This day, last year, is the day that forever changed our lives. I was 22 weeks pregnant with twins, feeling great, loving life and ready for the new adventure we were headed for. This post may be too much information, but oh well, read at your own risk.
I have always known I wanted kids, I have always been around kids and I love everything about them. Neil on the other hand had not been around many kids and didn't really care whether I would get pregnant right away or not. For the longest time, we never prevented getting pregnant, but weren't really "trying." We had been married for 4 years when I finally decided I was just going to go and see what was wrong, why I wasn't getting pregnant and just drag Neil along on the journey. We did numerous blood tests and ultrasounds and my diagnosis was Poly cystic Ovarian Syndrome, or PCOS. It pretty much comes down to, I don't ovulate every month.
The doctor put me on Clomid to make me ovulate and I was on that for 6 months, doing 2 intrauterine inseminations. The clomid made me feel awful and if a person is not pregnant on it after 6 rounds, chances are it's not going to work. It did make me ovulate, but had other side effects that can hinder getting pregnant. He then put me on Femera and we did one IUI on it with a negative pregnancy test.
Since IUI's are very expensive and only have a 20% success rate,
we I started looking into In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Neil was not very keen on the idea as it is VERY expensive and requires a 2 week trip to Seattle. I finally got him talked into it and in December 2008, we went to Seattle and did our first round. It required a ton of injections, ultrasounds, blood work, one surgery and finally the embryo transfer. We transfered 2 embryos and had none left to freeze.
On December 26, we went to Miles City and got a positive pregnancy test. We were so excited. On January 12, 2009, when I was 6 weeks along, I had a miscarriage, that was chalked up to bad luck, or possibly a uterine polyp that I had to have removed in March 2009. It was devastating because IFV is so expensive and a huge commitment and I couldn't just get pregnant again.
I got Neil talked into going to Seattle again in May for round 2 of IVF. On May 27, we got another positive pregnancy test. We were cautiously excited this time as we still didn't know for sure why I had miscarried my first pregnancy. When I was around 6 weeks pregnant, I had another miscarriage scare, but Neil and I went to Dickinson and the doctor did an ultrasound and said everything was fine.
There was another scare that we encountered that day though. There were 2 fetuses, but the amniotic sac of baby a was half the size that it needed to be. Baby b looked fine, but baby a might not be there next time we go for an ultrasound. It's called Vanishing Twin Syndrome.
In July, we went to Bowman for my first Ob appointment and ultrasound and were very nervous to see the results of the ultrasound. Would there be one or two babies? We were very excited to find out that there were two healthy, same size fetuses and everything looked great.
From then on out, things were great, all my appointments were good, the babies were both growing like they should be, I had bad morning sickness, all day, but I liked it because I knew that the pregnancy was going good when I didn't feel good.
On Monday, September 28, I went into the doctor in Baker because I wasn't feeling good, I was hoping it wasn't Strep throat. The doctor said he thought I burnt my throat from the heartburn I had the night before. I went home and laid down on the couch because I was sore from getting in and out of my work pickup all day. Neil came home and was working in the garage while I was resting. He came in and I rolled over and felt something wasn't right.
I was leaking some fluid and I wasn't sure what it was. I called the nurses in Dickinson and they had me go to the ER and pee on some litmus paper to see if it was amniotic fluid. They said if it was above 10 it was amniotic fluid. Baker's ER's paper only went to 7, but the paper turned dark purple. I told the nurse in Dickinson that and she said I needed to get to Dickinson as soon as possible.
Neil drove as fast as his pickup would go, I think we made it there in just over an hour, it's 115 miles. They checked me in at the front desk and when I got up to the labor and delivery floor, I was leaking fluid like crazy. My doctor did an ultrasound and 4 pokes and digging around later from the nurses, they got an iv started. In the ultrasound, both babies were still alive and doing fine, but baby a's amniotic sac had ruptured, likely from an infection. My doctor told us that this was not good at all. I was only 22 weeks pregnant and there was no way the babies could survive outside of me yet . 24 weeks is the earliest babies are considered viable outside the womb and even that early, the percentage of survival is very low and if they would survive, the percentage of major birth defects is very high.
I was sent on to Med Center One in Bismarck by ambulance where I spent the next 10 days in the hospital. I was on some very strong antibiotics to try and kill the Staph infection I somehow got. I got to Bismarck at 3 am and by time they got me all checked out, the babies checked out and were done messing with me it was about 5 am. The doctors came in at 7am again to check on me. They were checking the babies heartbeats every 3 hours, I had to get antibiotics every 6 hours, they would put one on, then a half hour later come in and put another one on.
The neonatologist came in and talked to us about how serious it was with the babies and if I delivered, what our options would be. He was amazing, he answered questions we couldn't have even thought about asking. I was told I couldn't eat any chicken, steak, or anything that that takes a while to digest because my doctor was sure that they were going to have to do a c-section on me at any time. Neil stayed with me through the first week until the doctor finally decided that maybe I was going to keep those babies in for a while.
On Wednesday, Sep 30, the doctor told me that if my white blood cell count went up anymore that they were going to have to take the babies because I was getting septic. My nurse came in, not knowing that the doctor had told us that and said that my count went up. Neil and I lost it, we thought that was the end of the pregnancy and we were going to go home without any babies as I wasn't far enough along that they could make it yet. We weren't going to call our family until we heard from the doctor but my sister called, who was with her husband who had been in Iraq, but escorted some Iraqi generals to Texas for a week, and could tell that something was wrong. I told her what was going on and of course, she called my parents right away. I told Neil he might as well call his parents before they heard from someone else and both our parents and Neil's sister were on their way to Bismarck. Turns out, my count only went up 1 point and the doctor was going to give me a couple more days to see if I could get the count to start going down. It's very scary to me now that I was that sick, almost septic, and did not feel sick at all.
Thursday, I got up and went to the bathroom - this may be too much info- but I was going to the bathroom and I know I felt Baby a's head coming out. My mom was the only one in the room at the time and she called the nurse in, they came in, checked everything out and told me it wasn't a head, but I know what I felt. The doctor that came in told me not to get out of bed even to go to the bathroom so I stayed in bed until my doctor came in the next day and he told me to get the hell out of bed. He said that was the only sense of normalcy I had was the little bit I got to get out of bed and that it wasn't going to change the outcome of anything.
I was getting up to go to the bathroom again, but didn't feel like I could really go. That evening, I got up, went to the bathroom and went and laid down in bed again. Something didn't feel right, I was in a lot of pain and the pain is very hard to describe. I called the nurse in and she told me to try going to the bathroom again because I told her it felt like I had to pee really bad. I went in and couldn't get anything to come out. I laid down again and the pain was almost unbearable. She called the doctor and he told her to get the bladder scanner to see if my bladder was full or not. They scanned and couldn't really get the thing to work, it showed that I had over a liter of fluid in my bladder. They said that couldn't be right and had another nurse come in and give it a try. She couldn't get it to work either so they called the doctor again and he said to put a catheter in. If less than a cup of urine came out, to take it out, but if there was more they could leave it in.
Well, WAY more than a cup came out, I filled the bag twice and the scanner was right! The instant the catheter was in, I felt relief. They weren't sure why I couldn't go, but I think Kirsten's head was in the wrong spot and was pressing on something it shouldn't have been. The reason the pain got so bad so fast was because I still had IV's in so they were pumping fluid into me and I was drinking a ton of water.
That Sunday, Dr. Danielson told Neil that he could go home if he wanted. Neil had asked on Friday as we had planned a 30th anniversary party for his parents. The doctor told him no, that he was still planning on delivering the babies any time and Baker was just too far away for Neil to be. It was very exciting to hear that because the doctor didn't ever say anything positive when I was in there, he was sure the babies were coming.
It was hard being there alone, but I had so many visitors, calls, got cards and tons of flowers. It was looking like I was going to be in for a long time. They set up for physical therapy to come in and give me exercises to do to help keep some strength. I got to start wearing my own clothes and take a shower, it's the little things in life right?
Things were starting to look up, there was nothing they could do about the ruptured membranes, but I was told that sometimes they will seal themselves back up, but the baby could stay alive for a long time with the little bit of amniotic fluid that I would keep making. That's what we were hoping and praying for.
To be continued.........
