Grace and Meeting Ella

My midwife leaves now and I'm left alone with our little girl that didn't make it.  I'm holding her and trying to process everything. 

Now that  I'm alone I take a minute to call my mom, I'm still shaking from the delivery.  I wasn't sure how to tell her.  I reached my dad first and just told him that we had a girl, of course he is excited, but I don't mention the twin yet because I need to talk to my mom about it first, it's a mother daughter thing and I don't think I can say what I need to say more than one time.

I finally get her on the phone and tell her we had a girl. I tell her that the baby is doing great, and Ryan is with her. I'm still shaking and worn out so I try to say only what I need to say, "There is something else I need to tell you (I pause. . . what do I say now?) there was a twin."

Gasp.

I tell her that the second baby is a girl and that she had passed away several weeks ago.

I think she asked if the baby was stillborn, I think I said no - because I didn't know how you define it, but I learn later that when a baby dies after 20 weeks they are considered stillborn.  Death before 20 weeks is considered a miscarriage - at least according to what I read. Officially, the hospital told us later Ella would have been between 26 and 30 weeks.

She tells me they will be getting in the car very soon to start their drive.  I can't remember if we said anything else.

But I do remember that I asked her to please tell everyone else in the family for me, I just couldn't do that right then.  

We say good-bye.

Being alone with this baby was unlike anything I had ever done before.  I'm an adult, but I think I've only been to around 7 funerals in my whole life.  I have not been around death.  I had no idea how this was supposed to work.  I held her for what I thought was a long time, but looking back I wish so much that I had held her infinitely longer. I touched her face and held her close. She was so tiny. Her skin so delicate. I remember I used my ring finger to touch her cheek. I had never seen a person this small.  She looked red and so helpless, but that simply wasn't true.  I will always consider what she did for her sister noble and great, not something a helpless person would do.  

Strangely, I felt at peace.

I have lots of questions.

First Question:

Do we name this baby?
Do we not?

I wasn't sure.  We hadn't really talked about girl names, because:

1. We kind of thought we were having a boy &

2. We weren't due for another 5 and 1/2 weeks, so we thought we had plenty of time to come up with a good name.

Ryan and I have this really bad habit of choosing names that are always on the TOP TEN list for that year. We don't mean to, we just happen to like those names. We'll pick out a name we like and THEN check the list and yep, it will be on there.

For the past few weeks, I had been day dreaming of holding a little "Baby Emma" in my arms.  Yes, I even did that thing where you close your eyes and pretend you are holding a baby.  Did I already mention I really wanted a girl? Ryan had mentioned once using my middle name for a baby girl. . it's Rae.  I liked that idea before the babies came but now, Rae didn't seem to fit.

Ultimately, I felt I really would like to give a name to the second baby and I thought Ella would be a nice name and would go well with Emma.  Ryan and I usually like to choose Biblical names for our kids.  One name we had discussed was Miriam.  So at this point, using the conversations I had had with Ryan as a reference and our new need to name twins, I had come up with the names Emma Rae and Ella Miriam for the babies. But of course I wanted to talk to Ryan about it.

When I couldn't stand it anymore, I asked my nurse if she would please find my husband and tell him I would like to see him.  I want to know how the baby is doing.

It isn't long before he gets there.  He tells me about the baby. She has the usual wires on her chest to monitor her breathing and heart rate. She's on antibiotics because they are afraid she may have developed an infection from being around the other baby - an infection is now their biggest concern.  She's also on probiotics to help counter the negative affects of the antibiotics. Now that she is here, I know she is going to be fine, mother's intuition, and I feel like they are over doing it a little . . or a lot, but that's just me.  Remember me?  I'm the girl that wanted a home birth.

Emma 5/3/2012

Emma 5/3/2012

Ryan holding Emma in the NICU

Ryan and Emma

He tells me that the two different nurses had called our baby Grace or Gracie.  Grace - what a perfect name for this baby, especially considering the circumstances of her birth.  I tell him about the names I had been thinking of and we decided on Emma Grace and Ella Miriam. It felt right.

Emma means whole, complete. Grace of course refers to the grace of God.  I love her name.  Because of the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome usually one baby is "better fed" than the other. Emma was so filled out for a 5 pound 34 weeks old baby - it was evident she had been well fed. Ella was so small, but her sacrifice made her sister strong.  So although Emma is without her twin, she is whole because of her.

My sister calls me later on and asks me how we choose Ella's name. I told her basically what I wrote above, she says, "Do you know what her name means?"  I didn't know what Ella meant, but I had a vague idea about Miriam.  She tells me all of the meanings for Ella, "all light, beautiful fairy, one from heaven" and Miriam means "from the sea of bitterness."

Ella Miriam
It was perfect and I love it.

Next Question:

What do we tell our kids?

It's a girl part two & Trust in the Lord

Back to my story. . . (If you haven't been reading along so far, you should probably at least go back and read It's a Girl - this post will make a lot more sense if you do.)

. . . It all made sense.

When this realization hit, I was in the room with just our midwife, who was now a dear friend, and holding our little girl that we wouldn't get to keep.  I wanted to tell my midwife why I felt this made sense and share with her what I knew.

I told her that for months while I was struggling through this pregnancy I asked my husband numerous times to give me a Priesthood Blessing. I explained to her that in our religion we believe that worthy men are given a power to speak for God.  And that when they give a blessing, a special prayer for someone, they are given ideas that Heavenly Father wants them to share.

The blessings were always the same, talking about The Plan of Salvation and trusting in the Lord. The blessings also told us that this was a very special baby.

I was confused and worried that something scary would happen either to me or to our baby. Thus the many months of anxiety.  How do you go on living a happy and peaceful life when you think you or your baby may die?

I wasn't prepared to leave my family.  This thought absolutely terrified me and that filled me with guilt. And I didn't think I could handle losing a baby, I couldn't imagine the ache and didn't want to consider either possibility so I would push them to the back of my mind.

The blessings never once said anything like "Everything would be OK" which was what I wanted them to say, and later found out that that was exactly what Ryan wanted to say, but that wasn't what Ryan felt like he was supposed to tell me.

Later, after we had a moment to talk about everything that happened, Ryan told me this story:

When I was a freshman in college I had just recently received the Melchizedek Priesthood and had never given a blessing before. Sometime that first semester some girls who lived on the floor below us asked if I could give one of their roommates a blessing because she was really stressed. I quickly looked up the procedures, then went down to give her a blessing. During the blessing I got the distinct prompting to NOT bless her to do well in school, but I ignored the prompting because I thought “of course she needs to be blessed to do well in school – that is part of what is stressing her out.” I proceeded to bless her to do well in school then finished up the blessing. Later that day one of her roommates came up and asked why I blessed her to do well in school. I said that I felt she needed that, and her roommate told me that she had just dropped out of school and was having a hard time with her testimony, and was upset that the blessing included that. She didn’t understand how a blessing, if it really came from God, would include that. I learned an important lesson that day – to listen to promptings. I have always tried, since that day, to really listen to the Spirit as I give blessings.

When Traci would ask for blessings during the pregnancy I wanted to say, more than anything, that everything was going to be fine with the baby. I never could though, because I didn’t feel that I was supposed to. The blessings all had a familiar theme – Trust in the Lord and in His plan and timing.

Oh. I thought after I heard that.

I gained a new respect for my husband and for his courage to say only exactly what he felt he was supposed to say.

And I know that God knows us, knows who we are and what our struggles are and I am so grateful for the way he prepared my husband and I to face the loss of our baby.  And I am so grateful that I have a baby to hold in my arms to bring me comfort and so much happiness Every.Single.Day.

It's hard to explain, but I am really happy, we all are.  One of the gifts from Ella was an increased appreciation for each one of our children - and for each other. I think that's how I can feel sadness for our loss, but so much joy at the same time.

We are so blessed.

March 2012

Nauvoo, Il. August 2012

 And we are so happy!

To learn more about the Plan of Salvation click here.

Maybe it was a mistake

So I've been avoiding trying to figure out exactly when Ella died. But today as I was sitting at my desk using my calendar and planning things for our family to do this fall, I decided to count back from when our babies were born (34 1/2 weeks) to when the Medical Records say that Ella died, sometime between 26-30 weeks.

Maybe it was a mistake to try to figure it out, but I think deep down I knew that one day I would want to know.

So according to my calendar 26-30 weeks would have been anytime in March.

March.

I'm guessing early in the month.

What was I doing then?  I've sort of blocked it out.  I was busy.  I taught a Children's Choir Class that month AND held a concert.  I also taught a workshop about sprouting - I was on my feet for 2 plus hours and my feet we sooo swollen the entire time - I sat down anytime I had a chance. I taught a few voice lessons, Ryan redid our closet, and we attended three Child Birth Classes on Saturday mornings.

Looking over my calendar I remembered that right around week 20 I felt both babies move, even though I didn't know there were two.  I was working on a song on my laptop and I had the computer play it back for me so I could listen to what I had done.  The whole time the music played it was like a little circus was performing in my tummy.  The babies were so squirmy and it was obvious they were responding the to music because they hadn't been active until I turned it on.  I love this memory.

Around week 20 I wore a maternity dress to church for the first time!  This was the first clue most people had that I was pregnant!  At 20 weeks!  I had a tummy, it just wasn't a big tummy then. It's so hard to believe I was expecting twins and and at 20 weeks people were just starting to figure out I was pregnant.  This baby was hidden!

It sometimes is harder as time goes by because she seems more gone.  I've heard it's normal for people to be afraid that they will forgot the person they lost, I feel that way. I am afraid that one day I'll just forget it happened and forget that she was there.  I don't want that to happen.

Yesterday Sammy was praying that "Emma and Ella would be healthy" He loves his little sisters so much! I thought his prayer was so sweet, and I wouldn't dream of correcting him.  I'm glad he prays for Ella. He says that when he dies he'll take his toys with him so Ella can play with them. Such a sweet boy.  I miss our baby - having said that, I have so much to  be grateful for and I am not complaining, I am very blessed, and somehow I am very happy, too - if you can believe that - it's true. But I do feel like something is missing, my husband said he does, too. I miss that baby - but I worry more about how are kids are handling it.  So far I think they are doing great.

Sammy with Emma 8/16/12

Anyway, long, random post.

I'm actually grateful I looked, so not a mistake after all . . . it makes Ella seem more real.  I love her so much!

Now back to planning our Fall activities.