Thomas. Part 1.

Thomas.
The one name that I can't make up or fake away. The one member of our family that I can't bear to call anything but Thomas. He's weighing heavily on my heart these days. And I would like to tell his story. I've never written out the whole thing or even told anybody the whole story, especially not at one time.Well, really I don't think it will all fit in one post.
So here goes. It's going to be long. But I think I need to do this.there is a lot of guilt around my sweet Thomas, and some days I think I'm silly for still being so sad about him.

This is not a very light-hearted post. So be warned.

So here's Thomas' story from the beginning.
Matt and I had been trying for our third baby for a little while. In early May 2010 I was convinced that it would not be "the month" and I was working my brain around that. Then Alpha (2.5 at the time) came up to me and lifted my shirt and kissed my belly and said "there's a baby in there, hello baby". I was pretty shocked as he had no idea we were trying and didn't know any pregnant people. 4 days later.... PREGNANT! We were elated. a few weeks after that Alpha told me it was a boy. And then he named him "Baby Charlie". Funny that the name he picked out of a long rambled list (full of some I didn't even like) was the one that was near the top. So Charlie's name kind of stuck. A week or two after that Alpha kissed my belly again and told me there were two babies in there. Oh. At this point I had been suspecting twins. I was HUGE, and more than would be expected for 8 weeks with my third child. At 13 weeks I looked as big as I had been at 5 or 6 months. I was measuring "on dates" with my midwife, but that also made me suspect something as with the previous two I ALWAYS measured 3 or 4 weeks behind. Then when Alpha told me that I was pretty sure. I joked about it with Matt a bit but kind of kept it to myself. I knew a guy at work who had twins and my plan was as soon as I got out of my 20 ultrasound to go see him and ask about twins. To ask what it was like to double your children in one pregnancy. I was sure. Matt mostly just joked around and said things like "you'll have to pick which one you want to keep!" Joking yes, but those words haunt him still. I remember thinking that I didn't really want twins. And the guilt of that eats me.

August 26th, 2010. That day is locked in my memory. I had my 20 week u/s. I wasn't nervous. I had been with Alpha and Bravo. I had been worried that something would be wrong etc etc etc. But not this time. I was calm and confident in the pregnancy. Matt was able to come because school wasn't in yet. Thankfully.

For some reason  I didn't ask how many were in there. I did with the first two but not with this one. I lay on the table and I was watching the tech's face. It looked....odd. I made a comment to her and she said she was just concentrating and I should stop watching her. OK. Then she left the room and said I could get Matt. Matt came in, then the tech came in, then a doctor came in. I asked if we should be worried. She said "yes." My heart dropped. I had seen the heart beat, but what was wrong with my sweet baby? The doctor started looking around and was describing a cyst of unknown origin on the baby's kidneys. It looked like there might be more problems with them as well. She said it may mean any number of things, but it may mean nothing. I can't figure out to this day why she said the following and didn't wait until I had a fetal assessment. She said "it could be that the baby is fine. It could be something that disappears. It could be something that the baby can live with. It could mean immediate surgery upon the birth of the baby, or it could mean still birth or even neonatal death". Wow. That was a big range of "it could be"s.

Then the other shoe dropped. There were two babies in there. Charlie and his twin. But his sweet baby twin had died in early second trimester. I remember a big gush of bright pink fluid at 13w5d, but because my midwife found a heartbeat a day later I wasn't sent for an ultrasound. The air felt like it left the room. I was right. I had twins! I would get to hold two babies at once! I would have to learn how to juggle the needs of a 1.5 yr old, a 3 yr old AND two new babies. That's what I should have been planning. Instead I was kicked out of the club of "twin mommy" the very same moment I was brought into it.

We were in shock. We sat in the room and held each other and cried for a few minutes then made a sorry attempt to regain our composure and left. I think I sobbed all the way to the car. We sat in the car and cried. We drove home. I went straight into the basement so the older two boys wouldn't see me because I was a mess. My Dad was there looking after them so Matt sent him down. I got out a mumble about one of the babies might be OK and one was not. That's how I got to share the twin news. By telling my dad I had a dead baby inside of me. Dad agreed to watch the boys for the rest of the day so we could do what we need to do and not worry about Alpha and Bravo. We went and had breakfast at a nearby restaurant. The girl seating us could tell we were not OK so she tucked us into the closed section of the restaurant so we could have a bit of privacy. Or to not scare the other people. Whatever. It was nice.

When we were at home earlier I had called my midwife to tell her about the ultrasound and she said she already knew and asked if I would like to come in that afternoon for an extra appointment. So after breakfast (lunch, whatever it was) Matthew drove to a fancy maternity store to buy me a new pair of jeans. Retail therapy. The lady there probably thought I was crazy as I kept bursting into tears. Or maybe she was used to hormonal women and didn't think too much of it. After that we went to the appointment and cried some more. We listened to the baby again for quite awhile and were told we would get an appointment with a OB/GYN and one with fetal assessment and we'd go from there.

That night after the boys were in bed we cried some more. Then we happened to glance out the window and saw a couple standing on our lawn beside the big "SOLD" sign. We had closed on our house 3 days earlier and this was the couple that bought it. So we went outside and offered to take their picture together instead of one at a time. Then we sat and chatted with them for quite a while. It was a nice distraction and thankfully it was dark out so they couldn't see my red swollen face.

This is a day that is etched in my memory. The day my baby died. The day I learned that my other baby might not make it. I wanted to take comfort in the fact that one baby was still living, but I had been told that could be taken away from me in a heartbeat as well. There was very little that day to find comfort in.

The rest of this story is also long and the birth had a lot to do with Thomas as well, and then there's the story of his name. But that's enough for now.