The Twins Story

On March 23 2012 we went to The House on the Rock in Wisconsin to celebrate Jim's 25th birthday! We suspected I might be pregnant because for the first time in my many trips there I can officially say I have seen every bathroom in the place! We got home that Sunday March 25th and I immediately took a pregnancy test. I had taken one a week before which I thought came back negative, but I found it in the garbage with a very slight pink line and the test I took that day was a definite pregnant!! We were ECSTATIC!!! We had just made a 4+ hour drive from Wisconsin and jumped right back in the car to go tell our families!! Both our families were just as excited for us, and our journey began!....

The next day I called my clinic to set up a pregnancy test and get my prenatal care started. At that appointment we determined I was 5 1/2 weeks pregnant. We scheduled an appointment with an OB educator at the Princeton clinic who got the ball rolling. She told me what prenatal vitamins to take, and started a family history. We were very concerned with my sister Rachel having multiple problems with her 3 pregnancies and with the possibility for twins. She had me do an early gestational diabetes 1 hour test which came back elevated so I had to return for the 3 hour test which came back normal. When talking about the chance of twins I was told the 2 sets in my family don't count because they aren't in direct line with me and they didn't survive birth... But Jim's counted and it was something to keep an eye on....HAHA! After that point I got a kick out of rubbing my belly and going I dunno Jim I think I feel two! He would freak out and it turned into our little joke!

Shortly after the OB educator appointment we had our first doctors appointment. Jim sat outside during the pelvic exam and when my doctor brought him in his first question was you don't think there are two do you!??! She said she couldn't be sure but was about 90% positive there was only one, unless they were right on top of each other. We scheduled our first ultrasound for a week later to be sure their due date was accurate and off we went.

At the ultrasound the tech started with the regular ultrasound but my bladder wasn't full enough, so she decided to do an internal ultrasound. The second the image popped up on the screen she said "Just as I suspected, how do you feel about twins!?" We were totally in awe! They were SO tiny and Baby B kept spinning around and looked like she was dancing! We immediately decided she was Jim's baby because she danced JUST like him!! Baby A was kind of lazy and slept through most of it. We thought we should be 12 1/2 weeks at the ultrasound but turned out we were only 10 1/2 weeks. The whole ultrasound the tech kept saying this is good, mom isn't crying yet, and suddenly I burst into tears!! Jim was doing great, until we got in the car and he started driving and rocking back and forth. All I could think was please don't kill us and I never knew my husband had symptoms of autism! We were pretty shocked but again we raced to tell our families! We knew about a set or 2 in Jim's family but after going out to dinner we found out about a whole bunch of them! If only we knew!!

The following week I went back in to my doctor because I thought I had a bladder infection. No infection, but I told my doctor remember those 90% odds... "Yeah, we're having twins!" She started laughing and said "No way!" It was at this appointment though I knew I was in good hands, I started crying because it was pretty overwhelming and she was very reassuring telling me she actually had her own set of twin boys so she could relate and we would do great.

Around 14 1/2 weeks me and Jim went out to dinner and when we walked out of the restaurant I went "oh my, no way! I think I just peed my pants!" I was mortified and just rushed Jim to get us home. When I got home and to the bathroom my pants were soaked with blood. I immediately screamed bloody murder and started crying. Jim ran in to check on me and seen all the blood and ran out to google it! I was like um... no get me to the Emergency Room now!!! I was terrified I was miscarrying and was hysterical. When we got to the ER my blood pressure was 170/120. We had an ultrasound where they found a subchorionic hemorrhage which is basically a blood clot in my uterine lining. From there I went on bedrest for 7 weeks and started weekly doctor's appointments for my blood pressure and the bleeding. It took about 4 weeks for the bleeding to stop and I started crying everytime I had to go to the bathroom. I joined a bunch of groups on babycenter.com that did nothing but freak me out, but it gave me something to do. Everyone in the subchorionic hemorrhage group said to drink grape juice so around 3 1/2 weeks I sent Jim to the grocery store and sure enough a couple days later it cleared up! Unfortunately my blood pressure was up and down every doctor's appointment so my doctor started me on methyldoppa. Better to start something now than sit around doing nothing we decided. My doctor doesn't deliver on her own so we decided the following week we would get the other doctor involved. He wanted to start me on labetalol for my blood pressure but we were going out of town the following week and it wasn't a good time to start it.

We were really hoping to find the genders of the babies before we went to Bemidji so we could do a big gender reveal party with Jim's whole family. So we snuck in our 20 week ultrasound at 19 weeks 5 days. The whole ultrasound was a horrible experience! My doctor said to be prepared for a 1 1/2 hour appointment and after 20 minutes the lady gave up and kept saying they would send me to the cities anyways. She kept telling us we were going to have our hands full because these babies wouldn't stop moving! I thought that was a good thing, it meant they were healthy! It was a whole big disaster and for the first time in my life wrote a complaint! While we were in Bemidji I kept in contact with my doctor and she ended up getting a level 2 ultrasound scheduled in Burnsville at Fairview Ridges for us. When we got home from vacation I seen my doctor who decided to switch to the labetalol for my blood pressure and we decided I could go back to work! I went back that Tuesday, but had to take Wednesday off for the ultrasound. (I work Sunday through Wednesday.) I was ecstatic to go back to work! I missed everyone and the kids were pretty nice for once!!

The ultrasound on Wednesday had some ups and downs... The ultrasound tech was immediately able to determine 2 girls!! We were ecstatic! After a whole baseball team of nephews and only 1 niece girls were long overdue!! Plus Jim only has brothers so he needed some more girls in his life!! The appointment took about 2 hours and then we spent an hour with a perinatologist discussing the results. They were very concerned we might have Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome because Baby B was smaller than Baby A and they were pretty sure they only had one placenta to share. Treatment was difficult because they didn't have enough information. They thought they could see a membrane between the twins, but they weren't positive. If there is a membrane they are at a slightly less risk than if they shared one amniotic sack and one placenta. So the plan was to start weekly ultrasounds to gather information and determine treatment. There were a couple options... I could get sent to Cincinnati where they do a laser surgery on the placenta to even out how much nutrients they were both getting from the placenta. I was told to have an overnight bag packed around 24 weeks because they may decide to hospitalize me at any point if the babies looked distressed. The hardest part is you can't do the surgery after 26 weeks so we had to act fast in case that was what was going on. If they determined they were in one sack I would be hospitalized immediately because they were so high risk. But really all we could do was wait and get information.

So I went back to work Sunday-Wednesday where I started to question my decision at being so happy to be back!! At one point I even told everyone, I have 2 doctor's appointments this week between the 2 someone will put me back on bedrest and outa this place! I had my regular doctor's appointment on Wednesday where I was determined to ask to go back on bedrest, but once I was there I realized I really didn't want to, it was nice to get out of the apartment and interact with humans! But we ended up upping my dosage of labatalol because my blood pressure was still slightly elevated.

Then this last Friday I had my second level 2 ultrasound and ate my words from work... I went to bed with a bad feeling because Jim wasn't able to go with me and I was scared to go alone. The next morning I ended up calling my mom and asking her to call in and come with me. Thank God she did, because I needed someone there. We waited over an hour because they were having lots of problems that morning with patients but my ultrasound ended up fairly quick. Turned out they were just doing dopplers, to check the blood flow in their brains, hearts, tummies, and umbilical chords. But Baby B was having problems returning blood to the placenta. The perinatologist was unsure what our plan should be, but decided to check my blood pressure because it's possible the problem was not from Twin to Twin Transfusion but could actually be from me having preeclampsia. Especially because Twin A's umbilical chord goes into the placenta fairly centralized but Baby B's umbilical chord is on the side and not as good a connection. Well after all the good news, and being I have to take my blood pressure medication with food or it upsets my tummy and the appointment ran so far behind/late I hadn't taken it yet, obviously it was elevated. So they sent me to The University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital. Friday they did a 24 hour urine collection to test for protein in my urine, a symptom of preeclampsia. The preeclampsia range is 0.3-5.0 and mine came back at 0.5, so barely elevated, but enough to determine I won't be leaving anytime soon! They started daily ultrasounds to monitor how Baby B is doing which was about the same Saturday morning. Sunday morning they decided to retest me for gestational diabetes. 1 of the blood draws came back slightly elevated but not enough to diagnose me with gestational diabetes. But they are pretty sure if I stay pregnant long enough I will end up with it. They decided to start me on steroid shots just in case, to help their lungs develop so I had my first shot Sunday and the last one Monday. Then yesterday they did some more labs to be sure my kidneys and liver are still functioning. They all came back normal! Plus during the ultrasound they caught Baby A breathing, which they don't usually catch until 30+ weeks! Plus their dopplers were starting to look better!

Last night a nurse from the NICU came and talked to us. I appreciated she was very blunt with us, but it was so scary! She said this early we only have a 50% chance of only 1 baby surviving, and of that 50% chance only a 25% chance of ending up with a healthy normal baby/child/teenager/adult. We were able to ask lots of questions though and she brought us on a tour of the NICU. I thought I had been to plenty before because of my sister's boys plus my niece but I don't remember ever seeing one that big! They can hold 50 babies, and are currently at 46. That got me a little nervous too because I know there is a mom next door to me with triplets, so between us we have 5 kids where there is only room fro 4! But they reassured me they would be transferred to St. Paul Children's Hospital and would still receive the best of care. We were able to see a baby that is now 28 weeks but was born at 24 and he was so small still it broke my heart. I am only 23 weeks 2 days and technically babies aren't viable until 24 weeks so our first goal is to get me to Sunday when we hit viability day. Then we are just going to take it week by week, I'm determined to keep these babies inside as long as I can so they can have the best chance we can give them at this point.

Today I was sent down to the clinic to do my ultrasound versus doing it in my room, which was a nice break from my room I haven't left since Friday! It was very exciting actually because one sign of Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome is for one baby's amniotic sack to be over 8ml (I think its ml, sorry!) and the other twin has to be under 2ml. The last couple days baby B has been barely over 2 and baby A has been at 7 1/2, then 6 1/2. Well today Baby A was around 5 1/2ml and Baby B made it over 3ml!! Very good signs! Plus they were able to see Baby A breathing again and according to my ultrasound tech yesterday depends who you ask if they caught Baby B breathing. She said she has been to conferences where doctors get in each others face's over whether hiccups should count as breathing or not, and Baby B had the hiccups this morning! But 2 of Baby B's dopplers were a little high, but overall the doctor considered us stable today! So one more day under our belts!! Our baby girls are such strong little fighters, and all we can do is hope and pray. I have been astounded by the amount of people I have heard are praying for us, and judging by the good news we keep getting day by day I have to believe they are working! We are still on a slippery slope, but hanging in there and odds are I will be here until they do deliver which hopefully will be at least a couple months yet, but for now its still week by week. I will try to post daily the news we get and fill everyone in. In return I just ask for the continuous love, support, and many many prayers! That alone is more than we can ask for and we are so grateful for all of it!


-Love- Heather, Jim, Anabell and Isabell