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.
Miranda’s partner, Levi Langley, plays with their 9-month-old son Eros. Miranda and Levi, 25, moved back to Northeast Texas from Utah in December 2022. They’d just had their first child, Eros, and wanted to raise him and Miranda’s two other children among Levi’s tight-knit family.
Miranda Michel embraces her partner Levi Langley as they and their family enjoy the porch after sunset. When Miranda and Levi learned they were pregnant with twins, they told Levi’s mom, Angela, that she was becoming “Nana Boo” to two more babies. They threw a gender reveal party and started anxiously planning for five kids younger than 5
New Boston, TX at sunset. Over the next few months, Miranda would learn how difficult it is to carry a high-risk pregnancy in rural Texas. New Boston was 30 minutes from the nearest hospital, and three hours from the specialists she needed.
Michel’s family serves themselves plates of ham, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and green beans. With Miranda on bedrest and Levi taking on extra shifts at the Tyson chicken processing plant to keep up with bills, Miranda’s sister moved in to help with the kids. Miranda’s children are all named after Greek gods: Ares, 5, Artemis, 4, and baby Eros.
A pro-life billboard alongside the I-30 highway. Every week, Miranda traveled from New Boston to Dallas for doctors’ appointments. Early on, she looked forward to these trips, sure her doctors would find a solution, but by the end, she forced herself to stop looking for caveats where none existed.
Ares, 5, plays outside on his own. He overheard an off-hand comment by his mother Miranda saying, “Maybe some gods are just needed back on Olympus.” That stuck with him, as Ares told the neighborhood kids that his baby brothers were Greek gods who had to return to Mount Olympus.
Artemis, 4, asks her mother Miranda to come inside and play with her. “How am I supposed to answer their questions when I don’t have my own answers?” Miranda has struggled to parent her children through a tragedy she herself hasn’t come to terms with.
Helios and Perseus Langley were born and died on Aug. 9, 2023. Miranda, Levi and his parents spent the next day with the babies, before they went to the funeral home.
Miranda Michel and her partner Levi Langley sit in their hospital room with their twins, Helios and Perseus Langley, in a cooling cradle a day after she had to carry the twins to term despite their zero percent chance of viability. The twin died 4 hours after delivery in Michel’s arms.
Levi and Miranda lean on one another during the funeral service for their newborn twins in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. After months of heartbreak, a two-hour surgery and watching her sons die in her arms, Miranda was surprised she had any grief left inside her. Saying goodbye at the funeral was one of the hardest moments of her life.
Levi’s father and brother easily lifted the doll-sized casket to carry it to the hearse. “It isn’t right,” Jay Langley, Levi’s father, said at the funeral. “They’re supposed to be burying us, not us burying them.”
Pine and oak trees lines the road of the funeral procession.
The funeral procession drives down country roads to the cemetery where the twins will be buried in Broken Bow, Oklahoma.
A pastor reads from the bible as family and loved ones gather and embrace each other around the casket carrying Perseus and Helios Langley. “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 19:14, the bible verse the family chose for the funeral program.
The Langley family enwraps themselves around Miranda as they grieve the loss of Helios and Perseus. “I told Levi, be there for her when she needs you, and she’s going to be there for you when you need it,” Angela said. “And if y’all both break down at the same time, just hold each other up. That’s how you’re going to get through this.”
As Angela Langley, grandmother of the twins, walks family members and loved ones through the day of the twins’ birth and death, they measure the bears given to them by the hospital and realize the bear is the same length as Perseus, 11.5 inches.