Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day

The month of October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, where families from all over share their experiences of losing a baby during pregnancy or their child shortly after. Specifically, October 15th, is Remembrance Day.

After joining this community on February 5, 2017, I realized how large it really was, but at the same time, how little I had heard of it. Losing a child(ren) is not something that people speak about often because it tends to make others uncomfortable. But I'm lucky to have people in my life who embrace our twins as members of our family and talk with me about them sometimes.

Their footprints were about the size of a small paper clip.

I can't believe it's been over eight months since I gave birth to our twin boys. So much has happened since then, but not a day goes by that I don't think about them. Some days are harder than others, especially with being pregnant again, but I feel like I'm doing alright considering what a tragedy our family has been through. Losing our boys has made me appreciate what I have even more. When a family goes through a loss, it's unexplainable, but it puts in perspective how precious our family is to us and how quickly things can happen.

There are only three pictures I have of our little boys. I couldn't bring myself to take more in the moment at the hospital. I'm sad that we don't have more, but I'm happy that we have these.

Baby B on the left/top, Baby A on the bottom/right

They are extremely special to me and I'm very glad to have them.

I believe that Baby A's feet are on top of Baby B's feet

I am also very happy to have my tattoos of their footprints so that I can carry them with me forever.

I will never, ever forget the two little guys that were supposed to join our family in the summer of 2017. Instead they decided to make their arrival quite too soon at 19 weeks, 4 days, so we were unable to bring them home. It's weird, in a way though, if it weren't for their passing, we wouldn't have Little Brother growing right now.

I still am struggling with "everything happens for a reason". That used to be something I really thought was true, until this happened. I cannot think of a reason that this would happen to our family, but as much as it sucked, we have learned to accept it as part of our reality.

We love you so much, Baby A and Baby B. We promise to keep you in our hearts and memories forever! ~Mommy, Daddy, Anna and Little Brother

Remembering Our Children

(Un)Fortunately, losing our children has brought my sister-in-law, Katrina, and I a lot closer over the last few months. There's no pain like it, and someone who's never lost a child will never know the feeling. Even with our stories being so different, we've been able to connect through our heartache.

Katrina lost her daughter, our niece, Alayna in September 2016 when she passed away in her sleep without an explanation. I had no idea what to think, how to feel, or what to say to Katrina to even begin to understand how she was feeling or what she was going through. In fear of saying the wrong thing or bringing up sad emotions, I tried to give her space, but really, that was one of the worst things I could have done.

When the boys were born in February, Katrina and I started talking a lot more. We could grieve together. I could tell her how I was feeling without being embarrassed because she had been there. We had a lot of good conversations and she really helped me deal with the mess of emotions running through my head!

As we were talking, the topic of tattoos came up. We both expressed how we've always wanted one, but never had a "good enough" reason to get one. Neither of us thought this would be our reason, but that's just the way life works out sometimes.

I've been so worried over the last month that one day I'm going to forget about my babies. I know we only had them for such a short, short time, but I still carried them and they left a HUGE impression on my heart! I don't ever want to forget about our two sons. When I first saw their tiny little footprints in the hospital, I thought about getting them as a tattoo so that they'd always be with me. I didn't think I'd ever do it, but it hung in the back of my mind.

Then Katrina and I started talking about getting tattoos for our children, and the idea started becoming a reality. For the last almost two months, we've been planning this weekend. We planned to get tattoos together to remember the sweet babies/child we lost. Then, we'd walk together, with our families, to support Annie's Hope which is an amazing organization that helped Katrina's family through their grief after Alayna died.

I felt like this would be a nice thing to do together to honor our children. So....we did!

On Friday afternoon, Katrina and I went to a local tattoo shop in her neighborhood and retold the stories of our babies to the cool piercing guy while we waited for our artist to get ready. Everyone in the shop was super nice, and we were both super nervous! Our artist, Toph, was very considerate of our wants, and was very patient with me when I was picky about my placement. Apparently my tattoos are technically upside down, but it's what I had been picturing in my mind for the last two months, and he was so sweet, and did it for me. :)

I was so worried that it was going to look terrible and that I was going to be stuck with it for the rest of my life! I am VERY pleased to say that I LOVE the way my sweet babies' feet turned out and I am so proud to carry them with me forever.

Baby A is on my right wrist and Baby B is on my left wrist. I chose these places specifically because that's the side I held them on when I held them together in the hospital.
The artist did enlarge them just a tiny bit so he could add a little more detail, but they are very close to true size and are almost identical to the tiny little prints we brought home from the hospital. They're absolutely perfect!

Katrina got a mother-daughter tattoo to honor and remember Alayna. She went back and forth for a long time on the style and placement, but I think she picked the most adorable and sweet tattoo! I absolutely love the way it turned out, right down to the bow that Alayna would always wear!!

It was such a special way for us to work through the grief and heartache we've been feeling, and will continue to feel. But now we have these beautiful, special tattoos to always remember that we are mothers to these children, too, even if they're not with us anymore.


Saturday morning, even through the pouring rain, we attended the Walk for Hope. It was full of positive, uplifting people there to support one another going through grief of a loved one. The kids loved walking through the rain and giant puddles - Anna had so much fun! This is one weekend I'll never forget, and look forward to many more walks to remember Alayna.

I wish this wasn't so blurry, but it was really hard taking pictures in the rain with a wet phone! We did a balloon release before the walk and this is Anna carrying Alayna's balloon :)

Nothing better than running & jumping through the puddles!

After!

Love this because you can see the rose on the back of her shirt & her matching rose bow made by Katrina :)

Family selfie...sort of....in our Team Alayna shirts

All of Team Alayna, smiling big despite the rain!