One Year Later

June 22nd

The beginning of the day didn't surprise me.

I cried.

Realizing while doing so that I've probably cried more this year than I have ever cried any year before in my lifetime.

Also figuring that if I got the cry "out" in the morning, maybe I wouldn't break down again as the day progressed.

We had planned a day with Wendy and the kids at Seven Peaks, and I didn't want to cry publicly.

I know Jilinda and Alayna wouldn't want us to keep ourselves from having fun on their Angel Day, and I felt it would be a good thing for us.

The park started off as expected--Porter was too timid to get in the water right away, and Seth ran off to attack the slides.

I got Porter to swim around without freaking out about the time Seth came back from his fun so I could go on some slides myself.

I went on one.

One, because my pinky toe got caught on the ripples at the end of the slide and felt like it almost ripped off.

One, because both of the hinges of my brand new sunglasses that were in my hand as I went down snapped.

One, because the combination of those two circumstances made me realize coming to such a public place on the girls' first Angel Day may not have been the best idea as I simply couldn't keep the tears from falling.

A hug from Wendy and a few games of Angry Birds on her Ipad for distraction weren't able to stop the waterworks.

I didn't want to be in public anymore.

My sunglasses would have worked as a sort of security from public, but they were broken.

This didn't help my continuous tear-flow.

I did not have the emotional control I thought I would have.

Seth took notice of this, and decided with me that we should leave.

After apologizing to Wendy, I limped my way to the car.

It was a good thing we left when we did, because I was running late to my appointment to drop off the blankets.

As soon as we were put together again at home, we left for St. Mark's.

Thankfully, it wasn't a problem that we were a half hour late.

The chairman of the Labor and Delivery was happy to see us.

She asked about the twins.

It was nice to be able to talk about them to someone who sees situations like mine on a regular basis.

After our reminiscing, she gave us a tour in hopes to get us to transfer to the doctors there.

Which, we might.

When we went into the birthing room for the tour, I spotted the small bed where babies are placed after birth.

It was empty, of course.

But, that bothered me.

It was empty a year ago, too.

Porter also noticed the bed.

"That's where Jilinda and Alayna were when they died."

He's right--it looks the same.

I avoided continuously looking at it, but it was always in my peripheral.

Luckily, we weren't in the room long as we were here for a reason--the blankets.

The chairman opened our bag to take a look at the blankets to make sure they would work, gave us the exclamation of, "These are perfect!" and we were satisfied.

It felt good to be able to give back a little bit.

Really good.

This was for you, girls.

One year later...

Not gonna lie, it's still hard.

Nowhere near as hard as it was, of course, but hard in different ways.

Being pregnant right now doesn't change the fact that my twins are gone, and I miss my twins.

It's hard to think about my children not growing up at the same time as two of their siblings.

What gets me through?

I have faith we will all be together again.

Someday.


To our angels:

We are so very excited for the day we will be able to embrace again.

We love you, our beautiful identical sweethearts, and we miss you.

Happy first Angel Day.