A letter to my pregnancy twin

Dear Mel,

I remember the first time we met in the mother's lounge.  It might not have been a very big deal to you, but it was HUGE to me.  I think it was one of my first few weeks at church with Johnathon and your first week at church with your son.  Somehow, with all of those women in there, you and I got talking and found out that we had both had a cerclage put in with our pregnancies and our sons were just a few weeks apart!  Finding you that Sunday was a really big deal to me!  I told my husband about you before we had even left church!  I told my mom about it that night at dinner.  I told my sisters about it over the phone. I blogged about it!  It felt so good to find someone else who had been through a similar situation.  Someone who knew how hard it could be to get pregnant.  Someone who understood how stressful nine months (for you, not even that long) can be.  Someone who appreciated her baby as a wonderful, amazing miracle too.

I thought about you so much.  Just meeting you and talking with you for five minutes touched my life.  You brought me more comfort and peace of mind than you will ever know.  Not only did our similar experiences impress me, but your personality and spirit spoke to me too.  I knew you were someone I wanted to get to know better.  I wasn't sure how that would work with us in different wards, but I still wanted that to happen.

Then, when I ran into you again in the mother's lounge, just the two of us, a few weeks ago, I almost didn't even recognize you.  It'd been so long since I'd seen you, I'd almost imagined that I'd made you up. Once again we visited and had a wonderful conversation.  Your son was 50th percentile and looked "just right" for a three and a half month old.  My son was 90th percentile and looked "too big" next to yours.

I must admit, every time I go into the mother's lounge during the last hour of church, I hope to run into you again.

Today when I was in the mother's lounge listening to your ward's announcements, my heart stopped. "Funeral services for Warren and Mel's son will take place this Thursday at 10:00 am here in the stake center." It couldn't be possible.  What had happened? What had gone wrong?  My mother "soul mate" lost her son?!?  NOOO!!!!

I'm not sure if it ever came up when we were talking, but I delivered my first son at 21 weeks in October of 2009.  Until I went into preterm labor, my doctor and I had no reason to suspect that anything would go wrong.  Even when I was an hour from delivering my son, I still thought everything would work out.  This wouldn't happen to me.  But it did.  My first son, JJ, who we had tried for 18 months to conceive, lived only twenty minutes. I joined the club I never wanted to be in.  I still haven't heard the official title of this club, but as women reached out to me and shared their shoulders with me, I learned there are way too many women in this club.  Way too many women inside and outside of this church in this club.

It took us nine months to get pregnant again.  Those were the longest, most challenging nine months of my life.  I remember as my friends with due dates near JJ's gave birth to healthy babies.  I remember as mothers seemed to sprout up everywhere around me.  I thought it would be better once I was pregnant again.  It was almost as hard once I was as I fought all of those fears and I wouldn't let myself hope or plan for anything for fear of the disappointment again. 

I think one of the best and hardest parts about being LDS is the emphasis on families.  It is wonderful to be surrounded by other people who value motherhood and family and children.  But on the same note it is so hard to be surrounded by people who emphasize being a mother and having children and raising a family when you can't do anything about your ability to do any of those things.  How can a righteous desire be so heartwrenching?!?

When people ask me how many children I have, I tell them Johnathon is my first.  My JJ story is too precious, too close to my heart to just share with anyone.  I don't think anyone in this ward even knows the story.

I've always known someone close to me would lose a child and knew it would be my responsibility to reach out to her as those women had done to me.  But I never wanted it to happen.  Why does anyone else have to suffer?  When I heard those words today, I knew what I had to do.  I knew why we had met, but I still can't believe it.  My heart breaks for you.  Tears run down my face for you.  I now feel your burden and I hardly even know you.

The hardest part about this is I remember how hard it was for me to be around other babies, other women who had happy endings to their pregnancies.  And now, I'm that other woman!  I'm the one who will make your pain even more real.  And that breaks my heart even more.  I feel like the woman who was meant to be my friend can never be my friend now.

I understand how my sorrow worked and continues to work and I know you will deal with yours in your way too.  However, I hope that I can somehow, against your natural instinct to avoid me and what I remind you of, be there for you to help you through this.  I now know even more acutely our need to be there for each other and why we met those few short months ago.  I just hope I can make even the smallest impact on your life as you have on mine.

With Love,
Katie