Vanishing

I’m not really sure which blog to post this on, so I’ll probably just post to both. Today I found out that one of the twins has stopped growing, and his/her heartbeat is slowing. We were warned that this was a possibility (about 50%, my doc said), but I figured that having two genetically tested embryos growing in there meant that we would have two babies. I figured that everything I have been through meant that I deserved two babies. Certainly I would be exempt from further loss.

At this point, I give myself a gentle smile.

I know better than that. There is no limit to the amount of suffering we will experience in our lives. I am grateful that one twin remains and looks healthy. I am worried, of course, that I will lose him/her too. I am still trying to process that I am losing one of the lives inside of me. Still trying to figure out how to grieve. Still trying to understand that there is nothing I can do.

There is nothing I can do? It seems impossible to have so little control over something so intimately connected with my body.

And yet.

I don’t know how to finish this post, except to say that thoughts and prayers are appreciated. Right now we feel a little hopeless and broken.