We are so thankful for this pregnancy! After sharing our journey through infertilty on the blog, I knew I wanted to log our newfound 40 week journey of pregnancy on the blog as well. Not knowing if I’ll ever be able to experience pregnancy again, I have chosen to log our pregnancy by writing occasional letters to our babies. The letters will keep my readers posted on how we are doing each week, but the letters will also be something that our little ones can go back and read, as a reminder of how much he or she was loved from the very beginning of their existence. You can read previous weeks by clicking on the following posts: Week 5, Week 7, Week 9, Week 12, Week 13, Week 15, Week 16, Week 18.
Well, at 19
weeks the two of you gave your daddy quite a scare. I say your daddy, because for a short time he
was pretty terrified. Surprisingly, I
was calm through it all, although there were a few moments where I began to
second guess myself. So here’s what
happened……
I woke up
at 3:30 Thursday morning to go to the bathroom. That’s when I noticed that I was bleeding. It wasn’t a lot of blood, but it was bright
red. I remained very calm, thinking that
it was probably just from the extra weight of carrying the two of you. I had been feeling extra heavy that week and
knew that occasional bleeding was not completely uncommon in pregnancy,
although it was the first and only time I had bled in this pregnancy. I hollered for you dad, who jumped up out of
bed, saw that I was starting to bleed and began to panic. He really didn’t know any better. In his mind, he related bleeding with a
miscarriage. The look of horror on his
face was one that I will never forget.
He actually began to cry and wanted to rush me to the emergency room right
away. I calmed him down, showed him that
it wasn’t that much blood and told him it was probably just from the weight of
the pregnancy. I knew that anytime
there was bleeding, I needed to at least call the doctor for professional
medical advice. I asked Daddy to pull
out our pregnancy file and look for the sheet of paper with the number to call
the doctor after hours. We then called
the doctor and spoke to the doctor on call, who told us that bleeding was not
completely uncommon but as a precaution, he wanted me to come to the hospital
to get checked out. He told us to go labor
and delivery, and there would be someone waiting for us when we got there. He also told us that we didn’t need to rush
if it wasn’t a lot of blood.
From that
conversation, I really didn’t think too much about the bleeding. By this point, I wasn’t even bleeding
anymore. I just thought that we would go
see a doctor, do a quick pelvic exam and ultrasound, see that everything was
fine and then go about a normal day. It
was about 4:00 a.m. when we got off the phone with the doctor. I told Daddy to go ahead and get a shower and
get ready for work, thinking that as soon as the doctor looked me over and saw
that I was fine, Daddy could drop me off at home and still make it to work on
time. That is not what ended up
happening.
We arrived
at the hospital around 5:00 a.m. , where someone was waiting for me
with a wheel chair. As they wheeled me
into a room, they had me sign a bunch of paperwork. They proceeded to have me get in a hospital
gown and hook me up to a monitor to measure contractions. I’ll be honest….at this point I thought they
were just fussing over nothing. For one,
I could walk…..I didn’t need to be wheeled in.
Secondly, I knew I wasn’t having contractions and really didn’t feel as
though I needed to be hooked up to any machines.
By 6:00 the doctor came in to see me. The first thing he did was a quick ultrasound
to check up on the two of you. As soon
as we saw that the two you were your normal wiggly little selves, I figured we
could go home. That’s when my doctor
said something that I did not find very comforting. He said even though the babies appeared to be
fine, he had about twelve other things he was worried about. He told us we would be spending much of our
day at the hospital and that with a twin pregnancy, we should get used to being
checked up on and making frequent hospital visits in the future. Needless to say, I didn’t really care for
this doctor. That’s probably the only
time I got a little nervous, because I really didn’t think that I had anything
to be worried about prior to his comment.
He continued
to examine me. He did a pelvic exam on
me, saw that the bleeding had stopped and that my cervix appeared to be long,
showing no signs of early delivery. He still,
however, wanted to monitor me for a little while to make sure that the bleeding
did not come back. He also said that he
may want to send me to the high risk specialist to do some testing, and he
wanted to go ahead and order our 20 week anomaly scan a week early to make sure
that there was nothing wrong with fetal development. After all of those comforting words, he left
and I didn’t see him again. I only saw a
nurse who occasionally came in and out to check on me.
At that
point, I realized that it was not going to be a normal day. It became obvious that Daddy was not going to
make it into the office by 8:00 a.m.
I sent him out to get us breakfast and to go back to the house to get
his laptop, so he could get some work done while we were spending our day
waiting at the hospital. The nice thing
about Daddy’s job is that he can work from home if necessary…..or from wherever
he needs to work as long as he has access to a computer. We didn’t have to wait at the hospital too
long though. By 8:45 , a nurse came in and told us everything
looked fine with me. The bleeding was probably
just common pregnancy bleeding. I was told to keep an eye on it, and if it
happened again to call the doctor.
We were
then sent to a fetal development facility clear across town for our anomaly scan. Apparently, it was one of the only places
that could work us in on such a late notice.
It was after 11:00 before my name was called and we could
begin the ultrasound. The anomaly ultrasound
is the typical twenty week ultrasound. It is the one where they check every
detail of fetal development. It took
them an hour to check both babies. After
such a long morning, we were truly blessed to have an excellent ultrasound tech
that had obviously been doing her job for a very long time. She talked us through every aspect of the ultrasound.
She told us exactly what we were looking at, what she was looking for and what
was considered to be normal fetal development.
She was very soft spoken, yet so encouraging as she continually told us that
our babies appeared to be beautiful and healthy.
The
ultrasound checked out fine and the two of you looked absolutely perfect. We were able to see very detailed images of the
two of you on the screen. It was the
perfect way to end a long morning. To me, your facial profiles appeared to
favor Daddy in this ultrasound, but only time will tell. I cannot wait to see what you look like when
you are born. You are also measuring the
same as singleton babies. This is good
for you, but it is going to make for one uncomfortable mama as this pregnancy
progresses. Often twins measure smaller,
but the two of you appear to be getting plenty of nutrients and it is literally
like having two regular 19 week babies growing inside of me. That might explain why I have been feeling so
heavy lately.
 |
| Baby B |
 |
| Baby A |
Baby A, you
had the hiccups during the ultrasound, and I found it to be so precious to see
how your facial expressions would change as the hiccups prolonged and were
obviously frustrating you. While both
babies were active, Baby B did not sit still at all, and the tech had a very
hard time getting pictures for us. Both
of you appeared to be thumb suckers.
This is obviously something you got from your father, as he was a thumb
sucker. Mommy and Daddy have already
determined this habit is not cute no matter how cute the two of you are. If you do come out of the womb sucking your
thumbs, it will for sure be something that we try to break you of right away.
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| Baby B Sucking his thumb |
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| Baby A sucking his thumb |
We were
also able to see the two of you on the screen together several times in this
particular ultrasound. This was the best
part for me. It appeared as though the
two of you would often mirror one another in the womb. Whatever movement Baby B would make, Baby A
would copy. Most often, we found that
you would simultaneously put your hand up by your cheek or your thumb in mouth. It was certainly precious to watch on the screen.
 |
| Baby A on the left with his left hand on his cheek. Baby B on the right with his right hand on his cheek |
After the
ultrasound, we were sent home. We got
home around 1:00 pm . I spent the remainder
of my day resting, and Daddy finished his day working from home. It was quite a day for us. I have no idea why our day started out the
way it did, but we were certainly thankful for the way it ended. It was just a reminder to us that so many
things could go wrong in this pregnancy, yet so far everything has gone just
fine. We are so very thankful that we have not had
any serious complications in this pregnancy.
I haven’t had any bleeding since that morning, and hopefully I won’t
have anymore anytime soon.
As I
reflect on that day, I recall having an overall peace that everything was going
to work out. I’m so thankful for that
peace. I don’t ever remember panicking
or freaking out, and I’m so glad that I remained calm. As for your father’s moment of panic first
thing in the morning…..well, in hind site, I find that to be precious. To me,
it just shows how much he cares about me and how much he already loves the two
of you. Some people say that moms become
moms when the pregnancy test turns positive, but dads don’t become dads until
they hold their babies in their arms for the first time. I have to say that in our case, that is just
simply not true. I can vividly recall when
we saw our first positive pregnancy test, and your dad was right by my side
crying tears of joy with me. He has gone
to every doctor’s appointment. He talks
to you and prays for you on a daily basis.
He constantly worries about the three of us, and I guarantee you that if
something awful would have happened to the two of you this week, your daddy
would be hurting just as much as me, the mama who carries you, because we both
became your parents the moment we saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test. I’m sure there will be no feeling quite like
the feeling we have when we get to hold you in our arms for the very first
time, but I assure you that from the moment we became aware of your existence,
we became your parents and you our children.
There was an instantaneous love for the life that we had created. There are no words to explain how much we
already love you and want to protect you with all of our being.
Love Mommy
