"Two for the Price of One"

I get this at least once a week. My belly has grown to the size where there is no question about whether I'm expecting and the questions about when I'm due are never ending: "How much longer do you have," "When are you due," "It looks like you don't have much longer to go," and various other unsolicited comments from every lady at the grocery store. When they find out it's twins they almost always reply the same thing, " Oh, you are so lucky- two for the price of one!"

And it feels like someone has punched me in the gut.

They don't know, and I'm not going to tell them, about Charlie. So I just let it roll off my back and join the other comments that  people make without realizing how much they sting: "Oh, Ill bet your husband wants a boy!," "Three girls! Are you going to try again for a boy?," "It's hard with two kids, I cant imagine going from one to three," "Oh, I bet Ada will be a good big sister" and etc.

The worst is when someone says this phrase to me who does know about Charlie's death. "Oh, you are so lucky, two for the price of one." Don't they understand what the "price of one" feels like to me? It's a hefty goddamn price. That it's not the same as when someone gets to have two babies, but only had to be pregnant one time? That I'd rather  be pregnant twice than to have babies that are at a higher risk for SIDS, for preterm labor, and about ten zillion other things?

And furthermore, I'd consider myself so far from "lucky" at this point.

But they don't think about it that way- it's not on their radar. People look at this situation and thing that it's just perfect that after losing Charlie, I would get pregnant with twins. And in some way, it is. My third pregnancy was supposed to make us a 5 person family, I was supposed to have three kids, not two. But now I'm supposed to have four kids, I have already had a boy, Ada has already been a good big sister, and I do know what life with two kids is like.

But you can't explain all of that to every lady at the grocery store, or even to your friends who are well meaning and just happy for you.


Charlie would be 8 months old today if he were still with us. We celebrated our 10 year anniversary last week, along with our halfway point in this pregnancy and it was happy. I will always miss him, and it felt like there was a huge part of our lives that was missing, but I am grateful for the twins and grateful to have my husband and daughter. Life is not great, but it could be so much worse than it is.

Still awake

It's 7am and I'm still awake. Adaline (2) has either a cold or allergies. When you combine that with molars coming in, it's not conducive to sleep. After we tried everything and everything all over again she is finally asleep, but I've found myself rattled with guilt and fear that I will wake up to the worst again if I fall asleep.

Earlier, as she was screaming and kicking and fighting everything we wanted to do, I put her in her bed in her own room. But when she got quiet, I went in and woke her up again. I was terrified that she would scream herself to sleep  and never wake up again. As I sit and watch her lungs move up and down and up and down my heart races and skips beats everytime her breath is delayed even for a moment.

In moments like this I know that I'm not parenting in the way that I would have if Charlie hadn't left us. I know that things would be different and I wouldnt live in fear that something else would happen to devastate our lives even further. This is one of the many situations that leads me back to that very day and being so unable to get rid of the moments, the exact memories of the 21 hours following his death. Everything from those first moments of finding him to falling asleep in my parent apartment 350 miles away from where I left him. It has this amazing ability to all flash before me so quickly, but I can feel every moment of it all at once.

And it's not conducive to sleep. I'd take good old allergies and molars any day.