Today I just want to give a little encouragement for grieving mothers. Particularly those who still struggle with those dark moments. We all do.
I gave a presentation at our local Moms of Multiples club the other night about Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) – the syndrome that caused my twins to become very ill and eventually the death of my daughter Kathryn. I shared a little about our story and our outcome, but mostly I focused on just making sure that they were aware of it so that if they have a mom pregnant with mono-di twins, they are aware of this and know where to direct them. I ended the discussion by reminding them that awareness saves lives, and even if it scares pregnant mamas to hear about it, I wish my doctors had taken it a little more seriously. Perhaps, just perhaps, our outcome would have been different.
When I arrived, the President of the Club, who has become a friend through our March of Dimes fundraising passion (and she also lost a 5 day old infant) asked me right away if I was okay. I admit, it felt a little scary. The last time I was at that meeting, I was a member, happily pregnant, 17 weeks at that point, with identical twin girls. TTTS was not even on my radar. I told her that I was okay. The worst part was my desire to be there as a member, not as a guest speaker. But I thought I was okay.
While it felt good to share the information, I kept looking out at all those moms and thinking – I should be here with them. I should be happily talking about how crazy life is with twins. And it made me really, really sad. I don’t get down often any more. I’ve spent the last three years trying to continue on with my life and encourage other grieving mothers. But even the “encouragers” have bad days.
And how crazy is it when I put this quote into Quozio, it brought up a single daisy? The daisy is the flower we have chosen to represent TTTS… and this picture fits just right.
The Moms of Multiples club was so gracious to me. Afterwards, they shared some stories of grief and loss and took copies of Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother to give to their loved ones who had experienced loss. One mother was kind enough to say, “You are always welcome here. You ARE a mother of twins.”
And then they blessed me with a donation to our nonprofit so that we can continue donating copies of our book to mothers who are grieving.
So it was difficult – the most difficult experience I have had yet in sharing our story. But I know that I made a difference.
I can’t change my own story, but I will do my best to change the outcome of someone else’s.
Peace and blessings.
Alexa
** By the way – did you know that Amazon has a program for giving back to non-profits? For NO cost to you, if you choose to shop through SMILE.amazon.com, you can choose a charity to receive a 0.5% donation from Amazon each time you shop! You can select Sunshine After the Storm to be your supported 501(c)3 charity and help us continue to bless others with our encouragement!
*** If you have read Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother and it helped you, I ask you to please consider going to Amazon and leaving us a brief review. It doesn’t have to be more than a sentence or two. Once we are over 50 reviews, the book will be shown more (like in the recommended readings) and we can assure that other people who need it are seeing it! THANK YOU.
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