Photo: Charlie Horse Photography
Cherie, 31, was 14 weeks pregnant when she announced to her friends and family that she was expecting twin boys, Tiger and Johnny. In her previous twin pregnancy, with girls, one of the babies did not survive and was absorbed in utero early on.
Despite her past, Cherie, who shares two girls — ages 5 and 2 — and a son with Hayden, says she was hopeful about her latest pregnancy and dreamed of what life would be like with the boys.
“Life would have been perfect. I wouldn’t have a broken heart now,” Cherie tells PEOPLE. “I was looking forward to completing my family. Two boys and two girls was awesome because it meant that my boys had a brother and a sister.”
Charlie Horse Photography
Cherie had a normal pregnancy at first, she says, and expected everything to go as planned. But her hopes were crushed on Dec. 27 of last year, when she went in for an ultrasound, only to learn that Johnny’s heartbeat was undetectable.
“It was horrible, losing a child is the worst thing any parent can go through. It’s changed me forever,” the grieving mother tells PEOPLE, noting that the loss brought painful memories of her first twin pregnancy.
“I was gutted that it had happened to us again. When we lost my daughter’s twin it was very early on. I guess I felt more attached to our boy. Months of being pregnant is a long time to get organized and excited for them to arrive.”
Courtesy Cherie Ayrton
On May 2, Cherie gave birth to her twins. She first shared her story withLove What Matters, writing of the births: “We cried, we smiled, we loved and we enjoyed one night with our two boys together and family surrounding us.”
So, she did. In a moving photo Tiger is shown wrapped in a cloth that extends to surround a small container that held Johnny’s ashes.
“It was sad and very emotional,” Cherie says of watching the shoot. “[Johnny] should have been next to his brother alive. We should have been getting pictures of them cuddling each other.”
In the months since the shoot, the moving photo has made its way around the Internet, garnering attention from social media users everywhere. Cherie says that although the support she’s received as a result of the picture has helped her to cope with the loss, she’ll never be the same.
“I’m broken, I’ll always feel like I have a piece missing. But life goes on, I still have to be a wife, a mother, a friend a boss,” she says. “Life doesn’t stop and neither can I. So I do the best I can. I appreciate life and my gorgeous family even more than ever.”
source: people.com
