My husband and I found out we would need significant help trying to conceive in 2008. We had our first round of IVM in the spring of 2009 and we were very lucky to have success on the first round. We found out we were expecting our first baby, and after a very normal and uneventful pregnancy (other than some morning sickness), I gave birth on January 28th, 2010 to our daughter.
When our daughter turned one - we decided that we would try again for another baby. Almost exactly two years after conceiving our daughter, we had success with our second round of IVM. We found out I was pregnant in June 2011. At our 8 week ultrasound we learned we got doubly lucky and were expecting twins. We were immediately excited to be expecting two babies – it was multiple dreams come true. We joked that we were getting a “two for one” deal with our latest round of fertility treatment. We began dreaming about all the fun things we would get to experience as parents of twins and started counting down the days till we would get to meet our new babies.
Every week that went by I hoped everything was progressing normally with our twins and dreamed of our future family of five. Since our positive pregnancy test I was concerned something might happen and I would miscarry. I had the same fear with my daughter, I was just worried something might go wrong. After learning we were having twins at the 8 week ultrasound, I had something else to worry about – I was then concerned about two babies. I now worried I would lose one or both of the twins. Our next ultrasound was at 11 weeks, I was so happy to see two beating heartbeats and to learn that everything was looking normal and progressing exactly how it was supposed to. At twelve weeks we broke the news that we were having twins to our family, friends and anyone else who wanted to know. My grandmother had twins, so my family was especially excited to have another set of twins.
Rewind a few weeks – at 6 weeks with the twins we had our first pregnancy scare. I was driving home from my parent’s house and was having some significant pain in my lower abdomen. It got progressively worse and I made the decision to go to the ER and have it checked out. After a night of waiting and an ultrasound I found out I had some ovarian cysts (left over from the fertility treatment) that had ruptured and caused the pain. This trip to the ER is when we actually found out we were going to have twins. I had suspected it was twins from our first blood test when my HCG levels were significantly higher than when I was pregnant with my daughter.
At 15 weeks we had our next pregnancy scare – I got up to go to the bathroom in the evening and discovered I had started bleeding at some point and hadn't noticed. I was terrified again that we were going to lose either one or both of the babies. Another trip to the ER, both heart beats were detected and both babies were moving. The ultrasound showed no problems with the placentas – so we were sent home and told everything looked fine. The source of the bleeding was never determined and it was dismissed as nothing serious (I will comment further on this later).
From 15 – 27 weeks my pregnancy progressed normally, like any average twin pregnancy. I was physically bigger from carrying two babies and had significantly more discomfort carrying two little ones, but other than that nothing out of the ordinary. We found out we were expecting two boys on September 20th, the day before my birthday. We were convinced that it was going to be a girl and a boy, but when I was told it was two boys I was over the moon happy!
At my 27th week prenatal appointment we were told something unusual on our last twin ultrasound showed up and we needed to see a fetal medicine specialist. There was some concern with on of the twins ventricle measurements. We were told he had mild and isolated ventriculomegaly. We saw the fetal medicine specialist 4 times, and at every visit it showed that his vent measurements were decreasing and at our final visit they were once again in the normal category. Once again I was over the moon happy and felt like we had won the lottery, it was December 23rd and I got all I wanted for Christmas – I was told my baby was fine and looked great. In fact, I was told both boys looked great, strong, big and ready for their arrival in the New Year. I was once again excited. For awhile I was very worried something might once again go wrong and I might lose one of my precious boys or that something might be seriously wrong with one of my babies. But no, everything was going to be just fine – the fetal medicine specialist said so.
The New Year came and I really started my countdown to the boys’ arrival. My goal was 36 weeks (Jan 20th) and my actual due date was Feb 17th. I was getting pretty excited and uncomfortable but also a little sad that my pregnancy was coming to an end. I really do love being pregnant despite complaining about being uncomfortable. The last day I was pregnant with my boys was January 11th, I can remember almost every detail from the day.
The Last Day I was Pregnant with My Boys
January 11th, 2012:
My mom is coming for the day and I’m looking forward to some time out with her, and getting a few last minute items that I need. I am getting pretty uncomfortable and don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to go out to run such errands. I take my time in the morning, get my daughter ready, she eats breakfast and watches her shows. I eat and then take a picture of my huge belly on Instagram and comment on how huge I feel I am getting.
This is the last happy picture of me pregnant.
My mom arrives and we decide we are going to take my daughter skating. We drive to the park. While we are at the skating park I comment that once the boys arrive we will be able to walk downtown with the big stroller again (by this point I wasn’t able to walk very far at all). After skating we went to Wal-Mart, I wanted to buy diapers since they were on sale. I called my husband to ask how many boxes I should get and we joked about having two poopy bums to change multiple times a day. I rode in the electric scooter thing (embarrassed by it) at Wal-Mart, because like I said, I couldn’t walk very far. We went to lunch at Wendy’s, it was a very mild January day. There was a guy on a motorcycle parked beside us and my daughter pointed to it and called it a robot – finally I understood why she kept telling me she saw robots when she looked out the window (she had the two confused). We came home and put her down for a nap. My mom started to prepare dinner (can’t remember what it was) and I relaxed in the basement and finished watching Midnight in Paris while my dad played on his tablet. My husband came home. We ate and then all went down to the skating park again so my daughter could show off her new skating skills. I was pretty uncomfortable (nothing unusual about that) but managed to walk to the coffee shop after everyone was done skating . I ordered a milk and a macadamia nut cookie, my daughter ate a chocolate chip cookie and then we walked back to our van. We said our goodbyes to my parents and went home. We put our daughter to bed and I went down to the basement and uploaded the pictures from the day on facebook. I surfed the net a bit and went to bed just before midnight. When I went to bed that night I had no idea that would be my last night I was pregnant with the boys, I had no idea something would or could be or go wrong. I was just a tired mommy getting ready to sleep and planning to dream about my beautiful babies that were so close to making their arrival into this world. My husband came to bed a bit after me and we both fell asleep.
The Boys Are Coming
January 12th, 2012:
I can’t remember what the exact time it was, but sometime around 3:30am I woke up to a popping sound (same as when my water broke with my daughter). I reached down and felt wetness. My first thought was “it’s too soon”, but one day shy of 35 weeks would be fine, just a little time in the NICU. I woke my husband up right away and told him my water had broken and he needed to turn on the light. Once the light was on any excitement I might have felt regarding the arrival of my babies was gone immediately. When I reached down we noticed that the wetness I was feeling between my legs was blood, very dark red blood. I panicked and asked my husband to go get a towel, he did and I managed to stand up. We decided we would just get our daughter and go to the hospital. He woke her up and I spouted instructions to get her and our bags, cameras, wallets and phones into the car – while I was quickly getting clothes on to go. We called my father-in-law to tell him we were dropping our daughter off and I remember throwing my pj pants into a bag so I could show the nurses how much blood there was.
We dropped our daughter off and drove to the hospital. I had no pain and no contractions. We were very worried about the amount of blood, but were trying to convince each other that everything was ok and we just needed to get to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital just around 4am, once the hospital was in view my contractions started and they were coming fast and hard. On the drive over I was trying to look up the labour and delivery number on my iphone so I could call and warn them that I was on my way. But I couldn’t find the number on the hospital website or with a Google search. I got frustrated and figured we would be there in less than 10 minutes and gave up. (Again something I will discuss later.) We parked the car and entered though the ER. We had to flag someone down to open the doors to the L&D elevator, got up to L&D and used the phone to get someone to buzz us in, but no one was picking up the phone so my husband started banging on the door until someone let us in. We told the nurses I was 34w5d with twins and my water broke in bed and there was a lot of dark red blood. They put me in a room right away and called a doctor to come. They had me change into a gown and were asking a bunch of questions and had me sign some forms. I remember showing them my pj pants when they asked how much blood and they looked a little shocked and commented that it was a lot of blood. They got a portable ultrasound machine in the room and hooked me up to fetal heart rate monitors. The doctor still wasn’t there, but they confirmed that they had both babies’ heart beats – huge sigh of relief from both my husband and me. The doctor came in and was asking questions and said he needed to check my dilation. By this point my contractions were less than two minutes apart and were very strong. I was told I was dilated to 5cm, not surprising since my first labour and delivery was incredibly quick. The doctor did a quick ultrasound and said he thought an emergency c-section would be best. I agreed, mainly because my labour pain was so bad at the time - I knew that if I had the section my pain would go away faster. I had planned for a vaginal delivery and was originally against a c-section, but was willing to do whatever they told me was best. They seemed concerned at the time, but not overly concerned – so I felt more at ease and mentally prepped myself for having a c-section. They took my blood work, told me they were prepping the OR and that they were going to be getting my husband ready to come into the OR. Once again, I felt a little more reassured that everything was going to be ok. It couldn’t be that serious because they were planning on doing the section while a was awake and my husband was in the OR. I knew if it was a real emergency they would just knock me out and he wouldn’t be allowed in – I really thought everything was going to be just fine. They wheeled me into the OR and asked me to move onto the operating table.
This is the LAST picture while still pregnant, waiting on the OR table. I had no idea what was about to happen, my husband was waiting in the hall, all gowned up and waiting to come in. But that never happened.
I will post the delivery and birth of my twins in another post.
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