Send Faith & Deanna to Finland

There are some moments in life for which you can never prepare. For me, learning at the ultrasound that I was carrying identical twin girls was certainly one of them. My then husband and I had both privately been hoping the baby growing inside me was a girl, but neither of us had been prepared for this. Twins?!! In an instant, our lives of just the two of us and our 18-month-old son had radically changed. We were giddy with a flood of imaginings of what this amazing turn of events would soon bring.

And then came the rest of the news: rarest of conditions, the babies I was carrying were monoamniotic, which meant they were actually sharing the same amniotic sac. By the look on the radiologist's face I knew this was not something to celebrate. Their chances of survivial, he told me, avoiding my eyes, were about 40 percent.

Of course we did everything we could to bump the odds up in their favor, including immediately giving them both names: Faith and Grace. Although neither of us practiced a specific religion, we both shared a belief in a benevolent universe. I was a public librarian at the time, and my colleagues were astounded that I still continued to come in every day to work. We couldn't do it, they would tell me, for they themselves would be paralyzed with fear of losing the girls. I remember smiling at them then with that naive confidence of one who has not yet lost anyone dear. "They are wanted and loved too deeply for us to lose them," I'd say. And I believed this. With all of my being.

We lost the girls anyway. 

And I lost faith.

The days, months, and years that followed were then plagued with one miscarriage after another. Friends and family who suffered along with us through every new life that eventually ended in a loss emplored us to stop trying. My grandfather suggested that I be happy with the family I already had. 

Eventually, I was able to carry a second son to full term. Yet try as I might, I could not shake off memories of the little girls that had once moved inside me. I kept a photo of them (which the nurses had taken immedialy after their stillborn delivery) along with their ashes, in a special place in my bedroom. But I could not accept that as the ending. Something inside me felt unfinished. There had been two girls who had been a part of us, and then one day their little chords had become entangled, and their hearts had stilled. It's not a loss you can shake off and quickly bounce back from. At least I couldn't.

And then one day, the news I had been waiting and hoping for: I was carrying, once again, a baby girl. Would she make it to term? Would she actually be a live birth? You can believe as a librarian, I researched everything I could on how to increase your fetus' chances of being as healthy and strong as possible. The rest was out of our hands. 

There have been a few moments in my life which I would describe as true "peak experiences," Giving birth to my daughter goes on top of that list.

"She has returned faith to you," my midwife whispered, gleaming, as I pressed my beautiful newborn to my glistening skin.

And she was right, of course. And so we named her Faith. Now, some might consider that an odd choice to give to my daughter, now thirteen years old, the name of the sister we had lost, but Faith understands. She has known her entire life how precious she is to me, the mother who never gave up trying to bring her into our lives.

Now let there be no mistake: it's not been an easy life, for any of us. Faith was barely five years old when we lost her beloved grandmother to breast cancer ~  just one week before I was diagnosed with the same terrible disease. The months that stretched out after the death of my mother and my own double mastectomy and the reconstruction that followed were more than any young child should ever have to endure. But Faith did endure. She was there by my side through every painful weekly injection and those almost impossible car rides as I brought us back home. "Just drive through the pain," I can still recall her little voice coaching me from her childseat behind me.

And I have followed that advice many times since, inlcuding through her father's and my divorce four years later.

Many beautiful successes have happened in our lives since then. Now thriteen years old, Faith has grown into a talented pianist, painter, and writer. This year she was selected as Honored Young Composer for the third year in a row. And now she is gearing up to audition for Interlochen School for the Performing Arts, which, if she gets accepted, would take her across the country, far away from her home here, and, from me. 

And so we are planning a trip to Finland, my daughter and I ~ a chance for just us two "girls" to travel to a place 5,000 miles away, and explore a world deliciously foreign to us. It would be the first time I have been out of the country since I returned home from Bangladesh and Taiiwan, after living overseas with my family until I was five years old, and the first time Faith has been further than 200 miles away from her home. 

A dear friend of ours is donating his frequent flier miles towards the cost of our round trip tickets from Eugene, Oregon to Helsinki, Finland, leaving us $2,800 to come up with on our own. We calculate it will cost at least another $1200 for food, lodging and transportation for our 10-day adventure.  

The total cost we are hoping to raise: $4,000, which may seem like a huge hurdle to overcome if we are to make our dream a reality. But luckily, I have faith.