Angel Stories

By Vicky Burley Smith

It was Thursday 12th May when we found out that we were expecting twins but that there was a complication.

On 9th January, we had been delighted to discover I was pregnant. We’d been ‘trying’ for no more than three weeks and felt ever so proud that we’d been so very efficient! I knew that 2005 was the year that I wanted to have a baby. I’d been suggesting it to my husband, Jeremy for a while and on Winter Solstice, he turned to me and said, “Let’s make a baby!” Little did we know that the magic of that day actually created two.

Twenty-two weeks later I was lying on a couch in a darkened room at East Surrey Hospital with gooey jelly smeared on my rotund belly. Within a minute of lying on the couch, we were told that we had twins. I turned to Jeremy and shrieked! A million thoughts went through my head in that moment. Would it be double trouble or double the joy? We’d have to buy another cot, a different buggy. Could we afford the nursery costs for two babies? Can you breastfeed two babies? How would we cope? But the flow of thoughts was stopped very quickly when the ultrasonographer told us that she thought she could see a problem. At first sight, it looked like ‘Twin 2’ was very much smaller than ‘Twin 1’.

For the next 15 minutes or so, we saw pictures of ‘Twin 1’ on the monitor. What an extraordinary experience. It is a wonderful thing to be able to see a picture of your unborn child. The measurements were taken, the heart examined, the skin and organs all found to be intact and developing properly. All seemed to be order.

Our attentions were then turned to ‘Twin 2’. It was immediately apparent how much smaller this little baby was. The ultrasonographer spent no more than five minutes looking for internal structures but very quickly decided that it would be better for us to be referred to a specialist centre for a second opinion. We did, however, see that the heart was beating strong. I will never forget that image.

The ultrasonagrapher told us very little about the problem – only that it looked like the baby’s brain hadn’t developed properly and that she thought it unlikely that it would survive. She then left the room to book an appointment with St George’s Hospital in Tooting.

I said ‘Sorry’ to Jeremy and burst into tears. Of course, he told me never to apologise again and that it wasn’t my fault, before wrapping his strong arms around me and holding me firm whilst our tears flooded each others’ faces. For a few glorious moments we had rejoiced in the knowledge that we had twins only to be faced with any parent’s worst nightmare only moments later; one of our babies was going to die.

A ‘second opinion’ scan was scheduled for the following Monday. That weekend was the longest in my life. We had been left with no idea about the prognosis, possible outcome, the choices we may be faced with… nothing. The scan report stated that Twin 2 most likely had a condition called ‘holoprosencephaly’. I couldn’t even say it, let alone understand its implications.

The emotions that swamped us over the next few days were completely overwhelming. How does one integrate the feeling of grief for one baby with the feeling of joy for the other? After all, we’d only wanted one healthy baby and we still had that. So why did it feel so terrible? I don’t know the answer to that question. As an expectant mother, every cell in your body and every thought in your psyche are programmed to creating, and protecting the life that is growing inside you. When you discover that there are two lives instead of one, those feelings are doubled, not halved.

Had I done something wrong? Thankfully I had a clean conscience. I hadn’t drunk alcohol, smoked, taken medication and I’d eaten more healthily than I ever thought I could! We had one healthy, developing baby so I knew that it wasn’t something I had done. But still I felt inadequate. My job in pregnancy was to provide an environment for our baby to flourish and something somewhere had gone wrong. We would never discover why.

Just a few hours after the appointment, we named the little baby ‘Coran’. It’s Welsh for ‘heart’. Jeremy is half Welsh and we were married in Wales. We had seen that little baby’s heart beating so strong, against all the odds. Despite the fact that we would never get to know who this person was, never know what his or her favourite colour was, never see him or her grow, we knew that we would love that baby for the rest of our lives. So Coran was the right name.

I woke up in tears every day, re-living the shock and the sadness anew each morning. If I woke in the night (as all pregnant women are inclined to do), the thoughts would rush into my mind making sleep practically impossible. Tiredness and pregnancy hormones do not help one deal with such difficult, emotional issues.

As Monday approached, my fears of the unknown grew. Would they keep me in hospital from that point on? Would they suggest an early delivery by caesarean? What would happen when Coran died? Would we have to have invasive tests or maybe even be given the option of a ‘selective termination’? These thoughts terrorised me. The not-knowing plagued me. I was preparing myself for the worse.

At the specialist hospital, we booked in at the reception and were asked if we’d attended before. Nobody seemed to know or care that we’d been referred from another hospital due to ‘complications’. We were told to wait in a large, square, bare room with 6 or 7 other women – some with partners and young children – perched uncomfortably on plastic chairs, like those we used to have at school.

Our name was called three minutes before our allotted appointment time. We were led into a darkened room with a large ultrasound machine by a Doctor with a soft, friendly voice. He asked, “So what can I do for you today?” I couldn’t believe that he had to ask. Surely everybody in the world knew that ours had come crashing down around us? Why did he have to ask such a ridiculous question? My logical mind cut in and I answered his question explaining that a scan four days previously had revealed a twin pregnancy with an anomaly in the second foetus.

We had decided over the weekend that we did, after all, want to find out the sex of the bigger baby. There were too many uncertainties now. That moment of birth was not going to be the joyous one we had envisaged; a moment where we delight in the news that we have a baby boy or baby girl. We needed to answer as many of our questions as possible. So we asked the Doctor to tell us if he could see if it was a boy or a girl. It was a girl! ‘Ella’. My eyes watered from the joy of the news. I knew that Jeremy had secretly hoped it was a girl all along.

The Doctor proceeded to carry out a thorough examination of Ella and confirmed the previous opinion that all seemed perfectly well with her. There were no signs of abnormality and she was a good size for her gestational age, with an estimated weight of 482 grams.

The attention was then moved to Coran. The head, femur and abdomen were all measured. The weight was estimated at just 194 grams. For what seemed like an age, the image was left hovering over the little heart beating. Nothing was said. But something seemed wrong. We later read on the scan report that there was ‘asymmetry’ and an ‘abnormal axis’ in the heart.

I loved watching that little heart beating. It confirmed that Coran is very much alive. And we saw kicking too! That was a lovely moment. However long or short his or her life is going to be, even if it’s just these few weeks, we saw life there. We saw purpose. We saw so much more than a bundle of cells that had failed to develop properly.

Perhaps some souls only need a very short time in order to complete unfinished business. Perhaps the lessons that Coran sought this time round can be learnt in the womb. Perhaps this was just a ‘trial run’. Perhaps Coran is too highly evolved spiritually to need a physical life on this planet. Perhaps Coran is Ella’s guardian angel and they made a pact before incarnating to stay together in this beginning. We’ll never know, of course. Whatever the reason, Coran will always be our little angel.

I feel that Coran is a girl. I think she made a pact with Ella to accompany her to the moment of birth. I am no longer afraid that Coran will pass away before the end of the pregnancy; I think she will hang on to the last minute and we will have one precious moment where we will look into her eyes before she moves on. We will honour her life, even though that life only existed inside my own body. For that I feel so privileged. She is so much wiser than me. It is not for me to teach her, as is the normal expectation of a mother. Rather, it is her who is teaching me. She is teaching me to accept what life offers you and to find beauty and peace in the hardest moments. She is teaching me to live in the moment rather than allow one’s anxieties to cloud the reality of the present. She is teaching me to open my heart, to unblock my emotions and to feel like I have never felt anything before. She is teaching me to love, respect and cherish those who I have around me, especially her twin sister, Ella, who has had such a special beginning.

I even wonder if perhaps Coran has been around me before. Perhaps she has already tried to teach me all these things but I was unable, or unwilling, to hear her. Only by incarnating in a little body that will never be able to survive outside my womb, was I forced to face the lessons that she is able to teach me. It is hard. It is so very hard. And yet I know now that Coran is my angel. Coran is Ella’s angel. Coran is Jeremy’s angel. She is already an angel although she continues to live inside me. She will always be remembered. And she will always be in my heart.

We are still in the midst of our crisis. The twins are due in September. It has helped to write about our experience. Our sadness will be around for a long time, and yet somehow our little angel is bringing us happiness and light amongst the shadows.

I enjoyed your website and think your angels are beautiful.

Best wishes,
Vicky