The Inevitable Question

We made some new friends today.  Sometimes I actually avoid meeting new people just because I know they will ask.  "How many children do you have?"  And it feels so terrible to answer two.  I know I'm not really betraying Samantha, but tell that to my stomach.  We talk about where we are from and I talk about how I was pregnant when we moved... pregnant with Hannah.  Since I'm not sure I want to get into it.  But I do want to acknowledge her.  So I just think about her and wish she was here.
I was working on a page in my scrapbook and I noticed once more my missing 16 days.  The last pictures we took of Samantha were from February 24.  I think actually we have one from March 5 but you can't see her face very well.  There were 2 weeks where she was gaining weight, nursing, taking all her food by mouth, and failing sleep tests.  Her little cheeks were filing out and her personality was emerging.  She was so alert that the nurses put a little black and white design in her crib so that she would have something to entertain her.  They moved her out of the room where she and Hannah had been by themselves, out to the spot where she had been when they first were born.  Or it may have been the spot Hannah was in right next to her.  I remember sitting with her resting on my forearms on on my lap. Her sparkling eyes were looking up at me.  We were just making faces at each other.  Just "talking".  A nurse came by and asked if we were playing googly eyes.  We were.  All this time we got to know each other, we were expecting her home any day.  I never brought a camera to the hospital except on my phone and used it very rarely.  It didnt seem like a time I would want to remember.  If I could just get her home then life could begin.  Hannah came home 2-28-10.  I really thought she would be home by March 6 the next friday.  They kept telling me that her lips turned blue when she ate and she was having trouble breathing when she ate.  I never had that problem so it was hard to be concerned or even understand why that would keep her from coming home.  When Hannah came home it was as if one day they said she was ready and the next day they were discharging her.  Naturally I was expecting a similar experience with Samantha.  Well, that's one twin lesson I did learn.  They are completely separate individuals.  So Samantha's homecoming was delayed three times.  After she passed away someone told me- thank God they didnt send her home with me. Many times I wished they had, so at least she could have come home, and Alexandra could have met her.  We could have all been together even if just for a short time.  But in my heart I don't believe she would have died.  I would never have given her rice cereal in her bottle.  I never needed to. And anyway, she would have been with her mama.  It's so hard not to believe that if her mommy had been holding her she wouldnt have gotten sick.

But I realize this is a futile and negative line of thinking.  This is the last picture I have of her.  March 5she was 4 weeks and 5 days old.  She was still only 36 weeks adjusted and it's one week before she died.  All I really mean to say is that I wish I had pictures of those 16 days.  So I try to take as many pictures as I can of my Hannah Banana.  And whenever someone asks me the inevitable question, I answer as honestly as my heart can and tell Samantha I will never forget her.