Miranda Michel, 26, couldn’t leave the state for an abortion. But she also couldn’t bear the idea of carrying a nonviable pregnancy to term.
Miranda Michel, 26, learned at 16 weeks that the twins she was carrying would not survive. But Texas law does not allow abortions in cases of lethal fetal anomalies.Editor's note: This story includes images some people may find distressing.
Miranda’s prognosis was as clear today as when she first heard it, four months ago: a zero percent chance of viability, for either twin. But Texas’ new abortion laws, which make no exception for lethal fetal anomalies, required Miranda to carry this pregnancy through to the bitter end. In December 2022, Miranda and her partner, Levi Langley, packed up the whole family, all their possessions and their pet chameleon and set out for Texas. It was time to come home.
Angela Langley, Levi’s mom, was thrilled, rushing to the store to buy more presents for Christmas morning. The babies’ spines were twisted, curling in so sharply it looked, at some angles, as if they disappeared entirely. 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.Levi burst into tears, “big, ugly crying,” he said. Miranda was paralyzed, her mind frantically scrabbling for something to hold onto.
A few years ago, Miranda would have been able to terminate this pregnancy at a doctor’s office or hospital, at whatever point she felt ready to do so. Even in Texas, doctors could perform abortions beyond 20 weeks if the fetus had a “severe and irreversible abnormality.” “I don't know the precautions, the risks or the aftercare,” Miranda said. “Just all the ‘what ifs.’ What if they continued with heartbeats? What are we going to do then?”
Miranda, a young mom who didn’t graduate high school, was left to make sense of a horrifying medical diagnosis entirely on her own. What if she’d misunderstood? What if the doctors were wrong? What if some miracle occurred? What if the babies developed more and the glaring deformities turned into mild disabilities? What if — what if?
As spring slid into summer, Miranda’s body began to transform. Her organs shifted, her hips widened, her back ached. She had heartburn and constant, creeping exhaustion. When she laid down, it felt like the whole world was pressing down on her. She couldn’t lift her 9-month-old, or sit on the floor to help her 4-year-old tie her shoes.
Miranda looked into surgeries, experimental treatments, miracle stories of children who beat the odds. She posted her diagnosis in mom groups on Facebook and chased down leads from commenters. It was love packaged as defiance, believing that, with enough research, she could find some way for even one of these babies to survive, even for a little while.
When Angela said with a guilty smile that she’d dreamed about Miranda delivering “two smiley, shiny babies, perfectly healthy,” Miranda nodded politely. “Unless they they don’t have heartbeats,” she added as an afterthought. “That would be the cherry on top.” “She’s fighting hard for them, so the only thing I can really do is just keep the house clean, keep her happy and work,” he said.
“I had hope. I fought for them,” Miranda said later. “I tried not believing what were saying. And now, I have no other options.” “I fucked up,” she said, grief lacing every word. “I dragged them through this. At least I can be there to say hello and say goodbye.” Miranda and Levi tried to explain death, God and heaven. They say the babies got sick inside Mommy’s belly and wouldn’t be coming home. But it was not clear how much was sinking in.
In July, she and her doctors agreed she’d relocate to Dallas for the last month of her pregnancy. It was too risky for her to be in New Boston, hours from the hospital, when she went into labor.“If there is even a chance,” Miranda said in late July, she wanted the babies “to have the best care from the get-go and not risk an airplane or a helicopter ride here.
Levi couldn’t stand being separated from Miranda and the babies at this crucial juncture. He and his parents made the 200-mile drive in record time, praying they hadn’t missed the birth — or death — of his children. The momentum was against her. They were in the surgical suite. Levi and Angela scrubbed in. The epidural took over Miranda’s senses, stronger than in her past pregnancies, pulling her in and out of consciousness. In her dream state, all the hope Miranda had kept locked away flooded back in. As the doctors removed the babies from their safe harbor, the whole room seemed to hold its breath.
Quickly the doctors swaddled the babies in a blanket decorated with cartoon ducks, covering up the worst of the deformities, put tiny pink hats on their heads, and handed Levi the six-pound bundle. After a few hours, the rest of the family left to get dinner, giving Miranda a quiet moment with the babies.
A week after giving birth, Miranda stood at the front of a funeral home in Oklahoma, wearing a black dress. The doll-sized casket sits open, giving her one last look at the babies she carried inside her for eight months. As much as they prepared for this, living through it was like “having open-heart surgery without anesthetics,” Levi said. “Every heartbeat feels like your heart is going to explode.”
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