Our Story

OUR STORY:

    I guess I should start on my wedding day. I was married to a wonderful man, John, on September 3, 1993. We both knew we wanted to start a family right away. The first couple of months were very upsetting every time my *womanly cycle* came. Finally in November of that year it was late. We rushed right out to get an over the counter pregnancy test. As soon as I got home I took it. I was only a few days late, but we just couldn't wait to get the results. It was positive! We were so happy! Then the morning sickness hit. I was sooo sick, but I loved every minute of it. About six months into the pregnancy I started spotting. I was terrified! I went to the doctor right away. He assured me that everything was fine. I was so glad he put my mind at ease. Finally on August 11,1994 Alicia was born. She came into this world so quiet. She didn't cry like all those babies on television do. The doctor rushed her out of my room. She was gone for an hour with no word from the doctor. I was beginning to panic, when they finally brought her back in. She was going to be all right, at least that's what they said. Apparently she had inhaled some amniotic fluid into her lungs when she was born and they needed to make her cry so her body would absorb it, however, Alicia didn't want to cry. She was too interested in the new world she now saw around her. They had to give her immunizations before she would cry, even then, they said, she didn't cry long. She didn't eat as much as other babies either. I worried about that a bit, but the doctor said as long as she was growing and healthy it was nothing to be concerned about. When she was about 4 weeks old I rushed her to the local emergency room. For days she would hold her breath until she almost passed out. We would have to shake her in order to get her to breathe again. This scared me because I had always been told never to shake a baby because it could give them brain damage. I certainly didn't want that to happen, but what else could I do to get her breathing? At first the ER doctor told me it was in my head, but just to prove him wrong Alicia decided to do it to him. I don't think I've ever seen a doctor move as fast as he did after that. He called some medical company and ordered an apnea monitor for her. I was told they would be waiting at my house when I got here, and sure enough they were. We had just recently moved into our house and didn't have a phone yet, that made me nervous with the monitor and everything, but the phone was scheduled to be in on Thursday, only 5 days away. Thank goodness there were no delays on that order. On Friday, I put Alicia down for her nap. A short time later I heard her move, it sounded like she was about to wake up so I decided I would get her bottle ready I knew she would be hungry. I took 2 steps and heard the monitor go off which meant she wasn't breathing. I ran to her crib and found her a blue/grey color. I picked her up and immediately did CPR once I had her breathing again I called 911. She spent 4 long days in an intensive care step down unit at a hospital 3 hours away. Finally the doctors diagnosed her with Reflux Apnea, a relatively easy thing to treat. Basically the valve in her asophogus(sp?) hadn't quite matured and she was choking on her formula.

When Alicia was still a baby and still sick John and I found out I was pregnant. Only two weeks after finding out I started spotting, but it was worse that when I spotted with Alicia and this time there was cramping too. I went to the doctor, but it was too late. I had miscarried. The doctor said he thought it was due to the stresses we had been under while caring for Alicia.

Alicia slowly started to get better, however introducing new foods was a very slow process and she became a finicky eater. She still doesn't eat like most kids her age. It seemed all she wanted to eat were bland foods like potatoes, rice and bananas. I didn't think she would ever eat enough to gain any weight. She was almost a year old and still only weighed 12 pounds. she hadn't even doubled her weight from birth. I took her to the doctor all the time because she didn't seem to be gaining weight and she got sick so easily. She weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces at birth. She's 7 years old now and only weighs 36 pounds! The doctors say she's healthy now though. :) About a month before Alicia's first birthday I found out I was pregnant again. I was so scared and had soo many questions!

Would I be able to carry this baby? If I did deliver this baby would s/he be ok or would s/he be sick too? What did I need to do to make sure s/he was healthy?

I didn't think I could handle another sick baby. I tried not to think about what could happen and concentrated on planning Alicia's birthday party instead. My baby girl was finally healthy and she was turning one! I couldn't believe how the year seemed to have flown by. Her birthday was a big event. She had her very own cake. Oh what a joyful mess she made!! :) By the time she was done I think every square inch of her was covered in chocolate cake. I wouldn't trade a second of that! At first she didn't quite know what to do with the cake, but with grandma's help she soon learned just how big a mess you can make with food. Lucky for me she loves the water, and lucky for grandma the party was outside.
After Alicia's Birthday it really started to sink in that I was pregnant again. I was both happy and scared. I wanted another baby, but I didn't know if I could handle another sick baby. One thing was for sure, I would be watching this baby very close after s/he was born. In December of 1995 I went into premature labor. I was rushed to the hospital where they put me on Procardia to stop my labor. I was there for a few hours then they sent me home with the medications and strick orders for bed rest. I was soo scared. The baby wasn't due for three more months. I was afraid I would have another miscarriage. By now we had started buying things for this baby. The crib was all set back up and waiting, Alicia had been moved to a *big girl bed* and was starting to get used to it. Everything was ready except for the last minute supplies. We were waiting on those until we found out the sex of the baby. The Procardia seemed to work wonders, although I was still having minor contractions all the time, they didn't seem to be having an effect on my cervix. For now the baby was all right. Finally in March the doctors said it was ok to stop taking the medications. We were passed the danger point. I could delive any day and the baby should be perfectly healthy. I went in for an ultrasound though, just to be sure. I wanted to *know* that my babu was ok, after all I had basically been in labor for three months. The ultrasound came back clear, and for the first time we knew we were having another girl. We decided to name her Ashley. The doctors had said it could take up to two weeks for the medications to wear off and for the contractions to get stronger again. Two days after I stopped taking the medications my contractions stopped completely. I was floored! After three months of having them day and night, they were gone. I didn't even have a twitch. "This figures", I thought after three months of waiting for this day she wasn't going to come out willingly. It was almost as if she had decided if she couldn't come early, she wasn't coming at all. I should have known what I was in for with her then. About four days after stopping the medication my contractions came back, with a vengence. Ashley had changed her mind she would be born anyway, and she wanted to be born right then. I didn't think we would make it to the hospital in time. She was determined to fight her way out if she had to. The more I tried not to push the more determined she became. When we finally arrived at the hospital I thought for sure they would tell me I was dialated to 10, but they didn't! The doctor told me I was only dialated to 6. 6!! I told him there was no way I was only at 6, I felt like I needed to push. She wanted out! They told me no. No pushing. Not until I was at least a 9. I had three centimeters to go and according to the doctor about three hours to wait. He should have listened to me. Ashley was not about to wait three more hours to come into this world. She did, however, wait 45 minutes. I hit the call button for the nurse and told her to check me again immediately, she laughed and said there was no way I was ready to push yet, but that she would check. She checked me and was surprised to see that I *was* ready to push. I was at a 10. She paged for the doctor and went about bringing in the equipment they would need, all the while telling me to try not to push. My husbands says I looked at her like she was from another planet and quickly informed her that I would push and catch the baby on my own if I had to. That seemed to speed her up even more. :) The doctor arrived in my room with this look on his face that said ok why am I back in here so soon? The nurse informed him that I was ready to deliver. He said he couldn't believe it. I looked at him and said believe it, the baby is right here. He looked at me and sure enough Ashley was right there, He got into his scrubs and pulled on a pair of gloves just in time to catch her and cut her cord. She came out scraming at the world. There was nothing wrong with her lungs! She settled down pretty quickly. She sure was a delight that first night. I always knew when someone entered my room. Everytime a nurse, or anyone else would enter my room she would scream with all she had. She didn't want those doctors and nurses anywhere near her.
     She seemed to be a healthy baby for a time. She ate better than her sister ever did. She gained weight like any normal baby. Then the crying started. She would cry for hours and not stop. John and I would do everything we could think of, and still she cried. She seemed to cry nonstop all day and all night. The doctors told me it was colick and she would outgrow it in a couple of months. I tried to tell them I didn't think it was colick, the cries sounded like painful cries, and not the pain you get from gas like colicky babies, but what did I know I'm not a doctor. This went on for a year off and on, every time the doctors would say the same thing, it's just colick. Then on her first birthday she started running a fever. Her fever was so high we took her to the emergency room, where they discovered that she had a severe double ear infection. They gave me some antibiotics and sent us on our way. We battled with one ear infection after another for a year. By the time her second birthday came around I noticed she wasn't speaking as clearly as her sister did at that age. I demanded to be sent to a specialist. The specialist told us that she had so many ear infections that her hearing my be damaged permanently. He put tubes in her ears about a week later. That seemed to help, she didn't cry as much or get ear infections as often. They said that the tubes would be in her ears for about 18 months. Well, the first tube fell out after about 10 months. The doctor decided to see if her ears would be ok without them so we played the waiting game. She ended up going in to have the tubes put back in within the month. She ended up with yet another ear infection.
   She is now five and the tubes have been out for a little over a year. So far there are no signs of permanent hearing loss, though her speech is a little behind, she is catching up quickly.
     She's now like any other healthy, happy, 5 year old. She likes to run around and push her limits to test just how far she can go. She's more outgoing than her sister. When it comes to the rough and tumble play that's usually set aside for boys, you'll see her right in the middle of it, while Alicia waits on the sidelines. And when it comes to dresses, you have a fight on your hands trying to put them on her. She's definately a tomboy, but I wouldn't have her any other way. She's just now gotten to where she will let me cuddle with her. She never did like to be held much, not even as an infant.
    Shortly after her last visit with the specialist John and I found out that I was pregnant again. It seemed like perfect timing. The girls were getting older and I missed haveing a baby in the house. We were both over joyed. Now our family would be complete. Three children to play together and protect each other. It was picture perfect. Too picture perfect.
     When we found out that I was pregnant again we we excited and leary. I was very cautious. I had already had miscarriages and premature labor. Alicia and Ashley had both had major medical problems their first years of life. My pregnancy had been relatively uneventful. Except for looking like a beached whale at Christmas, everything seemed normal. I just seemed to be getting extremely large, really fast. At Christmas that year, according to the doctors, I was only around three months along, but I looked more like nine months. I had been sent to a high risk OB/GYN because of the preterm labor with Ashley and my miscarriages before and after her. In November he decided to listen for a heartbeat, he got this really weird look on his face and listened for a long time. He kept moving the stethescope around. He had me really scared. I thought, "oh no here we go, he can't find the heartbeat." I must have looked like I was ready to lose it because when he finally looked at me he could hear a heartbeat. I started to calm down until the next words he said started to sink in. His next words we, "In fact, I hear two heartbeats." I thought he meant mine and the babies, at first, until I looked at him and asked what he meant. That's when he told me I was having twins. I thought I would faint right there. Twins!!! Me??? How could that be? I'm a twin, and twins aren't supposed to have twins, their kids are! It's supposed to skip generations. Up until that time I never knew that both my grandfather and his brother were twins and my great-grandfather and his brother were twins. Seems twins in my family skip every other generation. I couldn't wait to tell John the news. On my way home I stopped and bought 2 balloons one pink, one blue, and I bought a card. On the inside of the card I wrote,

"How about a boy?
Or maybe a girl?
Why don't we comprimise and have one of each?"

Then I took the balloons and the card into his work and gave them to him. He read the card and kind of looked at me funny. Then he read the card out loud. The whole place went nuts. He was still confused, but almost everyone else got it's meaning. One of the other guys that he works with looked at him and said congrats on the twins. Then it finally hit him what the card meant. He was floored. I will never forget the look that came across his face. He was such a proud man that day. After all, it's not every man that can say he helped make twins.
     Things went pretty smoothly for a while, then just before Christmas I got really sick. I went to the doctor and found out that I had a bad case of pnuemonia. I was put on an antibiotic and told to rest for a few days. I was due to go on maternity leave the following week, so my boss told me if I turned in any kind of doctors notice I would be fired. I know now that what she did was illegal, but at the time I was just really sick and really confused. I didn't know what to do, so I worked. The next day I recieved a call from my doctor telling me to quit taking the medication he had given me because it could hurt the babies, he said he forgot I was pregnant. I don't understand how he could forget when I looked like I was carrying a small elephant. I was huge! It's not as if I had just found out the day before that I was pregnant and could still fit into ordinary clothes, I was in maternity clothes, and outgrowing them fast. He told me to call my OB/GYN and set up an appointment with him right away to check everything. I did and the OB set up an ultrasound for mid January. She couldn't get me in before that because of everyone aiming for the millenium baby. The doctor also said he didn't think the medication would do any harm because I had only taken a couple of doses. That helped ease my mind a little.
     I went on maternity leave and everything was fine. Then on January 2nd My back started to hurt. No big deal I thought, I must have just moved wrong. By that night it hurt pretty bad. I went to see a friend and she rubbed my back for me, but it didn't seem to help. I thought if I just went to sleep it would be better in the morning, and if it wasn't better I was going to go to the doctor. After a night of tossing and turning, I got up. My back was hurting worse than ever. I went to the bathroom and found that I had started spotting. Not much, but that mixed with the back pain scared me a little. I told my husband to go ahead and go to work. I went to the doctors office. I figured if I was standing there it would be harder for them to turn me away. I wanted an appointment right then not in a day or two. I got to the doctors office around 8. There were a few people in the waiting room, but not many. I talked to the receptionist and told her my symptoms. She left and went to tell the doctor what was going on. The doctor sent me downstairs to the emergency room, saying that he just couldn't squeeze me in, but that he wanted me looked at right away. I walked down there and they got me into a room and had me change into a gown.
     I got up on the table and waited for the doctor to come in. By then, the pain in my back was so intense I didn't think I could take it anymore. The doctor came in and started yelling orders to the nurses. He said I was in labor. Labor? I couldn't be in labor! It was too soon and I didn't have any labor pains. My labor with each of the girls had been in my stomach, so I didn't have a clue that the pain in my back was labor. Things really started to happen then. The doctor explained that it was too late to try to stop my labor, I was going to deliver. I kept thinking no!!!! Not now!!! It's too soon. I was only 17 weeks! He said there was almost no chance either of the babies would live as they were too small. I delivered Briana first. She wasn't breathing. I didn't want to deliver the other baby. I did everything I could to keep from delivering her. They placed Briana into one of those pink tubs, that they usually use for water. She was so small. I caught a glimps of her as they layed her in that thing. I didn't know that would be the last time I saw her or I would have looked harder and longer. All I remember saying was, "She's too big" I don't know why I was saying that, but I was. To me she seemed small, but big enough to survive. I guess I imagined she would be smaller than my hand or something. Next thing I know Emily was born. And she was breathing!! She was tiny, but she was alive. I heard them say, "This one has a heartbeat." The doctor looked shocked. They rushed Emily from my room to work on her. I was hysterical. I wanted Briana to be breathing too, and I wanted to be with Emily. After about half an hour they finally said I could see her, but first I had to sign some forms. They were going to try to stabalize her and life-flight her to another hospital. I signed the forms and the nurse took me across the hall to see her. Just after we got there her monitors started going off. It seemed there were alarms everywhere. Then the nurse made me leave. I begged to stay with her. I needed to know what was happening.
     They took me back to the room I had been in, and after a few minutes the doctor came in to tell me that Emily was gone. At first I thought he meant they had gotten her on the helicopter and she was on her way, but that's not what he meant. They had tried for 47 minutes to stabalize her, but she had other plans. I guess life without her sister was too much for her. The doctor then said something I will never forget. He asked me why I kept saying they were too big. I told him I didn't know why I kept saying that, they just looked bigger than I thought they would be. That's when he told me that he too suspected that I was further along than they had originally thought.
     At my six week check I was hoping for answers. There were none, yet. A couple of weeks after my checkup, I got a phone call to set up an appointment with the doctor. I made the appointment. When we got there the doctor told us that according to the autopsy Briana had a heart defect, he said that's probably what put me into labor, the worst part was that the defect could have been corrected in utero, had an ultrasound been done earlier. Emily had died because her lungs were not strong enough to support her tiny body, this too could have been helped had she been air lifted right away and they had not waited. Then the doctor told me the worst part of all, Emily and Briana were 24 weeks plus gestation, not 17 weeks. I was devestated. I was born at 24 weeks gestation and I am here, there was no reason the twins shouldn't be here too.
     We are now in the middle of a long legal battle with both the doctors and the hospital. I just hope that they learn from this and never put another mother through all the pain and suffering my husband and I have had to endure. It has been a year and a half since they left us and still not a day goes by that I don't think about them and long to hold them in my arms. Maybe one day I will hold them again, until then I will keep their memories alive in my heart.

                                                                                  ~Ginny and John~