DISCLAIMER – THIS POST DISCUSSES PREGNANCY LOSS, BLOOD, GRAPHIC CONTENT.

This story is not for the faint of heart, and certainty only for those with a loving and understanding heart. This story is a real story, that effected multiple lives, and does not deserve judgement or cruel comments.

ONLY read on if you are willing to have an open mind, and respect those this story effected.

Sometimes parents have to make a choice they never ever thought they would ever be in a position to make. Those who have never been through these decisions or situations can never understand the pain and loss that comes from it.

This is the story of Presley Ann & Paisley Marie, and their Rainbow Sister Mia.

Mia is the day 2 indigo Rainbow Baby for our National Rainbow Day Project!

I cannot do her story justice, so her wonderful Mother was eloquent and brave enough to write it.

Here are her words:

It was July of 2014 when we had a beautiful honeymoon trip to the hills and nature of Gatlinburg, Tennessee! Our 3 year marriage anniversary, and 6 years total! This is where our planned pregnancy was conceived. Yes, Planned. July 23rd, and the results are in- we are pregnant! We sure hope it’s a girl! 6 weeks later, the beauty was interrupted my unwavering nausea, waling headaches, and endless amounts of medication to control every symptom of morning sickness known to man. It was then that our obstetrician opted for a fetal scan for a multiples pregnancy. Yeah, right. We had always joked about the possibility of having twins, but never really named it a reality. And here we are, they see what seems like maybe two heartbeats? But surely it couldn’t be twins… One nurse comes in, the next nurse comes in. My lady parts have been on full display with a poking rod visually inspecting every corner of my uterus for the past 20 minutes after 5 hours of waiting (literally)….and here we are. “We’ve never seen twins this close together!” ..Twins.. We are having… Twins. When we originally found out we were having twins, I was so angry with God. I didn’t want twins. I was still scared that I could not love one child as much as Camdyn, and now two!? It was too early to be able to detect any sort of divide in the amniotic sacs, so 6 days later we returned… Mono-amniotic twins. We were sort of rushed out of the doctor’s office, as they were very busy at the time. I grew concerned over the “closeness” comment, and the fact they were puzzled looking at the screen and only based on my research did I know that they were mono-amniotic. Why weren’t these doctors telling me? And why do I feel as if there is something much larger that they are not sure of? With no further expressed concern, I opted for a 2nd opinion and they got us in THAT day. After maybe all of 5 seconds of the uterus-poking-rod being inserted it was confirmed. What we thought may have been our worst fear, was confirmed. When we originally found out we were having twins, I was so angry with God. I didn’t want twins. I was still scared that I could not love one child as much as Camdyn, and now two!? We were finally adjusting that we were having twins, and the excitement of the love that they were going to bring to our family, was going to be far beyond measure. Our twins failed to separate, and they are….conjoined. My thoughts…”Like Siamese twins?” We were informed that sometimes the ultrasound techs get “gun-shy” and they are too unsure on how to relay the news, so they don’t. In this case, I could have not been more thankful for the honesty and compassion in our techs voice and actions. As she walked out of the room to get our nurse, I looked over and saw tears fill my husband’s eyes. He turned red as if he may explode from trying to hold in a sobbing cry similar to mine. My brain turned into some sort of 1,000 question marquee with every one of them quickly scrolling through my mind’s eye. An overwhelming amount of information, that resulted in a secluded, and blank stare at the wall blurred through the tears as I was trying to gather an internal list of questions I never thought I would have to ask or know the answer to. We met with the doctor, and stumbled over our noses our faces were so far buried in the ground to disguise some amount of discomfort and pain, allowing the tears to hit the floor rather than stream down our faces. We again, thanked another person for their answers, and were on to our next set of appointments. The days went by endlessly, and mindlessly. Like a daze, and zombie effect that couldn’t have been any louder, and less controlled. My immediate reaction after the shock was zeroing in was the logical end of survival. The one that tells me that I am going to have to quit school, and quit my job to take care of them properly, and that I couldn’t place the trust in others to do so. How was I going to sacrifice everything in my life to only allow two babies as one ONLY live? They would ONLY sustain life, they would never be able to live it. And what does this do to Camdyn? I didn’t want to make this kind of decision, but at that point in time abortion DID cross my mind! I have a child HERE I have to think about. I cannot sacrifice him along with everything else—But isn’t that what we do as parents? Isn’t THAT what I signed up for? We were sent to several high risk doctors that would tell us our options were to maintain the pregnancy, or not- but no sensible answers as to what would have been morally or physically correct. No one could have taken on that kind of liability. We discovered in the appointment that the twins were conjoined in a way that they could share heart chambers, they could be fused at the head, and they could also share numerous internal organs. They would not be able to determine the full anatomy or likelihood of survival completely until they were at least 21 weeks or so gestation which was after our time frame to terminate. In the state of Indiana, you can only terminate up until 20 weeks. We wanted to keep our options open, even though my underlying faith says “termination is abortion! It is murder!” How could I even consider killing the babies that I PLANNED for? Our twins at that point in time, had less than a 1% chance of surviving delivery, and no chance of survival once they were out of the womb- we were told. Basically how it was said “These twins are not conjoined in a way where you see them successfully surviving or being separated on Dr. Oz or Television programs.” We were also told that the cesarean to remove this set of conjoined twins would be traumatizing to my body and that the potential was very high that the scarring would not allow us any more children. So here I am. I am going to have twins that will die….. And I may not have any children after to fill this void, knowing how great it will be. Wow. And here I am again… Do I risk it all and birth them, only to say goodbye? To hold them in my arms and watch as they slowly drift away into a slumber, knowing all too well I will forever have to live with the image engrained in every ounce of my being…of them in my arms. Dead. I get the saying that people use that a fetus means as much to the world, as let’s say your physical child does… It is not true for me, and I can nearly say this as for all who would experience the tribulation. At the point that I knew that they would not live, I could no longer fathom the thought of trying to bond with them knowing their fate, and potentially mine too. We knew we had to make a decision, and I have never been so tormented. So humiliated, angered, embarrassed, terrified, and anguished. I was desperate for hope that I couldn’t find. I loved them so much, I didn’t want them to experience the pain and fate that was ahead of them. I wanted them to go peacefully even if that meant that I had to endure the pain. Yes, I did. The pain of regret, and remorse even though I know I made the correct decision for them. I didn’t think that God could forgive me for what I had done, even though every compassionate and Godly part of my body told me it HAD to be! If birthing my child, only to watch it die makes me the perfect parent, then maybe that is what I should have done to avoid your, or anyone else’s invalid judgment. If parents find comfort in doing so, then I fully understand your decision and am not there to judge them the same way I beg them not to judge me. My experience of days of having luminaria (a dried seaweed used to absorb fluid in your cervix) knowing what I was slowly doing. I was slowly preparing for an abortion. To kill the children that I had begged God for. There were days I would plead to God to take them before I had to. And here I am again. Alone. All alone in this procedure room. Naked. Vulnerable. Having this seaweed inserted to slowly drain the life from my children which I chose… I opted to pay for a surgical procedure. I chose this option, because I wanted NO recollection of the surgery, to hear any of the sounds, or forever be traumatized by the sights that would be involved in the process. I walked, bare naked, into an operating room… Hoisted myself up on the operating table to have my gown removed and exposed to the world. I am in here, with the children my husband and I so willingly created, and I had to do this alone. (They would not let my husband back because we had Camdyn [2 year old son] because we couldn’t find anyone to watch him during the procedure) The emotions that take over, I began to shake.. I was so cold. I was so scared. All I wanted was to HAVE my babies, but I couldn’t. Trembling, crying, and not being able to look at anyone in the room for fear of judgment. I began to shake so terribly, my heart was pounding with every breath I couldn’t catch through my cries…. And then, I was awakened. I felt a shake and heard “It’s all over, you are in your recovery room, Chelsea” and before my eyes even opened to see daylight they welled full of tears, and I began to scream. The type of scream I would only relentlessly let out in a case of torture or beating… But isn’t that what this is? That is exactly what this pain feels like. The internal, and emotional pain. What had I just done? I went to sleep with my babies in a beautiful, and seamless slumber inside, and now they are gone. Forever, and it is all my fault. How am I going to live with this? Everything reminded me of that day, and the days leading up to it. The decision that we had to fearfully, and yet so bravely make. Kind of contradictory, isn’t it? In the days following my procedure, I soberly knitted a casket blanket to hold my babies forever, like I wished so terribly I could have done. I made a wreath with ribbons for “Daughter, Sister” and submitted our obituaries. I wanted to give them the respect they deserved and the honor they would have never had to earn! I bought a onesie, that they both would have worn to go home, together. My intentions were to place their remains in this onesie knitted together forever. Upon arrival of the funeral home, the person up front had mentioned that their remains were not yet placed in the casket. At the time, I assumed this meant raw remains. I was recommended the night before by the director, not to review the remains as it would not be steadfast in the healing process. At that moment, I so undesirably volunteered to do so because I so desperately needed to tell them hello, before I had to tell them goodbye. I looked at the small container covered with pink tulle and ran out to grab my husband so that he can hold his sense of closure in his hands. He needed to do the same, and we needed to do this as a family. As we stood in front of the 15 roses, and the 15 carnations all in pink…the child size casket.. and a beautiful flower arrangement that couldn’t have compared to their beauty we made our final hello’s and goodbyes. We kissed the beautiful container, which even yet was another reminder with my hospital sticker attached to the side so beautifully wrapped in attempt to hide the gruesome contents inside, which was the cold hard, image of my choices and they laid it my blood. At that moment, It wasn’t until almost two weeks later that I realized that it wasn’t my blood they were laying in… It was their own. Some days, I can’t live with that image… and others, I think that it was easier than living with the image of them dying in my arms. It’s terrifying to share this experience with anyone, but it gets easier, and helps us emotionally sometimes to retype, and relive the moment to gather the same assurance that God had laid a windy road for me with numerous forks, but somehow I feel we prevailed.

it was the greatest loss of my life – I still get vast judgement and shame on top of the extraordinary pain. We started trying immediately after despite everyone telling me I needed time to heal, I needed therapy, I needed to recover mentally and physically and I told everyone of them I was not going to be ok until there was a baby in my arms. For months I was reading positive pregnancy tests, then I wouldn’t, then the next month they’d read again. Between the false positives after the pregnancy and not knowing if my body was rejecting pregnancies I gave up. Every month I’d get a positive pregnancy test, but never be pregnant and eventually start my period until the month my period didn’t come and I gave up even testing because every month I’d cry. Finally, my period didn’t come, and didn’t come and didn’t come, and the relief I had when I found out I was pregnant with Mia can’t even be explained. I was terrified the whole pregnancy something else was going to go wrong, something was going to take her away from me. The day I finally held her was one of the most magical days of my life and as healing as I imagined it was going to be. I never fail to think about who my twins would have been (both girls – Presley Ann & Paisley Marie) but Mia gave me hope that the pain and suffering wasn’t in complete vain.

Here are some beautiful images of Mia, their Rainbow.