Jillian

Today is two years since we lost Jillian Evelyn. I remember her very brief pregnancy and all that surrounded it pretty well. I remember bawling on the phone with friends. Not wanting to tell Chris on the phone or via email, yet trying to convince him to just COME HOME. In addition to all these memories, there is one other. One that I had allowed to slip my mind somehow. That is, until yesterday (or was it today, early morning?) when a friend commented on FaceBook and reminded me.

As I was mourning the loss of my baby girl, my best friend's son was fighting for his life. He was admitted to the hospital for his life-saving bone marrow transplant the week Jill was due. I felt strongly at the time (and still do) that Jill was there seeing Joey through transplant. As much as I'd love to have my baby girl, Joey is here today. He's alive. He's healthier than he's ever been. He has beaten Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis. I can't discount that. Here is a blog post from last year talking about it.

The following is an image that I had made for Joey. This was printed and framed, then mailed to him to take to transplant.

Guilt

With any pregnancy loss comes guilt. "What did I do wrong?" "Did x, y, or z cause my baby's death?" This time was no different. After my first ultrasound, I wondered, was it the decongestant I took the week before I found out I was pregnant? Was it that too hot shower that I turned off as soon as I realized just how hot I'd let it get? I'll never know for sure if either of those caused Katherine's death, but I have a whole new type of guilt for Samuel.

You see, by the time I had my surgery, Katherine had been dead for days. (Gosh, that sounds so horrible. =( ) Samuel, however, wasn't. It is possible he'd passed away sometime just hours prior to surgery. I don't know that though. I'm left to wonder "Was my baby boy alive when the doctor removed him from the safety of my body?" You see, his sac was growing. It had grown between the time of my ER visit and the follow-up. I am left with guilt that my surgery killed him.

Logically, I know I didn't really have a choice. Logically, Samuel would not have been able to stay in my tube until he reached viability. Even he stood a chance I wouldn't have lived that long. I was already bleeding internally. I lost A LOT of blood in just a few hours. There's no way I would have survived months in that condition.

However, the logical me and the emotional me don't always agree. I don't know what the emotional me thinks I should have done, I just know she isn't happy with my decision. The logical me feels I didn't have much choice and did what had to be done.

A friend said it best:

Try to tell your heart to think logically...it doesn't work.

The Twin's Story from Start to Finish

After many months of not trying, not preventing we were blessed with a big surprise when we least expected it. On December 19, 2011 we were shocked to learn that we were pregnant again. Things appeared to be going better than all of my prior pregnancies and my hormone levels looked good so on Christmas day we told our families. For my family, I made a t-shirt with my niece for her to wear that said, “I’m gonna be a big cousin.” It took them a second to read it, but, once they did there were lots of screams and happy tears. I finally got to have that moment of joy with my family. It was fantastic.

After telling my family we went to his parents’ house and used sugar cookies to spell out “C + A = 3” followed by our due date 8-19-2012. We were due just twelve days after his brother’s wife. There was no screaming, and no tears of joy, but there was lots of excitement and happiness. It was the perfect Christmas Day.

After Christmas we had another hormone draw that looked good. We spent that afternoon browsing stores and bought a few baby outfits. That night I had a little pain on the left side but it was suggested I was dehydrated. This seemed likely as I hadn’t really drank much when shopping so I decided to just take it easy and drink water.

The very next day was our first ultrasound. For the first time, we weren’t worried for an appointment. After all, the betas the day before had been good. As soon as Isaw the screen, I knew it wasn’t right. There was no baby showing in the uterus. I mentioned the pain on my side and she made sure to check the tube for me. I saw with my own eyes, there was nothing in the tube, either. Chris and I were sent to wait on the doctor. When we sat down with my OB, he informed us in appeared as though there had been as sac in the uterus that was now deflated. He offered a D & C, but also offered to let us wait a week, just to be sure. We chose to wait and try to hope that we just weren’t as far as I’d thought.

The next night (Thursday), the pain in my side came back. It was pretty bad, and I thought about calling the on-call OB but remembered back to my ultrasound. There was nothing in the tube. I had nothing to worry about. Instead of calling, I went to bed early, hoping to feel better in the morning.

At 3:30am I awoke with severe pain. My side was now sensitive to the touch. Just getting up and going to the bathroom had me in tears and nauseated from the pain. I knew I needed the ER but didn’t want to wake my husband. I decided to try to wait until he was up for the day. By4:10 I had realized I couldn’t wait and woke him up. We checked into the ER at 4:50.

The ER staff was great. They got me back immediately and began testing. This time the ultrasound showed there was definitely something in my left tube. It also showed the sac in the uterus was even more deflated. The blood work told us that my hormone level had fallen to half of what it had been less than 48 hours prior.

My OB was paged and came to see me. He talked to us about the spot in my tube and our options. He couldn’t be sure that what he was seeing was definitely a baby because it did not have the blood flow you would expect with a baby. He informed us he thought there was a good chance it was just a cyst. Dr. L. offered to admit me for observation but made it known that he really didn’t think it was necessary. After discussion, it was decided that I would go home, but return the next day (Saturday, New Years Eve) for a repeat lab draw and ultrasound. I was also instructed to come back to the ER if the pain didn’t let up or got worse.

The pain improved so much that by the time of my follow-up testing we weren’t at all concerned. We even made plans to go out to lunch with my mother-in-law when we finished up at the hospital. After the ultrasound, we were told that Dr. L. was on his way over to see us. I knew then for sure that this wasn’t good.

Dr. L. arrived and was rather surprised that my pain was so much better. My condition had actually worsened and I was bleeding internally. I was immediately admitted to the hospital and had surgery for a heterotopic pregnancy that night. Because of the location of Baby B (the one in the tube), they were unable to do the surgery laparoscopically. I ended up with ac-section style cut and 16 staples.

My recovery started out difficult when I reacted very badly to the first pain medication and my night nurse ignored it. (Luckily the day nurse had it fixed within minutes of her shift starting.) I remained in the hospital until Monday. That Monday before being released, my husband and I named our twins: Katherine Anne and Samuel Kenneth.

The first week home was very difficult, but I’m finally starting to improve physically. Emotionally, there’s a long road ahead, but I’ll get there.

I never thought I’d have five failed pregnancies and six babies in Heaven, but I do. Chris and I will keep on trying for a while still (as soon as we’re allowed of course). Maybe pregnancy #6will be the lucky one. We have decided that if we are able to bring our next baby home, that’s it. We will only ever have one living biological child (except, of course, in the case of multiples).

To try again, or not to try again?

As I always do after a loss, I've been questioning whether or not I want to risk going through aother miscarriage. A good friend and I were talking about it last night and I think I've decided.

I probably will risk it again. Chris really wants a living (biological) child and it wouldn't be very fair of me to flat out refuse that option. I couldn't ask him to get snipped knowing how badly he wants a child and I'm never doing hormonal birth control again.

The losses are hard on me, yes, but they're hard on him too. After all he's done for me, I can't not take his feelings into consideration. Are his feelings more important? No. But, likewise, mine don't outweigh his either. I have no right to take away his chance at a biological child.

That being said, I will continue to try (or at least not prevent) for a while still. Since I lost my left fallopian tube with this pregnancy, the risk of another ectopic is just the same as everyone else's risk. At this point the risk is the same as it was before we conceived the twins.

Follow-up Appt Update

They were unable to do genetic testing. There wasn't enough "material" left in the uterus (though I hadn't bled any?) to test and they cannot test Baby B (Samuel) because ectopics are abnormal anyway.

He gave me a new pain med. I skipped a dose of pain meds yesterday because of the side effects and the pain not being THAT bad. When skipping the dose the nausea got REALLY bad which made me worry that it was from withdrawals so I decided no more. I talked to the doctor today and he had no problem with me not taking the Percocet but wanted me on SOMETHING. (I have yet to try it. I really waant it right now but I'm home alone and it's probably best to try new meds with someone else around. Meds tend to act very strongly with me.

He also told me to double my anti-nausea med.

No trying for two cycles. No sex or work for six weeks.

My staples were removed and now I have tape strips. I've been told to start putting neosporin on the staple holes twice a day. He also said to "continue to just let soap and water run over the incision" so I guess I'll START that. When I asked about showers at the hospital the nurse said to let water run over it...she never said soap so I've been making sure to keep soap away from it.

I go back in a week. Maybe the waiting room won't have four big pregnant ladies and a kid named Dominic (who's only slightly older than mine would be). :(

Home

Just a quick update to say we are home. It's been a rough adjustment. Just because I'm home doesn't mean I capable of doing much of anything. I still need a great deal of help for even the smallest things. Chris took the whole week off of work to help me and I am so glad. If he hadn't we would've had to have a family member or friend come stay with me. It's super-painful to even lean forward to pick up a drink. A lot of times I find that I need help just to transition between sitting and standing.

In the hospital

This past Tuesday evening I began to have a little pain in my side. I immediately thought about calling the on call doctor but decided that I was probably overeacting so I chose to wait until my already scheduled appointmoint.

On Wednesday at the appointment, we recieved some bad news. The baby had already passed. The tech did make sure to look at the tube but there was nothing to be seen.

Thursday evening, the pain came back with a vengance. By 4am Friday morning I was nauseated and in tears from the pain. I woke Chris up and we headed to the ER. In the ER, they found something in the tube but couldn't be sure about what it was they were seeing. Obviously they were concerned about it being a baby. However, the area didn't have an increased blood flow like a baby would have. It was decided that I would go home on the promise that I come back to the ER if it got worse, and would return Saturday (no matter what) for repeat tests.

The pain subsided greatiy but apparently things had gotten much worse. I ended up being admitted pretty quickly, By 7:30 that evening, I was in the OR for emergency surgery. We were pregnant with twins in a rare heterotopic pregnancy. My left fallopian tube was bleeding out in several places. Unfortunately, the doctor was unable to save my tube. Because the baby implanted so close to the uterus, the doctor also had to take a small corner of the uterus that was damaged.

Recovery from surgery got off to a rough start (thanks to being allergic to Delaudid and a nurse that didn't notice that). Yesterday's day nurse caught it pretty much right away and things went MUCH better after that.

As of right now, we're unsure of when we'll get to go home. Maybe this evening, maybe tomorrow.