When my husband Nathan and I decided we were ready to have a second child, we had no idea how this decision would impact our lives. We did not know that instead of adding just one child and becoming a family of four that we would have twins and become a family of five. We certainly did not know that terms such as NICU, GERD, small for gestational age, and failure to thrive would become part of our regular vocabulary.
I remember the day I found out I was pregnant like it was yesterday. I took my obligatory pregnancy test, as we had been trying to get pregnant since my first son was born, he was a year and a half at the time, expecting to be disappointed yet again. When I looked down and realized it was positive I was immediately excited and then full of fear. Prior to having my son Landon, I had two unexplained miscarriages and was scared that we would have to go through another loss. Because of my history, my doctor followed my HCG levels very closely and when she saw how quickly they were doubling she thought it would be a good idea to do an ultra sound. I will never forget my first glimpse of that ultra sound, I knew before the tech told me that there was more than one baby there. Despite the fact that we were on clomid, and this increases your chances of twins by what I was told was only 5%, there were two babies growing in there!
It took us a little while to get used to the idea of twins but once we did we were excited. The first twelve weeks was nerve wracking, praying that the babies would be ok and that I would not miscarry, but once we hit that twelve week mark we expected smooth sailing. However, this was not the case. Looking back, the first twelve weeks were in fact easiest of my pregnancy. Shortly after the twelve week mark I started getting contractions off and on. My little boy, baby A, was putting tons of pressure on my cervix making me very uncomfortable. At 23 weeks I was put on at home rest due to concerns of starting preterm labor. It was my first year teaching so I was disappointed to be out of work but wanted to do whatever was best for my babies.
On mother's day, I was 32 weeks along, and at 11pm I noticed my water was leaking so we headed to the hospital. I was also then diagnosed with preclamsia. They decided to hospitalize me until delivery. They were doing daily nonstress tests and biophysical profiles on my baby girl. I was devastated. I was away from my almost two year old for the first time which was breaking my heart and was scared for my babies.
Four days later they discovered that there was a reverse end diastolic flow. This means instead of the blood flowing from the placenta to baby B, it was not getting to baby b and was going back into the placenta. My little girl was in grave danger and needed to come out asap or she would be stillborn. She was not getting nutrients and oxygen. A couple hours later I was prepped for surgery and they delivered my babies.
I was so scared about whether they would be okay or not and was so happy when they both cried right after delivery. They were both placed on cpap to help them breathe and on warmers to regulate body temperature. Ava Claire was 2lbs 1oz and Ace Michael was 3lbs 14oz.
My husband got to see them that night and even hold Ava but I was very sick downstairs. I had hemorraged and was on magnesium sulfate for preclamsia and morphine for the c-section. I finally convinced my nurse at 2:30 a.m. to take me off the IVs and take me upstairs. I was able to hold Ava the next day.
In the coming days Ava began thriving. She was breathing on her own, doing fairly well with her temperature, eating by bottle, and growing. Ace was also doing well. We had to wait several days to hold him because he had some breathing problems and would dsat often but eventually he worked through these issues. Leaving the hospital without my babies was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I was absolutely heart broken and sobbed all the way home. It just did not feel right to leave them in someone else's care. I was there mom and should be the one to take care of them. I felt totally empty and lost and had a contempt for the the its a boy and its a girl balloons that I carried into my house. My rational side by comforted knowing they were in good hands up in the NICU but my heart ached with longing.
Because I have a history of miscarriages and we were having twins I had ultra sounds all the time. It became obvious pretty quickly that the girl (baby B) was growing slower than baby A. Each ultra sound I had the boy seemed to be thriving and the girl was barely making progress. At 31 weeks the little girl was only measuring in the 4th percentile while the boy was in the 60th. My baby girl was diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction and twin discordance. At the time we were unsure why.
