Two and a Half Miracles
“Can you do it?” My Relief Society President leans over her kitchen table and grips my hand tightly. “It would be a great service and Alexa absolutely needs it.”

I knew that. I probably knew it better than anyone. My mind flashed back to the first time Alexa and I had met. Sitting on my couch and clasping her husband’s hand tightly, she wore the same tight look and fake smile I had on my face. The one we’d both got from crying too much and then trying too hard to pretend like we hadn’t. She and her husband stayed with us for hours as we talked and tried, again, to hold back the tears. At the end, she stood to hug me and our large, round bellies bumped together. It made us laugh, despite everything. It was a gift only we could give each other.

Our bond was immediate, if a little unusual. She was carrying identical twin boys, recently diagnosed with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. My husband Jason and I had recently learned that the daughter I was carrying had Turner’s syndrome. Their babies had a 40% chance of survival, ours only 10% at best. The doctors had told both of us to prepare ourselves for the deaths of our babies.

Over the next month, Alexa and I ate lunch (and lost it), walked, shopped and prayed together. Over the next 30 days we shared in their elation as Alexa received a priesthood blessing and the TTSS entirely disappeared by her next doctor’s checkup. “It’s a miracle,” her doctor said. “In all my years of practice, I’ve never seen this happen before. You are very blessed.” To me, Alexa squeezed my hand and whispered, “It will happen for you too. I know it. Today we will have three miracles.” I squeezed her hand back and for the first time since I’d heard the words “Turner’s syndrome,” I had real hope. She had her miracle; surely I would have mine too.

But alas, my daughter’s tenure on this earth was to be a short one and after one final good-bye kick she moved no more. I knew she was gone but I still wanted to hope. I waited until the next day to have it confirmed by ultrasound. She was dead. My doctor scheduled an induction for the next morning. Finally I would hold my little girl for the first and last time. That was September 11, 2001. My daughter’s birth was postponed by the crashing of two jets into the Twin Towers. The entire country mourned and I cried for every mother that, just like me, had lost her baby that day.

The birth. The few hours with Faith Carina. The funeral. The visitors. It all went by in a haze of breathless sorrow. I wasn’t sure if I could live but every morning I woke up and stared at the ceiling and made the decision to breathe. Just one more time. Until today. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. What the Relief Society President was asking me to do seemed an insurmountable task, the final straw to break my aching heart.

Alexa was on complete and total bedrest, her twins in jeopardy one more time. I was still on maternity leave from my job as a teacher. It made perfect sense for me to take care of her, right? I swallowed, my eyes filling with tears as I looked at the earnest face of Sister Johnson. I knew she wouldn’t be asking if she didn’t think I could do it but to ask a woman who had just lost a baby to care for a pregnant woman who may or may not lose hers too? It seemed almost comical. What if the babies died? Would it be my fault? What if the babies lived? Suddenly I could sympathize with the woman at the beginning of the story of Wise King Solomon, the one no one ever talks about except in terms of evil. All of a sudden I knew why that nameless woman had taken the baby of another. It was because she couldn’t bear the horror of waking up with empty arms.

“I can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you, sweetie,” Sister Johnson strokes my cold hand. “And please say no if you think it is too much. It’s just that your name kept returning to my mind as I prayed about this.”

Divine inspiration. Well, what can you say to that? “I can do it,” I whisper. But I don’t believe myself.

The first day I show up on her doorstep it is awkward. We stare at each other remembering the last time we spoke - which of course was at my daughter’s funeral. “How are you?” “Oh fine and you?” “Oh fine.” We’re both lying. I can see the fear in her eyes. I am what she is afraid of becoming. She can see the fear in mine. She represents everything I want - to still be pregnant, still be fighting for my baby.

She lets me in and lies down on the couch, on her left side just like she’s supposed to. I do her dishes, cook her meals, bring her endless bottles of water. We watch TV, each other and the large wooden clock. At last her husband comes home from work and I am free to go. Go home to my husband and the little memory box tied shut with a green ribbon, too small to contain every earthly thing of a real human being.

Thankfully it gets better. We were friends once and we are friends again now. Giggling over gigantic protein shakes, we watch the babies kick and squirm and grow, both of us more proud than we can express of their obvious health. I fold laundry as we talk about our mothers. I drive her to her doctor’s appointments as we compare high school boyfriends. For a month, I hold her hair as she pukes, catch her when she faints and feed her Tums every few minutes.

One day I wake up, excited to go to Alexa’s. I realize that while my baby doesn’t need me anymore, I am still needed. I remember, with some surprise, that she is living, her babies are living and yes, I am still living too. The days begin to fly. I try out new recipes to fatten her up (which she promptly throws up), we make crafts (which we hang up in the babies’ room), and we talk and talk and talk. Finally we talk about Faith. She listens. Asks questions. I smile as I share my precious few memories.

And then the one day I’m not with her, not by my own choice but because my husband needs his wife back for a day, the twins are born by emergency c-section. They are eight weeks premature. As soon as I hear the news, I panic. At barely two pounds each, surely they are too tiny to survive! What if I don’t see them before they die? What if I never get to see a living baby? I cry and beg my husband to drive me to the hospital. “Our babies might die!” I wail. “It’s going to be all right, all right,” he consoles me, his face white. I am sure he is wondering how he will fix me if this breaks me.

By the time I make it to the NICU, to the teeny little incubators that house their miniscule bodies, I am sure of it. They are dead. I brace myself for what I will see, afraid to look and afraid not to.

“You can hold them if you want.” Alexa is standing by my side, hunched uncomfortably over her stapled wound. “Only immediate family are allowed but I told them you’re my sister.” She smiles painfully at me. “You are the only person besides Carl and I that are on the list.”

It’s a privilege, an honor. I know it. And yet I am afraid. She takes out one (which one?) wrapped up tight like a burrito and places the whole tiny package in my arms, snaking the wires monitoring every sign of life around the chair. Then she steps back and closes the curtain, leaving the two of us alone. He doesn’t stir, doesn’t open his eyes or coo. He is far too young. But he is alive. I can see it pulsing in his translucent skin, vibrating in his sealed eyelids, grasped tightly in his curled fists. “Hold onto it,” I whisper, “for every minute is precious.” I cry with relief. I realize I got my miracle after all.

………

I stand on Alexa’s doorstep once again. It is a year later, to the very day. The twins’ first birthday. They sit, wide-eyed and serious, watching the revelry around them. They cannot know of course what a momentous day this is for all of us, how hard so many people, not least of all their mother, worked to get them to this party. I set my newborn son Samuel down in front of them. “Hi boys. This is Sam. Sam, these are the boys. Be good friends with them now, for they helped save my life.” The twins smile at Sam as if they recognize him. Divine inspiration. What can you say to that?
- posted by Charlotte @ 11:07 AM