Let me begin with an introduction, I am Melissa Pinkston. My husband Joshua and I have 2 living boys Eli (8) and Noah (5). We have twin baby boys in Heaven, Kaleb and Ezra. I am also currently 8 months pregnant with our 5th child.
In 2018, we discovered we were having fraternal twins. It was the best pregnancy until it wasn’t. On Monday morning August 27, 2018, at 19 weeks gestation exactly, I woke up around 7 a.m., my water broke for Baby A. I was in complete shock. Josh and I raced to Woman’s Hospital to discover Baby A had very minimal fluid. Baby B on the other hand was perfectly healthy. On the second day, Wednesday, August 29, I was receiving my discharge papers to go home on bedrest, and I started feeling very cold and slightly nauseated. Within the hour my temperature jumped to over 102. I was throwing up uncontrollably. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was septic and both my babies were going to die that day.
That is a hard reality to swallow when just shortly before we had our hopes up about going home on bedrest. Things quickly got worse. I started contracting terribly. Then it was confirmed that pressure I started feeling was Baby B’s placenta exiting my body. This meant that Baby B had died inside me. If the placenta continued to come through, it could cause me to hemorrhage. Reality of the situation became so much worse.
One of our babies was already dead, and our healthy baby was going to be taken from us, too young to survive with medical intervention. I started to become lethargic. My blood pressure was getting as low at 20s/30s. My OB told Josh that he didn’t know if I would survive with my emergency C-section because I was so sick. I knew I was either going to die that day to be with my twins in Heaven for eternity, or God was going
Even after well over a year of burying our babies, I still wail and whimper and cry my heart out. I know this will never change, I know I will always miss and long for my Kaleb and Ezra.
This is a pain that our whole family still lives with each day. In some ways I feel like I have been a mother in mourning forever, as each day my mind is always on Kaleb and Ezra. Their absence is known greatly with each milestone they should be making.
As I mentioned in the beginning, I am 8 months pregnant with our 5th child. Pregnancy after loss is very intense emotionally. Grieving Kaleb and Ezra while excited and in love with a new baby is hard to process. One thing is certain, Ezra and Kaleb will never be forgotten. I will always do anything to honor them. Any future children I have will know about and love their twin baby brothers in Heaven. Our family will forever be incomplete without them here. We will always be a family that cherishes Anna’s Grace. An organization that honors and respects the short lives of babies that have died, our babies, is worth supporting.
I had a close relative urge me to attended the Walk to Remember shortly after Kaleb and Ezra’s death. I was so in awe of how beautiful and respectful this event was. To walk and see all the babies signs and finally find Kaleb and Ezra’s sign. It was this bittersweet moment of loving seeing their names written so elegantly across the sign, and the reality of knowing why their sign was there. When I lit 2 candles in honor of them, I completely broke down. I was surrounded by this whole community of grieving mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents and friends. It was a powerful moment and one that I needed to see. I was not alone. I also attended a speaker series on grieving during the holidays to help me cope with my first Christmas with out my babies. The first person I met when I walked in was Monica Alley.
I had no idea it was her, but when she immediately remembered Kaleb and Ezra and our story months from our original phone conversation and said their names, I knew right then that I would give back to this organization as much as I could. When a baby of yours dies, you want more than anything for everyone to remember they lived and to remember their names. It was the first time this happened to me by a complete stranger, and I will never forget the impact that had on me.
Monica told me about Anna and how Anna’s Grace came to be. We talked about our other children and homeschooling. To speak with someone who had experienced this loss years before my own, helped show me, I can continue Kaleb and Ezra’s legacy through my own way. We talked a lot about allowing our living children guide our grieving. This was a conversation I think back on many times because it has impacted me for the better. Then right before Kaleb and Ezra’s first Christmas in Heaven, I received an unexpected package in
