My MoMo Twins are Gone but They are Changing our State

by Kristin
(Apex, North Carolina)

In January I discovered I was pregnant for the first time. I was always the woman who thought I'd have a hundred dogs but no kids. How quickly my attitude changed the second that positive test popped up on my bathroom sink!

At 6 weeks my blood work came back positive for hCG and at 8 weeks my husband and I saw our baby's heartbeat.

We then saw it again at 11 weeks... Then at my 19 week anatomy scan our ultrasound tech stopped and asked, "You know you're having twins, right? Because your paperwork just says a single baby."

For some reason I have always dreamt I would have twins despite having none in my family. How our second baby avoided two ultrasounds we don't know, but we were ecstatic; my dream was coming true.

Within 40 minutes, my life went from finding out we were having two little girls to immediate fear as they struggled to find a membrane separating the twins. We were sat down and explained how rare our twins were, their sketchy statistics, and what to do once we reach 24 weeks with monitoring.

We left the appointment filled with so many things but we felt fortunate and grateful for our healthy babies. Every day was a roller coaster and I never took a second for granted as I started feeling kicks and daddy began to feel them as well.

Then two days shy of 23 weeks, it was all gone. We got the ultrasound we were terrified that both our girls had passed. Our Kadence and Olivia were gone in an instant; all our hopes and dreams of two little redheads (I had my fingers crossed they'd get their daddy's hair) just done. They were perfectly healthy, just dead simply because they had gotten tangled from having too much fun living together.

It has only been three weeks since they passed but very much has changed since then.

Two days following my D&E (which was a trial all itself), we received a phone call from the funeral home stating that the remains were still at the hospital. Our twins were apparently sent together and due to a North Carolina law which states, "The simultaneous cremation of the human remains of more than one person within the same cremation chamber is forbidden", they could not be legally cremated.

We were offered a plot of land for burial, which was not our wish, and even told that we could easily abide by the law by just pulling apart the remains and re-bagging them into two! We were absolutely disgusted; how could this be the appropriate solution for already heartbroken parents? We kept getting reminded that this is so rare and "never happens". Well now it has and we want change.

Since that time, we have gone onto our news station, been interviewed by the local newspaper, and word of our story has spread from North Carolina to Arizona, Massachusetts, even Hawaii.

Last week our story got to the House of Representatives where the first step to passing a bill to fix this problem for grieving parents was passed. We are absolutely heartbroken, but Kadence and Olivia are making sure that no other family who goes through this will have to suffer a loss and then another difficult decision.

I hope this does not come across as soliciting, but I have posted my petition page for change here - Change.org

If anyone has read my story this far and wishes to sign, please feel free, we need as many signatures we can. If there is a God, I am very angry with them right now and while I may be having a crisis of faith over my miscarriage, I believe in people and love and that is the only thing that gets me out of bed every single day. Thank you for reading my story.