Three Wishes

To Noah & Victoria, on what should be your Third Birthday

About 10 months after losing you, I started thinking about dates, milestones and moments, about things that you were missing had you arrived as safely as you should’ve. Every loss parent goes about this a little differently, but I knew one thing for sure. Your delivery date, August 4th, 2021, could not also be the date we celebrated your birthday. Why? Because you were delivered, not birthed. Noah was alive for a minute, maybe two, but he was too small to breathe on his own. I watched his heart beat and then stop. August 4th will always be known as the worst day.

So instead, we decided that your anticipated due date, February 24, would be the day we marked to honor you both, to think about what could’ve been, to celebrate that you grew at all.

In February, 2023, we gathered our friends for a very off-kilter feeling event - and we called it One Wish. It would’ve been your first birthday, and all we could think was this: If we had just one wish, it’d be that you didn’t have to miss this. You should be here.

That day, that weekend, it was the first time that we both grieved and honored the twins in community. When they died we were still in the height of the pandemic, and although our friends and family sent food and flowers and well wishes, they couldn’t come sit with us. They couldn’t be present in our grief. They couldn’t hold the heaviness in person.

We asked our friends to do that this day. On what should’ve been your first birthday.

We gave out dandelion roots, asking everyone to hold wishes in their pockets and to let them go when the timing felt right.

We had printed two matching onesies, ordered two matching cakes, and we sang “Happy Birthday” to two empty high chairs. I know - this might all sound very strange. But until you’ve been forced to cremate children you’ve grown, you don’t know how you’re going to respond to this very intense type of grief.

It all felt symbolic.

Their absence was palpable - no holding chunky babies, no swaying of my hips, no clothes to change or rinse-offs necessary. There were no babies to feed, no babies to rock, no babies to sing to.

There was just us three - my husband, our living daughter, and me. And our friends. Our framily. The people that showed up in good times and bad, even when they couldn’t fully understand.

Last year, in February 2024, you would’ve turned two. I was still living in a meningitis haze, my days peppered with naps and medications and migraines and the dark, but the three of us drove downtown to get special ice cream at Pretty Cool and B, who was just approaching age 5, found the letters on the magnetic board to spell out Noah and Victoria.

Again, in an empty ice cream parlor, we held up our popsicles and sang “Happy Birthday” to two empty chairs. You would’ve been walking by then. We would’ve had to chase to keep up with you. And we would’ve loved every minute of it.

Today my little loves, you should be turning 3. And putting aside everything else I feel in this moment, everything my body and our home has been through in the last week, I wanted to stop here, and take a minute to send my wishes up to the stars.

Here goes…

One Wish:

Where ever you are, you are safe, and happy, and fulfilled, and loved. That Manda came for you. That you found Jordan, and Todd, and all of the people who we’ve loved and lost who came before you. I hope where ever you are, you’ve never known hunger, or coldness, or pain. & whether or not it’s true, I will always send wishes up to you.

Two Wishes:

I hope by know you know how much your big sister loves you. Sharing you with her friends is one of the things she’s most proud of. And honestly, one of the things we’re most proud of too. If a 5.5 year old has the emotional intelligence to understand that she has a brother and sister in heaven, and that she’ll always be a big-sister to them, nobody else in our lives should struggle with this. Unfortunately, that hasn’t always been the case. So my wish is that you know Mom and Dad & Big Sister B carry you in our hearts, we carry your hearts in our hearts.

Three Wishes:

This year, I promise to continue to explore how to stay connected to you without staying in the suffering state. Without constantly focusing on or reliving you just in your moment of crisis. I hope I can again visualize what you would’ve looked like now, entering preschool later this year, talking about potty training, daddy and I thinking about maybe being done with diapers forever. I hope that I can feel you when I’m alone. I hope that even though the bathroom is brand new and the guest room never got to become a nursery, that you know there is space for your tiny angel bodies to be wherever I am, always.

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If you haven’t lost a baby or babies, this all probably feels very overwhelming. Or like I’m making a lot of assumptions. Or that this feels F***ed up. Or that I’m living in some sort of delusional state.

What I have learned this year through true trauma processing is that the relationship I build/grow/create/maintain with the babies I lost is mine and mine alone - it’s not up for discussion or conversation or questioning.

Today I wrote this and am choosing to share it because I loved Noah and Victoria before they were even transferred back inside of me. I loved them when they were frozen embryos, graded with numbers and letters, when they were genetically tested, when they were waiting for me. I loved them from the moment they were placed back inside of my body, and every moment they stayed in there together. I loved them hardest the night I delivered them. And I have loved them in loss since that moment in time.

Today, it feels important to acknowledge them, and to share it with you - in case you want to send wishes to the stars, or a little extra love our way; or incase you’ve lost littles of your own, and you feel alone in finding ways to honor or celebrate them. May what I shared bring you comfort or peace, and perhaps even spark ideas that feel right for your family.

Happy Birthday N&V,

We love you.