ALL THE TIME!
Everyday. Its like a curse that follows me around, lalala, MOST babies are born healthy, just not yours.
7 friends have had perfect healthy babies since mine died of reasons still unknown.
Makes you kinda hate the world somedays.

Oh, Kate. So beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. My heart aches for you....the pictures of Ben side by side...what should have been for you. I'm so sorry. At the end of a day with near misses of fire ant hills, a 911 call for a bad fall, and an absent husband (out of town so not completely absent) you make me count my blessings. I hope that doesn't come across as insensitive. I wish your situation was different...that you weren't my reminder to count my blessings. I wish I could take your pain away. You are in my prayers.

much love,
ashley

Perhaps your most beautiful post to date. You are simply brilliant.

As difficult as it is to see my bellwether child, she does not live in my house, and I'm fairly certain looks nothing like my daughter would've. To feel the love and the miss in the same gaze . . . I'm at a loss, Kate.

I sincerely am at a loss for words, however I don't want to do a "drive by" and leave. You manage to describe something indescribable in such eloquent ways. I am touched by your openness and lovely words once again.

I can not understand the pain of losing a baby, but I certainly can understand the drunk-with-baby-love you must feel with Ben. To have to deal with losing and loving, mourning and celebrating, equally with the same kind of passion, must be surreal. A nightmare, and beautiful dream, all in one. Because things can't get more complicated?

I will be thinking of you, on May 5th.

Much love to you and your sweet boys.
N.

Jesus. This is so heartbreakingly true. How I long for one baby to be able to hold. How I struggle with all the other pregnant mamas, the ones with due dates near mine, even celebrities make me swear (Gwen Stefani, I'm looking at you.) Anyway, this was just beautiful and I don't know how I stumbed here tonight but I'm glad I did. Ben is gorgeous, and I am so so sorry for the loss of Liam.

This made me weep. Thank you for sharing it.

Like one previous commenter noted, I don't want to click-and-run; but your words. Oh my. Your words.

Ben is beautiful. To look once but see twice - I don't know how I'd bear up.

You'll be in my thoughts come next week.

And you are hands down the most bravely honest blogger I read.

I am amazed, over and over again, how you can speak of such painful things so beautifully. I never know what to say but I am always touched.

"Split neatly down the centre, I am cast out of both camps. One baby died, one baby lived. Furiously bitter among the usual folk, sheepish and humbled among the medusas."

i can't imagine how you feel, despite your brilliant eloquence, yet somehow i still react emotionally. your words captivate me...

I agree with Marianne. It is your honesty, Kate.

My thoughts are with your family.

beautiful, kate.

i don't know what else to say.

his beautiful face is stunning, your beautiful words are heart breaking. i always come here knowing i will be touched and opened and shifted by your writing. and i always always send my thoughts to your family, so far and yet seemingly so close due to this online world.

Thank you for sharing your amazing thoughts - they are so well written. Your blog has been very helpful for me. We lost a beautiful grandson, born May 5 also, to cancer over 3 years ago. He died at the tender age of 8 months. I still mourn his departure and think of him almost every day. Your blog helps me understand what my beautiful daughter in law and son are, and have been, going through.
I remember looking out of the hospital windows and being amazed that the world was still going on while we were suffering this horrible tragedy. Didn't the people on the streets know this day was not like every other?? How could they go on doing every day things on this very difficult day? Didn't their world stop when mine did?
I home that time helps heal your wounds to the extent possible. I hope to come back and read you comments from time to time to gain strength from you, as, I am sure, have many. You are a truly inspired writer!

To echo what others have already said - heartbreaking and beautiful.

shivers at the photos, at the vividness of the might-have-beens there.

it's okay, no one can tell them apart but me

the heartbreak of conversations we never get to have aloud.

love to you, and all your boys.

I have nothing for you Kate, nothing real aside from thoughts of Liam and Ben running in the trees behind my house, giggling in the fog this morning.

Peace my friend.

I cannot believe how well this puts my feelings into words. I have tried to explain this to people and they just do not understand. I am a teacher and am counting down the years until the children are the age of my daughters because I don't know if I will be able to survive w/ 150 'shadow babies' on campus. They will have been in preschool next year.

Have you read Crib Chronicles this week? I believe she is your soul sister in wisdom, writing, and grief.
Both of you bring me to tears this week.

Writing in journals is how many of us see more clearly and can make peace with unsettling things. Reading your writing, I think though I know it is not true, that you must have found peace because you see your situation of blessing and tragedy so clearly. I only hope good things for your family and that Liam's loss will not always hurt so much.

Thank you for once again passing a note under the door from the room I can not enter and will never see.
After your note, I sometimes bend down and peek under to see what I can see. There are times when it is nothing but a brilliant blinding light and at other times the room seems pitched in darkness. I'll sit here in my office and gently cry and pray to the universe that it will grant all of us some peace today and if not, I will thank it once again for this most amazing mother, wife, women, human and oh yes writer that I have had a chance to read. Blessed be you and your family of men.

You make me consider the unimaginable, and feel it quite strongly. I think of you and your boys often, but even more this season.

Kate,
Your words and your boys are indescribably beautiful.
I hope you can feel a tiny bit of the love I'm sending you today, you sweet mama.

xo

As I am so often when I come here, Kate, I am at a loss. Anything I could say feels hollow.

To tell you this was an illuminating and heartbreaking post is true...but feels...opportunistic? Feeling overwhelmed by the beauty of someone's suffering put into words.

What I can take from it, though, is the continuing hope that I can be more - not understanding, how could I ever understand? - aware of my friends with children that I will not ever get to meet.

Hi Kate.

I don't want to just drive by and gawk at your heartache. I usually don't comment unless I have something meaningful to add. I don't have anything.
Crickets.
I'll light a candle for Sweet Liam on May 5.

Kate, you are such a wonderful writer and photographer. My heart is in my throat.

I can only imagine how difficult this is for you. When you posted earlier regarding the matching outfits that you had -- one remaining in the drawer, while Ben wore the other -- it was such a poignant, real illustration of your loss. As are the side-by-side photos of just one boy, who is missing his mirror. There is nothing that I, or really anyone, can say to possibly fill the void that is Liam, but we are here. Even if our arms are distant, they encircle you.
Merely food for thought: when I was in the hospital due to a high risk pregnancy with my second child, I would lie on my gurney (often in the middle of the hallway of the labor/delivery floor--which, by the way, is just cruel--while waiting to be wheeled down to do yet another ultrasound), I felt such envy at those mothers I saw leave the floor with their bundled babes. They were so lucky to have their babies, while I did not know if mine would live, and they seemed completely oblivious to the thin line between "normal" pregnancy and not, healthy, full-term baby and nicu casualty. My sister-in-law, who had previously lost a baby due to a miscarriage but had since had a healthy boy, commented "we never really know their stories. It may look like they have everything. But who knows what they have been through before?" They may have their own shadow babies. I try to remind myself of that.

beautiful, kate. gorgeous.

internal train of thought: maybe if i compliment your writing as much as it deserves, it'll make up for my utter loss for words with regard to the actual sentiments.

My heart breaks. How do you even find the words, and so beautifully too?
The part I love most? Liam calling to his mirror-brother to shine bright.
The part where I bawled? same part.

Between what you and Kea have written I'm in awe. I'm thankful for what I have and pray that I have the grace to be gracious to the next mama I meet that makes a comment about my "twins" as I explain that they are actually 23 months apart and why they are similar in size, yada, yada, yada.

Thank you for sharing this Kate. We all understand mommas, life, humanity a little better from being here. Bless you and your boys...all four of them.

will also light a candle for liam on may 5. will light one for you as well.

No words Kate. Your writing and photos are so beautiful; so honest.

Kea, that's so true. So very true.

I want to be able to say something beautiful to you but I haven't got any words as beautifully put together as yours.

I am so proud of you ... if it counts for anything. I think we all are x

You might be one of the only other mothers I could reveal this to, and even at that I hope it doesn't offend. I actually take some comfort in the fact that I lost both of my twins. The idea that one might have lived and the other died takes my breath away and leaves me wondering how I would have coped with such a tragically bizarre turn of events. There is peace for me, whether real or of my own making, in knowing they are together. I think I am afraid of what that would be like- having both the miracle and the shadow child all in one.

He is so lovely, as is his brother. I continue to wish you peace and healing.

man oh man, i linger here, wanting to say something, not sure yet of the words. that visual, kate, of your screen. i know that the reminders are everywhere, but that really brings it home. and what you said about silently cursing and being split between camps and sobbing while he nurses... man oh man. you make me want to know you more and more and more, just to feel the heat from that light you pull out of darkness. you are so completely true. and your words are truth and that is why your words get me each and every time. i think he radiates through you. and your words in writing such a bittersweet-haunting-life crushing-forcing you to keep moving forward at whatever the cost... your words are so very powerful.

I come here by word of Sage and UndertheMad. I am glad I listen to them.

Beautifully crafted from your love, your loss, your overflowing heart. Motherhood is such a tangle of emotions. The love so deep that your heart might explode. The loss so cavernous that your heart might simply give out as you plummet. And yet we do it, we soldier on, day after day. Thanks for being the one to state it all with such eloquence.

It always blows my mind the way some people treat the friend of ours who lost one of her twins, like it's no big deal because she has the other. So stupid, you know? But then I don't think I really did all I could for her either. I found a website last year-- CLIMB (center for loss in multiple births). I had to talk to her after that, to tell her I was sorry, that I think we didn't do enough, that I think we dropped the ball. She said we didn't, she said we did good. But I am still not sure.

I come here often to catch up. I think that your writing is beautiful. What is more beautiful is the way your share your experience. Not only is in undoubtedly therapeutic for you, but you are helping countless other women who have experienced similar situations. Good for you.
I can't know your heartache, but please know that I think that the way you share it is admirable.

Kate-
I read your blog all the time. It is amazing and helps me so much. My twins were born a year and a half ago. One girl, one boy. My daughter survived and my son did not. Their 1st birthday was the hardest moment and yet most beautiful, that I have dealt with. The anticipation and reliving of everything was the worst part. The actual day was a beautiful day and the following day we commemorated our son with our daughter throwing flowers into a river. Just the three of us. It was a day that I will always treasure. You will make it through and find the right way to celebrate and commemorate at the same time. You seem to be an incredible woman. Please write me if I can help in any way.

Liz, I'm so sorry about the loss of your son... but it sounds like you honoured him so beautifully for his birthday. Will you come and join us at Glow in the Woods? I'd be so pleased to have a little sub-contingent of voices for all the mamas who lie in this in-between land of losses and gains, mamas of multiples partly here and partly not.

I'll watch for you over there.

I know a mom who lost a baby girl, and see her often. And while her baby girl would be a little older than mine, I'm weirdly self-conscious around her. I worry that she looks at my girl as what might have been.
So those mothers, if they know you, are aware of it, too.