"The pregnancy isn't valid."
"Your baby is dead."
"She never really existed."
This is my story and I am not ashamed to tell it.
I watched Mad Max: Fury Road today. They're was a scene where a pregnant woman was caught under a trucks wheels and her life all but lost. I starting crying. Ugly crying, right there in the theater. I told my husband he was a liar because he said she'd be ok, that they'd at least save the baby. The movie gave me hopes that the baby would be ok. Then it took them away, with no warning. That little life they cut out of her belly would "have been a viable human, another month in". I sobbed. The doctor who told us said Dahlia Rose was dead. She wasn't viable.
I hate that word, viable. I never heard it with the twins- they were a product of rape and 13 year old me was too terrified to go to the doctor when I started bleeding and having raging pain coursing through my body. Someone, I thought, the bad person would know and hurt me again.
I was reminded today that I still have a lot of grief to go through still, and a LOT of growing. I know now that this year, I'll celebrate Dahlia's angel day on August 2nd, and Olivia and Isaiah's on August 13th. I won't deny them their existence like I have all these years. I'll let them live, just for a day.
My losses affect me deeply and profoundly and that's why I talk about my children. It's why Eli knows all their names and won't be ashamed to say he has special spirits that watch over him. I'll continue to see them visiting at the oddest hours of the night. I know my children know me- I just have to be willing to know them. All of them, no matter how they started. I know me, it's time for me to know and accept ALL of them. Their lives mattered as much as my life mattered and they're all my children even though I'll never hold them in my arms in this lifetime. But I know August 13th and August 2nd you all will be remembered and it will ache to have you gone. But we'll celebrate your lives, short and beautiful as they were.
I was scared at thirteen. I didn't want to believe you existed or had come from my body. You were a reminder of my shame and pain. But Isaiah, Olivia, you're my children and I love you. No more are you a sign of shame. No more are your lives to be looked over. I am your mother, and my darlings, I love you. I love you so much.
