Vanishing Twin

      My children are the most beautiful thing about me and everyday I am grateful that I was given the priviledge of being a mommy. What some of you may not know is that I have another baby. An angel baby, a baby that was  just too tiny and weak  to come live with me, a baby  that no one ever mentions. My middle  son  is a twin..
      I found out I was pregnant very early  with my second. I knew before the doctor did.  I hadn't even  miss a period and I was telling Daniel that I just knew we had  made a baby. I  was four weeks along  when I told the doctor I was pregnant.. He did a test, and it was negative. I told him it was wrong. He must have thought  I was crazy, but he did a blood test because I had been so adamant.  He called me two days later and told me he wanted  to do another test. He said my hormone levels were  elevated but not enough to be pregnant. He said not to get my hopes up because he didn't think I was pregnant.  Three days later, after ten home test, one urine test at the doctors office , and two blood tests, I was officially told what I knew all along, I was in fact pregnant. The doctor called it the honeymoon  pregnancy because he said  within days of my wedding  I had gotten pregnant.
     After two weeks my hormones were going crazy  and the doctor scheduled my first ultrasound. As I laid there on  the  scratchy white paper with  goo on my belly, I saw my beautiful baby. Well, my beautiful blob. It was too small to look like anything yet.  The tech looked at the screen and  said, " I had a feeling about you. There is the other one!"
    "The other what?" I asked. She pointed to a smaller spot on the screen and  showed me my another baby. She mentioned that it was smaller than the other baby and t hat she wanted to have the doctor talk to us.  Immediate red flags went up, but I was so in shock I just kept repeating , "There are two..."
     The doctor came in and  as suspect gave us some news.He told me that since  the babies  were two different sizes that one of the babies might not  be thriving. He said more than likely I had gotten pregnant on two different days. Apparently, there is a week between the time the first egg is fertilized  and when the uterus clamps shut. In our quest to make a baby, we had obviously doubled the efforts .  The doctor told me that if the baby made it  passed  ten weeks  both babies would be fine but that I might be facing vanishing twin syndrome. 
     I had an ultrasound  every week, and  the babies were both growing. The night before  my eleven week ultrasound I woke up screaming and holding my belly from a nightmare that made no sense. I kept shouting, "257  is fine but 258 is gone , it's gone."  I didn't understand what it meant,  The next morning as soon as the wand hit my belly I knew what it meant. I watched her search frantically for my babies heartbeats and I could only see  one. 
   "She's gone." I said, " Her heartbeat is gone." I was positive th is baby was a girl. She didn't speak. She kept searching. She did a thermo scan  and there was no heartbeat.She was still in the same position she was in at the ten week  ultrasound where  they said  everything was going to be fine and listed me  finally as a twin pregnancy. I knew before the doctor spoke. 
     He apologized  and said he really believed it when he told me things were going to be fine last week. He held me  as I sobbed into his chest and he prayed for me and my babies.  The I left his chest and fell against Daniel's defeated.
     They told me that I would keep having ultrasounds  to check to see when the baby vanished. Week after week I went and every week I saw that baby in the same position. She appeared to be staring at me and I was helpless. I could not bring her back all I could do was stare back and cry.  It was week twenty before  she disappeared into the placenta. I missed her. It sounds  stupid but I missed my baby, my jellybean as I affectionately called her in my belly.
People  were very rude to me after  my baby died. In such a time you would think people  would have more sense. I got comments asking what I did wrong or saying maybe I could get my act together before I killed my other baby.Or laughing ,and making comments that weird things like that only happen to me. I also had people tell me, well it's not a real loss because atleast you have another baby to bring home and that I am lucky because I wasn't prepared to handle two more children at the same time.
    What people don't think about  is that every May 25 th  I think about the moment I lost that baby.The day I gave birth I wondered  how she would have looked at me, if they would have looked alike, what it would feel like to  leave the hospital with two babies in my arms. Every time I heard my son cry or laugh I wondered what she would have sounded like. Every December I wonder  what  she would have looked like blowing out the candles next to her brother. I have  the first outfit I bought after I found out I  was having twins, I named her. She was a real baby to me and Daniel,  a  memory to my boys,  a passing thought to everyone else, and a  crazy story to people about us to a few. . There will always be a place in my heart for that baby that I never got to meet. Rest In Peace Amaris Dakota  Sims