Our Pregnancy

Our pregnancy was quite eventful, I think because we so easily conceived we made up for it with a very difficult pregnancy. After our first ultrasound, I was pretty nervous about having and raising twins. I was 5 weeks then and it took about a week for me to finally be excited about my twin pregnancy. Always the positive thinker, my wife had joked about us having twins prior to our BFP and was so excited when she found out they both implanted.

Over the next few weeks we did several ultrasounds (1 weekly with our RE) and I grew more and more excited for our babies. By week 9 my RE "released" me from his care and said I should make an appointment with my OB to continue my pre-natal care. I made an appointment for two weeks later but before I could be seen by my regular OB I had to be seen by another doctor (let's call him Dr. Gray) in order to first confirm my pregnancy. Dr. Gray came in and did an ultrasound, saw baby A (who was always front and center) and then quickly looked in baby B's direction and pulled out the u/s scope. He proceeded to tell me (with the biggest smile you can imagine) that "this other one isn't viable so you will be having a singleton pregnancy, congratulations!" I was stunned, not just by the news that I had lost one of our babies but more so by the cheery way in which he delivered that news. I couldn't believe it since I had just seen the babies and heard their heartbeats two days before! I asked him to look again since my RE always had to pull uncomfortably on the scope so we could see baby B because he was in a more difficult spot to see. He said he was sure and when I asked "so when is it confirmed" he said "Oh I'm pretty much confirming it now, but if it makes you feel better I can refer you to our u/s tech for the day after tomorrow, it was nice to meet you!" And then out the door he went.

I was in shock and I immediately called my wife in tears telling her what had just happened. She was pretty upset and confused as well, so we decided to go back to our RE and see what he had to say. Luckily he got us in for an u/s the very next morning and to our surprise "still two babies, two heartbeats!" he happily stated... At this point I didn't know what to think! I had already spent the entire night preparing for bad news and now I was thrown for a loop again. I wanted to just kill Dr. Gray but decided I would keep the appointment with their u/s tech (which was the next day) and make sure all was still ok.

Still not confident about how this would turn out I walked in to meet Joanie (the u/s tech) and explained to her what had happened. She was super nice and said if there are babies she will find them, and she did - BOTH of them!

At this point I had just reached 11 weeks. Hoping the worst part was over, I looked forward to getting rid of the all day "morning" sickness, but every day it only seemed to get worse. I could barely eat or drink anything without running to the bathroom to be sick right after. I'd pace the halls in our house nightly for at least an hour before I could get myself to lie down. I threw up several times at work and started losing weight really fast. By week 12 I had lost about 20 pounds and remember lying in bed barely wanting to move. I had heard morning sickness was horrible so I figured I would just have to hang in there and it would ease. When I finally called my OB to get some relief she had me come in for a check-up. I was there long enough for her to get a urine sample before she sent me over to be admitted into L&D for severe dehydration and a diagnoses of hyperemesis. For 3 days I had 3 separate IV lines all running at the same time to refill my fluids. I was also on a medication to ease my condition which made me want to rip off my skin and run out of there! It was a nightmare! I had to be taken to the cardiology unit to monitor my heart because the medication they gave me tends to slow down your heart rate -which could be dangerous for me and the babies.

When I was finally released they sent me home with pills to take (which was very difficult since I wasn't able to hold anything down) and I took them for a while but then decided I was well enough to just suffer it out. Luckily I was able to take time off work, because my nausea didn't ease up until I was about 6 months pregnant and it never completely went away. When I finally did go back to work I was 24 weeks pregnant and barely gaining weight. I had probably only gained 12 pounds. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes shortly after but didn't require any insulin. I met with a nutritionist who was supposed to help me gain weight without causing my diabetes to worsen. We did exactly what she said (even measuring our portions) and in a week she made me lose 3 pounds (which is very bad during pregnancy-especially twins) which is when I decided I was on my own and I wouldn't be following her advice.

I was barely at work for a month when I went in for my OB check-up and they found my blood pressure was very high. I was immediately sent to L&D and told that I had developed pre-eclampsia. I was told I would deliver that night if my blood pressure didn't go down. I was 29 weeks 6 days pregnant and so NOT ready to have my babies.

I made it a week before I was diagnosed with HELLP syndrome and was forced to deliver at 31 weeks. My liver was failing and my platelets were dropping and the risk to my life outweighed the benefit of keeping the babies in any longer. I was really scared for the babies and didn't really know what to expect. I just hoped they'd survive and wouldn't have any major health issues but after speaking to the director of the NICU and doing some research I knew we'd have a long road ahead. So, after 12 horrible days in L&D (due to really awful nursing staff on top of the stress of a pending preterm delivery), on April 10th 2009, I delivered our two beautiful baby boys via c-section. Weighing a little over 3 pounds each they were super tiny and were immediately taken to the NICU.