sun during our balloon release yesterday.

This gleam of light I see shines in the form of this new me that I am still getting to know. 

Wounded, ripped wide open, yet fierce, passionate, and more courageous than ever before.

 

If Only They Knew.

The other day, while waiting for the bell to ring to let students go to their next classes, a conversation between students caught me in my tracks.  I stopped entering grades into the gradebook, my ears perked up, and my breath hitched.  My heart was racing, and I felt like I was going to vomit. 
I stayed calm and professional, of course, but everything in me wanted to just run out of the room.

"Yeah, I guess I'm the older twin.  I mean I was born eight minutes before my brother.  So I don't know, I guess you can call that older, but we're basically the same age."

Other students respond to that, but I can't hear them.  Then he says,

"We were a MONTH early!"

When no one seems particularly impressed, he goes on, "I had jaundice too, which is where your skin is all yellow and they have to put lights on you."

Another student pipes in, as if to show him up,

"Well, when I was born, my umbilical cord was wound tightly around my neck.  Like, a bunch of times.  I was purple, and I wasn't moving or even breathing!  Isn't that craaaazy?"

More responses that I can't hear, as I'm feeling dizzy at this point.

Then she says, "Yeah, they even put me in the stupid kid classes when I started school, because they thought I was going to be slow from not getting enough oxygen.  But I never needed them."

Someone responds, "Uhhhh, no kidding, Ms. Straight A's!"

Laughter ensues.

I'm dying inside.

Mother's Day

Very emotional on Mother's Day holding this little guy who came into being (unbeknownst to us) last Mother's Day. So overwhelmed with joy and gratitude that he made it here safely, that I could hold him in my arms this Mother's Day, that my gorgeous girl Evelyn is such a great big sister to him, and that his big brother Elias will forever hold such a special place in all of our hearts.

International Bereaved Mothers Day 2013

For those of you who aren't on my FB page, I wanted to be sure to pop in here to wish you a day full of reflection and hope on this Bereaved Mothers Day.

It's exactly the space I'm in - one of reflection and hope.
Looking back at my post on this holiday two years ago, I just can't believe how different I feel today.  I can't quite explain it.  It might be what I've heard some people call "integration".  I no longer feel the need to defend myself at every turn for loving and remembering my first born son.  He will always be my forever baby, my son, my reason to look forward to heaven.  I will always love him, always miss him, and that's just the way it is.  He's part of me.  Forever.  And there's comfort in that.

I'm glad I took the time two years ago to write that post, to flesh out my feelings on the "holiday" that Carly Marie started.  It is a necessary one.  It stands in such stark contrast to the commercialized bubble gummy Hallmark holiday of Mothers Day, which undeniably recognizes a very different kind of parenting.  Not the "delicate parenting" I describe in the aforementioned post.

And I still love this poem so much, written by the lovely Angie, my friend and fellow BLM, in honor of this sacred holiday.

I stumbled upon an article today and found this quote that I felt really resonated:
"The good news is that healthy grieving does result, at the time right for each of us, in an experience of integration. We take stock and say: I am changed by our loss, and I have changed my life as a result of my loss. And we are not shriveled permanently like a dry stick because of our loss. We can feel alive again…probably wiser, maybe quieter, certainly full of gratitude and a desire to contribute from what we have been through.
And all in good time."

~Elizabeth Harper, Ph.D