The days after learning of the miscarriage were spent fairly close to home. Not knowing what to expect, or when to expect things to happen I put myself on a sort of house arrest after coming to the conclusion it would be better if and when my body decided to miscarry if it was at home. It would never happen. Since that time I'd been getting out and about, doctor appointments, grocery shopping, dining out, small things where you always seem to run into a baby here and there. It wasn't too much of a problem for me, a slight emotion tug as a buggy with a baby seated in a carrier passed us and the kids cry out, "Look there's a baby." And smile passes between the new mom and myself. One baby at at time is okay, I can handle that, but one evening in particular with at the local Mexican restaurant God was surely testing me. I believe this was the Saturday following the arrival of my pin.
While we were eating, a family was seated beside us, to the back of us not a big deal at the time, until I noticed the 10 year old girls seated with them were identical twins, but it still wasn't too bad. They weren't babies, yet having read all the research that pointed to a Partial Mole being a set of twins gone wrong, just seeing them pulled at my heartstrings with much more than a slight tug, it was a yearning, a wanting, a wish that I was still pregnant with the twins I had prayed for each night before that first ultrasound and often kidded Terry about. Even after realizing the girls were twins, dinner was going along fine, I was fine, I was, until two tables were pushed together for a big party. A party that seated a pair of twin girls, not much older than 5 months at either end of the table right in my line of vision. It was hard to see, hard to feel, and as my eyes filled with tears for what wouldn't be, I told my husband, God's testing me. Maybe He was, maybe He wasn't, but I know I passed. I wiped the few trickles that fell and went right on with the dinner I was sharing with my kids, the ones I could hold and the one I could kiss every night before bed. No matter how much I longed for the baby that would never be, I couldn't forget the baby God had already given me. Bringing such joy and entertainment to my life everyday, they are a true blessing.
The next day was Sunday and as I remember the sequence of events, I believe I am wearing my little pin and a red sweater. As two women from the church ask how I am before services, I tell them of the night before, twins, the test, and overcoming the emotions of it all. Then these two mothers with their own children told me each of their own pain with loss. One, a mother whose child died on the operating table as the doctors tried to give him a better life had also been through an unimaginable 8 miscarriages. The second mother had lost her first born son, a Downs baby, either moments after his birth or before he even drew his first breath (this conversation is sort of blurred). These women, members of my church, knew what I was going through and were able to tell me they still think of their babies everyday, and everyday they think of them it doesn't hurt quite as bad as the day before, or as bad as the day before that. And it's true.
