I shouldn’t be here.

I shouldn’t be sitting alone in my bedroom, tears streaming down my face, unanswered questions circling my mind, heartbroken and writing about this… again.

But here I am.

Writing about how I have more babies in Heaven than I do here on earth.

The total comes to six.

Six unborn promises. Six little faces I will never watch grow. Six different personalities I will never fully know… at least not on this side of Heaven.

…and although I loved each one deeply, my heart never attached to any of them the way it did to my Emerie Hope.

Over two years ago, my husband had a dream that he was holding two identical twin girls with blonde curls. And through almost every sonogram with our now 13-month-old daughter, he would tell the doctor, “You need to check again… I know there are two girls in there.”

Then, on January 2nd, 2019…

…we received the surprise of a lifetime.

Twins.

I’ve never laughed and cried the way I did that day. The joy was indescribable. In fact, I had never heard sounds like that come out of me before…

…and I’m not sure I ever will again.

It felt like a moment in time where my heart overflowed so deeply that every loss, every hollow place, every unanswered prayer was somehow wrapped up and bandaged by joy.

Where hope had once been deferred…

…joy took its place.

I had no fear. Not like my other pregnancies. I just knew these babies were a gift from God, and that somehow, by July, they would be safely resting in my arms.

For a little over seven weeks, my husband and I planned and dreamed. We looked at bigger vehicles that could fit three car seats. We talked about names, and every night, he would sing to our babies.

We believed they were most likely fraternal because they were in separate sacs and each had their own placenta. In fact, there was only a 1% chance they could be identical.

I began planning for the gender reveal.

It was supposed to happen today… actually, in just a couple of hours.

Almost two years ago, we set off smoke bombs for our daughter’s gender reveal and had nearly 100 people gathered at our home to celebrate. I was eagerly planning for this reveal to be nothing less…

…only this time, double the smoke bombs.

“Ticking TWIN Bombs.”

That’s what I came up with.

And out went the invitations.

But tonight, no one will be coming over.

There will be no celebration. No pink or blue smoke filling the air. No laughter. No excitement. No pink and blue sugar cookies, no punch, no embraces of congratulations, no jumping up and down with joy.

No…

…instead there will be silence.

Disappointment.

Anger.

Sadness.

Devastation.

Tears.

…and questions.

Oh, so many questions.

On Friday morning, February 8th, I woke up around 6:45 a.m. in a pool of fluid.

Fear immediately gripped my entire being, but over and over again I kept declaring:

“You will live and not die.

You will live and not die.

You WILL live and not die.”

And we rushed to the hospital.

The sonogram revealed that the sac around Twin B had ruptured and there was very little fluid left…

…but there was still a heartbeat.

Both babies had strong heartbeats.

My heart was pulled in a thousand directions as the doctor’s report carried very little hope.

I was immediately admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics because the risk of infection was extremely high. The next sonogram was scheduled for Monday morning, February 11th at 8:15 a.m.

It was a long three days of waiting and praying inside that hospital room.

I clung tightly to the pictures of my precious Twin B. My heart ached seeing my baby curled up so tightly, unable to move freely…

…but I prayed and believed with everything inside of me that by Monday morning, the fluid would somehow be restored.

I told my husband that I wanted to find out what our babies were... that I didn't want to wait a week. I wanted to know who we were fighting and praying for... so around 7:30pm that night... we found out...

Twin B was named Emerie Hope.

The next day, Saturday, February 9th, my doctor came in to check on us and told us something beyond our wildest imaginations… yet perfectly aligned with David’s dream.

Our baby girls were, indeed, identical.

After hearing that, my faith did not waver.

I believed with all my heart that God had given David that dream two years earlier for this very moment — to strengthen our faith, to call forth what was not yet seen, and to remind us to trust Him.

And somehow, I believed our Emerie Hope would become exactly what her name meant to us:

Strong.

Brave.

Powerful.

A leader of hope.

There were many sweet moments inside hospital room 448. Moments of interceding. Moments of tears. Moments of standing in faith alongside friends and family.

And a moment on Sunday morning when David and I sat together watching online as our church covered us in prayer…

Monday morning came.

I remember being wheeled down to the doctor’s office for the sonogram. My feet trembled and my heart pounded inside my chest…

…but I was expecting a miracle.

I fully expected to see more fluid surrounding Emerie.

Instead, there was less.

She was still alive…

…but as the doctor quietly explained, “She has little to no fluid around her. Her heart could stop at any moment. Her lungs are in great jeopardy, and her arms and limbs are at risk of deformity because she cannot move them…”

And then:

“I’m so sorry.”

Here you can see the difference from Friday morning, to Monday.

My heart could barely withstand looking at her, and my eyes tried to deny what they were seeing…

…but she still had a heartbeat. It was 139.

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Psalm 139:13

I didn’t know then that it would be the last time I would ever see her little heart beating.

That afternoon, we were released to go home…

…and wait.

I felt an overwhelming urgency to call every close friend and pastor I could think of to come to our house — to worship, to pray, to lay hands, to intercede, and to declare life over Emerie Hope.

A father and uncle, identical twin brothers, laying hands on their identical twin daughters/nieces.

So, that's what we did.

On Valentine’s Day — Thursday, February 14th, 2019 — Emerie Hope went to be with Jesus.

I will never forget the image on the sonogram. Locklynne Joy was perfect, healthy, and moving all around… but Emerie was still.

She was curled up so tightly you could hardly make her out. Her tiny head had already begun to flatten, and when the nurse searched for her heartbeat…

…the silence was deafening.

“Check again!” David cried out. “Check again! There HAS to be a heartbeat!”

It felt as though time itself had stopped and my heart was buried beneath the weight of something unbearable.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t think.

I could only weep and cry out:

“Why, God… why?”

The last two days and nights have been filled with tears, silence, darkness, questions, doubt, anger, wall-pounding grief, teeth-gritting pain, and a faith that feels shaken to its core.

I wake up in panic, traumatized by my water breaking too soon. Fear grips my soul as anxiety crashes over me, and my heart races so violently I can barely catch my breath.

And in the middle of it all, I cry out to God.

I tell Him I don’t understand.

That it’s hard to trust Him right now.

That I don’t feel His peace.

That I begged Him to come through.

And that...

that I feel let down.

I think about the thousands of people around the world who gathered to pray for Emerie Hope. The Facebook post alone reached thousands — shares, comments, desperate prayers lifted toward Heaven.

And I keep asking:

How could this possibly bring Him glory?

As I sit here worrying over Locklynne Joy, I tell Him it feels too painful to hope again. As if losing Emerie wasn’t already unbearable, the doctors had warned me that the likelihood of losing Locklynne was greater than 50%.

So, I tell Him I don’t know how to pray anymore… and honestly, part of me didn't even want to. Because beneath every question, every tear, every trembling thought…

…is one unbearable truth:

I am... hurt.

Deeply, soul-crushingly hurt.

And slowly, through the middle of all this grief, I come to the realization that all of it…

…the mourning, the questions, the doubt, the darkness… every bit of it can be laid at the feet of Jesus. ...And He still loves me..

It has been three days in the tomb.

And although my heart struggles to believe it right now, somewhere deep within me, my mind still knows: Resurrection life is coming.

Could I give you three easy steps to finding hope after loss? To trusting again when your faith feels shattered?

If I could, this life would be far easier than it is. But honestly, I don’t think grief follows a formula. I don’t think there is a simple process to healing, and I’m not sure this side of Heaven will ever fully answer the question... of why.

But, there is a knowing. A quiet surrender to the truth that God is sovereign.

And somehow, in humility, I find peace in admitting that my finite mind will never fully grasp the wonder of His infinite plan. I am learning that it is not what He gives me, or what He takes away… not the prayers He answers, nor the ones He does not… that makes Him worthy of my trust.

It is simply who He is.

That alone is worthy of my devotion.

Worthy of my heart.

Worthy of My trust.

Worthy of My life.

Because who He is…

…is good.

Even when I do not understand.

To my precious, beautiful Emerie Hope,

I carried you with such joy. I had so many dreams of watching you grow alongside your sisters… along with all the excitement, wonder, and honor that came with carrying twin girls. You will never fully know the amount of love, peace, joy, and hope you brought into my heart in just 14 weeks and 1 day. Such a short life… and yet you changed mine forever.

Perhaps your heart was so pure that God chose to protect you from the evils of this world. Perhaps your soul was so beautiful that you were spared the heartache and brokenness we endure on this side of Heaven.

I will never get to watch you grow up here on earth, but I rest in knowing you are held in the arms of Jesus. And as He was your first Valentine — and will forever be your only Valentine — I find peace in knowing you will only ever know perfect love. Perfect peace. A place untouched by sorrow, fear, or tears.

Tonight there will be no gender reveal celebration…

…but there will be a celebration of your life.

Because your life deserves to be celebrated just as deeply as it is mourned.

For you did live.

And you did not die.

Once, there was life here on earth…

…and now there is life in Heaven.

And one day soon, we will welcome your beautiful sister, Locklynne Joy, into our arms. I know I will never have to wonder what you may have looked like…

…because pieces of you will live on through her every single day of my life.

Emerie Hope, I love you with everything within me.

It was the greatest honor to be your mommy, even for such a little while.

And somehow, despite the pain of losing you, I still consider myself one of the lucky ones.

I will carry you forever in my heart… until the day we meet again in Heaven.

Love always,

Mama