Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Susan

Mom to Angel A & Angel B

Born Pre-Term on April 22, 2010

Wilton, Connecticut

My husband and I got married on August 30, 2008. We wanted to start trying to conceive right away. Eight months after we got married, I started thinking something was wrong. We had actively tried to conceive every cycle, and for some reason, it just wasn’t happening for us. In June 2009, I went to a Reproductive Endocrinologist. After a myriad of tests, we were diagnosed under “Unexplained Infertility”. We endured three failed IUIs, until finally, in December 2009, we were successful with our first IVF.

I found out that I was pregnant only four days before Christmas Eve. I can’t even explain in words how happy I was to finally see a positive pregnancy test. As soon as I found out, I hurried to a bookstore and bought my husband a book called “The Expectant Father,” wrapped it, and gave it to him as an early Christmas present. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he opened the present. It was utter, complete happiness. We hugged each other and started dreaming of our upcoming new life together. It seemed our dream was finally going to come true. Our babies’ due date was August 31st, which is two days after my birthday, and one day after our Wedding Anniversary. What a birthday/wedding anniversary it was going to be! We shared the news with our family on Christmas Eve. We gave my parents a frame with a picture of the baby embryos inside. Next to the picture, it said, “Baby Fords will Arrive on/around August 30, 2010”! It was the best Christmas ever!

Shortly after, I had an ultrasound appointment to see the heartbeat. I was a nervous wreck, of course, but my mom came with me for support. The nurse pressed the wand on my belly and said, “Yup, there’s one in there….oh, wait, what is this? Oh…there’s TWO!” I couldn’t believe it. God was blessing me with two miracles. My mom and I cried happy tears. I couldn’t wait to tell my husband, and the rest of our family.

When my husband came home from work that night, I asked him to get the food out of the oven. He opened the oven, and there they were – the two buns I had put in there, with ultrasound pictures of both babies sitting on top. He was overwhelmed with excitement. Our hearts were overjoyed.

When I was twelve weeks pregnant, I went in for a routine ultrasound. During the ultrasound, the doctor said, “From looking at this ultrasound Baby B definitely has Down Syndrome.” I heard her, but I just couldn’t believe it. She told me that I need to get an NT Scan and CVS test done immediately. After the CVS test, we had to wait two weeks to find out if our babies were ok. I finally got the call, and found out that both my babies did NOT have Downs Syndrome. In fact, they were both completely healthy. We were so relieved! And, they were boys! Two boys! They were going to be best buds.

During the following weeks, we had so much fun picking out and ordering our nursery furniture, picking out names, buying matching baby clothes, choosing our baby gear, and building our baby registry for my upcoming baby shower. We even bought a beautiful, bigger house for our babies. It was the perfect house for our family. They both were going to have their own rooms, and the backyard had a swing set, too! We were going to move in June, just before the babies’ (since they were twins) were to be due.

On Sunday, April 18th, to be exact, when I was 20 weeks, 5 days pregnant, I started spotting a bit. I called my OB’s office, and they told me to go to Greenwich Hospital the next day to get checked. So, the next morning I went in, and the tech gave me an ultra sound. Our baby boys looked healthy. They were moving around as usual. Their heartbeats were great. The tech said he couldn’t find the source of the bleeding, and that my cervix looked fine and the babies looked great, the sacs looked fine, etc. He told me to then get dressed and wait in the waiting room, and the doctor would call me in a bit. I thought they were going to do more tests on me. But, when the doctor called me, she told me everything was ok, and to go home. I wish I never left the hospital that day.

On April 21st, that Wednesday morning – about 5am – I woke up and felt like something was wrong. I called the OB’s office and the doctor told me to go to the hospital right away. That’s when our nightmare began.

I was put in a room at the far end of the hall. The doctor swab tested my cervix, and found that amniotic fluid leaked out. I was put on strict bed rest in the hospital. They hooked a monitoring machine on me. The monitoring machine kept on running out of paper, or going off, or beeping, and we always had to buzz them to let them know – and then it would take FOREVER for them to fix it. It was making us really nervous that they weren’t monitoring to see if I was getting contractions.

Around 10:30pm, my husband and family left. Soon after, I started feeling really sick, and began vomiting. There were bags that were unreachable to me, hanging from the walls. I kept on having to page the nurses to get me a bag, and it would take them FOREVER to come help me. I had to prop the same used bag on my bed and keep on reusing it, because no one came in to help me. When the nurse did come in, she was always only concerned if I had a temperature, and kept on asking me if I was sure that I wasn’t allergic to medicine (which I am not)…wondering why I was vomiting (I later found out, it is a sign of labor!). And since I didn’t have a fever, she acted like I was fine.

I was on strict bed rest, so also had to use a bed pan. I would page the nurse to get me a bed pan, and then they would sometimes leave and say they would be right back, and leave me with the bed pan under me. The nurses were more concerned with wanting to shut off the light so I could get some sleep, then with me feeling so sick. I didn’t sleep a wink.

The next morning, on April 22, my husband kept on texting me. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t reach my phone. I don’t know why the nurses didn’t contact my husband and tell him how sick I was. He thankfully took my lack of responding as a bad sign and came to the hospital. The nurses didn’t tell us I was in labor, or anything. They were still coming in just once in a while, and taking my temperature. And then I would ask about my contractions, and they would say, “It doesn’t really tell us anything. They are sporadic.”

All of a sudden, I started feeling pressure, and I knew my baby wanted to come out. I paged the nurses non-stop and screamed to them through the sound system “I am going to have the baby!” Five minutes later, still no nurse in sight. I was basically in labor with my husband not knowing what to do – running out of the room screaming for help, and then running back in the room to be with me. Another five minutes later, I gave birth to our first baby. One nurse finally came into my room, just in time to clamp our baby’s cord. She paged the doctor, and the doctor arrived ten minutes later.

That baby was the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. I couldn’t believe I was losing him. I didn’t want to believe it, and I wanted to hold him, but I couldn’t. I had to now concentrate on saving our other baby boy. The OB right away wanted to give me Pitocin to induce labor for the second baby. I argued with him that I wanted to keep our other son, and that I didn’t want to deliver him now. He said that there might be an infection. I told him I didn’t care – I wanted to try. I didn’t have a fever. Then, the OB said to me, “You can always have another baby.” I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want another baby, I wanted THAT baby!

Unfortunately, our other son wanted to see the world, too. I unwillingly delivered him thirty minutes after the first. He was as beautiful as his brother. I wanted to soak both of my sons up with my eyes at the same time. Holding my sons in my arms was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. I never felt a love so strong. The love for them radiated from every cell of my body. I kissed their foreheads, stroked their cheeks, touched their fingers. I watched them move around in my arms for a few short minutes. The best minutes of my life. And then I knew they were gone. It’s almost as if I felt when their souls went to Heaven. I miss my boys every day, and will miss them every day, for the rest of my life.

Soon after birth, I tested positive for the MTHFR gene mutation and the PAI-1 gene mutation, which can causes clots and can cause preterm labor. The OBs don’t really know why I went into preterm labor, or what caused the Placental Abruption . They say it was probably due to the high risk of being pregnant with twins. It turned out that I didn’t have an infection and the babies were healthy. I still wonder to this day if it was from the CVS test. I guess we’ll never know. What I do know is my life has changed forever. And, that I promise to make my baby boys in Heaven proud of me while I am on this earth.

Susan can be contacted at: Susano13@hotmail.com