Twins, Take Two and What We've Been Up To...

What a year it's been! I can't believe 2015 is almost over. I last wrote just before the girls' first birthday (although I've been writing for myself privately). I survived the girls birthday! It was a very wide range of emotions the whole week, as had been the whole year. I love planning my kids' birthday. It just seemed so backwards at times though. I would be in one aisle of the store picking out plates and streamers and then go to another aisle trying to find something that would hold up to the weather for Cora's grave. I kept thinking I shouldn't have to get decorations for her grave, she should be here celebrating with Elena. I went to the checkout a time or two, in tears.

I am blessed to have a family that didn't even need to ask what they could do. They just did it. They knew that I wanted to celebrate both my girls but the preparations were difficult. My parents made all the food and we even had the party at their house. My little sister took care of decorations for the party and even some for Cora's grave. It really didn't help that just a couple of weeks before, I miscarried. We did a D&C the following week and I was having issues related to it all. Emotionally, I was spent anyway. We had transferred two of our last 4 embryos in January and spent a few days worrying about the possibility of twins, then to finding out it was one baby and a blighted ovum, to being devastated at our 9 week ultrasound that found no heartbeat.

I had several weeks of bleeding and lagging Hcg levels (for two months actually). I was eager to get on with things and finish this IVF journey. I wanted to do the last transfer as soon as possible. My levels eventually bottomed out and I finally got rid of the retained tissue from the D&C and my next transfer date was set...July 20th. Just 5 days prior to when the transfer was with the girls, 2 years before. I thought great, the same season of pregnancy, very close due dates. Could I handle this?

An uneventful cycle later, my beta came back at 462. That's very high. I knew two days after the transfer that I was pregnant and five days after the transfer, I confirmed it with a home pregnancy test. I knew I was pregnant with twins again and my beta just confirmed my suspicions. If I am going to be completely honest writing my feelings down, I will say I was not excited. I was a mess until my ultrasound. It's silly with how we need to procreate, to think "how could this happen?" but I did. We went back and forth about how many embryos to transfer and it just didn't make sense on so many levels to only transfer one, especially financially. We prayed about it and we felt we just needed to transfer two and that whatever happened was supposed to be. I also secretly thought, if Heavenly Father knew me at all, he would bless us with just one this time. Hahaha! When will I ever learn? I went into this last cycle believing with all my heart that we were carrying out the plan that was laid for us and that whatever happened was meant to be, even if that meant that we wouldn't have more children. I prayed for an entire year after the girls were born, every night, that my longing for one more child would be taken away and that I would no longer feel like there was another baby to come to our family. Honestly, I used to think that when a person said or felt there was another baby for them that they were just trying to justify their decision to have another. I could never relate to that feeling until this last year. The more I prayed to feel content and feel okay with not using the embryos we had, the more the feeling persisted and knew that I we had to have one more baby.

If Cora had lived, healthy or not, we would have been done. Embryos or no embryos. We had four embryos and consulting with our doctor, went back and forth about transferring one or two. With our cycle in January, we decided to transfer two but the weaker two. We had a great pair, and a pair that had one great one and one slightly weaker. We decided if that only one survived the thaw, we would only transfer one. If they both survived, we would transfer both. Half way through, we changed our mind and decided to transfer the stronger pair. We just wanted to be done and give us the best chance of getting pregnant. We got to the transfer and the message never got where it needed to go and they thawed the weaker pair, which both survived. Fast forward, we were pregnant with one and the second one never developed. It was an empty sac. I cheated and scanned myself at work (perks to working in L&D) and saw two sacs very early on. I will say, I cried for three days. I didn't know how we would survive this. We told close family and friends and started to get excited. We went to our 7 week ultrasound and saw one beautiful heartbeat and one empty sac. I was sad but knew I would be grateful for this outcome. However, walking out of that doctor appointment, my mind flashed to those two embryos and right then I knew we would be using them. The whole pregnancy, however short, felt so surreal...like a dream. It never seemed real. I was a little sick, but nothing too horrible. Around 8 weeks, I started feeling better. I knew something was wrong...I just knew. I had no signs of miscarriage but my heart just knew. My visiting teachers were over a few days before my 9 week ultrasound and I told them I thought something was wrong. They reassured me it was probably just first trimester jitters and I agreed. I had changed my appointment to three days earlier because the progesterone shots were going to kill me and I didn't want to keep doing them if I didn't need to. We went to the ultrasound and the NP asked why I changed my appointment. I told her that I needed to get off the shots (you usually get your weaning schedule at your 9 week appointment) and I quietly slipped in there that I thought something was wrong. As soon as the picture came up, we all saw it, no heartbeat. The baby was measuring 9 weeks so it happen fairly recently. I was just not surprised at all. We were left alone for a good cry and then discussed options...letting it pass on it's own, medication, or D&C. Knowing my body, it would have taken far too long to recognize the pregnancy had failed. The medication sounded horrible and I was far enough along that she warned that it would be painful. I opted for an in office D&C and scheduled it for the next week. Long story short, it went smoothly but I had some retained tissue that caused my Hcg levels to drop very slowly and bled for almost two months. I'm pretty sure I was lacking oxygen to my brain at that time. I was so tired and couldn't think straight. The tissue passed on it's own with my next cycle and we were scheduled for our final FET.

It was July by this time and I was eager to get on with things, although it was also a little tender. The whole thing was bittersweet. Closing a chapter in our lives. A very long 6 year chapter. I was mostly happy to have fertility treatments and the battle of infertility behind us but it will always be such a huge part of our lives. I guess it's a similar feeling to knowing you are having your last pregnancy or baby. Our transfer went smoothly on July 20th and I was on bed rest for a couple of days. I knew two days after the transfer that I was pregnant. The heartburn had already started and I just knew. Five days after the transfer, I didn't feel well and threw up. I ran to the store to get pregnancy test but didn't plan to take it for another two days. Well, I couldn't wait. I knew it was still early but I took it anyway. It came up positive right away and I told Michael. He seemed indifferent but assured me he wasn't and that he just already knew I was pregnant and he was nervous. He said that unfortunately, that little stick didn't provide him any reassurance. I agreed but this was a step in the right direction. We got my beta back and it came back very high at 462. I knew it was twins again and from our previous cycle, knew that it would be okay but I was still terrified. How were we going to do this?

We headed to our first ultrasound two weeks later and was not at all surprised that there were two heartbeats. We had a scare for a minute when the tech said she saw THREE sacs. She said it looked empty though. I made her look three times! It didn't end up being an empty sac, it was a bleed that caused no problems. There were two babies...for the time being. We just had a "one day at a time" attitude. We were pretty ambivalent to the situation. We were not convinced we were having two babies and told no one. We went back the next week...two heartbeats. We went back at 9 weeks...two heartbeats. It started to look like signs pointed to two.

We were released from the fertility clinic and had our first appointment with my OB/MFM. It was a LONG appointment that consisted of genetic counseling, an ultrasound, and clinic appointment. We were told our risks of having another chromosomal defect in one of the babies was a little higher than before and told what our testing options were. We opted not to do anything invasive and definitely declined that dumb blood test that told us everything was fine with girls (they are no longer recommending it for twins anyway). Our doctor told us we would do frequent ultrasounds and we would have as much information from that as we would any blood test. We had the NT screen at 12 weeks and it was not a fun appointment. I was a wreck! The poor tech, even knowing our history, was probably wondering why we were not happy or excited to see our babies. We were in the same room that we found our Cora might have a problem and the same room we were told she had passed away.  In those moments, I questioned everything we did and everything we were doing. I couldn't bare it. The tech cannot really tell us if everything was okay but she did at the end anyway because she knew how anxious we were. She said everything looked great and the measurements were well within the normal limits.

We left that appointment feeling reassured that so far, our babies looked healthy and were growing beautifully. We still didn't spill the beans about having twins yet. Having passed the 12 week mark was a milestone but still didn't feel confident we would be seeing two heartbeats at the next appointment. It was very overwhelming. My dad had had a heart attack less than two weeks before and things were chaotic in our families. No one needed the added stress of knowing about the twins.

We didn't plan on telling anyone until after my 16 week ultrasound and we could possibly find out the genders. We planned on a gender reveal right before Halloween. I had always wanted to have a gender reveal but it never worked out with my other two pregnancies. Michael wanted nothing to do with it. He thinks gender reveals are pretentious, a waste of time, and no one wants to come. I half agree but any reason to get family and friends together to eat and catch up is a good enough for me. We wouldn't have had the gender reveal party if people already knew about the twins or we were just having one. It was a fun, Halloween themed party and the kids wore their costumes and played a couple of games. Of course, there was yummy food too. My friend, Sharon, who was one of the only people in the world that knew about the twins made the "gender reveal pumpkins" and was the only person at the time that knew the genders. It was really fun to announce the genders and the fact we were having twins at the same time. Had we told everyone early on, no one would have been excited and they would have just worried like we did. We didn't need everyone else to be stressed out too.

Everyone was shocked and had no idea that we had been keeping this secret for four months. Some may have been annoyed that we weren't truthful but it was our decision to not tell anyone. We didn't want to stress people out but more than that, we needed to be excited about it before telling anyone and honestly, we weren't at first. Michael has lost 20lbs if that says anything and I've lost 10 lbs right along with him, although for slightly different reasons. We were terrified that we would be destined to repeat the past and equally terrified about the reality of four kids under the age of three. We never planned on having four kids, given how hard it has been to get them here. We always said if we could get two out of this process, we would feel so blessed. We just didn't think a big family was in the cards for us.

We are thrilled we are having a boy and a girl! My intuition told me from the beginning it was a boy and girl so I would have been very pleasantly surprised if it turned out differently. I still haven't completely wrapped my head around it. Chasing around two toddlers has a way of distracting you from things, sort of. I will update about how my pregnancy has gone until now. For now...

BABY BOY AND GIRL HALL

DUE APRIL 6th 2016