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Ryan and Nadia - Our Children in Heaven By Abby We found out we were pregnant on March 4, 2001. We were in shock and just couldn’t believe it finally happened! We had been trying for over two years, were finishing our last month with Clomid and preparing ourselves for our first scheduled visit with the infertility specialist. We were finally going to join all of our friends and become parents (over 50 babies were born to family and friends within the last 2 years)!! We decided not to tell anybody until we had passed the 1st trimester and had seen the Dr. to make sure all was well. When we passed the 12-week mark, all was well, we began to spread the good news. Actually, I had the perfect pregnancy… no morning sickness, no weight gain, no complications, until… Friday June 22, we went up with my in-laws and friends of the family for the annual cabin/canoeing weekend (about 3 hrs from home). All was well, I was enjoying the special treatment and pampering. I was 20.5 weeks along and beginning to feel the baby move for the first time! Saturday afternoon we went to the beach. I went wading in the lake up to my waist. The water was very cool and the baby went nuts, kicking like crazy. That night after supper, I began to have some mild cramping. Thinking that they were Braxton-Hicks or that I had done too much that day I went to lie down. Several hours later (3:30 am), I awoke to use the bathroom. I noticed a lot of mucus and a faint pink smear. I ran to my pregnancy books… all said that cramping and some bleeding were normal. Just to calm my fears I called the Dr. He said that it was normal and that I should go lay down and call back if the cramping became painful or if I noticed an increase in blood flow. At 7 am I awoke to use the bathroom, there was a little more blood and I began to panic. I began to time my contractions, they were coming in clusters of three and completely painless. Each contraction was lasting 40 seconds to 1 minute and they were 4-5 minutes apart, the clusters were about 30 minutes to 45 minutes apart. I woke my husband up and told him that we were heading home NOW! I called the Dr. and informed him that I was headed to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 10:30 am. The bumpy car ride had brought the contractions every 2-4 minutes and they were about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes long. We were sent up to Labor & Deliver. They strapped the monitors on and verified that I was in active labor. The resident checked me and said that the membranes were bulging. They did an ultrasound and found that I was dilated to 7 cm and fully effaced. The bed was inverted into the Trendleberg and I was put on magnesium sulfate to stop the contractions. The contractions stopped and the plan was to wait to see if the membranes would slip back in. The Dr. scheduled a full ultrasound to verify that the baby was O.K. The said that all was well with the baby and then we heard the Oh-Oh. We both thought that it couldn’t get any worse… they found a second baby… there were twins! For a brief moment all was well, we were so excited!! My family had arrived just in time to hear the good news - two healthy babies! Now all we could do was wait and pray. The next morning they came in to do another ultrasound and see if anything had changed, but nothing had. The perinatologist came in and said that our only option was to try and push the membranes back and put in an emergency cerclage. He said that if we let nature take it’s course the chance of infection and/or the membranes rupturing were high. After several difficult minutes we decided that we had to try to save them. I was wheeled into surgery. After 45 painful minutes they finally got the spinal in, gave me something to relax and began trying to push the membranes back in. During the 2-hr procedure my husband watched our babies move about on the ultrasound. They removed amniotic fluid to try and reduce the size of the bulge, but it didn’t work. After 2-hrs the membranes ruptured. Their next plan was to deliver Baby A and try to save Baby B. As the decision was made to try it, everybody watched as both placentas pulled away from the uterine wall. The placentas had grown together, so we couldn’t save Baby B. Approximately 1 hour later I delivered my son, Ryan at 3:24 pm. He was so small, but so perfect. He looked exactly like my husband, head, mouth, nose, eyes, build, etc. At 4:03 pm I delivered my daughter, Nadia. She was also perfect and looked exactly like me, head, mouth, nose, jaw, build, etc. They were both so amazing, everything perfectly formed even their fingernails! Their resemblance to us was very weird and comforting. They both measured 9.5 inches and weighed 10 ounces. We spent several hours holding them, talking to them and telling them all of our hopes and dreams and how much we loved them. Our families also held them and said their hellos and good-byes. Our priest came and baptized them. We buried them together next to my grandfather’s grave. We visit them often, to read them stories, and to tell them how much they are loved and missed. The time since has been difficult, mourning when we should be planning and celebrating. Each day does get easier, but I sometimes catch myself thinking, “soon we’ll be able to pick them up from the hospital”, as if they are OK in the NICU. I know that there will be events in the months to come that will be difficult, they were due the day before my birthday and my best friend is due 2-days before I was. Although this has been very hard, I have seen God’s grace and love in all the support from friends and family and in feeling an incredible amount of love our children that we only knew for a very short period of time. We have faith that a cerclage will work with any future pregnancies and that we will have a success story to share in the future. |
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