What Remains Unsaid

When I started this blog I never thought about my audience. My initial desire was to privately chronicle my pregnancy for my own amusement and that of my close friends who live far away. I also wanted to share my experiences with other mothers of multiples. My plan was that this would be a pregnancy blog and then a Multiples blog.

But now, I have a third audience of people that I did not consider when I started the blog, readers who know my husband better than they know me. These welcome guests are friends and family who catch up on the boys through the blog and inadvertently learn about me as well. This post is about my past and I thought about not writing it.

But I have been not writing about this for far too long. So the answers to some preliminary questions. This story is not a secret. My spouse knew about this before we started dating; it is not something that I talk about, but it is always there. This is not a story that I have shared with my parents. So if you know us please exercise discretion if you choose to share this with someone else. The judgement of a million strangers is never so harsh as that of the ones you love.

As the years pass, and this remains unwritten, I have thought about it more. The changes in my life since the boys were born have been wonderful and amazing and sometimes hard too. The hardest part is that to fully live in your future you must let go of your past. For me, Februarys are the hardest. This is part of the tale of how I became a parent. In fact it is the first story.

I realize that some people marry their high school sweethearts and that the only major relationship that they ever have is with their spouse, but I imagine that far more people marry someone after a series of misadventures. I certainly fall into that category. The second person that I seriously dated, I met in college. It was a relationship that was doomed for reasons too numerous to mention. It lasted for quite some time and I learned a lot about myself before it concluded.

One of the most important things that happened while I was dating this individual is that I became pregnant, not intentionally. As soon as the pregnancy was confirmed, around 8 weeks, I knew without question that this unplanned child was mine. I honestly had no thought in my mind when I received this news, other than that I couldn't wait to hold this baby. That was in 1994.

Before I discovered that I was pregnant I knew the relationship I was in would eventually fail. It was not a healthy relationship, for either of us, and the worst kind of place to bring a child. So I ended the relationship without telling him that I was pregnant. I knew that I would have to soon, and eventually did, but I needed some more time to get my bearings, to figure out the impossible, and to fall deeper in love with this little person who was there with me through all of the changes that I was facing. Every night I would promise this baby: no matter what I would always be there and that God would take care of us.

When your pregnancy is unplanned you never worry about miscarriage. I loved this unborn child with an abandon that I have never felt since then. And when I lost this child at 14 weeks, every single fiber in my body that possessed hope broke. Broke into a million pieces. Pieces that over this past year I have found again in a smile, four sticky hands reaching up for my face, listening to screaming laughter... When I found out that I was pregnant with twins I knew why God gave me this second baby.

I had been waiting for God to remember me. I was waiting in 2000 when the school bus drove by my house on the 4th of September and my daughter did not get on it for the first time. I was waiting in February of 2008, the month before my wedding, when I wondered what it would be like to get married with my 13 year old daughter at my side.

When the ultrasound revealed to us that there were two tiny hearts inside, beating perfectly side-by-side, I understood that hope can regrow anywhere. I never believed that God forgot me, but until that moment I didn't feel that he was with me. I have revisited the day that I lost her a million times wondering if I could change something. Wondering why the God that I believed in so blindly - left me alone. Now I realized that He was the same all along. Only I had changed.

This past July changed my life in a million wonderful ways. The biggest one is that I can no longer pray for, or bargain with, God to change the outcome of that day. Because the alteration of an act-even an act as small at the beating of a butterfly's wings-could take away my sons. And that I cannot fathom.

But I did imagine this past February 14th, on what should have been her 15th birthday, how much they would have loved her. And I realized that where I am now is peace.

We have been spending quite some time in our house listening to lullabies. I don't know why people sing this to their children. But I do know this exact pain and what it can do to a heart.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and I cried.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.