We Are Us

“They’re gone, Poppy. There’s nothing anyone can do. Not you, not me, not any of these doctors.” He roughs a hand through his hair, leaving it messy. “Let’s just get this over with.”

I wince at my husband’s artless, and u

I have one choice left. One final act that ca

He draws back. “Mrs. Stockton, that is highly unusual. We can put you under anesthesia right now. When you wake up it will all be over.”

I shake my head, my voice a screech. “No. You’re not cutting my babies apart and sucking them out of me like garbage.”

Every part of me aches for my little boy and girl. There are no pink tutus or soccer balls in their future. They have no future.

I will never rub my cheek against their downy, baby-soft skin, give them a bath, or see their smiles on Christmas morning.

I will never hear the sound of their laughter.

The doctor backs away, his face a mask of disapproval that is mirrored by my husband. He starts to protest further, but the pure fury coursing through my veins daunts even him. “Don’t you take this from me,” I howl. “Don’t you dare.”

A needle is filled with potassium chloride—the same concoction given to prisoners on death row—and inserted through my stomach. I hurt so much that the physical pain is a welcome reprieve. They are using a sonogram to aim the needle, and I watch it move through the amniotic fluid towards my daughter’s translucent skin. In my head, I’m screaming at her, begging her to move, to run, to escape.

But she can’t, she’s trapped inside of me. Held captive by me. As the tip of the needle punctures her placenta, delivering its lethal dose, she extends her arms wide embracing her brother.

It’s as if she knows. As if she is seeking comfort from him. Comfort I ca

I might not be holding the needle, but I’m not stopping it.

Her teeny-tiny heart is still visible through her translucent skin. Its flutter slows, becoming weaker and more imperceptible until finally, my baby girl’s heart stops altogether.

I watch my daughter die.

In no time at all, she is as still and lifeless as my son.

Two frozen dolls inside my infected womb.

I’m taken to another room, hooked up to a Pitocin drip. An anesthesiologist offers an epidural, which I refuse even as the contractions take my breath away. Each sharp slice of pain brings me closer to holding my babies. I need to see them, touch them, feel their weight in my arms.

It is hours before I am fully dilated. Hours of coiling, crushing, unrelenting agony I don’t actually want to end. Once the pain ends, I won’t be pregnant anymore.

Not pregnant. But not a mother. At least, not defined as a verb. I will never mother my children. I will never nag them or praise them. I will never build sandcastles on the beach with them.

I will never pin their artwork on the refrigerator.

I will do exactly one thing for my babies. I will bury them.

Is there a word for what I am, what I’m experiencing?

Tucker’s determined gaze clashes with my turbulent one. He wants this over. I have failed him and he wants to put the proof of it behind him as soon as possible. “You’re doing great,” Tucker says, holding my hand as I pant and push, trying to will my body into compliance.

I want to slap him. Great? Not even close.

I’m in labor but I’m not giving birth. What the hell am I doing?

Our children finally slide out of me. Tiny and still and silent. Dead.

A nurse cleans them and wraps them in blankets, placing them gently in my arms before leaving the room.

My boy is bigger than his sister and looks like just Tucker. My little girl looks like me. Their hair is wispy, their eyelids as thin as rose petals, their lips puckered as if there are about to suckle at my breast. They are sleeping angels. Perfect in every way, but one.

They are not breathing, and they never will.

Angels, here on earth.

Tucker doesn’t want to hold them, although eventually he reaches out a finger to brush a cheek, touch a delicate ear. He makes a sound, low in his throat, swallowing down a sob. I glance up at him, and for the briefest moment, his grief and fury are exposed for me to see.

It’s the first time since the doctor explained what happened with our son, and what we had to do to our daughter, that I’ve felt in step with Tucker. The first time I see that he is in mourning, too.

Outside the window, the sun meets the horizon, flooding the room in a dreamy, gauzy gold that blurs the edges of Tucker’s profile and drenches my babies in light. I blink once, twice, and the room is dim again.

But I feel a wrenching pain, a pulling away. As if the souls of my children have left on that sweeping sunbeam.

Too soon, the nurse returns. She takes my son and my daughter from my arms.

And then I scream. I scream and I scream and I scream. A tortured wail that doesn’t sound like it belongs to a human. I am on fire from the inside out, my nerve endings flayed open and exposed. Toxic lava flowing from my broken heart to incinerate my organs and blood vessels, my bones and skin.

But this sound, this anguished scream, it belongs to me. I can’t stop screaming. Maybe I never will.