April & Melanie

My first angels

Written by Connie Small, June 19, 2001

It was 26 years, four months, three weeks and four days ago, that I gave birth to my precious twin daughters, April Lavena and Melanie Beth. I had been implanted with the Dalkon Shield IUD as a birth control method. It failed. When I went to the doctor at approximately six weeks of pregnancy, he asked me if I wanted the IUD removed. I asked if it would make me lose the baby. He said he didn't know, but there was a chance. I refused to take the risk and chose to leave the IUD in and hoped the pregnancy would proceed normally.

Everything was fine the first few months. Although I didn't have much of an appetite and in fact had lost ½ a pound by delivery, I was healthy and the doctor wasn't concerned. I figured I'd gain my weight the last of my pregnancy.

At 24 weeks, my labor began. I wasn't worried, thinking I was probably having Braxton-Hicks contractions. I called my doctor and he suggested I come to the hospital. I asked him if he thought it would help if I just took a nap instead. He said it might. I managed to go to sleep, but about 6 hours later, I awoke and knew I was definitely in labor. I went to the hospital, still believing everything would be OK. I was sure my labor could be stopped.

During my 12 hour labor, I was given 19 shots of something that was supposed to make my labor stop. I don't know what the shots were, but all they did was slow my labor. The nurse came in at one point and listened to the baby's heartbeat. I asked her if there was just one baby. She said yes. She was the same nurse who said, "You're baby is too young to make it. It's going to die. You know that, don't you?"

At 6:22 a.m., April Lavena entered the world. She was quiet and still, although I was told later that she was born alive. Three minutes later, I began to push again. The doctor assumed it was the placenta. I heard his, "Oh my God!" when at 6:25 a.m., Melanie Beth slid into his hands. I wasn't surprised. I remember asking, "Is it the other one?" With a shocked look on his face, he told me yes. I guess it was Mother's Intuition that told me all along, I was carrying twins. When Melanie was born, she cried. It was a sound I will never forget. It was as soft as a newborn kitten mewing. As he left the room carrying her, I saw his cupped hands holding her so gently. I could not see her within his hands; she was too small.

I remember very little after that. I have very fragmented memories. I was told, every time I was awake, I was hysterical. I guess they didn't want to deal with my crying and screaming, so they kept me pretty sedated. Three hours after my babies breathed their first breaths, they took their last. I don't remember who told me. Perhaps it was the hospital chaplain. The chaplain I begged to tell me why God had taken my babies. I can still see the sadness on his face as he told me, he didn't know.

I was awakened by the sound of a baby crying. For a brief second, I thought the baby was mine. Then I realized it was the baby of the mother in the bed next to mine. I rang for the nurse. When she got to my room, I screamed for her to get me out of there. As she wheeled my bed down the hall to another room, she told me, "You'll have to get used to this." She did concede that it was a little soon to do so.

The doctor came in later that day and told me I needed to make funeral arrangements. He quite jovially pointed out that since I had "live births" that I could claim my babies on my taxes the next year.

Because my husband had to work (he would have been fired if he took off work to take me home from the hospital), my parents picked me up. I remember of the horrible emptiness in my arms and my heart as I was wheeled out of the hospital. I had all of this love inside for my babies, but I couldn't give it to them. My daughter Jennifer had turned two a couple of days before her sisters were born. She had missed her mommy and gave me a big hug. I held onto her and just cried.

The doctor had sent sedatives home with me. My family apparently didn't want to deal with my hysteria anymore than the hospital personnel. They made sure I took my sedatives on a regular schedule. I don't remember them giving me the pills, but I do know that I seemed to be sleeping all the time.

When I was pregnant with Misty, I was terrified that I would lose that baby too. It wasn't until she was actually in my arms, alive and crying, that I allowed myself to feel happiness from having her. While I was pregnant with Misty and trying to come up with a girl's name, my mom wanted me to name her April Beth, a combination of my twin's names. I told her no, because their names were the only thing I could give them.

It wasn't long before the comments started. The ones meant to be helpful. The ones that hurt.

"God needed them more"
I didn't need them enough?

"You can have more"
But I can't have THEM.

"There was probably something wrong with them any way"
I would have taken them no matter how "imperfect".

"You need to have another one to get over them"
Any mother knows, you NEVER "get over" losing a child.

"You didn't get to hold them, so it can't be THAT bad"
I didn't need to hold them in my arms. I held them in my heart.

"At least you didn't have them long enough to get to know them"
I knew them as only a mother could.

For many years, it crushed my heart to see twin girls, especially if they happened to be the age April and Melanie would have been at that time. I would change the channel on the TV when the Doublemint commercial came on. Even now, when I see twins or hear twins mentioned, I feel a stab in my heart. Someone I know has this quote in their email signature. I feel as if it was meant for my baby girls. "An angel in the book of life wrote down my baby's birth, and whispered as she closed the book - "too beautiful for earth".

Time eases the sharpness of most of the pain. But you never forget, you never stop grieving. The love doesn't die. It won't, until I take my last breath. Even then, I'll take it with me, when I enter heaven to hold and rock my baby girls for the first time. For now, Cassy will have to sing lullabies to her baby sisters for me. I know she's singing, "Hey, Jude".