Thomas and Perdita

Anniversaries can be difficult.

I don’t mean joyful anniversaries. I’m looking forward to our tenth wedding anniversary celebrations with great excitement.

I mean the anniversaries of panicked 999 calls, of nights in hospital. The anniversaries of caring professionals saying, “I’m so sorry,” with tears in their eyes.

Tomorrow is the twins’ anniversary. A year ago today, despite the consultant’s warning, I was praying without ceasing and clinging to hope. Whilst there is life, there is always hope.

When Husband and I were engaged, we each confessed to the other that we had always wanted twins. Several people told us, before we were even married, that they thought we would have twins. So when the consultant told us that there were twins, it was a dream come true as well as an answer to so many prayers. My positive pregnancy test was exactly 366 days after we found out that we had lost Gracie Wren.

We had just moved out of our old house, the house where we built our marriage through the difficult early years, where we waited (and waited) for my first pregnancy. The house that K came home to, where we began to learn how to be parents. The house that slowly grew too small as K grew bigger. The house with walls that began to press inwards when we lost Gracie Wren and had two chemical pregnancies all in ten short months, whilst the For Sale sign stood forlornly outside and the only serious viewer was very rude about the quirky things I loved the best.

We had a few weeks between houses and I knew I was late because of the stress of moving. But I was actually late because we were going to have twins, at long last.

So we moved into our forever home (which is amazing and beyond our wildest dreams) and after a very rough year and a half, it looked as though things were turning round at last.

But our precious little ones never had a chance. They were only nine or ten weeks’ gestation when I felt something snap deep inside, and I didn’t need the flood of blood that followed a scant five seconds later to know that they had both gone.

Everything is so slow when the world goes into crisis. I phoned the hospital to tell them what was happening, and called an ambulance at their request. My husband called my mother to come to sit with K (it was the evening and she was asleep. I will always be thankful that she never had to see Mummy covered in blood). It seemed to take hours and hours for the ambulance to arrive, and the journey was endless, lying flat on a gurney, facing backwards, on bumpy roads, when I feel travel sick at the best of times and all I wanted to do was scream.

Because we knew there were two embryos, I had to have more than one scan to ensure they had both gone (although I knew they had). My reaction to extreme pain is to imagine how much worse it could be, so when they asked how bad it was I told them five. Luckily my husband was there, and he patiently explained that they wanted to know how bad it was, not how bad I imagined it could be. So when they came back I was able to say ten, and later when he went home I remembered what he had said, and was able to say that the pain was still a nine.

That was a long night. My cannula fell out, and it wasn’t until the sixth person’s third attempt that she managed to defeat my stubborn veins. Well meaning people kept coming to ask how I was feeling. I knew they meant physically, but how can you separate physical agony from emotional anguish?

Today, and probably tomorrow, I cannot help living through that pain again. It isn’t a new pain any more, but because of that it goes deeper. It just adds insult to injury that I’m experiencing monthly cramps today, and expect the same tomorrow.

We named our babies Thomas, which means Twin, and Perdita, which means Lost Child. These are not the names they would have had if they were here now. If they were rolling over and smiling and laughing, and sitting very well so long as there was something to lean against.

I am learning how to take care of myself. I have self-care plans in place for Wednesday and Thursday this week. So I am praying that this level of pain will be relatively short lived this time.

But right here, right now, my body and mind are remembering my little Thomas, my tiny Perdita, and it hurts.