{Trigger warning: this mama shares some details of her miscarriage}

As I (Betsy) sit down to post my friend’s story, I realize that exactly one year ago, I was working in a church nursery with her, discovering many things that we had in common. These included our hope of having twin babies one day. “Let’s both have twins next year,” I said, as if we had any control over that dream.

Months later our mom’s group was praying for a mom experiencing a miscarriage. Soon I found out that it was this friend, and that twin babies went to Heaven much sooner than we would have wanted. I was so very sad for this beautiful family.

Yet God has worked in this mama’s heart, and she openly shares her story with others, with hopes that others will experience healing. Thank you for telling us about your babies, Jenessa Bruce. 

We have always hoped for four children. We’ve already been blessed with two. My husband and I were ready to try for a 3rd baby when our little one was about to turn one year old, after much prayer and many conversations. To our delight we conceived right away and could not have been more thrilled! My husband started referring to our baby as “the twins” and I thought he was crazy… there was no way it was twins. My parents have 11 children and no twins. But he insisted he was going to call them the twins until I told him otherwise.

I experienced some very minor bleeding around 5 weeks, but then it stopped. Then again around 8-9 weeks and it continued off and on enough that I decided we should go for an early ultrasound just to make sure everything was okay. I had a sub chorionic hemorrhage with my second pregnancy and he was okay, so I wasn’t too concerned, but the fact that we hadn’t had an ultrasound yet prompted me to want one just to make sure. So at 9 weeks and 2 days we went to the ER in South Carolina to check on the baby. It was Valentine’s Day evening and we were visiting family. As the ultrasound technician began she commented that my uterus was “big for 9 weeks”… I shrugged, as I had no idea why, but I knew how far along I was. As she continued to do her thing, Mike asked, “Is that what I think it is?” And she replied, “Mmm hmmm…. there are two!”

Cue *utter shock* from me! I think my eyes couldn’t have gotten any wider! My husband was ecstatic… he started dancing around the sonogram room! I literally could hardly believe it, but she showed me and sure enough there were two little sacs, each with a baby and a beating heart! Tears of joy immediately filled my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. My heart was so full. We always wanted four children but I’d ended up with cesareans for the first two and Mike was afraid for me to have more than three cesareans, so he’d said that if I had to have a third one with our third baby, then that would be it and we’d have to be done with three children. But now God was giving us our four in just one more pregnancy and delivery! It was such an answer to a prayer that I didn’t even think to ask.

So we left the ER that night with hearts full. All looked well, another sub chorionic hemorrhage for me but the blood clot didn’t look too big to be concerning, and both babies’ heart beats were strong and perfect.

Photo by Maarten Deckers on Unsplash

A week later we were home again in Maryland and went in for my first prenatal appointment with the midwives and doctors I’d planned to see for the pregnancy. 10 weeks 2 days, they did another ultrasound and babies were so active and perfect with strong heartbeats. She could still see the blood clot, but didn’t act like it was of any concern. So we scheduled the next appointment and left again with full hearts, the news of two babies on the way finally really sinking in.

About 10 days later, it was early March, and I was now 11 weeks and 4 days. I’d noticed a few days before that my uterus felt like a big grapefruit and was just starting to show. It seemed early, but then I read that with twins you can measure about 5 weeks ahead and so I thought, yep, I feel about 16 weeks along!

That evening at dinnertime I started having really strong crampy feelings. They were a little unnerving to me, but I figured it was something I ate and just hoped it’d be better soon. It didn’t dawn on me right away, but at some point I realized they would come for a minute or so, and then go away for a couple minutes. And continued that way for maybe an hour. They were like contractions, but on a much smaller uterus than it is when a baby is full term. I nursed my 14 month old to sleep as usual while my husband was tucking in our daughter. After I laid him down, I went to the living room to wait for my hubby. Suddenly I felt a rush of blood and went to the restroom to avoid a mess. I felt two large blood clots pass. I’d been bleeding off and on for a few weeks now, but every ultrasound the babies were perfect and I figured at nearly 12 weeks I was past the point of fearing a miscarriage. I just wanted the bleeding to stop soon since it was obviously stressful nonetheless. So I went to the kitchen to get a spoon so I could pull up the blood clots to see their size before flushing since doctors and midwives always ask about the size of blood clots.

To my utter shock, the second one I pulled up was one of my whole little babies! He was about the size of my palm in length, still a peachy-translucent color, perfect, tiny, but not supposed to be born yet! Holding him in my hand, I immediately started sobbing, and crying out loud, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” I could see his eyes, ears, nose and mouth, and ten fingers and ten toes, so tiny. Not breathing of course. I was on my knees hunched over sobbing uncontrollably when my husband finished putting our little girl to bed and found me. He took the baby out of my hands and put him in a bowl and then put his arms around me, and I know he was crying too.

When we were recovered enough to think again, I was concerned for the second baby but hopeful that she was okay, because the cramping contractions had ceased. I wanted to go to the ER and have an ultrasound to check on her. I texted a friend to see if she could come over and sit at our home so we could leave our children sleeping in their beds and run up to the hospital. She came fairly quickly and we were on our way. I texted all my family telling them that we just lost one of our babies and asking them to please pray that the second one would be okay. But on the way to the hospital the cramping contractions that I’d had before losing the first baby returned again. I felt so helpless. At the hospital, while waiting on an ultrasound technician to become available, I felt a rush of blood again and dashed into the bathroom, this time knowing what was about to happen. I brought the container they gave to catch anything. I felt her little body pass out of me then scooped her into my hand and cried and cried quietly by myself in the ER restroom. My husband asked through the door if I was okay, and I said, “yes”, but not really…. But I needed a few moments of solitude to mourn my sweet baby before handing her over to the doctors.

They wanted to do a D&C since I was nearly 12 weeks along with twins and still bleeding. When I awoke from the general anesthesia my husband made sure I was okay and then had to go home to relieve our neighbors and be home with our children overnight. They wanted to keep me overnight for monitoring since I’d suffered so much blood loss. After the scurrying of monitoring had ceased for a while, everyone left the room and I was in the bed, alone in the room, and feeling so numb. I was kind of in shock that a mere 6 hours before everything was going along fine as far as I knew, and now, both little babies were gone, just like that, and I felt such an emptiness. Of course I couldn’t sleep at all. I went back and forth all night between sobbing, and then just feeling numb, like I had no tears left. But eventually they’d replenish again.

I got to go home the next day. My friend who’d come over initially to stay with our littles shared the news with a couple MOPS leaders and they literally surrounded me in love and support. They made sure someone was there with me during the day when Mike had to work the whole first week and coordinated meals for me the whole second week too. I felt really weak, and their support was incredible. I honestly don’t know how I would have gotten through it without these amazing mama friends. All my family lives far away from us, but my friends became like sisters in those weeks, and surrounded me in the most perfect way I wouldn’t even have asked for.

In the weeks and months that followed there are a few things that really helped me and us heal from these losses. The first was immediately having these other moms completely envelope us in love and support in the most tangible ways. The most enduring is our own personal relationships with the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing that He is good, that He won’t allow tragedy without a greater purpose, that He’ll never leave us, and that our babies are safe in heaven with Him now, were all enduring comforts through the lows that followed in our grief.

A couple weeks after we lost them, I bought two little bonsai trees for our table with stones in front of them that say, “Hope” and “Inspire” and to this day my husband refers to them as “the twins”. They’re just our little keepsakes for them…things that are alive and growing, that we can smile when we look at, and know that our babies are alive in Heaven, and safer than they’d ever be on this earth. We miss them, we think about them quite often. We imagine how our family would be now, as we came upon and passed their due date about 6 weeks ago…. with two newborns in our home. It was a boy and a girl and they were perfect. My dream family is to have two boys and two girls so they can each have a brother and a sister. I have so many memories with my sisters growing up and love sharing life with them over the phones and visits here and there when we can manage, and I want that for my daughter. And for my son.

Another thing that has truly been huge for me in accepting their passing way too soon, is allowing them to be acknowledged by as many people as possible. I don’t really know why miscarriage is so seldom spoken about. Maybe because we struggle to not feel shame in it. Or fear it was somehow our fault. Maybe because we think it’ll make other people uncomfortable. But I think the loneliness of it, when we feel lonely in these losses, only exacerbates the loss and makes it that much harder to bear. For one, we aren’t meant to bear heavy burdens alone. And for two, it’s painful to try to pretend that precious baby didn’t exist and doesn’t matter now. He or she did exist, does exist, and he or she matters. They impacted our lives forever, even when they were only with us a short time. And they deserve to be acknowledged.

If you are reading this and you have lost a baby or babies way too early, I would encourage you to not go through it alone, let some trustworthy people in and let them cry with you, hug you, and just be there. And don’t keep your baby a secret. Let them be acknowledged. They are little people and we shouldn’t have to keep quiet about them just because someone else might find it uncomfortable to hear about. I struggle with what to say now when people ask me how many children I have. I usually just say, “two” to keep things simple and not make anyone uncomfortable or feel compelled to say, “oh I’m sorry!” But sometimes my heart just breaks inside me because I really want to say, “four; but two are in heaven.” I hate it that I usually cannot acknowledge them. But I try to whenever possible, because I really love them. I miss them. And I wish they were with us now. I have accepted that they’re not, I don’t feel any bitterness or anger for losing them. But I’ll admit I’ve cried almost the whole time writing this testimony of their story! I think we’ll always miss them. But we trust in God’s ultimate plan for our lives and theirs. I know He has a greater purpose for allowing us to have them so briefly. I know He is still that same good God who gave us our other two precious children and who sustains us each day. And I trust Him, lean into Him, and need Him every day. I remember that when we’re weak, He is strong. When we’re broken, He can make us into what He wants us to be for His glory. And when my heart wants to fear, I try to lay it down and have faith instead. It’s a constant struggle. But He is faithful. So much love to you, mamas… I wish I could hug you in your heartbreak. You’re not alone.

Jenessa Bruce

Hi, I’m Betsy, the woman behind this blog and the author of When Infertility Books Are Not Enough: Embracing Hope During Infertility. I invite you to follow along on Facebook.