This is a hard post to write. To be completely honest, the most realistic way to write this post would be to not write it at all. It would be a page full of punctuation and blank, lifeless, empty, white space.
Something like that. Only infinite.
As I hinted in my post about infertility, I knew 3 things very early on in my pregnancy:
1. There were some serious problems
2. There were not one, but two babies I had to fight for, and
3. I wanted both of them So. Very. Desperately.
Desperate doesn't really begin to scratch the surface of my feelings for those babies. Often, throughout the ensuing months and years, when trying to verbalize my feelings the only thing that comes to mind is a picture of molten steel being poured into a mold and then hammered out, still glowing red, by a smith into a broad sword.
Heat. Intense, fiery, all-consuming heat combined with absolute, irony strength and eventually a honed blade. My love for my children cuts through everything.
In that very first blobby, grainy ultrasound I died and was reborn. I walked in that morning to confirm my miscarriage, ready to accept my fate as a childless, barren woman. No baby could have survived what I'd experienced the night before. I walked out of that clinic a mother of twins. I don't think my love for my children is anything extraordinary. All mothers experience that transformative, breathtaking love that comes with childbearing. The iron determination in me to fight for them might be a little bit more than some mothers experience, however. After all, I had built up to this experience for 31 years and it was my last chance to live out my dreams of having MY OWN family. You fight for something like that. You don't let it go easily.
Not during day after day of hemorrhaging (a persistent subchorionic hematoma that produced apricot sized clots). Not during the nausea, vomiting, heartburn, and migraines typical of any pregnancy. Not during trip, after trip, after trip to the urgent care and ER because something was wrong. Sitting up hurts to much. Can't walk. Too much pressure. Not during months of blood testing (both arms blown up with angry black and blue bruises- hormones aren't right. Not enough Progesterone. "Threatened miscarriage"). Not during my cerclage surgery (your body doesn't want to hold on to these babies- we have to sew them in, stitch you up tight). Not during more injections- hormones to prevent pre term labor that make your mouth taste of metal and your nose fill with the aroma of burnt rubber.
You don't even give up that dream when you're put on bed rest at weeks five, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen. Week 16, just stay in bed this time. This is for the long term. I promise my babies that I will be the last one to lose hope- the last one to quit. I feel like they need to hear it. I'm in if they're in. We make a pact.
Imagine staring at a screen with nothing but black & white static, no sound but white noise, knowing that staring into that abyss is the only thing keeping you from falling apart- keeping your dearest dream alive. That's what bed rest feels like. Don't blink. Don't take your eyes off the screen. Don't move a muscle. Don't go to the bathroom. Don't get up. For Heaven's sake, don't get up. Just wiggle around to get as comfy as you can, and try to think about happy things.
Oh yeah. I'm pregnant. I have Pinterest board called "Maybe Baby." I made it during the long appointments at the RE's office during my IVF procedure. It's full of pictures of chubby newborn photography, round-bellied pregnant ladies smiling during yoga and swim classes, recipes for lactation cookies, bright nurseries, baby shower themes (Thing 1 & Thing 2... With a cotton candy machine!... Squee!).
I can't look at these now. It hurts too much, yet I can't bring myself to delete it. My pregnancy is nothing like this. I'm four and a half, five, six months pregnant with twins and I don't even own maternity clothes. I can't gain enough weight to fit them and I don't leave my bed anyway. I don't need cute belly bands, I need a new bath robe. This one is getting nasty since I can only shower maybe two or three times a week.
Speaking of showers, I don't ask anyone to throw me one. I couldn't go anyway, and there's no point in buying anything for my little girl or little boy until I'm sure they're going to survive. My babies don't need diaper bags, they need a friggin miracle.
This isn't the joyful season it's meant to be. It feels like serving time on death row, waiting for the Governor's pardon or for my appeal to go through. Prayers all day, every day whispered, just a single word over and over...
Please.
Please.
Please, God. Please.
And I feel ashamed to be anything other than thrilled, so I lie, and save my real feelings for later, because I'm afraid if I think those real thoughts the babies will feel them and give up on me.
I can't let them know that mommy is scared, angry, and sad, because they might never know me on the outside so I have to turn in toward them and love them from the inside out. So if that's all they ever know of this world, it'll be love.
The little boy likes music and dances for me when I put my iPad on my belly. I try to let him dance as much as he can now in case there is no later. I don't want his only life experiences to be marked with pervading dread. I lie to them. The little girl kicks her brother when he gets the hiccups. They both seem to like fruit salad and quesadillas. I have nightmares of giving birth to chipmunk sized babies in my bath tub alone. The babies in those dreams are covered in blood and they talk to me. They tell me they are happy. In my dreams I'm often looking for twin B. He's always lost.
We hold our collective breaths and wait. Each hour is a victory, a race against time, a chance for them to get stronger. I am so much weaker, but my love for them burns so bright.
Iron has to be melted before it can be forged into steel. The hotter the fire, the harder the steel.
Instead of growing round & soft, I am growing hard. Instead of glowing, I burn.
It's good that I am hard because one morning I wake up and something is wrong. It is two in the morning. I go check. I'm scared my water has broken. It hasn't, I don't think. But there's an awful lot of blood. I am 23 weeks & 5 days pregnant- the very limit of fetal viability. And I know it's going to happen
soon.
I leave for the doctor as soon as the clinic opens. I don't come home for six months.
In many ways, I never come home.
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