Something's Wrong

November 18, 2014

**Warning -- this post is fairly graphic. Do not read if you have a sensitive stomach or are uncomfortable with medical details**

Friday was a normal day. The kids and I had a playdate in the morning, a short rest time, saw puppies in the afternoon, then Daddy came home. Friday night, however, did not start normally. We were cleaning up dinner and I ran into the bathroom. I was bleeding...more than before and brighter. We called my dr, gave him some details, and at that time, he reassured me that it was probably the start of my regular period. He also told me that if I started to feel dizzy or went through a pad in an hour to (go in or call....I can't remember what he said.) I felt better about that. We decided to have family movie night, and I put my feet up and snuggled with my girls. Later we put the kids to bed and started watching some DVRed TV. Things still felt normal, and I wasn't bleeding that much. I was feeling much more confidant that it was the start of my regular period.

Around 10:30, we started saying that we should go to bed, but 10 Things I Hate About You was on TV, and we got sucked in to watching it. I just wanted to see my favorite part (bc honestly, who doesn't want to see Heath Ledger serenade someone! So sweet!!) (This is where it starts to get graphic) I was laughing at the movie, and I started to feel more blood flow. After about 15 minutes, I ran upstairs to check. I had definitely bled through my pad. I went to the bathroom and blood wouldn't stop flowing. I yelled for my husband. There were clots and the toilet bowl had turned completely red. I knew something wasn't right. I thought "Maybe if I just go to bed, it will stop." I changed my pad, stood up, and bled through another pad in 5 minutes. I resigned myself to sitting on the toilet, crying. My husband knew it was bad and started to call people to come and sit with our kids so we could go to the ER.

He called our Dr friend from church first, he didn't answer; he called my brother, he didn't answer; he called my sister-in-law, she didn't answer; he called our friend J. from church, my brother was with him, but they were 45 minutes away. We called our friend S, and she was there within 5 minutes. We went to Methodist West. My husband dropped me off at the door and I went to check in. While checking in, I felt another rush of blood. I told the lady at the desk, I need to use your restroom immediately. My husband was walking in at the time, and she asked my permission to ask him any questions. While he was answering questions, I texted him saying, "I can't leave the toilet." Again, the blood would not stop flowing. They were prepping a room and would get me straight from the bathroom. I also texted him that I wanted my dr, knowing that wasn't likely. I would just have the ER dr that was available.

They got me into a room and told me to strip down and put on just a gown. I protested that I didn't feel comfortable with that, and i was given an adult sized diaper to lay on. Bless my nurse for giving me that! The dr came in, asked questions for a little bit, and looked relived when I told him that I had talked to my dr earlier. The dr decided to call my dr to come check on me and do any procedures necessary. He left, and a female nurse came in the room. She took my vitals and had me stand up to do a __________(special kind of) blood pressure. I remember thinking that wasn't a good idea. I stood up, holding my diaper, but after about 20 seconds, I looked at my husband, and at the nurse and told them, "I'm going to pass out." I don't remember what happened during that time. The next thing I remember is the male nurse saying, "Mindy! Good, you're back with us!" Then I heard more commotion and the words, "She's 60/40." I was with it enough then to think, "That's not good!!" They were starting an IV...it hurt, and I complained about it. They went to put in another IV and I protested!! The male nurse told me, "I know you don't want it, but if I don't give it to you, your vital organs will shut down." I shut up after that and let them do whatever they needed to do. Later I found out my blood pressure had dropped to 40/20. They had laid me down and my husband said my feet were gray and clammy bc they lowered the head of my bed to get blood flowing back to my heart and head.

My doctor came a little bit later. He arrived before midnight. I remember looking at the clock and remember asking him if we had woken him up. (We had.) Looking back, I know we left our house at 11, and he arrived before midnight, but that was the longest hour of my life. My dr immediately went to work. I have never heard him bark orders like he was doing at the nurses. "Gauze, more gauze NOW!" and "Get her something for the pain!" He was squeezing, pressing, and "massaging" my stomach/uterus, and it HURT!! My husband said he had blood up to his elbows and was all business.

I ended up having another D&C and they had 2 bags of blood in the OR ready for a blood transfusion if necessary. Thankfully it wasn't. They wheeled me to the OR, and bc of the pain meds, I threw up (all over!!) on the way there! Seriously, God bless the nurses!! They were so sweet and reassuring.

When I woke up, I heard the nurses talking. One had lost her phone....while I was throwing up. She was going to go look in the sanitation bin (disgusting!) By then, I was with it enough to remember her phone dropping. My dr had picked it up. They called him, and he had just gotten home and realized he had the phone! (Sigh). He came back to the hospital, returned the phone, checked on me, and said he would come back in the morning.

I was admitted to a hospital room, and I was so thankful to see a bed. I told my sweet husband to go home, get some sleep, see our kids in the morning and come back and see me.

When I woke up at 6, I called for a nurse to take me to the bathroom. When I went to leave, I couldn't...even with her help. I was too dizzy and nauseaus. Thankfully, there wasn't blood! I ended up on the toilet....fully exposed, head between my knees in the trash can...for about 15-20 minutes until I finally had enough strength to get back to my bed (with my nurse's help.) They checked my blood pressure - 80/50...so while pretty good, that explained the dizziness on the toilet. :)

Thankfully, I slept a little more, my sweet, sleep deprived husband came back, had some breakfast, and my BP started climbing back up to a more normal state. After a few more naps, some lunch, and another nap, we went home. It was time to face "normal" life again. I feel like I have a second chance at the rest of my life....but for now, I'm exhausted....physically and emotionally exhausted.

Wants

November 1, 2014

I love singing! It's one of my favorite, I could do it all day, activities! I love praise and worship time in church and last Sunday was no different, but last Sunday, we sang a song that really hit me. I was angry, I was bitter. One line of the song...Jesus, Jesus...we want nothing more. We want nothing less. I couldn't sing it. I wanted more. I wanted my babies. They were gone, but I wanted them.

It also leads me to this dilemma...I do want more. If everything was taken away from me, I would have my Jesus, and I love Him, but I want more in my life.
I want my husband.
I want my kids.
I want my family.
I want great friends.
I want a successful business.
I want to provide fun opportunities for my family.

Is this a bad thing? I don't think it's bad to want those things, but should I be wanting them? Shouldn't I only be wanting Jesus? It's a thought that kept me up last night. I think God wants us to want the best in our life, but where is the line between wanting more and wanting only Jesus?

It's finished

November 1st, 2014

The D&C was yesterday. The procedure was so much easier than I anticipated, and in the morning, I felt great! I even told my DH we should go out to dinner! By the afternoon though, I was pretty worn out, exhausted, and looked gray (according to my sweet husband). I don't think I've napped and watched as much TV as I did yesterday for at least 4 1/2 years! :)
I came out of the surgery and immediately started crying when I woke up. It was finished. My babies were no longer with me. I cried because it was over, but I'm also grateful that we are wrapping up this process. I'll never forget hearing their heartbeats, I'll always remember their pictures, but they're my angel babies now...and at least they have each other. <3

Back to "Normal"

October 20, 2014

Hubby is back at work today, my parents are back home, 3 1/2 hours away, and life is getting back to "normal." I'm no longer feeling as nauseated, but that's just another reminder that these 2 babies are no longer living little people. "Normal" is harder than I thought it would be...I don't want to go back to the shock of Thursday, but moving on is tough.

Surgery Scheduled

October 27, 2014

My D&C is scheduled, and it's even more heartbreaking than I thought it would be. I just scheduled a surgery to get rid of my babies. I know they're not with us anymore, but now I'm getting rid of them. It's the worst feeling. I'll have an ultrasound the day before the surgery to confirm everything. I know they're gone....I don't feel pregnant anymore...but I'll always regret it if we don't check one more time. As Bubby keeps saying, "Jesus can bring the babies back." I believe He can...I don't think he will...but I do believe he could, so we're going to double check. Now the countdown begins...4 more nights. Time for trying to be "normal" for my kids...to go trick or treating...to put on a happy face for the people who don't know this is one of the hardest points of my life...

Ultrasound Day!

October 16, 2014
Thursday…..the day I had been waiting for eagerly, anxiously, expectantly for 2 weeks. Our ultrasound to discover if our identical twins were mono-mono or mono-di was finally here! We had been praying constantly for mono-di twins, and had been praying with the kids for healthy babies. They were running late at the clinic, which is not normal for them, but when we finally got in to the room, we were with (one of our) favorite nurse. She started the ultrasound, and we could immediately by her expression that something was wrong…and then she turned the screen. She told us she was going to go get the dr, and then told us that she wasn’t finding heartbeats…on either of the babies. The dr came in, they did the ultrasound again, and he confirmed her findings. Neither of our babies hearts were beating. Both babies were measuring on schedule… 8 1/2 weeks, but neither one of them had a beating heart.

I am believing that it was a God thing that our clinic was running late that day. I think that the babies hearts stopped beating while we were waiting. If we hadn’t had to wait, we may have witnessed their hearts stop beating and not been able to do anything about it, or we may have seen 2 perfectly healthy little babies and found out at the next appointment. 

Telling our kids that the babies weren’t going to be born was so hard…for us. The kids took it really well…asking a million questions, “Why are you sad? The babies are in heaven with Jesus. We’ll see them again.” <3 and “Why did the babies die?” and “Jesus can bring both babies back to us.” <3 My little sweet tender hearted kids have a better understanding of this than most adults, including me. I don’t think Jesus WILL bring both babies back to us (right now), but YES, he can!

Now…we just wait, and I think that might be worse than hearing the news. Still thinking that maybe, just maybe, the babies are okay….and then thinking that every pain could be the start of physically losing them… I’m still wanting to wake up and realize this whole thing is a dream.

Frozen Transfer

I started taking medicine Easter Sunday…it made me a CRAZY person. I was on estrogen patches that were adding extra hormones to my body. I was a crabby mom, a crabby wife, and really unsure of what I was doing. We went to the dr to check on everything, and my uterine lining was not thick enough! We had to wait another week….and then another week….and then another week - my lining wasn’t thick enough to transfer embryos. We changed medicine plans and tried again….it still wasn’t thick enough. We then attempted a crazy combination of medicine (including Viagra…for me!) and THREE estrogen patches! It was a crazy, emotional time. From Easter (April) until August, I was on multiple hormones and dealing with the stress of adding more to our family and trying to hold it together as a mom to our kids. I told husband that if this time didn’t work, I needed a break. 

We went in for a lining check and it was (JUST BARELY) thick enough! I asked my dr if we could transfer all 3 of the remaining embryos bc I didn’t want to do this again. His response was “if anyone would end up with triplets it would be you. I would trust you to raise them, but I don’t want the complicated pregnancy for you.” I agreed, but still wanted to just be done.

We went in for the transfer and found out 2 embryos were thawed - one looked really healthy and the other one looked just okay. My Dr was fairly certain that only one would take. All 3 of us (DH, Dr., and I) were all okay with that. I had my set of twins, and I was PERFECTLY happy with ONE baby at a time! :) I was a little irritated that we couldn’t just transfer the 3rd embryo so that I could be done, but it was too late. There wasn’t time to thaw the 3rd one.

My Plan for Babies

October 2, 2014
Every little girl plans out her life exactly as she thinks it should go, and I was no different. I wanted to be a mom. I didn’t know what exactly what else, but I knew I wanted to be a mom. Married by 23, start having babies by 25, and raising my kids by 30. That was MY plan…it sounded practically perfect.

I met my husband in college (go Cyclones). I was 20, he was 18 (ALMOST 19). We started dating and we immediately knew this was it. We were married when I was 23 (he was 22), so far, my plan was working. :) We talked about kids before we got married (he wanted 2 and I wanted 4-5 (3 of “My own” and then adopt 2 later), and I was willing to compromise my plans a little. He wanted to go to law school, and didn’t want to have kids during law school. I was willing to wait to have babies—-I really wanted to stay home with my kids, and that wasn’t an option while he was in law school. I had my “dream” job, teaching preschool special education. It was wonderful, and I felt like all of my students were “my” kids.

After DH finished law school, we bought our first home, and decided it was time to start trying to have a baby. It was great! I was finally going to be a mom! Months passed and I still wasn’t pregnant. I started questioning if this was going to work for us. After about 6 months, I went to an OBGYN and shared my heartache. He was unsympathetic and told me that it hadn’t been very long and to not worry about it. I KNEW there was a problem though. 

I would check Facebook and see tons of my friends sharing their exciting pregnancy news —I would end up screaming and crying at Facebook, jealous of their happiness. I would hear student’s parents share their news about being newly pregnant, and I would judge their parenting ability and question God—-WHY THEM  and not ME?? Other teachers would announce pregnancies, and I would put on my happy face, tell them congratulations, and go home and cry! I spent Sunday afternoons, curling up in my bed, crying, questioning God, and wondering WHY I still wasn’t pregnant. All I wanted was to be a mom, and it wasn’t happening for us!

A little over a year after we started trying, my husband convinced me that we should go to a Fertility Clinic. I resisted….i didn’t want to hear for sure that there was a problem….I didn’t want to hear their solutions….I just wanted God to fix it EASILY! After some convincing, I agreed. Our appointment was on St. Patrick’s Day. We parked, said a prayer and walked into the clinic. I sat down…right across from one of my MK customers. Ugh. That was awkward! You’re not supposed to run into people you KNOW at a FERTILITY clinic!!! We met with the Dr. - he was wonderful! He explained EVERYTHING in basic terms and started testing THAT day! That was overwhelming! In a little over a week, we had our results. We did have fertility issues….and with the issues that were found, our solution was to do IVF. We cried, I begged, I pleaded, and I prayed…harder than I had ever prayed before! I didn’t want to conceive our children using NEEDLES!! I was deathly afraid of needles!! I couldn’t do this….but I did.

We went through one round of IVF, and thanks to God (bc I told God, my husband, and my mom that if this didn’t work, I COULDN’T emotionally, physically, or mentally go through another round), I was pregnant! AND we had 3 extra embryos for possible future siblings!! My numbers were high enough our Dr. told us “There could be a pair in there.” Our 7 week ultrasound showed we were pregnant with fraternal twins!! We were thrilled. Before IVF, I had never wanted twins…I wanted to raise my babies one at a time, but after putting 2 embryos in, I wanted 2 babies!!! Our 9 week ultrasound also showed us 2 healthy babies! We had a “healthy” twin pregnancy…some restricted activity from 21 weeks on (i.e. rolling around my classroom in an office chair) and put on home bed rest at 32 weeks, but our girls were born at 36 weeks and 2 days. After a SHORT (18 hour) NICU visit, they came home with us! They were the reward for all of the pain, and they were my joy! The sleepless nights were tough, trying to convince them to get on the same schedule was tough, but I LOVED being a mom!!!

When the girls were 13 months old, I stopped nursing….all 3 of us were ready, and it was wonderful to be done. The next month, I felt like I was pregnant. My husband kept insisting, “It’s not possible.” After a pregnancy test AND an appointment with my family dr…where I insisted she take my blood to PROVE that I was pregnant (she refused and told me it was for sure), we believed that we were really pregnant. We had already made an appointment to talk to our fertility Dr. about transferring other embryos…and we kept our appointment so we could tell him our news! He was thrilled…and he did take my blood and do an ultrasound to confirm! Our surprise miracle baby was healthy! At 35 weeks, he decided he was ready to be born and broke my water. It was a complete shock to have our singleton born earlier than our twins, but he was fairly healthy. After a weeklong NICU stay, due to some breathing issues, our miracle baby was ready to come home with us.

When my miracle baby was 2 1/2, my husband and I decided it was time to try our other embryos. Truthfully, I wasn’t completely ready. My MK business was doing well, and I wasn’t ready to put my life on hold to have more babies…but I knew there wasn’t a “perfect” time. Neither DH nor I were willing to destroy the embryos and neither one of us could donate them. I am in awe of people that can donate their embryos…it’s a generous and selfless decision, but we could not do it. So, after some convincing, we decided that there would never be a “right” time to add to the craziness of our family, so we should start.

After a long frozen transfer process, I went in for my pregnancy blood test, the nurse called to tell us we were pregnant! We asked her if she could tell from the numbers if it was one or two. She said our numbers were right in the middle, so it could go either way. Although it wasn’t as exciting as 4 1/2 years ago, we were still thrilled and excited! As much as I wasn’t sure if I wanted to start all over, I was already protective of this little baby. One night, while we were putting our kids to bed, one of my kids sat on my stomach…pretty hard! I didn’t think too much about it, but I woke up in the middle of the night and the next morning I was having some cramping. I was sure I had lost the baby, and I was devastated! I called the dr, and they said I could come in right away (but I didn’t have a place for my 3 other kids to go), or I could get in the next morning. I hadn’t had any spotting or bleeding, so I waited until the next day. Thursday morning, I went in…feeling much more confidant but just needing to know for sure if my baby was okay. I saw my Dr. from the waiting room and he looked at me and crossed his fingers. We were called back for our ultrasound with a nurse. We heard the beautiful sound of a baby heartbeat. It was strong and healthy. Our baby was okay! :) After that relief, we needed to confirm, “There’s just one in there, right?” She continued to do the scan…showing us empty space, and saying, “Yep it looks like there’s just….” she stopped when she scanned back the other way… “Oh wait, there’s another one hiding in the same sac.” Only one of our embryos had taken, but it had split!!!! WHAT?!?! We were pregnant with IDENTICAL twins!! This was clearly a God thing! We were excited, scared, overwhelmed…..were they both going to be okay? Were they mono-mono twins—DH's step sister had JUST lost one of their mono-mono twins! Our dr came in, and he didn’t have many answers for us yet. He congratulated us, and in his usual cautious optimism, told us not to tell too many people because it was still early. We would have an appointment in 2 weeks and find out more info about our new twins.

As of now, we have 3 pregnancies that have been totally different - none of my children came how I would have planned….but God has plans that have and continue to exceed my own. 6 years ago, I was worried I would never be a mom…now my concerns are how to have enough time/money/energy for all of our children. It’s a problem I didn’t dream I would have, but I’m thrilled to be blessed with more than I know what to do with.