A friend of mine just had beautiful twin girls, I'm happy for her, but I'm jealous too. I know the joy and excitement she's experiencing right now, and I miss it, I want it back.
I just read about a woman who delivered her baby girl, stillborn, the hospital didn't let her hold her baby or take any pictures and my heart breaks for them. I know how valuable these things are and how precious those moments and those pictures would have been, how healing they could have been. My heart hurts just thinking about it.
Twins are everywhere, I know several ladies expecting twins, and yet the odds of conceiving identical twins like we did, is 1 in 285. I'm unlikely to ever have the pleasure again, and it makes the fact that I conceived my beautiful boys even more miraculous. The fact that I had beautiful identical twin boys and then lost one is all the more painful when you think of the odds.
People mention twins so casually to me, not realizing that the word itself is like a weapon, and each time it non-nonchalantly rolls off someones tongue it physically hurts. It stings, I feel like I flinch when I hear it though it must only be in my head. I guess it wouldn't normally occur to someone that I'm not comfortable talking about other peoples twins, or twins around the world, but I'm not. I don't want to hear someone joke about how So and So is so big she must be having twins, or how your second cousin's girlfriend is having twins, or how your grandmother had twins, no matter how casually you (you in general) say it, no matter how airy and light our conversation has been, if you can avoid using the word twins, please do. Unless you want to see me close up like a clam shell.
I took Landon to the Dr. last week to have her check his growth and development. He's rather small, and a picky eater, so its better to check and be sure he's healthy. When I expressed my concerns about having healthy children she buoyantly exclaimed (in a manner meant to be reassuring) "You make beautiful healthy children!". What!? What about the one who died? You know, the one with the serious heart defects? The one who underwent two open heart surgeries and still could not be healed? How quickly the world forgets. I love our family Dr, she's amazing and kind, but I'm not sure she grasps the depth of our grief or our fears over the health of our children and future children.
Its hard not to look at Landon and imagine a mirror image standing beside him, playing alongside him, cuddling with him.... Its hard sometimes to walk into his room in the morning when he wakes, and for a split second not imagine both cribs still set up and two boys with eager outstretched arms waiting to start the day. Its hard to not indulge in thoughts of what it would have been like to take my twins to the grocery store for the first time, or to show off to family, or to have strangers at the mall come to see the sweet little twins. The only people who saw my boys together were the few visitors that came to the hospital within the first 6 days after they were born, and not many did. I didn't have a chance to show off my beautiful identical twins, nor did I get to have their pictures taken together, and its really, really hard not to lament and lose myself if what ifs some days. I had twins, really beautiful identical twins, but not many people got to experience that reality with us. It was real.
Lastly, I've found some music I really like, and the words and the melodies are so beautiful but sorrowful and they pull at my heart strings and really make me ache. Sometimes its a therapeutic ache and sometimes it just hurts with no benefit.
Anyway, I'm coming down today, the high is over and I'm going to have to let myself feel some sadness and frustration for bit, no matter how much I wish I could block out those feelings forever.
Katie
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