12 September 2022

When my husband and I found out we were expecting twins, we were ecstatic. We started planning, and I bought matching hospital outfits for them. It was a dream come true.

At 16 weeks, our dreams were crushed. We were told that our Twin B had severe spina bifida, along with a host of other brain and organ abnormalities. The prognosis was that it was going to be a short, and painful life for our precious baby. At that same appointment we found out she was a girl, and we named her Grace.

At the hospital we were attending in Canada, the recommendation was to terminate for medical reasons around 31 weeks. For the next 15 weeks, we experienced the most painful time of our lives. We knew our time with Grace was short-lived, so we breathed life into her; talking to her, singing to her, we had private 3D scans to see her beautiful face, and we had maternity photos taken. We were making memories with our daughter before she was born.

After we had the selective reduction done, I then carried Grace and her healthy twin sister for a further 7 weeks. In this time, we planned exactly how we wanted delivery day to go. When it came time to have our C-section, we were finally able to meet our beautiful Grace. This was the pinnacle of our time together: we were finally face-to-face. I tried to memorize all of the planes of her face; perfectly symmetrical, giving way to squishy pink cheeks. The 3lb baby with ten chubby dimpled toes, and how in the world could someone have such perfect little ears? I was amazed we had created someone so perfect. I was beaming. An entire lifetime of love unfolded in the hours we spent together. Until the moment that we had to say goodbye. Tears upon tears, kisses that said a million words, a rush of promises that we would be together again and to meet me at the gates of heaven,  a thousand “I love you’ s over and over and over again. We gingerly handed her over.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about our gorgeous Grace.