AUSTIN, Texas — Miranda Michel’s eyes popped open on the operating table, panic gripping her body. Was she too late?
Doctors had said her twins might only survive two or three minutes. She didn’t know if they’d already been born, how much time had passed, if they were already gone.
Miranda’s prognosis was as clear today as when she first heard it, four months ago: a 0% chance of viability. But Texas’ new abortion laws, which make no exception for lethal fetal anomalies, required her to carry this pregnancy through to the end.
Now, that end was here. Sliding in and out of consciousness, Miranda flashed through the possibilities she’d spent months preparing herself for. Maybe her babies would be born dead, so deformed the doctors wouldn’t show them to her. Maybe they’d live for a few hours. Maybe she’d get to say hello and goodbye.
Or maybe — maybe it would all work out. For the last eight months, she’d fought to keep hope at bay, forcing herself to focus on the finality of the diagnosis. But now, she couldn’t resist giving in. Miracles happen every day. Doctors can be wrong.
Why would the state of Texas make her carry this doomed pregnancy if there wasn’t some chance?
As doctors prepared to remove the twins from her uterus, Miranda fought to stay awake long enough to find out whether she was going to get to meet her children. But it was no use. Her vision faded to black.
‘My heart sank’
Miranda, 26, and her partner, Levi Langley, had just moved home to Northeast Texas from Utah when she found out she was pregnant. Miranda already had three children at home, so she thought she knew what to expect.
But at an early appointment, she learned she might be having twins. Then, she learned they might be conjoined or “mono mono,” developing in the same amniotic sac.
Her doctor sent her to a specialist three hours away, near Dallas. During the ultrasound, Levi and his mom, Angela, watched the digital screen, but Miranda watched the tech. She alone saw the moment her face fell.
“She ran out of the room, and my heart sank,” Miranda said.
The babies’ spines were twisted, curling in sharply. Organs were hanging out of their bodies, or hadn’t developed yet at all. One of the babies had a clubbed foot; the other, a big bubble of fluid at the top of his neck.
The doctor handed down a simple diagnosis: As soon as these babies were born, they would die.
Miranda was paralyzed, her mind frantically scrabbling for something to hold onto. These babies she’d hoped, dreamed, planned for were suddenly being ripped away from her. How did this happen? How could they fix it? What were they going to do to save her babies?
She looked desperately to the doctor for answers. Instead, she got a Post-It note, with the name of an abortion clinic in New Mexico.
No good option
A few years ago, Miranda would have been able to terminate this pregnancy in the privacy of a doctor’s office or hospital. Doctors in Texas could perform abortions beyond 20 weeks if the fetus had a “severe and irreversible abnormality.”
But then, in June 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned and abortion became a crime in Texas, except to save the life of the pregnant patient. Doctors were terrified to even talk about the options, leaving Miranda alone with this decision.
New Mexico was a 12-hour drive from Northeast Texas. How would Levi get the time off work? Who would watch her newborn? How would they pay for gas, hotels, and the procedure itself? The idea of circumventing the law and fleeing the state for medical care terrified her.
But she also couldn’t wait another five months, taking on all the risks of a complicated multiple pregnancy, with no hope of healthy babies at the end.
There was no good option, and so, in the absence of information, she ultimately decided not to decide. Time passed, the window closed, and her pregnancy proceeded in accordance with Texas law.
‘I had hope’
Despite her diagnosis, Miranda still had to go through the motions of carrying a high-risk pregnancy in rural Texas. Once a week, she left the house at 3 a.m. for her latest round of doctors appointments in Dallas.
Early in her pregnancy, Miranda looked forward to these appointments. She spent time online, researching surgeries, experimental treatments, miracle stories. She got an MRI, met with specialists, had her doctors look at the pregnancy from every angle.
But every time, the answer was the same: These babies would not survive.
“I had hope. I fought for them,” Miranda said. “I tried not believing what [my doctors] were saying. And now, I have no other options.”
Now, she tried to focus on the reality of what was happening.
“When I go and do the ultrasound, I’m still going to get bad news,” she said ahead of her 29-week appointment, in late July. “There might be some more sprinkles and whipped cream to add on top, but I don’t think there’s anything they can say right now where it’s a surprise.
“Unless they [say] they don’t have heartbeats,” she added as an afterthought. “That would be the cherry on top.”
As her due date approached, Miranda worried about going into labor so far from the hospital. She and her doctors agreed she’d relocate to Dallas and stay at the Ronald McDonald House for the last month of her pregnancy.
Miranda was anxious about leaving her three young children at home. Ares, 5, was about to start kindergarten; Artemis, 4, had so many questions about where her mommy goes each week. And Miranda’s sister moved in to care for 9-month-old Eros.
“I’ve never been away from my kids,” she said. “Are they gonna miss them or they’re gonna forget about me? I’m going to be at the hospital and they’re gonna think I ran away, even though I told them where I’m at.”
Lifetime of love
Miranda never made it to the Ronald McDonald House. In early August, at 31 weeks along, her body decided it was time to end this pregnancy. She was home in New Boston, so she’d have to be airlifted to Dallas.
As Levi and his parents took off in their truck, Miranda was loaded onto an airplane by herself, fighting off labor pains and panic.
She didn’t feel ready, but once she landed in Dallas, momentum was against her. Levi and Angela scrub in. The epidural took over.
When the doctors removed the babies, it immediately became clear there was no miracle. The diagnosis was right. These babies would not survive.
From the shoulders up, the twins looked normal, although premature. They were tucked into each other, almost kissing, their hands tangled in a tender embrace that belies the horrors below.
They were conjoined in the middle, and breathing slowly and inconsistent, their tiny, underdeveloped lungs too far from their stomachs.
As quickly as possible, the doctors wrapped them in a blanket, covering up the worst of the deformities, put tiny pink hats on their heads, and handed Levi the six-pound bundle.
“A couple of minutes, that was all we were expecting,” Levi said. “And then I noticed that they weren’t moving at all, and I thought they had died in my arms. I was crying, holding onto them for dear life.”
The babies stopped breathing, but their hearts were still beating intermittently, so the doctors didn’t declare them dead yet. In the recovery room, Miranda held these babies she knew better than anyone.
She stroked their cheeks and booped their noses and tried to project a lifetime of love onto their frail little bodies. Finally, at 8:14 p.m., four hours after they were born, their hearts stopped beating.
Helios and Perseus Langley died in the arms of the mother who loved them as best she could, as long as she could.
Saying goodbye
A week after she gave birth, Miranda stood at the front of a funeral home in Oklahoma. The doll-sized casket sat open, giving her one last look at her twin boys.
“I feel like I’ve had my heart ripped out of my chest a couple of times,” Miranda said.
The babies will be laid to rest in the family plot, in the corner of a remote cemetery. There are cows in the field next door, and a big live oak tree shading the graves of Levi’s ancestors.
It’s peaceful. It’s devastating.
Levi’s father and brother lifted up the tiny casket and lowered it into the ground. The weight of this experience, this loss, this life-changing grief, settled onto Miranda’s shoulders, and she nearly buckled.
But Levi and Angela were on either side, holding her up. Her children leaned against her legs, relying on her steadiness. Everyone placed a white flower on top of the casket before drifting back to their cars.
Miranda wasn’t ready to return to normal life, like she hadn’t just birthed and buried two babies in the span of a week. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
Eventually, she got into the minivan with Levi and the kids. With one last look, they drove away.