#6 - The Journey with Twins: Aiden's Passing

*Originally posted on January 24, 2017 - Dates changed so the Journey with Twins posts could all be found in one spot together.

The morning we went in for our scheduled c-section, I was already exhausted.  I hadn't slept well the night before.  It was blazing hot in St. George and I was sweating like crazy.  Even though we went to bed at 10 o'clock, I tossed and turned for hours and never felt like my eyes ever shut for more than 10 minutes at a time.  I was also very nervous.  I couldn't seem to feel at peace and I just kept wanting to get up and go to the hospital immediately.  I was incredibly thirsty too, but was fasting for the surgery, so I couldn't drink any water or eat.

Finally, at 3:30 AM I couldn't stand it any longer.  I got up and showered and got ready.  Burke was up by about 4:15 and we left for the hospital at 4:45.  The whole way over we were nervous, but excited.  We couldn't believe this was actually happening, that we had made it and we were about to meet our sons! Burke snapped this picture right before we went into Labor and Delivery.

The sleepless night was already starting to take a toll on me and I could feel my temples starting to throb with a big headache coming on.  I actually remembering thinking how nice it would be that I was going into surgery so the drugs could take care of my headache as well.

Those bands of elastic on the bed make me cry when I look at them.  One to measure for contractions, one for Alan's heartbeat and one for Aiden's.

Usually I am quite chatty with our nurses and get to know all about them, but I felt a little subdued that morning and hadn't been quite as sociable as I usually am.  They started prepping me for the c-section and got my IV going (the worst!).  They put three monitors on my tummy: one for contractions, one for Alan's heartbeat and one for Aiden's.

 

Three different nurses trying to find Aiden's heartbeat.

When they couldn't find Aiden's heartbeat, I wasn't worried at all.  We had already done numerous Non Stress Tests with these exact kind of bands and monitors and often times they had to take an ultrasound before they could figure out where Aiden was sitting and pick up his heartbeat.  However, as they kept bringing in more experienced nurses, I could see they were getting concerned and Burke and I got increasingly more quiet to let them focus on the search.  After a half an hour with no luck, they brought in Dr. Fagnats, a doctor whom we had never met, rolling an ultrasound machine with him.

As soon as he put the wand to my belly, I knew something was wrong.  We had been through so many ultrasounds by that point and we knew what to look for, but the signs of life; the flutter of a palpitating heart, the wiggle of limbs, the flow of blood - they just weren't there.  The doctor was silent for a while, but we knew.  We both knew.  Finally after moving the wand around over and over again, as he checked and double checked to make sure, he at last said, "I'm so sorry, but there's no heartbeat."

I am a reader.  I've read all genres and learned about the human condition from a myriad of characters.  I had read multiple times of characters unleashing unearthly wails in their agony.  Of haunting sounds that rise up and envelope souls in the dark cloud of their grief.  I had read about it, but I had no idea that such sounds truly existed; that they could come from me.

Sorrow crashing down in a tidal wave of shock and pain, exploded out of my mouth gaped in agony and unleashed in torrents of anguished cries, uncontrollable, unfathomable until that moment.  "Oh no! Oh no!" I wailed over and over.

I must admit I have always cared what people thought of me to some degree.  I would have never chosen for such deep and raw emotions to be witnessed by strangers, but for a few moments everyone disappeared except for my Burkie, clinging to me, holding me together with his arms, with his love, as my heart shattered to pieces.

My mind raced as I tried to make sense of it all.  We had gone into the hospital to save the babies, not to lose them.  We were supposed to be meeting our sons this morning.  We were supposed to be delicately touching them in intensive care incubators.  We were supposed to be sending out reassuring texts to our families.  They were supposed to assess our little ones and hook them up to wires that would measure heart beats, oxygen to fill their lungs and IVs to pump nutrients.  I knew personally micro-preemies who had been born at 25 and 28 weeks who were thriving children now.  We had weeks, months on those babies.  Had we made the wrong decision?  Should we have taken them sooner?  Would the boys have made it if we had?  When had Aiden gone?  Days ago or just minutes - maybe even seconds?  Could he still be saved if we took them now?  

In my grief I cried out, "Why didn't we take them sooner?!"

"No, don't think that," a deep voice I didn't recognize said softly, jarring me from this extremely private moment.

For the first time I realized there were still other human beings in the room, perhaps intensely uncomfortable with this uninhibited display of grief as they busied themselves quietly around the room with averted eyes.

"This baby has not been growing properly for a long time."  The doctor continued, "Look how small he is.  Your baby B is almost 3 times bigger.  He probably wouldn't have made it even if you had intervened."

I nodded silently, recognizing that he was trying to bring comfort, but as the room seemed to shrink in size, all I wanted was to be alone with Burkie, to get rid of all the extra bodies in that room, to hide away from human contact until the earthquake inside of me subsided.

It was around 5:30 AM, just 30 minutes after we had entered the hospital.  Dr. Hales was due to come perform the c-section at 7, but the nurse said she had called to inform him of the change of plans and said he would be in shortly.  They continued to monitor the heartbeats, concerned now for Baby Alan.  In the midst of the heartache, there was such relief that we had chosen to go through with the laser surgery, saving Alan from brain damage or death at the passing of his brother.  

The sobbing couldn't seem to subside and I went through an entire box of horrible hospital tissues in minutes - chapping my nose with their rough texture, heartless with their yellow-hued cheapness.  Trying to regain some composure I told the nurse standing closest that I thought Intermountain Health Care should be able to afford some quilted tissues and attempted a laugh to let her know I didn't blame her for the chintzy product.  In a matter of minutes she returned, teary-eyed as she handed me three brightly colored tissue packets, the kind made for your purse or car console.  She said she had taken on a collection from the other nurses on staff and they had donated these tissues to me with their love and condolences.  It was such a simple act, but so tender and sweet to me in this moment of tremendous heartache.  And my poor raw nose was very grateful!

Finally, the staff left us in peace.  I collapsed into my Burkie again and cried long and hard, grateful to be able to abandon myself without an audience.  When I had regained a sliver of control, we talked and of course the first thing on both of our minds was, "What about the blessing?"  The priesthood blessing Burke had given to me over 5 months previously which spoke of a pregnancy with "a bumpy road full of mental turmoil and anguish and many difficult decisions to be made."  That part had proved to be prophetic and fulfilled to a T.  

But what about the most important part - the part I thought of as a promise from God?  The part that had given me hope and strength and courage through the past 3 hellacious months?  "Emily," Burke had said, "in the end, these babies will come whole and healthy."

I had trusted that blessing.  I had prayed for and believed we would receive a miracle because of it.  Where were my whole and healthy babies?  Where was my miracle?

Suddenly, an idea came to me and in a flash I tried to explain it to Burkie.  Just a day or two before we had listened to a talk given by our beloved prophet, Thomas S. Monson from the most recent session of conference.  In his talk he spoke of a Mormon pilot in the South Pacific during World War II who had been shot down.  He and his crew had survived the crash and were floating in a life boat in the wreckage.  Three times rescue ships had come within sight, but had passed on without seeing them.  On the third day, a ship came into view again, but it too passed and was fading out of sight when the Holy Ghost spoke to the man saying, "You have the priesthood.  Command the rescuers to pick you up."  He did as prompted: "In the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the priesthood, turn about and pick us up."  The boat turned and came back and the men were saved. (Found HERE - "A Sacred Trust" - April 2016 General Conference)  

As fast as I could I reminded Burkie of this amazing story and then asked, "Burkie - can you do it?  Can you call him back?  Can you make his spirit return?"  

It was a bold request.  Burkie processed my question for a moment and replied with simple faith, "I can try."  As soon as he said that, hope rose within me and I was able to stop crying.  I felt nervous butterflies fluttering around inside.

I had thought the night before to ask if Burke had his consecrated oil on hand and as he pulled his key chain out, we realized his vile was empty.  He went out to the nursing station and asked if they happened to have any oil on hand and if there was an LDS priesthood holding brother on hand who could help to administer a blessing.  To our surprise, the nurses had emergency packets of oil right there at the station (it definitely pays to live in Utah sometimes!) and Burke was able to consecrate the oil.  We prayed deeply together as we waited for someone to join us.  Soon a brother came into the room, a man who had been from the team that was going to perform my c-section and whisk the babies away to the NICU.  We spoke briefly as he expressed condolences and then anointed my head.

With a surprisingly clear voice and strong hands, Burke began the blessing.  After confirming the anointing, he paused for several long moments.  In my mind, I waited with baited breath, pleading for the Lord's promised miracle to manifest itself, but for the strength to accept his will and the words that would come regardless.

After swallowing hard Burke said a five words that told me everything I needed to know.  "Emily, your son is well."  I began to weep again.  I knew with those words that Aiden would not be brought back.  I knew he was alive, whole and healthy, just as promised, but on the other side of the veil.

Burke continued, "Please know, there is mercy in this."  From those words, I knew then that if Aiden had stayed and been delivered that day, he would not have been whole and healthy.  As the doctors had all warned, his little body had already undergone so much trauma from not receiving the nutrients it needed for so many months, that he would have had intense struggles.  I don't know if those challenges would have been physical or mental or both, and as painful as it was to accept, it was indeed merciful for his spirit to be free from a body that may be full of pain and unimaginable challenges.  

I don't remember much more from the blessing, but I know that it helped to bring a spirit of peace and acceptance into the room and our hearts.  Once the brother who had helped with the blessing left, Burke and I discussed what had happened, mulling over our questions and concerns, bringing comfort to one another.  Rather than giving into the temptation of turning our hearts to stony anger or thoughts of betrayal, pushing us away from our Heavenly Father, we instead turned to Him with pleading, broken hearts in this moment, and despite the sadness, a sense of peace and calm began to enter in.  We discussed the reality of the atonement suffered by our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We knew he could take this pain from us.  We knew that because of Him, we could see Aiden some day in his whole and perfect state.  We knew we could be a forever family as long as we held faithful to our temple covenants that bound us to our son who never walked upon this earth.  These eternal truths soothed our aching hearts and brought enormous comfort as the Holy Ghost testified that what we had believed all our lives was, in fact, true.  The spirit was very strong in that room and I fought to cling to it rather than give into despair and grief.

As we discussed, a thought pierced my heart like a ray of light through a dark cloudy sky.  "Burkie," I said, "I think we did have a miracle.  It was a miracle that Aiden held on for as long as he did.  He must have done it for his twin - for Alan.  He knew that if we had thought he wouldn't be able to hold on, we would have intervened much earlier to save him.  He must have fought on until 32 weeks so that Alan could have all the time he needed to develop normally."  It rang so true to both of us.  We knew in that moment that somehow, Aiden must have had some choice in this matter.  We felt strongly that he chose to lay down his own life so his special twin brother could come "whole and healthy" and live for both of them.  This was the greatest comfort of all, to think of that twin bond - that remarkable bond of love and blood and spirit - defying all medical data and all logic.

At about 6:30 AM, Dr. Hales arrived.  He walked in dressed in business attire, rather than in the scrubs he had planned to wear to the c-section that morning.  He entered with his head bowed, clearly in an emotional state of his own.  He said he was sorry he had taken so long to come, but that the news had caught him off guard and he had needed some time to compose himself before joining us.  I was so very touched by this admission - further proof that our wonderful doctor cared deeply about us and our babies.  He said they would continue to monitor Alan's heart for a few more hours and then they would do an extensive ultrasound.  He suggested I try to rest in the interim and said a social worker would come to see us shortly to help us process what we were going through.

My headache that had started from lack of sleep that morning was a raging migraine now.  Since I was still connected to my IV, the nurse was able to give me some medication to help ease the pain and help me to sleep.  Burke too tried to rest, but neither of us were very successful. 

At this point Burke sent the following text out to our families.  We weren't ready to talk, but wanted to let them know what was happening as many of our family members were fasting, thinking our babies had already arrived by c-section.  As I read it again, I am amazed that just 2 hours after this tremendous shock, Burke and I were already counting our blessings, full of love and gratitude for our Savior, one another and the knowledge that we would see our son again.

Burke specifically asked my Mom and Cassie to not tell our girls yet.  We wanted to be able to tell them in person, although the thought of that conversation made me cry out to Burke, "Oh Burkie!  What will we tell Daphne?"  Darcie we knew was too little to understand, but Daphne had already been through so much back-and-forth, up-and-down over the past several months.  She had been a trooper, but it was definitely having an effect on her and it made me cry to think that we had just spent the past week getting her jazzed up to live at Cassie's house and attend school in St. George while we took care of the babies in the NICU and now we were going to rip the rug out from under her with yet another change of plans.  

After a time, a man entered the room with some association with social work (perhaps a grief counselor) and with his entering exclamation of, "Well this reeeeeeallly sucks!"  I wanted to slap him in the face and send him packing immediately!  The expression, "this really sucks" is when you get a flat tire or you throw up on Christmas.  What we were experiencing was absolutely devastating and his casual language was so insensitive.  The guy was clueless!  However, he was obviously thinking that he was being very sympathetic, and stayed for an awful thirty minutes, trying to make us talk about what we had just gone through.  Burke and I are both very friendly, but as this visit drug on and on, we both became cold and quiet, trying to get the guy to take the hint and leave.  

Without time to recover from his visit, a nurse came in next and took out my IV, helped me into a wheelchair with warm blankets to stop my teeth from chattering.  She wheeled us through the halls and into our familiar high risk (Maternal Fetal Medicine) office where we had spent so many hours monitoring the babies over the past three months.  The staff, whom we considered friends now, were all so surprised to see us and at first greeting us warmly with, "We didn't know you would be in today!"  Until they suddenly realized that tragedy had struck.  It was an awful moment as I tried not to fall apart while Suzanne came around the desk to give me a hug and say how sorry she was.  I couldn't even speak as they continued to wheel me into the well-known ultrasound room.  Soon, a new tech came in, not our buddy Brett.  He had mentioned in a previous appointment how grateful he was that things had turned out alright for us.  He said it would have been very hard for him if we had lost our baby at that point after we had spent so much time together.  I've wondered since that day if he, like Dr. Hales, needed some time to compose himself or if the new girl just happened to be on deck for that room.  

An extensive ultrasound followed and I found myself trying not to hope for some error in the previous machine.  I kept thinking that silent little heart was going to start beating again and eventually had to close my eyes to block out the painful still images on the screen.  Dr. Hales returned to review the screening and confirmed that everything was alright with Baby Alan and to yet again express his condolences.  He gave us the clear to check out, so it was back to the labor and delivery room and a few more visits from nurses, a clerk instructing us on how to order a death certificate, another grief counselor and eventually a check out nurse.  It was so strange to pull my large maternity clothes back on over my massive belly and push swollen feet into the slip-on-sandles that were one of two pairs of shoes that fit comfortably anymore.  Burke hefted my hospital bag with two matching sets of preemie pajamas tucked inside, to be found the next day after unpacking and evoking another flood of tears.

I found this picture of the labor and delivery entrance on Burke's phone from when we were about to leave the parking lot.  It looked so different in the daylight than the shiny glow of the blue neon just hours before in the early morning darkness.  We were vastly different creatures walking out of that hospital than we were going in - forever altered in such a short space of time.

Read the next installment in The Journey with Twins: Where the Rubber Hits the Road