Today Ren and I went to the viewing for Cody Collins. I knew it was going to be a little hard because Cody was such a great guy and our feelings were raw and sensitive anyways. When we were standing in line his tattoo showed up on a slideshow that said “Be Here Now”. I thought about it for awhile as I realized this is a motto that I need to have right now. I need to cherish these last few moments with Gabi, even if she is not able to know what is going on. It is unfair to her (and Rallen) if I just give up and stop rubbing my stomach because she deserves to still feel love regardless of what is going on.
Then as we walked up to the parents I realized that parents should never have to bury their children. I knew this, but it struck me extra hard as I had nothing to say to Cody’s mom because there is nothing anyone can say that can make it any easier to say goodbye to your own flesh and blood. How am I suppose to stand in that same spot and bury my own child? I am not suppose to have to do that, especially at my age! Why can’t I have time and memories with her? Why can’t I have enough time of her to be able to have lasting memories? Cody’s friends and family have done his memory a great justice as they have his truck visible, his casket personalized, and people out drinking his favorite drinks and sharing stories. Why can’t I have stories to share? Why can’t I have pictures to show? Why can’t I do something personalized for her? I call her my princess, but what if she would have hated that and we would have called her something else? Why didn’t I have this chance?
We did not look into the casket because I felt like it was dishonoring to his mom. Granted it was her decision but I could not just walk past a mother’s child like that. I want to be selfish with Gabi and I do not want people looking at her, or even wanting to look at her. I will never be able to attend funerals the same again. Let alone be able to offer comforting words because they just do not exist and it would be foolish of me to even try.
I fear that I will not be strong enough for Rallen. Even now Ren has to remind me to breath and calm me down on a very regular basis. I know this is not good for Rallen and it makes me feel even worse about my abilities to be a mother. Let alone, I do not know how I am going to be able to mourn when she is here but give him the precious attention and love that he needs as a newborn. How do you celebrate a life and a death of a child within a couple of minutes?
Ren should not have to be taking care of me like he has been. He should be able to grieve in his own way and know that he can depend on me instead of fearing leaving me alone and the mess that I turn into. I hate that he can’t even work a 4 hour shift without coming over to constantly check on me. I want to be stronger for him. I do not want him to break under pressure and decide his life would just be easier with someone else (especially since there are girls just waiting for that to happen so they can jump in). I want him to feel the same amount of support and security from me that I feel from him. Without him being by my side I fear that I would have lost both kids but with him I can’t wait for our future and trying to cope with our new life and what that means.
1.30.2011
1.29.2011
"Comforting" Words from Others
Throughout the past few days some people have said some very interesting things. I am not criticizing or mad at them for saying them as I realize that they are just trying to grieve in their way and that others just do not know what to say.
Yesterday I went to dinner with the Cooks and Monica was telling me how Emma and Caroline have been having a hard time with the news. She said that every once in awhile that the girls will just tell their parents that they are sad for me. I do the same thing, but they are just too young to have to learn about death and think about kids dying. Mariah also has been asking questions in regards to why Jesus took our baby. What happened to allowing kids to play with dolls and use their imagination of worlds with princesses and castles?
During my last pregnancy I had a hard time with people telling me that God is holding my baby. While I am not saying that I do not want that to happen and I would like to imagine God holding her if I can’t, it doesn’t make me feel better. Doesn’t God have enough people in heaven to give attention and hold? Why did he need to take my baby so early and leave me here hurting so badly?
Furthermore during my last pregnancy people said we lost the baby because we were not married and it was bad timing. Now people are saying that there still must be a reason and some day we will figure out what it is. Am I that bad of a person that God doesn’t trust me to have a little girl? What is so wrong in my life that God felt the need to take her from me? I am not saying that I expected parenting twins to be easy but I was ready for the challenge.
Ren and I always rolled our eyes at people who talked to us about our twins. When we told people that we were having a boy and a girl they would always say “Good! Then you can be done!” We always just turned around and said “I am so glad they made that decision for us!” Now, people turn to us and say “Well just wait and you can try again”. I do not like thinking of replacing Gabriella and I also do not know how I feel about trying to get pregnant again considering all of our complications we have had. We do not know what our future holds with kids but I do know that it is a decision we will not be making in the near future.
Many women have sent me messages saying they understand how I feel because they lost a child too. This was comforting the first time when we were only 8 weeks along; however, I do not feel like anyone could understand this. I have one dead child and one living child inside of me. I have carried this child for 20+ weeks and was planning for her arrival and making plans for her future. This is not the same as women who have had miscarriages in their first trimester.
A girl at Starbucks yesterday told me that she was glad that these past few weeks that I have been feeling the best of the pregnancy. She then said “Maybe Gabi was just taking to much out of you”. I would take back every complaint of not feeling good, be on bed rest, and sick the rest of the entire pregnancy if it meant I could have my little girl back.
A lady at a bar walked up to me and told me that it is better that Gabi didn’t make it because than we would have a child who might have special needs. Really? It is better to not have a living child than to have one with disabilities? I understand that I do not want my child to suffer; however, it might not have been a disabling problem but something very manageable.
Last night a lady walked up to me and touched my stomach and asked if I was pregnant. I told her yes and she asked when I was due. I stuttered because I did not know this lady and really did not want to tell her that I did not know for sure. She then asked me what I was having and that is when I said “a boy and a girl”. She told me I was lucky and that (of course) at least I could be done having kids. Is that a bad thing to say? I mean I know that I do have a boy and a girl, but it is weird as I am trying to process things on my own to have people make comments about her. I just want to protect her and I do not know if that means representing her memory and making her presence known or just letting her go in peace and not have the world broadcasting it.
Others just walk up to me and ask me how the pregnancy is going and I, again, stutter through it. People always walk away feeling bad for asking and treat me differently after words. I do not want that, but I understand that it is just a hard situation. So should I lie to spare people’s feelings? Just put on a happy face and pretend like all is well?
Yesterday I went to dinner with the Cooks and Monica was telling me how Emma and Caroline have been having a hard time with the news. She said that every once in awhile that the girls will just tell their parents that they are sad for me. I do the same thing, but they are just too young to have to learn about death and think about kids dying. Mariah also has been asking questions in regards to why Jesus took our baby. What happened to allowing kids to play with dolls and use their imagination of worlds with princesses and castles?
During my last pregnancy I had a hard time with people telling me that God is holding my baby. While I am not saying that I do not want that to happen and I would like to imagine God holding her if I can’t, it doesn’t make me feel better. Doesn’t God have enough people in heaven to give attention and hold? Why did he need to take my baby so early and leave me here hurting so badly?
Furthermore during my last pregnancy people said we lost the baby because we were not married and it was bad timing. Now people are saying that there still must be a reason and some day we will figure out what it is. Am I that bad of a person that God doesn’t trust me to have a little girl? What is so wrong in my life that God felt the need to take her from me? I am not saying that I expected parenting twins to be easy but I was ready for the challenge.
Ren and I always rolled our eyes at people who talked to us about our twins. When we told people that we were having a boy and a girl they would always say “Good! Then you can be done!” We always just turned around and said “I am so glad they made that decision for us!” Now, people turn to us and say “Well just wait and you can try again”. I do not like thinking of replacing Gabriella and I also do not know how I feel about trying to get pregnant again considering all of our complications we have had. We do not know what our future holds with kids but I do know that it is a decision we will not be making in the near future.
Many women have sent me messages saying they understand how I feel because they lost a child too. This was comforting the first time when we were only 8 weeks along; however, I do not feel like anyone could understand this. I have one dead child and one living child inside of me. I have carried this child for 20+ weeks and was planning for her arrival and making plans for her future. This is not the same as women who have had miscarriages in their first trimester.
A girl at Starbucks yesterday told me that she was glad that these past few weeks that I have been feeling the best of the pregnancy. She then said “Maybe Gabi was just taking to much out of you”. I would take back every complaint of not feeling good, be on bed rest, and sick the rest of the entire pregnancy if it meant I could have my little girl back.
A lady at a bar walked up to me and told me that it is better that Gabi didn’t make it because than we would have a child who might have special needs. Really? It is better to not have a living child than to have one with disabilities? I understand that I do not want my child to suffer; however, it might not have been a disabling problem but something very manageable.
Last night a lady walked up to me and touched my stomach and asked if I was pregnant. I told her yes and she asked when I was due. I stuttered because I did not know this lady and really did not want to tell her that I did not know for sure. She then asked me what I was having and that is when I said “a boy and a girl”. She told me I was lucky and that (of course) at least I could be done having kids. Is that a bad thing to say? I mean I know that I do have a boy and a girl, but it is weird as I am trying to process things on my own to have people make comments about her. I just want to protect her and I do not know if that means representing her memory and making her presence known or just letting her go in peace and not have the world broadcasting it.
Others just walk up to me and ask me how the pregnancy is going and I, again, stutter through it. People always walk away feeling bad for asking and treat me differently after words. I do not want that, but I understand that it is just a hard situation. So should I lie to spare people’s feelings? Just put on a happy face and pretend like all is well?
1.28.2011
Our Princess Gabriella - Facebook Note
Normally I am very private with details of situations until I am ready; however, I know there are questions and so we decided it would just be easier to tell everyone at once. I hope that there is also some understanding with this though that we do not have answers and nothing makes sense to us but this is what we know:
To back track a little: I have been having problems throughout this whole pregnancy. It started with a hematoma the day after our wedding. Our last ultrasound was the first week of December (20 weeks 5 days) and they were 1 pound and 12 inches long. Then December 17th I went in for an emergency check up because I was so sick all night and I wasn’t sure if my water broke or what was going on. On December 26th I ended up being admitted to the hospital for dehydration and an infection that was putting me into contractions that were only 3 minutes apart. After that we had two doctor’s appointments before Wednesday and they told us that everything was perfectly fine.
Wednesday morning we woke up and Ren asked me if I was ready for our ultrasound appointment and I just looked at him and grinned from ear to ear and said “Let’s go see our babies!” Everything about this ultrasound was routine as the tech first scoped out the babies and then turned the screen so we could see. I thought it was weird that they started with Baby B (Rallen) because they always have started with Baby A (Gabi) but I quickly got over it as I got to see the tech measure Rallen and see that he was growing healthy. When she finished with him she left the room and I became hysterical. I never had a reason to panic before this moment; however, I remembered the doctor telling us that the tech could never tell us bad news and that she would always get a doctor to do it (Not to mention we witnessed this first hand with our first miscarriage). The doctor then came in and told us that even though I am technically at 28 weeks Rallen was measuring at 31 and Gabi was measuring at 22. I lost it and fell into Ren’s arms as the doctor told us that she did not make it. They made an appointment with the specialist for Thursday in Fort Wayne so we could get more answers and find out what this information exactly meant.
Ren and I spent the night playing “what if”. I tried to Google everything and find answers to how this could happen or what I could blame it on. Neither one of us slept well but we were trying to hope for the best and expect the worse. After all, doctors have been wrong before and we were not satisfied with how the ultrasound actually happened.
Thursday we went to the specialist but unfortunately they told us the same news. They told us that Gabi had no heart beat and was not alive. They think her heart just failed and that there was nothing anyone could have done to save her. Rallen on the other hand is healthy and huge! We were worried about a small issue with his brain (especially since Ren and his niece have had these issues at a young age) but the doctor assured us that it is nothing to worry about; he’s just going to be big like his daddy!
So the big question. What now? Well… we wait.
The doctor gave me steroid shots to help quicken lung development incase Rallen decides to come early. At this point we have no idea if he will come this weekend or in April. Gabriella will stay inside of me until Rallen decides he is ready to come out or the doctors start to worry if she is in some way hurting him (but as of now that is no concern). Ren and I decided that we will have a funeral for her and now we are just working on the details of that.
While we have no answers we are trying to keep pushing through for Rallen. We are thankful to have a healthy baby boy but it is very bitter sweet to be planning baby showers and funerals at the same time. We definitely ask for prayer and strength through this as I need to remain emotionally stable for Rallen, even on the days I just want to give up. Ren and I have a lot of hard decisions to make in a very short matter of time and we are just trying to make sure that they are good decisions and not fully based on our emotions.
Losing two babies in 7 months is not something we expected, especially since we got so far into this pregnancy and have been preparing for twins this entire time. I don’t think that even saying that I feel ambushed would begin to describe how I feel. I am trying to figure out what to do with a singleton since I have been planning so hard towards having two infants and am currently working on reworking our registries and cleaning out the nursery for the stuff we had bought for Gabriella to make more room for Rallen.
Undoubtedly we are going to need prayers through these next few weeks/months. Please keep us in your prayers and I apologize in advance if we do not respond to people right away. Personally, I sometimes just do not feel like I can answer questions or even put into words what I should say but I promise that every email and message means a lot to Ren and I as we are constantly reading them to each other throughout the day. We are determined that this will make us stronger and for some reason we keep getting put through seemingly impossible trials but we always work through them together.
Thanks again for all the support we have received so far and for the support that is to come!
The Thackers
To back track a little: I have been having problems throughout this whole pregnancy. It started with a hematoma the day after our wedding. Our last ultrasound was the first week of December (20 weeks 5 days) and they were 1 pound and 12 inches long. Then December 17th I went in for an emergency check up because I was so sick all night and I wasn’t sure if my water broke or what was going on. On December 26th I ended up being admitted to the hospital for dehydration and an infection that was putting me into contractions that were only 3 minutes apart. After that we had two doctor’s appointments before Wednesday and they told us that everything was perfectly fine.
Wednesday morning we woke up and Ren asked me if I was ready for our ultrasound appointment and I just looked at him and grinned from ear to ear and said “Let’s go see our babies!” Everything about this ultrasound was routine as the tech first scoped out the babies and then turned the screen so we could see. I thought it was weird that they started with Baby B (Rallen) because they always have started with Baby A (Gabi) but I quickly got over it as I got to see the tech measure Rallen and see that he was growing healthy. When she finished with him she left the room and I became hysterical. I never had a reason to panic before this moment; however, I remembered the doctor telling us that the tech could never tell us bad news and that she would always get a doctor to do it (Not to mention we witnessed this first hand with our first miscarriage). The doctor then came in and told us that even though I am technically at 28 weeks Rallen was measuring at 31 and Gabi was measuring at 22. I lost it and fell into Ren’s arms as the doctor told us that she did not make it. They made an appointment with the specialist for Thursday in Fort Wayne so we could get more answers and find out what this information exactly meant.
Ren and I spent the night playing “what if”. I tried to Google everything and find answers to how this could happen or what I could blame it on. Neither one of us slept well but we were trying to hope for the best and expect the worse. After all, doctors have been wrong before and we were not satisfied with how the ultrasound actually happened.
Thursday we went to the specialist but unfortunately they told us the same news. They told us that Gabi had no heart beat and was not alive. They think her heart just failed and that there was nothing anyone could have done to save her. Rallen on the other hand is healthy and huge! We were worried about a small issue with his brain (especially since Ren and his niece have had these issues at a young age) but the doctor assured us that it is nothing to worry about; he’s just going to be big like his daddy!
So the big question. What now? Well… we wait.
The doctor gave me steroid shots to help quicken lung development incase Rallen decides to come early. At this point we have no idea if he will come this weekend or in April. Gabriella will stay inside of me until Rallen decides he is ready to come out or the doctors start to worry if she is in some way hurting him (but as of now that is no concern). Ren and I decided that we will have a funeral for her and now we are just working on the details of that.
While we have no answers we are trying to keep pushing through for Rallen. We are thankful to have a healthy baby boy but it is very bitter sweet to be planning baby showers and funerals at the same time. We definitely ask for prayer and strength through this as I need to remain emotionally stable for Rallen, even on the days I just want to give up. Ren and I have a lot of hard decisions to make in a very short matter of time and we are just trying to make sure that they are good decisions and not fully based on our emotions.
Losing two babies in 7 months is not something we expected, especially since we got so far into this pregnancy and have been preparing for twins this entire time. I don’t think that even saying that I feel ambushed would begin to describe how I feel. I am trying to figure out what to do with a singleton since I have been planning so hard towards having two infants and am currently working on reworking our registries and cleaning out the nursery for the stuff we had bought for Gabriella to make more room for Rallen.
Undoubtedly we are going to need prayers through these next few weeks/months. Please keep us in your prayers and I apologize in advance if we do not respond to people right away. Personally, I sometimes just do not feel like I can answer questions or even put into words what I should say but I promise that every email and message means a lot to Ren and I as we are constantly reading them to each other throughout the day. We are determined that this will make us stronger and for some reason we keep getting put through seemingly impossible trials but we always work through them together.
Thanks again for all the support we have received so far and for the support that is to come!
The Thackers
1.27.2011
Unexpected Turn
This morning Ren looked at me and asked if I was ready for our appointment with the ultrasound tech. I turned to him with a genuine smile and said "Lets go see our babies!" Little did I know that it might be the last time I say those words.
The visit started off routine as the ultrasound tech looked at the kids. She turned the monitor on and started showing us our boy. I was surprised at first because they normally start with Baby A (Gabriella) but quickly forgot as we sat and admirred Rallen. Towards the end the lady got up and said she would be back. I immediately panicked. Our midwife told us before that the tech could not give us news that she would get the doctor if it was urgent. Tears started to fill my eyes as I was scared of what they would tell us.
When they returned the doctor told us that Gabriella was only at 22 weeks and Rallen is at 31 weeks. I immediately rolled over and became hysterical. They told us we lost our little princess.
I don't understand any of it! At 22 weeks I was nauseous with diarrhea, contractions, and I thought my water broke. I went to our midwife and she was unphased. Then 2 weeks later I was admitted to the hospital for an infection and dehydration. Even ast week we had an appointment and at every one they found 3 separate heartbeats (Rallen's, Gabi's, and mine). How could they if she stopped developing? That first morning my mom told me to get to the doctor because I had the same look in my eyes as I did with my first miscarriage. If she could see it why couldn't the doctors?
Am I such a bad person that I'm not meant to be a mom? Everyone has been criticizing me this whole pregnancy about doing too much, not gaining enough weight, etc. Is God punishing me for becoming so distant and not listening to the signs He is giving me? Am I not suppose to ever be a mom? Am I never going to be able to give Ren kids? Have I just had too much happiness lately? Was I too excited to have a family so it had to be snatched away from me? Why is it so easy for everyone else? Is Rallen ok? Will we have at least our little boy make it?
The visit started off routine as the ultrasound tech looked at the kids. She turned the monitor on and started showing us our boy. I was surprised at first because they normally start with Baby A (Gabriella) but quickly forgot as we sat and admirred Rallen. Towards the end the lady got up and said she would be back. I immediately panicked. Our midwife told us before that the tech could not give us news that she would get the doctor if it was urgent. Tears started to fill my eyes as I was scared of what they would tell us.
When they returned the doctor told us that Gabriella was only at 22 weeks and Rallen is at 31 weeks. I immediately rolled over and became hysterical. They told us we lost our little princess.
I don't understand any of it! At 22 weeks I was nauseous with diarrhea, contractions, and I thought my water broke. I went to our midwife and she was unphased. Then 2 weeks later I was admitted to the hospital for an infection and dehydration. Even ast week we had an appointment and at every one they found 3 separate heartbeats (Rallen's, Gabi's, and mine). How could they if she stopped developing? That first morning my mom told me to get to the doctor because I had the same look in my eyes as I did with my first miscarriage. If she could see it why couldn't the doctors?
Am I such a bad person that I'm not meant to be a mom? Everyone has been criticizing me this whole pregnancy about doing too much, not gaining enough weight, etc. Is God punishing me for becoming so distant and not listening to the signs He is giving me? Am I not suppose to ever be a mom? Am I never going to be able to give Ren kids? Have I just had too much happiness lately? Was I too excited to have a family so it had to be snatched away from me? Why is it so easy for everyone else? Is Rallen ok? Will we have at least our little boy make it?
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