By Jaime Groth-Searle
We decorated the room – gray with orange zigzags, and bright yellow cushions with a tall bookshelf, every nook crammed with dusty comics from our own childhoods. We wanted our twin boys to have all those things we loved, and we wanted to help them discover new things too.
When they died, we closed the door.
And we didn’t open it again for months.
Until one day, I noticed a little bit of sunlight peeking at me from under the door.
I sat inside, in the overstuffed chair I’d chosen. It would have been our storytime chair.
And I just cried and cried and cried.
Until I felt the sunlight getting brighter on my face. I wanted so badly to believe they were both there with me.
I want to believe. I really do.
But I also believed that I’d have two babies to hold at the end of my pregnancy. I trusted. I hoped. I tried.
I did all the things I was supposed to do. I ate at Whole Foods. I walked two miles a day, every day. I was in bed by 10pm every night. I stopped wearing my highest high heels. I ate stuff with fiber. I ate stuff with protein. I took my supplements religiously. I drank a gallon of water a day.
And I lost them both anyway.
Then I watched my stepsister, a drug addict, give birth to a healthy baby.
So I’m not sure what to believe any more.
Behind this smile is a mama in mourning. Jaime Groth-Searle is the mother of Damon Patrick and Drazan Anthony, twin boys born too soon at 22.5 weeks. She thinks of them every single day, at least once, in between juggling her career in advertising, writing her first novel, running her thrift store blog, hanging out with her husband and two cats, and generally just trying to fill her life with joy in any way she can.
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I find it very hard to accept who gets to take home a healthy baby and who doesn’t. Life certainly isn’t fair, and you don’t always get what you deserve.