She cried when the doctor told her that she might not bear children of her own. She cried again when the little stick turned blue, a sign that she was finally pregnant. She cried when the radiologist told her that she was carrying twins, and she cried again when she learned that one baby had died before she even knew that he existed. She cried when she saw pictures of the baby that was living, and cried again when they told her that he had no chance of survival – he had no stomach; his body and his mind were just too damaged. But she wept when the doctor told her that it was time to push, when she felt those precious bodies leave hers, and when she realized that she would never hold them, never bandage their scraped knees, never hold them while they got their shots, never laugh, never sing, never read and never teach.
These were her boys. Her sons. Flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. They were her babies and no amount of tears would makeup for the loss she felt in that moment. But they named them Isaac and John, hoping that the names would bring some kind of closure to this tragedy, hoping that they would point her to the promise she knew existed but couldn’t feel, hoping that they would remind her that her sons lived, that they were ok now, that they would never be in pain.
It didn’t quite work that way.
The names did bring her comfort; they did remind her that her boys had existed. But they didn’t make it better. She couldn’t help but wonder what they looked like. Did they have his eyes like she had always hoped they would? Did they have her ears? He loved her ears; she could’ve lived without them. Would they have played baseball like he did? Would they have sang with her – maybe even let her teach them how to play the piano? Would they have loved Harry Potter, spending hours reading them as fast as they could? She had. She loved to read.
She loved her babies more. And she missed them.
But she made it through the delivery. She wept, sobbing her way from one push to the next. He held her hand the whole time, tears streaming down his own face as he wondered why God would put her through this. She had already been through so much. And when it was over, they simply held each other and cried. They cried for their babies; they cried for their pain; they cried for the hope that was disappointed and the hearts that had broken seemingly one too many times.
And then they grabbed hands, and he prayed. He told God that he was angry, that he didn’t understand. He told God, though, that even in his anger, he would choose to count him faithful; he would choose to count him good. Tears streaming down her face, she nodded in agreement, and chose to believe the same.
The next days seemed endless and quick all at the same time. It was strange to feel an empty belly, and wonder if she even wanted it to be full again. She couldn’t help but ask some questions: if God had not protected these babies, why would he protect the next? Was she still being punished for the sins of her youth, the sins that had almost taken away her chances of pregnancy altogether? Would she accidentally forget that June 29th was the date they were born? Would the doctors come back from examining her dead children and tell her that it was her fault, that something in her, something she had done, had caused her children to suffer and ultimately, to die?
They were questions she felt too ashamed to vocalize; questions she didn’t want to admit that she had. But she did. And the walls echoed her questions whenever anyone left the room. They echoed her questions. They echoed her babies’ names. Isaac: the child God had promised; John: the child God had granted. These were her sons. They had lived. They had died. They had changed her life, and she was positive that she would never be the same because of them.
Whether she would have more children, she wasn’t quite sure. She was still too afraid. Whether she would know how to process the days and weeks to come, she didn’t know. And whether she was ready to wake up again in the morning, knowing that her uterus was empty and that she would never see her babies. Well, that was easy. She wasn’t ready for that, and she was positive she never would be.
What she did know is that she loved her boys, and more than the ache she felt from never seeing them and telling them of her love, she felt grateful. Her babies never had to suffer. They never had to feel the pain of their own tortured bodies, never had to realize how much they would miss, never had to die in an incubator. Her babies were ok – they were healthy and whole. They could laugh and jump and run. And maybe they could see her. And maybe they knew how much she loved them, how she would give anything to meet them and kiss them and squeeze them just as tight as she could. For that possibility alone, she was grateful.
And it was for that possibility that she said their names…over and over again she said them. Perhaps, in time, they would bring comfort. Perhaps, in time, they would symbolize hope. Perhaps, in a few years, she would look back on the last weeks and remember God’s goodness. Perhaps. But until that time, the names symbolized her sons – their lives, their existence – and her sons were more than enough for now.
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