That's what heard almost nine years ago. We were finally pregnant after a long journey & many bumps in our road to parenthood. Our first early ultrasound showed two babies forming and the doc was sure we were having twins. When we went back to check for heartbeats, he found three! I joked that I may not go back for another ultrasound if they kept finding more babies. Our doctor who at that point was like a close family friend wasn't amused. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and referred us to a maternal-fetal medicine specialist as quickly as possible.
Yes, we were a little overwhelmed but we had already been through hell right?! This pregnancy was going to be easy after 4 1/2 years of invasive infertility treatments and two foster children who were reunited with their birthmother. A triplet pregnancy which could mean months of bed rest, possibly in the hospital, guaranteed c-section, three premature infants and a likely NICU stay. Easy. We could do it. We were thrilled. We were ready.
We had no idea.
A second trimester screening ultrasound (with trips you get lots of these) revealed that our Baby C had a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. I'll never forget hearing the doctor speak those words to us and how he repeated them over and over throughout the rest of our conversation. I know why, of course, he said it repeatedly. We needed to know. He needed to be sure that we knew. Our situation was serious. It was life-threatening. We would over the next few weeks get more information. Get a second opinion if we needed it. We didn't. He was the best. That's why we drove two hours to see him and why we trusted him when he said that he didn't think our baby would be going home from the hospital with us.
In that instant as he spoke those three words to us, life changed. The life we had been so carefully planning ended. In a breath, the amount of time it took to say Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia we shifted from being expectant parents of triplets to just parents. That's the moment we really became their parents. Not at birth but at the moment where you realize you will do anything, be anything, make any sacrifice, for your children.
We grasped at the one thing we could do besides just wait. We searched for a hospital where we could deliver and keep all three boys together in one NICU. Sounds easy but we found exactly one hospital in the state that could do. I would mean delivering them hours from home, from friends, from family. And I was told that I may spend many long weeks in the hospital on bed rest due to complications from the birth defect. That's ok. We had a new plan. We could do it. And maybe, just maybe, our Baby C had a chance.
And still, we had no idea.
Because life doesn't always unfold as we plan. No matter how carefully we prepare.
One quiet evening, without drama or chaos or anticipation, I realized I was in preterm labor. We rushed to the hospital to have our worst nightmare confirmed. This time it didn't happen in a breath or in a moment. Instead, it was hours. Hours spent praying that contractions could be stopped, that my water wouldn't break, that infection wouldn't set in, that our babies could be saved.
On April 2, 2004 at 7:38pm our firstborn son, Jack Matthew, was born still. He had died cradled in his mother's body when my water broke. He was 10 inches long and weighed 11.7 ounces. His foot was the size of my thumb.
The contractions stopped after his birth but by that point it was too late. An infection had taken over my body. My life was at risk if we didn't deliver our other two sons immediately. We were out of options and out of hope.
On April 2, 2004 just after midnight, Grant Isaac and Samuel Luke quietly entered the world. They too were each 10 inches. Grant weighed 10.8 ounces and our little Samuel with the birth defect weighed 10.5 ounces. Though their hearts were beating, they never took a breath and they passed into heaven as quietly as the entered the world.
We never heard them cry or saw the color of their eyes. But we held them and told them how very much they are loved.
Sometimes love is for a moment.
Sometimes love is for a lifetime.
Sometimes a moment is a lifetime.
October, 2015
I've read before that if you lose a spouse you become a widow. If you lose your parents you become an orphan. There is no word for what happens after losing a child. Maybe because you don't become anything different. You are still their parent. How do you survive what I would have thought was unsurvivable? We spent weeks in shock. I distinctly remember tucking our boys into their tiny casket all together and wrapping their blankets a little more snuggly around them because I didn't want them to get cold. It was rainy and cold on the day we buried them and I was worried they weren't warm enough. I couldn't comprehend that they were really gone. I used to think that part of me shut down because I wasn't capable of coping quite yet. But really I was broken. I still am. We do not heal from the loss of a child. We do not move on. We spent months learning to be happy again and what it meant to find happiness in daily life and to live a contented life. We feel their loss profoundly every single day but now that loss coexists within us with joy.
As Grace and Andrew get older, I feel their loss more profoundly. I see our little diva and what it would mean to her to have all four of her big brothers here to play babies with her, watch her ballet recitals and one day send her off for her first school dance. I see Andrew as an amazing big brother and grieve what it would mean to him to have his big brothers there to watch over him, play basketball in the driveway and build crazy Lego creations with him. My heart shattered every time one of them asked for a brother or sister as kids normally do. I struggle to protect them from the anxiety that I carry every day, an anxiety that I know is outside the normal mommy worries but instead the legacy of such a profound loss. I fight panic attacks some mornings as I drop them off at school and have to constantly remind myself of normal milestones in their gaining independence. I have to force myself to be ok with letting them spend a weekend at Grandma's. But I do it and they come home tired, spoiled, and happy and I am confident that every minute of anxiety was worth it. How do we do it? How does anyone survive the loss of a child? Everyone copes in their own way and finds comfort in different things but we all do it one breath at a time.