Twins Magazine
Hot tears rolled down my
cheeks as I stepped out of the elevator door and into the lobby of my doctor’s
office. My OB’s words kept ringing in my
head. “Crystal, we are going to have to
admit you inpatient for continuous monitoring, to make sure you and the babies
are safe.” Inpatient? In the hospital?
Meaning I would check in for an indefinite time until I had safely given
birth to our twin girls (or so we hoped).
How was I going to get through this?
I had a toddler at home and so much still left to do to prepare for
these two little ones. I went kicking
and screaming with two massive suitcases filled with everything from the full
series of Sex and the City DVDs to my living room lamp. I was determined to make my cold sterile
hospital room as cozy as I could for my weeks ahead.
My twin pregnancy had been
rough from the get-go. I had gone into
my doctor’s office expecting to hear the dreaded news that I was having a
miscarriage and to my shock and surprise I was six weeks pregnant with twins. It was high-risk, that was for sure. I had a blood clot that almost pulled the
pregnancy, a cerclage procedure where the doctor sewed my hoo-hee, a terrifying
diagnosis of Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome that required a laser ablation
surgery to correct this horrific condition, and the destruction of the
inter-twin membrane that resulted in the Mono-Mono twin status. Mono-Mono twins carry their own host of
complications so I can’t say I was completely shocked when my doctor told me to
pack my bags for what would be a several-month-hospital-stay but it was still
heartbreaking. I would have to say goodbye to my sweet little daughter, Abby,
and my husband. Our worlds would be
turned upside down for an indefinite amount of time.
During my hospital stay, my
family and friends reassured me by saying, “Don’t worry; in a few years you
won’t remember this time,” or “it will be a distant memory that you had to live
through once; that’s it.” As genuinely
well-meaning as those thoughts were, in reality, they were dead wrong. How
could I ever forget my time here? Not just days, but months of feeling
terrified, alone, and scared shitless?
I had to make the best of
this hellish situation. For the sake of my family. For the well-being of my
unborn twins. For my own sanity. That’s
when I turned to music.
The antepartum unit of the
hospital arranged meetings for all the Moms inpatient and one afternoon a
musical therapist came to visit our meeting and mesmerized me with her guitar
and passion for song writing. I knew that
my experience here in the hospital long term was life changing and I was
intrigued by the idea of creating a song that would capture my deep emotions
during this time.
Hannah, the musical
therapist, advised me to start by journaling, free-writing, and scribbling
whatever came to mind. She asked me to
focus on the hardest thing about being in the hospital. I knew in an instant what that was. It had
nothing to do with being bored or alone in a hospital room with the plain walls
and just one window to the outside world. Of course I missed my house, my
family, and friends. It didn’t bother me that the medical team picked and poked
me with needles, or administered medication. I didn’t care that they still
checked my vitals every few hours or that they kept me awake all hours of the
night doing my monitorings. The two most excruciating things about being here
were the possibility of losing my twins at any moment and missing Abby. I
decided that this song needed to be about Abby.
I was stuck in the hospital, freaking out about my twin babies and
simultaneously missing out on Abby’s life. It sucked bigtime! I thought about
her constantly. Every minute of every day.
I thought of her every moment of this journey along with her sisters.
I would take deep breaths,
put my pen to my paper and write. I
started slow with several minutes of free writing, capturing all the thoughts
that came to my mind without judgement. “I
love you, I miss you, I’m thinking about you everyday.” Then I would look over it organize and
re-structure. The rhyming would come
much later, with my therapists’ help, and of course the melody.
Just when I thought I was
getting the hang of it, I would burst into tears and have to stop. Damnit. Blubbering
over my pen and paper was constant at first.
Was I on the verge of depression?
It certainly felt like it.
But then I found the more I
wrote, the more it helped move past the pain.
Writing was cathartic and liberating.
I was sitting in a bed physically unable to get up and yet my mind was
running away. Memories and flashbacks
from my life inspired my song lyrics. I
couldn’t stop writing. Thoughts kept coming and words poured out on the page.
“Dreaming of you while I’m away, being there to see your sweet
face. Setting off on adventures, on
walks to the park. When you look up at
the Goodnight Moon, I hope that you know that I’ll be there soon. I miss you, Abby, I miss you.”
The more stressful things got, the more I
threw myself into songwriting. I hadn’t
wanted to admit that I was in therapy, but I suppose that was the purpose of
music therapy; the process didn’t carry the stigma of traditional therapy. It
was far more creative and stimulated healing in ways I would have never
imagined. Whatever the magic, it truly
worked for me. I needed the musical outlet to process my feelings, emotions,
and everything we had gone through. My song embodied everything about my
experiences of motherhood and my incredible love and intense longing to be with
my child. The song had a tremendous impact on me; it had empowered me in so
many ways, allowing me to process the pain and start moving past it. I had
tried so hard throughout my pregnancy to not stress, to control my emotions,
but I was only human. Of course, I had moments where I would lose it and burst
into tears. But I didn’t want my time in the hospital to be tinged with
despair. I didn’t want to let myself sink into a hormonal depression. I didn’t
want to be messed up from this experience when my babies were born. And that
was just it; I didn’t allow myself to think if my babies are born but
rather when they are born. I knew that when they were born, I’d
be as busy as the President; I wouldn’t make the time to heal or go to therapy.
A mother always puts her children’s needs above her own. Right or wrong, that
was the reality. I was completely grateful to have found comfort in
songwriting. Songwriting was a beautiful pastime that allowed me to take care
of myself, which was something that might not have happened had I been home
alone with my daughter.
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