Several times a day I run my fingers over the ink in the crook of my arm.
Shortly after my twins were born too young to survive in the world, I took the footprints from the hospital and had them tattooed on my arm. Their feet would’ve rested here when I rocked them. They would’ve rested their little toes against my skin while they slept. They would’ve kicked while dreaming.
I don’t have other children to hold, so I stamped their feet into the crook of my arm so I can remember that I am still a mother.
I’m still in the fog of new grief. I should still be pregnant right now. My stomach doesn’t curve outward anymore. I’m not throwing up. I’ve only peed twice today. My breasts just hang here now. As the weeks of the summer pass on it is incredibly difficult not to think of exactly how pregnant we would be right now. This last weekend marked what would have been my final baby shower. We would be putting all the final pieces together in the nursery. In another few weeks we would be securing the car seats (currently in my basement) into the car. The new car we were going to get to fit twin babies.
While for the rest of the world time continues on, summer continues to unfold, and the days drag with heat– I am in a standstill. In a constant balance between what is and what should be. This is what losing a child feels like. Straddling two completely different time realms.
I still mark time by the babies. Every Wednesday is one week further into the should-be pregnancy. Every Thursday is one week longer that they have been gone. The twins came to us after our first IVF attempt. My husband and I were married in November of 2014 and we immediately started trying for children. We had dated for five years, traveled many places together, bought a house and had three precious dogs. We were ready for children.
In the entire time dating we had practice Natural Family Planning. It should’ve been easy to get pregnant – just switch to avoiding during ovulation to getting frisky. It was not easy. Luckily I had an OB that sent us for testing about four months after we “officially” started trying. We both had borderline issues in the blood work. We jumped head first into treatment after we realized it would take longer than desired to have our baby. I wanted the baby now.
Two failed IUIs, one failed IVF start, and finally a successful first IVF attempt. Twins. Beautifully, flickering hearts. Both growing on track. Everything seemed perfect until it didn’t.
On April 14, 2016 our twins, Finnian and Maisie, were born at 16 weeks and 1 day. They were too small to survive in this world. Too small for ventilators. Too small to breath on their own. Finnian’s heart stopped somewhere in the hours after the last ultrasound and his birth. The last time I saw it, it was beating steadily despite the fact that he had lost all his fluid. “Baby A has completely ruptured.” Maisie was born alive. I could see her heart beating through the opacity of her young skin. I looked at the nurse and said, “But her heart is beating” and she said, “I know, hold her close.” She died minutes or seconds later. I am not sure. We held them both the entire time.
In the weeks since their death it seems impossible to grasp how we ended up here. It feels unfair. I feel broken. I imagine the twins in our back yard. It’s hard to explain how clearly I can see them. How I can sit at our dining table looking out the window and imagine two sets of little legs working their way across the grass. How I see Finnian stumble running with toddler finesse as he haphazardly attempts to kick a soccer ball. How I see Maisie twirling, tangle-haired, and flopsy in circles. I can sometimes see them with the daydream quality of a child – full of preciseness and truth, without the haze of adult titled ‘imagination.’ I can see them in the way that we once saw imaginary friends and castles and pirate ships. But instead, they were actually real. They were really in my hands one day and gone the same. The really turned in circles and kicked their legs in my stomach. Their heartbeats really thumped against my home monitor assuring that they were steadily growing.
Some days I look out this window and I can almost smell the breeze on their skin. I imagine what it would be like to wash dirt from their cheeks, to bandage a skinned knee, to kiss the tips of their nose, to put their sweaty hands in mine, to run the sprinkler over their giggles.
I imagine what it would be like to step off the porch and swoop one up and spin in a fast circle, to grab the other with a gentle toss in the air, to feel them land in my arms … against my chest … to feel them nuzzled close. It seems almost sad to say I am sitting and dreaming of dead children. It sounds nearly crazy that I can just almost make out the sound of their laughter when I look through the glass. But I straddle two worlds: the one in which things are as they should be and the one in which I am forced to live in.
The wind just blew through the trees, across the potted begonias, over the rose bush and lilies, it swooped through the grass pushing everything slightly to the left, and I can’t see anything but the path it took … but it was here and I’ll never be able to deny how it felt on my skin. Just like I can never deny how deeply ingrained Finnian and Maisie are in my heart. And that doesn’t feel far away.
It feels real as wind, steady as air, and truer than breathing. Just like the prints on my arm constantly remind me that my arms are made to hold them in any way I can.
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Tiffany Kann and her husband Daniel are Still Parents of their twins, Finnian and Maisie. Tiffany is a social worker and has specialized in various grief therapies. She is also a PhD student, with a focus in grief research. However, the recent loss of her twins has required her to put her therapy practice and studies on hold. Tiffany previously considered herself a veteran griever after surviving the traumatic loss of her sister 13 years ago. This year she is a new griever again – raw and trying to process the death of her children. She writes on her blog, Loss & Life, because it is therapeutic for her and she hopes in some way it might help others to hear her story.
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So beautifully said.
When I was growing up I watched the rare moments when my mom expressed the loss of my brother at 6 months and could only imagine that loss. I was 1 1/2 when he passed.
Then I lost my daughter Jennifer 1 month before her fourth birthday and knew the depth and reality of what I could have only imagined my mom was living, and found I had no idea what she had been feeling. Now I didn’t want to know and she didn’t want me to ether.
I had other kids and felt like you. I felt like the image on the show of quantum leap, like I was progressing through time in two different worlds and detentions at the same time. And in the real world, life moved around me , people with no idea. I wanted them to know she was real , had been here and was gone. I wanted to scream. I had 1 older son and 2 younger girls.
Everything my kids did became one thing she would never do. Every candy bar wanted ,was one I would never buy her.
When my second oldes daughter came running into my room one morning with her sister, so excited she had lost her first tooth. I buried my head under my covers for a moment fighting that deep black hole and wanting to scream again, it should have been Jennifer’s first tooth. Then lifting the covers and greeting their excitement as their own. And it went on with everything. I had to learn to survive by giving my kids thevthings I would never give her as if they were from her to them, Bikes , play houses , dolls.
That was in 1985 my new world started.
In 2008 my daughter lost my little granddaughter Annamarie and my world changed again.
I was once again following in my mothers shoes and neither one of us wanted Michelle to be on this path with us.Michelle was only a few days from being 29 weeks along, and she had a 2 year old daughter.
We had been to see her the week before because her water was leaking. When I returned home I got the call a few days later, the baby was born but didn’t make it.
I flew back to spend the week with them, watching my daughters heart break and once again felt what my mother knew. My child lose a child like I had.
As I held my newest angel and knew the path my daughter was now on, my heart shattered for her.
My mom had spoken to my daughter briefly during that visit and I am so glad the did because a week after returning ,I was on a plane to Texas because my mom was now in danger from complications from surgery.
We lost her a few days later . One day she was ther living in her own place and now she was gone. My world changed again!
In all this I see everything you speak of .
My daughter here with us growing, her heart being broken, having babies. Crying, laughing fighting with her sisters. Living!!
Now my beautiful Annamarie , who was to be her namesake, in those same shadow images. Playing , growing , laughing, hurting. And my mom chasing them all around in those same shadow images.
I think of the conversations my mother and I never had. To know and share the lose of a child losing a child.
Those images are somehow real and become a shadow memory of ,as you said, what should have been.
I know now after 31 yrs this is how they live on in our hearts and how we learn to survive by keeping them alive.
Thank you for sharing your heart.
Dena, thank you for sharing your story. Even though it is deeply saddening to know that so many mothers have also lived this pain, there is also comfort in sharing our stories with each other – in this way we keep our babies alive. Or we at least let people in on the reality of two worlds that we live in. Blessings and light to you, Tiffany