Chicken Smooshes
1/20/18
Dear Human That’s Inside Me,
I don’t know you well enough yet to give you a nickname. I found out for sure that you exist this morning—or exist as much as a human can when (s)he’s only the size of a poppy seed (that’s what the internet tells me).
I’d suspected you might be there for a week or so but wasn’t sure—and even more, I wasn’t sure if I wanted you to be or not. I’d made the decision, decided to see it through—but that doesn’t keep it from being terrifying. You’ll have to forgive me for that. I’m sure it’s not the last time I’ll feel it. This morning I took the test (my friend Brinna told me, “morning pee is the best pee”) and it turned positive almost instantly. I put the cap on the test and left it on the counter for your dad to find—he’s been sick, and I wanted to let him sleep. And I also needed a few minutes to deal with it myself.
We’re watching your Aunt Sarah’s dog Sydney this weekend while she’s in Cancun getting over a bad breakup. I took Sydney and Clyde outside and stood there in my bathrobe and snowboots, watching the sunrise over the leafless trees, and I was terrified. Later I tried to hide that my eyes were filling with tears as I explained to your dad that it wasn’t that I wished I wasn’t pregnant, but just that it was scary. It made it worse that he couldn’t hug me because he was scared of getting me sick.
Our lives are happy. We love each other, we travel, we have work that for the most part interests us. I have side projects and dreams. Our lives are good. And I’m so scared to lose it. Having you means we have to move away from Indy, leave this house that I love, leave my family. Not for good, and not for real, even, but it’s change. It’s uncertainty.
So why are we doing this? It’s hard to really put into words. Maybe I don’t even know. All I know is when my grandma died (your Great-grandma Pam, who was wonderful and one of the best and biggest parts of my first 33 years), I looked at Michael and said, “I feel ready to have kids now.” And he said, “Me too.”
This afternoon I went to the Women’s March with your Aunt Courtney, and as we stood there in the American Legion Mall, on the first warm day in weeks, I found myself crying behind my sunglasses, crying because they were talking about hope, about being better, about a fairer world. For the first time that day, I let myself think of you, really think of you, as a person I would love, as someone who is quite literally half me and half your dad—23 chromosomes from me, 23 chromosomes from him—and I let my palm rest on my lower belly through the pocket of my coat.
Forgive me, little speck of cells. I know when you’re here you’ll be my whole world—and I guess that’s the part that scares me. There are a lot of other things in my world.
2/2/18
I’ve known about you for about two weeks now, though it feels like much longer. There have been moments where I’ve found myself singing to you in the car, or rubbing my belly to ease the cramps, imagining you in there as a tiny, tiny blob growing arm knobs and eye buds. A few nights ago I panicked that I wasn’t feeling any nausea and spent an hour looking up miscarriage rates and how likely it is that we will or won’t see your heartbeat in 10 days when we finally go to the doctor. I’ve become attached already. Your dad calls you “our chicken nugget”—mostly to make me laugh because he’s so corny. Later it turned into "Chicken Smoosh."
And yet at the same time it doesn’t feel real. It feels still like it might be some mistake, like I might go to the doctor and they’ll turn me away, saying I have some kind of weird disease that’s causing my symptoms and it’s not a pregnancy at all. Or worse, there will be something wrong with you and it will all be over.
I’ll feel better once we’ve been to the doctor. Right now it feels like some kind of dream limbo.
2/16/18
They made us go to the history nurse first. She asked a bunch of questions—things like “Have any of your relatives ever had Tay-Sachs disease? Huntington’s? High blood pressure?”
Our answers to most were “I don’t think so?”
She gave us a folder full of food not to eat, medicines that were okay to take for everything ranging from headaches to heartburn to constipation, maternity magazines I will never open. Before we left, she convinced me to sign up for an Enfamil raffle to win a basket full of baby supplies. I rolled my eyes at myself even as I put my signature on the sign up card, thinking of all the junk mail I was going to get now.
Our ultrasound wasn’t for another hour and a half, so we left the hospital to run some errands. Michael scanned the pamphlet on genetic screening as I drove us to Home Depot, trying to figure out how much the cell-free fetal DNA test was going to cost us.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s covered,” I said. “We’re going to spend our deductible this year anyway.”
We ordered the carpet for the master and guest bedrooms, stopped by the post office to get stamps, went to Steak n’ Shake for lunch, and dropped by the bank to make a contribution to the HSA for tax purposes. So productive on this Monday afternoon.
Then we were sitting in the waiting room again, Michael on his phone, me staring off into space, pregnant women in various stages of expansion surrounding us. I found myself looking at the burgeoning bellies, trying to picture myself in that state. This still feels very unreal.
The ultrasound room was dark, the television monitor a foreboding presence in the corner. The technician stopped Michael when he started to move towards a chair under the TV.
“You’re going to want to sit there.” She pointed towards a chair next to the paper-covered exam table.
I took off my jeans in the adjoining bathroom, wrapping the paper blanket around my waist.
“This will feel a little cold,” the technician said, pushing the ultrasound wand inside me. There emerged my uterus on the screen, a big white and black blur. She moved the wand from side to side, blobs appearing and disappearing. She said nothing. In my head I imagined what comes next,
“Well, I’m not seeing any babies…”
Or
“I’m sorry, it looks like there’s no heartbeat.”
Instead, what came out of her mouth was, “Well, a bit of a surprise…” and then nothing else. Next to me, Michael made a noise that might be chuckling, might be choking.
She finally spoke.
“This is the first baby…” she moved the wand to the right so a little blob appears, encircled by a white line, the screen pulsing as my breathing or her movement, I’m not sure, jostled the wand. She moved to the left.
“And this is the second baby. Twins.”
For the rest of that appointment I felt like I was playing a role, acting in some kind of theater: I am the surprised mother, overwhelmed that she’s having twins but overjoyed at the idea of the emerging life within her. Words came out of my mouth, the words I feel I’m supposed to say, but I’m not sure I’m actually feeling anything. Michael seemed extraordinarily calm for the situation. The scientific talk about monochorionic diamniotic twins and and yolk sacs helped.
The technician printed pictures for us and handed them to Michael, then told us we might want to not tell anyone the gender once we find out, because her sister did that and then all anybody bought for the shower was cute matching outfits and none of the bigger equipment she now needed two of.
I interrupted her at one point, my brain trying to catch up. “We’re going to have to get a different car,” I said to Michael.
In the waiting room for the third time, this time on the other side of the reception area, we wait for the nurse practitioner. I bury my head in Michael’s shoulder. “What the fuck?” I say.
“I don’t even know.” We laugh a bit, delirious.
Neither of us sleeps well that night, but it isn’t until the next day that I have a bit of a breakdown, sobbing on the couch in the apartment in Cincinnati, overwhelmed and scared. My feelings are up and down, up and down—terrified first of having two babies at once, then terrified next that I might lose one or both. When the test results come in on Thursday and they say I have low progesterone, I start Googling and become certain miscarriage is imminent.
“Look,” I whisper to the empty apartment, my hands on my belly. “I know I’ve been a little ambivalent about this, but you guys can stay around.”
Then,
“You’re being ridiculous,” I say to myself. “Just stop it.”
Every once in awhile Michael looks at me, as we sit on the couch watching the Olympics, as we’re lying in bed.
“I can’t believe you have two babies inside you,” he says.
“I know.”
2/23/18
Pregnancy still doesn’t seem like a real thing to me yet, though I’m almost 10 weeks now. Some days I think I don’t feel bad enough to actually have humans growing inside me, other days I think I’ll never feel normal again. I’m so tired, and so nauseous, and my belly hasn’t stopped engaging in some kind of cramping in 5+ weeks. The worst part though is the gunk in my back of my throat that won’t go away and won’t come out, and that makes water taste funny and sugar disgusting (what a travesty!).
I told Michael once that if I were ever pregnant I wouldn’t complain, because it was irritating to see people complain and expect special treatment when they did this to themselves / were having kids for themselves. Having kids is not some great self sacrifice for the greater good of humankind, not really. It’s something you do because you want to be a parent, because you want to see a little facsimile of yourself, because you want to know you’re leaving a part of yourself behind when it comes time to go. Suck it up.
I’m a little kinder now, I think. I had some issues for awhile around thinking I was expected to do certain things in my life, whether I wanted to or not.
“You can complain to me,” Michael said.
But I try to watch myself anyway. I’m still feeling out the dynamics of this. If I had been ambivalent about kids, he had been more specifically negative about the idea, at least at first. Now that we’re having not just one, but two, I find myself cautious not to make his life too much about kids before it has to be. I’m worried he’s not going to be happy with what our life becomes—and that he’ll blame me. He won’t—that’s not the kind of marriage we have. At least he won’t on purpose.
It’s probably the baby hormones starting to course through my body, but lately my missing of my grandma has been especially acute. She would be so excited. She would be right here helping to get our house ready to sell, and helping me feel better about moving and all the things we could do in a new house. She’d buy the babies things they didn’t really need, and she’d show up with random art or furniture to put in the nursery. She’d bring me cookies or pizza and say I should sit down and relax and eat. She’d take care of me in a way that somehow doesn’t feel at all like pressure or expectation to feel a certain way or an attempt to be my best friend. It would just be Grandma.
She’d be annoying, too, I’m sure. She’d want me to make decisions and be proactive when I’d rather be lazy, kind of like when she kept texting me pictures of desk chairs until I gave in and made a decision on one just so she’d let it go. But she’d be Grandma. I miss her so much.
3/1/18
On Tuesday I went to my first appointment with the “high risk” doctors at Maternal Fetal Medicine. Mom went with me since Michael was in Cincinnati. At first I thought it’d be no problem to go by myself, but I’m glad she was there.
We met at Chick Fil A and had lunch beforehand, and I tried to navigate the tricky landscape of our move to Cincinnati. Two and a half years ago, while in the car on the way to Marion, we’d first told her that Michael was taking a job there. She’d turned up the radio and sat in silence for a long moments, and later at dinner she snapped at Michael for making a lighthearted comment about how at least it wasn’t across the country—”I’M TRYING MY BEST TO BE OKAY WITH THIS, MICHAEL.” Poor Michael.
Of course we didn’t move then. We’ve spent the last few years going back and forth each week, and it’s been fine, if a bit tedious and tiring. But now there’s no real choice—we have to move. We can’t be apart for stretches of each week when we have two babies, and we can’t travel back and forth all the time.
So I’ve been walking on eggshells when talking to Mom about this topic. I knew a move was likely coming, so I laid the groundwork last summer while she and I were at a winery, casually mentioning something about how I’d like a cool chandelier made out of wine bottles in some future house.
“When would you have a different house?”
“Oh, eventually we’ll probably have something else, whether it’s here or in Cincinnati.”
I thought I was suave, but really I was just a little drunk because I’d drank the wine tasting flight a little too quickly.
And then when we told her about the babies that news overshadowed the moving.
“I’d been trying to accept that you guys weren’t going to have kids, and that it would be okay, we would just do fun adult things together and go on trips,” she said. “I’m just so glad you’ll get to experience this, because there’s nothing like the love you feel for your child.”
I kept myself from rolling my eyes, because that’s the kind of statement that always annoyed me—the idea that you couldn’t know love, couldn’t know self-sacrifice, couldn’t really live if you didn’t have kids. I don’t believe that. I know you guys will come and I’ll love you and it will be overwhelming, and it will change my life. But there are many people who don’t have kids and who have happy, fulfilled lives full of love and generosity and experience.
“I guess I might not see you any less than I see you now,” she said, the move finally taking over some of her thoughts.
She has texted me every single day since then, asking me how I’m feeling, sending me pictures she’s colored on an app on her phone. She’s driving me nuts. But she’s my mom and she loves me, just like I will love you both. Hopefully I won’t drive you nuts too often.
Anyway. I’ve gone off on a tangent. We’re at Chick Fil A before this appointment, and she asks me if any good houses have come up, then switches her tune on moving. While a few days before at dinner she’d talked about how I might be able to find a “happy medium,” where Michael might have a long commute but I could still get help if I needed it, now she was worried about me feeling isolated.
“If you were here in Indy or there in Cincinnati with your friends, you’d have people to talk to and things to do. Moving is okay—people move all the time.”
Moving is okay? People move all the time? Dad must have been talking to her.
And then when I said I didn’t want to be in a subdivision, she worried about how I might miss having a community, how if I had neighbors and things to do I might be happier.
“But Mom, I don’t really like doing social things.” I dread the thought of neighbors I have to talk to, who see me walking to the mailbox and stop me to say hi, of being able to see other people when I’m relaxing on my own deck.
We looked at a few houses on my phone and the conversation got easier. I think if I include her things will be fine. It’s the idea of the unknown and of potential loss that scares her. Once she can see that I’ll be fine, she’ll be fine, we’ll all be fine, things will be okay.
The Maternal Fetal Medicine office is nicer than my normal obgyn’s. There were hardly any people there, and the rooms felt more inviting. The chairs in the waiting room were cushioned gliders and had foot stools. We didn’t have to wait long at all before they took us in and did a smaller version of the medical history meeting Michael and I had done two weeks before, then it was to the ultrasound room, where they were actually able to do a regular ultrasound with the goo on my belly.
As soon as you guys popped up on the screen my breath caught a little bit, because instead of blobs you suddenly looked like people. You’ve changed so much in two weeks. I could see your arms and legs, and your little hearts pulsing. You waved your arms around like you both were dancing, and Twin A turned completely around while we watched.
“It’s starting,” I thought to myself. You still don’t feel like real people yet—and you aren’t, you’re the size of Lego figures and can’t even really close your fists yet—but I felt the wonder and fascination that you’re growing inside me. And watching the black and white shapes on the screen move, I thought, “Look how cute.”
3/8/18
I got my first baby onesie last night—from a restaurant, of all places. We were at Sotto while the boys had their dinner with some bigwigs from China, and Amanda’s favorite waiter brought Caroline and I mocktails, a lime and mint something that I normally wouldn’t like but which tasted perfect now.
“Congratulations,” he said to me. It’s still strange to have people know, let alone congratulate me.
Our waitress later brought both Caroline and I little brown bags.
“Since I couldn’t really tell if you guys had bumps, I figured you didn’t have many baby clothes yet! So here you go.”
Inside was a little brown onesie with “Sotto” on it in red-orange letters. I didn’t tell them there were twins, so only one of you will get to wear it.
It still doesn’t feel like a real thing, that I’ll need baby clothes. I feel like a pretender.
3/27/18
I feel irritated lately, which probably isn’t anything surprising because I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m feeling stressed out. I feel constantly nauseous, which really should be over now that I’m in my second trimester, and everything leaves a gross taste in my mouth. My back hurts already, and my right buttcheek has been twinging and aching for weeks now. Glorious motherhood! The sanctity of pregnancy! I’ve still so long to go and so many unpleasant things to look forward to.
Willow hasn’t really been piling more work on me than normal, but it feels that way. Lots of meetings, lots of big projects. And I don’t make it easier on myself, because I can’t seem to manage my time well. I’m also trying to fit in things like this calligraphy class Amanda wanted to do, which is 2.5 hours every Wednesday and at least an hour of homework every week, and writing with Sarah, which is where I am now. Then there’s huge chunks of time taken out for house hunting, which isn’t going well, and all the driving back and forth from Cincinnati, and the packing coolers and going to the grocery, and the getting and wrapping a birthday present for Scott, and the communicating with the guy who’s going to repair our house trim, and figuring out what I’m going to bring for Easter dinner, and emailing the realtor, and reading baby books, and trying to do research for the registry, and trying to make sure I exercise and eat well. I just want to sleep but I can’t even do that well.
So I’m feeling overwhelmed right now. And I wake up worried about switching doctors, or how I’m not doing anything with Olive & Clyde, or how I’m not sure I’m feeling enough pregnancy symptoms and what if something’s wrong?
I should be taking a breath and enjoying this time where I’m still free, where I’m still in Indy, where I have life growing in me and all these new experiences.
A few weeks ago we found out you were girls. When the nurse on the phone told me, I had that kind of happiness spasm that bubbles up inside you and makes you want to wave your arms around like a lunatic. I’m excited to raise girls, to help you figure out how to be kick ass and strong and smart and to change the world. And I won’t pretend that I’m not excited to have the first girls in the family. Maybe not the first girls for very long, since your Aunt Courtney is pregnant again, but we’ll see.
4/22/18
I’m scared - just really scared.
I’ve been in this hospital 4 days now. I went from standing in calligraphy class on Wednesday, hand on my bulging belly, feeling a bit proud and flaunting a little the fact that I was starting to show, to standing in a hospital bathroom Thursday, water gushing out of me. This isn’t a world I ever thought I’d be a part of, this world of miscarriage and early labor and my body failing me. Of possible NICU stays and baby memorials and having to decide if I end my babies’ lives.
They’re both still inside me, their hearts beating and their limbs kicking. I don’t know how much longer they will be. I don’t really know them yet, even though I helped make them and they’ve been inside me almost 18 weeks. But we’ve gotten attached to the idea of having twin girls, Michael and I, attached to the idea of being a family. And when the nurse last night was telling me about what they do when a baby dies, and was telling me they normally put the baby on Mom’s chest for comfort and warmth as its heart stops, my first reaction was anxiety, and fear, and a desire to say, “No, just take them away so I don’t have to suffer it.”
But later when the nurse left and I was laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, my palm against my belly, I thought of my daughter, and how she’s my responsibility, and how I’m her mom, no matter how small and unfinished she is. And if her heart is beating and she’s suffering, it’s my job to hold her as she lets go, and to give her what comfort and love I can. I’m already her mom.
But good lord, what a shitty thing this is, and how much I don’t want to go through it.
4/23/18
Days in a hospital bed pass strangely — faster than you would think. I sleep and I watch Parks & Rec and I stare off into space, imagining all the possible horrible outcomes, waiting with anxiety for the doctor to come by, for the nurse to find their heartbeats, for the moment when I can’t put off pooping any longer and have to worry about parts coming out of me in the process. One of my nurses told me “toilet babies happen” and to let her know if I had to have a bowel movement, so now I’m terrified.
Part of me just wants this to be over, and part just can’t bear the thought. I don’t even know what to be hoping for. There’s just so little chance that this turns out well.
“Incompetent cervix” and “pPROM” — preterm premature rupture of the membranes. I know a lot about both now. What it means is that I’m in the 1-2% of people whose cervix doesn’t work right, and that caused early dilation and Baby A’s sac to burst. So I have two problems to deal with, two huge obstacles to overcome, and a huge chance that things do not end well. During one of the shift changes, one of the nurses was reading her notes to the night nurse.
“You’re here because you’re scared to go home, right?” she said to me.
“...I’m here because they think I’m going to miscarry. Dr. Linn didn’t want me to go home.”
“Yeah, it says here, ‘A is inevitable, B is likely,” she reads from the paper in her hand.
“So are they going to try to save one?” the new nurse asks me.
“They’re going to try but it’s not likely because they share a placenta.” I’m still reeling from the word “inevitable” and the fact that I’m having to have this conversation. Later I see it’s listed as “inevitable abortion” on my chart under “medical issues,” which just doesn’t seem the right way to describe what’s happening at all.
When they leave I look at Michael.
“They didn’t need to say ‘inevitable,” I say.
“Prove them wrong,” he says.
I’m trying.
10 minutes later the maintenance man my mom has in to fix the tv remote walks by my bed and says, “Congrats on the baby!”
IF I go into labor naturally, and IF they’re able to stop labor after I deliver Baby A, and IF Baby B doesn’t have a stroke, then there’s a chance she might be okay. There’s still a huge chance she’ll come early and have neurological issues, which they tell me could be anything from needing glasses to having brain damage. Every doctor who comes in here to talk to me, day after day, sits down next to me and looks at me sadly and says something like, “You’re in a really horrible situation.” You can tell they expect me to deliver at any moment — everyone asks if I’m cramping or bleeding and seems surprised when I say no, I feel fine.
“I think you just need to wait and see if your body makes the decision for you,” one of the on-call doctors tells me. “I believe in God and I think things have a way of working out.”
Dr. Plenty, my high risk doctor, says she had a miscarriage in January, and she was telling her husband, “God lets people have babies with Down’s Syndrome. I don’t believe God has anything to do with this.”
Does God have anything to do with this?
Later that day:
A small dose of hope — minor and probably not anything to focus on, but it lifted my spirits nonetheless. Dr. Linn said if I make it two weeks like this, then there’s more we can do. We didn’t really talk more about that because it’s still such a long shot, but I guess she probably means steroids to strengthen the babies’ lungs or magnesium to prevent contractions or antibiotics to prevent infection. It’d still be so early and it’s such a long shot. Again, I don’t know what to hope for. But until then I’m still just waiting on my body to make the decision for me.
Also Michael brought me my stuffed puppy and I almost cried.
4/24/18
Michael and I got the morning to ourselves, which was nice. Mom didn’t want to go — she keeps saying she can’t bear to be too far away (“I’ll go if you want me to, but I have nowhere to go.”) I love her and appreciate her being here but also all the attention is driving me nuts.
I got flowers from Jerry and Leisa and Stephanie and Jimmy yesterday.
Both Dr. Plenty and Dr. Linn were here early this morning. Nothing new. No signs of infection, no pain, no blood. Just some leaking amniotic fluid and a feeling in some weird way that something’s pressing against me. Not trying to get out, just poking.
Babies’ heartbeats are still good. The nurse said they were cuddling as she was maneuvering the monitor. Not sure knowing that is helpful. But when she printed out the graph of 3 heartbeats — mine and theirs — Michael brought it over and I took a picture.
I’ve been keeping notes on all the nurses so I can remember their names. Mostly it’s just something to keep me preoccupied, like the chart I’ve started tracking my pee volume (they’re making me pee in a measuring “hat” in the toilet so they can inspect it if there’s anything weird).
Alyssa: Knowledgeable, seemed to be close with Dr. Plenty. Didn’t have her for very long but she seemed nice. Asked me if I knew what a D&E entailed. I didn’t, not really, I just wanted someone to tell me my options. A little judgy maybe? Came by to see me the next Wednesday and requested me Thursday.
Carrie: I liked her. She didn’t bug me more than she had to, and she was kind. Had her two nights in a row.
Lauren: She asked me if the “little princesses” had names and then apologized for it later. I don’t think she realized then that they probably weren’t going to make it. But she was nice.
Kera: This is the day I thought I felt something pressing from the inside. She did a fairly aggressive vaginal exam. But she grew on me — she’s blunt and has a dry sense of humor. She seems fairly by-the-book but not as annoying about it as Emily.
?: Can’t remember. This night passed in a blur. I was scared I was going to wake up to a baby in the bed (something Kera told me could happen). I think this was the nurse that didn’t really know what she was talking about and thought the twins had two placentas. She had been talking to the doctor on call about it. Which is alarming because I feel like the doctor on call should know the details.
Amanda: All I remember about her right now is that she would whisper, “It’s Amanda” every time she came in, too low for anyone really to make out what she was saying.
Beth: Beth was older and pretty reasonable. This was the day I was terrified to poop, but it was fine.
Emily: She told me she was a “by the rules” person. She made me say my full name, birth date, and allergies each time she gave me a pill, including twice the time she had to rescan my arm bracelet because the computer didn’t read it the first time. At midnight she not only took my vitals, she tested my reflexes and asked me 50 questions about my bowels and swelling and if I had pain in my ribs below my right breast (a sign of liver problems, I now know).
Rachael: She also followed the rules. She made me give up my prenatal vitamins to take the hospital’s version instead. The DHA had to go to the pharmacy to get approved and now it’s locked in a baggie in a cabinet in my room. Still, Rachael was fine until she decided to go over my chart with Ashley right next to my bed and tell me “Baby A was inevitable.”
Ashley: Because I interact with them less, I mostly judge the night nurses on how obnoxious they are at night. Ashley slammed doors and was not super friendly. She was much better the 2nd night — just seems a bit dry and doesn’t love her job.
Betsy: Nice. Was a little busy and didn’t come by much, but I liked her. She made sure they asked about taking out my IV, thank god.
Soyoung: Friendly, on top of things. I had her twice. I could tell she really appreciated my pee volume tracking chart. She told me she kept notes on every mother she helped deliver a baby.
LaTisha: I didn’t see her much, because this is the day I got to go home.
4/25/18
Day 7 in the hospital. It feels unreal. I spent an hour this morning — between when the nurse came in to give me my antibiotic and when they did the shift change — just agonizing about how I needed to know how this was going to go. But I still have no answers and no way to prepare myself for what’s coming.
Yesterday I upset my mom because I said I needed some “no people” time. It’s just hard to process all this with people staring at me, asking how I feel, what I need all the time. I’m so grateful she’s been here but sometimes you need a break. So she’s letting Michael and I have some time this morning.
Earlier on my morning walk to the bathroom (this time to shower — exciting!) I stopped to hug Michael, and he knelt down to kiss my belly. Once for Baby A and once for Baby B.
Big excitement for the day was getting to go outside in the wheelchair. Spring is finally here.
Around 8:15, after Michael had gone home to try to get some yard work done in preparation for selling the house, Alyssa came by to see me and told me Dr. Plenty had shown her the ultrasounds. It looks like Baby A has some fluid AND that maybe my cervix has closed some. She sounded amazed. I haven’t talked to Dr. Linn or Dr. Plenty about it yet but I feel a small sliver of hope, and it scares me.
4/26/18
Day 8. Amanda came to see me today. It was nice to feel normal for a bit. Alyssa let us out onto the balcony so we could sit in the sun for awhile.
Alyssa had a hard time finding the babies’ heartbeats today, so she ended up getting another nurse to help and eventually pulled a doctor in to do an ultrasound. They’re fine, they’ve just moved around, and A is pretty low, which worries me in regards to pressing on my cervix.
Neither Dr. Linn nor Dr. Plenty are in today, but the on-call doctor for Dr. Linn stopped by to talk to me about the ultrasound. It does seem that A has fluid, and that my cervix has closed. It doesn’t appear that this changes the ultimate options, but maybe it gives them both more of a shot.
The doctor seemed to think I could go home, but general consensus was to wait to talk to Dr. Linn or Plenty. The big concern is infection, though everybody seems to think I could catch it before it turned dangerous. I know Michael is worried about it. I’m worried about it.
4/27/18
Dr. Linn came in this morning and said I could go home. I just need to watch myself for infection and call if I have cramping or bleeding. I had just gotten myself excited about the idea when my CBC white blood cell count came back at 15, which is too high to go home. Wha wha. Dr. Linn said not to get worried about it because my temp is still fine, but I have to wait another day.
I have a headache so of course now I’m imagining infection raging through my body.
Jerry and Leisa came by today and brought me cookies and m&ms. They stayed about an hour — it was nice.
Rest of day was uneventful.
4/28/18
Home! Clyde and I are both on bed rest, he because of his spinal surgery. What a month. Michael refills my water bottle for me and brings me food on a plastic cookie sheet cover we’re using as a tray, then he goes and packs part of the house to get it ready for listing, sending me snapchats of what it looks like since I can’t move.
I lay in bed doing a whole lot of nothing, reading medical articles and blog posts on surviving bed rest and shopping Amazon for nightgowns. I take a picture of my belly with my cell phone.
5/5/18
I lost both my babies. They were born, I held them, I kissed their little heads and examined their perfect tiny ears and fingers and toes. I loved them. In a moment when I was alone in the room with them I whispered to them,
“If there is a heaven, find Grandma Pam and Grandma T. They’ll take care of you.”
And I whispered to them a song I loved in college that I hadn’t listened to in years,
“Angel, you sing
About beautiful things
And all I want to do is believe.
I traded my dreams
For this mess of memories
And they just stopped working for me.”
Six hours after they were born their hearts stopped. They were tough little girls. They tried. I failed them.
“This isn’t your fault,” people keep telling me. I know the tendency of women to blame themselves in these situations, to feel guilt. I’ve read a lot about miscarriage lately, how 4 in 10 women experience symptoms like PTSD afterwards, how some women suffer miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage and there’s no discernible reason. It’s not their fault.
I know why this happened, clinically. It’s not really my fault. I was doing a good job. I was being a good mother. But it’s also an undeniable fact that flaws in my body caused this — not theirs. They did everything they could to stay in there, to keep living. But my body wouldn’t let them.
It might be hard to think of such early babies as beautiful — though they were big for their age, even for twins (see, I was doing a good job) — and yet they were beautiful. Beautiful, strong girls. And now they’re gone, and my belly is empty, and I’m suddenly not pregnant and not sure how to figure out who I am anymore. Am I a mother? Will I have live children? Is this the club I’m going to be a part of, this club of failed pregnancies and broken dreams and an intense desire and longing for my arms to be full? This is not a club I want to be in, and it’s not fair.
I was home for about 3 days. Amanda came one day and made me cookies and went to CVS to buy me a better thermometer because I had to check my temperature 4 times a day (I traded my pee chart for a temp chart).
Mom came to stay with me Tuesday so Michael could go to Cincinnati. Most of the day was fine — I did some work, reassured everyone I was okay and ready for bed rest for the long haul (though I made sure to mention the likely negative outcome, I was starting to feel there was some hope). I was even searching for exercises I could do to not lose my muscle tone while sitting in bed (too late).
But that Tuesday by late afternoon I was feeling antsy. I was afraid I was cramping and just wanted Michael to come home.
I went to bed full of fear, and the cramping got worse. Maybe it’s gas, or my uterus growing, I tried to convince myself. I didn’t want to call. It was after hours — I didn’t want to go to the ER or deal with an on-call doctor.
Michael told me to try to sleep and that he’d check on me. I convinced myself it was okay and I could wait until morning, but it was not.
By 3am it was contractions and I couldn’t ignore it. I woke up Michael and we talked about what we should do, as if we had any control over the matter. He started timing the contractions and I lay there in the dark, clutching his hand, writhing on the bed.
“I think this probably means we’re going to lose them,” he whispered to me, forehead against mine.
At first they were 6-8 minutes apart. Early labor, the internet said. We told ourselves we had time. Now I don’t know what I was thinking — this could have gone even more wrong than it did and I could have put myself in danger. I should have called. But somehow I thought I’d rather do this in my own bed, my husband next to me, if I could, just us in the dark. At least for this part.
Around 6am the contractions were farther apart — 15 minutes, then 30. I actually slept some. Somehow the fear and horror of this impending loss wasn’t reaching me yet. And somehow it felt natural, this clenching of my husband’s hand, this wrenching of my belly. Horrible and natural at the same time, a piece of being female.
I was just trying to make it to 8am when I could call Dr. Linn’s office, but at 7:40 the contractions suddenly went from 30 min to 2-3 min apart. I know now this was Baby A moving into my vagina, but at the moment I just panicked. I called the on-call emergency line and they said they’d try to reach Dr. Linn and call me back. When 8am came I called the office, still panicking. Dr. Linn called just as I was talking to the nurse, who I hung up on.
I feel like I can write this better later but for now I’m just trying to get it down.
They put us in triage and we waited and waited. The contractions had mostly stopped now. The nurse tried to be optimistic, but it was half-hearted.
Just as the on-call doctor was putting on gloves to check me, Dr. Linn walked in, an hour and a half before she had to be on the clock. It’s hard to express what seeing a familiar face I trusted meant at that moment.
Baby A was in my vagina, she said. It would only take a little push. She felt my belly and said I seemed warm, her brow furrowing. No temperature still, but she ordered another CBC.
She asked us if we still wanted to try to keep Baby B inside. You could tell from her voice that she didn’t think it was a good idea or that it would work, but who wants to take away a chance, even the smallest chance, for a mother? 90% chance of neurological defects. High risk of stroke. High risk that her quality of life wouldn't be good. High risk of infection for me and possibly not being able to have any more children. Strong chance that we would just, even if it worked right now, be prolonging the inevitable and be right back here in a few days, a week, two weeks.
In the end the point was moot — I was getting an infection. Stage 2 chorioamnionitis. It wasn’t up to me anymore. It doesn’t matter, I will always feel like a horrible mother because of that moment when I made that decision.
They wheeled the bed up to the 5th floor and had me scooch over to the delivery bed. I got an epidural placed, though they only planned to use it if I had to go to surgery if something went wrong — the placenta getting stuck seemed to be the biggest concern. I gave birth to my babies with Kera the nurse holding one leg and Michael the other, with Dr. Linn sitting on the bed between my thighs. Between pushes she let my foot rest on her thigh, my legs shaking from the drugs and Michael rubbing my thigh.
As far as labor goes it wasn’t bad — I had gone through the worst of it at home in my own bed. B hurt worse than A, but by far the most painful was the placenta, and then Dr. Linn pushing on my uterus to get the blood out, and reaching up inside me to yank out clots.
They put the babies on my chest. A first, then B too once she came. A closed her little fingers around my pointer finger. Her skin was a different color from B’s — from having less amniotic fluid. But her heart beat stronger, longer. She’d already had to learn to survive, even if it wasn’t enough.
My heart is breaking.
Later I got blood all over the bathroom when I tried to stand up to put the pad in my underwear. Kera had to clean it off my legs. Michael said it looked like there’d been a massacre in there.
Kera and Jen the bereavement counselor dressed the babies in little white smocks, diapers, and hats and laid them next to each other with their arms crossed on their chests, clutching little ceramic hearts.
Everyone tries so hard to do what they can to make it better and very little works at all. Nothing can make it better.
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The next few days passed in a dark fog. On Thursday we waited forever for my chicken pox vaccine so we could go home. It finally came and the bottle was broken. We went to Steak n’ Shake for dinner and to see Isle of Dogs to try to distract ourselves. I almost sobbed in the restaurant and at the movie theater I couldn’t get comfortable. I missed the climax of the movie because I fell asleep. In bed Michael said, “I miss them, Haley,” and I fell asleep crying on his chest.
On Friday we went to the funeral home. We’re having them cremated together. The women is saving me their little hats.
We went to Lowe’s after to get plants. Have to get the house ready to sell still, though I dread it. I was sullen and angry and cried big silent tears on the way home. Later Michael found me sobbing on the floor of the closet, where I’d been trying to find non maternity clothes to fit my fat body.
On Saturday I woke up at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep. My breasts hurt. Ended up researching cerclages till Michael woke up at 9. I’m suddenly fixated on getting pregnant again as soon as possible. I’m getting older every second and now I’m further behind. I know from all my reading that this is a normal reaction after something like this happens, but logic doesn’t have any effect on my emotions right now.
Walked to Kroger to get Starbucks and buy toilet paper. Again I was sullen and angry. At home I hid in the bathroom and sobbed, then laid down on the floor with Clyde where Michael found me.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.
“Is it?” I asked.
I’ve taken to pulling up the picture I took of the girls and zooming in on B’s hands, her ear. I’m so angry. I want to look at the pictures on Michael’s phone the nurse took but I’m scared to.
Spent hours today Googling “dealing with Mother’s Day after pregnancy loss” and “getting pregnant after pregnancy loss” and “when will hormones go back to normal.”
5/11/18
We closed on the Cincinnati house yesterday. Saying it was hard doesn’t cover it. I was horrible. I couldn’t bring myself to smile, to make small talk, or pretend to be even the slightest bit excited. I am not excited. There are no positives to this situation. I’m leaving a house I love for a house that needs a lot of work to make it feel like home and which doesn’t have any of the things I love about our current house — space and nature and privacy. All I see are negatives — having to worry about seeing or talking to people when I walk outside, laundry all the way down in the basement, scuffed up trim that needs painting, ugly curtains and fixtures, furniture I’ll have to research and buy, an empty room that was supposed to be a nursery, a room that was going to be a playroom. The only reason I could be okay with moving was that I was doing it for babies, that I’d have the girls to take care of and fill my time. Now there are no babies and I’m so angry.
Michael asked me the other day if I think I have post-partum depression and I said no, I just think I’m sad. It’s hard to smile or think anything can be good again — but I know it will be eventually. I just also know that this will never be okay and this will never leave me.
5/12/18
It’s hard to write. I keep putting words together in my head but when it comes to putting them on paper I’m resistant. I even keep carrying this book around with me but I never open it up.
Yesterday I had a hard time getting out of bed. All the feelings are the worst in the mornings. I stare at the ceiling and think about how my babies are dead, how I should be pregnant, how strange it is that my body isn’t. How time will go on and everyone else will get their moments, but all I’ll have are ghost moments. “This should have been their due date,” “This should have been their first Christmas,” “This should be Caroline and I both holding babies, or Courtney and I, instead of them alone.” No pregnant summer, no maternity leave, no twin mom. Never.
One of the hard things about this, one of the 5 million hard things, is that I haven’t just lost my babies and the future Michael and I had already planned. I've also lost the ability to have a joyful pregnancy. Even if we get pregnant again it will be full of fear and anxiety and sadness and the constant knowledge that it’s supposed to be twin girls, not whoever this next child is. And that’s not fair to him or her, but it’s the truth.
I’m so, so angry that this happened to me. I’m so angry at anyone who isn’t suffering. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” people say to me. Of course you can’t. It didn’t happen to you. You have healthy babies. This is just a horrible thing you think about and shudder and cross your fingers against, and think "Thank god it's not me."
No one knows what to say and I can’t blame them for that. But the worst is the people who say nothing.
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Can I tell you about my babies? I’m worried I’ll forget, and I’m the only one who really knew them.
I’ve given them names in my head. Names were touchy, because it was hard for Michael and I to agree on any, and we hadn’t fully decided, though I knew which way I was leaning. When this happened we didn’t want to use the names in case we could use them in the future, which is logical but also makes me feel horrible because my babies deserve names.
So I’m calling them Ruby Pamela Kuehl and Emma Dolores Kuehl. Pamela and Dolores after their great grandmothers. Ruby was a name I liked years ago but Michael didn’t love. Emma was one he picked as we sat and ate Mexican after looking at houses. “Emma Dolores,” I said then. “That’s pretty.”
Ruby was Twin A. She was always low in my belly like she was ready to come out and join the world already. "Ruby" fits her, because I think she would have been fiery. She always hogged the spotlight during ultrasounds — waving her arms around and pushing into her sister’s space. When her water broke she refused to give up — she held on and kept kicking me, and when she was born she wrapped her little hand around my finger. Her skin was red and patchy from not having as much fluid, but she was tough — her heart beat strong and long. She’d already had to learn how to survive.
Emma was quieter. She’d hide sometimes, with her hand covering her face or turned away from the ultrasound wand. The tech would push on my belly to try to get her to turn around and she’d have none of it. But some of the strongest kicks I felt were from her, especially towards the end. I held my hand there where she sat, on the left side of my belly, and she’d kick my finger. When she was born she lay curled up like she was sleeping, her mouth open and hand under her chin, nestled next to her sister.
That’s all I know of my babies, and the most anyone will ever know.
I signed their names on the thank you cards I wrote to Dr. Linn and the nurses and that’s the most comforted I’ve felt. I felt like a mom.
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This grief is different from other grief I’ve felt. I don’t know if it’s more or less, but maybe that’s the wrong way to think about it. It’s different. It feels sometimes like a fundamental hole inside me, something that will never go away and never be fixed. It’s intense anger and rage and a physical pain like there’s a bleeding wound inside me.
Sometimes I cry like the only way to get the pain out is to audibly whimper, to make the hurt into physical sound. To make the breaking of my heart into physical sound. Sometimes my crying is silent. Behind my sunglasses in the car while my mom sits next to me, laying in bed trying to let Michael sleep, to spare him having to feel helpless and sad. At times like those the tears just roll out, like the pain is leaking out my eyeballs. One of the loss books I’m reading said tears of pain are chemically different than tears of joy, and that you’re literally releasing some of the pain when you let the tears out. I don’t know how scientific that is.
The same book also said this:
“Did you know every child a woman carries actually changes their DNA? Science has now shown that cells of every child remain in the mother’s body, whether the baby died in the womb, or was born healthy and well. I find this so comforting, and I hope you do too.”
I tried to tell Michael that but couldn’t get the words out.
In some ways it upsets me that my body went back to not being pregnant so easily. I’m still 10-12 pounds heavier than I should be, but my belly shrunk. The weird tastes and strange relationships with food and the gunk in my throat went away instantaneously, just like the having to pee all the time.
But then there are new symptoms — the twinges in my belly, in my breasts. The milk that keeps trying to leak out and leaving splotches on my clothes. The pimples popping up all over my face. I guess these things let me know it happened.
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The other day at the grocery, as I walked through the produce section, the meat aisle, the dairy, I just kept saying the same words over and over in my head.
“My babies are dead. My babies are dead.”
I was having a hard time breathing, like I couldn't force the air down into my lungs. Sometimes this grief is a giant wheel running me over. Maybe I should stop it or maybe I need to let it flatten me so I can stop looking over my shoulder.
5/13/18
This would have been my first Mother’s Day. I would have been hosting everyone, probably. I would have gotten cards, maybe a gift from my mom. My nephews would have played in the yard while we sat on the deck. I would have felt my babies kicking and imagined what it would be like next year to have the two of them here, smiling and giggling at their cousins.
Instead I’m sitting here on the deck by myself in the bathrobe Courtney & Taylor got me for the hospital, shoving chocolate biscotti in my cheeks, watching the carpenter bees bounce into each other. I’m so tired and so tired of hurting.
Do I feel like a mom? In some ways. A different, sadder kind of mom. I’m sitting here still bleeding, breasts still aching and threatening to leak the milk that was supposed to feed babies. I birthed my babies and held them and kissed their heads, marveled at their tiny fingers and toes and ears and noses. Does all that make me a mom? Does the loss and the emptiness make me a mom? I loved them, I spoke to them when they were inside me and out, I stared at the hospital ceiling in the middle of the night and cried for them, my hands on my belly as I told them I was sorry — does that make me a mom? I cry for them now, and myself, and I look at their pictures, and I feel sad that this is the only kind of mom I can be to them — a shitty one who failed to keep them alive, who left them in a cold hospital bassinet in the care of strangers, who leaves them now in a funeral home basement with only each other.
At least they will have each other, forever.
What can I do on this day to honor them? To honor this?
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While I’m weeding Michael comes outside to tell my our friend Caroline had her baby. Wesley. At first a grin takes over my face, a genuine smile of joy. And then I’m crying again, big, heart-wrenching sobs.
I know I’ll be okay eventually.