standing beside Diana

Some of you might have heard about Diana and her twin boys. Some of you might have followed the horrible tragedy as it played out on Twitter. Some of you might have read the many, many post of love and encouragement from Beth Anne, Morgan, Kit, Katherine. 

And some of you might be in the dark right now. Diana, a beautiful fellow blogger and Army wife/mom, was pregnant with identical twin boys when her water broke at 18.5 weeks. She was sent to the hospital, only to be told there was no hope and she had to induce labor to deliver the babies, even though they were still alive and would not be able to survive outside of her body at this age Diana fought back, choosing to stay in the hospital on bed rest and do whatever was possible to keep her babies inside as long as possible. She fought a long, hard fight with lots of doctors telling her she was wrong. But she didn't do it for them or for us; she did it for her boys. Sadly, she delivered the boys one week later at 19.5 weeks. They both passed away within hours. 

It was like a horrible crash I could not look away from. I checked her Twitter feed hourly. I prayed and cried for her, this woman I have never met. And I wept when she lost her two boys to heaven. Because I know. I remember my own pain. And I know how hard it is to stand up and grieve when the world feels like it is closing in and no one understands. 

I still remember that morning on August 4, 2009 when I was told that one of our twins had passed away in utero. I remember sitting in that paper gown not able to breathe and the looks that passed between the nurses. I remember them telling me it was going to be okay because the other baby I was carrying, my sweet Lila, looked fine. I threw away the clothes I wore to my doctor's office that day because I could not bare to look at them. I remember wondering if I would be able to enjoy any part of Lila's pregnancy and birth because I would still be thinking that it was supposed to be two and now was one. But I did it quietly. With my husband and close family by my side, I grieved. I grieved our little boy we named Wrigley, even though we never knew his real gender. I remember people telling me to be happy because I still had one. As if his life was not just as important to me as hers. I remember the many, many ER and Labor & Delivery visits through the rest of my pregnancy with Lila, as the bleeding from Wrigley's placenta sent me through 7 more weeks of hemorrhages and pre-term labor symptoms at 24 weeks. I too had doctors tell me that meant I was losing the "pregnancy" and there was nothing I could do. 

But I was one of the lucky ones. I did have a baby to hold in my arms at the end of it. A beautiful healthy baby. But not because I fought harder or prayed more or had better doctors. Diana's beautiful blog posts since Preston and Julian passed away are giving voice to the thousands of women that suffer in silence. The women that grieve curled into tight balls of pain and tears in their beds at night. She is saying what all of us wish we had the courage to say at the time, that these children were her children, no matter their gestation, no matter the odds stacked against them. We cry along with you Diana and hope that all of our little ones were waiting to welcome Preston and Julian with open arms and show them around their new playground.