Do you have a minute? I have a life-defining story to tell you.

A few days from now, on Sunday, May 10th, I will be celebrating a bitter sweet Mother's Day.  The day marks the 10th anniversary of the birth of my baby boys, Raymond Lawrence and Alexander Varney.  They were born 14 weeks early and only survived for a handful of days.  For several years I was unable to speak about what happened to my boys, for several more I was unwilling, and now I find myself unsure.  

 Somewhere I heard or read that Elie Wiesel wouldn't speak about his experiences in the Holocaust until ten years had passed.  Not that I can compare losing babies, something that happens to women every day all over the world, to what Mr. Wiesel endured, but the thought of allowing time to pass helped me.  It allowed me to feel comfortable in my silence.  

Now that ten years are gone, I have gained a lot:   a son, a loving and fulfilling relationship, perspective.  I still feel the pain of losing my boys, sometimes keenly, but I believe now that I can tell their brief story -and the impact they have had on me - in a way that will be both honest and meaningful.  

The first five pieces in this blog are pieces that I wrote for myself at various points over the past ten years.  I'm not sure if they're worth sharing, but the time feels right.
 



When I lost my boys, my daughter was 3 ½ and attended a home daycare with five other kids.  I taught at a local middle school.  My husband worked in Boston.  We had a small circle of close friends who supported us with meals and phone calls and visits.  We had a larger circle that sent cards and flowers.  There was an even larger circle, families of former students, who read the obituaries in the local free paper and passed along condolences when they bumped into me in the produce section of the supermarket.  Everyone knew my pain and, for the most part, acknowledged it.   

Anna is now in first grade at a local elementary school.  I work in a different school; my husband has changed jobs twice.  And both circles of friends have changed – the small and the large.  As new people enter my life, as my children bring me into contact with more mothers, as I develop close relationships with colleagues, I often wonder, “how do I tell them?”  And then, “do they need to know?”  The loss of my boys is so much a part of me that I don’t really feel as if I can develop a close relationship with anyone without letting them in on that part of my life if for no other reason than to explain my strange behavior in spring, my random moments of tearing up, how uncomfortable I am around ultrasound pictures and pregnant women.  Close friends need this information, but how do I give it to them?  

I’ve done it badly…rushing through the story too soon into a fledgling friendship, enduring awkward silences and instantly regretting the disclosure.  I learned not to reveal too much too soon.

I’ve waited too long.  As our daughters frolicked in a water park and I rocked a napping baby, I confessed to a mommy friend that I’d had a pregnancy between the two children she knew, and that it didn’t end well.  “I know.”  She told me gently.  “Anna told us about her baby brothers.”  

There was the time I ran into an old student.  She’d graduated high school and was attending the yearly musical to see old friends, as I was attending to see old students.  She hugged me, we made small talk, and she gushed, “I heard you had twins!”  I placed a gentle hand on her arm and said, “Oh, Brandy.  I’m so sorry, they died.”  My eye wide with comforting, willing her not to feel bad about making such an embarrassing mistake.  And she said, “But Justin said he’d been visiting his English teacher and that she had twin girls.”  Oh, right.  The *other* 8^th grade English teacher.  Twin girls.  Yup.  That makes perfect sense.  Never mind.  I’ll just remove my hand and go spend a buck on a brownie.  

When it comes to my students, I’ve decided that NEVER is a good policy.  It makes certain lessons difficult – the father’s euthanasia of the twin in The Giver, for example, or my inability to read aloud the second to last chapter of The Pearl – but I usually find a way around it.  Since my boys died, I’ve changed schools once and teams twice.  Colleagues have become pregnant, announced twins, suffered miscarriages, and celebrated healthy ultrasounds all without me finding the right time or words to tell them the most important story of my life.  How can I burden someone with that?  

Once, Anna came home from first grade and told me they’d been discussing infants.  She said, “I told them about my baby brothers and how they died because they were only *this* big.”  My shock must have shown on my face because she asked, “Was that okay?”  While reassuring her that the story of her baby brothers is her story, and that she can share it if she wants, I thought of the teaching adage, “we’ll believe half of what they say happens at home if you believe half of what you hear happens at school” and wondered if I should send in a note.  But then, how to phrase such a note? “Dear Ms. Z, Anna really did have two baby brothers who were born prematurely and died.  I didn’t want you to think she was making things up for attention.  Sincerely, Mary.”  I never did send a note.  I just couldn’t find the right words.  

Part of me avoids the topic because I detest crying in front of people, and I can’t trust myself not to cry while telling the story.   Another part of me knows that the gossip wagon will catch up to folks and I they’ll get the picture without me needed to reapply my make-up.  In the case of Anna’s teacher – the reading specialist in the school is the mother of a student I had when the boys died.  I know she remembers me; she sent her regards via Ms. Z at conference time.  I’m sure she filled Ms. Z in on the details.  I worked closely with a man for three years and never told him because I knew the other women on my team would take care of it for me.  Is it hypocritical to condemn gossip and yet rely on it at the same time?

I recently found myself in a conversation about stretch marks.  Trying to put a pregnant friend at ease, a girlfriend and I were swapping stretch mark stories.  “I’ve got ‘em up to here and around to here!”  “That’s nothing!” I replied.  “Mine are like canyons – at least an inch or two wide!”  “Well,” my girlfriend countered, “I’ve only had one.  You’ve had two.”  And in the seconds long pause between comments I thought,“I’vehadthreeandthestretchmarksallcamefromthesecondpregnancywhenmybodywasstretchedtothelimitsbytwinsandaplacentaldiseasethatproducedinsaneamountsofamnioticfluid” but I said, “True.”  And then she looked at my necklace and I said, “diamond dust.”  And didn’t offer any further explanation or allow her to see the inscription on the back.  And the appropriate moment passed.  And I wonder if I should have let it.

At a recent reunion with a high school friend, I confessed to her that I’d suffered from post partum depression for eight months after the birth of my first child, but I said nothing about losing the boys.  At the end of the evening she said, “You’re so strong!  You’ve been through so much!”  My reply, “Sweetheart, that ain’t nothin’.  Just wait till the second date.”