#mashaAllah mashaAllah parents are sooo cute

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Ramadan decorations up ✨💓🥹

[maszaidtales]

Almost 20 weeks

Alhamdulilah to the Almighty for giving me the opportunity to be pregnant with twins.

Alhamdulilah to the Almighty for choosing us to be the parent of such beautiful babies.

Alhamdulilah to the Almighty for blessing us with a son, Zafran Mikael, and a daughter, Zahira Maisha.

Alhamdulilah to the Almighty for giving us the opportunity to be with them even for a short while; almost 20 weeks.

As hard as I try to be positive all the way, the sadness is there, will always be there. We prayed for a baby, but the Almighty gave us two. It wasn’t an easy pregnancy to begin with. But we were counting down every single day, every milestone that we achieved. We were supposed to know both of your genders the following Monday, but you left us on Friday instead.

The first trimester was crazy. At a very early stage, I was facing the worst cramp/bloatedness ever. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat and couldn’t work. Every two hours, the cramps would come. I would cry and cry as I was feeling in pain. The husband was feeling so helpless and tried as much as possible to help ease the cramps by putting hotpack on my tummy, walking with me around the house. Gynae was afraid that it could be an ectopic pregnancy as I was in so much pain, which was unusual. Blood test after blood test proved otherwise. Indeed my HCG levels were rising accordingly. At 4 weeks, we could see a sac. Alhamdulilah, Allah has answered our prayers. Nausea started to kick in. I would say my nausea wasn’t that bad. I was more of a sleeping beauty. I would just rest and lay in bed. I didn’t have any energy at all. Thank Allah for my mother and husband for taking care of me. Mummy helped a lot when the husband worked night or afternoon shift.

At 6 weeks, we were excited to hear the heartbeat. Lo and behold, we were surprised indeed. Somehow, there were 2 sacs with heartbeats. I was so surprised and couldn’t take in what was happening. I knew that it meant I was pregnant with twins. I just needed the double confirmation that indeed what I was thinking was real. Gynae, herself, was shocked with the revelation too. We were grateful for being pregnant, but wow, two. Alhamdulilah. Husband was super excited about it, and I was still taking everything in. TWO?! TWO? Many thoughts were running through my mind, how can we handle two kids? Will our finance be okay? Husband kept saying that believe in Allah’s will and in shaa Allah, Allah will provide us the means and way to support our babies. Soon after, I started bleeding, like menses bleeding. I cried as it could mean that I was losing the babies. No one bleeds that much during pregnancy. It meant that something was wrong, the babies could be dying. We were so worried. But Alhamdulilah, another miracle. They were fine and safe. It was just unexplained bleeding. From then onwards, I was to be monitored weekly and to get progesterone shot.

From 12 weeks onwards, it was smooth sailing. We went for the Oscar test and got great results. We smiled at the ultrasound. It was cute to see them moving, sucking their thumbs, covering their face. It was such a proud parent moment for us. It finally dawned on me that, we are sooo gonna be parents to these two bundles of joy. Of course, the husband is more emotional. He was holding and rubbing my hand throughout the scan.

At 15 weeks, another bleeding episode happened. Of course we panicked. But deep inside, I knew my babies were fighters. I knew they would be alright. And again, another miracle by Allah. They were confirmed to have stable heartbeats and were growing fine. Alhamdulilah. By then I had started to feel their movements. It’s funny that I would tease the husband regarding their movement and he would be jealous as he could not feel anything. When he could actually feel it, the smile on his face was priceless. They were his darlings. He would kiss, rub my tummy and talk to them. I miss those moments. Zafran and Zahira were like day and night. Zahira was active during the day while Zafran at night. I could feel more of Zafran’s movement as he was the bigger one. They were there to keep me company while the husband was working nights. I talked to them, played the quran and recited to them. I told them that I didn’t mind all the blood tests, the injection shots that I took for them as long as they were healthy. I have changed from being a person who was scared to someone who feels nothing of needles. It had come to a point that I was like “okay, lets go for injection/blood test”. I was fearless for the sake of my babies.

At 16 weeks, the husband and I were arguing about the babies’ gender. I felt that it was going to be a girl and a boy while husband keep saying that it will be both boys. He would keep teasing me about the gender. I mean I would love them if both of them are boys, but I wanted to go shopping for girls’ things. The shopping experience for a boy and a girl is totally different. Look at all the cute prints and pink outfits for the girl. Shopping for baby girl is so much fun compare to shopping for a baby boy. On a side note, we nicknamed baby 1 as trex and baby 2 as bob. This is because, in the earlier part of the pregnancy, I love to eat steak from a restaurant call t-bob. So the combination of trex and bob name will be t-bob.

19 weeks, was the day that we went shopping for babies. I remember that I took so much stuff but yet kept putting it back as we didn’t know their genders, also we were waiting for the baby fair. In the end we only purchased a jumper from H&M for each baby, and choose the most neutral colour for the jumper. We were only a few days apart from knowing the gender. I told the husband that I would go crazy shopping for the babies after knowing their gender. But it would never materialise.

The shopping was only 2 days before the morning of the incident. I woke up and was getting ready for work when I felt crampy. I didn’t think much of it and took a day off to rest my body. But as time went by, the cramps became more frequent and terrible. It was as though as I was having a stomach ache. I went to the toilet and saw that there was long mucus on my under garment. I panicked as I knew that mucus plug will only come off when you are going to labour. I was having unsettling feelings. Quickly, we went to Thomson to meet my gynae. I was in so much pain in the uber till the driver panicked and he almost went the wrong way.

Two sentences that threw my whole world apart “You are in labour. I am sorry that I cannot do anything as you are too advanced in labour to save your babies�� that’s what my gynae told me. I cried out loud not caring that people outside could hear me. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I should only be delivering my babies in 16 more weeks. They should be inside of me. It was as though a life sentence was passed to me. I could not take it. My body failed as a mother to them. My babies are still alive in my womb, cause of my body, they will not be able to make it and see the world. Reality started sinking in. I tried to be strong for them, knowing that this is all Allah will. We were sent to private one bedded room to prepare for this incoming doom.  I asked the husband to play the Quran to soothe the nerve and heart. The waiting game started. I felt the labour pain coming, but it couldn’t beat the level of pain in our heart. At 3 pm, I felt the immense pain of needing to push. We called the staff nurse and she guided me through everything. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s it. One of my angels is coming out. I cried and cried while pushing. I pray to Allah to give me strength, both physically and spiritually. My husband’s tears dropping on my arm while I was pushing my little angel. After 3 pushes, my little angel came. Tears non-stop filled my eyes. The doctor said that it was a boy. MashaAllah. My little boy, Zafran Mikael. Doctor advised to stop pushing in order to save the other twin. As long I didn’t have any contraction, the chances of saving the other twin is viable. We tried but I guess it is a mother’s instinct that I knew I couldn’t save the other one. True enough, at 5.10 pm, I had another intense contraction and the need to push. With this push, I felt so strong both spiritually and physically. I didn’t cry as much as the earlier one. Maybe Allah granted me the strength that I asked earlier. 2 easy pushes and the other little one was born. It was a girl, Zahira Maisha.

Zafran Mikael looks exactly like the husband, basically a carbon copy. The roundness of his face, the sticking out ear, the bigger sharp nose. Everything is my husband. He was the bigger twin. Zahira Maisha, on the other hand, looks a bit more like me but not exactly like me. They both have thin lips that they inherited from their mummy. They were so beautiful. MashaAllah. Really, really beautiful.  They have long legs and body and could eventually grow up to be tall like their aunties and uncle. We hugged, we kissed, we talked to them. Spending little private moments with them as much as possible before the nurses brought them to mortuary. I asked for their forgiveness for not being able to bring them into this world. I know it is never my fault, but the guilt is there. It was my body who failed them. We waited for them for 1 year 4 months before we were able to conceive them, and yet, they were gone just like that.

My husband and I cried to our heart’s content at night when we were both alone. It was our free pass to cry and be sad to our heart’s content on that day. We keep reminding ourselves that this is Allah’s will and there is nothing that we can do. We pray to him to grant us the strength in overcoming this calamity. We pray to him to give us the chance to have another baby, a smooth sailing pregnancy and a healthy baby that we can bring into this world. We pray to Him to show us the path.

The next day, December 24 2016, we buried our babies. They came together and they left together. I kept reminding the husband to tell them that mummy is sorry when they travel to the grave. I could see the sorrow in the husband’s eyes. It is never a good feeling to bury someone close to you, what more your children. They were so small and fragile as though that the graves was not meant to be their home. I knew husband could not do it, but he needed to be strong for me, for us.

It has been a month since they left us, we are still coping with life, having little breakdowns here and there. We are getting stronger but of course there are things that still trigger us. The sadness of losing our angels is still there and very much presence in our lives. Currently, I am at the stage of avoidance. Avoiding wearing things that I wore during the pregnancy. Avoiding eating the food that I used to love during pregnancy. Avoiding going to places that I went during the pregnancy. Have I accepted the loss? Yes, right at the moment I gave birth to them, but this avoiding for now is my mechanism to grieve.

It dawned on me that before we got married, we had discussed about wanting a baby boy or girl as the first child. We both agreed that we wanted a baby boy first as the first child and then a baby girl as the second child. MashaAllah, do you see the connection. Allah granted us our wish. He gave us Zafran Mikael, a boy for our first child and Zahira Maisha, a girl for our second child.it is true that Allah listen and He knows the best for His servants.