Today I’ve thought a lot about how these four fit together as I stumble my way hour by hour to a life thrust on me I never wanted. A mother of two angel sons.

I hesitated posting what I did yesterday because I didn’t want to be a disappointment to anyone, or to come across as a hypocrite to words I’d said earlier. But one email today reminded me so much of how my feelings needed to be said. All of them. In order to heal.

I can have faith in God, know that he has plans for me far greater than I could ever imagine, believe my children are with him, and say it all on here – and still be angry. And that’s ok. There is nothing wrong with asking why or being angry when these thing happen to us. God can handle my feelings. When Lazarus died and Mary and Martha were upset, Jesus wept with them and asked why. He didn’t quote the old standard, “God has a reason, you have to have faith” to them. He wept with them.

This comforts me in two ways. One that He acknowledged their anger and pain, but also that he didn’t dismiss it as “the hysterical woman.” Which we all know I’ve had my fair share of lately. [Read more...]

TweetShare

I don’t know how to grieve.

Ever since I was a little girl I feared death. Was terrified of it. In 6th grade I spent the entire year waiting for the evening when I would fall apart and make myself sick over someone potentially dying.

I’d never really experienced it. My grandpa died a few years ago but he was sick and old and I missed him tremendously but it wasn’t a shock. I wasn’t there when it happened so it didn’t stick with me.

This sticks with me.

I can’t shake the images of their birth. Preston’s short life. His few hours against me struggling to breathe. It replays over and over again in my head like a nightmare I can’t wake from. Everywhere I turn, there it is. What we lost. My minivan we bought. The clothes. Bella. Knowing her tiny hands would have one day been theirs too.

I don’t care that everyone thinks what I did was so brave. I’d give ANYTHING to have them here. With us. Still pregnant with them. I’d trade it all. The emails of people asking me how I got to work for Babble or how lucky I was to work from home or have twins or be settled – jealous now? Jealous of this? I would have (and did) give it all up for them. I can barely function. The pictures on Facebook of babies haunt me with a terror I didn’t even know I could feel. I can’t breathe without it hurting. I can’t think without their faces. I laugh and smile and it all washes over me that as I do this my sons lay in a morgue waiting to be cremated and there isn’t one damn thing I can do to make it stop.

I have no idea how to handle this. No idea where all this pain should go, or if it has to go somewhere. I can’t make it go away and part of me doesn’t want it to because it seems horrible to not hurt this bad for them.

I’m so angry but I don’t know at what. Maybe me. My body. My inability to do something a woman was created to. I barely held onto Bella, and I couldn’t even make it with them long enough for them to have a shot at life. I didn’t know. I tried so hard, talked to everyone I could about what I could do this time around. I was so scared, so scared from the moment we got pregnant that something would happen to them. I tried to reason all the ways it wouldn’t – mine would be different. I wanted them more. I was documenting it. I did all the right things.

And now they’re gone. It didn’t matter. They are still gone from me. It was my biggest fear and it happened anyway. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know.

I just want it to be all better. I want my sons back. I want to wake up and have this all be gone, for it to be over and it never will.

And so I sit here in bed and cry and mourn and write because I don’t know what else to do to make it all stop.

TweetShare

Julian Toby and Preston William were born this morning.

Julian was already with the Lord. Sam and I got to be with Preston for nearly 2 hours before he went to be with Jesus.

My heart is broken. I honestly feel like I can’t breathe most of the time, the pain is so intense. We are dealing with every moment bringing a fresh wave of pain, each realization of what the future holds and now doesn’t hold makes me sob.

I will never hold my sons. I will never see them grow. They will never wear the clothes we had for them at home. I will never get to see them interact with Bella. Sam will never be able to take them fishing. I can’t kiss or hold them ever again. We will go home in a few hours empty handed, with my stomach still feeling as if they are in there. Waiting to meet us.

My shower date will now be their funeral. We will always and forever have them but we won’t. And my heart aches for my sons. My little boys.

They were human. They were perfect. They had tiny fingernails and toes, Preston made faces and grabbed my finger. He hung in there as long as he could.

We are so proud. So proud to have been their parents, to have the honor of having them in our lives on earth for 19 weeks and 4 days. They will never be forgotten. They are loved and were told that. They are now together with Jesus, safe in His arms away from any pain being in me might have eventually caused. This is what I cling to. They are free. I never have to worry again that our decision to hold on to the end caused them any pain.

One day we will see them again. I told them that. I will see them again, I will hold them in my arms and rock them in the way I couldn’t here. They changed our lives forever and we are so very proud to have had these weeks with them. It was worth it. Every moment. Had I known when we started this journey in November what it would have brought, I’d have done it all over again. Nothing can change that they were mine for a time.

And we did it just the way we wanted. They went home to heaven when God was ready for them, and with this knowledge we have great comfort.

But oh, oh how my heart aches for the two perfect sons I never got to put to bed or read a story to. My arms are empty as I go home and try to find a new way with such a huge hole in our family.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers in this time. I may not be able to respond but when Sam and I are alone, we read them and they give us a strength we didn’t know we had.

TweetShare