When you fall pregnant

Especially for the very first time

You assume

Perhaps naively

That you will be pregnant for 9 months

Perhaps a little less with twins

What you do not expect

Is to fall ill at 25 weeks

Undergo emergency, life saving surgery at 25 weeks

And deliver tiny twins

At 27 weeks and 3 days

Esther and William now healthy and happy 6 year olds

Were born prematurely

Three months too soon

At just 27 weeks gestation

Weighing a little over 2lbs

We could hold a baby in each hand

Not that we were allowed to

We were not able to hold our babies when they were born

Every image of pregnancy and birth

I had ever seen, imagined, dreamed

Was smashed to smithereens

The day our twins were born

And though our children are alive and well

I still grieve for the entire trimester of pregnancy that we lost

And I still grieve those newborn days

59 days in NICU and SCBU

We did not know the joy of taking our brand new babies home

And though we know

All too well

We are lucky to have them home now

Happy

Healthy

Alive

I am still entitled to grieve our loss

Loss through prematurity

I lost the whole of my third trimester

I hardly felt my babies kick

I did not have chance to bond with them inside the womb

I failed my children and did not grown them as I should

I lost the chance to attend NCT classes and make that all important group of mummy friends

I lost mummy and baby play dates

I lost so many things that new mummies enjoy and look forward to

I lost the anticipation and excitement

The build up of a full term birth

I lost the ability to believe in good things

I lost the chance to be blissfully naive about pregnancy and birth

I lost the chance to proudly share my new babies with family and friends

I lost the chance of taking my babies home soon after they were born

I lost the chance for after birth skin to skin

I lost the chance to cuddle my newborns

I lost the chance to feed them from my breast

They had my milk but through a tube

1ml a day to start

1ml a day!

I woke every night for a breast pump

While my babies slept in hospital alone

I lost my sense of perspective

I lost my self belief

My self esteem

My self confidence

I lost me

Having a premature baby involves many losses

It is natural

Necessary

To grieve

Hopes and dreams are shattered

The future you had pictured

Broken

It is necessary

Natural

To grieve

When a baby arrives prematurely

You lose control

You lose time

You lose understanding

You lose certainty

Every new day has a question mark

Will my teeny tiny preemie baby survive?

Grief isn’t something you can experience in a neat progression of stages. It is a fluid experience of

sadness, anger, guilt, regrets, and failure,

longing, fear, disbelief, and emptiness,

preoccupation, confusion, sleeplessness,

fatigue, anxiety, irritability, hopelessness,

depression, powerlessness

tears and agony–

Parenting premature twins is lonely

And loneliness only magnifies grief and loss

When Baby Tilda died

I pushed my feelings about Esther and William’s birth

And earliest days aside

I focused my grief on my baby that died

Now I know that I need to grieve all my losses

To enable me to find the freedom from my own feelings

To try and move forward in some way

It is only very recently

I have known that it is okay to grieve the losses of prematurity

Having a premature baby involves many losses

It is natural

Necessary

To grieve