The Pregnancy Test We found out that I was pregnant with our first child on December 31, 2000. We were so excited. At first we weren't going to tell anyone, but we couldn't contain ourselves and told anyone that would listen. When I went for my second appointment, the doctor was unable to hear the heartbeat, but thought that it might be too early in the pregnancy. A few days later, on Sunday, February 4, I started having problems. The doctor sent me for an ultrasound the next day and we were told that I had a blighted ovum. It means that the egg was fertilized, but the baby never developed. We were so devastated. It had only been 10 weeks, but we already had so many dreams of our new life with a baby. We heard of people miscarrying, but never thought it could happen to us. During March, I decided to try the Atkin's diet to try to take off some weight I put on from "eating for 2" for 10 weeks. We were going to Las Vegas at the end of the month and none of my clothes fit me. I followed the diet faithfully for 2 weeks and didn't lose any weight. The keto-sticks showed that I was burning fat, but the scale wasn't showing any weight loss at all. I pulled out the pamphlet for the sticks and read the statement out loud - "Pregnancy hormones may also be a cause for ketones in your system." Pat and I looked at each other, laughed and said "no way!". We weren't going to try until after 2 cycles, just like the doctor said. I bought a pregnancy test and if I needed to, I would take it before we left for Vegas. I didn't want to chance having a couple drinks if I was indeed pregnant (still thinking it wasn't possible). A couple days later, I came down with a pretty bad cold. It was about 3am and I was having trouble sleeping and wanted to take medicine. Something was nagging me and I decided to pull out the pregnancy test. It immediately showed a positive sign. I set it down, went in the other room for a couple minutes, then went back to see if it had changed to negative. (I wasn't in denial, I just couldn't believe it!) Low and behold, it was still positive. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to wake up Pat, but I couldn't contain myself. I had so many emotions running through me. I was so scared, given what we had just been through, but so happy. I ended up waking up Pat and telling him. He, too, had very mixed emotions. We agreed not to get too excited until the doctor confirmed it and we weren't going to tell anyone until we heard the heartbeat for the first time. TWINS!?!? I went to the doctor the day before we left for Vegas and I was indeed pregnant. My estimated due date was November 22, Thanksgiving Day. The doctor wanted to test my progesterone levels to make sure that they were high enough. I had to call him as soon as the plane landed in Vegas. I called and my levels were fine. He wanted me to go for an ultrasound as soon as I could. I think he wanted to give us peace of mind, knowing that we would be anxious until we saw the baby or heard a heartbeat. I went for the ultrasound on Monday after returning from Vegas. We had the same doctor as last time, which made us all a little uncomfortable, but she was nice. She started the ultrasound and looked at me and said "Do you see what I see?" I said "Well, I see something, but I'm not sure it means what I think it means." She said "Do you see two?" I said "Yes." She said "Then it means what you think it means." Pat was standing by the door which wasn't very far away (the room is very small) and he didn't know what to do. He said "Twins?" He jokingly asked the doctor if he could lay down because he thought he was going to pass out. I had tears of joy streaming down my face. I couldn't believe it. I still was in shock that I was pregnant, but twins, it was a true gift. The Pregnancy We just kept looking at the ultrasound pictures and couldn't believe our eyes. They looked like two little peas. Our babies, baby A and baby B, as they would be lovingly referred to from now on. The pregnancy was great, except for my appetite. No, I didn't have morning sickness, but when I was hungry, I had to eat, and I mean NOW! We went on a trip to NYC in April with our friends and I drove them crazy. We would be walking down the street and I would say "I am hungry". They would say,"OK. We'll go here and here, then find a place to eat." I would say, "No. If I don't eat soon, I am going to hurt somebody." Rather than mess with a pregnant woman, we always went to eat. We laugh that we all gained about 10 pounds on our 3 day trip. Everything went well, until one day in April. I was bleeding for a very short time. I called the doctor who told me to monitor it and come to see him in the morning, unless it got worse. We made it until the morning and he couldn't find anything wrong. He heard both hearts beating, but sent me for an ultrasound just to be safe. What a relief, both babies were fine. They were moving around and their hearts were beating. We were told that sometimes this happens and there really is no cause. Aside from that problem, things continued to be good. I was growing rather large and was in maternity clothes by the end of May. I didn't mind it, I loved being pregnant. In June we went for the ultrasound to find out the sexes. We felt that with twins we wanted to know, to make planning easier. It was very easy to tell, they both liked showing their stuff. Two boys! We were so excited!! On Wednesday, July 11, I sneezed and thought I wet myself. I didn't say anything because I was so embarrassed. I was thinking that it was way too early in the pregnancy to start having bladder problems. I still had over 4 months to go. The next day, it started to bother me. I kept feeling a "leak". I didn't want to overreact, but I didn't want to dismiss it either. I told Pat and we agreed that if it didn't stop by the morning, I would call the doctor. FRIDAY THE 13TH, the day I called the doctor, I was 21 weeks and 4 days along when the nightmare began.... The Hospital Stay When I called the doctor, he told me to go to the hospital right away. He told me that it may be as simple as a bladder infection, but it could be much more serious, possibly my water broke. I immediately began to cry. I knew I was overreacting because there couldn't possibly be something seriously wrong with me. I called Pat and tried to tell him to come and pick me up, but had a real hard time even getting the words out. By the time he got there, I had calmed down. I told him that I knew I was overreacting and that the doctor is just being cautious. When we got to the hospital, they immediately took me to the triage room. They asked all kinds of questions and did some tests. That was when we heard the words that we never forget - "You are leaking amniotic fluid, your cervix is dilated and one of the babies membranes is bulging out of your cervix. We cannot stitch your cervix because we would rupture the membrane and cause labor. We are putting you in a bed and you are not leaving the hospital until these babies are delivered. If you deliver any time in the next week or two, your babies have no chance of survival." I still cannot believe those words. Those few sentences took away so much of our lives, so many dreams were shattered, so much heartache. It is still so hard to even think about. They put me on medication to stop labor and hooked me up to machine to monitor contractions. I was having mild contractions, but didn't feel them. Some of the nurses referred to them as an irritable uterus. I had an ultrasound and they measured the babies. They were each about one pound. Baby A's membrane was the one sagging, but it looked intact, so they had to assume that it was Baby B that was leaking. We made the phone calls we had to and tried to be strong, but we knew that we didn't have much of a chance. It was so hard to just lay in bed and know that I was going to lose my babies and there really wasn't anything I could do about it. My body was failing me, my husband and especially our babies. I am their mother, I am supposed to be able to protect them, and I couldn't even do that. It was very frustrating and so depressing. Friday night came and went with no labor. On Saturday afternoon, I felt a small gush of fluid and called the nurse. She tested it and found that it was amniotic fluid. The doctor came and said that my water broke and labor was most likely coming soon. They took me off the medication, I was told that we have to let nature run it's course. So we waited, and waited and it was Sunday morning and labor hadn't come. As a matter of fact, as soon as they took me off the medication to stop labor, my contractions stopped. Sunday night, they moved me from labor and delivery to a regular room. That would be the first night that I would have to be without Pat and I was so scared. They moved be about 8:30pm. Pat stayed for awhile and helped me get settled in. The aides were showing me how to use the bed and sitting me up and I got so nervous. I told them that I had been laying since I got to the hospital and didn't think I should be sitting up. They also told me I could go to the bathroom, although I had a catheter. Things just weren't right to me and I put my bed down and decided to stay in a flat position. At that point, I would have stood on my head if I thought it would help the babies. They came in to check for the babies' heart beats at 1:40am. The nurse was trying to find them when I felt a "pop" and started to feel a gush of fluid. I told the nurse what was happening and I could tell by the look on her face that it wasn't good. There was so much fluid flowing that I didn't know what to do. The nurse left the room, called the doctor, came back and said that I was going back to Labor and Delivery. I asked if I could call Pat before they moved me. I picked up the phone and made the call. It is such a blur that I don't even remember what I said. When I hung up the phone, I completely lost it. I was sobbing and I think I may have gone into shock; I was shivering uncontrollably and couldn't contain myself. I was moved back to L&D. Pat came in as they were doing the ultrasound. Baby A's membrane had ruptured. He lost almost all of his amniotic fluid. Things couldn't have been worse. Once again, I was told to expect to go into labor in the very near future. So, once again, Pat and I sat and waited and tried to sleep and tried to pinch ourselves to wake up from this horrible nightmare that we were having. Monday morning came, and again, no labor. I wasn't having contractions or anything. The doctor wanted to move me back to a regular room, but the thought of not having Pat with me scared me too much. I asked if I could have one more night in L&D, then I would agree to go back to a room. Tuesday morning came and still no labor. I agreed to go back to a regular room. We were told that one of two things would probably happen, either the baby would die and cause labor or I would get an infection and have to be induced. My doctor kept saying that if I could get to 25 weeks, our chances would be so much better. We were on a roller coaster ride. Every time they would draw my blood for my white cell count, we would get so nervous. The doctor said that when it got to 15, we would have to talk about inducing me. He said that if I got a bad infection, it could cause me to lose my uterus and then I would not be able to have any future children. My count would go up to about 12, then come down to 10, then to 11, then to 9. Things were going so well (relatively speaking), with each passing day we got more hope. We knew that with each day, our boys got bigger and stronger and had more of a chance at life. We knew that baby A could have problems because he had very little amniotic fluid, but every ultrasound showed him growing at a steady pace and that gave us hope. That was what kept us going. And so it went for the next 2 weeks. Until Tuesday, July 31st... The Birth Every morning, I'd have my blood drawn about 4:00 and would know the count when the morning nurse started her shift. That morning, the nurse didn't have the results yet. She said she would call the lab and get them and let me know. I went through my usual morning routine, then made a couple phone calls. Just as I hung up the phone, the nurse came in the room and said that my doctor was on the phone for me. I just thought he was calling me to tell me he wasn't going to come to see me today. Instead, he told me that my white cell count had gone up and that he was concerned and that we would have to talk about inducing me, today. I couldn't believe it. I was exactly 24 weeks. Not far enough along. It wasn't supposed to be like this. None of this was supposed to happen. I had heard so many success stories and with each day thought maybe we'd be one of those stories. I had to call Pat and break the news to him. He said he knew as soon as the phone rang that it was bad news. He got to the hospital as fast as he could. They were giving me the shot to try to help the babies lungs, although you should get it atleast 24 hours before delivery. They did an ultrasound to measure the babies and found that they each weighed about 1 and one half pounds. They were optimistic. The neonatal doctor came and told us that they will be in the delivery room and will do everything they can to help our babies. I just kept thinking that they weren't going to make it, that they would be stillborn because they were too early. I didn't think I could do it. How could I go through a delivery knowing that my babies wouldn't be alive? I knew I had to be strong and keep thinking that there was a chance. There was a small chance that they might make it and that was the only thing that gave me the courage to do it. They started all the medication and IVs and everything else as soon as we got to L&D. I was told that it could take anywhere from 12 to 24 hours to go into labor. One of the nurses asked for the babies names and we hadn't really wanted to pick them out yet. We just weren't ready, it seemed like that would make everything so much more real. We knew that it was something we had to do, so we did. Everything is still such a blur, but I believe the hard labor came at around 8:00. Pat left the room for something and when he came back a couple minutes later, everyone was on the move. They were prepping me to go to the OR. They had all of the NICU staff on their way down. They had to give Pat a set of scrubs, which is a story in itself. I will just say that they gave him a one piece coverall that didn't even come close to fitting and it was probably one of the funniest things I had ever seen. It was quite ironic that I was only a few minutes away from the scariest thing in my life and I couldn't stop laughing. After a little over an hour, Colin arrived at 9:11pm. He weighed 1 pound, 9 ounces and was 12 3/4 inches long. I kept asking Pat, is he alive, is he okay. They were working on him, but he was alive. I got to see the incubator go by and they stopped so I could see him. All I really saw was the mask over his face for oxygen and white blankets all around him. Exactly one half hour later, Evan was born and weighed 1 pound, 9 1/2 ounces and was 12 1/2 inches long. Pat got to cut the cord this time. Evan let out a little bitty cry when he was born. It was the tiniest cry I ever heard. The Next Few Days Pat got to see the boys at about 11:30pm. They were stable. He brought me back two forms with the tiniest footprints I have ever seen. They were about the size of my thumb, so small and so precious. It was about 1:30am by the time I was able to go to the nursery. All I really saw were little arms and legs, everything else was wrapped up. Their heads were wrapped and their eyes were covered. They were just so tiny, I couldn't believe it. The nurses told me to call and check on them anytime I wanted to. On Wednesday, they were still stable. We were told that the first couple days were the "honeymoon period". They were still living off of everything from my body, but were going to have to transition to doing things on their own. There were so many things they would have to face, so many potential problems. How could these small little babies possibly fight through so many obstacles? It was so hard to think positive through all this. I was discharged on Thursday. We went to see them before we left. Things were the same, they were still stable, but Colin was having some problems. Leaving the hospital that day was so hard for me. I was leaving behind my babies. It just wasn't supposed to be like this. I should still be pregnant. I should be dreaming of the day I deliver and bring home my babies and instead they were in the hospital fighting for their lives and I was on my way home. It just didn't make sense to me. How could this happen? Was this just a bad dream? We went back to the hospital that night and there was a serious problem. The doctors told us that they had given both babies a blood transfusion and Colin's didn't seem to help. They thought that he was losing blood somewhere in his body and they thought it might be his head. One doctor wanted us to spend the night, which made us believe that he wasn't going to make it through until the morning. The other doctor told us that he could get him stabilized through the night, but they were going to do an ultrasound on his head in the morning and we should understand that if their suspicions were right, we would have to think about his future. I can't even put into words how we felt that night. I guess that there is nothing that I have ever had to face that was harder than those couple days. We were in the process of getting ready to go to the hospital on Friday at about noon. We both knew without saying anything that we were going to be facing the hardest day of our lives. We called the hospital before we left, I think to confirm our thoughts. The doctor came on the phone and asked when we would be in. We knew for sure what we were going to do. When we got there, they let us touch Colin more than before. They didn't have his saran wrap over his warmer and I knew in my heart that I was saying goodbye to my baby. The doctor came and took us to another room and had a drawing of the brain. He explained that there are 4 grades of bleeding in the brain, stage 1 through 4, with 4 being the worst. The ultrasound showed that Colin had severe stage 4 on both sides of his brain. He explained that he would never have any life. Even if they could get him to survive (which was unlikely), he would never have any recognition of us as his parents or even know who he was. We couldn't let him suffer anymore. We just couldn't. That poor little baby struggled for 2 weeks inside me, he defied the odds to help get his brother strong and he didn't deserve to suffer anymore. We had to let him go. We didn't even think twice about it. We knew it was what we had to do. They let us go to a separate room in the nursery to spend our last moments with Colin. He was baptized while we held him in our arms. We spent a couple hours with him and we cherish those moments. We got to hold him and talk to him and do things that we should have been able to do throughout our life, not just for a couple hours. Keeping His Memory Alive We decided to have Colin cremated so we could bring him home to be with us. We had a small memorial mass for him on August 16th. We had so much love and support from everyone. We took comfort in knowing that Colin was in a much better place. We felt that he fought to keep Evan alive and is still his guardian angel. Although Evan struggled at times, he did very well under the circumstances. He is a year old now and he is developing normally. He has been through so much and we know that he wouldn't be here if not for his big brother Colin. We look at him and, although our hearts are heavy thinking that Colin should be here doing the same things, we know that Colin is a part of him. He is a part of all of us and he will always be a part of our family. He was only here for a short time, but he certainly left his mark. He was such a strong, beautiful little boy. We had Evan's first birthday party on Saturday, August 3rd, which was the one year anniversary of Colin's death. We decided to make it a joint party and we released butterflies as a remembrance of Colin and his short life with us. The butterfly page follows the photo page. Click on Next to view a page of poems Please sign our guestbook. You are listening to Angel by Sarah McLachlan Click here to view the lyrics.