1 Year Later

So what do I call this?  Their birthday?  Today marks one year since the twins were permanently removed from our lives.  It seemed so wrong for my D&C to land on April 1st.  What a joke right?  When I woke up from the anesthesia I asked a nurse if they by any chance found a third baby in their.  I thought I was being funny, but I'm sure in my VERY sleepy state that I came across serious.  Obviously not serious enough seeing how she didn't get me any answers nor did ANYONE in the medical field explain ANYTHING to me that day.  The doctor went out and talked with Neal, but I never saw her after the surgery.  I had questions too.  Had they lived and arrived early like their big sister, they would be about six months old now.

A friend asked recently if I was having a hard day over the loss of the babies.  I told her it was more of a hard three months; it started in January which was a year from the beginning of the IVF.  Then February rolled around marking the beginning of life for several more of our children.  Unfortunately only two made it back into my womb.  The others weren't strong enough to survive the freeze so they passed away early.  Ugh... then March came.  March was a hard month.  We spent the whole month on our face before God begging for the health of our babies, speaking life into them, then saying goodbye to one only to lose the second a week later.  The week of my birthday is when we found out the babies were gone.  Isn't that just a happy time?  Who wants to spend their birthday knowing the babies they still carry are dead?  We had to wait nine agonizing days for the D&C.  And then it was all over.

Now what God's intentions were for our two survivors is beyond me.  Why did He allow me to get pregnant only to lose them?  Why did Andrew have Trisomy 13, 14, and 15?  Why did Sarah have to die when she appeared perfectly healthy?  Some of the doctor's words can really come back to bite at times.  One doctor told me, "You will come home with one baby in October, but I'm not sure if you will have two."  Little did he know God was going to take them both home just a matter of weeks later.

This week we watched the season finally of 19 Kids and Counting.  We cried with the Duggars while they grieved for Jubilee.  When Michelle was talking about her final days with her baby, I understood.  I felt the same way as she described.  Even thought the baby or babies are gone, while they are inside you that's it, that's your final time with them on earth.  The worst part about being the pre-op room was it being open to about 24 other patients as well as nurses and doctors.  The lady beside me was having a breast reduction and chatted on with the nurses on how happy she was to get it done.  How pointless huh?  Do you realize how dumb some of the things we worry about are?  How meaningless they are?  I laid there in the bed, spending my last hour with the twins, wanting to mourn their loss, all the while sucking it out because I was surrounded by people.  I have to give it to the nurses, they handled it as well as they could.  Just like with infertility, there's just some things you shouldn't say to people.  Not to mention it leaves many people simply not knowing what to say.  I remember being asked a couple times afterwards, "How are you doing?"  I was always taken back by the question.  My first response was, "HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU THINK I'M DOING?!!! DID YOU READ MY CHART AND SEE MY DEAD BABIES WERE JUST REMOVED FROM MY BODY?!"  Of course I didn't say that.  I would tell them how my physical body was responding post surgery.

As for the Duggars I often wonder how they feel about the show still being called 19 Kids and Counting.  They've lost two now.  Michelle talked about needing closure.  One thing she said was needed to acknowledge Jubilee's life.  I'm not sure how they would change the kid line up in the opener, adding in Jubilee, without the mood turning dark.  I'm curious how Michelle and Jim Bob feel now when telling someone, "we have 19 kids".  I know for myself, when I say Kaitlyn Joy is an only child I feel like I'm lying.  Simply because they didn't take one breath on this earth didn't mean they never had life, yet most people would see it that way.

Sarah and Andrew, gone, but not forgotten.  You're very much missed.