Time To Say Goodbye

I don't want to write this, I want to hang on. Just a little bit longer. My lifetime.

Yet if I don't put it in the written word, give it the just dues so long needed to wrap

it up. Time to put a bow on this and let it fly, not just from my head. Logic can only take you so far. The heart is telling me another story. Writing seems to give me a freedom, a release that nothing has come close to. Here goes.

I knew something always seemed different with this pregnancy. The other two,

I was younger. This was very unexpected, but very welcomed like the others.

Being 23 the first go round, and 35 this time, I felt so different, my body felt it.

One thing after the other brought me back to the Doctor, so this was a little

disconcerting. The Doctor was new to me, recommended by my internist. It was her

best friend so I felt assured I was in good hands.

The shock came by a few visits in that I would be having twins. They did not run in

our families so it was some shock.

We immediately hired a contractor to try to stretch the tiny bedroom in our home that would be for them.

It was starting to become a reality that our family of four would soon become six.

The construction was a mess, but it felt confirming: the change was headed our way.

We would figure out where these new little additions would lay their heads and

have a cozy nest.

Somewhere in my fourth month I became severely ill and went to Emergency. I had a raging

headache. All tests were taken, babies heart beats were fine.

I went home. I was already big as a house which was so different, I had never been

pregnant with twins before.

My next appointment, I could see something was wrong on my Doctors face.

I was somewhere in my fifth month, and she did the ultra sound several more times.

Looking away, she stated,"It's dead". Oh, cool. I am laying on the table with ultra sound

goop all over my stomach, and a doctor that does not have the best bed side manor.

So I am tripping out in my head, trying to hold it together. Acting like I have done this so many times before. It's not getting any better, she still is just kind of sitting there. Tumble weeds and crickets.

She leads me down the hall to the receptionist, and gives me the number of a Doctor who does

Genetic Testing. So, besides the fact that I am feeling on top of the world that baby number one is dead, I am HUGE and I don't know what the hell Genetic Testing is. Sounds

like a sci-fi movie and it doesn't sound good.

The sensitivity level in this Doctor overwhelmed me. A deer in the head lights would have provided more comfort. Needless to say the drive home was no joy ride.

Within the week, we drove to LA, and went to see the Genetics Fellow, he must have gone to school with the other gal. Android Training 101. Now, I was just being warmed up for this treat. I got to hear the 13,000 reasons why I was going to have the most mutant fucked up,

martian baby known to man kind. That is my lay man version of Doctor Genetic Joy.

I refused to get all the testing and roll the dice. I am shocked that when people saw me walking they did not just know there was a mutant embryo in my belly!

It is inhumane, the treatment, the explanations.I had just lost one baby, that I was told just suddenly disinitigrated, my body would soon absorb it. Now I am huge, like an emotional

roller coaster, and really FEELING this explanation. Right.

God forbid I trust my intuition. None of this was feeling right. That is why we left, and did none of the testing. However my baby came out, it was mine. Nobody was telling me at the ripe old age of 35 I was borderline for all kinds of severe birth defects. Due to the the death of the first expect the absolute worst.

Like I said, cool. I am on red alert, I don't know what to think, feel, expect.

A couple months pass, and each and every time I go in to the Doctors office, I am

so used to having numerous ultra sounds.

Today is different, everything about it from the fact that I have my girlfriends twin

daughter with me who was home sick from school. I remember sitting in the office by myself looking out the window at the Angeles Crest Mountains. Just staring at how big they were

and how small I felt. The more I fixated on them -I just KNEW.

The Doctor did the usual routine and panic was setting in. Over and over

again she searched for a heart beat that would not reveal itself.

The room filled with complete and utter silence, for only the slightest moment.

"It's dead".

This isn't possible. Not again. And this stupid bitch is not possibly saying my baby is an

"It" again. I start hitting the wall. I am not cool. I am a woman who has in two months

been told that my "It's" are dead. I blame myself, over and over again. I need someone to be kind, be a human being. I am destroyed. I remember I still have a sixth grader in the waiting room for me. I have to pull myself together.

The Doctor tells me I have the weekend to think about what I want to do.

Well, like I want to go to Vegas and party? What kind of question is that?

I want my dead baby removed and whatever is going on with first dead baby

maybe have a look see, too.

We are now in the hallway. I am trying to fight off pure hysterics. She then

informs me that this is too hard. I hug her, tell her it is going to be okay.

She then tells me I can use the phone to call someone in the nurses station.

I call the twins mother and she meets me at home. As kind and supportive as she is,

I need my Raymond. He is somewhere in the Valley and comes home.

To this day, I do not understand the series of events that took place, maybe by writing they will make more sense.

My Doctor sent me to a high risk place to deliver instead of a Hospital. The Hospital would have been much kinder. It was a nice enough place. I was then put into Labor Mode and sent home. I had no idea what that meant until we were driving on the freeway home.

I was going into LABOR without the benefit of help. I know they must have given me a prescription probably to pick up some drugs for pain. Who cared?

It was horrific. Then they said not to call the Hospital if their was a problem, call them.

I still don't get it. The next morning I now was sent to another location.

I can't tell you the feelings of vulnerability having to drive to both these strange places.

I have to thank God for Paul, my brother driving us that day.

It couldn't have been easy for him to drive our car while watching a crying, vomiting sister in agony.

We got to this new location in Calabasas and I was taken away, thinking Ray was

coming with me. It was very frightening laying in wait. The vulnerabilty of being alone in that room was indescribable. No hand to hold. Only the comfort that a drug would knock me out, so I didn't have to wake to the sight of my dead baby.

When I came to the Doctor told me they were both girls. The bigger one was holding her little

sister. Her arms were wrapped around her. This was what supposedly had "absorbed" back

into my body. I asked to see them. He didn't think it was a good idea. My head was spinning.

I thought wow, what am I going to do with their bodies.

I realized I wanted to bury my babies. I told the nurse as she said, "Oh sorry, we already threw the first one away.' Here we go with my "It's" again. I can't even go there with the threw the first one away part. The inhumanity. It changed me forever.

The second one was still on the premises, so we were able to call the mortuary.

They asked if we wanted an autopsy.

I told them I hadn't wanted one. I didn't want my precious angels to endure anymore

indignities.

To get through this it wasn't the act alone of them dying. So many layers of abandonment took place along the way. It began in my doctors office.

. One of the most difficult things in my life I have ever experienced

was the grief. It changed my body chemistry and lead me to a depression which I was

ill equipped to handle. My Doctor would not return my phone calls and the level

of shame I felt drew me into a shell that kept me withdrawing further and further.

I felt as though I had done something wrong. I was in so much grief with her rejection I

just shut down further.

I no longer wanted any part of the Medical Community. The once out going person

I had been was long gone. I still was a parent, always. Room Mother. I could do that

for my kids at their school. Wife, barely. I was always mom no matter how deep the depression.

But what I did have going for me. One unbelievably loving husband. Second thing,

really great kids. Supportive loving family. My husband was and is such an incredible father.

Even in his grief with all of this he kept us together. He is truly amazing. The more I step away from it every day, he just blows me away. I am in awe of him. In debt for his fortitude.

My love for him, so deeply layered. I love him with words that have no description.

Only my heart can reveal, as he alone knows.

The thing that surprised me. Myself. The person I once knew was changing.

I became a fighter. I fought every step of the way to survive. Every step of the way

I felt like calling it quits. The severe depression made the simplest acts so very difficult.

My emotions were like The Fourth Of July. I was all over the place. Up and down. The main key to my healing has been forgiveness for myself.

For the Doctor who was in so much pain that she could not deal with emotions.

Probably too close to her own heart. It took me so long to forgive her.

Now I thank her. Because of her I am so proud of the person I have become. Working in Hospice. Revealing my heart all the way through. Not worrying about where it takes me.

I have the ability to dig in not only to the pain of loss, but abandonment in that loss.

Give the very best of me. The empathy I would never have had if she hadn't been who she was.

By walking away and leaving me in the worst pain. Through understanding my pain I feel for her. Only someone would behave that way who was suffering terribly herself.

I didn't have any idea where this story would end up. It has always hurt, no matter how many

years have past. Tonight I feel free. It's part of what makes me: ME.

I have never traveled light. My luggage, it has weighed me down.

It's time to lay this one down. I will meet up with my little babes again one day.

I know they are happy and want me to be.

That is the first time I have ever said that. I have a feeling they were the instigators

behind this writing. I feel lighter. I know they want me to fill my heart with JOY.

I will just look for the happy signs of them around now. It's time to say goodbye,

as my typing slows almost to a halt. Thank you for opening your momma's

heart my girls. Nina you held Carly and waited. I'm sorry I couldn't bury you together.

Both your names are on the grave stone. You are equal to your daddy and me.

Goodbye sweet girls until we meet again, mommy.