Catching you up...

This is our story.  I hope it has a happy ending, but we have not been promised that.  We are desperately praying for a miracle and I'm asking for you to pray with us.  And that is why I have decided to share what's going on.  We need prayer warriors standing with us and praying through all of this.

I suppose I'll start from the beginning.  In January, we decided to try and have another baby.  In February, I found out I was pregnant and we were so excited!  We told family and close friends that we were expecting and began to make plans for a little October baby.  At 6 weeks pregnant, I went into the doctor to have an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy.  As soon as we saw the screen, I noticed two small circles, instead of one.  We were shocked when seconds later, our doctor confirmed we were expecting identical twins.  WHAT!?  Identical twins!!  I had never anticipated twins!  We couldn't stop laughing and crying and just shaking our heads in awe. We went home and told our family.  Everyone was surprised.  And our parents even asked if we had been on fertility meds.  Nope! This just happened.  Our two little blessings.

When you are expecting identical twins, there are a whole new set of risks that come with it.  Fraternal twins have two placentas and two amniotic sacs which is much healthier for the babies.  Identical twins share one placenta and sometimes an amniotic sac.  We were lucky in that our twins each had an amniotic sac but did share a placenta.  I suppose this is the reason I have been so quiet about being pregnant with identical twins.  Because I knew there were risks.  I am 17 weeks pregnant tomorrow and still have not made any kind of social media announcement.  But here it is.  We are expecting IDENTICAL TWIN GIRLS!

From weeks 6 to 16, I have had extreme nausea.  I've thrown up nearly everyday, sometimes twice a day despite being on two different anti-nausea medications.  I thought it was difficult, but looking back, I wish I could go back to just being sick everyday instead of what we are dealing with now.

All this time, I've had ultrasounds every week to two weeks, checking on the twins and their growth.  We have been seen frequently by both our regular ob doctor and a high risk ob with Texas Children's Hospital.  The babies have had perfect heartbeats at every appointment.  As they started to grow, I noticed that Baby A always seemed so active while Baby B seemed more subdued.  I simply thought it was a difference in their personalities.  At 12 weeks, they noticed a discrepancy in bladder sizes of the babies but it was not enough to be too concerned at that time.  They told us the babies looked like girls but it was too early to confirm.  At 14 weeks, they measured amniotic fluid and both babies had nearly the exact same amount which is perfect.  Again, they told us the babies looked like girls but did not want to confirm just yet.  I was so excited as I began to dream about 3 little girls!  How exciting!  I have loved having Avery and I just couldn't believe we got to have two more little baby girls.

During week 15, I noticed my belly grew a lot.  Like uncomfortably a lot.  It was hard to sleep and I seemed to grow out of clothes overnight.  Again, I just thought it was because I was pregnant with twins and I was going to be huge.  It concerned me but by the end of the week, I knew I had an ultrasound on Monday and I decided it could wait until then.

Monday morning, May 12, I went to my regular ob doctor and at first things seemed perfect.  It was confirmed they were precious baby girls.  And both babies had strong heartbeats.  I shared my concern about stomach growth and I was measuring big, but I am a shorter person pregnant with twins. So we didn't worry at first.  During the ultrasound, my doctor noticed that she could no longer find the dividing line between the two amniotic sacs.  I tried not to worry as we moved to a new room with a different machine to see if we could see anything differently.  Still, she could not find the two sacs.  She told me not to panic but I really needed to get into see the high risk OB immediately to see what could be wrong.  Avery was with me and so I began to call Brian and my parents to let them know something was wrong and that I needed help.  Avery spent the afternoon with sweet friends as Brian and my mom accompanied me to our afternoon appointment with a maternal fetal medicine specialist.  Again, during my 3rd ultrasound of the day, I noticed Baby A was quite active and Baby B just sat there.  It was scary.  After a long ultrasound the MFM specialist came in to tell us that he was seeing a diagnosis of Twin to Twin Transfusion syndrome.  And that it was quite severe at stage 3.  This means that Baby A was getting too much blood and creating lots of amniotic fluid, which was the reason for my big stomach.  Baby B wasn't receiving enough blood and had almost no amniotic fluid.  The amniotic sac was pressed up against her little body like saran wrap.  We were at risk of soon losing Baby B and shortly after that, losing Baby A.  At that point, my body seemed to go into shock and I only heard bits and pieces afterwards.  The MFM specialist made an appointment for us on Wednesday, May 14 at Texas Children's Hospital in the med center to discuss our options.  I do remember the MFM specialist telling us we needed to be prepared that we might not hear any heartbeats at that time.  We needed to be prepared for the loss.

We cried from that moment until Wednesday.  We were on our knees praying for the lives of our little girls.  I could not understand how we could be so blessed with TWO little girls and then for that to be taken away.  It's something I'm still having trouble processing.  We made arrangements with my in-laws for them to come down and stay with Avery so my parents could be at the hospital with us.

On Wednesday, after ultrasounds and fetal echocardiograms, we learned that the babies still had beautiful heartbeats.  I was so relieved to move onto the discussion of keeping them alive instead of preparing for delivery and burial.  We then sat down and had an "options" meeting with a fetal surgeon.  Baby A was in early heart failure from having to process too much blood through her little heart.  Baby B did not show a bladder which meant she wasn't getting any blood at all and her heart was in distress as well.  Our options were grim.  Option 1 included doing nothing in which the babies had an 80-90% chance of death.  Option 2 included doing a laser ablation surgery to cut the connections between the babies to hopefully even blood flow, letting the babies hopefully retain equal amounts of amniotic fluid and letting their hearts heal.  It's a rather risky surgery and as I was only 16 weeks, it was going to be quite difficult.  They usually like to do this surgery around 18-20 weeks.  This surgery still came with scary percentages of fetal demise.  Option 3 included selective reduction, meaning abortion of Baby B in hopes that Baby A would survive.  Option 4 included we had a legal right to terminate the entire pregnancy because of the grim prospect of the babies survival.  We immediately felt that Option 2 was the only option in our eyes.  This laser surgery is only done at 5 or 6 hospitals in the United States.  We were extremely lucky that we were in the right place for this to even be an option for us.  We were informed that many times, babies do not even make it through the surgery.  And preterm labor and severe bleeding and loss is a major risk and concern.  But in our minds, we still had to try the surgery.  It was our only hope for our baby girls.  We made the decision for surgery around 5:30 pm and after signing much scary paperwork, I was rolling into the operating room at 9:00 that Wednesday night.

During surgery, I was awake but sedated.  I could hear everything going on.  It was a more difficult surgery than the fetal surgeon expected and continued for two hours.  The doctors inserted a laser into my uterus, located the blood vessels between the babies and used the laser to burn them closed.  They also drained a lot of amniotic fluid from Baby A's sac.  I was relieved when I heard they were going to start closing up.  The babies still had heartbeats as they finished the surgery.  As I was wheeled into recovery, it was discovered I was having a lot of contractions.  A lot.  I was given a shot Terbutaline to stop contractions.  Five minutes later, I was still having contractions two minutes apart.  I was given another shot of Terbutaline.  Five minutes after that, the recovery nurse explained that 6 contractions an hour was okay, but contractions every two minutes was not okay.  I was then given a massive dose of Magnesium Sulfate which did slow the contractions.  We were relieved and hoped we had stopped preterm labor.  I was put on an IV drip of the magnesium which immediately began having severe effects on my body.  Extreme flushing, heat flashes and vomiting.  But it did slow the contractions and stopped any labor progress.

They checked for heartbeats about every 6 hours from then on and thank the Lord, we had heartbeats.  We knew we had needed a miracle for the babies to make it through the surgery and so far, we had it.  By Thursday afternoon, the contractions had almost stopped and my body was making it apparent that it had had enough of the magnesium.  I began to have severe chest pains and limited breathing.  They decided to x-ray my chest to check for blood clots, as I have a history of those.  It was determined there were no blood clots and that my body was having a toxic reaction to the magnesium.  I'm so very glad the magnesium was available to stop my labor but I was so relieved to be removed from the mag IV.  It was very hard on my body, but again, I was going to do anything I could to save my babies.  Friday morning, we had an ultrasound and fetal echocardiogram to check on the babies progress.  Amazingly, we have already seen improvement in both babies' conditions.  Baby B showed a slight bladder which means she already was getting more blood flow.  She still has the amniotic sac pressed against her, and we hope to see more amniotic fluid for her in the coming week.  Baby A showed a slight improvement in heart function, which is incredible because it can be weeks before any improved heart function can be seen.  Just miracles, y'all.

I was able to go home on Friday afternoon and I have been on bed rest and will be for some time.  Next week, we will go in for more ultrasounds to check for progress.  We still have a very long road ahead for us.  Our families are stepping in to take care of Avery.  Friends are going to be delivering meals for us.  And we will continue to pray for growth and healing in our baby girls.  There are still so many risks we are facing.  But we started the week thinking we needed to prepare for a burial service and ended the week with some hope that our baby girls will survive.  What we are praying for now is that not only will they continue to have beautiful heartbeats but that their bodies will be healed, damage will be reversed and that they will not only be born alive, but healthy.

I cannot say enough great things about our doctors and nurses at Texas Children's Hospital.  Our fetal surgeon was amazing.  He was intelligent and skilled with a wonderful bed manner.  He explained things to us so well and post surgery, checked on me every few hours.  I had never heard of a doctor taking such an interest in a case and caring for us the way he did.  I know God placed this doctor in our lives this week.  This doctor was an answer to prayer.

Friends, please join us in praying for the lives of our girls.  I feel strongly that God has a beautiful plan for my twins.  He is not finished working here yet.  I am choosing to trust in Him and give my grief and pain over to Him.  That's not to say I haven't fallen apart many times this week.  And I still expect to in the future.  But I have seen miraculous things done this week and I believe now more than ever that we are in God's hands.  He's going to bring us through this.

Thank you to family and friends for your support this week.  Brian, Avery and I truly appreciate it.