01-25-05 - 13:39
Babies gained, babies lost
I remember that familiar feeling: I think I'm pregnant! I remember waiting for the test. After three minutes it was....negative? And I threw it away. I was only a week late anyway. But five minutes later I reread the instructions and pulled it from the trash- it was positive! And so began the amazing time in my life when I was pregnant, just six short months ago.
I wanted to tell Ben in a really special way. I researched by asking other moms how they told their husbands when they got pregnant. One lady said she actually put her pee stick in a box of Good n Plenty's (her husband's favorite candy). Yuck! Favorite candy or not, I certainly wouldn't want a pee stick inside the box! I settled on painting a T-shirt onesie for my then 14-month-old that said "Big Sis".
I didn't even get a chance to put it on my daughter. My husband came home from work that night and me, being the absentminded mom that I am, left the onesie on the dryer to dry. He happened to look over on the washer and he said "Hmm. Big sis. Cool." and then about a minute later he said "Wait... does that mean....?" YES! We were both so happy and jumped for joy.
That night we had a little talk about how thrilled we were, but how things were a little complicated. I had a rough go of things with my last pregnancy, and there were financial concerns. But in all, we were happy. How could we not be happy? We decided to go to a specialist OB this time, a perinatologist.
At my first appointment with the perinatologist, I thought I was 10 weeks. We had waited about a month for this appointment and were very excited! I had heard they did more frequent ultrasounds so I was pretty excited with the prospect of seeing the little embryo! My husband came too, and we took my daughter (which was a mistake! She kept my husband rather busy!) and everything went smoothly until they went to check the size of my uterus by exam. "Hmmm, you feel about 14 weeks." I laughed "well, I'm a pretty big girl." The OB didn't seem amused:"Let's take a look." (Yay! - I thought- we'll get to see it!) She looked with the bedside ultrasound and said she thought she saw TWO BABIES, but couldn't tell if there were heartbeats. She said she would get us in to the higher level ultrasound right away.
WHAT? Oh my goodness! It was exciting but so scary at the same time. I remember saying to Ben, my husband: "I guess if the baby or babies died, it was meant to be. But I don't want that to happen! I really, really want this baby! Or Babies!"
They called me back to the ultrasound and before they saw anything, my husband had to go to the waiting room with my daughter because she was fussing. It had already been 2 hours, so she was really spent. Well, I got to see them: Two little babies with two little heartbeats! It was amazing. They let me put more clothing on and go out to tell Ben before they did the second part of the ultrasound. I ran out and shouted at him :"Ben, the heartbeats are good and strong. They're OK and there's TWO!!!!" He said "WHAT??!" It was great.
The doctor discussed with us the risks of having twins. They were fairly sure they were identical, which explained why suddenly we had twins where there had been none in our family. The doctor did warn that they ran the risk of being more complicated than a regular pregnancy, but reassured us that I would be watched a lot closer. We were just reeling in the news!
After the appointment we drove home in a worried, ecstatic state of euphoric awe. Ben looked in our backseat and said "Ho boy, we're gonna have to get a van!"
The next few months passed pretty easily. Everyone in our family was really excited to hear about the twins. I was already into maternity clothes, and so that was really fun only being 4 months pregnant but having everyone recognize it! Our friends even gave us a cradle big enough to hold both babies after they were born. We had started the name game. I had a strong feeling they were going to be boys. We discussed Jackson & Jacob as possible names. We thought of other names but kept coming back to those. Our ultrasound to determine the sex was scheduled for July 22, 2004. Ben decided maybe we should figure out what sex they were before we named them!
I had some quiet moments of panic about having twins, but mostly I would just sit in awe that I was going to be a mother of THREE in a few short months! It was an overwhelming feeling, but also a special feeling. Like I was "chosen" to be this supermom!
Around my 18th week we took a trip down to Coos Bay to see everyone. It was good fun, but I had a lot of back pain while we were down there. That sunday night it dawned on me that I had not remembered feeling the twins move since the previous friday. I immediately felt awash with dread. I remembered making excuses for myself as to why I wasn't noticing movement: Maybe I was too active and I didn't notice, maybe they're too little to make that much movement that often... well, the following week I started feeling really lousy and I got very swollen. I thought I had felt little movements here and there, so I was slightly relieved, but I had many nightmares, and awoke during the night worried that one or both of they had died. A girl at my work noticed my protruding belly and said "Wow! You seemed to have popped this week!" That was a nice thing to hear. I thought if they were growing then there was nothing to worry about.
The end of that week and the weekend I started NESTING. I was rearranging things in the house and I was getting very emotional. I took my blood pressure and it was extremely high- 145/100, and there abouts. So I called a doctor on-call on saturday and he recommended I see my doctor on monday.
Ben had to work on monday so I took myself to the appointment that would change our lives forever.
I walked in and it was all about me. How am I feeling, how's the blood pressure, oh there's a bit of sugar and protein in my urine, hmmm. The doctor who saw me was another on-call doctor. He concluded that there was a chronic hypertension problem with me and I just needed to be very careful. Just before he was going to let me leave, I said "There is one thing I have been worried about. I have been worried that my body killed my babies." He looked at me with a strange look and said "Well, I'm sure that's not true. But let's take a quick look for reassurance". He got the bedside ultrasound and got very quiet.
He turned the screen from me, trying to be discreet, and bounced the ultrasound probe off of my belly. I figured he was trying to elicit movement. I was beginning to realize that they had indeed died. But then clung to hope that maybe it was just that damn machine! Like last time!
They rushed me back for a more accurate ultrasound. I waited for about 5 minutes. I prayed. HARD. But that didn't help.
When they started looking at one of the babies, I was still clinging to hope. It looked normal, I just didn't see a heartbeat. Maybe I was missing it? But then they moved the probe to baby B, who was so much bigger, and I knew instantly that they had died. The doctor had warned me about this Twin-Twin transfusion syndrome. They shared a blood supply, and one of the twins got too much and the other not enough of blood and oxygen and nutrients.
The doctor clicked his tongue and put his hand on my shoulder and said he was sorry. I was already crying. I asked "Are they both gone?" And they said yes. I remember crying but it sounded like someone else down the hall was crying. Oh no, that terrible wailing was me.
They had to finish the ultrasound but then they let me have a box of kleenex, a phone and the room. I couldn't get a hold of my husband and I didn't know who else to call! So I called my boss- but she wasn't there either. I ended up telling a co-worker and asked her to tell my boss. I would not be in to work that night.
I drove myself home. A 45-minute drive across Portland traffic, a hysterical pregnant woman who's babies had just died, in tears. I don't really know how I made it home.
I called my husband and he came home. And we cried.
